Are you a Chatwinian?

I'm a fourth year (senior, whatever you prefer to call it) and I'm taking a seminar course about Bruce Chatwin…have you ever heard of him? Ever read any of his work? There are seven students in the class which is pretty damn fantastic and the professor is, I want to say amazing, because he's extremely knowledgable and tells great stories (they usually involve some historical aspect and I usually find history lectures to be prosaic but not these).

Anyways, I've had to read all of Chatwin's work (which amounts to seven novels/books of essays). I got stuck, I mean having the privilege, of writing a reception history for The Viceroy of Ouidah. It's just okay.

Hands down my favorite Chatwin piece is On The Black Hill. It's a beautifully written, more traditional, novel. Each of his books (In Patagonia, The Songlines, The Viceroy of Ouidah, Utz) is set in a different part of the world (he was a 'wander,' believed a nomadic life is best) and each book falls into different genres (In Patagonia actually ended up in the travel section originally--which is why Chatwin was known as a travel writer, The Viceroy of Ouidah falls under historical fiction, The Songlines, according to Chatwin, is fiction and so is Utz). All the books are great, except The Viceroy of Oudiah…because it's just meh. But you might love it, don't let my lack of enthusiasm deter you from reading all of his work. The biography on Bruce Chatwin from 2000 (written by Nicholas Shakespeare) has great information and it's rather entertaining. Chatwin creates fantastic and quirky characters, much like himself.

As part of my research, I had to watch Cobra Verde (1988), a film directed by Werner Herzog which stars Klaus Kinski (it's actually the last film the two made together, they hated each other). Kinski as a Brazilian slave trader? I just didn't see Herzog's vision. I can still see Kinski's face… Needless to say, the film is a very very very freely adapted version of the book.

"a series of unfortunate events"

Today has been really really really bad.

I don't even know where to start. How about the beginning? I hear it's a good place to start.

I went to my first class and couldn't focus at all. I would just start to stare off into space. Just like I did before writing this post. I drew more today than I actually learned. I do have to say my manga people are looking better.

I took the bus to my second class and slid out of the bus. Yes. I slid out of the bus. On my ass. And my my leg ended up all twisted somehow. I can't go a week without falling or sliding down the steps on the bus. But the thing was was that the bus stopped on a hill and the bus driver took his foot off the break and the bus went forward (down the hill) just as my right foot was attempting to land. He hit the break and the bus went backwards and my boot slipped off the edge and ... you get what happened.

Then I got an email about meeting with a potential voice actor for a radio drama. The host of the show said I had to work everything out with the candidate. That's fine. But what do you want me to do? Record the guy auditioning? With what? Oh, yes, that's right. I would need to record the audition with borrowed equipment from the library and then email him the file. I have never recorded anything in my life except a Calculus III class using voice memo on my iPhone. And I don't ever go into the library. (I went last week but I couldn't find the books - I just found the newspaper/magazine thingy where you put the slides in and see the pages on a computer like thingy). So, I am useless to this part of the radio drama production. And I couldn't make a poster for it because I don't know how to use InDesign. (what have I learned that is actually useful? I don't know...)

Then I had computer science workshop. That didn't go so well. We had a quiz. My mind went blank and you can probably see what happened. I know it was supposed to be simple, but it ended up a total mess.  I had to write the code for a pentagon using a for loop. The for loop was the issue (now I am thinking about pentagrams...I know that the only connection between pentagon and pentagram in the five part)

And then the bus schedule changes at five so I walked back to my dorm. Nothing bad happened then at least. Well, that's all for Ari's unfortunate adventures and injuries portion of today's The Spout post. I hope your day went better or at least you got a laugh at all of the above. If not, that really sucks.