CONFERENCE AT HUNTER COLLEGE

Dear Panelists,

With the conference only a week away, we encourage you all to broadcast the event among your peers, colleagues, and professors at your respective schools. If you have access to a university or other listserve where you would like us to post the information, please let us know and we will work with you. Please let your acquaintances know that they should enter Hunter College through the West building on the corner of Lexington Ave. and East 68th Street, where they can procure visitor passes at the information desk. This is the procedure for you as well.

All of this information is of course available on the website, https://sites.google.com/site/huntercollegegec.

Thank you for your help in spreading the word about the Graduate Student Conference on May 6th and 7th.


Sincerely,
Hunter College Graduate English Club

Three Cups of Tea

So Jon Krakauer is accusing Greg Mortenson of being a liar, going so far as to compare Mortension's book to James Frey's A Million Little Pieces.

Sad, but I think it's also a case of jealousy...

Why did Krakauer have to be aggressive? But then again, he makes his living as a journalist. It's not surprising. Bad news is good for business I guess.

My brother's website

My brother's website

My brother
FIT grad
Real artist
a pain in the ass
but you'll like him
he's good
really good

Khalil Gibran on Love

I've been thinking a lot lately. What is the nature of love?
The best answer that I've seen is Khalil Gibran's from his work, The Prophet.

On Love


When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep,
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart,
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say,
'God is in my heart,' but rather,
'I am in the heart of God.'
And think not you can direct the course of love,
for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night,
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.


Kahlil Gibran
1923

Hunter College's English Department Conference or Something Like That

Wow. I just received notice that my proposal (for a paper) was accepted for a panel in the English Department of Hunter College. I'm so shocked.
Also, I am so scared - like shitless scared. I haven't actually worked on the paper since I submitted the proposal because I thought that I probably wouldn't get in since rejection seems to be the story of my life. But, really, I'm so surprised. For once, I was accepted into something in a quasi-professional level in the world of academia. I don't really count my entrance to the graduate MA English Dept of Brooklyn College since I didn't exactly apply to the program in the first place. My admission was re-routed from the MFA Fiction program.

But I don't really know how to go about doing a conference paper. I have about three weeks to write a really good one. Of course, this is besides the fact that I have to write my final paper for my stupid Intro to Critical Theory course as well as re-write a story for my fiction writing course. Jesus Christ.

It'll be an exciting next few weeks. I thought I would just wallow in some self-pity while doing my papers and whatever it is I am writing but now there is an added pressure of this conference.

Am I complaining?

Kind of.

But, hey, I'm so glad I got into this conference. Now all I need to do is write an awesome paper.

Wish me luck; better yet, pray for me and for my academic salvation.

En francais

I am in the mood for Baudelaire. I read this poem for the first time in French a decade ago. I fell in love with it. Then I translated it into English while I was taking a French class.

Tonight, I remember it - the tone, the feeling - because it's that kind of night, when phantoms come and caress you.

Le Revenant

Comme les anges à l'oeil fauve,
Je reviendrai dans ton alcôve
Et vers toi glisserai sans bruit
Avec les ombres de la nuit;

Et je te donnerai, ma brune,
Des baisers froids comme la lune
Et des caresses de serpent
Autour d'une fosse rampant.

Quand viendra le matin livide,
Tu trouveras ma place vide,
Où jusqu'au soir il fera froid.

Comme d'autres par la tendresse,
Sur ta vie et sur ta jeunesse,
Moi, je veux régner par l'effroi.

— Charles Baudelaire

Alas, I don't know where my own translation is now. It's been a while. But this one will suffice.

The Ghost

Like angels with wild beast's eyes
I shall return to your bedroom
And silently glide toward you
With the shadows of the night;

And, dark beauty, I shall give you
Kisses cold as the moon
And the caresses of a snake
That crawls around a grave.

When the livid morning comes,
You'll find my place empty,
And it will be cold there till night.

I wish to hold sway over
Your life and youth by fear,
As others do by tenderness.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)