Whom God wishes to destroy, he first gives a stationary bike

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

This is what comes of living in gothic solitude, after a time: 

It is midnight, and I'm in that madwoman-in-the-attic space of Farfara the realtors called a "bonus room" (blech) but I sometimes call the Other Within in fits of anxious irony, an undefined, ignored subconscious of a vast upper-floor space tucked down a frigid corridor from the rest of the house. Maybe I should be calling it the Superego.

I was stationary-cycling away while reading a classicist's investigation of the origins of the phrase "Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius" [Whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad], when my eye was caught by a long, undiscovered ledge running the length of the staircase.

"Ho ho!" I cried, scuttling over to it. (Need I add that the walls, if not quite wallpapered, are a very sickly yellow up there?) "You know what you're going to be used for, don't you, my fine friend? You're going to be a bookshelf! Just you wait, Henry Higgins...."

"Wait," I thought, suddenly self-conscious, "Are you having a conversation with a ledge?"

I hurried downstairs.

Your inside is out when your outside is in

Friday, January 13, 2012

Unknown artist, c. 1665-1670 Notice that Rochester, all cool dignity, is holding the implements  of his poetic achievement in one hand, while he shows his real feelings  about hipster acclaim by crowning his pet monkey with the laurels of literary greatness. Meanwhile, the monkey, well... everyone's a critic.

This week I introduced my students to the key ideas in Restoration and Eighteenth-Century theatre with a picture of the Earl of Rochester (pattern for all rakes) that I've subtitled, "Everybody's got something to hide, 'cept for me and my monkey."



I think they really enjoyed our little foray into the life, poetry and portraiture of Rochester, kidnapper of brides and gynecological masquerader (apparently he spent some time under the name Dr. Bendo, charismatic quack specialist in women's complaints). Except for the quarter of the class who tried to tamp down increasingly urgent expressions of alarm and disgust.


Excerpts from our conversation:

I:    "So what is the difference between a a rake and a fop, really? Do you see a difference between this portrait of Colley Cibber as Lord Foppington and this picture of the Earl of Rochester?"

Colley Cibber as Lord Foppington in Vanbrugh's The Relapse (John Simon after Giuseppe Grisoni, c. 1700-1725) Those sleeves are trying way too hard.

Students:    "Rochester is dressed less elaborately."

     "He seems more relaxed."

     "Yeah, there's a confidence about Rochester."

     "Lord Foppington just looks so stiff and false."

I:    "Right. you can see it in the eyes, the body language. Rakes are, to use a sophisticated piece of academic jargon, cool. Fops *want* to be cool. Rochester's got it going on, Foppington's trying too hard to get it. Rochester's invested in the pose of devil-may-care effortlessness (see the "toga" above), Foppington's all obvious artifice." 

There followed a not altogether brief discussion of the perfection of Johnny Depp's casting as Rochester.

I may also have referred to A School for Scandal as "The Gossip Girl of the Eighteenth Century." I'm not ashamed. (Mostly.)

Hitchcockian Drives and iPod Hauntings

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Last night I donned my best 40s dress and ventured forth for a party. It wasn't until I was halfway down Farfara Way (our steep and endless driveway) that I realized that the fog had rolled in. As I made my white-knuckled way along the half hour of coastal roadway, I became, really, quite a connoisseur of fog. There's the spectral mist that makes you feel like you may be driving straight through faded imprints of another time, the clinging fog that whirls around you as you flee its longing affections, and of course the pea soup fog that makes you hope you know the driveway's turns and ditches by heart, lest you become a spectral imprint before your time. What should my eerie iPod choose as the ideal accompaniment to such a wooded, murky venture, lit only by noirish sweeps of headlight?

So Hitchcockian was the moment that I began to laugh uncontrollably, by my lonesome, crouched squinting over the steering wheel of the Barge She Sat In (which is, um, the name of our new {blush, shamefaced eye aversion} SUV). Then I stopped abruptly: Pull it together, Sycorax, I told myself. This cackling isn't improving the ambiance.