Despite having had full credentials during previous years of Sundance, JM and I weren’t entirely sure if we would be in town at the end of January 2012 having not yet planned our trip to Africa (at least the dates) and being in the midst of closing on the condo as well as possible travels to meet with potential VCs for JM’s business. There are so many things going on right now and all of them are great moments in life, albeit stressful. We did, however, buy some individual tickets on the 17th when those last minute individual tickets go on sale with Sundance as well as peruse craiglist for those special extras. One of those craigslist specials was the premiere of Liberal Arts at Eccles Theater – written, produced, directed, and acted by Josh Radnor.
Liberal Arts (IFC Films) – Josh Radnor’s follow up to happythankyoumoreplease, another Sundance pick, features Radnor as a thirty-something man who returns to his college campus and is intrigued by both his former professor (Alison Janney) and a young coed (Elizabeth Olsen). IFC picked up Liberal Arts and plans on releasing it later in 2011. (Movieline.com, 2012 - http://www.movieline.com/2012/01/26/sundance-liberal-arts-robot-and-frank-vhs-and-the-pact-sell/).
The movie was laughable. To one woman it was being added to her collection of movies such as “The Graduate.” From an acting and writing point of view, I can see where she was coming from although The Graduate is far more recognizable by Simon & Garfunkel’s great soundtrack over time than it is by just the story itself. Similar idea, but not exactly apples and apples.
My years of college are jaded with a sense of longing and missing “the way it use to be” much like the main character, Jesse, who is played by Radnor himself. Similarly, I was attending the Liberal Arts college alongside some of my very best friends – those that became eternally iconic friends through meeting those first few years of school (i.e. Steele, Natalie, etc.) and those that came later, my friends from High School (like Jen). The English and Philosophy departments were side by side. Majors were often switched back and forth between the two. Arguing literature can grow tiring when there are no absolutes so many convert to the Philosophy department where things seem far more black and white, to some.
I enjoyed them both. I took my first Ethics class online, with 200 others and was the ONLY person in the entire Utah County laden class to take unpopular views. I could have taken it at the campus and been one of many “college liberal hippies” with my ideals, but I stood against the masses online with the world of happy valley stay at home mom’s. I don’t regret the experience. I’d do it again.
My first English class, English 1010 with Deb Thornton set the path for the rest of my college career. She had us writing a new paper every week which seemed impossible to the Freshman mind. She forced me, of all people, to constantly read in front of the class which became the thorn in my side as I grew competitive with another boy in this same English class, who struck me as overindulgent since the first day. Instead, with an invitation to join her second class (An Introduction to Literature), I found myself in his company again – leading the class. We became the best of friends, practical roommates, almost inseparable and it was my college romance despite years of dodging and never making a move. Together our best sidekick would be Natalie. Just like the movie says, it is the only time of your life that you can tell someone you are a poet and be taken seriously for it. This was the one time in my life where I would live in one place for a consistent 2 years (hasn’t happened since believe it or not) and I would freely indulge in the darkest side of me like any other artist – I let it all go for the sake of my art. Whiskey and vodka were constantly stocked in the kitchen cabinets. We drank out of mugs with cigarettes placed strategically behind our ear and pens in hand. We read out loud. We wrote together, line by line. He played the guitar. Life was simple. I turned in highly controversial homework – marked superb by one professor and demeaning by another. I wrote with bitter honesty, despite the subject matter or assignment. Never before and never since have I just let it all go, wherever life may lead.
After seeing the Sundance film and witnessing the premiere’s Q&A, I was taken back to my own Liberal Arts textbooks – the very thing that I miss more than any other time of my college career. I read Blake. I read Keats. I read Plath. I read with a greater sense of understanding and yet considerably less to say and I found this one, poetic entry that encompasses entirely how I felt as I left that version of myself behind – so lost, so dark, so determined, and wild.
When I have fears that I may cease to be
John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And I think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; – then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Til love and flame to nothingness do sink.
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Filed under: Daily Life, Writing Life, josh radnor, liberal arts, liberal arts the movie, sundance 2012
