I haven't used this excuse in a while, but if the shoe fits. I am having the hardest time writing my personal statement for my PhD applications. And the more I think about it, the worse it gets. So I should not think about it at all, right? Wait, what? No, I really need to have it done. I need to have it done two weeks ago.
Lie.
That was my friend's advice last night. I need an arc, he said. I have no arc, I said. He said, Lie. There's a major flaw with this plan: I don't lie. Certainly not well, at any rate.
So beyond that, what do I say? I sit down to write this and I babble all of the things I don't want to write, things that one should never write in a personal statement, because I know what those things are. I like to read, I like to write, I want to go to school forever, please give me money. I have no teaching experience, I've never been published, and I've spent the last ten years working in the restaurant business. Which, as a creative writer, was useful for personal statements when I applied to MFA programs. Or maybe wasn't useful, because I didn't get in. And I'm so glad I didn't, don't get me wrong, but I'm reading the essay I sent to NYU and I'm thinking, how in the world did I expect to get in with this shit.
And I sent one of my recommenders an essay I wrote for her as an undergrad, so I read that and then immediately read the intro to my thesis, and I'm thinking, wow, this is actually kind of brainy. It was a good feeling. My writing has improved so vastly in the last two years.
So why can't I write this personal statement?
What's my arc? Travel?
Everything I think, I immediately think is lame. But it's not and I know it's not, I'm not trying to sound self-deprecating, but when I write about my travels, when I try to put it into words, the words fail to convey any of the experience, they can't measure up in the least, and it makes me feel like I'm cheapening the experience, and so I find it even more difficult to write about it, and it's this vicious cycle...
Can I tie where I've been to my research interests? Yes, but I've never been to the 1960s. Is that the problem? That's a silly problem to have. If I make writing this thing sound trivial, will it be easier to do? It's not trivial though. It makes a big difference when one is applying to such competitive programs.
But you know what. I'm going to do it, and it will be great, and I'm totally going to get in, and five years from now I will be even smarter, and I will scoff (because that's what academics do) at my younger self. It will be brilliant.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Labors of Love
Last night I attended the launch party for the second issue of the St Petersburg Review on Macdougal. It was a big night. I think I'm still processing it and will have to write more later, but in the meantime, get your own: highly recommended.
Long story short: it was really great to spend time with friends and meet other like-minded people, to be able to talk about writing and literature and academia in a constructive way. It was a little like being in Russia only not - surly bartender and all. Vodka. Smoked salmon tartlets. Techno music. It was lovely.
We do these things without the promise of financial gain, barely allowing ourselves the distant hope of compensation, but we do it because we love it, because we have to, because our souls will accept no other sustenance. And thank heavens for that. Labors of love, indeed.
Speaking of: A quick reminder: the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers $720 million each and every day, or a total of $1.4 trillion to date, according to the American Friends Service Committee. That's like saying (figuratively) that I spent $2.50 on the war today, or that each of us has paid $4600 (not including interest and future expenditures and repercussions and other war efforts - in Afghanistan, for example - and not taking into account proportions or actual mathematics, of course) over the last five years. That's a lot of money. The daily cost of the war is enough to pay for my rent for the next ... 80,000 years. I love my neighborhood and all, but that's a big commitment.
For actual researched, informed, and properly calculated statistics, you might try National Priorities.org or zFacts.com or any news organization, but you should definitely try. Peace is cheaper. (Two weeks to election day.)
Long story short: it was really great to spend time with friends and meet other like-minded people, to be able to talk about writing and literature and academia in a constructive way. It was a little like being in Russia only not - surly bartender and all. Vodka. Smoked salmon tartlets. Techno music. It was lovely.
We do these things without the promise of financial gain, barely allowing ourselves the distant hope of compensation, but we do it because we love it, because we have to, because our souls will accept no other sustenance. And thank heavens for that. Labors of love, indeed.
Speaking of: A quick reminder: the war in Iraq is costing American taxpayers $720 million each and every day, or a total of $1.4 trillion to date, according to the American Friends Service Committee. That's like saying (figuratively) that I spent $2.50 on the war today, or that each of us has paid $4600 (not including interest and future expenditures and repercussions and other war efforts - in Afghanistan, for example - and not taking into account proportions or actual mathematics, of course) over the last five years. That's a lot of money. The daily cost of the war is enough to pay for my rent for the next ... 80,000 years. I love my neighborhood and all, but that's a big commitment.
For actual researched, informed, and properly calculated statistics, you might try National Priorities.org or zFacts.com or any news organization, but you should definitely try. Peace is cheaper. (Two weeks to election day.)
Friday, October 17, 2008
on Equus
I was reading the playbill today, and something came to mind that I hadn't thought as much about before: the levels of mediation in Equus. The story is told by Dr. Dysart, the whole story. All of the events in the story except for this act of telling the audience have already happened in the past. We then jump back to when the magistrate came to tell him about Alan - we hear him telling us that she told him of the crime.
The most heavily layered section, I think, is toward the end when we see Alan and Jill in the barn, and Jill's dialogue is all in scene, but Alan's is relaying what happened (or lying about it) while Dysart pushes him, even taking on the voice of Equus, all the while relaying the events to the audience.
I would have liked to see that end sequence a little better, which is probably why I want to see it again, from the front.
So what does all of this layering mean? How are we to read it? I'm thinking back to my thesis, of course, and to a class I took a year and a half ago, where we discussed Wuthering Heights in terms such as these - especially the scene where the maid tells Nelly something she overheard, and Nelly's telling Mr. Lockwood, and Lockwood is telling us... I'm not going to use the word reliability, I simply refuse to, because it implies there is a knowable, objective truth, and we all know that's ridiculous.
But what I'm thinking is: it matters whether the unreliability is intended (i.e., the speaker wishes to hide something from the listener) or unintended, who is being misled and who is misleading... In the case of Equus, for example, when Mrs. Strang comes to Dr. Dysart's office, she tells the doctor something behind her husband's back - the story of the picture on Alan's wall. What is she hiding from by not telling her husband that she's telling the psychiatrist something her husband knows? The real question, of course, is: what is the author revealing to us about the relationship between the couple, about Alan's character, his upbringing, about psychiatry, about attitudes toward psychiatry, et cetera? And then: what does this scene and the play as a whole tell us about what growing up means, about religion and sex and gender?
The female characters in this play are less well-developed than the men, but I think that's largely because the two main characters are male. They are the two characters we are told the most about. We don't know why, for instance, Mr. Strang goes to the pornographic theater, just that Alan caught him and suspects he has been going regularly.
I was wondering if identifying the layers of mediation, of where time has been represented out of order, is one of the ways we can expose what the work is saying about its realworld context, but I'm also wondering if we shouldn't consider, not just the ways we disorganize things by attempting to represent them, but also the ways we attempt to reconstruct something from this thing that has been disorganized - what "really" happened. We try to figure things out, to locate the hidden truth, and then we happily announce it, whatever it is, and the possibility of multiple meanings means that we can each have our very own interpretation, just like we each have our own iPods, our own personal computers, our own blogs. Our own audiences.
That's Dysart's demand: he speaks directly to the audience, and he's the only one to do so - unlike a play I saw a year and a half ago - has it been so long? - called A Very Common Procedure where all three characters tell their story to the audience simultaneously. I'm digressing, but to take that example, they each have their own story to tell, even though it's the same story, and the way the play is structured, they tell the story together. They tell it to each other at the same time they are telling it to the audience, in some scenes. I'm just wondering where all of this über-compartmentalizing will lead, because (unlike our representation of it) time is very much a progression, even if we are unable to fathom points A or B...
Um. Wow, downer. In other news, I'm going to another play next Wednesday. Exciting!
The most heavily layered section, I think, is toward the end when we see Alan and Jill in the barn, and Jill's dialogue is all in scene, but Alan's is relaying what happened (or lying about it) while Dysart pushes him, even taking on the voice of Equus, all the while relaying the events to the audience.
I would have liked to see that end sequence a little better, which is probably why I want to see it again, from the front.
So what does all of this layering mean? How are we to read it? I'm thinking back to my thesis, of course, and to a class I took a year and a half ago, where we discussed Wuthering Heights in terms such as these - especially the scene where the maid tells Nelly something she overheard, and Nelly's telling Mr. Lockwood, and Lockwood is telling us... I'm not going to use the word reliability, I simply refuse to, because it implies there is a knowable, objective truth, and we all know that's ridiculous.
But what I'm thinking is: it matters whether the unreliability is intended (i.e., the speaker wishes to hide something from the listener) or unintended, who is being misled and who is misleading... In the case of Equus, for example, when Mrs. Strang comes to Dr. Dysart's office, she tells the doctor something behind her husband's back - the story of the picture on Alan's wall. What is she hiding from by not telling her husband that she's telling the psychiatrist something her husband knows? The real question, of course, is: what is the author revealing to us about the relationship between the couple, about Alan's character, his upbringing, about psychiatry, about attitudes toward psychiatry, et cetera? And then: what does this scene and the play as a whole tell us about what growing up means, about religion and sex and gender?
The female characters in this play are less well-developed than the men, but I think that's largely because the two main characters are male. They are the two characters we are told the most about. We don't know why, for instance, Mr. Strang goes to the pornographic theater, just that Alan caught him and suspects he has been going regularly.
I was wondering if identifying the layers of mediation, of where time has been represented out of order, is one of the ways we can expose what the work is saying about its realworld context, but I'm also wondering if we shouldn't consider, not just the ways we disorganize things by attempting to represent them, but also the ways we attempt to reconstruct something from this thing that has been disorganized - what "really" happened. We try to figure things out, to locate the hidden truth, and then we happily announce it, whatever it is, and the possibility of multiple meanings means that we can each have our very own interpretation, just like we each have our own iPods, our own personal computers, our own blogs. Our own audiences.
That's Dysart's demand: he speaks directly to the audience, and he's the only one to do so - unlike a play I saw a year and a half ago - has it been so long? - called A Very Common Procedure where all three characters tell their story to the audience simultaneously. I'm digressing, but to take that example, they each have their own story to tell, even though it's the same story, and the way the play is structured, they tell the story together. They tell it to each other at the same time they are telling it to the audience, in some scenes. I'm just wondering where all of this über-compartmentalizing will lead, because (unlike our representation of it) time is very much a progression, even if we are unable to fathom points A or B...
Um. Wow, downer. In other news, I'm going to another play next Wednesday. Exciting!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Can't believe I forgot
The most wonderful thing happened to me the other night at work. I've been stressing about work being slow and about PhD applications lately. If it's slow I have time to think, and usually what I'm thinking is: what am I doing here? And with apps, I read descriptions of some of these programs, some of which I am completely not qualified for, and I get anxious, and it's scary, and with the two of these occurring at the same time, I start to think: maybe I should just run off somewhere cheap and write for a while. That would be nice, yes, and I think very highly of travel, but it's unrealistic right now (see above re: work being slow), and so then that gets me down more, and it's this huge ridiculous cycle.
So the other night, Saturday night, I got called in, and I had a totally rookie station (three four tops and a six), and it wasn't that busy, but it was okay, and my second table is a vip - not anyone famous or anything (Madge was in two weeks ago), but this guy has been there 46 times, so the company is very concerned with making sure he is happy. That's a lot of pressure, by the way, but I handled it beautifully, everything went fine.
So they've paid, and I'm clearing their dessert plates and the vip says, "What's your name? How have you not waited on me before? You're not new?" "Oh, no," I say, "I was here for five months last year, then I left to write my thesis, and now I've been back for about five, six months now." "Did you finish your thesis?" another gentleman asked. (There were four of them, three guys in their late thirties/early forties, I would guess, and one's teenage son.) "Yes," I say, "I now have a master's degree." "In what?" "Humanities and Social Thought." Various congratulations, and one of them asks what I'm going to do with that, and I say, "I'm applying to PhD programs," and we all chuckle and murmur because what else could I possibly do with a master's degree in Humanities and Social Thought for fuck's sake, and the vip says, "Don't worry, it's totally worth it, we've all been there," and I say, "Is it? I really need to hear that right now," and I do and I meant it, and I say something about the application process being sort of grueling, and he says, "no, I remember."
And then he quotes the Aeneid to me. In Latin. And then in English, but I don't remember the words only the sense because I am completely blown away and knocked off my feet, jaw on the floor, but it's something Aeneas says about the journey and what it comes down to is that it's all worth it.
And all I can say is, "That's awesome," quietly and almost to myself.
"So you're working here to pay bills?" he asks. With this smile that had less to do with the tequila and more to do with just knowing, just totally getting it.
"Yes I am," I say. And I tell them to have a great night and I walk to the back to put the tower of plates in my hands at the dish station in this daze. Because that was exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it and it came out of nowhere and holy cow.
So I have this renewed sense of purpose and am in love with life as usual, which is why I decided this afternoon to go to a Broadway show tonight, and it's so great to be on a path and have the journey so in my field of vision. I don't know what's coming, but I will wait for it, and I will be prepared, and it will be beautiful.
So the other night, Saturday night, I got called in, and I had a totally rookie station (three four tops and a six), and it wasn't that busy, but it was okay, and my second table is a vip - not anyone famous or anything (Madge was in two weeks ago), but this guy has been there 46 times, so the company is very concerned with making sure he is happy. That's a lot of pressure, by the way, but I handled it beautifully, everything went fine.
So they've paid, and I'm clearing their dessert plates and the vip says, "What's your name? How have you not waited on me before? You're not new?" "Oh, no," I say, "I was here for five months last year, then I left to write my thesis, and now I've been back for about five, six months now." "Did you finish your thesis?" another gentleman asked. (There were four of them, three guys in their late thirties/early forties, I would guess, and one's teenage son.) "Yes," I say, "I now have a master's degree." "In what?" "Humanities and Social Thought." Various congratulations, and one of them asks what I'm going to do with that, and I say, "I'm applying to PhD programs," and we all chuckle and murmur because what else could I possibly do with a master's degree in Humanities and Social Thought for fuck's sake, and the vip says, "Don't worry, it's totally worth it, we've all been there," and I say, "Is it? I really need to hear that right now," and I do and I meant it, and I say something about the application process being sort of grueling, and he says, "no, I remember."
And then he quotes the Aeneid to me. In Latin. And then in English, but I don't remember the words only the sense because I am completely blown away and knocked off my feet, jaw on the floor, but it's something Aeneas says about the journey and what it comes down to is that it's all worth it.
And all I can say is, "That's awesome," quietly and almost to myself.
"So you're working here to pay bills?" he asks. With this smile that had less to do with the tequila and more to do with just knowing, just totally getting it.
"Yes I am," I say. And I tell them to have a great night and I walk to the back to put the tower of plates in my hands at the dish station in this daze. Because that was exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it and it came out of nowhere and holy cow.
So I have this renewed sense of purpose and am in love with life as usual, which is why I decided this afternoon to go to a Broadway show tonight, and it's so great to be on a path and have the journey so in my field of vision. I don't know what's coming, but I will wait for it, and I will be prepared, and it will be beautiful.
Equus
was superb. I went to see it at the Broadhurst Theatre on W 44th St tonight, sort of spur of the moment. (I bought the ticket online this afternoon because of a student discount email type thing.) My seat was onstage, actually above and behind the stage, which was an unusual vantage point for me, I'm not sure I've ever been behind and looking down on the action before, not that I've been to that many plays. I'm not sure if I would do it again, but it was definitely interesting. Even though the behind-the-scenes stuff was still very much behind the scenes, sitting as I was, looking out at the audience with the actors, made me think of how little I know about theater, about what goes into it, about what it feels like to be a part of, whether one is acting, is on-stage, or one is an usher or in charge of lighting or whatever. At one point Daniel Radcliffe cracked the first two fingers of his right hand, just below me, while his back is to two other characters who are talking, and I half wondered if it was him or the character. Silly, I know, but I become more and more aware of my lack of knowledge about what it is to act.
Speaking of Daniel Radcliffe, his performance was absolutely amazing. Richard Griffiths was also great, the whole cast was, and maybe I don't have enough distance, haven't processed it enough to even write about it intelligently, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This going to the theater thing may become a habit with me.
Speaking of Daniel Radcliffe, his performance was absolutely amazing. Richard Griffiths was also great, the whole cast was, and maybe I don't have enough distance, haven't processed it enough to even write about it intelligently, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This going to the theater thing may become a habit with me.
Friday, October 10, 2008
PhD applications...
Monday I emailed my potential recommenders about PhD applications, and by Tuesday I was starting to feel anxious about the whole thing, but Wednesday I started putting together some information and really researching programs and their various application processes, and yesterday I felt wound tighter than a spring, as they say. I feel as though everything has been thrown up in the air like so many feathers, but that's kind of silly because nothing has changed. If anything, I have a firmer grasp on things, in a way.
On the other hand, I'm daring to hope I'm qualified for Ivy League doctoral study, and holy cow. And what if I don't stay in New York...
I was also thinking, after talking with a friend Tuesday night who is in the MFA program at NYU and just got a job offer (or really, an offer of promotion, since she already works there) for when she graduates in May: What if I've wasted the last ten years of my life? Should I have been doing everything differently? ...Is this line of thinking a result of age and experience? I'm 29, I've just completed a major step, a definitive portion of time, and I'm preparing for another step, another deadline, another period of hard work and sacrifice with a huge reward at the end. Only, I'm wondering if these huge rewards ever feel more substantial. I don't want to wake up in six years and still be waiting tables. Which is why I'm thinking, do I want to wake up tomorrow and still be waiting tables?
And then I remember why I'm doing it, why I've been doing it so long, and that is this: it's flexible, it's good money, it's not work that can really take over my life (after a certain point), and it's fun for the most part. And for research purposes. And for networking purposes - seriously, I work with so many creative people, not just actors, but musicians, writers, performers, and other literary types; people who are interested in politics and philosophy and the economy and travel and what's going on in the world. It's a great environment to be in. And even though I feel like a little bit more of my soul is slowly and painfully sucked away each and every time I serve f-ing Patron Silver,* each time I smile when I don't want to, each time I wonder if I mean it, each time some corporate drone talks to me like I'm an uneducated worthless insignificant waste of space and I want to scream... I kind of love it.
*Patron is a brand name. Paul Mitchell designed a bottle, took it to Jalisco, and built himself a distillery. It's not bad. But it's not nearly the best. It's just well-marketed. But I digress.
The problem, of course, is that it's kind of slow at work this time of year, and with the economy, blah blah blah, but when I'm not busy, I have time to think about these things, and I start to question what it is exactly that I'm doing with my life, and I need to remind myself that I'm working towards some big goals and working at the restaurant is a part of that.
Now I just have to make that clear in my personal statement...
On the other hand, I'm daring to hope I'm qualified for Ivy League doctoral study, and holy cow. And what if I don't stay in New York...
I was also thinking, after talking with a friend Tuesday night who is in the MFA program at NYU and just got a job offer (or really, an offer of promotion, since she already works there) for when she graduates in May: What if I've wasted the last ten years of my life? Should I have been doing everything differently? ...Is this line of thinking a result of age and experience? I'm 29, I've just completed a major step, a definitive portion of time, and I'm preparing for another step, another deadline, another period of hard work and sacrifice with a huge reward at the end. Only, I'm wondering if these huge rewards ever feel more substantial. I don't want to wake up in six years and still be waiting tables. Which is why I'm thinking, do I want to wake up tomorrow and still be waiting tables?
And then I remember why I'm doing it, why I've been doing it so long, and that is this: it's flexible, it's good money, it's not work that can really take over my life (after a certain point), and it's fun for the most part. And for research purposes. And for networking purposes - seriously, I work with so many creative people, not just actors, but musicians, writers, performers, and other literary types; people who are interested in politics and philosophy and the economy and travel and what's going on in the world. It's a great environment to be in. And even though I feel like a little bit more of my soul is slowly and painfully sucked away each and every time I serve f-ing Patron Silver,* each time I smile when I don't want to, each time I wonder if I mean it, each time some corporate drone talks to me like I'm an uneducated worthless insignificant waste of space and I want to scream... I kind of love it.
*Patron is a brand name. Paul Mitchell designed a bottle, took it to Jalisco, and built himself a distillery. It's not bad. But it's not nearly the best. It's just well-marketed. But I digress.
The problem, of course, is that it's kind of slow at work this time of year, and with the economy, blah blah blah, but when I'm not busy, I have time to think about these things, and I start to question what it is exactly that I'm doing with my life, and I need to remind myself that I'm working towards some big goals and working at the restaurant is a part of that.
Now I just have to make that clear in my personal statement...
Monday, October 6, 2008
Henry James
I recently started reading Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, and there's this quote I absolutely love in his Preface:
"Strangely fertilizing, in the long run, does a wasted effort of attention often prove."
When I read that it just felt so affirming. And perhaps in an it's okay that I'm not getting as much done as I'd like kind of way, and I know I could easily use it as an excuse, but I'm not going to. I'm not saying that writing doesn't require an immense amount of energy because it certainly does. I'm not one of those people who can whip out story after story in no time at all, and I'm not sure anyone really is, but Chekhov came pretty close (the guy wrote two hundred stories and only lived to age 44). But the phrase made me feel a little less guilt for experiencing the life that I'm living instead of sequestering myself somewhere quiet. However, some of this relief, no doubt, is because I have definitely been writing more lately. (I'm writing right now...) I'm working on two new short stories, one of which I started while in St Petersburg, and one I started two weeks ago.
But it's like some of us discussed while in Russia: some people were getting a lot of writing done while we were there. I think I wrote a total of two days, one of which was really creatively productive. Okay, not counting the little bits of poetry and journalling I did here and there. But still. Some people can't write in Russia, I think that's how one guy put it. And I totally get that. There's too much going on, there's too much to take in, to process, especially if one is hoping to work on a project that has nothing to do with the journey one is on at the time. And that's what James was talking about, specifically Venice. Next sentence:
"It all depends on how the attention has been cheated, has been squandered."
So I don't mind that I don't come home every night after work and force myself to write so many words or so many sentences or pages, a certain amount of time on a certain story. I'm glad for the great conversation, the whiskey and the wine (not to mention that bison grass infused vodka I had at Richardson's a few weeks ago: yummy!). There is a lot to take in, to process. And it's slowly coming out in words on a page. And sometimes it comes quickly. And someday I will be able to spend more of my time with this, and less waiting tables. But for now, for the long run, my effort of attention may be strangely fertilized and I may be slightly wasted.
"Strangely fertilizing, in the long run, does a wasted effort of attention often prove."
When I read that it just felt so affirming. And perhaps in an it's okay that I'm not getting as much done as I'd like kind of way, and I know I could easily use it as an excuse, but I'm not going to. I'm not saying that writing doesn't require an immense amount of energy because it certainly does. I'm not one of those people who can whip out story after story in no time at all, and I'm not sure anyone really is, but Chekhov came pretty close (the guy wrote two hundred stories and only lived to age 44). But the phrase made me feel a little less guilt for experiencing the life that I'm living instead of sequestering myself somewhere quiet. However, some of this relief, no doubt, is because I have definitely been writing more lately. (I'm writing right now...) I'm working on two new short stories, one of which I started while in St Petersburg, and one I started two weeks ago.
But it's like some of us discussed while in Russia: some people were getting a lot of writing done while we were there. I think I wrote a total of two days, one of which was really creatively productive. Okay, not counting the little bits of poetry and journalling I did here and there. But still. Some people can't write in Russia, I think that's how one guy put it. And I totally get that. There's too much going on, there's too much to take in, to process, especially if one is hoping to work on a project that has nothing to do with the journey one is on at the time. And that's what James was talking about, specifically Venice. Next sentence:
"It all depends on how the attention has been cheated, has been squandered."
So I don't mind that I don't come home every night after work and force myself to write so many words or so many sentences or pages, a certain amount of time on a certain story. I'm glad for the great conversation, the whiskey and the wine (not to mention that bison grass infused vodka I had at Richardson's a few weeks ago: yummy!). There is a lot to take in, to process. And it's slowly coming out in words on a page. And sometimes it comes quickly. And someday I will be able to spend more of my time with this, and less waiting tables. But for now, for the long run, my effort of attention may be strangely fertilized and I may be slightly wasted.
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