Midterm Evaluation, pt. I

When our main pipe was broken

(On the margin, some wrongfully unpublished scenes from the last seven weeks)

Darn! It's spring break already! I've lived in Athens for seven weeks and three days now, and as usual, that sounds longer than it feels in retrospect. In that time, I might have been introduced to almost a hundred people (I don't intend to exaggerate here!) and might have forgotten the names of maybe a third of those people. Because sometimes, you meet a friend of a friend, have some beers and a good time, and then never see that person again. That's how it works.

When the sun set nicely

   Other people become your friends because you live with them and/or because you go to the Columbus Museum of Art with them, or to Old Man's Cave, or you hang out on porches and rooftops together on sunny Saturday afternoons, roaming the bars with them at night, walking up and down Court Street, slipping on the ice in front of a hundred people on that one corner near Tony's, dancing to the Black Eyed Peas in some shitty bar although you know it's horrible to dance to the Black Eyed Peas because they are the Black Eyed Peas, but you don't care, because that's what beer's there for.

When I was in a bathroom

   Also academically speaking, these past few weeks were great. How long have I wanted to read The Grapes of Wrath, Huckleberry Finn, and Death of a Salesmen!? The latter two had caught dust on my bookshelf in Leipzig for years, and I had continually refrained from buying Grapes simply because I knew I would not have the time to seriously read it, just like those other two classics. And now, for "Popular/High Culture in 20th Century America" I've binge-read them over the course of six weeks! Even more, classroom discussion yielded so many insights that I would not have recognized all by myself. Grapes's ex preacher Jim Casy has the same initials as Jesus Christ!! Whoooow...Little things like these.

When we had Tacos on Tuesday

   But also the bigger picture. The development of popular culture from Twain, tell-tales, con-men, and circuses to vaudeville, the nickelodeon, Charlie Chaplin, realism, and good ol' Jack London up to Woody Guthrie, agitprop theater, hard-boiled detective fiction and film noir. I've learned quite a bit. My midterm paper--I cannot quite estimate yet what to think of it. The assignment was to identify one guiding theme of The Grapes of Wrath. Not too hard, true. Then, however, the actual argument should address the question which medium communicates this theme most effectively--John Steinbeck's novel, John Ford's (great) 1940 movie adaptation by the same name, or Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads which is in parts directly based on the novel. I found it relatively hard to make a well developed argument for a claim which I would rather attribute to subjective taste instead of academic analysis. Especially limited to five pages, double spaced! For a 600+ page novel, a two hour (Right?), and an album with 13 or 14 songs. Well, after spring break I'll see how I coped with that.

When the deer was hungry

Okay, since that part on my pop/high class came out longer than expected, I'll postpone writing about the other good classes. So there might be a Midterm Evaluation, pt. II. But more likely, the next days will bring forth (only) a couple of probably shorter pieces on Julia's and my travels across New England.

When the snow laden tree shone red in the night

When dusk descended upon Baker