In this example, I will talk a little about my real work that I do when I'm not distracting myself with the |scholar| package. I am getting a Ph.D. at the Program at Boston University—that's ``'' for short. 's purpose is to bring together a group of faculty (also called the ) and a group of students who don't belong in any one department, and free them from the beauracracy of departments. There are some great faculty in our group, including , a great poet and scholar, with whom I have been lucky enough to work. I can actually write better English than this (which would distress ), but I'm trying to test text macros. I'm presently writing a dissertation on Samuel Beckett. Although there is very little biographical material available, it is well known that he spent several years under the wing of , another of the great writers in English this century. Both and Beckett, it is curious, like other great writers, both had trouble with their vision, and were exiles in some sense. One of my favorite pieces by Beckett is , a short work written in the 1980's not long before his death: ``Fail again. Fail better.'' is lyric and exalting to me. A work I feel is underrated is the radio play (all but his three long plays are collected in ). It's extremely funny, and very touchingly compassionate. Because it is a radio play, it looses less from performance to reading. I would recommend to anyone. His later plays (and fiction) are famously enigmatic, but with a little practice, it is not hard to see the same lyric beauty and compassion. Take the brief television play (in of course), which has no dialogue, only a few murmured bars of the Schubert song, also brief, and also called —it's one of the most hauntingly beautiful few minutes of music I've ever heard, and I particularly recommend Cheryl Studer's recording on Deutsche Grammophone. Every other recording I've heard plays too fast.
It's funny, but though I think the Program is great, I can't wait to leave, and move on to something else. I guess it isn't the greatest thing around, though I will miss the inspiration of my advisor, and some other of the like .