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If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. |
Wednesday, March 17, 1999 Let's Try This Again Oh, shoot. I had all but finished this entry. It was of average length, and had some good bits in it. And then I went to start writing Thursday's entry, and accidently wiped out this one in the process. On the bright side, I figured out what I did wrong this time around, so I should be able to avoid having this happen again in the future, but now I have to reconstruct the whole thing.
As you may recall, I got a call yesterday from the game room on campus about a job opening. They called when I was out, and the message on my answering machine said to either call them back, or see them in person. As I was going back to the campus later in the day anyway, I opted for the latter, only to find out that the supervisor had already left. So today, shortly after I woke up, around noon, I called them. Only to find out that I was too late; they'd already hired somebody else. Lovely. I'm not sure whether I should feel bad for not having called them the second I heard the message; or whether I should feel upset that they didn't tell me I had to call before 2:00; or whether I should just shrug my shoulders, sigh regretfully, and move on. Probably the last of those.
I had a whole thing about the weekly quizzes here, but I really don't feel like typing it again. Perhaps I'll cover it another time; if not, it really wasn't very important anyway. :-)
Towards the end of Dr. Faustus, Faustus has Mephastophilis summon up Helen of Troy (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) for him. The following famous lines follow:
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FAUSTUS: Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss: Her lips sucks forth my soul, see where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips, And all is dross that is not Helena! | ||
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One of my classmates said that she hadn't noticed anything unusual about this at first reading, but now that she was reading it again... well, her mind was probably in the gutter, but it read somewhat differently. She then glided on to her second point. Here are my unretouched class notes from that point:
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| ln. 83 [Classmate didn't actually say how she took this, but if she's thinking what I think she might be thinking, I think she might be right.] | ||
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I spoke to her during the break, and while neither of us actually came out and said what we had in mind, we established that what I thought she had been thinking was, indeed, what she had been thinking. And I do think she's right. It makes a whole lot of sense, really. If nothing else, it explains how Faustus would be able to say all of this while Helen was busy kissing him, although I suppose generations of actors and stage directors have found ways of getting around that. 'Course, maybe my mind's in the gutter, too. But it makes a lot of sense if you read this as referring to fellatio. (There! I said it!)
I wrote this entry the first time on Thursday night. It's now Friday afternoon, and I really must scurry back to Far Rockaway now. I have plenty to say in the next few entries, though, and I expect to catch up again over the weekend. This might be a good time to remind y'all that I do have a notify list, in case you don't want to keep checking the site for updates.
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