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February 28, 2005

it's not this,

Last entry was written in a hurry. (Now I try to explain why writing about a story which I read in my spare time is just not what this semester was meant for.)

I love conversing. It is the natural progression of articulating yourself in writing. Some days I am in my writing phase, some days I am in my conversing phase.
But then, to look at it more largely, some seasons of life are my writing phase, and then, I believe now is my season of conversing.

(Maybe that was a useful explanation. But I believe a more interesting paragraph would be one which explains the circumstances of reading a random Chekhov story in my spare time.

In 10th grade or so, I saw the play "The Apple Orchard." I was thoroughly bored and confused by it. I thought the actors were poor and the story was dry and completely over my head. I should go back to it, with a knowledge of world history, and see what I can make of it now.

I never would have picked up Chekhov, except for two reasons. One, I went to my old high school to dance. I was dropped off by Tami, who was off to the produce market. Upon entering and wandering a bit to find the office of the woman who is in charge of dance, I found out today was the wrong day. I should not have come. So I fumble to find that I am without a cell phone, and after making some calls on the main phone without success, I head to the high school library.

Oh how small, you little fine building of my past! You have shrunk in importance and physical size! You have become a small etching in the development of my mind: a distant and under appreciated foundation, upon which I daily smash new stones and bricks. But, why Chekhov?

"Russian literature is better... no, Jewish literature is better." Some of my college friends once got into an argument like this. I had no idea how to participate. I have read very little Russian lit, just Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, and the only Jewish literature I have read was the stuff by Chaim Potok (Whose first name I love, because it means "light"). How can I pretend to have an opinion? How does anyone have an opinion unless they learn things on their own?

When was the last time someone became a whole person just by reading what was assigned? When was the last time someone who enjoyed their life, when all they did was class, homework, required reading, required exercise, and required eating?

It sounds like the protagonist in the story "Rothschild's Violin." His life is a headache, because he never had any ideas of his own. Until his wife dies. And he has time to think, down by the river. He thinks: i could have had a business, i know how i could have done it. When is rudeness and laziness ever profitable to the soul and mind? This day of creativity happens to be the day before he dies.

But the most beautiful melody he's ever played comes to him that night. And when he passes on his melody and his violin, Rothschild is famous for playing the most beautiful work of creativity the town has heard.

Posted by tacyjane at 03:25 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2005

just something in the egg whites

i never claimed to make perfect sense all the time. but today i read anton chekhov's short story "rothschild's violin" (fiddle?) and i enjoyed the arbitrariness of his style. he sometimes would come out and make a point, like the story about the kitten not wanting to chase mice, and the professor training it so fiercely before its time, that it grew up to be afraid of mice. Chekhov explains at the end the loose analogy: his professor of Latin forcing it down his throat, to the point that he no longer enjoys it.

but the story 'Rothschild's Violin," about a poor man named Nadov giving an excuse for not working, (sunday is for rest, monday is too tiresome) day after day until he dies, and being too lazy to carress and love his wife, and too lazy to do anything for himself up until the day he dies... it didn't seem to have a good ending, but it seemed to be a great story.

This is how it ends: his wife dies, and just before he dies, he gives his violin to Rothschild (his son? a young Jewish man) and Rothschild continues playing the lamenting, "wchaaa"song that Nadov played the sleepless night before his death. And people ask him to play it over and over again.

I don't know how anything good can come out of egg whites, but i think about meringues, and i know that something very, very good came out of them.

Posted by tacyjane at 06:37 PM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2005

a small hope today that made me gleeful

today i went into a doldrum-hole, because my sanity-militia was on duty all day saturday to focus my mind on only doing homework, so it took a leave of absence today. i suppose the line-up was just plain tired.

and after getting tired of thinking, and locking myself in the closet last night, and going on a drive to get gas out past st. elmo, and listening to Paul Simon, and doing an assortment of other stress relieving activities, i went to church, and the sermon was about not being in control, and in Sunday School we had a heated debate about Sovereignty and Responsibility.

I was exhausted by thinking, and disinterested in the discussion.

But the lady who seemed the most opposed to the concept of Sovereignty was sitting right next to my roommate and me, and we ended up talking to her for a good fifteen minutes after Sunday School. And man, we were trying to defend her during the class, because some hyper calvinists were jumping down her throat, but when we got her talking, I realized she was really confused, and also very adamant against PCA doctrine.

This was not what I was in the mood for either... so I left my roommate to wrassle her to her senses.

Well, in settling up, we decided a few things about our conversation with her.
(From least to most important):
1. Maybe she should go to a different church
2. She made some good points. Namely, why should we make such strong priority of assenting to the Westminster Confession of Faith, when, it is a human document? Faith is "visceral and guttarel." We need a Confession of Body, Will, Emotions. We should approach God and his Word as if we were standing at the edge of a Natural Wonder, like a great waterfall or canyon, not as if we were dissecting a squirrel.

Posted by tacyjane at 07:21 PM | Comments (1)