Which I know, but I have to describe this one.
This morning I dreamed that I was in a cafe in the North End with my mother, some other people, and George W. Bush. At first we were all talking, but then Bush started just going on and on, not letting anyone else say anything. My mom and I started giving each other weird looks, and talking a little to each other. We felt impolite, but Bush didn't seem to notice. I knew I had to go soon, and started wondering where to get dinner. The chicken parm sandwich from Il Panino was edging out the other contenders.
Just before I left, someone asked Bush if the Iraq war was America's finest moment ever, and he said yes, he thought it was. My dream self, for some reason, pictured the scene at the end of Life is Beautiful with a little liberated Italian child riding on an American tank, and thought, no, no way Iraq can beat that.
I got up to go and woke up, only to realize that I had actually been listening to Bush's Rose Garden press conference the whole time. It was all real!
Also, I know this is a cheap shot but later when I heard clips of the speech on the radio I thought this was hilarious: Bush said that reports of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo weren't credible because the allegations came from prisoners who "hate America, and who have been trained to disassemble--heh heh--that means not to tell the truth."
Not to dissemble; there were a clear four syllables. Not only do they hate America, they know how to take things apart! Citizens, keep a close watch on your Ikea furniture!
In unrelated news, someone is playing Ode to Joy on a pennywhistle outside my window over and over and over.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Me Against Fish
This is what I wrote to the New York Times. I didn't post it earlier, because I was embarssed about the writing quality (before coffee, remember!)--but then I remembered the rest of what I've written on this blog and thought, why not.
Stanley Fish's create-a-language lesson plan sounds like fun, but he doesn't answer what should be the most important question about it: does it help students become better writers? As a composition instructor, I would guess no, or not much; good writers don't consciously think through the relationships between words in every sentence they write, and that is why writing skills are so difficult to improve. Fish seems to abdicate entirely the frustrating task of helping students learn to write well in English. Ironically, he appears to be teaching nothing but "content," focusing on language as something to be broken down and understood in the abstract, rather than to be used.
In the milling around period before class today I told my students about this, and they thought it sounded crazy too, so I felt vindicated. If you want to be depressed, though, try saying into a room of UCI students, Do any of you guys read the New York Times? And watch the blank stares spread. At least my class, because they're motivated enough to be poetry students, looked a little guilty.
Stanley Fish's create-a-language lesson plan sounds like fun, but he doesn't answer what should be the most important question about it: does it help students become better writers? As a composition instructor, I would guess no, or not much; good writers don't consciously think through the relationships between words in every sentence they write, and that is why writing skills are so difficult to improve. Fish seems to abdicate entirely the frustrating task of helping students learn to write well in English. Ironically, he appears to be teaching nothing but "content," focusing on language as something to be broken down and understood in the abstract, rather than to be used.
In the milling around period before class today I told my students about this, and they thought it sounded crazy too, so I felt vindicated. If you want to be depressed, though, try saying into a room of UCI students, Do any of you guys read the New York Times? And watch the blank stares spread. At least my class, because they're motivated enough to be poetry students, looked a little guilty.
Dorkier Before Coffee
This morning, instead of reading my student papers, which I had a very short time left to do, I found myself writing an angry letter to the New York Times in response to this.
And now I'm blogging about it.
And now I'm blogging about it.
Monday, May 30, 2005
Poets
Just left my house. 4 bottles of 2 Buck Chuck short of a case. It's not as tasty as it was earlier in the evening, which is the opposite of the effect wine is supposed to have, but good job, everyone, finishing as much as we did. I think we could do better, but we'll have to leave that till next time. What will the future Irvine poetry fans think of us?
Thanks for coming--yellow-stockinged and cross-gartered.
Else: narrating everything as it happens, leaving her interior open for all to view; i.e. blogging. Just noticed the irony of that.
Bonne nuit.
Thanks for coming--yellow-stockinged and cross-gartered.
Else: narrating everything as it happens, leaving her interior open for all to view; i.e. blogging. Just noticed the irony of that.
Bonne nuit.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
The neighbors...
...were in a really good mood this morning. "Apricots, apricots, apricots" was actually pretty cute--the fun of learning a new word overtook the impulse to fight over the thing the new word defined.
Since they're about to move away, I feel more benevolent toward my neighbors now. They've acted as my alarm clock all year, which, really, has had its benefits. I might RATHER sleep, but it's probably better for me to be woken up--and it's not so bad to be woken to shrieks if they are joyful ones.
This morning Else was doing that happy little kid thing of narrating everything as it was happening, just leaving the door to her interior wide open. I do wonder what it'll be like for her when self-consciousness hits. I mean, I think she's nine, so it won't be too long.
Since they're about to move away, I feel more benevolent toward my neighbors now. They've acted as my alarm clock all year, which, really, has had its benefits. I might RATHER sleep, but it's probably better for me to be woken up--and it's not so bad to be woken to shrieks if they are joyful ones.
This morning Else was doing that happy little kid thing of narrating everything as it was happening, just leaving the door to her interior wide open. I do wonder what it'll be like for her when self-consciousness hits. I mean, I think she's nine, so it won't be too long.
Morning
I used to find the voice of Liane Hanson (the Sunday Weekend Edition host) unbearably annoying, and now I kind of like it. It's amazing how you can get used to anything, and then it's a short step from there to affection. I've made the same journey with other NPR voices too.
Listening to the news about the judicial confirmations, I also remembered that I keep thinking it should have been the NUCULER (instead of nuclear) option--that would have been fitting.
Something that always seems weird to me listening to the radio is the cheerfulness of the traffic reports: "there's a car overturned on the on-ramp! Watch out for debris!" The host sounds kind of pleased about this, and I'm picturing the car, the people, the total disaster that has struck someone.
That reminds me of something I was just reading, from a book of essays by Wislawa Szmborska; in an essay about why academic history doesn't interest poets much, she says "Unfortunately the poet still thinks in images. On reading, for example, that one group's agricultural plans "came into conflict with their neighbors' interests," he immediately envisions chopped-off heads tossed into wicker baskets. Moreover, the instinct common to all primitive creatures whispers that these baskets were woven by blind slaves, who were captured and blinded during the course of some earlier "conflict."" She says earlier in the same essay that when poets sit down to write they shed the clothing of civilization to "stand exposed before all as a savage with a ring through his nose. Yes, yes, a savage, since what else can you call a person who talks in verse to the dead and the unborn, to trees, to birds, and even to lamps and table legs, expect perhaps an idiot?" I like what she's saying, but I also think it's funny about the nose ring. What about the poets who wear them all the time?
Overheard outside:
Else: MAMA! MAMA! JACOB TOOK TWO PEACHES!
Mama: They're apricots.
Else and Jacob: APRICOTS, APRICOTS, APRICOTS...
Listening to the news about the judicial confirmations, I also remembered that I keep thinking it should have been the NUCULER (instead of nuclear) option--that would have been fitting.
Something that always seems weird to me listening to the radio is the cheerfulness of the traffic reports: "there's a car overturned on the on-ramp! Watch out for debris!" The host sounds kind of pleased about this, and I'm picturing the car, the people, the total disaster that has struck someone.
That reminds me of something I was just reading, from a book of essays by Wislawa Szmborska; in an essay about why academic history doesn't interest poets much, she says "Unfortunately the poet still thinks in images. On reading, for example, that one group's agricultural plans "came into conflict with their neighbors' interests," he immediately envisions chopped-off heads tossed into wicker baskets. Moreover, the instinct common to all primitive creatures whispers that these baskets were woven by blind slaves, who were captured and blinded during the course of some earlier "conflict."" She says earlier in the same essay that when poets sit down to write they shed the clothing of civilization to "stand exposed before all as a savage with a ring through his nose. Yes, yes, a savage, since what else can you call a person who talks in verse to the dead and the unborn, to trees, to birds, and even to lamps and table legs, expect perhaps an idiot?" I like what she's saying, but I also think it's funny about the nose ring. What about the poets who wear them all the time?
Overheard outside:
Else: MAMA! MAMA! JACOB TOOK TWO PEACHES!
Mama: They're apricots.
Else and Jacob: APRICOTS, APRICOTS, APRICOTS...
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Easier and its Discontents
When I first got my license, the main places I drove myself were to my cello lesson and to youth orchestra rehearsal. They weren't the easiest drives--Market Street and along the C line in Brookline, and Storrow Drive to the BU campus, for the Boston-geography-enabled--but they were a lot easier than the things I was driving to. On the way I often thought about how competent I was at driving after only a few months of doing it, compared to how much I struggled with an instrument I'd been playing since I was eight. Driving is just a LOT easier than playing the cello. Infinitely easier, staggeringly easier. So much easier that I had to wonder why I kept doing the thing that I would never "succeed" at, never be able to relax into, to roll down the window and turn up the radio and think my thoughts and navigate a tricky passage without it meaning anything at all.
This is coming back to me now because blogging is a hell of a lot easier than writing poems.
This is coming back to me now because blogging is a hell of a lot easier than writing poems.
Friday, May 27, 2005
What Gives Me Hope
"The serious problems of life are never fully solved but some states can be resolved rhythmically."
--Theodore Roethke
--Theodore Roethke
I'd like your advice...
... he said, on a matter of onions.
That was nice, but I can't advise him. I'm sorry.
That was nice, but I can't advise him. I'm sorry.
State of Affairs
It's almost June--almost the month when everything changes. Traditionally it gets warmer and better, and I get a year older. I've become more equivocal about all this in the past few years; the birthday definitely no longer seems like a triumph promising a joyful future full of triumphs. So June brings a combination of the old hope and a fear of disappointment, and it's odd how large its arrival is looming in my little psyche.
On some level, it just makes me want to barbeque and swim and eat tomatoes. To hang towels out to dry in the breeze off the water. Not exactly to go to China and pee into a paper cone my mom has ordered in bulk from a catalogue specializing in travel to icky places--but not exactly not to do that, either.
On some level, it just makes me want to barbeque and swim and eat tomatoes. To hang towels out to dry in the breeze off the water. Not exactly to go to China and pee into a paper cone my mom has ordered in bulk from a catalogue specializing in travel to icky places--but not exactly not to do that, either.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Our Last Reading
I woke up this morning with my arms pleasantly sore, as if I'd done some kind of impressive workout. It took me a while to remember that what I actually did was carry a case of Two Buck Chuck around.
Or maybe what happened is that I didn't say the safety word soon enough.
Or maybe what happened is that I didn't say the safety word soon enough.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
To-do list for Tuesday
1. Visit Chinese consulate, apply for visa.
2. Read Judith Butler on the elliptical trainer.
Man, I love grad school.
UPDATE: What kind of pathetic excuse for a consulate closes at 3:00?
2. Read Judith Butler on the elliptical trainer.
Man, I love grad school.
UPDATE: What kind of pathetic excuse for a consulate closes at 3:00?
Monday, May 23, 2005
Dark Night Without Armour of the Soul
It's finally happened. One of my students wrote a proposal for her class presentation on a poem by Jewel.
And academic elitist that I am, I said no, you cannot present that dreck to your classmates. I said it in a nicer way, and forced myself to read the poem before deciding, but still--these are not the moments we go into teaching for.
But it's weird to realize that I've been gleefully bashing Jewel's poetry for years without ever having read any of it. I've always thought of her as a decent lyricist, at least for a KISS108 type singer, and yet I bought into the assumption that she shouldn't be writing poetry books. Why? Because she's a celebrity waltzing into the field and selling more books than several poet laureates put together? I guess it's obvious where the resentment comes from, but all that would be irrelevant if the work was good.
But I think there's also more than pettiness at work in the sense that books like these can be a problem. They affect everyone because they change the ambient definitions of what poetry is, can be, and should do. Popular poems that are easy, that aren't rigorous, weaken the already ailing cultural idea that rewarding art requires patience.
As someone with seriously compromised patience myself, I think that it, and concentration, and care, and investment, are habits that need to be cultivated and tended, and that that can be difficult when the more and the less rewarding forms of art get mixed up together. At the same time, even though I told my student not to present on Jewel, I think railing against or trying to exclude "popular" stuff gets us nowhere, and that what people who make patience-requiring art need to do is to stick to what we do, not compromise, and try to expand the audience additively, not by drawing lines in the sand.
Just in case anyone was wondering.
And academic elitist that I am, I said no, you cannot present that dreck to your classmates. I said it in a nicer way, and forced myself to read the poem before deciding, but still--these are not the moments we go into teaching for.
But it's weird to realize that I've been gleefully bashing Jewel's poetry for years without ever having read any of it. I've always thought of her as a decent lyricist, at least for a KISS108 type singer, and yet I bought into the assumption that she shouldn't be writing poetry books. Why? Because she's a celebrity waltzing into the field and selling more books than several poet laureates put together? I guess it's obvious where the resentment comes from, but all that would be irrelevant if the work was good.
But I think there's also more than pettiness at work in the sense that books like these can be a problem. They affect everyone because they change the ambient definitions of what poetry is, can be, and should do. Popular poems that are easy, that aren't rigorous, weaken the already ailing cultural idea that rewarding art requires patience.
As someone with seriously compromised patience myself, I think that it, and concentration, and care, and investment, are habits that need to be cultivated and tended, and that that can be difficult when the more and the less rewarding forms of art get mixed up together. At the same time, even though I told my student not to present on Jewel, I think railing against or trying to exclude "popular" stuff gets us nowhere, and that what people who make patience-requiring art need to do is to stick to what we do, not compromise, and try to expand the audience additively, not by drawing lines in the sand.
Just in case anyone was wondering.
Moule & Frites & Shakespeare
I'm going to to have a party combining these wonderful things. Eating the mussels and french fries, reading a Shakespeare play out loud, drinking lots of wine. Please come, and put in a vote for the play, too: I'm thinking the Tempest or Twelfth Night because they are my favorites but I'm open to suggestions.
And if you're a skeptic, well, just prepare to be convinced.
And if you're a skeptic, well, just prepare to be convinced.
Well, well
Thyestes has now successfully consumed his three sons.
Oh, ancient tragedy, you are so gruesome.
Oh, ancient tragedy, you are so gruesome.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Something I like
Our beloved visiting professor Killarney once pointed out that I like the word "little." It's true, I do.
So hooray for blogs, where writing tics can be embraced. Hooray for something that, whatever it is, is definitely not art.
So hooray for blogs, where writing tics can be embraced. Hooray for something that, whatever it is, is definitely not art.
Life Lessons of the Weekend
1. The ocean is not scary after all, and frequent immersion is desirable.
2. Hallelujah for outgrowing the prom.
3. Everyone wants dinner in Laguna Beach.
4. Running out of coffee filters and not dragging oneself to Starbucks until 3:00 pm makes for an unproductive day.
5. Two months after the sprain, the dorsal fin can handle running again!
6. A little piece of lime popsicle is pretty good in a gin and tonic.
7. That panicky I-did-nothing-all-weekend-and-now-I'm-screwed feeling doesn't go away forever after college graduation. In fact, it's back right now!
8. Fuck the furniture in this poem, but not yet.
2. Hallelujah for outgrowing the prom.
3. Everyone wants dinner in Laguna Beach.
4. Running out of coffee filters and not dragging oneself to Starbucks until 3:00 pm makes for an unproductive day.
5. Two months after the sprain, the dorsal fin can handle running again!
6. A little piece of lime popsicle is pretty good in a gin and tonic.
7. That panicky I-did-nothing-all-weekend-and-now-I'm-screwed feeling doesn't go away forever after college graduation. In fact, it's back right now!
8. Fuck the furniture in this poem, but not yet.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Moses Crossing the Red Sea Snack
Trochee, Trochee, Iamb, Spondee.
Why do my students so hate scansion?
Why do my students so hate scansion?
It's never too early for yelling
My neighbors, those who have caused me to abandon my liberal voting principles and to become hostile to children, are having a yard sale directly under my window and have been for quite some time now. I'm pretty sure the shouting started before eight, but I'm not completely sure because I was busy trying to integrate into my dreams important things to yell like, "You're offering TWENTY for that?" and "But I'M lucky because you're taking that away!" As I have often said, when the kids scream, okay, but the adults should know better. And I stick to that, but I do wish that the kids would stop adding in their full-volume wordless ostenato.
Way up on the plus side of the ledger, though, it seems to be a moving sale.
Way up on the plus side of the ledger, though, it seems to be a moving sale.
Moses Among the Rabbits
When I leave the apartments of brilliant nocturnal poets, I have to go down a steep hill to get to my house. Since I sprained my ankle (or "dorsal fin," as Jane would put it), I'm always worried about slipping and retwisting it, and I've come to the conclusion that the safest way down is just to run. Dashing down the hill late at night causes rabbits to scurry off to both sides in front of me, their little tails disappearing into the bushes. It is practically a sea of rabbits around here, and parting it feels like a little bit of legend right here in Irvine.
While I was googling (rather than cracking open my free, neglected Oxford Study Bible) to double-check that it was Moses who parted the Red Sea, I came upon this amazing recipe:
Moses Crossing the Red Sea Snack
Red Jello (Red Sea)
Jelly babies or Jelly beans (Moses or you could use them for Pharaoh's army)
Rectangle tin/container
Spoons
Make the Jello in a rectangle container.
Then give each child a Jelly bean.
They each get a spoon and take turns eating their way through the middle to the other side.
At the end they can eat the Jelly beans.
Let's have an edible Biblical scenes party!
While I was googling (rather than cracking open my free, neglected Oxford Study Bible) to double-check that it was Moses who parted the Red Sea, I came upon this amazing recipe:
Moses Crossing the Red Sea Snack
Red Jello (Red Sea)
Jelly babies or Jelly beans (Moses or you could use them for Pharaoh's army)
Rectangle tin/container
Spoons
Make the Jello in a rectangle container.
Then give each child a Jelly bean.
They each get a spoon and take turns eating their way through the middle to the other side.
At the end they can eat the Jelly beans.
Let's have an edible Biblical scenes party!
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Deus ex machina
I've been trying to write profound intellectual poetry based on the ideas in my Greek tragedy class, but instead I wrote this, about going around in the dryer...
The God in the Machine
Warmth, and motion,
and a porthole to show
just one round slice
of everything outside.
Who with all the
power in the world would not
finally choose to rest where all is clean--
and drift, and spin?
The God in the Machine
Warmth, and motion,
and a porthole to show
just one round slice
of everything outside.
Who with all the
power in the world would not
finally choose to rest where all is clean--
and drift, and spin?
Monday, May 16, 2005
Identity Politics
So I have been against identity politics forever, but have always been interested in how difficult it is to fully divest from them. It is almost impossible not to counter an identity politics claim with another identity politics claim, as in, "You think YOU are against identity politics? Well, if YOU, had MY experience, you would know just how terrible they are . . . " And so on.
As a member of no minority group with any cachet, I've always felt distanced from the idea of voting with group identity in mind. But recently, the housing complex where I live has been holding elections that present me with my first real urge ever to vote my identity.
I live in graduate student housing that is mixed single people and families, and I live near some households with small kids where the parents are pretty inconsiderate of their neighbors--lots of yelling, mostly, including in the early morning, and leaving their toys all over the place. Not really a big deal, but it affects my life enough that I notice there's a real difference in lifestyle. In the elections that are coming up, the candiates separate pretty cleanly into those with kids, who are advocating for more family-friendly use of resources, and those without.
The famililes have a tougher time economically than the single grad students, and also use the housing "community" services a lot more, so on the one hand, I should be considerate and vote to help those with the most need and the most investment--that's what my usual liberal impulse would be. But on the other hand, the services that families would most want are ones that I personally would have no use for, whereas there are some uses of the same resources that could actually benefit me. Further, I somehow feel resentful, like, they already have kids, what else do they want?
As a member of no minority group with any cachet, I've always felt distanced from the idea of voting with group identity in mind. But recently, the housing complex where I live has been holding elections that present me with my first real urge ever to vote my identity.
I live in graduate student housing that is mixed single people and families, and I live near some households with small kids where the parents are pretty inconsiderate of their neighbors--lots of yelling, mostly, including in the early morning, and leaving their toys all over the place. Not really a big deal, but it affects my life enough that I notice there's a real difference in lifestyle. In the elections that are coming up, the candiates separate pretty cleanly into those with kids, who are advocating for more family-friendly use of resources, and those without.
The famililes have a tougher time economically than the single grad students, and also use the housing "community" services a lot more, so on the one hand, I should be considerate and vote to help those with the most need and the most investment--that's what my usual liberal impulse would be. But on the other hand, the services that families would most want are ones that I personally would have no use for, whereas there are some uses of the same resources that could actually benefit me. Further, I somehow feel resentful, like, they already have kids, what else do they want?
Sunday, May 15, 2005
I have a blog that no one knows about
Which reminds me of an old Girl Scout Camp song,
We're great but no one knows it,
no one knows it so far.
But one day they'll realize
how wonderful we are.
They'll look at us and point at us
and then they'll shout "hooray!"
We're great, no one knows it,
but they will some day!
Trust the Girl Scouts to put their finger on an existential truth, and with a catchy tune, too.
But what's so great and so quintessentially Girl Scout campish about the song is the "we"--attributing this familiar highly individual statement of naive ambition to a collective; and such a plucky, all-for-one-and-one-for-all collective at that.
We're great but no one knows it,
no one knows it so far.
But one day they'll realize
how wonderful we are.
They'll look at us and point at us
and then they'll shout "hooray!"
We're great, no one knows it,
but they will some day!
Trust the Girl Scouts to put their finger on an existential truth, and with a catchy tune, too.
But what's so great and so quintessentially Girl Scout campish about the song is the "we"--attributing this familiar highly individual statement of naive ambition to a collective; and such a plucky, all-for-one-and-one-for-all collective at that.
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