I am in love with Jusepe de Ribera, español.

Like, so in love I can't bring myself to write this paper for fear that I won't do his genius justice.

Because, I'm not even sure if he is an artistic genius.  I only think so because I like his paintings and know close to nothing about art.


This one, for instance, makes me laugh.  St. Jerome is looking up at that angel like "WTF do you want me to do?"  And the angel's just blowin' on that horn like it means something.  And it probably does, but it still makes me laugh.


This is what I imagine Jusepe de Ribera looks like.  Sexy and all ready to become a martyr.  (Is it just me or does St. Sebastian always look turned on by his martyrdom?  Like "Oh, yes!  Oh, God!  Yes!  Martyr me, baby!")


And this is the one I'm writing about.  I'm taking a biographical approach and trying to analyze what it means in the context of Ribera's Spanish heritage, and residence in Italy (particularly Naples).  Why, when he was so eager to emphasize that he was a Spaniard, did he remain in Naples and what does that mean for this work?  What does it mean that the counterreformation was so big in Italy and Spain, and Naples in particular?

I really want to do well on this paper!  Why can't I get started?  Ahhh!

Study break is officially over.
In 3...2...1.
Chowder.

I am ten pages away from being finished with Robert Kennedy, but there is a very big part of me that just wants to set the book down and never reach its inevitable conclusion.  I feel so emotionally engaged to RFK.  I have struggled with him as he tried to find his place in his family, and after that his own voice in politics separate from Jack's legacy.  And now, it's 1968, and he's just given one of the most moving speeches I've read/heard. 

It's 1968 and he's scared shitless of what's going to happen, but he's running for president anyway.  He's exhausted--mentally and physically--and sick, but when he sees a child or a disabled person stricken by poverty or some physical ailment, he is rejuvenated by his sense of morality and feelings of worthlessness.  Courage isn't the lack of fear, it's closing your eyes, gritting your teeth, and just doing it.  And in spite of the fatality eternally darkening his brow, Bobby Kennedy threw himself into the mix for what he--not his family or the Party--believed in.

It's 1968 and Bobby Kennedy is about to change the world.  I am just as hopeful as the crazy mobs that he can do it, that he wants to do it, and that not even Jack's memory can stop him now. 

But it's 1968 and Robert Kennedy is about to be shot, and I know that I'm going to feel the same unresolved suspense that America felt that year, when MLK and then RFK were assassinated... the same sense of cruel anticipation that still affects our politics today, as much as Barack Obama wishes to deny his connections to the sixties.  Sad fact is: that's just life, and despite all the Kennedy myths of genius and wonderful skipping nymphs, I think that's one of Bobby's biggest impacts on the world...

We'll never be over RFK.

We finished discussing Pudd'nhead Wilson in my Lit class last week, but there's something that's been eating at me since we began analyzing the text.  It's something that's bothered me about English classes since I was told that there's more to fiction than foreshadowing, pretty words, and a good time.  I'm not even sure how to go about describing this, but I'm going to try, because I have to say something.

What does it all mean?

I mean, what do we know about Samuel Clemens when he wrote Pudd'nhead?  He was broke because he'd put all his blasted eggs in the typwriter's basket and forgot to watch it.  Okay, so I'll accept your claim that he put a lot of his own self into the characters (mostly into Tom and Wilson).  He also originally wrote Angelo and Luigi as conjoined twins, but later separated them when he decided that other characters were more interesting.  He explicitly clarified in an interview that the twins were meant to be separate.  So why did we spend an hour and a half debating whether or not they were conjoined?  What does it matter?

Alright, I'll take that back.  Because it definitely matters.  It matters because Twain was going through a bit of an obsession with twins because of the Cheng and Eng deal.  It matters because it has some implications for Wilson's comment about killing half the dog.  But if he said they were separate, then they were separate.  And if it seems like they were conjoined, what if he wasn't trying to be sneaky about meaning?  What if he was just rushing to put out an entertaining novel so that his family wouldn't murder him for his wildcat investments and missed a few things during editing?

And if the story was originally about Angelo and Luigi, did Twain really have an agenda with this one?  I'm really having trouble with this one because I know he was an abolitionist and for equal rights.  I know this and I want to say that's the message in Pudd'nhead.  But I can't believe it.  Tom and Roxy are pretty much the only "black" characters in the story, and they're both marginally to extremenly bad.  They steal, they cheat, they lie.  And Tom, who was raised as a white heir, ended up even worse than Roxy! 

There was all this talk in Contending Forces about how the way African Americans were raised under slavery and under Jim Crow is what crushed their moral compasses and made them bad.  But here's Tom, who was raised by the most honorable FFV men in town to be most honorable.  And Chambers was raised to be property and to not own his actions, yet he is the sweetest (albiet very uneducated) thing.  After he was restored as heir to the Driscoll fortune, he was still gentle and kind.  So, when I read Pudd'nhead, it didn't say anything to me like, "Race has nothing to do with it."  Instead, it almost seemed to say that race has everything to do with it, and that a black man with a white education and morals is still a black man.

And so my question is whether Twain really meant to say anything about race at all?  What if he just wanted to sell books?  The twins were boring him, so he found something more interesting.  What if he just needed money?

I can't help but think that he would find this all terribly funny, the way we were going through so much trouble to come up with something profound to say.  Don't get me wrong, though.  I love this book!  It's very close to my heart--almost closer than Huck Finn... but I just can't bring myself to jump aboard the Meaning Boat for this one.  Because, when I try, I always find something unsavory.

(And just to clarify: I don't think all analyzing is a bad thing, because sometimes authors do mean something outside of what they say.  In this case, however, I just found the whole thing ridiculous, and it made me want to punch a baby.)

Oh, dammit.  A biography, "five hundred words or less," is but the buttons and seams of a man!  You could give me a lifetime, and I still could not describe to you how much this year has taught me about love, life, and saying goodbye. 

I am Irish.

Cut me and I bleed green.

But give me any amount of pages, and I still could not pour out my entire soul for the world to judge.

Oh, dammit.

Three days.

Why can't this stupid essay just write itself?

On the eve of another night of digestive problems and loneliness is not the ideal time to start a scholarship essay.  I came to them last year with bright eyes and big ideas.  I was a hopeless romantic last year.  I thought I'd found my people--calm, nature-loving, industrious, carefree, intellectual people.  I thought I could do anything last year.

They funded my dreams last year, and what can I show them but broken glass?

Fantastic grades?


I am a Catholic, but I don't believe in God.  I am a Catholic, and I don't not believe in God.  Frankly, I just don't care.  Regardless of whether or not there is someone watching our every move--the ultimate Facebook stalker, say--isn't the point of life just to be good?  Forget about what's a-waiting in the end, whether it's a shimmering mass of clouds or life as a peacock: aren't we, as humans, hardwired just to care?

I went to Good Friday Mass today and I watched people cry during the Passion of the Christ.  I wonder if the same people who smiled during lynchings in the 1890s could still cry on Good Friday.  The cross is as ugly as a noose.  How many people have to die before... well... before anything.

Agnus dei, dona nobis pacem.

I don't care about God, but I care about everything, and there's something beautiful about being Catholic that is like coming home.

Also, I did this meme way back when mom and dad stopped in Taco Bell on the way home for Spring Break, and I meant to post it, too...  archane  gave me Pippin:

( click to see what i think )