I'm (bashfully) back

Introductions are always difficult. Whether it's being introduced to a new acquaintance--definitely scary...it feels like selling yourself as a cool, fun, multicultural and eco-friendly person in the time usually devoted to appreciating industrial smokestacks...in other words, not fun.

Actually introducing people TO each other though, is possibly even worse. I always start out with such good intentions. Person A is a wonderfully lovely person. So is Person B. But to actually make them comfortable enough with each other to realize this simple fact is...difficult. Added to that, my terrible memory makes me likely to introduce people to each other multiple times. Yes, as in like three or four times. It's terrible. It's awkward. What can I say? Good intentions...how often you turn awry. And speaking of awkward...does english have any good synonyms? Awkward is such an overused word...but with such an essential meaning. Hmmm. Any words to be used in lieu of?

Introductions to papers are also trying--how to simplify something that took months of research into just a few sentences? And introductions to speeches--those are beyond awful...and in fact, might be classified in the So Far Beyond Awful, We Begin To Call It Really Far Beyond Awful territory.

Anyway, the point of that awkwardly long introduction is just to say...I'm not really sure how to start this blog post. Should I reintroduce myself after this long sabbatical with a peppy "Hey y'all!" That opening, of course, assumes that there is enough readers to require a "y'all."

Perhaps that opening is overly-ambitious.

Let's try again. "Long time no see!" Naw...so obvious as to be not really worth saying. And really, it's sort of insulting the audience's intelligence.

"It's good to be back." Is it? That remains to be seen...

How about this: "Well folk(s), I wasn't really sure whether this blog would continue or not, but it looks like it will..." Exciting, right? And yet, that's really what I want to say. I've spent far too much time chiding my friends to keep up with their blogs, not to feel slightly ashamed for not doing more with this one....so thus is this post born.

The basic structure will be thusly based on this simple idea. Every week, I'll try to read at least one book not required by school. Then, I'll review it. Hopefully, this will benefit both my reading list, and the frequency of bloggings.

The idea was lifted from Nina Sankovitch, who read a book a day for a year, and posted her thoughts on her blog. An article about her can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/nyregion/12towns.html

The first review will come soon, *yawn*

G'night.

A rather delicious parody of Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech:

Green Eggs & Hamlet

I ask to be, or not to be
That is the question I ask of me.
This sullied life, it makes me shudder
My uncle’s married dear, sweet mother.
Would I, could I take my life
Could I, should I end this strife?
Should I jump out of a plane
Or throw myself before a train?
Should I from a cliff just leap
Could I put myself to sleep?
Shoot myself or take some poison
Maybe try self-immolation?
To shuffle off this mortal coil
' Could stab myself with fencing foil.
Slash my wrists while in the bath
Would it end my angst and wrath?
To sleep, to dream, now there’s the rub --
Could drop a toaster in my tub.
Would all be glad if I were dead
Could I, perhaps, kill them instead?
This thought takes some consideration

For I’m the king of procrastination.

The Contents of a Dead Man's Pockets

Hello again! My life is rather unexciting and so--yet again--this post will be a republishing of some of my writing.

A few weeks ago, my literature class read the short story "Contents of a Dead Man's Pockets." In this story, Tom--the main character--has a rather important paper blow off of his desk and out the window...and onto the ledge of a rather tall New York City apartment building. He decides to go after it, in the process realizing that if he should fall, his entire life will be summed up by the contents of his pockets.

In response, my teacher asked that we write an essay summarizing what strangers would be able to deduce about us based solely on the contents of our pockets--or handbag, purse, etc. Because of the reasons given below, I chose not to describe my non-existent pocket clutter, opting rather to describe my bookcase.

(As a child I was carefully conditioned NEVER to leave things in my pockets--whatever I absentmindedly forgot would get washed along with my jeans, its contents disappearing like so many socks...into the mysterious washing machine void. Therefore, since my pockets would be singularly boring [tissue, tissue, moose, tissue--MOOSE!?! jk...no such luck] I'll discuss the contents of my bookcase.)

In a small, inconsequential corner of my room, wedged between two built-in closets and dimly illuminated by an overrated window, sits my beloved bookcase. It is small, and its compact shelves are colored a grimy white. Like layers of strata in rock or rings in a tree, it traces and records my growth as a person.

On the very top sits a queer, brightly-tinted mummy pencil-case. This tin is filled with writing instruments from across the globe: for years I've made it a habit to collect pens and pencils from every country I've visited. A corn starch pen from Montreal; a Finnish pen fashioned of blue plastic, with a graceful cruise ship slowly gliding up and down--all mementoes from my travels.

Next to the pencil-case is a bound collection of Tolkien, illustrated by the master himself. From this, any post-humus investigator would probably guess that I adore Middle-earth...and from the discounted price tag pasted on the bottom, that I enjoy a good bargain. Beside this, is an ancient copy of The Merchant of Venice. It was given to me by my literary maternal grandmother, a gift that hermother had given her. My great-grandmother's signature still graces the title page, indicating to the observant intruder that the love of books runs in my blood. To further confirm that theory, the investigator could check the title pages of several of the books gracing my shelves. Birthday gifts, they are all signed "with love from Grandma".

Scattered amidst all of the other books, one could find several highlighted and scribbled-in script books, evidence of the multiple high school drama productions that I've participated in or directed.

Then, the curious investigator peers downwards, to the left side of the second shelf from the top. There is my treasure chest--the receptacle of my authorly aspirations: my notebooks. Contained within are searching questions, plots, story summaries, character sketches, long rambling thoughts on made-up cultures and a few infantile attempts at actual story writing.

I wonder what fleeting glimpse, what incomplete picture posterity would form of me from these fragments? A scribbling, lopsided sort of literary mouse? Or would they wonder what kind of person I would have become? Or merely shove my dilapidated books into a box marked "Yard Sale", to be sorted through and guessed at by hordes of indifferent shoppers.

Ping: The Story of a Desperate Duck

A fun little essay that I wrote for a lit class.

In our modern day of MTV, sex-saturated advertising, and profanity-laden sitcoms, most parents expect to monitor their child’s television watching. What they do not expect, however, is to monitor their preschooler’s bedtime stories. After all, books—especially children’s books—are more or less safe, right? Not so fast. Just because of their respected “literary” medium, parents must not neglect to examine themessage of their child’s “harmless” storybooks.

Let us examine Marjorie Flack’s classic children’s tale The Story About Ping. Written in 1933, this classic story has been read to generations. The message? Less than stellar.

This excruciating tale of corporal punishment and injustice opens on a cozy, “wise-eyed” boat floating placidly on the calm Yangtze River. On this boat lives Ping, along with his mother and father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins. Every morning the ducks disembark from the wise-eyed boat to forage for food, and every evening the Master of the boat calls them back. However, every evening the Master indiscriminately whacks the last duck to board the wise-eyed boat. Is that justice? What are our children implicitly learning—to avoid being late?

One evening, through no fault of his own, Ping arrives late. Deciding to forgo the unfair punishment, he chooses rather to spend the night in a cozy bed of reeds. So far, so good. As the following day dawns, Ping yawns, stretches, and looks about for the wise-eyed boat—she’s nowhere in sight! Undeterred, our intrepid hero sets out in search of his family. A rather unpleasant day follows. Ping is—in agonizingly vivid language—captured and almost eaten. He sits miserably in an overturned basket, gazing through the bars (bars which, I may dare to add, unmistakably hint at a prison cell—coincidence? I think not!) contemplating his fate. As the last, dying rays of the setting sun sink into the Yangtze, signaling Ping’s own imminent death (and for those who don’t believe that ducks can wax eloquent, skim Ping’s pathetically helpless monologue on pages 24 and 25), one of his captors has a change of heart, and tosses our hero back into the welcoming Yangtze.

“Finally!” the reader cheers, “This morbid book is almost finished! Everything will turn out alright in the end after all.”

But not so—no! Ms. Flack agonizingly tortures her unsuspecting readers, having Ping race desperately towards the wise-eyed boat….only to receive a whack square on his helpless duck rump. An entire day of dodging danger, only to be welcomed home with a solid wallop! But Ping is back at home with his mother and father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins, so all’s well that ends well—right? Hardly.

What sort of twisted moral is Ms. Flack providing to her young readers? That one must blend into the crowd, become inconspicuous to escape unjust punishment? Or merely that the world, as a whole, is unjust, and living a profoundly painful experience. That—as Westley says in William Goldman’s masterpiece, The Princess Bride—“Life is Pain, Highness. Anyone saying differently is trying to sell something.” Must she so strenuously pound this fact into her innocent readers’ heads? Or is her point merely that, since life is nasty, brutish and short anyhow, seek what comfort you can amidst your cozy family circle?

To be sure, Ms. Flack’s worldview is just as disturbing and unbalanced as Disney’s sugar-coated motto, “Be whatever you want to be—just follow your heart.” And, in all justice, as part of the greater social context, Ms. Flack’s message becomes still more excusable; after all, 1933—the year of its publishing—was one of the worst years of the Great Depression. Life at that time certainly did seem unjust, and if you wanted to survive you had to rely on your close-knit community. However, though Ms. Flack’s worldview is understandable—even excusable—there is no need for another generation of innocent children to be influenced by her message. There is no need for another generation to be exposed to this excruciating “classic”, filled with agonizingly near-death experiences and haphazard, arbitrary punishment. Spare yourself the pain. Spare your children the scarring. Please…just say no.

Religion in discussion of "morality"

Hello to whatever brave and intrepid souls are still reading this! Forgive my long silence...anywho, since I haven't had the inspiration to write anything new, I thought that I'd post a long-winded post that I wrote previously for my Psych class. All of the students were presented with a moral dilemma and had to decide what the most appropriate course of action would be. Tempers soon began rising, and people started debating whether or not other people should drag their "privately-held beliefs"--ie, religion--into a "public question of morality". I mean, seriously, what do the two have in common? =) So below are my thoughts on the question. Comment if you want with your own thoughts on this area. The rest of the text was lifted verbatim.

I noticed that we've started discussing this fascinating area within the larger argument on our tough MORAL DILEMMA. How about we post thoughts up here to keep the board a bit more organized and argument-specific?

Alright, now for my thoughts on this area. As humans we all have some conception of right and wrong (however, the specific WHERE and HOW differs considerably depending on your worldview--regardless, that concept is there). And further, as human beings constantly interacting with each other and with ideas (we don't, after all, exist in a vacuum) we all get this concept of acceptable versus unacceptable behaviors from SOMEPLACE. Christians and people from other religious backgrounds receive their code of conduct from their God and religious writings and traditions. Atheist/agnostic/not-so-very-religiously-affiliated-people (what's the correct vocab, anyone?) from a more loosely-defined conglomeration of what "feels right to me" (note: these are not stylized quotation marks for the sake of quotation marks--though they are a hard-working and often under-appreciated bit of grammar--but an actual quote) or to the more philosophically-minded, whatever causes the most good to the greatest amount of people without harming anyone. (that last clause is terrifically important--otherwise you'd have non-suspecting hospital visitors being attacked all over the place and getting their organs donated to five or six needy people who would "benefit" much more from the organs than the single hospital visitor--pst, not to knock organ donation. It's a truly wonderful thing and I think we should all do it, again, just for the sake of examples.) And we are all innately impacted by our upbringing--either by accepting and assimilating it, or consciously rejecting it.

That said, we all argue from our worldviews and collection of beliefs. For Christians (and other religiously affiliated people, etc.) this just happens to be on the basis of their religious beliefs. This is really quite logical--if your religious beliefs are what you GET your moral beliefs FROM, it only makes sense that THAT is one of the main measurements in determining the morality or immorality of a certain course of action. Therefore, it is equally logical that in debates religiously-based reasoning will form a significant argument either in favor of or against a certain idea.

Now of course it must be noted that arguments based COMPLETELY in a particular belief system, whatever that may be: Christian, Buddhist, Jainist, raging atheist, etc., will not be terribly convincing to any outsiders. The logic of such an argument won't be particularly convincing to someone who doesn't ascribe to the same beliefs as the one presenting the argument. If you're trying to convince your Hindu neighbor that he should be more considerate of other people's sleep and not blare Bach's 19th symphony at 3 in the morning, all of the Torah in the world won't change his mind. So make sure to have audience-specific arguments.

Recently Americans have come up with this terrific idea called "tolerance". Perhaps originally intended to mean, "let's all respect each other as people, even if we disagree personally on certain issues", it has now come to mean "you have to unflinchingly accept my ideas or else you're biased against my race/gender/ethnicity/age/income bracket/religious affiliation/variety of preferred dog breed/favorite band, etc."--your fertile imaginations can fill in the blank. So, the playing field is sort of interesting for Christians who are on the one hand encouraged to share their beliefs, but at the same time, forbidden from sharing the specific motivation for WHY they hold such and such a belief at the risk of being labeled intolerant. Oh the irony. (irony alert: the next few sentences are rabid with it =) Why does no one harp on secular humanists for subjecting us all to their agonizingly biased belief system? Or those annoying existentialists--why does their hot air constantly infiltrate our media interviews and how can we stop them? So today's society expects us to be perfectly "tolerant" of all ideas save Christianity. Nice. Maybe we should move the definition of tolerance back towards its original definition?

Feel free to comment with your own perspectives on this issue (but please, no one use the tired old "separation of church and state"!). And let's be cordial to each other--just because you differ with someone belief-wise, that's really no reason to tear into their person. Like Ghandi said once (paraphrased--I can't remember the exact quote), if you criticize someone else's beliefs, then it sure doesn't make them look any better...but then again, it doesn't make your own beliefs look particularly appealing either.

Inspiration

A whisper trickles through my mind,

I am still.

I try to calm other thoughts and encourage this one to develop further,

It obeys me.

I start dictating--no--taking dictation,

It flaunts me.

It must have changed frequencies, I flip through,

It defeats me.

I bungle through the rest of it

Alas, I'm not as accomplished as she.

The two sections are an awkward fit,

Like a forced puzzle.

The former flowed quickly,

Like a mountain stream in Spring.

The latter crept sluggishly,

Irked at movement.

Yet they fit

However awkwardly,

And they stay that way.

Ode to Entropy

With every sunrise my house gets dustier

The grass gets longer

The piles of laundry rise

I gasp for air

Where's the pause button on life?

Unattempted brainchilds and tasks not quite completed

Clutter my to-do list

Just like the scores of unwashed dishes stacked in my sink

Patiently expressing their disapproval

Imbuing the air with a certain noxious

Perfume that declares

Oversleeper!

Unmotivated!

Shiftless!

Eccentric!

Pathetic!

Human.

Like so many steps--but not on the Yellow Brick Road

Or polite bill collectors

Paying their respects

One by One

And lodging a complaint--legitimate

But unwelcome

My apple oxidizes

My unclaimed dinner molds, languishing, in my uncleaned refrigerator

My body deteriorates,

Minute by minute my cells dizzyingly acquire mutations.