tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229875339727095184.post4221628839477289980..comments2024-03-18T15:17:26.003-05:00Comments on l'astronave: A Cracked Cup of KindnessFrescahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15323129046492056942noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229875339727095184.post-1227399159687030682009-01-14T09:52:00.000-06:002009-01-14T09:52:00.000-06:00No, don't read it, Momo. Wait till summer or somet...No, don't read it, Momo. Wait till summer or something. Or never. <BR/>I thought of David Foster Wallace too:<BR/>His essay "The Depressed Person" is similarly brutally clear-eyed. It's almost unreadable, and yet I marvel at and am enormously grateful for these "tell it like it is" writers.<BR/><BR/>And, oh god, how excellent, your friend's help: can you wash a cup? Wow. Yes. Sometimes that's exactly what gets us through. Don't talk to me about philosophy, give me a dishcloth. <BR/>That gives rise to the kind of humor I mentioned, like Kurt Vonnegut's.<BR/><BR/>Good luck with the syllbus design! Very exciting. Good work--that pays money!Frescahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15323129046492056942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229875339727095184.post-578817582517135452009-01-14T09:38:00.000-06:002009-01-14T09:38:00.000-06:00A paying gig! that you asked for! most excellent.I...A paying gig! that you asked for! most excellent.<BR/><BR/>I will have to read those essays, but not now. I am in the throes of new syllabus design, which alternately fills me with great joy and extreme dread, so going there would probably stop me in my tracks.<BR/>As I was reading what you said about F Scott's writing and his death a few years later I thought of David Foster Wallace, who also lost that battle recently. It's good to have appointments with friends, to get up off the floor and go out. I can remember a time when I called a friend and said I don't know how I can get through it, and she said, "what can you do in the next ten minutes? can you wash a cup?" So I hung up the phone and washed a cup. Ten minutes at a time.momohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12149328149132703479noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229875339727095184.post-46523140742911558252009-01-13T22:10:00.000-06:002009-01-13T22:10:00.000-06:00Maybe you were thinking of Tennessee Williams'sStr...Maybe you were thinking of Tennessee Williams's<BR/><I>Streetcar Named Desire</I>?<BR/>And Marlon Brando's Stanley bellowing, "Stella! Stella!"<BR/><BR/>I do love Vonnegut's philosophy--very much of the unadorned "here it is" type I admire--complete with all the wonderful humor that attends absurdity.<BR/>Not in love with the tragedy of his own suffering, as perhaps the Fitzgeralds were? And maybe that's why I don't love F. Scott usually?<BR/><BR/>I don't know--because I haven't loved his stuff, I haven't read deeply--just happened to be caught by the opening lines of "The Crack-Up" in an anthology:<BR/><BR/>"Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side of the work--the big sudden blows that come, or seem to come, from outside--the ones you remember and blame things on and, in moments of weakness, tell your friends about, don't show their effect all at once. There is another sort of blow that comes from within--that you don't feel until it's too late to do anything about it, until you realize with finality that in some regard you will never be as good a man again."<BR/><BR/>Eeek. I better go watch some Star Trek now!Frescahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15323129046492056942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229875339727095184.post-71449075827834745122009-01-13T21:53:00.000-06:002009-01-13T21:53:00.000-06:00*blushes* Why in the world of all names "Stella" ...*blushes* Why in the world of all names "Stella" would come to me I do not know. I prove my point about not knowing the background! I did know she ended up in an institution, but I wasn't sure when it all took place...long before this, then. Sad stories and not at all tragic in any deep and meaningful sense, it sounds like...just sad.<BR/><BR/>I didn't know about Vonnegut's mother! But his philosophy is so resolutely anti-tragic it seems right, somehow.Jenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13923745480765984429noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229875339727095184.post-63645557516911625652009-01-13T21:43:00.000-06:002009-01-13T21:43:00.000-06:00You mean Zelda, his wife?She was locked up in a me...You mean Zelda, his wife?<BR/>She was locked up in a mental institution by then.<BR/><BR/>Thanks, Jen: Your students' blogs are indeed great.<BR/>"My English is broken" is a perfect cracked cup of cheer! That, Slovakia, and Captain Kirk will get me through. : )<BR/>You know, really, I'm fine--it's just life. So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut says.<BR/>(Did you know his mother committed suicide?)Frescahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15323129046492056942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7229875339727095184.post-6635639776575026472009-01-13T21:36:00.000-06:002009-01-13T21:36:00.000-06:00Slovakia is yours, Fresca! Whatever else, remembe...Slovakia is yours, Fresca! Whatever else, remember that.<BR/><BR/>Fitzgerald pulls no punches there, does he? Bleak reading and very honest. Where's Stella in all that, I wonder? I don't know the history of the Fitzgeralds very well, I have to admit.<BR/><BR/>Let me know if there's anything I can do to cheer you up! Perhaps I can convince my students to write a few more blog entries--aren't they the greatest?Jenniferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13923745480765984429noreply@blogger.com