Watching them pass by ...

Our lives won't stop moving, thankfully.

It's time for an update.

So. Yes, I'm engaged. I figured this was the time and place to tell the tale. First, Katie and I have set January 13th as our date. The wedding will be here in Tallahassee, at St. Peter's Anglican(our church).

Katie and I got engaged on August 6th (Sunday), Transfiguration Day, in Santa Fe - my hometown.

We went to New Mexico for the wedding of one of her best friends in high school, and for a short vacation. I picked up the ring (from Marks and Morgan) two days before we left. I carefully packed it into my new backpack and concealed the ring information inside my planner. The airport security check went smoothly ... I envisioned having to propose on the spot if they rifled through my bag. Alas. New Mexico was beautiful; the greenest I've ever seen it. Perfect weather. We stayed at a hostel in Albuquerque. Went up to Sandia Crest, and attended the wedding on Saturday. Day by day, I found it increasingly difficult to talk, or even act like myself (Brooks: did you have this problem too?). We even bickered a bit. I was untalkative, moody, and short. That ring was burning a hole in everything.

Sunday was peaceful and pleasant as we drove up to Santa Fe. I took a backroad - the famous Turquiose Trail. We went to an arts and crafts festival in downtown Santa Fe. Katie bought a lovely scarf and we bought our first Christmas ornament, depicting a coyote. We met my childhood friends for lunch at the Zia diner. When I was waiting for Katie to return from the ladies' room, I glanced nervously and saw dark rain clouds squatting over the Sangre de Christo mtns, the proposed marriage proposal site. I desparately called my dad to run some plan B ideas across him, but got his voicemail and hung up. I decided to stick to my plan. Luckly, my friends put in a good word about the mountains and I'd built up the importance of seeing the views from the mountains, so Katie knew it was important. We drove up. My stomach had a big, dull pit. I don't remember what we talked about, but somehow I managed to chat during the whole drive up. We started up the Aspen Vista Trail, a childhood haunt of mine, as the clouds hovered threatenly overhead. A little thunder greeted us, too. I reassured Katie as we kept forward. I'd forgetten how long the damn trail was ... until you reach any overlooks. We almost stopped for a sitting break on a log. Not my ideal proposal spot. I insisted that we move forward! I was getting ready to turn back. The thunder was keeping up. We were getting a bit tired. It looked like rain any second. I remembered seeing a nice little iron-cast bench at the trailhead. I could propose there ... another bend in the trail. Finally. An overlook. We stopped.

Took a few pictures. Drank some water. Katie wanted to go down; the thunder was making her nervous. I said I just had to sit for a bit on the rock outcropping on the overlook. I braced my legs on the slanted rock and "sat." Katie sat next to me. I was ready. Nope. Took and breath and hestitated. Then did it. Told her there was another reason I brought her up here besides the view. I pulled out the ring (which had been in my front jean pocket all day, the ring box's bulge disguised by my cellphone sitting next to it). Got on my knee and asked her to marry me. She said yes.

We celebrated a bit then scampered down the mountain to beat the rain. I felt like myself again and told her about my planning, calling her dad, etc. I could talk again! We got back to the car just as the rain starting pouring. Whew! We drove over to Eldorado, my childhood home, to enjoy the realization. I drove up to the home my family built. Katie called her family, who were all gathered at her mum's b-day party back in California. I called my family a bit later. We closed out the night with a lovely dinner at Rancho de Chimayo, perhaps my favorite resturant. A fantastic celebration dinner, complete with a pitcher of sangria. A walked around downtown Santa Fe concluded the night.

I must admit that the ring is very striking on her - a 3/8 carat solitaire round-cut diamond. Somehow, it seems we've grown a year or two older when I glance at that ring ...

Yes, everybody is invited to the wedding, and Katie and I will be asking for addresses for invitations when she's done with comps. (comprehensive exam) on September 9th. Please pray for Katie. She's been under emense stress studying for comps. and still has much ground to review.

I'm very excited about seeing everybody in a few weeks. Especially since everybody will be wearing all that finery - wink, wink. Dana, I'm sure you're going to look very lovely in the dress. And Brooks, I'm confident you'll look smashing in the tux, like the superstud you are, you.

Love to all.

The Red Line to China Town

I'm glad our lives intersect.

Dana and I left Leesburg just after 5 pm on Friday night. We stopped at the bank and I covered my eyes in silver powder in the Jeep while Dana waited in line for the ATM. Soon we both had real cash in our hands which usually anticipates calamity or adventure--like one of R. L. Stevenson's boy heroes. You start out on your trip with something valuable--something to get you through the journey.

Then we made our way into the Capital city. Many of the cars around us had their windows down and their music on. The beads of sweat were gathering on the smalls of our backs. We would drive for a few minutes and then pull up quickly and stop. We ended up passing the same cars and people over and over again in traffic. The repetition tightened the memory like a a double-stitch of thread. We took Constitution Avenue through the city. We saw families, strollers, lovers, nuns, policemen and foreign tourists on the document-named road. They were like flies on the parchment of the great.

Each piece of our journey was marked by some archetype. Leaving home with money, driving on a Great Highway, entering the Heart of a City. We ended the drive quietly by hiding the Jeep in Brookland so it would be safe until we got back.

We clipped our way in high heels to the Metro, passed under a bridge and hurried down the stairs to the platform--time was beginning to run out for us to reach the bus. We were already on the Red line so we didn't make any cross-overs. Chinatown was above us when we came up out of the gritty tunnel.

It was like watching the world for a minute while riding a carnival. The ride stopped when Dana gasped at a touch on her shoulder and the images came into focus as I recognized Brooks and Travis. We said quick hellos and then the colors began to fly again as we three left Travis at the intersection to catch the Chinatown Bus.

Get ready, 'cause here I come ...

Oaky. I'm coming up on Thursday night and will have some time on Friday to visit. But you all will be in NYC, no? Katie is not going to be able to make it up for this trip, since her thesis has to get done by the end of the week. So she must plow ahead.

I'm already planning the roadtrip music:

Dylan
Radiohead
Woody Guthrie
Robert Johnson
Sebadoh
The Pixies
The Kinks
The White Stripes
Death Cab for Cutie
Hank Williams
Patsy Cline
American Graffitti soundtrack ...

But I've got to read a lovely-looking 18th Cent. Brit. play called The London Merchant, read critcism on Oroonoko, and hold teacher/student conferences with my kiddos before I can go. And see some fireworks tomorrow night.

One down, one to go.

Hey everybody,

Alas, another acedemic update. I finished my first summer session - Issues in Literary and Cultural Theory - and just stared my second summer session today. I'm taking a Restoration/18th Cent. Brit. Lit. class with Dr. Candace Ward. We're reading some crazy texts (a woman claiming to give birth to rabbits, a "feminized male traveler," Dryden's great praises for the London fire of 1665, and stuff like Baubard's polemic poem against the slave). I'm also teaching a section of ENC1101. I have 17 freshmen in computer-equipped classroom. Ah, it's good to be back in technoland ...

I enjoyed doing a lot of reading, documentary viewing (like Scorsese's No Direction Home) and spending quality time with Katie last week. She's thinking very hard about coming with for Jesse's wedding on the 8th if she can finish some big projects and stay afloat with comprehensive exam studying. She's doing very well under the pressure, I'm proud of her.

Yes, so I will be up in VA on and around the 8th. Sadly, you all will be in NYC at that time from what I've heard - is this true?? Shakespeare in the park?

Okay, I need to look for some lane tickets for an August trip ...

Love to all.

Man for/of/in (choose your prep) Seasons

Last night, Brooks came and made dinner for us Royal St ladies. He used one of Dana's favorite recipes and servied us Peach Ginger Chicken. After dinner, Em left for care group and then the three of us folded, glued, be-ribboned wedding invititions. The process got a bit complex when Brooks and Dana started added the last touch--a golden seal over the ribbon. The wax was first too hot and so melted the ribbon. Dana suggested poring it out of a spoon. This improvision worked and they spent the rest of the night dripping gold wax out of a teaspoon. The spoon-made invitations turned out beautifully.

When I went to Memphis

• I sat by a man who didn't respect the invisible barrier created by the arm rest. He wore short sleeves. He had a hairy arm. And his elbow was in seat 13A. This would have been alright if the rest of him hadn't been sitting in 13B.
• I got to drive a little red Cobalt around with a Texas License plate reading "The Lone Star State." I felt patriotic.
  
• For a little paranoid excitement, I pushed all the furniture in my hotel room, that was movable, against the door.
  
• A black guy asked me how I was and when I replied that I was fine he said, "Uh, huh, I knows you fine!!" (hope that isn't racist).
  
• I met more parents-of-PHCers at the homeschool conference. They were unsurprisingly Pillars-of-the-Homeschool-Movement.
  
• On the flight back I sat by a girl whose Aunt(ie) saw her off (parenthesis mine). While waiting to board my last flight of the day, I heard them talking. From their chatting it seemed that family visits were infrequent and this one almost a coincidence. But it had left them feeling very benevolent because it had been a good visit. Her aunt said, "I am just so proud of you. There are not many young people like you now days. And you are just going to have a wonderful life." The girl deflected this praise and then said, "Aunt Joan, can I hug you?" (After snickering at this exchange like a cynic) I decided, as I looked at her sleeping beside me, that she did look particularly innocent and sweet. Her face full of unfinished lines (no plucked eyebrows, no charcoal liners, no equiline features) and her hair a soft mess.
  
• I had a good little adventure and have decided that R. L. Stevenson is right, "the great affair is to move."
  

Oklahoma City

Ah, last week at this time Katie and I were tramping around Oklahoma City with our dear friends Josh and Suzanna. (Sorry all I could come up with for Josh was the crash "shop" link, alas).

I have to admit. Trent was always right. Oklahoma City is a swell place. Many of the neighborhoods have these cute little German houses with squat pillars on the porches. Josh and Susanna have an artist's paradise of a place - lots of books, music, instruments, paintinings on the walls, a recording studio, every room painted a different color (lime green in the kitchen), and chic furnishings. Beautiful.

Katie and I survived the 18 hr. drive to get there from Tallahassee and spent the night in Huntsville, AL with Katie's great aunt and uncle. (They gave Katie's mum and grandmum a glowing report about me *grin, blush.*) My car's AC was working on half capacity, and I have no CD player, so we talked, talked, and talked to keep us going. We each began working on a list of our own top 100 songs. It's hard, and a bit frustrating. Oklahoma City had more culture than I expected. Josh and Susanna took us downtown, where we saw the Murrow bldg. memorial (I thought of my students, since we have a chapter about memorials in my curriculum), and an Asian Arts festival in the Myriad Gardens. I got some crazy tapioca. We saw X-Men III (and empowering popular culture moment on the big screen! I love this stuff) and went to a great pub in Bricktown. We went to a party later and met many people from Josh and Susanna's church. They meet on Sundays and have a house church system, which sounds fruitful and much-needed. Sunday was a very peaceful day. Lots of reflection. Since it was a holiday weekend, their church didn't meet. So we had a bible study in the morning, then Katie and I took a nice walk through the heat to the local park - with a long arroyo bed. We all went to an amazing bookstore and did some reading, then grabbed some great Italian. We baked chocolate chip cookies and watched a curious documentary on Radiohead (oh, so artsy). Josh wanted me to see it for my hipster class - he's writing a big essay on "the cool" right now. He traded some ideas. After a great night of sleep Katie and I made the 18 hr. drive back to Tallahassee in one day ... God blessed us with cloud cover most of the way - so the 1/2 AC was bearable. And blessed us with amazing conversations. We had a close call with gas when driving through Mississippi. I forgot that many exits still have absolutely nothing because of hurricane damage. But we lucked out and found some gas. Off one exit, every building was leveled, many of the trees bent over, lots of sign-skeletons, and debris all over. Anyhow, we got back to Tallahassee a bit after 2am. I put close to 3,000 miles on my car. But, boy, did I need the break - I had to write a paper the next day and Katie is finishing her M.S. thesis this weekend.

I have a few more weeks of the first summer session left, then teach a class and am taking a Restoration Lit. class (Darcy, Andrew will be proud of me) in Session C. Hopefully, I'll be flying "home" to San Diego for a week in August.

Who's still in VA?

Love to all.

Travis

in honor of other Wimsey

for some in our circle...

Preliminary Notes on Dylan

I'm putting some notes I wrote out about the Dylan show I went to in Orlando last week. I take them to the next level, but for now I got some basics out about the concert.

So sorry I won't be up there for graduation. My Issues in Literary and Cultural Theory is already two weeks old! We are taking a break-neck pace through the stuff. For my sanity, I've been reading literature on the side. After last semester - with its avant garde stuff, Gogol, and Lacan - I've almost forgotten how pleasurable good literature is! Last week I read through Mark Strand's wonderful little work The Continuous Life (the poem by the same name is captivating). This week I've reading through Millay's Selected Poems. She's so underestimated! And at time makes the Romantics look like poseurs.

I will be up in the area around July 8th, for Jesse's wedding. So, I hope a few of you will still be around! (Darcy, are you moving back this summer to Ohio? Em, how much longer are you sticking around?)

Here's to Dylan:

Merle Haggard has just finished an amazing set. We gave him a standing ovation as he slowly hobbled around and off the wide stage, while his band played his theme song. It could have been the feature performance, but the lights faded out in Orlando’s Waterhouse Center. We waited for Bob Dylan.

I waited nervously, trying to achieve ambivalence. We didn’t expect a great show from the folk legend. We talked about this on the drive up from Tallahassee that afternoon. We established a safety net. No expectations for the sublime. I knew better than to expect a correspondence between the Dylan I loved to hear and what would be on the stage. The problem was that Merle Haggard made it look so easy—for a musical old-timer. His voice was golden. He commanded the stage with his glinting guitar and sweeping cowboy hat, which he lifted when he bowed gracefully. His band could probably play these songs from their graves. Maybe Dylan would be golden too? Golden. This was an unproductive word.

The lights dimmed deeper and the rodeo movement from Copeland’s Fanfare played – surely, not? – but, yes. It was for Dylan. A buttery narrator tells us to welcome “American Rock Legend and Columbia Recording Artist, Bob Dylan!” What is this, some downtown Vegas show? I have visions of beef for dinner as Dylan limps up the stage steps and his snazzy band take up their places in a crescent-shaped arrangement. Suddenly, Dylan is at a pearly cream-colored synthesizer and the band is striking up “Maggie’s Farm” – one of my favorites. I glow for a few seconds. The music is fast and hard. Then Dylan sings. Rather, he talked a few lines. But the only words I caught were “I ain’t gonna … Maggie’s Farm.” His talk was slurred. I wonder if the words caused Dylan physical pain to sing-speak. His voice sounded like it was battling against something which tried to erase it. In fact, I only knew the song was “Maggie’s Farm” because of these few lyric-words I heard. The arrangement was new. More full. More rockabilly. Fun for what it was. But not Dylan.

Dylan moved into “Everything She’s Got.” The high notes brought out what’s not left of Dylan’s voice. We got a full croak, like he was choking on a microphone. We winced. Some people chuckled, as if it was endearing. The crowd buzzed. I didn’t think it would be this bad, I expected “Dylan,” and you know what I mean. To his credit, Dylan’s voice sounded adjusted and Dylan-decent on his newer, more bluesy, hits. There was a correspondence. But on the older stuff, especially songs like “Masters of War,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “Struck inside Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” Dylan seemed disconnected from the music. I can only imagine what it would be like to sing these tunes for forty years, and the motivations that exist for shaking up the tune occasionally, but something seemed lost when Dylan sang his older stuff—as if there was a wall between him and the songs.

I began to look closely at his band, all dressed in grey jackets and slacks. Well-groomed, like a big band set; the boys around a master. Dylan himself wore a small black cowboy hat, and a black jacket and slacks with red racer stripes. A cowboy captain. A pair of red cowboy boots peeked out from his slacks’ edge. He locked his knees and shuffled his feet on the stage floor, sliding them like levers to the music. He looked down at the synthesizer keys. He played this the whole time, since arthritis prevents him from playing his guitar anymore. His face was a pale oval with a trace of a thin moustache, and black sunglasses. He finally spoke at the start of the encore: “Hello. I’m Bob Dylan.” The crowd chose “Like a Rollingstone” for their favorite moment. Everybody stood up as Dylan trembled through the lyrics. The music rolled us along. People closed their eyes and swayed. I sat. I couldn’t bring myself to sing along with any of the songs. For one thing, it was impossible to sing along with Dylan’s singing-speaking delivery. On the other hand, this was a new performer with new songs. I watched instead. Who was this corpse on the stage? This legend of “American rock”?


We made it through “Rollingstone,” but left halfway through “Hurricane,” which may have been his best song that night, but it was undercut by his voice, which sounded like something from the fires of hell—something being consumed, something flickering, or ghostly. I walked out with an impression. Dylan is being rewritten. Or rewriting himself. The narrator’s introduction paints him as a rock pioneer and legend. The big band set confirms this. Dylan does his rock like Buddy Holly and Elvis. He’s a rock cornerstone. Nothing folksy at all here. And Dylan opened with “Maggie’s Farm,” harkening back to the historical moment at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when Dylan “plugged in.” The show told me: this is Dylan. This is rock. Or, I’m Bob Dylan and I’m still developing. Katie wondered what Dylan thinks of himself. Is this a big joke? Is he laughing at us consuming his pricey tickets for big arena shows in an act of late political defiance? Does he still love it? Is he serious? Or perhaps he would claim, like he did in a 1965 London interview: “I’m just making music.”

Our first CD on the drive back to Tallahassee was “Highway 61 Revisited.” I was ready and open. And it was good. To Dylan’s credit, I’ve been listening more closely to his first album, the self-titled “Bob Dylan,” wondering if the seeds of explanation lie here in its raw bluesy glory. Occupying a gyre-like position, the current Dylan has come round with his untamed vocals and rock energy, overlying the wailing and daring first album Dylan gave us. I just wonder how those red cowboy boots and legs of his support what’s left.

The shovels

The day of the ground breaking for another big building on campus occurred today. The millions of dollars going into it suggested that I will be able to point out its spires to my posterity in latter days. There were some tender words from the Chairman of the Board. He called it a seedling. Youth was the theme. Innocence and hope. The Chancellor bespoke himself on the Youth as well, but that of the students and how they were the blood of his dream—life blood, that is. All I could think about was how soft the ground looked in the sunshine. I hoped the photographers wouldn’t take a picture of me singing hymns. The President-to-be spoke as well. He was jocund and smiling while he described things like the division of modern Christendom into denominations. And he introduced the new Academic Dean in a sort of comic show where he proceeded to stack and spill WORLD magazines on the podium. The piles were brought forth to demonstrate the cultural contributions of the incoming Dean. There was the expected symbolic heap of dirt on the smooth green sod. There were shovels with college stickers on their handles and spades to mark them as the ceremonial instruments. These the men and two honorary students picked up after some confusion as to who got which shovel and then they each dug a spade-full of dirt and dumped it onto the pile again. This done, they stepped back and a populist invitation was made to the student body witnesses. A show of awkward limbs and weak wrists followed as the children went forth. They lifted dirt from the pile and let it sift back into the pile. The wind was a gentle vibration so all the dirt raised in the shovels returned to the heap; none of it was carried into our eyes.

Off to the Woods

We (Katie, me, and three other friends) are leaving for the Shining Rock Wilderness (Pisgah National Forest) in North Carolina today! We're planning to hike Cold Mountain, and stay two nights in a cabin owned by an InterVarsity-friendly family. This means three days on the trail :-P I'm very excited and have my old school pack loaded up for the trip. I'm the only hiker who has a steel-frame pack ... and proud of it - it, my former Oak Hill dorm attic find.

Brooks, I hope you survived the week of papers, and I'm going to miss not having you out there with me. Don't forget: you need to swing over to Tallahassee after Dane's wedding. Or else ...

I'll keep you all posted on Terrence. Keep praying. Dad and kids spent the night in Las Cruces, N.M. last night and should make San Diego by night - where they are moving everything into the new house.

Love to all.

The Postmodern Essay Generator

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo

Mr. Shakes (Brooks)

Remember riding past the metro stop 83rd Street twice before we were on the right train? Remember the homeless sage yelling at us, “Are you ready to survive?” as he ate sushi rolls out of the trash? Remember all the white skirts—without slips? And how Marlowe was first and second best if he was actually Shakespeare? Remembering napping in line under the Central Park trees? Remember breakfast on the loud street and the white picket fence? Remember Virginia Wolfe’s REAL inspiration—a rum of one’s own? Remember the engagement, the stage of lavender and gold, Rosalind's wonderful impertinance?

About a week left ...

And still three papers to go.

I'm have been getting anxious about my papers. Brooks, you remember how I am. All that stuff I teach my students about not procastinating. But then again, it's not really procastination. It's been blocked up till a week before 40 pages of critical writing is due. Tis not all gloom though: I've started two papers. And have all the research done for the third.

Here's what I'm writing on:
Avant Garde paper - on how to read avant garde stuff. This become a politics of the avant garde because I am arguing that the ability to read avant garde literature does something like "enlarging" one's world, or demonstrates the exist of something like freedom.

Gogol and Psychoanalytical Theory paper - on Nabokov's Gogol biography. A Lacanian reading of it in which I address the question of Influence. I use Bloom's Anxiety of Influence as a foil, then do a Lacanian reading of the biography, which reveals that Nabokov's text is strong case for clinical perversion. And that Gogol is a maternal, rather than "poetic father," for Nabokov. (I have to sound serious when I talk about this!)

Victorian Literature paper - on Lord Goring's dandy character in An Ideal Husband. I'm using what Foucault and Baudelaire say about dandyism to describe Wilde's dandy. Yet critics point out that the critique of Victorian society purported by the dandy is curtailed. Gasp! What does one do? Things like the Wildean epigram, or the institution of marriage get in the way. I'm still stuck on this one. We'll see what way out of the impasse I can find.

So all this is getting done by next Thursday so that Katie and I can drive down to one of the local beaches before the semester-end festivities (parties, get togethers, etc.) and the N.C. backpack trip. Let the games begin!

Why the Holy Men Come Out

The Holy Men walk sidewalks
swishing their black or white robes side-side
all have facial hair, unkempt,
Hake-like in frazzle,
Menonite or Ukranian

dust interwoven network wonder.

Battles of speech go on inside
their heads
but the younger ones say hello
in highly friendly
tones. Fixtures

that come to life, walk all over walls—
that’s what
these men are.

And you know
they are heading to a harbor

a place to huddle
with scant tools,
sipping, spouting, what-soever
they do they do
it
with conviction.

Things are forbidden, but always new therefore.
And cancer cannot give its clots away.

News from Academia

So, there were two interesting speakers I was able to hear this week. The first was renowned avant-garde novelist, Joseph McElroy, whose novel Plus we have been reading in class. I find it very difficult to read this book, but McElroy (at a spry 75 yrs. old) was fun to watch. I asked him a question about what determines what he says in his novels, since he seemed to imply that such a process was at work, and got a purposefully elusive answer in reply - something art being autonomous. McElroy pursed his lips alot, and in true aged-P style, mis-heard many questions and remarks. Endearing to say the least.

(As I was typing this the toilet was overflowing. This turned into quite an ordeal, cumulating in the bathroom getting thoroughly cleaned, the dishes done, and the all the floors in the house getting swept. I'm back.)

On Friday night, Katie, myself, and co. saw renowned athiest and public intellectual Daniel Dennett give a talk about his new book, Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Dennett is an incredible rhetorician - articule, witty, relevant, quick on his feet, machine-like efficiency during the Q & A, etc. His basic thesis goes something like - according to what scientists call "reverse engineering methodology - religions function in a evolutionary manner, that is, they are adaptive and competitive (think survival of the fittest). Their origin can be explained by "memes," replicable ideas which take on life-like evolutionary attributes in order to survive. So, why does Dennett care about any of this?

It shocks him that religions have never studied such a "scientific" manner before. Dennett recognizes that religions are incredibly powerful belief systems, deserving our careful attention. He closed his lecture with a policy suggestion - that every child should recieve mandatory facts-based education.

Okay. I need to get back to work - I'm working on Victorian Lit. and Avant Garde papers this weekend. The theses arrived, time to put typed-out words to them.

Annoucements:

Dana and Em ... I got a copy of Name of the Rose yesterday. Summer reading!
Brooks ... we'll be talking papers again, soon. Hope you broke through with the Whitman.
Darcy ... is Andrew graduating in a few weeks at Hillsdale?
Em ... country music star? Implies too much tragedy ...

Love to all.

Me as a country star...

Too bad I can't sing.

Two Graduations

Since I am walking in the commencement ceremony this May, I have been receiving all the emails about speakers, songs, tents and appreciation. We are going to be honoring the profs with benches. The emaculately clipped, kept, naked, etc. lawns of the Fledgling College will have benches on them by next year. Students can sit on them and get sun burnt in the treeless place. Visitors can read them and wonder who and what they did until the student guide tells them about the gift. This class wants to use last year's verse again and they want to sing Be Thou My Vision. No class speakers as of yet but we managed to avoid having the valedictorian/salutatorian speak again. Everyone wanted to vote on the speaker. I was one of the nominees for the girls. It is interesting to fantasize about Graduation and imagine yourself the speaker. The turbulence of this last semester and knowing about it and then standing up there with that secret and never saying anything about it (not directly) in the clear, bright air of Commencement Day. I am fairly certain this dilemma will not fall to me, but it was startling to imagine. What words could suffice for everything?

Yes, Travis, Andrew is graduating (top ten or something like that). Very proud of him (oops? is that allowed--or is it too submissive, unmodern, and archaic?) Anyway, he has worked hard and I plan to go up for graduation and hollar a few accolades in his honor.

Graduation is one of those really intimate/public affairs that is always so confusing. In a way it is the sum of everything and yet is all so formulaic and created for an audience. I already feel awkward thinking about it. I might trip out of self-consciousness as I walk across the stage. The worst part is that the audience is kind of watching us walk into life and they are there after it is over waiting for us to accomplish something else like getting a legitimate job.

Ratios for Meditation

(think of them as Samurai Sudoku puzzles)


fuse : merge :: M.F.A. : M.A.

Kevin : Brooks :: calmari : sushi

Arbor Mist : Tarara Blackberry :: reggae : Indie rock

Shelly's "Ozymandias" : friendship :: Ginsberg's "Howl" : quashing

The Blue Room : red hair dye :: Plato : Aristotle

Dr. Stacey : Steve :: Dr. Walker : Farris

sheer will power : marriage :: foot message : Pulp Fiction

Coping (in an inelegant way)

Here is to friendship, hope, and the lovely advantages of being young...













George Washington's MFA in theatre design has spring admissions.


(Travis, thanks for pictures. Other news of this weekend is that I didn't get in to SPU.)

Fun from Freshmen Papers

Yes, I am in the middle of grading another set of freshie papers. I'm in an urgent mood. It has to be done by tomorrow afternoon. Then I have my own reading and writing to get to. (The brutal shoving of graduate school.) Here's what I've been sampling from my freshmen ...

Two eye-catching paper titles:

"Bass Kick Ass"

"A Friend with Weed is a Friend Indeed"

An excerpt from the latter:

"My friend rolls up 2 fat blunts and we throw on some Def Poetry Jam. ... So there are three of us, high off our asses sitting in the living room just focused and watching poetry. There I am smoking weed. The thing that for as long as we can remember we have been told by our parents, our teachers, and pretty much any other authority figure that marijuana is bad for us. Then I start to think about what my friends and I are doing. We were all just chilling and watching poetry. I'm not the kid in the anti-drup commercial that loses touch with reality, brings out a shotgun and blasts himself in the face with it. I am rather an open minded entity glued to a couch broadening my horizons by watching some Def Poetry. What is so bad about smoking this naturally occuring substance that helps relieve by boys' stress after a long day? What is so bad about just getting high and relaxing?"

Yes. This is his opening salvo is what's suppose to be a feature article/expose pieces. Priceless. I laughed.

Alright, I need to finish grading the papers, since I'm going to a concert later tonight. Oh, I'll have to post about the circus that Katie and I went to last night. Very old school, very talented - like the basketball team that can nail all their layups and smack around the street-ballers.

Love and Joy.

Royal St. Flower Bed, April 1, 2006

Dead cigarettes,
peanut shells, earthworms, roots
And
The living body
of a purple tiger-face pansy
all
in my hands
As I open the earth
Like a surgeon
With his tools
Fingers gloved and god-like
Cradling (I love breathing like this).
Lowering (and holding it like this).
the beating heart
into the earth.

Thinking Clearly

Here’s a sonnet I ripped off just now. I was studying and drinking coffee. I was cold. And when I put the coffee in my lap, I honestly experienced something like this. Yes, it lends itself to psychological reading; I realize that, even though I try not to care about the implications of the sexual references. (In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: “Gosh!”)

Thinking Clearly

I do not want to move to Indiana:
I want to hold a large bowl of hothot coffee
in my crotch: let it warm me up
from the bottom up, my cold neck confusing
the tingling spine: until
something philosophical (almost Greek
but light-footed) comes to mind:
I am Prometheus
getting ready to spring down, like Lucifer,
with this hidden fire in my fire.

My inner thighs! O it is almost too much to bear!
My ankles and back cry out for more.
Get this coal out of my lap, I say, but, I say
You’re on the right track.

Royal St. Girls . . .

The masses (read: Sarah Pride) needs an explanation. (Click here.)

Another wonderful weekend. I think I could get used to these ...

Emily, I enojyed your Collins post. What led you to his poetry in the first place? I'm glad you found him. Did you see Micah's blog post about the current laurate, Ted Kosher? And the poem Micah penned in his honor?

My update:

Friday
Submitted my paper on the Crystal Palace. The paper ended up being a survey of Victorian and contemporary explanations of the structure. The most interesting "reading" of it I found was by Marshall Berman in his monumental work on modernity/modernism called All That is Solid Melts Into Air (thanks for Katie for recommending this one. She read the book in a class on literature of the city at NYU). Berman points out the paradoxical relationship the palace has with nature. The other notable reading was by a Marxist critic who basically designated the building as a fetish object (i.e. a "magical object"). After some tasy pizza at Decent Pizza (my "spot" here in Tallahassee, Katie and I went contra dancing. I'm getting snappy at the swing move and did a waltz at the end.

Saturday
I presented my paper "Kantian Enlightenment and Critical Theory: For a Repoliticization" at the InterVarsity conference on Faith and Scholarship. I read the paper in about 20 minutes, then fielded about 40 minutes worth of questions. It was thrilling. I think some people may be finally seeing the value to reading Foucault. We'll see. I'm submitting an abstract of the paper for a conference coming in the Fall. Went running and grocery shopping with Katie. Got two miles in. Had a fabulous dinner with Katie of pasta with wine-cream sauce and chardonay. Ate strawberries with cream and port for dessert. To everybody back at Royal St.: I think I may be eating as well as you all now!

Sunday
Early service at St. Peter's. Katie made amazing walnut-banana waffles for breakfast. Went to the park study. Went to a Foucault reading group led by Dr. Faulk - my Victorian Lit. prof. and head of my critical theory certificate program. Had a fruitful time discussing some of the Foucault Qs I had to field yesterday. Garrett and his dad brough back a U-Haul of stuff from the recently-deceased grandaddy. We have new couches, TV, DVD player, Breakfast nook table and stools, Harmon organ, Entertainment center, and I have a stereo amp in my room finally!

On the docket for this week:
- grade 24 freshmen papers
- read Isben, Lacan, Foucault, Gogol, stuff for avant-garde course, etc.
- get my car's alignment straightened out
- and of course the most important things :-D

Darcy, any news?

Have a wonderful week everybody.

Much love,

Travis

trying to catch his horses

The Billy Collins volume that I am reading right now is called Nine Horses. I am growing more and more impressed with him. I liked the sound and the words before, but I am coming to think there is a substance, too. Almost all the poems are so ordinary at first glance, but I don't think I am projecting meaning onto them. But even if I am, maybe that is the point.

You may all be glad or indifferent to know that I am writing more again. A little of the fear is going away, though I imagine when I get the letter of rejection from SPU I will go hide under my rock again. The following is a still evolving poem, to Billy Collins. (I almost typed that as "Mr. Collins" until I realized how horrible the implications were.)

It is as difficult as I thought it might be
to write as you do, and to mimic
your casual words and your perambulating lines,

which are all about your tears--
the tears that spring on chopping an onion--
and about walking through your house and

your life in the morning sunlight and on
a rainy afternoon. You talked about breakfast
and alluded to the classical world before mentioning

that you woke up last night and stared at
the shapes made by a curtain, while listening
to the sleep of the living woman by your side.

And somehow all that is a poem and
I find that the top of my head has been grazed
by the axe the other Emily was looking for.

And so my pen is floating over this paper,
and ink is spilt in the form of
twenty-six velvet actors.

Week of much talk

All,

Well, let the electronic record of the past few days on reflect that many words were spilled on the fate of an institution that is no longer within our direct sphere of influence.

Travis, we appear to be ignorant enough to need to take your hipster course. I have only read a little Ginsberg, nothing else. Basic starting recommendations?

This weekend I betook myself to the library, fleeing an overdose of Royal Street boy add-ons. (The nasty supermarket-like library in Leesburg). I scooped up a fairly random selection before the electronic voice cleared us all out of there:
- An anthology of English country house murders
- a critical anthology of Donne (emphasis on his sermons)
- a collections of short stories that have appeared over the years in Esquire
- a book of cultural context essays re: Austen
- a volume of Billy Collins poetry

So far I have read bits of the Donne book, the mysteries and some Billy Collins poetry. The Donne book, ed. by John Moses, has an interesting introduction by the Archbishop of Cantebury, but other than that is disappointing so far. I will let you know if Moses redeems himself.

The Collins poetry I like, but I liked him before. He has a style like a pen and ink drawing with clean lines, and is obliquely beautiful. The murder mystery complier picked a very bad example of Lord Peter, and so I am ticked. Although he does suggest that defenestration should be a more common murder method. I quite agree.

All for now, the office and the morning sun are scolding me.

Car Pic

My New Car

A Weekend of the New

Wow. I feel like a monsoon deluge, soaking this cyber-pastoral space. But news is news!

I'm sure Brooks has updated everybody on the vital piece of information *wink, wink* i.e. the girl news.

I got a new car. Yesterday, Katie and I drove out of town a bit to look at a Black 98 Civic with 88,000 miles. The asking price was $4890. So, it turns out the guy, Ron - a man in his late 50s (Silver hair club, as he said) - has five others cars, including a '36 Ford and '55 Ford. Beautiful stuff. We took the car for a joyride on I-10 and some dirt roads. On the drive, we decided I would get the car if nothing bad turned up after talking to Ron. Nothing turned up - except that the alignment needs a bit of work. But I didn't bring my money, so we had to go back and get it. Ron, however, wanted a deposit! I only had $4, but Katie had a $20 spot, so we left that. Got the money, drove back, and drove off with the Civic. Pictures coming soon, hopefully.


It's been a happy weekend :-)

Love to all.

Variations on a Theme

Dana,

This is one is for you and others who may be wondering what a hipster is. I hope this is helpful.

Let's start generic.

Sir OED says:
"One who is ‘hip’; a hip- (or hep-)cat. Also attrib. Hence hipsterism, the condition or fact of being a hipster; the characteristics of hipsters. Cf. HEPSTER." Some sources, while not necessarily helpful but colorful, that are given is:
1948 Partisan Rev. XV. 722 Carrying his language and his new philosophy like concealed weapons, the hipster set out to conquer the world.
1956 Observer 23 Sept. 2/5 ‘Hipster’ is modern jazz parlance for ‘hep-cat’.
1959 ‘F. NEWTON’ Jazz Scene 291 Jive~talk or hipster-talk is..an argot or cant designed to set the group apart from outsiders.
1967 Lancet 15 July 150/2 The ‘hipster’ movement in California..seemed to be an outright rejection of accepted standards and values."

Okay, let's do irony and cite The Hipster Handbook, useful - yes - but overdetermined historonically (wow, that sounds pretentious!):

"One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool"; a Hipster would instead say "deck.") The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat."

Time to get serious. And by this I mean, literary ...

Allen Ginsberg, from Howl: "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly / connection to the starry dynamo in the machin- / ery of night ..." (9). I.e, a druggie.

Jack Kerouac, in On the Road mentions the hipsters haunting the jazz and bop joints in his jaunts across the country. Here the hipster is defined by his "hip" style - zootsuits - and "hip" musical taste. Yeah, the cat knows what's up.

William S. Burroughs, in Junky, on our contemporary condition (Dana: think of The Black Cat club here):

"The young hipsters seem lacking in energy and spontaneous enjoyment of life. ... They jump around and say, 'Too much! Crazy! Man, let's pick up! Let's get loaded.' But after a shot, they slump into a chair like a resigned baby waiting for life to bring the bottle again" (123).

Finally, I give you the source himself, Norman Mailer:

"...the American existentialist - the hipster, the man who knows that if our collective condition is to live with instant death by atomic war, relatively quick death by the State ... or with a slow death by conformity with every creative and rebellious instinct stifled ... why then the only life-giving answer is to accept the terms of death, to live with death as immediate danger .... One is either Hip or one is Square ... one is a rebel or one conforms, one is a frontiersman in the Wild West of American night life, or else one a Square cell, trapped in totalitarian tissues of American society, doomed willy-nilly to conform if one is to succeed" (2-3).

Them are fightin' words. A far committed-cry from the button-covered messanger-toting "hipsters" you see around Brooklyn or your local "indie" show.

Alright. This probably didn't help one bit. But hopefully it has colored Hipster a bit.

:-)


P.S. Maybe the most important thing to remember is the jagged-androgynist-dyed-black-hairdos.

Writing on the Hipster

This is the title for my proposed ENC1145 course for next. A course that I am designing from scratch. Definately the most fun I've had in any of my pedagogy training so far! Today some folks looked over the proposal and it looks like I'm almost ready to go! I'm optimistic now about the course approved and being able to teach it next year.

Here's the idea: I want to explore countercultural/subcultural phenomenon around the person/character of the hipster. As a class, our critique will center around the idea of whether the hipster is a viable alternative/response to mainstream culture. Or what it, as a phenomenon, might illustrate about culture.

The reading list so far:
On the Road, Jack Kerouac
Howl, Allen Ginsberg
"The White Negro," Norman Mailer
The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky

I'm thinking of tossing in some stuff like Kerouac's "The Essentials of Spontaneous Prose," and the movie High Fidelity.

For paper topics, I'm having the kiddos do a short story, a countercultural history, a report on the local "countercultural" music scene, a mix tape compilation with textual notes.

Any suggestions would be much loved :-)

My Victorian Lit. paper got pushed back a bit, so this means I can breath a bit tonight and do reading tomorrow's Avant Garde writing class (Masso's Ava and Cixous' "Laugh of the Medusa").

I hope all is well on Royal Street. Any fresh breezy howling, hmm?

30 Hours later ...

So. I got back from the bustrip at 5:30am this morning. Partially thanks to all the fun we were having on the pier in olde towne Alexandria, I missed the first buses out of D.C. and Richmond (!). I was stuck in Richmond till 5am. During this time I managed somehow to get through a good chunk of Nabokov's biography on Gogol (I'm doing a term paper on it). I got a bit of sleep till the bus arrived in Raleigh, N.C. Thus, when I arrived in Atlanta, I missed the Tallahassee-bound bus by 40 minutes! I was stuck in Atlanta for six hours last night and finally left at 11pm. Garrett was kind enough to pick me up from the greyhound station this morning.

Greyhound travel tips:
- Bring a small pillow (they make these chic little ones for the fashion-savy nowadays)
- Bring a gallon jug of water (from Micah, he does this everytime)
- Bring santized wipes (yes, it does get pretty dirty after a day)
- Bring the iPod/portable CD-player
- Bring book(s) (notice the plural here!)
- Wear thick-soled, yet comfortable shoes (my feet have been screwed up all day)
- Bring an extra change of socks in your bag
- Wear a beanie (for those traveling incognito)
- Enjoy watching America role by sedately, mile by mile.

Each trip was a mini-epic. You really do lose track of time, yet are very conscious of it in a mico-sense. Hmm, that doesn't really make any sense. I'll think about it some more.

Everybody: Keep up the posts rolling!

Em, I can see you fantasizing about smashing up your workroom and transforming it into dada art. Wouldn't that be fun? At least your aesthetic principle would not be distracted by a world war!

Royal Street decides

We have finally chosen and purchased a piece to go over the mantel.

I give you Edward Hopper's First Row Orchestra:

dadadadadadadadadada

Dada is for everyone... and six rooms of it makes one's head hurt.

And let us not forget the wise words of the bad guy marionette: "Kill me! Kill me! For I have not analyzed myself."

Dada Celebration

Today:

A contingent from the Blue Room is planning to make a visit to the Dada exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in D.C. This will complete a fantastic week of reunions. Last night we - all five of us - enjoyed a feast at the Royal St. residence. Our repast consisted of a fabulous dish of pasta, sausage, green peppers, smoked salmon appetizers, and a bottle of shiraz. We topped off the meal with a walk to the grocery store for ice cream and coffee.

Conversation topics includes:
- Em's boy problems
- Travis' girl update
- the Oscars (who's hot, who's not)
- honey-mooning in trailers
- how to handle howling gust through door jamb

Being the first the time the Blue Room has been united since the inception of this blog, members of this esteemed blog should now take advantage of the sentiment garnered by this occasion in order to renew their blogging efforts on this space (!).

Time to go see some art.

-- Brooks and Travis