2/24/2008
live from Arizona...
The sun valley has really spoiled us so far. Temps hover in the mid-70s and the sun shines. I have no idea what kind of mess Detroit is in...snow? ice? sub-zero temps? I've got no clue. Last night Mark's parents watched their kids so our hosts Mark and AJ and Nicole and I could go out. We ate at a very cool fondue place in Tempe. We must have spent nearly three hours there, eating, drinking, chatting. We were going to take a walk on Mill Avenue, the Arizona State University strip, but a huge meal left us all feeling lazy. Instead, we came home, made a fire, and sat under the dessert sky until well after midnight. Excellent trip so far. Having great friends in the state always gives us good reason to visit, and keeps me from getting too regretful about leaving Arizona after grad school. On today's schedule, some hiking and possibly some reading too.
2/21/2008
sour grapes and class manipulation
For the first time since the presidential race began, Barack Obama has begun to get attacked. Until now, Bill Clinton has been the only prominent voice lobbing ad hominems in Obama's direction. Now I scan a.m. talk radio during my commute and hear the scorn of pundits who loathe the thought of an activist or community organizer in the White House. Those words--"activist" and "community organizer"--are said with abhorrence and a dramatic pause afterward, as if the criticisms are self-evident. The McCain camp now impugns Obama for being a gifted orator, as if speaking well signifies poor character.
A noteworthy anti-Obama tirade took place in my hometown--Youngstown, Ohio--the other night (see here and here). Introducing Hillary Clinton, Machinist Union President Thomas Buffenbarger launched bizarre personal attacks on Clinton's rival and actively encouraged the crowd to boo not only Obama but also Obama's supporters. So insulted is the Clinton camp by Obama's refusal to canonize Bill Clinton's legacy, they let surrogates resort to name-calling. So sour are the grapes as Obama pulls into the lead, they risk splintering the party's base.
What did Buffenbarger say about Obama? With the same disgust in his voice that the right-wing radio hosts use when they call Obama a "community organizer," Buffenbarger questioned why anyone would want "the editor of Harvard Law Review" as their president. Because, I guess, you don't want someone smart in the White House? Or you don't want someone with a law degree from the ivy league? Such anti-intellectualism seems bizarre in the context of a Hillary Clinton--who is not only smart, but also in posession of a J.D. from Yale--rally. Buffenbarger also said:
What bothers me is that Buffenbarger perpetuates an anemic, limited-and-limiting stereotype of the working class and organized labor: they all distrust lawyers, environmentalists, peace activists, and people who drink lattes. A union president should know better than to make such generalizations. When I was volunteering on the Kerry campaign in Ohio four years ago, I went to events at union halls that had coffee stations with choices that put the university's coffee stand to shame! My father-in-law (a janitor who was active in his union for decades) is the person who encouraged my wife to become a lawyer. Does Buffenbarger really think he or his rank-and-file benefit from divisive rhetoric and the reproduction of stereotypes?
A noteworthy anti-Obama tirade took place in my hometown--Youngstown, Ohio--the other night (see here and here). Introducing Hillary Clinton, Machinist Union President Thomas Buffenbarger launched bizarre personal attacks on Clinton's rival and actively encouraged the crowd to boo not only Obama but also Obama's supporters. So insulted is the Clinton camp by Obama's refusal to canonize Bill Clinton's legacy, they let surrogates resort to name-calling. So sour are the grapes as Obama pulls into the lead, they risk splintering the party's base.
What did Buffenbarger say about Obama? With the same disgust in his voice that the right-wing radio hosts use when they call Obama a "community organizer," Buffenbarger questioned why anyone would want "the editor of Harvard Law Review" as their president. Because, I guess, you don't want someone smart in the White House? Or you don't want someone with a law degree from the ivy league? Such anti-intellectualism seems bizarre in the context of a Hillary Clinton--who is not only smart, but also in posession of a J.D. from Yale--rally. Buffenbarger also said:
The Barack show is playing to rave reviews sold out at college campus after college campus. Standing room only crowds to hear his silver-tounged orations. Hope, change, yes we can? Give me a break! I’ve got news for all the latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust fund babies crowding in to hear him speak. This guy won’t last a round against the Republican attack machine. He’s a poet, not a fighter.Um, I don't drink lattes, drive a Prius, wear sandals, or have a trust fund, and I back Obama. Discrediting a candidate for being elite is an old, and often effective, trick of course. Our current president--a third-generation millionaire and ivy league legacy admit--successfully played this game of class manipulation first against Al Gore, and then against John Kerry.
What bothers me is that Buffenbarger perpetuates an anemic, limited-and-limiting stereotype of the working class and organized labor: they all distrust lawyers, environmentalists, peace activists, and people who drink lattes. A union president should know better than to make such generalizations. When I was volunteering on the Kerry campaign in Ohio four years ago, I went to events at union halls that had coffee stations with choices that put the university's coffee stand to shame! My father-in-law (a janitor who was active in his union for decades) is the person who encouraged my wife to become a lawyer. Does Buffenbarger really think he or his rank-and-file benefit from divisive rhetoric and the reproduction of stereotypes?
2/20/2008
tacos and nostalgia
In two days, Nicole and I leave for our first vacation in a long time. We'll spend my spring break in sunny Arizona, and take quick trips to Mexico and southern California. Visiting the southwest sounds attractive right now primarily because 1) we can't wait to visit our friends Mark and AJ and Hung and Ann, and 2) we've had NO RELIEF from icy sidewalks and single-digit temps in motown.
But food is a close number three in terms of Arizona's appeal. When I think about the four years I lived in Tucson, I get nostalgic (and hungry) for the many Mexican restaurants that dot the city. July, 1998, I moved to Tucson to start the Ph.D program at Arizona. I got there the day the WPA conference--held in Tucson that year--began. During the weeks leading up to the conference (and my 2,000-mile trek), a discussion on the wpa listserv centered on where to get the best Mexican food in town. So I got there with a pretty good list of resources!
South Tucson in particular boasts countless mom-and-pop restaurants and tortillerias. Homemade tortillas of south Tucson? Nothing better. My favorite place by far is El Torero. The proverbial hole in the wall. Except at El Torero, the hole is covered with an enormous stuffed swordfish, apopos, best I can tell, of nothing. Yes, a huge swordfish hangs on the wall. If the place wasn't pink, it would be hard to find. Tucked on quiet 26th Street, the joint always looks like it's closed. I remember eating lunch there with Bob Connors (and, as I recall, a motley assortment of our faculty and grad students) the day he visited our writing program, a few months before his untimely death. I remember my graduation party there, the night before commencement, the surreal experience of my parents and my dissertation committee around the same table. I remember taking my pal Mark there for lunch; he had never eaten at El Torero before and when his wife later told him that she had on several occasions, he was pissed off at her for never having shared its joys.
What to eat at El Torero. The topopo (a huge salad shaped like a volcano)? One of the dishes they top with mole sauce? Naah, go for the tacos and save the fancy stuff for Mi Nidito or one of the joints back in the university district. Tacos at El Torero forego the ground beef in favor of thin slices of bistek, the always fresh taste of queso fresco, and shredded cabbage. If I ever visit Arizona and don't go back to El Torero, do me a favor and slap me.
Moving across the country by myself was a challenge--especially moving to a city whose hot climate, bilingualism, and residents perpetually clad in sandals marked it as completely unfamiliar. Taking a grad seminar in community literacy and service learning (taught by Tilly Warnock: best. teacher. ever) during my first term served as a nice intro to Tucson life. So did being in the know about El Torero.
Arizona, here we come.
But food is a close number three in terms of Arizona's appeal. When I think about the four years I lived in Tucson, I get nostalgic (and hungry) for the many Mexican restaurants that dot the city. July, 1998, I moved to Tucson to start the Ph.D program at Arizona. I got there the day the WPA conference--held in Tucson that year--began. During the weeks leading up to the conference (and my 2,000-mile trek), a discussion on the wpa listserv centered on where to get the best Mexican food in town. So I got there with a pretty good list of resources!
South Tucson in particular boasts countless mom-and-pop restaurants and tortillerias. Homemade tortillas of south Tucson? Nothing better. My favorite place by far is El Torero. The proverbial hole in the wall. Except at El Torero, the hole is covered with an enormous stuffed swordfish, apopos, best I can tell, of nothing. Yes, a huge swordfish hangs on the wall. If the place wasn't pink, it would be hard to find. Tucked on quiet 26th Street, the joint always looks like it's closed. I remember eating lunch there with Bob Connors (and, as I recall, a motley assortment of our faculty and grad students) the day he visited our writing program, a few months before his untimely death. I remember my graduation party there, the night before commencement, the surreal experience of my parents and my dissertation committee around the same table. I remember taking my pal Mark there for lunch; he had never eaten at El Torero before and when his wife later told him that she had on several occasions, he was pissed off at her for never having shared its joys.
What to eat at El Torero. The topopo (a huge salad shaped like a volcano)? One of the dishes they top with mole sauce? Naah, go for the tacos and save the fancy stuff for Mi Nidito or one of the joints back in the university district. Tacos at El Torero forego the ground beef in favor of thin slices of bistek, the always fresh taste of queso fresco, and shredded cabbage. If I ever visit Arizona and don't go back to El Torero, do me a favor and slap me.
Moving across the country by myself was a challenge--especially moving to a city whose hot climate, bilingualism, and residents perpetually clad in sandals marked it as completely unfamiliar. Taking a grad seminar in community literacy and service learning (taught by Tilly Warnock: best. teacher. ever) during my first term served as a nice intro to Tucson life. So did being in the know about El Torero.
Arizona, here we come.
2/15/2008
happy talk
I've been thinking a lot about what makes people happy. In my basic writing class last month, we read Paul Clemens' book Made In Detroit and, by the end, most of the students had concluded that Clemens lacked happiness. How else to explain his search for meaning? Why else would he wrestle with the meaning of his fiance's brutal attack and his dad getting carjacked? Yes, they said, of course these events affected Clemens emotionally, but why in the world--aside from his pervasive lack of happiness--would he approach these issues intellectually?
Writers lack the ability to "move on," many in the class concluded; writers like Clemens fail to "simplify" (one student used this term and it really resonated for others) their lives. We had a great discussion about how reflection, analysis, critique, and knowledge always have the potential to upset us and keep us from feelings of gratification. Knowing why McDonald's tastes so good. Knowing why that CD costs 8.99 instead of 14.99.
And yet I'm aware that much of my contribution to that discussion assumed the secular-liberal-academic values so rarely questioned in the world of campuses, English Departments, letters, etc. 'Knowledge comes from disinterested, rational thought.' 'The human condition is complex and cries out for nuanced, sophisticated explanations.' 'A life of books is the best life of all.' 'As a culture, as Neil Postman famously opined, we're amusing ourselves to death.'
These are not necessarily values for which I wish to cheerlead. I don't know for certain that a life of books is the best possible life. I love to read novels, as time allows. I love Naomi Shihab Nye's poetry. Reading Georg Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness in grad school changed the way I look at the world. But my connection to these books is rooted in pleasure, not in some kind of exalted "life of books," and I don't think I'm alone in that respect. How is my connection to books (including "idea books") different than my connection to punk rock or the tv show "Lost" (given that all of the above are rooted in pleasure)? How is a connection to the stuff Postman critiques different than a connection to "good fiction"? I know a lot of English professors who seem to be "amusing themselves to death" on the New York Review of Books.
I challenged much of what my basic writers had to say (simplify! don't overthink it!), but I hope I did so in a fashion that made clear that we have a wide variety of value systems that might undergird how we make sense of the world. The secular-liberal-academic way(s) of understanding the world--adopt a disinterested, analytical stance--has not cornered the market. (And of course I don't mean to turn secularism, liberalism, or academe into fixed monoliths--there are many different versions of all three ideologies.) Most of my students take either Christianity or Islam very seriously and their identities as Christians or Muslims are more significant in their lives than their identities as academics. And yes, these two identity markers DO butt up against one another with some frequency.
All of these thoughts came to a head for me today as I read several reviews of Susan Jacoby's new book "The Age of American Unreason," reviewed in both the Times and Salon.com. Jacoby's book is another in a long-ass, usually quite popular line of critiques of our mythically dumbed-down-and-declining-right-now-as-we-speak culture. From the Salon review:
I'll save the critiques of Jacoby until I've read the book. But in truth, I probably won't, because I have little interest in analyses of these issues that fail to account for the multiple value systems--all of them socially constructed (itself, I'll admit, a notion informed by a pomo-light version of secular-liberalism!), situated, ideologically bound. It's all a little too Allan Bloom. A little too much like the "where have all the bookstores gone?" conversation before faculty meetings.
Both reviews of the book suggest that Jacoby blames religious fundamentalism and partisan political ideology for the alleged decline in smarts. And while I find much to fear in the rise of fundamentalism in particular, I'm not convinced that fundamentalism or partisanship are any guiltier than other value systems for shutting down independent thought. A fundamentalist is told what to think about, say, gay marriage. A loyal republican is told what to think about gun control. But a loyal academic faces the pressures of groupthink, too (try bringing up "America's Next Top Model" at a faculty meeting).
That's why Sharon Crowley's "Toward a Civil Disourse" is such an interesting book, because she deconstructs liberalism and fundamentalism with equal gusto. And, to return to my own students, one of the useful things about Made in Detroit is that Clemens walks us through the inadequacy of BOTH his family's laissez faire attitude toward race in the city AND the body of African-American literature he falls in love with in college. Neither provides a framework that can adequately explain his own lived experience. And so he wrestles. And so he considers various perspectives. And he writes. And perhaps ends up a little bit unhappy.
Writers lack the ability to "move on," many in the class concluded; writers like Clemens fail to "simplify" (one student used this term and it really resonated for others) their lives. We had a great discussion about how reflection, analysis, critique, and knowledge always have the potential to upset us and keep us from feelings of gratification. Knowing why McDonald's tastes so good. Knowing why that CD costs 8.99 instead of 14.99.
And yet I'm aware that much of my contribution to that discussion assumed the secular-liberal-academic values so rarely questioned in the world of campuses, English Departments, letters, etc. 'Knowledge comes from disinterested, rational thought.' 'The human condition is complex and cries out for nuanced, sophisticated explanations.' 'A life of books is the best life of all.' 'As a culture, as Neil Postman famously opined, we're amusing ourselves to death.'
These are not necessarily values for which I wish to cheerlead. I don't know for certain that a life of books is the best possible life. I love to read novels, as time allows. I love Naomi Shihab Nye's poetry. Reading Georg Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness in grad school changed the way I look at the world. But my connection to these books is rooted in pleasure, not in some kind of exalted "life of books," and I don't think I'm alone in that respect. How is my connection to books (including "idea books") different than my connection to punk rock or the tv show "Lost" (given that all of the above are rooted in pleasure)? How is a connection to the stuff Postman critiques different than a connection to "good fiction"? I know a lot of English professors who seem to be "amusing themselves to death" on the New York Review of Books.
I challenged much of what my basic writers had to say (simplify! don't overthink it!), but I hope I did so in a fashion that made clear that we have a wide variety of value systems that might undergird how we make sense of the world. The secular-liberal-academic way(s) of understanding the world--adopt a disinterested, analytical stance--has not cornered the market. (And of course I don't mean to turn secularism, liberalism, or academe into fixed monoliths--there are many different versions of all three ideologies.) Most of my students take either Christianity or Islam very seriously and their identities as Christians or Muslims are more significant in their lives than their identities as academics. And yes, these two identity markers DO butt up against one another with some frequency.
All of these thoughts came to a head for me today as I read several reviews of Susan Jacoby's new book "The Age of American Unreason," reviewed in both the Times and Salon.com. Jacoby's book is another in a long-ass, usually quite popular line of critiques of our mythically dumbed-down-and-declining-right-now-as-we-speak culture. From the Salon review:
The chief manifestations of this newly virulent irrationality are the rise of fundamentalist religion and the flourishing of junk science and other forms of what Jacoby calls "junk thought." The mentally enfeebled American public can now be easily manipulated by flimsy symbolism, whether it's George W. Bush's bumbling, accented speaking style (labeling him as a "regular guy" despite his highly privileged background) or the successful campaign by right-wing ideologues to smear liberals as snooty "elites." Unable to grasp even the basic principles of statistics or the scientific method, Americans gullibly buy into a cornucopia of bogus notions, from recovered memory syndrome to intelligent design to the anti-vaccination movement.And while I'm sure Jacoby makes some compelling points, for me her credibility is damaged by the implication that "junk thought" is new. To be fair, I have not read her book; perhaps the reviews are misrepresenting her argument. Self-help books and demagogue politicians have long histories. Over a century ago, PT Barnum scammed boatloads of the "suckers" he said were born every minute. Why the claims of newness?
I'll save the critiques of Jacoby until I've read the book. But in truth, I probably won't, because I have little interest in analyses of these issues that fail to account for the multiple value systems--all of them socially constructed (itself, I'll admit, a notion informed by a pomo-light version of secular-liberalism!), situated, ideologically bound. It's all a little too Allan Bloom. A little too much like the "where have all the bookstores gone?" conversation before faculty meetings.
Both reviews of the book suggest that Jacoby blames religious fundamentalism and partisan political ideology for the alleged decline in smarts. And while I find much to fear in the rise of fundamentalism in particular, I'm not convinced that fundamentalism or partisanship are any guiltier than other value systems for shutting down independent thought. A fundamentalist is told what to think about, say, gay marriage. A loyal republican is told what to think about gun control. But a loyal academic faces the pressures of groupthink, too (try bringing up "America's Next Top Model" at a faculty meeting).
That's why Sharon Crowley's "Toward a Civil Disourse" is such an interesting book, because she deconstructs liberalism and fundamentalism with equal gusto. And, to return to my own students, one of the useful things about Made in Detroit is that Clemens walks us through the inadequacy of BOTH his family's laissez faire attitude toward race in the city AND the body of African-American literature he falls in love with in college. Neither provides a framework that can adequately explain his own lived experience. And so he wrestles. And so he considers various perspectives. And he writes. And perhaps ends up a little bit unhappy.
2/14/2008
yo vivo
The tenure file is done, save some final editing. Some of last term's service learning students and I are working on some promotional materials for our community partner. Those two facts explain why the blog has been quiet for a few days.
But I am alive and life is good. I've been working out every morning before work. Nicole and I celebrated Valentine's Day last evening with dinner down the street at Sweet Lorraine's, a place I had always avoided because it seemed kind of pretentious. But their menu pulls from interesting sources (a little French, a little cajun, a little British pub, etc.) and the tuna nicoise salad was very good. Eight days until "spring" break begins (our academic calendar is bizarre) and Nicole and I leave for a week in Arizona. Goodbye, snow. Final reason why life is good: The Dirtbombs have a new disc coming out and are playing a record-release show this weekend in Detroit. Today's Free Press gives the band some well-deserved love. Can't wait for the show.
In less decadent, bougie news, our church hosts Cass Community's roving homeless shelter next week. Preparations are underway--another reason for the blog's recent silence--for what is always a powerful experience. 55 homeless men and women (of the estimated 18,000 homeless in Detroit) will stay in the church next week, so that will occupy most evenings, especially Saturday when we're cooking a humongous spaghetti dinner. The annual event is always an important reminder, frankly, of what a deeply f***ed up culture we live in.
But I am alive and life is good. I've been working out every morning before work. Nicole and I celebrated Valentine's Day last evening with dinner down the street at Sweet Lorraine's, a place I had always avoided because it seemed kind of pretentious. But their menu pulls from interesting sources (a little French, a little cajun, a little British pub, etc.) and the tuna nicoise salad was very good. Eight days until "spring" break begins (our academic calendar is bizarre) and Nicole and I leave for a week in Arizona. Goodbye, snow. Final reason why life is good: The Dirtbombs have a new disc coming out and are playing a record-release show this weekend in Detroit. Today's Free Press gives the band some well-deserved love. Can't wait for the show.
In less decadent, bougie news, our church hosts Cass Community's roving homeless shelter next week. Preparations are underway--another reason for the blog's recent silence--for what is always a powerful experience. 55 homeless men and women (of the estimated 18,000 homeless in Detroit) will stay in the church next week, so that will occupy most evenings, especially Saturday when we're cooking a humongous spaghetti dinner. The annual event is always an important reminder, frankly, of what a deeply f***ed up culture we live in.
2/08/2008
lies lies lies
The Kwame Kilpatrick scandal continues to dominate conversations in Detroit. Yesterday the mayor's attorney Sharon McPhail read a statement--full text available here--that argued the media ("they own the printing presses," she said scornfully) has told only one side of the story and that "the city" does not have an opportunity to be heard. McPhail said these words in a statement that was carried live on most local television and news radio stations (I listened on my way home from work). When Kwame Kilpatrick wanted to make a statement of his own, local tv stations all carried it, allowing the mayor to dictate the rules: I'll talk in my church, side by side with my wife, etc.
Referring to the sealed court records that local media brought a lawsuit in order to access, McPhail said: "It is important to note that none of the documents involved the so-called text messages that have been the subject of such fevered media coverage in recent days." She also said: "In fact, no secret deals exist or have ever existed."
Local media won that lawsuit despite the city's vigorous appeals (story here). According to the Free Press,
Referring to the sealed court records that local media brought a lawsuit in order to access, McPhail said: "It is important to note that none of the documents involved the so-called text messages that have been the subject of such fevered media coverage in recent days." She also said: "In fact, no secret deals exist or have ever existed."
Local media won that lawsuit despite the city's vigorous appeals (story here). According to the Free Press,
The most important document is a nine-page confidential agreement that the mayor and city lawyers had tried for months to keep secret. The document, signed by Kilpatrick, his then-chief of staff Christine Beatty and lawyer Mike Stefani, who represented three police officers in a whistle-blower lawsuit against the city, pledged to keep text messages between Kilpatrick and Beatty secret.How can McPhail's statement be understood as anything but a series of lies? Will she be held accountable? Probably not. Unlike the mayor, at least she wasn't under oath while lying. Will *he* be held accountable? It's starting to look like he might. The city's strategy now seems to be to drag things out in the hopes that public outrage will diminish. I hope it does not.
2/07/2008
lost, sick, weathered
First things first. Tonight LOST follows up last week's satisfying season premiere with a new episode to obsess over. As usual, EW has a great pre-episode article that doesn't give away any secrets but reviews pieces of LOST mythology that pertain to tonight's episode. The article also features an interview with Jorge "Hurley" Garcia. (If you're keeping score, Hurley happens to be my favorite castaway now that Charlie's moved on to that big Driveshaft gig in the sky.)
Today I've lost my voice. No, I don't mean I have writer's block. I mean my throat is beyond hoarse to the point that I can only speak in a whisper. The odd part is that, other than the hoarseness, I'm fine. In fact, I worked out this morning before coming to the office. I've had a mild cold the past two days that I think I've fought off with oranges, tea with honey from my sister's bees, and many glasses of water. But the throat problem remains.
Probably fortuitous, then, that the Michigan Campus Compact (a service learning organization) conference in Mt. Pleasant has been canceled. I was scheduled to give a presentation tomorrow morning on our service learning efforts at UM-Dearborn...and getting to Central Michigan U. for the presentation would have entailed leaving home at 5:30 a.m. Today I'm conferencing one-on-one with Comp 99 students most of the afternoon and tonight Nicole and I have a Berkley Democrats meeting, so I wouldn't mind sleeping past 5:30 tomorrow.
----
Listening to: SSM: Break Your Arm for Evolution
Reading: Composition 099 first drafts
Watching: duh, LOST (tonight, that is)
Awaiting: the return of my voice
Today I've lost my voice. No, I don't mean I have writer's block. I mean my throat is beyond hoarse to the point that I can only speak in a whisper. The odd part is that, other than the hoarseness, I'm fine. In fact, I worked out this morning before coming to the office. I've had a mild cold the past two days that I think I've fought off with oranges, tea with honey from my sister's bees, and many glasses of water. But the throat problem remains.
Probably fortuitous, then, that the Michigan Campus Compact (a service learning organization) conference in Mt. Pleasant has been canceled. I was scheduled to give a presentation tomorrow morning on our service learning efforts at UM-Dearborn...and getting to Central Michigan U. for the presentation would have entailed leaving home at 5:30 a.m. Today I'm conferencing one-on-one with Comp 99 students most of the afternoon and tonight Nicole and I have a Berkley Democrats meeting, so I wouldn't mind sleeping past 5:30 tomorrow.
----
Listening to: SSM: Break Your Arm for Evolution
Reading: Composition 099 first drafts
Watching: duh, LOST (tonight, that is)
Awaiting: the return of my voice
2/05/2008
fiction watch, part two
Alice Sebold's The Almost Moon received awful reviews upon its release a few months back. See, for instance, the scathing NYTimes piece which calls the novel "emotionally and intellectually incoherent" as well as "banal" and "ludicrous" (the obligatory words of a negative review in the Times), all before getting to this one-two punch:
Sebold once again begins a book with an act of graphic violence. Her memoir Lucky (an unflinching work of non-fiction that I've taught several times) begins with a painstaking, nearly unreadable account of her rape. Her debut novel Lovely Bones--whose nearly universal accolades partially explain critics' vitriol for her new book--starts out with the rape and murder of the fourteen-year-old protagonist.
In the first chapter (actually the first sentence) of The Almost Moon, the middle-aged, troubled, narcissist Helen smothers her elderly mother to death. This is Sebold's trope. Dispense with the gory and the graphic and then get down to business. Sebold is interested not so much in trauma as much as trauma's aftermath. The little girl at the center of Lovely Bones watches from heaven as her own gruesome death impacts her classmates, her family, her neighborhood, and her killer. In Lucky , she narrates the two decades during which she and her loved ones cycled recursively and chaotically through various stages of grief regarding her rape.
The Almost Moon has a much more surreal feel than her earlier books. Much more surreal, even, than a little girl looking down from heaven. Helen does one inconceivable, absurd act after the other. Many of these acts, including seducing her best friend's son, appear gratuitous and pulpy and over-the-top, and I can see why critics may not have approved. This doesn't seem like the work of a well-respected MFA graduate and Oprah guest. The present action careens wildly.
Meanwhile, Helen flashes back to key moments in her relationship with her mother, offering a not-so-subtle (nothing in this novel is subtle) psychoanalytic rationale for the scene-one matricide. I won't give away what transpires in these explanatory sequences, as they form the emotional center (!) of the paradoxically center-less book.
As with Sebold's other books, readers burn through The Almost Moon quickly. I read it in two sittings, which is unlike me. I suspect even the most vitriolic critics fell victim to the novel's poisonous readability. I loved the gonzo present action and thought that Helen's madness made sense. The novel--narrated by Helen herself--is mad because Helen is mad, despite her steely moments. I admire how Sebold finds Helen's voice and then allows her to speak no matter how blue her disassociative notions sound to us.
The flashbacks were a bit heavy-handed in their facilitation of Sebold's metaphors (Helen is a nude model because, you see, number one she's angry at her mom for giving her a body complex, and, number two, she's naked before us on the page...get it?). Like I said, subtlety is no where to be found here. The book is flawed and struggles to match the unabashed, total pathos of Lovely Bones. But it's a novel that sticks to its vision and voice.
There’s no plot in this novel. It’s all free disassociation. “The Almost Moon” is really like one very long MySpace page. Sebold isn’t imagining people and events; she’s just making stuff up as she goes along...The real shame is that “Reading Alice Sebold” isn’t listed in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” After you’ve finished this insult to the lumber industry, your health care provider won’t cover your search for a cure.Ouch. Critic Lee Siegel sounds like he wanted to start some kind of literary version of a Biggie-Tupac beef. Alas no such beef transpired. And the Times' fighting words didn't scare me off, either, as I finally got around to reading Sebold's poorly received third book.
Sebold once again begins a book with an act of graphic violence. Her memoir Lucky (an unflinching work of non-fiction that I've taught several times) begins with a painstaking, nearly unreadable account of her rape. Her debut novel Lovely Bones--whose nearly universal accolades partially explain critics' vitriol for her new book--starts out with the rape and murder of the fourteen-year-old protagonist.
In the first chapter (actually the first sentence) of The Almost Moon, the middle-aged, troubled, narcissist Helen smothers her elderly mother to death. This is Sebold's trope. Dispense with the gory and the graphic and then get down to business. Sebold is interested not so much in trauma as much as trauma's aftermath. The little girl at the center of Lovely Bones watches from heaven as her own gruesome death impacts her classmates, her family, her neighborhood, and her killer. In Lucky , she narrates the two decades during which she and her loved ones cycled recursively and chaotically through various stages of grief regarding her rape.
The Almost Moon has a much more surreal feel than her earlier books. Much more surreal, even, than a little girl looking down from heaven. Helen does one inconceivable, absurd act after the other. Many of these acts, including seducing her best friend's son, appear gratuitous and pulpy and over-the-top, and I can see why critics may not have approved. This doesn't seem like the work of a well-respected MFA graduate and Oprah guest. The present action careens wildly.
Meanwhile, Helen flashes back to key moments in her relationship with her mother, offering a not-so-subtle (nothing in this novel is subtle) psychoanalytic rationale for the scene-one matricide. I won't give away what transpires in these explanatory sequences, as they form the emotional center (!) of the paradoxically center-less book.
As with Sebold's other books, readers burn through The Almost Moon quickly. I read it in two sittings, which is unlike me. I suspect even the most vitriolic critics fell victim to the novel's poisonous readability. I loved the gonzo present action and thought that Helen's madness made sense. The novel--narrated by Helen herself--is mad because Helen is mad, despite her steely moments. I admire how Sebold finds Helen's voice and then allows her to speak no matter how blue her disassociative notions sound to us.
The flashbacks were a bit heavy-handed in their facilitation of Sebold's metaphors (Helen is a nude model because, you see, number one she's angry at her mom for giving her a body complex, and, number two, she's naked before us on the page...get it?). Like I said, subtlety is no where to be found here. The book is flawed and struggles to match the unabashed, total pathos of Lovely Bones. But it's a novel that sticks to its vision and voice.
2/01/2008
1/30/2008
Wednesday randomness
Jack Lessenberry has written a compelling op-ed on the mayor's text message scandal, a call for his resignation:
...Speaking of sad, how fast did this ugliness turn uglier? By now, the composition studies community has finished buzzing about The Chronicle's latest ill-informed "analysis" of the teaching of writing. One of the paper's columnists listed titles of papers given at our national conference and used those titles as evidence of the discipline's lack of "legitimacy." How dare they engage with the social context of language use instead of sticking to "basic writing" (a disciplinary term the author doesn't understand) and expect to be taken seriously?
At first, the online responses echoed the responses in the composition studies blogosphere and on comp studies professional listservs. Later responses, though, seem to suggest that somebody rallied the troops and shifted the tide of opinion: writing courses don't teach students to write or think, nobody on campus respects writing teachers, writing courses indoctrinate, blah, blah, blah. Should have known the conversation would go nowhere.
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Listening to: The Go: Whatcha Doin' (1999); Detroit talk radio
Reading: The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold; Doing Emotion: Rhetoric, Writing, Teaching by Laura Micciche; a boatload of short stories by my English 323 students
Watching: The "Lost" recap show; Mayor Kilpatrick's address (not this second, obviously, but I think both are on tonight)
Awaiting: The new episode of "Lost," of course.
What few seem to realize is that this is not about sex.Amen to that. As Detroit cut curbside garbage pick-up and other "non-essential services," shut down firehouses, and watched the Big Three exit stage left, Kilpatrick settled a whistleblower case for $9 million of the city's money so that the cops suing the city wouldn't testify and reveal his affair with his chief of staff. His family already knew about the affair, according to his own statement, which means his children watched him on the news as he lied under oath. His chief has already resigned, he's the subject of a criminal inquiry into his alleged perjury, but his aides snickered (!) when asked if the mayor would consider stepping down. He'll speak tonight at his church and the whole metropolitan area will watch. Most of us will be sad.
Kwame Kilpatrick, for all I care, could have carnal knowledge of an Allis-Chalmers combine, if he paid for it. He could have had all the little girly-girls service him that he wanted. And if he paid for the rooms and broke no laws and did it on his own time, it might be disgusting or morally wrong, but it's not the public's
business.
Abraham Lincoln once, on being told that Ulysses Grant was a drunk, asked what kind of whiskey he drank so that he could send a case to his less successful generals. No, this isn't about sex.
That's the giggle factor. What it is about is lying under oath, committing a felony and destroying people's careers and wasting millions of a poor city's money to cover his own personal mess up.
You cannot get around that. You cannot survive that, if the rule of law makes any sense.
...Speaking of sad, how fast did this ugliness turn uglier? By now, the composition studies community has finished buzzing about The Chronicle's latest ill-informed "analysis" of the teaching of writing. One of the paper's columnists listed titles of papers given at our national conference and used those titles as evidence of the discipline's lack of "legitimacy." How dare they engage with the social context of language use instead of sticking to "basic writing" (a disciplinary term the author doesn't understand) and expect to be taken seriously?
At first, the online responses echoed the responses in the composition studies blogosphere and on comp studies professional listservs. Later responses, though, seem to suggest that somebody rallied the troops and shifted the tide of opinion: writing courses don't teach students to write or think, nobody on campus respects writing teachers, writing courses indoctrinate, blah, blah, blah. Should have known the conversation would go nowhere.
---------
Listening to: The Go: Whatcha Doin' (1999); Detroit talk radio
Reading: The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold; Doing Emotion: Rhetoric, Writing, Teaching by Laura Micciche; a boatload of short stories by my English 323 students
Watching: The "Lost" recap show; Mayor Kilpatrick's address (not this second, obviously, but I think both are on tonight)
Awaiting: The new episode of "Lost," of course.
1/29/2008
ivy league
So I'm watching "The Good Shepherd," the Matt Damon thriller about the early history of the C.I.A. and the film's version of life in the ivy league (circa 1939) fascinates me. Rich boys, foppish one minute, full of swagger and a macho awareness of their cultural capital the next. The film highlights these kids reading a lot of modernist poetry, putting on productions of HMS Pinafore, singing tunes in four-part harmony. Did life at Harvard and Yale really look like this seventy years ago?
Does ivy league life look like this now? Pop culture representations seem to construct this version of the ivies. The Harvard class reunion from "Good Will Hunting," where cliques seem to congregate around the barbershop quartets the respective alums belonged to. The ivy-league-educated staffers on "The West Wing," who all obsess over Gilbert and Sullivan.
Anybody out there have any first-hand accounts of whether life at the ivies consists of the future senators and Simpsons writers singing a capella and talking about Pirates of Penzance? Or is this just the impression Aaron Sorkin and Matt Damon WANT us to have?
Does ivy league life look like this now? Pop culture representations seem to construct this version of the ivies. The Harvard class reunion from "Good Will Hunting," where cliques seem to congregate around the barbershop quartets the respective alums belonged to. The ivy-league-educated staffers on "The West Wing," who all obsess over Gilbert and Sullivan.
Anybody out there have any first-hand accounts of whether life at the ivies consists of the future senators and Simpsons writers singing a capella and talking about Pirates of Penzance? Or is this just the impression Aaron Sorkin and Matt Damon WANT us to have?
1/28/2008
fiction watch
Last night I finished Diary of a Bad Year, J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, and found myself looking beyond some of the self-indulgence that turned me off initially. Coetzee tells the story of a reclusive and somewhat lecherous old writer (a novelist and retired academic) who hires a young woman named Anya to type his latest manuscript, a collection of hyper-erudite musings on, well, the world. Senor C, Coetzee's how-autobiographical-is-he? protagonist, tackles everything from the war in Iraq to Bach's unmatched genius. Any given page of the novel is divided into three sections: a snippet of Senor C's manuscript, the writer's first-person narration of the "story," and finally Anya's version of events. Senor C is a little bit Humbert Humbert, a little bit Coetzee (obviously), and a little bit of the professor who taught the first Brit Lit survey you took as an undegraduate, which presents intriguing possibilities. But the three narrative threads--the novel's hokey conceit--keep the narrative from exploring all of these possibilities. It's probably cliche to suggest a later novel from an iconic writer reads like a draft, but that's exactly the impression I had, particularly in the early chapters.
But Coetzee redeems the story in its second half, when he allows a plot to materialize. Anya's lover, an eager young businessman named Alan, hatches a plot to rip off Senor C. Alan brings some humor. I especially liked Alan's defense of his scheme; he feels Senor C's fortunes are wasting away in low-interest accounts, which Alan finds sinful. I haven't given away anything significant and I'd recommend the novel, even with its flaws, as a somewhat interesting, self-aware critique of academic critique. One of the central ironies involves Senor C's focus on the macro-dangers of global capitalism while remaining clueless about the micro-danger of the capitalist who lives in his building.
But Coetzee redeems the story in its second half, when he allows a plot to materialize. Anya's lover, an eager young businessman named Alan, hatches a plot to rip off Senor C. Alan brings some humor. I especially liked Alan's defense of his scheme; he feels Senor C's fortunes are wasting away in low-interest accounts, which Alan finds sinful. I haven't given away anything significant and I'd recommend the novel, even with its flaws, as a somewhat interesting, self-aware critique of academic critique. One of the central ironies involves Senor C's focus on the macro-dangers of global capitalism while remaining clueless about the micro-danger of the capitalist who lives in his building.
1/25/2008
what doesn't kill me...
The voices of Kipatrick's detractors grow louder and louder. See, for instance, the letters-to-the-editor in Detroit's two papers, the News and Free Press. Mostly opposition. Calls to resign. Calls for prosecution. A few from the city. Many more from the suburbs.
The irony is that this vocal opposition makes prosecution LESS likely. Will prosecutors bring perjury charges? Depends in large part on whether they think a conviction is likely. If (and it's a big IF) the text messages are real and if they were obtained legally, then perjury seems very easy to establish. But it comes down to likelihood of conviction. Will a jury in the city convict the mayor, as suburbanites call loudly for that conviction?
The racial divide. The city-suburb divide. The grandest of Detroit's narratives. Kilpatrick, like Coleman Young, successfully uses negative criticism from the suburbs to bolster support. Echoes of Clinton. Republicans calling for Clinton's removal from office ended up looking petty, personal, and conspiratorial.
The irony is that this vocal opposition makes prosecution LESS likely. Will prosecutors bring perjury charges? Depends in large part on whether they think a conviction is likely. If (and it's a big IF) the text messages are real and if they were obtained legally, then perjury seems very easy to establish. But it comes down to likelihood of conviction. Will a jury in the city convict the mayor, as suburbanites call loudly for that conviction?
The racial divide. The city-suburb divide. The grandest of Detroit's narratives. Kilpatrick, like Coleman Young, successfully uses negative criticism from the suburbs to bolster support. Echoes of Clinton. Republicans calling for Clinton's removal from office ended up looking petty, personal, and conspiratorial.
some quick observations of press coverage
The scandal is ubiquitous. Hallway conversations. Dinner conversations. And, of course, the media. Local NPR affiliates, of course, feign restraint. Commercial media makes no pretenses about its obsession. Some quick notes:
- Reporters get "meta" very quickly, covering not only the story, but the fact that they are covering the story. A radio host this a.m. says with certainty that this is the biggest story in Detroit since the Malice Green story fifteen years ago.
- The search for a cool name. One columnist posits "blackberry gate" as a good choice.
- Race, race, and more race. Kilpatrick's "hip hop mayor" nickname is brought out. White pundits talk about how "they" voted for him and "they" deserve" him. Of course this emphasis on race (the racist tropes of the media, etc.) allows Kilpatrick (who cares not about how the media sees him--that's a losing battle) to frame the whole scandal as another personal attack on him, the hometown hero.
- Media outlets try to distinguish themselves. Again, NPR in particular sees itself above the fray. But even the popular press points to supposedly seamier outlets. The Free Press headlines a sidebar "Blogs gorge on mayoral message scandal." Ah, so BLOGS are gorging themselves. Unlike the commercial press?
- Alliteration. Tawdry texting tales.
1/24/2008
texts, lies, and videotape
So, yet another scandal for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. He has survived allegations of wild parties at the mayoral mansion, keeping an expensive entourage, killing strippers, taking spa trips with cronies on the city's dime, on and on.
Now, the biggie. Local press obtained 14,000 text messages that allegedly prove Kilpatrick and his chief of staff purjured themselves. Two cops had sued the city, claiming they were dismissed for threatening to whistle-blow in an investigation of Kilpatrick's security detail--an investigation that would have exposed an affair between Kilpatrick and his chief.
Now, the biggie. Local press obtained 14,000 text messages that allegedly prove Kilpatrick and his chief of staff purjured themselves. Two cops had sued the city, claiming they were dismissed for threatening to whistle-blow in an investigation of Kilpatrick's security detail--an investigation that would have exposed an affair between Kilpatrick and his chief.
Under oath, Kilpatrick swore unequivocally that he never had an affair with the chief and that he did not fire the cops. The 14,000 text messages include some pretty clear indications of an affair ("I want another night...at the Residence Inn! You made me feel so good that night") and that Mayor and chief made the decision to fire the cops.
Naturally, the press goes wild. The whole city drips with the gory details. Obviously, the sex sells, and this story--which is about consensual but adulterous workplace sex and the lies under oath that followed--breaks a decade, almost to the day, of the publication of the first Monica Lewinksy stories.
But the technology angle is as flashy as the sex. There's a record, somewhere, of every key stroke we make. News reports review the ins and outs of the Freedom of Information Act provisions that gave the press access to these text messages (made from a city-owned device). One of the investigative reporters highlights the sidebar pieces the paper's "tech guy" will surely do during the scandal's fallout. A caller to talk radio this morning says he works for a major cell phone provider and that homeland security mandates they back-up their customers' every text message, every call, every photograph, every voicemail and maintain tapes for the feds to access on demand.
Remarkably, on the same day Detroiters learn of a story about thousands and thousands of six-year-old text messages resurfacing in their entirety, the White House reports that its tech people have not been able to access archives of White House emails from December 03 and January 04, the period when weapons inspectors concluded the absence of WMDs in Iraq. Go figure. Oh, and preservation of west wing emails is required under the Presidential Records Act. Alas, no sex in that particular scandal, so the story will probably receive little attention before disappearing like those emails.
great new blog
Well, new to me anyway. Thanks to Motor City Rocks for the link to a blog affiliated with It Came From Detroit, a great indie documentary about the rock scene in the city, circa turn of the milennium. Looks like outtakes from the ICFD film itself, as well as videos from the bands featured therein. Good stuff. Already they have footage from SSM, Soledad Brothers, and other acts that are well worth checking out. Hope the folks over there continue to maintain and update the site. I also hope they release the film on DVD. As far as I know, it's not yet available. They may be shopping for a distributor, since as far as I know it's only been shown at a couple festivals and the Detroit Film Theatre down at the D.I.A. (where I saw it).
1/23/2008
why my e-mail inbox runneth over
- nominations for various CCCC positions...keep 'em coming folks
- ideas from my fellow Peace & Justice Committee members for the "Elections 2008" series we're planning at our church
- unsigned messages--my secret pet peeve--from students (my car broke down, what did I miss yesterday?, when did I sign up to workshop my story?) whose email addresses (worldofwarcraftdude1990@freeemailservice.com) don't exactly give away their identities
1/21/2008
equal time?
Don't let anybody tell you I never say anything nice about the presidential candidates from the right side of the aisle...
That Huckabee fellow knows a little something about good Detroit music. Veteran rock critic Susan Whitall points out the old boy's apparent affinity for the Funk Brothers. Right on.
That Huckabee fellow knows a little something about good Detroit music. Veteran rock critic Susan Whitall points out the old boy's apparent affinity for the Funk Brothers. Right on.
1/20/2008
the middle of the MLK weekend
I do a pretty good job staying mindful of what a friggin' awesome job I have. And this term, thanks in part to my pre-tenure course release, I find myself able to concentrate on 1) my two groups of students and the interesting things they are writing and 2) the civic engagement teacher-research I'm doing. Oh yeah, and that tenure portfolio too.
And yet, like many others who refuse to be workaholics, I love weekends when I can break away even from work that brings much, much pleasure. Friday night, after a particularly long meeting, I managed to work out before leaving campus. Nicole and I ate at a new burger place here in Berkley (mediocre food) and then caught a late showing of Juno, which was as funny and beautiful as the accolades indicate. Maybe moreso. I loved this film. Saturday morning we drove down to Sylvania, OH., and saw my nephew Tony perform at a high school speech competition, doing a one-man noir version of Juluis Ceasar (sample humor: "gimme a Martinus, barkeep" "you mean Martini?" "if I wanted two, I'd tell you").
After a little house-cleaning back home, I made a simple tomato sauce with lots of garlic, basil, and red pepper flakes; some whole wheat pasta; and faux meatballs with eggplant (frozen from my dad's garden), Italian breadcrumbs, and much parmesan cheese. Nothing is as relaxing as cooking. My friend Jason came over for dinner and we talked about seminary memories for hours. Today went to mass, then out to lunch with the crew from church.
I'm going to relent and do a little paper grading this afternoon and evening (and also start Coetzee's new book "Diary of a Bad Year" fresh from the library shelves), because tomorrow is Martin Luther King Service Day on campus. Nicole and I will join a group of students at one of the soup kitchens downtown for a morning of work, followed by an afternoon program on MLK back at school. Nice chance for faculty-student interaction. Then to my sister Anna's to hang with my parents who are coming for a quick visit.
Schoolwork? It'll be there on Tuesday morning.
And yet, like many others who refuse to be workaholics, I love weekends when I can break away even from work that brings much, much pleasure. Friday night, after a particularly long meeting, I managed to work out before leaving campus. Nicole and I ate at a new burger place here in Berkley (mediocre food) and then caught a late showing of Juno, which was as funny and beautiful as the accolades indicate. Maybe moreso. I loved this film. Saturday morning we drove down to Sylvania, OH., and saw my nephew Tony perform at a high school speech competition, doing a one-man noir version of Juluis Ceasar (sample humor: "gimme a Martinus, barkeep" "you mean Martini?" "if I wanted two, I'd tell you").
After a little house-cleaning back home, I made a simple tomato sauce with lots of garlic, basil, and red pepper flakes; some whole wheat pasta; and faux meatballs with eggplant (frozen from my dad's garden), Italian breadcrumbs, and much parmesan cheese. Nothing is as relaxing as cooking. My friend Jason came over for dinner and we talked about seminary memories for hours. Today went to mass, then out to lunch with the crew from church.
I'm going to relent and do a little paper grading this afternoon and evening (and also start Coetzee's new book "Diary of a Bad Year" fresh from the library shelves), because tomorrow is Martin Luther King Service Day on campus. Nicole and I will join a group of students at one of the soup kitchens downtown for a morning of work, followed by an afternoon program on MLK back at school. Nice chance for faculty-student interaction. Then to my sister Anna's to hang with my parents who are coming for a quick visit.
Schoolwork? It'll be there on Tuesday morning.
1/17/2008
getting my ya-ya's out
The Rolling Stones will release a live album in two months, presumably because at this point they only have about two dozen live records in their catalogue. Not to mention umpteen "hits" compilations that slice and dice their career every which way (the London years, the Decca years, 40 Licks, the Mick Taylor years, 64-71, 77-83, our uneven Reagan-Thatcher years, Hits We Wrote While Shooting Up in Barbados). Not to mention vast networks of bootlegs. Not to mention youtube footage of that trainwreck at the Super Bowl in Detroit a few years back.
Out of fairness, their forthcoming platter is the soundtrack to a Martin Scorsese concert film--don't get me started on their many concert docs from the disturbing Altamont footage to this cheesy "imax experience" I saw when I was like 19--which very well might rock, a la The Last Waltz.
But can the new record possibly be anywhere near as good as this? Those shows from the year of my birth were amazing and the "Happy Birthday Nicky" discs capture freewheeling, drunken abandon. It's hard to imagine a time when the Stones didn't feel obliged to play "Satisfaction" every night. You get Mick Taylor. You get a setlist heavy on Exile on Main Street tracks. You get the bluesier second night, where they trot out "Love In Vain." Tight.
Out of fairness, their forthcoming platter is the soundtrack to a Martin Scorsese concert film--don't get me started on their many concert docs from the disturbing Altamont footage to this cheesy "imax experience" I saw when I was like 19--which very well might rock, a la The Last Waltz.
But can the new record possibly be anywhere near as good as this? Those shows from the year of my birth were amazing and the "Happy Birthday Nicky" discs capture freewheeling, drunken abandon. It's hard to imagine a time when the Stones didn't feel obliged to play "Satisfaction" every night. You get Mick Taylor. You get a setlist heavy on Exile on Main Street tracks. You get the bluesier second night, where they trot out "Love In Vain." Tight.
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