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Tired, but happy
Oct. 9th, 2010 11:34 pmToday was the day Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! was giving a lecture in Columbia (my old college town), and the Lodge thing Dad thought he had was cancelled, so in the end I went by myself; my longest road-trip yet, but it really was just a little more added onto the trip I made last Sunday, so not so bad. (I did feel like two hours might be about the limit of how far I would want to drive without a stretch break, but that's nothing strange.)
I got to town around half-past noon, having looked up how to use the downtown parking garages, and just left the van there all day while I puttered around downtown and campus. There actually wasn't much I wanted to buy, it just amounted to sightseeing with some nostalgiac elements, but I enjoyed it a lot. I did pick up a copy of the local comic-creators club's anthology (I keep thinking of maybe showing up to meetings, but without actual work to show I'd feel like kind of a phony...), went to the Asian grocery, and had very nice restaurant meals that I couldn't have had with parents in tow, including sushi.
As for sightseeing, a lot of the downtown stores and beautiful campus buildings I remembered were still there---although the student center/university bookstore had been gutted and revamped (again) since I last saw it. I went to the university's Art and Archaeology Museum, which I've always loved, and it was nice to be there by myself for that kind of quiet soul-shiver encounter with art and with time (although for anyone who scorns this new-fangled pretty-boy fad, they had a gorgeous early-Renaissance painting of a "saint king", with quite a bishounen-worthy face and sweetly-pink geisha lips [what do you call that lipstick style where it's just kind of a cherry in the middle?]---bemusement aside, it was awesome). There was a football game today, lots of families were around and lots of Mizzou apparel and black and gold. And there were just random interesting things: on campus, someone rode by on an old-fashioned bicycle with the huge front wheel; the "Arts League" downtown had as a guest a Chinese artist (he spoke Chinese and had an interpreter beside him) who was showing how to make kites, some like birds, some like butterflies, some with pictures of goddesses; next to the comic store there was a live band for no apparent reason, and in general music seemed to waft around downtown like scents might do and you didn't always even know where it was coming from. On top of my nostalgia was a sense of "Oh, yeah, this is what a beautiful town is like."
The other main event was the University Library, which I still love and don't know of one closer that, well, comes close, and I was able to buy a guest borrower's card (1 year/$35), so that was my big expenditure. It's easy for my eyes to be bigger than my, well, eyes, like I always feel like I should be reading something that I'm not getting, or that I should be able to read it all, but I told myself even at a library there was no need to get greedy. I checked out a few books about WW2 "comfort women" (story research, there's part of that sci-fi worldbuilding that I thought it might help with). "Native Americans in Comic Books" by Michael A. Sheyahshe caught my eye as I walked past it, and unable to resist a minute inspection of a decades-long train wreck, I got it, too. And finally there was something from the Japanese Literature section: "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai*.
As for the Amy Goodman lecture, I enjoyed it a lot. She talked about various things, including the inspiration of Frederick Douglass and his friendship with Susan B. Anthony, the times she was arrested at the Republican National Convention and interrogated at the Canadian border, of the need for independent journalism that will tell the truths network news won't tell---both the full ugliness of the bad news, and the good news they don't tell. Most of it was things I already knew, but being there to see her in person in a packed auditorium was still specially great. I didn't buy a book or get her autograph or anything, but I hadn't gone there for a thing, I went for an experience, and it was a good experience.
I enjoyed the day. The one thing I will say about it is that it was such a solitary outing, but tomorrow I'm turning right back around and going to the Unitarians again, which is more an environment to socialize and try to make friends...
*This ties into the anime viewing, namely Aoi Bungaku. I do mean to watch that, but I'll treat each of the stories separately rather than just give one evaluation of the whole series, and it's going to take awhile because as of now I have the intention (or at least delusion) to actually read the books. Of the six featured, I already had translations of three of them, and today figured out that the university library gets me access to two more---including "No Longer Human," which is the first in the series. For the one remaining, I might have to buy a book but it looks like a good book anyway---oh hey, it has "Sansho Dayu" in it; I've wanted that since I saw the Kenji Mizoguchi movie...
I got to town around half-past noon, having looked up how to use the downtown parking garages, and just left the van there all day while I puttered around downtown and campus. There actually wasn't much I wanted to buy, it just amounted to sightseeing with some nostalgiac elements, but I enjoyed it a lot. I did pick up a copy of the local comic-creators club's anthology (I keep thinking of maybe showing up to meetings, but without actual work to show I'd feel like kind of a phony...), went to the Asian grocery, and had very nice restaurant meals that I couldn't have had with parents in tow, including sushi.
As for sightseeing, a lot of the downtown stores and beautiful campus buildings I remembered were still there---although the student center/university bookstore had been gutted and revamped (again) since I last saw it. I went to the university's Art and Archaeology Museum, which I've always loved, and it was nice to be there by myself for that kind of quiet soul-shiver encounter with art and with time (although for anyone who scorns this new-fangled pretty-boy fad, they had a gorgeous early-Renaissance painting of a "saint king", with quite a bishounen-worthy face and sweetly-pink geisha lips [what do you call that lipstick style where it's just kind of a cherry in the middle?]---bemusement aside, it was awesome). There was a football game today, lots of families were around and lots of Mizzou apparel and black and gold. And there were just random interesting things: on campus, someone rode by on an old-fashioned bicycle with the huge front wheel; the "Arts League" downtown had as a guest a Chinese artist (he spoke Chinese and had an interpreter beside him) who was showing how to make kites, some like birds, some like butterflies, some with pictures of goddesses; next to the comic store there was a live band for no apparent reason, and in general music seemed to waft around downtown like scents might do and you didn't always even know where it was coming from. On top of my nostalgia was a sense of "Oh, yeah, this is what a beautiful town is like."
The other main event was the University Library, which I still love and don't know of one closer that, well, comes close, and I was able to buy a guest borrower's card (1 year/$35), so that was my big expenditure. It's easy for my eyes to be bigger than my, well, eyes, like I always feel like I should be reading something that I'm not getting, or that I should be able to read it all, but I told myself even at a library there was no need to get greedy. I checked out a few books about WW2 "comfort women" (story research, there's part of that sci-fi worldbuilding that I thought it might help with). "Native Americans in Comic Books" by Michael A. Sheyahshe caught my eye as I walked past it, and unable to resist a minute inspection of a decades-long train wreck, I got it, too. And finally there was something from the Japanese Literature section: "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai*.
As for the Amy Goodman lecture, I enjoyed it a lot. She talked about various things, including the inspiration of Frederick Douglass and his friendship with Susan B. Anthony, the times she was arrested at the Republican National Convention and interrogated at the Canadian border, of the need for independent journalism that will tell the truths network news won't tell---both the full ugliness of the bad news, and the good news they don't tell. Most of it was things I already knew, but being there to see her in person in a packed auditorium was still specially great. I didn't buy a book or get her autograph or anything, but I hadn't gone there for a thing, I went for an experience, and it was a good experience.
I enjoyed the day. The one thing I will say about it is that it was such a solitary outing, but tomorrow I'm turning right back around and going to the Unitarians again, which is more an environment to socialize and try to make friends...
*This ties into the anime viewing, namely Aoi Bungaku. I do mean to watch that, but I'll treat each of the stories separately rather than just give one evaluation of the whole series, and it's going to take awhile because as of now I have the intention (or at least delusion) to actually read the books. Of the six featured, I already had translations of three of them, and today figured out that the university library gets me access to two more---including "No Longer Human," which is the first in the series. For the one remaining, I might have to buy a book but it looks like a good book anyway---oh hey, it has "Sansho Dayu" in it; I've wanted that since I saw the Kenji Mizoguchi movie...
