November complaints

I am rather confused by how it is already November 15, and the AAAs are already next Wednesday. The last few weeks of school are always the worst. I have a proposal to write, which I should have been working on all semester, but, as usual, was not evening thinking about. I also have this crazy paper to write for my religion class. Of course, the professor loved my first paper (b/c it involved Asad), and after discussing various themes and potential topics in a meeting with him, it looks like I will once again be writing on Asad. I think the paper is going to be about religious and secular violence, something to do with power, and maybe nationalism. Actually its too much to think about right now.

But if anyone has suggestions for articles or books that I could use - feel free to tell me. I did find this potentially super useful anthology Violence in War and Peace edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois. I glanced through it last night. Oh, and I guess I should really look at Discipline and Punish, but sometimes Foucault makes my head ache.

The Mist

I just finished watching the Mist, and am utterly depressed. It is really in fact not a monster movie at all - that is if you think what is happening with the spooky mist is the main point of the movie. No, according to Stephen King, people are monsters. I am sorry but....

spoiler alert

I did not enjoy watching some man shoot his son, only to be rescued 5 minutes later by the fucking military. I get it, but obviously S.K is not into redemption for the human race. Its rather telling that the only religious character in the movie is a raging psychopath.

I don't like sad movies - at all - that is why I watch horror films, and I feel seriously misled. The end is heart wrenchingly unbelievably disturbing and depressing.
To give the man credit though, while some people have said the movie was stupid I think they were only talking about the main plot, which isn't actually what the movie is about. The monsters and such crawling about and attacking people aren't really that frightening, and perhaps kinda silly. But in the end, the movie isn't about them - its about the people who find themselves locked in a building together and are each other's own worst enemies.

Really though, I didn't like it. Its one thing to kill everyone off at the end, but its entirely too much to have one man kill his friends only to be rescued. What is S.K really saying about people here? What does that say about him? (Alternately, what does my reaction say about me?)

Post-Halloween Grading Session

I am about to engage in a marathon grading session - must finish exams!

I did however, finally complete this insane paper on William Clifford and Soren Kierkegaard. I think I came up with a rather nifty title, hopefully the paper is as good -- "The Passion of the Infinite and the Vagaries of Belief: Faith, Reason, and the Individual in William Clifford and Soren Kierkegaard."

Party last night was much fun, I did manage to complete my costume. I will happily post pictures onto Facebook as a reward to myself when I finish grading.

ed. to add that at around 11pm I finally completed those god-forsaken exams. but then I made the mistake of looking at my neglected syllabi to see what else I hadn't done, I might have nightmares b/c of it...

Random

Things completed:
Plane ticket to SF
Voted

Things not completed:
Grading Exams
Grading Papers
Halloween Costume
Paper for 600
RIP Challenge
Plane ticket for NO

Do I detect a pattern here?

Well anyway - Happy Halloween!

Review: Exquisite Corpse

by Poppy Z. Brite

I had read this book before, but decided to tackle it again b/c I found a pristine copy in the used book story for $1.* Essentially, it is a love story - seriously, but to steal a line from Fiona McGavin "you shouldn't love anyone that much."

The plot very basically is that two serial killers, one from New Orleans and one from London meet up through chance in a bar called "The Hand of Glory"**, and decide to murder then eat this local from N.O. Actually, my favorite scene is the meeting b/w Jay and Andrew. Both are in the bar looking for a victim, but obviously get something completly unexpected, and find in each other similar affinities, which eventually leads to them attacking Tran (the local). There is a second subplot involving the potential victim's boyfriend who has AIDS and is angry at the world, but those sections have always annoyed me, and are the least interesting aspects of the book.

Actually, several parts of Exquisite Corpse are based on the real life story of Jeffrey Dahmer. And while I don't find many things truly horrifying, there are a couple of scenes in this book that are entirely too much. One occurs at the beginning involving a boy named Fido and some bleach, the second is near the end and has something to do with a screwdriver - enough said. Out of PZB's novels that I have read this is my least favorite, but her writing is still evocative and beautiful.

Now the real question is, can I complete this challenge and read one more book before the end of the month.....

* too good of a deal to pass up
**I'm too lazy to make sure that is the name, but I'm fairly certain.