The Guardian abets my Listmania

Today, D's roommate walks by and finds me gazing raptly at the computer screen.

"I thought you were going for a walk," she says.

"Um.  I was.  I should have," I reply.  "Now I am doing something considerably less virtuous."

"What," she scoffs, "are you looking at porn?"

"Bibliophile porn," I reply. 

I have been ensnared, you see, by the Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read List.

Now, you all know how I feel about lists.  I have a bit of an addiction, to be honest.  I can't seem to resist them: they are just so filled with possibility.  They seem to promise (always falsely) that there will be no disappointments here: these are vetted pantheons of greatness, just waiting to be wandered by me. 

I have been deeply in the thrall of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list and the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list for a number of years now, with the lasting effect that I now think about my own mortality in terms of how many books and films will remain unexperienced.  Oh god, I thought the other day, someday there will be a book that I just ... never finish.  This struck a distinctly tragic note with me.

The Guardian's list is considerably less historical in its orientation and notably more generic in its organization.  The result is that there are a lot more mysteries, sci fi and fantasy works, and graphic novels than the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die has room for.  I am doing slightly better with the Guardian's list than with the other, but I have still only read about 17% of the list. 

Let me repeat that: after twelve years of uninterrupted academic study of the field of literature, I have only read 17% of the list.  And I am astonished at how few of the works from the lists I have read in recent, stressful years.  Admittedly I have been focusing more narrowly on my field (drama) in these years, but still.

Tsk.

And so we moved out, sad in the vast offing...

...having our precious lives, but not our friends.



I am really, REALLY looking forward to the first episode of Treme tonight. Sometimes, while looking forward to the beginning of a series like Treme, I consider how lucky I am to be living in this golden age of television, when so many are doing so much that is interesting with the form, and I could almost weep from excitement.  It feels, without exaggeration, like what it must have felt like to the avid theatregoers of London or Madrid in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, waiting for a new Shakespeare or Marlowe or Lope or Calderon piece to appear.  Never forget that those were the reviled and revered pop forms of those eras.

In almost equal measure to my excitement about this show, I am distressed by the recent death of David Mills on the set of the show.  He was a Washingtonian by birth, a Maryland Terrapin by education, a journalist with a gift for controversy of the most illuminating kind, and the screenwriter for some of the most admired episodes of some of my most admired shows (Homicide and The Wire).   It was only in the aftermath of his death, alas, that I learned about his very entertaining and thought-provoking blog, Undercover Black Man.

And so, by way of tribute, I offer this really brilliant clip from UBM, a clip that Mills was himself offering up as a tribute to Martin Short.  Because what is there not to love about a good meta-Broadway critique of race in musicals?

A Big Black Lady Stops the Show from http://undercoverblackman.vox.com/

What my job is like every single day

I am recalled to the challenges of teaching literature when I see this (really sort of sublime) article from the Onion: Nation Shudders at Large Block of Uninterrupted Text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

Yes, I know that apocalyptic vision well.  It is what the view looks like from the front of my first-year "Introduction to Literature" class.

"It demands so much of my time and concentration," said Chicago resident Dale Huza, who was confronted by the confusing mound of words early Monday afternoon. "This large block of text, it expects me to figure everything out on my own, and I hate it."

Curse that block of text! So demanding.




Hmm. I wonder what would happen if I handed this out on the first day of my "Intro to Lit" class next year.  No, really.  I am seriously considering it.