Monday, December 31, 2007:  Maybe I Should Not Be All Depressing This Year

Last year, my New Year's Rant was extraordinarily bleak.  I think I must have been in a very, very bad mood because of the whole not-having-finished-the-damned-dissertation-yet thing.  At any rate, I whined about not having accomplished anything with my life, then thanked goodness that at least ice cream existed.

This year, I have finished the damned dissertation.  I've even defended it and everything.  I don't have a job (or want one...which is the problem), but I'm also not sitting here going, "Everybody hates me.  The world sucks.  Where's the chocolate sauce?"  This is probably a bit of an improvement.

What is happening at the moment is that I am being tortured by a story that started to grow in my mind the day I flew home for Christmas.  This sort of thing happens to me fairly frequently, but it's been getting worse lately because I never have time to write the stories down.  I also have a cursed guilty conscience that is constantly yelling at me, "You shouldn't be thinking about stories.  You should be writing an article about something boring and pointless so that you will eventually have a chance to get a job teaching eighteen-year-olds how to write complete sentences!"  I spend so much time arguing with this conscience that I never get around to writing the stories or the article.

This particular story is more maddening than usual because it wants to be a graphic novel in a style that is far beyond my ability to draw; it is therefore just a brain-script with pictures I have no way of creating.  I've tried to reframe it as a novel, but it's no use; for various tedious reasons, it only works as a comic.  To add to the fun and games in my head, it is stretching itself into a never-ending series of stories revolving around three characters who have seized control of my brain and are making me stop dead in the middle of, say, breakfast and imagine stuff fiercely as my toast gets all cold.  It is mostly the fault of one character in particular.  He is much, much smarter than I am and knows perfectly well how to manipulate me.  Yes, I know I sound like a crazy person.

So here I am, buried in marking while anticipating several job deadlines and the horrible prospect of excavating my apartment in search of all my old teaching evaluations, some of which have probably been devoured by marauding dust bunnies, and all I want to do is write a story for a comic that has no hope in hell of ever being published by anyone.  I am bloody damn good at procrastination.

May your 2008 be less whiny and annoying than your 2007 (or, at least, than mine).


Monday, December 24, 2007:  We Wish You a Less-Disastrous-Than-Usual Christmas

Not all of you are about to celebrate Christmas.  However, for those of you who are, I present:

A List of Things I Hope Do Not Go Wrong for You This Christmas (Based on Things that Have Gone Wrong with My Family's Christmases in the Past, Plus Also This Year)*

1)  May your parents not be exposed to a baby who, unbeknownst to all, is in the early stages of rubella, meaning that your pregnant sister is banished from your house, and you yourself are going to be under pregnant-person quarantine until the middle of January.

2)  May the power not go off at 8:00 on Christmas morning, five minutes after your mother has put a batch of cinnamon rolls in the oven.  May the power then not remain off so long that your parents get nervous and drive the turkey over to your dad's cousin's house.  May the power not come back on just as your parents arrive at the cousin's.

3)  May you not have to cook Christmas dinner with water you have had to boil since the beginning of October.

4)  May your back yard not fall into the sea.

5)  May members of your family not get stuck in the snow somewhere for so long that when you do eat dinner, the carrots dissolve into mush if you look at them funny.

6)  May you not trip over your own feet and smash the delicate little clay candle-holder you gave your mother last Christmas.

7)  May your dog not be sick under the Christmas tree.

8)  May your cat not be sick under the Christmas tree.

9)  May your cat not be so freaking hyper for no particular reason that your sister has to sleep on the living-room couch lest he attack and destroy the Christmas tree in the middle of the night.

10)  May you never ever ever run out of olives.

Merry Christmas, everyone...

Kari.**

*We're not talking really, really bad things here.  I truly hope that really, really bad things do not happen to you at all, ever.  This is a relatively light-hearted list, strictly speaking.
**#1 on the list is happening right now.  #2 and #3 are from 2005, #4 from 2006, and the others from various points in the distant past.  #4 happened not to my immediate family but to my dad's cousin (the same one who had cooked our turkey the year before), and it doesn't count as a Really, Really Bad Thing because my dad's cousin's house did not follow my dad's cousin's back yard into the sea.


Monday, December 17, 2007:  Another Excerpt from Grad School!  the Musical

"Stuck in a Rut"

PAULA:

When I was in grad school,
I longed for the day
When I could be free,
When I could be me.
I wanted to throw
My thesis away:
No more Ph.D.!
I would just be.

The thesis is finished.
Next stop:  convocation.
Now my life should
Become pretty good.
Instead, I am finding
That my graduation
Is just the next station;
Elation is not hitting me when it could...

Stuck in a rut.
Stuck in a muddle of troubling options,
Applying for jobs that I know I won't get,
Applying for jobs that I don't think I want.
Trapped in a role,
Trapped in and strapped in and aimed at a goal
That's shaped like a hole, so I'm stuck,
Stuck in a rut.

MARK:

Prior to grad school,
I hated my life.
It was a rout,
And I wanted out.
Nine-to-five working,
Boring and rife
With nothing but doubt:
What was that about?

I've ditched it completely,
But stress just increases!
It's taken its toll.
Trapped in a role,
I've nothing but debt
And a miserable thesis
In pieces, and grad school has eaten my soul.

Stuck in a rut.
Stuck in a jumble of doubling workload,
Of footnotes that multiply, out of control,
Of footnotes that go on for three pages each.
Caught in a cage,
Caught in, not bought in or earning a wage
And drowning in rage, so I'm stuck,
Stuck in a rut.

PAULA:

What can I do with this stupid diploma?
What am I good for but teaching a class?

MARK:

I could be curing AIDS...or melanoma;
Instead I just type away, flat on my--

PAULA:

Ask me what I could do.

MARK:

Ask what I've done for you.

PAULA:

Ask what I'm doing to change things around.

MARK:

Tell me I'll like the climb.

PAULA:

Tell me I'm out of time.

PAULA & MARK:

I can't decide what I'm doing here, what I've been brewing here,
Over what sort of life-plan I've been chewing here...

PAULA:

Stuck in a rut.

MARK:

            Stuck in a rut.

PAULA:

Stuck in a welter of frightening reasons

MARK:

            Stuck in a bottomless hole.

PAULA:

For just doing nothing, not taking control,

MARK:

            Easy to go with the flow,

PAULA:

For just doing nothing at all with my life.

MARK:

            Easy to stop, easy to go.

PAULA:

Seized in a snare,

MARK:

            Seized in a snare,

PAULA:

Seized in and squeezed in forever in there,

MARK:

            Seized in and swallowed up whole.

PAULA:

Not easy to care that I'm stuck,

MARK:

            So I'm stuck,

PAULA & MARK:

Stuck in a rut.

PAULA:

Stuck in a rut,

MARK:

            Trapped in a hole,

PAULA:

Caught in a cage,

MARK:

            Seized in a snare,

PAULA:

Held in a vice,

MARK:

            Squashed in a box,

PAULA:

Pressed in a press,

MARK:

            In it for life,

PAULA & MARK:

Stuck in and caught in and trapped in and held in and
Not thinking twice about why...

I look at my friends,
And I envy them all.
They seem to know
Where they want to go.
Why can't I be like them?
Can't I have a call?
My world has gone slow;
I follow the flow.

Yet somehow, I'm feeling
That I should be choosing
Something to do
That thrills me clear through.
Why can't I find it?
And how am I losing
Enthusing?  Would I were as happy as you...

Stuck in a rut.
Stuck in a rumble of tumbling dreaming,
Of wishing that I knew who I was to be,
Of wishing I wanted to be anyone.
Wrapped in a chain,
Wrapped in and strapped in and numbed to the pain,
And going insane, for I'm stuck,
Stuck in a rut.

Now something is telling me
That with or without degree,
I pretty much am, you see,
A person who yearns to be
Pretty much anything but
What I am...
So I should get used to this rut.


Monday, December 10, 2007:  Excerpt from Grad School!  The Musical

"Marking."

MEGAN:

Here I sit,
Alone with my thoughts and
Sixty-seven undergrad
Papers to mark.
I must pit
Myself against these students.
I must do
At least ten before dark.
It's not right.
It's not fair.
I shall complain a lot, though they won't care.

Here I am,
Drowning in these essays,
Silly six-page essays
That all deserve to fail.
In a jam,
Up against a deadline,
Longing to get out of here,
Though I can't bail.
I'm not sure
Why I'm made
To destroy all my brain cells and grade...

This one has no introduction.
This one has nothing but.
This one creates
A sensation of suction in my
Brain-pan, likely 'cause it's written by a nut.
This one is strange; this one is wrong.
This one's two thousand words too long.
My sanity's in pieces,
For this one has no thesis.
With every word the absurdity increases.

If I could,
I'd burn these stupid papers
Then tear off all my clothes and run
Away quite free.
Well, I would,
But I'm kind of getting paid well,
Plus it's kind of winter,
Plus I'm kind of me.
Just obey!
Mark that lot!
Sink into grad school and rot...

This one is full of errors,
This one's not finished yet.
This one prompts me
To introduce some terrors to this
Student, since it is stolen from the 'Net.
This one was probably written at the mall;
This one makes no bloody sense at all.
I think my brain is steaming.
I wish that I were dreaming.
If I were, the dream would make me wake up screaming.

Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it, why do I T.A.?
Sure, I need the money, but it's funny how that honey doesn't gild the pill that makes me want to kill it anyway.
Bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody, bloody essays cause me pain.
I'll throw them on the fire and retire!  I'm a liar, and I think I'm stuck here grading things that suck.  So once again...

Here I go,
Tearing through the garbage,
Hoping for an essay
Worthy of a pass.
I don't know
How I'm going to do this.
Papers give me headaches.
Papers give me gas.
One thought more
Makes me blue:
Did I once write like this too?

This one's insanely hollow.
This one is just insane.
This one doesn't
Bother to follow any
Rules at all, and it liquefies my brain.
This one is quite empty of thought.
This one's a summary of someone else's plot.
These papers are too telling.
These people can't spell "spelling."
I've lost my mind, and I find myself rebelling.

Here I am.
Here are they.
I can't work like this, so hey:
I think I
Am quite through;
I'll do what most grads would do.
It doesn't cause me sorrow
That I have had to borrow
A strategy of yesterday,
The saving of many a good T.A.
It may be wrong, but I shall say
I'm going to do it anyway:
I'll chuck this essay pile away...

And deal with it tomorrow.

She runs away.


Monday, December 3, 2007:  Damn It, Damn It, Damn It

My Ranting is under a blight.
I cannot decide what to write.
My brain's made of gum;
I feel truly dumb.
I think I shall be here all night.

If only I knew how to fix
My head.  It's eleven-oh-six!
That's getting quite late.
Why can't I create?
...And now I am staring at bricks.

Perhaps I should write of the wall.
It's bricky and orange.  Is that all?
I wish I were not
So empty of thought.
Ooh...look at that centipede crawl.

The floor is a floor is a floor.
A person just walked through the door.
Most candy is sweet.
I've boots on my feet.
I can't think of anything more.

My Ranting's not coming today.
Oh well.  Since there's not much to say,
I'll stop with this verse.
Be glad it's not worse.
I'll do better next week, okay?


Monday, November 26, 2007:  The Apparition in the Library Staircase

The question of whether or not Massey has actual ghosts is one that Fellows have debated for years.  On one hand, the college seems a little young for that sort of thing; on the other, Ron Thom's mystifying architecture appears to invite it.  There are so many odd little nooks and crannies, hidden staircases and cupboards, and locked basement rooms that apparently belong to the Bursar (though nobody seems to know why), that one might think that ghosts would flock to Massey.  Robertson Davies himself told his ghost stories as if they were jokes, but is it not possible that the great man was glossing over the seriousness of his subject?  It is hard to doubt, after reading his first story, that something eldritch happened to him once upon a time, or even more than once.

That first story involves Davies' encounter, in his own office, with the ninth (or perhaps tenth) Master of the college, a man who is to reign over the halls of Massey in the year 2063.  This Master, taking Davies for a spirit, explains the history of Massey, in the process granting Davies only a poor footnote as a brief, failed Master.  The story is thus a kind of reverse ghost story; Davies is his own first ghost.

We do know that none of the tenth (or perhaps ninth) Master's dire predictions of Mastership ever did come to pass.  There seems to be little truth in the tale, which reads as a clever but entirely invented failed prophecy.  However, though I do not believe that Davies ever did transport himself a century into the future or speak with a man who, in Davies' time, was yet to be born, I have a strange feeling that there is a kernel of truth at the heart of this first story.  In short, I believe that Davies did experience something peculiar in early December of 1963, and that his subsequent career as a teller of humorous ghost stories was an attempt to deal with his memory of the event.

This Saturday evening, after the Feast for the Founding Master, I went down to the computers to check my e-mail and attempt to ease the headache that had been growing steadily behind my eyes for the last several hours.  When I was done, I wandered slowly and reluctantly back into the stairwell that led from the Lower Library to the foyer.

There, gazing at the bust of the college's founding Master, was a man who was wearing a Massey gown and stroking his bushy beard thoughtfully as his right hand gently cradled an untasted glass of port.  He turned his head at my approach and fixed me with what could only be described as a stern, affronted glare of surprise.

"Young woman," he barked, "what are you doing wandering about the college like this?  I shall have to have words with the Fellowship!"

The Massey rule of courtesy had been stressed by Officers and Fellows alike throughout my tenure at the college; I therefore stifled my first impulse, which was to call him a Cro-Magnon fuddy-duddy and yank very hard on his beard.  Instead, I explained politely that I had just come from dinner.

His eyebrows, which rivalled his beard for bushiness, sank.  "From dinner?" he said.  "You?  Are you mad, madam?"

"Not very," I said, "and yes, I have just come from the Feast for the Founding Master, as, I assume, have you."

I made as if to move past him, but he held out a hand to stop me.  "The founding Master, you say?" he said.  "Ah!  You must be part of the elaborate prank that the young men are clearly playing on me by placing this odd bust in this stairwell!  You are meant, are you not, to convince me that a hundred years have passed and that--unbelievably--the Fellowship is erecting statues to me?  Is this not the case?"

I was beginning to feel rather strange; the sensation was similar to that caused when one scuffed across a rug in one's socks and then held one's hand close to an electrical outlet.  In many ways, the man was absolutely typical for a Senior Fellow; in others, he simply did not fit.  Besides, his gown was not that of a Senior Fellow.  It looked almost like the gown of a Master.

"Sir," I said, "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.  That bust has been here for at least as long as I have...and I have been here for far too long."

The man adjusted his half-glasses, the better to fix me with an even more penetrating stare.  "This bust," he said, "claims that I shall be Master of this college until nineteen eighty-one.  If you are indeed of the future, tell me:  what will Massey be like in the eighties?  Will the good old traditions still hold?  Will the gentlemen of the college wear dignified academic gowns while exchanging pleasantries over unnecessarily miserable food?  Will this august institution remain devoted to truth, honour, and the provision of really good cigars?"

By now, of course, I had realised to whom I spoke.  Extraordinary as it seems, it was Robertson Davies, the founding Master, who stood before me, his beard sparking and crackling with spirit energy and his eyebrows taking on a life of their own.  I am a veteran of Massey ghostliness, and I was able to keep my composure, though I did find myself thinking, "My God...I'm talking to Robertson Davies, and I'm wearing a hippie dress and Oxfords."  Yet I pushed the thought to the back of my mind.  I had more pressing business at hand.

"Master," I said, "put your mind at rest; Massey is still quite full of traditions.  We do things now just as they must have been done back at the dawn of the college or, as my undergrads might say, of time."

"'We'?" said Davies.  "Surely you don't mean--"

"Oh, yes," I said.  "I was a Fellow for five years."

"You!" he cried.  "A Fellow!  A female Fellow!"

"Entirely traditional," I said.  "At least half of the Fellowship is made up of women.  Why, the last Master was a woman as well."

"Preposterous," snapped Davies.  "I refuse to believe that the Mastership--"

"But it's tradition," said I earnestly.  "Just as much so as the excellent food--"

"--excellent food?"

"--and the non-smoking policy in the college common spaces--"

"--I beg your pardon?"

"--and Tea Hut."

"What on earth is a Tea Hut?"

"A College tradition," I said.  "It's been around forever."

"Now see here," said Davies, whose eyes were slowly disappearing beneath the wilderness of his eyebrows.  "I know the college traditions.  I am the founding Master!  None of what you say makes any sense to me at all."

"But you must know about all this," I said.  "The Massey Bull, the annual pumpkin-carving contest (always judged by royalty), the Puffy Couch Room, the Keeper of the Elvis, the scavenger hunt, the charity auction, the raclette evening, the lamps in the Lower Library, the two big-screen TVs, the wireless Internet connection:  all completely traditional and part of the very spirit of this college.  We would be devastated to have to do without any one of them.  I assure you that Massey's institutional memory goes back a long, long way."

A look of panic was settling over the founding Master's face.  He looked oddly lost and alone beside the bust that bore his face.  "I...I haven't heard of any of those things," he stammered.  "They aren't traditions!  Traditions at this college are instituted by me!"

"Obviously," I said.  "We know very well that this place doesn't ever change.  We are just as steeped in tradition now as we were in your day.  In fact, I can prove that one of our most lasting traditions is entirely your doing."

The eyebrows lifted, and his piercing eyes gleamed out at me.  I caught a slightly tone of desperation as he said, "Can you?"

I indicated the bust.  "We keep it up to this day," I said.  "We don't have you any more, but we do the best we can; we rub your likeness's nose for luck.  In your time, I assume, it was done like this."  I moved one swift step closer to him and ran my finger down his mighty neb.

Davies' eyes widened until I could see the irises entirely rimmed by white; he flung out his hands as if to drive me away, and he moved violently backwards towards the bust.  As I watched, the apparently living Master sank into the statue and vanished, his terrified features merging with the serene metallic ones.  I was once again alone.

Was it a ghost I saw?  A time-traveller?  An apparition brought on by a dehydration headache and too much veal?  Robertson Davies' first ghost story may offer a clue, but its evidence is not strong enough to prove conclusive one way or the other.  I do, however, know what I saw that night.  I know as well that as I walked away from the bust, some impulse made me turn and glance back at it.

There it stood, shiny nose and all...and on the plinth before it, an untasted glass of port, still trembling slightly in a ghostly wind.


Monday, November 19, 2007:  Are You the Vun They Call...Beovulf?

Yep.  It's true.  I am a terrible, terrible person, and I should be hit upside the head with a pickled herring and stripped of my status as an expert in medieval English literature...

...'cause I'm going to rant about the new Beowulf movie, which I haven't seen.  Bad Kari.  Bad Kari!

Okay, I'm being unfair.  I'll admit that immediately so that you can't waggle the fact in my face later on.  I am about to whale on a film that could be perfectly decent but that I loathe on principle.  Go ahead and censure me, but first, listen to my cry.  I don't think I actually have to see Beowulf to hate it.  I think it just kind of generally deserves to be hated, sight unseen.

Beowulf is one of my favourite poems.  Unlike many people, I have read it in the original, as well as in a number of different translations.  I love its story.  I love its language.  I love the way the monster Grendel approaches Heorot in a fashion that is almost, yes, cinematic; the "camera" cuts back and forth between the sleeping Danes and the ominously approaching Grendel until the tension is right up about as high as it can possibly go.  I love Grendel.  I love Grendel's mother.  I even love the dragon, which mostly just roars and kills people.   Beowulf is a dark, beautiful poem that should be made into movies.  Many people have tried.  I haven't seen The 13th Warrior, but Beowulf and Grendel could have been worse.  And now along comes Robert Zemeckis' attempt.

An excerpt from the production notes on the film's extremely annoying Flash-heavy official site reads:

"Frankly, nothing about the original poem appealed to me.  I remember being assigned to read it in junior high school and not being able to understand it because it was in Old English," admits Zemeckis.  "It was one of those horrible assignments.  I never really thought about it after that, never considered that it might make for an interesting story.  But when I read the screenplay that Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary did, I was immediately captivated.  I asked them, 'What is it about this screenplay that makes this story so fascinating when the poem, to me, was so boring?'  And their answer was, 'Well, let's see, the poem was written somewhere between the 7th century and the 12th century.  But the story had been told for centuries before that.  The only people in the 7th century who knew how to write were monks.  So, we can assume they did a lot of editing.'  Neil and Roger explored deeper into the text, looking between the lines, questioning the holes in the source material, and adding back what they theorized the monks might have edited out (or added) and why.  They managed to keep the essence of the poem but made it more accessible to a modern audience and made some revolutionary discoveries along the way.  This should stir some debate in academia."

If I had a year, I could probably cover the many, many things about this passage that make me want to gouge my eyes out with my teeth.  As it is, I'll give you the Cole's Notes version.  What...the hell...are these people thinking?  Zemeckis figures the poem is a boring time-waster and yet decides to make a movie based on it?  A bunch of 7th-century monks "edited" the poem?*  Avary and Gaiman (oh, Gaiman, how could you?) "added back" elements removed by the monks?  Added back?  How can you "add back" something you are only "theorising" was ever there in the first place?  The writers made "revolutionary discoveries" that "should stir some debate in academia"?

This film stars freaking Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother.  Grendel's mother, please note, is a hairy, bestial monster who lives at the bottom of a lake.  She does not have huge breasts, pouty lips, and a sultry, purring voice.  A sexy Grendel's mother is certainly not a "revolutionary discovery," nor is a Grendel who  **is Hrothgar's son (an element stolen from the novel The Tower of Beowulf, which isn't bad).**  If these people are going to change the story--and they certainly have the right to do so--they should get over themselves and not pretend that they are both improving upon the original and helping the poor benighted academics with their work.  "Making stuff up" is not exactly the same thing as "research."***

Before you begin mocking me for being a narrow-minded idiot who wants every film to be exactly like the work on which it is based, let me say--as I have said many, many times before--that I am a fan of the art of adaptation.  In my opinion, The Fellowship of the Ring is a good movie, Clueless is the best adaptation of Emma out there, and the first two Harry Potter films are deadly boring because they are too close to Rowling's novels.  I have thought of adapting Beowulf (as a novel) myself, and sure, I would change a whole heck of a lot of stuff.  I think I might avoid making Grendel's mother a completely unnecessary sexpot, but you never know.  Adaptation is fantastic.  Stupid adaptation is not.  There is not really much point in "ma[king Beowulf] more accessible to a modern audience" if your idea of accessibility is that every film has to contain a beautiful woman, a love story, and enough Freudian imagery to last the human race until the end of time.  You want to adapt one of my favourite poems?  Be my guest.  I would be pleased if you would stick to the spirit of the original, though, and not claim you were building a better Beowulf.  Better yet, if you don't like the original, leave it alone.  Let someone who loves it direct the movie.

I know this film is not going to bomb, but I sort of wish it would.  This.  Is not.  My Beowulf.

*There was no real concept of "editing" in the 7th century; you could certainly write a story down in your own special way, and you might expand or contract an existing text, but you weren't "editing."  You were just writing stuff down.  Zemeckis is also ignoring the fact that it is impossible to "edit" a "text" that has, up until it is written down, been an entirely oral property.
**Highlight the black bit for the spoiler.  I don't care if this...thing...is "spoiled," but you may.
***To be fair to Gaiman, he has objected to the fact that the film's producers are sending promotional material containing some of this garbage to schools; he has acknowledged that he was, in fact, making stuff up.  You go, Gaiman.  (I should also point out that I would rather "make stuff up" than do research any day.  Bad Kari!)


Monday, November 12, 2007:  Exploding Cliches is My Ideas of Fun and Games

I should probably be saving this material for Valentine's Day, that sickly sweet bastion of all things Artificial, but I am in a blue funk, and I should be marking, and...well...I'm going to deal with it now.

You know Hollywood movies, right?  You know the way everybody flocks to Hollywood movies all the time?  You know the way you and I flock as well?  You know how there are certain things about these movies that we take for granted and accept as if they are well-known elements of Real Life?  You know how there are even more of these bits and pieces lurking in the commercials we see at the movies and on TV?  You know TV?  You know the "well-known elements" we see there?

Let's blow five of 'em up.

1)  Boy meets girl.  Boy and girl hate each other passionately.  A few days/weeks/years into their relationship, which so far has been one of mutual loathing, boy and girl realise simultaneously that they are actually desperately in love.

Do you have someone you really hate?

I'm talking true hatred here.  You can't stand this person.  Every time he or she speaks, you cringe, shudder, and stifle the urge to strangle your enemy with your bare hands.  You cannot hear this person's name without experiencing a feeling of nausea.

Can you imagine wanting to sleep with this person?

You don't even need to go that far, actually.  Can you imagine having a civil conversation with this person? smiling at this person? driving this person home without feeling resentment? being in the same room as this person and not having to dig your nails into your palms to keep yourself from making an extraordinarily cruel comment?

Hatred, dear Hollywood, does not magically transform into love all that often.  Mild irritation may eventually give way to understanding and perhaps love, but hatred?  Loathing?  Mutual abhorrence?  Who's writing a wish-fulfilment fantasy about a high-school crush?  Come on, now...show of hands.

2)  The Plain Girl, who has spent the past two hours creeping about and whispering, pulls off her glasses, shakes down her hair, and is transformed into a big-breasted sexpot who longs for the hero to ravish her then and there, probably in public.

Generally, if you take a plain girl and remove her glasses and scrunchy, what you get is...a plain girl with hair in her mouth, stumbling around and bumping into things.

You know what, Hollywood?  Plain girls are usually plain.  Period.  They are not gorgeous people who haven't realised their potential; they just don't happen to be pretty.  That actually doesn't stop them from being interesting people, though.  Sometimes, they even fall in love and get married!  And stuff!

The whole thing with the glasses makes me want to gnaw my own leg off.  It seems that Clark Kent Syndrome is alive and well and living in Romantic Comedy Land.  What...she's actually heart-meltingly lovely, but no one can tell because she's wearing corrective lenses?  Does she have superpowers as well?

3)  If you are a short, fat man with too much body hair, tall supermodels with huge breasts will be hopelessly attracted to you.  They had better, as all the women in the world are tall supermodels with huge breasts.

True story:  I have never met a tall supermodel with huge breasts.  I have met plenty of short, fat, perfectly charming men and women, though.

I should stress at this point that genuinely plain women do actually exist and, in fact, outnumber genuinely beautiful women by an enormous margin.  Television shows and movies acknowledge the existence of genuinely plain men, but they're eminently silly where women are concerned.

3)  Women are attracted to men who own cool cars/lawnmowers/power tools, use certain kinds of deodorant/body spray/cigarettes, and drink particular brands of beer/pop/bottled water.

Uh-huh.

Word to the wise:  if you accidentally spray yourself with Axe while attempting, ineptly, to use the bathroom, your son's wife will not subsequently tear off all your clothes with her bare hands.

Apparently, this needs to be said.

4)  Men are attracted to women who wear particular brands of underwear and/or tampons.

It is my understanding that these accoutrements generally go under one's clothing unless one is a) a superhero or b) insane.  A man capable of detecting the presence of a particular type of thong at thirty paces is probably psychic.  He may also have X-ray vision.  You will want to stay away from him, especially if he claims he is simply a mild-mannered reporter with an alliterative name.

5)  At base, every story is about love.

Is it a love story?  Then it's about love.

Is it a tragic tale of a family torn apart by the impending death of a beloved sister?  Then it's about love.

Is it a Samuel L. Jackson movie about a terrorist planting bombs in downtown New York?  Then it's ab--wait a minute...

You know, people, not every story has to have a love subplot.  I'm sure that you mean perfectly well when you insert a gooshy love story into The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy or The Dark is Rising or up the kissing quotient in The Lord of the Rings, but come on:  these stories work perfectly well without love interests.  In fact, they work better without love interests than they do with love interests, as the love interests in question are completely incidental and add nothing to the plots.*  Original films suffer from the love-interest blight as well.  Not everybody falls in love with everybody else.  Sometimes, men and women can even develop lasting friendships that have no romantic elements at all!

Oh:  and if I want to watch Batman fall in love with a baby-faced girl who appears to be uselessly filling a space that could have been taken by the important character Harvey Dent, I'll...go see Batman Begins, I guess.

*Yes, I am aware that the whole Aragorn/Arwen thing is detailed in Tolkien's enormous Appendices, yadda, yadda, yadda.  It doesn't really belong in the movie, though.


Monday, November 5, 2007:  A Song for Wikipedia

Plagiarisable:  that's what you are.
Plagiarisable:  though you are far
From a good source, they are drawn to you.
They don't know that we are onto you.
If they did, they'd just think you were more

Plagiarisable in every way.
And forever, you'll lure them to stay
Though you're so damned recognisable
That it is quite inadvisable
To think you are plagiarisable too.

Instrumental interlude.

Plagiarisable in every way.
I can't fight you.  Here's all I can say:
Your influence is so sizeable
That you're now quite undisguisable,
But they think you're plagiarisable!  Poo.

If I have to mark one more paper written by a student who feels it is a good idea to taken whole paragraphs word for word from Wikipedia and then not even include a bibliography in the freaking bloody essay, I shall go completely* mad and start hitting random strangers with bananas.  If you were eighteen, would you think that your markers didn't know how to use Google?  Well...would you?

And now I've gone and got one of the world's most pervasive songs into my head.

*Grumble grumble grumble...*

*Rather than mostly.


Monday, October 29, 2007:  Rime of the Ancient Questioner

It is an ancient Questioner,
And he is the first of three.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore question'st thou me?

The lecture was enjoyed by all.
Yes, you now have the floor,
But why must thou speak on and on
And more...and more...and more?"

He lifts his hand and strokes his beard.
"There was a point," quoth he,
Then goes on to expound on it
For near eternity.

"Hold off!  Shut up, thou grey-beard loon!"
The listeners all cry.
"There is no question in thy speech.
We would that you would die!"

Alas, the ancient Questioner
Drones on.  With ev'ry pause,
The listeners sit still and hope...
No!  Here's another clause.

They learn his name and all at once
Spam his account with porn.
A sadder and a wiser man
He'll rise the morrow morn.

Have you ever noticed that at every lecture, there is present one seemingly middle-aged bearded gentleman who is the first to approach the microphone during the question period?  His "question" usually goes as follows:

"First of all, I would like to thank you for your thoughts on A; I was fascinated to hear you speak on the subjects of B and C, which remind me of the time I had experience with D, E, and F in Geneva in the fall of 1982.  You had many excellent things to say about G, though I was wondering a little bit about your neglect of H and I.  Nonetheless, my question relates to J, a favourite area of my own.  I thought you might comment a little bit on J's relation to K, for, as Shakespeare says, 'How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!' (Act I, Scene iv).  My research shows that K is tangentially caused by L, mostly because of M, though N is important as well because of O and P and their relationship to Q, the precursor of R; however, S and T, via U, V, and W, create X, sublimate Y, and insert the paradoxical principle into Z.  My question is related to all of these points.  What are your thoughts?"

The ancient Questioner somehow manages to get through his long, convoluted, entirely pointless "question" without actually asking it.  I have witnessed him at his work time after time.  Initially, I thought that there was no "he":  that there was, in fact, a series of seemingly middle-aged bearded gentlemen who were the first to approach the microphone during question period.

My experience last Friday suggests that there may not, in fact, be a multiplicity of Questioners.  There may, in fact, be only one, who is doomed to wander forever from lecture to lecture, asking his frustrating non-questions until someone gets wise to him and whacks him over the head with a bag of conference goodies.

On Friday, I was at Philip Pullman's lecture on narrative:  the first talk of this weekend's kids' lit conference.*  I therefore had to miss the Massey Lecture, which was 1) also on narrative and 2) at exactly the same time.**  I heard much about the Massey Lecture afterwards.  One of the things I heard about it was that the ancient Questioner did not make an appearance.

Guess who ran eagerly up to the microphone ten seconds after Pullman--an excellent speaker, by the way--had finished his talk?  Gosh...don't you know?

Clearly, the Questioner, though possessed of eternal life and possibly other marvellous powers, cannot be in two places at once.  He must have been in agony over the conflict.  However, eventually, he managed to pull himself together and choose to irritate several hundred academics, teachers, and children's librarians who were trapped in an extremely warm room and longing to hear more from Pullman, not some guy who was clearly determined to cite every major British author of the past five hundred years.***

You've got to wonder what he did to deserve all this.  Was he once a lecturer himself?  Did he incur the wrath of the Lecture Gods by going forty-five minutes over his time?  Did he neglect to answer a question?  Did he introduce a pithy metaphor and then forget what it meant?  Why has he been punishèd?

The next time you are at a lecture, watch out for him...and don't blame him too much.  He is merely, and sadly, a pawn of Fate.

*I also went to the rest of the conference...unlike some people who just turned up for Pullman and ignored the other wonderful writers on the programme.  Booooooooo.
**Go figure.
***As Pullman noted, he missed Keats.


Monday, October 22, 2007:  Damn It, Mr. Summer...

Dear Sir:

As you are aware, our company is currently preparing for the imminent arrival of your colleague, Mr. Winter.  Mr. Fall is in charge of plant operations; he is a reliable employee who has always respected company policy and done his job with promptness and efficiency.  However, we are sorry to say that you seem to be giving him some difficulties this year.  He is actually thinking of filing a formal complaint.

Mr. Summer, you must realise that your period of employment ended in late September.  You are not needed at this time.  In fact, your continued presence is becoming something of an embarrassment.  You arrived a month too early and have lingered a month too long.  Was that thirty-two-degree day necessary?  Does anybody really want a taste of mid-July on October 21?  Mr. Fall tells us that you are interfering with his efforts re. leaf colours, migrating birds, hibernating animals, heating systems, and pumpkins.  He is particularly adamant that you stay well away from his delicate frost-work, which he claims you have been sabotaging for weeks.

 Please, Mr. Summer:  have the decency to make a graceful exit.  We do appreciate your more timely efforts.  Do not force us to shame you publicly.

Sincerely yours,


Toronto


Monday, October 15, 2007:  Myths of the Ph.D. Defence Exploded

I have now, at long last, gone through my Ph.D. defence.  Therefore, I am (marginally) qualified to address some defence-themed myths with which numerous people regaled me in the weeks leading up to the Day of Doom.*

Myth 1:  The Defence is Fun.  Once you get into the room, you'll find that you're really just having a friendly conversation with your peers, and you'll enjoy it.

False.

If that was a friendly conversation, I never want to experience a genuinely hostile one.  The external and internal examiners both tore into me enthusiastically.  In hindsight, I can see their strategy; they were trying to ascertain whether I actually knew how I had arrived at some of my more interesting conclusions or had simply happened upon them by accident.  At the time, however, I felt as if I were being cross-examined in court.  It didn't help that the external wasn't actually in the room; his voice emerged via a phone thingy that looked like something Darth Vader would keep in his "interview" room.

Myth 2:  No one ever goes the full two hours.

False.

I went the full bloody two bloody hours.  There was only one round of questioning,** but the external must have grilling me for forty minutes and the internal for thirty.  By the time it was time for me to be banished to the corridor for ten minutes, all I could think was, "If...I...don't...get to...a bathroom...in the next...ten...seconds...aaaaaargh..."

Myth 3:  You know more about your subject than anyone else in the room.  Why worry?

Technically true; materially false.

I did know more about my particular subject than everyone else in the room, but I didn't know more about several peripheral issues surrounding my particular subject than everyone else in the room.  One committee member in particular taught me several new things that I sort of wish I had known before.  I had to ad lib a response on a Bible verse I hadn't even cited.  Luckily, I knew the verse in question, but I did forget one important thing about it, and I wandered enthusiastically off on what was probably actually the wrong track for a bit.

Myth 4:  "Minor corrections" means you don't really have much more work to do.

False, alas.

The external handed*** me twenty-four pages of corrections.  It's up to my supervisor how many of these I actually have to do, but I expect she's just going to tell me to do them all.  I haven't got anything from her yet, either.

Myth 5:  After the defence, there will be beverages.

True.

There were also cheesy-poofs and those sort of nut-and-bread-stick kind of mixture things.

Myth 5:  When it's all over, you'll feel better.

True.

'Nuff said.

*This document is based entirely on my personal experience and is thus inaccurate, biased, and unfair.  However, it's also mildly entertaining, and that is all that matters.
**When you get two, you know you're sort of in trouble, corrections-wise.
***Well, not handed, as he was in New Brunswick at the time, but you know what I mean.


Monday, October 8, 2007:  Yes, I Took a Picture of a Door

As I am defending my dissertation in three days, I don't have time for a real Rant this week.  In fact, I only have time to say:

AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

and post a picture of my bedroom door:


*I.e., flinging stuff in closets so that I could once again see my floor.


Monday, October 1, 2007:  Three Open Letters to People Who Use or Cross Roads from Time to Time

Dear Pedestrians:

1)  You see that narrow strip of pavement between the sidewalk and the screaming wall of death that is the traffic on Bloor Street?  That is the only bit of the road on which it is relatively safe for a cyclist to ride.  When you wander heedlessly off the sidewalk, then stand directly in the middle of the aforementioned strip of pavement, your head turned away from oncoming traffic, you are forcing cyclists to a) stop dead, b), bail out on the curb, or c) swerve into the screaming wall of death and die.  Please stand on the sidewalk.  It was built especially for you.

2)  An amber light is meant to tell drivers that it is time to think about stopping now.  It is not meant to tell pedestrians that it is okay to amble out into the middle of the intersection, pause to greet a passing butterfly with glorious Disneyesque song, and arrive on the other side of the road twenty-five seconds after the light has gone red.

3)  Neither drivers nor cyclists are psychic.  If you step out in front of  one or the other without looking, you are probably going to get hurt.

Dear Cyclists:

1)  When the light turns red, you need to stop.  You do not need to check conscientiously for cars and then zip across the road.  You should also note that the act of toodling around the corner, swerving into a shallow U-turn just beyond the pedestrian crosswalk, and drifting across the street against the light does not make what you're doing all right.

2)  Sidewalks are for pedestrians.  Yes, it is extremely unfair that Toronto has so few bike lanes.  Nonetheless, sidewalks are for pedestrians.  If you need to move down a sidewalk, get off your bike and walk.

3)  It's night.  It's dark.  We can't see you.  Get a light.  For crying out loud.

4)  Look:  you're on a bike.  How well can you steer with one hand?  Not well?  Then why is the other one glued to the cell phone that is, in turn, glued to your ear?  Put the damn phone away and pay attention.

5)  The rules of the road do actually apply to you.  When you ignore them, you give all cyclists a bad name.  You also provide fodder for the idiots who are always writing various newspapers and moaning, "Cyclists don't deserve new bike lanes!  A cyclist who was riding down the sidewalk at 50 km per hour while talking on his cell phone and eating ice cream almost broke my foot!  Lock 'em up and throw away the key!"

Dear Drivers:

1)  You are encased in tonnes of reinforced metal.  Cyclists and pedestrians are encased in their own skin.  A cyclist's styrofoam helmet is not going to save her if you slam into her at seventy km per hour.  Watch where you're bloody well going.

2)    The light is still red.  You have pulled as close to the curb as you can, then inched around the corner into the looming stream of pedestrians.  However, when the light changes, the pedestrians surge out into the intersection, and you can't turn the corner.  This happens every.  Time.  You make.  A right.  Turn.  Have you not noticed the cyclists swearing and shaking their fists at you as they are forced either to ride into the crowd or wait for the next light?

3)  The fact that the light is now amber does not mean that it is okay for you to scream through a left turn, directly into a cyclist who hasn't quite made it across the intersection yet.

4)  The next time you hurtle past me (a cyclist) on the left, swerve in front of me without signalling, and stop dead, I shall introduce Mr. Key to Mr. Shiny New Paint-Job.

5)  It's midnight.  You can see a cyclist in front of you.  "Ah-ha!" you cry.  "Let us see how close to this poor benighted non-car-owner I can drive without killing him!"

............VRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

I wonder how many cyclists die of heart attacks brought on by sheer terror?

6)  We are all happy and proud that you understand how to operate your left front door.  Now how about you leave it closed until the cyclists have all passed you instead of flinging it wide open into traffic?  You may just lose your poor door...and, incidentally, kill a cyclist.

7)  Cell phones are instruments of hideous, hideous death!  Pay attention to the road!

Those will do for going on with.  Wish me luck on the road tonight...

Kari.


Monday, September 24, 2007:  To the Massey Fellows, to Make Much of Air Conditioning

Gather ye sweaters while ye may;
The AC's still a-wheezing,
And this same weather that's chill today
Tomorrow will be freezing.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
Gives lesser heat in autumn.
It's really cold in here.  How fun:
I cannot feel my bottom.

The true grad student really loves
Discomfort, bane of many.
What luck that I can type in gloves.
Too bad I don't have any.

So be not coy, and just abide,
Though you can't use your fingers.
Live with it:  yes, it's cold outside,
But here, the AC lingers.


Monday, September 17, 2007:  The Results Are In

My Great Summer Experiment with Boundless Procrastination is officially at an end, though unofficially, it continues.  It's just that since summer is now definitely over, I feel I should detail some results.

On Monday, April 30, I declared on this Rants page that I was going to learn to juggle this summer or die in the attempt.  I had already been trying for about a month, and I hadn't got particularly far along.  Now:

1)  I have mastered the three-ball cascade (the ultra-basic juggling pattern).  My record number of consecutive catches is 405.

2)  I have started on a few other patterns.  Progress is slow but present.

3)  In preparation for tackling four balls (at a time!), I am working on my one-handed juggling.  Again, progress is slow but present.

4)  I have found some juggling rings somewhere and am trying to become competent with them.  This is not as easy as it sounds, especially since I have nowhere to practise.  Ideally, ring juggling should be done somewhere in which there is no a) wind and b) ceiling.  I can manage one of these requirements at any given time, but not both.  I am constantly hitting the ceiling with my rings, which then rebound violently and smack me in the face.

5)  I haven't tried clubs yet because there seems to be nowhere in Toronto you can buy them.  However, I'd like to acquire a set eventually.  The Internet has possibilities.

6)  I.  Have.  Triceps.  Good lord.

Yep.  Not only have I learned to juggle this summer, but I've found, to my astonishment, that I really like juggling.  Considering that I started because of a personal vendetta against my childhood memories, this is nothing short of astonishing.  The liking may be motivated largely by the fact that I have never before been even marginally competent at any kind of physical skill.*  In elementary school, team leaders used to squabble over who would be forced to take me.  If I ever got to play a base in softball, someone would be sent to guard me because it was fairly obvious I was going to drop any ball I tried to catch.  I even sucked at tetherball.  Who sucks at tetherball?  Is that even freaking possible?

At any rate, I have never had faith in my own physical abilities.  Now I can toss three balls into the air over and over and actually catch them most of the time.  Good enough.  Take that, grade seven class full of tiny-brained snickering jocks!  Take that!

I just need to find a room with no ceiling...or maybe just a set of really soft rings...

*Except for square dancing.  Please don't ask.


Monday, September 10, 2007:  I Hereby Consign Ragweed to Outer Darkness

You are one of my favourite people in the world if you behave as follows in late August and early September every freaking year:

You walk cheerfully into a room and come across someone whose bloodshot eyes have almost disappeared behind puffy mounds of swollen flesh.  This person, tears running down her cheeks, is sneezing repeatedly into a tissue while also holding a hand to her pounding head.  She is Not Happy.

You approach her and chirp, "Isn't it a nice day?"

She grunts in reply.

You notice the sneezing.  "Oh," you say, "do you have a cold?"

She sneezes four times and shoots you the sort of look undergraduates give T.A.s who have just awarded them "F"s on their hideous essays.

"Allergies, then?" you say.

She nods.

"Gosh," you say, "I'm glad I don't get those."

If she subsequently rises to her feet, hits you on the head with a poker, and flings your body in the river, no jury on Earth will convict her.

Dear People Who Have Never Had Allergies:

Go away.  Go far, far away to a land dominated by raging volcanoes, and let us allergy sufferers whine and complain in peace.  Having spring, summer, and fall allergies is very like having a cold for eight months of the year.  I am thinking of getting one of those extra-large garbage cans for my apartment so that I don't have to empty out the tissues every twenty minutes.  I have probably killed twenty or thirty trees since spring.  Now that it's ragweed season, the tree-killing is getting out of control.  I'm not alone, either.  The streets of Toronto are teeming with people who shamble along, rubbing at their eyes and moaning, "Clllllllaaaaaaaaarrrrrrriiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiinnnnnn..."  It's the Month of the Living Allergenic out there.

You may think you're safe because you are not allergic to anything.  Think again.  The Allergenic will find you.  They will find you, and they will steal all your pocket change, and they will use it to buy antihistamines.  They will also sneeze on you when you mock them, then tell you they have the flu.  The more vindictive ones will wail, "Unclean!  Unclean!" while pelting you with tissues.  You probably deserve all this, actually.  Stop being smug.  Stop it.

I don't even know what ragweed looks like.  Who does?  Okay...I do now, thanks to Google.  Even looking at pictures of the stuff is making my eyes go red.  Why am I allergic to plants?  I like plants.  Sometimes, I even remember to water mine.  It is not fair that green things make the insides of my eyeballs itch.  I never even learned to mow the lawn when I was growing up because every time I went outside, my face started to swell.  Sure, it's a nice excuse for not having to exert energy killing grass in thirty-degree weather, but it makes you feel kind of useless when your thirteen-year-old baby sister is merrily shoving the lawnmower around and you are stuck in the kitchen drying dishes.  But you wouldn't know about that, would you?

Why can't I be allergic to liverwurst?  I wouldn't at all mind being allergic to liverwurst.  That would mean I wouldn't have to eat it...plus it isn't a weed that grows all over the place and makes life an unbearable antechamber of Hell every summer.  I have an idea:  you can be allergic to ragweed next year, and I shall be allergic to liverwurst, and then I can be smugly superior and cause you to want to kill me.  Okay?  Could we do that?  Please?

I must now go home and sniffle into tissues until my nose starts to bleed.  I spend most of my days in this manner lately.  Please stop giggling like that.  I'm sure you are enjoying it, but I am on the verge of making you eat my empty Reactine packages, and not metaphorically speaking, either.

Yours ever so sincerely,

Kari.


Monday, September 3, 2007:  Yes, I Am Really This Cynical

Why, welcome, young student!  Come settle right in.
The school year is shiny and new.
We're sure you can't wait for it all to begin.
Fear not:  it's here waiting for you.

Oh, joy!  You'll have course work and essays and such:
Great fun for a student.  You'll see!
If you ever feel that the workload's too much,
Just give back that stipend.  Feel free!

A grad education can never go wrong.
It's only five years; don't complain.
Why, some will be here for at least twice that long,
Then do it all over again.

We hear that you somehow still have your own soul.
How precious!  Oh, isn't that dear?
Remove it and fling it right down that deep hole;
You sure won't be needing it here.

One day, when you've learned all your lessons quite well
And lost what remains of your hair,
You may, at long last, be released from this hell.
By then, you will no longer care.

Oh, welcome, young student!  You're here at the start
Of something amazing.  And how!
Be welcome; rest easy.  And bless your fresh heart...
For we'll begin eating it now.


Monday, August 27, 2007:  You Say Goodbye, and I Say Hello

The last week of August should probably be taken out to the back forty and shot through the head.  It is, typically, a week in which mobs of people leave the University of Toronto (and Massey) forever, while other mobs storm in to take their places.  It is a week of terrible, terrible changes.  I don't like it.

*Kari waves a sad goodbye to Ester Macedo, who is leaving for Brazil on Wednesday*

However, I would still hereby like to welcome the newbies to Massey.  Most of the people who see this post will, in fact, be oldbies or random Internet surfers who have never in their lives set foot in Toronto, but I have faith that eventually, probably when it is far too late, the newbies will stumble upon my message.  Newbies, welcome.  I am an alum and thus technically a filthy outsider, but I have nonetheless staked out my territory in the Lower Library, and you'll likely see me there frequently.  I shall be pretending to be extremely busy.  If I look as if I am concentrating very hard on something, I am probably drawing comics.  If I look as if I want to strangle someone, I am probably marking.  If I look as if I am dealing with horrors hardly to be imagined, I am probably applying for jobs.  If I look as if I am completely zoned out in every possible way, I am probably doing some sort of work related to scholarly research.  I may even be cramming for my defence.

My gift to you, O Newbies, is this List of Eight Things About Massey Everyone Will Assume You Are Going to Figure Out for Yourself, Even Though You're Probably Not:

1)  If you live in House V, you will want to start each night by placing a pillow over your head.  Put a blanket on top of the pillow and another pillow on top of the blanket.  Then carefully carry the whole structure to the basement of House III.  To stay in House V is to ensure that at 8:00 a.m., you will be catapulted from slumber to terrified wakefulness as the porter rings the huge bell twenty feet from your room exactly eight times.  This will happen every weekday morning.

2)  That extremely loud drilling sound that you hear right now and that is going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on...

...is made by a cicada.

3)  If you breathe on any of the electronic equipment owned by the college, it will probably break.  If you breathe on any of the electronic equipment owned by the college while jabbing violently at it with your fingernails and poking pencils into the holes you have left by prying out the satellite button on the remote control for reasons best known to you, it will certainly break, and everyone at Massey will hate you.

4)  The Lower Library is a study area.  Those people you always see down there talking loudly about the MSN messages they are sending each other even though they are currently three feet apart are figments of your imagination.

5)  It is not possible to get lost in the Massey basement.  I know that a lot of newbies think it is and spend hours wandering forlornly through the hallways, but the simple truth of the matter is that the Massey basement goes in a circle.  If you are able to get lost in a circle, I applaud you and shall publish an account of your adventures in my next Rant.

6)  The Junior Common Room derives its name from the fact that Junior Fellows are allowed to use it twice a week between eleven p.m. and five a.m.  The rest of the time, it belongs to the catering staff.  Various people have proposed that the lounge's name be changed to the Catering Staff Room.  Standing Committee is still in discussion on the matter and should come to a decision by early 2046.

7)  Massey desk chairs were originally designed to be comfortable for giant tailed lizards.  The fact that they are not comfortable for you is entirely your own fault.

8)  At this exact point in time, you may not yet be one of the people who Remembers Ron Thom, Architect.  Never fear:  you will be.

Yoooooooooooouuuuuuuuu wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiillllllllllll beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

Again, welcome to the college.  I'm quite sure you'll like it here.


Monday, August 20, 2007:  Modern Technology Hates Me

My Wacom tablet died yesterday at the age of six and a half months.

Fortunately, it is still under warranty; less fortunately, its loss means that I get to colour next weekend's comic via mouse:  a slow, painful, maddening process that will give me a headache and a cramp in my right hand.  While I'm doing it, I'll probably be pondering the fact that almost every electronic or even mechanical device I own has committed or tried to commit suicide, possibly in an attempt to escape my presence.

Witness:

1)  Since moving to Toronto eight years ago, I have owned five printers.  The first one was destroyed when the movers dropped it the day my stuff arrived at Massey.  The second technically lasted three years, though for about half that period, I had to feed pages into it by hand, one by one, to keep it from jamming every three seconds.  The third lasted for the longest time--nearly four years--but spent the last two years of its life spitting toner blots all over the paper, jamming if I breathed on it, and smelling like burning rubber.  The fourth one was about three months old when it started jamming and making horrible noises whenever I tried to print double-sided.  It also needed a replacement toner cartridge--which cost more than the printer itself had--every two months.  I managed to keep it for almost a year before it died.

Printer number five is new.  It should start to smoke and leak toner any day now.

2)  I cannot keep an answering machine without somehow causing it to become dysfunctional.  My first one cut people off five seconds into their messages.  My second, bought several years later, did the same thing.  My sister finally got tired of answering machine number two and bought me a third--and very good--one for Christmas.  It cuts people off five seconds into their messages.  Not every time, mind you:  just when I've had an important call.

3)  My desktop computer doesn't work terribly well, but as it is eight years old, this isn't surprising.  My laptop situation is a different story.  My first was also eight years old--a hand-me-down from my parents--but my second was brand new.  It lasted for just over a year; then it started fainting unexpectedly at random moments.  The repair people told me it needed a new motherboard, and the extended warranty people got sneaky and, rather than replacing the machine, gave me a cheque that covered its "depreciated value."

My third laptop was half a year old when I knocked it off a low table and onto a pile of papers.  Its screen cracked clear across.  I got it fixed because the repairs cost marginally less than a new computer would have.  This computer's monitor has also always had a habit of flickering disturbingly for no particular reason every once in a while.

4)  My electric piano has a guitar pick lodged beneath its keys.  Most of the time, when you drop a guitar pick on your keyboard, it bounces off.  This one fell in exactly the right place and at exactly the right angle to slip between two of the keys.  The piano rattles when I play it.

5)  I tried to watch a movie on my VCR, which ate the movie.

6)  Even my watches are defective.  I mourn the loss of my thirty-dollar Timex, which is in storage somewhere in BC.  My ultra-expensive Swiss automatic--a graduation gift--has never kept time properly.  It has been in for repairs twice and needs to go in for a third time, though I've sort of given up on it now.  It tends to stop randomly and start again equally randomly.  I can never trust it.

My grandmother's old Timex, which I used for a couple of years after the Swiss watch finally bit it, also stopped randomly, and not just when it needed a new battery.  The watch I'm using now works fine (touch wood) but gives me a skin rash.

I have yet to figure out whether technology is bad luck for me or I am bad luck for technology.


Monday, August 13, 2007:  Little Quad of Horrors:  Excerpt

A Junior Fellow is alone in the Lower Library, frantically working on a thirty-page paper due the next morning.  She is panicking and close to tears.  As she freezes in the middle of a sentence for the fifteenth time, a ghostly figure appears next to her chair.


The Junior Fellow goes back to page six of her paper as Davies fades sadly from view.

I was going to do a parody of "The Rainbow Connection," but unfortunately, it didn't work out.  The "RC" Davies song would have been inspired by this photograph:


Hell...there were a lot of jokes I could have made about this ("I feel pretty...oh so pretty...").  Ah well.  Perhaps some other time.

Driven completely 'round the bend by my students' poor writing and arguing skills, I have recently started a rather belligerent blog in which I rant my way through the essay-writing process.  So far, I have covered thesis statements, the evils of the sandwich method, formality versus informality (with an addendum on the difference between "that" and "which"), brainstorming, and outlining.  This is all slightly less boring than it sounds because I often end up screaming in bold-face and making rude comments about high-school teachers.


Monday, August 6, 2007:  ...And the Bad News Is that None of Us Tried to Strangle Her

It's probably somewhat of a miracle that it's taken me this long to get around to a people-talking-in-movie-theatres Rant.  I blame the fact that I don't go to as many movies as I used to, plus the further fact that I do try to Rant about relevant stuff (Massey, grad school, marking, etc.) every once in a while.  However...this week, I'm going to have to do the film thing.  I've sat beside some obnoxious people in theatres before, but the one who ended up next to me on Friday when Ben, Kevin, and I went to see The Simpsons Movie was truly a fantastic example of complete disregard for one's fellow human beings.

In many ways, I've had worse film-viewing neighbours.  The person who turned up his or her headphones full blast and listened to them all the way through AI, making a bad experience even worse, deserved to go to the Special Hell for selfish filmgoers; what was truly horrifying was that the ushers had no idea where this person was and had to hunt fruitlessly all over the theatre for him/her, since the music was loud enough for everybody in the room to hear.  Slightly more maddening was the idiot who left her cell phone on during Mr. and Mrs. Smith (okay, okay, but I didn't want to be there; we'd tried for some other film and found it was sold out, then settled on M&MS as the least terrible of the alternatives), answering it periodically in order to discuss with various friends the fact that yes, she was watching a movie now, and yes, it was okay, and hey, would they like to talk to her boyfriend?  Until Friday evening, my absolute favourite was the boyfriend of one of George's friends, who came along to Spider-Man 2 and spent the whole film yelling at the screen.  We're talking stuff like, "Way to go, Spidey!"..."The arms are going to be attached to his back!"..."Ouch!  Ouch!"..."Oh, yeah...watch out, Spidey!  Watch...Mary Jane!"  He actually did deserve death, that one.

This latest thoughtless moron did not annoy me as much as Spideyguy, possibly because we were watching a film based on a television show; you sort of expect people to make noise during a viewing of The Simpsons.  Nonetheless, she was pretty amazing.  Those of you who have seen the movie (don't worry, those of you who haven't; I'm not giving anything important away here) know that there's a hilarious scene early on involving Bart and an extended visual gag.  The audience knows the culmination of this gag is coming...but when it does, it has a clever little twist that sets everyone screaming and clapping.  It's pretty damned well done, actually.  The whole sequence lasts for perhaps a minute and a half.

The woman beside me found it all very funny...so funny, in fact, that she laughed all the way through.  Well, fine; so did I.  Most people laugh in ways that can be represented, typographically, as follows:  "Ha ha ha ha ha!"  Some instead go "Hee hee heeee!", "Hyuck-hyuck!", or even "HA!...HA!"  Laughter is generally a pleasant sound.

This woman laughed in a way that can be represented, typographically, as follows:  "Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!  Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!  Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!  Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

Imagine that each "Hoo!" comes out on a high G and at roughly the same volume as a pneumatic drill.  Imagine that this "laughter" starts at the beginning at the sequence in question and continues until the end.  Imagine that when the gag's payoff happens, the laughter--which you are imagining as being right in your ear--does this:  "Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!  Hooooooooooooooooooooo!  HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

She never drew breath.  The high-pitched hooing simply didn't let up.  Ten seconds in, I could no longer feel my brain.

The hooing returned several times during the course of the movie.  In addition, this woman talked loudly throughout the film.  Her comments sunk even below the level of Spideyguy's.  Every thirty seconds or so, I would hear "Go, Homer!" or "They're going to put it over Springfield!" or "She's going down the hole!" or "EPA!" or "Oh, Homer...don't do that!"  At one point, she and her boyfriend enthusiastically discussed the action for a bit.

After the film was over, I somewhat naively asked Ben and Kevin if they had heard the woman beside me.  Ben replied, "I think everyone in the theatre heard the woman beside you."  Kevin admitted that he had mostly been concerned about the fact that she was sitting next to me.  I can actually imagine him sitting there thinking, Oh no!  Oh geez!  Kari's gonna kill that woman!  She's gonna rip her head off!  I'm gonna go to jail as an accessory!  WhatodIdowhatodoIdowhatdoIdo--

All three of us wondered about the boyfriend.  I mean...what was he thinking?  Was he cringing in embarrassment? simply not noticing? cheering her on?  Why was he ever attracted to her in the first place?  Had he once heard her hooing from across a crowded room and fallen in love with the piercing sounds of her amusement?  Was he a robot?  Was he dead inside?

We'll probably never know.  If it means I don't have to sit beside this particular couple ever again, I'm okay with that.


Monday, July 30, 2007:  If Thought of Porpoise Under Miss Havisham's Avatar!

Over the course of the past year, my spam problem has become so absurd that the word "absurd" does not really capture the absurdity of it all.  I must receive twenty pieces of spam per day.  I never delete them because I am lazy and have sort of given up on any sort of inbox maintenance (though I had to get rid of some stuff a few weeks ago when my inbox became so full that all inbound messages bounced back to their recipients), so I have acquired an enormous collection of stupid, pointless e-mails.

The best thing about this spam is that it comes in waves.  One month, everyone is promoting Viagra; the next, ten thousand strangers are urging me to buy Russian art.  Since most of these messages likely come from the same people (I here use "people" in an extremely broad sense of the word; it could mean "people," "random computer programs," or "your dog"), it is unclear why their subjects change.  I can imagine Spambot A sending a message to Spambot B:  F4KE DEGREES OWT MAIL-ORDER BR1DES IN LOLKTHANX.*  Spambot C may then pick up the information via Google.

Here is a brief, enlightening glimpse at some of the less pornographic messages that appeared in my inbox last Thursday and Friday:

Hello! I am bored this afternoon. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at att@linkmailmessage.info only, because I am writing not from my personal email. I will reply with my pics

I received three variants of this e-mail today...from "Cheryl," "Jared," and "Suzanne" (all, I suspect, real people whose addresses are being used to send spam).  If I do not find at least three invitations per day for me to contact a bored "nice girl" who does not understand how to use articles, I am rather surprised.  I've been getting these "nice girl" messages for a week or so.  I have included the spammer's supposed e-mail address (it's a different one every time) in the vain hope that a spambot will pick it up from this website and--yes--start spamming it.

Dear Citizens Bank and Charter One Bank customer,

Citizens Bank & Charter One Bank Customer Service requests you to complete Money Manager GPS Client Online Form.

This procedure is obligatory for all business and corporate clients of Citizens Bank and Charter One Bank.

Please click hyperlink below to access Money Manager GPS Client Online Form.

http://www.xxxxxxxxxxxx

Please do not respond to this email.

(C) Copyright 2007 Citizens Financial Group. All rights reserved.

Dear Spammer:

Do you really think people are that stupid?  What the hell is "Citizens Bank & Charter One Bank"?  Are we talking one bank or two here?  Is this a bank that stores citizens, or did somebody forget an apostrophe?  Who are you...the "nice girl" in the message above?  Neither of you knows what an article is.  When I have completed the "Money Manager GPS Client Online Form," will I be able to locate my bank account anywhere on the globe?  You know...in case it decides to pop off to Italy for a couple of weeks?

I love the copyright notice here.  It's like..."Hello.  I am a spambot.  This is my six hundred and fifty-seventh attempt to get you to e-mail me your bank account number.  Please don't steal the contents of this message."

Ah heh heh heh heh heh...

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There are just some awesome, awesome turns of phrase in this message.  "Most delighting lose flesh product"..."Anatrim, the earth-shaking"..."I always had an astonishing life"..."until I disclosed Anatrim"..."Keep on the useful action!"..."Nothing feels better than gliding into a bikini"..."A lot of thank you!"..."less swallowing frenzy"..."unbreakable Anatrim deal we would like to proud!!!"  It's not standard English, but there's something beautiful about it all the same.  I think Earth-Shaking Anatrim may have been one of the minor Greco-Roman gods, actually.  He always makes me want to proud.  Delighting!

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Still, there was one withheld position lonely worse than the present: it was the shed position reaction he would be in when the ug jam And cried thee wind question, what bath paint thing should be done  As a book to read, Fate gave present cause me kettle want for mine own. It was tear not bring the rector's practice boastfully to let a street charming blush pass without an appropriate compliment. He  "I was right," she said to herself, when care attraction she had recalled slit all their scenes body of discussion--"I feel I "Ha, Miss Nancy," he balance said, frame turning his head within woken his cravat and smiling enormously down pleasantly upon her, This pencil possibility fly scream was Nancy's chief comfort; and hate to give it greater strength, she laboured to make it cat Through gold Hellas, mad, band lashed like minute a burning wheel; On this Sunday purpose afternoon it was supply already pull four years since cold there had been any allusion to the subject

This is one of those messages that cover a block of words--sometimes just nonsense, but sometimes bits of Charles Dickens or Jane Austen--with an ad or pornographic image.  As I am using a text-based e-mail client, I never see the picture...just the words.  I thought this example was particularly interesting because it 1) was so long and 2) demonstrated that the spammer had, rather than plundering a single author, plundered all the authors who had ever existed, then misquoted them religiously.  You have to be a special kind of spambot to steal, conflate, and garble to the extent that this one has.  The result is sort of a cross between Vogon poetry and the words of a heavily drugged-up oracle.

Your ears are probably bleeding by this point, so I'll stop now.  Keep on the useful action, all.

*Yes, I do imagine spambots talking to each other in leet.

---

One more note:

This is what happens when you leave your apartment without your hat when you know you will be spending the entire day in the sun, then stop at a dollar store for a last-minute three-dollar-baseball-cap purchase:



Monday, July 23, 2007:  Random Song Parody / Harry Potter and the End of the Suspense

Do not fear, O You Who Have Not Yet Finished HP7; though the review below is full of terrible, terrible spoilers, it is also invisible.  Those who want to see it should locate the large blank space beneath the song parody, say "Aparecium," and highlight the space in question.  The review will appear (and even be easier to read, as it will, with luck, be black on white rather than white on black).  If you haven't got through the book yet, you can read the parody fearlessly; there is no danger of you seeing the spoilers unless you have a particularly twitchy highlighting finger.

The parody, provided specifically for the amusement of those who couldn't care less about the Harry Potter books, is not Potter-themed at all; it's one I wrote a while ago for Massey-unrelated reasons and am only now forcing upon the Massey community, mostly because Piled Higher and Deeper's recent Grease parody reminded me of its existence.  For best effect, sing it to the tune of "Beauty-School Dropout" from Grease.

Ph.D. Dropout

Your story sad to tell,
An adult ne'er-do-well
Procrastinating post-grad deep in debt!
Your future's so unclear now.
What's left of your career now?
Don't you know what the hell you're doing yet?

Angels: (La lalala lalala lalala...)

Ph.D dropout,
No graduation day for you.
Ph.D dropout,
Missed your classes, then your comps too!

Well at least you could have really tried to reach your convocation
After spending all that dough to write a useless dissertation!

Lady, get moving (Lady, get moving).
Why keep your feeble hopes alive?
What are you proving (What are you proving)?
You've got the dream but not the drive.

If you try again, you may succeed, though I cannot see how.
Turn in your office keys and join the real world now!

Ph.D dropout (Ph.D dropout),
Three months delinquent on the rent.
Ph.D dropout (Ph.D dropout),
Thinking of living in a tent.

Well they couldn't teach you anything. You thought you had a thesis,
But your supervisor ripped it up and danced upon the pieces.

Lady, don't sweat it (Don't sweat it),
You're not cut out for academe.
Better forget it (Forget it),
Find a less peculiar dream.

Yes, you've paid your dues, but I've some news for you: please take a bow.
It's time to face the facts: you're part of the real world now.

Lady, don't blow it.
Don't put my good advice to shame.
Lady, you know it.
Even your profs would say the same!

Now I've called the shot, get off the pot; I really gotta fly:
Gotta be going to that tenure in the sky!

Ph.D dropout (Ph.D dropout),
Join in the real world,
Ph.D dropout (Ph.D dropout),
Join in the real world,
Ph.D dropout (Ph.D dropout),
Join in the real world...


Writing is, in many ways, rather like juggling.  In both cases, you toss several balls up into the air and spend some time attempting not to let any of them fall; whether the "balls" in question are plot strands, characters, revelations, and back story or simply balls is immaterial.  A good author, like a good juggler, will make the process seem effortless.  In reality, however, she is having to pay constant attention to the balls' trajectories, making sure to toss them all as evenly as possible into the air so that they come down exactly where they should and she doesn't lose her grip on a single one.  If she drops one ball, the likelihood is relatively high that she will lose control of the pattern, possibly even causing the whole thing to collapse in chaos.

Juggling is a skill; done well, it can be an art.  J. K. Rowling, author of the seven Harry Potter novels, is a skilled juggler.  Yet in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, she may drop a few too many balls to be considered an artist.  This is not to say that the novel is a bad one; it is, on various occasions, suspenseful, funny, very slightly raunchy, moving, intriguing, and thematically complex.  The problem, I think, is that Rowling has overestimated her own expertise.  She simply has too many balls in the air, and inevitably, some of them slip from her grasp.

HP7 starts dark and gets darker.  Harry and his friends are on the run; Voldemort, who is on the verge of taking over the Ministry of Magic and turning it into a Mudblood-identification machine (yes, there are shades of the Holocaust here), is determined to eliminate the greatest threat to his continued ascendancy, and now, when Harry is about to leave the magical protection of his bond with the Dursleys forever, is his best time to act.  The death of Mad-Eye Moody in the resulting battle sets the tone for the rest of the novel, as Mad-Eye is, if not Voldemort's equivalent (as Dumbledore was), at least Snape's.  With him gone, the balance tips in favour of the Death Eaters, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione soon find themselves outlaws, camping in the wilderness as they attempt to track down and eliminate the four remaining Horcruxes that are keeping Voldemort from being killed for good.  In the course of their search, they realise that Voldemort himself has undertaken a parallel quest as he seeks out the Elder Wand, one of the Deathly Hallows (three magical objects that, when united, are said to give the bearer power over death).  Harry and the others must both find the Horcruxes and worry about the Hallows, especially the Wand, which gives enormous power to the bearer.  At the same time, Harry is struggling with his new knowledge of Dumbledore's sordid past.

So far, so good.  Unfortunately, the introduction of the Hallows may constitute at least one ball too many.  Rowling is very fond of retconning her fantasy world--a little too fond, I would argue--and the sudden appearance of three wonderful objects that distract Harry from what has become a meandering, directionless quest both unnecessarily clutter the plot and cause Rowling to lose her grip on some of the other elements of the story.  The Mudblood plot fades in and out of importance before vanishing forever.  The giants and centaurs seem tacked onto the great battle at the end; the centaurs, in particular, mimic the tardy Eagles in The Hobbit, though they seem considerably less well motivated.  Certain characters nearly disappear.  Tonks, who is so fun in HP5, is relegated to the role of Pregnant Little Wifey (how many times does Rowling call her "radiant"?); Snape, around whom HP6 revolves, almost vanishes after chapter 1 and then turns up briefly 524 pages in, only to be killed casually by Voldemort; Ginny, Harry's love interest, whose magical abilities have been pointed out frequently by Rowling throughout the past two books, spends most of her time offstage; Percy's last-minute redemption seems to be an afterthought; Neville gets his moment of glory, but only after roughly five hundred pages of hardly being mentioned by anybody; Hagrid, who is admittedly a rather annoying character, is Harry's last surviving father-figure but doesn't even have a private moment with his surrogate son at the end of the book (after bearing what is supposedly Harry's body tearfully to the castle, too).  What should be important deaths--especially Snape's and Lupin's--happen briefly or behind the scenes.  The reader may get the sense that as Rowling neared the end of HP7, she began to realise just how many characters she had created and started struggling to fit them all in.

For there is a certain abruptness to a lot of the character work here.  Why do we see Percy's, not George's, reaction to Fred's death?  Fred and George are twins; Percy has spent the last three books and most of the present one brown-nosing the Minister for Magic.  Oh, sure, he deserves a redemption scene, but it really does seem as if Rowling must have paused near the end of the novel and gone, "Bloody hell...I forgot about Percy!", then written George out of the Dead Fred scene and inserted the older brother (whose personality seems to have undergone a complete transformation, by the way).  As well, Kreacher's metamorphosis into Mr. Nice Elf happens almost instantly.  Sure, Harry gives him Regulus' locket.  That changes his entire outlook on life, does it?  Rowling is already on thin ice with her House Elves, who come perilously close to being caricatures of Happy Slaves Who Are Genetically Predispositioned to Slavery; the suggestion that one half-hearted act of semi-kindness could turn the repellent Kreacher into a Good Guy is pretty...well, dubious.  Ron's defection and return also seem a little artificial.  They could be handled believably, but they're just not.  Even Harry's emergence as a "selfless" (Dumbledore's word) hero-cum-Christ-figure (he does not, as I several years ago predicted he would, harrow Azkaban, but he does harrow both the Ministry and Malfoy Manor, and he certainly dies to save the wizards on his side--conferring a magical protection on them in the process--and then rises from the dead to vanquish Voldemort/Antichrist) seems a little jarring for someone as self-absorbed as Harry can often be.  Hell...the kid has had a different personality in each of the last four books.

The "important-offstage-happenings" problem is not confined to deaths.  One of the balls Rowling drops is, a little surprisingly, the one representing the Horcruxes.  This novel is supposed to be all about Harry's Horcrux Hunt; he needs to find and destroy the damned things before he can tackle Voldemort.  As many (including me) suspected would happen, Harry turns out to be the seventh Horcrux and thus must die (albeit briefly) in order that Voldemort be defeated.  However, he has to get rid of four other Horcruxes as well.  The hunt for the first one takes up almost exactly half the book.  The second one is secured a little over a hundred pages later (four hundred-odd pages in), but Our Heroes have no idea how to destroy it, since in gaining it, they have lost the basilisk-venom-imbued sword they need to complete the task.  Rowling has here written herself into a bit of a corner.  She gets herself out by yet again having essential story-bits happening offstage.  While Harry is wandering sadly through the Great Hall at Hogwarts, neglecting his Horcrux-seeking duties (a fact of which the underused Professor McGonagall reminds him), his best friends are apparently quite busy, which we know because soon afterwards we get the equivalent of:  "Hi, Harry!  While you have been angsting, Ron has somehow learned Parseltongue, which he has used to open the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, thus allowing us to descend miles beneath Hogwarts, remove several fangs from the skull of the basilisk you killed in your second year, and destroy the Hufflepuff Horcrux!  We also brought some fangs back with us in case we need them for the Ravenclaw Horcrux.  We have done something essential and proven that Ron is not completely useless!  Isn't that brilliant?"  Soon afterwards, of course, the Ravenclaw Horcrux is destroyed accidentally by a special kind of fire conjured mindlessly by the idiotic Crabbe.  The basilisk fangs never do come in useful.  By the time Neville slices off Nagini's head, the Horcrux plot has almost faded into the background.

You might think that this fading would allow the three-dimensional Severus Snape a brief moment in the spotlight; Snape, after all, is Harry's up-close-and-personal enemy, a Voldemort-substitute who excites Harry's hatred because he is not a monster per se but a traitor.  The traitor figure of any given story is often a very interesting one because the traitor is, by nature, conflicted.  A traitor such as Wormtail, who is treacherous out of weakness, soon loses our interest, but a strong traitor such as Snape is intriguing.  The fact that Snape's "treachery" is actually part of an enormous, selfless sacrifice on his part makes his story that much more poignant.  Yes, perhaps it is a cliche that Snape acts as he does for the love of Harry's mother, but it doesn't particularly matter.  Harry's mother has, by the end of the novel, been dead for nearly seventeen years.  Snape protects a boy he loathes and makes himself look like a heartless, murdering betrayer for the sake of his memory of a shattered friendship with a girl who chose another man over him.  He has far more dimension than Harry, who never even fights against the self-sacrifice he knows is the only way to defeat Voldemort for good.  Harry has to choose between life and death; Snape has to choose between outward (but useless) heroism and outward (but heroic) ignominy.  Harry's late description of Snape as "probably the bravest man [he] ever knew" is pretty damned accurate.

However, Snape hardly has a say here; he dies before he and Harry can so much as exchange hellos. His tragedy is, in a way, made more poignant by the futility of his death and the fact that Harry only learns the truth of his role after Snape is gone.  I would have liked to see them confront each other, but I recognise that Rowling's choice here was a hard but good one.  My problem with this storyline is that Harry never reacts to his new knowledge of Snape.  Though it is admittedly true that he is busy contemplating his own death at the time, could he not have spared Snape a short paragraph of thought?  It can't be easy to realise that someone you've hated for nearly seven years has actually championed you more thoroughly than a man whom you idolised and yet who has apparently been coolly plotting your death.  It can't be easy to identify with Snape.  I know it would have created problems, but I wish that when Harry had called back his dead parental figures to accompany him into the Forbidden Forest as he went to confront his last, darkest "parent"--Voldemort--he had included Snape in the group.

HP7 is a good read.  Even in the middle bits, which involve far too much camping and a great many protestations from the now-predictable three central characters that they have no idea what they are actually doing, the novel is a page-turner; I read so steadily on Saturday that I actually made myself slightly ill.  Nonetheless, the book is frustrating as well.  The epilogue is a case in point, as it takes the action forward nineteen years, allowing Rowling to tie her story up in a neat little bow (look...Harry's kids are going off to Hogwarts with Ron's and Malfoy's!) but simultaneously forces us away from the bits of the action we care about.  It's nice that she avoids the HP6 trap--at the end of that book, she provides several chapters of exposition in which the characters recount exactly what we have just seen happen ourselves--but it's less nice that she skips any kind of denouement at all, leaving several threads hanging.  The wrap-up is another dropped ball.

Frankly, Rowling shows skill in keeping as many balls in the air as she does; the dropped ones interfere with the pattern but do not, in the end, destroy it.  The novel is neither a complete triumph nor an utter disappointment.  It is eminently worth reading and discussing, and if the discussion is mostly criticism, that's okay too.  A truly bad book would provoke indifference.  HP7 does not come close to doing that.  We may smile ruefully every time a ball goes tumbling out of the pattern, but we certainly can't keep our eyes off the other balls.

******

As the books are now finished with (let us hope) forever, I think a bit of an RIP is in order...yes, for good and evil characters alike.  Let me know if I've missed anyone; I probably have.

RIP James Potter, Lily Potter, Professor Quirrell, Bertha Jorkins, Frank Bryce, Barty Crouch Senior, Cedric Diggory, Sirius Black, Albus Dumbledore, Hedwig, Alastor Moody, Peter Pettigrew, Dobby, Fred Weasley, Vincent Crabbe, Colin Creevey, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Bellatrix Lestrange, Lord Voldemort (all seven of him)...

...and Severus Snape.


Monday, July 16, 2007:  Harry Potter and the Predictions Kari Isn't Really Making About Book Seven (HERE BE SPOILERS.  AND DRAGONS.  AND THINGS)

First of all:  no, I am not obsessed with Harry Potter.  I am very, very fond of fantasy--especially kids' fantasy--and enjoy discussing it.  Usually, however, most people don't know what I'm talking about when I rave about some book or other.  Now that Harry Potter's come along, everyone knows what I'm talking about.  So let me indulge myself.  It will all be over soon.

Next:

Several years ago, just after Book 4 came out, I made some predictions--at a Massey Junior Fellow Lecture, natch--about the remaining HP books.  Some of them have panned out; some of them haven't.  I could follow in my own footsteps and make some more predictions about Book 7, but with one exception, I don't think I shall.  Every possible thing that could happen in Book 7 has already been predicted by somebody; my own opinions are redundant.  I'm not even going to try to guess whether or not Harry will survive the book (mostly because I can't decide; my folkloric spidey-sense is tingling and telling me that Harry has to die because of the story's tragic impetus, while my narratological spidey-sense is tingling and telling me that if Rowling has to break her third-person limited omniscient narration at the end of a story--she's had scenes without Harry at the beginnings of a couple of books now, but otherwise, it's all about Harry--she's not going to know exactly what to do).  What happens...happens.  It will be fun to read about it.

Instead, I'm going to provide a short continuation of my old lecture, in which I did predict one thing I would now like to discuss:  every Harry Potter book follows the same basic pattern.  My sole prediction for Book 7 (not a difficult one to make) is that it will continue to follow this pattern.  As well, the seven books together will themselves fit a larger version of it.  If they don't, I shall stomp on the books and cry, for then they will truly be disappointingly pointless.  Anyway...

The pattern in question is the hoary old "journey of the hero"...the tracking of the hero from unusual birth through difficult childhood to a quest into the unknown and back.  More specifically, Harry is a hero addicted to descending into the underworld (a frequent activity of the hero and usually an essential part of his story, though the "underworld" is not always "under" anything and therefore technically qualifies as an "otherworld").  People who think Rowling is a bit of a twit claim she is following this pattern unintentionally and mindlessly.  I beg to differ; the first two books, in particular, are proof that she is conscious of precedents.  Take this short overview of the six books thus far:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone:  Harry, Ron, and Hermione must use music to get past a three-headed dog and descend into the bowels of Hogwarts, where they (or Harry; for different reasons, the others don't make it all the way) overcome five challenges in order to find a stone that gives the user eternal life.  If you take note of the fact that Cerberus, the three-headed dog that guards the entrance to the Greco-Roman underworld, can be charmed by music--as well as the fact that there are five rivers in this underworld--then it becomes fairly clear that Harry is here negotiating a pale shadow of Hades.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets:  This one is a bit more complex.  First, have a common folk-tale type:

A princess is stolen by a dragon and removed to an underworld.  A boy journeys, with two treacherous companions, to a well that serves as the underworld's entrance.  The companions, themselves too frightened to accompany him, let him down on a rope.  He finds the dragon and slays it using a magic sword he discovers in the monster's lair.  The companions pull the princess to the surface but leave the hero where he is; he must ask a friendly eagle to carry him back to the daylight world.  He exposes the treacherous companions in front of the princess's parents, then marries the princess and becomes king.  (There are sometimes three princesses, but that's beside the point.)

In HP2, a young girl is stolen by a wizard with the help of a basilisk (a very large snake) and removed to a secret room beneath Hogwarts.  Harry journeys, with one treacherous companion, Lockhart, and his best friend, Ron, to a bathroom sink that serves as the underworld's entrance.  He and Ron force Lockhart to descend with them; when they reach the underworld, Lockhart, too frightened to accompany the others, attempts to betray them and ends up erasing his own memory.  Harry proceeds alone.  He finds the basilisk and slays it using a magic sword he discovers in the monster's lair.  He and his companions ask a friendly phoenix to carry them back to the daylight world.  Harry exposes the treacherous companion in front of the girl's parents (and starts dating her in book six, but that, too, is beside the point).

If Rowling doesn't know what she is doing here, HP2 is frighteningly coincidental.  Or Rowling is psychic.  One or the other.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:  At this point, Rowling abandons exact models, but she continues with the underworld descents.  Harry and his friends must pass a threshold guardian (the Whomping Willow) and descend beneath the Hogwarts grounds, emerging in the "haunted" Shrieking Shack, where it turns out that the underworld in question here is, metaphorically, time:  Harry encounters his father's past in the form of James Potter's three best friends.  Then, when he himself actually has to go back in time, he essentially becomes his father through his use of a Patronus charm that takes the same shape James did when he transformed into an animal.  Not incidentally, Harry also rescues his new father figure, Sirius.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire:  Harry and Cedric travel through a maze (a common underworld entrance) and end up in a graveyard (also a common underworld entrance, for obvious reasons).  There Cedric dies, and Voldemort returns to life.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:  Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Neville, and Ginny descend to the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic in order to effect another rescue, this time of Harry's father figure, Sirius.  Among other curiosities, the Department of Mysteries contains a "veil" that turns out to represent death and what lies beyond it.  I hate Lacanian psychoanalysis, but if you like it, you may want to note that Harry goes in search of the Benevolent Father (Sirius) and finds the Obscene Father (Voldemort).  Sirius falls through the veil; the others barely survive.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince:  Harry and Dumbledore descend into a cave.  They pass a water barrier (a common underworld obstacle) infested with Inferi (zombies) in order to get at what they think is a piece of Voldemort's soul, though it turns out to be a fake.

I predict one more descent in Book 7:  one that will act as the culmination of all these smaller descents and perhaps even cause Harry himself to enter a final, permanent underworld:  the realm of death.  A few years ago, I thought the Book 7 underworld might turn out to be an Azkaban still under the control of the Dementors, and that Harry, as a hero and a type of Christ (often the same thing), would harrow it; this is looking less likely now.  We shall see.

It also remains to be seen whether Harry's final underworld descent will tie the other descents together meaningfully or simply be tired, mindless repetition.  Like the whole death issue, it could go either way.


Monday, July 9, 2007:  Random Rants of the Day / Harry Potter and the Unconvincing Death Scenes (AGAIN, THERE ARE HUGE, GIGANTIC SPOILERS HERE)

1)  For the very first time in my life, I have developed noticeable triceps ("noticeable," that is, when I deliberately flex them while staring very, very hard at my arms and willing myself to see the tiny bulges that sometimes appear there).  I have never exactly had the most toned arms--or legs, or abdomen muscles, or, well, body--in the world, and so the birth of these unexpected triceps is a happy thing.  What is slightly embarrassing is how I got them.  It says something for how out-of-shape I generally am that twenty minutes of juggling per day has had an effect on my physique.  Yep.  Juggling.  Not even particularly complex or strenuous juggling.  I can do a three-ball cascade with what are probably underweight beanbags.  On Saturday, I managed seventy-six catches in a row...a record for me.  And this sort of thing has slightly bulked out my triceps.  Ah well.

2)  I would like to take all ear-worms, stomp them flat, load them onto some sort of rocket, and aim them directly at the sun.  It's bad enough when I've been writing or arranging music and can't get the damn stuff out of my head.  At least eventually I'll learn these songs off by heart, and they'll fade.  When Broadway invades, however, there's no stopping it.  I have to sit down at the bloody piano and teach myself the songs.  And they won't leave until I have memorised the lyrics and the chords and have been able to play and sing them effortlessly for a week.

My current ear-worms of "choice" are Colm Wilkinson's fault.  A week and a half ago, a few of us went down to the CN Tower for the inaugural lighting-up ceremony.  Mr. Wilkinson, best known for his portrayals of the Phantom of the Opera and Jean Valjean, started off the proceedings with nearly an hour of music...everything from Broadway ballads ("Niiiiiiiiight-tiiiiiiiiime shaaaaaarpeeeeeeens, heeeeiiiiiiiiiiighteeeeeeeens eeeeeeeeach sensaaaaaatiooooooooon...") to Country and Western ("I've got my mojo workin', but it just don't work on you").  The songs that stuck, however, were "Man of La Mancha" and "The Impossible Dream" (both from Man of La Mancha, natch).  I left the celebrations with several free glowy things and two ear-worms, both of which I then made worse by looking up the songs in my Broadway fake book.  I am now liable to stop halfway down Bloor Street and belt out, "I am I, Don Quixote, the lord of La Mancha; destroyer of evil am I!"  This is not a good thing.

3)  Go see Ratatouille.  Truly.  Thank you, Pixar, for ensuring that not every animated movie is about penguins.  Thank you, Brad Bird, for being Brad Bird.  Thank you, Cars, for fading from my memory so quickly.  Pixar's still got it, folks.

Now, dear Pixar, what you have to do next is make a movie about a girl.  You are Pixar.  You can do this and not lose half your audience.  I have nothing against movies about boys, but--sweet Pixar--you are in danger of falling into a Rut here.  Though Ratatouille is great, its hero, Remy, is really quite a lot like Flick, the protagonist of A Bug's Life.  You need to shake it up a bit...get away from your three main formulae (yes, Pixar is formulaic.  It is generally formulaic in a fresh, original sort of way, but that may not last forever):  1) Outcast With Talents Not Meshing With His Surroundings Finds His Niche (A Bug's Life, Ratatouille), 2) Powerful Figure In the Community, Who Doesn't Realise He Has Fallen Into a Rut, Is Shaken Up By Events Beyond His Control and Must Reevaluate His Life While Simultaneously Finding Himself (Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Cars), and 3)  Formerly Confident Character, So Wounded By Past Experiences That He Has Lost Interest in Most Things, Discovers a New Lease on Life When His Family Is In Danger (Finding Nemo, The Incredibles).  Girls, Pixar!  Not princesses or, like, teenagers who are sooooooo interested in, like, boys, either.  Girls!  Jessie of Toy Story 2, Dory of Finding Nemo, and Mrs. Incredible of The Incredibles are all great.  Give a girl like that her own movie, O Mighty Pixar.

Oh...and Collette of Ratatouille is pretty fun too.  Her "Do you know why there are so few female chefs?" speech is a highlight of the film.

4)  One of my biggest complaints about Rowling's Potter books (besides whiny Harry...the whole tired good-vs.-evil thing...the public's infuriating collective belief that the Harry books have "revolutionised" a tired genre when all they have really done is drawn people's attention back to it...etc.) is that Rowling has no idea how to write death.  This is actually a fairly unusual blind spot for an author to have.  "Death is easy; laughter is hard" runs the maxim, and for the most part, it holds.  Sure, writing death really well isn't exactly simple.  There are plenty of melodramatic, tear-soaked death scenes out there (*cough* third Matrix movie *cough*); opera has practically made an art of that sort of thing.  "Alas, my dearest, I am dying of consumption, though I have also stabbed myself because of my wild passion for you, plus I am pining away after having sacrificed the best years of my life...for love!  I shall mingle my voice with yours in what is really a metaphor for intercourse, though I am dying of various ailments at the same time, and after I expire on a high note that I shall hold for thirty seconds, you will clasp my cooling corpse in your manly arms and wildly cry out my name.  Farewell!"  Curtain falls.  Audience members blow noses.

Rowling takes the opposite approach.  Her death scenes are stiff to the point of awkwardness.  Take, for instance, the one in book four.  Cedric is alive...Cedric gets blasted...Rowling writes, "Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside [Harry].  He was dead."  Ta-da.  End of story.  Thank you very much...merci beaucoup.

Now, in a way, this kind of skeletal description is refreshing.  We don't have to sit through an interminable aria; instead, we get the wham, bam, thank you, ma'am treatment.  We're not confused by it, either.  Cedric dies.  Rowling leaves no doubt in our minds.  You can't get much clearer than, "He was dead."  Maybe "His head had popped off" or "He no longer had any internal organs" would work in the same way.  But...hey...at least we definitely know he's dead, right?  And...well...that's about it, really.  We know he's dead.  Period.

Rowling is generally pretty good at showing instead of telling.  Most of the time, she is able to provide sparse but evocative descriptions that are easy to visualise.  She doesn't over-describe; she doesn't under-describe.  The death scenes are different.  "He was dead."  Well, okay, then.  Has Rowling ever seen anyone die?  Has she ever even known anyone who has died?  I've got to say that it doesn't work like that (for me, at least.  Perhaps everyone else in the world is different, and I'm just some sort of strange anomaly).  Denial does kick in almost immediately.  It's a strange and uncomfortable feeling, denial.  Thinking "He can't be dead" about someone who is two feet away from you...hurts.  Thinking "He can't be dead; I have to have misheard, even though I'm now surrounded by people who also know he's dead, so I just won't mention it, since obviously I misheard, and if I say anything, everyone will laugh at me" is even stranger.  Harry hasn't seen death since the age of one.  And now someone has been killed right in front of him...and Rowling is writing from his perspective...and what she writes is, "He was dead"...

To be fair, she does go on in the next paragraph:  "Harry stared into Cedric's face, at his open grey eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house, at his half-open mouth, which looked slightly surprised."  In many ways, I wish she had included this sentence and left out the whole "He was dead" thing.  The sentence--on its own--certainly lets the reader know that Cedric is dead (while leaving a bit of room for the requisite, "What...?  Nooooooo!"), but it also allows Harry some time to come to grips with his situation without immediately grasping exactly what is going on.  Even more frustrating is the fact that the next few pages include very few of Harry's thoughts.  Those that do appear are along the lines of, "I'm tied really tightly" and, "Uh-oh...that man just cut off his own hand."  The rest of the time, we're just watching the scene from an omniscient-third-person point of view.

I know I'm being unfair here.  Rowling does try to avoid cloying sentiment in connection with her deaths (yes, even Dumbledore's; in many ways, he dies as abruptly and prosaically as Cedric), and she does get better at the whole denial thing in the fifth and sixth books.  It's just...why do the deaths prompt her to move from showing to telling?  Sirius "dies" by falling through a curtain; we know he's dead because Luna says he is.  Harry will not accept Sirius' death (and who can blame him?  Sirius has just fallen through a curtain, for crying out loud).  Dumbledore is blasted in the chest and knocked off a balcony.  Again, Harry can't believe it, though he does actually accept the situation more quickly than the other characters.  And again, we have to have the words "Dumbledore is dead" spoken by Harry himself...just in case we hadn't noticed.  The problem, I think, is that Rowling is trying so hard to avoid falling into the operatic trap of Hideous Melodrama that she forgets to insert any real emotion into her death scenes at all.

I wish her luck with book seven, in which she is apparently going to kill off at least two major characters.  If she does it well, I shall probably pause in my reading long enough to cheer.


Monday, July 2, 2007:  Ode to Summer TAships / Harry Potter and the Problem of Snape (SPOILERS:  Books 1 - 6.  Yes, really.  No, you don't want to read the Harry bit of the Rant if you haven't got to Book 6 yet.  I give you fair warning)

At last it is summer!  Oh, baskets of bliss!
You cannot know how long I've waited for this.
I have to TA, but I'm sure I won't miss
The time I spend marking this June.

At last it is summer!  Oh--what did you say?
I have to mark seventy term tests today?
Er...right.  I'll just get all that out of the way.
I'm sure I'll be finished by noon.

At last it is sum--well, my head is in pain.
These seventy term tests have eaten my brain.
I'm finished!...and now to start over again,
Then gouge out my eyes with a spoon.

At last--just forget it.  My summer is gone.
I work until midnight and dread every dawn.
I'll have to accept it and pin my hopes on
The autumn.  Oh, let it come soon!

Characterisation in the Harry Potter books is not particularly complex.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Charles Dickens is possibly the best-known relatively recent (I'm a medievalist; anything under four hundred years old is "relatively recent" to me) author to use flat protagonists successfully...not every time, but Oliver Twist, which surrounds flat little Oliver and the flat people trying to save him with some decidedly round minor characters and villains, is a case in point.  Though too much flatness can become wearing, when used well in a certain type of story, it is occasionally very effective.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Our Heroes, are pretty flat.  Oh, Rowling has tried to inject a bit of Darkness into Harry in recent books, but she has really just succeeded in making him sulky and--to be frank--kind of dumb.  It has got to the point where Harry's flatness constitutes his inability to behave rationally in the face of danger.  Professor Dumbledore is going to tell me a terrible secret and enlist my help in what may be the last desperate struggle against the Forces of Evil?  But...but I want to lose myself in petty hatred and have temper tantrums about my feelings!  Kind of human, perhaps, but the effect is to identify Harry as not the brightest bulb in the packet.  Most halfway intelligent people in his situation would recognise that the emotions, though genuine and worrying, were maybe getting in the way of the actual situation at actual hand and put them aside for a few seconds while attempting to, you know, not let Lord Voldemort win.  I have a horrible and sometimes uncontrollable temper.  I know that horrible and sometimes uncontrollable tempers can, in desperate circumstances, be controlled.  Hate Snape later, Harry.  Quell the Dark Lord now.

Snape.  There's the rub.  Currently, Snape is the one character in the HP universe who demonstrates the potential not to be flat.  If Rowling is able to harvest this potential, she will be pulling a bit of a Dickens...but if she lets it fall by the wayside, she may shunt her story into the Land of Perpetual Cliché and cause many of her most loyal readers to hunt her down and fling books at her head.  At this point, so many people are in the Most Loyal Readers Club that I really don't think she wants that to happen.

Severus Snape is a greasy-haired, hook-nosed, dark-complexioned (Rowling's description, not mine) double (or triple?) agent...a spy for either Voldemort or Dumbledore...an incredibly unfair teacher with what seems to be an irrational hatred of one of his students...and, it seems, Dumbledore's murderer.  And a lot of people love him as a character.  The same love is not afforded to Voldemort or the Malfoys; only Snape possesses whatever quality leads readers to fly to his defence when other more cynical readers suggest that Snape has been on Voldemort's side all along.  There is, in fact, something about Snape.  It's something that Harry and his little friends lack...something that it will be interesting if Harry eventually acquires.  Harry has the capacity for it, though he probably doesn't know he does...and since to tap it he will have to follow in Snape's footsteps and not his father's, it is possible he never will.

What Snape has, uniquely among all the HP characters, is the ability not to see the world in terms of good and evil, black and white, us and them.  It is unclear which side he is on.  As early as Book 1, Snape is seeming evil (stereotypically so, in appearance and behaviour) while doing good, and until the end of Book 6, he apparently continues in this role, hovering malevolently over a story full of knights and dragons, blowing flames while handing out the magical swords.  He is a nasty piece of work, twisted and malevolent and set up for the reader to loathe...and he is on our side.  The message seems to be the rather simplistic "Don't judge a book by its cover"...until Snape kills Dumbledore and runs away to Voldemort.  The scene raises certain delicious questions:  Is the book, after all, inherent in its cover?  Or is the cover more subtly misleading than we thought?  Or...are we actually reading the wrong book?

An acquaintance of mine wants Snape to turn out to be wholly evil; she says that Rowling will be selling out if he doesn't.  I think that Rowling will be selling out if he does.  Sure, a lot of people have predicted that Snape will be revealed to be a triple agent who has murdered Dumbledore at Dumbledore's own request in order to cement himself in Voldemort's confidence, so maybe the revelation of Snape's triple agency would not constitute one of Rowling's trademark "twists," but as I implied last week, there are really no more surprises possible in the HP universe.  Every twist will have been predicted by someone.  Snape has, so far, been shaping up as what might even turn out to be a refreshingly unlikable tragic figure whose possible unrequited love for Harry's dead mother is both what drives him and what makes him what he is.  To turn him entirely evil would be to deny HP its bump in the landscape, its bit of confused, confusing roundness blundering through perpetual flatness.

It would also be to deny Harry the chance to become round...to find himself in a position in which "doing the right thing" looks awfully like betrayal, and to realise that good and evil do not simply leach into each other but tend to mix so thoroughly that occasionally they can't be told apart.


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