Coffee Spoons

“Art, Catharsis and Estrangement”: Dialogue with Professor Carey Harrison hosted by the Literati Club

Harrison returns! Back by popular demand, Professor Carey Harrison will be discussing Art, Catharsis and Estrangement with Macaulay Students on Wednesday, October 21, from 6:30-8pm. Students passionate about art, the genesis of art, and theories behind the production of successful art and its cathartic elements (Brecht! Aristotle!) are invited to join us for an exciting and lively discussion. A delicious dinner will be served. A signed copy of Professor Harrison’s book Richard’s Feet to the first 5 students who RSVP. RSVP at macaulay.cuny.edu/RSVP.

Summer always dies a premature death. Personally, those carefree days spent lolling around the diamond blue pool, the sun caressing your back (or if you are like most students: melting, as you wait for the L train; roaming around a frigid office; catching fireflies with your 3-year-old cousins) should last longer than a scant 12 weeks. Here’s to global warming and summer in December!

But, there are some nerds among us (present company included) who are secretly excited at the beginning of each new school year. Yes: Fall! Chunky sweaters, opaque pattern tights and boots; Leaves turning orange and brown  and fluttering off off off the trees; hot coffee and walking across campus with Henry James tucked under your shoulder (and William James tucked into your bag, because those James brothers, they were really something). The fall has always represented renewal; a crisp breeze after a stale summer.

This fall is no different. I’m countdowning the days until September. (Precisely, until Labor Day!) This is partly due to the fact that my summer which did not exist will now come to an end, but also because I can’t wait for short days, long nights and warm woolen sweaters (and bright copper kettles!).

In the real world (this differs from the imaginary world which I have housed myself in for these past three months…), there things are happening. I’ve been busy sending emails all summer (Part VII of How I Spent My Summer Vacation…) and we have some stellar speakers lined up for the Fall 2009 semester. The first is Carey Harrison, a professor at Brooklyn College and an award-winning English novelist and dramatist.

I took a course with Professor Harrison last semester and I was intrigued when he mentioned sharing an office with the wild Allen Ginsberg (Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!). Allen Ginsberg has always been part of that weird generation to me– something unfathomable, slightly repulsive and yet so fascinating– and I could not imagine him as an actual person but some sort of mythical figure. We inhabited the same classroom where Ginsberg taught. But it was not about Carl Solomon and Jack Kerouac which we learned. Rather The Oresteia, Oedipus and Othello. Greek tragedies and Shakespearean drama. The building blocks of the modern story, of modern drama. (They– as in the proverbial they– say that every story is based on Shakespeare. Is this true? I don’t know. But you could write 10 books on Iago and it still wouldn’t be enough.)

I can’t say I’ve ever been a drama fan before. I’m mostly novels and poetry. Ever so often I’ll wander into memoirs, but that is a rare and rainy day. Yet, I could not put down Ted Hughes’ translation of The Oresteia (this may partly have to do with the fact that Sylvia Plath stuck her head into an oven because of him); I thought about Oedpius and Dodds’s essay on Oedpius’s fate on the subway, on the bus, while walking down First Avenue. Desdemona fascinated me. Why didn’t she hit Othello back? Why do women stay in abusive relationships? They say a good teacher teaches, but it is the great teacher who makes you think (actually they don’t say this at all. I made up that aphorism meself.).

That’s why I’m excited that Professor Harrison has so kindly agreed to speak at the Macaulay Honors College on Wednesday, September 16 at 6:30pm. Professor Harrison, a playwright, director and someone who has spent most of his life in the world of drama and film will dumdadadum(!) be speaking about Playwriting and Film. It’s going to be a great lecture, but I’m particularly looking forward to the Q&A session afterwards.

Let’s fall into Fall 2009. Good luck with classes Monday. And if you see someone buying all the pens and pencils in the bookstore, that’s me.

Time Is All Around