At least that’s what the free advertising postcard that I’ve been using as a bookmark says on the front. On the back it lets me know that the opening reception — which I missed — was November 3, 6-10pm at the Common Wealth Gallery on Baldwin St., and it featured live acoustic music by Joey Leal.
None of these names mean anything to me. That Friday I was on my way to Chicago for a Moritz conference. As for the postcard itself, I likely picked it up one afternoon at Fair Trade Coffeehouse, which I haven’t yet visited this holiday season. Sunday morning I awoke early (5:45am) for a morning coffee, originally planned for something near-west-ish, likely Monroe, but rescheduled and resituated to the EVP on East Wash, a mere week after I became acquainted with the joys of the west-side-EVP. In any case, after the 7am-ish coffee I found myself around 9am on State Street, and very little was open — even the library was closed. The McDonald’s on Lake had already shut its doors for the last time; I took a few pictures … nostalgia of sorts, and now that stretch of Lake is even more boring than before (hard to believe, I know). I walked up State, the first Espresso Royale was open but I was not interested, Fair Trade was closed so I kept on walking, and with an hour before the next bus instead of strolling home I got a mocha at the second ER.
I haven’t had a good coffeeshop made cup of coffee since … easy on the pocketbook but somehow boring.
Back to “spaces and places” — I should be further along in House of Leaves than I am, and it is very much about S&P. I’ve recently encountered (around pages 120-something to 140-ish) the labyrinth of text and footnotes that compose much of Chapter IX. I have, you see, been distracted by a seven season, 40 DVD set that I found via buy.com (tied to Google Checkout) for $100 … lots and lots of Buffy.
I am currently near the beginning of season 4 of BtVS; Oz just left town due to a bad full moon combined with a certain rather literal bitch.
The intarweb currently bores me … I’d rather lock myself away in my apartment and watch or read — or be in a cafe reading — than be online looking for new stuff, whatever that might be.
The city is quiet, and a hazy pseudo-fog graces the lake, leaving the view from the library not gray but the palest of blues punctuated by the brick and barren branches. Along my own street fallen leaves curl as if in anticipation of hibernation, and we haven’t even had rain for days, to say nothing of snow or ice, and when the late December temperatures break 40, it becomes even easier to dismiss the so-called holidays.
It’s not the best season for meeting people, or for meeting up with people you already know, though the solitude should be useful, an environmental locking away of self and desires so that scholarship can progress unimpeded.
Or perhaps I just need to watch more Buffy.
