"life is a state of mind"...or..."The Gnab Gib"

I wish I had the programming skills to set this entry off ala Rocky and Bullwinkle--the bit where everybody is falling and the narrator talks us into watching the next episode by giving us a variety of opposing possible endings...alas, I lack the computer know-how and I carry a weak sack of puns these days, nevertheless, my opponents of today's episode include film director Hal Ashby vs. Lunar Society's spaceman poet, Erasmus Darwin (Charles' grandpappy). Which man is more worthy of extensive research is what I'm asking myself now--is it more ethically enlightening to search out the hippie Utahn who gave us films with Woody Guthrie hitchhiking, Peter Sellers walking on water, and 20-year-old-boy-dating septuagenarians, or would it be more English-major-appropriate to focus on a romance poet who rubbed shoulders with Ben Franklin and wrote about supernovas and evolution and venus flytraps?

Truth: I don't really care. I used to care. But I've become disillusioned to the subtle workings of academic departments--I recall the last few days of my undergrad life when a favorite male teacher approached me and confided that if I ever didn't know the answer to a student's question, to confidently make one up. I laughed then, but in retrospect, I don't think he was referring to questions about grammar, format, or famous people's biographical facts.

Bob Pyle (who votes for Ashby) came to my campus last month and a few of us ate lunch with him. I eagerly recognized his book Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide as something I had cited in an 8th grade research paper. I definitely remember copying images from his book for my sasquatch presentation. Pyle's written a lot of nature books (and one coloring book) and he told us half his work is getting his editors to agree with him that his book ideas are good (uh, not all of his books are cryptozoological, by the way).

My point follows that I am sick of acamedic faculty/student paradoxes. Since I was a kid, I've loved religious and literary paradoxes, and the inner truths they vacillate around give me hope and make me wonder. But the paradoxes of academia just irritate me. "Be creative, fresh and new," they say, "and don't be afraid to stand out on a limb." Professors write books about not knowing what the thesis of a work is until after its been completely researched and written out. Have faith! Take risks! they tell each other. But to the grad students they advise to stay traditional, stick with just your mind and archival research, know what your question is before you begin. Oh, and you also need to get a committee of professors with incredibly oppositional opinions to stand behind your paper without surrending the whole thing into their quick, sharp little fingers. This, of course, helps me graduate on time, but in shackles and blinders.

What one wise bearded prof. compliments and encourages, the next balding prof. with glasses points out as weak or impossible. I've been told to can it, to begin it immediately, to sleep on it, and to merely tweak it. "It" being about as vague as "it" sounds. Anyway. Things really aren't so bad. Here's some Darwin (my backup thesis?)--I don't know why I'm complaining...just being in a major where I could even suggest researching hippies or scientistpoets is a real dish:


Roll on, ye Stars! exult in youthful prime,
Mark with bright curves the printless steps of Time;
Near and more near your beamy cars approach,
And lessening orbs on lessening orbs encroach; —
Flowers of the sky! ye too to age must yield,
Frail as your silken sisters of the field!
Star after star from Heaven's high arch shall rush,
Suns sink on suns, and systems systems crush,
Headlong, extinct, to one dark center fall,
And Death and Night and Chaos mingle all!
— Till o'er the wreck, emerging from the storm,
Immortal Nature lifts her changeful form,
Mounts from her funeral pyre on wings of flame,
And soars and shines, another and the same.


Finally, some good music I've listened to recently:
(kudos to my friend Beau for a few introductions)

Dry the Rain--Beta Band
need your lovin like the sunshine--Beck
misery is a butterfly--Blonde Redhead
the king of carrot flowers--neutral milk hotel
mambo sun--T. Rex
the River--Springsteen
la primavera--mana chao
the blues are still blue--belle & sebastian
katmandu--cat stevens (an old favorite, coming back)