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Hi.

Which one do you prefer? The question is of great importance, and will help me to determine your character and your destiny.

At least, they did in this weird-ass dream I had last night (probably under the influence of one too many pints, and reading an article about the so-called 'Horned God' on Wikipedia).

It was only the dudes. It was freaky. When I woke up, I couldn't really remember much of the dream, but had a vague suspicion that there might be some truth in it. But there isn't. So that feeling was weird.

You don't have antlers, do you, Leon?

Hi. How are you? What's up? How's it hanging? What's the deal? What's the scoop? How you doin'? What's shakin'? Como esta?

I've been asking and asking peeps, and got no answers--and then I thought of YOU (baby!), and it seemed like an awesome idea.

Do you wanna read an essay (still rough-ish draft, and unfinished, but needing criticism) I'm writing on Plato and Aristotle for my class in the Nicomachean Ethics?

It's, um, 2500 words long. So far. (That's actually the limit. You can see where my problem is, kinda.)

Do you??

Can you have a concatenation of deja vu? Like, deja vu supervening upon deja vu, etc., etc. until you're having deja vu about having deja vu about having deja vu?

Answer: Yes. You can. Cause I just did.

Whoa.

sorry. I am. But I've been stressed about school (and other things) a lot lately, and this is cheering me up. That is, I really think that my paper for my class on Aristotle's Ethics is killer--or will be killer when I am finally finished with it. I still have a ways to go, but, like, I am really pleased with it so far. Usually, I worry and worry as I write (papers). I am sorta worried now, but that's only in anticipation of possible arguments that could be made against my position (which is a good kind of worrying, cause it helps you to distinguish and think).

But, yeah, it's not every day you get to prove a great philosopher right; then prove him wrong; then prove him right again--and have all proofs appear both true and valid.

It feels like I'm blowing my own mind.

That seems to be my professor's take on Ulysses for today. Except every class he's telling us that the episode(s) we're covering that day is (are) a radical departure from everything that has gone before. That may be true, but it's really starting to sound like not a big deal anymore. I love the book, and the course, and the teacher (dude bought me tea and biscuits, yo), but I swear it's like every week we're starting a whole new course and we're supposed to throw everything we learned before out the window. It's starting to get a bit frustrating, considering all the reading and work we've been doing--at least, that I know I've been doing.

Today's theme seemed to be, 'Nothing means anything and everything is an illusion (Michael--a trick is something a whore does for money). And that you can't really say anything.'

But

a) I don't believe that.

b) I doubt Joyce believed that.

c) I even doubt my professor believes that.

Also, it seems like a hell of a lot of work and pain for Joyce to go through (seven years and seven hundred pages of writing and research and revision, and then litigation and court cases in the US and charges of obsecenity, etc.) all to say that, really, it's impossible to say anything and all that malarky.

I am reminded of Gardner's remark that no one would bother to write a book if they thought writing a book was not worth the bother.

So, no, I don't think Ulysses is a book that eats itself alive or destroys itself and deconstructs itself, per se. Joyce had much too big an ego to undermine the fruits of that ego.

Also, how exactly would one write a novel 'without any characters'--that had 'abandoned characterization'? Hawkes tried it and got probably as close as anyone will ever get (someone will prove me wrong, mayhap, eventually): but even he ended up having characters in his novels. Because one of the quirks of the novel is that it requires characters. In order to be a novel.

So now I have to do what I did when I read The Confidence-Man and learn to see past all the apparent tricks and apparent deconstruction, etc.

Yeah. My thesis is on Thomism in Ulysses, essentially comparing the famous 'Yes' soliloquey of Molly Bloom and the other 'Yes' statements scattered throughout the book to Aquinas' dictum that being is convertible with the good.

I spend way too much time doing it. Everything is just so interesting. Of course, you gotta be careful not to take it all as definitive--I've found a lot of mistakes in Wikipedia articles.

Right now, I'm on this kick where I read about extinct animals, which are pretty damn fascinating.

I'll use this blog to post links to articles that interest me. Feel free to do so as well.

That's my life at the moment.

Also, my copies of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Cloud of Unknowing are probably ruined; Ulysses got pretty well dampened, and one corner of Waverly is bulging out with moisture and broken dreams.

I should carry around less books with me but I won't.

Someone smells like a zoo in here, and it's not me.