dmv

I spent the morning at the dmv waiting to change over the title of my dying car. And I spent the entirety of my purgatory in the waiting room eavesdropping on the mother-daughter dyad next to me: the mother was classically "long-suffering," the girl, youngish, but too old to be acting the way she was. Over the course of their discussion, her mother would lower her voice, embarrassed, and the closer she would get to whispering, the louder the girl would talk. I consider that whining is something primarily communicated in pitch variations, but she managed to be incredibly petulant and incredibly monotone simultaneously. There were no pauses or rhythmical changes--both also staples in my expression of complaint. Her whine characteristics were a high nasal quality and every syllable sounded spit out. Most of her gripes were some variation on the theme of:
"I don't have time for this I'm running five websites"
or
"my eyes won't hold the makeup" (it's true, in my open gawking, I could tell that there was no trace of makeup on her eyes)
and
"what do I need an ID for I'm going to be dead in a few years anyway so what I need an ID so they can ID my dead body and write my name on my grave"
The DMV seems a pretty appropriate place for nihilism, but impending death seems a kind of crazed rationale to avoid spending time there. But it wasn't a joke--the mother's mouth dropping slightly open made that clear, whereas the deep lines marking her forehead might indicate that such comments weren't infrequent. Moreover, it struck me as a really hard-core awful thing to say to probably the only person in the world who values your life more than her own.

I have to admit though, I do remember yelling at my mother that I would laugh at her grave when she was dead. It was one of those arguments where you lash out and try to hurt as hard as you can. But I was fourteen. Oh, and my mom just shrugged.

The Lists

TO DO WORK:
Mon: Analyze dvd for c4 and write Agamben section: DONE!
Tues: Write politics intro for c3 and clarify the first section. So not at all done. Read Prospecti and comment. DONE!
Wed: Day off. But actually, I put together a booklet for this do-it-yourself prospectus workshop I'm running...does it count as work if I was watching the us open at the same time?
Thurs: Analyze dvd for c4 and write Ricoeur section. Half done.
Fri: Analyze dvd for c4 and do my own theory section.
Sat: Write first Cham close reading for c3.
Somewhere in there: Write a first draft of research statement. DONE--first draft to guilan on tues.

Netflixed

Blissfully Yours
Well, I'm feeling somewhat like a critical Goldilocks: I mock Shortbus for being overly explicit with its symbolism and then I spurn this film for being overly obscure. This film comes from the Thai director who created Tropical Malady and shares the same technique of occasionally overlaying drawings on the screen. Only this time, they didn't translate the Thai writing that accompanies the doodles, so I was pretty lost. I know there was something about immigrancy as connected with disease, and suspicion of authority. Other than than, lost-ness. It reminded me a little bit of Brown Bunny, what with the long long long seemingly real-time long driving scenes that were beautiful but made me want to watch it sped up by 16x.