Extra Credit Project: "Mountain Laurel"

Here's my extra credit project. I did go off into the wild and wonderful for several afternoons, but I decided to do a creative project instead of the optional journal entries. So I composed a photobook/poem for my project.

When I was writing this and taking the photos, I was thinking about the Greek myth of Daphne and her transformation into a laurel tree. I came across this photo the day after you gave us the optional assignment, which sparked that rumination:


I was specifically thinking of the way going into nature is a reversion for Daphne, where she steps away from specifics and details and returns to something base and primal. I was thinking that such a process would seem almost incoherent, because it would be grasping a larger, transcendental state that was almost impossible to quantify in conventional language. To that end, I included photos taken while I was piecing together the poem into the final project because they were just as much a part of the thought process as the words themselves.

I had my point-and-click camera instead of the Sony DSLR (which is awaiting repair after beach sand got into the shutter over the past summer), but I think the photos came out pretty good. I'm not an incredibly technical photographer; I prefer to focus on natural images and compositional details instead of light boxes and darkrooms. My poetry is kind of the same way; I think the form should support the function. (Thank god...or Walt Whitman...for free verse.) I'm not sure if the specific form of this poem does that effectively or not, but I think there's something interesting there.

I used a free web photobook application called Picaboo because it creates digital photobooks that can be shared. I think it's some kind of a vanity press thing, but I was mostly interested in the online storage and linking functions. It had somewhat limited design options, but there was enough to make things workable. (The fonts, though...ick...)

Anyway. Here it is. I hope you find some pleasure in looking it over. I enjoyed writing it and will probably continue rearranging and playing with it. Click the photo for a link to the viewer; once there, click each page for a zoom view of the text and images.



(Click on the above photo for a link to the following: http://app.picaboo.com/WebView/Project.aspx?clientID=7e10c4349514e7395447b7c0a4715f07&version=109326&siteID=ViaPreview)

Literary Break #3: Jane Austen's Fight Club

I know Jane Austen is a British author and all that, plus she predeceased Emily Dickinson's birth by more than a handful of years, but she's been on my mind as we read Dickinson's poetry.

Possibly because of the common misconception of Emily Dickinson as something of a weird Regency/Victorian recluse...a fragile hothouse bloom shut away from the world at large under the protective wing of family...traipsing about in white clothing and never leaving the confines of her home...pressing greenery into herbarium albums and living the life genteel...

I think her reputation could use some of this:

Jane Austen's Fight Club - watch more funny videos

13 April // I Dated Walt Whitman...

...more than once. Maybe several times. First there was that disappointing guy in Symbolic Logic, who talked like Kierkegaard but acted like Nietzsche. (All I can say in my defense was that I was nineteen at the time.) Then there was the poet/barista/political activist who referred to himself in the third person in his writing, a la To A Common Prostitute. (Nineteen was a really tough age.)

What do these guys have in common with a great poetic voice of our developing nation? Well, I harbor a lingering suspicion that Walt Whitman was, in fact, very much one of THOSE guys; the ones who suck you in with earthy intelligence and honest creativity, then gradually let you down with an incredibly narrow egotism and self-promotional streak. For this reason I find it hard to read a lot of his poetry without seeing it as America (As Viewed Through The Lens Of Walt Whitman).

I don't know. I guess all poetry is filtered through the perceptions of the poet. And I actually really enjoy most of Walt Whitman's poetry in both form and content. Honest. I really love I Sing The Body Electric, When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer and To A Stranger. There are some things he writes that really resonate with me. I just wonder sometimes if his portrayals reflect more about his own interior world than any deep, universal observations of human nature.

Plus, just like Guy #1 and his philosophy...or Guy#2 and his poetry...every time I read Whitman's writing, I can't help thinking about what a jerk he was.

And in other news...

...someday I hope to be famous enough that my listless secretarial notations will be scrutinized by a rabid team of superfluous academics:

"Walt Whitman: The poet as federal worker" (Washington Post)

"You can clearly interpret from Ms. Clemens' comma splices and haphazard spelling, as well as her iconic 'hanged woman in business suit' figures penciled in the margins, that she was disdainful of the aforementioned 'multiple memo' process; perhaps a subtle commentary on the redundancy and mass production of the standard capitalist model? Additionally, several pages of the financial committee minutes from 2008-2009 have the phrase 'blah blah blah' scattered throughout, which is obviously a very dry Marxist critique of free market economies."

Maybe one day we will have entire think-tanks dedicated to analyzing Toni Morrison's text messages or Jonathan Franzen's grocery lists.

Lit Break #2: Bibliophile Heaven

It's usually at this point in the semester...with only a month left of classes...that I begin feeling pretty stressed because, as always, I've somehow managed to meander away from set assignments and deadlines. I always make the mistake of getting caught up in what I'm studying while forgetting to pay attention to the limitations and restriction inherent in an academic schedule.

Following a line of inquiry or a train of thought to its completion feels very natural to me. That's how I learn, but sadly that's not how college is set up. We study in chunks and excerpts, according to a predetermined guideline. We memorize facts and study generalities we have no frameworks for understanding, then move on to write papers and take tests.

I always forget to move on. I get caught in the details and the complexities. The last month of class is generally the time I find myself turning the last page of the collected works of some forgotten poet, then realizing that I am late turning in that paper on medieval lais. I don't learn slowly; I just need to learn completely and in context. By the time I feel that I finally have enough information to competently comment, the deadlines for tests and papers have generally passed.

So April is a flurry of catching up and activity for me. It's always horribly busy and overwhelming. This is the reward I always keep in mind for completion. I took it one day when I had absolutely nothing to do but read books, drink tea and listen to music. Even though this is from the winter festivities of a few years ago, having freedom to read and learn outside of guidelines always feels like Christmas.

Walden Thoughts (Instead of Class)

“I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves…I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains...” -- Conclusion, Walden

One of the things I love most about Walden in particular (and Thoreau's work in general) is that each new reading brings revelatory understandings and connections; it is never the same work that I pull from the bookshelf. When I first read Walden in my mid-teens, the sections about the flaws in standardized education versus true learning were what caught my eye. When I read Walden in my mid-twenties, I was absorbed by Thoreau's deliberate savoring of the moment and the messy social constructs that constitute human experience. When reading Walden this last time, it was the forward thinking manifesto hidden in the conclusion that held my attention.

With very few exceptions, it seems to me that complacency is something most people struggle with. We either become mired in the safe and expected, or we struggle with a lack of reliability and security; we become our routines or we struggle against them. For me . Seven years ago, I decided to quit my job and leave school (packing up all my belongings, finding a new home for my cat and turning off my phone), instead taking a risk and accepting an opportunity to move to Northern Ireland. My erstwhile father had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away the year before at the age of 48, so thoughts of unrealized opportunities and ignored potential were strong in my thoughts. I remember telling my mother that I was leaving

I sometimes find myself standing in front of the mirror in the mornings, brushing my hair and meeting my own eyes in the glass...on days like that I am thinking about myself and my life; where I've been and where I'm going...the things I've done and what I have to show for those experiences...and it often occurs to me that I have somehow

16 March // Transcendentalists, Learning & Unschooling

Not to advertise this fact too loudly...but I have a pretty big crush on the Transcendentalists.

It's been going on since I was in my early teens; I remember reading Thoreau's Walden and Emerson's Nature for the first time as part of a homeschooling summer reading group, underneath the apple trees in my backyard. Before I had really experienced life and could even fully understand what they were talking about, I was deeply drawn to their way of perceiving the world and how they chose to interact with it. Passages like these (all from Emerson's Nature) permanently captured my imagination:

"To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches." (Emerson, Nature)

"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night, I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too; to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future, which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line." (Thoreau, Walden)

"To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood." (Emerson, Nature)

"The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?" (Thoreau, Walden)

For a homeschooler raised in Appalachia, this was the essence of my educational life. We had tried strict homeschooling with our small group for the first few years, but gradually everyone seemingly fell into unschooling; a discipline which stresses supporting and encouraging children in their natural ability to educate themselves. Parents moved away from the pedanticism and pedagogies of institutionalized education, instead allowing their children free reign to experience the natural and sensual world. Unschoolers believe that the inherent interests and curiosities of children naturally lead to a quest for the knowledge necessary to perpetuate those skills and desires.

To give an example: since all knowledge is connected (not naturally separated into neat disciplines and categorizations), eating a particularly delicious apple pie could lead an Unschooling child to study historic recipes and cooking traditions stretching back to ancient Persia...or to research the organic structure of ingredients and chemical reactions that occur in baking...or to fractional mathematics involved in doubling and reducing recipes...or to the agricultural roots of tree propagation and pollination...or to consume particularly beautiful works of literature and art regarding a sensual appreciation of foodstuffs...all these are possibilities. Perhaps a precipitating interest could lead to a more abiding passion, where a child learn they love culinary arts or organic chemistry. However, all these wonderful options stem from a precipitating interaction with a natural experience that is child-like and pure.

This freedom of educational thought and experience in the natural world is the direct descendant of the Transcendentalists, who were the first to stand up to the experiential limitations of historic educational institutions. It's a lesson I've internalized to the point that it is incredibly hard for me as a college student to go back to the standard divisions and discipline of education. To this day I find disconnected and dry lectures limp, disciplinary distinctions ridiculous and deadlines/busywork/limitations suffocatingly restrictive. There have been times in recent years where I have skipped lectures because the bloodless and uninspiring group dissection of a reading would take the color out of it forever for me. (Most recently a dispassionate group discussion session with three people who hated Mrs. Dalloway, one of my favorite novels ever.) Over the years I have taken a lot of flack for this, but it's become something so intrinsic to me that I don't know if I could change to this other way of operating, let alone if I would even want to.

Walt Whitman has a lovely poem that I think captures the essence of this feeling:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

14 March // Melville's Benito Cereno

It's interesting that this last decade has seen another revival of interest in Melville's lesser-known works. As someone who has a tendency to lump his entire oeuvre into over-saturated Dead White Male Author territory, it is surprising for me to find unexpected relevance in Melville's forgotten pieces. Especially since I number among that guilty party: the whole Moby Dick/Old Man and the Sea/Jaws finite man versus infinite nature thing doesn't really do it for me, so my eyes kind of glaze over at the mere mention of Melville.

(This is slowly changing for me. I think Bartleby the Scrivener is awesome, in that it pretty much perfectly captures to ennui and malaise of corporate America. Speaking of which, Crispin Glover's turn as Bartleby in the 2001 cinematic re-imagining was pretty awesome. And creepy.)



(Also: "I would prefer not to" is totally and weirdly a Bukowski penchant...a la 1987's Barfly...)



Anyway. Back to Melville.

I recently came across this quote from biographer Andrew Delbanco, about the pertinence of Melville (specifically Benito Cereno) in a post-9/11 America:

In our own time of terror and torture, Benito Cereno has emerged as the most salient of Melville's works: a tale of desperate men in the grip of a vengeful fury that those whom they hate cannot begin to understand.

That correlation is one that is very interesting to me, given the racially/culturally-charged political issues that have dominated American life in the last decade. (A topic I think I'll be writing a long response on later.)

In the meantime...I found this really neat new media writing reworking Benito Cereno. It's basically the entire story via Twitter, as told in snippets of 140 characters or less. It's called "The Good Captain" and was created by artist Jay Bushman. Click on the image for a link to the project (@ http://jaybushman.com/the-good-captain).

7 February // The Tea Party Usurps Thomas Paine

This blows my mind. Glenn Beck is the antithesis of Paine in nearly every way imaginable. Plus, it is incredibly weird that the man who organizes prayer vigils in DC would consider himself the peer of a dude who felt that organized religion was a cancerous blot on an individual's moral consciousness.

Some interesting quotes from Paine's various works:

It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal." (Paine, Agrarian Justice)

"Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is no more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory to itself than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists or fanatics. As an engine of power, it serves the purpose of despotism, and as a means of wealth, the avarice of priests, but so far as respects the good of man in general it leads to nothing here or hereafter." (Paine, The Age of Reason)

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church." (Paine, The Age of Reason)

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." (Paine, Common Sense)

...and there's a lot more where those came from. (Including some truly interesting bits about taxing the rich to set up a system of subsidies and care for the poor.) Beck some manages to ignore all of this in laying claim to Paine's legacy. He once had the incredible gall to refer to Thomas Paine as "the me of his generation." And, apparently, Thomas Paine is his great-great-great-great-great grandfather -- politically speaking.



The only thing I can think is that no Tea Party die-hard has ever actually read any of Paine's works in their entirety. I'm not so sure Beck has.

4 February // Franklinite

What can I say about Benjamin Franklin? Well, for starters, I think his incredible demonstration of polymath skills is awesome. Also, I really enjoy his wit and his creative intelligence, which is still remarkable nearly 300 years after his death. He was so good at so many things, which is probably what made him such an urbane and respected politician. (As well as being a pretty impressive inventor/newspaperman/scientist. Plus, I hear he did alright with the ladies.)


At the same time, the Poor Richard persona drives me crazy because it smacks of good old Protestant work ethic, which I (as a lazy person) take strong exception to. This is the stuff chirped by irritating people on Monday mornings; printed on motivational posters of dangling kittens and icebergs. Some of the most blatant offenders:

Would you live with ease, Do what you ought, and not what you please.

...then have a ROLLICKING midlife crisis, leave your spouse for a flighty someone the same age as your oldest child and cry yourself asleep each night into your single malt. Alone.

There’s many witty men whose brains can’t fill their bellies.

Anatomy: Franklin's kryptonite.

Nothing but Money,
Is sweeter than Honey.

Actually, a lot of things are sweeter than honey. Aspartame. Corn syrup. Saccharine. Oh, yes; AND free time. Which is to say time not spent in the deadening and endless pursuit of wealth.

Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

...or a breakfast-shift McDonald's employee.

An old young man, Will be a young old man.

...who has never stayed up later than midnight, but has been prematurely balding since he was 20.

Why does the blind man’s wife paint herself?

I feel like there's a slippery bit of misogynistic logic somewhere in there. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I suspect it has something to do with commodification of female bodies and the male gaze...or so my copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves tells me...

Drink water, put the money in your pocket and leave the dry bellyache in the punchbowl.

Then be the only sober person at the lame 18th century party that involves drunken harpsichord, cow-fat candles and endless quadrilles. Sounds fantastic.
__________________________________________________

However. With that being said...according to David Keirsey's famous temperment sorter, 1/2 of my personality is similar to Franklin's. According to Keirsey, he's an ENTP (Rational Inventor). That was my childhood type until my thought processes gradually became more introverted. Possibly because not a lot of people are interested in discussing the glue function of particles in Japanese linguistics, or how snorkingly funny Joss Whedon's writing can be (especially in Roseanne and Firefly). Being a geek is such a lonely road to travel.

(I'm serious about the Keirsey! Check out the Keirsey Sorter by clicking the following photo. If you haven't heard of it before, it is actually a very useful tool for mediation and conflict resolution. They teach the KST-II at such luminous old guard institutions as Purdue and Johns Hopkins.)


I am an INTP (Rational Architect) which means I share a type with Marie Curie, Albert Einstein and Harper Lee. Albert Einstein - the man who had to call his wife from the middle of the street for a reminder about where he was supposed to be going.

Yeah. That sounds more like me. >_<

26 January // Captivity Narratives = Soft-Core Puritan Porn

I could voice any number of very legitimate issues about captivity narratives in general, and Mary Rowlandson's narrative in particular; ESPECIALLY the ridiculous portrayal of Christian providence as justification for eventual cultural genocide and early European settlement of occupied territory...but instead what comes to mind is this:

The cell-rock band Rasputina recorded a skit mocking captivity narratives on their album "Frustration Plantation", which I think hits pretty close to home. I've always found it odd how sexualized and violent those narratives are, which I think Rasputina does a great job of parodying in "My Captivity By Savages".

You can listen to the song on their Myspace page music player by clicking the photo above...you have to skip forward to the eighth track to get the song, but I promise it is worth it.

This is "The Story of My Captivity by Savages," or "How I Learned to Fight"
by Eliza Elizabeth Cook, age 13
Written in my own hand on this, the 23rd day of August, 1829.

Chapter 1: Fine Day for a Flaying, or The Brutal Massacre of All I Held Dear

The valley that runs down the trail over the west bank of the glorious state of Natchez-Pierce was the site of my own hideous undoing. My entire family was lain waste, no careb being taken by the natives that even baby Coolidge was to be spared an ounce of pain.
How I came to be spared, by the grace of God, I shall never know.

I had been smashed in the head with a boulder over fourteen times by a young Indian brave. When I awoke, through eyes still stinging from the smouldering decimation, my large blue eyes looked up into the burning sun of the late summer sky. No sooner had I stirred when four horsemen approached my wilted carcasse. In their stilted English, they told me in great detail how they had massacred mine own Ma and Pa, how my elder brother Ham had given no resistance to his own flogging, and how easy it had been to make my sickly sister, Sarah Susanna, wail and sob like a sea creature. (Boo hoo!)

I clenched my long, graceful fingers into tight fists at my sides, and turning my head away, laughed quietly to myself. (Ha ha ha!) If these human animals believed that they had captured a nubile and willing young white slave girl, they were sorely mistaken.

I felt about my waist for a weapon. Oftentimes, I kept sewing tools hanging from ribbons pinned to my dress. "Looking for this?" the handsomest warrior asked, holding my sterling pinking shears up between two red fingers as he looked down from his steed at my writhing confusion.

Brushing a strand of pale yellow hair from my brow, I pretended to reach for a stray silken slipper that I had spied nearby, but swiftly darted up and in between the flanks of the wild mustangs that stood majestically before me!

The silent commander had only to reach down to capture me by the hair. Yanking hard, he pulled me upright, and twisted my fair face up to meet his cold, cold gaze. I shall never forget my realization upon that moment that my freedom had thus been robbed. And that although my pleasing mortal shell was intact, I, Eliza Elizabeth Jane Cook, was to become a handmaiden to a number of verile, half-naked nomads, and that this ordeal would continue fourteen years.

28 January // Joseph McCarthy + Glenn Beck

Reading Arthur Miller's "Are You Now Or Were You Ever?" reminded me a lot of the weird parallel between Glenn Beck and Joseph McCarthy. It's almost like they're fulfilling the same roles in our society, just 50 years apart. Check out this video from the Glenn Beck Show that, unbelievably, portrays McCarthy in a supportive and positive light while calling for another modern-day witch hunt.



The Beck/McCarthy love connection is terrifying, isn't it?

My question is -- is this kind of thing cyclical? Are we destined to have sporadic outbreaks of intolerance and radical conservatism throughout our entire national history? Will there always be scapegoating and xenophobia, or can we ever develop a cohesive society that cherishes differences? Why is there such a push for conformity in America? For a society based on the melting pot ideal (which the title of Miller's play itself hearkens back to), why do we always seem to push for conformity in every expression of personal ideology? Why do we, as a nation, have such difficulty with variances in politics, religion, ethnicity, gender and orientation?

When I was doing an online search for McCarthy + TV (based on a half-remembered political science article linking the fall of McCarthyism with his televised demeanor), I ended up running across this. Reporter Edward Murrow ran a special program on McCarthy as part of the TV show "See It Now" -- it is widely held that the visual representation of McCarthy's incoherency and nonsensical rambling turned popular opinion against him. It turns out that CBS News has actually posted that broadcast on their online archive. It's strange because McCarthy doesn't seem that different from Beck to me, yet a medium that spelled the doom for one man is the broadcast "commentator" empire of another.


(Click the photo above or go to http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1065699n)

14 January // Contemporary American Indian Mythology

I'm glad we started the course with American Indian literature, because that underscores the very legitimate place First Nations people hold in American culture and history (and continue to hold into the present day). They are the original inhabitants of the continent and the first storytellers of our common landscape. Many First Nations works memorialize not only that geography but also the complexities of human experience.

Discussing ancient trickster cycles makes me think of the modern day, and how we tend to relegate American Indians to the past. It seems hard for mainstream American society to understand that those cultures and traditions are living, evolving things in the present.

Specifically, I am thinking about a digital media piece put together by artist Luke Warmwater based on the Lakota Iktomi cycle. I used portions of the following clip in a video essay I did several years ago about Lakota Generation Y cultural expressions. I think it says more than I ever could on the subject, although some people find that to be uncomfortable. But it is real and speaks to contemporary reservation experience, which is a facet of modern life that can't be ignored.

(WARNING: This is definitely not work or child friendly, but it is relevant to contemporary issues. It gets pretty...mature...within the first few minutes.)

21 January // Winthrop's "Model of Christian Charity"

I am somewhat ambivalent about Winthrop. There are surprising points of fellowship, kindness, insight and charity in this speech that don't seem to really mesh with the parts that reveal his self-centered and short-sighted conceptions of the world. Some of what he says is inspired and beautiful, while other parts are just incredibly limited and moralistic.

The roots of American interventionism are apparent in this document, which is troubling for me because I agree with some of those offshoots. (Such as the United Nations and their 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) As a nation, we still feel like we are a "city upon a hill". We take this mindset as a economic and political imperative, intervening in the political systems and cultural structures of other places to instill our brand in place of their native systems. This document is where it all starts in our political history. It's the mindset that led to the enforced Christianization of the Native peoples of America, the federally-instigated downfall of numerous Latin American governments and the wars of the past century (including Korea and Vietnam). I wonder if Winthrop could ever have envisioned that application of his theology.

Literary Break #1: Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights"

In honor of my birthday, which is today...

Sometimes when I hear this song, I imagine young Poetry MFA students-to-be across the English speaking world lip-syncing this into their 70s-era glitter hairbrushes while staring solemnly through feathered bangs at their older sisters' David Cassidy posters...



As a child of the early 80s, I can get away with saying that. We had our own embarrassments.

(But I do enjoy this song.)