Monday, January 08, 2007

You will resume your callow ways

Not much to report today, other than some awesome dissertation news. I'm only a few steps from handing the damned thing in. Just got word that my advisor's really happy with the last chapter I submitted (a whopping 62 page chapter on film noir). There are just some minor revisions and another chapter to submit Wednesday. Then just some copy editing, an intro, conclusion and an abstract! WOOO! Once all this craziness is through, there's going to be a party. And some of you are invited!

Oh, and games night the other day was F.U.N. Jenga? Yeah, we kicked its "block-from-the-bottom" butt.

The Ipod's rocking Brandburg Concertos this week. Run out and tell a friend.

21 comments:

Tom said...

Eek! I'm excited!!

Anonymous said...

You're almost finished! Hooray! How long do you think it will take you to finish?

Jenga is very fun. Who won? Rather, who lost?

Keira said...

Yeah, but have you ever played *Strobe Light Jenga*??
It pretty much rules.

Jaimie said...

As your page loaded, my iPod started playing I Was Meant For The Stage. Weird.

Rebs said...

the brandenburg concertos make me smile :) :) :)
I'm invited to your party, right mike? I’ll bring boggle!

Michael said...

Kiki: As long as you have absolutely no follow up questions: Yes, I have. And I rock at said game.

Jaimie: Magic. 100% pure magic.

Michael said...

Rebs: You were invited until you mentioned Boggle. Now... I'll have to think about it.

amphimacer said...
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amphimacer said...
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amphimacer said...

Okay, magic: I was actually listening to Bach when your blog came up. So there. (But I was certainly not thinking about my dissertation. I reread it last year, and I'm not sure any more why I was given my degree.)

Anonymous said...

Way to go - keep rockin' the dissertation Mike!

Tom said...

Mike not a Boggle fan?! Hard to believe. Then again his track record for spelling on his blog does belie a non-Boggler

Roz said...

Micheal Boyce. You have never played strobe light Jenga! You're a lyer (lier? evidently I should not play boggle) A dirty rotten lier.

Tom said...

I did see him pouring lye on something once, I'm sure of it! That lyer.

Keira said...

I thought lyers were extinct! Good to see they're still out and about. Nothing gets those stubborns stains out like lye soap.

Michael said...

I am not a lyer. Or a lyre. I am a world-class liar.

Amphimacer: It must be magic. What Bach were you listen to? I have about 5-6 works in regular rotation these days. I find it quite conducive to writing.

Speaking of writing: what was your dissertation on?

Rebs said...

thomas, this is a rather delayed reaction, but I think you used that word wrong. it's been bugging me.
wouldn't you say that his spelling belies (verb: to be in contradiction with) a boggling ability, not a "non-boggler"? (if that made sense??)

but you're so bloody methodical all the freaking time that I am now completely doubting my grasp of your sentence.

Tom said...

I was going for something like the other meaning, to misrepresent. However upon further research I think you're right about my misuse; I was using the word to denote the tipoff which resolved the misrepresentation, not the misrepresentation itself. I should have said something like, 'his position as a professor belies his lax attention to spelling'.

Good call 'Bekah. In other news I almost never saw this... it was a rather delayed reaction

Tom said...

Thanks for calling me 'bloody methodical,' though. It means a lot. *tear*

;)

Rebs said...

I thought it would.
strange, strange thomas...

:)

amphimacer said...

I don't have an e-mail address to send this to, Mike, so I'm posting it, although I can't imagine anyone other than yourself is actually interested. I'm not sure why you are, for that matter. My thesis was an examination of changes in the diction and form of poetry written in English (with some reference to Apollinaire as an example of similar changes going on in French at the same time) between 1910 and 1920, and harking back to the experiments and changes which preceded, from the well known, such as Whitman and the Symbolistes, to some lesser known experimentation, the most intriguing (to me) being that of W.E. Henley, best known today for his completely unexperimental paean "Invictus" ("I am the master of my fate:/I am the captain of my soul"), who wrote a sonnet sequence about his experiences in hospital which he then rewrote as a free verse sequence, seemingly without reference to the Whitman or Blake Biblical style. It is in fact the most modern-seeming verse of all the nineteenth-century free verse I found. He was seen as one of the old guard by the rebels of the period of which I wrote, but I think they must never have read this stuff.

I got my degree in 1984 (University of Toronto), and have not taught since. As for the Bach, frankly, I don't recall. It was something orchestral, but it was on the radio, not something of mine (I do have CDs of the Brandenburgs, as well as a version on vinyl, but the CD players are not where the computer is. The one in my computer hums when it plays -- it's a little like listening to Glenn Gould).