some quick updates from my world

the dinner party

i love the dinner party. every bit of it. the week of preparation- creating the ideal menu, buying the ingredients, cleaning the flat; the actual day- arranging the flowers, setting the table, prepping all the food; the actual event- the flowing conversation, the ambient music, the pauses between courses. i think the idea of putting various people from your life together and seeing what comes of it is so fantastic. i also love spoiling my friends...

a colleague mused that i would be a reasonable administrator because if i loved the dinner party then i would love assembling committees and seeing them operate- true, but the food is less good!

this particular dinner party was small and more reserved then expected but still very charming. the menu: roasted squash and apple soup served over brie, rustic french greens with dried cranberry and avocado in a balsamic vinaigrette, poached salmon in a lemon coriander sauced, cous-cous stuffed peppers and asparagus, flower-pot baked alaska. worked quite well. looking forward to the next combination already...

the chapter

the 3rd chapter of my dissertation is finally complete. blagging my way through 50 sources for a 5000 word chapter (which suddenly became 7500 words) was a nightmare. i wrote a paragraph that included the words epistemological, ontological, post-positivist, paradigmatic, constructivist and apprehendable. all very scary. the result: the section i worked hardest on has been deemed unnecessary and the above paragraph was called 'pretentious'. serves me right- should just write about what i actually know. the up-side is that jane likes the second section which is my own contribution...

respect for tom hanks

many of you who will have engaged in any discussion about film and, especially, queerness in film will have heard my rant on philadelphia and why it was a populist film that took an emotional-response topic to make a rather shallow and superficial statement- gays are good and not scary. this has led to my loathing of tom hanks. however, in an article in today's chicago paper, he admits as much:

"Yes, it was a very political movie, but it was coming from the mainstream," he explains. "It was a big studio film that cost about $35 million to make. The more rabid statement movies cost $750,000 and played in a couple of theaters. Demme was out to make a political movie, and he did it in a very clever way. The political statement I think `Philadelphia' was asking the public to make was to go see the movie."

so, it wasn't about depth, it was about audience share. kudos to tom!

random

in other news, i'm in transcription hell trying to get through all my interview tapes. i'm going to see 'pirates of the caribbean' at the buckingham palace theatre on tuesday (crazy story!). oxford is in a rainy/sunny for 20 minutes each phase. i'm heading to the boat race next weekend. alfonso gagliano is making me want to vomit. and i'm super jealous of matt's new apartment. that's about it for now

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