“Maybelle brought her blocked husband smoked fish wrapped in butcher’s paper. Also wonderful pears. Also gossip, sweet candy. But the truth is, though it is very seldom admitted to, there is very little anyone can do for anyone else. Interesting excursions can be planned, people invited to dinner, noodle puddings produced, orange juice squeezed, lamps left burning, bed covers turned invitingly down. Kisses can be dropped on the tops of heads, and news brought from one person’s world to another, but in the end it’s a matter of waiting things out in an improvised shelter and thinking as kindly of yourself as possible.”
It’s that insanely busy part of the semester and I can’t afford the time it would take to write a proper post right now — my apologies, dearest neglected blog. Even though I vowed to avoid departmental work this week altogether Prof Awesome needed some things done ASAP, so that has put an extra kink into my writing schedule.
Despite my time constraints, I thought I’d share this link to a radio interview with Susan Gubar (link below). Two lovely songs included in this clip as well — the one I like best is a ballad called “Mary Hamilton.” I’m planning to post a much longer piece on Prof Gubar at some point. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reading a lot of her work over the past several months, as well as the variety of reactions and harsh criticisms of her work with Sandra Gilbert. I haven’t met Prof Gubar yet and her voice on the radio show provides a more real sense of who she is or what she might be like. This is one reason why I really enjoy listening to radio interviews with people I’ve never met, or could never meet because they’ve passed on. Interviews available online with Carol Shields, for example, seem utterly invaluable. Not so much for the information given, but the small sense, miniscule even, that they provide of that person. In truth, I actually did meet Prof Gubar once, for 1 minute and 30 seconds one day in Bloomington. It happened so fast that all I can remember is her hair color, that she’s tall, carries some sort of briefcase, walks at a brisk pace, and has a NY accent. The only words that I was able to get out of my mouth were my name and “I like HD.”
I’m fascinated by both the work she’s done, still is doing, and what a life force she is in feminist thought, literary studies, and academia. The quality of her work, its brilliance, the fun she seems to be having, and the sheer volume of her publications just captivates me — to such an extent that when I stumbled upon this radio interview I had to listen to it right then; and, when I find an article I have not yet read I really feel compelled to read it that very moment, even though I normally don’t have time to do so. Hope you enjoy this audio clip as much as I do. Look for a more substantial post on Prof Gubar’s work sometime in May, after the term has ended and life is more peaceful.
Ok, I’m done with departmental service for this week, or the coming weeks even. As valuable as it might be, like Clarentine Flett — “I am no longer willing.” Trying to avoid what Susan Gubar names the POOP phenomenon in her article, “The Graying of Professor Erma Bombeck,” which is brilliantly fun by the way. POOP refers to “Psychological Offensives against Obligations that Proliferate.” Just read it the other night. Not sure how I missed it before. I’ve been trying to read everything the woman’s written, which has taken a while, I can tell you. Even if I were this woman’s contemporary it would be hard to keep up with all of her publications. This really is a fun article, but it has a very serious message behind it too.
No more POOP for today. I’m entering a scholarship only zone.
I had been looking forward to seeing Persepolis for several months. Saw it a few weeks back and loved it. While it’s totally worth seeing, it ends a little abruptly for my liking. Around the same time I saw Persepolis I was reading Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home. This was my first real graphic novel and I really enjoyed it. Bechdel’s plot and the way she deals with identity politics seems significantly more sophisticated than Marjane Satrapi’s novel. (I haven’t read Satrapi’s novel though; I’ve only seen the film, which could make a big difference in my reactions). Both of these graphic novels, however, seem worth anyone’s time. I wonder if Fun Home would be good as a film; the book is pretty awesome by itself.
Some images from Fun Home and Persepolis: the picture on the left resembles me now, whereas the image on the right depicts what I think I must have been like as a kid. Though, I didn’t grow up in Iran. And, my family certainly wasn’t as passive about my rants and revolts as Satrapi’s appear to have been.
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