{"id":660,"date":"2007-05-11T22:38:14","date_gmt":"2007-05-12T03:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/?p=660"},"modified":"2012-12-09T00:40:35","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T06:40:35","slug":"a-day-without-light-is-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/2007\/05\/11\/a-day-without-light-is-like\/","title":{"rendered":"A day without light is like &#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; night.<\/p>\n<p>And now it is night.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>And the semester is nearly over. Courses have ended, I&#8217;ve taught my last for a while, and I&#8217;ve collected enough essays and exams to keep me busy grading all weekend long.<\/p>\n<p>This morning I found out that Jen won&#8217;t be taking the Purdue job because &#8230; well, <em>because <!-- Purdue is staffed by a bunch of exploitative fuckers who think that a 4-4 course load and other responsibilities is worth a measely $36,000. --> of economic considerations<\/em>. This of course means that my recent housing plans will have to be rethought. But since I didn&#8217;t know whether I&#8217;d have a job around here in the fall anyway &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; well, and still don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>In any case, I wrote the &#8220;final&#8221; exam, printed and copied it, and went to class. We took a class photo, and then the 15 of them got to work writing.<\/p>\n<p>This afternoon I ended up at Fair Trade after stopping by the Union for lunch. I&#8217;d thought of getting a fish sandwich, but the grill had none on the rack, and I didn&#8217;t want to wait, so I just got a Chef Salad and some milk, and went to the Lakefront to eat. Then a fritter and coffee. At Fair Trade the son of the owner (Lori or is it Laurie?) has started working there. Just a note.<\/p>\n<p>Charles James donated a spring form pan to me today &#8230; more cheesecake, then.<\/p>\n<p>This evening I watched and finished <a href=\"http:\/\/www.televisionwithoutpity.com\/articles\/category_2934.html\">Jericho<\/a> &#8230; and I&#8217;m hoping for a 2nd season, if only so I can find out more of what is &#8220;supposed&#8221; to happen (in the minds of the creators). It became a bit too melodramatic for me at times, but there was enough post-apocalyptic content to keep me happy, though to be honest, this is the type of story that could and would be better told in a book, or even in comics. Now, I did see some really good, classical theater mise-en-scene in a few episodes, with well-composed shots and deliberate blocking, but it&#8217;s soap-opera acting for the most part. There are character and characterization moments, plot-advancing moments accompanied by dramatic music, and expository scenes. There is little action and what little there is isn&#8217;t generally that special. The medium is not being stretched, and the limits of the medium also limit the potential of the story. But <em>were<\/em> Jericho just a book or comic, it would have to stand alongside so many similar post-apocalyptic stories in those media; as it is, what&#8217;s new about it is that it&#8217;s such a story, on TV.<\/p>\n<p>The best part of the show, however, has been Stanley. His development, that is &#8212; hell, he&#8217;s about the only character to have become both likable and more than the stereotype they began as. Sure, there&#8217;s Jake and there&#8217;s Robert Hawkins, but the first episode lets us know, &#8220;Hey, here are <em>your<\/em> protagonists.&#8221; We know they have stories to tell, but Stanley has to do it without backstory or subplots. He just has his deaf sister and a developing romance with Mimi, the IRS agent who came from D.C. to take his farm.<\/p>\n<p>So now I&#8217;ll return to TV and get caught up on Lost and\/or Heroes.<\/p>\n<p>In other news, my dad and I finally got to talk &#8212; he&#8217;s been calling and leaving messages, but due to the play and such I&#8217;ve missed all his attempts until now &#8212; now that he and Judy are back from Ireland and Scotland. It appears that they had a great time, even given issues going through customs\/immigration at Gatwick that caused them to miss their flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230; night. And now it is night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[96,150,344],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-myspace","tag-coffee","tag-teaching-2","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.universalem.org\/homo_aestheticus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}