(author)ship

Although I'm very excited about the possibilities for my master's thesis, it sure is hard to find open blocks of time to sit down and work on it! Jose helpfully suggested that I start a blog called "My thesis." I certainly could go on and on generally about my topic, but my advisor Kate rightly cautions me against my tendency to branch out instead of honing in. In short, the basic ideas came from my experiences as a student and an intern journalist in Chile ... and my impression that the daily press/TV news/radio there was either more important/ more embattled/ more political/ &/or more closely tied to both the corporate and artistic elite in a love-hate relationship than here in the States. (Note that I was last in Chile in November 2001, so I had not lived to see the Buish re-election, Dan Rather, the Wilson CIA case, journalists embedding themselves with the troops, etc.) Still, it's something different going on down there ... Writers and journalists are competing to tell the same story about the nation's past in a much more intense way than we Americans might regularly experience. Rather than seeing "Black Hawk Down" style exposés of recent history (though you do see that some), you see a daily struggle to name componenets of reality. So ... I'm dealing with a couple of writers -- Roberto Bolaño & Ricardo Piglia (suggested by Kate after my original plan to analyze somewhat lighter literature sunk) -- who I think might have something to say about the post-dictatorial reinvention of the project of journalism. And there you go. If you have any thoughts and want to contribute 30-40 pages as my research assistant, just attach them to an email.

If you've ever seen Alejandro Amenábar's "Tesis," then you know that getting too much into these things can land you in trouble; in my case, dabbling too much in the theoretical land of the [de](author)ized [un]truths can lead to problems with day-to-day reality, where my biggest ongoing struggle is to be less analytical and more spontaneous/generous with my feelings. Not that I'm doing an especially good job at that right now ...

Tonight I have improv practice (for tommorrow's show at Helios) and I'm just apeing (I use that word as an equiv. to "jonesing") to get in there and be something more than I was able to be on Sunday. I feel like I'm on the cusp of figuring something out ... of achieving if not a truly good performance, then at least some sense of what this is relly supposed to feel like. When I look at Mac I see this kind of look of tough love on his face telling me "Be more," and being simply unwilling to stop and applaud half-ass efforts. Ideal.

Looking out the window I can see the Lanier Middle kids doing softball toss sans gloves. It's getting to be the end of the day for them ... the girls go sit cross-legged on the grass as soon as the whistle is blown and the boys -- some mid-growth spurt, and others a childlike chubby just shy of pubsecene -- fling their bodies limply against the fence, waiting to be told what to do next. In the foreground of the coffee shop patio, two lanky girls sit down with heavy books ... one opens her cell phone and the other applies lip gloss. Regardless of what else I see, I'm going to stick with my pre-judgement and imagine that they are U. of H. statistics students ... and single ...

Back to work.