Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

The Things They Carried

Tim O'Brien visited Chattanooga this week. He flew in last night and spent today meeting with students at UTC. I got to join him for dinner and he gave an incredible free public lecture at the Fine Arts Center this evening.

The sponsor of the event was the UTC University Honors Program. I've never seen the Roland Hayes Concert Hall this full before -- it was standing room only, and there was no room for any other standers. The wall-to-wall people were obviously thrilled to be there and afterwards, the book signing line snaked out of the building.

O'Brien spoke of Vietnam, being a parent, writing, and how stories can save us. We were on the edge of our seats, laughing, crying and thinking about, among many things, war, absolutes, life, death, art and the way that fiction and reality interact. It was an incredible night.

Stories are for those late hours in the night when you can't remember how you got from where you were to where you are. Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember but the story.

The Odyssey

File this in the category under "cool stuff people get to do when they're in college."

The students in UTC's University Honors Program read Homer's The Odyssey today. The whole thing.

Out loud.

This is something of a tradition. They don't do it every year, but rather every once in a while, and they have ever so much fun with it. Students sign up for 15-minute segments and they read the entire epic -- all 12,110 lines -- over the course of about 12 hours or so.

People read with varying levels of enthusiasm -- you might get anything from the shy, quiet freshman to the 5th-year senior who's majoring in drama -- so the spectators never know what they'll hear when they pop over for a bit. Sometimes the audience can barely hear the recitation, and sometimes a reader can barely contain his performance. While most students simply read the text, some do dress up, bring props, or even occasionally bring along other costumed players to give life to a particular scene.

I stopped in for a little while before lunch today and was able to catch a number of readings that, despite the midday heat (and ugh, humidity!), managed to give energy to an ancient text. A few students even managed to emote while I was there.
Over 50 voices gave life to this epic today. There was no one voice (or even one language, since a student reportedly read her portion in its original ancient Greek this morning). There was no one audience. Everything was fluid. Nobody was there the whole time. The only constant was Homer.

How cool is that?

pssst! If you run over there right now, you might catch the grand conclusion -- they should wind it up around 9pm (they've moved it all from the campus amphitheater to the Guerry Center because of the weather).

Fiddle

I went to a performance on Thursday evening. It was an informal event -- just some people getting together to enjoy some food and fellowship. In the spirit that inspired the name of this blog, I took lots of pictures, but I wasn't sure if I'd get anything good given the limitations of the light (the lighting got more and more challenging as the sun went down and the room was left with only one lamp highlighting the performers). I didn't want to use a flash though,* so I kept goofing around with the glow of the lamp and the very nice colors in the backdrop.

I really like the way this picture turned out. It's not only pretty, but I think it captures the moment well -- the lack of clarity in the image is appropriate given that my subject is one of those rare musicians who seems to seems to be able to let the music flow through him -- the act of playing/singing is not about the performance or the performer, but all about the music itself, which seems to be something of an imperative action for him. (Does that make any sense?)

*I don't like flashes. They call attention to the fact that I'm taking pictures, which makes some people stop being natural; they cast an unnatural light on the subject; and more often than not instead of illuminating a scene, they make whatever is in it look naked and exposed.