Right?

Let me start this by saying I'm not aware that anyone who reads this blog is guilty of doing the thing I'm about to talk about, so I'm not trying to call you out.

Imagine a person giving the following explanation to you. Imagine that this is just a normal person, not good, not bad, not pretty, not ugly. And don't pay attention to the inane content. "Well, I mean, the story is clearly about the resolution of the Oedipal crisis, right? Cortazar obviously intended that as a surface reading." What you may have skipped over but has gone past irritating and onto hilarious for me, is the little word, "right."

"Right?" is not a useful thing to say. Not when you're explaining something, not when you're describing something, not saying anything at all. It does not add anything to an explanation, and it is usually just an attempt on behalf of the speaker to cover all their bases so they don't look stupid in the event they're wrong, or more likely, it's an attempt to make them look smarter and make you look stupid in the midst of a discussion. When a person says "Right?" in this way, the implication is either 1) that what the person is saying is incredibly obvious and will not be disputed, in which case it's a superfluous rhetorical device that still sounds patronizing, or 2) that what the person is saying is not at all obvious, but they're trying to make it sound like it is so that if you disagree, you look like an idiot, because their tone already made it clear that what they were saying is obvious.

Everyone around here does this, and I once caught myself doing it and was horrified and apologized to the person immediately. I have probably done this more often than I'm aware of, since it's in the air here, and to those who have spoken to me recently, my sincerest apologies. But I will try my best to avoid it, no matter how many professors and students do it. The only time I will do it (the only time anyone should do it) is if I feel like I'm going crazy. If, for example, I suspect that there might be a man floating outside my fourth-floor window, I might turn to the person next to me and say, "That's not a man floating outside my window, right?" In that case, I would be asking a genuine question which required an assuring answer. Or it might even be okay if I needed assurance in other areas of my life (e.g. "I don't smell bad, right?"). But that is certainly the exception, not the rule.

Obviously, it's a play for confidence that hardly anyone in graduate school actually has, but the lack of self-awareness here is slightly disturbing.

Personal DNA

If you're into this sort of thing, I thought this personality test was fun to take and had interesting results. My results are in that pill-shaped thing to the right; if you mouse over the colors, it says what they represent.

I Need Proof

If you ever needed proof, here it is.

Panic! at the University

Not funny, I know.

So I just read some huge chunks of Kant's Third Critique, which talks about making aesthetic and teleological judgments. I think I actually understood it, which is great.

But now I can't remember what you're supposed to say about philosophy. When you write about books and movies, you talk about the things that are in them; there's no right or wrong. As one of my professors often says (and I think I will be saying or thinking this for the rest of my life), "Henry James said, 'In the arts, feeling is always meaning.'" And even if that's not true, just pick any number of critical perspectives and go at the text, and it works out.

Philosophy is totally different, though. I'm not sure I have intelligent questions about it. Kant seems right to me (as he does to everybody at this university), and even if he didn't, who am I to think I could come up with a decent argument against him. I guess I'll just try to relate it to Goethe somehow, which is what the class is about, anyway...

Guts

So that professor, the one who pretty much humiliated that girl? Well, I went to talk to him today. No, not about that. I finally got up the nerve not only to answer a question during class - he had prefaced his question by saying there was no wrong answer - but to ask him a "serious" question afterwards. And guess what? He was extremely nice. After answering my questions, he asked me about why I'm here, my background, where I think I'm heading. And it wasn't phrased in the way that so many people around here phrase things, which always implies, "Are you really supposed to be here?" He even knew my undergrad university and was able to commiserate about how limiting a school like that can be.

But of course, now that I'm looking back, I'm incredibly anxious. Did I say something stupid and not even realize it? Was he just humoring me the whole time? He seemed really interested in talking to me. He encouraged conversation when he could have ended it any time. It wasn't even during his office hours. I wish I could just be content, knowing that we had a decent conversation, and that I can feel free to talk to him in the future.

Anyway, it felt like writing these thoughts out might help, and maybe it has.

Please Stop

This is an open letter to everyone who lives in Chicago.

Dear Chicago drivers,

Do you really think that the proper way to exit an alley, particularly the one out my bedroom window, is to honk and just keep going? Any time of night or day, you really believe this is the rule? Let me set the record straight: There has never existed and will never exist a rule for driving which says this. Stop. Look both ways for pedestrians. Then go.

Please, please, please stop honking. Please? I tried to write to my alderman, but she said all they can do is put up a speed-limit sign, that stop signs aren't allowed in alleys. So there, I tried to be nice about it, I tried the legal route, but I might have to start going crazy on your asses.

Would it help if I passed out fliers and put them on all your cars? Would it help if I smashed your windshield, like some crazy person did to the car sitting out in front of my building that's been parked three-quarters of a car-length away from the bus stop zone? If I asked nicely, would you stop? If I held up a sign all day saying "Please don't honk any more" would consider it or just try to run me over?

I don't have money to bribe you and I won't have sex with you to make you stop, but I'd be willing to do some things. Just ask.

Love,

Primer & Get Well Soon

Primer
I'm sure this film won first place at a university film festival somewhere, but it has no business being on Netflix. If you can't understand their version of time travel from the voiceover explanations, you certainly won't get any help from what's happening on screen. These college kids had a decent idea for a movie, but the terrible acting, mediocre dialog and obviously low budget didn't add up to anything worth watching.

Get Well Soon
You should only see this movie if you're a big Vincent Gallo fan, and I happen to be one of those lucky few. There are actually some pretty funny moments, thanks to him, but the rest of the film is full of cheesy acting and a pretty terrible plot. And who would ever believe Courtney Cox and Vincent Gallo as a couple?