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which is wicked cool.

I've been reading a lot of criticism this past week, trying to make myself feel productive about this essay I'm working on, while in fact not doing much work at all. Which isn't very helpful in the long run, but it sure has been entertaining:

"But first in London [W.B. Yeats] busied himself with the invention of a literary movement and the shaping of a post-Parnellite culture. He had his poems published by a prestigious house, in whose offices he wore the black cloak of a professional Celt. (Some said that this gave him a priestly appearance, appropriate to the leader of a new cult: but the satirist George Moore quipped that it made him look like an umbrella left behind after a picnic.)" - Declan Kiberd, Inventing Ireland

Isn't that wonderful? Sure, it's not at all useful, but I think it's always important to remember, when spending extended periods of time writing about anyone, that in their youth they dressed like a cult leader, in their prime they had fascist leanings, and in their old age they thought themselves responsible for all modern Irish culture. Keeps things in perspective, because, see, I may think I'm a prose genius at times, especially when writing essays, but at least I'm not dressed like a false-priest or an umbrella.

In other entertaining-only-to-me news, the second year lecture series is my new drug. I went to today's talk about Brecht and modern theatre, and while I did object to the lecturer saying that Modernism died with Yeats in 1939 (oh, no no no, don't say that, you know it's not true and you shouldn't tell lies, even if it is to silly secondies who believe unquestioningly), it was a good class, complete with a wacky 1920's brechtian film clip. And! The lecture I plan to crash on Friday is going to be even better. Not only will it still be on modernism, but they will be covering Yeats (on whom I currently have one of those crushes I often get on people I hate) and T.S. Eliot. Even better, the text explored will be "Murder In The Cathedral"! Oh joy! Oh rapture! Added happiness because I suspect the lecturer to be of Irish or possibly southern Scottish origin (it's hard to tell), and she pronounced it "Murrrderrr in the Cathedral" all soft and sexy-like into her microphone. Tell all your friends, it's going to be a rockin' good time.

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