Dream of getting in trouble

 In this dream, I was leaving an event, and one young woman seemed to be waiting for me when everyone else had walked out.  She walked up and said "Do you want to hang out, maybe go dancing?" I said "Sure," but in a noncommittal way, as if doubting what I had heard. Coming down to the next floor, she appeared again, more vividly. She was ethereal looking and had a fresh face; red hair.  She asked me again and I said yes. Then all of a sudden I was in trouble. She was complaining to her dance teacher about me. 

***

I awoke, and then knew it was a dream. In the next dream, I was this the dance teacher, explaining to her my dream of her student. I didn't want to involve the dance teacher in this, but I ended up doing so. Thankfully, this was a dream too.  

Dream of losing my job

I lost my job (something that isn't going to happen) and my remaining research interests were represented by some small, square cards of various colors.  

Anhedonic

In this dream I exploring the anhedonic principle, arguing that the search for pleasure inevitably led to a search for pain. There was a local meeting or party devoted to this idea, and I had invited some family members, but had given them mistaken directions or address. The locals, however, knew how to get there. I was trying to explain my ideas to some colleagues. 

There were several examples: gastronomy that emphasizes pungent or bitter notes. As I was waking up I thought of others. Sexual proclivities that fetishize conventionally unattractive traits, or the introduction of pain. Ascetic practices, etc... This was kind of muddled in my head as I was half way awake, and I continued to explore this principle and its opposite.  In "bad taste" we often see an interest in things that are merely pretty, or too easily digested. I'm sure I was thinking of Adorno in my dream, in some way, since that's the only place I've seen the word "anhedonic."   

The course design

 I've actually been studying this stuff since 2018.  

Theoretical:  

Basics of music and song setting. For example, music is divided into phrase, and a phrase coincides with a phrase of language. Call and response.  

Historical: 

Movements in classical music that reach out to the vernacular. 

Developments in literary history that make popular poetry prestigious. 

Development of the French and Latin American song. Folk-revivals. 

Record album as unit of consumption.  

Texts: 

Poems by Machado, Jiménez, Lorca... etc.... 

Musicians:  

Falla, Lorca.... all the flamenco performers (Morente); all the singer-songwriters. 

Desajuste

I am going to argue that translation *failure* derives from a mismatch in poetics.  

That is to say, there is a definable poetics in the original text, and a definable "poetics of translation" in the effort to translate it. This can line up, as when a baroque poet translates another in a baroque aesthetic. Or there can be a mismatch.  Suppose a 21st century translator tackles Quevedo and leaves out most of the baroque stuff.  

But, and here it gets interesting, even an American poet of modernist tendencies tackles Lorca, and the seeming similarity of poetics isn't much help, or not as much as you would expect. It would be like Surrey messing up with Petrarch.  

Good to know

"You do not have to report your own incidents of harassment / discrimination / or sexual misconduct, but we encourage you to do so."

***

"No such thing as ovevreporting!" [sic] 

 

Title IX

 We have 16 categories of protection here.  5 of them have to do with race / ethnicity:

race / color / ethnicity /  national origin / ancestry 

4 have to do with sex / gender:

sex / sexual orientation / gender identity / gender expression 

The other 7:  

Age, disability, veteran status, marital status, parental status, genetic information, religion  

Nor making fun of this, but it doesn't seem very well thought out, since some categories overlap considerably.  The acronym  for the office of civil rights and title IX sounds vaguely sinister, like an anagram for orcs and ticks: OCRTIX.  

Dumbed down version of course description, for the flyer

 Professor Jonathan Mayhew

 

Spanish 453: Poets and Singer-songwriters

 

(Spring 2025) 

 

Do you like music? Are you interested in doing original research on a topic that has not received much critical attention in academia? Then this course is for you!

 

 

 

 

 

In this course, we will explore musical versions of poems by major authors like San Juan de la Cruz, Rosalía de Castro, Federico García Lorca, and Pablo Neruda, whose work has been set to music by composers and performers from Spain, Latin America, the US, and across the world. 

 

The course...

 Professor Jonathan Mayhew

Spring Semester, 2025

 

Spanish 453: Twentieth Century Spanish Studies

 

Poets and Singer-songwriters 

 

This course is devoted to musical versions of the work of poetry of canonical figures like San Juan de la Cruz, Rosalía de Castro, Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, and Miguel Hernández. This phenomenon is especially important in flamenco music, but occurs in other genres as well, from classical to pop.  

 

Composers and performers to be studied include Manuel de Falla, Federico García Lorca, Luigi Nono, Germaine Montero, Leonard Cohen, Joan Manuel Serrat, Paco Ibáñez, Amancio Prada, Camarón de la Isla, Enrique and Estrella Morente, Carmen Linares, and Miguel Poveda. 

 

This is a significant topic for three main reasons. (1) In quantitative terms, there is a lot of material to be studied. (2) The poets whose work have been set to music are among the most celebrated figures of twentieth century literature. (3) From a comparative perspective, the work of peninsular musicians can be compared with the Chanson Française [French Song], the Nueva Canción Latinoamericana, and similar movements bridging the gap between canonical literature and popular culture. Since this phenomenon has not received much academic attention to date, the possibilities for original research are promising. 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: 

 

Amancio Prada con el profe; cartel del Concurso de Cante Jondo; piano de Lorca; Camarón de la Isla 

2 Dreams

 I was in a used bookstore.  I was looking for the essay "Everybody's Favorite Protest Novel" by James Baldwin.  I found it very easily, in a book of essays by various authors, right on the page it was supposed to be.  I began to read it, and it was talking about the Spanish poet Jorge Manrique (??).  The book had funny dimensions and looked too small to have its 500+ pages. But I thought it would be good to take with me as reading material on my trip to France.  

***

I was in Paris, but a Paris that looks nothing like real-life Paris. I was trying to get to my hotel, and thought I would walk first before using google maps on my phone.  I somehow knew it was "downhill" from where I was. Some American girls passed by and were singing "They can't take that away from me," "The way you wear your hat..." etc... but with altered lyrics, like "The way you all throw up." I wanted to warn them that people in France might understand English. I passed by a woman dressed in a funny way and with a lot of make up. She started talking to me in French. I couldn't understand, and then she said "vous parlez...?" and I said "anglais."  We had a brief conversation and I was able to get away when someone else came and she started taking to them. 

Now I went through several buildings that seemed to be in descending order in the direction I wanted to go. I got out my phone, and it was know a two inch square shape. I opened google maps and it make the phone look like a watch or industrial steam-punk looking thingie, so I opened another map app, but now could not figure out how to use it... I couldn't  remember the name of my hotel.  

A challenge...

 Dear colleagues,

In Spring 2025, the four of you are each scheduled to teach a 400 level course (X in 8-weeks format).

The College is very keen on enrollments, this year. Officially, 12 students is sufficient enrollment in an undergraduate course, but actually they like to see some 18-20 students.

I am not sure that we will be able to enroll 4 courses but for now we will give it a try.

In order to boost student enrollment, 

1. please come up with a cool course title that will be attractive to students
2. Provide some good-looking visuals and a nice description so that Y can create a flyer and project this on our monitor etc.

You will have to convince students to take your course among many great offerings.

If you could do this before Fall break and send both to me and  Y  that would be great.

Thanks, 

Ω

Dream of cooking course

 I was in college again. It wasn't clear why, since I am, in fact, a college graduate. I was questioning that myself, in the dram. My age in this context is undetermined: I am just myself at whatever age I am in my own mind.. One of the courses I was taking was in cooking, but involved field trips and my transportation was not guaranteed. I began to worry about my grades, but felt like I didn't need all A's during my second college career.  My vagueness in retelling this dream responds to the vagueness of the dream itself. 

Dream of a tattoo

 A grad student considering our program had a tattoo of poem on his back, that somehow another person, a young woman also applying, was responsible for. 

An Imaginary Friend

 A friend was staying at my house (my mom's house). He had gotten there a day before I did. He was a youngish or middle-aged guy who was into poetry. Nobody seemed to question his presence there: he was my friend. He had some books with him; one a translation of Robert Desnos. He read me some poems from this book and they weren't bad, though they didn't resemble actual Desnos poems at all. (Not that I know his poems well!).  

It occured to me at some point that we hadn't really hung out very much in the past, in real life, and thus our friendship was really starting then. I was on the verge once of asking him how we had met. We were going to go some event in a Barnes & Nobles later in the evening...   

When I woke up from this dream, I had no idea who this person was. The dream was very vivid and full of real-feeling details, but this person does not exist in real life. I understood this immediately upon waking up, with some wistfulness.  

When not hanging out with my imaginary friend, I was with relatives. We were talking and I realized they didn't know that Mona Jo had died (my aunt).  These relatives, though, were also composite or imaginary figures, not my actual relatives.  

Bumper sticker

 I saw a bumper sticker in my apt complex this morning:  "What would Mary Shelley do?"

and I thought

"Marry Shelley." 

6th or 7th?

 On Facebook someone was talking about completing their sixth decade. They were 69.  I didn't say anything, but you are ten when you complete your first decade, and 70 when you complete your seventh.  I am in my 7th decade now, at 64.  I really don't know how this person was 11 years off.  Perhaps it is because your 60s seem like number 6, so your 70s (your 8th decade) would begin at age 70.  

A Dream

 I was considering dating a younger Japanese American woman. (Not a real person in real life.) Then I questioned myself for being so arrogant for thinking she would want me. Why was I so confident? But really I did not mind being confident. Then I realized it would not be fair to her. Maybe she would want children? Then I woke up.  

Dream of being accused

 I was accused of murder. I was sitting on a lawn of some sort, where the trial was taking place. I had no idea whom they thought I had killed. It gradually came out that I had done so as a medical student, by operating incorrectly on a patient. I was thinking that I was not criminally culpable for this. When I woke up, I knew it was a false accusation because... I have never been a medical student.  In the dream itself, I never questioned this, though I certainly didn't feel "guilty."