“You know, before I gave [coffee] up, I used to drink it every night, every single night, up until it was time to go to sleep, just to make me dream faster. You know, like when they flash those cameras on those Indy 500 cars, and they just fwhoowishfwhoowishfwhoowishfwhoo. That’s how my dreams were, just whizzin’ by.” – GZA, from the “Delirium” section of Jim Jarmusch’s “Coffee and Cigarettes”
Last post. Man, too much pressure.
I picked the above line for several reasons. One, Jim Jarmusch is awesome, and the movie is doubly awesome, and GZA and RZA drinking caffeine-free herbal tea while Bill Murray drinks coffee straight from the pot is more awesome still. But anyway. The other reason is because I’m kind of feeling like it’s all just blurred together, like an endless stream of cars passing you on the track. Blink, gone.
Which isn’t to say I haven’t learned a lot. There’s something particularly valuable about getting people together and just talking about literature – something I’ve sorely missed having. Even coming back to works I’ve read (more or less) in the past opens up bold new prospects. DFW is particularly good for this. I’ve discovered themes, plot points, and details in IJ that I’d never dreamed of noticing the previous time, and all of his works have expanded my view. It would be a rare day that I would come back from DFW class without my hand covered in brainstorms, sketchy ideas, or revelations to incorporate elsewhere in writing and life, and that’s pretty damn impressive for a class I almost didn’t end up discovering or getting into. Pretty damn impressive indeed.
And I can at least say to myself that I came close to the real thing. Part of the reason I came to the Claremont Colleges was because DFW taught just down the street, but I never had the chance to share the campus with him. It’s kind of painful, actually, to hear recollections from former students, envying them their experience while sympathizing with them for their true loss. It’s like the universe, fractured into an endless framework of coincidences, circumstances, split decisions, random occurrences, and opportunities, all collapsing and coalescing. The world out of control… it’s hard to deal with, lost time. But I digress.
I don’t think there’s much to be said, honestly. Ironically, there really seems to be little uncovered, unturned. All that’s left is time to say