Hamilton College Admission Journals: Greg Leiman

Connecting

Tue, 24 Apr 2007 05:01:52 GMT

    Interpersonal communication is a matter of strings, an invisible network that connects people—and if not connects, at least facilitates some sort of cause and effect relationship between them.   Sometimes we are puppets, sometimes we are puppeteers, and sometimes we are mere observers. Nowhere is this more apparent than on college campuses, insulated communities with their own rules, their own ways of being, their own strings.
    Sometimes strings get cut—who knows how or why—and the machinery of life falters. The trick is finding the right balance: not too much slack, not too much tension. The recent tragedy at Virginia Tech is, in my mind, also a question of strings. Someone became disconnected, and though we may never know the cause, the effect is painfully clear.
    Lately I have been asking myself whether I have cut any strings. Have I ostracized anyone? Have I hurt anyone? There have certainly been times in my life when I have felt disconnected from and irrelevant to the world around me. I am lucky that those moments never lasted very long, lucky to have friends and a supportive community, lucky to feel the strings moving at all. But many people are not so lucky. I suspect that Cho Seung-Hui is one such person—a man who was not born a monster but became one because of some disconnect. I would encourage all students to be well attuned to the world around them. Pay attention to one another. Be responsive to your classmates, be receptive, try to reciprocate emotions—and do this not to avoid danger in the future, but to avoid tragedy in the present.

A Short Piece About My Thesis

Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:03:57 GMT

   If you asked me three months ago to produce a list of things I felt least capable of writing about, you would find WILLIAM FAULKNER written in bold type right at the top. I was introduced to Faulkner last semester in my senior seminar on narrative and time. Reading The Sound and the Fury is the literary equivalent of having one’s teeth kicked in. I was intimidated by rapid time shifts and rambling sentences. I survived, miraculously, and put Faulkner back on the shelf where I expected him to stay forever.
    But wouldn’t you know it—the Southerner grew on me, like a fungus. Professor Kodat suggested that I read Joel Williamson’s biography on Faulkner. It’s filled with lots of great anecdotes, many of which are even more interesting (all of which are less complicated) than Faulkner’s fiction. Here’s a favorite story I turned into a poem and read at the last Rhymelab.

    Once, when Faulkner was at his best and worst,
    and a bird’s-eye view revealed the mountainous Imperial Valley,
    cut through by a winding whiskey wagon piloted by Howard Hawks,
    William Faulkner, and Clark Gable,
    a story was born.

    Gable asked Faulkner who he thought were the best modern writers.

    "Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, John Dos Passos, and myself,"
     Faulkner replied.

    "Oh," the actor said after a moment, "do you write Mr. Faulkner?"
    "Yes," Faulkner answered, then asked: "What do you do, Mr. Gable?"

     The poem is a slightly gussied-up version of the passage from Williamson’s book, so I can’t really take credit for anything beyond the first stanza. But I can take credit for enlivening my own opinion of Faulkner. I will be the first to admit that struggling through a novel is not my idea of a good time. When Faulkner’s prose became too difficult to understand, I took the back door and endeavored to understand Faulkner himself. He was so interesting and emotionally damaged that I had to write about him for my thesis, which explains Faulkner’s first novel (Soldier’s Pay) in the context of his later work. Thus a thesis was born. Hopefully it will be finished in about two weeks.

Where I've Been the Last Few Weeks

Sat, 31 Mar 2007 23:16:16 GMT

A Brief Update…

Forgive my absence. I’ve had my hands tied with a senior thesis and various other chores.
    Spring break was lovely. I returned to sunny California where I had a few days to relax with my folks before I played host to a couple of guests. My mom and I visited the Norton Simon Museum of Art and saw an impressive collection of Impressionist paintings. I’m not much of an art-buff but I do like Impressionism, probably because it welcomes (in my uninformed opinion) decadently painted odalisques and self-mutilating painters. I should mention that I would not have remembered anything about the paintings if my mom hadn’t insisted on purchasing an audio-guide. My audio-guide had two settings: one for the veteran culture-vulture, and one for the veteran culture-vulture’s children. You can guess which setting I used.
    After the museum I put in some dad-time. My dad and I are different in many ways but we share two Californian pastimes: (1) going to the gym and (2) watching stupid television. When we go to the gym we end up doing more talking then exercising, and when we watch TV it’s not long before the first commercial launches us into any number of conversations. The theme of our conversations this break was my least favorite: what to do after college.
    Though I don’t know exactly what I’ll do when I graduate, I hosted a friend who’s sure he wants to get his PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures. I tried to be a good tour-guide, which is difficult considering how lackluster Los Angeles is as a city. My friend lives on the east coast and he seemed happy to be out in the sun for a couple of days. The day my friend left for home was also the day my girlfriend came out to visit. At my mom’s urging, I took the girlfriend to Las Vegas because the weather in California had gone from sunny to dreary. Needless to say, the desert was much warmer. We took in a show, lost some money in the casinos, and drank margaritas by the pool. With the real world quickly-approaching, I thought to myself that life would never be so good again.
    Now that I’m back on the Hill I’ll have to spend most of my time finishing my thesis, which is on Faulkner. As of now, I only have one sentence: “Faulkner was a real son of a bitch.” I also have to make some serious decisions about my future. I’ve been accepted to a pricy MFA poetry program in New York City, but I think I’d like to work before I pay tuition that far exceeds the amount of money most poets make in a lifetime. Hopefully I’ll be allowed to defer for a year or two.
    Anyway, that about sums up the last couple of weeks. I’ll write something again soon.

Advertisement for a Sophomore Seminar

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 05:08:52 GMT

    Joe Volpe, former manager of the Metropolitan Opera, spoke about his career last week. The talk was given in the chapel, a humble venue for a man who deals intimately and regularly with greats like Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo. Joe, whose casual and unpretentious demeanor welcomes the use of his first name, began his career in the unglamorous world of set-design, a far cry from the position that would later allow him to take in performances with dignitaries like Rudolph Giuliani.
     While the talk was engrossing and refreshingly informal, my thoughts soon drifted. The sight of Joe, who without a suit could easily be mistaken for a school teacher or social worker, suddenly made the world of opera seem more accessible. I began to fantasize about my debut on the stage. Before long I was whisked away to Covent Garden where I found myself singing alongside Maria Ewing. The opera: Carmen; the role: Don José; the performance: brilliant! As the curtain falls and the crowd roars with applause, Maria Ewing looks deep into my eyes and tells me that if I were only a little older, she might allow me to be her real-life Don Jose. I savor the compliment but only for a moment; does she mean that in other circumstances I might be her fatally jealous lover? “What the hell,” I figure, “it’s Maria Ewing. No matter what she says I’ll still be smitten.”
    The fantasy swells into a compendium of glamorous affairs, family struggles, and several triumphant comebacks from the inevitable drug addictions and publicity nightmares.   Right when my children are vying for my attention—the greedy son, to encourage a negotiation with EMI, the fawning daughter, to urge my return to rehab—I hear the cheers of a real audience. I found myself back in the chapel and sadly devoid of my imagined stardom. Joe Volpe took a final bow and the talk was over.
    Why would a young American student choose an opera fantasy over the more typical rock star fantasy? For one thing, the duties of an opera singer fulfill the New Year’s resolutions of most educated people: learn a few languages, read more, travel the world, cultivate the artist within, etc. Besides, few other professions would put me in the company of Maria Ewing. While Joe Volpe was responsible for eliciting my most recent fantasy, I blame Hamilton for introducing the idea in the first place. The famed Opera Sophomore Seminar, taught by Lydia Hamessley and Peter Rabinowitz, opened my eyes to the expansive and fascinating world of opera. Given the opportunity to repeat my fours years at Hamilton, taking the opera seminar would be one of the few decisions I’d leave absolutely untouched. But I will work on changing my fantasy; instead of singing alongside Maria Ewing in Bizet’s Carmen, I’d rather perform with her in Strauss’ Salomé. Take the seminar if you want to know why.

Hamilton College Takes Care of its Own

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 16:59:54 GMT

I rarely use my journaling privileges to thank people, but today’s entry will be an exception.
    Last night I woke up feeling incredibly sick. My head throbbed, my stomach churned, and I barely had the strength to make it to the bathroom. I am the victim of a nasty twenty-four hour flu that seems to have infected “half the county,” according to a resident M.D. at St. Luke’s hospital. I can’t describe how awful I felt except to say that from 9 PM last night to 7:30 AM this morning, I was partying at both ends. Feeling the effects of dehydration setting in, I tried to force fluids but was not successful at keeping them down for very long. At around four in the morning, I decided that I needed an IV.
    Here’s where I get to show my gratitude. Almost as soon as I called the campus emergency line the EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians) showed up at my door. I don’t know how they managed to get to my room so quickly. They were very understanding, efficient, and patient; I’m not very good at being ill and they dealt with me superbly. In the blink of an eye, the EMTs took my vitals, arranged for a cab to drive me to the hospital (free of charge), and wished me luck.
Last night wasn’t my first encounter with the EMTs—they fixed me up last year when I broke my leg in a rugby game. The job of an EMT isn’t glamorous but it sure is necessary. So, EMTs, thank you for doing your job so well. Your fellow students would be in really rough shape without you.