Today's Histrionics and Tomorrow's Interview

Tomorrow afternoon I have a job interview for an internship, which would last half a year and require 40 hours of work per week. If the interview goes well, and I get the job, of course it would be very helpful. Even if I don't get it, it has been so restful to have a holiday from job-searching that the very idea of the interview was already splendid in itself. Yesterday I put together the paperwork to bring along, researched the company a little, and thought things through; today I simply did other things and relaxed so that I'm in a fresh and sensible state of mind tomorrow.

Frankly I am also reminding myself about the immense stress that the job might bring with it. In this circumstance the wet-blanket philosophy of Eeyore seems wisest. In any case, I have refrained from watching the latest episode of America's Next Top Model yet, so that it is waiting for me as a "treat" after the job interview. At this point, though, I'm only watching ANTM when I need to pass time in a soothing manner, because it is not only unintelligent but half-hearted and boring. At least it's only when I watch two or more consecutive episodes that I uncomfortably suspect that, to speak metaphorically, my brain cells are bearing out their wounded or dead brethren on stretchers from the battlefield, and holding funeral masses over them whilst weeping in mourning clothes of dolorous black crêpe.

Anyway, in the evening I recorded Prokofiev's Musiques d'enfants (Op. 65) with Gi.'s digital camera. When I uploaded the first of two videos onto YouTube, the website rejected it during the post-upload processing stage because it was too long. After listening to the recording again it was clear that this mishap was not so amiss. It was pretty flawed because I had played in an unintentionally childish way: mezzoforte volume, detached notes played staccato, and a rushed rhythm. Of course there were wrong notes all over the place, too, but in my case they're as inevitable as drips in a Jackson Pollock painting. I can play flawlessly under certain conditions, but mostly I *ahem* "keep it real." Otherwise the recording was good.

And earlier, in the afternoon, I had corrected pages for Distributed Proofreaders again. One of the pages (which I gave up on because the page hadn't scanned well) was from an antique Spanish drama whose characters spew forth clichés at an incredible rate. Then there was a history where a lady aristocrat was sent over to marry an elector; she did and became Catholic; her anti-Catholic father wanted her back; the elector agreed on condition that his wife be permitted to freely practice her religion; her father broke off the diplomatic relations and apparently in general indicated that his sentiments ran along the lines, "Fine then! I don't want her. So there!" [N.B.: A little background reading has convinced me that the preceding narrative is mostly Edithor-ian fiction. Oh dear.] Then there was the tale of a good and pious Spanish king called the Rey Bamba who was poisoned so that he became crazy; too crazy for the kingship but not too crazy for the monkship, he decided on a career change, and at length died in the monastery, much mourned by the populace. And then there was a musicological work that had too much intricate math for me. In lovely Fraktur, there was also a page of Der Schach von Wuthenow; it seems to be set in Tempelhof, which made me happy, though the tragic tale itself (which I promptly Wikipedia'd) sounds too stupid to be true, which it however is. The way in which society dispenses its morality has improved so much since those days. (c:

Speaking of drama, though I do live under a rock where many literary things are concerned, I did manage to be aware that it's Shakespeare's deathday. On April 26th it will be his birthbaptismal day [apparently he might have been born and died on the same day], so the period of mourning will not have too long a date. For now, here's an apposite, vaguely morbid sonnet of his, which also happens to be one of my favourites (i.e. one of the sonnets that I've often come across outside of the Complete Works and have therefore come to appreciate over time):

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow:
And yet to times in hope, my verse shall stand
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

[From Helium.com, which had the least retina-searing graphics]

Otherwise I did a mildly intellectual thing yesterday (/early this morning) and read the first chapter of Sigmund Freud's Motiv der Kästchenwahl. It is related to Shakespeare and to the Grimm fairy tales, so it was very much my cup of tea. The title derives from the scene in The Merchant of Venice where Portia's suitors, among them Bassanio, must choose between three caskets, one gold and one silver and one lead. This scene has always bothered me, because there are all sorts of perfectly good reasons that could lead perfectly good suitors to open any one of those caskets. Besides, what are the chances that only one suitor out of the bunch would choose the lead casket, or that they couldn't deduce from the ill success of the other suitors which casket is the right one? Anyway, Freud went on a (Socrates-esque) path of reasoning that was truly ingenious and pleasantly rambling but not at all convincing. It's like the free-roaming math that I always wished to do when I was in school, where you take whichever quantities and units you like and make them all equal or otherwise relate to each other. Caskets=women; lead=pallor=silence [like Cordelia's silence in King Lear]=moon=obscure Latvian goddess=death! I didn't read far enough to learn why death should be a desirable option. But it was fun, and my opinion of Freud's writing style, which seemed like a jungle when I attempted the first paragraphs of Der Witz years ago, has much improved.