Benazir Bhutto

Back from Birmingham, I hear of the death of this good woman, who had devoted herself to the democratization of her country under the auspices of a holy mission from Allah. Her murder brings to mind the age-old question: how can people be so inhuman? Well, of course, I don't have an answer, but I can point the reader to a lyric from the Jethro Tull song "Wondering Aloud": "...it's only the giving that makes you...what you are." I posit that one's humanity is defined the the substance and quality of that which one shares with others, so say a prayer or spend a few moments in meditation and hug a loved one--he or she may not always be here.

Graduate School in English--don't do it for the reasons I did

I'm posting this reflection, in part, by the request of a deeply dedicated student, Michelle P., who has recently changed her major to English but doesn't know what to do with it.

I majored in English in college because the first semester of my Freshmen year, then at Austin College [not UT, but the tiny, smaller than UIS, Texas Ivy League private school--I got in on the interview--my SAT scores sucked], I took a course called "Challenging Racism, Sexism, Antisemitism and Homophobia" taught by a kind, thoughtful poet-scholar whom I can best describe as a male Jewish grandmother. I got a B+ in the course, but it awakened me to literature as a means of evoking empathy [I would not have spun that phrase at the time, but I still hold to the tenets of a paper I wrote for the class in favor of gay marriage at 18]. So, when I moved on to the University of North Texas my second year, I officially declared myself an English major. But how did I decide to go to graduate school?

Well, upon graduation, I was a 24 year-old cripple without a job or driver's license, so I reasoned that if I enrolled in graduate school, I wouldn't be forced to move home to my grandmother, whom I do love dearly's, Pentecostal TV and Fox News bombardments. After my Masters degree and PhD comps, I lost heart, if I every really had it in the first place. I was concentrating more on teaching than my own studies. I dropped the program in 2003. A year and a half later, I re-enrolled, not because I particularly wanted to, but because I needed a job--I know it sounds weird, but to teach I had to be enrolled. So know I find myself still not finished, without a committee and significantly in debt.

So, my advice is, make an informed decision. Dr. Ethan Lewis says, find what you like and do it. I've discovered over the years that what I'm "passionate" about is communicating with students and helping them discover important questions, not researching or even writing.

But what can one do with an Undergraduate or even a Masters degree in English? Hundreds are asking that question. The obvious is of course teach. I taught Gifted and Talented during my student teaching a decade ago and loved it. I also enjoyed 6th grade... My sister-in-law brings home a nice chunk working for an insurance group; my wife took her English-Psychology double major and with the addition of thirteen years of graduate school became a bona fide psychologist. [Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers; she's taking the national exam on January 9.]

If you're passionate about the actual "work" of a career in English, by all means do it. I have met genuine word alchemists in my life, like the great Haj Ross--but know well what you're getting yourself into. Jobs are scarce and literacy beyond Oprah is of course under-valued in the US.

So there you have it. I feel like I'm doing court-ordered community service [the court of Dharma maybe].

The "Bottom Line"

The Chancellor's office did release Dr. Ronni Sanlo' s report on the experiences of LGBTQ individuals at UIS this morning. Her most poignant statement is:

"There are considerations with which campuses must deal as they determine what will be available at any given institution. The most critical, of course, is financial resources. Without
funding, institutions may not be able to provide the same types of opportunities found on
similar campuses in a system or in the country. While UIS is a vibrant, exciting institution as agreed by all with whom I met, it is also a small university with 4800 students and therefore with fewer resources available than its sister institutions in the University of Illinois system."

Last spring I was abruptly silenced by a well-placed Student Affairs administrator when I said that universities, UIS included, make decisions based on the bottom line. It seems that UIS takes the fiscal long view [Green Day reference may be applied if the reader wishes]; that is, stringing students along with promises under the auspices of "doing the right thing" until activist students either graduate or fail out, but issues with LGBTQ students in particular have now persisted across multiple classes of Capital Scholars. More explicit discussions of where the money comes from and how it is spent could lead to greater trust. How the university appears should not be of greater concern than the experiences of its members. The release of Dr. Sanlo's letter and the publication of the student response to the Chancellor's statement in the Journal last week is a start.

To weigh in with others on these issues and other issues, go here:

http://uisfictions.blogspot.com/2007/12/welcome.html

and read the thread of comments

[For the record: no, this is not my blog; I neither know whose it is, nor have I posted anything there, other than my vote of support, that I haven't already posted in kind here.]

Yes Virginia There is A Santa Claus

Yesterday, 6 December, the Saint's Day of Saint Nicholas, the UIS Journal published a detailed letter in support of the students and community and faculty members who question UIS administration's response to the needs and concerns of UIS students with disabilities featured on WUIS, an NPR affiliate [see below] underwritten by a number of student organizations. The letter is very frank and addresses specific statements made by the Chancellor himself. His own letter appeared on the same page above the students'. Is this Saint Nick's boon? It's certainly a good sign, as responsible investigative journalism is essential for sustained accountability and change.

While I agree 100% with the majority of the statements the students make, and I agree that Karla Carwile is both better credentialed and more experienced than Suzy Woods, I frankly fear the alternative, e.g. ODS between Ms. Carwile's dismissal and Ms. Woods' hiring--students desperately need timely services.

But, hats off to the students and to the Journal for balanced journalism. Now, if we could just find out what's happened to Dr. Ronie Sanlow's report...

Sexual Violence on Campus

Following the UIS Police Chief's very prudent message about a rape investigation on campus, my class with approximately 13 young women and 3 young men all between the ages of 18 and 19 in attendance, all of whom reside in the residence hall, expressed concern about personal safety and security on a campus which has consistently scaled back the operating budget and facilities allocated for its Women's Center. [I do not mean to insinuate that the absence of one equals the other because as we all should have learned in our Freshmen writing courses--oh so many years ago in my case--correlation does not equal causation.] And I emphatically applaud the police department in this instance for its proactive public relations approach. But, it stands to reason that if one deems coordinated outreach with regard to meta-effects of sexual violence in the campus community, one should empower and look to the Women's Center for that leadership. If this issue concerns you, please contact: 206.7173 or womenscenter@uis.edu For the record, no one associated with the UIS Women's Center or UIS Women's Issues Caucus has prompted me to post this statement. But historically speaking, when women "get the shaft," cripples, non-Caucasians and old people are next, hmm...

An Open Letter of Appreciation to My CAP 111 Class

Dear Students,

You all achieved a synergy in the classroom this semester that I haven't felt with a group of students in a number of years. That probably has more to do with who you are as individuals than what I have "brought to the table" as an instructor. I have appreciated the open, provocative discourse. I have come to know and value most of you, not only as writers and thinkers, but as individuals, and I feel that you have raised my own expectations of myself as an instructor. I regret that I will not be continuing on with you into 115, but I will be available if you need any assistance next semester. So for now, my last word of collective advise to you is, in the words of Allen Ginsberg, "don't follow my path to extinction," discern "truth" for yourselves with rigorous evaluation--don't take anything, or anyone at face value; that's not to say you shouldn't hold to tradition, etc, but do so because you've made it real for yourselves--always be able to articulate for yourselves why you make your choices.

Thanks,

Curt.

Keep rollen' along

Well, a lot has appeared to happen since my last post; I say "appeared" because I have yet to see tangible change with regard to the issues raised, and I will take my cues in that regard from the students effected. But I did have a seemingly productive exchange with the current director of the Office of Disability Services who made the Buick / Cadillac [I know I misspelled that before] comment. She explained it's intent in our correspondence and later in a general e-mail to the campus at large, but as I expressed to her, intent means little compared to perceived meaning in the court of public opinion, and an explanation is not an apology. I do empathize with her because my words and actions have been misconstrued in the past, at which juncture,however, I did issue a public apology directly to those affected. I do find it troubling that the "official" response was stamped with her supervisor's email.... But as I said, I do believe the current director, despite the absence of an apology, has student's best interests at heart.

I have called for the following investigations and dialogs:

1. Open, recorded dialog with students, administrators advocates and civil rights attorneys regarding the language and boundaries of Title 42 compliance.

2. A similar dialog and subsequent assessment of compliance regarding reasonable accommodation specifically in relation to significant, or catastrophic, spinal cord injury, to include credible medical experts in the field of spinal cord injury research.

3. Provisions for incoming Capital Scholars incoming Freshmen with paralysis to be offered priority housing in townhouses or like facilities to accommodate adaptive equipment.

4. Above all, no more closed-door meetings on these, or similar issues. Students should not find themselves defending their account of meetings, or phone conversations, with administrators against those of the administrators themselves, who could use power differential to their collective advantage. The culture of secrecy and paranoia, us vs. them needs to stop.

I have been asked to join a disability advisory committee. We shall see what comes of it.

How's that Buick workin' for ya?

Well, it's been a while since my last post. This morning NPR aired a piece by award winning journalist Kavitha Cardoza in which she explores difficulties students with disabilities are experiencing at UIS, including lack of adequate recommendations for on-campus housing, recreational facilities [though I hesitate to refer to adaptive exercise equipment as "recreational" as individuals with spinal cord injuries need this equipment to maintain functionality (see Christopher and Daina Reeve Foundation)], and expedience of classroom accommodations. As might be expected, most administrators questioned offered canned platitudes grasping at some conveniently elusive moral high-ground. If UIS wants to accommodate students because "it's the right thing to do," why didn't they access student need before student arrival and tuition payment and tell the student honestly that the university cannot accommodate the student's personal equipment? Unfortunately this is nothing new. As an undergraduate, a neighbor of mine in housing at my home university was similarly snowballed by the housing director when he requested extra space for his hygiene program. When he asked to demonstrate the program, involving assisted showering, bathroom functions and dressing, the director flatly refused. We in Sam Walton's America tend to believe, whether we'd be caught dead saying so or not, that if we ignore unseemly suffering, it will disappear--ignorance is nine tenths of happiness. But these aren't even the most disturbing implications of the report. The current director of disability services characterized the ADA in terms of Catolacs and Buicks. ADA requires a Buick but not a Catolac. First of all, this rhetoric smacks of pre-Civil Rights era "separate but equal" mentality. The accommodations requested are no more luxury cars than new textbooks and relevant curriculum. Listen for yourself [requires Winamp, which can be downloaded for free-google it]:

http://wuis.streamguys.net/playlist.asp?player=asx&file=/news/MEdisabl.mp3

Top Ten Reasons to Talk Like a Pirate

10. ...because pirate grammar stimulates the mind
9. ....without pirates, there'd have been no America
8. ...pirates have practical fasion sense
7. ...if Chuck D had been born in the 18th century, he'd have been a pirate
6. ...pirates were misunderstood, misdirected, out-of-work civil servants
5. ...freedom of speech
4. ...before usenet, there were pirates
3. ...to remind Dick Chaney of his true calling--the cruel and unusual torturer from whom the cabin boy [Bush] runs scared
2. ... because it's more fun than speaking Old English
1. ...without pirates, Robert E Howard's stories would be far less enjoyable.

A rough crack at a "Literacy Narrative"

[I free-wrote this in little over an hour. ...very rough.]

One hundred dollars, including innocuous service fee, all for less than two hours of a musical experience I could easily approximate with my haphazard CD collection—why sink so much money for tickets to a show at Sangamon Auditorium of all places—Jethro Tull. I have gone to live performances of the band in various incarnations every seven years or so since 1993, but why Tull, you ask?
At the age of fourteen, I began hanging out with an older crowd, whose references varied from AD&D to Wicca [In my neighborhood, you were either nominally Baptist or “White Trash” pagan. This was the late eighties, before the internet. If you wanted to explore anything beyond the church on the corner or the televangelist on the tube—and my grandmother gave $10,000 that I can document to Jim and Tammy Baker—you had to catch a ride to the shady head shop downtown, away from the paper quaintness of lower-middle class smugness, or find the local “guru” who believed that reading through Buckland’s Complete Guide to Witchcraft and a few Piers Anthony novels qualified him to lead a spiritual movement. Bathing regularly would have been a nice touch. Just how many reincarnations of Jim Morison and Alistair Crowley were there in suburban Texas?]. Oh yes, our attention darted from one revolutionary idea to the next—so misunderstood, but there was one constant: the music, and particularly the lyrics, of Jethro Tull.
When my friend Gene, brilliant artist, would-be guru, and eventual Black Hand Vampire, first played “Thick as a Brick,” “A Passion Play” and “Minstrel in the Gallery” for me on cassette, Ian Anderson’s metaphors and unapologetic cynicism attracted me to the concepts driving his albums. I listened to those tapes over and over to glean meaning from his words—so much more complex even than Cliff Burton’s writing with Metallica, another favorite at the time. Tull’s work resonated with me then as intensely relevant, even though the band reached the height of its popularity in the mid ‘70s, shortly after I was born. Anderson himself had begun to explore the hypocrisy in of the religious status quo openly in the famous “Aqualung” album, and his relationship to the revival of British and Northern European folk traditions in “Songs from the Wood” and “Broadsword and the Beast.” Tull’s music was both the soundtrack to and the justification of my understanding of the world at that time. I felt sophisticated, being able to sound off heady classic rock lyrics [I say “sound off” because I certainly couldn’t sing. I still can’t]. It was tough being the long-haired crippled kid who wore tie-dyes everyday to reflect his mood, especially in my home town […seen “King of the Hill”?].
While I wouldn’t consider myself a Wiccan now anymore than I would consider myself Christian in any conventional sense [I’m a Hare Krishna, if you want to know.] and my musical taste has expanded to include the likes of Chuck D and Kris One, and of course, Charlie Parker, as I listen to Tull as I’m typing this sentence, the feelings of the open-ended possibilities of youth return, tinged with a little sadness, maybe, for decisions not made…[cliché? …probably]. [I do still play D&D.] It would be all too easy for my to resent my friends from the old neighborhood, with a “I got out of the ghetto” attitude, but as I listen to Tull, I recognize that even the would-be gurus played an integral role in who I am know. So I thank them, and I will pay Sangamon’s price for a bit of youth.

Happy "late" Birthday Lovecraft

20 August commemorates the birth of HP Lovecraft whose fiction reminds us that there are indeed some aspects of the universe that humanity shouldn't explore, or can't entertain without cost. Read his work here: http://www.sacred-texts.com/nec/hpl/index.htm

My reading of Wallace Stevens' "The Emperor of Ice Cream"

"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" by Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be the finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is and dumb,
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Stevens, Wallace. "The Emperor of Ice-Cream." Stevens: Collected Poetry and Prose. Eds. Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson. New York: Library of America, 1997. 50.

The first metaphor we want to look at here is obviously "the roller of big cigars." In a post-Bill Clinton administration America, the phallic implications of cigars really don't require that much explanation. In any case, we should remember that typically, in the Western world at least, the phallus, in all its glory [sarcasm] represents either power or ego, or some mixture thereof. In the second line Stevens presents the image of a muscular man whipping... hmm... sadomasochism anyone. The terms concupiscent and curds are juxtaposed with great effect. For those who haven't spent countless hours and unknown hordes of deferred expenditure exfoliating the decade in classrooms, "concupiscent" essentially means sexually sinful, in the Judeo-Christian sense. The thick milky white appearance of curds bolsters that reading. The assumption is that the whipped curds will provide nourishment, hence the backdrop of the kitchen, but the next line introduces dawdling “wenches” in old clothes. Certainly these women, presumably prostitutes, haven't had their desires fulfilled through sex. This is reiterated with the image of the boys bring flowers in use newspapers. The newspaper's primary function was to provide timely information; once that information has become irrelevant, the newspaper is either discarded or used in another way. Sex is essentially the same. The fleeting moments leading up to climax are certainly enjoyable, but in the end, we're left with a sticky mess -- much like melted ice cream, not so sweet anymore. Hence, the poet asks the reader to willingly participate in an illusion, would be alchemical-hermetic assertion, a cryptic equation. To let what is apparent in the phenomenological present to be so for all time -- this is the sum total of concupiscent desire. So the Emperor of ice cream is the one who controls the process of its melting, i.e. God, time, what have you. Because of their lack of power, the blood engorged penis promising ever infrequent petit morte, is in effect a circumstantial god. That's part of the tragedy of this poem.

The first line of second stanza mentions the dresser of the deal. Deal is both a type of wood and a transaction, as well as yet another metaphor for an erect penis. Deal wood was often used in the crafting of hope chests. The transaction implied here is of course the preliminary exchange of money in acts of prostitution; however, a nonexistent marriage contract is also implied here. Clearly this is a woman without hope. The sheet removed from the chest has fantails embroidered on it. This shape is very similar to the waffle crisps they used to garnish ice cream in soda fountains. The woman is dead, her hopes unrealized. Even the state of her toenails and death become a sex joke [yes, the word "horny" had the same connotations and Stevens’ day as it does now]. The body but spent a good deal it's time generating heat is now cold and dumb. Such is the nature of the material pleasures -- fleeting. The lamp is no doubt a coroner's lamp. Death is the great equalizer, the "Emperor" of the phenomenological world -- the only constant.

Much of this reading is not original. I owe a great debt to Dr. Thomas R. Preston for a great deal of the cultural context I apply to the poem.

"If I had a soul I sold it for pretty words"

That statement is Allen Ginsberg's, not mine, but I can certainly empathize with his sentiment. When people ask me why I study Ginsberg, it's for statements like these, the unflinching honesty. The Gita warns us to be wary of pretty words for the same reason Ginsberg does in his 1992 poem "After Lalon." We can easily become, and I myself to become, bogged down by the pretty little things that really don't amount to much. In the same poem, Ginsberg asks "... what good was all that come?/Will it come true? Will/it really come true." He's using the term "come" as in arrive here, but it isn't too much of a stretch, especially if you know Ginsberg to apply the sexual connotation here. He really wants to know if all of his sexual pursuits in the name of ecstasy will "arrive" at anything as he nears the grave. But what is the antecedent of the word "it"? It may well be the indeterminate, elusive It sought after in On the Road in countless jazz clubs -- a sacred experience out of time. Brilliant!

When I think of my own relationship to words, there's a lot of sadness and regret -- the ever present unfinished dissertation, poems lost, forgotten, or never completed, etc. but the greatest successes of this journey called life [yes I know its cheesy; I'm paraphrasing "Let's Go Crazy," but this is a blog. What do you want?] have also began with words. My greatest success and my greatest blessing is without a doubt my marriage, which began with innumerable hours of exchanging words in the energy clipped to those sounds. Tonight my wife is in San Francisco celebrating her career success. I'm here in our apartment with our guinea pigs in numerous distractions, but I was inspired to turn on Charlie Parker and pick up my big book of Ginsberg because I felt the weight of the San Francisco wind just below my solar plexus. That's love.

Ball of dung inquiry

In my spiritual tradition material pursuits that distract one from the important things in life are likened to a dung beetle's ball of dung which it spends its entire life rolling up insurmountable inclines. Today I managed to add a bit of dung to the ball so to speak. I spent somewhere around $78 all told, including shipping, on two separate Amazon orders; granted the order was for six books, but for purely entertainment purposes [is anything for purely entertainment purposes?]. Of course the real issue here is that I was stressed out about completing my syllabus in time for its deadline [which I did]. The material world, i.e. the phenomenological world, which amounts to our own self concepts from which we order our environments, is riddled with inadequacy. I mean was it really even stressed out about the syllabus -- probably not; the stress comes from my own frustration of being in a situation where I feel as though my talents and experience aren't being put to use. Of course, that's no one's fault but my own. I've been neurotically procrastinating on my Ph.D. for so freaking long I can't stand it -- fear is the mind killer after all. So why am I putting my, for lack of a more metaphorically affective word, shit in the vast indeterminate expanse that is cyberspace? [Damn that's a terrible sentence.] Because it amounts to a record. My hope is that when I have the urge to respond to stress with destructive behavior, however relatively benign, I will refer back to this posting. It shouldn't be too hard to find. It's the first of many.