PipesDreams

Managed to crawl on my belly through the ghastly trenches of the last hundred pages of “Officers and Gentlemen” over the weekend. What a dreadful, conflicted, nonsensical read! To triangulate the novel’s problems: it portrays the mentally-unstable absurdities of war in a stiff, dry manner that shows pathetically when placed next to Heller’s brilliant depiction of the same in “Catch 22”; it confounds the reader with the same obsessively acronymical, plotless military-porn that characterize Tom Clancy’s oeuvre; and it is finally damned by the complete absence of the charm, buoyancy and fey social commentary of Waugh’s earlier novels. A total poop.

Whether it was class being rather dull last night or the fact that the calendar tells me it’s March – which means there are !!!only 60 days standing between me and my 3-thesis-paper deadline!!! – last night I experienced the powerful desire to do some school work.

I abandoned my darling Justin in Weston, stayed downtown and bunked in at SMC’s awesome “open ’till midnight” Kelly Library. Decided on a thesis for my Tuesday class: am intending to discuss the degradation of high culture under the rise of the cult of youth as depicted in Waugh’s novels.

I’ll be appealing to Arthur Danto and Roger Scruton’s opposing views on aesthetic development to do this, which is fun because I like scrappy philosophers, and both these fellows defend their ideas like dogs with a bone. Danto says art as we have known it is ended, but! humanity is progressing into a brave new world of personal experiences of expression, using different forms and media. Scruton (who I think would have found a very sympathetic reader in Waugh) agrees that art is dead, but feels that humanity and high culture are about to join it in the grave.

All I need is to do some background reading, whip up a bibliography, find some better wording to frame it in and email my professors. Then, I’m all ready to get down to brass tacks and defend my thesis!

*gong sounds*
*ninjas attack thesis*
*Moira performs debilitating high kicks to ninjas*
*thesis is saved*

Dinner tomorrow night with and and other LJers at the Indian Hut – very exciting!

As part of my “doing the work of three people” adventure today, I decided to give myself the lunch hour of three people. Like my forefathers before me, I hunted and gathered at the Peter Street Deli, dragging General Chicken back to the cave of the Snail office where JVL set upon and devoured it.

I’m looking to perform some “ergonomic improvements” at the Snail office: it could use some shelving, more lights, and a slight decrease in the ridiculous number of boxes crammed into every inch of space.

JVL’s previously-mentioned work-related “to-do” list was daunting, so I offered to take on the task of hunting down companies that could remove the massive 33″x47″ iron radiator. It probably weighs about 400lbs, and has become a traffic hazard. A professional waste removal company came by today and said that not only is the bloody behemoth to big to budge, they may have to break the fucker to get it down the stairs. And breaking it could harm the structural integrity of the building.

Where’s Lou Ferrigno when you need him?

The other project for the store is getting a better camera set-up to take toy product photos for the website. I’m thinking of a 3.2MPS camera with a tripod, two 50W halogen table lamps and a light-diffusing cocoon to take the glare off the plastic packaging that most toys are in.

, , … you folks like photography, right? Have you ever used a light-tent or light-diffuser? Digital camera brand names or models you like/hate? Thoughts, suggestions, warnings?

On an unrelated note: I know I shouldn’t laugh at the misfortune of others, but I get the weekly crime report for my neighborhood emailed to me by the district police, and this week the last incident on the report made me laugh out loud.

At the intersection of John Street & Weston Road – a Neighbourhood Watch Area in Old Weston, and very close to our house – a lady got her cell phone stolen. But not in the usual manner. The victim was standing at the street corner waiting for the light to change and had her cell phone in her hand. The suspect was in the passenger seat of a motor vehicle driving by and he reached out and grabbed the cell phone from the victim’s hand. The suspect vehicle then left the scene and drove south on Weston Rd.

JVL rightly pointed out that this barely qualifies as a “robbery”: it was more like “passing the cell baton in the cell phone decathalon”.