Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Fabulous Acknowledgement

In Jennifer Roback Morse's Love and Economics: Why the Laissez-faire Family Doesn't Work:

"I most sincerely thank each and every one of them, husband, children, parents, siblings, and in-laws. They all contributed to lengthening the time of production of this book. But without each and every one of them, I would not have had anything nearly so interesting to say."

Monday, September 29, 2008

Desperate Housewives?

In her discussion of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, Christina Hoff Sommers writes,

"[I]n building her case, Friedan made a fatal mistake that undermined her book's appeal at the time and permanently weakened the movement it helped create. She not only attacked a postwar culture that aggressively consigned women to the domestic sphere, but she attacked the sphere itself — along with all the women who chose to live there.
...
Betty Friedan did indeed pull the trigger on history — but she also took aim at the lives of millions of American women. Her book was a classic and a landmark for both good and ill: In writing modern feminism's first textbook, she was also the author of modern feminism's Original Sin."


I'm not sure I like the terms of this discussion: first of all, at one level, a liberal democracy is concerned with making a space for people to choose their version of the good life. I am not, however, interested in stopping the discussion of ways to achieve the good life for women at this point. Yes, these choices should be allowed and some women will choose "to work" and some women will choose to "stay at home." But that isn't interesting. And I'm not sure that that is a fair division, either--it is not fair to women who "stay at home" well.

It seems to me that the division between work and home is false. Some women choose to work in the public realm; others choose to work in the home. Still others choose to enjoy the leisure at home at the expense of a husband who works. Let's not conflate the last two categories.

I don't know what I think about men and women of leisure. I mean, I'm all against work, personally. But, on the other hand, it seems to me that the balance of work and leisure must be maintained--people who are satisfied with constant leisure might have something wrong with them. And women who are content with spending their lives getting spa treatments and manicures and going to the mall are an embarrassment to real women, women who attempt to make the household a real realm, a productive realm and not only a consumptive one. These women, like my mother, bake and cook and grow things and can them, see to the education of their children, care for their parents, and serve in their church and other local associations.


Basically, women (or for that matter, men) who do not first orient themselves toward their home and family by engaging in activities that, as far as they can tell, benefit the home, are disordered. Women who enter the public realm while disregarding their families evidence the same lack of ability to navigate between the public and private realms as women who lounge at home with no interest in strengthening their families and their communities. The women who we should emulate are women who enter the public realm, while keeping their families and homes as priorities, and the women who devote themselves while at home to their families and communities--volunteering, praying, serving neighbors, etc. Both the household and the public realm are realms that women have to make sense of (although in different ways at different times in their lives). Friedan was right, then, to apply for entrance of women to the public realm. She was also right to disparage some ways of acting as a housewife. Her critique went too far, however, when it didn't allow that housekeeping might be done well.

In Defense of Center Parts

It is my dream to wake up one day and have Myrrh say, "You're right. You should part your hair in the center." Center parts with wavy hair are so much fun. Consider:








Anyway, I hear we are to forget about face shape now when making hair-parting decisions.

According to Bella Online: The Voice of Women:

This [theory] says that when a person puts a part in their hair, they are emphasizing either the right or left brain functioning. According to the study by Catherine Walter and John Walter called The Effects of Hair Parting on Social Appraisal and Personal Development, others make subconscious assumptions about you from the way you part your hair.

The Gender Theory
Men with a Left Part
The left part works well for men. They are seen as popular, successful, strong and traditional although possibly out of touch with their feminine side.

Women with a Left Part
This is good for women interested in a career in politics or business. They are perceived as intelligent, in charge, and reliable. Sometimes they are perceived as overly masculine and this can create difficulties in fulfilling traditionally feminine roles.

Men with a Right Part
The right part is not natural for men. It can create an uncomfortable image, and is sometimes perceived as radical. However it can work for the man who is very self-confident or striving to be respected in a non-traditional role.

Women with a Right Part
This is natural for women. It is seen as very feminine, gentle and caring, however it can sometimes cause the problem of not being taken seriously.

Men and Women with No part, Center Part or Bald
This is perceived as natural for men and women. It is perceived as balanced, trustworthy and wise although it can lack the flair associated with the other types.

Oh no. This make me rather angry.

But it is too much fun to ignore:

The Hair Part Theory was developed by a brother-sister team trained, respectively, in nuclear physics and cultural anthropology. Their revolutionary theory is now being made available to the general public, so that all individuals can have more control over automatic and mostly unconscious assessments made of their personalities by others. John and Catherine Walter also produce the True Mirror®, a mirror that does not reverse the viewer's image and which therefore allows an accurate self-assessment.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Moral: I'm Not a Very Good Friend, But I Try Really Hard

Myrrh is a school teacher. One thing (of many different things) she teaches is singing, and in conjunction with that, she began conducting a barbershop quartet last year. The quartet (I'm certain it had more than 4 people in it) sang the national anthem at a Washington Nationals Hockey game last year. Since I am an avid hockey fan (by which I mean I go and remind myself repeatedly that hockey players have no teeth and have been concussioned too many times), I went along for moral support and to handle the pictures.



Well, this happened a long time ago, and thankfully I have a very poor memory. The man who handled making everything flow smoothly was tall and wearing a suit (both strong selling points), and was obviously pleased to be facilitating for someone as young and nice-looking as Myrrh. Of course, my matchmaking urges (which really, as you will see, ought to be suppressed under all circumstances) started cropping up. So I mischievously said, "Myrrh, what if I slide that guy your phone number?" She didn't exactly say yes, but she didn't say no, either. So, I wrote it out on a little piece of paper (I hope I gave him your cell and not our apartment number!). But when the moment came, I totally chickened out (I'm all talk). When I confessed this to Myrrh, she said coyly, "I really wouldn't mind that you didn't give him my number, except that you said you would."



Well of course, that was next door to a dare, which we know I'm pretty bad at refusing (at the expense of swallowing a plum pit and nearly tearing my esophagus [and then how would I be able to talk!]). So of course, I flipped my hair, marched right up to the tall man in a suit and said who knows what (I do remembering to have to repeat it about three times because I was nervous and he couldn't hear me) and shoving her number into his poor, tall, suit-wearing hand. Myrrh and my conclusion was that my performance needed work (unlike her barbershop). He never called, due, I'm sure, to my awkwardness as opposed to Myrrh's milkshake.


And while I regret giving up the opportunity to end with the riveting words, "Myrrh's milkshake," I think it makes the story even more interesting to hear it from two perspectives, so here's Myrrh's:

Here's the story as I remember it. You were watching him watch me as we rehearsed, and came up with this idea. Then, during a lull, you showed me the piece of paper with my name and number on it (already written out), and (with an extremely excited face) told me, "I'm going to give it to him!" You're right - while incredulous and very amused, I didn't technically forbid you from going ahead with the plan, and when we were leaving and you told me you had chickened
out, I did point out that you'd said you would do it.

Stearns: Two poems by Celia Leigh Heywood


Drowning in Honey, Stingless

The curfew tolls the knell and light remains
For a man, about the Lord’s own work,
(Of course) begged for light, sun stand thou still,
please.
The garish beams of God’s bright-answer stayed
The calm moon and added to the already overheated carrion days of summer.

The bodies heaped and rotted,
And the Children, in perpetual unbelief,
(for the red rock in the dust wilderness would have
offered up its own water), mumbled about
Sunburn and sweat and how the baby wouldn’t go down.

Sweet mercy cloys and sticks like manna
On the tongue and heavy sweetness in the too-full stomach.
We eat the book and eat the Word (for he starved
in the desert)
And must surfeit ourselves at his command
(to make up for his own breadless days)

So we are desiccated in the endless-saving
desert sun,
And can only beg that the heart-battering, heart-ravishing
bread becomes rock.

But our coffee spoons overflow
For grace to grace is a fearsome thing.






The Twelfth Year

She had taken part of him into her.
Swanlike, God pressed her open and with a life-sigh,
she was heart-body whole.
Calamitously, he announced his conquest to the world:
I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.

Baby-Proofed Skull and Crossbones



(For a nursery) Unbelievable. And yes, that's the edge of a chandelier you see in the upper right corner.
(Photo courtesy of one of Wendell's friends.)

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Serendipity and the Internet

why don't dutch guys approach women--Neither my friends nor I have actually found this to be the case. Perhaps they only approach American women? (Goodness gracious--the partying American girl stereotype in Europe is just embarrassing and annoying.)

drink with demanovka--I'm confused about this query. Demanovka is actually a drink. It is sort of hard to drink with a drink. Demanovka is, however, a very important to drink to drink, and, in fact, to drink often. One could have a beer with it if you shoot it; I guess I've done that.

bahm toballah sacoombaraffay--An ancient incantation, which ought to be chanted around campfires.

lauinger library brutalism--Really, the only thing that would have made this phrase more apt is if brutalism started with an "L." Lauinger library is brutal, both from the outside and from the inside. I cannot complain, however, about the carrels, particularly regarding the view to the south. Particularly at night when Rosslyn is lit up with pretty lights (my aesthetic sensibilities are rapidly deteriorating in DC--there is a modern apartment building that I actually think is pretty in downtown Clarendon; alas).

ornaments six peas in a pod--This would make a very lovely brooch. It would be green and remind us of vegetables.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Virtue, Liberty and Independence


Today I drove to Pennsylvania to register my new (used) car. I'm pretending the car has something to do with my birthday (it doesn't).

While there, I remembered, as I always do, how much I love Pennsylvania. The only two types of people I interacted with while I was there were mechanics (possibly my favorite type of person in the world) and an old-man bookstore owner (also pretty high up on the list). Oh--I forgot!--and a Polish woman who told me about a miracle she experienced at Chestahova. Who would have guessed in Waynesboro, PA?

The thing about Pennsylvania is the distinctiveness of the towns and the way in which the towns and fields flow easily into and out of each other. You're driving through fields, over rolling hills, and then suddenly there are houses with big yards closer together and closer to the road. After a little while of this, you hit on the town itself--in no particular order you may hit the old, light green, aluminum-sided houses with black wrought iron railings and black shutters in the working class part of town (one of my great-grandmothers lived in this part of Williamsport); then you may hit the nicer roads--wide avenues with tall oaks, which are just now beginning to change color, and beautiful sprawling brick and stone homes (my other Williamsport great-grandmother lived on this street in Williamsport); then you may hit the downtown--with sidewalks as the only thing that bridges between the road and the homes (as if the homes are so eager to be in the town that they're flush with the road)--with a mixture of brick and green and white siding, and some interesting, old, falling down facades on the buildings.

The thing is, the agrarian debate (who do the agrarians debate with? capitalists?) gets it wrong--it isn't quite proper to distinguish between life on a farm and life on the city, and Pennsylvania shows us this. The farms are close enough that they have to be concerned with politics as much as the town is. So this reformed business about us being saved through the city (which fits in with Aristotle calling us political animals) is not averse to us being saved through our life in the family and on the farm. We participate in political life even from the farm, most obviously when the city is the town.

Frilly Blouses


Because shopping is not on my list of currently acceptible activities (and blogging is. Dang it. This is like being grounded. Actually, not that shopping is ever on my current list of acceptible activities.):

When I saw this first picture, I became intrigued at the idea of frilly blouses. I have been, since earlier this summer, intrigued by the idea of anything assymetrical.









Frilly blouses are particularly pretty with this very high neck, no shoulders look, as far as I can tell. Possibly, because it makes them look more modern than they would otherwise look, such as when we wore frilly blouses in middle school; I think those were called poet blouses, which is actually a very nice name.
















Also high-necked. The cap sleeves could be cut off, or forgiven due to the very shiny fabric. Also, couldn't you wear a broach with this?!
















Myrhh! The lace hanky look is almost as good as wearing doillies!





Thursday, September 25, 2008

Ode to Little Gidding

"There’s a perfectly killing little place I want to show you, Anne. It wasn’t built by a millionaire. … it must have grown while Spofford Avenue was still a country road. It did grow—it wasn’t built! I don’t care for the houses on the Avenue. They’re too brand-new and plate-glassy. But this little spot is a dream—and its name—but wait till you see it."

They saw it as they walked up the pine-fringed hill from the park. Just on the crest, where Spofford Avenue petered out into a plain road, was a little white frame house with groups of pines on either side of it, stretching their arms protectingly over its low roof. It was covered with red and gold vines, through which its green-shuttered windows peeped. Before it was a tiny garden, surrounded by a low stone wall. October though it was, the garden was still very sweet with dear, old-fashioned, unworldly flowers and shrubs—sweet may, southern-wood, lemon verbena, alyssum, petunians, marigolds and chrysanthemums. A tiny brick walk, in herring-bone pattern, led from the gate to the front porch. The whole place might have been transplanted from some remote country village; yet there was something about it that made its nearest neighbor, the big lawn encircled palace of a tobacco king, look exceedingly crude and showy and ill-bred by contrast. As Phil said, it was the difference between being born and being made.



"It’s the name I want you to notice especially," said Phil. … "Patty’s Place. Isn’t that killing? Especially on this avenue of Pinehursts and Elmwolds and Cedarcrofts? Patty’s Place, if you please! I adore it."

"Have you any idea who Patty is?" asked Priscilla.

"Patty Spofford is the name of the old lady who owns it, I’ve discovered. She lives there with her niece, and they’ve lived there for hundreds of years, more or less—maybe a little less, Anne. Exaggeration is merely a flight of poetic fancy."



"I’m going to dream about Patty’s Place tonight," said Anne. "Why, I feel as if I belonged to it. … [I have a presentiment] that Patty’s place and I are going to be better acquainted yet."

Rant: On Patronization

After patronizing me for about 20 minutes this afternoon (on the intricacies of buying a car between Delaware, Virginia, and Pennsylvania and Washington, DC), a lawyer to whom I'd asked a very simple question about vehicle power of attorney called me 18. I am not 18; I am nearly 25. This is approximately the 5th time I've been called 18 since July. Then he laughed it off as being a compliment. What he did not understand is that he was a jerk and that I am not, in fact, complimented by being called a teenager.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Discussion Sections

This week we were talking about Aristotle, with readings from the first three books of The Politics. I'd picked out a poem to read and prepared some thoughts, but at the last minute, I remembered Ezra Pound's rant against usury, which is priceless (and even better to hear him read it)--he obviously sees himself as a sort of prophet:

with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour with usura the line grows thick

with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling
Stone cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom
...
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

Amazing! Usury slays the child in the womb?! It stops courting? I mean, I have some romantic sympathies with the idea that money ought not bear money, but who really seriously defends that idea these days? Well, bringing this poem to class was a moment of weakness, and I regret it. It didn't occur to me until after I made them read it that the children didn't even know what usury was. And Aristotle's views on money and private property, while interesting, were not the most central question in the reading.

All that to say, for my next seminar, I went with the Czesław Miłosz (you have to love the raised eyebrow) poem I'd originally picked, and that went swimmingly:

A Nation

The purest of nations on earth when it’s judged by a flash of lightning,
But thoughtless and sly in everyday toil.

Pitiless to its widows and orphans, pitiless to its old people,
Stealing a crust of bread from a child’s hand.

Ready to offer their lives to draw Heaven’s wrath on their foes,
Smiting their enemy with the screams of orphans and women.

Entrusting power to men with the eyes of traders in gold,
Elevating men with the conscience of brothel-keepers.

The best of its sons remain unknown,
They appear once only, to die on the barricades.

Bitter tears of that people cut a song off in the middle,
And when the song dies away, noisy voices tell jokes.

A shadow stands in a corner, pointing to his heart,
Outside a dog howls to the invisible planet.

Great nation, invincible nation, ironic nation.
They know how to distinguish the truth and yet to keep silent.

They camp on marketplaces, conversing in wisecracks,
They deal in old door handles stolen from ruins.

A nation in crumpled caps, carrying all they own,
They go west and south searching for a place to live.

The children had no problem seeing in this poem questions that Aristotle was addressing--the relationship of the man to the city, the question of who should rule, and the way in which the unjust regime elevates unjust men, making the good citizen different from the good man.


In the middle of class, someone brought up Amish people. There is nothing better to derail me with (do Amish people have politics?). I told them about my secret (I don't think I get to use that word) dream of putting on a black dress and joining the Amish (if I lived with the Amish, I would be able to tell if they have politics). And then I began to rant about facebook and the hook-up culture and the idea of going off to college in general, and it was fabulous (at least for me).


Oh! And: I had a Dr. Potter moment. All that I hope for in teaching and in leading discussions is Dr. Potter. He taught American literature and modern poetry and a core literature class that everyone took. Somehow at the very end of every lecture and every discussion, he managed to tie every class together in a beautiful summary that made you probe the deep philosophical questions. Basically, he left you speechless and then mildly said, "See you next week," and stalked out. Meanwhile, we all came back to our senses, gathered our books and papers and went back to our dorm rooms. Well, all I want in life is to learn how to do that. And today, I sort of felt like I did. I was so satisfied with myself that I followed my summary of the relationship of the good citizen to the good regime with, "See you next week."

On Rejection Letters

From the essay, "No," on the rejection letter (via The Cigarette Smoking Blog):

One of the very best: a rejection note sent by the writer Stefan Merken to an editor who had rejected one of his short stories. “Please forgive me for not accepting your rejection letter,” wrote Merken. “At this time I cannot accept a rejection of my short story. I accept more than 99 percent of the rejections I receive. Many I don’t agree with, but I realize that accepting a piece of fiction for publication is a very subjective judgment call. My acceptance of your rejection letter is also a subjective process and therefore I am returning your letter to you. I did read your letter. I read every letter I receive. Your letter was well-written, but due to time constraints from my own writing schedule, I am unable to make editorial comments. I do make mistakes. Don’t you, as an editor, be disheartened by this role reversal. The road of publishing is long and tedious. You need successful publications and I need for successful publications to print my stories. I will expect to see my story in your next publication. Good luck in the future.”

(Which led Frankincense to point me to this College rejection rejection letter:)

Having now reviewed the many rejection letters received in the last few weeks, it is with great regret that I must inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection at this time.
...
See you all in the fall!

(Which, in turn, led me to this [which I intend to keep in mind for future use]:)

Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Prestigious' outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Comping.2


MH: "You know Harvey Mansfield's advice about comps? Stop reading and take more long walks." [Gosh, I love second-generation Mansfield advice. This is another good goal--to be so wise that people go around repeating your advice to others.]

Emily: "But I already take a lot of walks."

MH: "You need to stop studying, pour some wine, and have discussions with your friends."

Emily: "But that's all I do, ever."

MH: "Then you're well prepared."

[good to know!]

Quotes

Today in discussion section: "Man is a political animal. I mean, sometimes chance interferes--like you can get shipwrecked on an island ... in your infancy." At which point it was sounding less and less feasible, and I wanted to change the subject, so I called on a girl who was raising her hand.

"That's okay," she deferred, "I think I'd rather hear where that was going."



In the vein of class quotes, here are some from Peter Lawler, cleverly collected by one of his students. A sampling of my favorites:

"Use your money for pink Cadillacs, pink flamingos and all sorts of other pink things" (I'm vaguely offended at this; we just got a pink iron that I'm quite excited about.)

"I need to apologize for the coffee stains on your term papers"

"Handling snakes is a gray area, but sacrificing virgins is over the top"

"Sexual orientation is somewhat ingrained, but it can be changed. Examples...prison and Sparta"

"Plato's Republic was a snipe hunt. You wait around in a thicket with a bag and when "justice" comes out, you grab it!"

"Catholic theology says that Heaven is looking at God for eternity and thinking it is good. We can't imagine that because we would get bored and say, 'Hey God let's go to lunch or something'"

"If someone wrote in the back of your yearbook, 'You can be whatever you want to be,' that was really dumb because you can't be a fish. It is just not going to work out for you"

"You just said something profound, but I think accidentally"

"Some of your papers I am handing back have grease on them. Just don't think about it"

"In history when Christians have really big armies, studies show that God lets them win"

Monday, September 22, 2008

Wooden Churches







Wooden churches are one of the most delightful things I've experienced. The first two pictures here are from a church we visited in the south of Poland; the last three pictures are from a church in Trocany/Bardejov, Eastern Slovakia. These churches are built using only wooden (even the nails are wood). They are covered with shingles and are very small. The one in Poland was decorated with folk painting--mostly brightly colored patterns. The church in Slovakia was much more sparse, decorated with icons on the walls. The center picture is of the altar and sitting there is a 15th century, hand-written Bible. Because there are so few visitors, the tour guide (who we called on the cell phone to let us into the church) placed no restrictions on what we could see or touch. This points to a significant problem, actually--Slovakia has so many things worth preserving and not enough money to preserve them with.

Sunday, September 21, 2008

On Cussing

I usually save particularly crude language for the most upsetting things in life: men, tennis (occassionally basketball), and driving. I think that Ilana would approve, at least, of including the decreasing size of ice cream containers in the list of most upsetting things (I've certainly heard you rant about this, Ilana). Possibly this also fits under the grocery store conversation category, which I try to keep up to please Myrrh.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

What Makes Man Different from Animals.4


My apologies, but I'm going to play this game until I get bored (Doesn't Arendt look downright pretty in that hat?).


"Action alone is the exclusive prerogative of man; neither a beast nor a god is capable of it, and only action is entirely dependent upon the constant presence of others.


"This special relationship between action and being together seem to justify the early translation of Aristotle's zoon politikon by animal socialis ('man is by nature political, that is, social')."


--Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

Friday, September 19, 2008

Plays and Politics


"[T]he theatre is a better school of moral sentiments than churches." --Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

Basically, Burke is appalled with a particular enlightenment preacher, the Reverend Price. He argues that what the Reverend Price got away with in sermons would not stand up in plays because the poets have to be able to communicate to an audience "not yet graduated in the school of the rights of men" and must therefore "apply themselves to the moral constitution of the heart." Here Burke affirms the common man in the realm of morals ("where men follow their natural impulses") over men improperly educated. The theater provides both a better way of arguing (as acting is relatively closely attached to reality) and a better type of audience than the rhetorical, enlightenment style sermons found in churches.

Coleridge also writes about theater in relation to ethics and politics: "What would appear mad or ludicrous in a book, when presented to the senses under the form of reality, and with the truth of nature, supplies a species of actual existence. ... No part was ever played in perfection, but nature justified herself in the hearts of all her children" ("The Drama Generally, and Public Taste").

In fact, in order to resist revolutionary tendencies, Coleridge sees a need for the theater to influence the public mind; to do that, it must first be attentive to the sorts of plays it is showing.


For more, see Julie Carlson's "An Active Imagination: Coleridge and the Politics of Dramatic Reform."

Comping

Today: I broke one of the rules (!) and spent the afternoon in a used book store. I hope that heaven is like a used book store--discovering delightful things that you couldn't have imagined existed, such as Robert Penn Warren's Jefferson Lecture, entitled, Poetry and Democracy, an exciting find given a conference paper on poetry in the democratic age that I'll be working on again when comps are done.

Also, tonight a reward for completing a specific amount of studying was that I got to go on a run. Remember, I don't like running (okay, fine, I sort of like it lately). Anyway, my life is sort of upsidedown.


Finally, for the moment, I do love the Economist obituaries, but this one, in particular, is outstanding. I can't keep myself from quoting at length (you know, or ought to know, how I feel about typewriters):


ANYONE who had dealings with manual typewriters—the past tense, sadly, is necessary—knew that they were not mere machines. Eased heavily from the box, they would sit on the desk with an air of expectancy, like a concert grand once the lid is raised. On older models the keys, metal-rimmed with white inlay, invited the user to play forceful concertos on them, while the silvery type-bars rose and fell chittering and whispering from their beds. Such sounds once filled the offices of the world, and Martin Tytell’s life.


Everything about a manual was sensual and tactile, from the careful placing of paper round the platen (which might be plump and soft or hard and dry, and was, Mr Tytell said, a typewriter’s heart) to the clicking whirr of the winding knob, the slight high conferred by a new, wet, Mylar ribbon and the feeding of it, with inkier and inkier fingers, through the twin black guides by the spool. Typewriters asked for effort and energy. They repaid it, on a good day, with the triumphant repeated ping! of the carriage return and the blithe sweep of the lever that inched the paper upwards.

[Okay, so the psychoanalysis bit that follows might be over the top, but after that we find out that he met his wife over a typewriter!]

Each typewriter was, to him, an individual. Its soul, he reminded Mr Frazier, did not come through a cable in the wall, but lay within. It also had distinguishing marks—that dimple on the platen, that sluggishness in the typebars, that particular wear on the “G”, or the “t”—that would be left, like a fingerprint, on paper.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Little House in Linden

Imagine five blonde-haired children racing each other across a grassy field. Their tan faces and brown eyes glimmer ecstatically as they sprint toward their mother, hardly panting as they all exclaim, “Maw-ee, the rabbit had babies! Butterscotch had two babies! The mother smiles animatedly and continues to pat the infant on her shoulder. After going out to see the new babies, she remembers the peach pies that are in the oven, returns to the house to check on them and lets the kids tell her husband the good news. This story is true, and although it sounds like a homestead in Laura Ingalls’s times, these are my cousins, and this is their story.

My uncle is a mailman, who works hard at his job; he then comes home and works hard around the house. My aunt is a busy stay-at-home mother whose kids refer to her as mommy without the m’s, which is difficult to write phonetically. Their home is situated on a hill in Linden, with a long, twisty driveway and plenty of woods and soil for a garden. Originally, he built a log cabin that they intended to live in, but eventually decided on a more conventional home. They have six children: three girls and three boys, one of whom was born in early July.

The oldest boy of the family is thirteen—Joel, the bookworm and member of the Civil Air Patrol. His soccer speed is a result of chasing his sisters around the yard.

Laura, an eleven-year-old, is the bossy older sister and a baker extraordinaire. She used her baking skills to make and decorate a cake for her younger brother’s birthday. Unfortunately, the cake was missing an integral ingredient, the flour. When she discovered her error she promptly remade the cake and frosted it white with pink and purple flowers, not quite fitting for a seven-year-old boy’s birthday, but lovely nonetheless. The next girl, Amy is nine years old. She is a seamstress at her young age and produces a variety of clothing, both for her dolls and herself. She also knitted a blanket for her new baby brother.

Ethan is a lovable seven-year-old who delights in rocks. This summer he collected them in large piles throughout the house. He often searches the rocky hills about their home for fossils or unique stones. Always at his side is Ellie, the four-year-old. She has been obsessed with toy balls since just after birth; her favorite Sunday dress is covered in polka dots, and her eyes glow as she says to me, “Ilana, I have balls on my dress!”

The youngest, Peter, is only a few months old and has yet to develop an interesting personality, but his sisters have cuddled him and carried him since he was a week old. I am sure they will continue help him along every step of his life, picking for him his favorite color and toys.

These children love animals—especially rabbits, dogs and rats. They fell in love with rabbits when they saw them at the local farmer’s house where they pick up fresh milk and eggs every week. After thoroughly researching proper rabbit care, which included checking out and memorizing every book from the library on the subject, they got rabbits—for free! They proceeded to learn about breeding rabbits and now have a herd of them. Their other pet, a rat, belongs to Joel. The oldest girls bought him one for Christmas last year. Their dog, although he is usually well-behaved, has to be kept in his pen during deer season.

Deer season is an exciting time in my cousins’ household. After school, the kids sit with their eyes peeled on the woods in front of the house, because if they see a buck, their dad gives them a dollar. These sightings may lead to more venison to eat, because both my aunt and uncle have been known to shoot deer while standing on the front porch. Then comes the fun. The oldest three, Joel and Laura and Amy, help gut and skin the deer. My aunt proceeds to instruct them on how to cut the meat from the bone and remove the fat with very sharp knives. She then divides the meat into portions and freezes it in Ziploc bags. This all typically occurs over just a few hours.

My aunt does not just freeze meat, though. With help and hindrance from Laura and Amy, she cans peaches, tomato sauce, pears, green beans, and the uneaten half of the garden. Making sure her children receive the proper nutrients in their diet, my aunt cooks with nearly all natural ingredients—she even makes her own whole wheat bread and pasta noodles from scratch. Eating her whole wheat pizza, however, is interesting; somehow it just does not work. Her delicious baked goods are made without recipes—whenever my mom asks her for a recipe, she replies “I think it may have whole wheat flour in it…” which is hardly a help in decoding the secrets of her superb chocolate chip cookies.

As if she is not busy enough, my aunt also supervises my cousins’ education—she homeschools them. They learn by doing unit studies—a method of learning in which they read books and study history from the same time period. Biology labs are enhanced by annual deer dissections. Their studies are often promoted by their curiosity—Joel reads World War II books by the dozens, Laura has mastered the care of rabbits, and Ethan owns countless books about rocks. As much as they enjoy learning, like most children they enjoy the remainder of the day when school is done, and it never includes TV.

During the summer, my cousins frolic outside, swimming in their pool, jumping on their trampoline, riding their bikes on their rocky driveway, playing in the sandbox and playing tag. In the early weeks of June, Joel and Laura and Amy pick strawberries at the local field, working from six in the morning until noon in ninety-degree weather, earning sixteen dollars per day.

Clutching the fruit of their labors and the occasional dollars saved from sighting deer and doing extra chores, they all pile into the eight-passenger van and venture off to go yard-sailing every Saturday in the summer. They return home with a cornucopia of items varying from doll clothes and toy balls to items from the free box.

Sometimes the yard sales have to be missed for a week, because they go on interesting vacations. This year, my uncle took the oldest kids for a fishing trip down Pine Creek. Joel and Laura maneuvered one canoe, while he took Amy and Ethan in the other. They usually go camping every year as well, piling six children into a tent. I often wonder if my aunt and uncle sleep on those outings.

My cousins have been raised well: when they enter and exit the room they hug and kiss everyone and always remember to say thank you. When my sister gives her friends a tour of Williamsport she includes a stop at my cousins’ house to “show off” her nearly Amish relations. And recently, when our whole family was relaxing at the beach browsing through our Reader’s Digests and Newsweeks, I noticed my uncle studying the latest edition of the “Homestead Digest.”

Dominicans


"Did I hear you were traversing Europe this past summer? I'm surprised you didn't run away with a young Czech or something." --Brother O.P.


Yes, Brother O.P. can preach. I've been teased incessantly for questioning this. Only I have a Pentecostal understanding of preaching, which includes yelling and microphones and a stage and a particular voice and sometimes stomping, and so I just wasn't able to picture Brother O.P. this way.


Actually, I did contemplate running away with a young Czech. I was only in Prague for a day, but it was suggested ... I assume he was Czech, but, actually, who knows? There was also the Polish guy who evidently wanted a green card quite intensely ... (I was convinced he was joking, but in retrospect, I think he wasn't). It's too bad I'm Catholic and can only get married once, otherwise I would marry people so that they could move here and then divorce them. That would be a great hobby--a of all, it would be shocking; b of all, it would be a way to thumb my nose at immigration rules. Yes, Brother O.P., I'm a liberated woman.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

I Dwell in Possibility


Emily Dickinson

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of Eye--
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow
Hands To gather Paradise--


Today in class we put Emily Dickinson up against Plato, and I think we all sort of went for Dickinson, to my relief. At the very least, in this poem she's arguing (arguing being the wrong word; perhaps expressing?) that poetry tells us something about the nature of reality (my student: "Isn't Emily Dickinson putting down prose?"). I denied it for a while (because, of course, that isn't all or precisely what she's doing), but finally gave in and contrasted that with Plato. He says toward the end of Republic that poet's don't have special access into what it means to be human.

I have the students read the poem out loud stanza by stanza at the beginning of our discussion. My secret strategy is to pick the side of the room with most men/boys on it and ask that side to start reading. This way it pushes the boys right into the middle of it. But, for crying out loud, one of the boys brought Sir Philip Sydney's Defense of Poesie up in class today.


One of the students cleverly asked what "gambrels" means. I had no idea. Turns out it is "a frame used by butchers for hanging carcasses by the legs." How fitting--"The gambrels of the sky."

On Being Awkward

On the level of offering your hand when it isn't wanted:




One Friday night I was studying with a friend at a swanky bar/coffee shop in Adams Morgan. As I side note, I had a ball: I really can't think of anything more fun than studying "out"--it combines the delights of seeing and being seen with the feeling of satisfaction at getting something done and waking up the next morning without a hangover (Except studying, at least in me, creates its own sort of hangover: I usually end up staying up obscenely late [last night it was 5:30] and am sometimes unable to sleep in [like this morning]). Plus, you can watch drunk people, and men desperately trying to pick women up and overdressed (with all too little clothing) women trying desperately to be picked up. Plus, you learn why "they" keep men's and women's bathrooms separate in small bar/coffee shops--not because of any intrinsic difference at all in the furnishing of the bathroom itself, but rather because men's bathrooms are about four times filthier.




Anyway, due entirely (as I attribute all socially unacceptable behavior I commit these days) to my comping cloisteredness, when, on one of the extraordinarily rare moments in which I was looking up from my book, I saw a vague recent acquaintance from school walk by, I jumped up to say hello. Because the street was loud and I didn't want to be undignified and call loudly, this involved chasing him down. Well, he couldn't have been more pleased to be chased down. Suddenly, I was horrified--I had unintentionally brazenly boy chased! He asked me what I was up to, didn't believe that I was studying actually, didn't believe that all I ever do is study, and then suggested himself as a studying partner. Well, I returned to my friend and my coffee, and he commented that I ran after the poor boy like a doe (he would say that--he's a Baptist pastor and can't help using biblical language. But, dammit, I think that's Song of Solomon language).

The Woman Who Was Thursday


"The attitude of women in such cases was indeed one of the paradoxes of the place. Most of the women were of the kind vaguely called emancipated, and professed some protest against male supremacy. Yet these new women would always pay to a man the extravagant compliment which no ordinary woman ever pays to him, that of listening while he is talking."

--Chesterton, "The Man Who Was Thursday"

There is no one else that I would rather hate as a feminist than conservative men. It is a delightful game (I guess only because I come down closer to their side than any other). And partially because they can be so extraordinarily witty about it.


Oh Chesterton, in one breath you compliment the liberated woman and deny that any liberation is possible--any spiritedness, while lovely, only reinforces (or, better yet, strengthens!) "the natural order," that of women adoring men. Unbelievable.

Blogging is Stressful.2

Goodness gracious, this is stressful: a professor currently visiting Georgetown gets in trouble over his blog. This after seeing one of my colleagues sending out more than 50 job applications. Once you get a job, you don't want it to go away. Never anyone tell who I am. Or I'll never speak to you again. Plus, it's fairly certain that I'll run for an important political office one day.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

On the Evils of Constant Communication

Communicating is where I get my energy—communicating by myself or with other people (for instance I’m blogging right now because I haven’t spoken to anyone for the entire afternoon, but have been sitting, internet-less in the library and have many, many things to say!). I’m happy to sit and daydream or journal or blog by myself. I’m also happy to talk with an old friend for an hour on the phone (30 minutes is the rule these days). I’m also happy to write a letter or read my emails. I’m happy to drink coffee with friends and gossip about departmental politics. I’m happy to mix at a party, or better yet be the hostess for one. I’m happy to listen to someone vent or talk through a problem. Essentially, I am crazy about being with people, although I need some time to be by myself, as well.

What seems to be getting popular these days, however, is neither being alone, nor being with people—it is a constant in between state in which you are communicating to an anonymous audience and receiving a plethora of communications that are directed to an anonymous audience, and not specifically to you. I am going to group Twitter-ing in this group, as well as facebook newsfeeds and gchat messages. This gives us a way to be with people in our isolation (when I’m bored and lonely of comps studying, I do just study ghcat away messages every 10 minutes; plus I have the constant urge [which I resist as much as possible] to update mine frequently with whines or reports of how my day is going). What if this is the worst of both worlds? What if this gives us neither community nor solitude and thus saps our ability to participate in community properly when it is time to return to it?

I need alone time (it has to be short and frequently interrupted, as my roommates can vouch for due to my frequent excursions from my room just to say one or two things, and then go back in). If I don’t have time alone, I get stressed as I’ve not been able to process my previous interactions and unwind and rest. If your alone time is filled with text messages and facebook and emails and other such merely marginally meaningful interactions, then that solitude becomes less able to serve as a catharsis, preparing us for future social engagement. Rather, it becomes a quasi-sustainable method of poor quality, pseudo-social interactions. We don’t need roommates (at least ones we love) and families and friends who live down the road (thanks, The Others!).

Goodness gracious, I’m upset. I’m upset because one of my students emailed me from his blackberry today (a freshman! Imagine!). I’m upset because my priest thought that when I said, “I’m buying a car,” I meant this minute, as opposed to this month (obviously not upset at him, Dear Fr. Dinousaurhead, but at the idea that I would presume to update him on little immediate details of my life as they happen). Furthermore, in his email response, he introduced me to the word, “Treo” (still not sure what that means): “I took your last email to mean that you were AT THAT MOMENT buying a car. Why would I think that? Because everyone else emails constantly...in the midst of whatever they are doing...from their iPhone, Blackberry or Treo. So I just presumed you were doing the same. I pictured you sitting in the chair at the dealership, signing the papers, getting the keys, driving away in your Hummer. Being an old fashioned guy, I'm glad to know you were just using email in the traditional manner.” To be fair, I had written, “I am buying a car at the moment; I will email you again when I've bought it and can make my way out to your now far distant parish” (admittedly ambiguous).

The thing is, I’m not against technological innovation. Some people need things like this in order to facilitate the convenience of work so that they can spend more time with their families. I’m just worried that we aren’t considering the way in which we communicate forms us and has a pervasive influence on the rest of our social interactions, and, indeed, the rest of our life (Kudos to Whigwham and Wendell for avoiding Facebook). I’m most worried about our younger siblings who don’t know what life is like without constant communication. That is not childhood. Thankfully, we come from Amish, Pennsylvania, so Ilana has no cell phone.

On Laughter and My Present Lack

Because this was the first thing to make me laugh non-forcedly in the last week:

(This was in an email from my friend, Sayers, responding to my query about her first day at a big law firm. Her reply to my question was, essentially, "Fine." And then she continues:)

More interestingly, we found a mouse in our apartment. He was running around the counters in the kitchen. So it turns out that under pressure, I scream and run away from mice. The plan was that Mr. Sayers was going to move the fridge (the mouse had run under it) and I was going to put a pot on top of it to trap it. So Mr. Sayers moved the fridge, the mouse ran out and Mr. Sayers jumped back, fell into me, and meanwhile I've dropped the pot and am screaming and trying to run away from the mouse. I ended up with rug burns on both knees. The mouse ended up going through a hole in the wall under the stove that we promptly stuffed with a rag and taped shut. I feel pretty wimpy as a city-dweller at the moment.



Other thing that amused me today, although it can't rival the increasing self-knowledge a mouse can bring was from my phone conversation with a man about replacing the windshield on my car-to-be:

Man With a Strong Hick Accent: "That will be $276. When would you like us to replace the windshield."

Emily: "Oh, I won't be scheduling an appointment. That's higher than the other price quote I received."

MWSHA: "Well, we have a price matching guarantee. What price were you quoted?"

Emily: "$218, plus they were going to come to my apartment."

MWSHA: "Okay, our price is $238. I can send a mobile unit out as early as tomorrow. When would you like an appointment?"

Emily: "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude, but how is that price matching?" (To which he mumbled something about "the lowest they can go" and a lifetime guarantee, and I think at that point he finally understood that I would not be requiring his services.)

Monday, September 15, 2008

An Adjusted Feminism

Harvey Mansfield argues insightfully here for Sarah Palin over Simone de Beauvoir--he asserts that those who affirm sexual difference also support women being able to have public careers (as evidenced by conservatives embrace of Palin), while feminists who understand women to be the same as men are not, in fact, satisfied with giving women an equal opportunity at these jobs (as evidenced by their opposition to Palin): "Doesn't this suggest that feminism is not in behalf of the women's movement--but rather to promote radical adventures above and beyond its concern for women?" He concludes with his view that some sort of feminism was necessary to women moving into the public sphere, but that Beauvoir's feminism was misguided and misguiding, with it's hidden goals that were not actually beneficial to women's entrance into the public world.

What are the sexual differences that he points to? Palin having her man ("implying that she needed him, and that any woman needs a guy of her own") and Palin's unconditional love for her children ("as opposed to the conditional love that insists on a "wanted" child"). In other words, heterosexual marriage and family.

Even Beauvoir had "her guy," like Palin does. The implications of Mansfield mentioning this are that although Beauvoir wanted to establish herself as independent, was not completely able to do so.

Of course, everything bad comes back to birth control becoming the norm (or at least women's use of birth control to permit them to become "as predatory as the most wolfish men"), although that is implicit in Mansfield's article (he mentions abortion as a backup, presumably for when birth control fails), rather than explicit.

What is the implication of this? Interestingly, he sees not Sarah Palin, but the Palins--the couple--as a model for American women. Here he points to something interesting--that one cannot think about feminism without thinking about both men and women (I'm sure the same is true about his topic, manliness). He talks about love as a way to complementarity: "The trouble with love is that it narrows your options and endangers your independence. If you loved a man, you might actually want to put up with, or even admire, his ways." It is love, then, that pulls men and women into a proper respect for and dependence on each other.


Mansfield is obviously brilliant on this question. Not only is he brilliant, but he is also delightfully witty (from a NYTimes interview from a couple of years ago):

Q: So your generally left-leaning colleagues are willing to talk to you?
A: People listen to me, but they don't pay attention to what I say. I should punch them out, but I don't.
...
Q: I am beginning to wonder if you have ever spoken to a woman. Your ideas are so Victorian.
A: I have a young wife who grew up in the feminist revolution, and even though she is not a feminist, she wants to benefit from it. I wash the dishes, and I make the bed.
Q: How young is she, exactly?
A: She's 60. I'm 73.
...
Q (-ish): Physical advantages are practically meaningless now that men are no longer hunter-gatherers.
A: I disagree with that.
Q: When was the last time you did something that required physical strength?
A: It's true that nothing in my career requires physical strength, but in my relations with women, yes.
Q: : Such as?
A: Lifting things, opening things. My wife is quite small. (the best part is: he's quite small, too!)
Q: What do you lift?
A: Furniture. Not every night, but routinely.

It seems that he is emphasizing the differences between men and women particularly in their interactions with one another (for instance, in the interview he points out that Thatcher was a manly woman, but purportedly not in interactions with her husband). This adds a whole other layer to thinking about women in the public realm v. women in the private realm.

Something Worse than Facebook?

This is a very smart article on the reasons for and effects of our constant online contact--our "ambient awareness." I'd never heard of Twitter, but it makes me think my Facebook addiction isn't so bad. Dunbar numbers are interesting, too--150 people is evidentally the average person's network of connections. The article mentioned "people in their 20s who were in college when Facebook appeared and have never lived as adults without online awareness." This is distressing--Ilana, not that you're an adult, but you probably need a break from Facebook. A final quote: “Can you imagine a Facebook for children in kindergarten, and they never lose touch with those kids for the rest of their lives?" This will likely prevent people from normal, healthy change and development that naturally results from moving to a new place and leaving old friends behind. When you never leave any friends behind (they have immediate access to little details about you), it is much more difficult to adjust the ways in which you understand and portray yourself. For instance, I'm too shy to put Catholic down under religion on Facebook, for fear it will offend my Pentecostal people.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

A Rant

Who needs essays or letters when the form of the rant exists? I would like to go down in history as the person (of course, the woman) who perfected the rant as a literary form. In fact, it is possible that the rant is the form most suited to the democratic age: It requires a reader (ideally a sympathetic reader) only insofar as having an audience conduces to the catharsis of the speaker (it is okay that the audience be anonymous, like the reader of our whining gchat and facebook messages). What a rant really requires is a speaker who wants to express his own individuality and the fact that he's been inconvenienced. It is a form that is inherently anti-communal and implies a problematic understanding of evil and suffering.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Dreaming Time Away

















Wordsworth's "Expostulation and Reply"


"WHY, William, on that old grey stone,
Thus for the length of half a day,
Why, William, sit you thus alone,
And dream your time away?

"Where are your books?--that light bequeathed
To Beings else forlorn and blind!
Up! up! and drink the spirit breathed
From dead men to their kind.

"You look round on your Mother Earth,
As if she for no purpose bore you;
As if you were her first-born birth,
And none had lived before you!"

One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake,
When life was sweet, I knew not why,
To me my good friend Matthew spake,
And thus I made reply:

"The eye--it cannot choose but see;
We cannot bid the ear be still;
Our bodies feel, where'er they be,
Against or with our will.

"Nor less I deem that there are Powers
Which of themselves our minds impress;
That we can feed this mind of ours
In a wise passiveness.

"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?

"--Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old grey stone,
And dream my time away,"



I used this poem for a conversation with my class about Plato's Republic. The students cleverly tied it to Plato's metaphysic (particularly to his understanding of the underlying structure of reality). They also talked about how conversation is possible within the individual person since the person is composed of the three distinct parts (reason, spiritedness and appetites).



I was thinking much more simply than they were about learning in isolation v. learning in conversation with others (dialogue form) and passive v. active learning. Actually, this poem, which I'd actually planned for the last conversation, but decided to use this week, worked surprisingly well as Wordsworth and the Romantic poets have some of this platonic idealism in them, but also differ in interesting ways.

Also, I'd gotten confused about the reading assignment, and consequently hadn't done half of the reading. I like being a teacher-ish way more than being a student!

Friday, September 12, 2008

What's Wrong With the World? Or So The Surprising Thing Isn't The Modern Malaise, It's That Some People Make It Anyway




















"Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;
Yea, there is strength in striking root and good in growing old.
We have found common things at last and marriage and a creed,
And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read."

--Chesterton, from the preface in poetry to "The Man Who Was Thursday"

The modern condition is not an easy one: okay, so we all have sufficient drinking water and calories, but there are so many things that we don't have, including


a) Homes. Eliot tells us that "Home is where one starts from." George MacDonald has one character tell another in a chapter in Lilith titled "Somewhere or Nowhere?," "You did not surely think you had got home? I told you there was no going out and in at pleasure until you were at home!" Until we have homes from which to leave, we have no reason for the places in which we are. Until we have a home--a place where we are truly ourselves and fight like heathens with our siblings but will never be turned away and will always be quickly forgiven, a town with a church and lots of neighbors and relatives--we can't move away and establish our own homes. Until we see what is good in our past, until we really know ourselves and our pasts, anything good that we search for will be an evasion of a part of ourselves and of our past and the influences that formed us. We consider it a tragedy when someone has to give up something from their own life in order to stay home for some reason, like to take care of an ill parent, when in fact, the recognition of the bonds that we have holding us to a particular place are one of the greatest goods we can know. I remember a woman who used to rent an apartment from my parents who said she never goes anymore to visit her family in Nebraska because they never come to see her. In fact, she no longer talks to them. This seems to me to be one of the most serious sins.


b) Marriage. A conception of marriage that admits of divorce is an absolutely gutted version. It seems to me that it's only better than cohabitation insofar as there is at least a nod to respecting societal norms. How are people supposed to find security in a love that depends on the whims and emotions of the lovers? Humans were meant to love stability and security; asking us to forgo this is unfair; it is too much for us to stand. Oakeshott writes, "To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss." And again, he writes, "Change generates sadness rather than exhiliration: heaven is the dream of a changless no less than of a perfect world." Not only does the government teach us a flawed conception of marriage, but our churches teach us a flawed conception, as well: divorce is strongly argued against, but there is no structure in place that is able to enforce this. Even in the Catholic Church in America, I hear anullments are relatively easy to get ahold of.


b and a half) Sex (properly--we all use birth control). I refuse to disconnect problems with marriage and abortion from birth control. It seems to me that birth control is the symbol of what's disordered in the world--love, which Paul tells us is the greatest thing and the thing that will remain, is being toyed with and imposed upon. Women are going right along with men in a rejection of their fertility. Sex for pleasure and God-keep-the-babies-away becomes an obsession with no limits. Suddenly we're creating all of our babies in test tubes because having sex for only pleasure isn't leading to stable, committed relationships. Please! I'm all for marriage expanding, but not to include new or different partners; rather, marriage needs to expand to welcome children into a family.


c) Vocations (in the secular sense of the word). With the expansion of the potential occupations that are open to ever person in the contemporary world, we are paralyzed by the plethora of possibilities (yes! alliteration!). Particularly among the most educated, who could with relative ease enter a variety of professions, there is a sense that no one job could be sufficiently satisfying. Rare indeed is the man who is truly at peace with himself in the vocation he has chosen; I think I could count the number of men I know like that on a couple of hands.


Goodness gracious, we move all the time, get new jobs, find new churches, new friends, new cars and new (and ever younger) wives (cough*McCain), just at the time that we should be inheriting our grandmothers's pearls and our grandfathers's fishing poles. As my mother always taught me, "Make new friends and keep the old ones; one is silver, the other, gold."

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Faulkner on Work

(In answer to the question of what he would do to make a little money:)

Whatever came up. I could do a little of almost anything—run boats, paint houses, fly airplanes. I never needed much money because living was cheap in New Orleans then, and all I wanted was a place to sleep, a little food, tobacco, and whiskey. There were many things I could do for two or three days and earn enough money to live on for the rest of the month. By temperament I’m a vagabond and a tramp. I don’t want money badly enough to work for it. In my opinion it’s a shame that there is so much work in the world. One of the saddest things is that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight hours—all you can do for eight hours is work. Which is the reason why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy.

Okay, so I guess I shouldn't support his alternative of indulging the sensual appetites instead of work, but I do support his position that "I don't want money badly enough to work for it. In my opinion it's a shame that there is so much work in the world." I couldn't agree more (I mean, except the days in which I'd love to throw lavish dinner parties with everything expensive delicious to eat and drink; and the days in which I want a balcony).

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

On Blasphemy and What's Worse

It's odd that patricide and parricide should both be words. But what I am still wondering -- indeed, what keeps me up nights -- is, what do you call somebody who kills his paternal grandfather's cousin-by-marriage?

--Percy



Parricide--killing one's father or mother or other close relative
Patricide--killing one's father
Matricide--killing one's mother
Fratricide--killing one's brother
Sororicide--killing one's sister
Filicide--killing one's child
Mariticide--killing of one's husband
Uxoricide--killing of one's wife
Deicide--killing a god

The way we have families these days, it isn't even necessary, for instance, to kill your wife--you don't need one (in order to have children) to start with! Moreover, no need to kill the child, we can just prevent their birth. This reminds me of Eliot when he writes about blasphemy in After Strange Gods:

"[B]lasphemy is not a matter of good form but of right belief; no one can possibly blaspheme in any sense except that in which a parrot may be said to curse, unless he profoundly believes in that which he profanes ... It is certainly my opinion that first-rate blasphemy is one of the rarest things in literature, for it requires both literary genius and profound faith, joined in a mind in a peculiar and unusual state of spiritual sickness. I repeat that I am not defending blasphemy; I am reproaching a world in which blasphemy is impossible."

On Humilty and Community

"[I]t is always the humble man who talks too much; the proud man watches himself too closely."
--GKC, "The Man Who Was Thursday"

(Imagine how proud I am after reading this line!)

Also, I'm vaguely happy and surprised to wake up this morning/afternoon, what with the particle accelerator and all. Although I wasn't actually all that worried about the world being wiped out, as long as the whole world was wiped out at the same time, I think it wouldn't bother me so much (this is where my uber-communal tendencies show through ["Myrrh-cry!"]). I just wouldn't want to die myself and have everyone else go on without me.

Grocery Stores Get Smaller!

Gentle readers, because I know how Myrhh feels about grocery stores and talking about them, I couldn't let this article go without comment. Grocery stores are getting smaller. I know how I feel about this change (I just told my students yesterday not to use "feel," but to always use "think"; I also taught them what a split infinitive is! Imagine! They hadn't heard of it.). I am all for smaller grocery stores that conduce to quick visits. It also dovetails nicely with the small town/local/agrarian thing.
This picture may capture one aspect of grocery stores that I hate: florescent lights, sterile hospital floors, too much visual stimulation on the shelves (the problem of other shoppers who notice as you walk the length of the store for the eighth time because you can't find where they keep the damn marshmellows, squeeky carts, long checkout lines, and the Trader Joe checkout people who are so fakely chatty and friendly [or perhaps it's real, in which case I question their mental stability] aren't even touched on by this picture). Today is grocery shopping day for me (about half a week late), if you can't tell by my extra animosity on this point; I am only going because I have only eggs and an onion remaining in the refrigerator.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

William Morris's Wallpaper

(He was a socialist?!)























Monday, September 8, 2008

Rants: On The Contemporary Family and Political Use of Disabilities


Goodness gracious, this works even less well on men than on women. Really, it is one thing to adopt a child as a single parent, but another to use a surrogate to have a biological child while single. The Pop Luck Club? There is no luck involved here. And who is it lucky for? Not the child, that's for sure.


This is absolutely related to our contemporary understanding of sex as just for pleasure. Now children are just for our pleasure, too. When sex and children are separated, and when this separation goes to its logical conclusion, the result is extraordinarily disordered.


Also, I just received a phone call from Obama's campaign. The man from the campaign's voice sounded like he had a serious disability. This is unbelievable--disability as a marketing ploy. Okay, if you have a child with Down Syndrome, it is one thing to acknowledge this child as a part of your family. It is another thing to use diabled people to staff the phone bank in order to prevent people from hanging up and to create sympathy for your message.

Although the Children's Names Are Questionable


NYTimes article, "Fusing Politics and Motherhood in New Way," gives insight into how Palin handles both (it portrays her as a rather remarkable woman--nursing during conference calls! I approve.):


Many high-powered parents separate work and children; Ms. Palin takes a wholly different approach. “She’s the mom and the governor, and they’re not separate,” Ms. Cole said. Around the governor’s offices, it was not uncommon to get on the elevator and discover Piper, smothering her puppy with kisses.

“She’ll be with Piper or Trig, then she’s got a press conference or negotiations about the natural gas pipeline or a bill to sign, and it’s all business,” Ms. Burney, who works across the hall, said. “She just says, ‘Mommy’s got to do this press conference.’ ”

Ms. Palin installed a travel crib in her Anchorage office and a baby swing in her Juneau one. For much of the summer, she carried Trig in a sling as she signed bills and sat through hearings, even nursing him unseen during conference calls.

Todd Palin took a leave from his job as an oil field production operator, and campaign aides said he was doing the same now.