I last wrote in October. The season of mist and snow (but still not enough to satisfy me) came and went. In October, I said I'd write tomorrow, but I lied. Around that time, everything became too much, so I trimmed whatever I could from my life, and this blog was gristle. But here I am now, in April, the day before Easter.
It's a windy, rainy day. I call this Research Weather because the first day I ever did official, formal research for a class was on a day with weather like this. I wore a white knitted shirt I'd inherited from my glamorous Aunt Mary and a satiny tye-dyed orange/yellow/red skirt I'd sewn together myself. It was full and came to the floor, and the waistband was sewed on wrong-side out. And I wore brown gladiator sandals I'd inherited from my cousin, Mary's daughter, Cinda, who had decided they weren't her style. That became my favorite outfit because it always reminded me of that day.
I was in high school, working on my junior English research paper about Andy Warhol's Factory. My thesis sentence used the word "microcosm." I used the paper as an excuse to buy The Velvet Underground + Nico, which was life-changing. My father bought me a huge, heavy coffeetable book full of black and white pictures of people and happenings at the Factory. I was immersed. I wished and prayed and begged God to bring me to New York. (And, as you can see, he answers prayers.)
Back in the olden days, research was conducted using real, live, wooden card catalogues, microfilm, microfiche, hardbound periodicals on the second floor of the NSU library. I remember standing on the shaky round stools to reach books on the top shelves. I remember how my eyes would blur, watching the microfilm whirl by. I remember how cool I felt when I could use both microfilm and microfiche without a librarian's help. I remember opening the coffeetable book and finding a picture of Edie Sedgwick dancing with shadows at a Velvet Underground show, listening to them while I looked at it, putting on make-up and cooler clothes, trying to feel what it might have felt like for them, knowing I couldn't quite...that research can only take you so far, but farther than you could go by just casually observing.
My mother dropped me off at the library that morning. It was a Saturday. She picked me up around lunch. I changed into a red and white tie-dyed shirt and leather skirt she had made in the 1960s, and we went out to a gathering of artists and art-lovers who were eating and philosophizing and generally having a good time as they waited for a bust of potter Anna Mitchell to be fired.
It was not a time that I thought my mother was cool. She was the Maker and Enforcer of Rules. (Not that I had many...I had incredibly liberal parents who raised us with a minimum of interference.) But I talked to all kinds of people there who thought she was, and their praise began to convince me. And, best of all, I had something to talk about with all those art people: My research.
It was on a day with weather like this that I discovered how to dis-cover the mysteries of the world, to gaze at them, touch them, listen to them, put them into my own heart and mind, find they are even more mysterious than I originally thought. Research Weather is almost as good as mist and snow. Almost.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Time for mist, not yet for snow?
It's been awhile...It was summer. It was hot. I was in Oklahoma all summer, and even the land of mist and snow had neither, and still doesn't...but I miss writing, not to mention my main audience, Daddy. And so, even though it's just autumn, I'll write.
It's been a very hectic and tiring semester so far, but I'm not ever here to talk about work. I am here to talk about the very bright red, yellow, orange and multi-colored trees that are everywhere...except I'm nearly missing them for spending all my time in the office or at the library table at home, grading papers. It was thus last fall as well.
It's strangely warm, and I hope that means we will have a big, giant, long winter. My New York students tell me their grandparents say so. That's what happens when it's weirdly warm in Oklahoma too, so I hope it's true. I want snow so high I can't open the door.
I wanted to write this, but now I can't seem to write. Alll the words I know seem like the wrong ones or the boring ones. This is not an auspicious return to my blog. But here I am. I will try to be more excited and exciting tomorrow.
It's been a very hectic and tiring semester so far, but I'm not ever here to talk about work. I am here to talk about the very bright red, yellow, orange and multi-colored trees that are everywhere...except I'm nearly missing them for spending all my time in the office or at the library table at home, grading papers. It was thus last fall as well.
It's strangely warm, and I hope that means we will have a big, giant, long winter. My New York students tell me their grandparents say so. That's what happens when it's weirdly warm in Oklahoma too, so I hope it's true. I want snow so high I can't open the door.
I wanted to write this, but now I can't seem to write. Alll the words I know seem like the wrong ones or the boring ones. This is not an auspicious return to my blog. But here I am. I will try to be more excited and exciting tomorrow.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Death Angel
On Thanksgiving of 1989, my cousin Eddie and I were hiding in a bedroom from our giant extended family's loving but overwhelming gathering. We were 14-year-old burgeoning metalheads with black clothes, long hair, and a bleak outlook on the world. We could only be pleasant in short bursts, and our bursts for the day were over.
"Listen to this," he said.
Things move slowly in Oklahoma, and we were too young to keep up even then, so Death Angel's album (which was on cassette tape for us) The Ultra-Violence had just now reached him. And that Thanksgiving, it reached me as well. We sat there on the bed, and I loved each song more than the one before it.
We were already Metallica and Slayer fans, so of course we liked the style of Death Angel, but there was something else. They were a little more melodic, perhaps. Mark Osegueda's voice was more beautiful. And there was something good-natured and positive about them, even when they were singing about violent or scary topics. Normally, we wouldn't like that, but Death Angel did it in a way that made us believe they could possibly be right.
And of course, like many bands at the time, they sang about the unity of the metal community. At that time, it did feel unified. Yes, we spoke with disdain of "false metal" and "poseurs" and all that, but ultimately, we took care of each other and believed we were part of something monstrous and mysterious that could pull us through anything. For many of us, it was in our nature to find life shallow and disappointing, but this music reminded us that there was more to it than we could touch or see. So when I was sitting in Pre-Algebra, and people were passing notes about whose boyfriend was seen with whose girlfriend, and the Oklahoma sky was coming in the windows annoyingly blue and cheerful, and the teacher was talking about something I didn't understand and didn't care about, I would write metal lyrics in the margins of my notebook and tell myself this would not always be my life.
Metallica, Slayer, Testament and Megadeth were big bands. They were all larger than life to me -- Big, strong men who made music that helped thousands of people survive. The music was big too, and commanding, and far away, like God. Death Angel's music was powerful, but it was also more personal somehow. When I needed to feel like I was enough to be part of the whole thing, it was Death Angel who reassured me.
I've been trying to write that last sentence for awhile now. It's still not quite what I mean. But I'm going to just skip ahead.
Fast forward (like I used to do to hurry up and get to "Voracious Souls") about 20 years. At the beginning of this summer, I had a conversation in which I lamented never having seen Slayer. So I went on the internet to see if they would be anywhere near me any time soon. (They would be but alas, I could not go.) Along the side of the website there was a list of other bands who were on tour. Death Angel was on that list. I thought, "Hmm...I love Death Angel. I'll have to see where they're playing."
An hour away. Later that night.
I have responsibilities. I’d stayed up late the night before with a friend kept awake by a broken heart. The next morning, I had to take my father to the doctor an hour away. And drive him home. But this is the age of Facebook. I posted a status update lamenting the fact that I shouldn’t go see Death Angel and questioning whether I should just go anyway. Lo and behold, seconds later came responses from metal friends new and old reminding me that this is what we DO.
So without thinking it over too much, I called my niece and nephew – young metalheads both – and told them to put on their black clothes because we were going to see Death Angel. They did not need to be asked twice.
The Marquee is a small, dark club – just right for metal, I think. We got there early enough to support most of the local bands who opened, and all of them were good. If this wasn’t so long already, I’d tell you about them, but surely you are getting impatient already.
So, as I said before, Death Angel was never that famous, and they are less famous now. But those of us who love them are diehards. We were there with our children – in my case, my sisters-in-law’s children – talking over what songs they might play, how long we’d been listening to them, what we were like when we’d first heard them, who we liked now (Acrassicauda seemed to be the consensus band in that crowd)…It was good to be with family.
And then Death Angel came out.
We were standing right at the edge of the low stage, in the middle. Mark Osegueda was right there, looking even more beautiful than he did when I was 15 and, yes, still wearing a very similar outfit to the one I had on, even though I hadn’t been keeping up all these years. They had a new bassist and a new drummer, both of them excellent. They played every song I love. They reached down and shook our hands in between songs. They ran here and there, and their long hair flew wildly, as did all of ours, in time to the music. I’d almost forgotten how disorienting headbanging is when you begin it, and the trance-like state it becomes after a few songs. But sometimes I had to stop, so I could look at Death Angel and realize we were in the same room at last.
It was my niece’s first metal concert ever. A few songs into the show, the new (young, gorgeous) bassist reached down and handed her his pick. She was the first person for whom this happened that night. She’s at an age when gorgeous guys doing anything is exciting, so it was a big deal made even bigger by the fact that the swirling people, the dark room, the loud music were new to her. I saw all this happen, and I will always remember her blue eyes widening, and the surprise of her smile, and her Gryffindor-colored hair standing out in the crowd. They were that to me: Metal, and guys, and something that relieved the pain of growing up, and it was incredible to see them be that for her too.
Every song was powerful and big and just right. Death Angel succumbed to the overproduction of their time, so some of their later albums were not rough enough for me. Live, the edges were broken off jagged, and all the songs were violently beautiful.
Toward the end of the night, they played a song I love, “Seemingly Endless Time,” and during the second chorus, Mark knelt down into the crowd, right by me, with the microphone the distance between us, so all our voices mixed together. We were so close I could feel the warmth of his skin. His dreadlocks brushed against my face. I closed my eyes. I turned away for a second, because this was too much…but metal is too much. That’s the point. So I opened my eyes again, and sang with him, and he smiled at me…or maybe I imagine he did. Maybe he was just smiling because he wrote that song, because he was making metal, because Death Angel was playing, and even when you’re in it yourself, that’s exciting.
Then when he stood up, he reached for my hand, and stepped back on a monitor, and didn’t let go as he leaned back off of it…didn’t let go until I did, at the last minute, when gravity forced me to.
It’s what they’ve done for me all these years: Not let go until I did. And when I did let go, they didn’t stop. They kept on, and just when I needed them again, they were there. That is Death Angel, in my life.
They are releasing a new album this fall. They played some songs from it. It’s going to be good. I’ll buy it, and when I haven’t gotten enough sleep, when I have too many things to do, when I am worried, I will listen to it and think of being 15, feeling like I couldn’t make it, then being 35 and realizing I did. This music never deserts us, even if we wander away from it. We come back, bedraggled, and it kills the fatted calf. We reach out for it, and it reaches back. It pulls us through.
"Listen to this," he said.
Things move slowly in Oklahoma, and we were too young to keep up even then, so Death Angel's album (which was on cassette tape for us) The Ultra-Violence had just now reached him. And that Thanksgiving, it reached me as well. We sat there on the bed, and I loved each song more than the one before it.
We were already Metallica and Slayer fans, so of course we liked the style of Death Angel, but there was something else. They were a little more melodic, perhaps. Mark Osegueda's voice was more beautiful. And there was something good-natured and positive about them, even when they were singing about violent or scary topics. Normally, we wouldn't like that, but Death Angel did it in a way that made us believe they could possibly be right.
And of course, like many bands at the time, they sang about the unity of the metal community. At that time, it did feel unified. Yes, we spoke with disdain of "false metal" and "poseurs" and all that, but ultimately, we took care of each other and believed we were part of something monstrous and mysterious that could pull us through anything. For many of us, it was in our nature to find life shallow and disappointing, but this music reminded us that there was more to it than we could touch or see. So when I was sitting in Pre-Algebra, and people were passing notes about whose boyfriend was seen with whose girlfriend, and the Oklahoma sky was coming in the windows annoyingly blue and cheerful, and the teacher was talking about something I didn't understand and didn't care about, I would write metal lyrics in the margins of my notebook and tell myself this would not always be my life.
Metallica, Slayer, Testament and Megadeth were big bands. They were all larger than life to me -- Big, strong men who made music that helped thousands of people survive. The music was big too, and commanding, and far away, like God. Death Angel's music was powerful, but it was also more personal somehow. When I needed to feel like I was enough to be part of the whole thing, it was Death Angel who reassured me.
I've been trying to write that last sentence for awhile now. It's still not quite what I mean. But I'm going to just skip ahead.
Fast forward (like I used to do to hurry up and get to "Voracious Souls") about 20 years. At the beginning of this summer, I had a conversation in which I lamented never having seen Slayer. So I went on the internet to see if they would be anywhere near me any time soon. (They would be but alas, I could not go.) Along the side of the website there was a list of other bands who were on tour. Death Angel was on that list. I thought, "Hmm...I love Death Angel. I'll have to see where they're playing."
An hour away. Later that night.
I have responsibilities. I’d stayed up late the night before with a friend kept awake by a broken heart. The next morning, I had to take my father to the doctor an hour away. And drive him home. But this is the age of Facebook. I posted a status update lamenting the fact that I shouldn’t go see Death Angel and questioning whether I should just go anyway. Lo and behold, seconds later came responses from metal friends new and old reminding me that this is what we DO.
So without thinking it over too much, I called my niece and nephew – young metalheads both – and told them to put on their black clothes because we were going to see Death Angel. They did not need to be asked twice.
The Marquee is a small, dark club – just right for metal, I think. We got there early enough to support most of the local bands who opened, and all of them were good. If this wasn’t so long already, I’d tell you about them, but surely you are getting impatient already.
So, as I said before, Death Angel was never that famous, and they are less famous now. But those of us who love them are diehards. We were there with our children – in my case, my sisters-in-law’s children – talking over what songs they might play, how long we’d been listening to them, what we were like when we’d first heard them, who we liked now (Acrassicauda seemed to be the consensus band in that crowd)…It was good to be with family.
And then Death Angel came out.
We were standing right at the edge of the low stage, in the middle. Mark Osegueda was right there, looking even more beautiful than he did when I was 15 and, yes, still wearing a very similar outfit to the one I had on, even though I hadn’t been keeping up all these years. They had a new bassist and a new drummer, both of them excellent. They played every song I love. They reached down and shook our hands in between songs. They ran here and there, and their long hair flew wildly, as did all of ours, in time to the music. I’d almost forgotten how disorienting headbanging is when you begin it, and the trance-like state it becomes after a few songs. But sometimes I had to stop, so I could look at Death Angel and realize we were in the same room at last.
It was my niece’s first metal concert ever. A few songs into the show, the new (young, gorgeous) bassist reached down and handed her his pick. She was the first person for whom this happened that night. She’s at an age when gorgeous guys doing anything is exciting, so it was a big deal made even bigger by the fact that the swirling people, the dark room, the loud music were new to her. I saw all this happen, and I will always remember her blue eyes widening, and the surprise of her smile, and her Gryffindor-colored hair standing out in the crowd. They were that to me: Metal, and guys, and something that relieved the pain of growing up, and it was incredible to see them be that for her too.
Every song was powerful and big and just right. Death Angel succumbed to the overproduction of their time, so some of their later albums were not rough enough for me. Live, the edges were broken off jagged, and all the songs were violently beautiful.
Toward the end of the night, they played a song I love, “Seemingly Endless Time,” and during the second chorus, Mark knelt down into the crowd, right by me, with the microphone the distance between us, so all our voices mixed together. We were so close I could feel the warmth of his skin. His dreadlocks brushed against my face. I closed my eyes. I turned away for a second, because this was too much…but metal is too much. That’s the point. So I opened my eyes again, and sang with him, and he smiled at me…or maybe I imagine he did. Maybe he was just smiling because he wrote that song, because he was making metal, because Death Angel was playing, and even when you’re in it yourself, that’s exciting.
Then when he stood up, he reached for my hand, and stepped back on a monitor, and didn’t let go as he leaned back off of it…didn’t let go until I did, at the last minute, when gravity forced me to.
It’s what they’ve done for me all these years: Not let go until I did. And when I did let go, they didn’t stop. They kept on, and just when I needed them again, they were there. That is Death Angel, in my life.
They are releasing a new album this fall. They played some songs from it. It’s going to be good. I’ll buy it, and when I haven’t gotten enough sleep, when I have too many things to do, when I am worried, I will listen to it and think of being 15, feeling like I couldn’t make it, then being 35 and realizing I did. This music never deserts us, even if we wander away from it. We come back, bedraggled, and it kills the fatted calf. We reach out for it, and it reaches back. It pulls us through.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Some Notes on Ronnie James Dio
I just found out that Ronnie James Dio died of stomach cancer early this morning. Some of you may not know who that is, so I will tell you: He was a pioneering heavy metal singer. A very small man with a very huge voice. He dressed unabashedly dramatic, in capes and armor. He carried a sword in most of his videos. There were often dragons and pyrotechnics at his shows. He was the age of my father, and his heyday was a bit before my time, but if you know metal, you know that we respect our forefathers.
In addition to singing for Rainbow and Black Sabbath, he did his own thing, which was just called Dio. Their logo was a lovely calligraphy that all the metalheads learned to draw -- except this one. But I had friends. So my notebook too had "DIO" emblazoned across it in that perfect calligraphy all through junior high and high school.
His wife's report to the media said he died peacefully, and I'm glad for that. He was young for a normal person, but old for a rock star. I'm glad we had him for as long as we did and that he died in a dignified way, with his family beside him.
I'm not a huge Dio fan. I tend to favor deep, growling, harsh voices. Ronnie James Dio was an operatic-style singer. But I always appreciated his focus on the battle between good and evil. One of the reasons I began to love metal when I was 14 was that it addressed spiritual matters in a serious way. Dio is part of the reason it does that, and so he is part of the reason this music has been such a comfort and inspiration to me for such a long time.
And so this is the little thing I've written in order for my voice to be added to the many who pause to mourn and celebrate him. As a performer, he was grandiose, and fun, and a legend who never disappointed us, even in death.
In addition to singing for Rainbow and Black Sabbath, he did his own thing, which was just called Dio. Their logo was a lovely calligraphy that all the metalheads learned to draw -- except this one. But I had friends. So my notebook too had "DIO" emblazoned across it in that perfect calligraphy all through junior high and high school.
His wife's report to the media said he died peacefully, and I'm glad for that. He was young for a normal person, but old for a rock star. I'm glad we had him for as long as we did and that he died in a dignified way, with his family beside him.
I'm not a huge Dio fan. I tend to favor deep, growling, harsh voices. Ronnie James Dio was an operatic-style singer. But I always appreciated his focus on the battle between good and evil. One of the reasons I began to love metal when I was 14 was that it addressed spiritual matters in a serious way. Dio is part of the reason it does that, and so he is part of the reason this music has been such a comfort and inspiration to me for such a long time.
And so this is the little thing I've written in order for my voice to be added to the many who pause to mourn and celebrate him. As a performer, he was grandiose, and fun, and a legend who never disappointed us, even in death.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Been a long time since I rock 'n'rolled...
Sorry I've been absent! In the land of mist and snow, there is little mist, there is no more snow...Except I heard there WAS some snow while I was down south in Brooklyn last weekend!
Here's a quick update, and I'll get back to regular blogging eventually:
1. We are finished teaching for the summer! I'm still going into work to grade, have meetings, etc., but at least I don't have to enact lesson plans or deal with "I didn't do my homework, so what am I supposed to do?" scenarios. (Answer: You are supposed to quietly make the best of the situation. You are an adult. Figure it out.) (But 90% of my students are scholarly angels.)
2. There is green everywhere in the village. The restaurants are open, the boats are out. Lawn furniture is coming out in yards, and the summer people are airing out their cabins and lake houses.
3. The people who lived here before us planted red and purple and violet-and-white tulips, so we have flowers.
4. They are putting in a new sewer line in front of my house, so every day these men come with machines that look like giant chainsaws that you can drive. So far, they are digging huge holes. I don't know what they'll do next. It's neat to watch.
5. My house is a disaster area. That's because I wrote another novel. When I do that, everything disintegrates around me. And I have an idea for another one. I think. So before that one gets started, I'm going to try to get this place at least hygenic.
6. Because I'm going home to Oklahoma soon. Really soon. Dreadfully soon. Northern New York is so beautiful and fun in the summer! But I'll be glad to see my family, my tribe, my musician friends...and I'll be glad to be really, really hot. They don't get really, really hot up here. It only gets into the 80s.
7. Okay...I have to actually go to work now. But we're nearly finished!
Here's a quick update, and I'll get back to regular blogging eventually:
1. We are finished teaching for the summer! I'm still going into work to grade, have meetings, etc., but at least I don't have to enact lesson plans or deal with "I didn't do my homework, so what am I supposed to do?" scenarios. (Answer: You are supposed to quietly make the best of the situation. You are an adult. Figure it out.) (But 90% of my students are scholarly angels.)
2. There is green everywhere in the village. The restaurants are open, the boats are out. Lawn furniture is coming out in yards, and the summer people are airing out their cabins and lake houses.
3. The people who lived here before us planted red and purple and violet-and-white tulips, so we have flowers.
4. They are putting in a new sewer line in front of my house, so every day these men come with machines that look like giant chainsaws that you can drive. So far, they are digging huge holes. I don't know what they'll do next. It's neat to watch.
5. My house is a disaster area. That's because I wrote another novel. When I do that, everything disintegrates around me. And I have an idea for another one. I think. So before that one gets started, I'm going to try to get this place at least hygenic.
6. Because I'm going home to Oklahoma soon. Really soon. Dreadfully soon. Northern New York is so beautiful and fun in the summer! But I'll be glad to see my family, my tribe, my musician friends...and I'll be glad to be really, really hot. They don't get really, really hot up here. It only gets into the 80s.
7. Okay...I have to actually go to work now. But we're nearly finished!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
A Professional Blog, Mainly Directed At My Father
I talked to my father on the phone for two hours yesterday, yet we did not get around to the subject I am about to address here. So, to shave some time off the next call, I am going to put the foreward of what I want to talk about here. I'm putting it here instead of in an e-mail because someone else reading this may have an opinion also. But if not, that's okay. As is often the case, this blog is mainly for my father.
And here is the subject: Introduction to Non-Western Literature (the artist formerly known as "World Literature")
As I told you, I will be teaching this class in the fall. (For those of you reading this who don't know what I do for a living, I teach in the English department of a community college.) In the olden days, the course was World Literature, and it dealt with the old epics and things like that. Now, it is Non-Western Literature, and its purpose is to introduce students to the literature of non-western countries in order to give them insight into the relationships between people in our global community. A noble pursuit, and I will include it also. BUT one of the reasons I was so glad to get this class is that I've had a shocking amount of students, from the first day of class, ask if I would teach them Dante's Inferno. Only one of them wanted to read it because of the video game. The others had just heard about it, tried to read it, and found it too difficult without help. I tell you this to explain one of my reasons for designing the course to include some western literature and more of a focus on the old stuff than might be strictly appropriate.
Anyway, for all of you, here is the first part of my dilemma: I am choosing a textbook, and I very much want to teach out of the Norton Anthology of World Literature. I learned from the Norton anthologies, so their font and paper feels like "real" literature to me. They use good translators also. They are sometimes accused of being old-fashioned in their arrangements and choices, however. I can get around that, if I decide it's the case (but I won't decide it because I am so blinded by Norton love). What I can't get around is the fact that the Norton costs about $20 more than the other anthologies out there, and it's in two volumes.
I teach at a community college in a region that is suffering economically. Can I really ask my students to buy the more expensive textbook when the others have mostly the same works in them? The reason I want to have them buy the Norton is because those who are taking the class with me on purpose really want to know the epics. Some of them, in their individual Dante attempts, deliberately chose old translations to get a feeling of Literature with a capital "L," even thought that made it even harder for them to understand. I think they would love the Norton because it makes considered choices about balancing the beauty of language with accurate translation (I think)...but what of the people taking the class because they need another humanities credit and it's the only one that fits in their schedule? I'm not teaching English majors, for the most part, so they won't need to keep this book forever like we did. Still, I think it's worth it to have them read from the Norton. Do you? Or do you think I am letting my own nostalgia and bias interfere with this important decision?
And this question is REALLY for my father, but if you happen to have some insight, by all means, share it! So Daddy, you taught English at a high school with students the world expected little from, and often, they believed the world. The temptation would have been to bring in things "on their level," but instead you taught them Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare. And to this day, they come up to you at the grocery store and speak of these works as if they are the most common knowledge. How did you DO that?!
I partly know, as I was raised by you. I know that 98% of your secret is not to speak of literature as something we learn but something that is in our lives. To recite bits of it in the context of real life, whether seriously or humorously. To make it something we have together, do together, are together, not something we study. To always make time for it (or was it me you were making time for?). To make reaching for its meaning both a social occasion (I'm thinking of when you read me The Black Cat when I was about 10 years old) and an individual pursuit (like when you sent me off at 13 to read The Wanderer because it was good, and then I was proud to have something to say about it later when you asked me).
But how does that translate to a college classroom? How did it translate to a high school classroom? (Although, come to think of it, your high school students had you before I did.) How do you give them literature as a heritage, not a skill set? Because I think my students want that very much. Some of them are coming back to school after years of being away in jobs or the Army, and they want to feel Educated (capital E) besides just knowing things. Some of them are young, and came to our college because they cannot afford to leave home, or fear leaving home. But they want their minds to leave home, even if their bodies cannot. And some choose to be here with us, and I must not disappoint them in that choice. And so they deserve a big experience. I can't give them the relationship with literature that you gave me because I am not their parent, but perhaps I can give them a bit of the relationship you gave your students.
So, think how you did that, and that's what I want to talk about this week. I'll call you. My schedule is frantic, and you, as you remind me constantly are a retired gentleman farmer, a man of leisure, the lord of the manor.
And here is the subject: Introduction to Non-Western Literature (the artist formerly known as "World Literature")
As I told you, I will be teaching this class in the fall. (For those of you reading this who don't know what I do for a living, I teach in the English department of a community college.) In the olden days, the course was World Literature, and it dealt with the old epics and things like that. Now, it is Non-Western Literature, and its purpose is to introduce students to the literature of non-western countries in order to give them insight into the relationships between people in our global community. A noble pursuit, and I will include it also. BUT one of the reasons I was so glad to get this class is that I've had a shocking amount of students, from the first day of class, ask if I would teach them Dante's Inferno. Only one of them wanted to read it because of the video game. The others had just heard about it, tried to read it, and found it too difficult without help. I tell you this to explain one of my reasons for designing the course to include some western literature and more of a focus on the old stuff than might be strictly appropriate.
Anyway, for all of you, here is the first part of my dilemma: I am choosing a textbook, and I very much want to teach out of the Norton Anthology of World Literature. I learned from the Norton anthologies, so their font and paper feels like "real" literature to me. They use good translators also. They are sometimes accused of being old-fashioned in their arrangements and choices, however. I can get around that, if I decide it's the case (but I won't decide it because I am so blinded by Norton love). What I can't get around is the fact that the Norton costs about $20 more than the other anthologies out there, and it's in two volumes.
I teach at a community college in a region that is suffering economically. Can I really ask my students to buy the more expensive textbook when the others have mostly the same works in them? The reason I want to have them buy the Norton is because those who are taking the class with me on purpose really want to know the epics. Some of them, in their individual Dante attempts, deliberately chose old translations to get a feeling of Literature with a capital "L," even thought that made it even harder for them to understand. I think they would love the Norton because it makes considered choices about balancing the beauty of language with accurate translation (I think)...but what of the people taking the class because they need another humanities credit and it's the only one that fits in their schedule? I'm not teaching English majors, for the most part, so they won't need to keep this book forever like we did. Still, I think it's worth it to have them read from the Norton. Do you? Or do you think I am letting my own nostalgia and bias interfere with this important decision?
And this question is REALLY for my father, but if you happen to have some insight, by all means, share it! So Daddy, you taught English at a high school with students the world expected little from, and often, they believed the world. The temptation would have been to bring in things "on their level," but instead you taught them Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales and Shakespeare. And to this day, they come up to you at the grocery store and speak of these works as if they are the most common knowledge. How did you DO that?!
I partly know, as I was raised by you. I know that 98% of your secret is not to speak of literature as something we learn but something that is in our lives. To recite bits of it in the context of real life, whether seriously or humorously. To make it something we have together, do together, are together, not something we study. To always make time for it (or was it me you were making time for?). To make reaching for its meaning both a social occasion (I'm thinking of when you read me The Black Cat when I was about 10 years old) and an individual pursuit (like when you sent me off at 13 to read The Wanderer because it was good, and then I was proud to have something to say about it later when you asked me).
But how does that translate to a college classroom? How did it translate to a high school classroom? (Although, come to think of it, your high school students had you before I did.) How do you give them literature as a heritage, not a skill set? Because I think my students want that very much. Some of them are coming back to school after years of being away in jobs or the Army, and they want to feel Educated (capital E) besides just knowing things. Some of them are young, and came to our college because they cannot afford to leave home, or fear leaving home. But they want their minds to leave home, even if their bodies cannot. And some choose to be here with us, and I must not disappoint them in that choice. And so they deserve a big experience. I can't give them the relationship with literature that you gave me because I am not their parent, but perhaps I can give them a bit of the relationship you gave your students.
So, think how you did that, and that's what I want to talk about this week. I'll call you. My schedule is frantic, and you, as you remind me constantly are a retired gentleman farmer, a man of leisure, the lord of the manor.
The Cruelest Month
It turns out that I love the deep, blood-curdling, all-encompassing cold. I knew I would. We are only a few weeks into spring, and already I miss the vast white fields and frozen lake. I miss my snowboots, my snow overalls, and the long-handled broom I used to push snow off my windshield every morning.
It's the half-cold I can't stand. We've had sunny days and some gray rainy ones. The gray rainy ones aren't so bad, but the sunny cold ones make me crazy. They remind me of winter in Mississippi. There, the sky was always so extradordinarily blue and lovely -- but in the winter, a cold that felt like it came outward from my core appeared. But it wasn't even the cold itself; it was the fact that there was cold at all in this place that was usually so extremely hot. The cold didn't suit Mississippi. It never felt natural. It was like the weather was wearing someone else's ill-fitting clothes, and I was relieved when it threw them off and put on the heat again.
But at least it's not like Oklahoma spring. There, we have to worry about tornadoes. The snakes and ticks wake up. The wind blows. At least it gets beautiful, though. Out in the woods, you find bouquets of Easter lilies and wildflowers. The little trees have buds on their tips, then flowers, then bees and butterflies.
In Italy, spring seemed to come overnight. I went to sleep in winter and woke up to flowerboxes and fields of poppies and women in bright sundresses and silver sandals. The farms and the mountains were almost unbearably picturesque. We'd walk along the canal at Marola wearing sweaters and I wouldn't believe I was awake, living in Italy, in love in the spring. Because spring was when Joe would deploy then. So the in-between springs, when he didn't, were magical.
Anyway, spring here is muddy and cold. We've had a few actually warm days -- in the 70s and 80s -- and those gave me a terrible longing for summer, when, perhaps, it will really be warm. In the meantime, the breeze off the lake is cold, and the sun is a trick. I can't figure out the right configuration of layers to wear, and the dogs' paws are muddy all the time. And when it rains, there are worms all over the sidewalks. I just walk staring straight ahead to get from one place to the next. When the sun comes back out, they dry up in hieroglyphics. It seems unfair. And that is spring.
It's the half-cold I can't stand. We've had sunny days and some gray rainy ones. The gray rainy ones aren't so bad, but the sunny cold ones make me crazy. They remind me of winter in Mississippi. There, the sky was always so extradordinarily blue and lovely -- but in the winter, a cold that felt like it came outward from my core appeared. But it wasn't even the cold itself; it was the fact that there was cold at all in this place that was usually so extremely hot. The cold didn't suit Mississippi. It never felt natural. It was like the weather was wearing someone else's ill-fitting clothes, and I was relieved when it threw them off and put on the heat again.
But at least it's not like Oklahoma spring. There, we have to worry about tornadoes. The snakes and ticks wake up. The wind blows. At least it gets beautiful, though. Out in the woods, you find bouquets of Easter lilies and wildflowers. The little trees have buds on their tips, then flowers, then bees and butterflies.
In Italy, spring seemed to come overnight. I went to sleep in winter and woke up to flowerboxes and fields of poppies and women in bright sundresses and silver sandals. The farms and the mountains were almost unbearably picturesque. We'd walk along the canal at Marola wearing sweaters and I wouldn't believe I was awake, living in Italy, in love in the spring. Because spring was when Joe would deploy then. So the in-between springs, when he didn't, were magical.
Anyway, spring here is muddy and cold. We've had a few actually warm days -- in the 70s and 80s -- and those gave me a terrible longing for summer, when, perhaps, it will really be warm. In the meantime, the breeze off the lake is cold, and the sun is a trick. I can't figure out the right configuration of layers to wear, and the dogs' paws are muddy all the time. And when it rains, there are worms all over the sidewalks. I just walk staring straight ahead to get from one place to the next. When the sun comes back out, they dry up in hieroglyphics. It seems unfair. And that is spring.
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