Tom & Alissa

Tonight is the conclusion of my class on Moby-Dick. It’s been really interesting, and I’ve learned a lot about reading texts, understanding them in their historical context, considering them through various reference frames, and American in the 1860s, but I can’t say I’ll be sorry to shelve the book after tonight. We’re presenting our final papers - mine is on literary critics, Job, and the twenty-first century reading of Moby-Dick - and then we’re done.

My next class starts on Monday, but in between I am heading Albany-ward to see my family for the weekend and to write frantically on the way up. Thank God for electrical outlets on trains. Tom is going in the opposite direction and will be in the DC/Virginia area for about a week and a half to see his grandpa, other family, and a lot of friends. I’ll be joining him on Thursday.

Yesterday I went uptown on my lunch break and met Tom to see the Olafur Eliasson show at MoMA before it closed. It was fascinating. I especially liked a few pieces where he had film-style spotlights aimed at mirrors so that the spot reflected off the glass and landed in a place on the floor that seems very removed from where the spot would normally fall. Hard to describe, but really cool. I sadly won’t get to see the P.S.1 part of the exhibit, but I’m glad I saw what I did. You can see the online exhibition here.

Speaking of Eliasson, today is the first day of his Waterfalls installation in the East River! I won’t have any trouble seeing that, since I cross the East River at least twice a day to get into Manhattan.

Also, Wall-E comes out this weekend. Please go see it. Pixar is apparently making bold moves with this one, which bodes well for the future of animation. You might find this interview at Christianity Today with Andrew Stanton (Wall-E’s director) interesting.

Grumbling tummy. Must find food.