Writer at Rest*

"I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness." - John Updike, courtesy of NPR.


As a tribute to novelist, essayist, and poet John Updike, who died of lung cancer yesterday, I thought it appropriate to post my favorite poem by him (even though admittedly, I haven't read a ton of his work). Interestingly enough, as my roommate pointed out to me, it deals with death anxiety.

Perfection Wasted

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market--
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

*This is a bit of a no-brainer title about Updike's death -- just a borrowed quip from the last book in his well-known series: Rabbit at Rest. For the record, though, I posted this before I had a look at the AP article with the same title. Great minds think alike, eh?!

Joys of Joblessness: Day 5

Well, today was a bit of a bust as far as the job search goes. So much for real progress -- that will be next week's task.

So instead! Thanks to Daedalus, we all know what too much leisure time means...

Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes
(& he directs his mind into the unknown arts)
- Metamorphoses, Ovid

Instead of constructing wings out of wax and feathers, though (maybe another time), I dusted off the cookbook. Surprisingly, what resulted was quite edible!
I present......... coconut curried chicken (before the "over couscous" stage):






























My lovely roommate was kind enough to help me eat it, & we capped off our dinner with her gourmet almond toffee. Kindof reminds you how nice it is to eat real meals with other humans. I could get used to this done with undergrad business.

The Joys of Joblessness: Day 3

Apparently, my roommate and I live parallel lives. Upon returning to our apartment after Christmas break, we found that we both
a. received flameless candles for Christmas (which means we also hold in common the fact that our relatives don't trust us with fire...)
b. discovered over the break that we do actually like sweet potatoes (I'm eating one right now!!), a food we both abhorred as children.
I take this as a sign. We were destined to split a rent check.

In other news, I am relishing my new-found joblessness (since classes started Monday, and I'm not joining the ranks of students returning to school, I consider this my third official day of unemployment). Today I slept late, leisurely drank tea and wrote letters, and went to a local cafe to study my SPSS for Dummies manual that will hopefully help me get a job at the metropolitan studies center nearby. & who should I see at the cafe but Bruce, an older gentleman who frequently plants himself & his chess board across from the register to wait for someone who'll challenge him. He was kind enough to suffer through a game with me once, but I need to hone my skills a bit more before requesting a re-match.

Because the weather was nuts today (pelting rain one minute and bright sunshine the next) & there were a couple rainbows around town, one customer at the cafe told me that she once saw a full circle rainbow during a vacation in Iceland. I'd never heard of that, but apparently it's just very rare for us to see the full circle of a rainbow from most vantage points on earth (a USA today article said they can sometimes be seen from airplanes). Cool!


Also, I stumbled upon this Somali rapper









(K'naan, aka "The Dusty Philosopher) thanks to NPR. I'm not usually big on rap (& this guy's not totally Kosher), but his stuff is full of interesting social commentary and neat beats. You can check out his songs on his myspace page. Try "In the beginning." He also wrote an interesting article about the ripple effects of European imperialism on contemporary conflicts in Africa.

Now, off to dig into some more SPSS. As much as I am enjoying unemployment, it's a status I don't want to experience for too long..