Category: Uncategorized

Margaret and I agree that when we read something such as this, we wish we could invest in the futures market on writers. We feel utterly certain that Steve will catch the attention of an alert agent or publisher, and that he’ll sell an ample share of books — if only we could get in on the ground floor!

It’s not that the end of the academic year looms ominously over me just now — the end will be a much-needed respite. But between now and then lies a gauntlet of exams, papers, meetings, interviews, writing, editing, and miscellaneous other obligations.

I’ll write about the da Vinci Code movie as soon as I see it, preparatory to a series of church talks about the subject. I’ll post the preface to my book as soon as that is written. I’ll get around to lots of things I’ve been putting off; but for now, I really really need the break that will come when the end-of-year faculty meeting closes on June 5 (even though I have two three more committee meetings later in the week, and will have to submit grades right around then). (OK, so maybe the target date is a little later in June. Sigh.)

Well, he really did graduate!

We had a great time — Nate found terrific restaurants for us both dinners we spent in Rochester (we ate at Veneto on Saturday evening, at King of Siam on the way home), and introduced us to sundry professors, friends, and Laura.

If I were to go into detail about the weekend, I would just maunder on boastfully about my terrific son, so I’ll allow you to take that as read. Further evidence in my Flickr gallery.

So although we spent twenty-four of the last thirty hours folded up into the car driving to and from Rochester, we feel wonderful, proud, and excited about Nate’s prospects in the University of Michigan’s Ph.D. program in music theory. Hats off!

Graduation at 11:00; I hope to post some pictures later today or tomorrow.

Arrived safely. Nate chuffed that David wished him mazel tov.

And Liz isn’t in town — what a disappointment!

We’re setting out for Rochester this afternoon, to play the part of admiring family at Nate’s graduation. Right now we’re busy getting into our roles; should we be the young, cool parents (“I thought she was your sister, Nate!” or the overinvested, embarrassingly loud family, or the some other variation on the theme? We have thirteen hours in the car to figure that out.

But we’re not sure how much connectivity we can count on away from home, so although there’ll be pictures at the end of the process, there may not be much bloggage. And of course (rolls eyes) the comments will be wearisomely clogged with junk when I get back.

Chris Locke points out that Amazon’s Search Inside feature now points to an “Online Reader” comparable to Adobe Reader. Very interesting. . . .

I don’t know when on earth I’ll have time, or whether I can put it off till after classes, but I promise all would-be or would-have-been commenters that I will upgrade to the current version of Moveable Type (with canned-meat prevention features) as soon as I can back up and get someone to hold my hand. And if MT doesn’t keep unwelcome comments at bay, then I’ll move over to WordPress — but the on-going waves of comment pollution must be stopped one way or another.

OK, following up my perplexity of Saturday, I am now examining the pertinent section of Revolution in Poetic Language (conveniently excerpted in The Kristeva Reader).

It looks to me as though Kristeva may indeed be using these terms in a way that accords with what I want to do with them. It wouldn’t be a big problem if she weren’t, so long as I take care not to misrepresent my approach as a direct inheritor of Kristeva — more (in a cinematic gesture) “inspired by a distinction that Julia Kristeva develops.” Still, I think the similarity is close enough that I’m reassured that I’m not indulging in headstrong disregard of what heavier lifters have proposed already.

Kristeva construes phenotext as “language that serves to communicate” — “it is a structure.” “[I]t obeys rules of communication and presupposes a subject of enunciation and an addressee” (all these quotations from p. 121 of the Reader). Kristeva’s phenotext entails questions of competence, of adherence to convention.

Her genotext derives from the inchoate processes of instinctual drives, of extrinsic constraints (of society, corporeality, formation), and from the “matrices of enunciation,” the patterns of expression that give sense to particular instances of expression: she nominated literary genres, “psychic structures,” and various modes of participation in communication, as examples. She associates “drives” with “phonematic devices (such as the accumulation and repetition of phonemes or rhyme) and melodic devices (such as intonation or rhythm), in the way semantic and categorial fields are set out in syntactic and logical features, or in the economy of mimesis (fantasy, the deferment of denotation, narrative, etc.)” (Reader, 120). Her genotext constitutes “language’s underlying foundation.”

Without pursuing further, then, the ways that Kristeva handles these categories differently from me, I’m at ease with re-employing them to suit the specific way they can help me articulate the hermeneutical point I want to make. Whew!
 

My heart’s beloved has come home, not for the weekend, not for a study week, but for the whole summer. This entails a joy and a relief beyond compare!

On the other hand, when we live apart for long stretches, our sleep patterns diverge. I, for instance, tend to wake up early and listen to the radio as I doze toward daytime wakefulness. Margaret sleeps later than I, and can’t have the radio on. She, on the other hand, is accustomed to listening to WUNC’s broadcast of the BBC World Service as she drifts to sleep, but WBEZ plays jazz for its late-night programming. I flop around the bed more when it’s big and empty.

Adjusting will be worth it.

Kevin referred me to this Very Short Guide to Christianity for people who are, as the author says, “confused and frightened.”

It’s quite imaginative and funny, and it takes a brave contrarian to assert that Blondie’s cover of “The Tide is High” was better than John Holt’s original version — but I think Holyoffice is onto something there.

My mother always makes a point that “Mother’s Day” is a bogus holiday, a commercial institution designed to further the interests of greeting-card companies and florists, and I want to behave as would a dutiful and respectful son, so I won’t contradict her.

So perhaps tomorrow, or the day after, or some spontaneous moment, I will offer a thanksgiving for my mom, and for Margaret’s mother, and for Margaret herself (she’s actually coming home for the summer tomorrow! W00t!). And after church, I’ll probably make some phone calls. But no greeting cards.

Thanks, Mom!