It has been about five years since I last posted to this blog, and I am going to not let that happen again (or, at least, try). Blogging, as Anatoly said, not only stabbed the e-ether with your unfiltered feelings and thoughts - but it also keeps your knives sharp. Those knives being the lingual cutlery that I and my classmates studied at the Institute, and continue to use after our graduation. In the intervening years since my last post, I've had work that utilized my writing skills; but, right now, I don't.
Also: blogs contain a very different type of writing. Or, at least mine does, with its (likely) typo-ridden stream of consciousness entries.
For the past few weeks I've been out of a job and rather listless. Odd chores around the house and endless job searching and applications have filled some of my hours ... but those aren't exactly the most mentally engaging of exercises. And, while blogging isn't exactly the end-all be-all of critical writing, it like Sudoku: a game that uses a certain logic and skill.
Or, so I like to think.
So, let the idle ramblings commence!
LAST NIGHT I got to see a play with a friend from the theatre I used to work at. I'd be more specific, but I'm still feeling rather timid in publishing this. It was a decent: a play about urban myth, but more than that.
To my eyes, Hookm--, by LY, was about the Boogey Man. As I understand it, the Boogey Man should be a allegory or metaphor for the consequences of non-conforming behavior: women out alone at night, children who misbehave, men who betray noble ideals. The stories surrounding the Boogey Man, over time, have lost some of that breadth. Rather than metaphors, they become specific stories about set actions --- Friday the 13th had a moral underneath the unseen menace of Jason Voorhees; but, the love of gore, sex and fright stripped Jason of his "weight" and made him just a ghoul. Perhaps some of the stories still had a moral compass, buried beneath the body count, but people wanted Jason and severed limbs -- not tales of moral correctness.
Hookm--, to my eyes, tried to put the deeper moral back into the urban legend of a young woman driving alone in a car when someone in the car behind her flashes their headlights. It made the "hookman" a metaphor again, one containing the perils facing young women as they begin to shake off the protection of home and enter the larger college world: sexual assault and the way it alters the world around them, how it will remain with them - haunting them - for a long time. I found that fascinating, even if the play was a bit confused in its storytelling. A confusion not helped by the muddled direction and shallow acting (I wished I was watching a different production of the script).
At any rate, I liked being out. Not least because of my company: I got to catch up with a friend/colleague. It was good, though a bit awkward -- I always get a bit nervous when around her. Not for any good reason -- she's smart, passionate, kind -- but also a mentor. I feel more like a student than a friend when I'm with her and have the unconscious need to prove my worth through humor or life's stories or whatever.
A bit embarrassing.
BUT: also who I am. I guess? At any rate, it was a nice night out -- for the company, the theatre, and the reminder of who I am in relation to the community around me.
Also: blogs contain a very different type of writing. Or, at least mine does, with its (likely) typo-ridden stream of consciousness entries.
For the past few weeks I've been out of a job and rather listless. Odd chores around the house and endless job searching and applications have filled some of my hours ... but those aren't exactly the most mentally engaging of exercises. And, while blogging isn't exactly the end-all be-all of critical writing, it like Sudoku: a game that uses a certain logic and skill.
Or, so I like to think.
So, let the idle ramblings commence!
LAST NIGHT I got to see a play with a friend from the theatre I used to work at. I'd be more specific, but I'm still feeling rather timid in publishing this. It was a decent: a play about urban myth, but more than that.
To my eyes, Hookm--, by LY, was about the Boogey Man. As I understand it, the Boogey Man should be a allegory or metaphor for the consequences of non-conforming behavior: women out alone at night, children who misbehave, men who betray noble ideals. The stories surrounding the Boogey Man, over time, have lost some of that breadth. Rather than metaphors, they become specific stories about set actions --- Friday the 13th had a moral underneath the unseen menace of Jason Voorhees; but, the love of gore, sex and fright stripped Jason of his "weight" and made him just a ghoul. Perhaps some of the stories still had a moral compass, buried beneath the body count, but people wanted Jason and severed limbs -- not tales of moral correctness.
Hookm--, to my eyes, tried to put the deeper moral back into the urban legend of a young woman driving alone in a car when someone in the car behind her flashes their headlights. It made the "hookman" a metaphor again, one containing the perils facing young women as they begin to shake off the protection of home and enter the larger college world: sexual assault and the way it alters the world around them, how it will remain with them - haunting them - for a long time. I found that fascinating, even if the play was a bit confused in its storytelling. A confusion not helped by the muddled direction and shallow acting (I wished I was watching a different production of the script).
At any rate, I liked being out. Not least because of my company: I got to catch up with a friend/colleague. It was good, though a bit awkward -- I always get a bit nervous when around her. Not for any good reason -- she's smart, passionate, kind -- but also a mentor. I feel more like a student than a friend when I'm with her and have the unconscious need to prove my worth through humor or life's stories or whatever.
A bit embarrassing.
BUT: also who I am. I guess? At any rate, it was a nice night out -- for the company, the theatre, and the reminder of who I am in relation to the community around me.
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