A quotation from a fictional French shepherd

I was reading a translation of the prologue to Marc-Antoine Charpentier's opera Médéé for my French class, Lire Versailles, and I while I was annoyed by the constant (but fashionable and necessary for the time) over-glorification of Louis XIV, I was intrigued by a line given by a shepherd:

In the prime of life,

If you are not flighty,

Tender hearts

Taste but little joy.

The ardour of constant passion

Soon begins to wane.

Do you want happy loves?

Then you must ever change.

In the prime of life,

If you are not flighty,

Tender hearts

Taste but little joy.

It's pretty, in French and English, and it certainly seems true, especially if tender hearts in the prime of life are those that beget those fleeting middle school and high school romances. What about when we're just a little older? When was the prime of life then? 17? 23? What is it now?

for the record

no more thesis

not that i finished

i dropped it at the beginning of this semester

hopeless failure or clever second-semester senior?

i'll let the court of life decide

subkirke

Subkirke, as it turns out, was fantastic. It's a church that lends itself to concerts (literally lends itself) so you sit in a pew and listen to a band play at the front of the church where, on an average Sunday, a service might be held. It's an unusual experience to be sure, and one that might offend a few particularly orthodox individuals, but it seemed pretty inoffensive and the pews were well-padded. It was a little odd to be seated in tidy rows in an almost-really-intimate setting, but the novelty of it was A+. I got there a late and didn't take any pictures, so I can't really share much more than this for now, but I hope they have another super awesome concert soon!

did i say squared? i meant cubed

because I also went to the library Saturday night...

...after failing at life (i.e. failing to get to a concert that was only a few miles away)

yeah, so google gives really bad directions around South Bend

as a result, we completely missed the concert at Subkirke, a brand spankin' new music venue in town because we turned every which way but left (the directions gave us a series of rights which put us on a 1-mile freeway that threatened to lead out of South Bend altogether, all we needed to do was make a left; and yes, there's a freeway in South Bend that lasts almost exactly one mile)

but Subkirke looks like it's gonna be awesome, hopefully i'll find out Thursday 

fingers crossed

speaking of the thesis...

When I chose Woody Allen as the subject of my thesis, I didn't know he was such a sex symbol.

Apparently he was. 

Go figure.

hipness squared

So guess who got to be the super cool kid who went to the library on a Friday night?! 

You guessed it...

me.

To spice up my academic expedition, I walked around the 5th floor of the library like a pirate. I found my copy of Discontented Discourses,  gave a quick nod to the grad students who were in the lobby, and made my way back to my room. 

At the least there's a big upside to writing a film studies thesis, namely that when I can't stand the pages and pages academic analysis anymore, I can pop in a movie. 

It's not such a bad gig.

another reason not to club baby seals: Animal Collective says so

I can't put my finger on exactly why, but I think it's really cute that Animal Collective has taken such a strong stance against clubbing baby seals. Part of it's certainly because many celebrities take up causes for the sake of taking up a cause; bottom line, it's good PR. On one hand, I'm not terribly opposed to this because it often brings attention to good causes. Of course, on the other hand, it's frequently an act of band-wangonism and therefore not always sincere and informed advocacy. I took particular issue with the Rock the Vote campaign simply because the message boiled down to: "hey you! you're young, you like celebrities; if celebrities tell you to vote, you'll totally do it!" 

Another part is probably because the members of Animal Collective aren't out-and-out celebrities, at least not red-carpet-walking, tabloid-making celebrities. Instead, they're just a couple of guys who make really good music that a lot of people listen to. They seem well-informed and sincere. Plus, baby seals? That's pretty cute. 

http://iguessimfloating.blogspot.com/2009/10/news-animal-collective-save-animals.html