Go Figure...

Sometimes I like to mash together the titles of talks and imagine what the resulting hypothetical lecture would look like. This week’s one goes something like, “Congress and the Presidency: Imagining Homoerotic Desire in the Nearly Middle East, by Painter Chris Martin.” Now that is one lecture I wouldn’t want to miss, but, seeing as it doesn’t exist, we’ll just have to make do with:

“Congress and the Presidency: Dissonance in their Electoral Basis?” on Monday March 9, 4:30 in Dodds Auditorium, Richardson Hall – In the first of three lectures on politics and public affairs sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University Press, and the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, distinguished Yale University Professor David Mayhew will discuss some of the most pressing issues in politics today. This opening talk will be followed by lectures on “What Happens to White House Legislative Proposals?” and “Reform as a Property of the System” on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. Go because we’re all wondering if Obama can pull off the much-anticipated bipartisan miracle he promised during the election, and stay because Mayhew has studied this stuff way more than your average CNN pundit and he might actually have the answer.

“Modernist Re-Orientations: Imagining Homoerotic Desire in the Nearly Middle East” on Monday March 9, 4:30 in McCosh 60 – If the aforementioned political discussion doesn’t really do it for you, maybe this lecture from the Program in the Study of Women and Gender and the English Department will excite your interests. Joseph Boone, Professor of English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California will speak. To be perfectly frank, I have no idea what this talk is about, but the title was catchy, and I’m all for judging a book by its cover. Go because of something about the phrase “homoerotic desire in the nearly middle east” sounds incongruous; stay … well, I don’t know. I guess you’ll just have to go and find out.

“Lecture by Painter Chris Martin” on Tuesday March 10, noon in Room 219, Lewis Center for the Arts – Don’t let the minimalist title fool you: Chris Martin’s paintings will get in your face. Varying from abstract, black-and-white murals that take over entire walls to smaller, strikingly realistic portraits, Martin’s works mash together colors, shapes, and the occasional slice of shellacked Wonder Bread. Disclaimer 1: I don’t know anything about art. Disclaimer 2: I know a lot about things that look cool to me. Martin’s paintings definitely look cool to me. Go because you a) get art or b) love things that look cool even if you don’t understand them; stay and let the artist himself explain what’s going on in the work.