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.

I love this album. I only have it on vinyl, though, so I actually haven't been able to listen to it for almost a year.

:(

Also, I can't find my favorite song off of it, 'Nobody Hurts You', online. (Although I haven't looked too hard.)

Anyone else like Graham Parker?

It was a nice dream. And by nice, I don't mean sexy, or whatever. And you were in it. And apparently we were either roommates or spent a lot of time together in the same apartment, which I somehow think was based on the apartment in Anagrams, which is a book I did not like. But I liked this dream. You had dyed your hair blond or something. And we were eating Chinese food. Are you allergic to Chinese food? Are you allergic to hair dye?

I want to talk to you. And am trying to IM you. On AIM.

Be there, pal. I've got questions! Kwest-chuns.

Also, I was bitten by a swan a while ago. I think this means the bird revolution is coming. I'm going to go get some Pop Rocks cause I heard they make birds explode.

Which I know isn't true; but it sometimes feels like that--like right now.