good clean fun
02.03.05 @ 11:39 p.m.
I am listening to every damn Monkees album I have as I import them into my computer. See, this afternoon I realized I had only put selective MP3s on my computer rather than whole albums, which was a terrible disappointment, as I was intending to listen to the rest of The Monkees Present on my way to school after using it as the soundtrack to "Ellen getting up and going to school."
Sometimes, I hate to admit, you get a Davy Jones craving, you know? And where is "Cuddly Toy" (WHY THE FUCK DID I NOT IMPORT "CUDDLY TOY" BACK WHEN I WAS IMPORTING ALBUMS? STUPID!) when I want it?
It's all an elaborate escape from studying for my English midterm tomorrow afternoon, you know. Dozens of sonnets to read. And Queen Elizabeth's Tilbury speech. Thank god I actually read The Jew of Malta (wait, did I ever finish it? Damn!) or I'd be in trouble. I'm pretty familiar with the Sir Phillip Sidney, I think, even though I'm almost certain I never finished it. How can you not know the jist and style of the writer when the professor expounds on it endlessly? I know we're supposed to leave the Ben Jonson and the Amelia Lanyer readings off, but what of the John Donne? Should I just read those last two John Donne poems because I quite enjoy the other poems we were assigned? How worried should I be about terminology when I read all the stupid Abrams definitions but retained almost nothing? This, my friends, is why you do not cram. You do as I do with Milton, and go at your leisure, adding amusing paraphrases in the margins. Which is why I'm only at the end of Book III instead of done with Book IV, still. God, I love Milton. I love his vanity and his ego.
Today, our instructor (I don't know what title to give him) told us how, when Milton published a volume of youthful poems (one of which he left unfinished, even writing that he thought it wasn't very good, with the implication that the public should lap up even his unsatisfactory verse), he had an engraver make a portrait of him to print in the front, but it turned out badly. So, Milton wrote a tag in Greek to put underneath it mocking the printer and assuring the literate public that he looked much better than that.
We also talked about how Eve is a sexpot and how the deck seems continually stacked against everyone, as if God is setting up every damn character to fail. At least, every character that falls.
(Adam, God, Milton: "Eve, you're pretty but not smart, and smart is better. Beauty is kind of empty."
Eve: *insecure* "My husband deserves an intellectual equal!"
Satan: "Hey, this is the tree of knowledge. It'll totally make you smart and worthy of Adam's love."
Eve: "GIMME!")
Also, WHAT THE HELL, GOD? Massive, impregnable gates locking Hell. There's no way Satan could ever bust his way out, even with a third of the former population of Heaven backing him. The key? Oh, let Satan's daughter/lover Sin keep the key. She owes me nothing and will feel no real loyalty or reason to keep Hell locked.
Massive walls and undergrowth making it impossible to approach Eden. An angel with a fiery sword guarding the one gate. Impossible to approach on foot. No biggie, Satan can easily leap it all and land on the top of the tree of life. WHY ARE YOU EVEN BOTHERING WITH THE SHOW OF DEFENSES, GOD? I mean, really! For an omnipotent, omniscient fella, you don't think things through, do you? Why not just open the gates of Hell yourself and chuck Humanity inside?
It's so infuriating! Also, angels are gullible.
Satan (disguised as Cherub): "Hey, I hear this Earth thing is pretty cool. Can you tell me where it is, so I can take a look for myself?"
Uriel: "Your curiosity does you credit! It's right down there, pretty great, huh? I watched God make it myself."
Satan (muttering, on mountain on Earth): "Fuck, fuck, fuck... God is really God and my whole rebellion was for nothing. I am so pissed. Humanity is REALLY going to get it."
Uriel: "Oops."
I <3 Milton, really, I do. I'm not sure why he interests me more than anyone else, unless it's the attraction to the absurdly egotistical that I mentioned on Monday.
I suppose it's back to the Norton Anthology of English Literature for me, because I have to read eight million Shakespeare sonnets. (Funny, because he only wrote a litte more than 150 of them. I'm in the English Major hell-vortex, what with it being midterm time.)
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
