slow sunday morning v
12:21pm here, and funnily enough, it's snowing again. We haven't had snow at all this week, but it seems that every time Sunday rolls around, I get to watch the snow fall just in time for the slowest day.
In an effort to actually be productive in the face of endless final assignments and looming exams, I am not, in fact, writing from my bed today. Instead, I'm at my desk. What a great deal of difference that makes, eh? My cream smelled suspiciously of cheese this morning, so black coffee it is for me.
The only hope for today is to use the academic prowess that I have surely gained from sitting at my desk to clear out my work in as quick of a fashion as possible. I'm about a week into learning Liebeslied by Rachmaninoff, and man is it whooping me. I have long enough fingers to hold my own, but Rachmaninoff loves to include chords in his work that I would need double the span to cover. So admittedly, it's not entirely a faithful interpretation as I'm rolling almost half of the chords that aren't meant to be. It's ok, I'm not a professional by any means, just passionate.
On Friday, I tried out a diner I had heard about for a while, a 24hr one. I felt the need to be in my own company and also out in the world, so I carried over a book that I had taken out of my university library back in September that I never found the time to read, and settled down in one of their booths from 9 until near midnight.
Diner coffee, constantly topped up. Apple crumble. Scoop of ice cream. Heaven.
The book I had with me was Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture by Stephen Duncombe, which is somewhat of a holy bible for the zine community. At least for the zinesters that are interested in zines for the vessel they are beyond what they contain.
Here was a quote that I really enjoyed from it.
p.14-15:
If pushed to come up with a single defining attribute I would have to say this: Zines are decidedly amateur. While this term has taken on a pejorative cast in a society that honours professionalism and the value of the dollar, the roots of amateurism are far more noble: amator, Latin for lover. While other media are produced for money or prestige or public approval, zines are done for love: love of expression, love of sharing, love of communication. And in protest against a culture and society that offers little reward for such acts of love, zines are also created out of rage.
I feel that there's many interests of mine that I certainly fall under the amateur category for, if not all of them. I write for the fun of it, I play piano for the fun of it, I do it all for the love of it. I've written before about the kind of work I enjoy to read, view, what have you the most, and that's the passionate kind. The messy kind. That excerpt reminded me that, no, it's not bad at all to be an amateur. To me, I think it's honestly better. It gives you a drive to do more. It keeps satisfaction out of reach so that you keep jumping for it.
I'm about halfway into that book now, I'm excited to finish it! Maybe by next Sunday?