poetry wednesday

From Franz Wright's2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of poetry- Walking to Martha’s Vineyard.

LETTER
January 1998

I am not acquainted with anyone
there, if they spoke to me
I would not know what to do.
But so far nobody has, I know
I certainly wouldn’t.
I don’t participate, I’m not allowed;
I just listen, and every morning
have a moment of such happiness, I breathe
and breath until the terror returns. About the time
when they are supposed to greet one another
two people actually look into each other’s eyes
and hold hands a moment, but
the church is so big and the few who are there
are seated far apart. So this presents no real problem.
I keep my eyes fixed on the great naked corpse, the vertical corpse
who is said to be love
and who spoke the world
into being, before coming here
to be tortured and executed by it.
I don’t know what I am doing there. I do
notice the more I lose touch
with what I previously saw as my life
the more real my spot in the dark winter pew becomes—
it is infinite. What we experience
as space, the sky
that is, the sun, the stars
is intimate and rather small by comparison.
When I step outside the ugliness is so shattering
it has become dear to me, like a retarded
child, precious to me.
If only I could tell someone.
The humiliation I go through
when I think about my past
can only be described as grace.
We are created by being destroyed.

since i've been gone...

 The following article is not only well written, but I believe will also help me in the future navigate the economic stratification of the mid-20's birthday dinner. Not that I'm mid-20's or anything.  Happy Birthday, You Bastard: An invective against birthday dinners by John Swansburg on Slate. 

I've recently discovered the joys of the dutch oven (thanks to the De Youngs) and have realized that if you pour a couple of canned items into a pot and heat it, you can create soup! It is wonderful and you can eat it for days and days, and if your bread is stale you can dip it in the soup and you can hardly tell. Words of wise from the impoverished during this difficult economic time. 

I hope soon to post pictures from Monticello where I went with the fam this weekend. Did you know that ole' TJ had pink sheets? Well he did! 

classic Sheffield post, 4/30/2006

Classic post I wrote during my time in Sheffield, England titled: "Eric Clapton's Son Part II, or The Time I Narced on Hooligan Sheffield Kids: You Choose!"

I know that many of you have been on the edge of your seats, trembling with anticipation over the day when I would finally regale you again with a story about Eric Clapton's son, who goes to boarding school up the street from me in Sheffield. Okay well, maybe no one was really waiting for this day but now that it's come, I bet you're at least a little excited? Mildly enthused? Anyone? Anyway this story is in the vein of those Pick Your Own Adventure Books from the early 90's, so play along (anyone else remember those? I actually hated them, I felt they were a sign of an indecisive author but after writing this I'm beg. to think they're highly underrated)...

Last night, at approximately 22:35 pm I was walking back to Halifax Hall after watching King Kong at the union. It was. sadly, the highlight of my weekend. But this story isn't about my pathetic life, every minute of which is spent in anxious anticipation of my departure 35 days from now, it's about the events I witnessed on this fateful spring night on Glossop Road.

I walked briskly, but without any sort of fear seeing as Sheffield's reputation as the safest city in England is well-earned, I once walked home from the union at 2 in the morning without ever seeing another soul. I decided not to listen to my iPod and instead sang that hymn that goes "My God you are my god and I will ever praise you..." under my breath as traffic passed me intermittently. Wearing a skirt, jean jacket, and scarf I was feeling quite comfortable and cheery even, a rare mood for me since I am usually brooding over the stupid papers I have due in the next two weeks. That is until I reached the intersection of Glossop and Endcliffe Vale Road, where I live.

You see across the street (**see photo) from this intersection is one of the Top 3 Reasons I Love Sheffield, the Botanical Gardens (The other 2 Reasons being it isn't Paris and Wokmania, the local Chinese buffet). These gardens are simply beautiful especially now as spring has come. The crocuses and daffodils are all out and it's just gorgeous. I walk through it every day to school, and I've even on two extremely rare occasions jogged through it. I've had quiet times in the Botantical Gardens, everyday I watch mum's and dad's with their kids playing there, and I've even teared up in them after listening to a particularly moving sermon on my Ipod. And I've watched the caretakers, mostly older men take care of the garden, planting, weeding, and mowing; extremely precious.

So you can imagine my horror when, on this pleasant English night when I witnessed several hooligans (teenage kids), all male, congregating across the street by the side entrance of the Botanical Gardens. You see, the Gardens close at 4 pm every day, they lock up the two entrances till the next morning. As I get closer and closer to their position across the street, my jaw drops in horror as I realize what is going on. They are SCALING the freaking wall (don't ask me how, they just run, jump, and climb over. I couldn't do it, I have an extremely low vertical jump)! They are breaking into the Botanical Gardens. They throw each other knapsacks across the wall and I still can't believe what I'm seeing.

:::::ATTN:If you wish to choose the optional Eric Clapton's Son version of the story, continue reading, If not, scroll down to the More True But Less Interesting ending:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It's him. The same hooligan I saw months ago on a structurally unsound ledge near my hall, chain smoking and generally causing mayhem. Eric's Clapton's son (who wil henceforth be known as S. of E.C. for son of Eric Clapton). Not only am I outraged that these kids may or may not be causing damage to my beloved Botanical Gardens, I am now equally outraged that Eric Clapton's son's therapist clearly isn't up to par seeing as he is engaging in criminal activity in order to get attention from his celebrity father. Sigh. It's tough being famous.

I cross the street in a rush, grabbing one of them by the sleeve before he jumps, Michael Jordan-style up onto the wall. "Excuse me, what do you think you're doing?" He looks at me with hardened but sad eyes and points up to the top of the wall where, sure enough, S. of E.C. is sitting. "Oy", he cries. "What do you think yer doin' lady?" I shiver as it's getting a little colder since I stopped my brisk walking. "I just want to talk", I call up. "You don't need to do this". "Yeah", he replies. "And how would you know?". He slides down off the wall, and leans, arms crossed against the stones. "I know it's hard. Living in the shadows" I say softly. "But breaking and entering...criminal activity? It's not worth it. People work hard to make these gardens beautiful. They're for the community. If you destroy that, you'll only be hurting yourself. Not your father". "My father?" he interrupts, "What do you know about my father". "I know he's a multi-platinum award-winning rock god, with a string of hit singles and my parents bought his recent album "Riding with the King" a collaboration with B.B. King which we listened to all the time in the summer of 2000". "Oh" he replies. He pulls out a pack of smokes and offers me one, his voice confident and tough but his eyes betraying the hurt inside. I accept the cigarette which he lights, but don't inhale because lung cancer kills 160,439 people every year.

"Look," he tells me, "I don't know who you are, or where you came from...actually I'm guessing you came from America based on your accent, but that's beside the point. My boys and I, we just like to have a little fun". "Oh, so you want fun?" I ask casually, looking at the other teenage boys standing around who have now let their guard down and seem more scared than excited to vandalize public gardens. "I'll show you some fun. Why don't you come with me?" They try not to let on, but I can see that I have peaked their interest. We walk together across the street, and towards Halifax, exchanging jokes and laughs over all the "danger" lurking around Sheffield, and they regale me with tales of their boarding school and funny impersonations of their headmaster. I tell them all about Chicago and Noodles In a Pot and the Art Institute and Sufjan Stevens, and listen to albums on my computer while I teach things about the Protestant Reformation under Elizabeth's reign and we play Yahtzee and eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which of course they love.

It starts to get late and I gently remind them that they don't want to break their curfew and get in trouble. They agree and S. of E.C. says to me, "Thanks Lexy." "For what?" I reply. "You know...for this. For keeping us from doing something we would regret. And you're right, I should just talk to my dad. Open those lines of communication." "It's the key to a healthy relationship!" I remind him. "And I can't believe I was going to try and mess up the gardens. What a stupid thing to do. I actually really love the day lilies, they are my favorite." "Mine too", I reply knowingly, "Mine too". "And I won't forget to that signed vinyl copy of the acoustic version of Layla for you". "Take your time bud" I say.
I wave good-bye as they walk back up the street toward the boarding school, yelling "Good night! See you later!". "Kids these days", I think to myself, and head up to bed.

::::ATTN: More True and Less Interesting Version starts here:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I just couldn't believe that some stupid hooligan kids were going to sneak into the Botanical Gardens and vandalize them or worse destroy the foliage. I just pictured the look on those precious caretakers faces tomorrow morning. So I called the cops and reported their asses. And even if it makes me a narc, I really don't care and I'm glad I did it because I love those frakking gardens.

The End.

**View of the Botanical Gardens from Glossop Road

as an apology for my lack of bloggage lately...

I offer you this fun cartoon and a promise that I will be back asap. Cheers!

from Bits of Life

my future dissertation on kanye west and muticultural studies in composition

**special thanks to all who participated in the first blogger challenge- your six word memoirs were inspiring, literally, and made my sardonic, pithy attempts seem silly. anyway look forward to more blogger challenges to come.

You guys might not know this, but I am a huge Kanye West fan. I'm also a graduate student. And I'd like to combine both of these things for you now.

Verse 2 of Kanye West's "Good Morning" off the album Graduation

1 Look at the valedictorian scared of the future/

2 While I hop in the Delorean/

3 Scared-to-face-the-world complacent career student/

4 Some people graduate, but we still stupid/

5 They tell you read this, eat this, don't look around/

6 Just peep this, preach us, teach us, Jesus/

7 Okay, look up now, they done stole your streetness/

8 After all of that, you receive this...

      All right- deconstructing this verse from a multicultural rhetorical viewpoint, we can see that Kanye is making a point about the Academy- the name those of us in the academic world use when we want to be meta and talk about the university system.  In lines 5 and 8, "they" refers to the administration, the Power that Be (TPTB) so to speak, at the university. It is this "they" that determines the canon, and that determines exactly what it is that has value in this particular system. By telling you (the college student that is Kanye's imagined audience in this verse) what to "read", "eat", and "peep" TPTB are changing you; Kanye asserts in line 1 that they make you a "complacent career student" who is continuously afraid (lines 1 and 3) of the "real world". In line 7, speaking directly to the student, he says "okay, look up now", charging them to wake up from this complacency and realize what has happened to them. 

     "They done stole your streetness" is a particularly applicable line for composition studies because it refers to ideas of value and dialogue- what kind of dialogue is prized in the Academy? What kind of students have the most to gain from placing value on "academic" or standard dialogue? What kind of students does this place at a disadvantage? The idea of acculturation of minority students, students who speak a dialect of English, and students who are L2 (also commonly known as ESL) learners, is a hot topic in multicultural studies. Acculturating, or the process assimilation into a dominant culture, or in this case, dialogue, raises a lot of ethical questions- why, for example, is academic dialogue given so much value, and should it? In comp studies, multicultural studies calls for a re-valuation of what they call the "home dialogue" of many minority students. 

     "Home dialogue", or the way languge was composed in a student's home environment (dialogue here refers to both spoken and written language), can be directly linked to the "streetness" Kanye says has been stolen by the Academy in line 7. For many multicultural theorists, "stolen" is exactly the correct word- they believe that in the process of acculturation something is lost in the minority student that is irreplaceable. Instead, these theorists call for the idea of "multiple dialogues", where writing classrooms would stop placing value on only one type of dialogue (the dialogue that is approved by the Academy) and instead teach from the theory of multiple dialogues- instead of acculturating students to lose their home dialogue, teaching them the value of being able to switch between multiple dialogues so that they can master standard dialogue and still at the same time see value in their own specific cultural dialogue. 

    The last line of this verse- "After all that, you receive this", i.e. a diploma, is brilliant I believe because it lets the imagined audience answer for themselves the question implicit in this line- is it worth it? Considering the cost, the price a multicultural student pays for a diploma, is it worth losing your own language to get that piece of paper that represents the stamp of approval by the Academy? From a Marxian perspective, the Academy is a self-affirming institution- meaning it sets its own standards (standard dialogue, standard canon), sets its own hoops for students to jumps through (these are the requirements of a major, the idea you must even have a major to begin with, and qualifying or comprehensive exams that students must pass in order to receive the diploma) and the students who then make it through successfully go into society and our culture with the values set by the Academy. This is how value is disseminated into our culture. 

   My husband-to-be (HTB) asked if I thought Kanye was really "this smart", and I told him (politely, of course!) that I didn't think that was the point. The point isn't if Kanye meant all of this in his rhymes, but that a multicultural theory can be applied to them from the outside. It speaks to an increasing amount of minority and L2 students becoming acculturated into the university system, and how the system needs to adjust accordingly- by changing its values and standards that only prize the work of dead, white, men and broadening the definition of "good" dialogue. 

thanks kanye!

your life in six words

from smithmag.net:

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” Last year, SMITH Magazine re-ignited the recountre by asking our readers for their own six-word memoirs. They sent in short life stories in droves, from the bittersweet (“Cursed with cancer, blessed with friends”) and poignant (“I still make coffee for two”) to the inspirational (“Business school? Bah! Pop music? Hurrah”) and hilarious (“I like big butts, can’t lie”).
Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure collects almost 1,000 of these memoirs, including additions from many celebrities including Stephen Colbert, Jane Goodall, Dave Eggers, and more.



This youtube video has many of the images and memoirs from the book.


So my challenge to you, fellow bloggers- what is your six-word memoir? Leave it in a comment, or post it on your own blog.

I will leave you with the following two options for my own six-word memoir:

Wish I were nicer, oh well.

or

My feelings are intense yet changeable.

(admittedly from buffy the vampire slayer, but it was such an apt summation of my life thus far that it needed including)

in honor of the anticipated return of the SECOND most important show of our time-LOST

The return of LOST is slated for Thursday, January 31st at seven pm. With the strike going on, this return will be short-lived but nonetheless, with the end of nearly every scripted show on television early this month, LOST will, for two months, feed our hungry, entertainment-starved souls. Thus:

A tribute to LOST season 4, in two parts. 

Part 1: Classic post revisited "past due shout outs", dated October 20, 2006:

this is a ShOuTz- OuTT which is long overdue to this year's incarnation of "Are you in or out?" Wed. Nights!
So LOST is in its third season. Alot of things have changed, for the castaways and for us as well. We're at the Racine/Wrightwood House of Pain apartment now, with the occasional guest apartment of Lindsey's pad. It's almost just like the Castaway Beach City and the Other's Freaky Village and how in LOST we are starting to get episodes from both. I've realized that as we've grown up over the past two years, the attitude of In/Out Nights has become alot more laid back than it used to be. Maybe it's the wine, or maybe it's just us getting older. We are no longer as obnoxiously in-your-face about spreading the Good News of In/Out Nights to people, and even relaxed our own rules by letting people leave right after LOST who have e-board meetings or just boyfriends who insist on taking them home right away. Wife Swap is off the air now, but thank goodness for ANTM (i.e. America's Next Top Model) on at 7 for our pre-LOST viewing pleasure. We let the real cooks do the cooking (Zac and JP) and haven't had any terrible couscous experiences (yet).
It will be interesting to see where this year goes- we know Kate will pick Sawyer, and that Jack will hook up with Juliet (spoiler alert!). We know that Lexy and Zac will argue over whether the baked potatoe is baked enough, and that JP will just put a ton of cheese on it regardless. Then there are the questions-will we ever find out how Locke became paralyzed? Will Lexy and Lindsey drop their junior seminar class winter quarter like last time, or will they stick it out? Can Desmond really tell the future? Will JP make it to his e-board meetings on time and sober? Will Hurley finally lose some weight? Will Lexy finally learn how to make some stinkin couscous?
Wait and see.....

Part 2: 

24 "Charlie Lives" Theories.

"Charlie Lives" is a movement in the LOST fandom that advocates the theory that Charlie Pace, aka my adorable faux husband, Dominic Monaghan, did NOT die in the flooding of the Looking Glass station as portrayed in the season 3 finale, but will somehow or another (see "24 theories" for speculation) come back during some point in the show's final three seasons.  The theories are, at the same time, wild wish-fulfillment and arguably persuasive, or at least though provoking. I'm not invested in any of these theories, but I have learned not to take anything for granted on a show like LOST. 

I thought this post to be quite timely since it seems I have lead the exodus from xanga to blogger (aka the people's blog- viva la revolución!) and I hope that the LOST fans that have wandered for so long and finally migrated to the promised land of blogger can come together in celebration over the return of our very own golden calf that is LOST.