Wednesday, June 30, 2010

les vacances

So we're leaving early next morning for our French-style long vacation. Six weeks this time, to be divided between (mostly) New York, Tennessee, and a jaunt into Ohio. It's true, I can't deny it – I'm a homebody, hating to be separated from my stuff. But I've cleared my (virtual) desktop of most of the projects that have been hanging around on it, & have assigned myself an entirely doable set of things for the next few weeks: write one essay that's still hanging albatross-like around my neck; figure out what texts I'm going to assign for this fall's graduate poetry workshop; and have some fun. (Of course I'll read a bunch – I mailed off a carton of slim volumes of contemporary poetry, various Ruskin things, and my big new Milton yesterday – but that goes with the territory of "having fun" – I'm strange that way.)

The house is in the capable hands of one of our more dependable undergraduates. The roof leaks I hope are under control, & the upstairs air conditioning should be repaired by the end of the week. So he won't be living in too desperate squalor.

I'm very psyched to see the Brion Gysin retrospective at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and I hope to get down to the East Village to visit John Zorn's club The Stone: hey, kids under 12 are free, & it's time Pippa graduated from opera & classic drama to hear some stuff that makes your ears hurt. If anyone else is mad enough to be hanging around the city for the dog days of July, I'd love to get together; drop me a line

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