3 strikes for Lovecraft

 I wondered about Lovecraft, having read very little and that very long ago.  From the perspective of today, it would seem he has three strikes, having read a few stories and short novel yesterday.  

The obvious racism behind a lot of it.  The racism isn't incidental, but hard-baked into his vision.  Sometimes it is merely implicit, but it comes out explicitly enough to be undeniable.  

The fact that it's genre fiction, not high brow stuff in the first place.  So then you don't have to balance out the racism with the fact that it's literature of the highest quality that happens to be racist.  

The prose itself is over-heated and a bit cringe-worthy.  He has a great lexicon, but the prose is always purple, and never settles down into a kind of normal writing.  Everything is fortissimo, fff, with very little dynamic range.  

Three strikes, and he is out. Yet there is something about the sheer force of his imagination that makes people want to read him (including me, this particular week).  

Dream of job interview

 I was invited to interview for a job, because of a "skill set" I had. I walked into a room on campus that was full of people. They began interviewing me, but mostly trying to sell me on taking the job. The interviewer was a middle-aged African American man, and maybe another woman too, of unidentified ethnicity. "Wouldn't you like to live in New York?" they were saying. The job had something to do with industrial espionage, I gathered, though this was not said explicitly. I wondered if I could be hired, if it was a KU job, because my retirement agreement says I cannot be rehired by the university. 

Obviously, this is a retirement dream, in which I am asking myself what I will do after I retire.  

My bass players

 "My bass players" is not the same as a list of the best bass players.  For whatever reason, I respond to some at a deeper level than others. I'm sure a jazz expert would say that Ron Carter and Ray Brown are among the best ever, and I agree with that, but I'm talking here about a few that resonate more with me. In no particular order: 

Paul Chambers. The shape of his lines, the way they ascend and descend. I think it is perfect for both early John Coltrane, before the quartet with McCoy Tyner, Elvin, and Jimmy Garrison.  

Oscar Pettiford.  I'm not as knowledgeable about him, but I do like the melodic invention and also the shape of his walking lines.  I particularly like his playing on Monk's album of Ellington tunes. 

Charlie Haden. The purity of his sound, the centeredness of his intonation. The note choice. What he brings to the early Ornette recordings, and also to collaborations with Pat Metheny and Keith Jarrett.  

Mingus. This is an obvious one, not only because of the power of his bass playing, but also because of his importance as composer and shaper of jazz music. 

Scott LaFaro.  For his work with early Ornette and Bill Evans.  

There are many others I think of as fantastically good, like Pederson, for his work with Peterson. Every bass player who has been chosen by someone like Miles or Bill Evans to play has got to be superb.  I've seen Eddie Gomez and he is great. 

What I like about the bass is that its function is so similar, so basic across a wide range of styles.  Even Haden playing with Ornette is still playing 4 quarter notes to the measure (most of the time!) or at least implying that pulse.  

I will listen to music repeatedly and focus on the drums, or the bass, or some other aspect of the music. 

Four or five pressures

 Higher ed in the humanities are not in good shape, especially in the humanities. I feel we are squeezed on all sides. 

1) Wokeness, defined here as self-parodic performative pseudo-progressive identity politics. This mindset narrows the scope of research and determines ideological positions from the outset. It leaves the humanities without a purpose of it own, and leaves it vulnerable to #2:  

2) The reaction against woke.  Okay, so you want to teach that there are a zillion genders? Then the state legislature will say you can't have gender studies at all. DEI must infuse every action of the university at a granular level? Then the legislature will say you can't have DEI at all. The right-wing reaction against woke is anti-intellectual in its motivations and it effects. I say this as someone who is no friend of wokeness itself (see 1).  

3) Economic pressures. Fewer student major in classics or want to study a less-studied language? Eliminate or gut those programs. Tuition is more expensive, while at the same time administrative costs rise, but not faculty salaries. There are more and more adjuncts. Athletics and big science make humanities budgets seem paltry in comparison. 

4) Cultural factors. There are fewer of those nerdy super-readers who are the bulwark of the humanities students. Maybe there were never that many of us, but students have less capacity to read large amounts of material.  

5) Technology.  The rise of Artificial Intelligence means you can write a mediocre paper on literature very easily. Students will use this to varying degrees even if told not to.  Then you no longer get the core of the humanities: engaging with intellectually challenging material through writing academic prose. The point of this is not the final result (the paper) but what has occurred in the student's brain. I always say it's like sending a robot to the gym to do your bench presses for you.  

Dream of Harrassment

 In this dream I told a colleague (chair?) that I had been accused of sexual harassment. He punched in the face and told me I was fired. Then another colleague punched me.  Neither very hard. Being fired didn't seem a big deal, because I only have a few days left to work. 

I was trying to sort out my possible guilt, but not until I was fully awake could I convince myself that I was in the clear.  

Dream of Stephen King

[I am updating this from 7 years ago, because I just found it and I like it.]

I do not especially care about King. I am not a fan (particularly) or a detractor. I have seen movies and television series, but I haven't read his books. One day I heard an NPR interview with him and, without knowing his identity at first, I assumed he was a highbrow writer of a different type. In this night of particularly fertile dreams, though, Stephen King and I were having a conversation. I was with a friend who knew King, in a workshop where my friend was doing an arts and crafts project. King was not there, but was being Skyped in. I had to lie on my back to see him, projected on a screen above my face.

He challenged me to tell a story about my life in two sessions, like we had done before. I said I wasn't a good storyteller, that I didn't have the kind of experiences that leant themselves to being tied up in narrative bundles like that. He scoffed at me a bit, though not in an unfriendly way. Throughout the whole conversation he was a skeptical but benevolent figure. I also told him I was a schmuck, that I didn't do things well, and so that the story would end up being about my various failures. He said something to the effect that we are all schmucks. I didn't want to ask him how he came up with the ideas for his stories, but I said that I mostly wrote poetry, and that occasionally a plot for an entire novel would pop into my head, fully formed.

He said something that implied that that was the easy part. You had to have the self-discipline to write the book. The first example I gave him was of a man who gradually wasted away. He said that had been done already too many times. The second one was of a science fiction novel in which the aliens were taking over the world, but that the reader didn't know it. In other words, the transformation of reality was so subtle that it could be attributed to other causes. This is an idea I have actually had in waking life. Stephen King didn't quite get understand my plot, though it seemed as though gradually we were getting to some meeting of the minds.  

Without a car...

 My car is in the shop for 2 weeks.  

I can walk or take the bus to work. I also need to feed the cat every two days. Can walk from work to where the cat is, and back to work. My friend (owner of cat) is out of the country, and cannot drive me anywhere. [I could use her car, but I don't feel like it.]

I went out with friends on Friday. I got a ride home after that from a friend who lives on the same street. 

Took a bus to get some dinner this evening, then the same bus back to choir practice. There was thunder storm and I walked back anyway. The rain was not too heavy and I barely got wet. I could have asked someone for a ride, but didn't. 

(On Sunday, I was going to be in a 5k run in the morning. I was going to walk there, but the run was cancelled because of the rain.) 

I have books to donate to the library, which I cannot do without a car. 

So the lesson is... The car is good to have, but not necessary every day. If I had my car, I would have used it, but I don't need to use it that much. Not having a car is inconvenient, but having a car means using it too much.