Filed under: Sports
In his final game as a Wildcat, Willie Tuitama and the University of Arizona beat the sixteenth-ranked Brigham Young University tonight to cap off a successful 8-5 season.
The victory vindicates the decision to keep coach Stoops around for another year. Still, I have two questions: Who will play quarterback for the Wildcats next year, and where does the money from the bowl victory go? Can the recently created College of Letters and Science get a bone? That’s three, I know.
Filed under: Personal
Susan and I submitted final grades today, and I’m overjoyed.
I learned how to be a professor this semester. My TAship with Susan was invaluable. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to an apprentice, and I enjoyed it. I learned a great deal about Hollywood genres–from comedies to film noir and melodramas. I learned of Barbara Stanwyk’s unprecedented range by screening Stella Dallas and Double Indemnity in the same semester. Furthermore, I learned of several wonderful works by smart and eloquent people–from Thomas Schatz to James Naremore and Mary Beth Harolovic.
Most importantly, I learned how to teach by watching someone after whom I would like to model my own academic persona in the classroom. Yeah, I gotta say, it was a good semester.
Katie is finished too, so we’re going to go out and drink more sugar and caffeine than recommended–indeed, some habits are harder to break.
My professor, Maribel Alvarez–for whom, you might recall, I wrote about Dylan and the folklore process–was interviewed by Arizona Public Media for a story on the tatoo mural in Tucson: check it out!
Filed under: Notes
- We hear a scored flute, clarinet or recorder during the opening credits, which are in white text overlaying a solid black background.
- Before we see them, we–along with the main character Stingo (Peter MacNicol)–hear Sophie Zawistowski (Meryl Streep) having sex (it’s hard to believe they make love) with Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline, in his first role) directly above Stingo’s rented room.
- Stingo listens to Sophie cry and plead with Nathan who verbally abuses her.
- After Nathan storms off, Stingo and Sophie meet. A writer, he asks her if his nocturnal writing on the typewriter will bother her, to which she explains: “I go to sleep to that sound. It will make me feel…how do you say that…secure, secure.” During their first encounter in the hallway of the pink house: “The typing will make me think of my father and his goodness.”
- Sophie’s comment (#4) may go unheard were it not for the next scene with Sophie and Nathan playing piano for Stingo. She goes on to tell (Stingo?) of how, as a child, the sound of her mother playing the piano harmonized with the sound of her father’s typewriter–metanomically linking her parents in sound.
All this in the first few minutes of the film.
We also must note the change in the narrator’s voice as the film moves from Stingo as an older man relating the story of his move to New York. As soon as we see him walking up the steps of a subway station, the voice-over is that of a younger man. The shift in Stingo’s narrative voice may go unnoticed if it were the only occurance. Midway through the film, Sophie’s voice takes over. Framed within Stingo’s story, Sophie’s story of her life as a Polish Jew in Hitler’s Europe.
And yet another notable early scene that directly relates to the trope of listening:
- when the librarian refuses to listen to Sophie who is looking for a book by Emily Dickenson, she turns around faints, and after returning to consciousness, tells Nathan she feels like she’s dying.
Besides an amazing, hence Oscar-winning, performance by Streep, Alan J. Pakula and William Styron’s Sophie’s Choice merits critical attention for the narrative use of sound and the trope of listening. I must see who has published such an analysis.
Filed under: Sports
I’ve tried this several times on the previous Kolog, and it worked well. So, once again, I will compose, what I like to call, Real Time (no matter how superfluous) comments concerning the Dallas Cowboys NFC East Sunday Night Football battle against the New York (football) Giants:
- Faith Hill’s intro is nothing short of corporate advertising, still the beautiful blonde and the outlandish pyrotechnics behind her attract the attention of my primitive brain (I am watching modern day gladiators for god’s sake). But speaking of faith, I need to believe in my ‘boys.
- Tonight’s game in Texas is virtually a must win. Al Michaels and John Madden are barking about the drama in Dallas this past week (think: the Terrel Owens–Tony Romo–Jason Witten love/hate triangle), but I think those three thrive on the attention. At least, I hope.
- After his drop on the first third-and-long, Terrel Owens (a.k.a. T.O.) deserved the boo-birds. Let’s see if the Dallas defense can pick him up.
- Indeed they can: Demarcus Ware sacks Eli Manning for a loss of nine yards on the Giants’ first offensive posession. Then, it’s three-and-out. The Cowboys have the field position advantage early on.
- Oh no…Romo looks hurt at the end of the first quarter. We can’t win without him.
- Ware and fellow linebacker Brady James can dominate a game, as they are so far tonight, but again, it will be hard to hold the Giants back for too long. Can the Cowboys score?
- Forget about it. Romo endures a lower-back contusion and leads the Cowboys to a touchdown: 7-3 at the half.
- The best sign from the Cowboys in the past two weeks has to be their defense, who held the Giants to their lowest offensive output in a half since 2006.
- Dallas’ defense continues to dominate in the beginning of the second half as Terrence Newman intercepts Eli Manning. But Romo could not keep up the performance, he still looks hurt as he limps off of the field after over-throwing an open Roy Williams.
- Sack, after sack, after sack, after sack, after sack, after sack, after sack. The Cowboys got to Manning for the seventh time in the third quarter; nevertheless, a four point lead against the Super Bowl champions will not hold up.
- Jason Garret is an offensive genius. On first and goal, and without Marion Barber in the game due to injury, he lines Romo up in the shotgun formation and runs a draw. The play goes nowhere, but it sets up a second down with the Cowboys in “I” formation, only Garret calls a play action pass to the fullback for another touchdown: Dallas has finally achieved that two-score cushion in the fourth quarter. Is it just me, or should Garret replace Wade Phillips at the end of the season as head coach.
Big win for the Dallas Cowboys, but not nearly as impressive as the University of Arizona Wildcats’ win over the fourth-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs.
Filed under: Politics
Now that The Kolog is back up, I need to write about our most recent presidential election, but I can’t. Honestly, I’m at a loss for words…still.
The speech in Grant Park, an event of a lifetime for me (thanks to the wonder of tv), will soon pale in comparison to the inauguration planned for January.
So, in lieu of my own thoughts concerning the election of the first African American president in U.S. history, here’s what one of my favorite artist has said on the matter, according to The Times Online:
His 1964 track ‘The Times They are a-Changin’ became the anthem for his generation, symbolising the era-defining social struggle against the establishment.Now Bob Dylan – who could justifiably claim to be the architect of Barack Obama’s ‘change’ catchphrase – has backed the Illinois senator to do for modern America what the generation before did in the 1960s.In an exclusive interview with The Times, published today, Dylan gives a ringing endorsement to Mr Obama, the first ever black presidential candidate, claiming he is “redefining the nature of politics from the ground up”.Dylan, 67, made the comments when being interviewed in Denmark, where he stopped over in a hotel during a tour of Scandinavia.Asked about his views on American politics, he said: “Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralising. You can’t expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor.”But we’ve got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up…Barack Obama.
He’s redefining what a politician is, so we’ll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I’m hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.”
He added: “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future.”
Dylan’s endorsement contains much symbolic significance. The legendary singer-songwriter, who has an art exhibition opening in London next week, became a focal point for young people worldwide when he released the album ‘The times they are a-changin’,” including the famous song of that name, in 1964.
The track, which he wrote as the social liberation of the ’60s astonished politicians and parents, included lines urging people to accept and embrace what was happening around them.
Memorable lines included: “Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall,” and: “Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don’t criticise what you can’t understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin’.
Filed under: Personal
It feels good to write on The Kolog again. I missed it, perhaps I missed you. Either way, it’s nice to be back.
It’s been quite a semester–I passed my comprehensive exams! They proved to be quite a challenge, mostly because I made some poor assumptions going into the whole procedure. I learned a lot. About myself, what can I say? No matter, it’s nice to be beyond them.
Speaking of exams with fellow grad students over the past few days has led me to think quite a bit about the stifling anxiety produced by this rite-of-passage also known as prelims. Like it or not, it changed my life by teaching me to address the chronic performance anxiety with which I have been plagued for over fifteen years. And what’s bad about that?
I wonder what else I learned.
Filed under: Personal
Bob Dylan’s Tell Tale Signs, the eighth and latest release in The Bootleg Series, is fantastic.
Alternative versions of (relatively) recent classics–from “Most of the Time,” “Everything Is Broken,” and “Dignity” to “I Can’t Wait,” “Someday Baby” and “Mississippi”–exhibit Dylan’s sustained artistic prowess, not to mention his never-ending artistic process. Throughout his career, Dylan has continued to work through songs so that each performance is a unique utterance. Think of the difference between “Like a Rolling Stone” in 1965 on Highway 61 Revisited and in 1994 on Unplugged. Logically, then, the tunes on Tell Tale Signs have changed as have the lyrics–on “Dignity,” for example, Dylan includes an entire verse that is absent from the original release.
So, you want to be familiar with Dylan’s latest artistic phase in order to appreciate Tell Tale Signs more fully. Since returning to folksongs on Good as I Been to You and World Gone Wrong, Dylan has created a new mask: I like to think of it as the traveling troubadour. Rejuvenated, he has produced three more classic albums in the past decade: Time Out of Mind, Love and Theft and Modern Times. It’s a span in Dylan’s career that begins to rival the mid sixties of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde. Only, most casual Dylan fans would not know it.
Filed under: Notes
As you can guess, I’m researching whenever I can. Many times, I stumble upon some crazy books or websites: take, for instance, my youtube search today. After inputting the term “listening” just to see what might pop up, I came across The Bees’ video for their song “Listening Man.”
Check it out, I think you’ll appreciate it for one reason or another:
Sixty-nine years ago today, Japanese war planes attacked Pearl Harbor.
The historical significance is due, in large part, to broadcast power: If World War I began with a shot heard round the world, the second war-to-end-all-wars began with an attack seen round the world.
Because of the tragedy, paralleled in my mind only by the attacks on September 11th, 2001, my grandfather spoke disparagingly about people of Japanese descent for the rest of his life. I watch the rare footage above of that fateful day on an island in the Pacific, think of Dede, and wonder if I can ever see around such biases myself. How does the grandson of a World War II vet writing a blog in Japan describe this day?
