Off To Be The Wizard

      Oy, yet another Tuesday. This means I have to teach essay writing skills (which, I think, shouldn't be necessary for a junior level course) and begin The Merchant of Venice. It's going to be a busy day today, with two set meetings and my standard pub-based office hours and I'm sure no end of bureaucracy. I'm also debating whether or not to offer to lecture on Merchant next week, mainly because that play poses so many problems for the act of interpretation, especially if one is going to keep matters properly contextualized and avoid the simple and pejorative labels of 'anti-Semitism' and 'racism.' As if to wrap the conundrum in a riddle, Shakespeare's figuration of Shylock is far more complex than Shakie's detractors care to admit, and part of wonders if he's not better understood in relation to Falstaff or Malvolio than 'the stereotype of the vile Jew' (more clearly apparent in, say, Marlowe's The Jew of Malta or even Dickens' Oliver Twist). I would elaborate further but I have to get my non-existent ass in gear and make the odious trip to my beloved Institution-- and by beloved, I mean it more in a Doctor J-definition-of-Toni-Morrison than any other, beloved as in 'all about family, incest, racism, slavery, and rape.' Oooooh, I'm soooooooooo in trouble with PC's out there. Good. I wouldn't have it any other way.

      Oh, and yeah: the new Van Morrison album What's Wrong With This Picture? strikes me as a disappointment, more a 'fluff' album than say Down The Road or Back On Top, largely because there are no truly transcendental moments so characteristic of the Belfast Cowboy on it, and because Van's lyrics this time round are pretty weak. But "Once In A Blue Moon" is wonderfully upbeat and infectious, and it reminds me of the piano-driven tunes like "Ivory Tower" (from No Guru, No Method, No Teacher) that he so seldom writes anymore. Not a great album, and not a bad one either, but it's not really much to write home about-- or blog about, for that matter. But "Once In A Blue Moon," "Evening in June" and "Little Village" (which musically recalls "Saint Dominic's Preview," a personal favourite) are good solid tracks. Here's the problem, though: the standards are so much higher for Van; what would constitute a very fine album for almost anybody else tends to seem like coasting for him. Oh well.

      Time to get to the grind. Another long, long day beckons. Loudly.