i was reading an article in the IHT the other day. the article was on the golem and how the little monster figure is on the ascendence again in prague. the whole notion of the golem rang a bell deep within the recesses of my graduate school brain. the article defined it as "The Golem, according to Czech legend, was fashioned from clay and brought to life by a rabbi to protect Prague’s 16th-century ghetto from persecution, and is said to be called forth in times of crisis." i couldn't really place the golem thing, tho' it's undoubtedly some central european lit i once read. i like the idea of a golem, actually, a kind of protective figure. i think we could all use one of those.
but it got me thinking about what other remnants of grad school are there lurking between the song lyrics that are cluttering up my thirty-twelve year-old brain.
: : lots of marxist rhetoric.
: : oddly filtered through ayn rand.
: : and even more oddly which involves the chasing of little green bits of paper and ascription of meaning thereto (or it thereof?).
: : a residual embarrassment of not getting pilnyak's naked year on the first read (and admitting as much to the professor--tho' that was as an undergrad).
: : occasional musings on how master & margarita might be a modern example of menippean satire. (thank you bakhtin.)
: : an unhealthy adoration of derrida, tho' in retrospect, i had no idea what he was talking about.
: : ditto foucault. and baudrillard.
: : an ability to turn to whatever scene you reference in my copy of dostoevsky's brothers karamazov in under ten seconds.
: : a desire to frantically and thoroughly clean when a deadline looms.
: : the time my serbo-croatian teacher said, "spanish is easy, you can learn it in a weekend."
i'm sure there's more, but half-watching a total crap movie about stewardesses starring gwenyth paltrow (which cured me of that stewardess envy thing, by the way) has so thoroughly numbed my brain that i can't come up with them now. t.v. is evil.
happy monday, everybody.
