I think I'm going to undertake a new project.
I'd going to read one poem a day; an old favorite, a new poem, one from a favorite author that I haven't read yet--whatever and I'm going to try to write a poem imitating the one I read. Mara once said that the best way to get to know a poet is to try to write like the. Jimmy said that the best way to learn to write is find writers you love and get to know them. This seems like an interesting endeavor. I'm going to try it for one month first. So, Jan 31st-March 2nd. The game is that the poem needs to be psoted by 10:30 PM CST, in whatever draft it's in at that point. If you're interested, you can find me at http://apoetryexperiment.blogspot.com/
The poem for today? An old favorite that felt like a good, challenging way to start.
"Light, at Thirty-Two"
Michael Bluminthal
It is the first thing God speaks of
when we meet Him, in the good book
of Genesis. And now, I think
I see it all in terms of light:
How, the other day at dusk
on Ossabaw Island, the marsh grass
was the color of the most beautiful hair
I had ever seen, or how—years ago
in the early-dawn light of Montrose Park—I saw the most ravishing woman
in the world, only to find, hours later
over drinks in a dark bar, that it wasn't she who was ravishing,
but the light: how it filtered
through the leaves of the magnolia onto her cheeks, how it turned
her cotton dress to silk, her walk
to a tour-jeté.
And I understood, finally, what my friend John meant,
twenty years ago, when he said: Love
is keeping the lights on. And I understood why Matisse and Bonnard and Gauguin
and Cézanne all followed the light:
Because they knew all lovers are equal
in the dark, that light defines beauty
the way longing defines desire, that everything depends
on how light falls on a seashell, a mouth ... a broken bottle.
And now, I'd like to learn
to follow light wherever it leads me,
never again to say to a woman, YOU
are beautiful, but rather to whisper:
Darling, the way light fell on your hair
This morning when we woke—God,
It was beautiful. Because, if the light is right,
Then the day and the body and the faint pleasures
Waiting at the window ... they too are right.
All things lovely there. As the first poet wrote,
in his first book of poems: Let there be light.
And there is.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Dirt
Wake up in the morning in the moonlight grey
We got dirt to break, we got a note to pay
Gonna plow, plow to the end of the row
Wake up in the morning and plow to the end of the row
-Adrienne Young "Plow to the End of the Row"
I have never seen my father's hands entirely clean.
Thirty years as a diesel mechanic does that to a man. Five years will do it. My younger brother is starting to have the same problem, and he's only been working as a mechanic for a few years. It's a combination of callouses, dry hands, poor working conditions, grease, oil, gasoline, antifreeze, you name it, and it's probably somewhere on their hands. Even on holidays, when Dad had a few days off to scrub up, his hands were dirty. He was usually trying to keep one of our five hundred dollar cars running, or chopping wood next to the house, or if he were really on vacation, digging worms and going fishing. There was always a faint line of dirt under his nails or ground into the callouses on his palms.
It wasn't until I started working at Common Ground that I realized the beauty of a good layer of permadirt. That good Sterns County soil found its way deep into the cracks on my hands and built up around newly made callouses. My nails were usually short and cracked and I have more than one scar from a mishandled tool that summer.
That summer I learned the value of working with your hands. I had spent three years removed from my blue-collar roots, and had become pretty soft. I toughened up a little that summer; remembered what it was like to drive a truck, tell stories, speak slowly, find the wisdom in a bee-keeper and a chicken farmer. I discovered what it was like to watch something grow out of a seed an into food that would make someone's week a little bit better. I picked squash, weeded beets, and cut lettuce.
I've started to distrust women with manicures or men whose hands are too well-groomed. There's something suspicious about someone who has never snagged a finger on a barbed fish hook or planted something and helped it to grow.
I think about my father's hands while I'm at work. The calluses from Common Ground have worn away by now and my nails are always clean. I want hands like Pa's when I grow up. The kind of hands you can tell a story from. I want hands that show that I worked for my life at something difficult and rewarding that didn't require transferring large piles of money from one account to another.
I want hands that never get entirely clean.
I got rocks in my shoes, dirt in my eyes
Working like a dog til the day I die
You got to plow, plow to the end of the row
I got rocks in my shoes when I plow to the end of the row
-Adrienne Young "Plow to the End of the Row"
We got dirt to break, we got a note to pay
Gonna plow, plow to the end of the row
Wake up in the morning and plow to the end of the row
-Adrienne Young "Plow to the End of the Row"
I have never seen my father's hands entirely clean.
Thirty years as a diesel mechanic does that to a man. Five years will do it. My younger brother is starting to have the same problem, and he's only been working as a mechanic for a few years. It's a combination of callouses, dry hands, poor working conditions, grease, oil, gasoline, antifreeze, you name it, and it's probably somewhere on their hands. Even on holidays, when Dad had a few days off to scrub up, his hands were dirty. He was usually trying to keep one of our five hundred dollar cars running, or chopping wood next to the house, or if he were really on vacation, digging worms and going fishing. There was always a faint line of dirt under his nails or ground into the callouses on his palms.
It wasn't until I started working at Common Ground that I realized the beauty of a good layer of permadirt. That good Sterns County soil found its way deep into the cracks on my hands and built up around newly made callouses. My nails were usually short and cracked and I have more than one scar from a mishandled tool that summer.
That summer I learned the value of working with your hands. I had spent three years removed from my blue-collar roots, and had become pretty soft. I toughened up a little that summer; remembered what it was like to drive a truck, tell stories, speak slowly, find the wisdom in a bee-keeper and a chicken farmer. I discovered what it was like to watch something grow out of a seed an into food that would make someone's week a little bit better. I picked squash, weeded beets, and cut lettuce.
I've started to distrust women with manicures or men whose hands are too well-groomed. There's something suspicious about someone who has never snagged a finger on a barbed fish hook or planted something and helped it to grow.
I think about my father's hands while I'm at work. The calluses from Common Ground have worn away by now and my nails are always clean. I want hands like Pa's when I grow up. The kind of hands you can tell a story from. I want hands that show that I worked for my life at something difficult and rewarding that didn't require transferring large piles of money from one account to another.
I want hands that never get entirely clean.
I got rocks in my shoes, dirt in my eyes
Working like a dog til the day I die
You got to plow, plow to the end of the row
I got rocks in my shoes when I plow to the end of the row
-Adrienne Young "Plow to the End of the Row"
Sunday, January 27, 2008
In the sweet by and by
One foot, in front of the other
It's hard as hell these days.
It’s my choice, a case of any color
What makes me walk away?
-Adrienne Young "It's All the Same"
It's a little after two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and I'm stretching, albeit, lazily in front of my house. This is the first run I've gone on in almost two weeks because the weather has been so cold my eyelids froze to one another. I'm pretty nervous about this run, because I've been slacking on my cross training as well--not a good idea when you're in training. Meeep.
The weather is warm for a January afternoon, and it feels good to be working out again. My body is certainly making me remember that it hasn't done much over the past couple weeks. My legs feel like lead and my lungs are certainly protesting this sudden burst of exercise.
I'm always amazed by how quickly something can turn from an occasional indulgence, to a habit, to a hobby you enjoy. Five years ago it was smoking. Two months I went for my first run. Funny how life changes.
I haven't been to church since Christmas. I'm not ok with this, and realize that I need to go. Life has been a series of weird troughs lately that I can't seem to scrape myself out of--not that I've been trying very hard. I know how much the mass means to me and I know that I need to go or I need to go to morning prayer or something, but when the time comes to get dressed and walk out the door, I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know if it's spiritual laziness or what, but things are not what the used to be, and I'm not sure why. Part of me can't help but think that I don't want to have the emotional reactions I have during the mass. I'm sick of sitting there wondering if I'm living my life right and thinking that things were so much easier before I was a part of my church. I feel like I'm in the middle of a family feud every Sunday--what wants that from their church? Some days I get so tired of trying to think my way out of questions I have about my faith life that I want to scream. On a good day, I know that all of this is necessary and good, but lately it's just not working. It hasn't been working for ages. I'm not sure what to do when I know that I still believe everything intellectually, but can't fit that in with everything else.
Five years ago I was wandering around, if not an intellectual atheist, certainly more agnostic than Christian. Four years ago this Easter, I will have been confirmed as a Catholic. And now?
Good question.
One thought after another
round and round they go
got to sit still, try to recover.
Breathe in to what I know.
-Adrienne Young
It's hard as hell these days.
It’s my choice, a case of any color
What makes me walk away?
-Adrienne Young "It's All the Same"
It's a little after two o'clock on a Sunday afternoon, and I'm stretching, albeit, lazily in front of my house. This is the first run I've gone on in almost two weeks because the weather has been so cold my eyelids froze to one another. I'm pretty nervous about this run, because I've been slacking on my cross training as well--not a good idea when you're in training. Meeep.
The weather is warm for a January afternoon, and it feels good to be working out again. My body is certainly making me remember that it hasn't done much over the past couple weeks. My legs feel like lead and my lungs are certainly protesting this sudden burst of exercise.
I'm always amazed by how quickly something can turn from an occasional indulgence, to a habit, to a hobby you enjoy. Five years ago it was smoking. Two months I went for my first run. Funny how life changes.
I haven't been to church since Christmas. I'm not ok with this, and realize that I need to go. Life has been a series of weird troughs lately that I can't seem to scrape myself out of--not that I've been trying very hard. I know how much the mass means to me and I know that I need to go or I need to go to morning prayer or something, but when the time comes to get dressed and walk out the door, I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know if it's spiritual laziness or what, but things are not what the used to be, and I'm not sure why. Part of me can't help but think that I don't want to have the emotional reactions I have during the mass. I'm sick of sitting there wondering if I'm living my life right and thinking that things were so much easier before I was a part of my church. I feel like I'm in the middle of a family feud every Sunday--what wants that from their church? Some days I get so tired of trying to think my way out of questions I have about my faith life that I want to scream. On a good day, I know that all of this is necessary and good, but lately it's just not working. It hasn't been working for ages. I'm not sure what to do when I know that I still believe everything intellectually, but can't fit that in with everything else.
Five years ago I was wandering around, if not an intellectual atheist, certainly more agnostic than Christian. Four years ago this Easter, I will have been confirmed as a Catholic. And now?
Good question.
One thought after another
round and round they go
got to sit still, try to recover.
Breathe in to what I know.
-Adrienne Young
Saturday, January 26, 2008
I hear that old piano from down the avenue. . .
Oh my sweet, sweet sweet, old someone,
coming through that door,
it's Saturday and the band is playing,
honey, could we ask for more?
Most of my Sunday mornings begin hearing Garrison Keillor sing the Tishomingo Blues. It's a nice way to begin to wrap up the weekend. A leisurely cup of coffee, game of Scrabble, the radio, and I'm happy as a pig.
I usually plan my drives or work schedules around PHC broadcasts. I like to have something to do with my hands while I'm laughing at the broadcast or listening to songs that inevitably feel familiar, even if I can't place the words.
My parents got me the greatest Christmas present eveer this year. Two tickets to see PHC at the Fitz. Without knowing it, they got me tickets to see the perfect show--a honky-tonk band and one of my favorite writers--who I actually heard for the first time on PHC. So, last night, Krista and I got dressed up and headed on down to the Fitz.
To begin, the Fitz is a gorgeous, gaudy old theater. It's opulent, over the top, and makes you smile when you see it. The only problem? One restroom and hundreds of ladies in stockings with full bladders. I'm grateful that we're not all still wearing garter belts.
Krista and I took our seats and mentally hugged Mother Prosen. First balcony front middle section=awesome!
I can't even begin to describe the show. I've been waiting to go for so long that I was afraid it was going to fall short of my expectations. It didn't. It absolutely surpassed all of them. I cried a little during Tishomingo Blues. After so many years of hearing it over the radio, I was finally there, seeing it live.
Not to mention that Garrison Keillor has been a little bit of a hero of mine for many years now.
Well, the night wound up with Krista and I meeting a friend at an art show opening. The art was awesome, but the opening was a little too wanna-be avant-garde for me. I dislike pretension in almost every form, but among twentysomething struggling artists it's so pronounced it makes me want to hurl. Life is not terrible! Yes, you're broke. So am I. So is everyone I know who isn't an investment banker. In the words of a poet I love: Laugh 'cause shit's funny! Cry 'cause it fucking sucks! It was such a contrast from the genuine enjoyment of life I experienced at the Fitz earlier.
Woah. Way off topic.
Well, to wrap up, I'm closing with a rough draft of a poem I wrote this morning.
"It’s Dark in the Fitzgerald Theater"
The man sitting next to Krista does not laugh at the jokes.
Or weep during the music. He is alone
and only smiles when he asks us to let him out of the row
during the intermission.
When the honky-tonk band takes the stage
I think of the grandmother I never knew,
but whose records I own.
How much she loved honky-tonk,
country, folk, bluegrass. She hosted her own
variety show on Friday nights.
A sister with a banjo, a fiddle, accordion, someone on the piano.
Leading the way with her voice and guitar,
through songs like Red River Valley and Keep on the Sunny Side.
Sitting in the dark Fitzgerald Theater, I imagine her
Four hundred miles away and thirty years ago.
I think she would have loved this show,
If she could have only paused
from wash, nine children, frying chicken,
to listen.
coming through that door,
it's Saturday and the band is playing,
honey, could we ask for more?
Most of my Sunday mornings begin hearing Garrison Keillor sing the Tishomingo Blues. It's a nice way to begin to wrap up the weekend. A leisurely cup of coffee, game of Scrabble, the radio, and I'm happy as a pig.
I usually plan my drives or work schedules around PHC broadcasts. I like to have something to do with my hands while I'm laughing at the broadcast or listening to songs that inevitably feel familiar, even if I can't place the words.
My parents got me the greatest Christmas present eveer this year. Two tickets to see PHC at the Fitz. Without knowing it, they got me tickets to see the perfect show--a honky-tonk band and one of my favorite writers--who I actually heard for the first time on PHC. So, last night, Krista and I got dressed up and headed on down to the Fitz.
To begin, the Fitz is a gorgeous, gaudy old theater. It's opulent, over the top, and makes you smile when you see it. The only problem? One restroom and hundreds of ladies in stockings with full bladders. I'm grateful that we're not all still wearing garter belts.
Krista and I took our seats and mentally hugged Mother Prosen. First balcony front middle section=awesome!
I can't even begin to describe the show. I've been waiting to go for so long that I was afraid it was going to fall short of my expectations. It didn't. It absolutely surpassed all of them. I cried a little during Tishomingo Blues. After so many years of hearing it over the radio, I was finally there, seeing it live.
Not to mention that Garrison Keillor has been a little bit of a hero of mine for many years now.
Well, the night wound up with Krista and I meeting a friend at an art show opening. The art was awesome, but the opening was a little too wanna-be avant-garde for me. I dislike pretension in almost every form, but among twentysomething struggling artists it's so pronounced it makes me want to hurl. Life is not terrible! Yes, you're broke. So am I. So is everyone I know who isn't an investment banker. In the words of a poet I love: Laugh 'cause shit's funny! Cry 'cause it fucking sucks! It was such a contrast from the genuine enjoyment of life I experienced at the Fitz earlier.
Woah. Way off topic.
Well, to wrap up, I'm closing with a rough draft of a poem I wrote this morning.
"It’s Dark in the Fitzgerald Theater"
The man sitting next to Krista does not laugh at the jokes.
Or weep during the music. He is alone
and only smiles when he asks us to let him out of the row
during the intermission.
When the honky-tonk band takes the stage
I think of the grandmother I never knew,
but whose records I own.
How much she loved honky-tonk,
country, folk, bluegrass. She hosted her own
variety show on Friday nights.
A sister with a banjo, a fiddle, accordion, someone on the piano.
Leading the way with her voice and guitar,
through songs like Red River Valley and Keep on the Sunny Side.
Sitting in the dark Fitzgerald Theater, I imagine her
Four hundred miles away and thirty years ago.
I think she would have loved this show,
If she could have only paused
from wash, nine children, frying chicken,
to listen.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Yes, Father!
There isn't anyone anywhere who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady.
Or
Why Franny and Zooey changed my spiritual outlook
I first read Salinger's Franny and Zooey on a snowy afternoon in 2004. I was in the middle of one of my larger spiritual crisis. I had a theology professor who walked into class daily and told me that the Bible was entirely made up and that I couldn't put any trust in anything that it said. A month earlier I had seen poverty that I'll never be able to forget in Peru. I was stuck in an unjust world that wasn't going to get any better, and apparently, I couldn't put any trust in my fledgling faith. Life wasn't going to get any better. I stopped praying, stopped going to Church, stopped thinking about God, really. I couldn't understand what was going on--I was a freshly confirmed Catholic (not even a year, yet), a converted Christian, a crack theology student, a campus minister--I wasn't supposed to be going through this.
But there I was, going through it all the same. I recognize it now as the natural progression of faith, but at that particular moment, I was a train wreck.
Sitting on my bookshelf was an unassuming little white book. It was a gift from an English teacher who was more of a mentor than a teacher. It was my graduation gift and had a fantastic inscription in the front cover. I had always like The Catcher in the Rye, so I opened it and tried to lose myself in the story.
Lose myself I did. I was in love with Salinger's writing style and with Franny from the very first pages. I didn't realize that I would quickly be delving into the potentially mystical world.
Franny's conversation with Lane about the ridiculousness of the university hit home. After coming back from heart-breaking poverty, I wondered what I was thinking, spending piles and piles of money on an education. I was submitting poems to magazines and thought there was something horribly egotistical in submission. I was sick of the life I was living, sick of the people I knew, sick of everything.
Franny sets up the Jesus prayer extraordinarily well in the first chapter. I felt compelled to drop my life, find a knapsack, and wander through the world, reciting the prayer. One look outside, however, convinced me that the prayer could wait a little while longer while I finished the book.
Enter Zooey Glass, one of two fictional characters I have ever loved whole-heartedly and from the start. Whatever his original intention with Franny is, he illustrated some things that became incredibly important for me in my later spiritual/academic development.
1. The differences between religions are purely illusions. Different names for the same thing. What the Jesus prayer strives for--indeed, what all religions should or do strive for at their heart--is complete emptiness and submission to God, regardless of the name you call out. I can spend the rest of my life calling out Christ's name. You could spend the rest of your life calling out another name. In the end, we'll both get to the same place (Rahnerian concepts of redemption, anyone?). This thought became the catalyst for my interest in systematic theology and my love of Karl Rahner.
2. Apparently, somewhere during my theological training, I became constitutionally unable to understand a God who would dare trust his revelation to incompetent humans. Therein lied my struggle with the mighty theology professor who kept telling me that the Bible was a lie. (Which, by the bye, he doesn't actually believe. He just likes to force undergrads to think for themselves.) If God's message was so important, why the heck would he give it to a bunch of ignorant, early AD men? Why not wait a few thousand years and decide to redeem humanity then? While F&Z doesn't answer these questions, it made me pause to consider why I was struggling so much with my Bible. After I realized why, I could start thinking about how to address that problem and come to terms with it. I've started to resolve those questions for myself, but this is neither the time nor the place to address them. In short, I was pulling a Franny. I was reaching for something I wasn't ready to understand because I wasn't ready to understand God.
3. This might be the most important, but it builds on 1 & 2, particularly 1. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddamn secret yet? This is so elementary I can't even being to describe how embarrassed I am that I never stopped during my ordinary day to think about it. If we're all Christ, we're all carrying the kingdom around inside of us. Think about it for a moment. Deep inside all of this other ridiculousness part of me is a direct little bit of God. Part of you is a little bit of God. So what are we doing every day? Are we helping one another let that little part of God back out? Are we helping it to grow and flourish until we're really becoming more and more a part of God? Can I look past the fact that you're an atheist, and this person is a Methodist, and this person is Muslim, and see that they're all the same? They're all Seymour's Fat Lady and they all need one another's help to get to where they're going.
After I read the last lines of the book, I closed it and watched the snow fall outside for awhile longer. Then I crawled into my bunk, pulled the covers over my head and fell asleep.
Or
Why Franny and Zooey changed my spiritual outlook
I first read Salinger's Franny and Zooey on a snowy afternoon in 2004. I was in the middle of one of my larger spiritual crisis. I had a theology professor who walked into class daily and told me that the Bible was entirely made up and that I couldn't put any trust in anything that it said. A month earlier I had seen poverty that I'll never be able to forget in Peru. I was stuck in an unjust world that wasn't going to get any better, and apparently, I couldn't put any trust in my fledgling faith. Life wasn't going to get any better. I stopped praying, stopped going to Church, stopped thinking about God, really. I couldn't understand what was going on--I was a freshly confirmed Catholic (not even a year, yet), a converted Christian, a crack theology student, a campus minister--I wasn't supposed to be going through this.
But there I was, going through it all the same. I recognize it now as the natural progression of faith, but at that particular moment, I was a train wreck.
Sitting on my bookshelf was an unassuming little white book. It was a gift from an English teacher who was more of a mentor than a teacher. It was my graduation gift and had a fantastic inscription in the front cover. I had always like The Catcher in the Rye, so I opened it and tried to lose myself in the story.
Lose myself I did. I was in love with Salinger's writing style and with Franny from the very first pages. I didn't realize that I would quickly be delving into the potentially mystical world.
Franny's conversation with Lane about the ridiculousness of the university hit home. After coming back from heart-breaking poverty, I wondered what I was thinking, spending piles and piles of money on an education. I was submitting poems to magazines and thought there was something horribly egotistical in submission. I was sick of the life I was living, sick of the people I knew, sick of everything.
Franny sets up the Jesus prayer extraordinarily well in the first chapter. I felt compelled to drop my life, find a knapsack, and wander through the world, reciting the prayer. One look outside, however, convinced me that the prayer could wait a little while longer while I finished the book.
Enter Zooey Glass, one of two fictional characters I have ever loved whole-heartedly and from the start. Whatever his original intention with Franny is, he illustrated some things that became incredibly important for me in my later spiritual/academic development.
1. The differences between religions are purely illusions. Different names for the same thing. What the Jesus prayer strives for--indeed, what all religions should or do strive for at their heart--is complete emptiness and submission to God, regardless of the name you call out. I can spend the rest of my life calling out Christ's name. You could spend the rest of your life calling out another name. In the end, we'll both get to the same place (Rahnerian concepts of redemption, anyone?). This thought became the catalyst for my interest in systematic theology and my love of Karl Rahner.
2. Apparently, somewhere during my theological training, I became constitutionally unable to understand a God who would dare trust his revelation to incompetent humans. Therein lied my struggle with the mighty theology professor who kept telling me that the Bible was a lie. (Which, by the bye, he doesn't actually believe. He just likes to force undergrads to think for themselves.) If God's message was so important, why the heck would he give it to a bunch of ignorant, early AD men? Why not wait a few thousand years and decide to redeem humanity then? While F&Z doesn't answer these questions, it made me pause to consider why I was struggling so much with my Bible. After I realized why, I could start thinking about how to address that problem and come to terms with it. I've started to resolve those questions for myself, but this is neither the time nor the place to address them. In short, I was pulling a Franny. I was reaching for something I wasn't ready to understand because I wasn't ready to understand God.
3. This might be the most important, but it builds on 1 & 2, particularly 1. There isn't anyone anywhere that isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddamn secret yet? This is so elementary I can't even being to describe how embarrassed I am that I never stopped during my ordinary day to think about it. If we're all Christ, we're all carrying the kingdom around inside of us. Think about it for a moment. Deep inside all of this other ridiculousness part of me is a direct little bit of God. Part of you is a little bit of God. So what are we doing every day? Are we helping one another let that little part of God back out? Are we helping it to grow and flourish until we're really becoming more and more a part of God? Can I look past the fact that you're an atheist, and this person is a Methodist, and this person is Muslim, and see that they're all the same? They're all Seymour's Fat Lady and they all need one another's help to get to where they're going.
After I read the last lines of the book, I closed it and watched the snow fall outside for awhile longer. Then I crawled into my bunk, pulled the covers over my head and fell asleep.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dumbass
Dumbassification
Or
Why Reality TV is Turning America into a Society of Nitwits
(an abstract)
Unbelievable amounts of distraction are a part of the American social order, you’ve heard me harp on this before. Then again, you may think I’m just rambling around a ball of confusion this month. Dumbassification is the mental meltdown of America through the non-stop selling and buying of culture by corporations turning everyone into consumers [. . .]
-Chuck D. October 18, 2003
Nearly five years after Chuck D. began railing against the increasing consumerism of the United States, fellow Public Enemy member has filmed is about to premier a third season of the hit reality show The Flava of Love. Ostensibly, the program is a "reality" dating show, in which Flava Flav looks for his true love from among twenty young women. Unfortunately for Flav, two seasons have not yet yielded true love. Perhaps the third time really is a charm.
The first season of The Flava of Love was so successful that it spawned a variety of similar programming by VH1, including a show for the two-season runner up, New York (I Love New York 1 & 2) and The Rock of Love with Bret Michaels 1 & 2 and A Shot at Love with Tila Tequlia 1 & 2. Each show has the same premise. A B-list celebrity looks for love from among twenty or so beautiful men or women (in the case of Tila, both) who share the same house with one another and the star of the show.
Give the formula for each of the show, one might expect ratings to drop after the first season. Instead, ratings continue to go up, and demographics continue to grow. Why? In this paper, I posit that there are three reasons for the continued success of these programs. The first is that they reinforce an explicitly consumerist lifestyle. The second and third are deeply intertwined, and it is that they reinforce racist and sexist stereotypes of men and women.
Or
Why Reality TV is Turning America into a Society of Nitwits
(an abstract)
Unbelievable amounts of distraction are a part of the American social order, you’ve heard me harp on this before. Then again, you may think I’m just rambling around a ball of confusion this month. Dumbassification is the mental meltdown of America through the non-stop selling and buying of culture by corporations turning everyone into consumers [. . .]
-Chuck D. October 18, 2003
Nearly five years after Chuck D. began railing against the increasing consumerism of the United States, fellow Public Enemy member has filmed is about to premier a third season of the hit reality show The Flava of Love. Ostensibly, the program is a "reality" dating show, in which Flava Flav looks for his true love from among twenty young women. Unfortunately for Flav, two seasons have not yet yielded true love. Perhaps the third time really is a charm.
The first season of The Flava of Love was so successful that it spawned a variety of similar programming by VH1, including a show for the two-season runner up, New York (I Love New York 1 & 2) and The Rock of Love with Bret Michaels 1 & 2 and A Shot at Love with Tila Tequlia 1 & 2. Each show has the same premise. A B-list celebrity looks for love from among twenty or so beautiful men or women (in the case of Tila, both) who share the same house with one another and the star of the show.
Give the formula for each of the show, one might expect ratings to drop after the first season. Instead, ratings continue to go up, and demographics continue to grow. Why? In this paper, I posit that there are three reasons for the continued success of these programs. The first is that they reinforce an explicitly consumerist lifestyle. The second and third are deeply intertwined, and it is that they reinforce racist and sexist stereotypes of men and women.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Notes
transposed from journal entry 11.17.2008
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
-C.S. Lewis
Oddly appropriate that the Lewis quote opens the new page. Appropriate and unintentional. Fought with J. yesterday. The usual hullabaloo about the existence of God. Part of my thinks that this is the most pointless and idiotic thing I've ever done and the other thinks that it's the most urgent and important. I can't decide which is right. Struggling a lot with my own faith recently. I'm disgusted with my Church and work isn't helping much--one of those troughs were I wonder why I'm a Christian.
I know what I want this Church to be, but it feels like all we're doing is walking backwards. I know that we're all imperfect, so this Church is going to be imperfect, but fighting with your family hurts so much. I have to admit that J. asks some very pointed questions which, while they don't really rattle my belief in God and the Incarnation, make me wonder why I'm choosing to stick with the Catholics
Points for later discussion:
1. The role of Revelation in "total subjectivism"
2. Why was Franny and Zooey so important to my spiritual development?
3. The tricky position you hold. Do you really agree with Rev. Honey's view that God doesn't touch the world? (this seems right intellectually) or with Lewis that we were told to pray for our daily bread and the healing of our sick?
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
-C.S. Lewis
Oddly appropriate that the Lewis quote opens the new page. Appropriate and unintentional. Fought with J. yesterday. The usual hullabaloo about the existence of God. Part of my thinks that this is the most pointless and idiotic thing I've ever done and the other thinks that it's the most urgent and important. I can't decide which is right. Struggling a lot with my own faith recently. I'm disgusted with my Church and work isn't helping much--one of those troughs were I wonder why I'm a Christian.
I know what I want this Church to be, but it feels like all we're doing is walking backwards. I know that we're all imperfect, so this Church is going to be imperfect, but fighting with your family hurts so much. I have to admit that J. asks some very pointed questions which, while they don't really rattle my belief in God and the Incarnation, make me wonder why I'm choosing to stick with the Catholics
Points for later discussion:
1. The role of Revelation in "total subjectivism"
2. Why was Franny and Zooey so important to my spiritual development?
3. The tricky position you hold. Do you really agree with Rev. Honey's view that God doesn't touch the world? (this seems right intellectually) or with Lewis that we were told to pray for our daily bread and the healing of our sick?
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Jesus Loves You
Got so lost that I went to church.
Sorry, God, but you made it worse.
-Mason Jennings "If You Need a Reason"
Maggie and I went to the big fucking mall today (BFM) so that I could get fitted for some new bras, buy jeans, etc.
Most of the day actually passed pleasantly. There was a lot of surprisingly real interactions with people there--something I didn't expect to discover at the BFM.
Well, anyway, I was feeling pretty good about humanity and slightly less materialistic than I expected. Mags and I strolled the mall holding hands because she walks too fast otherwise and I really just like to hold hands. No biggie. We were walking past a gentleman with a woman on his arm and he said to us: "I really want you two to know that Jesus loves you."
What the fuck?
The gentleman didn't even bother to break his stride. Maggie didn't catch his comment, but I was snapping. I was so angry I could barely see straight. Are you kidding? You're jumping to a lot of conclusions, one being that I give a damn what Jesus thinks about me, the second that the woman whose hand I'm holding is my lover, and that you, being Christian, are automatically allowed to pass judgement on the way I change my life. Really? Are you serious?
When I told Mags, she laughed and brushed it off, saying that she had heard far worse. I'm not having as easy of a time writing this thing off. When we came home, she tried to explain her view on the situation to me.
"Kel, the thing is, yeah, we weren't doing anything that should have offended him. But what he said wasn't necessarily about him being offensive. I've found that when people say things like that, they actually have some sort of a desire for you to receive salvation. In a weird way, they're worried about your soul and what they're doing, they're doing out of love."
I (intellectually at least) understand what she's trying to say. I don't agree with it, but I think I get it. Part of the reason I was (am) so upset is because that gentleman and his offhand comment about Christ's love is so typical of the stereotype I've been fighting against since the day I became a Christian. Hey! Guess what? Not all Christians hate people who are different! And not all of us take our Bibles literally only when it suit our purposes. Additionally, some of us realize that it's not our place to pass judgement on our fellow humans.
I wonder if the gentleman would have felt the need to tell an abusive husband, a compulsive gambler, a suicidal teenager, a drug addict, someone who was on a rough road faith-wise, that Jesus still loves them. What was so inherently sinful about two women holding hands that he felt compelled to tell us that we could still be saved?
It's one of those nights when I question why I'm a Christian. Who the hell am I trying to kid? This religion is so full of hypocrites and freakshows and people who don't even think it through that it doesn't seem like it's worth it anymore. I'm sick of treading lightly around people whose opinions I don't want to offend, of not being able to speak my mind all the time, of being "out of communion" with my Church because I don't pass judgement on every person who walks in front of me. I'm asking myself again: When is enough enough? When is it time to cut your losses and run?
There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddamn secret yet? And don't you know--listen to me, now--don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?. . .Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.
-Franny & Zooey
Sorry, God, but you made it worse.
-Mason Jennings "If You Need a Reason"
Maggie and I went to the big fucking mall today (BFM) so that I could get fitted for some new bras, buy jeans, etc.
Most of the day actually passed pleasantly. There was a lot of surprisingly real interactions with people there--something I didn't expect to discover at the BFM.
Well, anyway, I was feeling pretty good about humanity and slightly less materialistic than I expected. Mags and I strolled the mall holding hands because she walks too fast otherwise and I really just like to hold hands. No biggie. We were walking past a gentleman with a woman on his arm and he said to us: "I really want you two to know that Jesus loves you."
What the fuck?
The gentleman didn't even bother to break his stride. Maggie didn't catch his comment, but I was snapping. I was so angry I could barely see straight. Are you kidding? You're jumping to a lot of conclusions, one being that I give a damn what Jesus thinks about me, the second that the woman whose hand I'm holding is my lover, and that you, being Christian, are automatically allowed to pass judgement on the way I change my life. Really? Are you serious?
When I told Mags, she laughed and brushed it off, saying that she had heard far worse. I'm not having as easy of a time writing this thing off. When we came home, she tried to explain her view on the situation to me.
"Kel, the thing is, yeah, we weren't doing anything that should have offended him. But what he said wasn't necessarily about him being offensive. I've found that when people say things like that, they actually have some sort of a desire for you to receive salvation. In a weird way, they're worried about your soul and what they're doing, they're doing out of love."
I (intellectually at least) understand what she's trying to say. I don't agree with it, but I think I get it. Part of the reason I was (am) so upset is because that gentleman and his offhand comment about Christ's love is so typical of the stereotype I've been fighting against since the day I became a Christian. Hey! Guess what? Not all Christians hate people who are different! And not all of us take our Bibles literally only when it suit our purposes. Additionally, some of us realize that it's not our place to pass judgement on our fellow humans.
I wonder if the gentleman would have felt the need to tell an abusive husband, a compulsive gambler, a suicidal teenager, a drug addict, someone who was on a rough road faith-wise, that Jesus still loves them. What was so inherently sinful about two women holding hands that he felt compelled to tell us that we could still be saved?
It's one of those nights when I question why I'm a Christian. Who the hell am I trying to kid? This religion is so full of hypocrites and freakshows and people who don't even think it through that it doesn't seem like it's worth it anymore. I'm sick of treading lightly around people whose opinions I don't want to offend, of not being able to speak my mind all the time, of being "out of communion" with my Church because I don't pass judgement on every person who walks in front of me. I'm asking myself again: When is enough enough? When is it time to cut your losses and run?
There isn't anyone out there who isn't Seymour's Fat Lady. Don't you know that? Don't you know that goddamn secret yet? And don't you know--listen to me, now--don't you know who that Fat Lady really is?. . .Ah, buddy. Ah, buddy. It's Christ Himself. Christ Himself, buddy.
-Franny & Zooey
Thursday, January 10, 2008
10:59 PM
For the first time in well over a week, I'm still voluntarily awake at 10:59. Normally I'm reading myself to sleep, or conked out, or worrying about a million things that won't matter in six months.
Tonight, instead of worrying, reading, or sleeping, I'm burning lavender oil, washing my sheets, and giving my room a pretty in depth (for me) cleaning. There's a strong potential for an overnight guest tomorrow, and in situations like this, I rarely like to let true, messy self show through. Clothes are folded and put in the dresser, the empty water glasses and tea mugs are banished, the bed is sprayed with linen spray and then made. Anything potentially damning is stuffed away in a closet.
As always, I try to see my room through a new-comers eyes. Scratched, older furniture, covered with a green patchwork quilt and a bright red Naxi shawl. An old, small, jammed book case that looks like it's about the topple. Not a single photo in sight. On the walls--a piece of posterboard with Manifesto; The Mad Farmer Liberation Front copied onto it. A line from Franny and Zooey. A Date to Save poster. A Vagina Monologues poster. Above the door, a small blue sign that read Shalom in biblical Hebrew. A few functional, nice potter pieces. A scary librarian sweater. A laptop. A small stereo and stack of CDs. A wool grouser hat. Boxes of tea. The underlying smell of lavender and chamomile.
I wonder what I want this to say about me. I clean because I want to look like I'm capable of keeping my life organized and together. I burn oil because it helps me sleep. I have a too-small, toppling bookshelf because I'm cheap and plan on moving, so a large expensive one doesn't seem like a good use of money and space. I have Wendell Berry & J.D. Salinger on my walls because I want to write like them. I don't have photos on my walls because words mean more to me than pictures do.
I wonder what it actually says about me.
I don't do interpersonal relationships. I spend too much time alone with my books. I'm overly idealistic. I'm conflicted. I want too much. I don't want enough. I'm disorganized. I'm creative. I'm not creative. I'm snooty. I'm high maintenance.
Unfortunately, overnight callers generally aren't into pyscho-analyzing you based on your room decor (0r lack thereof).
Damn. So much for a moment of self-actualization. I would have been better off sleeping.
Tonight, instead of worrying, reading, or sleeping, I'm burning lavender oil, washing my sheets, and giving my room a pretty in depth (for me) cleaning. There's a strong potential for an overnight guest tomorrow, and in situations like this, I rarely like to let true, messy self show through. Clothes are folded and put in the dresser, the empty water glasses and tea mugs are banished, the bed is sprayed with linen spray and then made. Anything potentially damning is stuffed away in a closet.
As always, I try to see my room through a new-comers eyes. Scratched, older furniture, covered with a green patchwork quilt and a bright red Naxi shawl. An old, small, jammed book case that looks like it's about the topple. Not a single photo in sight. On the walls--a piece of posterboard with Manifesto; The Mad Farmer Liberation Front copied onto it. A line from Franny and Zooey. A Date to Save poster. A Vagina Monologues poster. Above the door, a small blue sign that read Shalom in biblical Hebrew. A few functional, nice potter pieces. A scary librarian sweater. A laptop. A small stereo and stack of CDs. A wool grouser hat. Boxes of tea. The underlying smell of lavender and chamomile.
I wonder what I want this to say about me. I clean because I want to look like I'm capable of keeping my life organized and together. I burn oil because it helps me sleep. I have a too-small, toppling bookshelf because I'm cheap and plan on moving, so a large expensive one doesn't seem like a good use of money and space. I have Wendell Berry & J.D. Salinger on my walls because I want to write like them. I don't have photos on my walls because words mean more to me than pictures do.
I wonder what it actually says about me.
I don't do interpersonal relationships. I spend too much time alone with my books. I'm overly idealistic. I'm conflicted. I want too much. I don't want enough. I'm disorganized. I'm creative. I'm not creative. I'm snooty. I'm high maintenance.
Unfortunately, overnight callers generally aren't into pyscho-analyzing you based on your room decor (0r lack thereof).
Damn. So much for a moment of self-actualization. I would have been better off sleeping.
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