When the inexhaustible got exhausted

...repeatedly! I notice that I am probably the only participant at ___ not associated with a university. I feel thrilled..um, briefly, that is! It is not often that such uniqueness, such distinction simply, and effortlessly, falls into one's lap. In fact, I cannot recall this happening to me at all. By the way, it has felt strange to be asked two questions, and two only...which university? and, when is your paper/when do you read your paper? (reminds me of certain second-class train journeys. The inqueries were also limited to two questions, a bit different in nature). I wish I was a negative on both, rather than just the one. I would love to see the look in people's eyes - "what are you doing here"? But I digress...back to the point - This is when I decided I would start a new vocation, all on my own, just like that. I am a tourist who has begun to visit conferences. This one is the first one, but "has begun", I think, holds a promise to it. Much better than "recently commenced" or "just started". So my vocation, at least today, is to be a tourist at conferences. See the sights - nervous phd students desperately trying to extract papers out of 15000 word long dissertations, Eileen Fisher linen apparelled, fancy ethnic scarve bearers speaking passionately of ethnicities and sloppy tweed jackets rambling on about Ben-ya-meen. Oh, and students queing in for free food. And occasionally a germ of an idea. I don't have a dissertation pending. No paper criteria. I am here as an accident, I feel. An illegitimate. A bastard, really.

Sadly trying to establish relations that constantly are just beyond my grasp. No, I have not read Heidegger's Section 31 of some writing - the name of which was uttered in German, and I did not catch on - it is supposedly on endings & beginnings. Knowing Heidegger, it would be hopeless for me to even begin, for I will be pompously reminded that that was precisely where I lost something I need to recover (besides my intelligence, or maybe my intelligence). [moan]. I am intrigued by a paper on "gossip as a theatre historian's friend?" How do you legitimize a page3 methodology? One paper claims that to write a history of art one must operate as artists do. The other quickly issues a rebuttal that the work of art becomes a work of art through the critic. O-kay. In the session around architecture, of course Corbu makes an appearance. Good old Corbu! He never disaapoints. The whipping boy of stodgy historians. I can imagine Corbu saying "fuck you all". But then again, probably not; not if there was a project at stake. I don't know where I am going with this. Historians think anthropologists are lucky, in that they can play with form. Anthropologists seem to think that of Cultural Studies-ists. Ditto for Visual Study-ists. And finally, Visual Study-ists seem to think that ultimately it is the one that produces, the humble artist, who is lucky in that it is s/he who can truely experiment, unencumbered by the disciplines of an institution. H-uh?

But, that is the end of the itinerary. The ticket has expired. The sights recede, I am on a flight back home. 'Til next time, I suppose.