postmodern meanderings

i just finished teaching my postmodern literature class. i love it. we talk about recursive structures and mise en abyme, and who the author really is and who the narrator is and, for that matter, who the reader is. the kids get very frustrated and they argue, but that's what is great about it. they are all on topic, trying to sort out their ideas. they like to argue with me about my statements, but i never told them that my statements were correct. they're just my interpretation. so then they get frustrated by that because they want the right answer.

italo calvino's book "if on a winter's night a traveler," is excellent for this. every other chapter is a meditation on the reader, the writer, the story. he writes about the writing of the book being read. and he writes about the reader reading the book. and then he writes about the book he would like to have written, which turns out to be the book we are reading. damn, it's so much fun!

on the itunes at the moment: thom yorke's analyse. how appropriate is that? check out thom performing analyse at the mercury awards in england, accompanying himself on piano. it's on youtube. the best part is his little smile at the end, and the fact that he points out that he IS smiling!

i sit here surrounded by books and i have no poetry for today. maybe later.