K's Personal Pages
K's Personal Pages |
| |
Wedding Video Gathering of Spirits | ||
Wedding Video Eros and Psyche | ||
Wedding Video Bride's and Groom's Declarations |
||
A Few Fun Things |
Writing |
Links |
I will be building this portion of the site in months to come. For now, here are a few favorite things...
The following is the text of an autobiographical letter I wrote a long time ago to my Creative Writing students...
A student once told me that about all he knew of me was that I "like language, Macintosh computers, (am) friends with Mr. Osing and Mr. Ferry...coach forensics, and...have an intelligent mind." (I just had to include that last remark.) Well, mea culpa to all of the above (although modesty precludes me from making any specific comment as to my own intelligence). But I thought that I might take this week's letter as an opportunity for you all to get to know me a bit better.
First of all, I am from New Hampshire. I start there because I think that, in a lot of ways, my being a New Englander has influenced the way I think and the way I do things. For example, true to the stereotype of those brought up in New Hampshire, I am a bit on the stubborn side. Not so I can't be swayed--nowhere near Jabez Stone of Benet's "The Devil and Tom Walker"--but a bit stubborn nonetheless. My stubbornness, however, involves particular moments and situations. Once I get started on something (which, due I suppose to that same stubbornness, might never happen in the first place), I rarely let up until it is finished. Example: once when I went house-hunting, I visited 24 houses in five suburbs in one week. And I hadn't even known that I wanted to house-hunt until the beginning of that week.
Anyway, I am a product of New England, for whatever that is worth. I remember the first time I ever set foot in the midwest (it was September 20, 1975 at O'Hare Airport, I having just arrived from the East in order to attend school at Northwestern, a school I had never even heard of a few months earlier and one I still had never seen). All the way in from the airport, the only thing that occupied my mind was how incredibly flat everything was. I had never seen so much flat in all my life. There isn't as much flat in all of New England as the amount that makes up Dempster Street. Flat. Flat. (Isn't even the very word rather dull and ugly?) Thank God that NU has a beautiful campus; I suspect that I'd have turned right around if I had to stare at Midwestern flat every day.
Actually, it was the incredible beauty of the NU campus that was the most striking thing I remember from that day. Having little to do (I was one of the first arrivals), I wandered around the campus on what was a perfect autumn day. (Actually, it was the last day of summer, but why be picky?) The wind was crisp, and the leaves that year were already beginning to turn a little, and I recall being mesmerized by the trees and by the varied architecture clustered about the campus (I know I've used that word three times so far in this paragraph, but what other word is there?) and by the then-new landfill, with its serene harbor and majestic observatory. (A moment of silence here, please, for the memory of that lovely building, now (alas) merely more rocks on the breakers.) It was a fabulous setting for the college years. Or any years. If I could figure out how to do it, I think I'd retire there. (If they could transport the whole thing to Florida: I'm getting darn sick of the cold. Not much New England in the old skin, I'm afraid.)
Actually, one of the sharpest memories of NU had to do with the winter. It was February 28, either my first or second year there, and the weather had just done something nearly unbelievable: it had warmed up almost sixty degrees in just a few days, and the temperature was a balmy 70°. I recall playing frisbee on ice drifts that formed filthy glaciers on the lakeshore, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, in February. I thought maybe someone had in fact transported the place to Florida. :-)
But I wasn't going to spend the time in this letter reminiscing. Rather, I was going to talk about what makes me tick...who I am. Just in case any of you actually want to know.
Now, for the record, I am not going to discuss here certain aspects of my personal life. If you want to know more about them, well, this is not the time or the place. :-)
I should probably begin with my family, since (along with my career, of which, since we are all in this together, you already have some knowledge) they are the most important element of my life. I married just after college in August of 1978, when disco was raging throughout the land, a fact that I proudly ignored, and I was twenty-one. I think that's a bit young to get married, but we knew what we were doing. As much as anyone could at such an age. My later divorce, twenty years after tying the knot, does not diminish the success of the marriage--especially under the circumstances. When each party changes so much over the course of a life together, sometimes things just have to end.
Today I live in Vernon Hills, where there are, to my knowledge, no significant hills, vernon or otherwise (whatever that means). (Unlike Lake Forest, which at least has both of its namesake elements.) I have three children. Fox (OK, Foster, a name he chose himself later in life)was born in 1985, Julianne in 1992, and Melanie in 1994. All of them are heavily into anime and Harry Potter. Fox is a singer, writer, artist, and Very Complicated Person. Julie is an excellent soccer player and is learning cello. Mellie is still pretty young but plays soccer too and has started studying percussion; I'm looking forward to seeing the person she becomes.
Aside from my passion for my children and my job, I think it is my passion for the arts which defines me most. I have always enjoyed music, even when I was very young. But my parents did not even own a stereo (or "hi-fi" as they were called then) until I was about ten. Then they joined the Columbia Record Club. (That's RECORD club, as in those big clunky things they used to have in the era B.Cd.) I remember because it was such a big deal; I got to pick one of the albums (subject to my mother's approval--a problem indeed, because my mother considered the Beatles "noise"). I chose something by John Davidson. (Hey, get off my case; I was only ten.) But I listened to the show tunes that they bought. My favorite was Camelot. I knew all the words (at least those I could understand) to all the songs in the play. I loved it. But my tastes really ran more to rock, especially Three Dog Night, the Guess Who, and the Beatles (whose Abbey Road was the first album I ever bought myself). I never actually liked the Stones all that much, although I like many of their songs, and have several of their albums. I am one of the only people in the world of my age who will actually admit to liking the Carpenters, ABBA, and Tony Orlando and Dawn. I also like folk music--Steve Goodman, Arlo Guthrie, Harry Chapin, etc. I saw Harry Chapin in concert twelve times over the years; the man was remarkable. (The first time was at a special evening arranged through a local radio station in Boston at an amusement park. Harry Chapin, owner of a number one song called "Taxi," and a new band called Aerosmith.) When he died, I felt as if I had lost a friend. I even sent a letter to his wife expressing my condolences. Among others who managed to finagle the price of a concert ticket from me in younger days: Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin, Bachman Turner Overdrive, the Beach Boys, Elton John, Alice Cooper (well, that one was actually free), Jackson Browne, John Mellencamp, Bob Seger, and Crosby, Stills and Nash.
Today, my musical tastes run the gamut from rock to folk to show tunes (God, I love Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, Rent and anything by Sondheim. I could listen to them forever--and in the case of Rent I actually have to: the kids sing it all the time) to jazz and classical and even to country (not the really weird stuff with names like "I was run over by the truck of love on the dead-end highway of paradise," but more like stuff from Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Patty Loveless, Rosanne Cash, k.d. lang, Dixie Chicks, and others of their ilk. Though I admit that I've been known to listen to Garth Brooks and Alan Jackson and even--gulp--Tobey Keith on occasion). I like folk a lot, and although I have a lot of rock (no rap or 90's metal, but you can't have everything), I do listen to folk more and more, especially people like John Gorka, Carrie Newcomer and Susan Werner, whom I see play in Chicago whenever I can, but I enjoy Sheryl Crow, Lisa Loeb, Joan Osborne, Ani DiFranco and many others as well. I will buy, without having to hear it first, anything by Shawn Colvin, Aimee Mann, Cheryl Wheeler, Richard Thompson, John Fogerty and several of the others whom I have already mentioned. And lately I've become a big fan of Celtic music, especially Mary Black, Enya, and Clannad. My favorite artists are people you've never heard of: Lucy Kaplansky, Grey Eye Glances, Ellis Paul, Eddie From Ohio, and others.
The silliest things in my record collection (well over a thousand LP's and several hundred CD's) are probably my Tony Orlando and Dawn albums (I actually liked them once--I still like to hear "Candida" and "Knock Three Times," two of their biggest hits, occasionally, although I haven't even taken the albums out in years--I admit though that I did shell out a few bucks for a CD with those songs) or maybe "Bay City Rollers Greatest Hits" (twenty-five cents at a flea market about ten years ago). The weirdest thing is probably a disgusting little thing called "DOA" by a group called Bloodrock (same price, same garage sale). Among my prizes is a fabulous self-titled album by a group that only made one: It's a Beautiful Day. This album is rare, and it was worth fifty bucks the last time I checked, which was several years ago (and it is probably just junk vinyl now). I tend to buy or download anything that interests me right away, so I usually don't have a big "to buy" list.
Moving on to art...I can't draw (although my experiences with a book called Drawing of the Right Side of the Brain have taught me that it is not so much a genetic disability as a societal malfunction), and I had precious little exposure to art as a child. But I love going to the Art Institute (which I do all too little) and wandering around the galleries. (I recall one visit when Fox was two and a half, and there was a sculpture gallery that included a work that was based on the theme of a bed. It included the bed, fully made up. If he had had one more step on me, Fox would have dived headlong onto the pillow.) My favorite painting (no, it's not "The Scream," although I obviously like that one) is Saurat's masterwork on which was based the musical Sunday in the Park with George. I like Impressionists best, I suppose, but I enjoy the work of Abstract Expressionists and Renaissance painters also. With no real background in it, I can't always tell you why I like things, but I know if I do.
I could write endlessly about movies, which I love (I pride myself on always seeing anything nominated for a major Academy Award, although I admit I have missed some in recent years) and television, which I also love (although I don't get to watch it enough). Odd: I have satellite, but what I watch is mostly network TV, which I think has gotten much better in recent years. My current favorites are shows like Desperate Housewives, House, Alias, Gilmore Girls, Lost, The West Wing, Grey's Anatomy, and many others, although I hardly get to watch some of them. I miss Enterprise (yes, I'm a Trekker from way back; I was one of the people who wrote to NBC not to cancel the original show after its second season) and Joan of Arcadia and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This year I have added Threshold, Invasion, How I Met Your Mother, and Commander in Chief to my already too extensive list of TIVO'd programs. I have about 100 hours of shows backed up already. My all time favorite movie is All That Jazz, and I'm a big Star Wars fan as well. Recent movies which I've really loved include Moulin Rouge and Amelie. (But I loved "big" pictures like Men In Black, Batman Begins, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and all the other blockbusters too. One cannot have too much of explosions and quirky action heroes. BTW: I believe that, if taken as a single whole, the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy is the most impressive feat in motion picture history.) These days I watch things mostly on DVD, and I own quite a collection, as I am a regular visitor to Blockbuster when they have those "3 for $25" sales. So of course I have about fifty or sixty DVD's on my shelves that I've never even watched... :-)
Obviously, I love literature and plays. My taste in plays is as eclectic as all of my other tastes. I love a provocative piece by Brian Friel or Edward Albee, a stark, poetic tragedy by Arthur Miller or Tennessee Williams, pretty much anything by Shakespeare (whom you don't know if you've never seen him performed by a good company), hilarious farce like Lend Me a Tenor, interactive silliness like Shear Madness, musicals, especially Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd-Webber (who is usually disliked by so-called "theatre people"), and all kinds of things. As to literature...too hard to call. Can I turn my back on the aforementioned Shakespeare? What about Dickens? Or Hemingway? Or Fitzgerald? Poe? Chaucer? Keats? (He was my first favorite; does that count?) I like them all. (Why would I be doing what I do if I did not?) There are few famous authors for whom I have any kind of antipathy. (Notable exception: Gerard Manley Hopkins. Until the first time I taught Heart of Darkness, I'd have also included Conrad, but that was based largely on the meandering and stifling Lord Jim.) My favorite branch of writing has to be the existentialists and the Absurdists. I don't always understand them, either, but I find them fascinating. My favorite among them is Edward Albee (who refuses to classify himself in either category). My "pulp" reading used to be science fiction (I'd buy anything by Heinlein, Douglas Adams, Asimov, or Vonnegut without waiting for a recommendation, but--alas--age or death has claimed them all). I also enjoy the books of Anne Rice, John Irving and Tom Wolfe, among the many popular writers that I do read. I like what have been called "Oprah books" a lot. My very favorite recent discovery has been Jodi Picoult; I read all of her works one summer and highly recommend them. The irony of being an English teacher, though, is that you rarely have time, nine months of the year, for reading books. And that's what Books on CD were invented for!
Oh yes. Some one asked, "Do you understand Finnegan's Wake?" Actually, I've never read it. And I rarely understand any book I have never read. (Which was just about to lead into a long digression about the moron in California who not too long ago succeeded in getting Catcher in the Rye banned from her local school district even though she readily admitted that she never had and "never would" read it. But I won't go into that.)
Another joy in my life has been sports, especially soccer, hockey, and tennis. I'm not a great athlete, by any means. I acually played hockey with my brothers all through high school (NH has lots of ice), and I played soccer from grade school into my thirties (although I can't say I was all that good at it). I coached it (here and elsewhere) for fifteen years, retiring from that in 1992 (though coming out of retirement for a couple of years to help coach Julie's team). Tennis replaced skiing, a childhood passion, when I moved to the FLAT (there's that word again) midwest, and I play whenever I can. Sometimes I enjoy watching sports on TV, but only if one of my teams is winning (Boston and Chicago teams and NU). I am a classic "fair weather fan," andf frankly I think that's the thing to be: I would not spend money and time reading a poorly written book or listening to crappy music, so why should I devote myself to a mediorce sports team? I do read about them in the Tribune--I like to know a little bit about everything I can--but I find I don't have much enthusiasm if they don't put a good product on the field. Of course, recently there have been successes all over the place in Boston, Chicago, and NU, so there's been more to cheer for. A couple of past sports highlights: I went to Toronto in 1981 to watch the Chicago Sting, a professional soccer team, win the North American championship. (It was the first title in anything for a Chicago Sports team in about twenty years, and a glorious harbinger of thiungs to come for the Bears, Bulls, and--to a lesser degree-baseball teams.) There were 45.000 fans at Comiskey Park for the semi-final game. Believe it or not. Almost as many as were at Disco Demolition, which I also attended, gladly blowing up one of those silly disco records (I think it was "YMCA") along with thousands of other people, too many of whom stormed the field and caused an infamous day in the annals of sports when the second game of a double-header had to be forfeited.
I haven't even mentioned my cats! I have currently three cats: Oberon, Lightning and Viola. Oberon, a big orange tabby, wandered into a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream that I directed a while back. (Hence the name.) I've had him ever since. Lightning (named after a lightning-shaped patch on his back because I didn't feel like naming him Harry Potter) and Viola (a little calico named after another Shakespeare character) came along in the summer of 2004. I could devote volumes to The Cats of My Life. I guess that's another letter.
OK; I guess that ought to suffice to talk about me. This is a very long letter; I haven't outdone that since high school. (Of course, my best back then was around forty pages, so we've got a long way to go...)
(Note: this letter was last updated on October 17, 2005.)
These pages copyright Karen Kopriva 2002;
all rights are reserved