2010 was asteroid-gazing in Oahu and startling mooselings in Cape Breton, metatheatre and Mt. Grademore, becoming a Reformist and eavesdropping on the Monster Raving Loonies, seaside Bollywood dancing and snorkeling with cylons, It was reuniting with lost friends, and it was lobsters and trashy novels and shocking my students equally with Aristophanes and Racine and Genet. And lobsters, lobsters in every ocean.


Now I'm ringing it out with cassoulet and sturgeon and my mother's edition of The Wild Duck, filled with scribblings from her turn as Hedvig when she was a dozen years younger than I am now.


"If I had known then what I can see now in front of me," she says wonderingly to me, "would I have believed it?"


Happy New Year, all.  Tidings of comfort and joy:  remember that it's all longer days from here on out.

1. Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden (1996, Australia) ***1/2, finished January 4. 
2. Reckless by Amanda Quick (1992, USA) **, finished January 4.
3. More than a Mistress by Mary Balogh (2000, Canada) **1/2, finished January 6.
4. The Indiscretion by Judith Ivory (2001, USA) ***1/2, finished January 9.
5. Untie my Heart by Judith Ivory (2002, USA) ***1/2, finished January 10. 
6. Look Back in Anger by John Osborne (1956, UK) ***1/2, finished January 11.
7. Lady Elizabeth's Comet by Sheila Simonson (2008, USA) ***1/2, finished January 11.
8. Agamemnon by Aeschylus (458 BCE, Athens) ****1/2, finished January 12.
9. Angel in a Red Dress by Judith Ivory (1988, USA) ***, finished January 13.
10. Lord Ruin by Carolyn Jewel (2002, USA) *1/2, finished January 17.
11. Oedipus the King by Sophocles (c. 428 BCE, Athens) ****, finished January 18.
12. The Caretaker by Harold Pinter (1959, UK) ***1/2, finished January 18.
13. Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer (USA) **1/2, finished January 18.
14. The Wild Child by Mary Jo Putney (1999, USA) ***, finished January 21.
15. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1967, UK) *****, finished January 25.
16. The Bacchae by Euripides (406 BCE, Athens) ****, finished January 25.
17. The Winter Queen by Amanda McCabe (2009, USA) **1/2 , finished January 25.
18. The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J. Maarten Troost (2004, USA/Holland) ***, finished February 1.
19. What the Butler Saw by Joe Orton (1967, UK) ***1/2, finished February 1.
20. Lysistrata by Aristophanes (411 BCE, Athens) ***1/2, finished February 2.
21. The Proposition by Judith Ivory (1999, USA) ***1/2, finished February 6.
22. Lessons in French by Laura Kinsale (2010, USA) ****, finished February 7.
23. Equus by Peter Shaffer (1973, UK) ***, finished February 8.
24. Sleeping Beauty by Judith Ivory (1998, USA) ***1/2, finished February 10.
25. Eyton by Lynne Connolly (2010, USA) *, finished February 12.
26. Ember by Bettie Sharpe (2008, USA) ****, finished February 13.
27. 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick (2007, USA) ****, finished February 13.
28. Everyman (15th C, England) ***1/2, finished February 15.
29. Top Girls by Caryl Churchill (1982, UK) ****, finished February 16.
30. Black Ice by Anne Stuart (2005, USA) **1/2, finished February 16.
31. Dark Needs at Night's Edge by Kresley Cole (2008, USA) **, finished February 17.
32. The Rebellious Ward by Joan Wolf (1984, USA) ***1/2, finished February 17.
33. The Double Deception by Joan Wolf (1983, USA) **1/2, finished February 19.
34. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811, UK) ****, finished February 22.  
35. To Have and to Hold by Patricia Gaffney (1995, USA) ***, finished February 23.
36. Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie (2004, USA) ***, finished February 23.
37. Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker (1988, UK) ***1/2, finished March 1.
38. The Slightest Provocation by Pam Rosenthal (2006, USA) **1/2, finished March 1.
39. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (1590-1593, England) ***, finished March 3. 
40. Pentecost by David Edgar (1995, UK) ****, finished March 10. 
41. A London Season by Joan Wolf (1980, USA) **1/2, finished March 10. 
42. Sabriel by Garth Nix (1995, Australia) ***, finished March 12. 
43. A Gypsy at Almack's by Chloe Cheshire (1993, USA) ***1/2, finished March 12. 
44. What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell (2008, USA) ***, finished March 13.  
45. Like a Thief in the Night by Bettie Sharpe (2008, USA) **1/2, finished March 14. 
46. Fuenteovejuna by Lope de Vega (~1614, Spain) ***, finished March 15.
47. Copenhagen by Michael Frayn (1998, UK) ****1/2, finished March 15.
48. Celia's Secret by Michael Frayn and David Burke (2001, UK) ***1/2, finished March 17.
49. Dark Angel by Mary Balogh (1994, Canada) ***, finished March 19.
50. Lord Carew's Bride by Mary Balogh (1995, Canada) **1/2, finished March 20. 
51. 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane (1999, UK) ****1/2, finished March 22. 
52. Bliss by Judith Ivory/Judy Cuevas (1995, USA) ****, finished March 23.
53. House by Alan Ayckbourn (2000, UK) ***1/2, finished March 25.
54. Tartuffe by Molière (1664-9, France) ***1/2, finished March 29.
55. Garden by Alan Ayckbourn (2000, UK) ***1/2, finished March 29. 
56. The Scottish Lord by Joan Wolf (1981, USA) **1/2, finished April 3. 
57. Incredible Change-Bots by Jeffrey Brown (2007, USA) ***, finished April 3.
58. Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin (2008, UK) ****, finished April 3.
59. Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth (2009, UK) ****, finished April 5.
60. Phaedra by Jean Racine (1677, France) ****, finished April 5.
61. Another Faust by Daniel and Dina Nayeri (2009, USA) ***, finished April 12.
62. Mind Games by Carolyn Crane (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished April 14.
63. Goddess of the Hunt by Tessa Dare (2009, USA) ***, finished April 15.
64. Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs (2008, USA) ***, finished April 16.
65. The Serpent's Tale by Ariana Franklin (2008, UK) ***1/2, finished April 20. 
66. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (2008, Australia) ****, finished April 21.
67. Wicked all Day by Liz Carlyle (2009) **1/2, finished May 5.
68. The Gilded Web by Mary Balogh (Wales/Canada, 1989) **1/2, finished Mary 8.
69. Naked in Death by J.D. Robb (1995, USA) ***, finished May 16.
70. The Best of Saki by Saki (1904/1910/1911/1914/1923, UK) ****, finished May 24.
71. Wicked Becomes You by Meredith Duran (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished May 27.
72. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness (2008, UK/USA) ***1/2, finished May 30.
73. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon (1991, USA) **1/12, finished June 9.
74. Pyongyang by Guy Delisle (2003, Canada) ***1/2, finished June 16.
75. Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris (2010, USA) **, finished June 16.
76. Improper Relations by Janet Mullany (2010, UK) ***, finished June 20.
77. His at Night by Sherry Thomas (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished June 27.
78. Jim the Boy by Tony Earley (2000, USA) ****, finished June 29.
79. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams (1987, USA) ***, finished July 1
80. Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. 3: The New Centurions by Sfar, Trondheim, Kerascoet and Obion (2006, France) ***1/2, finished July 2.
81. Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder (2005, USA) ***1/2, finished July 4.
82. Ooku: The Inner Chambers, vol. 1 by Fumi Yoshinaga (2005, Japan)***1/2, finished July 6.
83. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (1982, UK) ****, finished July 8.
84. The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig (2005, USA), ***, finished July 9.
85. Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley (2010, USA) ***, finished July 9.
86. The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison (2007, USA) ***, finished July 10. 
87. Bangkok 8 by John Burdett (2003, USA) ***1/2, finished July 13.
88. Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder (2006, USA) ***, finished July 14.
89. Scandal by Carolyn Jewel (2009, USA) ****, finished July 15.
90. If his Kiss is Wicked by Jo Goodman (2007, USA) ***1/2, finished July 16.
91. Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie (2000, USA) ****, finished July 17.
92. House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (2002, USA) ***1/2, finished July 21.
93. Whisper of Warning by Laura Griffin (2009, USA) **1/2, finished July 23.
94. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto (1988, Japan) ***, finished July 24. 
95. The Rules of Gentility by Janet Mullany (2007, USA) **1/2, finished July 24.
96. Heaven's Fire by Patricia Ryan (1996, USA) ***, finished July 28.
97. Lily by Patricia Gaffney (1996, USA) ***, finished July 28.
98. Still Life with Murder by P.B. Ryan (2003, USA) ****, finished July 29.
99. Murder in a Mill Town by P.B. Ryan (2004, USA) ***1/2, finished July 29.
100. Death on Beacon Hill by P.B. Ryan (2005, USA) ***, finished July 30.
101. Murder on Black Friday by P.B. Ryan (2005, USA) ***, finished July 30.
102. Memories of my Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia, 2005) ***1/2, finished July 31.
103. Web of Love by Mary Balogh (1990, Canada) ***1/2, finished August 1.
104. The Devil's Web by Mary Balogh (1990, Canada) ***, finished August 2.
105. The Leopard Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt (2007, USA) ***, finished August 4.
106. Silken Threads by Patricia Ryan (1999, USA) ***1/2, finished August 6.
107. Flat Out Sexy by Erin McCarthy (2008, USA) **, finished August 7.
108. Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett (1987, UK) ***, finished August 8.
109. My Lord and Spymaster by Joanna Bourne (2008, USA) **1/2, finished August 9.
110. The Village Spinster by Laura Matthews (1993, USA) ***, finished August 10. 
111. The Devil's Waltz by Anne Stuart (2006, USA) **1/2, finished August 11.
112. Suddenly Last Summer by Tennessee Williams (1958, USA) ****, finished August 11.
113. Mouth to Mouth by Erin McCarthy (2005, USA) **1/2, finished August 11.
114. Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty (2000, Australia) ***, finished August 12.
115. Master of Desire by Kinley MacGregor (2001, USA) **, finished August 15.
116. The China Garden by Liz Berry (1996, UK) ***1/2, finished August 17.
117. Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany (2005, Australia) ****, finished August 18.
118. Everything and the Moon by Julia Quinn (1997, USA) **, finished August 19.
119. The War against Miss Winter by Kathryn Miller Haines (2007, USA) ***1/2, finished August 24.
120. Dead of Night by John Marsden (1994, Australia) ***1/2, finished August 25.
121. Grave Goods by Ariana Franklin (2009, UK) ****,  finished August 26.
122. Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 2 by Fumi Yoshinaga (2006, Japan) ***1/2, finished August 27.
123. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (2010, USA) ****, finished September 3.
124. The Sun and the Moon by Patricia Ryan (2000, USA) *** 1/2, finished September 5.
125. The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig (2006, USA) ***, finished September 7.
126. The Marriage Bed by Laura Lee Guhrke (2005, USA) ***, finished September 10.
127. Loving a Lost Lord by Mary Jo Putney (2009, USA) ***, finished September 12.
128. The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard (1983, UK) ****1/2, finished September 15.
129. Agamemnon by Aeschylus (458 BCE, Athens) ****1/2, finished September 15.
130. Ransom by Julie Garwood (1999, USA) ***, finished September 18.
131. The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness (2009, UK) ****, finished September 22.
132. Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart (2006, USA) **1/2, finished September 26.
133. Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (1921, Italy) ****, finished September 28.
134. Double Cross by Carolyn Crane (USA, 2010) ****, finished September 30.
135. Proof by Seduction by Courtney Milan (USA, 2010) ****, finished October 4.
136. Trial by Desire by Courtney Milan (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished October 5.
137. The Blacks: A Clown Show by Jean Genet (France, 1958) ***1/2, finished October 10.
138. Suddenly You by Lisa Kleypas (2001, USA) **1/2, finished Oct 15.
139. The Frogs by Aristophanes (205 BCE, Athens) ****, finished October 17.
140. Stranger in My Arms by Lisa Kleypas (1998, USA)***, finished October 17.
141. Mine till Midnight by Lisa Kleypas (2007, USA) ***, finished ~ October 19.
     
142. The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished ~ October 21.
143. Offending the Audience by Peter Handke (1966, Austria) ****, finished October 24.
     
144. Seduce me at Sunrise by Lisa Kleypas (2008, USA) ***1/2, finished October 28.
145. Faking It by Jennifer Crusie (2002, USA) ****1/2, finished October 29. 
146. The Heir and the Spare by Maya Rodale (2007, USA) **1/2, finished November 1.
147. Pantomime by Derek Walcott (1978, Saint Lucia) ****, finished November 2.
148. Tempt Me At Twilight by Lisa Kleypas (2009, USA) ****, finished November 4.
149. Married by Morning by Lisa Kleypas (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished November 5.
150. Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished November 6.
151. The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani and Winston Ntshona (1973, South Africa) ****, finished November 9.
152. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (1980, USA) ****, finished  November 9.
153. Lady Sophia's Lover by Lisa Kleypas (2002, USA) **1/2, finished November 10.
154. Manhunting by Jennifer Crusie (1993, USA) ***, finished November 11.
155. The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd (?) (1582-1592, England) ***1/2, finished November 15.
156. Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (2009, USA) ***, finished November 17. 
157. Strange Bedpersons by Jennifer Crusie (1994, USA) **, finished November 18.
158. Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin (2010, USA) ***, finished November 20.
159. The Native Star by M.K. Hobson (2010, USA) ***1/2, finished November 26.
160. Maybe this Time by Jennifer Crusie (2010, USA) ***, finished November 27.
161. Glory in Death by J.D. Robb (1995, USA) ***, finished December 2.
162. Blue by George Eliot Clarke (2001, Canada) ****1/2, finished December 3.
163. Silver Lining by Maggie Osborne (2000, USA) ***, finished December 4.
164. Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2006, USA) ***1/2, finished December 4.
165. Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James (2009, USA) ***, finished December 6.
166. Trust Me on This by Jennifer Crusie (1997, USA) ***, finished December 8.
167. By Design by Madeline Hunter (2001, USA) ***, finished December 9.
168. Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks (1999, USA) ****, finished December 9.
169. The Author by Tim Crouch (2009, UK) ***1/2, finished December 11. 
170. Enchanting the Lady by Kathryne Kennedy (2008, USA) *1/2, finished December 13.
171. Women at the Thesmophoria by Aristophanes (Athens) ***, finished December 15.
172. Just the Sexiest Man Alive by Julie James (USA) ***, finished December 17.
173. Hoops by Patricia McLinn (USA) **1/2, finished December 22.
174. The Luneburg Variation by Paolo Maurensig (Italy, 1993) ***, finished December 24.
175. And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander (USA, 2005) ***1/2, finished December 24.
176. A Poisoned Season by Tasha Alexander (USA, 2007) ***1/2, finished December 25.
177. Point Omega by Don Delillo (USA, 2010) ***, finished December 26.
178. The Summer of You by Kate Noble (USA, 2010) ***1/2, finished December 27.
179. Body Check by Deirdre Martin (USA, 2003) **1/2, finished December 30.

You know what I haven't done in forever?  Posted an enthusiasm of links.

(You might also have answered "Reviewed a book or film," and right you'd be.  Mt. Grademore behind me and Mt. Courseprep looming, let's see whether I can't remedy that one as well in the near future.)


Via the Smart Bitches, a monkishly silent Hallelujah chorus:

Happy Christmas and Merry Solstice, all.  I'm with my family in Washington, DC now, eating heartily and basking in the company of old friends.  We've given up holiday gift-giving in my family (to the very great reduction in our wintertime stress and expenditure), but my antimaterialism isn't so ardent that I didn't get myself a bit of a Mt. Grademore-completion present:  a NOOK!

Ever since I've been madly reading away on it.  Despite my steadfast commitment to the experience of reading paper books, the ereader has its distinctive pleasures, not least of which is the ability to take hundreds of books with me when I travel.  (I thought this had been a light year for travel for me.  Then I totted up the list of places I've been in 2010: Halifax, Cape Breton, Washington, Los Angeles, London, Dublin, Oahu, Kauai, North Carolina.  Guess I need a memory adjustment.)  Three things that would improve the excellent Nook experience for me: 1) Better screensavers (the Kindle has such lovely ones - pages from medieval manuscripts and the like - while the Nook has cartoon portraits of authors looking oddly like Hollywood actors), 2) easier library navigation, and 3) more font choices for a cleaner aesthetic experience.

The long and the short of it is that reading a paper book is a more satisfyingly sensual experience: the design of print books is better because it is fully within the control of the designer (in other words, the more control you give to the reader, the less coherent the design will become, and the less books will appear as art objects in their own right) and the tactile experience of paper is richer.  And, of course, until the Nook and Kindle come with little Smell-o-vision atomizer attachments, the olfactory experience of reading won't be the same with ebooks.  But the ereader is, to my very great shock, profoundly comfortable. I'm loving mine.

Shower me with congratulations, for Mt. Grademore is at last behind me.  But not, I regret to tell you, before it had kept me indoors for nearly two weeks in Oahu and accompanied me on "vacation" to Kauai:

D and Mt. Grademore: Cunningly arranged to represent the amount of time I have spent with each on this trip

I read papers on the beach in the rain while surfers cavorted spectacularly before me.  Tunnels Beach, where this photo was taken, boasts some of the most famous waves in the Pacific, or so I hear. (Not to mention the odd shark attack, but let's not focus on that now.)  I was mostly absorbed in student accounts of the metatheatricality of Shakespeare.

Kauai is my favorite of the three Hawaiian Islands I have seen so far (the deserts and volcanoes of the Big Island a few years ago; crowded, urban Oahu perhaps to excess this summer and winter; and now a brief weekend in Kauai, which really set about earning its status as the wettest place on Earth.  We are hoping to do Maui when I am back in February for my school's "Winter Break.").  I hope to be back for more than a couple of a days next time, and this time without my papery albatross of argumentative despair.  What really impressed me was how good an impression Kauai does of Nova Scotia:

Kilauea Lighthouse, northernmost point of Hawai'i

Windswept Sycorax Pine at Peggy's Cove, southern shore of Nova Scotia, where injury and death have rewarded careless sightseers. Really, that's what the plaque says.

Yesterday on the way to the beach, we pulled up behind a car with four separate (but identical) Ultimate Fighting bumper stickers.  (My friends and I like to call all the mixed martial arts varietals "boxling" - a little bit wrestling, a little bit boxing - the word seems suffused with an ineffable wriggliness. It can't be pinned down.)

Sycorax, from the passenger seat: "Whatever you do, don't get into an accident with that guy."

Pause.

D: "I don't really understand Ultimate Fighters. Clearly they aren't the last, if there are so many of them."

Papers on Parade

A week ago Friday I gave a final exam to my Intro to Drama students (my last on-site teacherly duty of the term) at 7 p.m.  (Worst. Exam. Time. Ever.)  At 10 p.m. I headed back to my house for some quick reorganization.  And at 3 a.m. I was out the door for the airport.  I've taken Mt. Grademore on a field-trip, you see.  To the beaches of Oahu.

The glass-half-full perspective is that I am grading in PARADISE.  The glass-half-empty attitude, however, primly reminds me that I am in Paradise and all I do is GRADE.

To be honest, the only idyllic sunning Mt. Grademore and I have done in Paradise to date was on last Sunday (hence the lack of a post then, fellow Saloners).  Since then I have been locked up in the apartment, enjoying the heat but barely registering the sunshine while I slog through the endless trails and crags of papers and exams while D is at work.

My only consolation is in the (sometimes unintentional) wit that blazes a comic streak through these assignments.  "Agamemnon," one of my exam essays reflected yesterday, "is more stapled to religion, while Oedipus is hung on it."  Oh, Mt. Grademore, I thought.  Will your delights never cease?

Then I turned the page on an exam booklet to find an essay titled, "How to Sacrifice a Goat."

Me [aloud, alone in the apartment]:   "I don't know whether I can face this tonight."

After hearing the epic saga of the Journey up Mt. Grademore, my friends start sending me comforting links that pose grading as an old-school epic computer game:

Hell

You are in a maze of twisty little paragraphs, all alike. The path ahead of you is littered with sentence fragments, left broken and twitching at your feet as their pathetic spaniel eyes implore you to put them out of their misery. Dangling modifiers loop happily through the branches overhead. In the distance, that sound of undergraduate feet has turned into a heavy, erratic thwump - swoop - THWUMP you recognise immediately - it's a badly-indented long quotation, and it's coming closer.

>run

You wish.

A flock of commas scampers past, squeaking in a high-pitched, giggly way. 

[...]

>get commas

Tricksy little things, commas. These ones have embedded themselves in the comforting thicket of a nearby sentence.

>search for commas

Where do you want to search for the commas?

>search for commas around subordinate clauses

Surely you jest.

>search for commas prefacing speech

You spy a clutch of young semi-colons here, looking slightly confused.

>get semi-colons

You have the clutch of young semi-colons.

>throw semi-colons in direction of my own writing

I don't think you need any more of those, young lady.

>but I'm a Victorianist!

That's no excuse.

Seriously, though: I could do with a good long vacation in the rolling plains of Good Grammar and Sound Argument.  Or the beaches of Total Frivolity. If I could just get over this last craggy range....

Have I accidentally wandered into the academic version of Pilgrim's Progress?  How grim. I'll be over here by the Slough of Despond.

Grading.

Last year, my first as an emigrée, was also the first year I had ever been apart from my family on Thanksgiving.  It hit me hard.  I spent the whole day wandering about in a ravenous daze, compulsively eating and never feeling satisfied.  It was like something out of Dante's Inferno.

Never again, I vowed.  So this summer I arranged my entire teaching schedule for the year around this one week, making it possible for me to go home on the day before Thanksgiving without missing any class.  Here's what happened:

Rapid exit from my last class of the day, while the students are doing their end-of-term evaluations of me.  (My students are very excited to hear about my travels; one even writes me an email the next day, hoping that I have a good time in Detroit, a city I have no connection to and would not be visiting.  I don't know.) Panicked exodus to airport, where I have arrived absurdly early for a flight I had forgotten was domestic and not international (I'm connecting to my hometown of Washington, DC through Montreal).

Halifax doesn't want to let me go.  Freezing fog.  45 minute delay while we de-ice.

Result?  Panicked run in high heels (still dressed for lecturing, you see) through the Montreal airport.  They have been holding the plane for me, and are just closing it as I hobble up to the gate.  I collapse exhaustedly into my seat with a sigh of triumph, and we begin to taxi to the runway.

An hour later: still taxiing. Right back to the gate.  Unnamed technical trouble.  We disembark into the now-empty airport.

"Mesdames et messieurs, we apologize for the problem that has brought your plane back to Montreal.  Your replacement plane will arrive from New York in an hour; we will groom and then board you.

"The terminal is closed, but you are free to use the restrooms if accompanied by a uniformed escort.

"There is an exercise occurring in the terminal: if you hear dogs barking and people screaming, don't be alarmed."

But the only person screaming was a fellow American passenger who (surrounded by Quebecois travelers who received the news of the delay with Gallic shrugs and jokes about how there was undoubtedly a woman at the root of it) roundly and screechingly cursed the gate agent first in English and then in salty, fluent French.

I just sat there, working my way through Mt. Grademore, thinking, "The closest thing the modern experience has to the ancient Athenian feeling of total subjection to fate is traveling on Thanksgiving weekend.  Well, and the DMV."





Nineteen at our Thanksgiving tables.  Many of them people I haven't seen in a couple of years, because of the Thanksgiving manqué last year.  Documented for the ages (and in Dutch!) by one of our friends, who brought two visitors from Iceland for their first Thanksgiving.  Because the best Thanksgivings are the ones involving strangers as well as friends.

I realize that it really isn't Thanksgiving until the tale of my father's groping Jackie Kennedy is told. 

"Was she wearing a corset?", our friends asked.

"Yes.  She was heavily girdled," my father replied, and got a faraway expression in his eyes that indicated that this - this moment in his early twenties - might be the most vivid single memory of his whole life.

"How did it happen?", the Thanksgiving collective nudged.

"I was standing in the hallway backstage at Carnegie Hall after a concert, holding my viola above my head to protect it from the crush, when I noticed huge men standing on either side of me, with hearing aids in their ears and huge bulges under their arms.  Then I realized that there was a small woman with big hair standing in front of me, and I thought, 'This is the opportunity of a lifetime.'"

The rest is history, and Thanksgiving legend.  As my Canadian friend said, "It's important to have traditions." Don't you all remember learning about the first Thanksgiving, when the pilgrims regaled their new friends with tales of their pre-conversion encounters with Anne of Denmark in the hallways of Greenwich?  I do.

We heard the tale that night, and again two days later at the traditional post-Thanksgiving dim sum with all the same people.  What say you, Père Sycorax?  Did I do it justice here?
Some people watch football on Thanksgiving.  I can't get into a sport that is a battle of tactics instead of a drama of character.  So instead I spent Thanksgiving addicting my parents to Friday Night Lights.  It's a hard sell: Texas, sports dramas, beautiful people, American productions, and high school narratives all rank high on the list of things my parents are NOT intrigued by.  All I could do to counteract these demerits was assert that it is really, really good.

I only realized upon my third viewing of the opening season of FNL how exceedingly Canadian Tim Riggins's Texan accent is.  I keep waiting (giddily) for him to be drawn into more conversations aboat Texas, and how he never wants to get oat of his beloved home town.  Texas forever!

I think I am beginning to miss Canada.

Continuing tales from Mt. Grademore:

Best student slip from today's Mt. Grademore?

Agamemnon was blind to his fat, and was only truly able to see his flaws in death.

Best response from a friend to my exclamations over the brilliant Freudianism of this slip?

Well, I don't think they had very good mirrors back then.

My Metatheatre class ended with an extra credit viewing of the brilliant Slings and Arrows (if you haven't seen it, go get your hands on it RIGHT NOW).  My students' response?

Students:     That was better than it had any right to be.

I:     What do you mean?

Students:     Well, I mean: it's Canadian.  And old.

Let's be clear: we're talking about a 2003 show here.  I can feel myself getting desiccated and crotchety even as I listen to them.

I:     Come on.  It's not that old.

Students:     Please.  Did you see those cell phones?  They weren't Will Smith Fresh Prince big, but they were pretty big.

I: [defensively]      OK, well: it's not that old.  But it is Canadian.  Does anything strike you as quintessentially Canadian about the theatricalism here?  Anything that reflects the particular status of theatre in Canada?

     [The air between us fills with the awkward awareness of our generational and national differences.]

Students:      Um, I don't think people our age really think there is a difference between Canadian and American theatre.

And with that cheering assertion of ahistorical universalism, the term drew to a close.



Today's gem mined from Mt. Grademore (from a quiz on Racine's Phèdre):

I am not always in agreeance when people say something is phallic, but, ooh boy, is this phallic.  There is quite obviously a sexual subtext, but I think she'd find being stabbed a lot less satisfying than her rather breathy words make it seem.

Let's hear what Phaedra has to say for herself, shall we?

Here is my heart.  Your blade must pierce me there.
In haste to expiate its wicked lust
My heart already leaps to meet your thrust.

(When my students performed this scene on extra credit performance day, Hippolytus couldn't stop blushing and grinning.  And Phaedra couldn't help but put a, well, textually rich emphasis on the lines, "If you'll not stain your hand with my abhorred / and tainted blood, lend me at least your sword," accompanying the final words with an ambiguous hand gesture.)

The student was rightfully struck by this scene.  A week later, on his exam, he said this while defining the neoclassical concept of "decorum" (a type of propriety that governs the behavior - amorous and otherwise - of characters based on their class, gender, age, and profession):

Phaedra never actually does anything to Hippolytus sexually, but she eyes his sword more than the average passerby.

One of my students just sent me an email that ended with an order:

Marry Christmas!

Wow, I thought, I think I'll decline.  Based on about four different political principles.

I think it might now be time to come to terms with the fact that I will never be the Queen of England.

In younger days, this possibility inspired me with romantic unease.  Today it just fills me with republican rage.

Here in Anglophile, Loyalist Halifax, the newsstands are filled with tabloids reveling in the princely engagement and "Tales of the Royal Women." There is something strangely delightful, I have to say, about the fact that these gossip mags intersperse official portraits of Queen Elizabeth the First among youthful glamor shots of the current queen, her sister, the young princess-to-be, and Princess Di.  Nothing says glamor like Queen Bess, all done up in a Juno gown (covered in peacock feathers to show that she always - ALWAYS - has her eye on you) and standing on a map of subjugated Europe.

Notice that I said "might now be time."  I'm not discounting the possibility that, come the revolution, I could be elected (or chosen by virtue of my merits) to live in a palace and wave in a dignified fashion.

I may very well have experienced a new zenith in my professorial dignity on Monday when, comparing Bel-Imperia's attitude towards romance in The Spanish Tragedy to the TV series The Walking Dead, I found myself uttering these words:

I guess the take-home message of today's class is that, come the zombie apocalypse, love becomes a matter of standing-in, of substitution, of surrogation.

My students somehow felt it was perfectly natural for the noble Bel-Imperia to slot Horatio into his dead best friend's role as her lover immediately upon hearing of the former beloved's death.


"Doesn't that strike you as a very ... utilitarian attitude towards love?", I asked.

"No!", they replied.  "Who else would you want your lover to end up with after you died but your best friend?"

"Hmm," I said.  "So in The Walking Dead we feel perfectly sympathetic with the cop protagonist's wife taking up with his partner when she thinks her husband is either in a permanent coma or zombified?"

"No," some shot back, instantly.  "That's awful.  How could she betray him like that?  And so soon after the zombie mayhem started!!"

"But ZOMBIES have taken over the earth!," others cried.  "We all need to band together however we can! Who can blame her for seeking solace an assistance, someone to replace her husband?  She's just trying to SURVIVE."


"Well, that's how Bel-Imperia feels," I said.  "The disintegration of the system of aristocratic justice is her zombie apocalypse.  But it is still utilitarian - she is just as interested in the role to be filled as she is in who fills it.  Love becomes a tool for revenge, and both love and revenge are entirely based on structures of standing-in."

Pause.

"It was better in the comic," said my students.  "The TV show totally ruined it."

I write to you from the pale crags and papery drifts of Mt. Grademore because it has been too long - far, far too long - an absence.  Let me see whether I can't cobble together some brief accounts of what I have been up to in the past month in stolen moments between grading papers on the York Crucifixion play and exams on the commodification of leisure in the Renaissance.

Meanwhile: what do you think of the new blog aesthetic?  I've been toying with the idea of moving to Wordpress or Tumblr for some time, lured in by their cleaner themes, but I like the level of control I have over minutia in Blogger, so I finally settled on this.  The only glitch I haven't been able to fix yet concerns the indentation of bullet lists in my posts.  I'm afraid that will have to wait for another day, when Mt. Grademore no longer looms.

(Also, in order to comment on posts in my new theme, you now have to click on the post title and go to the post's individual page.  Sorry about that.  I will look into fixing it so that you can comment on Sycorax Pine's main page as well.)