It just flew by my office window.

But let’s back up and do a longer Snapshots from Home post.

I woke this morning from a dream whose last scene had me surveying our entirely redecorated (lots of olive trees) living room, and thinking about how clever Mr UD was to have thought of this new arrangement.

Before I left for campus, I printed out my invitation to a reading tonight at the Irish Embassy.

On the train, I made a mental list of the day’s activities:

~ Office hours, during which my student Gabe will interview me for the campus newspaper. Subject: What’s it like to have alumni auditors in your classes?

~ Lunch with Rosemary, a student of mine from last semester, and a fellow ‘thesdan.

~ David Brooks’ recent reference to what he calls “the Composure Class” has me thinking about Philip Rieff’s Psychological Man. I will mull over this today.

~ After lunch, I will get passport photos taken. I’m going to Ireland in March.

~ After the embassy event, I’ll go home and prepare for Thursday’s classes.

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UPDATE:

“Thank goodness you’re here, Gabe. I’ve been reading about Francesca Woodman and getting depressed. Let’s change the subject to alumni auditors, quick!”

“Okay. Now I’m a visual guy and I can’t write fast. So be patient as I take notes.”

“Okay.”

“So there were three alumni auditors in the Aesthetics class I took with you last semester, and I understand you often have alumni auditors in your class. What’s that like? Does it change things? How?”

I’ll link to the GW Hatchet piece that contains my answer to this and other questions.

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UPDATE:

Rosemary (who turns out to be the daughter of Doyle McManus) and I eat Thai food and chat about our ‘thesdan lives.  After lunch, we walk around the city looking for a place that takes passport photos.  I get it done at a FedEx store off Connecticut Avenue.  Takes three minutes.

It’s a chilly day, but I don’t really want to admit this, so I carry my coat and shiver.

Back at GW, a Linguistic Ambiguity moment:  I’m walking by the elevators on my floor of Academic Center, and I hear an elegantly dressed man say to his friend, “I have no class.”

Was this some sort of false modesty?  He was very classy.

No.  He was talking about his class schedule for today.

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7:oo

Irish Embassy

Washington DC

Since I know no one, mingling isn’t going to work – at least I don’t know how to make it work.  So I’ve taken a drink from a man with a tray, and I’ve taken my trusty notebook, and I’ve taken a seat in the reading room.

The Irish Embassy is… an embassy.  Big brick house with carpeted rooms and with fireplaces.  A grand piano with framed color photographs of meet and greets.  Vague smell of food for the reception after.  From curtained windows, excellent night views all the way down Connecticut Avenue.  A portrait of – Wolfe Tone? – over the fireplace.

Odd day for me.  Personally, as Stephen Dedalus says, I detest action.  And yet I’ve packed a great deal into today.  Lunch with a student.  An interview.  Passport photos.  Long city walks.  Office hours.  And now this – an embassy event.

The novelist who will read to us tonight – Joseph O’Connor – is Sinead O’Connor’s brother!

His book, Ghost Light, is a love story based on a relationship the playwright Synge had with an actress, Molly Allgood.

O’Connor reads beautifully, and it’s always a pleasure for UD to hear an Irish accent.

The writing is pleasant, sentimental, a gentle evocation of a certain time and of two lovers. I guess O’Connor’s sister got all the roughness.

After he’s finished reading, an audience member asks a question about the burden of Irish literary history.  Does O’Connor feel oppressed as a writer by the weight of Joyce, Yeats, and the rest?

In response, O’Connor says something rather beautiful.

“These writers were, for me, growing up, our Easter Island gods.  We put them on our currency.  They were the only Irish who had accomplished anything internationally… When I was young, we Irish sometimes felt as though we lived in a place that didn’t exist at all.  This was before U2 and Riverdance and all of that.  My mother would say to me, ‘This is a little country where we don’t do things very well.  But we have Yeats.  We have Joyce.’  The arts gave us dignity.”

“Well said,” whispered UD.

And then she closed her notebook and got her coat from the check room and went out into the cold clear night.

The moon was high and full, its canyons absolutely clear.  The radiance of the moon made long white clouds stand out against a blueblack sky.

UD didn’t put on her coat.  The room had been hot, and she wanted the evening air on her skin.

As she turned onto R Street toward Connecticut – nearby was Restaurant Nora, where the President celebrated his last birthday, and, stretching before her, bright with seasonal lights, were the two blocks of R Street leading to the intersection – she felt with full force the particular beauty of her city.  Up ahead the big black and white Teaism banner waved.  The book-lined interiors of old stone townhouses glowed at her.  UD‘s heart went pitapat.