This is going to turn into a reader's journal for the next few weeks, not so much because I think online book reviews are terribly interesting -- though I find the demise of Oprah's book club strangely amusing -- but because I need to keep track of all the text I'm told to read in a given day. Besides, I live a boring life, and since most of it is dedicated to books now anyway, the logical connection was just waiting to be made.
So, the first piece of literature this week in need of major recapping:
I'm jealous. I took Calculus IV, and I never managed to look like that, even if we ignore ethnicity for the moment.
The only reason I wanted to do this one for my seminar presentation (that seminar itself deserves its own rant sometime, after the course is over and I can be assured that no professorial wrath will be wreaked) was that a play about mathematics would be the only way I could keep pretending I'm still a hard-core physics student. Too bad the math in the play is a) not of the sort I ever got to play around with (prime numbers? sorry, managed to avoid number theory) and b) non-existent. My hopes for differential equations came to naught.
This is a play you could do with a soap box and creative miming, though building a porch in suburban Chicago could be kind of fun too; besides, looking at the props list (wine bottle, bananas, drum sticks) makes me wonder if David Auburn came up with this in a university residence, because I tripped over all that stuff on my way in after dinner. Characters consist of three mathematicians and a currency analyst; considering the number of mathematicians I know and that my mother is an accountant, I was thoroughly happy with the cast introductions.
We meet Catherine and her father, Robert, on the front porch; I'm assuming this is a typical exchange between deadbeat twentysomethings and their parents, having no experience of that sort to draw on. Except, of course, both Cathy and Bob are math geniuses -- and that Robert happens to also be dead. Catherine has a row with Harold Dobbs (he's cited as "Hal" -- I approve, because there's no way a kid with a name like "Harold Dobbs" would not become a math junkie) for rifling through her father's (or his old prof's) notes. Next scene has the currency analyst sister arrive (Claire) to do all those things one expects bossy New York yuppies to do, namely throw parties and proffer bagels in replacement of emotional support when a funeral's going on. Catherine apparently is quite the genius, as we eventually find out; after quitting school after a few months to take care of her increasingly "bughouse" dad (I love that, "bughouse" -- almost as good as "dotty" or "daft"), she starts writing a proof about a prime number theorem (PLEASE?! *sigh*) at night. She finishes, and in a moment of morning-after weakness tells Hal where to find it. Hal, being rather keen on scaling the ivory tower of academia with his "semi-hip" loafers, wants to take the proof for "verification", believing that Robert wrote it (while he was ravingly crazy). Claire, likely on loan from Sex in the City, contributes by being annoying and fashion conscious. Catherine swears a lot.
I think the ending is supposed to be liberating or something -- two geeky math kids poring over an "unelegant" proof is budding romance in this faculty, boys and girls -- but felt like a whimpered compromise. Which might have been the point, I'm not sure -- with my history of presentations, I'll probably come up with an explaination on Tuesday afternoon while in the middle of my rant. Worked terrifically with Milton's Aereopagitica and Stanley Fish, which is something nobody hears very often.
My major points on the theme of "control": a) control is entirely unrelated to responsibility (taking responsibility makes you no more capable of doing anything, except that you now have a title so people can say "it's in your job description") and b) control is given, never taken. Deep, eh?
In other news, my visit to Melissa's studio apartment (basement, actually) makes me feel slightly -- only slightly -- embarassed that I haven't put up a single poster in the six months I've been here; Marta calls it the jail cell look. I think it suits me. In any case, the studio looked like an Ikea showroom, only heavily incensed. Returning to my six-person townhouse and sticky kitchen floor seemed a little less exciting, though having a very tired boyfriend tagging along always improves my day. Even if he's leeching off rice, and trying hard to sabotage my web success so his webcomic Haphazard survives -- oh wait, he already has higher readership.
Monday, I'm ready for you.
So, the first piece of literature this week in need of major recapping:
I'm jealous. I took Calculus IV, and I never managed to look like that, even if we ignore ethnicity for the moment.
The only reason I wanted to do this one for my seminar presentation (that seminar itself deserves its own rant sometime, after the course is over and I can be assured that no professorial wrath will be wreaked) was that a play about mathematics would be the only way I could keep pretending I'm still a hard-core physics student. Too bad the math in the play is a) not of the sort I ever got to play around with (prime numbers? sorry, managed to avoid number theory) and b) non-existent. My hopes for differential equations came to naught.
This is a play you could do with a soap box and creative miming, though building a porch in suburban Chicago could be kind of fun too; besides, looking at the props list (wine bottle, bananas, drum sticks) makes me wonder if David Auburn came up with this in a university residence, because I tripped over all that stuff on my way in after dinner. Characters consist of three mathematicians and a currency analyst; considering the number of mathematicians I know and that my mother is an accountant, I was thoroughly happy with the cast introductions.
We meet Catherine and her father, Robert, on the front porch; I'm assuming this is a typical exchange between deadbeat twentysomethings and their parents, having no experience of that sort to draw on. Except, of course, both Cathy and Bob are math geniuses -- and that Robert happens to also be dead. Catherine has a row with Harold Dobbs (he's cited as "Hal" -- I approve, because there's no way a kid with a name like "Harold Dobbs" would not become a math junkie) for rifling through her father's (or his old prof's) notes. Next scene has the currency analyst sister arrive (Claire) to do all those things one expects bossy New York yuppies to do, namely throw parties and proffer bagels in replacement of emotional support when a funeral's going on. Catherine apparently is quite the genius, as we eventually find out; after quitting school after a few months to take care of her increasingly "bughouse" dad (I love that, "bughouse" -- almost as good as "dotty" or "daft"), she starts writing a proof about a prime number theorem (PLEASE?! *sigh*) at night. She finishes, and in a moment of morning-after weakness tells Hal where to find it. Hal, being rather keen on scaling the ivory tower of academia with his "semi-hip" loafers, wants to take the proof for "verification", believing that Robert wrote it (while he was ravingly crazy). Claire, likely on loan from Sex in the City, contributes by being annoying and fashion conscious. Catherine swears a lot.
I think the ending is supposed to be liberating or something -- two geeky math kids poring over an "unelegant" proof is budding romance in this faculty, boys and girls -- but felt like a whimpered compromise. Which might have been the point, I'm not sure -- with my history of presentations, I'll probably come up with an explaination on Tuesday afternoon while in the middle of my rant. Worked terrifically with Milton's Aereopagitica and Stanley Fish, which is something nobody hears very often.
My major points on the theme of "control": a) control is entirely unrelated to responsibility (taking responsibility makes you no more capable of doing anything, except that you now have a title so people can say "it's in your job description") and b) control is given, never taken. Deep, eh?
In other news, my visit to Melissa's studio apartment (basement, actually) makes me feel slightly -- only slightly -- embarassed that I haven't put up a single poster in the six months I've been here; Marta calls it the jail cell look. I think it suits me. In any case, the studio looked like an Ikea showroom, only heavily incensed. Returning to my six-person townhouse and sticky kitchen floor seemed a little less exciting, though having a very tired boyfriend tagging along always improves my day. Even if he's leeching off rice, and trying hard to sabotage my web success so his webcomic Haphazard survives -- oh wait, he already has higher readership.
Monday, I'm ready for you.
