clarkenglishblog

Technologic

2012-01-26T13:28:00.000-08:00

As I sit at this work study desk in the English Department, looking outside, I’m struck by the number of people passing by with cell phones or IPods in hand. Eyes fixated on tiny screens held inches away from their faces as they walk awkwardly down the treacherous walkways composed of potholes and ice, aka Hawthorn Street.

What could be so important to deem it worth twisting your ankle in order to read that text message at that exact moment? Why not wait until a later time, preferably while sitting or at stand still?

Or even more dangerous, texting up and down the Jonas Clark building stairs? That must take quite a feat of coordination and dual-focus in order to pull that off!

A lot of people criticize technology in that they believe it encourages isolation. Classic example? A bunch of people in a room, all playing on their phones and not speaking to one another.
Yet, of course the counter-argument to this lies in the fact that these people might be texting family and friends or facebooking individuals who are hundreds of miles away. Technology could be used as a fast and efficient way to break this barrier, thus encourage communication! Not isolation.

But for some of us, technology can become a crutch. This is something we’ve all done before: You espy someone you’d rather avoid or not get in a conversation with, so you pull out your cell phone and act as if you are texting. Perhaps they will think you are busy and won’t notice that you don’t want to confront them.

And isn’t that what technology is all about? Getting rid of confrontations. These days you can email or text someone, rather than actually speaking to them. You don’t need to personally confront someone in order to reach them. Being impersonal gets the job done just as well!

How many people these days are not afraid to sit in the dining hall by themselves? If you are hungry, do you go to the dining hall and risk the fact that you might sit at a table by yourself? Or do you text people to make sure they will be there first? And if you do end up sitting by yourself, are you content to sit there alone, or do you pull out your cell phone and text people?

Maybe technology isn’t about isolation, but rather the fear of confronting it.

Moments in Paradise

2012-01-26T10:24:00.000-08:00

As I wrote before, I spent my Winter Break in gorgeous and warm Colombia. I was there to visit family, rest, and quite by accident break my finger. But in reality my vacation was amazing. I got to sit by a pool, get some much needed sunshine and when possible explore new places. But my favorite place was this, my family home in Villavicencio. This was where I spent most of my days enjoying my time with my family.
This is the pool I spent my days at. I discovered the joy of not necesarily listening to music but listening to all the birds and animal sounds around me. Cloud watching was also wonderful, because the weathe changes to quickly there. The trees around the pool where citrus trees so I got to pick an orange or a tangarine when I got hungry and lie back down. Let me tell you this is the life.

Another wonderful thing about vacationing here was that we often got dinner guests. Here is one of them his name is Alberto. He has a friend and together we call them Los Albertos. Here he is enjoying dinner together with us. He was the braver of the two. Alberta would hardly talk while Alberto loved to greet us in the mornign with an Hola and wave us goodbye with a Cio. He was very fond of hollering at us until we finally gave him attentiona and talked back to him. Yet because he was a free bird, there would be days when we didn't see him at all. Alberto loved red grapes but was not as fond of the green, we never quite understood why.

One of my favorite things to do winter break was to sit on the chair I chose as mine on our porch and drink my morning coffee. Most of you know that coffee in Colombia is amazing, so just drinking it was already a treat. But what I loved the most was the view. The wildlife around me was just gorgeous and I felt like I was staring at a painting. Sometimes I had company who also loved the gorgeous scenery. Here are two of them of a date and clearly loving the view as much as I did.

Well I could keep writing about my experiences, but I think I will leave you for now. We are back and Clark, classes are starting and everyone is busier than ever. I am looking forward to the new semester and all the adventures that await here. As my time at Clark is coming to a close I'm starting to realize you have to cherish every moment you have here as well. From your roommates waking you up in the middle of the night, to the scattered snow, and doing work in the AC. So I wish all of you an amazing start to the semester and lots of new adventures. I will leave you with my favorite time of the day in Colombia. I hope it fills you with peace and joy like it always did me. Have an amazing 2012 everybody!

Last on Campus

2011-12-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

Prior to this very finals week, I have never before stayed through the entire period of alternating reading days and exam days. As an English major, generally papers substitute the traditional sit-down exams, so I have not had an exam that keeps me on-campus for finals time. However, this semester is different, not because I have exams that force me to be on campus. No, I still mainly have take-homes and papers. I will be here to the very last second of semester, after 12pm on the 21st when everyone else is meant to be gone, because I am a Resident Adviser.

Being an RA this semester has been probably one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my life so far (admittedly, 19 years is not really a long period of time). From my daily interactions with residents to fire alarms and lock-outs, from loads of paper work to incidents that make you just want to bawl your eyes out, everyday brings something new. I have learned more about myself and other people than I ever thought I could in a job. It is admittedly sometimes a difficult job, but I feel so well-suited to it that it has become a part of me. Part of it means sacrificing somethings, like time with my family and the ability to leave before the very last second, but it also means infinite rewards. So in the season that is all about giving, I will leave you with this: I have seen the returns tenfold of giving a little bit of my time each day.

Finals? Can't wait!

2011-12-12T08:39:00.000-08:00

After high school, I decided to take a year off before coming here to Clark University. During that time, I worked a full time job in a packaging company during the Graveyard Shift. I was on my feet all night for eight hours with only two ten-minute breaks, running back and forth while operating the printing machines. The company printed, cut, stuffed, and shipped announcements for non-profit organizations. You know the envelopes filled with labels that have your name and address on them with cute little pictures of endangered animals or religious iconography next to them?

I printed those every night for months.

The holiday season was particularly one of the worst times of the year.

The non-profit organizations (particularly the religious ones) always submitted glitter filled designs for labels that they wanted to be printed. The silver and gold glitter rubbed off quite easily. Virgin Mary labels repeatedly got stuck to the inside of the printing machines, causing the ink to smear on possibly hundreds of other labels before you got a chance to notice. Everything would have to be stopped and redone.

Machines in constant need of cleaning and fixing. Light switches to call mechanics over, always on. Paper cut fingers and toner-black hands. New people who needed training to increase production rates. The main collator broken, meaning every envelope needed to be hand stuffed, taking hours longer than it usually would.

And Christmas Eve approaching…while everyone knew that they had to work that day anyway. Parents were worried that they wouldn’t be able to find babysitters—or worse, that they wouldn’t have the money from the minimum wage job to get their child that new toy that was being advertised on TV.

My friends were all home from college having just finished their exams, looking forward to a month off.

More than ever, I envied the college lifestyle. Sitting down for an hour and a half every week, listening to someone talk to you about a subject you were collectively interested in? Having them also suggest further readings, giving you the chance to research even more about the topics you loved? Being given a chance to express your thoughts and ideas someone who had a degree in that area?

This year, more than ever, I’m excited for finals week. Bring it on University, do your worst. I know the alternative holiday season I could be having right now, and I gladly accept your challenge. I will always appreciate my time here at college and I’m very happy to have the opportunity to greet finals this week!

What's getting you through finals week?

2011-12-12T08:17:00.000-08:00

Finals are my least favorite time of the year. So much stress so much work. But Finals are almost over and my favorite time of the year is fast approaching. Christmas break! Thoughts of the sleep and food I will get during the upcoming month are the only things keeping me sane. Like I said before Thanksgiving is my holiday, but after the two hellish week of finals the month off to let my brain recuperate and my eyes stop twitching. And this year my break is even more exiting that normal, I am not spending my holiday cooped up inside looking out at the snowless, yet none the less freezing street. Oh no! I will be in sunny and warm Colombia. Ok so to most people Colombia is not the vacation destination to be desired. But to me it’s not only the home of my heart, but one of the most gorgeous places in the world. Don’t believe me? Here are some examples!

Amazing huh? Yes as a third world country not all of it looks like that, but still. I can’t get enough of looking at all the places I get to go when I’m there. Here’s another one for you all.

Enough pictures for now. When I come back I will post the pictures I take! Don’t tell me you’re not looking forward to it. Most of my time I will be spending in Bogota (Second collage picture on bottom left) or in my family’s ranch in the plains which looks pretty much like the greenery shown in the second collage. Its flat grass as far as the eye can see. You wouldn’t think that it’s quite as breathtaking as it is. I am so excited to go see my family and get away from the winter chill. I might even get tan! Or do this:

Colombia has had decades of conflict and downturns in its economy, but now finally I am glad to say Colombia is back. The government is doing everything they can to keep everyone safe, and various treaties and agreements have really made a difference. It is still a country in development so common sense is needed, but I hope a lot more people go and see how truly amazing this nation is! But now to get us all through the rest of finals week here is the cutest thing you will ever see! Also taken in Colombia!

Happy Holidays, Good Luck on surviving Finals and I hope all of your vacations are filled with rest, laughter, and lots of holiday cookies!

New Internship!

2011-11-29T12:53:00.000-08:00

I have great news! Over Thanksgiving break, I was fortunate enough to become Ethioipian Global Initiative’s Social Media Intern! I am so excited to be a part of this amazing organization. Ethiopian Global Organization was founded by Samuel Gebru, a junior at Concordia College. He is originally from Ethiopia, but grew up in Cambridge, MA. EGI’s mission statement is:
“To combine and capture the social and intellectual capital of students and professionals to further engineer the transformation of Ethiopia by engaging a new generation of socially responsible leaders. In partnership with leading public and private sector organizations, the Ethiopian Global Initiative aims to undertake and support sustainable developmental endeavors in Ethiopia. The Initiative also aims to promote the interests of Ethiopians globally by serving as a catalyst for community-based projects that promote civic engagement and economic prosperity.”
I will be posting and blogging from several different social media outlets, so keep your eyes open for more information about Ethiopian Global Initiative!

Teaching in Worcester

2011-11-21T09:11:00.000-08:00

At the end of the Spring Semester last year, I made the decision to stay local around here in Worcester for my summer vacation. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to spend my time volunteering during those months as a GED teacher at the Worcester Youth Center.

The Worcester Youth Center is a facility where youth between the ages of 14 to 24 can get together after school and during the day to socialize. The Youth Center has aptly been described as a “safe haven,” a place where at-risk-youth can safely spend their time, as an alternative to hanging out on the streets. The Center has an eclectic list of free programs that teens can get involved in; everything from hip hop dance classes, to a rap recording study, to a hair salon, to afterschool programs, all run under the heavy influence of youth participation. I was lucky enough to join the GED program.

The GED test is composed of five different subject areas: Math, Science, Social Studies, English Reading, and English Writing. In our classroom, the two subjects that seemed to give the students the most trouble were the reading and writing portions of the test. On the surface, it seems to be a puzzling question. What is it about English that gives the students the most trouble out of all the subjects? Especially since, for many of my students, English happened to be their native language!

My answer? The cultural gap.

Here’s my question to the English department faculty: Do you know why people are jokin’ Jay-Z?

How many of you can say that you know what the word “jockin” means, or for that matter, what the entire phrase is a reference to?

Right away, my GED students would be able to tell you that people are “jockin Jay-Z because he got a Mercedes and you know about his ladies!”

Translation: People are jealous of the rapper Jay-Z because he has come into a lot of money and fame during the last few years, which impels them to spread rumors about him in an attempt to discredit him. Jay-Z’s ensuing rap song is an attempt to address these dissenters by going over their specific claims in detail and refuting each point.

Any of my Worcester students could tell you this!

Rap music is something they can connect with and understand on a fundamental level. And isn’t rap just a form of poetry? So if rap lyrics are understandable to them, then shouldn’t we be able to go through any other poem together and pull out the key elements as well?
One afternoon, a student and I spent quite a significant amount of time on trying to understand Emily Dickinson’s, “’Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” and by the end of it he was not nearly as close to understanding it as he was Jay-Z’s, “On to the Next One.” Why?

It’s not as if Emily Dickinson isn’t relevant to their lives! Her poem speaks brilliantly about hope always being present, ever enduring, and even more beautifully: hope never asks anything of you! Of course the students can understand that. Hope is specifically something important that I’ve seen a lot of my students cling to.

But why aren’t they able to pull that out while reading the poem? Why does a poem seem so daunting to them, whereas rap lyrics are so accessible?

Perhaps we need to start teaching poetry with Jay-Z:

Who is the speaker of the song and who is his specific audience? What is his tone and what words give you these clues? What is the overall message of the song? Symbolically, why does Jay-Z trade in his gold watch for a platinum Rolex?

Maybe we need to start with something that the students are the most familiar with. Rap culture is in their face every day! Perhaps if we start with something as relevant as this, they will be able to build up the skills they need to read a Dickinson poem. They will learn to pull out key words in poetry, learn to ask questions of the poem that they are reading, just as they already do with rap music.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from teaching in Worcester, it’s that teaching isn’t just a matter of getting your students on board with you. Rather, it’s more about getting on board with your students; meeting them at a level of their understanding first, on their terms. Then afterwards, once you’ve built up their own skills with something so familiar, we can move on to the unfamiliar. Start teaching by closing the culture gap.

Turkey and Family

2011-11-21T07:55:00.000-08:00

As the below post suggests it’s that time of the year again. But my mind is not quite on finals yet. Maybe it should be. But it is far too preoccupied with the wonderful holiday that is barreling its way toward us. THANKSGIVING! My family loves Thanksgiving. We always say it’s the time you can concentrate of family and great food, without the stress of presentsof Christmas. While some of you might say 'I love buying gifts', in a family distributed over 5 continents it gets a bit much. We have lists of addresses that are always changing, lists of family that is always growing, lists of ages that are changing… all in all my family is just too big and far spread for presents to be an easy buy. But Thanksgiving, now that we do right!

With this wonderful week already here I am jumping from excitement about going home. And yes part of it is to get away from the cafeteria food. I mean come on! Not only do I get to eat home cooked meals, they are specialty dishes cultivated over generations that we only make at Thanksgiving. How much better does it get! And my family is at its best during this holiday. We are all ready to have fun, and are so in love with being together. As a Russian/Lithuanian/Colombian household we eat a lot, we drink a lot, and we party until dawn. This is the time when I hear stories about how all these amazing people came to America, how feuds were born and solved, and how miracles played a part in our family like no other. This is the time of year when I am so truly fully glad to come from the background I did!

This year Thanksgiving is special for a few more reasons. It’s our first without our beloved Grandma Mamute (Mamute means little mother in Lithuanian). She passed away last winter and it’s going to be a big loss at our table without her. She was the one who told my sister’s then fiancé, now husband, that we will know that he truly loves my sister when he has to change her diapers, she led the family song every year (oh yes we bust out the guitar and sing old soviet songs!), and was our own personal ray of sunshine. For me personally this Thanksgiving is also special because for the first time since I’ve moved to America in 2002 I will not be with my family for Christmas or New Years. So this holiday is my one shot at glory people!

Ok, ok enough about me. This post is supposed to be to remind you all how much we have to be Thankful for this year. Hurricane Irene didn’t destroy our College, the Snow storm of Halloween weekend didn’t dampen our spirits too much, our families are still around us, we’re almost done with another semester, and it’s late November but it’s not frigid cold outside yet! Find your own reasons to be thankful this time of year and cherish your time with the family. Finals are coming up, and as much as I don’t want to admit it we will need all the good vibes to survive those!

The Final Countdown

2011-11-15T13:12:00.001-08:00

Yeah, they’re back. And not like the awesome new Backstreet Boys-New Kids on the Block kind of back. Like the flu you get every year that keeps on getting worse than the last one kind of back. And even though I know they are just around the corner, what am I doing instead of preparing for the week of sleepless nights? Watching Glee.
Now obviously I don’t recommend procrastination. All it results in is rushed papers that don’t always make sense, lack of sleep which leads to delirium, and food cravings at random times during the day. So I think I’ve come up with a few ideas to try and avoid procrastination:
1. DEACTIVATE YOUR NETFLIX ACCOUNT.
Seriously. Not joking. Get rid of it. Even though the allure of watching random TV shows and movies when you’re bored sounds fabulous, its not. Next thing you know, your ten page paper is due tomorrow and you’re sitting in front of your laptop watching yet another episode of Glee and eating Chinese take-out leftovers. It’s a slippery slope of MSG and Darren Criss.
2. MAKE OUTLINES. OF EVERYTHING.
Whether your exam is something you can do in your sleep or your worst nightmare, outline your answers. Literally, its like taking a paper written in Wingdings and putting it into Times New Roman. You can actually read it. When it comes down to exam time, you’ll know exactly what to write. And it’s a good way to study without actually wanting to gauge your eyes out with rusty spoons.
3. BACK AWAY FROM YOUR PHONE.
Yes, your shiny new iPhone4 is adorable, but it is also a huge distraction. Before you know it, instead of studying for that really important exam, you’ll be beating your Angry Birds high score. Turn your phone off (all the way off, not just on silent) and leave it in your bag AWAY from your desk or wherever you are studying.
4. FACEBOOK.
This is time when I realized how Mark Zuckerberg is a gazilionaire and how Facebook rules the world. It’s the college kids who would rather play Farmville or creep on Facebook friends that they haven’t talked to in three years than pay attention to schoolwork. Believe me, I’ve been there. And hours later I am still staring at my best friend’s pictures of her sweet sixteen party and my paper is growing dust. So for those of you lucky Mac users, SelfControl is probably the best thing since Facebook. Don’t just use it for a few hours; put it on the whole week. You don’t need to update your status every three hours or post random articles onto your friends’ walls. For us PC users, deactivate your account for the week. Its so easy, it’s dangerous.
Overall, finals can actually go pretty well. You can stay on topic, get good grades, and still manage to squeeze in a somewhat normal sleeping pattern. Unless Netflix decides to add a new show to their Watch Instantly list.

Dispelling Myths

2011-11-08T06:56:00.000-08:00

This past Friday, I had my sister Natasha and my cousin Meredith (a senior and a junior in high school respectively) out to spend the night with me at Clark. Both of them are considering Clark in their college search process, my sister more seriously than my cousin. I think my cousin is mainly enamoured with the idea of being in college, not necessarily Clark in particular.

I showed them around my room. We then ate dinner in the caf. Meredith was so impressed with the food that she said she preferred it to her mother's cooking which I think earned her a couple of strange glances from some Clarkies. As we digested, I gave them the grand tour, showing them the gym, the Academic Commons, the Bistro, and red square. I also took them into Wright Hall, the biggest of the first-year residence halls. I wanted them to have an idea of what a first-year room/hall looked like in comparison to my rather spacious and atypical House Resident Adviser single. From there, the three of us walked down Park Ave. to YoWay, a self-serve frozen yogurt shop dangerously close to campus. They each filled their bowls to the brim and consumed more fro-yo than necessary. We wandered back to my house, and I decided to take them over to meet my friend Maisha who was on-duty in Blackstone. We did a few rounds with her, and they got to see me do a little bit of my RA job. Afterwards, we left Blackstone and spent the rest of the night chatting.

Being honest, they are a lot more proactive than I was in my college search process. I don't mean that I did not think about college and start looking into things as early as they did. What I am really referring to is visiting schools. I did not officially tour any of the schools to which I applied; I only visited one of them before receiving decision emails and letters. That is something that I do regret now, but I know I really could not have changed. (My family could not afford to take me to see schools.) Taking a tour or spending an over-night allows prospective students to get a little taste of what campus life is about and to sense the culture of a school; it additionally helps to dispel a few myths that prospectives have heard about college life. I will leave you with a few myths I hope that I helped to clear away for Natasha and Meredith.

College food is bad. It is normally pretty good, and it can be healthy if you make the right choices.
The freshman fifteen... I will tell you right now that this is completely untrue. There are as many people who come to school and lose weight as who come to school and gain weight. I personally have lost 60 pounds since leaving high school and my habits at Clark are in part to thank for that. Again, it is all about making the right choices.
My college roommate and I will be best friends. This seems to be a myth that comes from popular culture. Although some people do end up being best friends with their roommate, other people do not, and that is okay. I lucked out my first year, and I loved my first-year roommate. Not everyone does though, and that doesn't mean you are abnormal or strange if you don't end up being best buds with your roomie in college.
Now that I am in college, I don't need to do anything except pass my classes. This one is worst of them all. Getting involved is an integral part of the college experience. Try a bit of everything, and stick with the activities you enjoy!

Ready...Set....Write

2011-11-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, my fellow cohorts, that time of year is upon us once again. The time for staying up late whilst slamming your head against your keyboard, hoping that instantaneous yet rhythmic connection will help the words flow out of you and form themselves coherently upon the screen.

National Novel Writing Month has begun.

National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) is an internet based, non-profit organization, open internationally to anyone who’s willing to declare themselves an author for a month. From now until November 30 at 11:59:59 PM, you have the month to write a 50,000 word novel. To give you an idea of roughly how long that is, take a look at Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or The Great Gatsby.

Nanowrimo is one of the most accessible writing contests. An author can choose any genre: from erotic fiction to psychological thriller to an eclectic series of short stories. The choice is entirely yours. Anyone who is able to attain a 50,000 word document by the end of the month is declared a winner.

The official project website is www.nanowrimo.org. The contest is entirely free, and there are no penalties if you don’t finish the 50,000 words by the end of the month. To sign up, just enter an email address and an account will be created for you. You can use the website to keep track of your writing progress by entering your official word count when you log in. At the end of the month, simply copy and paste your novel into their word-count machine to verify that you’ve completed the 50 thou and you will be declared a winner.

This will be my fourth year doing Nanowrimo and I’d love to offer you some advice that I’ve formulated over the years:

1. Find a coffee that truly speaks to you.
Nothing says, “Lauren, sit yourself down and get to typin,’” better than a large hazelnut coffee with no sugar and extra milk. Some days you will simply need that type of motivation. Find a caffeinated drink that will supply you with an encompassing, comforting taste while still maintaining an ever-uncompromising-get-stuff-done-attitude.

2. YOU ARE NOT JAMES JOYCE. Embrace it.
Chances are you will be writing a lot of crap within the next few weeks. And that is perfectly fine. You are not trying to write the hardest novel in the English language in a month. Do not delude yourself with images of grandeur.

3. YOU ARE NOT JAMES JOYCE. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use his style.
Stream of consciousness is one of the best writing techniques for upping your word count. Write down that interior monologue that plays like a record on the gramophone that is your mind. Even if your inner monologue is saying to you, “I hate writing. I rather do think it is time to give up this charade and get back to…,” write it down. I started my novel off this morning with just that.
And, if the mood should strike you, why not make up a word or two?

4. Don’t let your ego get in the way of your word count.
I frequently get the urge to delete everything I’ve written because I think of how embarrassing it would be if someone came across it. Don’t let your self-esteem get in the way of writing. This month is about creation, not nitpicking and editing. Create, don’t destroy….That’s next month.

5. Keep your eyes open for inspiration.
Nanowrimo is not just about writing. It’s about observing the world around you and choosing writing as a medium with which to express it. You are bound to run into hilarious characters and situations, especially on a college campus. Why not incorporate them into your story?

And finally, one last thing to keep in mind:

6. The Will to Power!
Nanowrimo is a choice you have made. No one is forcing you to give up a bunch of free time for a month to sit in front of a computer screen, slamming your fingers against a keyboard, and trying to string together some sort of narrative. In order to successfully win Nanowrimo, you’ve got to find a reason to write. And once you’ve found that reason, cling to it will all your might for that month. “Hmm, I’ve always wanted to try writing out that idea I’ve had,” is a perfect reason. Keep it at the forefront of your mind during this time.

Good luck fellow amateurs. May your month be both gregarious and bountiful!

The Naming of Storms: Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T13:19:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been thinking a lot recently, why do we name hurricanes but not other storms? In my opinion Irene deserved a name a lot less than the Halloween storm we just survived. Well, at least at Clark. I know that Irene wrecked havoc in other places of New England, but our own corner of the world didn’t get that hurt. But everyone knows her name. Yet a storm that permanently mutilated our campus goes anonymous? I don’t think so.

That’s why I’ve decided I want to name our Halloween weekend storm. We all know that the worst hurricanes are always female while the lesser ones are male. I never understood that, but I guess us girls can be pretty destructive when we want to be. For some reason though, I’ve always thought of snow storms as male. I’ve been trying to reach deep inside my mind and find some Freudian reason, but as far as I can tell there is none. This storm in particular seemed to me like a little boy who in anger broke the arms and legs off all of his action figures. All the broken tree branches (and whole trees) scattered around campus paints a picture of a room that was messed up in anger.

I decided that the name of this storm at least in my mind will have something to do with the holiday it disrupted. It will embody the fun, scary, energetic atmosphere that overtakes campus every year about this time. It will signify how the snow hushed campus and dampened our holiday spirit. My favorite traditions at Clark happen during Halloween. The first is Drag Ball. What can beat the whole campus getting exiting, going with the theme and supporting a great cause! I think this dance shows to be how open minded this campus can be, how fun so much more that all our political tabling and protests. It the college way to show your support, by coming out and having fun! OPEN has really created an event for the ages. My second favorite night is The Rocky Horror Picture show. I love dressing up and being part of the audience with my fellow students. Everyone has so much fun, and watching the Virgins get initiated into the traditions is priceless. Besides who doesn’t love doing the Time Warp?

I took myself on a bit of a favorite memory trail. Time to get back to the business of naming the storm and I think I found the perfect name. At least in my mind. Ok so you will all laugh. But anyways… meet Brutus Horrificus the Snow Storm of Halloween 2011. My reason is: He was brutal by taking away our holiday and he horrifically messed up our campus. I thought that the name sounded like a Halloween monster from one of those movies. So TADA! Brutus Horrificus you will not be forgotten, but don’t you worry you just gave us college students an excuse to dedicate a whole another weekend to Halloween to make up for your visit. As much as we love you please don’t come back!

Things Learned in the Summertime (aka don’t let go of the sunshine)

2011-10-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

I guess now that we had our first snowfall of the season it’s time to admit that summer is really over. Although some of you might be confused at my delayed admission of the fact, I know that others are with me when I say time is going so fast it still feels like the beginning of September. Now that I am finally admitting to myself that I really do have to wait another 8 months until summer comes back, I thought I would reflect on what summer taught me this year.

Now I know that some of you will be expecting a story about epic adventures or meaningful internships, so I have to tell you to bring your hopes down now. I did not have a summer worth writing novels about. I worked at Dunkin Donuts and let me tell you there are no meaningful or insightful adventures there. But I did learn quite a few things this summer. I thought I would share with you my revelations and maybe inspire you to make your own list.

Daiva’s Incredible Summer Lesson List (in no particular order)

1. Never underestimate the value of a good pedicure. (even if no one sees it in your winter boots) Knowing how pretty your toes look puts a bounce in your step.

2. Smile at strangers. It makes both yours and their day better. Besides we all need some good JUJU.

3. You can never feel sad in a convertible with music blasting. So don’t men who going through a midlife crisis buy one. They just know where the happiness is.

4. Don’t ever tease a seagull. Those things are mean and smarter than you think.

5. Grudges are for people who don’t realize how short life is. Let go of the anger! If nothing else that’s another person to have fun with. Besides “Why waste life in friction when it could get turned into momentum”.

6. Take your mom or dad out to dinner. Now that you’re old enough not to be a brat the conversations are much more fun. For example you might learn such things like your mom was once romanced by the prime minister of Armenia.

7. Respond to rudeness by being excessively kind. Not only to you come out the better person, but you annoy the living beings out of the other person because they can’t get a reaction out of you. And is there a better payback than that?

8. Take every opportunity to cloud gaze. Not only is sitting in the sun just plain fun, but you can discover a lot of crazy thoughts lurking in your head that way. Guess what maybe you are deep!

9. The best way to get over a bad day is to dance it out. (yeah you grey’s anatomy fans I got it from there) You get the endorphins, you feel good cause you worked out, and it’s really hard to feel sad when you’re listening to great pump up music. I highly recommend Avril Lavigne!

And finally….

10. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Or others for that matter. We are all silly creatures. Laugh more! And Enjoy your moment in the sun!

If you stuck with me until the end I hope you enjoyed my wise and deep mutterings. Comment and tell me some of the things you learned this summer! And remember don’t let go of that summer fun mindset. Yes, get into your schoolwork, be responsible but don’t get lost in the snowy cold. Hold on to the sunshine!

Daiva Slotkus Miksyte

Coming Home

2011-10-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

I found out about Clark in probably the one of most unorthodox ways possible. My dad's at-the-time girlfriend worked at Clark, specifically with the international students: their applications, their visas, their financial aid, and their adjustment to life at Clark. I even remember reading some of the the international students' applications when I was a ninth grader.

Fast forwarding to senior year, I added Clark into my list of schools really as an after-thought. I never actually thought I would go to Clark, but it was close to home which was important since my little brother was going to be just barely one year old when I left for school. When I got the opportunity to interview with an alumni, I took it for the experience of interviewing.

I would love to say that my interview went excellently, and it convinced me that Clark was the place for me, but I would be lying, and not just a white lie but a big, fat lie. My interview was terrible. The women returned my call to schedule an interview by saying she was free that very afternoon and I could come to her house to interview. We ended up sitting on a lumpy couch in her basement full of children's toys and plates of half-eaten snacks, where she told me flat out if I was accepted to two of my other schools, I should go there, not Clark. She made campus seem like a backdrop out of a nightmare, and described her peers as the kindo of people with which you did not make lasting relationships. As I climbed back into the car to leave, I talked to my mother about withdrawing my application. "I am never going to go there, Mom." She told me that we had paid the money to apply, and I may as well stick it out.

Through some mix-up or twist of fate, I was offered another interview with another alumni. The recent graduate met me in Starbucks and offered to get me a hot chocolate. She talked about how much she loved the campus, the chances for meeting people and doing things, and her continued involvement in the college (in fact, she was headed to Clark after our meeting to help the Big Brothers, Big Sisters group). The picture she painted was so different from the one my other interviewer had created. I left my second interview still wary but less determined that I would never go to Clark.

My decision to come to Clark is the result of visiting campus during a Scholars' Dinner and on an Accepted Students' Day. During the course of the weekend, I spilt ice all over the table, current undergraduate students protested Sodexo, first year boys in speedo swimsuits welcome our tour group to Clark and Wright Hall, and my mother and I struggled to move a stroller and a cranky almost one-year old up and down many flights of stairs. Despite all this (and maybe even a little bit because of all this), I knew while walking through campus that this was the place for me. I know it is cheesy and cliche, but I just felt it. I found what everyone looks for during the crazy college choice process, that undescribable sense of knowing beyond a doubt where you want to be.

When my little brother comes to visit me at school, he calls it "Yay-yay's school", (he calls me Yay-yay which sounds nothing like Shalyn, but it is still adorable.) and he's right. This is my school; Clark is my place, my home.

Oh yeah, that applying-to-college thing.

2011-10-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

I remember going into my senior year of high school, realizing that this year would be the last time I would walk down those hallways. I would also have to decide where to spend the next four years of my life and what to study. After fifteen college visits, I had narrowed them down to my top eight schools and was prepared myself to start applying. On top of making one of the most important decisions of my life, it was my senior year! I was supposed to be having fun and finally celebrating ruling the school. So instead of writing and rewriting and rewriting college essays like all of my friends were doing, I was trying to enjoy my last year. It didn’t go so well when I decided to actually pay attention to all of the essays and short “personal memoirs” and “personal statements” that I had to write.
After all of my procrastination and staying up way too late make the deadlines, I was done. I thought the hard part was over. I was wrong. The hardest part of the college application experience was not the multitude of visits, creepily happy tour guides, miles and miles of applications, proofreading personal statements, or looking at exactly how much you would be paying for one year of school, but the next five months of waiting for all of your (hopeful) acceptances.
Fast forward to early April, and I had all of my college letters back except for one: Clark University. When I first visited Clark, it was late August before my senior year. If anyone is from New England, you know that late August is the most humid time of year. It was hot, humid, and I was not in the mood to go trampling around some random campus. I had heard of Clark through a family friend, who had extremely high reviews. Needless to say, I was not impressed when I first came here. I thought the dorms smelled weird, it was in the middle of a ghetto, and the only students that went here were hippie freaks. The only thing I actually liked was the tour guide’s major; International Development and Social Change. Instead of the normal Biology, History, or Calculus majors, this one actually interested me. Against my better judgment, I applied. So the fact that Clark was going to be the last college to send me my acceptance notice didn’t earn it any extra brownie points. I was extremely happy when I found out I got in, since my last notice stated that I was on the waiting list (aka college purgatory).
There was a lot of argument over which school I would be attending and I finally decided to visit Clark one more time on Accepted Students Day to make up my mind. I was on campus for exactly two hours before I told my mom that this was the place for me. I can’t exactly say what happened, but I knew that I wanted to sign the papers that day. So my mom and I rushed over to Financial Aid where we signed all the official documents. As we were leaving, the secretary (with a genuine smile on her face) said to me, “Welcome to Clark University!”, and I knew that I had made the right decision.
When looking for your perfect college, you need to remember one thing: there is no Utopia University. Every school is going to have its pros and cons, and Clark is no exception. Yes, Main South is not the best neighborhood, but the cultural diversity is amazing. There are awesome restaurants from every single corner of the world. The people here have the most diverse backgrounds and amazing stories. Not all of the dorms are brand new, but the students living in them will be my friends for the rest of my life. Sometimes I think about the person I would be today if I went somewhere else. I can honestly say that today, I’m proud to become the person I am, and I wouldn’t feel that way if I hadn’t come to Clark.

- Rosie Goldich, Class of 2014, Majoring in Political Science with a Minor in Economics

An Introduction

2011-10-26T07:23:00.000-07:00

Hello all! This is actually my first post, because I can usually keep myself busy enough in the office that I've so far been able to avoid writing a blog post. However, the day has come that I can no longer put off my introduction to the world of blogging. So here goes nothing.

I am a fourth-year, Sociology Major-Peace Studies double major Clarkie from Long Island, New York. With the hope that some prospective students (instead of current attendees who already know how awesome Clark is), I am going to describe why I chose Clark.

1) The faculty. When I visited, one of the things I made sure to do was to speak with a few faculty members in a variety of departments. Each one I encountered emphasized how grateful they were to be at a university that allowed them to put so much effort into their teaching and took pride in the relationships they were able to form with students. My experience has exceeded even the high expectations these conversations gave me, and I've found that the professors here not only know their fields "in both breadth and depth" (as the administration is fond of saying), but also truly care about their students.

2) The administration. While not quite to the point of allowing us to dictate the rules of the school (Why don't we eliminate finals altogether? :-P), Clark's administration is the most flexible and supportive I've heard of. There is an option to self-design your own major, processes to petition to take five classes, to take a class pass/fail, to audit one extra course a semester, to have an internship count for credit or as a work-study position, and the President holds open office hours a few times each month.

3) The students. Here I must make an admission - I am a huge nerd. Most days, there is literally no place I would rather be during the day than in class. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, and maybe it is only because, as a senior, I am in classes I find incredibly interesting, but I love being in class. That said, I recently visited a friend's college and sat in on one of his classes, and left emphatically muttering about how grateful I was to go to Clark. I have never been so proud to identify with other people my age as being part of the Clark student body has made me. There is such a range of personalities to be found here, and what we may lack in political diversity - we are, after all, a fairly liberal liberal arts school - we certainly make up for in enthusasim! Clark students are quirky, friendly and the most supportive and eager to learn that I have ever seen. And that, I must say, has made all the difference.

Ladies & Gentlemen: The End.

2011-05-10T02:35:00.001-07:00

People of the English Department,

It's been an excellent few years, and in celebration of my departure I have composed a brief poem I hope a few of you will take a moment to read.

Joyous, we abandon lyricism
Or its trilling cousins
Hour by hour colliding sounds
And breaking them like photons
Never isolated
Never found.

Alas.

Relinquish your pretenses,
Orison, eye-drawer,
To your natural heir:
Hephaestus, word-forger,
Ensign of smoldering iron.
Noble and crib-spited, lamed
By motherly love.

Ennui smelted pure beneath a hammer,
Raising questions in clouds of sparks
Green-gold and white.

In temples oxidized, unworshiped
Sat lame Vulcan's idols
And the making of them
Not preserved
In Clay,
Dull stone,
In writing
Or in memory.

Too short it lived.

The Marriage of Dark Sorcery & Gnosticism In Fantasy

2011-04-01T06:57:00.000-07:00

The trope of the dark sorcerer, steeped in forbidden knowledge and mad with power, permeates fantasy to its roots. Sauron, Voldemort, Emperor Palpatine, the Horned King, Saruman and hosts of others flesh out an archetypal tradition begun with the biblical magicians in the court of the Pharaoh. The sorcerer hoards secrets, pursues avenues of knowledge shunned by the world at large and always seeks to use that knowledge for the acquisition and consolidation of material power. They embody, then, two halves of Gnosticism's diverse mythos. On the one hand they transgress against the controlling forces of their respective worlds, mirroring the Fall of Man in their sacrifice of innocence for knowledge. On the other they are, in spite of their mystical powers, strict materialists. They seek dominion, adulation and the Demiurge-like subjugation of all life. The sorcerer, then, presents a contradiction within the Gnostic framework.

Some Gnostic interpretations of the Old Testament hold that Christ is the serpent that tempts Eve, redeeming Man with the gift of Knowledge. Serpentine imagery is closely-bound to the tradition of dark sorcerers, stemming mainly from the traditional Christian interpretation of the Fall. In parsing the body of the trope, though, we can apply a Gnostic interpretation. Voldemort's snakelike appearance and the serpent motif of Orochimaru (son of snakes in Japanese mythology)represent, then, not just their loss of humanity but their acquisition of knowledge outside the reach of blinkered man. The association of the serpent with wisdom, cunning and amorality holds true in fantasy.

There are instances in which the dark sorcerer adopts a more traditional Gnostic role through madness (Gnosis), denial of reality and existential dread. The trope of Omnicide, the expurgation of all life and existence, reflects a distortion of the ultimate Gnostic goal of freedom from the material world of the Demiurge. When the sorcerer seeks not dominion but destruction he can be seen as an emanation of the Sophic tradition, pursuing release from flesh through revelatory knowledge or Gnosis. In Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow & Thorn the villainous Storm King was thrown down for learning forbidden magic and, upon his escape, sought at once the undoing of the physical world. Sorcerers make natural candidates for the experience of Gnosis. Both their materialistic bent and the immense power they wield which, in its transcendence of physicality, shows them the futility of their ambitions, prepare them perfectly for a plunge into apparent nihilism.

A sympathetic reader of fantasy might, given a grounding in Gnostic thought, appreciate more fully the spirit, if not the method, of sorcerous monomania. Forbidden knowledge, like the apple of the fall, makes hash of physical ambition. Dark wizards reflect, unconsciously, fantasy's Gnostic roots and influences.

The Benthic in Fiction: The Terror of the Whale

2011-03-28T08:10:00.000-07:00

Herman Melville's seminal 1851 novel Moby Dick or The Whale stands as part of a rich tradition of the uncertainty felt by man when confronted with the sea and its inhabitants. Life on land is static where the sea is mutability incarnate. The sun, aid to man's dominant sense, cannot penetrate to the bottom of the oceans. Uncertainty, then, is our natural reaction to the depths of the sea. Melville, Jules Verne, Lovecraft and others use this primal trepidation to their advantage. The whale, Moby Dick, takes the natural enmity between open air and the sea even further: as an albino, the sun is inimical to him. Ahab's quest is to dredge up, make sense of and murder a force that seeks concealment and secrecy.

Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, linked thematically and via numerous allusions to Melville's magnum opus, draws on the idea of the whale to create its eloquent and monstrous antagonist, judge Holden. While not a true albino, Holden's skin is "nearly devoid of pigment" and his size, well over seven feet in height and massive in frame, is a clear bridge between himself and the overwhelming horror of Moby Dick. Holden, like the whale, is also a murderer of children (Moby Dick kills the the son of the Captain of the Rachel)) and a killer of men. Holden's great size and strength (among other things, he uses a howitzer ripped free of its carriage to fight his way out of an Indian raid) impact the characters of McCarthy's novel in a fashion similar to the whale's slaughter of the sailors. Holden, after the Glanton Gang is butchered at the fords they've co-opted, hunts down survivors in a strange, meandering fashion. Where Moby Dick destroys the Pequod in a red rage, Holden kills methodically and for arcane reasons. That both novels explore in detail the nature and consequences of violence can be no coincidence.

Holden's demonic nature, heavily alluded to during a story regarding his introduction to the gang and, among other scenes, during a loosely-described scene in which the sound of his speech threatens the sanity of Tobin the expriest and the novel's "protagonist," the kid, adds another layer to the conflict between deep-dweller and sun. Not only does it scorch Holden when he loses his hat, symbolizing his exposure to the world of man, it burns his skin as the Eye of God suddenly aware of an infernal presence in its realm. Holden even says to Toadvine, following the escape from the fords, that he "must have [his] hat" and will "pay any price for it." Holden's tongue and mouth become chapped and bloody during his brief hatless sojourn, and while he sometimes removes it as a matter of course during interactions with other characters it is never for long and almost always inside.

The deep gnostic imagery in McCarthy's novel (blindness, crippling injuries, weakness and blood) corresponds to the unnatural, godlike presence of the albino whale. Unknowable, Moby Dick terrorizes those who pursue it. Similarly, Holden is beyond the understanding of his fellow marauders by virtue of his prodigious intellect, loquaciousness and physical otherness. In relating Moby Dick's benthic nature to the judge, one must look to Holden's mysterious origins. While out of powder and fleeing pursuit, the Glanton Gang comes across Holden in the wilderness and accept his guidance on a hellish journey down into a twisted, mazelike hellscape of broken rock and volcanic glass. There Holden, with preternatural speed and ability, makes gunpowder for the company which then slaughters wholesale its enemies. This place, never visited, explained or reference again, could be Holden's place of origin or natural habitat. Where Moby Dick and the judge share physical characteristics, Holden takes mystery from the belly of the earth while Moby Dick takes it from the fathomless deep.

Word of the Day: Languorous.
Book of the Day: Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself, a light-hearted deconstruction and subversion of the fantasy genre. Drags high fantasy joyfully through a blood-choked gutter.
Author of the Day: Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus and other works.
Author vs Author of the Day: Bram Stoker vs Cormac McCarthy.
Result: Too violent for print. McCarthy wins.

Koschei the Deathless: Nested Reality in Myth

2011-03-25T06:39:00.000-07:00

"The soul of Koschei the Deathless lies across the ocean on the Isle of Buyan where it is bound within a needle that is within an egg that is within a duck that is within a hare that is locked away in a chest of iron buried beneath the roots of a great green oak where no one will ever find it."
-The Tale of Koschei the Deathless, 1819 collected edition.

Recursion, nesting and layered realities are common themes underpinning the structure of myth, folklore and now speculative fiction. Koschei, famed sorcerer-villain of Russian lore immortalized by Stravinsky in his opera The Firebird is a prime example of nesting in fiction. Koschei's soul, by obscure means, was separated from his body long ago and hidden like a Matryoshka doll within a great many other things (which vary between tellings of the myth). He remains vulnerable, though, to any human who can lay hands upon the egg. Consider Koschei as nested within the reality of his own existence. Koschei, then, will be referred to as K, while the egg containing/embodying his soul will be referred to as K-1. What occurs in/to/around K cannot effect K-1, for through the principles of nesting theory K-1 has come to exist as a super-reality for K. The reverse, then, is untrue; if the egg is smashed (sometimes against Koschei's forehead, sometimes simply against a rock) then Koschei will die.

The idea presented by the necessity of breaking the egg against Koschei's body is an interesting one. It affirms the idea that K and K-1 are not separate ideals but a disjointed whole capable of reintegration. When K and K-1 are reunited, their distinct realities collapse into one and correlation is replaced by singularity. Koschei becomes whole and, his interstitial existence collapsed, he dies. Or, rather, his body is allowed to experience the Death that has befallen it.

Death via reunion with one's soul, or freeing of one's soul from mortal bonds, is a popular trope in today's speculative fiction. Voldemort, villain of J. K. Rowling's acclaimed Harry Potter septad, possesses magical phylacteries which each contain a piece of his soul. The books state that Voldemort could, were he to experience true remorse, rebuild his mangled animus, but that the existential pain would more than likely prove lethal. The archetype of the lich, his body soulless and unstuck from time, is a powerful one. As (un)living expressions of Cartesian dualism, they resonate powerfully with the mythic conscience of humanity. No violation could be more profound, or more intriguing, than the subversion of death. The subtext of inward-outward definition through Nesting act as an effective anchor for a theoretical dissection of the mechanics of Lichism, parsing mysticism, metaphysics and psychology from a dense and resonant subject.

In Koschei's story we are shown, ultimately, the folly of Practical Dualism when the sorcerer's soul ends up in the hands of an enemy, a state of affairs that would never have been possible had Koschei not committed his existential crime. A fanciful lesson, but an interesting one.

Word of the Day: Milieu.
Book of the Day: The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway.
Author of the Day: Oscar Wilde, English playwright and novelist/philosopher.

some superficial differences: myths and truths.

2011-03-15T11:03:00.002-07:00

I first came to College on the east coast with certain expectations and lack there of, here's what i found.

Dispelled:
-Everyone smokes
Not so. I'd say the two coasts have about the same number of smokers, the difference is that the east doesn't villainize smoking like the west coast.

-the drivers are crazy
They’re no worse than Californians (and they don't get as angry when you mess up).

-they don’t smile as much
This might be true

What I’ve noticed:

-there's a whole lot more baseball cap wearing on the east coast
-people don’t care that much about basketball
-people care about baseball A LOT
-there is a lot more notice of and significance put on cultural ethnicity and religion. While on the west coast we tend to blend, on the east people adhere to types and shades more.

Why clark, why so far away from home?

2011-03-15T11:03:00.001-07:00

I was born in Seattle Washington, Have lived in Portland Oregon since i was two, and most of my family is from or still lives in california (when i say i'm from the west coast, i mean it). I decided i wanted to go to clark my sophomore year of highschool (i'm quite a planner). I knew i wanted to either stay really close to home or go really far away. I loved Portland (still do) and knew that if i wasn't going to be able to see it on a regular basis i wanted it to be for a good, far-away, new experiences reason. So i had no interest in California or Washington or any other states nearby. If i was going to go away from home i wanted something new. New England seemed like the right place to look. I reseached and found some promising almosts, but wasn't wold until i found clark. All the other school seemed concerned with finding the best students possible and being the best possible because of it. Clark semmed concerned with making the best student possible. I felt they were looking for students with promise. The more i looked in to clark the more i liked what i saw. It was small, had a great student to faculty ratio, had a lot of programs and opportunities for students and great financial aid. So i applied, got in and went.

The Abaia: Dreams & Subtextuality in Science Fiction & Fantasy

2011-03-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

In Melanesian mythology, the Abaia is a great eel that dwells at the bottom of freshwater lakes and drowns those foolish enough to fish in its domain. Author Gene Wolfe co-opts the myth in his Book of the New Sun, transforming Abaia into a monstrous aquatic demigod who rules vast swathes of humanity through their dreams. The motif of the Abaia as a benthic entity associated with transitive states like drowning, dreaming and unconsciousness in general (states symbolized by the being's aquatic nature) is one found often in perusal of mythology. Nymphs, merfolk, leviathans and a whole host of mythic creatures dwell in the Abaia's interstitial realm. Nothing conflates so well with the idea of the mind divided by sleep and waking as the barrier between air and water.

Science fiction and fantasy, genres long dependent on such tropes as prophetic dreams, visions and oracular foretellings, draw heavily on the concepts of meta-reality and subconscious veracity. In the tradition of Hunter S. Thompson's and William S. Burroughs' psychedelic dream sequences, speculative fiction dives in and out of an unconscious world where semiotics runs rampant. Free-floating symbols anchor themselves loosely to the skins of stories, describing (to the astute reader) what has been or will be within the framework of the mytharc. In Orson Scott Card's renowned Ender's Game, Ender comes to understand the true rules of the battle school (a training ground for genius-level tactical intellects) through a fantastical computer simulation in which a vindictive giant proctors an impossible test. The simulation is later revealed to draw heavily on the subconscious of the user, playing neatly into the idea that Truth is held within the vault of the sleeping mind.

The dreaming world is, in speculative fiction as in modern thought, a place of potent symbolic importance. It functions as a kind of Plane of Truth, a meta-world where the sometimes overwhelming jargon and convolutions of fiction can be dissected and resolved unconsciously. Meaning escapes the obfuscation of plot and becomes apparent in the constructs of dreaming, expressed in bold colors and broad strokes. Through dreams speculative fiction escapes its most persistent parasite: information overload. The reader is drawn down not into the world of the characters but into the characters themselves where comprehension and its absence play equally to reader and __tagonist both.

Dreams are the atlas for speculative fiction's liminal landscape. Like the Abaia, they wait beneath the membrane of textual reality, strange and monstrous in character.

Word of the Day: Nostrum.
Book of the Day: Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
Author of the Day: Jack Vance, author of The Dying Earth and other seminal works of fantasy and science fiction.
Author vs Author of the Day: Herman Melville vs Thomas Aquinas.
Result: Melville harpoons Aquinas, writes symbolically dense novel about experience.

2011-03-04T09:05:00.000-08:00

Hello,

My name is Milla. I'm a senior English/Theater double major who works in the English office. I've taken longer to post because i've been stuck on what to write about. I thought about all the things I do that have something to do with the English department; working in the office, writing an honors thesis, studying for the dreaded English subject MTELs, double majoring. I finally gave up deciding and just asked the chair--Jay Elliott. I wrote him an e-mail with a list and asked him to pick and right before hitting that send button threw in one after thought idea: going to school in New England as a West Coaster. I didn't add it in because i thought it would make a good blog. infact, i saw no chance of professor Elliott picking the topic at all. I just threw it in because i felt i was making a list of what made me unique, and looking at the list it looked a little short. So i let myself add something that had nothing to do with the English department but everything to do wiht my uniqueness. As you have probably guessed he picked it. At first i was surprised, but then i thought about it. Anyone who asks me why clark? almost always means why so far away from home? It's a question i get from west and east coasters whenever they first find out my university and homtown are on opposite sides of the country, so there must be something interesting about it; people must be curious what it's like. so in this blog i will tell you.

Learn to Intern

2011-02-21T11:47:00.000-08:00

Hi Everyone,

I’m Jen, a senior and English major as well as a (hard) Work(ing) Study Student in the department. I am one of the three graduating seniors who have chosen the journalism specialization within the English major. What a small, immensely talented group we are! As you may or may not know, considering our number is so small, the journalism specialization within the English major requires an internship for academic credit. I’m going to talk a little bit about that in case you too are in the journalism biz or maybe you just want to do an internship instead of a class for fun.

I completed my stint in the real world of reporting last semester with Worcester Magazine, an alternative weekly magazine that you’ve probably seen around in the UC or various small businesses around the city. It was a very enjoyable experience, particularly because I got to know a bit more about Worcester, which is something that I feel many Clarkies could stand to do once in awhile. I also got to do some cool things (for free!), which is one of the very fun parts of journalism. For example, I took a cooking class and got a psychic reading! I was published in every single issue and have something substantial to write on my resume. Overall, good deal.

Please note that the expectation of monetary compensation from your work is allowed by Clark but fairly uncommon, and especially unrealistic in the print-journalism industry, which I’ve heard is terminally ill. The skills you learn, however, will translate well to online-publication employment.

You can apply to or find out more about internships for credit here. Each semester-long internship requires 140 hours total, which is about 10 hours a week. You’ll need to write up a proposal and grab a faculty advisor (mine was Professor Elliott) who will check in with you periodically and assess your final project, which is required and can really be anything. Mine was a portfolio and a reflective essay. Credit is given on a pass/fail basis, so if you can hold it together to some extent, you’re in! I think this system is good because there is less academic pressure to do well in a non-academic setting. Just focus on your work and you will be fine. To apply for a single-semester internship, your GPA must be 2.75, and 3.0 for a year-long internship.

One kind of inconvenient thing about the system is that you must pay “tuition” for one class if you want to complete your internship during the summer, so that option takes some consideration on your part.

Again, you can see the link above for all the information or contact the kind and helpful Career Services staff at careers@clarku.edu or 508-793-7258. I know other Clarkies who have interned at the Telegram and Gazette, and a Communication and Culture major who has interned with a music website and has had the opportunity to interview several esteemed musicians in the metal community. Additionally, I was glad to leave the position of WoMag intern in the capable hands of fellow-Clark English major, Vanessa Formato, as seen here. Best of luck. Hope to see your name in print soon!

Jen

Genre and the Myth of the Vulgar Cage

2011-02-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

Hey sports fans.

Genre fiction. Westerns. Fantasy. Swashbuckling tales of high adventure on the Spanish Main. Genre has always been a medium of set pieces, of stages and moods. A Western has six-shooters, fedoras, silent types and rotten-toothed gunslingers with hearts as black as coal. Westerns aren't about analytical functionalism.

The literary community has, traditionally, treated genre fiction as a kind of bastard cousin, a discipline the content of which is dictated by trappings. A few novels manage to escape this stigma(1984, Borges's ventures into Magical Realism, Ender's Game), but most genre pieces remain outside the world of modern literary criticism. Pointedly shunned by literature's "highest" circles and scholarly environments (with the partial and debatable example of Science Fiction, which has infiltrated modern literature to some extent thanks, in part, to its pedigree), genre fiction exists in a realm almost strictly cultic/commercial.

That genre fiction is nothing but its set pieces is what R. Scott Bakker, writer and philosopher, calls the Myth of the Vulgar Cage. Good genre transcends place and time to address themes of ontological and human importance. Great genre seizes on its component parts to create an even richer philosophical experience. The gnostic complexity of magic and sorcery, if utilized with skill and thought, provide a vehicle for complex questions of functionalism, realism and Nietzschian Will. The moral and eschatological underpinnings implied by pantheons of gods, the heavy yoke of feudal responsibility and its attendant injustices. The grim despair of the expansion-era West weighing down on the shoulders of penniless unfortunates (please, read Cormac McCarthy). Genre is at its best not when it leaves behind its attendant tropes, but when it novelizes and explores them.

Word of the Day: Calumny.
Book of the Day: Slaughterhouse Five by the late and much-lamented Kurt Vonnegut.
Author of the Day: Ernest Hemingway, writer of novels, screenplays and short stories in profusion. Lover of bullfighting and alcohol.
Author vs Author of the Day: Wallace Stevens vs Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Result: Stevens accidentally imbibes Hawthorne along with a pitcher of martinis. There is much rejoicing.

Early Science Fiction in the Arab World

2011-02-11T07:47:00.000-08:00

Written sometime between 1268 and 1277 CE, Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus is an often-overlooked treasure in the literary canon of the Middle Ages. It features the first instance of a coming-of-age story, the earliest recorded desert island (or isolation log) story and, perhaps most remarkably, is considered by many the first example of a science fiction story. Copies are fairly easy to find online (try Amazon) and the book is definitely worth a read. As a harrowing theological/philosophical journey, al-Nafis' book is a well-crafted work of art.

Word of the Day: Carious.
Book of the Day: A Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Author of the Day: Jorge Luis Borges, surrealist/magical realist/modernist and possibly the most widely-read man in recorded history.

Enter The Martin

2011-02-09T08:28:00.000-08:00

Greetings, sports fans.

I'm Micah Martin, a History Major, English Minor, and one of the department's indentured laborers. I handle mail, archival and secretarial duties and any miscellaneous tasks that spring up. In the coming months, preceding my graduation in May, I'll be posting here about life at Anderson House and goings-on in the department. I'll also discuss theory, writing, conventions of genre and style and the science of tropes in modern fiction mediums. To those of you with questions about the department, literature or anything related to English in general, please post! I'd like to get a few good discussions going here on the blog.

Micah out.

Word of the Day: Vociferous.
Book of the Day: Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Author of the Day: Canadian Sci-Fi and Fantasy author R. Scott Bakker, a strong advocate for the inclusion of philosophical themes in genre fiction.

After Long Silence. . . .

2011-02-07T09:22:00.000-08:00

Due to the fact that I have been chairing for the last year and a half, I have not had time to keep up with the blog. However: I have also finally hit on the idea to have the Work Study students in the English office begin to be the main contributors. I wonder if the blog could be a kind of English Times in real time--we'll have news, photos, announcements take place here as well as the usual places. Towards that end, I have invited five new authors; please welcome them effusively:

Micah Martin

Milla Smith

Jen Cantin

Devon Grayson-Wallace

Daiva Slotkus Miksyte

I also have the assurance that they will not shirk their appointed tasks to dabble in posting!

Thanks!

Jay

The Blog is Back

2009-08-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

Now that the summer is fast coming to an end, and fall semester duties loom, I'm returning to the blog. I'm not sure why I've neglected it for lo these many months; perhaps it's inertia, for which my BlogMother, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, would surely rap my knuckles. There's a lot to catch up on. I'll try to post at least weekly with news and comments relating to English department doings. To any of you who have tried to log in and been frustrated by the lack of news, I apologize. But expect several entries to crop up soon, including graduation pics and the introduction of Esther Jones, our African-American specialist and newest member of the department.
I was finally able to publish, though, the announcement I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Bill Tapply's death. Rest in peace, Bill.

--Jay

Bill Tapply: In Memoriam

2009-08-03T14:18:00.001-07:00

Bill Tapply died Tuesday, July 28th of complications from his leukemia. It is a tragedy for the English department and Clark University as a whole. Here are the tributes from the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. [Note: The Herald obituary has been archived and is not available without subscription.] Here, as well, are two blogs which announced it, blogs on which you may enter a comment if you wish, or see the comments made by others: a fishing publication site and a mystery writer's blog, Confessions of an idiosyncratic Mind (See July 29). His death is doubly tragic given his summer solstice "message" to us all from his own website: He was clearly feeling better and looking forward to more fly fishing and vacation time before the start of school, as well as the start of a new semester.
I will miss him tremendously, and I know you all will too. Please join me in condolences, prayers and support for his family.

--Jay

The Conference

2009-03-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

It's past time to get an entry on the Conference last February 27th and 28th. It was replete with marvelous energy--I characterized it as "generative" in terms of ideas and networking. It was everything Winston himself could have wished for.

Some photos, supplied by Terri Rutkiewicz:

This is the session "Mediating Black Identities: Newspapers, Potography, Literary Magazines, and More. From left to right, Ayesha Hardison (Ohio University), Kate Capshaw Smith (UConn), Daniel Scott III (Rhode Island College), and Amritjit Singh (Ohio University). The only person missing, stage right, is Denise Stephenson (Western Connecticut), who moderated the panel.

Greeting Alllison Blakely (Boston University) are John Bassett, President of Clark, and SunHee Gertz.

Karla F.C. Holloway (Duke University), giving the Keynote Address.

The Friday evening Student Panel: Meredith Neumann, Moderator, with Mark Duhaime ('09), Bill Cobb ('08), Tracy Walsh ('07), and Pam Taylor ('08).

And finally, the English Department: Lisa Kasmer, Fern Johnson, Betsy Huang, Steve Levin, Meredith Neumann, Ginger Vaughan, Jay Elliott and SunHee Gertz.

The whole conference was strikingly well-organized and well-attended. Our thanks to all who were involved, but especially the panelists and Fern and Steve, who put everything and everyone in place.
--Jay

Just to Be There (Inauguration '09)

2009-02-19T16:02:00.000-08:00

So, did you see me? I was the one with the white hat, not too far from the Washington Monument, just northeast of the corner of 14th and Independence. You know, near that Tourmobile kiosk just on the edge of the National Mall. No? But I kept waving at the CNN camera man...

I’m not really a big crowds person. I can’t imagine traveling to DC just for an inauguration, even this historic one. But when I realized that my January fellowship at the Folger Library would ensure my presence just blocks from the Capitol building during this remarkable week, I knew I could not miss the opportunity to freeze with more than a million people as Barack Obama took his oath of office.

Preparations were evidence many days in advance, most notably the lines and lines of port-a-potties lining the National Mall (about 3,000 altogether, I heard), each fastened shut with a hard plastic tie for security as well as for hygiene considerations. On Saturday I asked one of the ubiquitous Capitol Police officers where I might find a mail box so I could mail a utility bill. At 3:30 that morning, he told me, all 91 mail boxes on and around the Hill had been removed – one of countless of visible and invisible security precautions. Saturday evening, enough of the platform had been constructed and decorated that people had congregated to take pictures at the sight of where the swearing in would happen in three days. (Thanks, Rohan, for the photo!)

And that, essentially, became the theme of the whole inaugural period. Everyone just wanted to be there.

I woke up Tuesday morning at 6 am to check the weather and the crowds on tv before heading out. Judging my short distance from the Mall, the size of the crowds that had already been gathering since 3 a.m., and my own limited ability to stand in a crowd for untold hours, I decided that heading out at about 9 would just have to be sufficient. From my experience on Sunday attending the concert without ever glimpsing the Lincoln Memorial itself, I knew that all I really needed to be happy was a good set of loudspeakers and a crowd of excited people. I put on four layers on top, two pairs of wool socks, and polar fleece pants over my jeans. My inauguration expedition was really made possible, though, by the kind loans of boots and parka (courtesy of Virginia M. and Alden T. Vaughan respectively). Muffled in a scarf, protected by thick gloves and topped of by my white hat, I looked remarkably like a forest-green Stay-Puff Marshmellow Girl, but I felt prepared.

As soon as I got to the street it was clear which way I was going. I just joined the stream of humanity making its way down towards the south side of the Mall. At every corner you could get a new variation on directions and the status of gate openings and closings from a police officer. Closer to the Mall were many red-hat-wearing volunteers who seemed to have slightly more reliable information, though no one ever gave the exact same information twice. Diversion after diversion interrupted our path as we all snaked our way along. Most confusing was to get around the long lines of ticket holders waiting to get through their respective security checks (purple ticket, red ticket, orange ticket, etc.). The most startling image for me was coming around a corner and seeing hundreds upon hundreds of people lined up on I-395, waiting to get through security points that were still not in sight. (Later I found out that many of these people, including the ones being directed into the tunnel under the Mall, didn’t get through security in time for the swearing in!)

We trudged and trudged. People were tired but everyone was patient and happy. Some groups and families were working hard to stay together. Others, like me, were alone. Many people, like a gentleman from North Carolina that I met along the way, had lost their group and were now going solo. It was incredibly friendly.

When I finally got up to Independence and 14th (you can check it out on a map, but it’s basically just southeast of the Washington Monument), many people were hopping a low barricade. Mr. North Carolina appeared out of no where, and a few of us all helped each other over. So far, so good... but then we found that we were in some kind of inadvertent pen formed by the barricades and a curved row of port-a-potties. Not being able to see where a real opening was, several “portas” had been lifted and set to the side to allow further access points to streams of people, half trying to crush their way in and half trying to crush themselves out of the small space. People on top of the portas did their best to direct traffic and give advice on movement to the essentially blind crowd below. (Yes, each porta had a spectator, and these folks had some of the best views in the entire Mall!) As we squeezed and pushed our way between the portas, hilarious encouragement came from the squatters above: “Yes, you can! Yes, you can!”

I settled in to a spot surrounded by a bunch of friendly folks from Georgia, Virginia, Minneapolis and Metro DC. We could hear plenty, and we took turns getting in position and on tiptoes to catch little glimpses of a distant JumboTron screen through an intervening tree. It was about 11 now, and this was good enough for me! There is something wonderful about sharing a big event with complete strangers. We had our jokes about not really being able to see anything, about how the street entrepreneurs should have been selling more Obama stepladders and periscopes alongside the t-shirts and key chains. We all laughed when the voice came over the PA to ask us to “remain standing” or “remain seated.” Movement of any kind was well nigh impossible.

It was for the most part a boisterous crowd. A gentleman behind me frequently punctuated some comment over the PA system with his own enthusiastic “OH, YEE-AAAH!!!”, and his commentary never got old. When the outgoing president was introduced, a CNN camera man atop a Tourmobile kiosk appeared to be leading a portion of the crowd in a chorus of “Nya-nya-nya-nya / Nya-nya-nya-nya / Hey-Hey / Good-bye.” By contrast to the overall high spirits and noisy reactions from the crowd, the opening prayer was spoken in almost complete silence. The minister’s short phrases rippled with a slight time delay through the PA system across the mall, creating an eerie echo effect. Huge cheers went up when the oath was taken. For Obama’s address, though, there was a prayer-like silence again. Since none of us could really see the JumboTrons, many of us just closed our eyes to listen more intently. There is nothing so silent and or so attentive as 2,000,000 people listening en masse.

It took me 2.5 hours to walk back to a location that, on a normal day, would be an easy stroll of about 1.5 miles by marble monuments and neo-classical architecture. The normal arteries around the Mall were so clogged that I had to make my way down to the riverfront and then across until I could double back to where I started out that morning. That route took me through neighborhoods that in my daily routine I had not yet seen, nor would I have seen them had not the historical occasion of the day knocked me out of my daily path.

It is common to speak of two DCs – the one with power centered around Capitol Hill and the one, quite literally disenfranchised, which surrounds it. What makes this disparity even more galling is that the more privileged residents of DC tend also to be temporary residents of four or eight years. I had the opportunity to talk with many long-term DC residents in the days leading up to the Inauguration, and these were conversations I might not have had except for the fact of the extraordinary occasion. In my section of the crowd, at least, the DC residents far outnumbered the visitors from Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Minneapolis, California and Massachusetts. We all felt welcomed to a kind of new neighborhood, and we were all just glad to be there.

43 Exits (For W)

2009-02-13T15:17:00.000-08:00

And now a shift to politics. I'm pleased to offer Danny Thompson's YouTube short film celebrating the exit of W. Danny is Meredith's medial-savvy partner, and he's kindly granted me access to his latest. Enjoy! And make sure the sound is turned up!
--Jay

After Long Absence. . . .

2009-01-22T13:43:00.000-08:00

Betsy's little blurb below has finally galvanized me out of a funk to start to contribute once more. After all, a new semester, a new year, a new administration--what more can we ask for? I know, I know, a little relief in the financial arena so's we can have students, both new and continuing. And, as Betsy and I just talked about, why not throw this blog open for Clark observations, reminiscences, predictions stemming from Tuesday's Inauguration. I know Meredith, who was on the Mall, has told me she's going to post some of her "I was there" observations. Use the comment thread to ruminate!

Also, I need to post the announcement for the Conference at the end of next month in honor of Winston Napier; that needs as much circulation as possible.

Here's Fern Johnson and Steve Levin's description:

Dear Faculty Colleagues,
As many of you know, plans are underway for a conference on February 27-28 to honor the intellectual vibrancy of Professor Winston Napier (1953-2008). Attached is a printable poster for the conference and the registration form.
Winston, who held the E. Franklin Frazier Professorship and was a faculty member in the English Department, not only built an exciting and rigorous curriculum in African American literature and theory but also founded the African American Intellectual Culture Series. Since its beginning in the mid 1990s, the Series brought many leading scholars in a range of fields to our campus. A number of these scholars will be speaking at the conference.
Evolutionary Momentum in African American Studies begins on Friday afternoon, February 27, and runs through the day on Saturday, February 28. The Keynote Speaker is Dr. Karla FC Holloway, James B. Duke Professor of English and Professor of Law at Duke University. Conference presenters include: E. Victoria Arana (Howard University), Crystal Anderson (Elon University), Bert Ashe (University of Richmond), Carol Bailey (Amherst College), Allison Blakely (Boston University), Jarrett Brown (Bowdoin College), Barry Gaspar (Duke University), Ayesha Hardison (Ohio University), Mark Anthony Neal (Duke University), Ousmane Power-Greene (Clark University), Daniel Scott III (Rhode Island College), Amritjit Singh (Ohio University), James Smethurst (UMass-Amherst), and Kate Capshaw Smith (University of Connecticut). There will also be a panel of Winston’s former students.
We hope to see many of you at the conference. Conference registration forms should be returned to Shirley Riopel-Nelson in the English department (Anderson House). Please forward this e-mail to others who may be interested in attending.
Best Regards,
Fern Johnson and Steve Levin, English Department

And here's the details from the flyer:

EVOLUTIONARY MOMENTUM IN
AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES:
FRIDAY & SATURDAY
FEBRUARY 27 -28, 2009
Dana Commons, Clark University
legacy and future direction
A CONFERENCE IN HONOR OF WINSTON NAPIER
This Spring we pay tribute to Professor Winston Napier
(1953-2008) with a conference honoring his commitment
to the study of African American intellectual culture,
its influence on America at large, and its contribution
to social and political action.
Dr. Karla FC Holloway (James B. Duke Professor
of English and Professor of Law at Duke University)
will present the keynote address: ‘Home Invasions:
A Narrative Ethic of Race and Privacy.’
The Higgins School of Humanities at Clark University, the Office of the President,
the Office of the Provost, and the Department of English present:
winston napier
PLEASE REGISTER BY FEBRUARY 18: conference fee $25 ($5 for students). To register,
and for the full conference schedule, please visit our website or contact Shirley Riopel Nelson at
508.793.7142, or napierconference@clarku.edu
karla fc holloway
www.clark.edu/higgins
Conference opens February 27 at 4:30 and resumes on
Saturday, February 28 from 9:30-6:00; includes reception
on Friday and luncheon on Saturday.

I hope to see a lot of you there!

--Jay

Jay Elliott shares thoughts on the Inauguration in the Daily Hampshire Gazette

2009-01-22T08:24:00.000-08:00

---

Our very own Jay Elliott was quoted by the Daily Hampshire Gazette in a story on the Inauguration of Barack Obama. Check it out at:

http://www.gazettenet.com/2009/01/21/amherst-cinema-brings-community-together-historic-occasion

Care to share your thoughts on the Inauguration? Post away!

-Betsy

2008-10-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

It has been an extraordinarily busy beginning of the semester for me, and I suspect, the rest of the faculty, what with welcoming new graduate students and new majors, plus welcoming back all of our returning students. But I'll see if I can keep up with the blog a little more frequently than I have been.
The memorial service for Winston was moving. Speakers acknowledged the many facets of Winston's life and career, and his family--his two brothers and his sister and her family--were also there. For many of us, it was an occasion to meld "Tony"--his childhood and young adult name--with "Winston"--the man we all knew here at Clark. His family could sense the esteem in which he was held by his colleagues and students, while we here, who were almost exclusively involved with his professional life, could sense the "Tony" that lurked behind the scholar we appreciated so much. I append the program:

A Celebration of the Life of Winston Anthony Napier (1953-2008)

Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Tilton Hall, Higgins University Center
Clark University
4:00 p.m.

Jazz Prelude
The Paul Buono Trio

Welcome
Virginia Vaughan, English Department

Winston at the University
John Bassett, President
David Angel, Provost

Winston and his Colleagues
Jay Elliott, English Department
Betsy Huang, English Department

Jazz Interlude

Tony and his Family
Debbie Napier, sister
Norman Napier, brother

Dr. Napier and his Neighbor
Tim Sutton, neighbor

Professor Napier and his Students
Jarrett H. Brown, Clark MA 1999
Maggie Rabidou, Clark BA 2008

Winston Remembered
Open Mike

Reception

Jazz: syncopated music, usually improvisational

Bricolage: in cultural studies, an individual’s creation of a cultural identity by acquiring objects from a
variety of subcultures

The Paul Buono Trio
Paul Buono Piano
Jason Schwartz Bass
Josh Kiggans Drums

Here is the card that Winston's family sent the English Department after the service:

Finally, here is the end of the remarks I offered, quoting a colleague here at Clark, not from the English Department:

Winston was "a real intellectual who understood issues of marginality and living on the borders as a person of color with enormous depth in all its nuances." He "got it": that is, he got "the experiences in all heir complexities of race, the experiences of living and moving across multiple sites, across international borders, in worlds in which [minorities have] little real power. He was a treasured colleague and a good friend from whom I learnt to think beyond my own borders."

That, for me, is the supreme compliment to offer to a colleague, and I think we can all acknowledge his impact on Clark and the academic community as a whole in that way: he was a man who made us think beyond or own borders. We will miss him tremendously.

And we will.

--Jay

Is the Summer Over?

2008-08-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, indeedy, here it is August 12th, and I seem to have let the blog go on vacation--it's been wandering about the Cape trying to find shelter from the myriad thunderstorms that have plagued New England this July and August. But it's back, and if not tanned, at least relaxed.

The first order of business is to announce Clark's Memorial Service for Winston, which will be Wednesday, September 10, at 4:00 pm in Tilton Hall at the Student Activities Center. Ginger reports that Debbie Napier will be sending up more photos soon, and we will have a jazz combo to precede and follow the service, as well as provide, perhaps, some musical interlude. The department will be gathering on August 22nd to plan what we'd like to do for the service. Any suggestions would be welcome!

Just to make it clear to all those who may have been confused by the tragic circumstances last May, the department didn't know until just before Graduation that Winston had taken his own life. Some of you may have wondered why we didn't bring that up right away; the answer is that we didn't know until later--until just about the time that the Worcester Telegram & Gazette was preparing to reveal it. We weren't keeping anything from any of you; we simply didn't know ourselves and were as confused for a time as anyone else. If there were any hard feelings on the part of any of our students--both majors and non-majors who have taken Winston's classes--we apologize.

In any case, if you have any remembrances or comments you'd like to make for the memorial issue of the English Times now in preparation, send it to the department.

By the way, Fern points out that there is a nice comment by Winston's Worcester neighbor T. Sutton Jr. posted on Eric Gordy's blog (some of you may remember Eric from last year here at Clark).

More later on the service--and more on the end of the year festivities as we approach a new semester.

--Jay

More Winston Pics

2008-06-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

Jane Androwski sent over these pics from the March 29, 2007 Difficult Dialogues panel discussion on the film What Makes Me White by Aimee Sands. Here's Winston:

And here's Winston and Betsy:

It's been gratifying to read all the remembrances present and past students--both undergraduate and graduate--have been sending in to the department. In the meantime, we adjust and continue, though with flashes of "deep funks," as Meredith says.

I hope all of you are enjoying your summer--as unpredictable as the weather has been.

--Jay

More About Winston

2008-05-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

Just this morning, Winston's younger sister, Debbie, sent these photos to Ginger. I presume they are his family; she didn't send any identifications.

And these are an even younger Winston, when his family called him "Tony":

We all still mourn his passing, but we've been collecting and talking about our reminiscences of his too-short time here at Clark.

Consider this an open thread:

--Jay

Winston Napier: In Memoriam

2008-05-23T06:17:00.001-07:00

Normally, a post at this time of year would have lots of photos of our graduating seniors at Spring Fling and Graduation, but I have to postpone sharing that joy in order to perform a more solemn task: to celebrate Winston's life at Clark. As most of you know, he passed on Sunday morning, May 18th, just hours before Graduation. Here's Ginger's letter to all present English majors and alums:

May 19, 2008

Dear Clark English majors and graduate students,

On behalf of the department’s faculty and staff, I’m writing you with the sad and shocking news that Professor Winston Napier passed away yesterday morning. Sometime in the past few weeks, he had suffered a head trauma which led to bleeding in the brain. He was taken to the hospital and operated on, but the doctors were not able to save him. We all mourn his passing and cherish the legacy of rigorous intellectual inquiry and good humor that he left us.

I visited Winston at the hospital on Friday, and he said two things that I’d like to share with you. He was concerned about the library books in his apartment. He wanted to be sure those books were returned to Goddard Library to the students could have access to them. He also reflected on his years at Clark and commented, “What a lot of fun it was, what fun.” If he had an impact on your life, you also enlivened him in the classroom and the hallways of Anderson House, affording him tremendous pleasure with your insights and ideas.

Because we have not yet been able to locate any relatives and the Clark community is dispersed for the summer, we are postponing a memorial event until the fall semester. In the meantime, we encourage you to write about your memories of Winston – a teaching moment, a humorous conversation, an insight, what you feel – in an e-mail and send it to Jennifer Plante (jplante@clarku.edu) and Betsy Huang (bhuang@clarku.edu). They will collect your reminiscences, and in a “virtual” memorial service, we will gather them in a special edition of The English Times.

We realize this news may be difficult to process. The Dean of Students, Denise Darrigrand, has offered the services of her office if any of you feel you’d like to talk through your feelings (ddarrigrand@clarku.edu). She will make grief counseling available to any of you who feel you need some help with this. If you’d simply like to talk with a member of the English department, feel free to contact your adviser or a faculty member of your choice. Those of you who are enrolled in a spring course from Professor Napier will be receiving a separate e-mail from Dean Wright or myself with instructions as to how we will handle your grades.

In the meantime, let us hold Winston in our hearts and be grateful for the time we had with him.

Sincerely,

Virginia Vaughan, Chair

We have been receiving tributes from various people, and the Department is going farther than what Ginger suggests above to compile a memorial book containing statements, photos and the like. If you would like to submit a reminiscence, use the links above.

David Pugh (07) has a tribute and comment thread in his blog, Pataphysical Collage, which posts a great photo of Winston.

Thanks for Steve DiRado of Clark's V&PA for the magnificent image of Winston.

--Jay

The Economics of Academia: Getting By with Ridiculous Gas Prices

2008-04-16T06:04:00.000-07:00

I filled up my gas tank today, hitting $30 and nearly had a heart attack. I drive a 2000 Honda Civic with a small tank (10 gallons, I believe) and never thought I would see the day where I broke $25 filling up. I remember the days (here's where I get to sound like my grandparents, reminiscing of the good ol' days) when gas prices were $1, and then $1.05. That was the summer of my junior year in high school, 2001. At that time I had a 1986 Firebird Trans Am, which only cost $15-20 to fill, and I thought nothing of driving to New Hampshire every week to visit some friends.

Now, I grimace every time I have to make a trip outside my normal routine.

What's a student to do?

All of us in academics can truthfully say we do not do it for the money. This rings even more true for students, and in light of the rising gas prices, I did a sort of experiment to try and stretch our gas dollar even further. I hope it helps you in some way.

At about 55 mph, your engine is running at its most efficient level, giving you the most mileage out of each gallon of gas. Anything over this (or under, as is the case for city driving) and you lose efficiency. Obviously, one cannot go 55 mph down South Main unless one wants to attract unwanted attention and a hefty speeding ticket. But on the highway, it is feasible to cruise at 55-60 mph in the right hand lane, and it's actually worth it.

Every week I have the same travel routine, and so two weeks ago I put this to a test. When I was on the highway, I kept my speed at about 70-75, which is still considered "slow" in Massachusetts. By the end of the week, I had logged 296 miles on my tank of gas. Considering that my car is estimated at achieving 33-35 mpg with a ten gallon tank, this is less than optimal. I'm not great at math, but that sounds like I only got about 29mpg for that week.

Last week, I had the same travel routine, but kept my speed at 60 mph on the highway, and stayed in the right hand lane. That week, I got 356 miles to my tank of gas, making my mileage at about 35 mpg.

What's the big picture? What are the gains or losses? Well, if we go under the assumption that I should be getting 33mpg, and we take the difference in mileage for the two weeks (296 vs 356), the picture becomes clearer. The first week's mileage was 60 miles less than the second week, and using 33mpg as our base figure, that means that on the first week, about two gallons of fuel was wasted. At $3.25 a gallon, I wasted $6.50. What did I gain from the higher speed on the first week? About 5-7 minutes on my commute. For me, that's simply not worth $6.50.

Some other things we can do besides this to stretch our gas dollar are the following:
-Change your oil every 3000-5000 miles
-Change your air filter twice a year, or every 12,000 miles if you do a lot of driving.
-Change your fuel filter every 30,000 miles (if you don't have your car manual), or the increment specified by your car manual.
-Keep your tires inflated at the recommended psi (you can find this on the sticker posted inside the door frame, on the latching side)

If you are mechanically inclined (or are willing to learn some of the basics to save more money), most of these maintenance things you can do yourself. Here are a few online articles to get you started, if you are interested.
http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/howto/articles/43786/article.html (Air Filter)
http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/howto/articles/43788/article.html (Change Oil)
http://autorepair.about.com/od/regularmaintenance/ss/fuel_filter.htm (Fuel Filter)

Even if you do not intend to do any of these maintenance procedures yourself, make sure they get done. Try the experiment I did and see what your results are. I think you will be surprised.

Cheers,
Steve

The View from Chawton: Chawton Cottage

2008-03-27T00:48:00.000-07:00

I made the pilgrimage to Jane Austen’s home—the home in Chawton village, where Austen lived from 1809-1817 and completed her novels spanning from Sense and Sensibility to Sanditon, the work left unfinished at her death. This cottage, tiny and unassuming, stands as a testimony to Austen’s paradoxical position as a writer.

Austen was forced to rely on the charity of her brother Edward to provide her with this cottage since, initially, her writing had brought her no income--she bore the publishing costs herself for her first novel Sense and Sensibility. In this cottage’s inauspicious front parlor, Austen penned some of the greatest fiction of the Regency period. Ironically, she chose this room for its large picture window and squeaky door that presaged visitors, so she could hide any evidence of her writing from others. In these novels, she brings to a brilliant pitch the technique of free indirect discourse, introducing a vivid interiority in her heroines, and speaks directly and poignantly to contemporary issues, such as the lack of education and vocation for women.

Yet, Austen’s gravestone in Winchester Cathedral, like her home, small and unassuming, alludes only obliquely to her writing, mainly speaking of her piety and charity: “The benevolence of her [Austen’s] heart,  the sweetness of her temper, and  the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections.”

Betsy's Thirty Seconds of Fame

2008-03-19T13:07:00.000-07:00

Has is been a month since the last entry? Whew! I guess it has. Spring break is now a distant memory; Honors students are busily finishing up their theses before the early April deadline; a new supply of odious viral thingees has been transported from myriad homes back to the confines of our campus to wreak their havoc; and many students are trying to devote more time to their studies to push up those mid-term marks. We're past the back stretch, and the finish seems to be only on the horizon--but it will be here more quickly than we realize.

The occasion for this post is, in a sense, political. Many of you are aware of--and perhaps heard--Barack Obama's speech on race at Philadelphia yesterday morning, a speech that has garnered some pretty fantastic reviews across the country. Here's a sampling from Dailykos. But Channel 4 (WBZ) from Boston trumps the editorials with a quick commentary from the English Department's Betsy Huang in their feature "Religious Leaders Respond" during the 6:00 news hour on the 18th. Here's the linky. You have to search for "Barack Obama Speech" and click on the video link above "Religious Leaders Respond." She said that the crew must have chatted with her for half and hour in her office in order to get this tidbit. It's amazing how much is discarded to catch just the perfect interview line! (I know, from the few times I've mumbled through video for Clark, that it's strange to see how little makes it into the final cut.)

On another front, I talked with Claudia, and I realized that to publish her poem "Jakarta" could likely violate the copyright of the journal, so I haven't included it yet. Soon: after it's published; then we can take a look at it with the proper citation to the journal.

Finally, congratulations to all the English Writing Contest Winners! Here they are:

Announcing the Winners of the
2008 English DepartmentWriting Contests

Prentiss Cheney Hoyt Poetry Contest
First Place: Mary (Rosie) O’Sullivan
Second Place: Charity Forrester
Third Place: Robin Barron

Betty ‘79 and Stanley Sultan Short Story Contest
First Place: Tali Sachs
Second Place: Charity Forrester
Third Place: Danielle Coles

The English Department would like to thank everyone who submitted an entry. We appreciate your interest in creative writing and your willingness to share your work with us. We also would like you to know that we had a large pool of many fine entries to consider.
--Jay

Poetic News from Claudia McQuistion

2008-02-16T16:24:00.000-08:00

I just got an e-mail from Claudia McQuistion, an English Major who graduated last May. Some of you may remember her as the first-place finisher in last spring's Poetry Contest, and it seems appropriate to pass on this news just as the entries for this year's competition have piled up in the English Office. One of the prize-winning poems--"Jakarta Office Hit By Blast"--along with another, "Seeking Passion," has been accepted for publication by the bi-annual literary magazine Fifth Wednesday Journal. (Link here) Quite a coup for our McQuistion! I'll let you know when the journal hits the newsstands. She's living in Seattle now, and promises to send me more information about her doin's later. I'll ask her if I can add the text of "Jarkata" later.

--Jay

The View from Chawton

2008-02-15T01:21:00.000-08:00

[Lisa Kasmer, currently on sabbatical, is a Visiting Fellow at Chawton House Library, U.K.]

I am writing as your foreign correspondent from Chawton, U.K., where I'm completing research for my book project on British women writing history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The collection at Chawton House Library focuses on early editions, many of which are rare, of women's writing from 1600-1830. At the library, I'm carrying out a survey of historical fiction by women in the nineteenth century, a genre that was exceptionally popular. My reading here so far has brought some insights and real surprises--this is what I love most about this kind of research: Who knew that Ann Yearsley, a Romantic poet, wrote a historical play, which is really quite radical both politically and generically?

In addition to its collection, Chawton House offers an unusual "textual experience." The building in which the collection is housed is part of an estate that was once owned by Charles Knight, Jane Austen's brother. In actually working in this historical home, I am often viscerally reminded of moments in an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century novel. Each weekday, I come up the path of the estate's spacious grounds with shire horses grazing. I then walk up the massive main staircase and through narrow passageways to the main reading room, a stately drawing room with bookshelves holding some of the main collection. Throughout my day, I may remember descriptions of Clarissa's troubling imprisonment; Lizzy Bennet's breathtaking visit to Pemberley; or Jane Eyre's secret rambles through Thornfield Hall.

For All You Sports Enthusiasts. . . .

2008-02-08T11:25:00.000-08:00

As a change of pace, I'd like to introduce you to Bill Cobb's latest venture, the clark sports blog. He and his writers post some fine stories about the latest Cougar ventures in various venues. Check it out if you're interested. . . .
--Jay

Betsy Huang's Review

2008-01-30T10:04:00.001-08:00

Given that race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and other categories of identity have emerged as key issues of debate in the current presidential election process, I thought I'd offer up my review of the graphic novel series, Eagle: The Making of an Asian American President, as a way to start a discussion about minority representation (political, cultural, literary).

Kaiji Kawaguchi. Eagle: The Making of an Asian American President. English Adaptation by Carl Gustav Horn. Translated by Yuji Oniki. Vol. 1-5. San Francisco: Viz Comics, 2000-2002.

(Originally published in the Fall 2007 issue of MELUS: Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S.)

In his now famous keynote speech for the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Barack Obama has said that an election is about our decision to participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope, and that hope, to him, is represented by “a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.” With aspirations for the presidency himself, the implicit suggestion of Obama’s remark is his hope that America would prove itself enlightened enough to elect someone “with a funny name” to the nation’s highest office. Kaiji Kawaguchi’s manga series, Eagle: The Making of an Asian American President, seems to have been conceived with these sentiments in mind. Eagle follows the fictional election campaign of Kenneth Yamaoka, a third-generation Japanese American seeking to become the 43rd president of the United States. Told primarily from the perspective of Takashi Jo, a Japanese journalist who is also Yamaoka’s illegitimate son, Eagle offers an entertaining and at times critically astute dramatization of U.S. electoral politics, covering everything from campaign debates and speeches to the melodrama of the candidate’s private life.

Despite the fact that Eagle was roundly praised by comics reviewers and awarded several Eisner Awards (the top prize in comics art), the series did not find a large audience in the U.S. market. And while it ostensibly foregrounds ethnicity as the organizing narrative theme, it has escaped the critical radar of ethnic literature scholars. This is, I suspect, in part because American comics readers find the story’s premise—an Asian American presidential hopeful—somewhat outlandish, and in part because academics have been slow to accept comics as a genre worthy of scholarly examination. But there is much about Eagle that warrants a closer look by virtue of the provocative hypothetical question it poses. As one character in the series so efficiently puts it, “How far will the first Japanese American candidate to enter a presidential election go?” (Vol I:68).

Very far, it turns out—at least in Kawaguchi’s optimistic view of the American political process. Eagle is, in many ways, a superhero romance disguised as a political thriller. The hero, Yamaoka, is endowed with superior intelligence, verbal eloquence, and loads of charisma.. A staunch defender of immigrant and workers’ rights and a supporter of liberal values, Yamaoka is a posterboy for the promises of the American Dream. We watch with incredulity, and perhaps with some glee, as he gives rousing speeches, wins debates, shores up support in droves, and smooths every wrinkle on his way to the presidency. We shake our heads with disbelief when Yamaoka lays out his platform of pipe dreams (financing Mexico’s economic stability in order to solve the immigration crisis, shutting down all U.S. military bases abroad, among others) and still climb steadily in the polls. In one particularly astonishing episode, he even manages to convince a group of Texan ranchers to support his call for tighter gun control! Indeed, reading Eagle often feels like an exercise in wish fulfillment. Wouldn’t it be uplifting if America has overcome its racist hang-ups and proved itself enlightened enough to put a non-white president—and one who espouses leftist politics to boot— in the White House?

Eagle, however, is not just a saccharine story about American optimism. Kawaguchi exposes the dark side of politics as well, particularly the ethically questionable sub-rosa machinations of the parties involved, the persisting symptoms of racial intolerance in American society that circumscribe ethnic political representation, and most significantly, the Anglo model of Americanness that high government offices are still expected to represent. As one character in Eagle points out, “‘Eisenhower’ is about as funny-sounding as [the names of presidents] have ever got. No ‘skis’. . . no ‘steins’ . . . let alone anything like ‘Yamaoka.’ Two hundred years since George Washington and in all that time there’s been exactly one president who wasn’t a white Anglo-Saxon protestant. And look what happened to him” (Vol. IV:197). Other scenes, such as the hate speech graffitied on Yamaoka’s home and the two assassination attempts at a campaign stop, effectively (if at times melodramatically) capture the potential for deep-seated racism to find open expression when ethnics gain visibility in institutions of power.

Beyond these merits, however, Eagle fails to provide a nuanced examination of the complexities of ethnic subjectivities and conflicts. For example, Yamaoka’s Japanese ancestry seems merely incidental. His Japanese ancestry is inscribed simply as an accident of skin color; it plays no part in his subject formation, nor does it serve as the basis for meaningful ties to particular ethnic constituencies. He may be an Asian American candidate, but he does not represent the specific interests of Japanese Americans nor any other ethnic group. Rather, he represents a broad-based pro-immigration stance modeled ostensibly on the “nation of immigrants” creed of John F. Kennedy, with whom Kawaguchi carefully associates Yamaoka throughout the novel as a means to universalize (that is, de-racialize) Yamaoka’s appeal.

Graphic representations of Yamaoka and other ethnic or mixed-race characters also look more Caucasian than Asian. For instance, the Hispanicity of Yamaoka’s adopted daughter, Rachel, is revealed through dialogue and not through visual cues. It should be noted that, as many manga aficionados have pointed out, this testifies more to the aesthetic tradition of manga art and Kawaguchi’s artistic conventionality rather than his failure to render Japanese physical features more convincingly. While this raises the difficult question of how race and ethnicity should be represented visually in the comics medium, it is nevertheless disconcerting for readers to be unable to visually distinguish between characters of different races in a graphic novel that foregrounds ethnoracial politics as its principle subject matter.

Yamaoka’s whiteness, however, is coded less through the way his features are drawn, and more through Kawaguchi’s erasure of his Japanese ethnicity in favor of an all-American personal history. There is, in fact, little that is ethnic about Yamaoka with the exception of his name. Grandson of model-minority Japanese immigrants, Yale graduate, college football star, decorated Vietnam War veteran, New York Senator, and ex-New York District Attorney, Yamaoka’s profile is a composite of American heroic archetypes. His transformation from an “ethnic” to an “American” is made complete by his marriage to the daughter of a powerful New England family, the Hamptons, an alliance that effectively replaces his immigrant family history with a patrician, Anglo-American one. Kawaguchi makes little mention of the history of Japanese in America, and no mention at all of Japanese internment camps—an elision that seems all the more egregious and ironic when we note that Kawaguchi has modeled Yamaoka’s New Deal-like social policies on Franklin D. Roosevelt, the very president who signed the executive order that authorized the mass internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two.

Equally problematic is Kawaguchi’s association of the ethnic with female characters who threaten to spoil Yamaoka’s otherwise pristine, all-American profile. Yamaoka’s brief romance in Okinawa with Jo’s mother, Tomiko (whom he likens to “the South Pacific, something immutable” [Vol V:441]), and his alleged romance with Rachel’s biological mother, Maria, a Cuban American woman from the barrio, pose the most serious threats to his political reputation. These “illegitimate” ethnic women are pitted against Yamaoka’s legitimate white wife, Patricia, whom Yamaoka regards as a fitting partner because she is, in his words, “a soldier, someone with whom [he] could speak of dreams” (Vol. V:442). An opposition is thus established between the wealthy white woman who could empower him and the ethnic women who would cripple him—a formulation that betrays the masculinist and imperialist perspectives that undergird Kawaguchi’s representations of ethnic women.

If Eagle fails to provide a sophisticated critique of U.S. identity politics, it might be because Kawaguchi is a Japanese national who has never lived in the U.S. and who spent only a few weeks in various regions of the U.S. “scouting location” and researching political processes. Nevertheless, the level of detail about U.S. electoral politics that Kawaguchi manages to provide is quite impressive. Eagle also exemplifies in many ways a perfect marriage between genre and subject matter; after all, both comics and election campaigns are, in essence, a series of carefully “framed” spectacles for public consumption. Kawaguchi deserves high praise for his expert storytelling; the sensationalist plotlines (is Yamaoka responsible for Tomiko’s mysterious death? Is Rachel really his biological daughter?) are quite entertaining, and the roman-à-clef elements of the series, particularly the references to Al Gore and the Clintons (thinly disguised as “Al Noah” and “Bill and Ellery”) will no doubt elicit knowing smiles—or sneers—from the reader. Ultimately, a dialogic quality persists throughout the series, so that one is never quite sure if Kawaguchi is reinforcing or demystifying the powerful mythologies of the American Dream. This is what makes Eagle an interesting text; it can be read either as Kawaguchi’s realistic rendering of the limitations that still exist for Asian American political representation, or his capitulation to the notion that ethnic types are palatable only if they are refashioned into familiar American archetypes.

- Betsy

Steve Levin's Review

2008-01-24T18:19:00.000-08:00

Steve Levin, the newest member of the Department, is having his review of Khaled Hosseini's latest novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, published in Khath, and he's kindly agreed to give us a preview. Hossieni, you may recall, published The Kite Runner a couple of years ago, and it's been made into a film, which is playing even now at the Amherst Cinema. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm eagerly awaiting the local premier this week of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Instead of continuing to wander off topic, though, I'll give you Steve's review, which introduces me to "New Orientalism," a concept I'll have to incorporate into my own theoretical lexicon, since it makes so much sense:

It is impossible to read Khaled Hosseini’s latest novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, without also considering the monumental popularity of his first novel, The Kite Runner. Published in 2003, The Kite Runner moved to the top of U.S. bestseller lists largely through word of mouth, became a favorite of book clubs and reading groups, and of course now has been adapted to a feature film that seems at once to avoid and to exemplify the hallmarks of a Hollywood treatment: the film employs, for example, a cast of unknown Afghan and Iranian actors but, in the style of a Hollywood epic, oversimplifies political and historical events as a way to accentuate elements of melodrama and sentimentality.

As with The Kite Runner, Splendid Suns weaves together dramas of personal struggle and regional politics. The novel focuses on two women, Mariam and Laila, and the staggering hardships they endure as both domestic and national subjects: in their own families they are marginalized as daughters and wives, and in the public sphere they act as signifiers of national identity for the Soviets, the Mujahideen, and the Taliban (the novel offers a more favorable portrait of gender equality under the Soviets, but also shows that Soviet forces, following a common strategy of colonial rhetoric, invoke gender politics as a way to defend the legitimacy of their expansion in the region).

Mariam is the daughter of a wealthy businessman in Herat who, seeking to placate his three wives by sparing the family the shaming presence of an illegitimate child, arranges Mariam’s marriage to a shoemaker in distant Kabul. The suitor, Rasheed, forces Mariam to wear a burqa—because “a woman’s face is her husband’s business only”--and lashes out viciously when she proves unable to fulfill his idealized expectations for a proper wife.

The story of Laila, a neighbor of Mariam’s, initially appears to offer a somewhat hopeful contrast to the depiction of Mariam’s conjugal incarceration. As a modern girl in Kabul, we follow her on adventures that resonate with Marjane Satrapi’s portrayal in Persepolis of a child coming of age in a city claimed by multiple political factions and constantly under siege (in Satrapi’s case, Tehran in the 1980s). Laila’s father encourages her independence and stresses the importance of education; that the schoolteacher compels students to espouse their ideological allegiance to the Soviets seems more a minor annoyance than a threat to their autonomy. And although Laila’s mother reinforces the unequal valuation of sons and daughters by neglecting Laila and reserving all of her affection for two sons fighting on the front for, as she sees it, Afghani national pride, with the Mujahideen against the Russians, Laila draws support from a close friend, Tariq, and his cosmopolitan family.

Yet the fighting that ensues after the collapse of the Soviet regime in the 1990s throws her life into turmoil. Through a surprising turn of events, Laila too eventually falls victim to Rasheed’s predations, and from 1992 to the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 she and Mariam do their best to survive in the face of horrific domestic violence and suffocating public restrictions. Through the portrayal of their subjection, we gain a window into the social landscape that materialized for women with the ascent of factional fighting in Kabul and the Taliban’s idiom of Islamization, which proscribed work, travel, and education.

Hosseini has been applauded for humanizing Afghanistan for western audiences and, with Splendid Suns, for bringing to the fore the graphic abuses women have suffered both in Afghanistan and generally as pawns in the muscular politics of nationalism. Yet Hosseini’s work also has been cited by some critics as a prototypical example of “New Orientalism.” This mode of representation, outlined most prominently by Fatemeh Keshavarz (an Iranian literature specialist at Washington University) and Hamid Dabashi (Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University), represents all Muslims as either good or bad. “Good” Muslims are inevitably modern while “bad” ones reflect stereotypes of blind devotion and social and sexual repression. Such representations prove comforting to western audiences because they sidestep history and serve to redeem a western ideal of modernity. Read through the interpretive frame of New Orientalism, we might observe that the only choice available to Mariam and Laila to escape the repressive sexual politics of Islam lies in embracing a familiar mode of cosmopolitan modernity: secular, consumerist, and universal.

These positions—one that celebrates Hosseini’s humanism and one that critiques the absence of historical complexity and calls for respectful representations of cultural difference (rather than affirmations of western modernity)--reflect, in my view, a complex double-bind for many contemporary global writers. Any representation critical of particular national contexts risks being absorbed into political agendas beyond the writer’s control. How does a writer balance the concerns of the local and global? How does one portray the social struggles of women in Afghanistan without also falling into the trap of what postcolonial critics have described as “colonial feminism”—the invocation of women’s rights to justify invasion by an outside power?
Our evaluation of these questions may come down to how we see this problem of “humanizing” Afghanistan. If the writer’s task is to present a picture of Afghanis as “ordinary” people who, contrary to ethnocentric stereotypes, have hopes and dreams and heartbreaks, then Hosseini succeeds in offering a vivid glimpse into an often misunderstood region. Yet if humanizing means expanding our sense of the political and historical determinants that have produced the contested and imagined nation of “Afghanistan,” and challenging readers not to remain in denial about particular aspects of these histories, Splendid Suns perhaps proves less successful. Although the novel excoriates the violence perpetrated by the Soviets, the Mujahideen, and the Taliban, it remains mostly silent on the ways in which these groups were largely enabled by a long history of British colonialism and U.S. interventionism. Only by suppressing this history can cosmopolitan modernity emerge as a triumphant corrective for the violence perpetrated against Mariam and Laila. The story Hosseini tells is moving and indeed full of human drama—sacrifice and courage and pain and loss, as some favorable reviews have said—but the question persists as to whether it does anything to restore suppressed historical memories that might unsettle western audiences, or whether it should.

--Jay

Luxembourg

2008-01-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

A little while ago I asked Tali Sachs, one of our senior English majors, to talk a little about her experience on a summer research scholarship in Luxembourg this past summer. She has graciously complied, with a brief description and a short essay. Give it a look:

This past summer, I had the privilege of making the journey across the Atlantic to serve as a student envoy at U.S. Embassy Luxembourg, as one of Clark University’s Summer Research Scholarship recipients. At the prospect of spending the summer living and working in Europe I was, of course, excited, scared, and most of all, clueless. I had no idea what I would find. As it turns out, I found something that changed my outlook on life drastically. I found an experience that placed me as a foreigner, alone, in an environment that is not so fond of Americans. To make it even more difficult, I was working for my country, a country that I love dearly for its strengths and its ideals, but a country that has a long way to go until it reaches maturity. My experience cemented my dedication to helping this country reach its full potential both within and beyond its borders.
While in Europe I diligently kept a travel journal. Below is the entry written on the most influential day of my entire stay in Luxembourg and the surrounding countries. Being an envoy for the U.S. put me in a rather unique position: I was at home inside the walls of the embassy and a foreigner without. It was my duty, along with everyone else working for the State Department, to promote the United States of America despite our individual opinions of specific issues, policies, and people. For me, specifically, this involved presenting a grand image. I worked for Protocol, which means it was my job to help implement and arrange events welcoming Europeans and to make sure that our ambassador and other diplomats were comfortable reciprocating similar events.
One of these events was the Memorial Day Ceremony, held on Saturday, May 26, 2007. This ceremony put my life both as an American and as a member of the human race into perspective. For the first time I truly understood what it meant to be an American and why Americans are often met with and thought of with disdain by the rest of the world. It was on this day that I understood that loyalty to my country had nothing to do with a politician or a policy, but with the ideals of the country’s foundation. Administrations change, world climates change, every year, every day brings a different opinion. Americans fighting on opposite ends of the spectrum of idealism are just as American as their counterparts. This country’s ability to survive and withstand such opposing opinions is what makes it beautiful and great. It’s what makes me love it more than any other.

May 26, 2007
In Memoriam
I spent the last two days standing over General George S. Patton’s grave. Originally, he was buried like everyone else, among the soldiers, undistinguished from all the other crosses and stars. It was a Luxembourger who was walking among the graves one day and stumbled upon his. She thought it was wrong that he wasn’t given a more, let’s say, “elevated” position in the cemetery. I suppose the government agreed, and so his body was moved to a large memorial just in front of plot B, the first one you’re confronted with upon waking into the graveyard. It’s chained off and on top of it is a quote from General, and later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “All who shall hereafter live in freedom will be here reminded that to these men and their comrades we owe a debt to be paid with grateful remembrance of their sacrifice and with the high resolve that the cause for which they died shall live eternally.” But I think I like the idea of him being among his men better. After all, a soldier is a soldier just like a human is a human and we’re all in it together. I find it ironic that he didn’t die the way I think he would have liked, and also, just a day before he was meant to go home to America. A truck took him out on a leisure trip, shooting pheasants and not men.
Surprisingly, this memorial service actually moved me to tears. I guess it’s because I was standing on liberated ground, something Americans don’t ever get to do if we don’t leave our little bubble of the New World. The Battle of the Bulge was fought here and there are five thousand American graves to show for it, veterans to remember it, and millions of grateful Europeans who lived through it and millions more who were born afterwards who somehow take their freedom much less for granted than the kin of those who allowed that freedom to be. Thinking about it, I know why I was so moved. It’s because we do take it for granted despite our rhetoric. “Freedom” has become a word used so much in American society that we have desensitized ourselves to what it actually means, and in doing so we have lost sight of creating and maintaining a reality of that freedom. Sadly, I feel, we are letting it slip away under the false pretense of itself, or rather, what it has become. We have let it slip away by our apathy, and by our extreme ability to pretend that everything is wonderful when the world is anything but.
We have to wake up. As a nation. Because the world does not love us. We’re juveniles and it’s not our fault. We’re young, not 231 years old. In the face of nations, we’re infants, so how can we be expected as a society to have that maturity? We’re still in the blissful fantasy of childhood but the world, as always, comes upon us quickly and we try to ignore it for as long as we can, unfortunately waiting too long. Perhaps we will learn from our mistakes.
That graveyard, like any in its league is not only one of soldiers, but of a dying American Dream. That may be revived if we realize that we are not separate from the world but a part of it and that the oceans on either side of us are not as wide as they used to be. I love that Dream and I want it. I want to own it and see it realized again and again and again. I want to run my fingers over the embroidered stars of our flag and I want that flag to stand for a country that exists and a country that I love in all ways, in both idea and in reality. I want people to understand that love of soldiers need not be support of a war, and that love of country need not be love of its current administration.
I stood in the sun too long but it was worth it. For the honor of those fallen soldiers, of ones not fallen, and of ones to come, I am willing to give up a little skin while they have given up so much more for me and for you.

--Jay

We're B-a-a-a-ck!

2008-01-19T15:29:00.000-08:00

So, we've been back for a week now, and I hope everyone has the classes they want (or need). We're set for the beginning of the new semester, now that the Dog Days of December are behind us: the daylight is getting a little longer day by day (though one couldn't really tell, given all the snow we've had). I'm hoping to post more regularly, now that my semester is set; and I'm anticipating a number of other participants in the blog: I've been cajoling both students and faculty to submit some good and intriguing stuff (photos delightfully accepted!). Again, let me encourage all of you who might access the blog to comment or get in touch with me (jelliott@clarku.edu) if you want me to post anything for you.

In the meantime, Dania, here's a few more web-speaks for you:

IMO: In my opinion

IMHO: In my humble opinion

btw: (too obvious: by the way)

GBCW: Goodbye Cruel World [in other words, you all can take your blog and stuff it!]

OTOH: On the other hand [curiously, "on the one hand" is exactly the same, so one doesn't see it in blogs!]

Time to go ponder the primaries on CNN. . . .

--Jay

lmao

2008-01-06T19:57:00.000-08:00

Sup?

Every holiday season when I don't read or write enough and am instead bombarded by cyber mumbo jumbo, I am led to consider the short and long term effects of cyber literacy. In fact, I am increasingly feeling I cannot keep up with the fast pace and unpredictability of this world. Maybe I am getting old but when I recently had to ask a friend of mine what "Lmao"*, "rofl" and "Lmfao"* meant- after putting off asking out of pride- I knew I was losing it, the 'it' I had back in high school. Yet here I am blogging, though I was never a journal-writing, diary-confiding type o' gal.

When Walter Ong suggested that literacy restructures consciousness, he had a point. Subsequent to my cyber literacy I have had to think harder to spell things correctly while using pen and pape, and that's just one case in point. I am inclined to drop my 'g's at the end of words like chillin, goin, doin which is so not kool, sorry cool. Ong argued that knowledge of writing affects expression, but that the reverse also occurs. Writing helps organize thoughts prior to putting them on paper and in ways that orality alone supposedly didn't/doesn't. While not implying some inherent superiority to literacy over orality, especially since the latter preceded the former, I buy into Ong's general thesis. My cyber literacy- while largely empowering, educational, furturist (yadayadayada) and just really kinda kool- may be the enemy of my good old reading and writing skills. I am not sure I should just sit back and lmfao* while that happens.

For the primitive like me, a KEY:
*lmao- laugh/laughing my ass off
*lmfao- laugh/laughing my fat ass off
*rofl- rolling on floor laughing
lol- laugh/laughing out loud
sup- what's up?

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-22T14:49:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've been able to post--the dog days of December, however, seem to have slipped by; and since Winter Solstice was last night, the days will begin getting longer. Finals are over, papers submitted, and recommendations written, students dispersed to various homes and domiciles--but I won't say anything about grading yet, since they aren't due until January 2nd, and that's work yet to be done. It's Christmas break, and for all of us, I'm sure, a welcome time.

In fact, the purpose of this post is to wish all of you who might read this English department blog a marvelous and fruitful Holiday season!

And what better to celebrate than to offer photos from our very own Wassail party, held on the day after classes were over!

First, the goodies arrayed on one of the tables, and below, our esteemed chair, Ginger, tempting us to partake--at the other table.

Terri and I are trying to get everyone into the spirit of the season. . . .

And while Emily, Matt and Chelsea seem to be responding,

Lou appears to be doing his best "Bah, Humbug" impression!

Ah, the milling crowds, presaging the crush of shoppers and revelers to come. . . .

And, finally, Steve, with me and Ginger--representing the new and the old. . . .

Have a great break, everyone, and we'll see you on January 14th! (or shortly thereafter?)

-Jay

Sticks and Stones may Break my Bones, but Words?

2007-12-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

"i aint seen no poems stop a .38
i aint seen no metaphors stop a tank"
- "Two Poems", Haki Madhubuti

Somewhere between reading poetry from the Black Arts Movement and Marx's Communist Manifesto, I have found myself perturbed by the question (yet again): "What do words DO?" It bothers me that as a student of literature I should ask so simplistic a question. I feel such a concern would more likely hail from the minds of the simplistic, the myopic, the avaricious capitalist. I, for more reasons than one, should know first-hand what words can do. Words have been at the root of many revolutions, political decisions and perspective transformations. Words hurt and heal, sting and soothe, yadayadayada. I know the effect of a brilliant writer who effortlessly moves a reader to tears or has one bursting into fits of laughter.

Still, outside of cliche answers like the aforementioned, of what real 'use' is reading the great words of those writers valourized by the canon? In an age decidedly and inadvertently affected by capitalism, what is the market value of literary words? Of all the pleasures I have experienced from studying literature, the one I most value is the ability to critically analyze people and, more often than not, predict behaviour. Now I don't need and economist or market analyst to tell me how understanding people can bring in big bucks. That's the point on which all successful advertising pivots: the understanding of people, what drives and satisfies them.

Francis Bacon in his essay "Of Studies" says "Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business." The efficacy of literary works are oft limited to the provision of delight and the display of wit for wit's sake. How tangibly do literary words boast the 'ability' aspect? Bacon's statement implies the underlying assumption that mere words as entity are somewhat inactive; their ability is proven in the disposition of business. What good does reveling in similies and synecdoches do in and of themselves? Must we always apply the skills this reveling gives us in order for the words to have value? Since when did value need validation from the materialist? Perhaps delight and ornamental attributes are good enough. After all, money is sought only to satisfy human desires (whether it is making another smile, launching a bomb, wreaking unfounded havoc or inflicting pleasurable pain). It has no implicit value. If hyperbole and onomatopoeia cut right to the chase, great!

The Dog Days of December

2007-11-26T08:00:00.000-08:00

Whew! here it is November 26th, and this is only the second post this month. Perhaps that's because these are the days of deep semester: when papers pile up on instructors' desks, and assignments accumulate on students' lap-tops. These are the days of deep semester, when classes begin to run their course, and the combination of Christmas Musak and final papers churn the mind to muck--the Dog Days of the semester, when December looms. I get up in darkness and lie down in darkness, a pale dawn and a too-sudden twilight book-ending the daylight of teaching. Thankfully, we had Thanksgiving recess, during which we try to push off the anxiety of studying, writing, grading a few days, at least.
Mine was marvelously magnificent; I was able to enjoy the days immensely. Perhaps the advantage of age is the cultivated ability to live easily despite the threat that I need the time to "catch up" over the break. Or maybe it's just successful denial. Who knows?
Anyway, I thought I'd ruminate a bit about our company on Thanksgiving, or rather (geneologists, beware! here comes a conundrum) my step-daughter's half-brother Adam. Yes, my step-daughter could visit with both her step-brother and her half-brother together on Thanksgiving night, and was delighted, as were we.
My point, though, is that Adam is an English Major from WashU (St. Louis), class of '06, who was regaling us with his professional stories. Yes, English Majors, there is hope! Having journeyed to D.C. and taking a grunt desk job at MSNBC (recommended by a college friend) answering phones and e-filing, he interviewed with them for a position as political correspondent and was one of eight hired for the current Primary campaign season. He credits not only his writing experience, but his taking an internship at a local St. Louis radio station, where he got acquainted with the skills of deadline writing and interviewing. (And his minor was Psychology, not Journalism!) He's having quite the time traveling between Iowa and New Hampshire, having been embedded with the Fred Thompson campaign, of all people. (The reason he could join us was because NBC was flying him from the mid-west to the north-east, and he had no place to go on the intervening day.) He's glad that Fred finally recognizes him--for six weeks Adam was apparently considered by the candidate an extremely loyal camp follower ("Good to see you again; what was the name?").
He likens the stump speech (as a kind of verbal essay) to stand-up comedy routines: the framework is the same, but there are slightly new or changed sentences to appeal to the particular demographics at a particular location; these are cycled into and out of the stump speech as needed. So what he's on the look-out for is the significantly altered sentence that may signal a change or revelation of policy: what did Fred say about Fox News yesterday? Here's a link to a DailyKos story that cites his column; here's another to MSNBC's FIRSTREAD, where his column appears (Scroll down; if you don't find him, search for Adam Aigner-Treworgy in the search window at the top right of the page).
So much for my inspirational story concerning my Thanksgiving; perhaps later I'll review the first two films I've seen in the theater for the last year. . . .
--Jay

Here We All Are. . . .

2007-11-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

At the English Department retreat on Saturday, October 27th, Alden, Ginger's husband, snapped this group photo of all the full-time members of the department. In the front are Lisa Kasmer, Ginger Vaughan, and Betsy Huang. Left to right in back are Jay Elliott, Fern Johnson, SunHee Gertz, Meredith Neuman, Winston Napier, and Steve Levin.
We conducted some good business--lots of consensus, which one might say is rare in academia these days! In any case, maybe this will help you put faces to the names in the course catalogue. Cheers!

--Jay

Chowdahfest!

2007-10-26T16:11:00.001-07:00

Yes, the Chowdahfest was a week ago, and I seem to be slipping into the habit of posting about an event a week after it occurs. Ech! some of my students might say I'm breaking my own records by letting as little as a week slip by; witness how "fast" I get papers back! In any case, this is a festive celebration that has become an English Department tradition for some years now: inviting English Major alums, in conjunction with Clark's Alumni-In-Residence event, to come by and talk to the current undergrads and grad students about "life after the English Major"; or, "How Lit-ter-chure Prepared Me for Life." For me, it's wonderfully satisfying, since usually at least one of them is an old advisee, and I get to keep in touch.

Our guests on Friday were (from left to right below) Heidi Gitelman '80, Betsy Hopkins '97, and Jennifer C. Smith '95. Betsy was my advisee this time, and she reminded me that I had cobbled together a double major for her in English and Theater Arts; the aging synapses controlling memory being what they are, my response was, "I did? I must have known then what I don't know now."

They all mentioned in various ways how the emphases on research, analysis and writing connected with the English major had given them invaluable experience in managing and assessing all kinds of diverse data--interactive television documentaries for Heidi; IT for Betsy; Education Programs Manager at Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island for Jennifer (and these are only the most recent manifestations of many career moves for each of them)--but in the question-and-answer session afterwards I suggested that they had foregrounded yet another facet of English study that I hadn't realized in previous Chowdahfests. Threaded through all their employment sagas was a celebration of a deep acquaintance and proven ability to work with narrative: the familiarity with narrative essential to an English major was common to each; their work was successful because they could tell stories and listen to them as well. Wildly various stories, true--from documentaries to IT programmatic narratives to organizational stories to qualify for grant funding--but stories nonetheless. Honest stories, with character and plot; not little fibs or grand confabulations (which seem to be the narratives du jour of our current national political scene), but narratives shaped by and shaping the parameters and direction of their work. Hey, I thought, that's a recommendation for the major I'll gladly support!

So the chowdah was good, the conversation was better, and I hope everyone who attended found something to take away--besides leftover cookies, that is.

--Jay

Blogs of Interest. . . .

2007-10-22T08:04:00.000-07:00

For a couple of weeks now I've been meaning to post the links to two student blogs that I think show how Clarkies can take advantage of this medium. The first is Lana Petersson's from her semester abroad last spring in Mexico; she's back this year as a senior doing an Honors Thesis, which is a short novel based on some of the experiences she posted. In other words, her blogging is furnishing material for her fiction: neat trick, no? Many authors--virtually all those who have become media-savvy--create web sites for their published works, but an increasing number have been using their posts as "rough drafts" for their books (here's my friend and blog mentor Stephanie, for example)--mostly non-fiction, but some fiction as well. Writers like Lana find that this inverted process--from blog to book--bears tasty fruit.

The other blog is Susan Monroe's Sweet As; she graduated in '05, and chronicles her years since then in New Zealand and Antarctica, as well as this past summer in the Rockies. She's intrigued by travel writing, and the blog offers a tremendous opportunity to try out her descriptive capabilities as well as develop a traveling persona.

All you people who want to write: take a lesson from all three of these writers, and practice, practice, practice! A blog is an ideal place to do it!

--Jay

Update: I forgot to add that all three blogs have wealths of photos--displayed in various formats. That, says Stephanie, is one of the primary requirements for a successful blog.

Questions of Faith

2007-10-17T13:05:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday, the 10th, I delayed my drive home to attend the "spoken word chorus" called "Questions of Faith," part of the Difficult Dialogues program and organized and coordinated by the Department's Meredith Neuman. It was most impressive, and one of the best things about it was that the script was co-written, along with Meredith, by two of our senior English Majors: Ayaan Agane on the left, and Heather Cenedella on the right. Kudos to them!

The program consisted of four sections, with four Clark actors--Christopher Church, Lee Gaines, Kate Rafey, and Zo Tobi--performing a variety of voices and perspectives drawn from one-on-one interviews with Clark students talking about their "experiences with issues of faith and religion on campus" (Program Notes).

I thought the rhythms of the interwoven voices established a richness that was stunning. All beliefs, from fundamentalist to dogged atheist, counterpointed each other. In fact, one of the best features, to my mind, was a "fugue": the four voices spoke over, around and past each other citing different ceremonial practices and positions to weave a tapestry of sound, in which meaning was subservient to the punctuated sound itself. I knew people were speaking, but I could not understand any one of them alone within the rise and fall of musical speech. The effect was vertiginous, but movingly similar to what the "gift of tongues" must sound like. Marvelous experience; and I hear that the whole thing was videotaped as well. Double marvelous.

Thank you, Meredith. And Ayaan and Heather: quite the sense of verbal artitecture! Bravo!

--Jay

Response to Zach's Response to Difference/Differance

2007-10-10T16:32:00.001-07:00

ZB,

I just knew you would jump in in defence of Derrida. Haha! I saw merit in Derrida's argument for difference. I simply pointed out the complexity involved in conceptualizing and applying the same. I suggest that Derrida's argument seems to gloss over the politics often involved in ascribing difference whether on a micro/macro linguistic level or within larger varied cultures and communities. I argue for difference-- be not mistaken-- but just that centres and margins are not necessarily as arbitrary as the undertones of Derrida's argument imply. I still maintain that hegemonies and politics nuance what is centre and what is marginalized.

On the matter of your "slight rebuttal":-), I was not suggesting that sameness be privileged over difference. I know that difference defines all aspects of our existence, linguistic and otherwise. My reference to sameness was one highlighting pattern formation in learning. Learning is about making links, forming patterns as much as it is about making distinctions and finding the loopholes in those patterns. I did say that eventually it is difference which has baby grasp the concept. That what is different must validate itself to baby is not necessarily due to the dangers of grouping as you imply but to the dangers of assuming that what came first is the essential centre and what is being added is inferior 'other'. Indeed, grouping and homogenizing concepts whether in learning or identity formation is as you insinuate, sloppy and lazy thinking which, even for the lethargic, is not always practical.

The very processes of differentiation in involve pattern formation which invariably tap into some level of 'sameness' before difference...although I am not even sure whether chronology is essential to my original argument. Still, you rebut my argument by first agreeing upon the central text of interrogation- Derridian differance. That being established as one fundamental commonality between us (along with the linguistic and discursive tools of interpretation which we also share), you could then express (with your usual eloquence) the points of difference between our perspectives. I don't doubt that difference may indeed preexist verisimilitude...when it comes to perceiving and expressing this, the latter takes preeminence. How could I have seen your argument as different is we did not share a common ground from which to differ? Baby sees human beings before gender; teaching baby "mom" and "dad" is one way parents help create necessary difference in the world of the child.

All in all, I only implore us to consider agenda that may be at work (though not necessarily) in the complex world of differance. I reiterate that it is not simply a continuum of differences, there are centres and margins, invariably affected by specifically what is deemed 'centre' and margin and by whom.

The Failure of Theory/Philosophy

2007-10-09T06:26:00.000-07:00

In response to the recent discussion on Derrida, "differance," and literary theory, I would like to bring up a point of serious contention for me, and that is the language within theory/philosophy. To start off, I would like to quote a favorite author of mine on the topic. His name is Terry Goodkind, and I'm sure some of you have heard of him (he writes fantasy mainly). I have changed some of the wording to make it a bit clearer on how I see this to be relevant.

"When you read about [theory or philosophy] it’s crucially important to keep in mind that those who try to make it so complex as to be impenetrable to the “lay mind” have a motive for clouding their views: those views won’t stand up to the light of reason...Some [theorists or philosophers] use big words [or abstract concepts] to try to make their beliefs sound scholarly and important or, worse, to hide the fact that their beliefs don’t make any sense. [One should not] ever allow such people to bully you with their attempts to make philosophy impossibly complex, or intimidate you into accepting what they say."

Bearing this in mind, why is it that some theorists or philosophers are quite clear and succinct in their explanation, where others fail so miserably? Derrida in my opinion is arguably one of the most confusing theorists to read, and yet so much of post-structuralist thought stems from his ideas of differance, and Saussure's signifier and signified. The purpose of language is to be understood and to communicate one's ideas. If your thesis isn't clear in a paper, or your professor does not understand what you are talking about, your grade suffers. If a politician stands up in a debate or conference, and, like Kerry, "bungles" a joke or a concept, serious negative response can, and likely will, follow. Where do theorists fit in with this? It seems to me that somehow they escape the necessity for clarity in writing. Why?

I think perhaps Goodkind may be on to something, when he suggests that theorists and philosophers can't make themselves clear and use complex concepts to hide what will not hold up. I don't know that it is necessarily true that a theorist would do this deliberately (at least I would hope not!), but I do think there is a reason behind this obfuscation. It may suggest that the theorist himself does not fully understand the concept he is supposed to be enlightened with! If he is not able to explain it clearly, what is the point in suggesting it at all? I would much rather have a theorist admit that it is difficult to explain such a concept, and then concede that the best way he can think of to explain it is by some example. Instead, you have some theorists/philosophers who continue on in their discussion as though it were the most clear and apparent thing in the world. This cavalier attitude allows the theorist/philosopher an "untouchable" status--if one does not understand the concept, then one must be unenlightened or unable to understand it--and almost puts the blame on the reader, instead of the writer, for failing to comprehend the theory.

"Well, that's all great and everything, Steve, but what are you suggesting?"
I'd say that the best way to continue exploring theory and criticism is to just go with what you understand, or the parts that we understand. If we are unable to grasp a concept purported by a theorist/philosopher, the blame is most honestly placed at the feet of the "expressor", not the reader. I think of it this way--if subscribers to a particular school have a hard time explaining a topic advocated by the founder, it probably wasn't that clear or well explained. We can only do our best, take what we can get from it, and then move on to the next bit. After all, if Derrida can take a concept from Saussure and use it in a way that makes it his own, we can do the same with what we do understand.

Response to Dania’s Blog: Libérairance and the Coincident Tyranny of “Versimiltude” and the Modern University Bookstore

2007-10-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

Response to Dania’s Blog: Libérairance and the Coincident Tyranny of “Versimiltude” and the Modern University Bookstore

Great Blog, but I have to rebut as a fan of the man. There is a general caveat that I believe should be given with all post-structuralist and (dare I say it) post-post-structuralist thought: we need to keep in mind that différance, like any philosophical conceit, is merely a means (just as traditional dialectical thought was prior to the emergence of différance) of reaching an ends (perhaps a better understanding of the world around us). Lawyers need not agree with Socrates’ vision of “essence” to appropriate his basic argumentative tactic. However, it is also important to remember that through Derrida’s exploration of differential philosophy (as it was explored by previous metaphysicians like Freud, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and FFS Anaximander) we are given access to a verbal toolbox that allows us to view the very idea of a naturalized “core” to linguistic and social intercourse, by which deviant aesthetic and deviant practice is measured as non-approximate and therefore vitiated with its “otherness,” as something that is as contrived as all of the reality shows that emerged in the wake of CBS’s “Survivor.” Concepts of “otherness” didn’t exist (at least in such a vital and robust form as we know it now) in intellectual debate and practice prior to “Structure, Sign and Play,” where Derrida’s systematic deconstruction of the totalizing myths of western metaphysics allows us to begin questioning the idea of a preordained or axiomatic element that pervades, defines, and transcends linguistic and social structure by some divine right of selfsameness or sameness with divinity. This is not to discount prior theory as less than, but see it as something that is not as microscopic and replete in its exploration. Also, this is not to discount later constructionist theory as a concomitant phenomenon or even derivative mode that deserves less attention, but to see it in its modern, post-Derrida form –where it may use differential logic and deconstruction to undermine insidious thought— as a product at the skeletal level of the decenterization of western metaphysics.

Différance is (and here we go) a libérairance (conjunction of the French libérer – to free someone and the French word libraire – a bookseller), a term which I have just now invented and will use to define the simultaneous state being liberated from the mire of sameness and stodgy white, western thought, while at the same time being sold a clutch of really expensive literature theory books based on the same idea that was supposed to free us. Thus there are two reasons to embrace différance; it frees us to look at the world and celebrate difference (though we must navigate it with a modicum of social responsibility), and it keeps me/you/us in business as students of literary theory (though I/you/we must purchase cartloads of books to prove this).

But in all seriousness, let me preface the body of this response by saying that “sameness” grates against my ears, not only because sibilance has always bothered me (it is associated with the devil after all because it is the “same” sound that snakes make) but that conceptually we “know” it is pernicious in its de facto ramifications. Prejudice in all of its forms is based entirely on the concept of verisimilitude, for without a clear cut (although shifting to suit the needs of the present) notion of what we should look for, we would not know what to rail against. I understand that part of this is difference, but what Derrida allows us to do is not deconstruct the difference between the center and structure, but deconstruct the underlying notion that everything is different, but the center. Prejudice, the painful part of noticing differences, can only exist if you undermine the operating concept of essential difference between two individuals by claiming the unity of their respective groups. By destabilizing this center, the one part that exists apart from difference by pointing out its différance, we can make moves toward what we see as ethical progress.

So to continue, “we” are not all the “same.” Take a ride on the subway, or visit the supermarket to see that. Physiologically I may have much in common with most people, but at the same rate I am only 1.4 percent less similar to a chimpanzee than I am to my neighbor—some of you might argue that I am closer to the chimp but we’ll leave that to next week’s blog, which is tentatively titled “A Graduate English department Referendum on Zach, or The Search for the Missing Link at Clark University.” So given the 0.1 percent divergent DNA in each person, and given the general propensity of two people to never agree about which song or station the radio should be tuned to, I can say that we are all “others.” Case in point, I am not even the same as the “other” privileged western, white, middle class fellow who lives next door. I am better looking, smarter, I know I am a better cook, I have an acumen for interior decoration that he does not have, and my football team is far superior (I happen to believe there may be a Raiders fan housed in the next building, unless of course has very poor fashion taste, in which case I also have a better sense of fashion). And in that notion, I loathe the fact that my appearance and mannerism could be used to describe a totalizing aesthetic that posits me as the reference point to which other cultures are differentiated and described. However, part of this (allow the center to exist free from critique, to exist as a naturalized object) is praxis of exclusion made possible by metaphysical notions of the sameness between me and the other people that share common traits.

We are talking about an unjustly time-honored tradition of collecting, categorizing and then collating individuals based (yes in part on difference but) on the “sameness” between the central tradition, its players and its myths, through which difference between the exterior, alien or “other” tradition is engaged and used as a mirror of non-equivalence. That mirror is a picture frame within which exists only a totalized fiction, and aesthetic used to ascribe virtue, and define deceit on its most basic (read intrinsic core of person as virtue or vice) and eventually its extrapolated apparition (intelligent, brave, devoted, fill in the blank with other good civil virtues) while leaving scraps (like secondary virtues that berth from stereotypical image of the “other,” and which always function as a group of marginal talents unnecessary to succeed in the western hemisphere) to the world that exists apart geographically, linguistically, and aesthetically. Hitler asked for verisimilitude, so doesn’t Plato in the “Republic.” We all know what that means.

Moreover, I would argue while “alterity” can be painful, it isn’t necessarily so (at least I would hope not), I know that concepts of verisimilitude are painful (square hole round peg) to all who do not fit the basic criterion. Through verisimilitude I could be linked to Jerry Falwell, George Bush, the Backstreet Boys, and the inventors of fast-food, parachute pants, and the automated telephone answering system. This would be unfair. I certainly celebrate my difference with these characters.

But I love difference and différance. While part of this is rooted in my general self-loathing, the other part is rooted in the idea that realizing and getting over differences has always been a source of serendipity and growth in my life. Without realizing what makes other people unique, I cannot realize what makes me unique. If I look only for sameness, I cannot appreciate life-experience that emerges from without, from “other” people I meet, who exist on the periphery of my personal traditions. If I viewed myself as the undisputed center, and then sought out people that met these criteria I would be a very bored fellow. I would also suggest, that at the philosophical level getting over différance, realizing it is merely a concept for destabilizing untruth rather than a reductive force dissolving language and meaning (and thereby liquidating ethics and morals) into a shapeless and ineffectual liqueur in the crucible of social thought.

On another level entirely, différance keeps me in business, for using the concepts of différance in an essay can account for several pages of literal and figurative word wrangling. It also provides a great center of debate whereby (hopefully) the English departments of the future can continue to feed, and I hope to be there working toward tenure.

And now on to a slight rebuttal. Stating that people learn through sameness is (if we deconstruct the notion) the same as saying people learn through difference. Although baby may need to validate difference through sameness, this is only because of the accumulation of knowledge, and the general need to group, which as I outlined can be very dangerous. Needing to “validate” difference is in and of itself and act of pre-judging an object against a ready defined aesthetic or idea. Thankfully I don’t think this is a necessary or even natural mode of thought, but just a convenient mode of thought. Indeed, while it is easy to move through life grouping like concepts, to accurately tease meaning from something we need to analyze or “To take to pieces; to separate, distinguish, or ascertain the elements of anything complex.” Additionally, it is instincit of the highest order seek difference in difficulty. Just touching on Freud’s notion of “splitting” bears this out. That which is difficult (I would argue impossible) to comprehend in false unity is necessarily divided into constituent elements. Splitting is not an easy process, for the act of distinguishing is more difficult because it requires attention to elements of an object which are unique and not identifiable within the other. It is a last ditch effort to learn something about a concept that is irreducible. To push this idea I will show several more primordial (if you will allow me to misapprehend the roots, and substitute the real Latin meaning of “first thing” with a logic that would assume it can also mean “something that predates order”) acts of learning that involve difference, thus showing how difference preexists verisimilitude.

Part of identity formation is difference, and this is good. If children naturally assumed that everything they see is the "exact" same as themselves—that is learning in the first instance through sameness— they would lead a long and confusing life, but I believe that baby’s initial assumption is that they are different. That is to say, the very first sensory acts involve the recognition that there is [an]other world out there, that is not the self. The eyes open, the ears hurt, the worlds floods in to baby’s life, and hopefully baby cries in a first attempt to communicate with a world that is now necessarily outside and different from baby. Thus, existence itself is an act of differentiating.

If we extend this idea, the first words from baby’s mouth will typically be “Mom” or “Dad.” It is arguably one the first of many chaotic differences a baby encounters, but it is healthy and natural. In that utterance we see inscribed a recognition that binaries and differences do exist on some level (at least if you are not an amoeba), and that part of life is getting over the idea that the other gender has cooties. To continue, the idea of “Mom and Dad,” shares a conjunction, which implies that despite their difference they found a way to get together and bring a new life into the world. In most cases I think this is a good thing, and at the most optimistic it starts life off on the right foot.

Any knowledge acquisition that involves ordering of things based on similarities is not primordial. Order only exists within an order that was itself “constructed” by baby, sometimes through the assistance of others, and thus this order is artificial, and when conceptual clarity is needed the natural mode would be to revert to the first means of acquisition which the search for difference. Verisimilitude (prefect unity) exists outside nature, where even on the atomic level things move in binaries, or at least in moments of difference between things that push beyond binaries, procreative acts (existence as a species) rely on recognition of the differences between the sexes, and the longevity of a species is threatened by a lack of genetic variation.
Now we revisit the brief preface of my little narrative here where I mention that that deconstructive thought should be used responsibly and viewed positively. We can view the definition by difference negatively, where it is merely a means of creating an irreducible concept of language and philosophy, or we can see it as a constructive mode of thought where the individual can be realized. We can choose to look at the parents as a normative model of heterosexual social relation, or we can look at it as the decisive moment where baby learns that differences can be overcome, people can work together to create and people that are the different at the most fundamental level can do some wonderful things when they work together. Moreover, even though Freud would say that through differentiation that baby will eventually form his/her concept of self by identifying with the parent of same gender and contrasting with the parent of differing gender, I like to think of it as cardinal moment where the baby can realize that no two things are the same and that life is full of different ways of forging oneself into an individual. There are no roadmaps, just infinite options.

Lastly, as far as différance the term, part of différance is about change from the previous tradition. So in that notion I added it to my Microsoft Word ™ dictionary, and now spell check will even pick it up if I miss the accent aigu. Whoops, I just had to add aigu. I wonder if French grammar exists. :-) So perhaps there is a lesson here about center and alterity? Word ™ is the center, it is marketed first and best for the English speaking world, and the only francophone terms available for verification (that is to say, we now know they operate outside of our circuit) would be terms that have been previously anglicized or have at the very least found their way into the popular lexicon as idiom or descriptor. Yes, I think it is hegemonic exclusion, for my dictionary readily accepts ‘apologia’ and ‘Cartesian’ among other key terms; so, perhaps there is some exclusion happening here. And on that note, I need to contact that OED so that they can stop discriminating against my term libérairance, and put its true meaning into action by including it in their wonderful book. While they are at it, they could practice its concept by including a comprehensive integrated thesaurus so we can follow chains of signification through synonymic and antonymic function, add a pejorative definition for “sameness” and all related terms, and then drop the retail price of the dictionary to the cost of the material and labor only thus signifying the closure of the practice of making graduate students and undergrads alike pay exorbitant fees for trifles of paper and thought.

Derrida's Differance with a Difference

2007-10-05T15:12:00.000-07:00

Dania has kindly accepted my invitation to post one of her journals for Contemporary Literary Theory. It should be fun for you guys trying to make sense of the mad, mad, mad, mad world of deconstruction, and I'd like to see others post some of their reactions through the comments. As the blog begins to proliferate through the English Department, I'll be sending "invitations" to others to post as authors. Cheerio!
--Thanks, Dania!

-- Jay

So Derrida, since this is a blog, I am allowed to take you personally and express my discomfort with your brilliant theory of differance which, by the way, my computer keeps changing to ‘difference’. And why would it change it to difference over and over again when it is you of whom we speak, and therefore 'differance' should be accepted? Well, because as you have pointed out, spellcheck does not see differance’s closeness to ‘difference’ but its difference from it. Spellcheck uses the English word ‘difference’ as its reference point, and although (if I am to follow your logic) the standard term is itself fleeting and different from something else, it is, for Microsoft Spellcheck and in this moment that I now use it, the paragon of rightness. Is ‘difference’ still only defined by its difference from ‘differance’? Politics of English dictate otherwise. It dictates that for specific times, purposes and majors (such as mine) one is incorrect and another acceptable, and therein rests the core of my discomfort.

You see Derrida, if we lived in a fair apolitical world, your theory may have been more credible to me. But when you define sameness as difference, alterity as otherness, you begin to lose me. All things being equal, all signs could possibly just be defined by their difference from other signs; that does seem a fair way to level all. However, some things (and I am [maybe fallaciously] extrapolating here) are singled out, ridiculed, and discriminated against for their difference. Difference is not something that is naturally desirable in many contexts, especially when difference could mean discrimination or even death. When difference means otherness, the implications can be horrific, though not always and in varying degrees.
All kinds of variables come into play here. You see, your theory runs the risk of pivoting on the axis of time and not relativity as you had hoped. When my baby sister is learning something new, she forms patterns with what she learnt before that may seem similar to what she is at present required to learn. That, to me, involves sameness before difference. But stay with me here, say it is the new concept’s difference that makes her eventually grasp it; I always have to explain why it is she should accept this new sign when it is so similar to an old one with which she is already familiar. If even momentarily, the new thing must to her validate itself, its difference. It does not naturally get the same respect that the known has already got. If all were implicitly defined by their difference before and despite all other features, why was your brilliantly coined ‘differance’ not readily accepted by my computer? ‘Difference’s’ difference from your ‘differance’ made it bear “the trace”of otherness (278). Your ‘Differance’s’ difference from the standard English ‘difference’ set yours apart as ‘other’ and [therefore] a sign to be shunned, or worse, converted into the ‘correct’. For what its worth, I know you meant 'differance'.

So maybe it is hegemony I should be blaming and not you then, Derrida. You think?

Euclidean Determinations and Beguiling Irregularities

2007-09-29T10:22:00.000-07:00

Watching the Red Sox game and its aftermath on Friday night, I was struck by the appropriateness of a couple of famous comments on the significance of baseball: Bart Giamatti's assertion that "It is designed to break your heart," and the longer, perhaps more apt (for this meditation) suggestion by John Updike that Fenway Park in particular, but, we can conclude, all baseball stadiums in general, offer a "compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities. . . ." Alone of America's major sports, baseball combines the rigid order of the infield structure (90' between the bases, 60'6" from pitcher's mound to the rearward tip of home plate, which is exactly 17" in width) with random outfield distances, foul areas, and distances to the backstop. Such irregularities lead to inconsistencies, marked particularly by the saying in Fenway that "The Wall giveth and the Wall taketh away": a lazy pop fly that happens to arc 310' lands in the first row of the monster seats (cf: Bucky bleepin' Dent), while a crushed line shot that never gets above 50' high ricochets from the wall so quickly that it holds the hitter to a single. In any other park the home-run/easy-fly-out conditions would be reversed. And what's a foul ball out in one park is but a souvenir in another, giving the batter another pitch and possibly keeping a rally going.

But how is this Euclidean symmetrical/Nature asymmetrical combination designed to break your heart? Because, as Giamatti also says, it proceeds along deep rhythms of threes: three strikes, three outs, three times three innings; the only disruption is four, as in a walk. Its apparent symmetry leads us to believe in the possibility of predicting any given situation. For example: the Yankees lead the Orioles by three in the bottom of the ninth, with Mariano Rivera needing but three outs to keep the Yankees in the hunt for at least a tie with the Bosox for the Eastern Division Championship. Case closed. In fact, several of the Bosox regulars shower, dress and are headed home, knowing that they will have to wait until Saturday for the next opportunity to clinch. The Orioles, after all, are a team at the nadir of their season, having fallen into an inability to pitch, field or hit, particularly in the second half of the season against the Yankees. Yet, against the historically best closer in the major leagues, the Orioles load the bases; with two outs, a triple clears them and: tie game.

Go to the tenth, when the symmetry/asymmetry of baseball plays amazing tricks on our expectations. Jeter leads off with a double, is sacrificed to third. One out, lead run on third. The basic baseball strategy is to walk the bases loaded in order to provide force outs at all bases, which the Orioles do. Now any fly ball, base hit, error or other anomaly will score the lead run. Molina, the catcher, in the game only because Posada (having his best offensive season ever) has been rested, given the insurmountable Yankee lead. He fouls out to the first baseman (a ball that is in the stands in Fenway, merely the second out at Camden Yards), bringing up Giambi. Menacing, grimacing, the veritable image of brute force, he seems the very embodiment of Euclidean order and certainty. But he's jammed, and hits a little fly ball to left. No runs; the strategy has worked.
Now the bottom of the tenth: Redmond doubles with one out, takes third on a wild pitch. One out, winning run on third. The Yankees employ exactly the same strategy as was practiced on them, and walk the bases loaded. Kevin Millar is up: more symmetry. Millar, who with the Bosox in '04 was the Cowboy-Up guy; one of the most verbal members of a team that dismembered the Yankees with four straight in the ACLS after falling behind 3-0, a comeback unprecedented in playoff history, Millar, who eats up fastballs as greedily as Giambi. Wouldn't it be grand and fitting, say all the fans still waiting in Fenway, watching this distant game on the Jumbotron high above center field, wouldn't it be absolutely appropriate for Millar to drive in the run that clinches the title for his old team? Millar watches a change-up split the plate for called strike three, perhaps the most heinous sin for any batter: to keep the bat on his shoulder with the winning run on third and less than two out. A swinging strike: OK, you tried. But a Called Third Strike? Melvin Mora up, who has the longest tenure with the team of any present Oriole. Physically the antithesis of Giambi, but at bat under exactly the same conditions. With the infield playing back to gobble up any ground ball and find a force at any base, he bunts. Totally unexpected, totally asymmetrical: this play is against all sane baseball strategy. But because the third baseman is playing so deep, all he can do is dash in, pick up the ball in his bare hand, and walk dejected past the third base line towards the dugout. Game over, Bosox clinch, fans in Fenway, who have been waiting for over an hour, shriek with delight, champagne corks pop, madness descends.

So under identical conditions in the tenth inning, the clearly superior team and batter fail the demands of symmetry, while the down and dogged team and batter spectacularly succeed, with an anomalous phenomenon perfectly executed. Baseball leads us to expect symmetry, but in its closest moments, surprises us with a beguiling irregularity. If you were a Yankee fan, that broke your heart. If you were Red Sox fans, it filled the heart with mindless joy as celebratory as the fizzed champagne that the players showered on them. We wait for these beguiling irregularities, these asymmetries, and delight or despair in them. Is there symmetry now in the reversal of the 86 World Series, in that the Bosox have won the Eastern Division Championship where the Mets have collapsed in the National League East as catastrophically as the ground ball to Buckner? It depends on our loyalties. For Red Sox and Yankee fans, at least, summer will last a while longer. But beware, both, of hope congealing into expectation, for baseball is designed to break your hearts with its beguiling irregularities.

Over the Notch to Mt. Holyoke. . . .

2007-09-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday night I went with several other people to hear Susan Cheever talk at Mt. Holyoke College. The weather was perfect, the drive gracious and chatty, and Cheever was funny, open, and entertaining. Afterwards, I held up her book-signing line while we chatted a bit about her most recent book, American Bloomsbury. I only had a chance to glance at it, but it seems to be in the mode of popularization fiction--that is, biography in the hands of a novelist. In fact, you could call it a group biography, which Susan did: she was fascinated, she said, with the shifting and complex relationships surrounding the Transcendentalists of Concord--Emerson, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, the Hawthornes, and particularly the elder Alcotts and their ungovernable brood, including, of course, Louisa May. It's just out in paperback last week, and I wonder if any of you have noticed it; it does sound like a fun background read (and Cheever is a pretty good researcher, so she knows the major critical approaches to the Transcendentalists).

It also reminds me of two fictions based on actual people (are historical figures featured in novels a la Doctorow becoming ever more popular?): Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club (which SunHee assigned to Capstone a few years back, and I had a keen time yakking about one day for that class), a novel that features Longfellow (who was translating The Divine Comedy just after the Civil War), James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendel Holmes, James T. Fields, and a walk-on appearance by my old grad school favorite and meal ticket, William Dean Howells. It's a murder mystery, uncannily enough, that centers around a serial killer in the Boston area who frames his murders according to the various tortures inflicted on the unfortunate sinners in the Inferno. The other is more recent and even closer to home: Jed Rubenfeld's The Interpretation of Murder. Catch this: its protagonist is a young assistant professor of Psychology recently hired by G. Stanley Hall at Clark University, and whose task is to greet Freud and Jung at the docks in New York and escort them to Worcester for the famous conference. But a murder interrupts their journey. This novel is striking for its attempts to characterize a reluctant and somewhat haughty Freud who is but gingerly braving the wilds of the American continent--but who does solve the murder before he has to appear at Hall's university.

There's some bedside reading for you guys. Love those mysteries, no?

By the way, if those links work, woo-hoo! I learned something! If they don't, damn! back to the drawing board.

Finally, magic number = 2. That's a deuce, BH. One-sixth of a dozen. Half a quartet. (But I do have to congratulate you on making the Wild-card. Til we meet again. . . .)

Jay

Update 1: All well, so the MN is still two. C'est la vie. . . .

Re-posting from "comment" to topic

2007-09-24T18:33:00.000-07:00

I'm reposting the comment I made and turning it into a thread so it's a little more visable.

Your post got me thinking about the impact our favorite writers have on our lives. I'd say that we've all come across novels that have made us feel a part of the action. Characters become a fully-realized person we've just met, and their stories reach out and speak to us.Sunday, a well-known author died and left behind a world, and a story, largely unfinished. Robert Jordan, the writer of the Wheel of Time series, finaly succumbed to a disease he had been battling for years.Although I have never met him, the news struck me down nonetheless. It's amazing how writers manage to capture a bit of themselves within their work, and that small piece can make us feel kinship with them.Jordan's goal was to create a 12 book series, but he has passed before the twelfth could be written. The news articles I've read suggested that he had the first and last chapter written, as well as the outline for the rest of the plot, and kept within a safe. But I doubt it will be the same. As selfish as it sounds, I wonder how satisfying a finale the next book can be. I am torn as a reader--do I soldier on and finish the series so I can discover how it ends, or do I put it aside, fearing disappointment since it cannot be written with the same caliber?

Back to Books

2007-09-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Junot Diaz's new novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, promises to be an incredible read. Diaz talked with Tom Ashbrook on ON POINT recently, and the interview is worth a listen. Here's a description of Diaz on Ashbrook's site:

Son of the Dominican Republic and New Jersey, Junot Diaz made a huge splash a decade ago with a tough, vivid collection of short stories on Latino ghetto life called "Drown." Now, Diaz is back with a debut novel that is knocking the socks off critics.

"The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" tracks one heart-torn family from surreally brutal dictatorship in Santo Domingo to a sexy, urban, sci-fi, Spanglish tragicomedy in the USA. Time magazine calls it "astoundingly great."

You can listen to the broadcast HERE.
- BH.

Is this the Clark baseball blog?

2007-09-17T06:54:00.000-07:00

Sorry, Jay. Beckett had his day, and likely bagged the Cy Young, but ultimately it all ended well for us New Yawkers at Fenway. Great game last night, though I have no nails left.

OK, and now a play. . . .

2007-09-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me how, but this English blog seems to be making a turn into baseball material. Go figure. Anyway, a couple of days ago Gino sent me this brief monologue based on Earl Weaver, the Baltimore Oriole manager who became quite a legend in his own time. His nemesis, Ron Luciano, is also an historical figure. I remember both from my youthful (thirties and early forties) TV game watching. Gino's right about Luciano's ballet-like posturing as he made calls; it was quite a sight.
Anyway, yesterday after faculty meeting I asked Gino if he'd like the working draft to be posted, and he was enthusiastically affirmative. He'd especially like to collect feedback any of you might have. So here goes another longish post: enjoy!

--Jay

Called Out (working title)

By Gino DiIorio

(Earl, 77, is folding laundry; mostly towels and underwear. He wears yellow Bermuda shorts, a white v neck tee shirt, and slippers with no socks. Occasionally, he drinks from a can of beer. The living room is sparse. There are newspapers thrown about, 3 TV remotes on the coffee table, pitchers of grand children on the mantle).

EARL
The truth is, I never liked any of em. It was just a question of which one I disliked least.
Cause let me tell you, they’re all a bunch of bastards. Some of them were just less competent than others. For Chrissake, a monkey could do what they do.

My last game, 1986, I knew it was time to leave. Cause there was a ball, right down the fucking middle. Blue calls it a strike and the catcher says “good call” And I’m like, good call my ass. That’s what you’re supposed to do. If you’re not blind as a fucking bat you can see that the damn ball went over the plate. And if you are blind as a bat then you got no good goddamned business being on the motherfucking field in the first place. I mean, Jesus H. Christ, they give you a motherfucking box, okay? It’s a box. It goes from the shoulders to the knees, it goes from one end of the fucking plate to the other. Now, listen up Helen Fucking Keller, if the ball goes in the box, you raise your right hand. If it goes outside the box, you raise your left hand. And just to make it easier for you, you fucking monkeys, if it goes outside the box, you don’t even have to raise your left hand. You just do nothing. You stand there and keep your mouth shut. Now, after you raise your hand three times, turn to the man holding the bat and say to him “you’re out”. And the man with the bat will walk back to the dugout.

Simple, right? But no, that’s not enough. They all got bored or something. They had to find a way to ruin my life.

And you know what gets me, you know what really gets me? They never admit that they’re wrong. Never, never wrong. How the hell can you live in a world where you’re always right? Man I envy that. I pinch hit a guy with a 500 average against a pitcher and it’s the smart move and I still got a 50% chance of being wrong. Guy hits 300 they pay him 10 million dollars and that means 70% of the time he failed! There’s no justice.

You see this? See this? (he shows his hair, white as a ghost). THEY did this to me. Not the players. They’re another story. Players? Forget about it. A buncha fucking prima donnas, that’s all. I know how to deal with prima donnas, okay? But the men in blue? I never figured it out. Jesus, I shoulda bought a case of milk bones for their seeing eye dogs. That’s the only way I ever woulda got a good call outta any of em. Every cocksucking white hair on my head comes from the men in blue.

Now, let me show you something else. You see this? See how my left eye twitches a little bit? It’s been doing that for years. Years! You know why? You know who put that there? Ron Luciano! THAT’s who put it there. Ron Fucking Luciano. The clown prince of the umpire school. I swear that dago bastard spent half the night fucking up baseball games and the other half figure out ways to destroy me. And he almost did it. He’s the one who gave me the twitch.

The first time I met Luciano was in Rochester. I was managing the Red Wings and Luciano was behind the plate. And there was a kid named MacWorter who had a wicked curve ball but he couldn’t get it over the plate. Now Ronny was like most dumb umpires. If they see a pitch that moves a lot, they get impressed by it so they call it a strike cause the figure the bastard’s got talent. So after he rung up about 3 of my guys I come out and say, “Luciano, where was that pitch?” And he says “right on the corner.” And I says, “Right on the corner your ass”. And he takes off his mask and he looks at me and he smiles and he says, “Earl, if your player could learn how to hit that pitch, he’d go right up to the major leagues”. I says “yeah, and if you learn how to call the goddamned pitch, you could go right up with him”.

He threw me out of the game.

The next night, the fucker was at 3rd base. One of our guys got caught stealing and the sonovabitching 3rd baseman dropped the ball. Everybody in the stands sees the ball hit the fucking. Luciano’s there and he calls him out anyway, saying the guy had control of the ball. Now it’s late in the game and it’s a hot night and I know what’s going on. He wants to get home and stuff his fat dago face with Lasagna. So I go out and try to explain to him that when the fucking player drops the ball, that means the fucking runner is safe! He threw me out of that game too.

The next night, he blows a call at second base. I go out to argue and I don’t even get past the pitcher’s mound and he throws me out of that one.

So now this is getting goddamned fucking ridiculous. The last game of the series and I think maybe I can get out fucking Richmond and watch at least one entire game, I’m taking the line up card out to the plate, we haven’t even started the game yet. I look at Luciano, he looks at me and he says, “You’re out of the game!”. I says “I ain’t even said nothing yet”. He says, “I know what you were gonna say!”

So now I’m giving him wholly hell. In all my fucking days of watching this fucking game I’ve never seen anything like it. I got my hat backward, I’m kicking sand on his shinny ass dago umpiring shoes, I take fucking home plate right off the field, and believe you me, that ain’t easy, and I throw it right past the pitcher’s mound and I sit down in the hole where home plate used to be. And I ain’t moving. I don’t care. I never been thrown out of a game before the damn thing started for something I was gonna say when I ain’t said it. And finally Luciano comes over and he looks at me and says, “Weaver, it’s time for you to leave”. So I left. Fuck it. I went into the tunnel and smoked a whole pack of cigarettes and watched the game from there.

Wouldn’t you know we won the goddamn game? But those were my first four games umpired by Ron Luciano. And to tell you the truth, those first words he said to me would be prophetic. (You didn’t think I knew that word, did ya?) It was. Cause one day he did make it to the major leagues. And right about the same time, I made it up with him. And it was like the baseball gods played some kinda joke on both of us, cause every time I looked up, I’d see him on the crew.

I hold the American League record for being thrown out of 97 games. I swear Luciano musta done half of em. And looking back, you know what? I think I really hated him.

First of all, he never shut up. He was always talking to the hitters, the fielders, how’s your mother, how do you like it over in this league, where you going to eat after the game, ba beep, ba bop, ba boop--shut up and do the game! It got so bad, I told my players If I ever catch you talking to Luciano, I’ll fine your ass.

Second, he was always doing some kind of dance. I think he thought he was fucking Fred Astaire or something. He couldn’t just say “out.” He had to do something with it. He had to “shoot” the guy out (He demonstrates). Or he would do a pull step kick thing, like this, (he demonstrates). One time I watched him, and it was like he was pulling a shirt in half. Like this. (He demonstrates and rips a tee shirt by accident). Sonovabitch. Look what he made me do.

And all we want is the bastards to be impartial, right? Or just try to be impartial. Not Ronnie. No, he can’t do that. When he was on the field, if a guy made a play, he would run off the field, clapping his hands like some kind of fucking fan. “Good play, Good play!” You gotta be shitting me.

One day somebody asked him—and I ain’t making this up—“who do you do you think will the pennant?” He says, “I don’t care, as long as it’s not Baltimore.” Right? Fuck him.

But you know what, the thing that really got to me, more than anything else, was while everybody else would never admit they were wrong, he didn’t seem to give a shit one way or the other. He didn’t care if he got it wrong. He’d say things like “Yeah, I got it wrong. So what? But I ain’t changing my mind”. And I’d say “why not?” And he’d smile and say “Cause I’m the umpire!”

And he would just laugh that laugh. (He demonstrates). And I’d turn my hat like this. And I’d get in his face like this, and I’d just dare him to point at me, to lay one finger on me, and I’d kick sand on his shoes and he’d just smile and laugh at me, like I’m some kind of a circus act.

Then you wonder why my fucking eye twitches.

Last time Luciano did one of my games, we were in Detroit. Close game, we were still in it, late in the season. Back then I had a pretty good shortstop, Mark Belanger. We’re in the bottom of the eighth we’re up a run and the bases are loaded and we need a fucking double play. Well we get the double play and I’m thinking we’re out of it when fatso comes running out waving his arms and I’m like what the Christ is this. That fat dago is calling the runner safe at second cause in his opinion, Belanger took his foot off the bag before he caught the ball and made the turn. Now every horse’s ass in the world knows that the player does that to protect himself from the guy barreling in on his ass trying to take his knees out. And there isn’t a fucking umpire in the world who ever makes that call anyway because any horse’s ass who makes that call is a fucking horse’s ass.

But there’s Luciano waving his arms, saying safe and the ball game’s tied. I come out and I says “Luciano how do you make a bullshit call like that”. He says, “Easy. The guy has to have the ball and touch the base and he didn’t”. Now this is Mark fucking Belanger we’re talking about. He couldn’t hit a basketball with a fucking barn door, but he could field like a sonovabitch. One of the best Goddamned shortstops I ever had. And one thing about Belanger, I never heard him swear a day in his entire goddamned life. And Belanger he looks at me and says, “Damnit Skip, he was out” Now that’s a hell of a thing for Belanger to say. So I go back to Luciano and said “Are you gonna tell me that the greatest shortstop in the game today is a liar. Is that what you’re telling me you fat dago bastard”

And Luciano runs me out of the game. “Answer the question”, I says. “Are you calling him a liar?” And he just walked away, laughing his under his breath. And the more I cuss the more he laughs.

How the hell do you talk to a guy like that? And wouldn’t you know the next sonovabitch hits a fucking home run and we end up losing the damn game all cause of this horse’s ass and his lousy fucking call.

So I’m pretty pissed off. Cause he went out of his way to make that call. It was totally unnecessary, see? Let em play the damn game, right? So after the game, I see him outside the blue room and I took a breath and real calm like, I said “Ron, can I have a word with you”? And he said “Sure Earl. Tough loss, huh”? And I says, “Tough loss? Yeah, cause a your lousy stinking call! How the hell do you make that call at a time like that?” And he says, “You know what your problem is Earl? You can’t let anything go. You take the whole thing way too seriously. A billion people in China don’t give a shit who won this game. Go have a beer and forget about it”.

And he walks away.

I gave my life to this game. I work my ass off to make sure every goddamned percentage, everything is in my favor. So every fucking night we have the best chance to win the damn game. That’s how I won 109 games in 1969. I was a fucking asshole, I work my ass off, and I hate to lose! And now here’s this dago sonovabitch telling me to go have a beer and forget about it.

He never took the game as seriously as I did. And I hated that about him.

Last week my brother in law called me, my ex-brother in law—can you believe I couldn’t stay married?—anyway, he calls me and says “guess who died”. I says “who?” He says “Ron Luciano.”

I says, “what’d he do, choke on a meatball sandwich?” He says “No, let me read it to you. Luciano go into his car—“

I says, “Don’t tell me, he locked himself in the car and couldn’t find the keys.”

And he says, “Earl, Luciano killed himself.”

I says, “Get the fuck outta here.” But he’s serious. He told me Luciano parked his car in the garage, shut the door, turned on the ignition and that was it.

So I go out and get a paper and sure enough, there it is, Ron Luciano, dead of an apparent suicide.

(pause).

What kind of a horse’s ass does something like that? I mean, Jesus Christ. Something like that, makes you think, you know? Makes you think. I mean the last time I saw him…was that night in Detroit. Had to be. And I was trying to rip him a new asshole, giving him hell, kicking sand on his shoes…not that he didn’t deserve it, but you know what I mean, makes you feel funny. Hey I don’t feel guilty. I don’t even feel bad. Not really. Come on, outside of the game, I barely knew him. But it’s just, what the hell’s a guy gotta go do something like that for?

In the obituary, it said he left a lot of notes for different people. He had planned the whole thing, he put his dog in the kennel, paid the bill in advance, laid out his will and everything, left different notes. One of em said, `There's nobody to blame for this. It's just time for me to leave.”

How the hell can you reason with a sonovabitch like that?

(Earl takes a swig of beer as the lights fade to black).

End of Play

Potluck Pix

2007-09-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

Some photos from our department shindig:

And yes, Jay, the Bombers are creeping up, slowly but surely. They'll have the wild card at the very least.

Sunday Evening

2007-09-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

Humph. Sunday night. Why do weekends fly by so fast? There I was, driving back after the marvelous Friday night pot-luck, thinking that this great swath of time was laid out at my feet, and now. . . . Speaking of which, Betsy has promised to post some of her photos of the soiree, so all of the grad students can see what they look like candidly. As well as the faculty. Anyway, I hope the left-over food found its way to deserving and discriminating palates. I also hope someone scammed with the rest of the parmesan cheese I brought; it's damn good stuff and will prime a pasta presentation in no time.

Elvis the cat seems to want to say hello: kl;;; Oh well, a feline of few words. He's more interested in the mouse.

Maybe I did get something done this weekend, though. MA theses, check. Seminars prepared, check (well, sort of--I did review some stuff). Dog walked, check. Daughter and son-in-law moved all their stuff from the basement, check (Woo-hoo!). RPI football game won, check (but Colin didn't play, boo). Red Sox won, check. Patriots steam-rolled the Jets, check (108-yard kickoff return? You're kidding me. NFL record. Hell, the longest return possible is 109 3/4 yards--the end zone is only 10 yards deep!). Yankees won, boo. It could very well be the Red Sox-Yankees in the ALCS once again. Not good for my heart rate.

If any of my honors and directed readings students come upon this entry, I have to apologize in advance if I've double-booked anyone. I'm promising myself that I will discover what Daily Planners are and try to abide by them.

Looking forward to another week--a busy one at that. I hope many of you can start conversations here and contribute to others. I'll leave you with my signature line for one of the "platform blogs" I'm a member of: "One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives"--Mark Twain. Seems to me to be an appropriate observation for these perilous political times.
Jay

OK, A Story. . . .

2007-09-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

Urk. Thinking about a Red Sox sweep, particularly after a long day, with good meetings and a useful colloquium. But not so, with the bullpen giving it up in the 8th and the Stockings committing a giant squander in the bottom of the 7th. All the while the Bronx B's explode on the M's; ARod hits two dingers in one inning. Lead's now 6 games. And BH is creeping up behind me. . . .
By dint of requests, herewith is my 2004 umpiring story "In the Zone." Enjoy.

In the Zone

What I’m gonna tell you never should have happened. But it did. Baseball Digest says they never heard of it. My friend Johnny, they call him Double-Deuce, the old red-head, he was there. And he says that if you scrinch down and really peer between the teeny lines in the rule book—Section 3, Topic II, Rule 6, Sub-head 13, I think he said—you can see that there’s a wee little space in amongst all those “ifs” and “whens” and “whereas’s.” Yup, if you stare for a couple of minutes, he said, why, you can almost see it happen. The rules’ll let it happen. The paper’s didn’t know what to do with it, the local beat scribes were scratchin’ their noggins to beat all. Pioneer Regional wins the Western State High School Scholastic Varsity Baseball Championship and gets the number one seed in the state tournament play by hitting into a triple play! Impossible? That’s what Baseball Digest said.

I almost didn’t get to call that game, you know. Stan, he’s the commissioner of Umps for the Western State, he called Johnny right before and asked if I had enough experience to do it, such an important game and all. But Johnny, he stood right behind me. “Oh yeah,” he says to Stan. “I think he’s ready.” Didn’t know that, though, until after the game. Good thing, too. My confidence was shaky enough, I still have a lot to learn about this trade, even if it’s just my hobby.

See, this wasn’t supposed to be a real big game when Stan did the assignments at the beginning of the season. Pioneer was heavy favorites to take it all, and Smith Academy was nowhere on anybody’s radar. I think the local papers had ‘em picked for next to last or something. Pioneer had a returning crew that most of ‘em went to the State semis the year before, and a big kid, a senior, Matt, who could bring it with the best. If there’s anyone I’ve seen this year who’ll go pro, it’s Matt. But he’s got to decide between baseball and a football scholarship, ‘because he led Pioneer to the Division III Super Bowl in the fall. Recruiters camped out on his doorstep, the way I hear tell. But Smith put together a season like you’ve never seen—all teamwork, small ball, steals, bunts, scratch runs, make ‘em stand up with sneaky pitching and defense. Warmed your heart, those boys did, and they were the darlings of all the local scribes by the time they hit the championship. “Hoosiers II,” one of the headlines said, mixing up the sports a bit. They were the underdogs, you bet, and poor nervous Stan suddenly realizes he’s got the plate assigned to one of his newer guys and has to call Johnny to calm that cuisinart in his gut. But Stan told me after the game I did good, and I’ll probably do mostly varsity next year instead of mostly JV. After all, I’ve paid my dues.

I called Johnny too, the night before. I couldn’t hardly believe that the game was so big, and Stan had kept me on it, behind the plate, no less, but he simmered me right down. “You’re really improving out there,” he told me. “You look more relaxed, and you’ve got your timing down. Just stay within the play, don’t anticipate, go with your instincts, and watch the ball at all times!” I figured he’d bail me out if I got into big trouble—he’s the one got me into umpiring in the first place, and he’s always giving me little tips. Always teaching, Johnny is, been doing kids’ baseball and basketball for years, taking pitchers aside after the game and giving them instruction. See, he was in the New York Giants organization for a few years back before they moved west, but he didn’t ever have the heater to make the show. Crazy guy to watch working, too. Got these ways of calling pitches like I’ve never seen; he sorta leans out from behind the plate to the side like he’s uncurling, his right arm slowly comes up until it’s straight out and then, “Strike!” Calls a combined count, too. “Eleven,” he yells for one-and-one. “Twenty-one” for two-and-one. “Full house” for a full count. And of course “Double-Deuce” for two-and-two. That’s how he got his nickname, though I don’t know how many says it to him face-to-face. They all respect him too much.

At the Pioneer field he drove up just as I was starting to put on my gear. Sometimes, when I work with him he gifts me with about five or six boxes of crackers and such with the dates expired. He’s some kind of high-up regional manager for a local bakery company—so when I work with him I’m always heading home with something for the cupboard. Does it for all the guys he works with, I hear. Me, I’m just a working stiff—UPS delivery. But I like that he pushed me to get into umpiring. Gives me a chance to do something, make decisions that mean something. Otherwise the only decisions I can make is stepping on the brake or pushing the gas pedal. “Ho, ho, Mr. E,” he says—always calls me that, don’t know why—“fine day for the great American pastime, yes?”

I shook his hand and went on with my buckling and adjusting. “Yep,” I said. “Really great weather.” It was a perfect day, with that late spring New England sunshine that you want to rub up on your sleeve for safekeeping like a quarter you just picked up off the street. The field is pretty, too, tucked into a hollow between the road and the river, 325-foot fence all around the outfield, neat as a pin. Us Association guys always call it “Field of Dreams” because right up to the left-field fence is a strip of cornfield between it and the river, and in the summer, when the corn’s full grown, I always expect Shoeless Joe Jackson to come sauntering out of it. Groundskeepers’d done themselves proud, too, no grooves in the dirt skin between the bases, and the infield grass was new mowed to a little shorter than the outfield. Balls would skip true on this field. There wasn’t any dugouts, but the benches were nicely placed behind more fences up and down the baselines. I breathed in that mild air that seemed to echo with the green of the grass and the sharp, white baselines all the way down to the foul poles. There was more people already than I’d ever done a game in front of; they were laying blankets on the slope behind first base leading up to the road like it was a picnic. Photographers from the local rag in Northampton wandered here and there, snapping the local color.
We did the ground rules with the coaches and captains, Johnny jogged out to behind first base in his shambling trot, and we got down to business. I took a deep breath, pulled the mask down over my face, and felt that silent rush just before I yelled “Play ball!” and pointed to the pitcher.

Well, I tell you, I’ve never felt a game like that one. Johnny and me worked perfect, all our calls were right. One time there was a foul tip on a third strike, and it looked to me like the catcher had juggled it, so I immediately pointed out to Johnny behind first base and yelled, “Blue! Did he catch it!” Johnny paused a beat, then uncurled his right arm upwards like he was about to shake his fist at me. “Out!” he said. “Good call, blue!” the pitcher blurted, and looked in at his catcher for the sign as the next batter approached. Yeah, we were invisible. No grouching, no complaints, no controversial calls—they accepted what we gave and the game moved right along without any hitch at all. My strike zone was real consistent, if I do say so myself, and I was in the right position for every call. The papers had a picture the next day of a call I made at home—real close, and the caption read, “Safe or Out?” ‘cuz you couldn’t tell from the picture. But in the background, perfectly placed to see the tag, is me from the waist down, in a slight crouch. Wait a beat, find the ball in the catcher’s mitt, and “Got him!” I yelled, pumping my right fist down as I held my mask in my left. I thought I’d catch some flak on that one, but the base runner just got to his feet, grimaced, banged his hand on his thigh, and walked back to the bench.

I found that I was moving inside the game, the decisions just seemed to flow from me as natural as that river does behind left field. I even called every foul ball back in play, something I usually forget to do at least once a game. I was in a “zone,” as they say, and the only time I’d felt like that was in basketball way back in high school when I just knew everything I tossed up was goin’ in. No doubts, no second-guessing, just everything felt right. The kids had something to do with that, too, I mean big Matt was bringing it in with power and a little twist at the last minute that’d catch the corner or blow the batter away. And the little lefty from Smith? Changin’ speeds all the time, but always around the plate. Pioneer couldn’t quite figure him out ‘cuz he was always a step ahead of ‘em. And to me, those corners looked big that day—a little outside, and I’d stand: “Ball!” But zip across the corner, my right arm would fly out: “Stri-i-i-i-ke!” I make sure they heard it. Both pitchers keep nodding slightly, as if they was saying, yeah, just missed that one, or, OK! Got it then.
So it gets to the bottom of the seventh, 1-1. Matt’s got a one-hitter, that’s the Smith second baseman leading off the fourth. Even when Johnny’d called “Safe!” on that bang-bang play, nobody’d complained. It was a slow bouncer along the third-base line, and I noticed the third baseman looked in his glove after the call like he was thinking, man, if I’d only gotten it out a fraction sooner, I’d have got him. The kid promptly steals second. Man, is he quick! Then he advances on a ground ball to the right side and scores on a medium fly. That was an easy call—he did a fade slide around the Pioneer catcher and was by the plate just as the ball was caught. And Pioneer, they couldn’t seem to string three hits together except once—seems like they had men on base almost every inning, but Smith’s fielding—boy, were they smooth!

Anyway, bottom of the seventh, and the Smith lefty’s getting tired, I can tell. He’s reaching down, but he’s missing the outside corner a little more, and he doesn’t have quite as much speed to contrast with his slower stuff. Pioneer’s lead-off hitter works a walk, and the next batter crashes an inside curve down the third-base line. Neat bit of hitting. Second and third, no outs. Nothing to do but walk the next guy and set up a force at home. The folks are yelling, both benches are hanging on the fences, everyone’s standing. The Smith coach brings in a new pitcher, big kid, throws hard, and the Smith fans go berserk cheering the lefty as he leaves—he deserves it, he’s shown a lot of stuff out there. As I stand a little up the first base line watching the warm-ups with my mask under my arm, I hear a voice from behind the plate—a scribe, most likely—say into a sudden quiet pause: “With their run of luck this year, Smith’ll get a triple play.”

Well, that’s exactly what they do. For the first time all game, a Pioneer batter looks a little confused. He swings at the first pitch, hits it down by the hands, and nubs a soft little hump-backed liner out between first base and the pitcher. The first baseman—a rangy kid—dives toward the pitcher and snares it—if he’d been right-handed and if the grass had been a quarter of an inch higher, he’d never of snatched it, so close to bouncing it was. Johnny yells “Out!”—no beat this time. The runners on first and second—too anxious, I guess, or maybe it was a hit-and-run—take off with the crack of the bat, but the runner on third hangs on. I still don’t know if he did it because he was confused or missed a sign or because he had great baseball smarts or what, but I see him hang on to third. I’m standing off in foul territory beside the plate on the first-base side, and I see him break for the plate as the first baseman, realizing he has the runner caught, rolls over, gets up, and dashes for the first-base bag. Seeing that, the runner on third breaks for the plate. So when the first baseman tags first and Johnny yells “Out!” again, the kid on third is churning home. Meantime, the runner on second misreads the third-base coach’s gesture—he’s yelling “Back! Back!” trying to push him back to second and the kid thinks he means slide, and, hell, nobody can hear anything because there’s so much noise all at once. Then he realizes he’s got to get back to second, puts on the brakes and steams back with a head-first slide. The first baseman turns around after tagging the bag for the second out, and the shortstop, covering second, is screaming for the ball. That gets first’s attention, I don’t think he sees the runner coming home, or he’s suddenly thinking “triple play,” so instead of firing to the plate, he guns it to second. But just before the ball gets to the shortstop for the third out, the runner from third crosses the plate right in front of me. Johnny calls “Out!” for the third time, and the Smith fans go nuts.

“I told ya! I told ya!” the voice keeps yelling from behind the backstop, but I start walking toward Johnny, who’s just behind the pitcher’s mound, shaking his head with a funny little half smile.

“Johnny,” I say. “It’s over. Run’s scored. Timing play.” He looks at me, lifting his bushy red eyebrows, takes his hat off and runs his hand through his thinning hair. I explain the fact that the runner has tagged up, not left until after the catch, and crossed the plate before the third out. He looks at me for a moment longer, then his thin face splits into a wide grin. “You’re sure, Mr. E?” I nod, and he says, “One for the books. Let’s go lay the news on ‘em.”

You’d think the Smith team had won, the way they were slapping each other on the back and carrying on. The Pioneers kids were like sleepwalkers trudging out to their positions. Oh, yeah, momentum had really swung to the underdogs. I called both coaches over behind the plate and explained the rule to them and what it meant. Pioneer had won—like they were supposed to, but not in a way that did them proud. Both coaches stared at me with open mouths. The fans on the hillside and behind the backstop were quiet now, knowing something was up. And when both coaches went back to their benches to explain the play to their teams, I announced it on the PA system. A weak little cheer went up from the Pioneer folks, but they seemed too stunned to acknowledge their good luck. It seemed like everyone—Pioneer and Smith folks alike—were shaking their heads.

So that’s how it ended for Smith Academy. And for Pioneer, they never seemed to get it together after that and lost their first game in the State Tourney to a number 8 seed. But it’s not over for me. I’ll never forget that feeling of being in a “zone” where every call, every decision, especially the last one, was right. It’s like I was caught up in something bigger than me, bigger than the teams or the game, some big force. I wasn’t me during that game. I was hardly even aware of me. I’m not that decisive or that right all the time, believe me. Something was using me to teach something else to the kids, to the coaches, the scribes and all the folks at that game—humility maybe.

When I said this to Johnny later, he looked at me for a minute. “You know our Association meetings?” he asked. “You know how Big Freddy and Sam and a few others are always talking about games with ‘I called this’ and ‘I said that to the stupid coach’ and ‘this was the ruling I made?’” I nodded. “Those are the guys doing this in their spare time for their egos. They think they’re really big time and are in control of the game. They want to be the center of attention or recapture some athletic youth they’ve lost. But the really good ones, like Dave and Wayne and Richie—you never hear them talk like that. Everyone has good, clear mechanics—else they wouldn’t be allowed to stay; but the good ones feel what you just said. They know that they don’t really matter; if the game is really fitting together, something else is controlling it—chance, or providence, perhaps. It’s being totally absorbed into the flow of the moment.” He gave a little grin. “I call it joy. That’s the ‘zone’ you’re talking about. Sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—if you’re really on you can catch that zone—you can’t ever create it, it just happens, it’s like a gift that you’ve got to be ready for—and then all the rest of it—the arguments, the missed calls, the mistakes of other games—are worth it.” He stared over my shoulder. “It’s like so many things,” he mused. “We do our best work when we get out of our own way.” He looked at me again. “You’ll be a good one, Mr. E. Keep doin’ games, as many as you can, and you’ll get better and better. Maybe you’ll find that zone again.”

--Jay

Copyright The Elysian Fields Quarterly, 2004

Loomings

2007-09-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

Since it is the day after Labor Day, there's a hint of coolness in the air (though extended weather report says hot and humid by the end of the week), and, most importantly, the University has re-opened its doors to another fall semester, it's time to begin the Clark English Blog.

Although, if you check my interview on the English Department web site, I have been dipping into various blogs over the last 18 months to get a sense of the narrative features of these phenomena, it's clear that the best way of researching is doing: and so I'm starting in. Here's my thinking:

This blog is basically belongs to the English Department, and although I will be the chief poster, I invite everyone and any0ne to contribute. As soon as I figure out and explore some of the useful features of this technology, I'll try them out periodically in order to increase the traffic.

I'd like to see as much commentary as possible: within and without the English Department , its graduate students, its majors and minors, as well as faculty and staff. The subjects are open: whatever concerns, personal and/or academic, might move one to comment. I see this as the opening for a community, a gathering place for opinion and observation, centered around Clark people, curricula and events--though mention of the Red Sox might creep onto the screen. . . .

This blog does not serve the same purpose as Blackboard, though perhaps some of the same general concerns may be posted--just not class readings and assignments.

Finally, I hope this blog will offer some insight into the informal workings of the Clark English Department for all those prospective students who might consider attending this university. Certainly you too can ask questions and get a flavor of our conversation.

This post, then, is the opening and welcoming salvo: welcome back to Clark students and faculty; and welcome to all those first-years who are just now making the transition to the intimidating but ultimately fascinating world of college.

Jay