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28 May 2005: I went into Boston again, this time on AmTrak. Much less frantic, and no more costly than my rental car trip two days ago. The session I watched today started at 12:30, Norman Friedman moderating. Taimi Olsen gave a fun presentation about George Herriman, creator of Krazy Kat, and thus one of my cultural idols, and the likeness of much of what he did with the work of Cummings, who admired him. Ian Lanles from Britain was to present next but had been unable to get to Boston due to illness, so Michael Webster read his paper, a discussion of Him. Landles thinks the play a kind of study a the masculinity/femininity dichotomy, which it surely is, in part--but I'd consider it more an attempt just to be funny than a genuine grappling with gender, etc. Landles feels Cummings was championing a female point of view, but Michael Webster, in the question and answer part of the seesion, suggested he perhaps most identified with the pre-gender child we all in part are. I go along with that. Stimulating paper, though (and reminded me of the parallels between it and some of Ring Lardner's plays. The final slot on the program was devoted to half of an excellent essay by Bernard F. Stehle about the life of Cummings biographer Richard S. Kennedy, whom he had done a masters under. I really enjoy hearing first-hand accounts of literary figures, and this one included anecdotes about Norman friedman, a friend of Kennedy's, so I very much enjoyed this.
I wasn't feeling too great--all the running aqround has been too much for me; so I skedoodled pretty quickly. Couldn't stay for the Cummings' Society business meeting. Had a one-hour AmTrak delay coming back, but otherwise the trip went well. I killed the extra hour reading the beginning of a new R. Crumb book that I'd bought in the Bretano's that's in the complex the Westin hotel was in. I'm a big fan of Crumb's. It was fairly late when I got back to my sister's, and I was still tired, though feeling more relaxed, so I didn't make this entry then, but went to bed shortly after another good meal from my sister.
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