Paper Fruit

Instead of just posting random links and insane rambling, this is just going to be a sort of state of the union-ish update.

1. I finished the semester having read all the Jane Austen catalogue except for the last few chapters of Persuasion (I was unpersuaded to finish it) and most of Sanditon. Also I finished teaching two great classes full of students who I already miss. It was a good semester overall, considering I managed to kick butt at ancient Greek, read a ton of Austen, and finish a personal writing project that I’ve been working on for a long time. 

2. I went down for a week to visit my and John’s family and cleaned out my closet down there. It felt good. Now I basically have family heirlooms that I don’t have space for right now (dishes, mostly), a one-person hammock that you have to bolt into the ceiling, my yearbooks, my diaries from middle school, and all my baby stuff. Other than that I am moved out. I also had some revelations as regards my personal life which have been productive, and it has inspired me to try to work on some of the personality traits I am less proud of. 

3. I have started the summer semester. I got completely and utterly overwhelmed within two weeks with the course of study/teaching I had set up for myself and actually had a bit of a breakdown yesterday. I emailed my professor and she kindly reduced my workload. That should be helpful. I am still going to have to work all day every day, but things are looking better. I have a lot of work instead of an impossible amount of work now, and on the upside my class this semester is awesome. They are reading and are either actually into the Iliad right now or they are excellent actors.

4. I have been very social of late, owing to the fact that I am going to be moving soon, and my dear friend Raechel is going out of town for about two months. This is contrary to every instinct I possess but I have been enjoying it for the most part. That said I am looking forward to going into my standard hibernation mode again.

Other than that, the usual– role playing, hanging with my two bad cats, and thinking about my next writing project. I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do next but I would be writing about a location I know nothing about, so research will be challenging!

Today I received an incredibly bigoted email from a family member. It contained a re-hash of the whole Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed controversy that happened in 2005, and an incredibly racist, inappropriate email (warning: do not read if you are both easily offended and even mildly not-racist toward Muslims) that a professor named Indrek Wichman composed in response to a Muslim student protest at his university. The group had apparently committed sinister terrorist acts such as serving cocoa at a meetup and claiming that the cartoons constituted hate speech. Professor Wichman’s electronic letter contains many classy sentiments toward Muslims that you can read in the article, but the worst part is that this man is being used now as part of a whole crusade (yes, I am using that word intentionally) against so-called “political correctness,” an irritating bit of neo-con terminology that should have, along with endearing terms like “feminazi,” fallen out of common usage with the close of the 90s.

This should stir up an overwhelming “wtf?!” in the minds of all rational people. Apparently, according to the email sent to me this morning we are “in a war” and “this political correctness crap is killing us.” Excuse me? Apparently in the minds of my family-members and I assume whatever batshit-crazy conservative penned the original email “not being an asshole” and “having the decency and intelligence to not paint an entire group as being identical to their most vicious, vocal minority” is akin to “political correctness.” Whatever “political correctness” is. So OK.

I wrote a response regarding the wisdom of using this delightful piece of bile as a rallying point for anti-Muslim sentiment and how the ethics behind championing this man as some sort of hero are spurious at best. It’s long. I think it’s good. It’s sitting in my drafts box on my Hotmail account.

Why? Because I am a coward. 

I am afraid of controversy. It’s the same part of my personality that makes me shy away from confrontations about veganism, politics, animal rights, etc. I hate “stirring the pot” as my mother would say, especially with close friends and family members. I can only recall one instance where I did so, and I kind of regret it even though it ended up being pretty OK.

Usually I justify my cowardice by saying “I’m being diplomatic” or repeating to myself that “It’s not worth it, you won’t change anyone’s mind.” But I can’t help but question that. I am a person who (at least this summer) goes into a classroom every damn day and tells people stuff they don’t like to hear. To wit: I used the words “penetrator” and “penetrated” several times in class much to my students’ evident dismay. So why am I afraid to stand up to my family (and, if I was truly daring, the entire email forward list)?

I don’t usually think of myself as someone who is afraid to speak her mind. But I guess I am. Maybe it’s the family thing– I have a vexed relationship with my family in that we differ wildly in our perception of the world, and typically we just agree to disagree. This leads more often than not to great silences on both our parts, but it works. Years ago I asked to be taken off the list for conservative email forwards and they’ve been pretty respectful of that. But this, today, was kind of a violation of that agreement– and I’m not sure what to do. Fire a warning shot over their bow by requesting again to not be sent crappy emails? Ignore it? Declare open warfare by sending my response?

I think my family would find it inappropriate of me if I were to respond to the entire listserve with my thoughts. I don’t think they would read my response if I sent it just to them. Or, if they did, it would just piss them off. 

Argh. This is dumb. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m leaning toward just reiterating that I do not wish to receive such emails from them in the future. It seems easiest. But I’m not sure if it’s the most honest way of handling the situation. 

For anyone curious about reading my response to the championing of Professor Bigot as a spokesperson for “values” in the “war against political correctness it’s behind the cut:

(more…)

Right? Just, you know, celebrating the cultural quirks and linguistic nuances of racial minorities by using their unique heritage to create a distinctive cast of characters? 

The Princess and The Frog

I have long resolved to post about my favorite blogs around the internet, but I had to post this today ahead of the rest: You Can’t Please Everyone is a feature on a blog where the author collects and posts one-star Amazon reviews of classic movies, literature, and music. Some of them are absolutely amazing, others are just sad. Perhaps my favorite is the following, regarding Joseph Heller’s Catch-22:

“There are many myths that persist in modern life. One myth is that war is “meaningless”, “useless” or “insane.” Another myth is that Catch-22 is a good book.”

Another, vaguely prophetic and threatening review of the same:

“If Harry Potter is, as people claim it to be, one of the best books of all time, then this is its antithesis. Gather round muggles and read this review, or else the person that you’ve been dating will leave you for that professional football player and your parents and/or children will disown you and you’ll be forced to live in the basement with that balding, 43 year old starwars geek.”

Wait, what? I mean, I’m not a fan of Catch-22 (yes, I know, but not for any kind of weirdly conservative reason, I’m just a low person), but seriously? What is this person even talking about? Even so, it’s one of the more intelligent specimens. Most fall into the depressing category, such as this amazing review of 1984:

“i give this book one star i had to read it for class and i know it’s suposed to be a “classic” but god itis awful. first of all its NOTHING like the future is probly going to turn out. second of all every one says the aurthor george orwell is so trippy and wierd but i think he’s just trying to cover up for the fact that HE CAN’T WRITE. please george do us all a faver and stop writing books.” (emphasis mine)

Enjoy! But if you’re going to cruise Amazon.com you would better spend your time checking out The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart which is up for pre-order. Buy it!

A few days ago I was in a place of rage regarding my veganism, but I’m much more serene about being a vegan who wants to live in the world as a normal person. I’ve realized what was making me so wrathful was the place I’ve put myself in over the years around non-vegans worrying that if I was honest around them they would stop liking me. Maybe that’s the case but I don’t really care anymore. I realize now that for my own peace of mind I need to work on asserting myself more regarding my ethical stance when it comes to my boundaries, and so I’m going to try to do that. And if that loses me some friends so be it because this is who I am.

For example, I have two meat-eating friends that I hang out with pretty regularly at either my house or my friend Raechel’s house. Raechel is also vegan and while she allows non-vegan food in her house she requests that her cookware remain vegan, which is obviously completely reasonable because it is hers. One of these two friends, having some dietary restrictions of his own, is sympathetic to her rule of vegan cookware and my rule of no non-vegan stuff in my house. The other is pretty disrespectful of our choices, lifestyle, ethics, and rules. I say “pretty” and not “entirely” because while he will abide by the rules, he makes a fucking scene about it every time. I tolerate this because he is a very lovable person otherwise, but when I invited him to my house a few weeks ago I asked a friend to remind him of the vegan rule beause I was too afraid to do it myself.

That place of meekness, I realize, will cause me to inherit nothing but anger, and I need to fight my own battles. I think my irritation with being an “Olive Branch Vegan” was not with  being diplomatic, because I really actually enjoy talking to people about veganism in certain contexts and being the vegan people feel comfortable coming to with questions, and all that. My frustration was borne of subverting my passion regarding animal rights and my own lifestyle in order to avoid any awkwardness that comes of me taking this moral stance. The awkwardness is unavoidable, I now realize. And I need to be OK with that.

I’ve had some really rotten experiences over the years as a vegan, as I think most vegans have: some from my family, who have thankfully mellowed in their aversion to my chocies; some from colleagues, who have been complete buttholes to me; some from friends who have hurt my feelings inadvertently (thankfully this last group is very small). I am actually incredibly lucky to have such a sturdy support structure  and good friends. My rage wasn’t about them, it was about me, and my own decisions that have led me to what I perceive as a path of moral invisibility. I’ve worked out a lot of that rage and feel a lot better about it now.

Intersections in research are always fascinating, and I was lucky that when I was finding out how to make my own kombucha I found out about another awesome fermented beverage called kvass, which I was subsequently able to use as a nice piece of atmospheric detail in the novel I’m working on. Woo! A scintillating threeway to be sure. Since then I’ve wanted to make my own kvass but the recipes I found seemed to differ wildly and I was afraid of poisoning myself if I made a wrong step. Recently, however, I’ve obtained a copy of a not-written-by-some-possibly-insane-person-on-the-internet recipe for kvass and plan on starting my first batch this weekend, as I am now officially on spring break and can attend to any sort of evil that might ensue in my kitchen during the fermenting process.

Spring break! Woo!

My cohort in skulduggery Jesse just (and when I say just I mean four or five days ago) posted a nice blurb on the strange and stupid phenomenon of using “gay” as an adjective to describe things other than a person who is a homosexual. I know this is Old News but he and I have noticed it cropping up again after what I feel like was a few years of dormancy. Why? Why, people? It’s icky all around, and I’ve thought so no matter how many people assert to me such things as “well, “idiot” used to be a derogatory term for the mentally handicapped and now that’s OK” or “all the gay people I know say that, so it’s OK.” 

I first noticed it in college (no one ever, ever said it at my high school) and that was back in 2000. So as much as I can’t believe I’m posting about something so been there, done that, I can’t believe I still have to consider the topic. So there, world.

I really wish Michael Phelps would stand up for himself regarding this whole ridiculous freak-out over the stupid picture of him (allegedly) smoking pot. It’s the perfect opportunity for someone famous and respected to speak up about the culture of fear built up around marijuana usage in America. Instead we get the ultimate back-pedal and if he ever competes again and loses, I’m sure everyone will  blame the weed.

I really love Edward Gorey’s work, and was thinking about his stuff today and how lucky we are that he was so marvelously prolific. Here’s one of my favorites of his, The Disrespectful Summons, which to me has always been a metaphor for creativity, although I’m sure it’s just supposed to be an awesome story about the Devil.

The Disrespectful Summons

Edward Gorey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night John and I watched a bunch of Troy. We will finish it, butJohn’s assessment that the film is “a hate crime against intelligence” is woefully accurate. I don’t understand what on earth anyone was thinking when that movie was made. With one slight exception Troy is uniformly horrible: the scene where the Trojans attack the Greek fleet with what appear to be flaming tumbleweeds is pretty alright.

I recently got into a discussion with Jesse on his blog about whether adaptations should be critiqued on their obedience to their source text, and while I do tend to defend loose adaptations, they at least have to be good in their own right. I like the Iliad quite a bit, and I have read it enough to know that it would make an awful movie if someone were to simply film it unaltered. It’s too disjointed as a whole, given its nature, and so I would absolutley support a liberal adaptation of the events. But not Troy. No. Menelaus is not killed by Hector, nor is Big Ajax killed by Hector for that matter, and Achilles is not smarter than all the Greeks because he is an atheist. Also: Boromir as Odysseus? What? Why can’t they make a good Greek epic anymore? I have little hope for the new Clash of the Titans now that Sam Raimi isn’t directing and Bruce Campbell isn’t playing Zeus.

In other news, I finished Sense and Sensibility and I think I’ll most likely writing my paper on it. I’ve begun Northanger Abbey and it’s really weird, I don’t feel like I’m reading Jane Austen. I think I’m going to try to find the time to type up an idea for a short story I’m fuddling with in my brain.

In an  hour or so I’m meeting a colleague for lunch and then getting a haircut and then hopefully getting in a nap before I get up with some friends this evening. I really need an extra snooze, I’m tired this week.