Play-Dough

This semester has offered me many new students, new courses and new
conversations. The classes have been moving along, down a wild river,
and I am in the back with the rudder, steering us down the routes I
have planned, occassionally going to one side or the other for the
excitement of the passengers. Occassionally, we hit rapids, even
rocks. Sometimes it is exilerating, sometimes unnerving. Sometimes we
see things I have forgotten, or I get to see anew through their eyes.

Last week, some of my students were talking with a philosopher. I
enjoy philosophy, but this man's speciality was ancient Greek
philosophy. The more I listened, the more I thought, this is the
stupidest thing I have ever heard. Has no one had any interesting
thoughts since then? Do our arguments now have so little merit
compared to Plato?

My students wanted to relate this to their own experiences. They asked
about Plato's intent. "No no, no one knows or cares what the intent
was. That's how we should look at art too. Artists don't always know
what they are doing and are idiots at explaining it."

Needless to say, I had to step in.

Later, my student came up and said, "if the artist's intent doesn't
matter, why have I been working on this artist statement for so long?"

"You are not two thousand years dead," I said. "You are a living
artist working in a post- (post- ?) modern period. Of course it
matters. Once it's out there people will try to take what they want,
but you will have controlled the context and your insights help
historians and critics put it in context."

Or something like that. I began debating whether I should assign
"Death of the Author," even if it was the one reading I couldn't bear
to look at in grad school.

Last night, I saw our production if "the Pillowman." I almost laughed
at the irony and relevance of the themes (except I was near tears at
the intensity of my student's performance, who performed with such
energy and abandon, he fell to the stage and concussed himself): a man
who would rather kill his brother and be put to death than see his
creations destroyed (even if they are unseen). Is the death of the
author preferable to the death of the content? We certainly hope all
our love and sweat and pain can communicate on their own, possibly
outliving us. Maybe the "gist" of it will suffice in that
circumstance, that the reader will get what they will (at least, they
think they got it on their own), and go on and respond to it, never
knowing they are doing and thinking exactly what the author wanted
them to.

Right now, I am on a plane (offline, don't worry). I was so tense
about the crowd and the luggage area and the stuffy hot plane air, I
sat in the wrong seat (D instead of C, both on the aisle). When the
rightful owner arrived, I saw my mistake and began to move. "Dont
worry," he said, and took my assigned seat. I looked over at him later
to see what he was reading (one of my quirky, nosey plane habits). I
couldn't tell, but the man in B, next to my assigned seat, was reading
Plato.

Dodged that bullet.

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