(no subject)

[cleolinda]

So it seems to have gone pretty well--I basically went in there and said, "Look, I like some of the book, but some of it's kind of crackheaded. Like where she talks about the palm frond motif in Matisse paintings that... don't actually have any palm fronds. And doesn't link it to any kind of higher universal 'Well, he was in Nice, and that's what beauty does, it imprints on you in indirect and less-than-literal ways as well as literal ways.' Just... talks about palm fronds in paintings that don't have them. Here, she did really crappy ink sketches to show you, rather than get the rights to reprint the paintings or anything." Fortunately, the professor was like, "Uh, yeah... and that doesn't even start to cover the problems I have with the book," so it went over pretty well. Thanks for all the good wishes. : )

The class itself was pretty wild--the prof ducked out for about fifteen minutes at the beginning, leaving the eight of us to sit around this table and shoot the breeze, as we do, and then Tabitha discovered A GIANT SPIDER in the huge bowl light fixture over our heads, and we spent several minutes shrieking at it as, once it had been disturbed, it started racing around and around the bowl. Seriously, it was huge--probably the diameter of a softball, with an unusually thin body and unusually thick legs --or so they tell me, because I wasn't about to get up there and check. Tabitha did, and then Regan did--like, seriously, got up and stood on the table. Regan was wearing an ankle-length skirt and I think socks with her shoes; she's a very cool, down-to-earth, modest poet/writer type, and the only guy in our class, Chris, is really sweet and fairly quiet, so you see why it was hilarious when he pulled out a dollar and started waving it at her. And meanwhile, Tressa was high on fever and Excedrin ("I don't normally take any kind of pills, you guys! I have no tolerance!"), which meant that she was kind of woozy ("You guys, I have too many limbs"), but surprisingly lucid--maybe more so than the rest of us--when it came to talking about this book ("Maybe I should be high more often..."). And meanwhile, I'm going ninety-to-nothing because the class is so short and I've got to get in 120 pages of highly abstract Harvard-Chair-of-Aesthetics rambling about the nature of beauty, talking with my hands like that's somehow going to make it any clearer, and I'm all like, "So she's talking about how beauty is sacred, and in her example she uses Homer's Odysseus monologue about meeting Nausicaa and how she's like nothing he's ever seen, but--wait, there was this palm tree he saw (that's actually how the monologue goes: '--wait') so beauty is both unprecedented and takes as its only precedent that which is also unprecedented--you guys, how's the spider doing? Still up there? Not coming down? Sweet--but I don't really see how she establishes that all beauty is sacred just because, in her example, this palm tree is growing by a temple. I mean, I see where she's going, but she skips a few steps in her logic or something," and the professor's all like, "And how do you even DEFINE what sacred IS? Which she doesn't even TRY to do," so I think it went fairly well. Sweet.

Comments

[marprelate.livejournal.com]

sweet.

[musikologie.livejournal.com]

That rocks. Go you!

[all-ephemera.livejournal.com]

Aww yeah, rock on!

[shesnotallthere.livejournal.com]

Okay...reading that made me tired. :o) Glad it went well, glad the spider didn't fall on anyone's head.

[flower4444.livejournal.com]

Wow sry to say I lost about 1/5th of that. lol. Is this like first time in this class type thing? In Graduate School. I'm very confused (maybe taking same pills as Tressa there. But lovely story, hope the spider is ok :)

[kestrel127.livejournal.com]

Define sacred - the opposite of profane
Define profane - that which is not sacred

That was my most frustrating religion class ever.

Oh and hi! I'm a lurker. You're funny. Hee. Funny.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Define sacred - the opposite of profane
Define profane - that which is not sacred

Heeeeeeee.

Really? Your name sounds familiar. Actually, I think Crazy Harvard Lady was talking about kestrels in the book somewhere...

[lezopez.livejournal.com]

This? Made me laugh out loud. I hate hate hate spiders (/Ron Weasley) so I think I woulda been doing a lot more than shrieking.

I'm glad to see the whole presentation thing went well though!

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Hee. Yeah, we did a lot of shrieking until we realized it couldn't climb out. Still made me nervous to be presentating right under it, though.

[word-herder.livejournal.com]

Ha! What a great commentary.

[pigsnicket.livejournal.com]

Yay! I love it when presentations go well! (which rarely happens with me *sigh*)

[squee1123.livejournal.com]

my presentation would have been far less coherent...more me fidgeting, shifting, and trying not to look at all eight of the people there...

but man...i would LOVE have witnessed that class...

[istoo.livejournal.com]

Apart from the spiderness, it sounds like a fun class.

And I read recently that talking with your hands might be useful (well actually the article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4437171.stm) says fidgeting, but it seems related).

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Regan was wearing an ankle-length skirt and I think socks with her shoes; she's a very cool, down-to-earth, modest poet/writer type, and the only guy in our class,

The gender! It is bent.

Glad things went well. Are you all better now?

[elbales]

Cleo, I lurves you.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Awwww!

[lizzyrose89.livejournal.com]

I read that entire last paragraph without breathing. I could hear myself reading it in my head and it sounded really scary bananas. Which you totally are. Both scary and bananas that is. Sometimes at the same time.

[stephentrendy.livejournal.com]

Spiders freak me out in general, but above my head? No way. I'd have walked right out of there.

And yay on the presentation.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I kept craning my head to look up at it while I was talking. Fortunately everyone else was, too.

[yarha.livejournal.com]

Must've been your lucky spider, then. ;)

Yarha, Beset by Nostalgia or Nostrilgia or Something

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

I really like the name Regan. Really really really like it. So I'm glad to know she's cool.

[havocs-roman.livejournal.com]

Glad to know the presentation went well - despite the spider of doom. Maybe it was trying to get a bit cultured...?

[mysticowl.livejournal.com]

Man, I can't wait till grad school, sounds fun! Glad to hear your presentation went ok.

*goes back to ignoring her unfinished Johnson essay*

[mayhap]

Ahahahaha, I just remembered when we were supposed to talk about On Beauty and Being Just in one of my freshman writing seminars. We took a show of hands on what to do during the class period when we were supposed to discuss the book and ended up watching Zoolander instead. I kid you not.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Excellent call. I'm not kidding. If you want the shorthand version, I can give you my handout. Pretty much sums up anything you'd want to know. ; )

[megmatthews20.livejournal.com]

It's really neat having such a small class. You get to know everyone on a much more personal level. I absolutely love my theatre class, which has all of 6 or 7 people on a full day. Much easier to relate.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, good Lord, we weren't going to get close enough to kill it.

[takekammuri.livejournal.com]

Go Tressa! "I have too many limbs" ROFLMFAO. I always complain that i have too few.

[pride4u2.livejournal.com]

OMGWTFSHELOB!!!

*crawls under bed...until Lost*

[irishmastermind.livejournal.com]

OMGWTFRERUN!?!?!

Where is our new episode?

[pride4u2.livejournal.com]

I know, I saw that! Next week is a rerun, too. Luckily it's one that I missed the first time. Next week's ep anyway.

[randomosity89.livejournal.com]

Out of blatent curiosity, where do you go to college? I'm just curiuos, seeing as how you're majoring in what I'm considering. If this is too personal, you don't have to answer... Good job on the presentation and ... EW~spider!