American Life, Redux

I am back—both in the States and on the blog. Seeing as I'm unemployed, I intend to return to semi-regular postings for supercurriculum. I hope you find it worthwhile!

The new apartment address—in case of parcels, visits, or otherwise—is:


Martyn Jones
2707 N. Kedzie Ave.
Unit 2
Chicago, IL 60647
USA


Thanks for reading, everyone. You're the greatest.

Glory Be

Once again, I owe an enormous debt of love and gratitude to a friend in the states. The way that a material thing can become such a tangible expression of an immaterial reality, such as a person's kindness - well, it's just something that seems to come under more satisfactory description in the terms of the participatory ontologies of centuries gone by.

the title already hints at the sequel

Last week, I received The Tree of Life as an early Christmas present from Josh, who is a great guy, a real class act. Josh was with me when I saw this movie for the first time, and also the third time, so he's seen me in all my brooding, teary-eyed glory. He is an all-around great dude, and a talented photographer to boot!

Oh man, The Tree of Life. This movie affected me like no other movie I have seen; it met me so perfectly that in weak moments I've been tempted to see film itself as a completed enterprise, as though the artistic and spiritual potential of the medium has been brought to perfect consummation. I don't believe this is really true, or even can be true on account of the ways that truth works through art, but I've been tempted to think it nonetheless. I was tempted anew a few days ago when I gave The Tree of Life a fifth viewing, this time in the company of Jack, Berthold, and my roommates. I am generally unaccustomed to tears so when I get them it makes my face tired. 

And so. In addition, of course, to freaking out about my thesis proposal, which is due on the 15th of this month, I have started work on what could become a two- or three-part review of The Tree of Life. Not a real review (because [1] it's too personal, and [2] I don't have the technical and historical knowledge of film that would help me to write a real review), but an essay, perhaps. There will also be a sort of prolegomena intended to help contextualize my response to it. We'll see how personal it gets. 

Anyway, my last word is to Josh: thank you, Josh, you are an amazing friend. 

Axis and Allies and the Best Night Ever

My roommates and I have made two friends here in the past month. Berthold is a Dutch medical student working at a hospital here in Leuven; his English is excellent and he's been so kind as to start helping us learn how to speak Flemish, so that we might at least know how to distinguish the times when people are swearing at us from the times when people are just enthusiastically greeting us and asking us what our names are and how we are today.

Jack is our second friend, as well as our Anglican priest. God's gifts to him include height, volume, and charisma. The fact that he was the dean of a college at Cambridge for over a decade—and by natural extension, of course, that he used to ride out on the fox hunt every Saturday morning, and captained a rugby team, and ate dinner alongside Stephen Hawking for years—sounds extraordinary on paper, but spending time with Jack helps one to see just how much it makes sense. He is the sort of person who seems to be made of tea, biscuits, and tweed. At his apartment a couple weeks ago, I thumbed through his hardbound 500+ page doctoral dissertation, written in French. Seeing it in my hands, he said "it is possible, boys," with an upward inflection on the last word, as British as the Queen. I laid it down on the coffee table, afraid its weight would break one of the wooden legs. 

Ludwig Wittgenstein was also a Cambridge don

Last night Jack picked us all up in a Mini Cooper and drove us to a house in the countryside of Wallonia, where he is taking care of the dog and cats for a few days while the house owner (a Dutch writer) and his family are away. We sat in front of a stone fireplace for tea and wine, and after answering the door to a group of trick-or-treaters (in the Belgian countryside, who would have thought?), we ate dinner in the kitchen. The house was huge, all wood and brick and cut stone, painted in warm colors and stuffed with candles and old books. After we finished off a loaf of bread with Bruge cheese and salmon, Jack fried steaks with an egg on top for each of us. In retrospect, I am quite sure that I hadn't eaten that much protein in the previous two weeks combined, a fact to which my visibly-increased muscle mass seemed to attest today. Unfortunately the effects were only short term and I didn't take any pictures of myself for proof because I am meek. 

I have new culinary experiences here every day 

After dinner, Jack treated us to a very special bottle of liqueur; it had been a gift from a congregant at a church in France where he worked for several years while completing his PhD. Illegally distilled and bottled in the early 80s (according to the handwriting on the yellowed sticker-label), the clear liquid burned from the throat down into the chest, but not before releasing a confusing blend of fruit notes and bits of partly-dissolved cork. Apparently they drink it by the mugful in the region where his church was. 

It was now after ten and we were only on the cusp of the real business of the evening. After another pot of tea, we transformed the finely-appointed living room into a finely-appointed war room for our game of Axis and Allies, the special promise of the night made possible by today's holiday. We unfolded the board, placed our armies, and breathed out whatever blessing the aroma of peach-flavored rubbing alcohol could bestow upon our violently opposed purposes before goose-stepping into the spring of 1942. 

Jack become a more reckless Joseph Stalin, I played Winston Churchill with steely-eyed confusion, and Dan took upon himself the venerable mantle of FDR. Across the table from us, Berthold commanded huge numbers of Panzers and Wehrmacht infantry with an amiability that astonished all of us while Jeremy presided over the empire of the rising sun. He chuckled to himself frequently and made no secret of the fact that he was keeping secrets from us. Berthold benefited from Jeremy's well-tested knowledge of the game, but the hapless Allied novices had to figure things for themselves. This does help to explain an opening Russian offensive. 

Here I tell Dan a joke while Jack reconsiders his decision to attack on his first turn

By the end of the war, Los Angeles had fallen to the battleships of the Japanese, most of Europe had traded hands multiple times, Moscow was still holding fast as Moscow is wont to do, and the sun was just barely starting to rise outside. The Axis powers had won the day, but apparently a new day was already forcing itself upon us so there was no time to mourn the outcome. Jack drove us back, and we returned to our building at roughly the same time as a number of high-endurance partiers. Berthold retrieved his fold-up bicycle from our apartment and pedaled home. 

Getting into bed at 6am this morning, I willfully emptied my mind of strategy and alternate history just long enough to think, "is this really my life?" Getting out of bed in a groggy haze a few hours later, I willfully suppressed my thesis anxiety just long enough to think, "well it sure isn't anyone else's." 

I'll Show You a Package Covered in Stamps, Its Contents Even

Another day, another act of international kindess.

 This is how to cover an international postage charge using only thirteen-cent stamps

"Yo young poet!" - Rainer Maria Rilke

My wonderful friend Ryn sent me a copy of a book I once loved so much that I gave it away. Thank you, Ryn! Reading through the first few letters again has reminded me of why I loved Rilke so much in the first place. If you haven't encountered any of his work before, I would recommend the pictured book, Letters to a Young Poet, and perhaps Sonnets to Orpheus (if you're familiar with the myth) or The Book of Hours (if you're a person of faith). Themes and motifs in Rilke's poetry anticipate Heidegger's phenomenological perspectives on being and language! Which is to say, Rilke is an exciting and brilliant observer of life. Thank you again, Ryn! 

Two Items

The first: a postcard from a wonderful friend who is studying at Goshen College in Indiana. Leanna, thank you for making my day! Receiving mail really is the best!

I chanted the word "Goshen" to myself for a while, and now it's just a sound (via semantic satiation)

The second item doesn't carry any significance for any of us, although it did catch my eye at a kebab stand. I chuckled:

Sorry, I don't take orders from discarded pieces of paper, no matter how glossy

My roommates and I discussed a number of interpretive possibilities, but I won't enumerate them here. Suffice it to say, the phrase at the top of this party flier leaves most of the work up to the reader. Oh Belgium. 

A Pictorial Play in Two Parts

THE BOX

by Marty Jones or whatever 

also, Photo Booth

* * * 

 A box with my name on it! What!

Inside the box, there are things, delicately wrapped in paper! Whoa!

 A heartwarming personal note! 

The handwriting is elegant, but doesn't make me feel bad about my own!

 A card from a buncha dudes that has a cat on it! Classy and deeply felt!

Tea supplies! My fingers look strange in this photograph!

They are attempting to hold too many different items!

A camera! It can zoom, or not zoom! Depends on what you want!

BUT THEN

WHAT IS THIS MARIJUANA OR SOMETHING GUYS

WHY WOULD YOU SEND ME THIS MARIJUANA

Smelling the marijuana...

 That is potent marijuana you guys! 

Just kidding, it's looseleaf tea. Tea is a drug you can drink. 

* * * 

And that's the story of my afternoon. My friends are the best!

To Rachyl and company, thank you, thank you, thank you. I am amazed by your kindness and intentionality; shipping a package internationally is no casual undertaking. I don't take it lightly, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

And now for some apartment pictures!