“When will it be Bloom’s day?”
- Gene Wilder as Leo Bloom in Mel Brooks’ The Producers
For those of you Joyce nerds who find yourselves snickering under your breath at the occasional T-rider with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man tucked under his arm–”What a wimp!” you scoff–you will undoubtedly know already that tomorrow [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Alexis'
BLOOM shakalaka! A guide to celebrating Bloomsday.
June 15th, 2009 2 Comments
Top 10 Writer Stalks of Summer
April 25th, 2009 No Comments
Down south where I come from, literary tourism often involves large amounts of driving–from Flannery O’Connor’s house in Milledgeville, Ga. to William Faulkner’s in Oxford, Miss. (little known fact–Ole Miss’s original mascot was actually the Yoknapatawpha Paw-paw until students lost their minds and changed it to this. A decided mistake!)
Fortunately, New England is a [...]
The F-Word
April 12th, 2009 No Comments
If Fyodor was right and we can learn something about a civilization by looking at its prisons, then we can sure as hell learn something about a language by listening to its curses. When I lived in Italy, I couldn’t get comfortable in spontaneous conversation until I began to access the amazing versatility of [...]
The Literary Trail of Boston
April 4th, 2009 No Comments
Emerson graduate students are a little like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in what’s happening on our side of the Common that we take for granted all the literary richness “right in our own backyard.”
Forget those be-wigged dandies trying to peddle their so-called “Freedom Trail” tours. [...]
Kingston Trio, MTA
April 4th, 2009 No Comments
In light of the likely fare increases on our beloved-if-inefficient T (I blame the nation of Aruba), here is one, er, inspired “protest” idea from the past.
Watch while the Kingston Trio tells Boston to shove it, via banjo, “folksy” harmonies.
Tags: Alexis · Kingston Trio · MBTA
Vive le Passive Voice
March 26th, 2009 No Comments
This week Jan Freeman’s article in the Sunday Globe, “Active Resistance”, blasted its way through English language enthusiasts’ long-held belief that “[passive voice is] shifty and craven, weak and flabby.”
Maybe we should give ole p.v. a break, Freeman suggests (”Do we have any idea what we’re talking about?”), noting that we all succumb to passive’s [...]
Tags: Alexis · Boston Globe · grammar · revolution · writing habits
David Foster Wallace and Emerson
March 5th, 2009 1 Comment
In case you haven’t caught it yet, the New Yorker this week features a wonderful and mammoth profile on the late great David Foster Wallace, who killed himself in September last year.
While reading, I was surprised to find out that Wallace spent a brief period of time teaching at Emerson in the early 90s, [...]
Tags: Alexis · David Foster Wallace · emerson professors · Roger Federer · The New Yorker
From Emerson to Aruba, a mystical journey on the T
February 27th, 2009 1 Comment
This has to stop. The Aruba posters are warping my mind, threatening my future at Emerson.
It all started during at the beginning of spring semester, when January seemed to drag on into infinity, with its legions of cancerous looking ice piles and snowfall after snowfall. Shivering and face-chappin’ it all the way to [...]
Tags: Alexis · Aruba · Billy Joel · Jeff Seglin · Will and Grace set