3.15.2011
Hawaii 2011 (Day Three)
After two days of false starts and misconnections, day three of our Hawaii sojourn had a lot to live up to--fortunately, two members of our original supper club made sure that this day would count. In the morning, our fearless host Linda had secretly arranged to get us into the infamous King Kamehamea club (of Magnum P.I. fame--a show that was part of my childhood background landscape, but which has become more of my psyche, thanks to our friends Dayna and Mazz). Linda's friend Elisa has a membership to this club (an Elks Club in RL), and showed us the glamorous side of Honolulu.
Although there was no Rick, T.C., or Higgins (not to mention no damsels or sinister international types), we were able to watch whales breaking the surface in the distance. There were also some pretty fancy Mai Tais and Bloody Mary's on the menu.
Although nobody would confirm this, we're pretty sure Rick was hiding behind this particular door.
After our noon trip to the club (and a nap), we weren't finished with our beach time. After shopping and packing a picnic dinner, we walked back down to Kaimana beach for a sunset meeting with a few of Benito's and Linda's friends. Initially, we had to plunk ourselves down on the wall because of few of the locals had commandeered the usual bench.
Once we got over the shock of the change in venue (really, only about 20 feet difference from their "usual" spot), we got down to eating and drinking. Although the couscous, watercress-tofu salad, brie on french bread, ahi poke, potato-blue cheese salad, and spicy-fried tofu were divine, what really stood out was the hospitality.
Of course, the reason these are called SUNSET picnics became obvious about halfway through the meal.
Although it took a while to get here, the smiles of old friends, the hospitality of new friends, and the quiet moments of beauty can balance the weight of so many difficulties. Small revelations.
3.13.2011
Hawaii 2011 (Day Two)
By now, you know that on Friday, March 11, 2011, Japan suffered its worst disaster since WWII. Although we spent much of the day in a travel bubble (4+ hours to LAX, a layover, and 6+ hours to Honolulu), we never imagined that our first few hours in paradise would be spent with friends worrying about whether or not we would be running for the hills. Although our first sightings of Linda and Benito "stalking" us near the Honolulu airport baggage carousels with leis (and beautiful, at that) were pure joy, it did not take long to figure out that all was not right in the world. Miriam and I were exhausted from the cross-country trip, a bit discombobulated from the jet lag, and more than a bit...um...ripe from not having access to our travel bag for two days (it spent night 1 in the Fargo airport), but we were ecstatic to be on the island and in the company of friends. After a glass of champagne (Gruet, naturally!), and introduction to friends who would be leaving for Bali in the morning, we were soon greeted with hourly tsunami sirens, and a mad scramble to find out information. Our host, Linda K., was methodical in finding pertinent information (it turns out that despite our close proximity to the beach, we are not in an evacuation area). Benito and the other friends who joined us were also good at sorting through the confusion. We stayed in the second-floor apartment near Waikiki beach, but we did not sleep much. Knowing that the first tsunami wave was supposed to hit at around 2:38 a.m. made the 2:34 a.m. tsunami siren all the more frightening. As is obvious, we made it through the night. Thank you everyone who has expressed concern for our well-being. We are fine. We hope you direct your attention to the people of Japan, who have, and continue to suffer unimaginable suffering because of the earthquake, tsunami, aftershocks, and nuclear plant problems. It is good to have friends near and far, and I think Japan will need friends from all over to get through this.
3.12.2011
Hawaii 2011 (Day One)
Sometimes, the best parts of the trip are the unexpected surprises. Not today. Mechanical problems with the jet that was supposed to start our journey to Hawaii proved that serendipity doesn't always rule the day.
We made it to Chicago and stayed near the airport. About 12 minutes before our already-delayed flight was supposed to depart, I was aware enough to call the airline. Incidentally, this is a very good idea if you want to get rerouted. For the record, United Airlines was very nice and as accommodating as they could be under the circumstances.
Was it was nice to get out of town? Yes, but there doesn't seem to be any grand lesson to learn in this particular missed connection (beyond obvious humility. Let's be honest here, though--even I don't feel like I'm in control of large jets).
On the plus side, our Chicago hotel bed was nice, and certainly better than staying in O'Hare overnight, which I have done). Next stop, Hawaii?
We made it to Chicago and stayed near the airport. About 12 minutes before our already-delayed flight was supposed to depart, I was aware enough to call the airline. Incidentally, this is a very good idea if you want to get rerouted. For the record, United Airlines was very nice and as accommodating as they could be under the circumstances.
Was it was nice to get out of town? Yes, but there doesn't seem to be any grand lesson to learn in this particular missed connection (beyond obvious humility. Let's be honest here, though--even I don't feel like I'm in control of large jets).
On the plus side, our Chicago hotel bed was nice, and certainly better than staying in O'Hare overnight, which I have done). Next stop, Hawaii?
3.02.2011
The Kids Are Definitely All Right
Lisa Cholodenko’s "The Kids Are All Right" does what few comedies have dared to do in quite some time--it examines the slowly fraying edges that inevitably result when people make long commitments to one another, and it does it with both ferocity and tenderness. Although the central differences that the characters Nic and Jules (the protagonist mothers--played by Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) have with heteronormative Hollywood productions inevitably draws the attention of cultural critics, the heart of this movie resides in familial relationships that the children (18 year-old Joni and 15 year-old Laser--played by Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson, respectively) have with their two moms and the "interloper" sperm-donating father Paul (played by Mark Ruffalo). Of course, the norms that the characters adhere to are as heteronormative and patriarchal as the values that the lesbian mothers battle; still, these norms are at once more sublely-played and powerful than the heterosexual economy that the seducing Paul re-introduces into Nic's and Jules' love equation. This movie foregrounds a highly-emphasized sexual motif, with several sexual encounters between characters--and even a rather stylized gay porno-- and rather graphically emphasizes the sexual implications of life choices. Underneath the encounters and cuckolding, however, lies more profound feelings of abandonment, insecurity, longing, and wishing.
Laser's desire for a fatherly connection awakens after his awkwardly-bullying friend/acquaintance Clay gets into a very rough wrestling match with his own dad. Laser, a rather quiet teenager, convinces his sister Joni to look up and contact their biological father Paul, and the once-clear family lines begin to cross. The viewers initially get to see Nic and Jules as a rather normal couple, with separate identities and different power situations. Nic, an OB-GYN is played somewhat unflatteringly, though humanely. Nic's obviously the breadwinner, and brooks little discussion on matters of protocol or propriety. Jules provides the bulk of the nurturing for the family, and we meet her as she is trying to launch a landscaping business. It is during the scenes where Nic and Jules discuss her fledgling business, and during dinner interactions that we see that Jules is somewhat inarticulate and at a disadvantage to Nic's well-polished, disciplined, yet often cold demeanor. Clearly, these two people love each other, but 18+ years with two children have required compromises, and it looks like Jules' flakiness has provided much of the cushion.
The entrance of a very sexual, and casually entitled Paul (he enters not by design, as it was the children who asked for his presence) happens at Jules' emotional ebb. His affirming and flirtatious support of Jules' career through a backyard commission quickly turns physical, as Paul does not miss a chance to compliment Jules' work, philosophy, and looks. Moreover, he does not turn her advances back, as his encounters with his biologically-connected kids awaken feelings of yearning for rootedness and even a family of his own. The physical relationship that ensues seems sadly funny, as both of these characters don't know where the "off" switch resides. Jules' knows that she loves her family, but she cannot stand up for her own needs, and Paul doesn't know how to appreciate what he already has. Paul's need to stay open for the advance puts everyone into an awkward position, as families do not have the same kind of resilience as the young women he has bedded. Or do they? As this family goes churns through the crisis, you find out that Jules' has much more strength and sticktuitiveness than first portrayed. She provides the climactic and heart-wrenching living-room talk that reveals just how aware she is that she has betrayed, and has been betrayed by, the woman she loves. The "marathon" she describes is one that Nic must also admit to--Nic's uncomfortableness with her physiciality, her easy comfort with overdrinking, overstating opinions, and her overdependence on her economic and professional superiority all come crashing down. She knows that she's been shutting out Jules, and only the quiet affirmation of Jules' worth can help her meet the inarticulate and wounded heart of her partner on more equal ground. This reversal of Jules' and Nic's articulateness marks the turn in admitting that they don't know how things will turn out, but that they are committed to each other and their children regardless.
While the acting is generally very good, Julianne Moore's acting comes across as genuinely rich. Ms. Moore shows an attention to character that I have not seen in any of her roles (she generally depends upon the depth of her expressive eyes--something I might attribute to her choice of roles in thrillers and dramas). Annette Bening is, as usual, excellent. She presents a bit more of a hard edge with her silent cruelties, but underlines her role with a genuine warmth. Unlike her role in American Beauty, she is a sympathetic character (as are all of the characters--including Mark Ruffalo's clueless lothario).
What is genuinely a delight, though emerges from the way that Laser eventually enunciates the heart of the family. His rejection of Clay (during his "friend's" attempt to urinate on a stray dog) and his embracing of his mothers, with all of their flaws, provide a bit of honesty to the perfectionism of Nic and Joni and the self-doubt of Jules. Probably not "Best Picture" material, but a pretty frank and, ultimately hopeful, look at the contrast between family dreams and family realities.
Laser's desire for a fatherly connection awakens after his awkwardly-bullying friend/acquaintance Clay gets into a very rough wrestling match with his own dad. Laser, a rather quiet teenager, convinces his sister Joni to look up and contact their biological father Paul, and the once-clear family lines begin to cross. The viewers initially get to see Nic and Jules as a rather normal couple, with separate identities and different power situations. Nic, an OB-GYN is played somewhat unflatteringly, though humanely. Nic's obviously the breadwinner, and brooks little discussion on matters of protocol or propriety. Jules provides the bulk of the nurturing for the family, and we meet her as she is trying to launch a landscaping business. It is during the scenes where Nic and Jules discuss her fledgling business, and during dinner interactions that we see that Jules is somewhat inarticulate and at a disadvantage to Nic's well-polished, disciplined, yet often cold demeanor. Clearly, these two people love each other, but 18+ years with two children have required compromises, and it looks like Jules' flakiness has provided much of the cushion.
The entrance of a very sexual, and casually entitled Paul (he enters not by design, as it was the children who asked for his presence) happens at Jules' emotional ebb. His affirming and flirtatious support of Jules' career through a backyard commission quickly turns physical, as Paul does not miss a chance to compliment Jules' work, philosophy, and looks. Moreover, he does not turn her advances back, as his encounters with his biologically-connected kids awaken feelings of yearning for rootedness and even a family of his own. The physical relationship that ensues seems sadly funny, as both of these characters don't know where the "off" switch resides. Jules' knows that she loves her family, but she cannot stand up for her own needs, and Paul doesn't know how to appreciate what he already has. Paul's need to stay open for the advance puts everyone into an awkward position, as families do not have the same kind of resilience as the young women he has bedded. Or do they? As this family goes churns through the crisis, you find out that Jules' has much more strength and sticktuitiveness than first portrayed. She provides the climactic and heart-wrenching living-room talk that reveals just how aware she is that she has betrayed, and has been betrayed by, the woman she loves. The "marathon" she describes is one that Nic must also admit to--Nic's uncomfortableness with her physiciality, her easy comfort with overdrinking, overstating opinions, and her overdependence on her economic and professional superiority all come crashing down. She knows that she's been shutting out Jules, and only the quiet affirmation of Jules' worth can help her meet the inarticulate and wounded heart of her partner on more equal ground. This reversal of Jules' and Nic's articulateness marks the turn in admitting that they don't know how things will turn out, but that they are committed to each other and their children regardless.
While the acting is generally very good, Julianne Moore's acting comes across as genuinely rich. Ms. Moore shows an attention to character that I have not seen in any of her roles (she generally depends upon the depth of her expressive eyes--something I might attribute to her choice of roles in thrillers and dramas). Annette Bening is, as usual, excellent. She presents a bit more of a hard edge with her silent cruelties, but underlines her role with a genuine warmth. Unlike her role in American Beauty, she is a sympathetic character (as are all of the characters--including Mark Ruffalo's clueless lothario).
What is genuinely a delight, though emerges from the way that Laser eventually enunciates the heart of the family. His rejection of Clay (during his "friend's" attempt to urinate on a stray dog) and his embracing of his mothers, with all of their flaws, provide a bit of honesty to the perfectionism of Nic and Joni and the self-doubt of Jules. Probably not "Best Picture" material, but a pretty frank and, ultimately hopeful, look at the contrast between family dreams and family realities.
2.17.2011
Boys to Men
Contemporary global culture celebrates movies, the opera of our contemporary historical moment, in some surprisingly limited ways. There is much made about the technical artistry of movies, the quality of the visual effects, the acting, and the poetic sensibility of the storytelling. Additionally, critics and awards organizations recognize movies that capture a particular zeitgeist--movies that, say, reinvigorate our belief in simple, yet absorbing worlds (Star Wars), or that make us feel better about our chances to have an impact on the world (Rocky). Much less celebrated are the movies that touch our ethical sensibility, that guide our sense of how one negotiates the world's complicated, and often contradictory demands. Movies that give us these ethical touchstones are only celebrated when wrapped in an epic (Dances with Wolves) or historical (Schindler's List) sensibility.
Small, quiet movies that explore the paradoxes of a life well lived (Groundhog Day, The Fisher King) typically fall under radar, and only find their audience through word of mouth. One movie that was lucky enough to find an audience did so by disguising itself as a contemporary Brit-com in the tradition of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love, Actually. This movie, About a Boy, stars the same troubled, but charming, adultboy Hugh Grant. In this movie, the manboytagonist Will provides the narration about his lonely life of abundance. Will employs disarming banter about how he eschews complications from his relationships and structures frittering away his days (using interchangeable "units" to describe what are essentially luxurious distractions). The viewer can be very easily taken by Will's roguish disaffectedness, and is invited to do so with long looks at Will's luxury loft-style apartment, his modernist furniture, an eclectic collection of hobbies, and an even more exotic collection of girlfriends. Rather unsubtlely, Will's opulent, but empty existence gets contrasted with a rather unflattering portrait of "the boy" (Marcus, played by Nicholas Hoult) and his mother Fiona (played by the inimitable Toni Colette). Marcus, a rather awkward tween, ineffectively fends off school bullies and tries to understand why his granola-laden mother unhappily keeps trying to kill herself. Even though the audience could get backstory to understand what drives Fiona to her suicidal maudlin behavior, or why Marcus never seems to defend himself, we are denied that background. Instead, the audience is allowed the discomfort of admiring a trust-fund nothing and feeling less sorry for two characters in truly pitiable circumstances.
The reversal of charisma that arights this ethical incongruity hinges on Will's attempts to pick up on single mothers (the chant of the group SPAT, "Single Parents Alone Together!" is almost worth the price of admission alone). Will's narration on his reasoning for picking up on single parents only highlights just how emotionally parasitic he is, and just how little he actually lives up to his credo that "all men are islands." By plugging into the emotional needs of single mothers to increase his own ego, and then taking advantage of those mothers' ambivalence towards an emotional competition with a child to provide an easy exit, Will harvests the emotional void of vulnerable people. It is in this scenario that Marcus sees an opportunity to harvest Will's emotional void through blackmail. Marcus, like Will has a shaky relationship with any male figure (something that becomes abundantly clear when he volunteers to play "Killing Me Softly" during the high-school talent show using only his squeaky voice and a sad little tambourine). Unlike Will, though, Marcus is not yet resigned to always taking or buying the simularcrum of love where he can from the women in his life. Instead, Marcus still seeks authentic relationships with women, and instead enters a more capitalistic emotional exchange with boys and men (especially Will).
During the initial stumblings of their relationship, Will and Marcus attempt to steer each other toward the heteronormative and capitalistic models for different-sex relationships. Marcus tries to set Will up as a romantic partner with his mother, Fiona (at the same time Will is desperately trying to figure out how to have an honest relationship with Rachel--played by Rachel Weisz]). Meanwhile, Will is trying to buy Marcus' good graces by using a bit of his trust-fund money to buy him shoes and music. Both of these schemes to buy/force love fall flat, and Will and Marcus are both left trying to square up with people who genuinely like them, but with whom they feel like they cannot fully connect. Rachel's child (a bully) hates Will and bullies Marcus to hog his mom's energy. Fiona sees through Will's strategies, and eventually exposes his masquerades as a single father. The difficulties that Will and Marcus face creating an atmosphere of honesty and trust seem insurmountable, as both of them come from an emotionally stunted upbringing ("No. No. You've always had that wrong. I really am this shallow. ").
It's only at the moment that you think that Will and Marcus aren't going to ever make the connection that you learn about Will's and Marcus' connection to an overshadowing parent. Marcus' social suicide attempt at the talent show somewhat melodramatically folds in Will's disconnection with his now-dead songwriting father who left him a small fortune, but seemingly never helped him grow up. The solo (which eventually becomes a duet) takes the title "Killing Me Softly" rather literally. Fiona encourages a show of love that will likely seal Marcus' fate as the bottom rung on the social ladder, and Will exposes the fact that his father's "one hit wonder" musical fortune buried any chance that he would grow out of his childish need to buy affection. The song that pays Will royalties ("Santa's Super Sleigh") has really been killing Will emotionally.
Fortunately, this show of solidarity on the stage has all of the right people watching, and forges a real connection between the formerly disconnected characters. This neat tying-up of narratives avoids cliché in how it handles the resolution. Instead of re-establishing the heteronormative and capitalistic order, Will's narration takes a decidedly ethical turn in announcing that "every man is an island. I stand by that. But clearly some men are island CHAINS. Underneath, they are connected." Marcus adds to this narrative (a narrative echo to the musical duet) by building on that Robinson Crusoe-esque observation: "I used to think two was enough. But now things are great; there are loads of people... I don't know what Will was so pissed about. I don't think couples are the future. The way I see it now, we both got back-up now. It's like that thing Jon Bon Jovi said: 'No man is an island.'"
Even further, Will discovers the secret to really connecting with and loving others resides not in the one-to-one exchange that he excels in (and something that compels him to maintain the illusion of desirability, ultimately leading to the lies he constructs to maintain that illusion), but rather in accepting, supporting, and loving the people that those people love. To care about someone means you have to genuinely care about the people that someone has in their lives. Will grows by spending time with everyone in Marcus' life, by sharing who he is with everyone, and by accepting and helping those on the edges of Marcus' and Rachel's life. Marcus' and Will's shared humiliation on the stage provides the metaphor to guide their interactions with others around them. Marcus becomes visible to loved ones and possible friends for the first time and Will can finally offer something of substance because of the courageous stand they both take on the most fickle of stages.
In the end, no character changes so much as they emerge into honesty. Marcus is still awkward. Will is still struggling to grow. Fiona is still depressed. Despite these flaws, each has prospects, both in romantic love, and, more importantly in family.
Small, quiet movies that explore the paradoxes of a life well lived (Groundhog Day, The Fisher King) typically fall under radar, and only find their audience through word of mouth. One movie that was lucky enough to find an audience did so by disguising itself as a contemporary Brit-com in the tradition of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love, Actually. This movie, About a Boy, stars the same troubled, but charming, adultboy Hugh Grant. In this movie, the manboytagonist Will provides the narration about his lonely life of abundance. Will employs disarming banter about how he eschews complications from his relationships and structures frittering away his days (using interchangeable "units" to describe what are essentially luxurious distractions). The viewer can be very easily taken by Will's roguish disaffectedness, and is invited to do so with long looks at Will's luxury loft-style apartment, his modernist furniture, an eclectic collection of hobbies, and an even more exotic collection of girlfriends. Rather unsubtlely, Will's opulent, but empty existence gets contrasted with a rather unflattering portrait of "the boy" (Marcus, played by Nicholas Hoult) and his mother Fiona (played by the inimitable Toni Colette). Marcus, a rather awkward tween, ineffectively fends off school bullies and tries to understand why his granola-laden mother unhappily keeps trying to kill herself. Even though the audience could get backstory to understand what drives Fiona to her suicidal maudlin behavior, or why Marcus never seems to defend himself, we are denied that background. Instead, the audience is allowed the discomfort of admiring a trust-fund nothing and feeling less sorry for two characters in truly pitiable circumstances.
The reversal of charisma that arights this ethical incongruity hinges on Will's attempts to pick up on single mothers (the chant of the group SPAT, "Single Parents Alone Together!" is almost worth the price of admission alone). Will's narration on his reasoning for picking up on single parents only highlights just how emotionally parasitic he is, and just how little he actually lives up to his credo that "all men are islands." By plugging into the emotional needs of single mothers to increase his own ego, and then taking advantage of those mothers' ambivalence towards an emotional competition with a child to provide an easy exit, Will harvests the emotional void of vulnerable people. It is in this scenario that Marcus sees an opportunity to harvest Will's emotional void through blackmail. Marcus, like Will has a shaky relationship with any male figure (something that becomes abundantly clear when he volunteers to play "Killing Me Softly" during the high-school talent show using only his squeaky voice and a sad little tambourine). Unlike Will, though, Marcus is not yet resigned to always taking or buying the simularcrum of love where he can from the women in his life. Instead, Marcus still seeks authentic relationships with women, and instead enters a more capitalistic emotional exchange with boys and men (especially Will).
During the initial stumblings of their relationship, Will and Marcus attempt to steer each other toward the heteronormative and capitalistic models for different-sex relationships. Marcus tries to set Will up as a romantic partner with his mother, Fiona (at the same time Will is desperately trying to figure out how to have an honest relationship with Rachel--played by Rachel Weisz]). Meanwhile, Will is trying to buy Marcus' good graces by using a bit of his trust-fund money to buy him shoes and music. Both of these schemes to buy/force love fall flat, and Will and Marcus are both left trying to square up with people who genuinely like them, but with whom they feel like they cannot fully connect. Rachel's child (a bully) hates Will and bullies Marcus to hog his mom's energy. Fiona sees through Will's strategies, and eventually exposes his masquerades as a single father. The difficulties that Will and Marcus face creating an atmosphere of honesty and trust seem insurmountable, as both of them come from an emotionally stunted upbringing ("No. No. You've always had that wrong. I really am this shallow. ").
It's only at the moment that you think that Will and Marcus aren't going to ever make the connection that you learn about Will's and Marcus' connection to an overshadowing parent. Marcus' social suicide attempt at the talent show somewhat melodramatically folds in Will's disconnection with his now-dead songwriting father who left him a small fortune, but seemingly never helped him grow up. The solo (which eventually becomes a duet) takes the title "Killing Me Softly" rather literally. Fiona encourages a show of love that will likely seal Marcus' fate as the bottom rung on the social ladder, and Will exposes the fact that his father's "one hit wonder" musical fortune buried any chance that he would grow out of his childish need to buy affection. The song that pays Will royalties ("Santa's Super Sleigh") has really been killing Will emotionally.
Fortunately, this show of solidarity on the stage has all of the right people watching, and forges a real connection between the formerly disconnected characters. This neat tying-up of narratives avoids cliché in how it handles the resolution. Instead of re-establishing the heteronormative and capitalistic order, Will's narration takes a decidedly ethical turn in announcing that "every man is an island. I stand by that. But clearly some men are island CHAINS. Underneath, they are connected." Marcus adds to this narrative (a narrative echo to the musical duet) by building on that Robinson Crusoe-esque observation: "I used to think two was enough. But now things are great; there are loads of people... I don't know what Will was so pissed about. I don't think couples are the future. The way I see it now, we both got back-up now. It's like that thing Jon Bon Jovi said: 'No man is an island.'"
Even further, Will discovers the secret to really connecting with and loving others resides not in the one-to-one exchange that he excels in (and something that compels him to maintain the illusion of desirability, ultimately leading to the lies he constructs to maintain that illusion), but rather in accepting, supporting, and loving the people that those people love. To care about someone means you have to genuinely care about the people that someone has in their lives. Will grows by spending time with everyone in Marcus' life, by sharing who he is with everyone, and by accepting and helping those on the edges of Marcus' and Rachel's life. Marcus' and Will's shared humiliation on the stage provides the metaphor to guide their interactions with others around them. Marcus becomes visible to loved ones and possible friends for the first time and Will can finally offer something of substance because of the courageous stand they both take on the most fickle of stages.
In the end, no character changes so much as they emerge into honesty. Marcus is still awkward. Will is still struggling to grow. Fiona is still depressed. Despite these flaws, each has prospects, both in romantic love, and, more importantly in family.
2.06.2011
2011 Spring Fitness Goals Log: Week 3
Bench Press: 82%
Squat Press: 70%
Standing Curls: 80%
Military Press: 75%
Gymnastic Situps: 100%
Indo Balance Board: 7 minutes
Yoga: 1 day - short session
Short Run: 3 miles (speed), 2 miles (speed)
Long Run: 11 miles (speed)
Squat Press: 70%
Standing Curls: 80%
Military Press: 75%
Gymnastic Situps: 100%
Indo Balance Board: 7 minutes
Yoga: 1 day - short session
Short Run: 3 miles (speed), 2 miles (speed)
Long Run: 11 miles (speed)
1.26.2011
2011 Spring Fitness Goals Log: Week 2
Pull-ups: 66%
Dips: 92%
Seated Dumbbell Reverse-raises: 70%
Shrugs: 60%
Sit-ups: 100%
Yoga: 1 day - short session
Short Run: 3 miles (speed)
Long Run: 7 miles (speed)
Dips: 92%
Seated Dumbbell Reverse-raises: 70%
Shrugs: 60%
Sit-ups: 100%
Yoga: 1 day - short session
Short Run: 3 miles (speed)
Long Run: 7 miles (speed)
1.17.2011
2011 Spring Fitness Goals Log: Week 1
Bench Press: 82%
Squat Press: 65%
Standing Curls: 80%
Military Press: 67%
Indo Balance Board: 5 minutes
Yoga: 2 days - short session
Short Run: 4 miles
Long Run: 10 miles
Squat Press: 65%
Standing Curls: 80%
Military Press: 67%
Indo Balance Board: 5 minutes
Yoga: 2 days - short session
Short Run: 4 miles
Long Run: 10 miles
1.10.2011
Movie Editing as Gender Construction
Editing can have HUGE implications for how one experiences a film/video. When Peter Ramus divided invention from what he thought were the ornamental elements of rhetoric, he failed to see the constitutive powers of arrangement and style. To illustrate my point, I'm going to contrast two trailers for the surfing documentary Step Into Liquid. In each trailer, notice who speaks first, who speaks most, and note the way that the genders are portrayed.
In the first, more gender-balanced trailer, note how the title of the movie is derived from an interview with Rochelle Ballard, one of the best professional surfers on the tour. She distills the joy of surfing by describing it as stepping into liquid. In the trailer, you see her discussing surfing in philosophical and intellectual terms. There is a moment where she descibes it more sensually. In this first trailer, you only hear her at this moment, and see her during her more serious moments. The gender balance in this trailer is also much more obvious, with cuts between male and female surfers. Women are portrayed in active poses, with the climactic scene of a woman doing a backflip off of her surfboard.
In the second trailer, there is a hyper-masculine narrator using an aggressive and superlative tone ("the Browns have done it again"). Men are the first people you hear (rather than the woman whose interview inspired the title). The same footage of Ballard shows the moment when she's discussing surfing more sensually ("it just feels good") with her scrunching up her shoulders and appearing a little more flaky. The footage of the surfers is more segregated by gender, and there is a marked difference between the ways that men are described (men are identified as parts of groups, and doing more aggressive and accomplished feats--"strapped crew," "the Maverick's crew," "the war veteran," "surf legends," "The Malloys, etc.") vs. the women (who are described individually, and as being part of a setting-- "in beautiful Tahiti").
The addition of the throbbing music to the more masculinized soundtrack merely serves to underline the gender posturing in this short piece. While the additive elements of the voiceover and the soundtrack underline the difference, the editing is really what does the heavy lifting. Segregating different gendered surfing footage and featuring the more sensual, slow motion, and closer shots of women, while featuring the more active men through the use of helicopter "God's eye" shots of men skating across the face of larger waves in real-time constructs the binaries of men as active and aggressive and women as soft and more passive. The declaration that "the Browns have done it again, and this time they're showing the simple truth about surfing" (with the images of exclusively-male images of big-wave surfing), followed immediately by spliced audio explaining "big wave riding is like an inner desire" only cements the naturalized ordering of big wave riding (done by men as "the truth" of surfing) as the top of the hierarchy.
Subtle differences to the untrained eye, but unmistakable compositions that cement associations between gender and activity through image. Splicing flickering signifiers in particular sequences creates the multiple gendered truths of surfing from the same raw material.
In the first, more gender-balanced trailer, note how the title of the movie is derived from an interview with Rochelle Ballard, one of the best professional surfers on the tour. She distills the joy of surfing by describing it as stepping into liquid. In the trailer, you see her discussing surfing in philosophical and intellectual terms. There is a moment where she descibes it more sensually. In this first trailer, you only hear her at this moment, and see her during her more serious moments. The gender balance in this trailer is also much more obvious, with cuts between male and female surfers. Women are portrayed in active poses, with the climactic scene of a woman doing a backflip off of her surfboard.
In the second trailer, there is a hyper-masculine narrator using an aggressive and superlative tone ("the Browns have done it again"). Men are the first people you hear (rather than the woman whose interview inspired the title). The same footage of Ballard shows the moment when she's discussing surfing more sensually ("it just feels good") with her scrunching up her shoulders and appearing a little more flaky. The footage of the surfers is more segregated by gender, and there is a marked difference between the ways that men are described (men are identified as parts of groups, and doing more aggressive and accomplished feats--"strapped crew," "the Maverick's crew," "the war veteran," "surf legends," "The Malloys, etc.") vs. the women (who are described individually, and as being part of a setting-- "in beautiful Tahiti").
The addition of the throbbing music to the more masculinized soundtrack merely serves to underline the gender posturing in this short piece. While the additive elements of the voiceover and the soundtrack underline the difference, the editing is really what does the heavy lifting. Segregating different gendered surfing footage and featuring the more sensual, slow motion, and closer shots of women, while featuring the more active men through the use of helicopter "God's eye" shots of men skating across the face of larger waves in real-time constructs the binaries of men as active and aggressive and women as soft and more passive. The declaration that "the Browns have done it again, and this time they're showing the simple truth about surfing" (with the images of exclusively-male images of big-wave surfing), followed immediately by spliced audio explaining "big wave riding is like an inner desire" only cements the naturalized ordering of big wave riding (done by men as "the truth" of surfing) as the top of the hierarchy.
Subtle differences to the untrained eye, but unmistakable compositions that cement associations between gender and activity through image. Splicing flickering signifiers in particular sequences creates the multiple gendered truths of surfing from the same raw material.
1.06.2011
Running into a Blizzard
When my partner and I were interviewing for our two jobs at NDSU, we asked a graduate-school friend from Minnetonka, Minnesota about the chances of us surviving up here on the northern plains; “you are moving to a cold, dark hole, but the people who live there are really nice.” Foreboding description, but we took the leap anyway. Since we moved, we have found he description apt for the most part, and have been learning to embrace life up here. We’ve picked up cross-country skiing, run through blizzards, and even built slide-distance into our driving calculations. Still, we have never been stranded in a car during a blizzard. Correction: we hadn’t been stranded in a car until December 30, 2010.
As you already know, we survived this seemingly-shocking event, and have emerged pretty much unscathed. Perhaps the weirdest part of being in a car that slides into a snow bank during the middle of a blizzard is the strange mundanity of it. What went through my head was really something more like a combination of confusion and of comfort. The bizarre juxtaposition between the almost-unimaginable slide of a 2-ton car on a dark, icy road and the almost cheerful camaraderie of three friends going into the unknown still jars my imagination. There was no question what was driving us—the chance to spend this belated birthday celebration eating incredible Korean food with an old friend (it was going to be two old friends, but one was quite sick at home) and two new friends was too much to pass up.
When the snow settled, and the requisite attempts to free the car using drive and reverse failed, my friend Dayna, my partner Miriam, and I looked at each other for answers. Luckily, both of the other people stuck in this absurd situation with me are can-do folks--within minutes, we were all out trying to push the car off of the snow berm and back onto the road. We hacked away at the snow with both hands and an ice scraper. Our gregarious driver asked a police officer to call a tow-truck (none of the 18 tow-truck services would come down as far south in Moorhead as we were), called her insurance company, and flagged down a fellow stranded motorist to help free us; Miriam and I took turns pushing, gunning the car, and digging. Ultimately, the combination of near-gale winds and ice-rink surface of the road forced us to call our dinner hosts to see if we could make a run for their apartment. After a few calls back and forth (what did we DO before cellphones?), we made a run for it, and was met by one of our hosts (a Texas native, but surprisingly adept running through the snow) about 1/4 mile from the car.
As you may suspect, we made it to the dinner (which was even better than I imagined). The food, conversation, and hospitality were amazing, especially considering the circumstances; still, I can’t help but think back about what my Lake Minnetonka friend told me. Most people think of place as something that gets characterized by its natives. Although Dayna is from here (and has been a delightful guide in discovering both basic and urbane aspects of the culture), our hosts are from South Korea and Houston. Miriam and I hail from Florida and Arizona. Despite (or maybe because of) our diversity, we were able to get to the dinner, have a great dinner, survive an impromptu sleepover, and get home. The combination of difficulties and friends to face them have only cemented my feeling that Fargo is now my home--a place where even the worst of circumstances can add to my love of place.
As you already know, we survived this seemingly-shocking event, and have emerged pretty much unscathed. Perhaps the weirdest part of being in a car that slides into a snow bank during the middle of a blizzard is the strange mundanity of it. What went through my head was really something more like a combination of confusion and of comfort. The bizarre juxtaposition between the almost-unimaginable slide of a 2-ton car on a dark, icy road and the almost cheerful camaraderie of three friends going into the unknown still jars my imagination. There was no question what was driving us—the chance to spend this belated birthday celebration eating incredible Korean food with an old friend (it was going to be two old friends, but one was quite sick at home) and two new friends was too much to pass up.
When the snow settled, and the requisite attempts to free the car using drive and reverse failed, my friend Dayna, my partner Miriam, and I looked at each other for answers. Luckily, both of the other people stuck in this absurd situation with me are can-do folks--within minutes, we were all out trying to push the car off of the snow berm and back onto the road. We hacked away at the snow with both hands and an ice scraper. Our gregarious driver asked a police officer to call a tow-truck (none of the 18 tow-truck services would come down as far south in Moorhead as we were), called her insurance company, and flagged down a fellow stranded motorist to help free us; Miriam and I took turns pushing, gunning the car, and digging. Ultimately, the combination of near-gale winds and ice-rink surface of the road forced us to call our dinner hosts to see if we could make a run for their apartment. After a few calls back and forth (what did we DO before cellphones?), we made a run for it, and was met by one of our hosts (a Texas native, but surprisingly adept running through the snow) about 1/4 mile from the car.
As you may suspect, we made it to the dinner (which was even better than I imagined). The food, conversation, and hospitality were amazing, especially considering the circumstances; still, I can’t help but think back about what my Lake Minnetonka friend told me. Most people think of place as something that gets characterized by its natives. Although Dayna is from here (and has been a delightful guide in discovering both basic and urbane aspects of the culture), our hosts are from South Korea and Houston. Miriam and I hail from Florida and Arizona. Despite (or maybe because of) our diversity, we were able to get to the dinner, have a great dinner, survive an impromptu sleepover, and get home. The combination of difficulties and friends to face them have only cemented my feeling that Fargo is now my home--a place where even the worst of circumstances can add to my love of place.
11.28.2010
Deal Making/Deal Breaking: Of Hitler and Incommensurability
Today, during a Master's thesis prospectus meeting, Hitler made his rounds. In discussing how an M.A. candidate might frame the rhetoric of militant Hindi fundamentalism, the committee discussed Hitler's use of rhetorical violence during the Third Reich (Burke, the rhetorician of choice, studied Hitler's rhetoric, so it was a fair invocation). Still, I notice the usefulness of inserting Hitler in academic and cultural discussions to clarify otherwise unclarifiable discussions. Hitler helps clear the air for people with strong agendas. We can all agree that Hitler was bad, so we can't be that far apart (or something like that). Although it doesn't always take this kind of Armageddon-like common ground to get academics to agree on things, it often helps.
One-on-one, I almost never need to rush to some sort of cultural extreme (like celebrity bad behavior) or historical extreme (like Hitler) to gain common ground with people. I usually can see and acknowledge a wide range of perspectives as part of my nature. I perceive things in their context, and I usually find common ground unless I see imminent danger. I accept. As a pre-teen, I was nicknamed "peacemaker" by my parents because of my role in mediating between between brothers and between the sibling/parent divide. My perspective helped me translate what was often mutually excluding frames of seeing the universe. For quite a long time, this role was a way to gaining prestige and getting the love and respect I craved from my family and friends. I could identify with others and give them both a nonjudgemental, and sometimes idealized, version of themselves. In Enneagram terms, I'm a nine (with a one wing, for those who are Enneagram geeks). Although some people were/are suspicious of this (I've been called smarmy more than once), it is a totally sincere perspective. To quote one of my favorite poems: "I know many lives worth living."
Although being a mediator may seem like a pretty comfortable place to live, it often presents with unsolvable puzzles. When I am positioned between two incommensurable people or positions, my translations can become conduits to rage and inflexibility. I discovered this as a teenager when my older brother slowly inducted me into his fundamentalist Christian Bible study. I gave my best effort to syncretically integrate my old habits/hobbies/perspectives (reading, love of a wide range of music, fantasy gaming) with the perspective of a new creation (or at least the late-20th Century American version of it). Eventually, I was forced to choose between the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Top-40 music, between loving Jesus and playing Dungeons and Dragons. Eventually, I decided to chuck my past into the garbage can (quite literally, in the case of my fantasy gaming books--Dungeon Master no more). Underneath my embrace of Christian fundamentalism, I still held a rich imaginative and intellectual life, but I did so in secretive and what felt like duplicitous ways. It took me four years, and an immersion in Southern California's much more eclectic music sub-culture to face up to my mistake. It took a lot of hurt feelings and sadness (even yelling) to remove myself from what I felt was an overly-rigid perspective,. I don't believe in Christian fundamentalism, despite my ability to understand those who embrace it. Nevertheless, I try to steer clear of strong expressions of it because I know that my understanding, and even fondness for some of its adherents, will be mistaken for a willingness to embrace it.
The problem for me was one of finding myself in-between two totally different perspectives and lacking the ability to persuade one of reconciling the other. I can hold two truths in my head, but I can't live in two worlds. My peacemaking blessing can be a curse when I get between two inflexible and incommensurable people or institutions.
Why does this matter? Well, in my new role as director of Upper-Division Writing, my job is to act as a gatekeeper between students who want nothing more than to get through their education and an institution designed to throw up challenges. My job is to become an apologist for one side (the student's) while serving the will of the other (the University). How does one deal with this? I have to look outside myself, step away from my peacemaking role and lean into my life choice. I chose to be a director, and that means some people are just going to be pissed off. There are no comfortable cultural examples to point to when I stand between a two forces and their colliding goals. There is no Hitlerian high ground, so sometimes I just have to, in the words of LBJ, take it like "a jackass in a hailstorm."
One-on-one, I almost never need to rush to some sort of cultural extreme (like celebrity bad behavior) or historical extreme (like Hitler) to gain common ground with people. I usually can see and acknowledge a wide range of perspectives as part of my nature. I perceive things in their context, and I usually find common ground unless I see imminent danger. I accept. As a pre-teen, I was nicknamed "peacemaker" by my parents because of my role in mediating between between brothers and between the sibling/parent divide. My perspective helped me translate what was often mutually excluding frames of seeing the universe. For quite a long time, this role was a way to gaining prestige and getting the love and respect I craved from my family and friends. I could identify with others and give them both a nonjudgemental, and sometimes idealized, version of themselves. In Enneagram terms, I'm a nine (with a one wing, for those who are Enneagram geeks). Although some people were/are suspicious of this (I've been called smarmy more than once), it is a totally sincere perspective. To quote one of my favorite poems: "I know many lives worth living."
Although being a mediator may seem like a pretty comfortable place to live, it often presents with unsolvable puzzles. When I am positioned between two incommensurable people or positions, my translations can become conduits to rage and inflexibility. I discovered this as a teenager when my older brother slowly inducted me into his fundamentalist Christian Bible study. I gave my best effort to syncretically integrate my old habits/hobbies/perspectives (reading, love of a wide range of music, fantasy gaming) with the perspective of a new creation (or at least the late-20th Century American version of it). Eventually, I was forced to choose between the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Top-40 music, between loving Jesus and playing Dungeons and Dragons. Eventually, I decided to chuck my past into the garbage can (quite literally, in the case of my fantasy gaming books--Dungeon Master no more). Underneath my embrace of Christian fundamentalism, I still held a rich imaginative and intellectual life, but I did so in secretive and what felt like duplicitous ways. It took me four years, and an immersion in Southern California's much more eclectic music sub-culture to face up to my mistake. It took a lot of hurt feelings and sadness (even yelling) to remove myself from what I felt was an overly-rigid perspective,. I don't believe in Christian fundamentalism, despite my ability to understand those who embrace it. Nevertheless, I try to steer clear of strong expressions of it because I know that my understanding, and even fondness for some of its adherents, will be mistaken for a willingness to embrace it.
The problem for me was one of finding myself in-between two totally different perspectives and lacking the ability to persuade one of reconciling the other. I can hold two truths in my head, but I can't live in two worlds. My peacemaking blessing can be a curse when I get between two inflexible and incommensurable people or institutions.
Why does this matter? Well, in my new role as director of Upper-Division Writing, my job is to act as a gatekeeper between students who want nothing more than to get through their education and an institution designed to throw up challenges. My job is to become an apologist for one side (the student's) while serving the will of the other (the University). How does one deal with this? I have to look outside myself, step away from my peacemaking role and lean into my life choice. I chose to be a director, and that means some people are just going to be pissed off. There are no comfortable cultural examples to point to when I stand between a two forces and their colliding goals. There is no Hitlerian high ground, so sometimes I just have to, in the words of LBJ, take it like "a jackass in a hailstorm."
11.24.2010
Humpbacks
by Mary Oliver
There is, all around us
this country
of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something
has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away.
Off Stellwagen
off the Cape,
the humpbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage
of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it
like children
at play.
They sing too.
And not for any reason
you can't imagine.
Three of them
rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive
deeply, their huge scarred flukes
tipped to the air.
We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; suddenly
they smash through the surface, someone begins
shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge
upward and you see for the first time
how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again
through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them
for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky-
like nothing you've ever imagined-
like the myth of the fifth morning galloping
out of darkness, pouring
heavenward, spinning; then
they crash back under those black silks
and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you
know what I mean
I know a captain who has seen them
playing with seaweed, tossing
the slippery lengths of it into the air.
I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever
she can, and nudge it gently along the bow
with her long flipper.
I know several lives worth living.
Listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like he dreams of your body,
its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittery fire
where everything,
even the great whale,
throbs in song.
There is, all around us
this country
of original fire.
You know what I mean.
The sky, after all, stops at nothing, so something
has to be holding
our bodies
in its rich and timeless stables or else
we would fly away.
Off Stellwagen
off the Cape,
the humpbacks rise. Carrying their tonnage
of barnacles and joy
they leap through the water, they nuzzle back under it
like children
at play.
They sing too.
And not for any reason
you can't imagine.
Three of them
rise to the surface near the bow of the boat,
then dive
deeply, their huge scarred flukes
tipped to the air.
We wait, not knowing
just where it will happen; suddenly
they smash through the surface, someone begins
shouting for joy and you realize
it is yourself as they surge
upward and you see for the first time
how huge they are, as they breach,
and dive, and breach again
through the shining blue flowers
of the split water and you see them
for some unbelievable
part of a moment against the sky-
like nothing you've ever imagined-
like the myth of the fifth morning galloping
out of darkness, pouring
heavenward, spinning; then
they crash back under those black silks
and we all fall back
together into that wet fire, you
know what I mean
I know a captain who has seen them
playing with seaweed, tossing
the slippery lengths of it into the air.
I know a whale that will come to the boat whenever
she can, and nudge it gently along the bow
with her long flipper.
I know several lives worth living.
Listen, whatever it is you try
to do with your life, nothing will ever dazzle you
like he dreams of your body,
its spirit
longing to fly while the dead-weight bones
toss their dark mane and hurry
back into the fields of glittery fire
where everything,
even the great whale,
throbs in song.
11.03.2010
Election Hangover
Today, a lot of my friends are feeling pretty blue about yesterday's election. While I sit pretty firmly on the progressive side of things, I have to say that I'm not nearly as down about what happened. Despite my militant (and often annoying) optimism, I actually think that keeping the Senate gives us a lot to be hopeful about. Things did not go as I had wished; however, I'm pretty sure that we can turn things around if we get involved.
How can I be so sure? Well, nothing is sure, but this reminds me of my despair 4 years ago when I saw George W. Bush get re-elected by my state (Ohio), despite what felt like a mountain of energy expended on fundraising, canvassing, and even election monitoring. That election, while standing in the rain as a monitor, I was repeatedly and randomly ordered by a 19-year-old police officer to cross the street. I saw developmentally-disabled people escorted into a voting booth one-at-a-time by a single Republican Party muckity-muck. I saw live newsfeeds of Ken Blackwell (George W. Bush's campaign crony and eventual Governor candidate) counting votes behind closed doors while stonewalling press access. My partner and I felt generally despondent after my country re-elected an incompetent President and my state turned out in great numbers to marginalize my LGBT friends and fellow countryfolk. We were so devastated that the first thing we did was drive to a blue state (Michigan) and buy a blue couch.
That despondency didn't last, however. When the dust settled, sport and I just doubled down and worked that much harder. We joined a local group and started talking politics with our friends in coffee-shops and offices. Every week. It was really nothing crazy, but it wasn't easy either (I still have hate mail from people who didn't like professors writing letters to the editor--the horror!). We just started caring and putting our time and money where our hearts were. We articulated a vision and worked towards it. Unsurprisingly, we found that a lot of people either agreed, or were just looking for somebody else to care. We changed minds. Long story short? By the time we left for North Dakota two years later, Ohio had elected President Obama, voted in a Democratic governor (and several new Democrats) and cleaned out much of the corruption that we saw rip apart our faith in American democracy.
Don't lose sight of the fact that we make our own hope, and that we can only win if we share that hope. Every. Day.
Chin up. We've still got a chance to change the world for the better. Let's get working!
10.12.2010
One More Time
Tomorrow marks the beginning of my 39th trip around the sun. Lots of you reading this have made many of these trips, and I'm hoping to learn a thing or two from your amazing journeys over the next few orbits. In fact, I have to say that what I feel most strongly about this impending arc across the solar system comes from what I have gotten from my interconnectedness with others. During the past 38 years, friends and family have entered and exited my life. Many have taken more than they have given in the immediate term, but I can't think of anybody who has not taught me an important lesson. I'm not a big believer in a cosmic orderer--at least not in any way that can't elude our best-formulated control schemes--but I do believe in the power of absorbing the lessons available to us.
This past year, the entrance of three young Sudanese Americans has transformed our house and our understanding of the world. At the start of the year, my partner and I faced the completion of a very long journey. When our friends opened their hearts and lives to their friend and his three young, lovely children, our dreams were transformed. By the time the year ended, we found ourselves constantly re-configuring mental models of our small community to make space for these children and everyone else in the village who wanted to help out. Even though we aren't the primary caretakers in these kids' lives (and probably not even secondary), we have found ourselves trying to become less selfish to help them and the many people taking on the extra parenting. The persistent pull of these kids helped pull me and my partner from the cascading traumas brought about by two floods, the forgotten death anniversary of my father, the end of a 17-year academic journey, the purchase of our first new house (and its subsequent remodeling), physical injury, and a cancer scare. When I was overwhelmed at times, my partner would remind me to think about these kids and the other kids in the world who live on the edges of war and colonialism. We know nothing of trouble.
It's easy to get caught up in my own goals as an academic. Sometimes, the game of success is the only game that I feel like I can win; hell, sometimes it's the only game I understand. It's only the persistent ethical draw of eleven years with my best friend and lover that pulls me out of an institutional orbit to see the larger picture of what we can mean to others, especially when the culture gives you no instructions on how to connect with the young and vulnerable when you aren't biologically connected. It's hard to love people when acts of love are interpreted as selfish at best, dangerous at worst. It helps to have a life partner who is an old pro at giving without leaving traces. Being there for friends and strangers means you have to be courageous. You can't give while looking over your shoulder. The blows will come, but love gives you strength and courage that help you ignore them.
At times, the courage that comes from love has manifests as a willingness to grab opportunities. We're walking towards spending time in Africa next year. I'm hoping to help grow the arts community during a time of scarcity. Sport is hoping to continue and expand her work with vulnerable women. We're also looking at ways of aligning our professional careers more closely with our ethical bent. I want to be a better teacher. A better researcher. A better friend. A better person. These things all require an uncomfortable amount of truth-telling; something I'm not always willing to do. As a rhetorical scholar, I'm always aware of the means of persuasion, but this does little to help me change the world in deeply ethical ways. Sometimes you have to risk looking like a jackass to fulfill your calling. It's painful, but ultimately necessary.
Being more comfortable in my own skin has meant rubbing some people the wrong way, but it has also meant making deeper friendships. You can't please everybody, but that's O.K. Everybody who I have met in my life has played some sort of important role. As I take this trip around the sun again, know that I'm taking a little piece of you with me, that I'm trying to be a little less me and little more of those kids. You have all taught me something I needed to learn. If you have read this far, I'm sure that you have somehow helped me get to where I need to go in my journey. Thank you.
9.14.2010
Parents as Landscape
Growing up, my house had a quiet spot that surrounded my parents. Despite having two noisy brothers, and the occasional blaring radio or television, my mother and father generally presented an oasis of quietude. My mother's introversion and father's near-deafness allowed my brothers and I room to express ourselves (if not always get a response proportional to the kind of sometimes horrifically inappropriate things we often expressed). My father's near-deafness came as a result of meningitis he caught in Army boot camp in Alabama when he was training to be shipped off in the Korean War. Of course, my brothers and I were told that the howitzers caused this until he revealed his true condition (yes, the cannon roar WAS always a bit easier to share as a child).
It wasn't until recently that I contemplated just how difficult my father must have had it going through college before the American with Disabilities Act was passed. Dad not only went to multiple universities in pursuit of his degrees (Highlands University, St. Edward's, Baylor, and UT Austin), he did some of this coursework while starting a family with my Mom. I cannot even imagine how difficult his education would have been as a newly-deaf man in institutions that had little sympathy for disability and delivered information via lecture. Of course, as the perma-son, I failed to even contemplate this, much less communicate my awe, until after my father passed (and, yes, this haunts me).
Of course, my Mom is still alive, and I have to say that I'm pretty amazed at her educational tenacity too. As the oldest girl of six in a family with not even a history of high school completion, she went off and got both a B.A. and a Master's in Education. Her introversion, struggles in a society that didn't value women's education, and family history did not stop her from reaching her educational goals. She also worked on her education (as so many women do) with my brothers and I in tow. The four of us spent one summer in a one-room residence hall room with a hall bathroom, and another summer in a hall with a small kitchen and a bathroom. So much slipped by in parents' silence; however, their educational examples did not. Thanks Mom and Dad.
It wasn't until recently that I contemplated just how difficult my father must have had it going through college before the American with Disabilities Act was passed. Dad not only went to multiple universities in pursuit of his degrees (Highlands University, St. Edward's, Baylor, and UT Austin), he did some of this coursework while starting a family with my Mom. I cannot even imagine how difficult his education would have been as a newly-deaf man in institutions that had little sympathy for disability and delivered information via lecture. Of course, as the perma-son, I failed to even contemplate this, much less communicate my awe, until after my father passed (and, yes, this haunts me).
Of course, my Mom is still alive, and I have to say that I'm pretty amazed at her educational tenacity too. As the oldest girl of six in a family with not even a history of high school completion, she went off and got both a B.A. and a Master's in Education. Her introversion, struggles in a society that didn't value women's education, and family history did not stop her from reaching her educational goals. She also worked on her education (as so many women do) with my brothers and I in tow. The four of us spent one summer in a one-room residence hall room with a hall bathroom, and another summer in a hall with a small kitchen and a bathroom. So much slipped by in parents' silence; however, their educational examples did not. Thanks Mom and Dad.
8.23.2010
Iron Maiden
Our long runs have now reached the 15-mile mark, which means running through cycles of pain. One of the few advantages of this kind of self-torture comes in the form of justification (self?) for public complaining during the run. This Saturday, this gripe-fest during the last 4 (or so) miles became rather creative. The winner of our "Whine Slam" came in the form of a metaphor. From here on out, our long runs will be described as "puttin' on the pain-skirt."
8.16.2010
Leaving the Electric Forest
Our subjectivities are always imminent. We exist as subjects before we are aware of it. Louis Althusser and Judith Butler describe the process of ideology creating us and us responding to our own mirror image as “hailing,” or “interpellation.” Like a person that responds to a “hey you” on the street by looking (and by admitting that they could be a “you” that is yelled to on the street), any conscious choice admits to a subject’s constructedness. Technology, or the more ossified practices and materiality of ideology, hails relentlessly. Phones ring, inboxes fill, facebook pages are commented upon with breathless pace and with an almost deafening roar. We are the “To” line in every message, and we had better acknowledge that we are on the hook to do something about it, or there may be consequences.
Although this hailing can seem unyielding and unrelenting, Althusser recognized that ideologies only manifest in action: ideology matters most with “material practices governed by a material ritual.” We are already constituted by our ideologies, but only insofar as they determine what we do on a regular basis. We are who we perform.
This performance of electronic subservience is the core of why I am slowly abandoning social media. A second, related reason for abandoning social media is the way that connection gets metaphorized as a capital transaction. As a technology, social media is really a combination of attention structures that keep me thinking about the world in an acquiring and acquisitive manner. I am looking at my monitor and position myself as someone who responds to images, words, and other signification by generating my own signifiers. An endless tennis match, the beginning of which occurs when one opens an account, can keep a person on the treadmill of response, ever chained to cellphones, laptops, and tablet computers. Ringing phones, unanswered prompts, hovering IM boxes, and full inboxes all scream “Answer me…OR ELSE!!!”
What starts as a sporadic, sparse, even Spartan set of interactions can soon grow into a dense and involving back-and-forth as one’s network of “friends” and contacts becomes denser. The layers of a social media user’s life re-constitute themselves online, combining past, present, good, distant, and even pseudo friends. What was formerly more intimate, immediate, and private information becomes public; boundaries for sharing and withholding become folded into the process of interpellation. When experiment gives way to ritual, the process of interpellation seems complete and almost unchangeable, except that it is not.
I teach about New Media, and have noted that every technology, especially communication technologies, are accompanied by a period of uncertainty, celebration, and ultimately, panic. What I have not witnessed firsthand, however, is how quickly the rituals that accompany new communication technologies can tear at the fabric of hard-won bonds of trust and friendship. Turning one’s attention away from the cues and carefully-created rituals of material practice when a new technology hails leads you away from the well-worn pathways of communication and ritual that people array themselves around. Responding to new hailing moves all of the welcome mats.
Fortunately, habitus can be changed. While it initially seems painful to give up a television, a phone, email, or a facebook account, it is important to note that most of the world does not integrate many of these technologies into daily living. These commodifying media aren’t necessary for daily existence. They don’t really matter to the great majority of people who haveever lived on the planet. Stories were told, information shared, bonds formed, love expressed, and transactions…well, transacted. New communication technologies matter mostly to the wealthy and well-positioned. These instantaneous and visible connections help us frame social interactions as ones of economy. Images, words, and sounds that re-present memory are invested, traded, and exchanged for the time and attention that would be proffered living these moments with those physically proximate. Emotion is re-aligned with those who have the greatest access to the privileged signifiers of intimacy rather than those who we share the space with. Electronic networks replace other physical networks; Re-mediation doesn’t just supplement, it realigns and re-places. McLuhan is right when he declares the medium is the message and the masssage. How we say things is both what we say and who we are.
One of the things that can be re-figured by un-wiring is reconnecting with the cues that one uses to create a sense of relationship to the world. The emotional cues, physical cues, and even social cues that exceed these particular definitions emerge from the sensed landscape. Away from mediation, these cues mean particular things. With mediation, we add yet another layer of meaning and inflection that complicates how we view the world. Although this alternative gets us no closer to Plato’s notion of forms (and out of his cave), it does create a different and somewhat more direct relationship to the ancient environments and cycles that we have evolved from. While it may be tempting to see the built environment as one continuous and undifferentiated soup of adaptation, the cues and affordances of the physical, oral, and aural environments all grant us access through their own reciprocities. To acknowledge the duration of the sunlight as a defining aspect of our day (rather than, say, taking cues from the machine-gun regularity of a news feed in Facebook) aligns us with the sweep of the seasons and the adaptations that our ancestors worked into our dwellings and technologies. To pay attention to the people we share a house, street, or office with rather than the most frequent and/or clever status updater is to align ourselves with a long history of interacting with our environment.
To better honor the sacred spaces of my body, my home, and my relationships, I have begun to un-wire (and un-wireless). I don’t go to facebook or Twitter but once a week. I don’t check my email or look at the Internet on the weekends unless it is for a scheduled work session. I(we) even take Internet Sabbaths at least one day a week. This realignment grew out of the shock of recognition that I had become enslaved to the always-on hailings of my wireless-enabled laptop. While many minimalist-living gurus cite this electronic decoupling as an epideictic imperative, it is mainly an assertion of subjective choice. Just like I choose to not eat meat mostly to make room for better choices, I choose to curtail my electronic networking to make room for the people and relationships that I have worked so hard to live in.
Although this hailing can seem unyielding and unrelenting, Althusser recognized that ideologies only manifest in action: ideology matters most with “material practices governed by a material ritual.” We are already constituted by our ideologies, but only insofar as they determine what we do on a regular basis. We are who we perform.
This performance of electronic subservience is the core of why I am slowly abandoning social media. A second, related reason for abandoning social media is the way that connection gets metaphorized as a capital transaction. As a technology, social media is really a combination of attention structures that keep me thinking about the world in an acquiring and acquisitive manner. I am looking at my monitor and position myself as someone who responds to images, words, and other signification by generating my own signifiers. An endless tennis match, the beginning of which occurs when one opens an account, can keep a person on the treadmill of response, ever chained to cellphones, laptops, and tablet computers. Ringing phones, unanswered prompts, hovering IM boxes, and full inboxes all scream “Answer me…OR ELSE!!!”
What starts as a sporadic, sparse, even Spartan set of interactions can soon grow into a dense and involving back-and-forth as one’s network of “friends” and contacts becomes denser. The layers of a social media user’s life re-constitute themselves online, combining past, present, good, distant, and even pseudo friends. What was formerly more intimate, immediate, and private information becomes public; boundaries for sharing and withholding become folded into the process of interpellation. When experiment gives way to ritual, the process of interpellation seems complete and almost unchangeable, except that it is not.
I teach about New Media, and have noted that every technology, especially communication technologies, are accompanied by a period of uncertainty, celebration, and ultimately, panic. What I have not witnessed firsthand, however, is how quickly the rituals that accompany new communication technologies can tear at the fabric of hard-won bonds of trust and friendship. Turning one’s attention away from the cues and carefully-created rituals of material practice when a new technology hails leads you away from the well-worn pathways of communication and ritual that people array themselves around. Responding to new hailing moves all of the welcome mats.
Fortunately, habitus can be changed. While it initially seems painful to give up a television, a phone, email, or a facebook account, it is important to note that most of the world does not integrate many of these technologies into daily living. These commodifying media aren’t necessary for daily existence. They don’t really matter to the great majority of people who haveever lived on the planet. Stories were told, information shared, bonds formed, love expressed, and transactions…well, transacted. New communication technologies matter mostly to the wealthy and well-positioned. These instantaneous and visible connections help us frame social interactions as ones of economy. Images, words, and sounds that re-present memory are invested, traded, and exchanged for the time and attention that would be proffered living these moments with those physically proximate. Emotion is re-aligned with those who have the greatest access to the privileged signifiers of intimacy rather than those who we share the space with. Electronic networks replace other physical networks; Re-mediation doesn’t just supplement, it realigns and re-places. McLuhan is right when he declares the medium is the message and the masssage. How we say things is both what we say and who we are.
One of the things that can be re-figured by un-wiring is reconnecting with the cues that one uses to create a sense of relationship to the world. The emotional cues, physical cues, and even social cues that exceed these particular definitions emerge from the sensed landscape. Away from mediation, these cues mean particular things. With mediation, we add yet another layer of meaning and inflection that complicates how we view the world. Although this alternative gets us no closer to Plato’s notion of forms (and out of his cave), it does create a different and somewhat more direct relationship to the ancient environments and cycles that we have evolved from. While it may be tempting to see the built environment as one continuous and undifferentiated soup of adaptation, the cues and affordances of the physical, oral, and aural environments all grant us access through their own reciprocities. To acknowledge the duration of the sunlight as a defining aspect of our day (rather than, say, taking cues from the machine-gun regularity of a news feed in Facebook) aligns us with the sweep of the seasons and the adaptations that our ancestors worked into our dwellings and technologies. To pay attention to the people we share a house, street, or office with rather than the most frequent and/or clever status updater is to align ourselves with a long history of interacting with our environment.
To better honor the sacred spaces of my body, my home, and my relationships, I have begun to un-wire (and un-wireless). I don’t go to facebook or Twitter but once a week. I don’t check my email or look at the Internet on the weekends unless it is for a scheduled work session. I(we) even take Internet Sabbaths at least one day a week. This realignment grew out of the shock of recognition that I had become enslaved to the always-on hailings of my wireless-enabled laptop. While many minimalist-living gurus cite this electronic decoupling as an epideictic imperative, it is mainly an assertion of subjective choice. Just like I choose to not eat meat mostly to make room for better choices, I choose to curtail my electronic networking to make room for the people and relationships that I have worked so hard to live in.
7.06.2010
Living with Weakness
One of the lessons that I have been very slow to accept is that life is short, and that invulnerability is an illusion. People who know me well know that I have been living with chronic pain for the past year and a half. What most may not be aware of is just how scary and debilitating that was. My pain, which presented over my entire lower abdomen started to occur with regular frequency just before the great Fargo flood of 2009. During that hectic period, I not only felt pain in my abdomen, but I got minor whiplash when I slipped on the ice and cracked the back of my head on a curb. Typically, I rely on what seems like a genetic imperviousness to wait pain out. About a year into the pain (and one flood later), the pain had not only not abated, it had intensified, despite the fact that I had cut back on some of the "usual suspects" of rich food, alcohol consumption (for gallbladder pain). I had checked in with my physician to discuss gall stones, and he was willing to start me down the path to treating and maybe removing my gallbladder (there is little to do but actually remove it); however, something about this diagnosis didn't sit right. Nobody in my family had a history of gallstones, and I certainly did not fit the typical profile of someone with stones--postmenopausal women and larger, older men. What I DID have a history of was cancer, and this creeping suspicion was one that loomed larger and larger in my mind. My grandparents on my father's side both died of cancer (very painfully), and my father had sections of his gastrointestinal tract removed during the latter stages of his life. Considering that I had not really mourned my father's death, the possibility of having cancer at 38 and constant pain was enough to keep me up every night. When news came in that my partner's friend died of very fast-spreading liver and colon cancer at 46, and that he had had almost identical symptoms, I finally decided to confront my stubborn avoidance and seek help.
During the middle of May, I finally decided to go in and start testing for what was causing this pain. By this point, the leg where I had already excised a small skin cancer growth was also hurting, so I had a huge range of symptoms to sort through with my doctor. While talking with my doctor and sorting everything out was not that difficult (although finding out one has not one, but three issues, does complicate things a bit); what was so difficult about the process was admitting that I was almost absurdly afraid of facing my own inevitable decline and doing something about it. Rather that continuing to pile up obligations and distractions to avoid dealing with my potential convalescence, I had to start clearing time to deal with this physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Fortunately, I have an incredible partner who went with me to every doctor's visit and sorted through the history to uncover what was really going on. I was also lucky enough to talk to friends who had gone through cancer in their families, so that I could see how they made it through the fear. While I was relieved to find out that I don't have cancer, I did have to go through physical rehab for a shoulder injury, treat a range of strains and small tears in my ribcage, and continue dealing with noncancerous GI-tract issues. While shifting my sense of invulnerability was one of the most challenging things I had ever done (it certainly makes running a marathon look like a walk in the park), it is ultimately helping me deal with the changes that come with losing a parent, reaching a life goal, and transitioning to a different period of my life.
During the middle of May, I finally decided to go in and start testing for what was causing this pain. By this point, the leg where I had already excised a small skin cancer growth was also hurting, so I had a huge range of symptoms to sort through with my doctor. While talking with my doctor and sorting everything out was not that difficult (although finding out one has not one, but three issues, does complicate things a bit); what was so difficult about the process was admitting that I was almost absurdly afraid of facing my own inevitable decline and doing something about it. Rather that continuing to pile up obligations and distractions to avoid dealing with my potential convalescence, I had to start clearing time to deal with this physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Fortunately, I have an incredible partner who went with me to every doctor's visit and sorted through the history to uncover what was really going on. I was also lucky enough to talk to friends who had gone through cancer in their families, so that I could see how they made it through the fear. While I was relieved to find out that I don't have cancer, I did have to go through physical rehab for a shoulder injury, treat a range of strains and small tears in my ribcage, and continue dealing with noncancerous GI-tract issues. While shifting my sense of invulnerability was one of the most challenging things I had ever done (it certainly makes running a marathon look like a walk in the park), it is ultimately helping me deal with the changes that come with losing a parent, reaching a life goal, and transitioning to a different period of my life.
6.20.2010
Father's Day
I was going to write something sad and expressive for this Father's Day. Those of you who know me know that my Father's passing on February 15, 2009 was very difficult, especially because I had very little time to mourn it in the middle of a semester that saw an epic flood, a small departmental crisis, and a scarring student dispute. I forgot to mark the anniversary of his death this year, and was thrown into a tailspin once again.
Instead of embellishing these notations, I want to say that I actually think I learned from my Dad that you sometimes just have to Suck. It. Up. So instead of dragging y'all through the tears and the weepies, I just want to let you know that I did four things to mark Father's Day. 1. ) I sent something nice to my Mom. 2. ) I had a nice talk with my Mom. 3.) I sat back and watched Ella (our friends' theatrical 5 year-old) perform a wonderful improvised "Secondary Father" song and dance for me., and 4.) I hung curtains with my lifelong partner and lover.
My Father pressed upon me the importance of helping, listening to, supporting, and enjoying the gifts of the women in my life. Even though I wasn't always the best son, I can't think of a better gift to my Dad then trying to be present for them. Happy Father's Day Dad; and to all of the fathers and daughters out there--enjoy your day. I may not be a father or have a father, but I still love the celebration.
Instead of embellishing these notations, I want to say that I actually think I learned from my Dad that you sometimes just have to Suck. It. Up. So instead of dragging y'all through the tears and the weepies, I just want to let you know that I did four things to mark Father's Day. 1. ) I sent something nice to my Mom. 2. ) I had a nice talk with my Mom. 3.) I sat back and watched Ella (our friends' theatrical 5 year-old) perform a wonderful improvised "Secondary Father" song and dance for me., and 4.) I hung curtains with my lifelong partner and lover.
My Father pressed upon me the importance of helping, listening to, supporting, and enjoying the gifts of the women in my life. Even though I wasn't always the best son, I can't think of a better gift to my Dad then trying to be present for them. Happy Father's Day Dad; and to all of the fathers and daughters out there--enjoy your day. I may not be a father or have a father, but I still love the celebration.
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