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Easy is the Triolet, If you really learn to make it! --W.E. Henley |
Monday, March 8, 1999 Philosophy and Poetry It's amazing how sleeping through most of a weekend can restore your outlook on life.
So, on Monday, I gathered together the many library books and CDs I had that had been due on Friday, so that I could drop them off on the way to college. I then forgot that I had them on me until I was already on campus. Oops. Well, I'll return them eventually. This is why my library fines have been in the three figures every year for most of this decade. But it's worth it. Compared to the cost of buying all the books I read, it's a bargain, even. Which doesn't change the fact that it'd probably be even better if I could manage to return everything on time. Anyway, I went to the newspaper office, and finally spoke to the Managing Editor in person, and apologized for not having done so last week, instead having left a note announcing my resignation. I'd wanted to speak to her, but was unable to wait around, and decided that it was more important that she know as soon as possible, so she'd be able to find somebody else to put my section together last week. We seem to be on good terms with each other, still, so that much is well with the world. It seems that while I will no longer have anything to do with the running of the paper, and won't do any editing, I will still be writing my weekly column. Starting next week, that is. This week, I'm writing a letter to the editor instead, in which I'm going to try to pass the torch over as gracefully as I can manage, although I think I can be allowed a slight sarcastic undercurrent in spots. I've earned that much. :-)
From there to a nearby copy shop, so I could pick up the readings for my English 399 class. I think this had been available for the past couple of weeks, but I hadn't realized that. The problem with arriving to class late is that you miss the occasional important announcement. Anyway, they didn't have a copy in stock, but I paid for a copy, and they gave me a receipt, and told me to come back on Tuesday. Which I agreed to reluctantly, not having any choice, but knowing that I needed to read a large chunk of it before class on Tuesday, and wouldn't be able to do so, now. Oh, well.
The less said about my philosophy class the better, perhaps. This week, we covered the ontological argument for the existence of God, which I don't buy as presented. (In a nutshell, it's that, by definition, a "perfect being" must be one that exists... so one must exist, by definition.) I tried objecting, but didn't get the impression that the professor was actually listening to my argument; he just picked out one phrase and pointed out how it wasn't the phrase he used (well, of course; my point was that it should have been), and, that, therefore, whatever I had to say was "irrelevant." Grrr. I'm going to ace this course, but I'm not at all happy about it.
From there to the poetry (and prose) reading. I ended up reading two things, of which only the latter really counted. Which is to say that, as a warm-up, I read a triolet that I wrote during the aforementioned philosophy class, explaining that triolets are nice because you only need to write five lines to get an eight-line poem. Very economical. :-)
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I wrote this poem during class; It was an awful thing to do. I know it's really very crass; I wrote this poem during class. Who knows how I can hope to pass When this semester's done and through? I wrote this poem during class; It was an awful thing to do. | ||
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Hey; I didn't say it was a good poem. :-) (And, yes, it was inspired by the theme to It's Garry Shandling's Show.) Anyway, the main thing I read was "On the Steps of the Conservatory," a short story by Donald Barthelme, which I like rather a lot. I drafted an acquaintance whom I'd met at the last reading to help me with it; the entire story is one long dialogue between two women. I read Hilda's lines, and she read Maggie's. She's a very good reader, and it went quite well. There was a much smaller crowd than usual; about fifteen people, maybe twenty. In the past, we've had double or triple that amount. But it was nice; there were enough people there that there was an actual audience, and there were less distractions, and everybody could hear everybody who read, which had been a problem in the past. So it was very nice.
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