Dissertation writing continues. The kids have finished school for the year; there are no demands on my mornings between now and Labour Day. Dreaming of a summer of early-morning writing, restorative evening walks. Today I’ve brought a bunch of lilacs in from the yard to keep me company while I attempt to bang out another 2000 words on Anne Carson’s Short Talks. How is it that so many people write articles on/responses to Carson and call them “Short Talk on [whatever whatever]” while Short Talks itself is almost entirely critically ignored? Even the extract from Short Talks that was included in Plainwater is nearly absent from Carson studies — or, rather, it’s present as a template, but the content of the “Short Talks” is excised. A bunch of writing has been done on Autobiography of Red and Red Doc> identifying Geryon as an autistic figure/Geryon’s story as an autism narrative, and I can see it, but Short Talks is truly one of the most autistic texts I’ve ever encountered. Autistic in content and form. Am I really the only person who’s noticed this?