Martin Luther King Day

It's been a four-day weekend here in Winona, which has been flying by, as expected. Saturday I went with my friend Nancy to scope out a barn for a BIG birthday of hers coming up in April. Plans are still in the works, so we'll see where the festivities end up. Personally, I hope the barn works out, since it would be my first fete in such a local. That evening we went with Nancy and her husband to check out a new-for-us restaurant across the river: Hillside Fish House, which was pretty good family dining-lots of seafood, of course. We all then went to see the Ben Munisteri Dance Project at local St. Mary's University. I'm not all that familiar with modern dance, but it was nice to see something different. For a couple of the pieces, I felt like I really didn't "get" it, but I was assured that sensation is normal with modern dance. So, aside from some general feelings of ignorance, I enjoyed the show.

I finally finished "Swann in Love:" an over-200 page chapter from Proust detailing minutely the entire process of Swann falling in and then out of love with Odette. I am quite relieved to be done with the whole thing. Now I have one more chapter and I will be done with the first volume. In general, I am enjoying his meandering writing style and thorough description, but the whole Swann-Odette affair was really maddening. I may have to take a break between this and the next one, however. Because, well, sometimes a girl just needs a little more action in her literature. I leave you with Walter Benjamin's take on Proust:

"The thirteen volumes of Marcel Proust's 'A la recherche du temps perdu' are the result of an unconstruable synthesis in which the absorption of a mystic, the art of a prose writer, the verve of a satirist, the erudition of a scholar, and the self-consciousness of a monomaniac have combined in an autobiographical work...The conditions under which it was created were extremely unhealthy: an unusual malady, extraordinary wealth, and an abnormal gift. This is not a model life in every respect, but everything about it is exemplary. The outstanding literary achievement of our time is assigned a place at the heart of the impossible, at the center--and also at the point of indifference--of all dangers, and it marks this great realization of a 'lifework' as the last for a long time. The image of Proust is the highest physiognomic expression which the irresistibly growing discrepancy between literature and life was able to assume."