"Fire is motion / Work is repetition / This is my document / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all we've done / We are all all defenses."
A delightful, strange, and punchy book that I assumed would be whimsical and cutesy but surprised me with its darkness and depth. I knew little about the book when I started (woman is a week away from her wedding when her dead grandmother visits her as a parakeet -- seemed intriguing enough!) but the whole of the story was so much more than that simple premise. It is about family, grief, belonging, trying to understand the most elusive people in one's life (usually family), and trying to seek out happiness in the difficult contexts that conspire against you.
"This is what they call trauma logic, which is indistinguishable from dream logic."
This book was dreamy -- not in a pastel, confectionary, lightness of being way, but the way REAL dreams are: mostly terrifying, illogical, scattered, haunting, uncanny. The way dreams feel like deja vu sometimes. The way dreams feel after you wake up from them -- troubling or persistent, gnawing. The first half was surreal and dreamy (I was reminded of Barry Yourgrau's "Wearing Dad's Head" -- another fantastic book featuring familial absurdity), the second half more grounded and much too short. I could have read more but loved how succinct it was (no flourishes, another trait of this book, though there were many phrases and descriptive choices that sang to me -- my version is covered in highlights of some of my favorites).
Parakeet examines a multitude of human relationships -- the social expectations of marriage, of course, but also platonic love, lust, familial relationships and duties, what it means to be connected or tethered to other human beings. It depicts love and connection in various forms and is emotive, while still somehow being distant (using the word "love" feels too contrite, the word itself losing meaning from overuse). Parakeet also depicts trauma and its effect on someone's experiences ("the mean trick of trauma is that like a play it has no past tense. It is always happening.") -- an interesting conceit that recurs and replays in poignant ways throughout the story.
A stunning book, high on my list of books that I delighted in reading, but also challenged me (Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo is another one I hold in high regard and would be on the same list).
as you'd know if you've been visiting the blog lately, i've been reading Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song. it's a great read, albeit disturbing. it is such a visceral book, leaves me with a knot in my stomach most of the time and i've even called ben crying on the phone after reading chapters of it.
the book is a strange accompaniment to the recent execution of Troy Davis by the state of Georgia. while reading Mailer's book, you get to know Gary Gilmore and his victims, and you really get to hate him and all of his meanness and violence, and you cringe at all his dirty-mouthed arrogance and disrespect for life. but, you know that he's going to be executed. you have that expectation going into it: that the whole thing ends in justice. that SOB got what he deserved. and though you feel sick about it and kind of hate yourself for having these feelings, you just can't reconcile that with the fact that Gilmore was a vile individual, and a danger to everyone around him. so in this case, where the facts of Gilmore's crime are all laid out by Mailer for your omniscient reading experience, you feel satisfied knowing that justice was inevitable, and perhaps more importantly, deserved.
not so when history is being made by the minute. when i found out the Supreme Court denied Troy Davis clemency, despite the recanting of witnesses in his case, and the pleas of thousands of people, and went ahead and executed him anyway, just a few moments ago, i felt a really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. just this crushing overwhelming sadness. hearing about how he refused his last meal, because he didn't think it was going to be his last, i dunno, for some reason, that thought really got to me. like, my mother always calls me to make sure i've eaten my dinner, every night she always makes sure i'm staying fed, and i always do the same thing to ben now. and Troy Davis, he had hope until the last minute in justice or mercy or pity or something, and then he goes to his death in a cold concrete prison, hungry. that thought, of a man going suddenly to his death, without all his worldly ends taken care of, made me really, really sad. we were all watching and hopeful of little minutes that would build into hours, into days, of delay and finally a stay of execution or a commuted sentence. and then, suddenly, they just went and executed him anyway. one minute he was alive, with family and with a past and with mortal fear coursing through him, the will to keep up a legal battle that has lasted years, and hunger pangs in his stomach and then the next minute, he's gone.
i'm scared. i'm scared of a justice system that will execute people without even a moment's pause. i'm scared of a justice system that is so dysfunctional that sometimes witnesses are talked into giving incriminating testimonies, that sometimes allows potential murderers to play the system and pin their evil deeds on others. i'm scared of a justice system that satisfies itself with murdering potentially innocent citizens instead of seeking out the truth. and i'm scared to live in a world in which such a tragic farce is permitted to exist.
in moments like these, i really hope there is some Plan to all of this chaos, this madness and despair. i hope there is justice at the end of all of it, even when it doesn't seem that way. whatever higher powers that be, please have mercy on us all.
"The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
i currently live in Fremont, CA. i don't love it. i've only lived here 5.5 months, but as a kid, my family and i would visit our family in the Bay Area and we'd stay at my aunt's house in Fremont. in my encounters and experiences with Fremont denizens, i've come to realize the people here are... how should i put this... not intellectually inclined.
it's a difficult thing to explain, since i risk coming across as mean and supremely judgmental, but here it is anyway: Fremont ("Freak-mont" as my cousin from LA likes to call it) is extremely superficial in a way that ought to put LA to shame (that utterance in itself is pretty damning). while LA proved to be a pleasant blend of Midwestern/East Coast transplants, outdoor enthusiasts, intellectuals, activists and community advocates, the extremely poor and the extremely wealthy, the deluded and the jaded and the absolutely crazy, Fremont is predominantly one type of person: privileged. not only privileged, but delusionally privileged, self-importantly privileged, unmercifully privileged, ignorantly privileged. and if there's one thing i can't stand, it's privilege without any responsibility.
the problem with this kind of community is that privilege, and all the trappings of extravagant wealth, are normalized. everyone works at their tech industry job from 9-7, drives their BMW/Mercedes/Lexus to work out at their designer gyms, has dinner at one of many restaurants in the area, and goes home to their mini-mansions and their loveless sexless family lives with their spouse and 2.5 kids. the kids i've encountered who grow up here are terrifying: pre-teens carry Chanel purses and follow their mommies around at the mall, families have Sunday dinner at a restaurant, everyone staring blankly into the gentle glow of a smart phone or iPad. the children all seemed perfectly primed and ready to take their parents' places as the future CEOs and CFOs of america. i can ask my cousins how much a house or luxury car costs and they'll provide an answer in an instant, and with a little disdain for my ignorance, but when i probe them instead for information on the UC budget crisis, their eyes glaze over like robots that didn't understand the command, then shrug it off like it's not important and thus not worth knowing. for further comparison: a few weeks ago, i rode my bike out to the annual Arts and Culture fair to volunteer with a local environmental advocacy organization. my cousin, on the other hand, spent the day charging visitors to the fair $6 to park their car in the parking lot he co-opted with his friends. his parents openly lauded his entrepreneurial spirit, as they explained to me it's one of his most cherished "traditions." what a good capitalist!
comparing my upbringing with theirs makes me so glad my parents chose to be the "rebels" in the family and raise my brother and i in the midwest, while they both worked for a state university. i grew up reaping the benefits of the state and having a deep respect for public programs and institutions. i grew up valuing education and community service, rather than making money, and that has led me to take my undergraduate research very seriously, led me to teach special ed for two years in an underserved community, get a Master's, and now i plan to further my education and get an MPA from one of the best schools in the country so i can research and implement more progressive policies that protect the environment, reduce wealth disparities, and repair public programs so they better serve their communities. my relatives, on the other hand, balk at the mention of higher ed, none of them having gone past a Bachelor's degree in anything. their favorite way to spend their free time is watching tv, surfing the net, playing computer games, and finding additional ways of making money (day-trading, gambling, buying foreclosed houses and upselling them).
i'm always fascinated at the ways in which we choose lives for ourselves, how we carve our identities with chance and choice. being able to understand the story of your life and how you arrived at your convictions and passions is something i think about often, especially when i'm surrounded by so many people who i feel so different and disconnected from.
and, to tie it all up and to return to the reason i started writing in the first place: the reason i am so unhappy here in Fremont can be summed up in one poignant point: they don't read here. in my entire life, i've never known a public library that only opened one day a week from 10 to 5. that is the library closest to me, and it's holding my requested reading list hostage because i can't find time to go during their hours. the whole library system here is messed up and underfunded, understaffed, and underserving the community, you just need to view their hours to get a sense of how many children in the Silicon Valley area are not getting full access to the free literature they should. even more amazing, is that there are also no bookstores in the area to supplement this lack. i searched all of Fremont and neighboring cities to find a viable bookstore and only found one: a Half Price Books (the rest consisted of an adult bookstore, Islamic bookstore and a Zion Christian bookstore). it saddens me to think the nearest bookstore is a going-out-of-business Borders 24 miles away.
it's National Read a Book Day! to celebrate, i finally finished reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. i love the feel of a finished book in my hands: soft and worn from so many intimate hours cradled in my hands or toted around in my bookbags and luggage, and the pleasure i get from fanning the pages of a book without fear of losing my place - that is the delight of an accomplishment made tangible.
"holidays" like these probably mean less to us as "adults" than they did as kids. it makes me nostalgic for "quiet reading" sessions in Montessori school, spending rainy weekends at home in my reading nook/fort tucked into a sleeping bag with my beverage of choice in a thermos and whatever Roald Dahl or Redwall book i was working on that week.
and remember Book It!? goodness knows i don't believe in incentivizing anything, but since i was such a voracious reader as a kid anyway, i never became dependent on free pizza to encourage my continued reading, and my parents probably appreciated that small window of time when my appetite for reading and pizza were similarly insatiable, and i could at least get free pizza out of the bargain.
so, drop your work, turn off the tv, build a fort and read in it! i'm going to pick up some books* at the library on my way home and do the same. i might even indulge in a little personal pan pizza, too, for old time's sake :-)
happy reading, stef
*for those interested, the books i'm reading next are: 1, 2. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, both by David Sedaris (i'm seeing him in October (!!!) and wanted to catch up on what he's been writing) 3. Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (highly recommended to me after my recent efforts to eat and understand my food better. for those of you without the time to read the whole book, i highly recommend and urge you to read the New Yorker's review of the book, which does such a thorough job outlining some of the key points, you'll get the gist and maybe consider vegetarianism/veganism! i myself made a note to pursue humane treatment of factory animals as a future policy pursuit.) 4. The Giver by Lois Lowry (never had the opportunity to read it in school and i think it's about time i did!) 5. Paradise Lost by John Milton (excited about this one because it will be a fine compliment to East of Eden, at least, i hope...)
speaking of mythology, back in the late winter i was doing a lot of reading instead of working and looking for jobs. and somehow, i came across the poetry of A.E. Stallings.
i highly recommend her. she has a way with words i wish i had: fluid, easy, and beautiful, without compromising heft. there is an effortless quality to her poetry that makes it a delight to read. it's lyrical, while still sounding conversational and inner-monologuey, rhythmic while still sounding natural, rhyming coincidentally without the addition of affectation or contrivance or twee.
she has a book of poems based on Greek mythology called Archaic Smile that i would simply love to get my hands on.
you can read an interview with her here, which includes sound bites of her reading some of her poetry. i especially like "The Man Who Wouldn't Plant Willow Trees."
i was reading East of Eden today during my lunch break when i caught a reference to Tantalus, from Greek mythology. East of Eden is a book i've been (re?*)reading because i thoroughly enjoyed it in high school, and living in the same setting where the story takes place imparts a magic realism to the story that makes it read even more like history than fiction. furthermore, i am convinced Steinbeck and i would have been besties if we just got the timing right. **although now that i'm actually nearing the end of the book, i'm not even positive i finished it the first(?) time i read it.
anyway, lucky for me, i had quick access to a computer and Wikipedia, and was able to read up about Tantalus. what a cute story!
In mythology, Tantalus became one of the inhabitants of Tartarus, the deepest portion of the Underworld, reserved for the punishment of evildoers...
Tantalus was initially known for having been welcomed to Zeus' table in Olympus. There he is said to have misbehaved and stolen ambrosia and nectar to bring it back to his people, and revealed the secrets of the gods.
Most famously, Tantalus offered up his son, Pelops, as sacrifice. He cut Pelops up, boiled him, and served him up in a banquet for the gods. The gods became aware of the gruesome nature of the menu, so they didn't touch the offering [...] The Greeks of classical times claimed to be horrified by Tantalus's doings; cannibalism, human sacrifice and infanticide were atrocities and taboo.
Tantalus's punishment for his act, now a proverbial term for temptation without satisfaction (the source of the English word tantalise), was to stand in a pool of water beneath a fruit tree with low branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised his intended meal from his grasp. Whenever he bent down to get a drink, the water receded before he could get any. This fate has cursed him with eternal deprivation of nourishment. [source: Wikipedia]
From Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell":
I dare say you have heard of Tantalus? The wicked king who baked his little son in a pie and ate him? He has been condemned to stand up to his chin in a pool of water he cannot drink, beneath a vine laden with grapes he cannot eat. This wine is made from those grapes. And, since the vine was planted there for the sole purpose of tormenting Tantalus, you may be sure the grapes have an excellent flavour and aroma-and so does the wine. [source]
this was a fantastic learning moment for me: i never knew the word "tantalize" came from Greek mythology, and furthermore, i had no idea we've been misusing/altering the word from its original intended meaning. i've always heard "tantalizing" used to mean "supremely appealing" or "tempting," neither of which pay due homage to Tantalus's situation of being perpetually and torturously out of reach of what he wants.
i thought about how a story like this would have been great to share with students if i were still teaching; it would be a powerful mnemonic device to help them remember the meaning of the word "tantalize." the imagery is great, albeit a little violent, but totally captivating and engrossing for even South Central kids. it also got me thinking about the curious nature of stories and mythology.
i never took a mythology class in high school - i was too busy taking AP Psych and Stats in preparation for what i thought would be a career in psychology - but a lot of my high school friends did. i remember seeing this book a lot in the cafeteria:
in retrospect, i wish i had taken time to study mythology in greater depth. my Greek/Roman history is real shaky, but i've always been fascinated by the stories in their mythology, and how they seem to bleed and blur the lines of historical fact and fiction. i appreciate how imbued Greek history is with myth and vice versa. the same can be said of Biblical history as well, i suppose. it's fascinating to me how blurry the lines between "myth" and "history" are.
this was especially tangible on ben's and my travels through Turkey a few summers ago. for example, we visited the modern day Çanakkale, the purported site of ancient Troy. there were historical sites and landmarks all over that place, juxtaposed with trappings of modern life. case in point: ben is enjoying some Turkish ice cream beside the wooden horse from the movie Troy (yes, that really awful one with Brad Pitt).
in another part of Turkey (one which we did not personally visit), the existence of a "weeping" rock formation gives credo to the ancient myth about Niobe, whose hubris offended the gods and caused them to punish her by murdering all 14 of her sons and daughters and turning her to stone. the "Weeping Rock" in Turkey, amazingly, weeps rainwater through its porous surface, and resembles the face of a woman.
it at once fascinates me to the point of glee and confuses me to the point of irritability, the way history and myth blend together, making it unclear to me what magic is possible and believable because it happened, and what magic is imagined lore made truth thru centuries of faith. because if i am to believe the Trojan War really happened, that means Zeus and Achilles and etc. were real too, right? and if that's so, what's to say all the other wonders of the ancient world weren't also, at some point, real?
sometimes other ppl have a way of reading my mind and putting it into better words than i possess. some snippets:
"Two years ago when [boyfriend] first moved in, there was something exciting about getting up in the morning. You would rise, dress, and, knowing your lover was asleep in your bed, drive out into the early morning office and factory traffic, feeling that you possessed all things, Your Man, like a Patsy Cline song, at home beneath your covers, pumping blood through your day like a heart."
"Someday, like everybody, this man you truly love like no other is going to die. No matter how much you love him, you cannot save him. No matter how much you love: nothing, no one, lasts."
"You want to help him, rescue him, build houses and magnificent lawns around him."
-from the short story "Amahl and the Night Visitors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love" by Lorrie Moore, from her book Self-Help (1985)
this is devastating. i spent a good part of my childhood reading the Redwall books, and i credit them with not only developing my literacy, but fostering in me an appreciation for nature and animals and good, hearty stories. my first ever email address (that i continued to use until probably the junior year of college) was named after my favorite character, Pikkle, a spritely mannered hare with a voracious appetite in the Salamandastron book (probably my favorite of the series).
when Twilight first started generating buzz and i got wind of its content, i lamented the lack of attention paid to writers such as Jacques and the heartiness of his story-telling. and i wondered why we could no longer live in a society where complex stories about virtuous characters undergoing harrowing journeys and epic battles to protect their home/ unravel ancient mysteries/ discover their identities/ defeat sinister adversaries all while singing songs and writing poems and eating decadent woodsy feasts could be appreciated.
i felt a twinge of sadness, something akin to guilt, when i stopped reading the books every year they came out (the last one i made any effort with was Marlfox). i felt horrible, like i had outgrown them or something, and i felt bad for losing interest in those characters and their stories. the way you feel bad about losing touch with your best friends from elementary school or high school.
anyway, this is doubly weird because not too long ago i was checking Wikipedia and reading his page and wondering if he was still writing books, found myself worrying about his age and hoping he'd live a long life and that one day i'd be able to write him a letter and thank him for writing. i guess this will have to do.
RIP, Mr. Jacques. and thank you for your stories. i hope my kids will one day enjoy reading your books as much as i did.
since becoming unemployed and moving to a locale with lack of excellent weather, proliferation of mosquitoes and other blood-sucking bugs, and a lack of attractions, i've spent most mornings (into nights) reading articles on the internet and learning a lot. although i abhorred being unemployed for the good part of my summer, i have recently (read: as of JUST NOW) come to LOVE it. thank god for the internet and Wikipedia. i can spend literally DAYS opening millions of tabs and consuming them voraciously. gobble gobble!
i spent this morning reading a long list of terrific articles online, nytimes and newsweek and gizmodo and mostly, and thought i'd share this really great article, a review less about the upcoming Facebook movie than a consideration of modern loneliness and social debilitation as a result of / exacerbated by / evidenced by technologies such as Facebook. extremely extremely fascinating (consider: debilitation caused not by lack of access but by TOO much availability, social disability as a result of excess of mediums). great, great stuff!
some highlights from the article, in case you do actually have a day job and need to be on your way:
Fifty years before Mark Zuckerberg arrived at Harvard—back when facebooks were actually books, back when poking a friend had a whole different set of connotations—Thornton Wilder came to campus to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. He devoted one of them to “the loneliness that accompanies independence and the uneasiness that accompanies freedom.” Raising such difficult subjects made him uncomfortable, he recalled later, but he felt better knowing that all of his listeners were American. It meant that “these experiences are not foreign to anyone here.”
The film turns out to have less in common with other campus caper flicks than with Freedom, Jonathan Franzen’s masterful new novel about an imploding family. Nobody comes right out and says that Zuckerberg and his associates (I almost said friends) don’t know how to live, as someone says of the Berglunds early in Franzen’s book, but the trouble appears to be the same. And the reason why both the book and the film resonate—why they stick with you afterward—is that plenty of the rest of us have that trouble too. By suggesting that a modern kind of loneliness led an obnoxious hacker to start Facebook, the film helps pinpoint our own loneliness—the feelings of aimlessness and isolation that make us do things like sign up for Facebook.
Zuckerberg and his employees spend enormous time and energy trying to make people connect to each other via their online social network, but they’ve got the situation backward. The route to a happy life, let alone a meaningful one, doesn’t lie in escaping loneliness. As Wilder tried to tell his audience, it is an inescapable part of living in a country as big and free and unencumbered as this one. The trick for us, and for the people around the world living as we do, lies in using our loneliness. Wilder stated the challenge best and for all time when he described “the typical American battle of trying to convert a loneliness into an enriched and fruitful solitude.” Like the Berglunds—or another touchstone of contemporary culture, Don Draper—these characters can’t get along with each other because they haven’t learned to get along with, and don’t even really know, themselves.
When you log into Facebook after the film—and you know you will—you might find that it feels a little different. On one hand, hanging around the site begins to seem like a bad idea. In a world that’s ever noisier and more demanding, it only gets harder to develop a “fruitful solitude” when dozens or hundreds of friends are constantly a click away. This round-the-clock aspect of Facebook, the perpetual presence of somebody to distract you from your anxieties and fears, begins to feel like being stuck in college.
The bigger shift, though, lies in how poignant Facebook suddenly seems. A site that began as a response to modern loneliness looks, after the film, like a record of our own struggle with that condition. The insistent connecting can’t fix what really ails us, but we go on doing it anyway.
"How does a man die when he's deprived of the consolations of literature?" "In one of two ways, petrescence of the heart or atrophy of the nervous system."
-Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
*petrescence: (noun) the process of turning to stone; petrification
i got home from work today and, exhausted from bickering with administration about some sketchy misdeeds they are trying to pull on one of my special ed students, sat down in front of my computer to unwind, eat cake, and read some blogs.
i went to TigerBeatdown and started reading the first article up, something about Miley Cyrus and the "search for a feminist pop star."
um. ok. what?
i was unaware we were collectively searching for a feminist pop star. and i was confused about the parameters; have "feminist" and "pop" ever gone together? when was the last feminist "pop star?"* none come to mind.
still, i continued reading, interested to see where this was going. as it turns out, i guess Miley has recently released a new single and with it, a new music video. the article glosses over the use of tired metaphors and symbols: birds, cages, wings on ladies. you get the idea. and pretty soon, i was tired of reading. but i skipped over to youtube and quickly ran a search of Miley's video.
now, admittedly, i am so out of touch with popular youth culture these days. i find my career as an educator has made me more averse to children than understanding of their behaviors and interests. when i sit down at my computer to look up the latest top 40s or to read an article about Justin Bieber's hair, i consider it "research" for my work, rather than pleasure reading.
but here i am, on a thursday afternoon, researching and talking about Miley Cyrus. surely there are better ways of spending my, and your, time.
well, after watching the first minute of the video (and believe me, that was about all i could stomach) i continued reading the aforementioned article, and found i couldn't get far in that either before i had to write a little rant of my own. because the article, and, it seems, a lot of feminist bloggers out there, seem to be discussing the video, and Miley's career, for that matter, in these terms, and these terms only: 1) the rampant sexuality, and whether it detracts from the potential "feminism" present in the music and the act of her, a 17-year-old girl, being a successful "musician." (i use those quotation marks with a generous helping of skepticism, since, as far as i am aware, Miley does not produce any music of her own.) 2) her lyrics are "empowering," thus, she is a feminist because her music speaks to young girls. (again, the quotations around empowering.)
oh... the rant that is about to unfold!
as far as the blogosphere is concerned, Miley is either a feminist if you just focus on the words and the music, or a hypocrite if you look at her flapping those Victoria's Secret wings in the video. my adamant and vocal disagreement is: SHE IS NEITHER!
i agree with my blogger sisters that she can't be a feminist and a sex kitten. but not because i believe sex and beauty can't be empowering (because they can). i have a problem with the whole Disney virgin/pop princess image Miley tries to evoke, alongside the over-sexed performer she tries to be. madonna/whore dichotomy anyone!? i understand young women can be confused, because the patriarchal culture has us thinking we want to be so many things it's hard to choose sometimes, but you cannot evoke whatever persona whenever you want and call it "show business." (whore!)
that brings me to my problem with the "search" in the first place. because pop stars, almost by definition, sell sex, and use sex to sell more sex, under the guise of "making music." it's not music that's on display, it is Miley's precocious boobs and sultry legs. did Tracy Chapman ever prance around in a cage, half-clad in a leather corset and knee-high boots? no, because she was too busy writing music and winnin' Grammies! shoo...
a pop star can never make empowering music, because empowerment is not what sells albums or makes a trashy music video, or gets throngs of tweeny girls to go to your concert (oh, but if it were!) empowerment isn't about hyping up celebrity culture, nor is it about self-worship and hubris, it is about feeling confident enough to take agency and do something for yourself and others around you.
but what is being called "empowerment" in Miley's case, is actually a strong case of entitlement. here's a sampling of the lyrics from the newly released "Can't Be Tamed," the song some people are lauding as a "kick-ass girl power anthem":
For those who don't know me, I can get a bit crazy Have to get my way, 24 hours a day 'Cause I'm hot like that Every guy everywhere just gives me mad attention Like I'm under inspection, I always get the 10s 'Cause I'm built like that
I go through guys like money flyin' out their hands They try to change me but they realize they can't And every tomorrow is a day I never planned If you're gonna be my man, understand
[Chorus] I can't be tamed, I can't be saved I can't be blamed, I can't, can't I can't be tamed, I can't be changed
in one of Miley's first singles, the chorus goes "blah blah blah... she's just being Miley."** see a pattern? don't let the erratic dance moves confuse you, Miley's not trying to empower anyone, she just wants a nicer, more lyrical way of saying, "I'M A HOT, ENTITLED, POP STAR BRAT. I DO WHAT I WANT!"
now, this wouldn't be such a mondo problem if it just stopped there. i wouldn't be writing this long-winded blog post if just a few smart, well-spoken ladies believed Miley (or Christina Aguilera, or Madonna, or Tina Fey, or etc.) was doing a really innovative and daring thing by singing about her selfish wanton desires, and confused her entitlement anthems for empowerment anthems. but, because pop culture and pop music is so pervasive, everyone starts to think these things, and this kind of thinking becomes ingrained into our daily lives, becomes practiced by real-life tweens on the street, becomes a chronic problem of irreverence and disregard among our young people.
you see, as a teacher in South Central Los Angeles, it is almost a daily topic of conversation and source of wonderment among the teachers, as we walk to our cars at the end of each day, "what is wrong with the kids these days!?" i never thought i would say it, and i guess it's a sign i'm getting old, but the behaviors of children these days is perpetually perplexing, befuddling, and bewildering. students cursing off adults who are trying to teach them, students pushing or touching teachers, students standing in the way of a teacher refusing to move, huffing and puffing as if they are engaged in some prelude to fighting ritual. my aide says, every time we have this conversation, "kids have more rights than adults to these days" and though i was hesitant to concur, i believe she may be right. there are no consequences strong enough to make an impression on a student in my school, so many will push their limits until they eventually are escorted out in handcuffs and served with fines. students come to school wearing whatever they want and argue with principals about the uniform, and sit in class looking cute but not learning anything. one of my students is doing math at a pre-kindergarten level (she cannot add without assistance and frequently doesn't know how to count past ten) and comes late to school each day because she spends her mornings straightening her hair and putting on her mascara. she got her nails done the other day and refused to use a pencil for fear of snapping a nail off.
my point is, maybe if our culture didn't glorify material self-worship, we wouldn't have young women walking around in high heels, booty shorts and low-cut tops, mouthing off to adults and carrying themselves with arrogance, thinking that they are being strong, confident females. maybe if we gave them role models with some sense and sensibility, we'd have some more respect and self-respect among our youth. it is so pathetic how starved of feminist idols we are that we will jump at the opportunity to call someone so clearly wrong a "feminist."
-stephan!e
*some might argue Lady GaGa, and as much as i love her performances and vision, never once considered her a feminist. an artist, sure (which is more than i can say about Miley) but not a feminist in the way Betty Friedan was a feminist. end of story. ** disclaimer: i only know this song because i work out at the gym a lot.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
oh, The Internet. how i love thee.
in the span of thirty minutes i went from reading this article complaining about Lost, to reading about Original Sin, to reading about The Fall and then learned that...
"The term 'prelapsarian' refers to the sin-free state of humanity prior to the Fall. It is sometimes used in reference to sentimental recollections of a past time when conditions stood in sharp contrast to the present; this situation is called nostalgia." [source]
huh! i am learning so much about Star Wars and pop culture and human nature, according to the Old and New Testaments.
i really really really like reading blogs written by ppl i know. far more than i like reading the news, or comics, novels (b/c i don't have time for that any more), or watching tv (unless it's the Daily Show, b/c everyone knows Jon Stewart is my elvis), and yes, sometimes, even more than i like keeping up with email.
i like being reminded what amazing, adventurous, creative, and brilliant friends i have. and i like reading beautiful and honest words. something about the openness and self-reflection necessary to keeping a blog, as opposed to the informality and privacy of email, makes it seem more beautiful and honest.
email can become mundane b/c of its regularity, its connection to work, and careless b/c of its ease of use. you can read, delete, move on, or even ignore, but there's a delicate vulnerable permanence to blogging that makes it seem more elevated, hyper-real, a more lustrous form of ordinary life.
i don't know if i'm exaggerating or making too much of a little thought. i just know that nothing makes me more excited than reading something written by a friend, even if it's not intended specifically for me. in fact, the anonymity of my readership makes the experience so much more fascinating! how could they know, in their general reflection, that they could appeal so specifically to a feeling i'm also experiencing! this seems the true test of our mutual humanity and understanding, if from miles and time zones away, you are still able to share experiences as if you'd never parted ways to begin with.
i guess i'm saying i would really love it if my friends wrote more, or if i had more friends' blogs to read, b/c i am just so hungry for that good stuff!
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on another note, today was such a surprisingly unproductive day. i took a sick day b/c i just couldn't find the resolve to get thru traffic and schlep my way into work this morning, even though i woke up, brushed my teeth and everything. somehow the act of finding an outfit to wear was just too exhausting and i didn't get farther than putting a shirt on. eating a hearty breakfast, too, seemed like more effort than it was worth. i stayed in and tried to make headway on some grad school work, paperwork, and lesson plans, but i got tired out from thinking about the remaining weeks of school, that by the time it was 2 pm (6th period at school) i passed out in bed again, sleeping thru the afternoon and waking up disoriented, confused, and feeling like a bum.
my body and mind are so tired, i don't think i can make it another 2 weeks before spring break. i need this trip home so bad, i've never felt such hunger pangs for home in my entire life. i think it will take physical force on my parents' part to get me to come back to LA, there seems to be so little here to hold my attention.
i can't believe that a year ago, this time, i was in college, and having fun on weekends. i miss the communal life i had in college, and i think it's a shame you can't find communal living like that beyond the college experience. things like that should have continuity beyond 4 years of young adulthood.
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i just listened to some of Dr. Dog's "We All Belong." something about that album reminds me of May 2008. i had images of sitting on the floor of my boyfriend's living room, sawing away at a book press in the late night, taking a break to drive to walmart to buy a wrench. the feeling of brief freedom and contentment, to have only one determination ("must finish binding this book") and be able to devote my time and energy to it completely, i miss that feeling.
-stephan!e
Monday, May 05, 2008
"... Institutionalized desublimation thus appears to be an aspect of the 'conquest of transcendence' achieved by the one-dimensional society. Just as this society tends to reduce, and even absorb opposition (the qualitative difference!) in the realm of politics and higher culture, so it does in the instinctual sphere. The result is the atrophy of the mental organs for grasping the contradictions and the alternatives and, in the one remaining dimension of technological rationality, the Happy Consciousness comes to prevail.
It reflects the belief that the real is rational, and that the established system, in spite of everything, delivers the goods. The people are led to find in the productive apparatus the effective agent of thought and action to which their personal thought and action can and must be surrendered. And in this transfer, the apparatus also assumes the role of a moral agent. Conscience is absolved by reification, by the general necessity of things."
-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964), p.79 (in the Beacon Press copy)
my friends and i were chatting at dinner. making plans for the summer and all the fun, wild and wonderful things we need to squeeze into these last 7 weeks of school before graduation and splitting ways.
the big screen TV was on in the dining hall, per usual, but it was on VH1 today and it was showing one of those "best 100 songs of the '90s" specials and all our "childhood songs" were blasting full force, like a freight train of memories, and we were transported back to the times of middle school dances and summer camps and that nebulous time of your life called adolescence.
we were reflecting on the proto-emo music of the time, laughing as we could recall almost word for word the lyrics to Goo Goo Dolls songs ("when everything feels like the movies, you bleed just to know you're alive/AND I DON'T WANT THE WORLD TO SEE ME, CUZ I DON'T THINK THAT THEY'D UNDERSTAAAAAND!") and how angst-y we must have been as teens to have loved that song as much as everyone else our age did.
and, in reflecting on how super dramatic and emo (before "emo" was a genre) that song was, i remarked how it would be so funny to do a dramatic reading of all our favorite '90s songs. and from this, an idea for a poetry reading of sorts, a collaborative performance for the sake of nothing but fun times and nostalgia with some good friends, was born.
the place i imagine is Bachelor Hall's courtyard, on a breezy spring evening, entry and exit music consisting of a playlist of all the read pieces, and definitely some wine.
now, i'm trying to think of material. any suggestions? i went through my '90s music on my computer (sadly lacking, i've lost a lot of those old favorites in the process of transitioning to different computers) and only thought of a few enticing reads:
K-Ci & Jo Jo's "All My Life" (probly a much better song than a poem, but a guilty pleasure nonetheless. i especially love how the first line of verse is "Baby (11x)" ha!)
Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You" (this would be so uncomfortable to read: "girl relax, let's go slow, i ain't got nowhere to go/ throw your clothes on the floor, i'm gonna take my clothes off too")
other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
x's
-stef
Thursday, March 27, 2008
the drive back to school from home was not nearly as harrowing as i expected it to be, and the pain of confinement was lessened considerably by riding until the radio waves from my favorite station slowly crackled and crisped into a steady static, at which point i threw on the driving mix i made for the ride. what a difference a soundtrack makes!
i had dinner with my friends, who i missed terribly, and then skipped over to the art museum for "Scene in Herd," a poetry event put on by the Miami University English Department every year (maybe this was the 5th one? my friend Justin Katko started it a few years ago as a spatial intervention, with the idea that the readings themselves would explore space in new ways, but also that they would break down the barrier between spectator/participant. b/c the theme of our class this week was "critical walking"/"spatial exploration"/"critical reconsideration of space" i thought this would be a good event to go to as a class. the readings didn't really fit the original theme as well as past ones have, but i think they made up for it in content).
the readings were exceptional, except for one or two moments that seemed ungenuine, made me suspect the poet was trying too hard to be impressive, and so not really saying anything. there were a few times i felt words were just being tossed around for effect rather than affect, and i thot that reflected poorly on the poet. i think a misplaced conspicuous "fuck" can really ruin a poem for me. it's not that i'm averse to profanity, i just think they're a really cheap way for a writer to sound superficially edgy. and i don't think there's any point to its wanton usage. it's like gratuitous violence in films, there really should be a point to it i think. [ok you could argue that excessive profanity is the point. kinda like satirists and sadists like Michael Haneke torture us with violence to make us understand how sick and perverse we are. but, i don't think that's what was going on. it wasn't that kind of poem (nor that kind of poet)...]
most thrilling was after the readings were over, and i finally got a chance to talk to the guy who builds book presses. as far as Justin or i know, he's the only one who can help me build the press i need to bind my project in April! i was thrilled when he finally agreed to teach me, first by inviting me to help him finish the press he's currently constructing, and then to build another one for my use. i can't wait, i was worried for a while that i may never get the chance to bind my project.
and now, to actually finish it so i have something to bind...
so, despite last week's setback, i'm going ahead with my project. in fact, i've begun the tedious process of mapping (a la my efforts in the spring of 2006) the flow of arguments therein, in what i think will be quite the impressive finished document, a physically expansive display of the scope of my thesis.
and i've come to the decision that just because the gate-keepers demand i conform to a certain form and formula, doesn't mean i can't enjoy it. or that i can't successfully subvert the institution and its mechanic rituals by satirizing them. i can adopt the form as my weapon, like Monique Wittig's Trojan Horse. a bomb masked in stealth by which to explode the ramparts from within. my subversion and radicalism all the more effective for wearing the disguise supplied by the Academy.
and, i've been reading this beautiful book called On Learning and Social Change (sadly out of print), which i accidentally discovered at Highlander. it's full of some astute observations, including a chapter on the ecology of violence in the university (notes on the tao of education).
i plan to quote from it extensively. so, to put some fantastic poetic imagery in your face, some words from Michael Rossman:
"one mode of teaching is triumphant in the University. minds are to be filled with information. image of a hand closing on a piece of data, fist plunging into watermelon. image of a cock ejaculating. SOCK IT TO ME!" (p.160)
i have returned from Highlander in TN with the happy news that social change in the South is alive and well.
75 years after its inception, and Highlander is still inspiring activists to build communities, to enact the change we hope one day to see, and speak truth to power.
it was a fantastic weekend, filled with workshops on popular education, political guerilla theatre, GLBTQ identities in activism, and lots of singing, joining hands, powerful anecdotes, and handclaps!
anyway, i'm tired now. classes are disappointing. i wish i could be back in the library with the spirit of Myles Horton's activism all around me, as i read this amazing little book i found in the library:
how sweet is this diagram depicting the flow of knowledge and relation-building in a democratic society as opposed to capitalist hierarchies?
oh, i forgot to mention: as of this week, i'm on Campus Progress's Student Advisory Board, working on Organizing! woo-hoo! later this month: a trip to Washington DC to begin my organizing on a national level...
Parakeet by Marie-Helene Bertino
