Back to bend of bay

I try to rationalize my absence (laziness) by telling myself that writing a blog titled "Dublin on Nitrogen" while in the haven of a Richland basement would be a lie. Really, though, I was just playing Beethoven. Tons of Beethoven. Also some Debussy. Scriabin when I was feeling it.

So, I got back to Dublin Friday morning after traveling since 5 a.m. Thursday, after sleeping for all of an hour Wednesday night. I truly cannot sleep before traveling. Something in me feels that since I will be gone for so long I just need to enjoy every last microsecond of wherever I am. In this case, it mostly meant playing Beethoven and reading and eating leftovers.

I checked my schedule today (Saturday), after sleeping all day Friday and napping/reading all of Friday night. I saw that I was scheduled to work tonight until midnight, and Sunday from 3-10, and almost cried. I don't have my essays done, and they're due Monday afternoon. If I end up turning one in late I won't be too sad, but I couldn't stand turning both in late, or even poorly revised. Particularly, the one on Basil Bunting. I really like the poem, the class, the professor, and even my essay so far. The other one, on Virginia Woolf, might take a little more work, but I'll probably do fine. So, I did what I always do in a crisis: play piano. After a solid half-hour of Beethoven (and some Debussy), I decided to call in and say I couldn't make it, a solid 1 1/2 hours before I was scheduled to work. I said I was very sorry, tried to sound broken up, and the manager didn't really say anything, just thanks for calling. I'd like to keep this job for at least the next two months, unless I get some jazz gigs. Not so much for the money as for the peace of mind that I get from not having to keep a solid budget.

I've been slowly reading Beckett now, in my off-time. I'm on the first of his trilogy of short novels, Molloy. I have this theory that reading Beckett destroys one's ability to read anything else. He includes pages regarding a particular character's thoughts, and next to nothing about physical description. We don't even get the name "Molloy" until about a quarter in, and it's a first-person narration from his point of view. There are endless permutations of every possible outcome of a situation, cyclical and repetitive. The dialogue is not in quotes, not paragraphed out (there aren't even very many paragraphs for that matter), and often ended with asides saying, essentially, that this conversation took place mostly in his mind--in reality, he probably just grunted unintelligibly.

How does it ruin me then? Well, now when I try to read "normal" novels I get bogged down by the slightest physical description. I can now withstand pages and pages detailing a character's system of organizing his "sucking-stones" into different pockets so that he has a proper rotation of stones in his mouth, yet I can barely tolerate a half-paragraph of his-boots-were/her-eyes-were. Beckett just seems to take all of what other authors deem a necessity, throw it out the window, and in its place insert what seems an extravagance, a mockery of what was once considered essential. He, obviously, was not the first; Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner all used stream-of-consciousness. However, Beckett has an irreverence toward what seems like the book itself. He does not work in this stream-of-consciousness in the Joycean way where it gives in to grand metaphor and Dedalus's Grecian/philosophical allusions. His does not make the claim a la Finnigan's Wake that in the part is represented the whole; his seems to point to itself as if to say, look at this, it means nothing.

I would compare this to Beethoven if I could. Give me two pounds of coffee, the scores of his late quartets, and a week.