Procrastination, continued

Hey,

Anna, I'd like to hear more about your short story class. What do you mean when you say you love the way it makes you think? I've been enjoying running too, but it just snowed and got cold(er), so unfortunately I'm going to have to start forcing myself to run on the indoor track or even on the treadmills.

Have you guys read The Turn of the Screw? I have to read that for Lit Theory. How about God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane? And yes, I'm still doing my thesis on literature as moral philosophy, but I haven't started work on it . . . You know who's not cool? Lacan. I don't know what he's talking about.

Ben, what's up? Still looking for jobs? or is that all settled?

Ben

Procrastination

Hello, I should be working but I am taking a break.  Or I guess it's not really a break if I haven't started yet.  I am in a wonderful short story class and have discovered that I love Fitzgerald, even though he doesn't seem to like women. The class is making me think in a way that I love.  Both about the stories, and my life in general.  It is nice to be in a class that feels like the professor cares about the students. Not just educationally, but wants us to become better people.

So what happened with the thesis? Is it a go?  I feel like I am somewhere between worrying as much as ever about grades and not caring.  Not stressing out as much would be a good thing.  I have only done yoga once, and the teacher yelled at me because I wouldn't take off my socks.  Maybe I should try it though.  It could help me relax.  I have really liked running lately.  Especially in the rain.

I haven't made much headway on To The Lighthouse, but maybe I can read it over fall break.  Now I have to write an essay for my Jewish Lit class.  Hope you are both good!  I love hearing from you and want to see you soon!

Post

Hey guys, good to hear from y'all. I don't really know what I'm going to do for my thesis (my proposal is due tomorrow). I think I have Senioritis. I've gotten, let's see, an F on my first Lit. Theory paper (I turned in one page), a C- on my first Symbolic Logic test, a C on my first Physics homework . . . and now I have this philosophy proposal thingy, which I haven't really thought about yet . . . . There's a strange kind of freedom you experience when you let go of your fear of getting bad grades . . . . I don't know if I want to go to grad school now. I've thought, briefly, about going into osteopathic medicine (is that the right word? I'm thinking about the eastern-tinged pseudo-spiritual acupuncture massage type doctor). Oh, and I just wrote my first article for our school paper (a concert review) and it was embarrassingly bad. Badbadbad. Sigh. I like yoga, do you guys? I need to find more free yoga classes at Hamilton.

Are you reading anything cool for your classes, Anna? I've been stopped on page 182 (of 209) in Lighthouse for about two weeks (probably another senioritis symptom). I'll post some of my ideas about the book another time -- it would be nice to bounce ideas off each other. Ben, I like the Middlemarch quotes, I'll have to read that eventually. The Borges lectures are fun to listen to: they can be a little boring, but I like the sound of his voice. For now, here's a Woolf quote about Middlemarch:

She was by way of being terrified of him--he was so fearfully clever, and the first night when she had sat by him, and he talked about George Eliot, she had been really frightened, for she had left the third volume of Middlemarch on the train and she never knew what happened at the end; but afterwords she got on perfectly, and made herself out even more ignorant than she was, because he liked telling her she was a fool. (98)

I like the image of a book traveling on when the person gets off the train. I'm not sure what to make of it though. Any thoughts? I'll have to read the Obama speech again, and the last Eliot quote you posted, Ben. And send away with your thesis, though I don't know when I'll actually read it. Best, BP

Chilly Fingers and Toes

It is starting to cool off.  I wore my winter coat this weekend, and there is a new smell in the air.  My friends and I spent dinner rehashing an old discussion of whether or not there is a difference in the meaning of the words crisp and crispy... I take the first to refer to brisk weather whereas the second is about food.

I wrote a post last week, but my computer disconnected from the internet and I lost it.  Ben (P), I started reading "To The Lighthouse" a few years ago, but even though I was enjoying it I never finished.  I am going to pick it up again tonight and I would love to hear your thoughts. Have you thought more about your thesis?  Ben K, can you send yours to me as well?  I never got a chance to read it.

I am excited to listen to those lectures, and I looked at your blog (Ben P.) I am looking forward to going back because I want to spend more time looking at it!  Very cool.  Other Ben, I like the quotes!  Middlemarch is one of my favorites.

 

I hope you are both doing well.  Things here are so busy, especially with the election coming up so soon.  Make sure all of your friends are registered to vote!  This is a critical election and every single vote is going to matter.  

On that note, here is one of my favorite speeches of all time.  Obama gave it on Super Tuesday, and it gives me chills every time I read it.  I put it up on my wall to try and inspire myself.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.  We are the ones we've been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek.

We are the hope of those boys who have little; who've been told that they cannot have what they dream; that they cannot be what they imagine.

Yes They Can.

We are the hope of the father who goes to work before dawn and lies awake with doubts that tell him that he cannot give his children the same opportunities that someone gave him.

Yes He Can.

We are the hope of the woman who hears that her city will not be rebuilt; that she cannot reclaim what was swept away in a terrible storm.

Yes She Can.

We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be.

Because we know what we have seen and what we believe- that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across the nation as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest- Yes. We. Can."

Yes we can! Miss you both

~Anna

P.S.

Hey Ben,

I'll send you my thesis. It's awfully long though. Just a heads up.

Scattered Leaves

Hey gang,

Those Borges lectures look great, Ben. I'm excited to listen to them all. That sounds like a cool thesis topic, although I'm completely unfamiliar with that sort of philosophy. Didn't Wittgenstein do something with that. I know he did a lot with examining a philosophy of language. I'm trying to read his Blue and Brown books (they're apparently sort of intros into his hard stuff). Critical Theory could also be good for that sort of philosophy, but I haven't read any of that stuff.

I've also got some good quotes from Middlemarch:

"Even with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse;" (p. 60)

"'Why, my dear, doctors must have opinions,'" said Mrs Vincy, 'What are they there for else?'" - I particularly like that one!

"... for we all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act fatally on the strength of them." (85)

"He had two selves within him apparently, and they must learn to accommodate each other and bear reciprocal impediments. Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us" (152)

And what is, I think, the most stunningly beautiful passage in the entire novel (at least so far as I have read, which is to say, not so far).

Eliot writes about the banality of a scene she describes and justifies its inclusion in the novel.

"That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like heraring the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity." (194)

Good to hear from you all.

Ben

Sweet Virginia

Hey guys, I'm trying to finish To the Lighthouse this weekend. What a great book! I don't think I appreciated how ridiculously good this was in 12th grade. I'm only on like page 70 now (It's getting dark, Paul and Minta and the gang haven't come back yet, and dinner hasn't started), but hopefully by Monday I'll be done. I'm also fishing for a Thesis topic/question for my Philosophy major. I want to incorporate literature (i.e., great books like To the Lighthouse -- not just philosophy-philosophy like Kant). I've found a couple of books on how literature/novels raise and deal with ethical issues, and some other books about literature raising/dealing with existential issues. These are both interesting topics, but my first thought is to get a topic more broadly about the philosophy/phenomenology of reading, in general . . . Of course, I don't know anything about that, and I don't particularly want to get into neuroscience, like, the science of what the brain is doing when you read . . . So I don't know. But anyway, I'd love to get some help and hear some of your ideas about possible Thesis topics I could do! Anna, I'm particularly interested in hearing your ideas, given your experience with that Lit Theory/Criticism class. Regardless of thesis advice, both of you might check in with a post when you get the chance -- I'd love to hear how you're doing and what you're up to. And by the way: I'd like both of your opinions on the look of my "Idle Perspicacity" blog, which I've renamed "Floating Library" -- as always, feel free to contribute quotes, poems, writing to that blog as well. And Ben: can I read your thesis?

By the way. . .

Anna, I think it's unfair that you are contributing twice, with the same name, to this blog. Are the two contributors different internal aspects of the same overarching psyche we call "Anna"? If this is some multiple personality thing, you could at least call your selves by different names. . . Like "Anna the Just" and "Anna the Cruel"

Hey Deadheads!

Hey, Notice the music I added at the bottom of the page. Sign up to Imeem.com and YOU TOO can add songs to the blog! It's free and easy. Just do it.

A Highly Unnecessary Reiteration of the Reader-Response Theory

A theory of literature associated mainly with Stanley Fish and, in slightly different form, Wolfgang Iser. The central tenets of all varieties of reader-response theory are that meaning is not something that is contained within a text or that can be extracted from it, and that what a text does is more important than what it is. Far from being pregiven, meaning is produced by readers working in conjunction with the structures of the text, and in accordance with the reading strategies and interpretive conventions that bind readers together into interpretive communities and put them in possession of an internalized literary competence that allows them to respond appropriately to the texts they encounter. Reader-response theory is in many ways a response to the excesses of both the New Criticism, with its vision of the text as a self-contained monad, and Structuralism, with its stress on the impersonal laws and structures that govern texts... --Penguin Dictionary of CRITICAL THEORY, Ed. David Macey

Quickie

Ben: I really like the Brothers quotes you put up. I love that your "I sometimes dream of devils" quote is from page 666. :-)

Ok, I think I know how to make paragraph breaks between lines of text. But first, you know that to edit a post you click the little pencil icon at the bottom of the post -- hovering your cursor over the pencil, a bubble should appear saying something like "edit post".

-- Anyway, when you're typing a post, click the "Edit Html" tab at the top of the text box (next to the "Compose" tab). Around any block of text you want to set off with line breaks, you type < p > at the beginning of the text (before the first character) and < / p > at the end (after the last character). NOTE: Do NOT put spaces in between the characters of the command codes -- I had to do that because otherwise the blog would think I wanted paragraph breaks... Also, I think you can enter these codes into your posts when you're in the "Compose" setting as well.

I'm going to put paragraph breaks between your Brothers quotes. You can go to the "Edit Post" and see exactly what codes I put in. As for making tabs or indents in text, I don't know how to do that yet. I'll work on it.

The Brothers

"God himself has preserved me in my weakness from your subtlety" 379

"Yet probably he has hidden within himself, the impression which had dominated him and no doubt he hoards them imperceptibly, and even unconsciously. How and why, of course, he does not know either. He may suddenly after hoarding impressions for many years, abandon everything and go off to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage for his soul's salvation, or perhaps he will suddenly set fire to his native village, and perhaps do both" 139

"... at the approaching crisis in his life, when he needed to have all his wits about him, to say what he had to say boldly and resolutely and to "justify himself to himself." 723

"I sometimes dream of devils. It's night, I am in my room with a candle and suddenly there are devils all over the place, in all the corners, under the table, and they open the doors, there's a crowd of them behind the doors and they want to come and seize me. And they are just coming, just seizing me. But I suddenly cross myself and they all draw back, though they don't go away altogether, they stand at the doors and in the corners, waiting. And suddenly I have afrightful longing to revile God aloud, and so I begin, and then they come crowding back to me, delighted, and seize me again and I cross myself again and they all draw back. It's awful fun, it takes one's breath away." 666

Scattered Thoughts

Hey you guys. I loved all the posts. They're great. Ben, the who I was speaking of was the different books and authors I was reading, but it's great how you took that and made it something new. Anna I really liked your comment on RR theory. At first, I was a little put off, mainly, I think, because I have never heard of RR theory and so the name meant little to me. For me it seemed to much like an attempt at a solution or answer to a question which clearly has no answer. But, then I read your own description of RR theory, as spiderwebs connecting the authors, the texts, and at the center the reader. Or maybe, there are many readers that are merely different points within the larger spiderweb. It was, I thought, a beautiful and compelling image. In many ways, it seems that this is the heart of the project of literary studies. My thesis advisor always would ask of his students, "that's a nice idea, but what does it do?" Ultimately it seems to me that any theory of literary analysis be it psychoanalytic, historical, RR, postmodern, or any other theory of which I am completely ignorant is valuable not for its inherent truth or rightness as compared to any other, but for the way in which it inspires the individual to a better or newer or even just different understanding of the text, and through the text him or herself and the world around him or her. Personally this is why I have never cared much who Shakespeare was. At the same time, if someone were to discover that Shakespeare was a woman it might allow for entirely new readings of the plays. At the same time, it seems to me that the readings, if valuable, should be acceptable even if Shakespeare wasn't a woman. My understanding, having never actually read, is that this is essentially what Virginia Woolf does in "A room of her own." Those are my ramblings about literary theory. In thinking about "spiderwebs," I was fascinated by how compelling both Ben and I clearly found the metaphor. Through this somewhat circuitous route, I started thinking about metaphors. My Milton teacher made the fascinating point to me that a metaphor is the construction of a counterfactual relationship. What he meant was that for example when an author says, "my love is like a rose," the reader is presented with a counterfactual relationship between "my love" and "a rose." The author is not in love with a red flower, and it would be ludicrous to interpret him or her this way. At the same time, we all, as readers, understand that the author refers to his or her love's fragile beauty as well as dangerous thorns. Here language is used to represent things as they aren't to better communicate things as they are. For Milton, this was evidence of our own fallen status and our fallen language. In paradise, Milton believed, metaphor and simile were not possible; language held a direct connection to reality. Things were as they seemed and as one said they were. Thus there was no room for deceit or lies. At the same time it seems to me that there was little room for art. It is fascinating to me that what we find compelling involves these tiny lies. If an author was to describe his or her love in minute detail down to the color of her toe nail, we, as readers, would find it less compelling, less true, than the simple statement "my love is like a rose." So, these are just rambling thoughts of mine. I also have some great quotes from Brothers that I'll try to post. P.S. Ben, how do you put in enters (hard returns I think) and tabs.

Cobwebs

Hey Anna, the RR theory you mention makes sense the way you describe it. I like thinking about this sort of thing. The same theory could be applied to writers: all the different authors a writer has read interact through her as she is writing, making her work a composite of everything she has read (plus whatever she brings to her writing from her extra-literary life). So all books/writing are interdependent/intertextual, everything referring to everything else. Umberto Eco says something to the effect that Jorge Luis Borges and James Joyce created the real World Wide Web, Joyce with words, and Borges with ideas (if I remember Eco's quote correctly). As far as spiderwebs go, I'm reading Strunk and White's The Elements of Style (I'm sure you both bought this book at one point or another for one English class or another--and yes, I'm actually reading it, cover to cover (it's tiny), for my editing class), and it has inspired me to read White's Charlotte's Web. Oh, Wilbur.

By the way, who wrote The Origin of Islam? Sounds interesting. Let us know how it goes. I'm picking up the short stories of Borges again for inspiration -- my own first short story is due Monday in creative writing class (I haven't started). I've also become more interested in poetry: I'll find some good poems to post. Still reading Proust--his shorter stories, poems, and The Novel--flipping through some of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's short stories/novellas (No One Writes to the Colonel) and looking at Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading (and not getting anywhere in it, as usual). Also perusing Ulysses and Finnegans Wake. But my big find of recent days is Helen Keller's The World I Live In. This is from chapter 1--"The Seeing Hand":

I have just touched my dog. He was rolling in the grass, with pleasure in every muscle and limb. I wanted to catch a picture of him in my fingers, and I touched him as lightly as I would cobwebs; but lo, his fat body revolved, stiffened and solidified into an upright position, and his tongue gave my hand a lick! He pressed close to me, as if he were fain to crowd himself into my hand. He loved it with his tail, with his paw, with his tongue. If he could speak, I believe he would say with me that paradise is attained by touch; for in touch is all love and intelligence.

Some thoughts

To be completely honest I haven't quite finished Werther, but I've read a good chunk. I am enjoying it, but I have been getting distracted by some other books I am reading at the same time. (I have begun The Origin of Islam and have found it quite interesting) I agree that Werther is a bit melodramatic. I'm not sure if that is why I have had trouble finishing it though. The sentence structure is fun, and I have thought there were some beautiful lines. An example of a quote I liked but also found a little much... "the solitude in this paradisiacal region is a precious balm to my heart, and the youthful season in all its fullness warms my often shivering heart" I have to get out my notes from critical theory because I am starting to forget what different authors said what. Ben P's who is the who comment is exactly the sort of thing we discussed! Personally, I liked reader response theory which acknowledges that it is impossible to read a text independent of it's context. It also walks a good middle road between claiming the author of the text is the complete and total authority on the work, and giving too much power to the reader. Instead, RR theory (at least I think) would say that the author lays the framework and the reader fills in their interpretation which is built out of the context from which they are reading the work. This kind of makes me think of a spiderweb with all the different authors that a reader has read interacting through that reader. I'm not sure this makes any sense or is what you two meant, but just some thoughts.

Etiolated by lack of fresh air

Hey Ben, You posted! I don't know how to attach Word documents to blogs: that would be great! As far as posting an essay to the blog, I don't know if there's any simpler way than just cutting and pasting into a post box. I don't know if there's a character limit for posts. If there is, I'd suggest perhaps posting your thesis (which is pretty long, I assume) on the Wordpress blog, where you could publish it in several different posts - all under one umbrella category, like chapters in a book... Let me know if you're interested, or if MOOCOW isn't cooperating). I agree with you that Werther is quite melodramatic -- but I've come to enjoy this sort of highbrow melodrama (intellectual onanism?), probably from reading so much Proust. Your musing on texts interacting with each other is very interesting: but when you say your two books "speak to each other differently based on who is in the conversation" -- who is the "who" you refer to, and what is this "conversation" you speak of? Haha, but yeah, I know there are books out there about what you're talking about: I'm forgetting names and titles, but my 'Jewish Bible as Lit' teacher was really into texts interacting with each other via reader in different ways at different times etc etc. I'll have to ask her for some good reading suggestions. Anyway, glad to see you're still alive and reading lengthy Russian novels. I'll think of something smarter to say later -- it's time for bed. Oh and by the way: I found that "How to get any woman into bed" post in a Spam email. I'm treating it as an original piece of impressionist poetry (by me, of course :-) ). Be on the lookout for good Spam poetry to steal!

How to attach documents?

Hey, how do I post an essay to the blog. I don't know if I can post my thesis because there is a quote in it which was given under conditions that I not publish it. I finished Werther. I thought most of the chapters ended with quite a flourish. The sentiment or emotion of the lost lover was definitely moving (that's not the word for which I'm looking). At the same time, I did think it was somewhat melodramatic. I'm still grappling with the Brothers Karamazov. I'm enjoying it but it's definitely slow. It's full of high Russian melodrama about lost and abandoned love so it's been interesting to see what is brought out by reading it along with Werther. Which makes me think more generally of the way that different texts interact together in the mind of the reader. The books seem to speak to me in different ways based on my own life and to speak to each other differently based on who is in the conversation. Anna, you have a much more solid grounding in critical theory so I'd love to hear what you think about this. While Randolph used to rant that there is only the text, at the same time I wonder if the text is changed (for the reader at least) by the other circumstances that of the readers reading. I'm just rambling now, but interesting to think about. Ben

How to get any woman into bed

Jumping on (bhanumat's) excellent elephant aided was just about to turn in when i met miss hamon thing with his spiritual eye. He then beheld the fastened together with slender tapes, so that you that this policy of garrisoning the forts that krishna of great intelligence hath performed protection was granted, and for over thirty years the same thing in florida? Wouldn't you do as the golden umbrella of that illustrious warrior make sure emerson had disembarked, nathaniel hawthorne nulla sit. 107. Quid fiet artibus? Quibus? Iisne, time and then prove its instability. Like a cow and should desire nothing but the truth. Restraining that thou, o slayer of foes, art filled with the knowledge of scriptures he was the equal to dhananjaya. Brahmanas, have been said to belong to passion. Of all knowledge and without discrimination, they city. After supper the office of the hotel was with red streams running down its breast, tumbling ministers, with their families, were brought into.

A quote to share 3

"God is the tangent point between zero and infinity." ~Alfred Jarry

A quote to share 2

There's nothing clever that hasn't been thought of before -- you've just got to try to think it all over again. --Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Journeyman Years

A quote to share

"Nuns go by quiet as lust, and drunken men and sober eyes sing in the lobby of the Greek hotel." ~The Bluest Eye

Wuthering Werthers, Batman!

Ok, I finished Werther yesterday. I thought it was great! Lots of beautiful sentiments and wonderfully written. I'm thinking of reading Camus' The Myth Of Sisyphus because it's about suicide and its philosophical implications. The title of this post should link to a page in another blog where I've started typing in my favorite quotes. What are some of your favorite quotes? But anyway, let me know what you guys thought and what else you want to read. Or not. I mean, I really do like talking to myself. And obviously you don't need to write something spectacular or spend a lot of time on every post you do. This blog is like a message board. Between me and myself. Let me know if you guys will send me any of your writing that I can post on the Wordpress blog (or another blog that I haven't started yet -- I don't like the fact that the url is benprice.word etc. Ok, have a good weekend.

I Am Evil Homer.

.

"I hope I didn't brain my damage"

"Do you want to change your name to Homer Junior? The kids can call you Hoju!"

"Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals. Except the weasel..."

"Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand"

"Hmmm... I don't approve of his Bart-killing policy... but I do approve of his Selma killing policy." [subsequently votes for Sideshow Bob]

"Marge, I've always loved you. Bart, you were a worthy foe."

"When I look at the smiles on all the children's faces, I just know they're about to jab me with something."

"It's about time trees were good for something, instead of just standing there like jerks!"

"First you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women"

"Son, your mother makes a very loud point."

[Getting into the car after Oktoberfest] "I'm in no condition to drive. Wait - I shouldn't listen to myself, I'm drunk!"

"Come here, Apu. If it'll make you feel any better, I've learned that life is just one crushing defeat after another... until you just wish Flanders was dead."

"Don't you think you're overreacting, talking gum-ball machine?"

[Upon meeting aliens] "Please don't eat me! I have a wife and kids. Eat them!"

"Operator! Give me the number for 911!"

"I'm not a genius. Or are I...?"

"Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."

"Pfft. Who needs English? I'm never going to England."

"Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you win or lose: it's how drunk you get."

[Trying to imitate Mr. Burns] "Exactly, heh heh... D'oh!"

"Everyone knows rock'n'roll attained perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact."

[Upon recieving death-threat letter written in blood] "Oh my god! Someone's trying to kill me! Oh wait, it's for Bart."

[After being caught trying to smuggle a baby panda] "But he loves me!" [panda bites him] "OW!! Why you little... I'll endanger you!" [begins to strangle the panda]

"I believe children are the future... unless we stop them now!"

"The food was not undelicious."

"Uh, we're having a discussion about gay witches for abortion. You wouldn't be interested."

"All right brain, I don't like you and you don't like me, so let's just do this so I can get back to killing you with beer."

"If it's about laying off the Guatemalan insanity peppers, I'm way ahead of ya!"

"Ah! Tom Arnold! What the hell's going on?!"

"Old people don't need companionship. They need to be isolated and studied so it can be determined what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use."

"You can't keep blaming yourself Marge. Just blame yourself once and move on."

[Drunk] "But I don't wanna go home yet, I'm not done talking to me."

"If I don't see it, it's not illegal!"

"Extended warranty? How could I lose?"

"Stupid American-made dog!"

"U-S-A! U-S-A!"

"If they think I'm going to stop at that 'Stop' sign, they are sadly mistaken!"

[Drunk] "Guess how many boobs I saw today? Fifteen!"

"All my life I've had one dream: to achieve my many goals."

"Outta my way, jerkass!"

"Did you know that in Massachusetts it's legal to marry your son?"

"The internet? Is that thing still around?"

"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!"

"Marge, I'd kill for you! Please ask me to kill for you."

"But I can't be a missionary, I don't even believe in Jebus."

[Lisa shows him an ugly drawing of her someone did] "Lisa, this isn't real. It's just how you would look if you were a cartoon character."

[Looking at beer can in his hand] "Expand my brain, learning juice!"

"Kill my boss? Do I dare live out the American dream?"

"Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try."

"If God didn't want us to eat in church, he would've made gluttony a sin."

"It's true... I'm a rageaholic! I just can't live without rageahol!"

"Don't hassle the dead, boy. They have eerie powers..."

"The good book, on tape? Ooh, as read by Larry King!"

"If you're gonna get mad at me every time I do something stupid, then I guess I'll just have to stop doing stupid things."

"Oh, Lisa. You and your stories. 'Bart is a vampire. Beer kills brain cells.' Now let's go to the... building... where our beds and TV... is."

"Sweet merciful crap! My car!"

"I won't apologize, Lisa. I'm sorry, but that's just the way I am."

[When asked to murder family by a phantom-Moe and a bunch of ghouls] "Can't murder now... eating."

"Television! Teacher, mother, secret lover."

"The internet wasn't created for mockery, it was supposed to help researchers at different universities share data sets. It was!"

"Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians."

[Written on Duff Beer Festival postcard] "Maybe it's the beer talking Marge, but you've got a butt that won't quit. They've got these big chewy pretzels argwoggkwgo..... 5 dollars? Get outta here..."

"Then I figured out we could just stick them in front of the TV. That's how I was raised, and I turned out TV."

"I don't want to go out like Elmo: hanging himself in his cell."

[Building a barbecue pit] "English side ruined! Must. Use... French instructions!" [Reading the French side] "'Le Grille'? What the hell is that?!"

Motley Figures and Bright Prospects

Anna and Ben,

I have a dream. It goes a little something like this:

Each of us should post a plethora of (our own...and found) writing about books/literature/poetry/philosophy/science, anything intellectual, creative, academic, political -- basically, I just want good writing (i.e., anything written by us). We could make this a separate project from our book club, if you would like. I don't want to put any pressure on either of you (or myself, really). I understand if you don't want to get all gung-ho with me, or if you just don't want to put a lot of time into it. This would be a long-term, continuous project (not just this summer).

My goal is to post as much as possible on books/art/stuff I like. I need to practice writing, and I see creating quality blogs, Squidoo pages, etc as a good way of getting experience "publishing" in a fun, non-threatening environment. We have control over the privacy settings of the pages we make...

I also think it would be great if each of us included papers and essays that we write for school on topics that we're interested in (e.g., Ben and I both wrote about Ulysses for school; Anna has presumably written a lot on English Lit/Critical Theory; Anna could post political stuff; Ben could post his thesis...) You'll notice that I started adding to our book list in the upper right-hand corner. Some of these works maybe only I would write about; some of them (e.g., Werther) we might all post on; each of you could add stuff that the other two of us might not have read... I don't know, I just think this is a good idea. I'm a little hesitant about posting school papers where anyone can see them and plagiarize them, but I don't mind sharing with you two (or with people I know and trust). I don't know how we would organize all this stuff, but there are lots of cool things you can do with blogs and web-design; we could figure it out as we go, and as our collection of material grows.

Let's not worry about trying to be too profound at first. Just post -- anything. It could be your favorite quotes, your thoughts on a passage, a stream of consciousness ramble about the movie you just saw or the party you just went to, a rant about something you're passionate about--I don't care! As long as we write. Hmmm, well.... I guess that's it for now.

And don't think that I'm getting on your cases for not writing anything yet. I haven't read or written anything about Werther yet either. And we don't have to have a regular time (e.g., once a week) for submitting posts, unless you want to. I know we're all busy. I'm stressed from my internship. That's why I'm so wired right now, if you couldn't tell.

Looking forward to hearing from y'all soon. (Ben--does your farm even have internet? Dirty hippies...)

Prelude

Ok, team.

If you want, we can use this blog as our Bookclub Forum, as opposed to using email. I think it would be more fun, but I'm not very experienced with online 'publishing', so if either of you guys have better ideas, that's great, let's hear 'em.

F.Y.I. - The Sorrows of Young Werther that I own has the subtitle "And Selected Writings." It's published by Signet Classics, translated by Catherine Hutter, and introduced by one Marcelle Clements. If you guys find other editions that you like that have different translators, let me know. I haven't started, and I'm more than willing to go buy a different version.

I think I set this up so both of you can edit and post (i.e., you can do anything and everything that I can do). I don't know if this is the best blog site (probably not), but nothing is permanent--we can always copy and paste to somewhere else or to some other format if we want to.

Also, if you like, perhaps we should initial our blog post responses (BP...AK...BK)... I don't know.