Ode to the Card Catalog.
‘ve recently become connected with Our.City.Lights. both on Twitter and on Etsy. So, of course, I took full advantage of procrastination-from-grading and had way too much fun poring through her blog (which is awesome, by the way — please go forth and visit HERE). And that’s when I found the freakin’ holy grail of literary/library/typewritten/handwritten/nerdy awesomeness that is known as: THE CATALOG CARD GENERATOR.
Oh yeah, that’s right.
I plan to use it rather excessively. Consider yourselves warned.
For example…
#1: Sylvia Plath’s “Mad Girl’s Love Song” (featured in my last pog), the abbreviated catalog card version:
#2: Excerpts from one of my own works in progress, called “Four Rings”:
#3: In honor of the upcoming Oprah-SarahPalin interview, which I cannot freakin’ wait to see, strictly because of the new quotes that will be immortalized:
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
Mad Girl’s Love Song (1953)
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
~A villanelle by Sylvia Plath, first published in the June 1953 issue of Mademoiselle magazine
Whenever it rains like this, I think of Verlaine.
“Il pleure dans mon coeur . . . “
II pleut doucement sur la ville.
Arthur Rimbaud
Il pleure dans mon coeur
Comme il pleut sur la ville;
Quelle est cette langueur
Qui pénètre mon coeur?
Verlaine & Rimbaud (Henri Fantin-Latour, 1872)
Ô bruit doux de la pluie
Par terre et sur les toits!
Pour un coeur qui s’ennuie
Ô le chant de la pluie!
Il pleure sans raison
Dans ce coeur qui s’écoeure.
Quoi! nulle trahison? . . .
Ce deuil est sans raison.
C’est bien la pire peine
De ne savoir pourquoi
Sans amour et sans haine
Mon coeur a tant de peine!
-Paul Verlaine, from Romances sans paroles (1874)
Top 5 reasons why the semester needed to be over (and now, thankfully, is)
ast night marked the official end of the semester: final papers graded, catatonic state (barely) avoided, semester grades submitted, congratulatory bag of Reese’s Pieces consumed, alarm clock deactivated… I could have even slept in ⎯that is, if the Insomnia Plane didn’t have the annoying habit of touching down just as I was adapting to the rhythmic rumbles. But still. The point is that I could have slept in.
Yes, the semester’s end marks a very positive move for me.
Top 5 reasons why the semester needed to be over (and now, thankfully, is):
1. Turns out that one of my students is a raging misogynist. Or at least likes to pretend he is when composing a graded, argumentative essay in response to Susan Sontag’s text, “Woman’s Beauty.” Fortunately, I did not discover this interesting/disturbing tidbit until the day after our last class meeting. I’m guessing I would have found it rather difficult to listen to his in-class commentary without seeing the phrase “abuse of feminine power” constantly flashing like a running film in front of my eyes. It’s a good thing the semester’s over.
2. A few weeks ago, I had to report two of my students to the Dean for plagiarism. One student immediately confessed to having copied/pasted an entire paragraph from an online book review. Best case of a bad-case scenario for a non-confrontational coward such as myself. The second student, however, insisted, for over an hour, that he had done nothing wrong. Let’s call him Jimmy. Jimmy is a Chinese ESL student and a first-year student at the university. Now, according to Jimmy, apparently, in China, the internet poses as a virtual free-for-all, where “borrowing” someone else’s words (or whole sentences, or whole paragraphs) amounts to the distribution of a veritable MVP Award: you reward the ingenious word-play of the creator by (sloppily) integrating word-for-word examples into your own essay! What an honor! Oh, and the kicker is that, the actual creator? you know, the one you’re paying homage to by stealing borrowing his/her stuff? Yeah, s/he remains completely anonymous and receives no credit whatsoever! Because, let’s face it: that would be embarrassing, all that complimentary behavior and free publicity… it can just get to be way too much. Yes, it’s much easier to let Jimmy pass your words off as his own. Oh, and by the way, it’s not thievery, silly! Because, see, Jimmy shares the ideas of the actual wordsmith. So he’s not stealing the ideas. Not at all. He’s sharing them. And rewarding the person who came up with the best method of relaying those ideas. Altruism at its finest, really. Jimmy’s such a do-gooder. Yes, it’s a d@mn good thing the semester’s over.
(*Just for the record, I do not for one second believe that China’s rigorously controlled internet actually functions in this manner. I do, however, believe that my student is highly misled. But I did get through to him. Two hours and several — well cited – examples later.)
3. One day, mid-semester, one of my very gracious students raised his hand and gladly offered me the following commentary regarding a poem I had assigned: “I think it’s completely pointless.” A touching moment for any educator. In his defense, though, the poem was heavily layered… and written by Arthur Rimbaud, who’s sort of (in)famously obscure… but still. The many layers proves that there are many points. Not a lack of points. Surely not point-less. So… so there! Ugh. Thankfully, he won’t have to read Rimbaud anymore. The semester’s over.
4. I share an office with about 10 other graduate students, but I’m fortunate (and sufficiently “senior”) to maintain a desk that’s sort of tucked away behind a partition, adjacent to the desk of another graduate student. Let’s call her Betsy. Betsy and I rarely pop up in the office at the same time. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing, because when Betsy does pop up in the office, she emits a quick, barely-there “hello,” which becomes upstaged by the emergence of red smoke, devil horns, a pitchfork, and a smug-@ss mouth from which a ferocious litany of questions spews in my very specific direction. What Betsy lets loose is the equivalent of a verbal ambush of the doctoral variety: the intent is to severely batter and permanently scar my ego. And preferably my intelligence as well, which then manifests itself via a split-infinitive, like the one above. F*ck. Anyway, the verbal ambush generally goes a little something like this:
BETSY, SEEMINGLY POPPING OUT OF NOWHERE (“nowhere” being the eternal flames of Hell fire): Well, hell⎯How is your work? You’re defending soon, right? (cue sick, twisted devil smile) You have finished your dissertation, no? NO?! Well, how far are you? When will you be done? You’ve been here a long time… What do your advisors say? Are you in touch with them? Are they helping you? Are you working on your dissertation this summer? Do you have funding? When do you plan on graduating? …
ME (taking advantage of Betsy pausing to stick her pitchfork further up her @ss): I don’t know, Betsy, but how nice of you to be so concerned. OH, NO! Wow, would you look at the time… I’m supposed to be somewhere…
ONE OF MY STUDENTS (with an impeccably ill-timed entrance): Hi, Professor, I’m here for my scheduled meeting with you.
ME (to myself): F*****************************CK…!
BETSY PROCEEDS TO BLOW RED SMOKE FROM HER FLARING NOSTRILS WHILE GIGGLING DIABOLICALLY AND STABBING ME IN THE CEREBELLUM WITH HER PITCHFORK BEFORE DISAPPEARING.
So, yeah. Jury’s out on whether or not I will retain my desk/office for the next academic year. It’s quite possible that my department will eject me since I am now teaching for a different department. I may become office-less. Very sad. Anyone have any leftover cardboard boxes I could use…? Oh well. At least I don’t have to think about that right now. The semester’s over.
5. In case Betsy or anyone else cares: I *am* working on my dissertation this summer. FULL-TIME, in fact. I figured I might as well take advantage of the Federal Student Loan program while I still can and, at the same time, FINALLY finish this thing that’s been almost a decade in the making. I deserve it. Right? Right. So, not to steal the thunder of Miss Cleo or Latoya Jackson or anything, but… I have a distinct feeling that the pogs of my not-so-distant future will include frequent (or at least semi-frequent) references to my life as a full-time dissertator. Which will probably involve a crushing need to vent frustrations, to seek humor in the not-so-humorousness (?) of the situation, to run ideas by anyone who cares to read, etc. etc.. Oh yeah, and I’ll probably just rip on myself a lot, too. But it’ll be good. I’ll be productive. I NEED TO BE PRODUCTIVE. I NEED TO WRITE MY DISSERTATION AND FINISH THIS D@MN DEGREE.
Thank goodness the semester’s over. Thank goodness it’s (academic) summer.
This list was prompted by the lovely Anna of abdpbt and her series of Listless Mondays. Check out her lists HERE.
(*Initial L found HERE)
April is National Poetry Month! (no fooling, thankfully)
hanks to M. Jolicoeur for the reminder that April is National Poetry Month! In other words: April rules. The Academy of American Poets inaugurated National Poetry Month in April of 1996. Since its incarnation, the month-long celebration has gained an exponential increase not only in cultural awareness, but also in nationwide involvement by the leading poets and creative minds of our time.
For further information, a list of events taking place around the nation and, perhaps, in your own backyard, please click over to the Academy of American Poets website. You can even print out some brilliant poems to carry in your pocket for Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30th!
Oh, and take a gander at this fabulous 2009 poster, designed by Paul Sahre and referencing one of my favorite poems, T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:
An excerpt from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915):
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
Read the poem in its entirety HERE.
(*Beautiful initial “T” found HERE)
Nicholas Hughes & natural selection
icholas Hughes, a passionate stream ecologist and former biology professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, hanged himself in his Fairbanks home on March 16, 2009. Hughes was 47.
Recently, Hughes was one of the principal investigators of Alaska’s Chena River Chinook Salmon Study. You can find the related blog and Hughes’ professional profile HERE.
Dermot Cole, a columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, dedicated today’s column to Hughes:
Photo of Nicholas Hughes from Dermot Cole's column
FAIRBANKS — Nicholas Hughes, who died last week at 47, found a home in Fairbanks for much of his adult life, discovering a perfect place to pursue the full depth of his lifelong curiosity about fish and the outdoors.
After earning a bachelor of science degree and a master of science degree at Oxford University in England, where Nick spent his childhood, Hughes became a prominent fisheries scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he earned a doctorate in 1991 and joined the faculty.
He made lasting friendships in Fairbanks with those who shared his inventive interests in such varied pursuits as stream ecology, pottery, woodworking, boating, bicycling, gardening and cooking the perfect pecan pie. Nick guided many people in the winter to spots along the Tanana to savor the art of burbot fishing through the ice.
He spent countless summer hours in his research of grayling and salmon in the Chena River, exhibiting all the patience and wonder that defines a great fisherman. One of his innovations was rigging underwater cameras to get a three-dimensional view of the fish feeding in the passing current.
Many of the best days of his life were in the company of his partner Christine Hunter, also a biologist. He resigned from the faculty more than two years ago, but continued his research.
Photo of Nicholas Hughes from www.chenakings.org/people/
Nick spent time in New Zealand as well as Alaska pursuing all aspects of his research. His writing was as clear as a grayling stream.
In 2004, he published a paper in which he offered an explanation of why larger fish tend to swim upstream farther from the river bank than smaller fish. This seems counterintuitive, he said, because the current is faster in the middle which would require more energy to overcome. Natural selection would work against that, it seems.
“One explanation for this apparently paradoxical behavior is that large fish swim further from the bank to avoid wave drag, the resistance associated with the generation of surface waves when swimming close to the surface,” he said.
The topics of natural selection and the “energy to overcome” prove especially poignant (and eerie) considering the unfortunate history with depression that haunted the Hughes family.
Nicholas Hughes is survived by his sister, Frieda, who released the following statement to Britain’s Times Online:
It is with profound sorrow that I must announce the death of my brother, Nicholas Hughes, who died by his own hand on Monday 16th March 2009 at his home in Alaska. He had been battling depression for some time.
His lifelong fascination with fish and fishing was a strong and shared bond with our father (many of whose poems were about the natural world). He was a loving brother, a loyal friend to those who knew him and, despite the vagaries that life threw at him, he maintained an almost childlike innocence and enthusiasm for the next project or plan.
Nicholas and Frieda are the children of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.
Many news outlets (and bloggers) have already scooped up the “legacy of suicide” headline and dripped it all over the internet. I’d rather not venture into that territory, but if you’re interested, here are some objective and not-so-objective stories:
1. Frieda Hughes waltzed gracefully (albeit a bit cautiously) into the literary world and has established herself as a poet, author, and artist. If you’re interested in her work, here’s a brief Q&A that she did with Time Magazine in 2007. She also has her own website, which you can find HERE.
2. Reuters
4. Times Online
6. CNN
7. A discussion of the genetics of depression and suicide and a rather inflammatory Op-Ed piece by Judith Flanders, both at The Guardian
(*Initial “N” found HERE)
592.5-and-a-third bajillion ways to ensure blog traffic jams at intersections of boob flashing and Oprah appearances. Also: make money!
1) Spotted: doggies taking dumps on lawns that are not theirs. Owners looking at their cellphones, pretending not to notice.
Discuss.
17.4) Why, when we want to stand up for something, do we stage sit-ins?
Discuss.
648 ÷ 3) If “Joe the Plumber” had plumber’s butt (which, let’s face it, he does. ALL plumbers do. It’s like a pre-requisite), then would McPalin call him “Joe the Plumber’s Butt”? Because that would create grammatical confusion, causing the listening public to think that McPalin were talking specifically about “Joe the Plumber”’s posterior… rather than generally about “Joe the Plumber,” who just so happens to suffer from plumber’s butt. See what I’m sayin’? And I know that Palin isn’t exactly a fan of grammar (not ENGLISH grammar anyway, as far as I can tell), but I still can’t help but wonder if maybe they’d change the reference to “Joe Plumber-Butt.”
Discuss.
578 + ∏) Chew on this: In his Intimate Journals, the nineteenth-century French poet Charles Baudelaire (arguably the first “modern poet” of our time) questioned: “What is Love?” Clearly not a fan of rhetorical questions, Baudelaire then supplied the answer, which he then amended with a thoughtful syllogism:
What is Love?
The need to emerge from oneself.
Man is an animal which adores.
To adore is to sacrifice and prostitute oneself.
Thus all Love is prostitution.
That’s right: we are all prostitutes. Which leads me to ask: WHERE THE HELL’S MY MONEY, B*TCH?!? But… I *am* a fan of rhetorical questions. So, let’s move on, shall we? (don’t answer that — it’s rhetorical)
Just in case you weren’t sufficiently shocked-and-awed by that little Love=Prostitution equation, my dear Baudie chose to go one step further by stating:
The most prostitute of all beings is the Supreme Being, God Himself, since for each man he is the friend above all others; since he is the common, inexhaustible found of Love.
Discuss.
Wait, before you discuss, please allow me to share that I freakin’ LOVE Baudelaire, and throwing a few uncontextualized lines at you essentially equates to a crime of poetics, but… hey, I’m already a prostitute and on the road to eternal hell-fire, so… I don’t give a sh*t.
OK. Now discuss.
∜177,410,282,401) If McPalin wins tomorrow, and if I decide to find a job in Canada and/or Europe (as a direct result of the McPalin win), would that make me a quitter/ex-patriot, or just really freakin’ smart?
(*Note: if you are questioning my smarts re: becoming an émigrée, I’d like to point very strongly — as strongly as a finger can point — to the movie Sicko, which basically proves that the American healthcare system blows chunks and rapes us any chance it gets. Meanwhile, Frenchies are getting free nannies and a bajillion months off from work and free laundry service and free classes for sophisticatedly tying scarves and free pastry-making workshops and… the list goes on. I mean, seriously, Michael Moore might as well have called the movie Why Americans Are F*cking R*tarded For Still Living in America. I say this with the utmost amount of love and respect for my country. Which George W. has f*cked.)
Discuss.
592.5-and-a-third bajillion) I know a guy whose favorite flavor Starburst Fruit Chew is pink. OK, wait, that’s a color, not a flavor. What flavor is pink in the original Starburst pack? Strawberry, right? And then the red Starburst is cherry? Which I don’t really get, because, I mean, if you compare strawberries and cherries, couldn’t you make the argument that sometimes strawberries are a darker shade of red than cherries? I mean, strawberries aren’t PINK, right? So why’d they get the shaft and have to have the sucky pink wrapper, huh? Though, I guess strawberry yogurt and strawberry ice cream are pink rather than red. Whatever. I just don’t like pink. It’s, like, my LEAST-favorite Starburst, actually. Also, I’ve never heard of ANYONE who privileged the pink Starburst. I’d say the most common preference is for Red/Cherry. And this general Red/Cherry predilection has suited me very well — particularly when snacking on the ‘Bursts at a movie theatre — because my personal favorites are Orange and Yellow, preferably together (oh yeah, I am WILD with the fruit chews, baby. STEP. OFF.).
Discuss.
And, oh yeah, this is another listless Monday. Anna, represent. Word.
Palin Poetics
ello, everyone. It’s been a week now since I’ve been blog-less. It was totally freakin’ rough. I’m not sure how I survived. In fact, I almost didn’t. Picture a very tiny, shredded thread, and some unmanicured fingernails clenched and hanging by it. Yeah, that was me. Or, I guess I should say “that was I.” Might as well be grammatically correct while professing my near-death experience.
In any event, now my unmanicured fingers are back on my iMac, typin’ to the oldies. Wellness is restored in my world.
So, of course, my first post back in “well world” is Palin-related. I’ve missed ripping on her too much. So I just have to. And then I’ll stray and post some other non-Palin stuff, I promise. But for now… let’s enjoy some Palin Poetics, shall we?
From the lovely Slate.com, a few of my favorite Palinisms, in verse:
1. “Befoulers of the Verbiage”
It was an unfair attack on the verbiage
That Senator McCain chose to use,
Because the fundamentals,
As he was having to explain afterwards,
He means our workforce.
He means the ingenuity of the American.
And of course that is strong,
And that is the foundation of our economy.
So that was an unfair attack there,
Again based on verbiage.
(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)
2. “On Good and Evil”
It is obvious to me
Who the good guys are in this one
And who the bad guys are.
The bad guys are the ones
Who say Israel is a stinking corpse,
And should be wiped off
The face of the earth.
That’s not a good guy.
(To K. Couric, CBS News, Sept. 25, 2008)
3. “Haiku”
These corporations.
Today it was AIG,
Important call, there.
(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)
4. “Small Mayors”
You know,
Small mayors,
Mayors of small towns—
Quote, unquote—
They’re on the front lines.
(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 19, 2008)
Back on the chain gang…
hrissie Hynde and her Pretenders are performing at Farm Aid 2008 right now. I am watching it “live” via my sister’s huge-@ss LCD TV, which is properly Direct TV-ified. Which I never really care about except for cool, rare moments such as this. Chrissie Hynde is from Akron, OH, and I’m NOT from Akron, 
but I *am* from Cleveland, so… when I was little, that was close enough to make me feel like she was my second-cousin or something. “Back on the Chain Gang” was the first song that I recall really obsessing over as a little kid. Though, I must admit, cousin Chrissie’s dark raccoon-esque eyeliner kind of scared the S out of me, as did the whole chain gang imagery, both of which I consumed on a daily basis (along with David Lee Roth’s spasmic, excessive Lycra-clad “jumps”) through MTV. But that didn’t stop me from trying to learn every single word to that ding dang song.
I was a pretty naive 8-year-old, which happened to be when the Pretenders’ third album, “Learning to Crawl,” was released, which contained the brilliant “Back on the Chain Gang.” Some would argue that I’m still “pretty naive” — maybe even substantially more than just pretty naive — but as a child… I don’t know. I was definitely in my own world. I mean, I imagined soap opera characters adopted me and I turned trees into drive-thrus. Umm, and I ain’t talkin’ ’bout McDonald’s or Dairy Queen. Oh no no. In my world, there were library drive-thrus. And they were found in trees, but only the trees on my little dead-end street. And they pretty much rocked. And my Big Wheel was a freakin’ master at pulling up exactly at the precise spot where library-book-dropping would occur. (and by library-book-dropping I mean pine-cone-dropping.)
My world was also one where I was convinced (due to the inexplicable visual power possessed by music videos) that chain gangs were a commonality… it was just that they were specifically being hidden from my view. Kind of like how I knew my stuffed animals and dolls always had massive Kool-Aid and mac-’n-cheese fiestas (complete with piñatas) the second I closed my bedroom door. I’d try to catch them by sneakily opening my door at a snail’s pace, but… no dice. Those stuffed b@stards were just way too fast and strategic for me. And I was sure these slippery chain gangs operated in a similar fashion. To the point that I even envisioned my Cabbage Patch Kids rockin’ the chains and the striped jumpsuits. Shirley Odelia still looked pretty cute with her yarn pigtails and dimples.
Anyway, I just totally went on a tangent. My point is that, I don’t know why an 8-year-old should have known about the reality of a “chain gang,” but… you know, it maybe would have been nice for my family to inform me that stuffed animals and Kool-Aid weren’t involved. And that there was sort of a political slant goin’ on. Not that I necessarily would have understood that at 8 years-old, but still. Anyway, so some additional Pretenders-related info that I was also missing out on was the fact that their band members had changed since their second album (conveniently titled “Pretenders II”). And it wasn’t just ’cause a couple of them had some library books to read and return to the tree drive-thru, either. Unfortunately, it was because they had decided to overdose on drugs. So that sucked.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about where I was one year ago. It wasn’t a pretty place. Well, I was actually at Farm Aid 2007 in NYC one year ago. And that WAS a pretty place. But… psychologically speaking… I was not in a pretty place. And, one year later, local farmers still need support, and I’m still banging my head against the wall. And sometimes the floor. And pillows. And shower tiles. Anyway, my point is that… time passes, but I’m not sure I do. Or others do. I’ve never had a grip on Change. And, after all, aren’t we all prisoners stumbling along our own self-inflicted chain gangs? We’re slashed and split and dragged, at the mercy of our own will and our own demons… and how they don’t jive with the will imposed by Others, whether society or family or politicians or religions or… Or with the will to change.
In any case… a brilliant, dynamic, majorly important writer committed suicide two Fridays ago, on September 12th. David Foster Wallace had apparently had enough and made a final “mercy” cry at the ripe old age of 46. Hanging was his method of choice. His wife came home and found him, hanging there, lifeless.
From previous pogs, this one in particular, you might recall that I am currently teaching an undergraduate writing course on the figure of the tortured poet (which extends to all types of artists, really). Well… to have DFW commit suicide at this moment… let’s just say, it spoke volumes to my students and me. One of them is now going to present on DFW for the required Oral Presentation during the second half of the semester. I would say I’m “looking forward” to it, but… that doesn’t quite sound right.
In any case, suicide is generally considered a taboo topic — among everyone, let alone in the classroom. But… it’s unavoidable in a course such as mine, where it just so happens that every single author that we’re reading either has a protagonist that commits suicide, or the author him/herself commits suicide. We just got done reading Vigny’s play “Chatterton,” which centers on the real-life 18th-Century poet, Thomas Chatterton, who really did commit suicide (via arsenic poisoning) at the tender age of 17. Chatterton then became a symbol of the tragedy of the misunderstood, underappreciated poetic genius, referred to and extolled throughout the 19th Century, most notably by Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats.
Well, Chatterton’s youthful brilliance and imagination has a legacy that is far-reaching and pitiable. DFW was no stranger. Most known for his 1000-page novel, Infinite Jest (1996), DFW also wrote several other works and contributed to magazines such as Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, and Harper’s. Following the success of Infinite Jest, DFW was interviewed by NPR’s David Lipsky and had the following to say on the subject of suicide:
I spent a week interviewing Wallace, after the 1,000-page novel Infinite Jest made his name. He was faultlessly polite. He lived alone with two dogs. He told me the best books were “a conversation about loneliness.” He said, “If a writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart they are. Wake the reader up to stuff that reader’s been aware of all the time.”
He talked about being lonely, the fear that his tussle “with burly, psychic self-consciousness figures” might get so bad he’d do damage to himself.
He talked about a friend’s unsuccessful try at suicide, how it scared him off. He laughed. “I just, just — I knew that if anybody was fated to screw up a suicide attempt, it was me.”
In his retrospective on the life of DFW featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” last Monday, Lipsky continued:
Well, [Wallace] succeeded. When someone very gifted kills themselves, it’s like the best student dropping out of high school. There’s the tragedy, but it’s set in a particular and personal fear: What are they seeing that we don’t? The loss to his family is impossible to imagine. The loss to us is easy.
No writer saw the era as clearly. Wallace’s readers counted on him to go on, progressing distantly but alongside us, filing new reports every couple of months, helping us remember how smart we were, inviting us into his crisper world. In his last book of fiction, he wrote a story about suicide, about “emerging from years of literally indescribable war against himself,” and ending with the sentence, “Not another word.”
So… what does one do after a thing like this? I don’t know. As Chatterton says in Vigny’s play, “I write. Why? Because I have to.”
Torture, anyone?
ince the start of the millennium, I have been teaching various levels of undergraduate French language/culture/literature classes, at a variety of institutions. This fall will mark my very first time teaching in English. You might think this should be a welcome, easy transition for me; however, please trust me: I’m slightly terrified. No more French to hide behind?! Cr*pballs. Anyway, I received a fellowship to instruct one of my university’s 100-level Writing courses (essentially Freshman Comp.). The cool thing is that, while the writing assignment sequence is set in stone, I had the liberty of designing my own course topic and selecting which texts we would be reading and discussing.
I knew I didn’t want to stray too much from my own research interests, so I chose the figure of the tortured poet as my course hero. And then I went about reading and dissecting various works (poetry and prose) from the pre-Romantic period onward through the twentieth century. There are roughly a gazillion writers and texts that pelted me with seductively torturous epithets, but… so many tortured souls, so little time.
I’d like to include in this pog the list of writers and texts that I will be offering up to my students so that you may have the opportunity to let me know if there is anyone (well-known or obscure) whom you think I am lamely omitting. Also, I plan to show a film around mid-semester. I would LOVE to show a completely invented tortured artist character rather than a film based on an actual historical figure. If you have any suggestions, please please comment and let me know. I will be immensely grateful!!!
Course Description:
Jim Morrison rose to fame as the outspoken lead singer of The Doors, and his death at the age of twenty-seven propelled him to iconic status. A tragic, misunderstood figure, Morrison left behind several notebooks of poetry that further documented his tormented existence. From these works, literary scholars uncovered an unmistakable link between Morrison’s verse and that of 19th-Century French poète maudit (accursed poet), Arthur Rimbaud. This seminar examines the roots, evolution, and legacy of the myth of the tortured poet. We will explore the pre-Romantic literary origins of this tragic configuration and subsequently map its influence on various European and American writers (and their works) throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We will study a variety of literary devices that represent many genres of literature, thereby introducing you to a vast critical vocabulary for intellectual literary discussion. In order to hone your writing skills, you will also take part in a thorough study of prose mechanics, essay structure, quoting and citing sources, editing, individual conferences, rhetorical analysis, and synthesis of expository and literary texts. We will work hard, have fun, and you will leave the course a skilled and confident writer.
Required Texts:
Baudelaire, Charles. Selected poems from Les Fleurs du Mal (in English translation).
Chatterton, Thomas. Selected poems.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von. The Sorrows of Young Werther (in English translation).
Morrison, Jim. The Lords and the New Creatures along with selected poems from Wilderness.
Plath, Sylvia. The Bell Jar and selected poems from Ariel.
Rimbaud, Arthur. Selected poems (in English translation).
Sexton, Anne. Selected poems.
Verlaine, Paul. Selected poems.
Vigny, Alrfred de. Chatterton (play, in English translation).
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Please offer any comments/constructive criticism that you wish, whether on texts, film ideas, course progression, etc.!!
