The Consequence of Chance

What Occupy Atlanta is up to...

2012-02-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

Feline Philosophy, Anarchy, and Art

2012-01-31T09:13:00.000-08:00

"Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat." - Mark Twain

A side-effect of hanging around Occupy is that one winds up having to explain patiently to people that having a penchant for breaking things and wearing clothes you found on the bargain rack at Hot Topic does not make you an anarchist. Sometimes you have to explain that to people who call themselves anarchists. I don't look like an anarchist, apparently. I am middle-aged, chose to accord punk a decent burial rather than take up necrophilia, and have a job, more or less, as an educator. I vote, among my other peculiar habits, though I am cynical about it, and my clothing comes in other colors than black. That's all right; I reject the notion that anarchy is a subculture. I also reject the idea that it requires a certain set of lifestyle choices, ideological catechisms, or a reading list. Although I do habitually think about the systemic consequences of my personal decisions and I love a reading list, those are voluntary choices on my part. (See what I did there?) In other words....don't tell me what to do.

What makes me an anarchist, then? What is anarchy, if it is not a fashion accessory, an excuse to raise hell with a philosophical justification, or a rejection of all forms of organization? Well...that's a question with a very long answer, more than one blog post's worth. But I'll start with a fundamental attitude. Deep down in my bones, I believe that all power must justify itself to those it would exert influence over, rather than the other way around. The power to pass laws or enforce them, to allocate resources or use them up, is always conditional and open to question; no other state of affairs is acceptable, or even possible except through manipulation, coercion and failure of the imagination. When you put it that way, it sounds strangely like the Declaration of Independence ("....Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed") and therefore ought to have the stamp of the hoariest true-blue American sentiment about it. And yet in practice that fundamental world-view tends to bother people. I have been told more than once in indignant tones that I have no respect for authority; I can only agree cheerfully, which seems to upset people even more. I do not have respect for authority. I barely recognize authority as a concept, except in the specific narrow academic sense of an authoritative source (and I'm well aware of how subject to debate that is). My compliance is never to be assumed, and my respect beyond that which I accord to all living beings as a matter of fundamental ethics has to be earned. I do respect integrity, knowledge and logical sense, and will amiably ask that they be demonstrated before I put my full trust in a person or institution; I will less amiably point out when they have been breached. This makes me a rebel, apparently, and very upsetting.

Really, I'm no different from a cat, except that I talk more. Cats are natural anarchists.

So are artists, a species of which I am a member, cultivar writer. While it's true you will occasionally find an artist espousing some authoritarian philosophy or another, they always mean it for other people. (Nobody said an artist can't be a hypocrite. We are like other mortals that way). I never met a creative person though who took authority seriously as applied to herself. That is because real art requires freedom and is governed by constraints the artist understands to be arbitrary even when she believes in them passionately, with the same total conviction that a six year old will lend to the rules of a game she and her friends just made up on the spot. Even reality is bendable in spots.

Don't get the idea that just because I think rules are the product of fallible human minds it means I also think there shouldn't be any. That kind of person always believes that there's such a thing as ultimate truth in human affairs, and that he or she knows what it is. What I do think is that, acknowledging that rules are often arbitrary (a word with roots in the concept of rendering judgment), they are also functional in that they provide a container, a vessel for human interactions. They can be useful, but they must also be subject to criticism and revision on the basis of how functional they really are, and that extends to all levels, the philosophical, the social, and the practical; local, national, and global. This is also the business of the philosophical or theoretical arms of social justice movements: feminism, anti-racism, queer activism, disabilities activism, etc. That is not a coincidence. As tiresome as that can sometimes be....like a four year old asking constantly "why? why? why do we do things this way? why don't we do them another way?" it is essential. All true and valuable change begins with a question.

Question authority.

How Not to Be A Radical

2011-12-31T23:35:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of people in the Occupy movement; many of them are amazing, talented, imaginative, dedicated, and truly rad. Some are...less so.

A number of self-proclaimed radicals hang around Occupy. Much like "honest" or "nice," if you have to tell people how radical you are, you aren't. Understand, I think our whole system and society is pretty well screwed and that we need to come up with something better. That makes me a radical by definition. I also think being a radical is a good thing, because without someone around going "Dang. This shit is messed up. What are we to do?" no good thing would ever be accomplished. That is more or less why I'm part of Occupy Atlanta in the first place.

However, from the vantage point granted to me by spending years running about marching in the streets and hanging out with the sort of people who also like to do that, and also due to having read some books, I have a few opinions about what being a "radical" is and especially how one can do so most effectively. Or not.

I've spent a lot of time with some very focused, organized and accomplished activists, some of whom know how to civilly disobey with style. I've also done my time in duress with many a poser. Here are a few tips on how to spot your garden-variety faux radical:

1. Capable of chanting "Off the pigs!" and asserting that this is a radical action without the faintest hint of irony or apparent awareness that that chant is fifty years old, and in that whole time it has accomplished nothing of note, but that it does tend to inspire revulsion in a large portion of the population. Unable to draw the obvious conclusion from this.

2. Prone to choosing actions, behaviors, and protests which serve to reinforce existing social and power structures, rather than the opposite. Rich white kids using very confrontational tactics is a good example; they can get away with it much more easily than African Americans and Latinos. This ensures that the latter will be marginalized, especially if those tactics become the central focus of the activist group and are seen as a source of authenticity. African Americans and Latinos may therefore feel pressure to participate in activities which are more high-risk for them; they are more likely to be targets of arrest and to be more harshly punished...thus further removing them from any influence. Bonus points if the "tactics" employed involve property damage, which is less of a concern the more affluent you are, and extra bonuses if the property damage is committed in a poor African American or Latino neighborhood. Not only does this demonstrate a finely honed disdain for working-class (always reframed as "bourgeois") concerns with how run-down a neighborhood appears and the relationship of that to safety, it also serves to ensure that none of the locals will wish to join the group, thus saving the trouble of having to address their concerns in person.

3. Thinks that being a Marxist makes you radical. I know tenured professors who are Marxists. They have academic journals and conferences. It's rather like how Hot Topic killed punk: If you can buy it in a mall store, it's no longer counter-culture. Once you can be peer-reviewed in it, it's not radical any more. I am sorry to be the bearer of this news, which is several decades old.

4. Prone to highly intellectual, theoretical discussions about "radicalism" and "revolution" while being allergic to any discussions of practical import; see Mouse council, re: Belling the cat. Sometimes this extends to not being able to make decisions about food or shelter due to the weighing of political implications and ideological soundness. Will write lengthy e-mails with footnotes and references about the plight of the worker under capitalism, but not do any actual work.

The ends shape the means; you cannot create profound change by reinforcing the power dynamics and narratives which support the status quo, even if you dress in black and shout hoary slogans from the Vietnam War era while doing it. Never confuse offending people with changing anything. Never confuse breaking stuff with changing anything. Never fall in love with your own rhetoric. Noise isn't action, theory isn't practice, and talk is cheap.

Inside Job

2011-11-30T17:17:00.000-08:00

If you're curious about why people are protesting in the streets...watch this.

Inside Job, Narrated by Matt Damon (Full Length HD) from jwrock on Vimeo.

So, what's their game?

2011-11-16T11:45:00.000-08:00

We've heard that mayors from eighteen cities were on a conference call about their local Occupations but they deny that they were discussing strategies even though police actions just happened to occur in different cities on the same nights. We've also heard that police forces in various cities have been seeking advice and help from federal law enforcement but what they fess up to sounds relatively mild ("seek legal reasons to evict, avoid the press"). However, as Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism points out, the mere fact of coordination itself has serious consequences: "National coordination vitiates the notion that policing is responsive to and accountable to the governed."

I somehow suspect they aren't telling us the whole story. (No! Say it ain't so!) I think that if you look at what is happening in the various cities, it's not only obvious that there is an overall strategy, but one can deduce what the strategy is from what they are doing...and it's anything but benign.

1. Fabricate or exaggerate safety concerns. Use them as justification for police action. This is what happened in Atlanta; we got a series of notices from the city claiming that people had put coat-hangers and bare wires into the power outlets and that our safety-rated heaters were fire hazards. When someone showed up apparently carrying a rifle (at least one Occupy Atlanta participant says that he handled the gun and it was actually plastic), the cordon of police let that person walk on by...then used him as an excuse to come in and arrest fifty-two other people long after he left. If the police stopped the individual to check his permit and see if the gun was loaded, then they had to know whether he was a threat and should have dealt with the situation accordingly. If they didn't, they weren't doing their jobs.
This approach is evident in other cities as well; the justification for the recent eviction of Occupy Wall Street was a claim of "public health and safety concerns."   Which brings us to...

2. Fabricate or exaggerate health concerns. The non-outbreak of TB in Occupy Atlanta is a excellent example of this. TB is actually relatively common among those without shelter (or, as one Occupy Atlanta person refers to homeless folks, "the recently foreclosed upon") because they often have compromised immune systems. It's quite rare in the rest of the population, but it's not surprising that a shelter for people who have nowhere else to go such as Task Force for the Homeless might sometimes wind up with cases. However, there were none among the members of Occupy Atlanta, and our headquarters on the 4th floor was not even put on alert. Reports of an "outbreak" at Occupy Atlanta are factually untrue on several levels, and irresponsible...especially since nobody called us to ask before running the story.
I suspect reports of "Zucotti lung" have similar origins. A less histrionic way of describing it would be to say that people camping out in the wintertime in New York under stressful conditions are prone to catching cold. But if you put it that way, the New Yorkers would all be taking them chicken soup. "Zucotti lung" sounds exotic and awful and like something you want to stay away from.
This is mostly not being said directly by city officials; it's coming from the news media. But Rocky, you don't mean to say that the media are in cahoots with the government? Aren't they supposed to be the Fourth Estate? Don't they have journalistic morals and stuff?
I think ethical journalism went out of fashion when Edward R. Murrow died, and lingered in the vicinity of Walter Cronkite until it went to the land beyond where dearly departed ideals frolic and moral courage is a term people use without snickering. I used to be less cynical about this...about six weeks ago, in fact. Then I saw the difference between what really happens and how it is portrayed close up. I've seen so many journalists distort reality in the past few weeks that I've gone past thinking they are just lazy or venal to thinking there is something more to it:

3. Put pressure on the media to repeat what officials say uncritically and bolster the government's narrative.   Admittedly, most journalists don't need pressure put on them by local government; they get plenty from their corporate bosses whose interests are being served. But access is information which is journalistic coin, and it is the leverage that all politicians use to exert control over how they are portrayed. That's the carrot. The stick is that journalists who don't play along are denied their traditional privileges and become subject to arrest and harassment. In Atlanta none of the professional journalists have been arrested yet, because they are mostly dancing to the city's tune, but three student journalists were arrested on November 5 including an intern for a local weekly. The message for all of the other journalists is clear: This could be you.
Before someone accuses me of conspiracy mongering, I want to repeat that what I'm doing here is looking for patterns. If something happens once, that's the local police department doing it. If it's repeated over and over in different cities...I don't think it's a coincidence. Especially since traditionally in this country journalists have protected status. When was the last time a journalist was arrested in the United States? They get arrested all the time in places like North Korea and Iran. Not here. Until now.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Remember also that at least in the United States, the First Amendment is at the core of the Occupy movement. If the police and local governments are willing to trample one part of the First Amendment, why would they balk at another?
4. Identify and isolate leaders in order to remove them. Exaggerate internal divisions and exploit them. Where they don't exist, create them. This is COINTELPRO type stuff, and is a well-known tactic which Occupy groups have mostly resisted. The city of Denver tried to make Occupy Denver choose a leader with whom the city could "negotiate" (this betrays either ignorance of how Occupy groups function or a deliberate attempt to subvert it). Occupy Denver responded by electing a Border Collie mix named Shelby. In Atlanta it has mostly been more subtle; there have been several attempts to isolate members of the group who are perceived to be leaders in closed-door meetings, which would tend to generate suspicion towards them within the group and also allow officials to play a "he said, she said" game with whatever story they wished to put forth. Some of the folks who do a lot in the group have been portrayed very negatively in the press and have been otherwise targeted...sometimes from within the group. Not everyone who shows up has good intentions. I had one overly enthusiastic woman sit down next to me while I was trying to work one day and quiz me about who the "leaders" in the group are. "But you have to have leaders! Tell me who they are!" I explained that no, we really don't. According to Capt. Ray Lewis (Ret.) of the Philadephia Police Department, "Anybody who says that is a cop." We know for a fact that there are police infiltrators in the Occupy groups, both based on past history and because some of them have been outed.
There are certainly internal tensions and disagreements in any large group of strong personalities, and some of them run deep. But the organizational structure and decision-making process of Occupy groups is designed to resolve internal conflicts and create consensus; it's designed also to resist co-option which is counter to the goals of anyone trying to infiltrate. When external authorities use those disagreements to justify police action, or members of the group seek to subvert consensus and foster conflict rather than resolve it, both should be viewed with suspicion. Mayor Quan's claim that the Oakland police's attack on Occupy Oakland was somehow prompted by the desire of members of the group to "separate" from anarchists is particularly ludicrous, since the heavy-handed, over-the-top approach the OPD used was pretty much guaranteed to bolster the anarchist position that the state is inherently violent and that if you resist coercion by the forces of the state it's only a matter of time before they escalate no matter how peaceful you are. Thanks for the demonstration, Mayor Quan.
5. Portray Occupiers as violent whenever possible. Attempt to incite violence. If that doesn't work, simply claim violence. You'd think that no sane person would employ this tactic, but it has happened in New York, Oakland, and Atlanta. Whether or not protesters became violent in response...and in Atlanta they did not...the violence came from the police first. This is the shadow of civil disobedience, and a cynical attempt to undermine it. The moral authority of civil disobedience comes partially from the sight of peaceful, unarmed protesters being dragged away by police. So if you can successfully incite even a handful of the protesters into reacting, or reframe their actions to make it appear as if they have, you can attempt to undercut that moral authority. Mostly the tactic has backfired...but they keep trying. All they need is one good riot, you know?
I believe that the police officer who drove his motorcycle into some protesters in Atlanta was trying to incite violence. The reason I believe that is because it happened after the group had attempted to turn off of Peachtree St. in order to complete a circuit around the park; they were blocked by a group of police motorcycles and more or less herded back onto Peachtree, where they were faced with police on horseback and a SWAT team in riot gear. The motorcycles circled around behind the main group of Occupy Atlanta people. It was at that point that the police officer chose to drive his motorcycle through the crowd.
You can't tell me that a policeman whose real concern is public safety and keeping the peace can look at a mass of agitated people who are mostly facing the other way and think, "Hmm, this is a great time to try to drive through that." Brandon, the person whom the motorcycle hit, was injured, both by the motorcycle and because the police beat him up when they arrested him. In a display of Orwellian irony, he was charged with assault. In the reality-based community, when you hit someone with a motor vehicle you are the one who gets charges. But "Occupy Atlanta member assaults police officer" went all over the headlines. Strangely, when the charge was dropped, that didn't receive as much press.

Any crimes that happen in the vicinity of an Occupation get attributed to the Occupiers...even when they are the victims. One of the consequences of living in a park is that it's public, which means anybody can and will show up. Incidents that have happened at or near Occupations involving participants have gotten a lot of play in the press, but as this article points out, nobody asks the obvious question: How do the number of incidents at Occupations compare to the general population? Or, say, your average college campus? It's my feeling that, considering how stressful living outside under constant threat of arrest can be, the Occupations are actually astoundingly peaceful. But I would like to see some real numbers on that. I can say from my experience with Occupy Atlanta that we recognize our responsibility to keep the peace and take it seriously...but I do not think we should be held to a higher standard than trained professionals whose salaries are paid by taxpayers.
There is in fact evidence that police are encouraging drunk and aggressive people to go to Occupations, and refusing to deal with problems even when asked.   The latter happened more than once in Atlanta, including when "AK-47 Guy" showed up and was within a few feet of former ambassador Andrew Young. Occupy Atlanta people formed a human shield between the former ambassador and the man with the gun, after the police flatly refused to interfere.
There's a saying about never attributing to malice that which can be accounted for by stupidity, and I myself have often said that just because people with the same interests and goals behave similarly it doesn't necessarily mean they are in cahoots. If it were just that all of the mayors and police departments of the different cities were doing the same things, it might just be that they were reacting to the same circumstances from the same mindset and copying one another in a form of police state mimesis.   But we know that they were in fact talking to one another. I hate to be so darn suspicious, but when they say they weren't colluding I am disinclined to believe them. There's one way they could clear all of this suspicion up, however. That's by opening up records of that phone call.
Considering that members of Occupy Atlanta have had an Open Records request out to Mayor Kasim Reed's office and the Atlanta Police Department which they ignored well past the deadline and are now stalling, I'm not holding my breath. I think it is in the public interest, however, that we know what was really said...and why they think it's so important to stop us. Who are they really answering to?

Occupy Atlanta Ate My Life and Other Comments

2011-11-15T18:48:00.000-08:00

Hi there, Internets. Remember me?

Sorry I haven't written. This social movement/political/apolitical/cultural/activism whatsit came along, I got all curious and decided to go to a meeting, and...the next thing you know, it's six weeks later and I've been interviewed by Forbes, the New York Times, the BBC, some radio station in Berkeley I can't remember, several local TV stations, and WRFG. It's quite startling to be a middle-aged college professor with some poetry and fiction publications whose last TV appearance may well have been appearing on the Scholar's Bowl show "Toss Up" in high school, and suddenly finding yourself in the middle of some international news. Bracing, one might say. I should also point out that, of the Media Committee, I am the most camera shy and tend to avoid interviews unless there's nobody else available quickly enough. This compared with the list I just reeled off should tell you something.

I do like radio shows where I can show my extensive nerdy side though, and was on Just Peace yesterday, in fact. I appear to have interested the host, Heather Gray, greatly, at least she put up a good front, and when she found out I was a writer she said, "You're writing about this, right?" I demurred and got all shifty-eyed. I mean, yes, I'm a writer. I write. That is what I do, my raison d'etre you might say. But I've been mostly writing press releases, statements and website copy. I've been so busy...

She admonished me that I should be writing about all this, and so I am. Better late than never, right?

Well. Um. Lots of stuff has happened. For example, I know now that you should write your lawyer's phone number on your arm if you expect to get arrested, because they take all of your things away from you in jail. I also know that Sharpie tends to not wash off very easily. You have to body scrub that stuff.

Also, pro tip: Don't wear contacts around tear gas. They absorb it and funnel that crap right to your eyes. Glasses are the best look for the nerdcore protester. (THAT WOULD BE ME).

I've not only met State Sen. Vincent Fort, I tend to make a beeline for him whenever he shows up because he's smart and observant and has smart, observant things to say on all topics. I've met a lot of interesting people...this movement is full of smart, passionate, opinionated, talented individuals. It's a joy to spend time with them, whenever I'm not wanting to strangle them. (Love y'all. Really. Pay no attention to the duct tape. It's for a, uh, art project.)

I now think it's normal to keep my sleeping bag in my trunk because I might decide to Occupy something on the spur of the moment, and my friends regularly greet me with "Did you get arrested yet?" The mayor of Atlanta appears to know who I am now, in a "dang, here she comes again" kind of way. I feel proud. I don't know how visible I am really. It's like living in a fishbowl with a bunch of very opinionated fish.

I feel a sense of accomplishment, and urgency. Every day is like a year, and if I'm away for 24 hours I call up all my Occupy friends because I miss them. There's a community forming, the seeds of something genuinely new; it's more than a social movement or a protest, though it is also that, it's a cultural phenomenon which can hopefully grow stronger and get better and thrive and spread. Things are shifting. There's a change in the wind. Look up and see the sky.

This is what the Beloved Society looks like

2011-10-27T11:05:00.000-07:00

State Sen. Vincent Fort @Occupy Atlanta protest

2011-10-26T18:03:00.000-07:00

What a scary bunch of hoodlums we are. Yep. Have to run those people right out. Quick, get the riot gear!

Occupy Atlanta was raided earlier (last night)

2011-10-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

The mayor told a whole bunch of lies and then gathered up some clergy to come talk us out of our escalating path of violence and gasoline-generator-related mayhem. /sarcasm

Said clergy came in today asking for a meeting time (5 pm) when we had a scheduled march posted on our website and everywhere else, ie a time they had to know we couldn't meet. We arranged to meet on Thursday at noon. The AJC and other outlets reported that we "refused" to meet with them, then later the police swoop in.

In other words, it was all theater and the outcome was predetermined. Welcome to the police state. Don't believe anything you see on TV or read in a newspaper. They're lying.

We live in interesting times

2011-10-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

I have been volunteering for Occupy Atlanta a lot lately, which means my life has been very exciting. That is, I have been on the radio, on TV, wrote an op-ed for Creative Loafing which caused some poor Randroid such distress that he hunted down my UGA e-mail in order to tell me how wrong I was, got quoted by the New York Times, have been hobnobbing with politicians, rappers, homeless people, Marxists, anarchists, and Libertarians, and currently have a phone number written on my arm with a Sharpie. In case I get arrested. I sold a short story and wrote this.

How has your week been?

An op-ed I wrote

2011-10-12T06:10:00.001-07:00

The Occupy Atlanta kids are alright

My role in the 5th Atlanta General Assembly

2011-10-07T21:37:00.000-07:00

I felt that I should clarify a few things. First, I completely understand why the facilitating team chose to adhere strictly to protocol, regardless of their own personal feelings, when Congressman John Lewis asked to address the assembly. I also understand why some people chose to block the proposal. The reasons may not be apparent to anyone not familiar with consensus process, or who wasn't there. The crowd was exponentially larger than any previous General Assembly, and trying to maintain a process in which everyone is supposed to be heard for a group of people that large is extraordinarily difficult. Not doing so, on the other hand, is a potential disaster. The facilitation team chose not to impose their personal desires on the group, which would have been an abuse of their power, in order to avoid a known problem.

However, in doing so they created a different unintended consequence, which was appearing to snub a beloved member of the Atlanta community whom many members of the Occupy Atlanta group revere. It was my personal opinion that given that, and in light of the problems with inclusion that I and others raised, that proceeding with an occupation before solving those problems and reaching out for more support to the surrounding community was problematic. As I stated, good intentions are not enough. I felt we needed to show sincere inclusion from the beginning, and given the history of promises made to the marginalized that go unfulfilled when those who hold power gain what they want, it was a bad precedent.

I support the goals of Occupy Atlanta...obviously, or I wouldn't have put so much effort into trying to make it happen. My choice to initially block and then stand aside was based on my understanding of the social reality in which we are trying to operate and the deep divisions in it. My choice to withdraw until I see that the intentions for inclusion are acted upon is intended to be a spur to action, that it be swift and decisive. As far as I could see when I left the Atlanta Occupation, they took that to heart.

On consensus process and the goals of the "Occupy" movement

2011-10-04T06:26:00.000-07:00

Author's note: I wrote this for the Occupy Atlanta group, but it is not an "official" statement from that group. It is my own viewpoint. When I say "we," I am speaking to, rather than for, other participants in the group/movement. Which could be you, if you like.

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." - Audre Lorde

We can't do things the same way and expect different results; that way proverbially lies madness. If you want to change anything for real you have to change culture, and culture change begins with people. Culture is people.

I've been around for a while; my first job was working for the Atlanta Greenpeace office, back when there was such a creature. I have been in a number of activist and religious groups over the years which were governed by consensus, and believe me I know the frustration that the slow messy operation of it can produce. And yet, I want everyone to understand that consensus is not just an awkward caltrop in the path to "real" action. In a very real sense, consensus process is the doing of the thing we wish to accomplish.

We aren't just pointing out the inequities of our society, or that corporate greed has brought us all to the brink of the abyss, or that the lobbyist system of government is corrupt. We might say all of those things, and a great deal more; we are a diverse bunch of people with a lot of opinions. And we're ok with that.

We aren't just here to speak a message; there are a million other organizations out there who have said what we are saying before. They are much more polished and orderly than any Occupy group probably ever will be. They are effective in various ways and to various degrees. Direct actions have also been tried before. They sometimes work, and sometimes don't. The elements of Occupy Wall Street are not really new, and yet they have captured people's imagination. Some of it is the historical moment. Some of it is another thing; the bracing shock of real freedom. We are so used to conversations that are carefully measured and weighed, calculated and manipulated, that the spectacle of a bunch of people speaking their minds about things they find important in raucous discord and occasional harmony is confusing. The news media certainly seem confused.

What we are doing is not just trying to prove a point, or challenging authority. We are demonstrating an alternative. Look around you. This is radical equality...never perfect in the moment, but in the next moment it can always be better. There is something magical about it even when it's tiresome and painful and awkward. This is what democracy looks like when you strip the motor down.

We are building the beloved community literally as we speak, and in our speaking. If you disrespect the process, or dismiss it, or look for too much focus in a polyphony of voices, you are missing a crucial aspect of the point.

Every day magic

2011-09-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

I will be the first to tell you how Atlanta is too big for its britches and is a smoggy, traffic-ridden poster child for urban sprawl. (This is tangentially the subject matter of the short story I am working on, "Maybelle and the Hand Grenade.") On the other hand, I also assert that Atlanta is magical. I mean...there's a Cernunnos statue in the middle of the Peachtree/Roswell Rd. split. It has an extraordinary number of trees and green space. It is also full of deer.

I've been on one of my periodic exercise rampages, which I have not been documenting here primarily because it's dull and also because it's a matter of time before I turn into a couch potato again and I'd rather not field questions like "so, how's that getting into shape thing going?" when that happens. I am having a good time while it lasts and that's what matters.

Today I went to the Roswell Riverwalk, which is long and woodsy enough to keep me entertained. It runs along the banks of the Chattahoochee (hence the Riverwalk designation) and abuts the National Park Service land. It's pretty popular with humans, and also deer:

It's hard to see them, but there is a deer family minding their own business in amongst the trees...a young buck, a doe, and a fawn. They pretty much ignored me the whole time; I gather they are used to paparazzi.

See my poetry LIVE!

2011-09-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

Right Hand Pointing, Issue 44 "Kindred Spirits Worry Me" and "Water."

I have to thank my friend and fellow MFA Lee Anne Sittler for practically forcing me to send them something. She's an instigator, that one.

One from the vaults...

2011-09-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Long ago, (circa 1988-1993 or so) I used to be the graphics editor for a small SF 'zine called Planetary Previews. I would sometimes do the cover image when our other artists flaked, and sometimes drew cartoons that appeared in the middle of the 'zine. This was one issue's "centaurfold."

Review: King's War by Maurice Broaddus

2011-08-31T17:01:00.000-07:00

Caveat: This is the third book in a trilogy, and I haven't read the first two. However, I personally think that books in a series should be able to stand on their own.

The concept...King Arthur retold as urban fantasy in a gang-war setting with mainly African-American and Latino characters...is awesome. The execution is somewhat lacking. It starts slow and even towards the end the pace is glacial, especially for a story with this one's violence quotient. Some of the Arthurian and fantasy elements...notably the Grail quest and the existence of Fae...seem a bit tacked on, as if the writer really wanted to tell a story about coming up hard, families, and betrayal and didn't weave the mythic elements in deeply enough. They don't seem integral; you could strip them out and it would be essentially the same story. I still don't know how magic is supposed to work in the world of the story or what its deeper significance is.

Some of the problems I would describe as technical. The eARC needs another editing pass (a seven-year-old is suddenly twelve only a few pages later, and a character description is repeated verbatim twice in different chapters). However, some issues are created by the specific choices the author made; the story is written in universal 3rd person, and there are many POV shifts and what you might call expositional telepathy....that is, we listen in on the character's thoughts as he or she just happens to be musing on things the reader needs to know. This happens a lot. The effect is to slow down the pace and undermine the immersive quality of the story. The prose also suffers from what I have come to think of as the Edible Person/Descriptive Default problem: that is, the coloring and complexion of all of the PoC's in the book are described precisely, often with food adjectives ("coffee," "mocha," "toffee," "honey"), while all the white people are just white.* The prose style smooths out in the later portions of the book and the pace moves more briskly...but this is the third installment in a trilogy, not the first.

I liked the Guenevere character ("Lady G") and also liked the fact that she didn't just disappear into some nunnery-analog, hand to forehead; however, she doesn't seem to do a whole lot other than skulk about feeling guilty. There are several more active female characters, but interestingly Lady G is the only one who seems to have the aura of the mythic about her that the story needs in order to evoke the source material; even Nine (ie, Nimue) is a bit prosaic and her motives, though they may have been explained in one of the earlier books, are unclear in this one.

I might be a hard sell here; I read The Once and Future King when I was twelve and loved it to pieces. I've also read Idylls of the King, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, The Mists of Avalon...you get the picture. And yet, when you take on a story like this, you choose exactly that kind of difficult challenge. Is it fair to complain that a book could have been brilliant but isn't? There's some potentially good stuff in it...social commentary and philosophical underpinnings...but it just doesn't quite gel. I like the idea of the book better than I liked the actual book itself. Arthur is such an old story with so many re-tellings that it's hard to bring a new twist to it; in that much, King's War succeeds (and, I assume, the preceding two books as well). If you find the subject and setting compelling and are not as easily distracted by prose tics as I am, this book might work for you. It didn't, so much, for me.

*I grant this is the kind of thing that many readers wouldn't notice, but the fact that it's invisible is kind of the problem. Anyhow, K. Tempest Bradford was on a WisCon panel about describing non-white characters and made a crack to the effect that if she were really chocolate she'd be tempted to chew her own arm off. And now I can't unsee it. Thank you, Tempest.

Yay publication! For me, and maybe you...

2011-08-29T09:06:00.000-07:00

My poem "Owling" (first published in Jabberwocky 5) was accepted for the feminist speculative poetry reprint anthology The Moment of Change.

I am being all cool about it but in reality when I first heard of this anthology I squealed like a very feminist little girl and sent off all of my poems that fit the criteria. I then spent long, agonizing months NOT pelting the editor with questions about how it was coming along or posting things on my blog (which she reads) such as "If I don't get into this anthology I will CRY." That is because I am a professional.

She is still looking for some poems that deal with trans-, genderqueer, or gender-change themes to round out the anthology. They must be speculative (fantasy, SF, slipstream, magical realism), feminist and must have been previously published (reprint anthology, you see). More about what she is looking for here.

It's heeeeeere!

2011-08-02T21:17:00.000-07:00

Issue One of Dead, Mad, or a Poet: A Journal to Faerie is now live. You may purchase one of your very own by pushing the shiny yellow button.

Here's somewhere you can find me...

2011-07-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

General Orders No. 9 will be showing in Atlanta in about three weeks. I plan to be there. You should too.

I keep watching the trailer over and over again, entranced. "One last trip down the rabbit hole before it’s paved over."

Information you may not have

2011-07-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

Especially if you are a TV journalist, apparently.

Definition of terrorism: Violence carried out primarily to make a political point or for political ends including intimidation

Examples of terrorists:

The right-wing anti-Muslim conservative who blew up the Prime Minister's offices in Oslo
The man who shot Dr. George Tiller, along with all of the other anti-choice murderers
The KKK members who blew up the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL in 1963
Eric Rudolph, ie the Centennial Park Bomber who also bombed two abortion clinics and a lesbian bar
Ted Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber
Timothy McVeigh

All of these individuals, except for the Norwegian, were native-born Americans.

Not examples of terrorists:

Muslims raising money and applying for permits to build a mosque
People who are standing around minding their own business who kinda look Middle Eastern
99.99999% of airplane passengers
My cat

I'm so glad I could clear this up for you. You're welcome.

Catherynne Valente was Guest of Honor at Mythcon...

2011-07-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

...and proceeded to say some wise and marvelous things about fantasy and our medieval souls: Dragon Bad, Sword Pretty.

eeeeeeee!

2011-07-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

I've been working on actually producing...at long last...my literary magazine, Dead, Mad, or a Poet. I think I can actually make this thing real in a couple of weeks. Here is a test image for the cover:

The background is from a painting by Mary Payne called "Swamp Angel"; I own the original and I've been wanting to use it for the cover since I had this idea over two years ago. What you see there is the tip of the eponymous angel's wing; since I didn't want to cover the angel up with writing, she will be on the back.

I have a bunch of good writing for the first issue, as well. None of it is mine, which is a relief; it's always weird publishing your own work, even if it fits. I have an article I am writing which will go in a later issue, but for Issue #1 I am backstage.

More information, as well as purchasing opportunities, may be found here: Dead, Mad, or a Poet.

National Wildlife Photo Contest

2011-07-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

My sweetie is, among his other manifold talents, a photographer. He has entered the National Wildlife Federation's photography contest, with these amazing images. Go vote for them so he can win and buy more photography gear! ('cause you know that's where it all goes...)

Writing like a writey thing

2011-07-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

Since I started tracking my submissions in March of 2009, I have sent out one hundred and twenty-five poems, stories, and paper proposals (some are the same piece more than once, of course). I've gotten thirteen acceptances.

...Make that fifteen. Right Hand Pointing accepted my poems "Water" and "Why Kindred Spirits Worry Me" for their Issue #44.

When the issue goes live, I'll post the link. Per their website, they produce about six issues a year so it will be a little while.

Why yes...

2011-07-11T12:41:00.001-07:00

I AM on Google + And here is where you can find me.

July Summer/Winter promo on Smashwords

2011-07-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Until July 31, you can get Byzantium, Part One by Molly Blue (that's me) FREE by using code SSWSF.

High Weird With Jesus

2011-07-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting to hear back from several publications and a job; today instead I got mail from these folks.

They are, by all accounts, Evangelical mail fraud, complete with fake "testimonies" and a groovy "prayer rug" Jesus who OPENS HIS EYES AS YOU LOOK AT HIM. (He really does!)*

I cannot adequately express how delighted I am with this. I was the kind of child who was very knowledgeable about parapsychology and cryptozoology, and when I was in high school, I had a copy of High Weirdness by Mail by Ivan Stang...a veritable cornucopia of crazy shit I thought was cool. Some of it was more respectable than the rest: I joined the L5 Society as a teenager, and later (after L5 merged with the National Space Institute) the National Space Society . For many years I had an NSS t-shirt. But while I took some of it more seriously than others, I adored all the weirdness equally, from Loompanics to the Erisian Liberation Front. Some people, when presented with the degree of creativity, resilience and occasional confabulation with which human beings face the irreducible problems of existence, the amount of wild-ass inventiveness and sheer effort they put in, feel pity, contempt, or despair. I think it's awesome. Whatever floats your boat down the river of life, buddy.

I discovered, in the process of writing this, that there's now High Weirdness by Web. It is a sad shadow of the print book, since the snarky entries were half the glory; also I don't find the whole SubGenius schtick as funny as I used to....something to do with my ex-husband. But it serves to remind me of things I haven't thought about in a while, along with some new ones I had yet to discover. For example, there's Factsheet5, which reviewed the 'zine** I was Graphics Editor of back in the day. I also used to talk to Kerry Thornley while hanging out in the square in Little Five Points in the 80s. I bought a signed copy of the Principia Discordia from him for $5. The book was last seen at a meeting with my oldest niece, some doughnuts and a plushie Cthulhu, and has subsequently disappeared.

Anyway, so now I have this paper Jesus eye-opening "prayer rug." I think I am going to send it back to them and see what happens.

*It's an optical illusion created by the way the image is drawn. Someone put serious effort into that.
** Planetary Previews Magazine. Many's the tale of madcap adventure I could tell.

Viking women got more respect than gamer girls

2011-07-07T13:35:00.000-07:00

The other day the creative director of LucasArts, one Clint Hocking, made the point that if the gaming industry wants to be sustainable, they need more women. His chosen metaphor of Viking raiders unfortunately suggests a "Mars Needs Women" sort of mentality...which, ya know, could be part of the problem. Not that I think he's wrong about it.

Most of those who have responded with articles seem to agree with him, though many of the comments are predictably defensive, boneheaded, and hostile. Even the better comments demonstrate a certain degree of detachment from reality. At least one commenter claims that the problem isn't that there aren't more women in gaming development NOW, it's that women haven't "grown up" with gaming and (therefore) you need to appeal to the young kids coming up now in order to get results some time in the safely distant future. Aside from the fact that he is flat wrong about that (which I will get to in a minute), this is the kind of thinking that produces Barbie doll games and pink game controllers. I am not impressed.

Free Clue #1: Most geeky women are well-educated and well-read, and consequently highly likely to be feminists of some stripe. We are not interested in putting up with your boy's club crap.

Free Clue #2: Painting it pink will not help. That is because...and listen closely to this one, I am about to tell you a Female Type Human Secret...not all girls like pink. While you adjust to this shocking revelation, I further assert that putting a pink bow on it and calling it quits reveals that you have the mentality of an eight year old and the marketing sense of the Underpants Gnomes. "Lady gamers," forsooth.

Hocking is careful not to make the assertion that there is a vast untapped market of women gamers out there, but actually I think there might be. I base this on my own personal experience, plus my circle of acquaintance. I know a whole lot of very geeky women. I mean seriously geeky women; among them programmers, Georgia Tech and MIT graduates, LARPers, inveterate Monty Python quoters, and humanities PhDs. Some of them are gamers; some of them are not.

I personally grew up in the age of arcade games, and my favorite game was Galaga. I started reading science fiction when I was eleven, and my consumption of DAW paperbacks was prodigious. I've also played practically every RPG ever invented, including both Cyberpunk and Shadowrun. I used to have D&D in the pink box. I have committed LARPing. You'd think that when console games, MMO's and all the rest came along, I would have been a shoo-in. I tried; I used to play Civilization when it first came out.* Then I got bored.

And there you have it. Despite the fact that I have been heavily steeped in geek culture almost from infancy, and regularly play RPG's still, I do not play any form of MMO or console game. That is because they bore the snot out of me.

Basically, they take the things that I like least about RPG's....fight fight loot, fight fight loot...and strip away or gloss over the things I find most interesting....character creation, character development, social interaction, improvisation, and storytelling. MMO might as well stand for "Monomaniacal Munchkins Only." Based on a highly scientific survey which I conducted via the respected research methodology of asking my Facebook friends, many nerdy women agree with me. What those women like most about the games they do play are the social, storytelling aspects, and they are often frustrated by the limitations of what they are presented with. For what they can't get from MMOs and the like, they play text-based RPG's, as do I. Those are to my knowledge completely player-run. To tap that market, you'd have to offer the players something tailored to their tastes and needs which they can't already do themselves.

I occasionally get interested in the idea of working in the gaming industry, on the premise that I have something new to offer them in the way of ideas and approaches. I have an MFA in Creative Writing, am a fiction writer, and actually have professional training in educational role-playing games. Again, you'd think I'd be ideal. I've even got cultural street cred. I don't have many of the technical skills, but I'm not a complete dunce in that area plus, you know, gaming already has plenty of people who do that.** However, every single job description I've ever read for a writer or developer, even the fuzzier ones for which I don't need a lot of technical skills, includes something to the effect of, "must be a passionate gamer and familiar with all recent developments." That is, before it's even possible for me to offer a new perspective to a culture which alienates me to its own detriment, I would have to be completely immersed in that culture. In other words, in order to even qualify, I would have to not be the kind of person they presumably want to attract. I gently suggest that this might point to where the problem lies.

I don't know what else to say about that, really. Maybe someone in the gaming industry will read this and take what I've said to heart. Or maybe they'll decide the way to fix their Viking problem is to add some cute kittens.

*I tried again much, much more recently than that. Still bored.
** "Find someone just like me, only with tits" is not actually a diversity strategy.

My vision of the future...

2011-07-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

I posted this a while ago on a blog I have since shut down; it was in response to someone of the published speculative fiction author persuasion (whom I shall refer to here only as Sparky the Homophobe) being a jackass. As you know, Bob, periodically that happens.

So, basically, this is my response whenever someone shows his/her ass in that fashion. Whenever such an event re-occurs, which, alas, it surely will, refer back to this:

I prefer to reside in a world in which everyone who writes and reads and thinks about science fiction is imagining a Better Future, or is concerned about a Worse Future, or at least is having fun, and we agree that we are all human in a big universe on a journey to we know not where and isn't that great? sometimes a little scary? but we are in it together, right? This world is full of puppies and flowers and shiny rocket ships that go ZAP and bunnies. Gay bunnies, or perhaps omnisexual ambiguous bunnies because who worries about that in the cool future where gender has become unimportant but sex is still fun? GAY FUCKING BUNNIES. AND SOME LESBUNNIES TOO LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU BECAUSE THE FUTURE IS AWESOME AND HAS CAPTAIN JACK HARKNESS AND IS ALSO VERY SLASHY, EXCEPT NOT IN A WEIRD EXPLOITIVE WAY, MORE IN A COOL WE ARE OPEN AND FREE HERE IN THE FUTURE AND ACCEPT ALL KINDS OF LOVE WAY LA LA LA.

Take that, Sparky.

Warning: Strong Language

2011-07-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

Else-Internet, after a conversation about whether she really meant to say "induction" or "inducement," a friend remarked, "English is fucked."

To which I responded:

"English is an endless shiny cornucopia of stripped-down Saxon structure, morphed Norman vocabulary, Latinate fusions, and promiscuous borrowings from everywhere else. Its quirkiness and occasional contradictions add to its charm.

If English is fucked, it's because English is a 'ho."

That, of course, brings to mind this other statement about English, courtesy of James Nicoll:

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."

Of course, for some people, English is a Goddess. Given my fondness for certain ancient Near Eastern deities known for shenanigans, I don't see this as a contradiction.

Fundraising for "The Fifth Sacred Thing" movie

2011-06-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

Yerba Buena Studios currently has a Kickstarter fundraising page up for this. I think it's worth supporting simply because 1) More science fiction in the theater equals yay! and 2) This is a very different kind of science fiction.

I liked the novel, though it had some flaws. But it contains a vision of a culturally diverse future, and grapples with ideas and tensions that your average movie completely ignores. They are pitching it to major studios in order to bankroll it, and it's possible that it's so different Hollywood will freak out and screw it up or they will alter it out of all recognition. But...maybe not. They made The Handmaid's Tale, right?

In case you didn't know...

2011-06-29T14:44:00.000-07:00

Writers are a bunch of freaks.

An opinion in five facets

2011-06-27T13:11:00.000-07:00

I started reading science fiction in 1979. My mother taught a high school literature course on it...this was before public education got strangled in its cradle, before the rise of the Christian Right, before Reagan and the Contract With America, long before No Child Left Behind was even a malign daydream. My rural school system in southern Appalachia had a healthy vocational program, and also art, music, civics classes that taught you how government worked, local history...and science fiction.

The book was called Science Fact/Fiction
and had an introduction by Ray Bradbury, in which he talked about short stories he'd written and found difficult to sell because of their political and religious content. One dealt with civil rights, another with the question of what is or is not "human" (one of the great themes of science fiction, surely), another with the skin-color-based caste system and classism. That had been in the 1950s, and from the vantage point of the mid-Seventies he said, "It is hard to remember an America so involved with such shadows and such fears."

I was eleven years old.

II.

There was a conversation not too long ago about a comment made by Eric James Stone on a post titled "Perfecting the Saints in Utero" in which he proposes that eugenics is just dandy as long as it is rooted in homophobia instead of racism. The comment was made several years ago; the present conversation was prompted by the fact that his novelette "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made" won a Nebula and some folks were saying, "Do we really want to be giving this guy awards?"

My position on that was that I saw plenty of problems with the story in and of itself without bringing in any extraneous data. Also that considering how many talented writers are also jackasses, I felt a strong sense of impending impracticality.

I also, to be clear, think that the correct response to a problematic statement is to address it directly, and to a problematic piece of writing is to respond any of the ways that writers have challenged each other down the centuries...with open criticism, with parody, with creative responses of various types. Leaving out the occasional brawl. I think it's perfectly appropriate for someone to call him, or anyone, out. Or to write a different story...

III.

So, apparently Lavie Tidhar wrote a microfiction called "The School." I won't spoil it with summary...suffice it to say that it calls out several science fiction authors by name, including Eric James Stone, and effectively skewers the "metaphor for race" trope among other things. According to Tidhar, two different markets declined to publish it as it was, because of "potential fallout."

I note in passing that Stone's story, with its triumphalism and homophobic subtext (not to mention ham-handed Austen references), was not (to my knowledge) rejected due to fear of "potential fallout." Nor do I think it should have been. I think we should fear not to challenge controversy: publish 'em all and let God sort them out.

I also believe that authors giving each other a hard time is an ancient and honored practice; at least as old as the Greeks and likely older than that. There is probably an as-yet-undiscovered cuneiform tablet of Enheduanna, the first recorded individual author in history, slagging off one of her upstart rivals in the hymn-writing business. As long as it is done elegantly and with substance, it contributes to the discourse.

The story is indeed substantive. Godwin's Law is not a prohibition...you can make the reference to Hitler when the comparison is apt. Which, when your story is about a future where humanity's ambition has been reduced to genocide, it is.

IV.

One commenter on "The School" complained thusly: "Just in case you forgot to feel guilty for a few hours while reading escapist sci-fi, Lavie Tidhar has followed you into your fantasy, nagging you from behind. Now there is nowhere safe from White Guilt."

You know what? Nobody held a gun to your head and made you read it, dude. Nobody chased you down, either. Plus, the premise that science fiction is and must be escapism is one I deeply loathe. Those of us who act like it has relevance in the real world...that is, who take it seriously...are not parade-raining spoilsports who peed in your cornflakes.

The presumption that some kinds of science fiction are "escapist" and therefore politics-free, and that those should be free from criticism, is simply wrong. It asserts that ideas and tropes and values which the speaker finds comfortable are not political. The implication is always that only the ideas they find uncomfortable are the political ones.

Let me go all old-school Second Waver feminist on you for a minute here: It's all political. Just because you are comfy with the notion that, say, some people are genetically superior to others, or it might be unquestioningly accepted by your social circle, does not mean the idea is not political. It just means you are complacent about it.

Besides that...anyone who thinks that science fiction = escapist adventure stories, and (by implication) it's just these modern blacks and wimmenfolk and gays who want to muck up your perfect Boy's Life nostalgia genre...hasn't really been paying attention.

The "Golden Age" of science fiction was dominated by people who came of age during and shortly after World War II, many of whom grappled seriously with the implications of nuclear weapons, imperialism, racism, sexism, environmental destruction, political paranoia, and perpetual war. Heinlein (whose issues in other areas I could write a dissertation about, but won't) wrote a story about sexual harassment on the job called "Delilah and the Space Rigger." It was published in 1948...when the propaganda push to get women out of the factory and back in the home was in full swing, and hardly anyone else had even heard of the concept. One of the stories in Science Fact/Fiction,
"Disappearing Act" by Alfred Bester,was a ferocious indictment of militarism which began, "This one wasn't the last war or a war to end war. They called it the War For the American Dream." That one was originally published in 1953. Judith Merril's short story "That Only a Mother, " published in 1948, has similar themes and was voted one of the best science fiction short stories of all time.

I grant you that women, people of color, and sexual minorities are often culpable for the promulgation of such notions. However, we have been doing it for at least sixty years. That ship has already blasted off.

Octavia Butler, in her essay "Positive Obsession," talks about being told "Negroes can't be writers" by a well-meaning aunt, and later, that black women didn't write science fiction. She also talks about being asked, "What good is science fiction to Black people?" At this late date, the "debate" about representation and inclusion of women and minorities in awards, tables of contents, and discussions is still raging...underneath which in the subtext is a question from the Implied Default Humans, why should we have to read their stuff? What good is it to us?

To which I must respond...why were you reading science fiction in the first place, again?

"What good is science fiction's thinking about the present, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider other ways of thinking and doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology, or social organization and political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what 'everyone' is saying, doing, thinking---whoever 'everyone' happens to be this year."

Tell it, Ms. Butler.

Twitter Chat!

2011-06-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

I will be moderating a #FeministSF Twitter chat on world-building tomorrow (Sunday, June 26). Following it on TweetChat.com will make it easier to deal with. Look for my Twitternym, GollyMollyB.

Raising the banner of mythpunk in academia

2011-06-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

I will be presenting a paper on "Mythpunk Poetry in the Classroom" for the 2011 SAMLA conference in November. That's South Atlantic Modern Language Association for those keeping score at home. Regional conference, so not as many cool points as the MLA, but it also is in Atlanta and therefore easier to get to. The panel is called "Statues Talking Back, Beauties Becoming Beasts, and Little Red Riding Hood Laughing at Wolves: Revisionist Mythmaking in the Classroom." I totally intend to namecheck Catherynne Valente, Amal el-Mohtar, Erzebet Carr, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Rose Lemberg, and the rest of those miscreants.

Tornado Relief

2011-06-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

Tornado Relief

People are rebuilding and still need help.

"America is a family of rainbow-colored ducks"

2011-05-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

Dropped by Outlantacon/Gaylaxicon to drop off flyers for Southern Fried Weirdness: Reconstruction, my son in tow. Ran into some Outer Alliance folks, including Julia Rios who does their podcasts. Hilarity ensues!

Outer Alliance Spotlight #79 (you can hear me and Raven starting at about the 52 minute mark)

Skidaway Island Deer

2011-01-14T21:17:00.001-08:00

I went hiking at Skidaway Island State Park last week.

Virginia Woolf, on writing

2010-10-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

"Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition will not need to be told the story in detail; how he wrote and it seemed good; read and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and it vanished; acted his people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world." --from Orlando

In case anyone was confused, this is why I am like that.

Well, that figures

2010-08-21T10:22:00.000-07:00

No sooner do I start on a Project than the forces of the universe intervene. That is to say, I got a job at Georgia Southern, which necessitated a swift move to Statesboro. I've just survived my first week of a 5/5 load, all my stuff is still in boxes, and my cats are still mad at me. And, need I point out, I won't be doing my planned review of all the hiking trails in Athens. Alas.

There are some promising locations here...the McTell Trail, as in Blind Willie, as in "Statesboro Blues." However, it is too damn hot. After it cools off a little, I will talk about the walking...

Surprise Frog

2010-07-20T07:57:00.001-07:00

Today's walk: Birchmore Trail, Phase I

Location: Memorial Park

Difficulty: A bit hilly and rugged in spots.

Distance: Map says 2.25 miles, my pedometer says 2.

How to find it: It's behind the administrative building, next to the entrance to Bear Hollow. There are also some entrances from Gran Ellen, Lumpkin St., and Milledge Terrace.

Map accuracy: Fairly good. There's a shorter loop on the near side of Gran Ellen which isn't shown on the map.

Condition of the trail: This section of the trail is well-used. There are some tree falls, but no big obstructions. The ruggedness is due to the terrain; there are steps and hills. You also have to cross Gran Ellen twice.

Critters: Not as many as at the big pond, but there are some creekside bits and a small pond. I startled a frog. It also startled me.

It's a nice walk, with a bit of up and down for exercise. It goes near Lumpkin St. at one point so there is traffic noise there, but for the most part you are walking through a wooded valley along a creek. Sitting on a rock in the midst of flowing water is one of my favorite things to do, and there are several opportunities for that along this trail.

Walking around town with my feet on the ground

2010-07-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

I've been walking more, generally speaking, since I started driving less. Currently I have a rental car that runs on E85 so I feel a little less horrified by driving it, even though I'm well aware that ethanol has its own issues. I decided to go looking for a guide book on walks and trails in Athens, or at least a definitive map. Surely, I thought, there must be one.

Apparently not. With all the hippies, good ole boys, ecology majors, and assorted outdoor enthusiasts in this town, you'd think there would be some kind of guide to the trails around here. You would be wrong.

Obviously there is a crying need for one, because I want one. Obviously, the thing to do is create one. I don't have a publisher but I do have this here blog. Onward!

Today's walk: Birchmore Trail, Phase II

Location: Memorial Park

Difficulty: A bit hilly and rugged in spots.

Distance: approximately 1.5 miles, according to my pedometer. I offer no guarantees for the accuracy of my pedometer, because I never calibrated the thing properly and it may prevaricate. But that's what it says. If you walk through the neighborhoods from Milledge Ave. or a bus stop, add another mile and a half or so.

How to find it: You can come in the main entrance to the park at Gran Ellen, or you might try going down Habersham to the cul-de-sac; there's an entrance there that leads more or less directly to the dog park. You can also get a map of the trail from the park office. There are some alternate entrances/unofficial trails from various neighborhoods that surround the park, but if you don't live there they will be exceedingly hard to find and if you do you probably already know where they are.

Map accuracy: Not too good. The map makes it look like the trail parallels the driveway to one side, but there isn't actually a marked trail there; the driveway IS the trail. Once you get down the hill, follow the sidewalk even though the map makes it look like the trail should go between the restrooms and the picnic shelter. It doesn't. At the SW end of the pond, there's a bit marked with rocks that looks like it's the beginning of a trail, but it currently ends in a pile of dirt.

Condition of the trail: Really easy around the pond, good for the portions close to the dog park, pretty rough elsewhere. The map says "cleared and flagged" but the upper loop hasn't been cleared in a while; there's a pretty big tree down that you have to get around. It can also sometimes be hard to tell the difference between the actual trail, the access road, and little spurs that people have made. However, if you like solitude on your walks, and wildlife, this is a good place. I didn't see a single other person while walking the upper loop, but I did see several species of birds. And ran into a few spider webs.

Critters: Squirrels, mockingbirds, cardinals, wrens, a brown thrasher...the usual suspects. When circling the pond I saw a female mallard strolling down the sidewalk, and you can usually see ducks, geese, and turtles (mostly cooters) in the pond. A great blue heron flew in a big circle above my head and off towards the west.

We keep calling it an addiction. When do we hit rock bottom?

2010-06-28T08:26:00.000-07:00

I'm home safe and sound now, my cats sitting at my feet in silent welcome. There was some doubt about the getting home part...

I've had more trouble with my car in the last three weeks than I've had since I have owned it. Battery went dead; replaced it. Someone backed into me. Car randomly wouldn't start again. Then the tire went flat. The first and third item could be connected, and be the kind of random mechanical thing that goes wrong with a car of a certain age. The others? Not so much.

In any case, I'm taking it as a sign. There's that video going around, wherein cats re-enact the BP oil spill in ninety seconds or something to that effect. At the end, it says, "You're still not pissed enough to stop driving your car."

Indeed. Our last two Presidents...if not more...have referred to our dependence on oil as an "addiction." One of the symptoms of an addiction is that the addict continues the addictive behavior, even in the face of evidence that it is destructive; even after it harms those he or she should care about; even after it ruins the addict's life and reputation, even after it causes him or her to violate previously held principles and associate with questionable people because they are the ones willing to continue to feed the addiction.

We watch birds and dolphins and communities dying on the news and are horrified; then we turn the TV off and drive to work. We ignore strong evidence that we are making our planet uninhabitable, over-inflate anything that suggests otherwise and crow that it PROVES those scientists were wrong all along, then ignore it again when those allegations turn out to be false. Our continued military entanglements in the Middle East, including at least one of our current two wars, are directly related to our desire to protect our access to the oil resources of the region, and our reputation has suffered profoundly as a result. We cozy up to and support regimes whose values we do not share, because they have oil and we want it. We have become a people who think it's ok to invade a country that did us no harm, and to torture suspected enemies, and to swallow obvious lies about our government's motives with equanimity...when that country happens to have a lot of oil. Oil has shaped US foreign policy in profound ways for the last 70 years, and the results are ugly.

Our Gulf coast is dying. So is the Nigerian coast, and that's our doing too, because 40% of our imported oil comes from there. The Gulf disaster is already the biggest ecological disaster in US history, and it's not nearly over yet. It's full impact has not yet been seen or estimated. It is much, much worse than we think. The last biggest ecological disaster in US history was also an oil spill.

Another symptom of addiction is amnesia.

They say addicts won't change their ways until they reach rock bottom. Have we reached rock bottom yet? God, I hope so. I don't want to see what is worse than this. Of course, "rock bottom" is relative. People reach it at different points, objectively; but they always reach it when they look in the mirror and say, "I don't want to live like this any more."

I don't want to live like this any more. I don't want to feel like I am purchasing lives for the sake of my convenience every time I fill up my gas tank.

Yet...and this is the bitter horror of it...I can't simply declare my personal independence from oil just like that. I have a car because I need one. Like a lot of you do. Our whole culture is built around cars, which is precisely why this is such a huge intractable problem. But cultures are made up of individual people, and there's a whole lot of room between everything and nothing. There are more ways to beat an addiction than going cold turkey. Instead of boycotting BP, boycott your own participation in this collective oil addiction. Find a way that counts, that matters to you.

I don't drive a whole lot anyway; UGA has a pretty good bus system, and Athens is a relatively walker-and-biker-friendly city. I could probably cut down my driving to one day a week, run my errands on that day, and walk or ride the bus the rest of the time. If I drive to Atlanta for the weekend...which I sometimes do...then I'll make up for it by skipping a week. If I go to visit someone who lives outside the reach of the bus, I can go by the grocery store on the way home. I can save my pennies so the next car I buy will run on biodiesel or be electric.

Another way would be to calculate my typical mileage per week, and cut it down. Could you cut a third of your driving out? Half? What about buying local produce instead of something shipped in from halfway across the country? That counts too.

Use public transportation. Politically, push for more of it...more buses (ours run on natural gas) and more trains. If Amtrak went where I wanted to go in a rational amount of time, I'd never get on a plane. If there was a train from Athens to Atlanta (like there used to be) I'd hardly ever drive. Walk, ride a bicycle, carpool. Do it like your life depends on it, and the lives of our descendants.

Oil is energy; energy is power. Being addicted to power is never pretty, and never good. We can change the way we relate to power, politically, inter-personally, economically, and in our relationship with the natural world. We have to. It's the way forward, out of this hole.

Clouds in my coffee

2010-04-20T18:55:00.001-07:00

A while back my friend George and I went to brunch at the Globe here in Athens. They have clear coffee cups, and so when I poured milk in my coffee I had a good view of the little fractal Brownian motion dance that coffee and milk do.

I said, "Ooo, look! Swirlies!"

Almost the first thing that another friend, Mark, said to me...when we met lo these many years ago...was that I seemed like I was tripping without the drugs.

I assume he meant that I'm the kind of person who will pour milk in her coffee and go "Ooo, look! Swirlies!"

I also like to go on and on about things I find Significant and Terribly Interesting, and laugh at random shit because sometimes the world just strikes me as absolutely fucking hilarious. I'm fine with that. Think of all the time, money, and trouble I save not dropping acid.

What bothers me, though, is that 1) people don't allow themselves to be that open or delighted with the world unless they have chemical intervention, and 2) this kind of behavior is considered strange or "off." If you laugh at the world because it's funny or you're in love with it because it's beautiful, you're not, I don't know, serious or adult enough or something. As if grimness were a virtue.

How can you not be in love with the world? The motion of a bird as it flies, or the way things smell at different times of year, all the details of the way a tree looks from the rough grey and black texture of its bark to the rhythm and pattern of leaves on branches, clouds in the depths of air and the color of the light....or the way milk swirls in elegant slow motion when poured into coffee. Those things are offered all the time, not even for the asking...they're just there, because they are. All around you every day is a wonderment of delight.

It's not that I don't know about the bad stuff. I've lived through some of the bad stuff, myself, and I have been wretched and angry and sad. That's why I'm so attentive to the glory in everyday things; there have been times when that is what saved me from despair.

Do you have so little sorrow in your life that you don't need beauty? Is your life so full of joy already that you have to shut some of it out? Do you think if you squander happiness that you'll run out, or that you're supposed to save it up for important occasions? I assure you that it doesn't work that way.

The Ghost of Bobby Lee - National - The Atlantic

2010-04-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

The Ghost of Bobby Lee - National - The Atlantic

"This isn't about honoring the past--It's about an inability to cope with the present."

Tell it, Ta-Nahesi.

Here is an example of the kind of thing that drives me crazy: "Tara Estates," in Walton County, a development of houses in the $150,000+ range. Do I need to parse for you all the things that are wrong with that?

Southerners like to say that the war on the Union side was really about money, and not morals. It is absolutely true that sentiment against slavery didn't start to turn until it was no longer profitable for northern shipping companies, and also that northern industrialists didn't fancy having to pay tariffs on cotton like everybody else. However...

Axiom: ALL wars are, at bottom, about money. One way or another. This does not negate the fact that individual people may have other reasons for supporting a given side; many people fought for the Confederacy out of regional loyalty and not because they actually supported slavery. Note I say "fought." I am not letting the Confederate leadership off the hook whatsoever.

Because it was absolutely about money on their part. Not only were slaves the single greatest asset in the US economy, like the article says, the particular people who started the whole mess...the South Carolina secessionists...were very decidedly motivated by money. They were Beaufort plantation owners, who were getting ten times as much per pound for their Sea Island cotton than the price for regular cotton. They were getting absolutely filthy stinking rich, so rich that they would do things like build a mansion in town just to throw parties. Much like the super-rich of today, when they got the idea that the government might interfere in their very lucrative exploitation of other humans, they were horrified and decided they must do something! And had enough power and influence to make it stick. The idea that the Union side was motivated by financial considerations but the Confederacy wasn't is a myth.

But modern people in the South don't believe that just because they're stupid or they don't read history. They believe it because the image of the agrarian, idealized, anti-commercial South was carefully created and promoted and mythologized. And not just here, though plenty of Southern authors participated in the literary version of the myth-making. People in the North ate it up with a spoon. Writers like Joel Chandler Harris (who grew up poor, spent plenty of time as a child around black people, and in my personal opinion knew better) helped create that myth because that's what his readers wanted and would pay for...his mostly Northern readers. We got noble savagized, or noble agrarianized. We are not the only ones who worship our ancestors as they never were. Hell, much of Southern literature in the 20th century could be understood as rebellion against that, or reaction to it. The consequences are still reverberating. As we can see.

Right Wing Freak Show

2010-03-25T09:39:00.000-07:00

I've been observing the soi-disant "conservative movement" for some time now, and I think I should say something.

Y'all do know the rest of us think you're crazy, right?

I should preface this by saying that I'm specifically not speaking of the self-identified Republicans or other conservatives who still have a lick of sense. I wish to praise and encourage, not disparage you, poor beleaguered souls. Though we might have a word or two about the company you have been keeping.

That's actually just what I want to talk about. Your fellow-travelers. You know. Them.

The birthers. The wingnuts. The people who think Obama is a radical leftist, or an Arab, or a citizen of Kenya. The ones who claim that there's no such thing as separation of church and state, and that the Constitution, against all tradition and the words in the document itself, is based on "'God's law. " Or that global warming is a hoax. I could go on in this vein for a while. Far too long. Lately, there's been this brick-throwing problem. Not metaphorical bricks; literal ones.

We have our own crazies, it's true. God love 'em. But we keep them where they will do the most good, out on the range and off the grid experimenting with alternative sources of electricity and fuel, working out the bugs so the rest of us don't have to turn off the lights to take a shower when we finally get our solar-powered home.

You run yours for office. Worse, you vote for them. Just for one example, Mike Huckabee sincerely believes that the Constitution should be altered to conform to the Bible. He is not only not automatically disqualified, he is considered a serious contender. And, well, Sarah Palin. Michele Bachmann. Need I say more?

Barack Obama is not a radical, by the way. You can tell because a real leftist radical wouldn't be caught dead in a suit. Or running for President. Or voting. They think the whole system is corrupt and the only way to transform society is through making their own clothes, growing their own pot, and barter. You see, I have met actual leftists, and actual radicals, and hung out with them quite a bit. They are more fun than your radicals because they are often stoned, and less worrisome because they think guns are categorically wrong rather than thinking of them as accessories. You should try hanging out with some, yourself. Then you will know better than to mistake Barack Obama for one.

He is also no kind of socialist. He's a moderate Democrat just perceptibly to the left of Bill Clinton. Try not to hyperventilate.

You have been listening to your own talk radio too long. You've lost perspective. You gave up facts and truth and reasoned debate for hostile polemic, and now it has come home to roost. You're just lost, and you're following the loudest voices, because they got you some air time and traction a couple decades ago, and it has worked so well for so long, so you thought, because you weren't noticing while the bozo you elected was running the country off a cliff. But the problem with letting the shouty people do your public relations is that they attract more like themselves, and the next thing you know you're losing the middle and kissing Rush Limbaugh's ass. It is not a good place to be. And...it's getting worse.

Don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. I live in Paul Broun's district*, and I know crazy when I see it in my mailbox. In addition to the cracktastic screeds he likes to send his constituents, have you seen his website? This is what you have wrought.

It pains me to bring this up. I love freaks. I live in Athens. But, dang, baby.

*Half of Athens got gerrymandered out of John Barrow's district and now shares a Congressman with Habersham County. Do not speak of it further.

The Imaginary American

2010-03-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

My family, the part from Europe, came to these shores very early. Pretty much as soon as there was a boat to Virginia, they were on it. I'm a descendent of two Revolutionary War captains (Capt. Thomas Amis and Capt. Thomas Austin) and also, via my great-grandmother, of one Thomas Pitman. Pitman was involved in Bacon's Rebellion, which was sort of the seventeenth-century practice run for the Revolution, except that it didn't go so well. Many of the participants were hanged; my progenitor was pardoned by King Charles II, and thus I am here to talk to you today and carry on the family tendency towards troublemaking. I am a tenth-generation American...not including the ones who were already living on this continent and whose generations are uncountable. I don't think this makes me better than anyone else, mind. I think America is something you show up and participate in, and what you do counts far more than how long your history here is. Nonetheless, I do have history.

Members of my family have served this country in various wars (well, some of them were technically fighting against the United States, but we will gloss over that.) My father was a decorated hero in World War II and four of my five brothers served in Vietnam. Many members of my family have served their communities and people as educators, from my great-grandfathers on two sides of my family, my grandmother and great-aunt, my mother, my aunt, my sister, and myself.

I was born and raised in a small town in north Georgia, at the southern end of the Appalachians, and have lived in Georgia all my life.

And yet, I have a sneaking feeling Sarah Palin and her ilk would not consider me a "real American." This in spite of the fact that my family gave up secessionist tendencies over a hundred years ago, unlike some people.

It seems you are only a real American, according to the Republicans, if you live in the states or rural areas where they have the most support, and you agree with the majority there. In other words, if you vote Republican. Being a citizen and knowing what the Constitution actually says don't count any more. Being a part of this country's two-hundred-year tradition of volunteerism and "community organizing" is obviously right out.

I now live in the liberal hippy-dippy freaktastic indie-rock epicenter of Georgia, described by comedian Patton Oswalt as a "weird bubble dream city of goodness," which lies along the axis of woo running south on US 441 from Asheville, NC...that is to say, Athens, GA. Athens, a city of about 100,000 people, has its own Human Rights Festival and its own drag king troupe, more independent record stores than corporate ones, and a Tree That Owns Itself in defiance of human-centric notions of property rights. The University of Georgia is here and while we do have the Cult of the Bulldawg and a thriving population of rednecks (smile when you say that, bubba), we also have suspiciously liberal-sounding educational practices such as the only School of Ecology in the country. I personally have an MFA in Creative Writing with a graduate certificate in Women's Studies, and I work in the English department. I recycle and eat organic, locally grown food. I have been known to organize in my community. I even worked on the campaign of a local Democrat...which around here, I might add, makes me a political moderate.

Apparently all this means I am not a "real American." I guess that makes me an imaginary American.

All right, then. I will imagine. America.

I imagine an America where everyone can get health care, and we have the lowest infant mortality rate in the world...instead of the highest among industrialized nations.

I imagine an America where the government does not issue slithery and putrid justifications for the torture of prisoners, because no one in any position of authority would ever condone such a thing.

I imagine an America where we do not allow children to go homeless or hungry, because we recognize our obligations to each other as citizens of a common society.

I imagine an America where the Constitution is both well-understood and well-revered by those who vow to uphold it and whose authority to govern flows from it.

I imagine an America where no one suffers from the delusion that one can bestow democracy or freedom at gunpoint.

I imagine an America where I, as a woman, get paid equally for equal work, and no one questions that my health is a legitimate concern, even when it conflicts with the desire of others to impose their religious mores on everyone or to avoid being grossed out by the facts of reproduction.

I imagine an America where dissent is as patriotic as Thomas Paine, and not only when you agree with conservatives.

I imagine an America that lives up to its better self. I imagine an America that is not divided. I imagine an America that remembers who we really are.

I like that America. I want to live there. It's not where I have been living, to be sure, but it seems like a place that is possible.

Let's go.

Our Adventures on Tybee Island

2010-03-09T17:05:00.000-08:00

I like to take my son somewhere new for spring break every year. Last year, it was Milledgeville, Flannery O'Connor's house, and the Okeefenokee Swamp. This year, it was the beach. He liked last year's vacation as well as this one; after all, he is my child.

He wanted to get up early and watch the sun rise. If you have never seen the sun rise over the ocean, I recommend it. The water glowed pink reflecting the sky and there were little shore birds running to and fro, as well as the usual seagulls.

I found a stick and drew a labyrinth in the sand, a seven-circuit labyrinth. Then I walked it. This is one of my personal things; not that other people don't do it, but I have written about labyrinths and in the year after my mother died I walked all the labyrinths I could find. So I drew my labyrinth in the sand, walked it, and faced the rising sun, which showed fiercely orange-red through the clouds on the horizon.

Then my son flung up his hands and sang, "Nants ingonyama bagithi baba! Sithi uhhmm ingonyama! Nants ingonyama bagithi baba! Sithi uhhmm ingonyama! Ingonyama!" Which is, of course, the opening lines to the theme for The Lion King.

Later, we went wandering about. There are many, many cats on Tybee. Every place we went has cats: the lighthouse, Captain Mike's, the Crab Shack. They all seem pretty well-fed and sassy.

We walked past a car, and Raven remarked, "That guy looks very stern and angry. He looks like...who was that guy who was Vice President under Bush?"

"Dick Cheney."

"He looks Dick Cheney angry."

So, then, we went to go on a dolphin tour. While we were waiting for the boat, we discussed the number of pelicans in view. "You said four, now you say three."

"One flew away."

"Right, so long as we are clear on the number of pelicans. It's vitally important."

"Darn right it is!" says my son. "We have to keep up with the number of pelicans. The Marsh Pelican Naturalist Society will be very disappointed if we don't. There's a grant. Pelican population survey grant. The participation of the ordinary man, such as myself, and the ordinary Mom, such as yourself, is crucial."

"You are totally making that up."

"Yes, it's a gift. I inherited it from my Dad. You may have noticed how he tells elaborate lies on short notice with a straight face."

"Hmm."

"Anyway, all I have to do is turn in my four to five page scientific report on these pelicans, and we're all set."

"How are you going to get five pages out of three pelicans?"

"There were four."

"Nonetheless. 'There were four pelicans sleeping on poles. One flew away. The end.' That's it. That's not even one page. You can't base a report on that."

"I'll make some stuff up. Height, weight, age...you know."

"That," I said severely, "is not science."

"It's scientific guessing."

"Guessing is not science. Knowledge is science. Facts! Here, listen, kid. This is what science is: If you observe the pelican's behavior carefully for days, and write down whenever it eats, poops, or interacts with another pelican, that's zoology. If you take note of the pelican's diet and habitat and its interactions with other species, that's ecology. If you weigh the pelican and measure its windspeed, that's physics. If you kill the pelican and dissect it, that's biology. And if you interview the pelican, that's social science."

My son died laughing at this juncture, though he recovered in time to see dolphins.

On charity and the spirit of giving...

2009-12-17T15:15:00.000-08:00

...and all that jazz.

I'm about to get all True Meaning of Christmasy on you. Bear with me. It was inspired by a discussion of holiday charity giving. This isn't even a Christmas story, actually, because I don't have any idea when it happened and part of my point is that you just do it without foofaraw or special occasions. Though now that I think of it, it does have certain overtones: "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

My father was one of the hardest working people you could ever meet. He grew up hard in the Depression, plowed cotton with a mule, worked in a sawmill for ten cents an hour, and sharecropped for his uncle (who raised the rent on him). He was a Combat Engineer in WWII, was in three invasions (North Africa, Sicily, Normandy) and eight campaigns, and then came home to work for the Georgia Highway Department, later the Department of Transportation, for forty years.

He also had eight children, of which I am the youngest, and participated fully in our upbringing. He was in no way an absent or distant father. He was often heard to remark that he could have had money or children, but preferred children.

This is a story that was told at his funeral: One day when he was out on a bridge site, a man approached him for a job. My father, who was always observant, noticed that the man's pregnant wife was sitting in the car, and drew the obvious conclusion, that she was with him because they had nowhere else to stay.

He hired the man right then, but that wasn't all. I was not there, but I know how he talked: "When it gets to be quittin' time, you come on home with me." Knowing him, he probably didn't explain what he was up to. He didn't like to make promises until he was sure he could deliver, but if he said he would do a thing, you could count on it absolutely.

He brought them home and invited them to supper. He found them a place to stay for the night and later helped them find a place to live. He got them clothes and furniture.

I do not remember this incident myself, but extrapolating from other incidents and general knowledge of his character I can tell you he did not make a big deal of it and took care to be courteous and save their pride. I bet he didn't ask them how they got in that fix, though he would have listened politely if they wanted to talk about it. He did not pry or tell the business of people he helped. He never told me about this story himself; I heard it from other people.

This is the model in my head of how to act when someone needs something and appeals to you for help. Do it decisively and thoroughly, without judgment, and without holding it over their head. Do it up right. Let other people tell the story.

Write like a man

2009-12-16T14:50:00.001-08:00

Just the other day I was chided for "spouting tired feminist dogma." (That person is no longer in my personal universe.) I'm sure you've been told that feminism is no longer necessary, women have all the equality they need, and that anyone who says otherwise is just a whiner who can't get a man. (Interestingly, they were telling Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony the same spiel.)

The story here: a struggling freelance writer was getting few jobs, low pay, lots of crap and demands for revisions from clients, and did one simple thing that raised pay and customer satisfaction through the roof.

What, you ask? What amazing secret brought her jobs, money, and praise?

She started submitting her work under a male pseudonym. That's it. I cannot adequately express my rage. I'm glad the author of this article was able to sound reasonable, because all I seem to be able to say is, Holy crap. Holy fucking crap.

Write like a man

Posted using ShareThis

I am THAT teacher

2009-11-19T18:18:00.000-08:00

Stuff I've done in class:

Used a hand drum to teach prosody.

Referred to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot" sketch as an example of the ubiquity of Shakespeare. ("He's shuffled off this mortal coil and joined the choir invisibule!")

Used a silk flower and a rain boot to explain why you shouldn't let your participles hang down.

Assigned "Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition)" as a reading.

Shown Johnny Cash's video for "Hurt," Nine Inch Nails' video for same, and P!nk's "Stupid Girls" in class. Also Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Assigned "Living Like Weasels" by Annie Dillard and then told my students to write like weasels.

Tomorrow, I plan to drop a pen on the floor. Then write "I dropped a pen on the floor" and the formula for rectilinear motion under acceleration on the board and ask them to tell me which statement describes what just happened. Then go on to explain the relevance of this to essay writing.

I totally live for this stuff.

On the resurgence of Ayn Rand

2009-11-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

The Bitch is Back

Goddamn, the experience of being 19 years old and reading Ayn Rand! The crystal-shivering-at-the-breaking-pitch intensity of it! Not just for that 19-year-old, but for everybody unfortunate enough to be caught in his psychic blast radius. Is "experience" even the right word for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged? Ayn Rand's idolization of Mickey Spillane and cigarettes and capitalism—an experience? Her tentacular contempt for Shakespeare and Beethoven and Karl Marx and facial hair and government and "subnormal" children and the poor and the Baby Jesus and the U.N. and homosexuals and "simpering" social workers and French Impressionism and a thousand other things the flesh is heir to: experience?

The Bible of right wing losers sound bite The Simpsons sound bites

"Isn't that book the Bible of right-wing losers?" - Lisa Simpson

Ah, Ayn Rand. Human beings don't work the way she says they do. Societies don't work the way she says they do. Economies don't work the way she says they do. Her books are painfully awful and warp the term "literary art" even as one hesitates to apply it. Yet her ideas and novels persist because they feed the most indestructible and gullibility-producing force in the universe, human egotism.

I do grant, as a reviewer on Goodreads said, that the books are useful. Anyone who is a fan of Ayn Rand is someone to avoid. It's good to know that before you get too involved. And unlike more personal questions, it's easy to work into casual party conversation: "Hey, what do you think of Ayn Rand's books?" If the person's eyes light up and they declaim upon their admiration of Howard Roark or John Galt, you have the opposite of a keeper. You know to throw that one back.

I, like many people, read The Fountainhead as a teenager. I intended to enter the essay contest the Ayn Rand Institute runs every year. They offered a lot of money, and I'd already won a couple of state-level writing competitions. I was seventeen or eighteen, and no less arrogant than bright eighteen-year-olds generally are: the target audience.

I couldn't bring myself to write anything that wasn't scathing.

"This is not a book to be set aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." - Dorothy Parker, on Atlas Shrugged.

The books are terrible in all respects. They are bad art, bad writing, foully mis-representative of human behavior, laughably improbable, bone-headedly self-contradictory, morally putrid, and pragmatically incoherent. Even the supposed free-market ideals which Rand espouses with such Darwinian cheer don't actually appear in her books. There is something the characters call that, but even they don't actually believe that it should apply to them. For example, Roark's clients don't like his work and he can't make money as an architect. This is seen, incomprehensibly, as evidence that they are stupid and he is a genius, instead of being the only real example of the free market winnowing someone out that actually happens. When he blows up his own building this is proof of his ideals instead of an appalling waste of resources; instead of being rightfully excoriated as a trifler and an inefficient wastrel he's a hero. Why? We don't know. There is no sensible reason given. Nothing any of her characters do in The Fountainhead makes any sense, or bears any resemblance to how actual persons behave. If you dare ask why of a Randroid, you will be told that you just don't understand.

They are all like that, her books. They are brick-sized cesspools of badness held together with binding glue. They are wastes of ink, and of the effort required to lift them from the shelf and turn the page. You could spend those calories and that time watching Wife Swap re-runs.

If it were only that. If only...a waste of time is perhaps not a good thing, but it's your own business. You might read Ayn Rand, or watch Fox News, in perfect peace for all of me if you would just exhibit a moderate degree of decency and decorum and keep it to yourself. I myself like to read textsfromlastnight.com and chuckle with schadenfreude. It is a perfect waste of time, and not nice of me, but essentially harmless.

Alas, no. Rand devotees are right, they know they are right, and they have to share, with, as noted in the GQ article, a grim impervious defiance of logic rivaled only by Fundamentalists.

And that points to the real, true and basic contradiction of the Randroids. They declare, with that special dollop of Nietzschean contempt, that they are free and the rest of us (of course) are sheep. But if you cannot ever reflect upon an ideology, if you can't evaluate its limits or especially admit when it fails (and the Randian philosophy has spectacularly failed on all levels and by all measures; even its name, Objectivism, embeds a lie), if you not only can't admit that it might be wrong but believe anyone who dares to disagree is actually evil, then you aren't free at all. You are ideology's slave.

And I have a little secret to tell you. You aren't the genius you think you are, either. All of the Randroids I know are kind of mediocre, maybe a little brighter than average but not all that. All the most brilliant people I know, and I know several truly brilliant people, are altruists.

I've heard of some people threatening to "go Galt," that is, to withdraw from participation in society and their imagined contributions to it. To which I say, God I hope so. Go Galt and get the hell out of the way. It's actually possible, I deem, that if all the people who actually produce and do and accomplish things in the world left or quit doing what they do, society would crumble. However, if all of the self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, Rand-addled egomaniacs with a firm belief in their own superiority and entitlement left, there would be nothing but a huge sigh of relief.

Song for Butterbeans

2009-10-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

I wrote this when I was seventeenish. It won a prize, which went to my head. Later the Agnes Scott literary magazine foolishly took it, encouraging me further, and and thus you find me here years later a broken wretch of a creature, teaching Freshman Comp and still writing poetry as well as committing fiction on a regular basis. Behold my late adolescent poetic sensibilities, complete with inexplicable line breaks, erratic punctuation, and whimsical rhymes. Actually, judging by some of my recent stuff, neither the inexplicability, erraticity*, nor whimsy have changed all that much...

Song for Butterbeans

Heat rises from damp earth,
add my own humidity
I, a country girl, pick
With embarrassing unfluidity.
Green smell: “Pod No.5”
hundred eighty million
Will I make it alive
To the end of the row?
Vines leafed brown lace
Wrap around my ankle,
The Bean From Outer Space
Attacks stealthily: Beware!
Butterbeans with nearby green entwined
Like cousin lovers hid behind
A ragged screen of weeds I find
Tomatoes do not care.
My whole body itches. Dive bombed
By bumblebees seeking morning glory and such,
I like butterbeans.
But not that much.

*Yes, I do believe I made that word up. Wanna make something of it?

DragonCon!

2009-08-31T09:43:00.001-07:00

Going to DragonCon in Atlanta this weekend, to talk about steampunk, Victorian literature, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Virginia Woolf. Yes, all at once.

I go also to wear clothes. In high school, I was given an award for "Most Unusual Fashion Sense." I was a punktastic proto-Goth who once wore a trash bag as a dress, with dog collar. I haven't changed much, except that I now have a drab collection of "work clothes." Even being a TA in an English department sometimes gives me the feeling of being oppressed by the sartorial sensibilities of the Man. Part of what I love about SF conventions is the delightful feeling that I can wear whatever I want, and not only will I not get weird looks, I'll be solidly middle-of-the-road in most cases...somewhere between the t-shirt-and-blue-jeans brigade, and the cosplayers. It's hard to look flamboyantly peculiar next to someone dressed as Tweety Bird wearing Storm Trooper armor, is what I'm saying.

This isn't a costume. These are my clothes.

Fun tip!

2009-02-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

When in a group of academic specialists on Southern literature and history, bring up Gone With the Wind. Sit back, drink your beer, and watch the fight break out.

(For the record, and for once, I was not the instigator this time.)

2008-12-28T16:43:00.000-08:00

There was a time
when I wrote poetry:
just sit down and write it,
that's what I did.

I knew I was flawed but beautiful.
I assumed that someone was listening.

--a long road from there to here;
when did I forget? and when
did I stop being in love?
You have to love the words to write them.

Now it's painful
to write and not scratch them out.
I wake up like other addicts,
not knowing how I got here.

Perfection is the drug;
I gazed into the mirror so long
self-critiqued so finely, with such art,
that I disappeared altogether--
I filtered the clear water
until none of it was left

So now there is a time
I just sit down and write it
until the water runs clear again,
just like that.