Marie

The word 'manuscript' is little bit intimidating, especially when it stands alone, as in: "You'll all be writing manuscripts this quarter."

Manuscripts about what? Manuscripts following what guidelines? Fulfilling what ends?

None of these questions were raised, let alone answered, during the first week of my spring quarter program, Monstrous Possibility. The only thing we were told about our manuscripts-to-be was that they would be included in an anthology at the end of the quarter. There are no requirements about length, content, form, structure, or copy standards. The possibilities were monstrous.

Continue reading "Monstrous Manuscript" »

Posted by Marie at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So reads the title of the Phrontisterion's upcoming event. The Phrontisterion, Evergreen's Classical Studies Club, has traditionally organized events solo, but for our next project we're getting some awesome – and much needed – help from the Writers' Guild.

Continue reading "MUSE: Encounters with the Classical Canon" »

Posted by Marie at 02:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This spring I'm taking a literary arts and theory program called Monstrous Possibility. A hybrid of creative and analytic writing, we're garnering inspiration for our work from an eclectic range of authors: Samuel Beckett, Gertrude Stein, Friedrich Neitschze, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, and others. Our assignment this week is to write with constraints; that is, to establish a set of 13 rules and rituals by which to govern, not necessarily the content, but the direction of our work. (The assignment is dubbed "Toward the Zero Point", by the way, with our teachers encouraging us to "write toward meaninglessness").

Continue reading "Monstrous Possibility" »

Posted by Marie at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This spring break, I spent the week on my uncle's houseboat in Seattle. Docked on Lake Union, it has a great view of downtown Seattle and Queen Anne, with the Space Needle seeming only a stone's throw away. Even though I lived in Seattle for a summer when I was 18, I spent most of my break doing the tourist thing. I went to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Roman art exhibit, which was great, but after seeing 30 or so marble statues of emperors and their wives, I sort of got the picture and was ready to move on...the best part was the Gates of Paradise exhibit. The Gates are made up of 9 bronze panels, each depicting a scene from Genesis. It begins with Adam and Eve, moving through the stories of Noah, Cain and Abel, Abraham, and other major biblical figures. Only three of the panels are on display, but the incredible detail of the carvings makes the trip worth it.

Continue reading "Spring Break in Seattle" »

Posted by Marie at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week I got a position copy editing for Evergreen's student newspaper, the Cooper Point Journal. I've been an avid, well, browser, of the CPJ since my freshman year, but I've never gotten particularly excited about it. I'm not sure how it measures up as far as student papers go, but its content (oh, letters to the editor!) and style (if I had a dollar for each copy error...) have long been points of contention around these parts. Finally, I decided to stop being a passive observer and get involved.

Continue reading "Early Morning Edits" »

Posted by Marie at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The background: Evergreen is nestled in acres and acres of temperate rain forest. We have trails. We have a beach. There are creatures at the beach.

Yesterday I had a meeting scheduled from 4-5pm. An important meeting, though it wouldn't particularly suffer from my absence. Still, an obligation all the same. It was at the meeting before this one (Evergreen is also nestled in acres and acres of meetings, especially on Wednesdays) that I could feel myself gravitating, not toward the seminar room where my next meeting was scheduled, but to the beach. I began to negotiate with myself and soon enough, I had convinced myself of the virtues of walking through the woods, away from my commitments and into that part of Evergreen where nature vanquishes concrete.

Continue reading "The Woods Distract" »

Posted by Marie at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Sooooo, after two and a half months of auditions, emails, flyering, rehearsing, costume-making, and general hysteria, The Birds is over. Not the Hitchcock version, but the Classical Greek comedy by laugh master Aristophanes. I produced The Birds as part of my coordinating gig for The Phrontisterion, Evergreen's one and only Classical Studies club. Each winter, the coordinators stage an Aristophanes play--last year they did Lysistrata, the year before that, The Clouds.

(Before I go any further, check out these awesome production pix--http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwhitlock/sets/72157603962243346).

Continue reading "Respite" »

Posted by Marie at 03:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)