(pardon the SI reference, but there was this review of a memoir by Guy Debord's lover in The Nation, and it got me thinking about those cats and that lingo lately)
A lull in the flurry of Father Care and visit from Tricksy (Speed's SO), and I feel that blowing off a bit of serious writing on the Murdoch essay (which is getting entirely off the chain)to read some friends' blogs is just the ticket.
Yeh. So Princess at Flooded Lizard Kingdom wrote herself some New Year's Resolutions, and tagged a couple blogs reflecting on the spirit in which to think and write them. So, agreeing with her, as I often do, I got to thinking about mine. Late, I know, but things have been a tad busy here.
Some are making lists of intentions for their resolutions, some keeping themselves to the one. Having made lists called "To Do --> Ta Da," including master lists of Things To Accomplish This Year, or Things to Accomplish This Summer, including action items like "Meditate more," and "Recycle More" and "Fix Your Bloody iPod" (that one's from five months ago) ... You get the idea. I'm not making a list, and I'm not limiting to The One Resolution.
Rather. My deal right now is that I don't feel all that resolute, or resolved, or fixed like the North Star at all. I feel very drifty, very much unmoored, but not in an entirely bad way. I'm unsteady, and processing a relationship, and seeing some patterns, and getting ready to "let what does not matter truly slide." A Situationist sentiment if ever there was one.
(What. Is. Wrong. With. San Diego. Tonight??? It's terrible when football teams forget how to play football.) -- pardon --
I shall instead drift, maunder, detourn, announce some very general intentions -- because if you read this you probably know me, and if you know me, you know what my To Do list looks like. I would like to wander down to not so much what I will do or what I will stop doing in my life, and get down to what I really do not want anymore. Ever.
Emotional confusion so deep that I cannot articulate it, barely let myself feel it, and try to soldier on in spite of it thinking that I Can Be Strong Enough and Up My Game and then All Will Be Well. --- Dear PMRSC, this is the stupid thing you do. Of the stupidest things you do, this is the really big one, and a root cause of many others. Hence forth, Dear Woman, you/I shall Call a Foul a Foul from now on. Challenge the play, and the call, and point out that Creating Insecurity Where There Need Not Be Any is plain not cool.
Mistaking momentary good/kind/attentive/generous/reciprocal behavior for a desire to behave that way on a regular basis. (See above.)
Attempting to reciprocate said behavior/tone/emotional motif later and being ever so gently looked at as if I've grown a horn, broken a rule.
I shall remember that my friends are not insane, and that if they had seen/heard the actions behind this New Year's Refusal, they would have duly chastised the offender right quick.
Hence, I shall try to sniff out new and deepen old relationships in which I am steady enough to tell the truth, all the time, without hesitation. People with whom I can glow, because they know how to. People with whom I can be small and need some help, because they have been small and needed help. People who will Feel All the Way Right Now because there is no later anyway. Because, I don't have to shield myself from such people while attempting to know them intimately as humans. Which, I am writing to remind myself, is not possible. Those to whom telling the truth (be it gorgeous, silly, serious, or ugly) feels risky or wrong or stupid are people I do not need to know.
For instance, people who say that "the problem is that this matters to you," and when want to parse the meaning of "matter to." Pretty pedestrian phrase in my book.
No doubt by now, you have figured that much of the above is break-up related. It is. But it is also a Pattern with Enough Men to Be Worth Thinking Now. And it is a pattern shockingly similar to my relationship with my chosen profession.
Both those men and this profession hold out just enough positive reinforcement to keep me in the game. Both those men and this profession seem good and reasonable and talk in even tones and make very few sudden movements, even when saying the most ludicrous and soul-wrecking things. Both assume that I will (because I have) accept "working" below my full ability or evolution, and for far less "pay" than my talents and acumen are actually worth. Both claim a kind of passivity that is really a position of perfect control. Both claim a desire to critique or live outside of the usual hierarchies and yet reproduce them in the form and content of their activity or organization.
The academic world of Literature/Philosophy especially. Like a partly-engaged lover, these professions waste talent and can only continue to operate under the illusions/seductions candied out to graduate students. They are, however polite, abusive systems. They refuse the obligations of their own professed values. They are, by the way, quite. fine. with. that.
Harsh? No. The MLA and APA and ACLA have, for decades, bemoaned the recursive problem of needing graduate students to teach first level courses (because the profs are soooo bored with those ingorant kids), and knowing full and well that whopping lots of them are being told they're brilliant and the profession needs them ... to adjunct. And if you just publish a few peer reviewed articles, and maybe a book, and drive a couple hundred miles between schools, and refer to the trunk of your car as your office, get paid 1/3 of your full-time "colleagues," and live w/o health insurance for just long enough, and keep applying for full-time jobs, you might, someday, get one. What they do is burn up good teachers and scholars--and they can because there are so damn many of us. In short, newbies, if you are not in grad school in a top 20 school/department, for-get your professional aspirations. You are padding as far as they are concerned, the padding between them and the ground.
Fact is, kids, that universities CANNOT operate any other way at this point. There is nothing for it. The professors who teach or taught us, who went before us, who manage and defend the profession --- sold out a couple generations of intellectual and pedagogical talent. They did not stand up to this waste of good human time and acumen, and in fact, encouraged us to this impasse.
Hence, I shall not subject myself to that particular waiting game, either.
The feeling in me that says, "See Me, Just See Me" -- yeh, next I have that, I am out. Because living in a place where I spend a lot of energy refusing to feel that, I become a complete nut case.
Glowing, burning as much as I can, staying with people who let me and whom I can encourage to do so. Working in some place or way that feels that way too. That's 2009. That's where I'm going to go in 2009.
The books are there for themselves, now. They're not signs of my belonging/qualification. They are self-referentially existent and meant to better the conversations they will enter. They are now pure things, in the old Symbolist sense no one uses anymore because it's obligations are just too, like, real 'n' shit.
I am now a Writer of Independent Means, and I plan to enjoy that rare status/identity thoroughly.
I shall, in Fleur's words, "shit-can" the whole thing once those books are done and, like the 20's expat I would have been, hie mine self to Europe to drift and detourn my previous social identity, re-edit the Coming Soon trailer of my future so that making myself and other people more of their own good-glowy-rightness the new motif.
Any thing, or situation, or person/s that interfere with that will be promptly allowed to truly slide. It's time. Here (spirit willing) endeth the lesson.
Showing posts with label Chapter 6. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chapter 6. Show all posts
6.8.08
More Found Days in San Francisco
Right. Enough looking for my check book.
So, up the nice flat street and bit of hill to City Lights. Book addicts and 20th Century Poetry majors understand why this is important. Beats, atmosphere, place of history, memorial to Kerouac and Cassidy and Ginsberg and ......... Lawrence Ferlinghetti established and owns the joint. It is one of many Lit Meccas dotting the orb we toddle on. The place is wedge between China Town (around which the Beats wonder in more than one tale) and some classic titty bars. Here I arrive with my List of Books to find that I can only find one of them -- mostly as I am not hot for much contemporary fiction at the moment, nor for a copy of everything any Beat ever wrote. Proto-Beats like Miller, yes (accidentally), and anthol. for Lioness (no dice), and Language for a New Century -- finally!
Whilst musing over others' muses, a Savior installs himself with, oh yes, sandwich board and bullhorn, to harangue the titty bar clientèle, "We do not want you to burn in a lake of fire for eternity. Do not enter that den of vice and sin! Consider your soul!" Etc. Like anyone bent on watching strippers can even hear him. Poor Savior. We inside the temple are amused and a little sad for Savior. Meanwhile, I'm flipping through Miller to find this: We'd have to take the whole world into consideration and see that every man, woman and child got a square deal. We'd have to have something positive to offer the world--not just defending ourselves...and pretending that we are defending civilization. If really set out to do something for the world, unselfishly, I believe we would succeed. So here Miller and I and the Savior coalesce, and my inkling that interning with Smart Mag of Soul is a good idea, AND that there are a gazillion yummy quotations in here that go in my Murdoch-Irigarary essay, just to keep people on their toes.Behind the temple is The Alley with its art and plaques and pigeons which someone kindly left
with a whole baguette to peck. And I'm for heading home. The bus I'm to take is not running here, I discover, at this time, and hiking is all that's left. It is UPHILL every way I test, and not just a little. I'm a gal raised on the prairie, so any incline of a grade more than 15* is mountain climbing. These are grades of 30 and 45 and 50*. But there are views to be had on the way up. Way in the back of this one is the bridge, not that you can tell, tho my phone camera takes pretty kickin pics.
It's a good walk. That was the night of staying in and Pizza Orgasmica, which was pretty good, but not as inuendoed.
So, we back up now to Thursday and Friday.Arrive Thursday. Lioness is in fine fettle and hankering to eat at a place called The Street, likely cuz it's on Polk, the street where SF keeps much of its swank and fun. Now here is food. Apperatives of vodka infused in-house with fig (scrumptious) and cucumber (must drink this every summer), and then a steak salad for me which has become in a Lioness-phrase The Platonic Steak Salad of meat the thickness of a chapbook, seared and rare, with Gorgonzola and box cherry tomatoes on romaine. Lioness had the shrimp risotto, divine. Then a cheesecake of Meyer's Lemons with raspberry drizzle and a glass of real, honest to Joan of Arc calvados for a digestif! The joint itself is hip full of hip SF folk in their zen-like grooviness and music contemporary-electronic-jazz-Ocean's 11-soundtrack-y pleased us all night. Lioness fills me in on the smart and world-saving work at the sexuality seminar that will help her rescue teenagers from dumbassed views and addresses to their sexual being. She rocks. But, those are her stories to tell. Thence away from delightful eatery and off to unpack and sleep. After that meal, one sleeps convinced: Let us stop playing the role of recidivist. Let us stop murdering each other. The earth is not a lair, neither is it a prison. The earth is Paradise, the only one we will ever know. We will realize it the moment we open our eyes.... We have only make ourselves fit to inhabit it.
Friday. Lioness does a half-day at the seminar, and we hook up downtown for lunch and the SFMOMA to see Frida Kahlo exhibit. Which, if that's anywhere near you on its tour, GO. This was my astonishing find, Moses. Whew. Now, a bit of fun here is that we wind up the stairs with the gaggles of other art enthusiasts to the top floor for the exhibit. Across the atrium, a small window, into which is peeking
Oh joy and happiness! Tickled to dissolution. So, gazing and exploring there is also the grand red abstraction: Philipe Guston's 1955, For M. And thence to the street again to home, to rest and find our way to the evening meeting with Princess. This sadly, went wry and lead to the bus stop with the Broken Screaming Man, to whom I wish all the peace ever.And Sunday before the awesome cab ride to travel doom, there was tapas and this drink. This drink was also a vodka drink. Again infused. Grey Goose Pear Vodka with slice of pear and sprig of rosemary, very bruised. I argued it tasted like the sky. Lioness argued it tasted like winter twilight. Fair enough. This inspired a Christmas Cocktail Party plan, which in turn inspired my idea that we bruise the sprigs and slices by concocting the libation in a hamster ball with ice cubes and play catch with it amongst the guests. Lioness on this plan, "I love the way your inner fascist is balanced by your inner anarchist." Because she is hilarious, and right. Moment's before, we were eating a small pile of roasted and garlicked eggplant, under a sliced of quickly sautéed tomato, under a heap of goat cheese, to which I announced, "This will be breakfast every day after the revolution." So, she's right.
Thanks for inviting me out, dear sister. Now, gotta find that check book and write something about Murdoch while the universe will not let me work on anything else because she's telling me to work on Murdoch, now, silly, while you can. Do not be distracted by the shiny new projects just yet!
30.7.08
Developments and Musing, Foreign Policy, Candidates and News from Me
We do not need to win in Afghanistan or Iraq for us, we need to win for THEM. Iraq we may not get, and never should have gotten into, but Afghanistan? That was action into which we were Invited by Afghanistan... which is another matter. It's also the battle with the right people in the right place, and could result, if we don't blow it, FOR Afghans who actually want democracy, peace, human rights, women walking about unsupervised, and an economy based on something less pernicious than opium. Remember, it was WE who left them in the lurch 20-odd years back and left room for the Taliban and bin Laden to get there totalitarian and terrorist hooks into them in the first bloody place.
Hence, Obama is correct. The Iraqi government Wants Us Out Soon. The Afghan government Want Us To Stay and Win. Are we to play Bush and not listen?
Ok, sigh, in other news:
When Tonka (my pitbull) chews on this one rubber chew-toy, which she freaking adores, the sound liquefies my spine. But, she's happy. Also, Foxy and Tonka got into it the other day, and Foxy realized half-way into the fight that Tonka is a pitbull. Tonka is basically laid back, happy, playful. She is a dog of peace. However, when pushed far enough she also has jaws that lock. Foxy now has some stitches and will hopefully stop trying to boss Tonka about.
I am employed at a small liberal arts college in Illinois. It's the size of my thumb, and old-old, with creaky floors and huge trees and the whole bit. They like me, I like them. The classes have only 18 students, it's Comp I but OK then, and it's part-time, but OK then, it's two classes and one prep. The commute is through the lovely farm country, so my worries there are Major Snow Events and tractors. The small money makes up for copyright fees and conference expenses recently discharged, which is enough. The dept. chair was not wearing shoes when I entered the office. Turns out that said chair has always thought with shoes off and plans to keep on doing so. Alright then.
I will likely intern with Tikkun Mag starting in Jan, with their editorial staff. I have homework and a writing assignment which amount to: Do some serious discourse analysis and learn our history, and then prove you can write for spiritual intellectual and activists instead of just in Academese. No freaking problem! Could lead to editing, writing, a job Elsewhere doing Something Even Cooler Than Teaching. We shall adventure and see.
And, I still have to finish my essay for the Murdoch anthology. Someone please order me to stop procrastinating on that. Because at this point, that procrastination will no longer serve!
More on Frisco in the days to come. I won't leave my pals hanging for too long.
Hence, Obama is correct. The Iraqi government Wants Us Out Soon. The Afghan government Want Us To Stay and Win. Are we to play Bush and not listen?
Ok, sigh, in other news:
When Tonka (my pitbull) chews on this one rubber chew-toy, which she freaking adores, the sound liquefies my spine. But, she's happy. Also, Foxy and Tonka got into it the other day, and Foxy realized half-way into the fight that Tonka is a pitbull. Tonka is basically laid back, happy, playful. She is a dog of peace. However, when pushed far enough she also has jaws that lock. Foxy now has some stitches and will hopefully stop trying to boss Tonka about.
I am employed at a small liberal arts college in Illinois. It's the size of my thumb, and old-old, with creaky floors and huge trees and the whole bit. They like me, I like them. The classes have only 18 students, it's Comp I but OK then, and it's part-time, but OK then, it's two classes and one prep. The commute is through the lovely farm country, so my worries there are Major Snow Events and tractors. The small money makes up for copyright fees and conference expenses recently discharged, which is enough. The dept. chair was not wearing shoes when I entered the office. Turns out that said chair has always thought with shoes off and plans to keep on doing so. Alright then.
I will likely intern with Tikkun Mag starting in Jan, with their editorial staff. I have homework and a writing assignment which amount to: Do some serious discourse analysis and learn our history, and then prove you can write for spiritual intellectual and activists instead of just in Academese. No freaking problem! Could lead to editing, writing, a job Elsewhere doing Something Even Cooler Than Teaching. We shall adventure and see.
And, I still have to finish my essay for the Murdoch anthology. Someone please order me to stop procrastinating on that. Because at this point, that procrastination will no longer serve!
More on Frisco in the days to come. I won't leave my pals hanging for too long.
13.2.08
New Stuff and Old Stuff New
Host Publications: Literature from Everywhere Else! -- they're sending me fliers....
Daedelaus Books/Music: cheap, cheap, cheap. -- not new, but sure cheap.
Does anyone know why I would have written myself a note that said "diving bell and butterfly"? I don't. Let's ask Google.
Oh! It's a movie!!! Oh, it won at Cannes. Oh. heh. Neat. Found that note in my pocket the other day, had no Idea why. Cool, will have to watch soon.
Ok, so here's the Old Stuff New. I made a MySpace page to keep up with Mystk who went to Korea. I have no other use for it. Imagined no other use for it. When he comes back, I'll likely delete it. But, about two months ago, someone found me there.
Mike. Mike was my first lover, this was college, a while back. Things did not go well, or at least they didn't end well. In fact, they rather exploded. But, so there was this message, from this unrecognizable person who seemed to know me. I didn't answer it. For a long time. Then there was another that explained who he was, and I didn't answer that. I couldn't get this person and that previous person to meld, to make a continuum, because I hadn't seen/heard/or talked to him in nearly (wow) 20 years. Nor wanted to. Not. One. Bit. And here's this groovy, cool, sort of spiritually blissed out cat who is not-Mike, but Mike. And he's DElighted to have stumbled across me because he had some apologizing to do and some karma to clean, and a hope that we might be buddies. And he means that, buddies. And it was said that if I was in no mood for this, that was fine too.
Soooooo, I didn't write to him. I had some feeling around to do. Is it possible that That Guy, who got so possessive, who got so mean, who stalked and bothered and nearly threatened me, who left a voodoo pouch for me on my car with a spell written in blood and the whole nine, it is possible that he's This Guy, who is all "Hey, my sister's running the Buddhist center up there, and you might check it out, and how's your life, and I'm working on a movie I'm producing myself, and I'm really sorry I was such an asshat back there, and knowing you did me world of good, and I wanted you to know that."
Huh.
????...????
So, after a while, I answered him and explained that I had to think about this. That I had spent a lot of energy getting That Crap Back There off of me. And that this new Mike seemed nice enough, and whatnot. Now, one of the better legacies of That Mike, Old Mike, is that I am, well, cautious (internally, anyway). So, I said, look, nobody should have to carry bad karma when they've outgrown it, so OK, look, I want you well and happy, and there. Better. And I was cool and pretty distant, and thought that would about do it for Mike.
And better. He's really OK, and he's not that scared and scary boy who punished me for insisting on being myself, discovering that doing that with him was not possible without constant psychic self-defense, and leaving. The warning I gave him was exactly this, "The less you try to hold on to me, the more I'll stay." He did not listen. I didn't know I was telling myself about him. It was often marvelous and often very, very messy.
He's grown up, and grown way less scared. And yes, people, he's very aware of M, and how we're loving each other, and even reminded me that if I just set my heart right, I might find a job M and I can both go and live with, and gee PRSC, how good that would be since you're digging this guy so much. And so, I might have a new friend, we're chitting and chatting and catching up. He's still working with stories, being all creative and interesting, got things to say and good questions to ask. He's just. way. less. of. a. mess. Generous, even.
And so, huh. Look at the cosmos at work there. Here I am with a chance to re-examine (though not necessarily expunge) my rule about f*ckwits from my past remaining forever and eternity encased in their own hell of being their horrid, shriveled selves. While, I, you know, just sail on along free of them. They freeze in the ick, and I get to keep moving. No processing, no closure. I'm done, that's the closure. Why X and So came unglued is not interesting to me. That they did is a fact, and one to be responded to decisively. I stop imagining them and their lives, caring. Because, that's been the game plan so far. I'm also getting a little affirmation on my policy: If I meet you and feel an inclination to warn you about some aspect of myself; well, I'm really warning me about some aspect of your self. For now, I don't feel much inclination to warn him about anything.
Which goes to show, to my utter amazement, that some people really do, honest, grow. Which goes to show that you can, and I can, and that maybe that asshat in your past might have too. (note the might, people, i'm qualifying here -- i know good and well some folk are just plain bad and probably need to just live with their bad juju)
So, new stuff.
Daedelaus Books/Music: cheap, cheap, cheap. -- not new, but sure cheap.
Does anyone know why I would have written myself a note that said "diving bell and butterfly"? I don't. Let's ask Google.
Oh! It's a movie!!! Oh, it won at Cannes. Oh. heh. Neat. Found that note in my pocket the other day, had no Idea why. Cool, will have to watch soon.
Ok, so here's the Old Stuff New. I made a MySpace page to keep up with Mystk who went to Korea. I have no other use for it. Imagined no other use for it. When he comes back, I'll likely delete it. But, about two months ago, someone found me there.
Mike. Mike was my first lover, this was college, a while back. Things did not go well, or at least they didn't end well. In fact, they rather exploded. But, so there was this message, from this unrecognizable person who seemed to know me. I didn't answer it. For a long time. Then there was another that explained who he was, and I didn't answer that. I couldn't get this person and that previous person to meld, to make a continuum, because I hadn't seen/heard/or talked to him in nearly (wow) 20 years. Nor wanted to. Not. One. Bit. And here's this groovy, cool, sort of spiritually blissed out cat who is not-Mike, but Mike. And he's DElighted to have stumbled across me because he had some apologizing to do and some karma to clean, and a hope that we might be buddies. And he means that, buddies. And it was said that if I was in no mood for this, that was fine too.
Soooooo, I didn't write to him. I had some feeling around to do. Is it possible that That Guy, who got so possessive, who got so mean, who stalked and bothered and nearly threatened me, who left a voodoo pouch for me on my car with a spell written in blood and the whole nine, it is possible that he's This Guy, who is all "Hey, my sister's running the Buddhist center up there, and you might check it out, and how's your life, and I'm working on a movie I'm producing myself, and I'm really sorry I was such an asshat back there, and knowing you did me world of good, and I wanted you to know that."
Huh.
????...????
So, after a while, I answered him and explained that I had to think about this. That I had spent a lot of energy getting That Crap Back There off of me. And that this new Mike seemed nice enough, and whatnot. Now, one of the better legacies of That Mike, Old Mike, is that I am, well, cautious (internally, anyway). So, I said, look, nobody should have to carry bad karma when they've outgrown it, so OK, look, I want you well and happy, and there. Better. And I was cool and pretty distant, and thought that would about do it for Mike.
And better. He's really OK, and he's not that scared and scary boy who punished me for insisting on being myself, discovering that doing that with him was not possible without constant psychic self-defense, and leaving. The warning I gave him was exactly this, "The less you try to hold on to me, the more I'll stay." He did not listen. I didn't know I was telling myself about him. It was often marvelous and often very, very messy.
He's grown up, and grown way less scared. And yes, people, he's very aware of M, and how we're loving each other, and even reminded me that if I just set my heart right, I might find a job M and I can both go and live with, and gee PRSC, how good that would be since you're digging this guy so much. And so, I might have a new friend, we're chitting and chatting and catching up. He's still working with stories, being all creative and interesting, got things to say and good questions to ask. He's just. way. less. of. a. mess. Generous, even.
And so, huh. Look at the cosmos at work there. Here I am with a chance to re-examine (though not necessarily expunge) my rule about f*ckwits from my past remaining forever and eternity encased in their own hell of being their horrid, shriveled selves. While, I, you know, just sail on along free of them. They freeze in the ick, and I get to keep moving. No processing, no closure. I'm done, that's the closure. Why X and So came unglued is not interesting to me. That they did is a fact, and one to be responded to decisively. I stop imagining them and their lives, caring. Because, that's been the game plan so far. I'm also getting a little affirmation on my policy: If I meet you and feel an inclination to warn you about some aspect of myself; well, I'm really warning me about some aspect of your self. For now, I don't feel much inclination to warn him about anything.
Which goes to show, to my utter amazement, that some people really do, honest, grow. Which goes to show that you can, and I can, and that maybe that asshat in your past might have too. (note the might, people, i'm qualifying here -- i know good and well some folk are just plain bad and probably need to just live with their bad juju)
So, new stuff.
8.2.08
Kirkwood Shooting: Local Condolences and Thoughts for the Future
Like just about everyone in the St. Louis area, I'm still trying to process this misery, this grief. My thoughts and prayers are with you, every single person in Kirkwood, the souls of the victims, their families, and the soul of Mr. Thorton and his family. May God hold you all in the palm of his hand.
And that should not be a political statement, but the coverage of the incident and the context in which it happened has made my sympathy and my condolences political. Which is a real shame, because let's face it: a black man killed 5 white people, and somethings hinted and not said are all over this mess. But I want to talk about the non-political things first.
Part of my sympathy comes from the similarity between Kirkwood and my hometown over here on the other side of the river. Like Kirkwood, my town is relatively small, about 20,000 people. It's partnered civically and economically with the next town down the road, except for the city limit signs, we're one town. Both of our communities have seen some economic development, building, and repurposing of land and property in recent years. Both are cozy, historical, charming communities of about the same age, close to 130 years old. Like you, I can walk the streets of my little town feeling quite safe and free. Even late at night. We have largely white, middle and upper-middle class, well educated populations. Largely, but not wholly.
And, my god!, I am sorry, and wish for you that this had never happened, and am sending the best love and strength and comfort I can to you.
The only reason that I can write this post is that I don't live on the west side of the river. I have some distance, literally and figuatively. And I hope that somehow you will come around to some of the points and ideas that I make later all on your own, in your way. I have faith that you will. That you will rise to this situation. Equally, I hope people in lots of small, nice towns, including mine will give some thought once the pain, shock, and anger wear off. But usually we don't, and that's why I'm writing this. That "usually".
I'm hearing on the news people in Kirkwood say exactly what people in my town would say if something this terrible, this bloody, this sad and wrong had happened here. "I just don't understand it / This is such a close-knit and safe community / Everyone here knows everyone else / People here look after each other / We're one community" and so forth. And we over here, in our grief and astonishment, and our perception of our community, we would mean every word of it just as sincerely and tragically as you do. Many of us, anyway.
I say tragically, because it's just not true. I don't like saying it, and you won't like hearing it. We're Midwesterners. We're upstanding, kind, generous, friendly, and concerned with the well-being of our communities. Good people. Americans. But, we do not, not one of us, actually live in Mayberry (which is part of the reason that my condolence has now taken on a political cast I'll discuss later), though we can convince ourselves of that. If we're white and comfortable.
As for you, to read my local newspaper is to get lots of updates on the high school teams, the school district, the city government, community and church sponsored events, local entertainment and culture, and local crime. People here hurt each other from time to time (domestically and not), property is damaged, theft and burglary occur, some folks drink too much and drive, some people abuse drugs and some people sell them. Recent memory tells me that a young man was tortured by pot dealers when his buddies took the pot and ditched, leaving him there unable to pay. The dealers burned him with fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. Given that this is a small town, and the symbolism of the cookies, it was just surreal. While I was at the court house last fall to witness a couple of friends get married, I also watched no less then three women go into and come back out of the domestic violence court down the hall -- in about an hour. I'll grant you, it's the county courthouse, but every town in this county is a small or really small town. More recently, some college kids rented a tour bus, got drunk in their partying, and were arrested for underage drinking. Ironically they were an anti-fraternity/sorority group acting like stereotypical Greeks. More frighteningly, a Micheal Devlin might live in my town, work in a local eatery or drug store or bank or law office, seem like a pretty normal guy for a pathological child molester. I might interact with him sometimes. But I wouldn't know him. I've eaten at that Imo's, just down the street there from the municpal building in Kirkwood, where he worked. Statistically, it's entirely possible that sort lives here. We just don't know about him, don't know him, and can't help whoever he might be hurting. And someone might be just this side of the edge Thorton went over. Entirely possible.
I know people in places and high and low in this community, but I don't know everyone or what they're up to, or how they're being served and respected or not by the city or the community on the whole. On the most generous estimate, I might know or be aquainted with about 300 people here most only in the passing business of the day, out of 20-odd thousand. And I don't know everything about the people I do know well. I can assure you that they don't know every thing about me. People, people's, are just not transparent.
So this plaint that "we all know each other here" is one we need to get over. Your sense of security, and ours too, has been shown for the illusion it really is. Which, for those not personally affected last night, those of us who are not friends and family of the victims, the witnesses (who have been hurt too), the police, or the shooter, our problem is that we've been visited by reality. People go over the edge, they do lots of damage very quickly because they are armed. At high schools, at colleges, in restaurants, in churches, in libraries, in malls, and in municipal buildings. And every single time it's someone -- of any race, gender, class, our shooters don't have a reliable profile anymore -- who was cast-out, disrespected, humiliated, pressed too far, for a long time by lots of people, and who broke.
Responsible for their choice to murder and rampage? Oh, hell yes. Accountable? Absolutely. Mr. Thorton is responsible and accountable. Deserved to be shot on sight as he was. I am not forgiving him. Not one bit. I am reminding us all that this horror did not happen in a vacuum. Which is not to assign blame to the victims or to the community. All of this story sounds completely normal so far. And that's the problem.
Never, ever, has a person "just up and shot them." Always this person existed in a context, a set of situations and relationships. Always there is a history. And always, everyone in the history is a little bit right and a little bit wrong, and mostly obvlious and mostly sure it'll be fine, or if paying attention just not pressing hard enough to address the situation. Human, in other words. The angry, the mad, the cast-out can speak truth as well as those who belong. They are human too. Your city council had every legal right to maintain order in its proceedings. Mr. Thorton may well (we are not yet sure, but we all need to get sure) have had legitimate grievances and gone about addressing them in precisely the wrong way in those meetings, with his protests, his lawsuits.
I mean, really, if in representing himself he filed the suit incorrectly, he could never have won it or had it heard. And maybe he did make a legal mistake, and maybe he didn't understand that. The Law is a labyrinthine place. And that would not have calmed him.
When I hear his family interviewed, I hear an old anger gone cold in its force. When I hear his friends (white and black) interviewed on TV and the radio here, I hear a deep sense of loss and some very politic rhetoric that stays far away from saying that he might just have been done wrong and for some while. --- It is not unheard of for the governments of small towns to use little known or little enforced codes and laws to harass inconvenient members of their communities. I most fervantly hope that your city council did not engage in that kind of abuse of power. I hope that such action was beyond their ken and that Thorton was just all kinds of out of line. But, it might not be that way.
When I listen to Thorton's friends, between the lines of their grief and lines of their speech, that's what I'm hearing. Something was amiss on both sides of that long-running conflict. I'm hearing that he was a good man, grew up in Kirkwood, contributed to the community, owned a business, had a college degree, played nicely with others. I'm also hearing that he was a very public pain the ass. An embarrassment possibly, and a gadfly. In his grievances, he reminds me of some people I know and have known in the past, both locally and in other states. The difference is that he was much more public, and often agressively rude about it. And he went to court. Most of the folks I know just don't have the wherewithall to do that. They just eventually give in to being ignored, put off, (sometimes) harassed by their municipalities. They usually just shut up and move somewhere else. Which, while a defeat and an acceptance of being disrespected, is the safe thing to do. But, it is also defeat and giving in to being directly oppressed in the very literal sense of the word. One chooses between kinds of dishonor in that situation. It is not a comfortable choice.
I hope my little community will do what I'm about to suggest. Because, given our similarities, I'm betting it needs to, or will need to in the future someday. Because the world has indeed come to this, over and over again. We have another chance, greusome though its source, to reflect on and improve our communities.
Once you, Kirkwood, are on your way through your grief, and starting the healing process, please, please do not use your grief to justify aspects of your status quo that might not be ideal for the healing of your whole community and every single person in it. Don't be normal.
And that should not be a political statement, but the coverage of the incident and the context in which it happened has made my sympathy and my condolences political. Which is a real shame, because let's face it: a black man killed 5 white people, and somethings hinted and not said are all over this mess. But I want to talk about the non-political things first.
Part of my sympathy comes from the similarity between Kirkwood and my hometown over here on the other side of the river. Like Kirkwood, my town is relatively small, about 20,000 people. It's partnered civically and economically with the next town down the road, except for the city limit signs, we're one town. Both of our communities have seen some economic development, building, and repurposing of land and property in recent years. Both are cozy, historical, charming communities of about the same age, close to 130 years old. Like you, I can walk the streets of my little town feeling quite safe and free. Even late at night. We have largely white, middle and upper-middle class, well educated populations. Largely, but not wholly.
And, my god!, I am sorry, and wish for you that this had never happened, and am sending the best love and strength and comfort I can to you.
The only reason that I can write this post is that I don't live on the west side of the river. I have some distance, literally and figuatively. And I hope that somehow you will come around to some of the points and ideas that I make later all on your own, in your way. I have faith that you will. That you will rise to this situation. Equally, I hope people in lots of small, nice towns, including mine will give some thought once the pain, shock, and anger wear off. But usually we don't, and that's why I'm writing this. That "usually".
I'm hearing on the news people in Kirkwood say exactly what people in my town would say if something this terrible, this bloody, this sad and wrong had happened here. "I just don't understand it / This is such a close-knit and safe community / Everyone here knows everyone else / People here look after each other / We're one community" and so forth. And we over here, in our grief and astonishment, and our perception of our community, we would mean every word of it just as sincerely and tragically as you do. Many of us, anyway.
I say tragically, because it's just not true. I don't like saying it, and you won't like hearing it. We're Midwesterners. We're upstanding, kind, generous, friendly, and concerned with the well-being of our communities. Good people. Americans. But, we do not, not one of us, actually live in Mayberry (which is part of the reason that my condolence has now taken on a political cast I'll discuss later), though we can convince ourselves of that. If we're white and comfortable.
As for you, to read my local newspaper is to get lots of updates on the high school teams, the school district, the city government, community and church sponsored events, local entertainment and culture, and local crime. People here hurt each other from time to time (domestically and not), property is damaged, theft and burglary occur, some folks drink too much and drive, some people abuse drugs and some people sell them. Recent memory tells me that a young man was tortured by pot dealers when his buddies took the pot and ditched, leaving him there unable to pay. The dealers burned him with fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. Given that this is a small town, and the symbolism of the cookies, it was just surreal. While I was at the court house last fall to witness a couple of friends get married, I also watched no less then three women go into and come back out of the domestic violence court down the hall -- in about an hour. I'll grant you, it's the county courthouse, but every town in this county is a small or really small town. More recently, some college kids rented a tour bus, got drunk in their partying, and were arrested for underage drinking. Ironically they were an anti-fraternity/sorority group acting like stereotypical Greeks. More frighteningly, a Micheal Devlin might live in my town, work in a local eatery or drug store or bank or law office, seem like a pretty normal guy for a pathological child molester. I might interact with him sometimes. But I wouldn't know him. I've eaten at that Imo's, just down the street there from the municpal building in Kirkwood, where he worked. Statistically, it's entirely possible that sort lives here. We just don't know about him, don't know him, and can't help whoever he might be hurting. And someone might be just this side of the edge Thorton went over. Entirely possible.
I know people in places and high and low in this community, but I don't know everyone or what they're up to, or how they're being served and respected or not by the city or the community on the whole. On the most generous estimate, I might know or be aquainted with about 300 people here most only in the passing business of the day, out of 20-odd thousand. And I don't know everything about the people I do know well. I can assure you that they don't know every thing about me. People, people's, are just not transparent.
So this plaint that "we all know each other here" is one we need to get over. Your sense of security, and ours too, has been shown for the illusion it really is. Which, for those not personally affected last night, those of us who are not friends and family of the victims, the witnesses (who have been hurt too), the police, or the shooter, our problem is that we've been visited by reality. People go over the edge, they do lots of damage very quickly because they are armed. At high schools, at colleges, in restaurants, in churches, in libraries, in malls, and in municipal buildings. And every single time it's someone -- of any race, gender, class, our shooters don't have a reliable profile anymore -- who was cast-out, disrespected, humiliated, pressed too far, for a long time by lots of people, and who broke.
Responsible for their choice to murder and rampage? Oh, hell yes. Accountable? Absolutely. Mr. Thorton is responsible and accountable. Deserved to be shot on sight as he was. I am not forgiving him. Not one bit. I am reminding us all that this horror did not happen in a vacuum. Which is not to assign blame to the victims or to the community. All of this story sounds completely normal so far. And that's the problem.
Never, ever, has a person "just up and shot them." Always this person existed in a context, a set of situations and relationships. Always there is a history. And always, everyone in the history is a little bit right and a little bit wrong, and mostly obvlious and mostly sure it'll be fine, or if paying attention just not pressing hard enough to address the situation. Human, in other words. The angry, the mad, the cast-out can speak truth as well as those who belong. They are human too. Your city council had every legal right to maintain order in its proceedings. Mr. Thorton may well (we are not yet sure, but we all need to get sure) have had legitimate grievances and gone about addressing them in precisely the wrong way in those meetings, with his protests, his lawsuits.
I mean, really, if in representing himself he filed the suit incorrectly, he could never have won it or had it heard. And maybe he did make a legal mistake, and maybe he didn't understand that. The Law is a labyrinthine place. And that would not have calmed him.
When I hear his family interviewed, I hear an old anger gone cold in its force. When I hear his friends (white and black) interviewed on TV and the radio here, I hear a deep sense of loss and some very politic rhetoric that stays far away from saying that he might just have been done wrong and for some while. --- It is not unheard of for the governments of small towns to use little known or little enforced codes and laws to harass inconvenient members of their communities. I most fervantly hope that your city council did not engage in that kind of abuse of power. I hope that such action was beyond their ken and that Thorton was just all kinds of out of line. But, it might not be that way.
When I listen to Thorton's friends, between the lines of their grief and lines of their speech, that's what I'm hearing. Something was amiss on both sides of that long-running conflict. I'm hearing that he was a good man, grew up in Kirkwood, contributed to the community, owned a business, had a college degree, played nicely with others. I'm also hearing that he was a very public pain the ass. An embarrassment possibly, and a gadfly. In his grievances, he reminds me of some people I know and have known in the past, both locally and in other states. The difference is that he was much more public, and often agressively rude about it. And he went to court. Most of the folks I know just don't have the wherewithall to do that. They just eventually give in to being ignored, put off, (sometimes) harassed by their municipalities. They usually just shut up and move somewhere else. Which, while a defeat and an acceptance of being disrespected, is the safe thing to do. But, it is also defeat and giving in to being directly oppressed in the very literal sense of the word. One chooses between kinds of dishonor in that situation. It is not a comfortable choice.
I hope my little community will do what I'm about to suggest. Because, given our similarities, I'm betting it needs to, or will need to in the future someday. Because the world has indeed come to this, over and over again. We have another chance, greusome though its source, to reflect on and improve our communities.
Once you, Kirkwood, are on your way through your grief, and starting the healing process, please, please do not use your grief to justify aspects of your status quo that might not be ideal for the healing of your whole community and every single person in it. Don't be normal.
- Stop assuming that because everything's fine in your experience of your community, it is also just fine in everyone else's experience. It just might not be.
On several broadcasts (on channels 4 and 5), reporters were hinting and indicating that many of the people of Meacham Park feel very much disenfranchised from the rest of the city and its life, the reporter nearly pleading that the issue be addressed direclty and soon. Channel 4 even said that they would indeed follow up on that race/class matter. It can't hurt. It might be unpleasant, even inconveneint, but it can't hurt to do better on these points. In all that very politic rhetoric, what no one was saying out loud was, race relations are not all that good in Kirkwood. But, you're not alone there, we all know.
One report even stated that Meacham Park residents feel "occupied" by the police patrols in that neighborhood. This is one response to trouble in a community, but not the one that builds the kind of social cohesion we small-towners want to believe we have. And let's be clear, most of the good people who live in Meacham park are black, and not quite as affluent as that cadre of folk in Kirkwood who all know each other. Which is perfectly normal. There might be a race problem here, and it might be partly a matter of racism (though unconscious), and if it is, you do need to take a good hard look at that. Unconscious racism does just as much damage as the conscious kind. Most of the communities in this area do, in fact, have race issues in play. Our little towns don't get called on it much because St. Louis is always getting called on it. It just so damn obvious. But none of our little towns are shining utopias of racial harmony. Thorton's accusation of a "plantation mentality" in the council was certainly rude, even inflamatory, but that doesn't make it necessarily untrue. I hope it is, but only you can sort that through.
- To the local press: when the time comes, make good and damn sure that you do take a look at the several sides of this trouble.
I heard from one demographic in your reporting so far: white, elite. That's perfectly natural since the disaster just happened, the vicitims were of that class, and so it was their freinds and acquaintances who showed up to the scene. No problem. But, they are likely not the only folk done wrong here, and the questions of race and class and power that no one wants to bring up (though I quite rudely am) seem to be in play here. Kirkwood, St. Louis, every community in this region and country, none of us can address the race and class issues until we face them, and listen for a long time before we act. Do the good thing here: don't back off that story. Don't pick on Kirkwood. It's a perfectly normal town in this respect. But, let's not try, again, to ignore the problem as if that will make it all OK. I have a feeling that everyone has a share of it.
- Make double sure you are dealing fairly, and don't just dismiss the "crazy person."
Like I said, people don't "just snap" on a balmy Sunday when everything's going quite well in their lives. Several of Thorton's friends have been reported to say that he was perfectly well licensed for the contracting work he did, and that the city seemed to be targeting him for infractions of those little enforced city ordincances. If that's the case, stop that, please. Now, we don't have facts on this, so I'm just suggesting based on hearsay. But, if the facts do come in, and this reading is accurate, well then, stand up and deal and clean your house. One report I was watching interviewed a friend of the victims, a former council member I think, who mentioned the building of the new park "right or wrong" where all those people who know each other meet and drink coffee on pretty Sundays in good weather, walk their dogs, read the paper, visit. It's a small phrase that "right or wrong," but important. If the "wrong" is part of the feeling of the poeple in Meacham Park (maybe some application of the new emminent domain law? i'm totally guessing), then well, you need address that too. In future business, just make sure you're dealing fairly. Sometimes trying to deal fairyly doesn't quite get it.
- Be really incredibly brave. Be prolifigate with your kindness and your welcoming. Be abnormal.
One man in your town was interviewed rather late at night, and he had some heartbreakingly wise, temperate, eloquent things to say about the whole city needing to come together, and poeple on "both sides" needing to help each other heal. Listen to him. Real hard.
Do you see how what's not getting said here is always the same un-said thing? This is what makes my condolence to everyone a political statement. Even if I don't want it to be one.
Take some flowers to Mrs. Thorton, too. Offer her and her family your condolences. Reach out in all sincerity to listen and work to address the concerns of those people of your community whom you don't seem to know, in and likely also outside of Meacham Park. Make them feel -- not feel, KNOW -- that they are your neighbors, your friends, your colleagues, your peers in the life of your city. Take them seriously.
Because that will, really, make you feel better too. Maybe not right off, but in the long run. Because it's right. Because it is precisely not normal to do so.
And then, as I could say to countless small towns and big cities in America, you'll be on your way to healing and living in real, actualized, community.
May you be blessed and kept in this troubled time, and may you, and we, turn this tradegy, this mayhem, this anger and fear into inspiration for futher creating the lives and communities we all deserve.
20.11.07
Dublin, the last month, joy joy
Justification for writing this post: so far today I have dated, organized, and sent A all the most recent versions of essays for the Murdoch book, downloaded most of the Challenging Cultures of Death papers for future reference and noted to self that one of the presenters NEEDS to send some work to Common Knowledge like right fucking now, tallied up cash burnt in Dublin and winced and made grateful for the adjuncting job, downloaded and organized about twenty PDF files of essays on St.-John Perse in preparation for swimming in Amers for about two months, and popped a frozen pizza in the oven in order to fuel the bod. But, I'll have to replace the pizza because I'm at Speed's girl's house and its not mine (tho she would tell me not to worry about it). Which, also means I need a shower so I can get to the store.... but anyway. So now I can catch me and you up on the last month. This will, I warn, be a bit impressionistic.
Henry and class reunions: I was watching the Twain Award for American Humor on PBS last night and welled up because Billy Crystal got all properly honored and seeing people properly honored breaks my heart in the good way. But, I have to say that Henry Rollins deserves the Twain Award. His speaking tours are the punk Twain, all observation and storytelling that crack us up, points out the outrageous and gets outraged over it, and constantly attests to the frail and fierce amazement that is the human being, all of us. Someone nominate the guy, someone rightly connected. --- Also, he'll tell you stories for three solid hours and then some if you sit there the whole time, and you should. And he's just so stars and garters hot. But, thanks to all that, I missed my 20th reunion. 11:30 was just too late for my sated self to even think about "catching up" with "old friends" I haven't known for two decades. Which, turns out, was spot on as my horoscope has recently ordered me to shed, forget, burn and otherwise disappear all things covered in the past. I know the people who will travel with me now and tomorrow, the rest is gone for good reason. This applies to much more than reunions, but that's where the horoscope and the choices slammed into each other. My history is less, less, and less important. What that might mean for poems is a mystery.
Brief stint of teaching. And you know that drill.
Felt something tick loose and melt in my heart for M-dreds. This will be complicated, but who am I to pass up the gift of a man's sweetness and the chance to be sweet to him? So, as much time crammed in with him before the dead run of travel and smartness.
Off to U of Indiana to hear His Holiness speak. Two gorgeous points there besides the Buddha 101. Point the first: DL addressed the students in the crowd of 15,000 of which there were many. The last century was his century, he said, his time and the time of his generation and by and large they'd made a bloodbath of it, a power struggle, a mad-sad scramble to shore up and secure and who cared much who got hurt? This century, he said to the students, is yours, your time. Make it, he ordered, a century of dialogue and healing, of sharing your toys. YES, sir. Then he asked for the teachers, of which there were many. Teach compassion, warmheartedness, loving-kindness, teach the bravery and flexibility needed for these students to go into their stewardship well ready. Well, you got it, DL!!! Totally worth the eight hours round trip in the car. Jasmine and Scorpio 2 were lovely companions, and my thanks for her making that trip real. On the way home, Jasmine played me a CD of songs she'd recorded some years back, and I have to say: Admire this woman. Stuns me blinking that she's not giving more of her life to that work. I know why, and I grieve it.
Home quick, pack quick, teach a class, set up some subs for classes, and blammo, I'm in O'Hare on Tuesday for an eight hour layover. Thanks to the dead run, I was without the ambition to get to a museum, so I hung out there, and layed about on the floors of empty gates to read Murdoch papers and contemplate the new fact that no matter how long you lie down on an airport floor, it will not, not ever, warm up. At last, Lioness arrives. At last, we're ready, we're gathered, and soon we'll be a little changed.
First, compliments: Lioness is one easy gal to travel with. This is important, as travelers know. I'd come to prefer traveling alone over companioned travel since at least that way, and missing someone to talk to, I could have experiences that mattered to me. Advantages: lots of talking to locals, no debates about sights/food/events, no whining, lots of getting over one's innate shyness. I tend to do travel as a walkabout, start with a plan, nix the plan for Oh Look That's Neat. Drives other people a little nuts. Disadvantages: only mine own brain to locate fun, no one to say "ooooh" and "ahhhh" and "wow" to. Lioness is the antidote to all this. Faced with the spartan accommodation of hostel Ashfield House, she noted that she was not happy and said narry another word. Just leave your shit in the uncomfy room and get outside, she seemed to say, Temple Bar and the culture and nightlife are One Block away. No whining, excellent intuitions about food (the Moroccan El Bahia was to live for -- have the rabbit), honest responses to experiences (totally freaked out by the saint's heart in iron casket nailed to wall of Mary's chapel in Christ Church -- as well one should), a great ability to go with the flow and make sure one's companions are comfy -- also, let's one sleep when one needs to.
Halloween in Dublin is a city-wide affair. We were hungry and jetlagged, but could see that there was merriment to be had on a grand scale. Probably hetero college boys in drag for the night, a sight homophobic American boys just would never provide. It's not Samhain in any nostalgic or somber sense, but a kind of quiet Mardi Gras. They do drink. This is true. But they don't drive, and they don't think stumbling about bombed out of one's head is cool. Roving bands of singing men, however, are cool. Pubcrawls are also rather interesting tours of the city and its history, so you get to drink and learn on the way. Very Irish, have fun and get smarter.
Thursday, oh do let's walk across the city from Trinity College to St. James Gate. Nice walk. You get away from the city centre and out into lived-in Dublin. A sense of class strata, of local flavor, of real life is to be gotten this way. Guiness tour. All I will tell you about this is that the first room with the pile o' barley, the wall o' hops, and the fall o' crakling clean water from the Wicklow range ... just go stand there and breathe. Almost makes you sad it gets cooked into beer --- almost. Cleverness here, the museum in the old brewery is built around a six story tall glass structure in the shape of a .... wait.... pint glass. Snarf. The beer IS better, crisper and somehow sunnier, even the stout. The view from The Gravity Bar is not to be missed, 360 of the city and big chunk of the county. Dramatic clouds over soft Irish mountains and the whole bit. Silencing. Thence to Christ Church, you know God and booze on Thursday like you do. As mentioned, hearts nailed to walls, but also the organ in full voice, which made me stand still in my cells. Because they're Irish, the first chapel is to the musicians. The ruins of the first building date to 1030. Grock that, Americans. I did a classic PRSC move:walk around the church, follow the line of a spire up and up with eyes, miss the step on the stairs a...n...d plant it. Caught myself on my knee (skinned) and hands (skinned) and noticed that the new shoulder didn't even wiggle! As we left, we in fact and under oath did witness an old woman with her cat feeding and watering the pigeons next to the church. Oh, you bet we got pics. But Lioness has all those for now.
Friday, Challenging Cultures of Death begins. Mary Condren gets props for the opening statement in which she wove 3 millennia of death culture into the theme of making life culture (mercy not death) in a mere 25 minutes. And it was downhill from there. With the exception of the artist (looking her up, hang on) talk, I was up to here with the feminist platitudes, the uncritical notion that the earth and Nature are kind and loving mother figures (have you seen hyenas eat? how does magma fit into this symbolism?), and girls are sweet and fluffy wells of kindness. Whatever. Good is not as gendered as all that. It's one of those feminist generation gap problems. I'm afraid that when women do wield state power ... it's not their gender that determines how they do so. It's their ideology, and that can be feminist or not, ethical or not, merciful or not. Sooooo, yeh, Rwanda is what I have to say to that, and Katherine the Great, and Cleopatra, and give me a break. A bit too naively essentialist some of the work on Friday. Which left me feeling flat and a bit worried on my b-day, so we ate at Ely where the wine is glorious and the food is astonishing, and declared a b-day do-over. But, at lunch we ate at Cafe en Seine, which is a riotous fantasy of 19th Century Paris (should have taken some pics, didn't, sorry). On the walk there with other conferencers, Lioness lost me by following some gal who looked just like me. Here, I'm an exception. There, I'm a type. Hilarious!!!
Saturday: oh, so, much, better, now. YAY for b-day do-overs. Yay for friends who say "but of course" when one whines that one's birthday was not as yummy as desired. So, the conference picked up its rigor and got on with it. When it comes out read The Pharmacotic War on Terror -- this man, Larry George, is brilliant on the deep flow that makes this particular amalgam of conflicts important to maintaining a sense of stolid identity (which is a big part of the stakes in a more and more interdependent world). The rest of that panel also cracked my head with goodness, as in the cat who needs to publish in CK and so forth. Lioness and I wound up on the same panel so we got to see each other work for the first time. Great that. Lioness was flustered by a technology failure, but rocked it with her Texan grace nonetheless, explaining how progressives manage to work the system in Texas politics and stay sane. Very cool. I managed to do ten minutes of my paper without getting lost and without really looking at it all that much. The other panelists were heavy on the theory and have cracking game. The conference put a premium on the discussion and the Q&A, which was right and refreshing. There's one question I didn't get to answer, so here's my answer.
Question : You put so much emphasis on memory and imagination, the past and the future, that I want to know where now, where the present goes? What merciful concern do we have for the present?
Response: Awesome question!!!! My practical response is that Now is the only place for action. One must be carefully attuned to Now in order to create or offer anything of real value in cultural and political production. It is for the sake of us, here, now that I'm putting so much emphasis on getting life-centered and merciful kinds of imagination front and center in the Humanities. This will make our souls the richer and more flexible, and that can only make our being in the world more merciful, here and now, for us and our others. Au meme temps, it is the business of the Humanities to remember our traditions, our knowledges, and to question them, AND to follow the implications of those questions into the future -- the Hums are thence, quite precisely, revolutionary (or can be when they are not mere academic), and that work takes place now. My model is Modernist, it's Eliot and Pound muttering "make it new" and Postmodernist with Irigaray raging "a future that is not a repetition of the past." It is, only, by knowledge, attenuation to now and its needs-manifestations-meanderings-pulsions, and imagination in the sense of serious play that we will be new now and open history to a future is not the past over again. There.
And then, dinner with A at this great joint just down the street from The Bank, and Lioness and Carrie totally hitting off. Peter catching up with us and being all suave and kind and charming, Master Traveler and PoMo International Cosmopolis kind of cat. I've missed A even though we're working on the anthology together. She's warm and generous, and talented. Did my up a portrait whilst waiting for supper. Post-haste to the after conference reception, with song and story and blessings. How human, how wise to engage the soul at a conference trying think and live out of death and into mercy. But, there was leftover wine, so a gaggle of us who'd coalesced were invited to abscond with it. Which we did.
Lioness records it well:
- the trinity college campus feels like the platonic university - it's so grand and stately and lovely. we expressed our admiration by getting quite drunk on five bottles of red wine with some folks from the conference late saturday night. yes, folks, i'm telling you that we were a small horde of completely smashed critical theorists, psychoanalysts, and other assorted nerds drinking red wine and solving all the world's problems on the green (well, near it - it was damp out) at trinity college. that's a memory that will last me all my days.Oh, here's to the birthday do-over! Cheers, y'all. Thanks for accidentally conspiring to make that just about perfect.
Sunday, I was bit rough around the edges, but got some real decisions made about the anthology with A, took a nap, and then wandered Temple Bar with Peter and Lioness to eat and walk a bit. Found the oldest shop in Dublin, Est. 1607. Yep. While Lioness at one point exclaimed that she was in desperate need some rectilinear organization, I freaking loved the medieval meanderyness of the streets and the buildings. Just too charming and poetically logical, all kinds of time crammed together, and the kindest laid back people. Go there, go there as soon as you can.
19.10.07
One Year of Not Playing by the Rules: check.
One year since I started my Insane Plan that Works Well. Last year today I was exhuasted, scared, and my soul was missing. I wasn't me, but a shell, waiting for herself to catch up with her own bravery. This year, well, you know. It's working.
20th Reunion of class of '87 tonight, I live in town, so why not? I haven't seen but four from my graduating class since we graduated, and two of them live here. Didn't go to the 10th, as was in the middle of Divorce Depression, and really didn't feel like explaining All That complicated psychotic jumble to a room full of strangers. This year though, I live here and can hardly avoid it, have good things to report, questions to ask, and a cool ass car to drive, Sally, over to Rusty's, my berg's local "swank" bar. Also, I have M, a date, a sweet, a sexy good soul draped in lovely dreds, who in his philosopher's mind has opted to go and be amused. He was under no obligation to do so, but thinks it will be hilarious to find out how I am remembered by these folk (answer: pissed off, unpredictable, smart, mischevious, loner on edges of many cliques, pissed off, incapable of trucking with bullshit or hypocrisy, and the girl who ate lunch on the roof for a month before anyone noticed). Yeh, my family was a turbulent pack back then, and the PRSC you got at school was the result of the relative detante or live fire going on at home the night before. Plus, I was mad at all the adults for f*cking up the world I was going to have to live in. Somethings don't change.
Like, for instance, these scruptious and sublime pics at MSNBC from NASA, convincing us that we should go back into space just now. Ambivalence. There's the Western Culture's obvious assumption that exploration is a Good, and there's the science, and the pretty pretty pictures, AND there's the money we could be dedicating to Keeping Earth Habitable, Educating the Kiddos, Feeding the Hungry, Freeing Tibet, Curing Illness, Gifting the World with Hydrogen Cells so the freaky dream I had last night won't come true........ Because the last great Space Thrust did, it is true, result in fantastic leaps in technology and profit (e.g. this blog, iPods, MRIs, XM radio, the genome project, velcro, powederd orange juice), but the logic is suspect. We have come to think of projects -- space exploration, war -- as sources of profit (e.g. militaryindustrialcomplex) because one time, once, war did generate profit, known as the 1950's -- which are no longer profitable. Would be nice if The Leaders would do some return-on-investment analysis once in a while. A parallel worth questioning, mulling. But, I do love the shiny shiny pretty pictures.
The cultural/spiritual schedule then continues: Saturday morning, Bodyworks exhibit in the city, evening Henry Rollins at the Pageant, the Provoked tour -- and possible return to the Reunion recption, on the very high-school condition that one of my friends is still there after I get back from the city. She will attend this evening at Rusty's on the condition that I am still there. Very high-school indeed. In between dead people as sculpture and Henry oogling, grading of papers for my 102 or maybe reading of anthology essays at some cafe in the city. Next weekend, Bloomington, IN to listen to His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Jasmine's catch and idea). Tuesday after that: Dublin for a week of ancestral connection and Challenging Cultures of Death and editing the anthology with A. Rather the experiential bonanza.
Anniversary dream: watching a TV show: flamingo salmon feathered swans riding herds of polar bears in the mountains where the National Geographic style voice over informed viewers that "here, even the frost is hot." Some paradoxical world in which what we know to be cold will burn us. Then, coffee and the repair of a ladder before going to school to teach in a room with no walls or ceiling, but a room anyway, with students who would not believe me about the TV show and refused (!) to even watch portions of it on YouTube. Then, handing back of papers, for which process they simply put their heads down. The cat meowed in my ear, and I woke up.
Also, finally, some rain.
20th Reunion of class of '87 tonight, I live in town, so why not? I haven't seen but four from my graduating class since we graduated, and two of them live here. Didn't go to the 10th, as was in the middle of Divorce Depression, and really didn't feel like explaining All That complicated psychotic jumble to a room full of strangers. This year though, I live here and can hardly avoid it, have good things to report, questions to ask, and a cool ass car to drive, Sally, over to Rusty's, my berg's local "swank" bar. Also, I have M, a date, a sweet, a sexy good soul draped in lovely dreds, who in his philosopher's mind has opted to go and be amused. He was under no obligation to do so, but thinks it will be hilarious to find out how I am remembered by these folk (answer: pissed off, unpredictable, smart, mischevious, loner on edges of many cliques, pissed off, incapable of trucking with bullshit or hypocrisy, and the girl who ate lunch on the roof for a month before anyone noticed). Yeh, my family was a turbulent pack back then, and the PRSC you got at school was the result of the relative detante or live fire going on at home the night before. Plus, I was mad at all the adults for f*cking up the world I was going to have to live in. Somethings don't change.
Like, for instance, these scruptious and sublime pics at MSNBC from NASA, convincing us that we should go back into space just now. Ambivalence. There's the Western Culture's obvious assumption that exploration is a Good, and there's the science, and the pretty pretty pictures, AND there's the money we could be dedicating to Keeping Earth Habitable, Educating the Kiddos, Feeding the Hungry, Freeing Tibet, Curing Illness, Gifting the World with Hydrogen Cells so the freaky dream I had last night won't come true........ Because the last great Space Thrust did, it is true, result in fantastic leaps in technology and profit (e.g. this blog, iPods, MRIs, XM radio, the genome project, velcro, powederd orange juice), but the logic is suspect. We have come to think of projects -- space exploration, war -- as sources of profit (e.g. militaryindustrialcomplex) because one time, once, war did generate profit, known as the 1950's -- which are no longer profitable. Would be nice if The Leaders would do some return-on-investment analysis once in a while. A parallel worth questioning, mulling. But, I do love the shiny shiny pretty pictures.
The cultural/spiritual schedule then continues: Saturday morning, Bodyworks exhibit in the city, evening Henry Rollins at the Pageant, the Provoked tour -- and possible return to the Reunion recption, on the very high-school condition that one of my friends is still there after I get back from the city. She will attend this evening at Rusty's on the condition that I am still there. Very high-school indeed. In between dead people as sculpture and Henry oogling, grading of papers for my 102 or maybe reading of anthology essays at some cafe in the city. Next weekend, Bloomington, IN to listen to His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Jasmine's catch and idea). Tuesday after that: Dublin for a week of ancestral connection and Challenging Cultures of Death and editing the anthology with A. Rather the experiential bonanza.
Anniversary dream: watching a TV show: flamingo salmon feathered swans riding herds of polar bears in the mountains where the National Geographic style voice over informed viewers that "here, even the frost is hot." Some paradoxical world in which what we know to be cold will burn us. Then, coffee and the repair of a ladder before going to school to teach in a room with no walls or ceiling, but a room anyway, with students who would not believe me about the TV show and refused (!) to even watch portions of it on YouTube. Then, handing back of papers, for which process they simply put their heads down. The cat meowed in my ear, and I woke up.
Also, finally, some rain.
4.10.07
Welcome!
Dear Max,
Welcome to earth. This is where the wild things are (good catch Jasmine), where you'll be warm, and safe, and adored beyond reason. Thank you for manipulating circumstances so that you arrived on 9-11. We like having a reason to be delighted on that day.
Kisses and gentle strokes between the eyebrows,
PRSC
Welcome to earth. This is where the wild things are (good catch Jasmine), where you'll be warm, and safe, and adored beyond reason. Thank you for manipulating circumstances so that you arrived on 9-11. We like having a reason to be delighted on that day.
Kisses and gentle strokes between the eyebrows,
PRSC
3.9.07
Report from Dallas
Well, it was Labor Day weekend, and that means Texas, party throwing, and home improvement projects. No, not the usual Club Skye in Austin, but a housewarming party for Karen in her new place. So, level, drill, hammer in hand, Christina and Karen and I assembled furniture, hung pictures, arranged do-dads, and generally made that house beautiful through a fluid process of doing whatever looked good/necessary next. Then on to dressing our pretty selves and laying out of the spread.
The spread involved some prosciutto and a dip with bacon and horseradish in it, so you know who was happy about that! Almost didn't share.
Most of our revelers were old friends from the Institution. Mo is well, though his family could use your good energies, and reports that life in Iran is not better. John's doing fine, as always, and spreads a chipper kind of loving irony everywhere he goes. Candace and Rod are in fine shape, interesting classes to teach, a sabbatical coming up. Heather's feeling much stronger and sees the value in not making herself smaller for other people -- to which I say, "Keep That Up!". Her comps are coming up, so send her lots of good concentration vibes. Trayc and Byron glow together, and T might actually get it together to come see me in Oct. Joy! She's the coolest person I barely got to know before leaving the Megalopolis. And, she's making more room in her life for painting (which is selling nicely now) and film making, which is why she's here. This attributes of my Leap Out. I hope that's true. What's a life for if not to inspire others from time to time? Andrew and Hiram are, as always, suave on feet and generous of soul. Chris showed up too, and he's feeling that life is much more open and welcoming than he's felt in a long time. Which, YAY!
So, people got loved and Karen's house is in shape. Once again, Labor Day Weekend labor and fun worked out just splendidly. ---- Next up: Report from the Irigaray Circle.
The spread involved some prosciutto and a dip with bacon and horseradish in it, so you know who was happy about that! Almost didn't share.
Most of our revelers were old friends from the Institution. Mo is well, though his family could use your good energies, and reports that life in Iran is not better. John's doing fine, as always, and spreads a chipper kind of loving irony everywhere he goes. Candace and Rod are in fine shape, interesting classes to teach, a sabbatical coming up. Heather's feeling much stronger and sees the value in not making herself smaller for other people -- to which I say, "Keep That Up!". Her comps are coming up, so send her lots of good concentration vibes. Trayc and Byron glow together, and T might actually get it together to come see me in Oct. Joy! She's the coolest person I barely got to know before leaving the Megalopolis. And, she's making more room in her life for painting (which is selling nicely now) and film making, which is why she's here. This attributes of my Leap Out. I hope that's true. What's a life for if not to inspire others from time to time? Andrew and Hiram are, as always, suave on feet and generous of soul. Chris showed up too, and he's feeling that life is much more open and welcoming than he's felt in a long time. Which, YAY!
So, people got loved and Karen's house is in shape. Once again, Labor Day Weekend labor and fun worked out just splendidly. ---- Next up: Report from the Irigaray Circle.
28.8.07
Wonder and Amazement
and many prostrations of thanks to y'all who've held good thoughts for me in the last year. Between your good wishes and my insane plan, it's all worked out. McFarland Press is This Close to offering Co-Editor and I a contract for the Murdoch anthology!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like, Editor Cat says that he'll be in touch next week about details &c., and so there we go. It's almost embarrassing. With this news, I have officially completed the making possible of my whole list of projects and the reason for my bailing out of that smoking plane known as my former job. Blessings on all of you, again, as well, an many-fold in return. Sometime in the next year or so, you will have the opportunity to read Iris Murdoch's Scenes: An Anthology of Moral Imaginations. (And a little book called A Poetics of Being Two, you know, because thanks to you and me, I have two books in the hopper just now.)
Now, on to a dumbassed teaching moment. We're reading DeLillo's "Videotape" in class, sort as an introductory study about fiction. One of my students suggests that the narrator is the serial killer. This is not computing for me because I'm all focused on how the story comments on the itch to see the bad thing happen inculcated in us by the news media's way of playing on our voyeurism. So, like an ass, I say I just don't see it. Because, I just don't see it. Which so totally does not mean that it's not there. Then, I'm driving home (which takes a hour plus), and my Brain says, "Excuse me, dolt, it's a totally reasonable reading of the story, here's all the evidence for it, yes the possible meanings of the story change, and you need to back on Wed. to apologize this is kid and do another lesson on that story and how meanings and ideas change depending on, well, everything." Mercy. I hate when I do that. Not because I have to apologize, but because I sometimes fail to be, well, open enough. What I should have done was say, "I've not thought of this. Show me why you did." Geeeeez.
A funny story about my neighbors who used to "own" Jack. One, at the bonfire they informed us that they now call him Traitor Jack because he chose to live with us. OK, look, you people were neglectful enough of a dog that sleeps by the front door ALL DAY waiting for Fleur to come home, he is that loving and loyal, that he moved out of your lives and into ours -- and you have the narcissistic audacity to call him a traitor? More like political refugee from a cruel and unpredictable dictatorship, I say. Now, I told you that story in order to tell you this story. --- Yesterday, I am told, Jack was up by the road and sort of close to their house. They called him over, all friendly and hi and nice to see you. He looked at them for a second, ears perked....
and BOLTED back to our house.
That's about all that needs saying anymore, ever, about that. Personally, I revel in calling him Traitor Jack.
25.8.07
DUBLIN!!!!!!!
Well, this child of the Irish Diaspora gets to go home!
Thank you for your abstract. It is exactly the kind of work we were hoping our event would attract. I have read quickly through your paper and can see that you are taking the debate to where it needs to go.I think you will be very excited by the contributions of our other speakers, especially the keynotes, all of whom in different ways, take up what you call the "invitation".Please assume that your paper will be accepted. (I am jumping ahead here because I recognise the value of your work and its relationship to our overall theme) .I note that you are an independent scholar, but hope that you can find the resources to make it to Ireland.
Are you kidding, dear woman? My credit card is humming in my wallet. Dublin, with world changing hopeful freaks like me, and with Lioness, on my birthday? Oh, I'm there. Challenging Cultures of Death is just my game. This also means that the Poetics books is taking "the debate" where it needs to go. So, color me all tickled. -- Once I figured out that the 10 minutes was an editorial oversight, that presentations were the usual 20, it only took about a week to get that all worked out. Wheeeeee!
Also, nifty little piece on this year's Irigaray Circle in the NYSun. Pretty cool that. Anyone in or near NY that weekend should give me a head's up. Maybe we can hang for a few hours.
AND, at the bonfire the size of a house, we did not burn down Alvin's corn crops in the dessicated late summer because Dead Craig made the rain the come just enough to keep that tragedy at bay, but not too much to make us stop having fun. Next morning, six exhausted people and a pile of five dogs watched golf after waffles and mimosas. Because that, children, was one lovely and taxing party.
AND, I'm going to see Henry Rollins in October. So, things here are just peachy. Gratitude being the order of the day.
Also, nifty little piece on this year's Irigaray Circle in the NYSun. Pretty cool that. Anyone in or near NY that weekend should give me a head's up. Maybe we can hang for a few hours.
AND, at the bonfire the size of a house, we did not burn down Alvin's corn crops in the dessicated late summer because Dead Craig made the rain the come just enough to keep that tragedy at bay, but not too much to make us stop having fun. Next morning, six exhausted people and a pile of five dogs watched golf after waffles and mimosas. Because that, children, was one lovely and taxing party.
AND, I'm going to see Henry Rollins in October. So, things here are just peachy. Gratitude being the order of the day.
16.8.07
Relief and Pique
Oh, just love the word "pique". Soooo, the paper for Dublin, the conference Lioness and I are trying to attend together. Yeh, the CFP said presentations of 10 minutes. Thus, I have been balled up in my head for three weeks wondering How On Earth to say anything of consequence or use in six pages / 10 minutes. Really. Then I check the procedures for submitting papers, and Low and Behold, there we learn that the presentations are 20 minutes, you know, like they should be. Relief. Now I have two short papers that can combine really nicely into the The Paper. The title is "For the Soul's Steel".
Then, back to my regular programming on Murdoch and the Poetics book.
After Ireland, no more conferences for me for a while. A Long While.
Then, back to my regular programming on Murdoch and the Poetics book.
After Ireland, no more conferences for me for a while. A Long While.
9.8.07
Ms. Mentor
I am not the only hardheaded idealist in the world. Ms. Mentor reminds that the meek will not make it to utopia. This has always been true. -- And she gets in a few licks for adjuncts. Reminding me that work Non-Academic might be a way to go. -- You see, I noticed something in the blueprints for my new school, and you did too if you were awake: no faculty offices.
As we good PoMos know, because we read stuff about architecture and spatial design and its relations with human behavior and what-all under the Constructivist rubric: no faculty offices means _____________________. Oh, it's green, and it's shiny, and it's sunny, and it's loaded with humming new tech, and no faculty offices.
1.8.07
Ah-HA!
My horo-koan:
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): [Editor's note: To prepare this horoscope, I stole some of the lyrics from Yoko Ono's song "Revelations" and added some words of my own.] Bless you for your anger, Scorpio. It's a sign of zeal. If you transform it into creative fire, it will transmute your relationship with any situation you're angry about. Bless you for your greed. It's a sign of great capacity. Honor the law of karma by giving as much as you want to get, and your greed will drive you to grow generous. Bless you for your jealousy. It's a sign of immature empathy. Ripen it into admiration and what you admire will become an inspiring part of your life.OH I LOVE The Paradox. Always trust a paradox. But, it's funny because things are humming just now. It would seem that where I am angry (The Jena Six situation), or greedy (to publish/to edit), or jealous (of blithe self-interest and the positions of power in which it manifests), I am not, in fact, a danger to the world just now. BUT, this is good advice no matter who you are. And, maybe a head's up that something's a brew.
Also, turning down the art people was v. smart. The adjuncting gig at Wildwood is going to work out very well indeed. Three classes, two preps, precious little grading due to curricula and non-intensive regular semester schedule, two commutes, AND all this is a totally geeked out classroom, in a totally and sincerely green building that it's a pleasure to walk into and be in, AND three classes is a bucket more money so now I can actually afford all the conferences/other travel/monster commutes to work coming up this autumn of which there is quite a lot thank you. I'm actually all excited about teaching again. Which, who'da thought That after the squirrel cage that was my last gig. WHEW! Thanks Cosmos for listening. My diabolical plan is working, with your help.
And, HA, I don't work with the crazy art people. La, la, la -- La-la.
The Murdoch anthology is super! We're set for essays, we're moving into serious editing. I'm writing the proposal. I'm getting lots of other young scholars published in this thing and feel I'm doing the world a service. Which is getting me over my irkedness-at-self for leaving my essay On A Plane! and having to start over in my revisions.
Plus, I'm almost sure I'm having the idea needed to for the Challenging Cultures of Death conference in, oh poor me, Dublin, on my birthday to which Lioness and I will travel. I know, thank you, I feel your sympathy. It's a trick, this paper, because it's only ten minutes.... and I'm not what you would call an ascetic writer. So, churn, churn.
The Poetics book too is seeming more like a friend than a chore. Like, I'm sitting my butt down in the 'brary today to order the rest of my research. And off we go.
In the next few days, a package will arrive by post that contains Proust and pants. (heart you lioness)
It's good to be grateful. Grateful, grateful, grateful. Grateful things are opening, grateful I'm open just now.
19.7.07
Good Things in Texas
First, there's Lioness, who is forever teaching me gentleness. And there is Princess, who is forever teaching me grace. And there is Karen, who teaches me to be calm. It seems that while these women wanted me in Texas to console, vivify, or anchor them in the midst of some troubles, I needed them as much. The whole visit was rejuvenating. Sure, it's a fair question: PRSC, my dear, you have been on a sabbatical for almost a year, in a sanctuary of lush and familial goodness, how could you need rejuvenation? Well, it turns out that in my sanctuary I've been working very hard and on myself as well, so a little trip to see women who hold my tiger when I need to get off (even by holding their tigers) was just the ticket. Plus, Austin is one big celebration forever of how laid back and self-made and generally colorful the world could be, who'd pass it up?
Cool things I discovered on this trip: Project Linus supplies blankets and quilts to kids suffering various kinds of trauma who don't have blankets. Being a Linus type as a child, I heartily endorse this project. Also Luna Pads, which Lioness recommended as your one-stop-shop for organic, reusable, super-comfy feminine products. Because, frankly the less I have petroleum byproducts next my pink parts, the happier I am.
There was the invention of the phrase "bugger off bad juju," which is ticklish. Some inspiration as well. I mean, if you leave Lioness and I alone for a little while with a lap top, we will start a revolution, and we did. Small scale. One shift was that I told L about this conference, Challenging Cultures of Death, at Trinity College in Dublin in early November. Now, I said that I planned to revise the conclusion of my book in these terms and also see if I couldn't sweet talk JP over at CK to publish it:-- because I could not go to the conference, it being in Dublin and on my birthday and me being not-so-flush with cash at this juncture. To which L said, "It's in DUBlin, on your BIRTHday, and you can't go?!" In that astonished tone one uses with people who are speaking against their nature. Right. Right on. Who was I? She pointed out that if I designed a conference for myself I couldn't have done it better. Ten minutes later, we had a plan for L's paper and mine and a conspiracy to spend a week in Dublin. See? I needed this trip my horoscope told me was coming and that I had not at all planned. So, I'll be starting that project now. Sweet. Then, we had a couple of hours to kill, had been talking around politics and cultures of life, our other usual subjects, and designed a group blog (we hope it grows into an online mag), the three departments we'll cover, a posting schedule, and a logo. In 90 minutes. On the plane on the way back to Goshen, I started to realized that I know a whole bushel of people I could ask to guest blog for us on various subjects. We're calling it Renaissance 2.0, yes, that phrase of mine finally found a purpose. I'll let you know when we get going.
And then, because perfect bliss is impermanent, I left my Murdoch essay, with three months of handwritten notes for its expansion, ON THE PLANE!!!! So, today I'm calling the airline to get the phone numbers to the Lost and Founds in each airport where that flight stops. Also, I posted it on Craig's List. So, if you were on SW Flight 125 on or around Friday the 13th of July and found an orange folder in the pouch of your seat, do please get in touch. There's a hefty reward for it.
Then, home, and lots flopping on the floor with Hi-Jack, the new dog, and Foxy who just Can't Stand not being the center of love. Some editing on the anthology, and now on to syllabi, maybe some lunch. --- OK, time to pay bills and make phone calls.
15.6.07
Killed 'Em at the Interview
Yippee! I'm invited back as finalist for the directorship of the Edwardsville Arts Center! Next, I meet the whole board and give a 15 minute presentation about my vision for their future, my particular role in accomplishing it, so forth. That's in early July, so further developements then.
While the gods are smiling, y'all get out there and try something new.
While the gods are smiling, y'all get out there and try something new.
11.6.07
Thank You
You know, I'm an ass. And I have to just stop all that.
I've been walking around for a week trying to get it into my head that I have to finish The Book because now it's going to be an Actual Thing and letting people make a Fuss over me and all.
What. a. jerk.
You, my dears, my friends, my parents, my brother, my grandparents, everyone who ever buoyed me up or tore me down, inspired or repulsed me, please or irritated me, kissed, sexed, dissed, or held the tiger when I needed to get off, or vice versa, or put up with me when I was insufferable and would have told myself to f*ck off, or all of the above : Thank You.
Maybe all you did was buy me a cheese burger that semester I was broke back in college. Or maybe all you did was open yourselves to me and let me cherish you. Or maybe you let me open and cherished me. Or you called my on my sh*t. Or maybe you were a really good opponent or enemy. Or maybe you came unwound or I came unwound. And maybe we just managed to sit quietly together for ten minutes. Or maybe we just didn't fit together in this life and realized it. Or you gave me a pig with wings because you wanted me to remember my talent for the impossible. Or you made me a CD called The Flying Pig Mix, which is, to this day, my personal and most perfect soundtrack. Maybe you met me at a conference and I gushed about my book, and you said, "Gee, I'd like to read that." Or you let me keep learning to write poems. Or, you were Lucia who said, "You, S, You Must Read Irigaray -- here, take my copy,"because you knew I would find a home there. Or you were Edrie and you called me Dr. and said, "This will be an important book." Or you were JP who said once, "Anything I can do for you," which shook me. Or you were anyone I had the chance to be kind to, or wanted to hit with a hammer -- or both. Or you just showed up in my life and I get new adventures because you're here. Or you taught me John Donne, or Habbermas, or Adrienne Rich, or Fichte, or Edward Dorn, or Lyn Hejinian, or Kathy Acker, or Aristotle, or Christine de Pizan, or Hugh Kenner. Or maybe you were that woman I walked past at the bus stop who just up and said, "Bless you, child" because I was there, so I said, "Peace be with you" and kept hiking in the cold to the coffee shop.
Or you wrote a book I read. Or a poem I think about in shower. Or you're Charles Mingus, or Ella.
You helped. You helped me learn to bow and stand tall at the same time.
Head down and chin up, as we say in my family.
Peace be with you, each.
I've been walking around for a week trying to get it into my head that I have to finish The Book because now it's going to be an Actual Thing and letting people make a Fuss over me and all.
What. a. jerk.
You, my dears, my friends, my parents, my brother, my grandparents, everyone who ever buoyed me up or tore me down, inspired or repulsed me, please or irritated me, kissed, sexed, dissed, or held the tiger when I needed to get off, or vice versa, or put up with me when I was insufferable and would have told myself to f*ck off, or all of the above : Thank You.
Maybe all you did was buy me a cheese burger that semester I was broke back in college. Or maybe all you did was open yourselves to me and let me cherish you. Or maybe you let me open and cherished me. Or you called my on my sh*t. Or maybe you were a really good opponent or enemy. Or maybe you came unwound or I came unwound. And maybe we just managed to sit quietly together for ten minutes. Or maybe we just didn't fit together in this life and realized it. Or you gave me a pig with wings because you wanted me to remember my talent for the impossible. Or you made me a CD called The Flying Pig Mix, which is, to this day, my personal and most perfect soundtrack. Maybe you met me at a conference and I gushed about my book, and you said, "Gee, I'd like to read that." Or you let me keep learning to write poems. Or, you were Lucia who said, "You, S, You Must Read Irigaray -- here, take my copy,"because you knew I would find a home there. Or you were Edrie and you called me Dr. and said, "This will be an important book." Or you were JP who said once, "Anything I can do for you," which shook me. Or you were anyone I had the chance to be kind to, or wanted to hit with a hammer -- or both. Or you just showed up in my life and I get new adventures because you're here. Or you taught me John Donne, or Habbermas, or Adrienne Rich, or Fichte, or Edward Dorn, or Lyn Hejinian, or Kathy Acker, or Aristotle, or Christine de Pizan, or Hugh Kenner. Or maybe you were that woman I walked past at the bus stop who just up and said, "Bless you, child" because I was there, so I said, "Peace be with you" and kept hiking in the cold to the coffee shop.
Or you wrote a book I read. Or a poem I think about in shower. Or you're Charles Mingus, or Ella.
You helped. You helped me learn to bow and stand tall at the same time.
Head down and chin up, as we say in my family.
Peace be with you, each.
6.6.07
Got that mojo workin
So, the tide turns. The book is a go. Still just whacked about that. And I have an interview for the Director's position with the Edwardsville Arts Center. Would seem all the good mojo I was generating for other people is headed back my way. Cross fingers it's going to be on target.
UPDATE: With Chinese food last night, this fortune: "You will be recognized and honored as a community leader." I. sh*t. you. not. Funny. funny.
Astrologically, much seems to be afoot, may need a seat belt:
My Moon in ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Surreal hope" means having faith in a future opportunity that at first appears in an out-of-context situation. Say, for example, that you have an unsettling initial exposure to a stranger whom you will eventually realize is an important ally. Maybe when you see this person for the first time, he or she is looking dazed and disheveled on a street corner with tear stains on the cheek, having just broken up with a lover. And maybe you feel a strange attraction to this weirdo despite his or her unflattering appearance. Having surreal hope, in this instance, would mean that you'd refrain from being dismissive and judgmental, but
would instead entertain the possibility that your fascination might portend an interesting link under more favorable circumstances at a later date.
My Rising PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In the ancient Gnostic Gospel of Philip, discovered in Egypt last century, the author writes of the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. In one place, he says, "Jesus often kissed Mary on the . . . ." Unfortunately, there's a hole in the original document right where that next word was. Did Jesus kiss her on the cheek? The mouth? The neck? Unless other versions of the old text are found, we'll never know. On the other hand, I predict that you will soon solve a comparable mystery in your own love life. Some gap that has long mystified you will be filled in. A missing clue will turn up.
My Sun in SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I suggest we title this chapter of your life story "The Perplexing Joy of Hundreds of Emotions," or maybe "The Wild Peace of Way Too Many Feelings." That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's an apt reflection of your immediate future: extreme, expansive, melodramatic, spectacularly educational, and filthy rich with intrigue. You may not break the world's record for most mood shifts in a good cause,
but you could very well smash your own personal record.
UPDATE: With Chinese food last night, this fortune: "You will be recognized and honored as a community leader." I. sh*t. you. not. Funny. funny.
Astrologically, much seems to be afoot, may need a seat belt:
My Moon in ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Surreal hope" means having faith in a future opportunity that at first appears in an out-of-context situation. Say, for example, that you have an unsettling initial exposure to a stranger whom you will eventually realize is an important ally. Maybe when you see this person for the first time, he or she is looking dazed and disheveled on a street corner with tear stains on the cheek, having just broken up with a lover. And maybe you feel a strange attraction to this weirdo despite his or her unflattering appearance. Having surreal hope, in this instance, would mean that you'd refrain from being dismissive and judgmental, but
would instead entertain the possibility that your fascination might portend an interesting link under more favorable circumstances at a later date.
My Rising PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In the ancient Gnostic Gospel of Philip, discovered in Egypt last century, the author writes of the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. In one place, he says, "Jesus often kissed Mary on the . . . ." Unfortunately, there's a hole in the original document right where that next word was. Did Jesus kiss her on the cheek? The mouth? The neck? Unless other versions of the old text are found, we'll never know. On the other hand, I predict that you will soon solve a comparable mystery in your own love life. Some gap that has long mystified you will be filled in. A missing clue will turn up.
My Sun in SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I suggest we title this chapter of your life story "The Perplexing Joy of Hundreds of Emotions," or maybe "The Wild Peace of Way Too Many Feelings." That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it's an apt reflection of your immediate future: extreme, expansive, melodramatic, spectacularly educational, and filthy rich with intrigue. You may not break the world's record for most mood shifts in a good cause,
but you could very well smash your own personal record.
18.5.07
My Quaint Little Hometown
So, there's a new wine bar in town. I'm going there tonight with Kantian Gal and her man. Only open as wine bar on Ths, Fri, Sat evenings, and not very late, and on my side of town, and Quaint. My town is losing some of its quaintness, but that's for the next paragraph. They need a website, Springer's Creek Winery does, and some photos on this one here. So, I'm going to try to get some pics. In the window there is a sign quoting Famous Dude I'm Forgetting, "Wine is sunshine suspended in water." Awwww.
Not-Quaint: my little town grows and grows. Out to the south, away from me, which is Just Fine. Big Box Stores abound out south on 159. But, folks, one of them is going to be a Borders. Now I have a quandary. Do I solicit for a part-time gig at Beyond Timbuktu, locally owned, where I can get discounts on fabulous jewelry? Or at Borders, where I would be part of the Horrid Homogenization Machine, but get discounts on books? OR, do I start a poetry reading series at the Borders and work at T? There we go. ---- I know, the quandaries of the privileged. I can just see your tears.
And Wal-Mart wants to knock down the mall it's attached to, with the dollar theater in it, to make a superstore. Now, not everyone in Hometown is affluent, and there are lots of kids with little money, and they patronize that dollar theater religiously. Only people from the next town can sign the petition against the expansion. Problem, the next town in which WM is located, is really small, and all the new people who've moved there to be close the highway for their commute and the box stores for their convenience... will they sign? Will they grock the necessity of this little shambly mall with its dollar theater??????
Not-Quaint: my little town grows and grows. Out to the south, away from me, which is Just Fine. Big Box Stores abound out south on 159. But, folks, one of them is going to be a Borders. Now I have a quandary. Do I solicit for a part-time gig at Beyond Timbuktu, locally owned, where I can get discounts on fabulous jewelry? Or at Borders, where I would be part of the Horrid Homogenization Machine, but get discounts on books? OR, do I start a poetry reading series at the Borders and work at T? There we go. ---- I know, the quandaries of the privileged. I can just see your tears.
And Wal-Mart
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