an old argument

at 1:45 today i was walking to the stevenson building

to teach my 2:00 class.

on my way to the classroom

i noticed an "evolution vs. creation" table set up by the stairs

and instantly i became tired.

i am sick of this argument for many reasons

not simply because of the religious vs. secular

fight but rather the more obvious notion of

who's doing the fighting and i can tell you that it is

almost always white guys on both sides of a fence

battling it out,

trying to establish policy which in turn will regulate our bodies

as intellectual vessels that are thought to be depraved and which,

consequently,

need to be filled

either by believing the earth is 10,000 years old or 10,000,000,000.

what does this "knowledge" (if it can ever be truly attained) "do"?

i offer up and experience that

invovles one of my visits with j...

who, by the way, is studying to be an episcopal priest so

the intersection between god(dess) and science

is extremely complex and existential...

in any event, we were listening to a very outspoken

scientist/atheist who was commenting on npr about the ever persistent

debate between

science and religion (creationism)

and he said something interesting....and i am greatly simplifying

his argument...it was much more nuanced…

"why" questions are not worth answering

only "how" questions deserve our time;

why questions are "typically" asked by, in this instance, christians

whereas "how" questions are much more rigorous and tend to be

asked by scientists...

this drives me crazy....here you have this white guy,

upper class, who teaches at oxford university and assumed

to be heterosexual or heteronormative in the very least

telling the audience that there is only one mode of inquiry

and that, since god does not exist, the other type of question

is not even worth considering...

typical (typically male i should say).

i am not falling on either side of the religion/atheist or evolution/creation binary

in this post...that would be a book...rather

i'm just saying that the argument as it stands is being framed

like any other argument where power and policy are working

on bodies within culture vis-a-vis a representation of

two white guys arguing for/over power,

to tell us all how to live, and

what questions to ask...

for instance, i think why questions are extremely important

i want to know

why are people still dieing from poverty and disease?

why is there no healthcare for everyone?

why is there discrimination?

these "why" questions are not worth considering because

they implicate...

pointing the finger at real issues

instead of focusing on "issues" that are speculative,

that do not implicate and only require a body to speak from a

comfortable armchair, wearing a smoking jacket, and clenching a pipe.

someone

surrounded by

access and privilege

trying to figure out how old the earth actually is

or if there is life after death…

the answers to which do not feed or

help anyone.

furthermore,

arguments such as evolution and creation

distract and, worse, are simply circuitous…

because these two concepts need each other to survive,

they create a wheel that rotates

but doesn’t go anywhere

news flash...it's february in illinois and it is snowing!

wet...yes

cold...yes

messy...of course

beautiful...absolutely

poem for the week

Hum
by Ann Lauterbach


The days are beautiful
The days are beautiful.

I know what days are.
The other is weather.

I know what weather is.
The days are beautiful.

Things are incidental.
Someone is weeping.

I weep for the incidental.
The days are beautiful.

Where is tomorrow?
Everyone will weep.

Tomorrow was yesterday.
The days are beautiful.

Tomorrow was yesterday.
Today is weather.

The sound of the weather
Is everyone weeping.

Everyone is incidental.
Everyone weeps.

The tears of today
Will put out tomorrow.

The rain is ashes.
The days are beautiful.

The rain falls down.
The sound is falling.

The sky is a cloud.
The days are beautiful.

The sky is dust.
The weather is yesterday.

The weather is yesterday.
The sound is weeping.

What is this dust?
The weather is nothing.

The days are beautiful.
The towers are yesterday.

The towers are incidental.
What are these ashes?

Here is the hate
That does not travel.

Here is the robe
That smells of the night

Here are the words
Retired to their books

Here are the stones
Loosed from their settings

Here is the bridge
Over the water

Here is the place
Where the sun came up

Here is a season
Dry in the fireplace.

Here are the ashes.
The days are beautiful.

i don't think that i can read anymore political blogs

i swear

i used to love crooks and liars

but they have become terribly

one sided

especially nichole belle

who in my estimation is slightly (if not unintentionally)homophobic as well

i understand that they love obama

but the way this blog along with their readers

are attacking clinton goes beyond

unseemly to a rhetorical violence that can only

be described as pornographic (and i mean fox news pornographic)

they say it's over policy but i am not persuaded rather i think that

it really does scare people that a woman

could be president...they are that resistant

i need to take them off of my blog roll

maybe

winter may be breaking

well it has been

wicked cold

it snowed most of the day yesterday

and although

it was quite beautiful

i'm kind of ready for some

warmer weather

i woke up this morning

and i noticed

birds singing

i am taking this as

as sign

warmer times are

on the way

now if i can just get motivated

to work on one of the revisions to

my syntheses springtime

will have an even bigger

meaning for me

one of my dear friends just

finished taking comps

and although i am extrememly happy

for my friend

i can't help

but feel just a tad more

lonely...no partner in

the crime of procrastination

it's just me and

unfinished work that

if i don't start being a little bit

more proactive the wintertime of

my life will exceed well past

the boundaries of an actual

season change and although birds are

singing it will mean nothing

but for the fact

that i am still stuck in

snow

Let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see

1) my baby kangaroo

2) sunshine after a week of grey

3) the exact moment you know that you are getting better after a long illness

4) my mom's voice

5) knowing that you are loved by friends and family

6) max and chela purring in my ear

7) silence

8) revision

9) two quilts and a cold morning

10) that first cup of coffee

11) ever-expanding daylight

12) the slowly closing eyelids of dusk

13) really, really good gossip

14) poetic justice

15) the realization that just being with someone who is your friend is enough

16) the sound of snow falling

17) the moment just before spring finally arrives

18) realizing that to live is to fly

19) the exact moment in which we realize that yes we can change our minds

20) the moment that will come when gwb no longer is our president

poem for today

love is more thicker than forget

by e.e. cummings

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea


love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive


it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

New Beirut video- Postcards from Italy. Director Alma Har'el

Beirut - Postcards From Italy Lyrics

The times we had
Oh, when the wind would blow with rain and snow
Were not all bad
We put our feet just where they had, had to go
Never to go

The shattered soul
Following close but nearly twice as slow
In my good times
There were always golden rocks to throw
at those who admit defeat too late
Those were our times, those were our times

And I will love to see that day
That day is mine
When she will marry me outside with the willow trees
And play the songs we made
They made me so
And I would love to see that day
Her day was mine

progress....

the candle has burned down a bit....

three syntheses are out there

in the hands of my committee

professors...

i feel as if i'm being rhetorically

dissected

with devastatingly precise

movement.

poem for the week

Wood's Edge
by Brenda Hillman


Infinity lifted:
a gasp of emeralds.

I thought I felt
the tall night trees
between them,

no exactitude,
a wait not even
known yet.

I held my violet up;
no smell.
It made a signal squeak
inside, bats,

lisps of pride;

ah, their little things,
their breath: lungs of a painting,

they swept me
in four ways, their square
plans, as I have made
a good square saying,

you I
you not-I
not-you I
not-you not-I,

ritual of hope
whose weight
has not been measured—




From Cascadia by Brenda Hillman. Copyright © 2001 by Brenda Hillman.

writing by candlelight

so a very good friend of mine who shall be known as that awesome french woman alerted

me to a conversation that she had with a composition scholar about the writing

process

this comp scholar said that when she was writing her dissertation

she bought a candle to help mark her writing time

this is how it works

she bought a large candle in a glass container

the candle had a unique scent

before she started researching and writing she

would light the candle

the candle would remain lit for as long as

and only when

she was working

other ancillary activities that

presented themselves to her

such as, but not limited to,

checking e-mails, answering the phone, grading papers,

making coffee, etc

would require her to blow out the candle first

and then relighting it if or when she re-started

the gesture of lighting and relighting help structure the time and

the act of blowing out the candle is an outward sign of inward stoppage

just as the act of lighting is a physical acknowledgement that you are going

to work...to get things done...to become proactive

the glass container invites contemplation...it marks not only the passage of time

but the passage of work and testifies to a progression of labor

the scent of the candle (which should be unique to other scented candles that you

burn for relaxation, etc) cues you to the abstract territory of work-time

a boundary, if you will, that

announces itself in a blurry kind of way...

you can smell it when it's lit but the scent fades while you work

you can certainly smell it after you have blown out the flame thus attesting to

a momentary end to a strenuous intellectual activity which signals a certain kind of

rest...so

i say to myself

it's worth a try

so me and my awesome french woman friend visit

the yankee candle store to buy

our writing candles...to which i chose black cherry

and to add to my pleasure i was told by my friend that

my candle was part of my birthday gift from her!!! adding yet another

layer of significance....

thank you my awesome french woman friend!!!

and

i have been faithfully using this candle

i think that it might work with and for me

coffee with the graduate director

i'm trying to motivate myself to finish

and here's how it breaks down

if i don't get on the ball

finish my syntheses

and take my comprehensive exams

i will not be able to write my dissertation by may of 09

thus i will not get my ph.d.

thus i will not be able to work

meaning publish and teach

as a scholar (which is what i want to do)

my funding will be gone

i will have to adjunct until i am 90 years old

i will live like a graduate student for the rest of my life

or much worse

which is a possibility but

i'm choosing not to think

about that

for now

i need that hour

of bliss

from yesterday

to last longer

what i like about winter...

as far as the winter weather in illinois is concerned

today would not be considered "beautiful" by any

far stretch of the

imagination

i woke up this morning

it was 35 degrees

it was raining

and

snowing

i dutifully braved

this mess of water and icy sludge

to teach my 10 a.m. class

however

when i left fairchild hall and was walking back to my car at

11 a.m the icy snow-rain was gone

the wind ceased and it this absence

the most beautiful snowfall that i have ever

witnessed

materialized...

big...no HUGE fluffy flakes were

falling all around me like a gauzy curtain and since

there was no wind the cold seemed

tolerable

i walked slowly across the quad

taking it all in

it seemed for just one moment

that i was the only person on earth

and the only sound was the very

soft static sound of the snow as

it landed

this snow only lasted for roughly an hour

before the nastiness returned

but it was in that ghostly silent

beauty that i felt some kind of peace and

grace

if only for a moment

and for me it is within and between these moments

that keep me going

well, i did my part

i voted for hillary clinton today...after much thought and talking it

over with a good friend

but at the back of my mind

as i was filling out the bubbles

this mantra kept endlessly looping:

wwjd? (i.e. what would jimmy [carter] do?)

then i saw ann coulter trip

over her high heels

as she made her way to the voting

booth

Headzup: Ann Coulter Endorses... Hillary Clinton ?

super tuesday is tomorrow

and i still haven't decided on clinton or obama...i like them both for different reasons.

actually the person that i wanted to vote for dropped out (kucinich)so now i'm still weighing my options and trying to think all of this through.

i really can't believe (or maybe i can) the amount of misogynistic and racist critique levied against both of these candidates

clinton is, perhaps, more seasoned and i do believe that her intellect exceeds that of obama's.

however, obama, in terms of rhetorical sexiness, is far better than clinton. any time

that i have heard him speak i find myself "having" hope...and maybe that's what we need.

some say that he is comparable to jfk...i find that reasonable.

some say that he won't be a good president because he is "new" and "inexperienced"

but

maybe that's what this country needs as well...fresh eyes that aren't shaded by years

of political choreography and conditioning.

both candidates seem to flip flop when it comes to lgbt issues...and issues of

difference(s) per se.

(hetero)normativity still holds sway even with the most "liberal" candidate...

also

i do feel a bit of unease with the christian undertones that both candidates seem

to resonate with...disavowing "family values" and avowing it at the same time

makes me sigh with a sadness that i know

i will probably carry with me to the grave

but i digress

i want jimmy carter

botero

this is an astounding painting by botero concerning the prisoners in abu ghraib.

the hyperbolic representation of the prisoners' bodies...the gaze of the viewer from

the other side of the bars...

torture as spectacle

that implicates we the viewers within this process.

the blindfolds on their faces not only tells us that they are blind

but the power of vision has been taken as well as physical gesture by

the binding of hands

piled as they are, subjectivity is stripped away

we as the viewers have the priviledge of sight and gesture

we are implicated

botero's powerful critique through the creation of this image

is stunning

in a conversation with deleuze, foucault stated (and i am summarizing at this point)

that we can never pinpoint the exact "place" or "origin" of power; we can only

know its movement by those who wield it

and those who don't.

by replicating trauma...we are guilty of the same crimes.

poem of the week

i am going to make an attempt to blog more consistently...i think i'll start posting the "poem of the week" again...low pressure for me but all in all i think that it helps me work things out...especially in regard to teaching

i also took some great pictures of a botero sculpture while i was in st. louis visiting my significant other that i want to put up...it's a great piece of artwork. i want to work on some potential articles regarding botero's work...scholarly articles are few and far between which is odd because to me his artwork is intellectually rich and provocative.

i really like this atwood poem...i think that i am going to bring it in to my advanced exposition class as a tool to get them thinking about sign systems and (the arbitrariness of) language






You Begin
by Margaret Atwood



You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

what to do

it is a snow day here in bloomington/normal illinois and in many ways i feel as if i

have won the lottery

an extra day

all to myself

but not really

there are many things that i should be doing

for instance

i should be sorting my dirty clothes

and, more importantly,

washing them

i should be working on three comp syntheses so

i can actually move forward toward graduation and

a job (if one really exists for me)

here's the problem as i reflect upon the various liabilities that are attached

to my character

i resist

even when things are going well i always feel that i am

walking under water against a current

slow, exhausting

i don't make descisions and

in this act of not making them they, in fact, are made

for me

by me

i haven't worked on my comps or my laundry because maybe

i don't want to get a ph.d.? or wear clean clothes? no

that's too simple

i can't think of anything else in this world that i do want to do

than to publish and teach at a university

and to also have clean clothes

but also

i can't think of anything else that i don't want to do either

i see myself being able to and not able to get through this program or

to go to the laundromat

i see myself being able to secure and not secure a job or a chore (if and when i finish)

at the same time

my limbs are inert but

my mind races

it's existential (which drives me crazy)

and material

at the same time

reactive and inertly proactive

wanting to speak and yet

having aphasia

maybe i have had too many traumas

or maybe i have

been let down or

abandoned too many times

wanting to live and die

at the same time

so i attempt to make sense of all of this

by writing a blog entry?