watching the pot

Today, as I updated a friend about the banalities that are my current life, she made a throwaway comment about watching the pot.

And it was like this moment of revelation. Yes, I have been watching the pot. Not just watching the pot, but hovering over it, demanding the water to simmer. For months, for more than months. Me--watching over my life, trying to coax the rolling boil. And that clarity has me suddenly evaluating my behavior, planning alterations. How does that happen--a cliche suddenly transformed into the most meaningful idea you've considered in months?

readerly disappointment, or how a book about afghanistan became a book about a dog

This week I finally finished reading a book that I picked up several weeks ago in the Gatwick airport, Rory Stewart's The Places In Between. I had extra pounds that I didn't want to bother changing back into dollars, so a book seemed a reasonable purchase (and provided a good balance for the cookies and chocolate I bought with the rest of my funds). The specific book seemed a good choice because it was about a Scottish journalist walking across Afghanistan in 2002, just after the U.S. invasion. I had just been walking, so reading about walking seemed appropriate. And I want to learn about Afghanistan--it seems essential.

The book made me think about many things--about the value of walking, of seeing "the places in between"; about how unfortunate (and maddening) it is that a man could take this journey, but a woman certainly couldn't; about Afghanistan's ancient history and its present. I liked that Stewart told his story objectively, that he resisted commentary about the people and places he encountered.

At some point in the journey, Stewart acquired a dog--Babur, who he named after a Mogul emperor whose steps he was following. The dog was a nice addition to the story (after all, everyone needs a traveling companion), but at some point the book became about the dog. And this made me grumpy. I like dogs well enough, but I bought a book about Afghanistan, not about Babur the dog. This man walked miles and months across a war-ravaged country, seeing things that very few Westerners will ever see (much less read about) and he ends the book with an elegy for his dog: "I don't imagine Babur would have been very impressed to see my crying now, trying to bring back five weeks walking alone together, with my hand on a grizzled golden head, which is Babur, beside me and alive."

It's not that I think a writer should have to tell me the story I want to hear, or that he has no right to tell his story. Maybe for him the story was about Babur the dog (before walking through Afghanistan, he had walked through Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal--so maybe walking had lost some of its fascination). At the very least, though, somewhere in the blurb and the various exclamations of praise on the book's cover someone should have said, "This is a book about a dog."

honk for peace

This morning, on the way to the farmer's market, there was a woman standing on the corner with a handwritten sign that stated "Honk for Peace." There were many peace-loving drivers who obliged, and each time someone honked, the woman yelled with enthusiasm. It was as if with each honk of the horn, she believed peace was actually being achieved.

I want to be cynical about this woman's efforts, that she's not doing much but generating a lot of noise pollution (increased--to good effect, I thought--by the man who sits by the traffic light and asks for spare change respoding with loud singing, including a moving hare krishna chant). But then, I wonder whether my cynicism is right. I've been talking to my students all semester about how language does do something, that it does effect change. Thursday, we talked about the Rwandan genocide and the newspaper publishers who were tried as war criminals for promoting hate propaganda, that their constant references to the Tsutsi as "cockroaches" led, in part, to the genocide. So there is language altering material reality.

Also, my friend G. is a potter and spends weeks by himself firing work at his place near Hanksville. He told me about how someone asked him whether he'd ever felt an earthquake there. He wanted to say yes, but he stopped, thought for a moment, and replied, "I'm not really sure. I think I have, but I've never told anyone about it." So, the experience was uncertain because he'd never put it into language.

And, of course, there is theory about this. Take Saussure: "Without language thought is a vague uncharted nebula. There are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language."

So, is the woman with her incitement to honking doing anything? Clearly change can begin with protest, with discourse, but how does that change happen? Is it just about the aggregate--that if enough people honk, someone will listen? Or does the act of discourse (the honking, in this case) change something in the world?

A while back, I heard some commentary about the media attention directed towards Cindy Sheehan's Crawford, TX protest, questioning the relevance of the attention. Why? the commentator asked, are we focusing so much time on something so anecdotal. Someone responded that 40 years ago Rosa Parks was just an anecdote.

So, readers, if you have thoughts about how anecdotes and honking become material change (or whether they actually can), let's hear them.

the weekly(ish) miscellany

a note on similes: At last week's reading, Billy Collins poked fun (a la Shakespeare) at the Petrarchan conceit. He noted that what such poems (old and new) assume that what women really want is a good simile. His comment started me thinking about the few men in my past who wrote me poetry. These men were not poets (not even in the unobtrusively poetic Writer's Digest sense), so I never could understand why they chose to wrote me poetry ("I am like a moth to your flame," "I am left in the desert without food or water") instead of making me dinner or some other more pragmatic gesture of love. They must have held to this notion that women are in want of similes.

a note on metaphor: Listening this week to the John Roberts' hearings, I realized how quickly metaphor can go awry. Early in the week, one senator (can't remember who) and Roberts himself talked about how judges were umpires. For the next few days, the umpire metaphor came up again and again (umpires are just calling the game, but everyone knows they have different strike zones; a different umpire=a different game; an umpire is only an intepreter, not a participant). I was half-expecting (and hoping) to see Roberts show up in a striped suit.

a metaphor of my own: Recently, on my semi-daily run I have noticed that the pathwaysd above Memory Grove are being transformed into some soft of Oly-promenade. There are new black lightposts with the SLC 2002 logo emblazoned on them. The new concrete sidewalk has a full-cover logo embedded in the cement. This perpetual focus on the olympics troubles me. SL is becoming one of those old Hollywood startlets who tries to hold onto fading beauty with too-bright hair dye and carefully pencilled eyebrows.

further evidence that I am aging: Yesterday, someone at the literacy action center made a comment that was delightfully funny and insightful and I was going to post it on the blog, but 10 minutes after I heard the comment, I forgot it. Not just the details--but the entire context within which it was offered. Had I remembered it, I am sure you would have enjoyed it. Sorry!

and a bit of blog cross-promotion: This week, I canned fruit!--which you can read all about at Three Tarts. I only bring this up because I am so proud of my domestic efforts.

is that kenny g knocking on my door?

A few weeks ago, I heard a song that I loved by this Canadian singer Feist, so I went to my B&N and bought the CD (a bargain at $10). I was happily listening to the CD over and over when my sister declared to me that it as "a little smooth jazzy." What?! I responded that the beauty of the album was that it was eclectic. A remake of a Bee Gee's tune ("Inside and Out"), a heartwrenching balad, a sweet French tune, a quirky pop song, and on and on. And this woman has an amazing voice. The more I listened to the cd, though, I had to admit that there is a recurrent smooth jazz vibe. Ugh--I hate smooth jazz. I really hate it. But I love this cd. And this has me worried that perhaps my music tastes are deflating, that it's just a matter of time before I have the Breeze programmed on my car radio. But I have justified myself with an internal dialogue about how Feist is beyond genre and that because she has collaborated on a variety of eclectic projects (from folk to rap) that there is a certain amount of irony in her remake of the Bee Gees and her disco-dripping "Leisure Suite." And if there's irony, it's all ok.

For some reason lately, I'm hyper-aware of the fact that I'm aging. I know I'm not old--just aging. My sister (again) was telling me that she was taking some girls from her church to a local rest home to play bingo and sing the residents songs. Even though I know the possibility is decades away, I had this sudden, frightening image of me as an octogenarian having to play bingo and listen to well-meaning teenage girls sing. And even worse--the idea that, in spite of myself, I might enjoy it.

ucky-ovo

I was just commenting on Dr. Write's site and the letters for confirming my post were uckyovo. I think this should be a word, so I propose you all start using it (I added the hyphen, as it seemed necessary). I was talking with my Lang. in Society students about neologists, and how they could (and probably do) generate new words. I can imagine lots of possible meanings and contexts for my new word. It would make a great exclamation of dismay upon cleaning out one's fridge--"Ugh, ucky-ovo." If I change up a few letters and make it "ucky-evoo," I can actually hear Rachael Ray, that perky foodtv gal, using the word when her precious EVOO (which she always reminds the viewer is her acronym for Extra Virgin Olive Oil--does she not understand the purpose of an acronym?) goes rancid.

being alone

Tonight, I intended to go to the Greek Festival with my sister. But she spent the last two days getting into and out of a flash flood in the San Raphael, so (needless to say) she was extremely tired. Remembering that Billy Collins was reading tonight and deciding that poetry was a better solitary activity than eating baklava in a crowd, I headed over to the library.

Until tonight I had never, at least not in memory, read one of Billy Collins' poems. And if it didn't sound so meaningless, I would want to tell you that upon hearing his poems I laughed and cried. Some of his poems were so sardonic about poetry and poets that he reminded me of myself in grad school when we'd go to open mike night at Avogadro's Number and laugh at all of the hopeful poets who were dreaming about unicorns and butterflies. The evening ended with a hilarious recounting of all of the people he's fooled with his invented form, the paradelle (his storytelling was prompted by an audience member who had received some critique when he taught the form in a writing workshop and wanted to know whether or not it was a real form). And he wasn't only funny about poetry--most of what he said and read was playful and witty.

And there were moments and words that were so sad and lovely. I loved most his poem about listening to Johnny Hartman, where he speculates about beauty and foolishness and all the songs written about both. The last bit: We are all so foolish,/ my long bebop solo begins by saying,/ so damn foolish/ we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

I was delighted by the evening. Part of me was wishing that someone had come with me, perhaps so I could talk about what I liked most without having to explain the context, or so that I could have company while waiting to get a book signed, or just for sharing the pleasure of something unexpectedly lovely. But then I realized I didn't particularly care that I was alone. I didn't have to reduce the joy of it by talking lamely afterwards, "that was great" "yeah, he's really funny" or try to avoid the joy reduction by constructing the details of what I really wanted to say.

On the long trip back from London, I idly opened my window shade. I expected sky, clouds, some water. But I saw the Greenland ice cap--the mass of land, the icebergs floating up channels, the unavoidable reality that the ice is melting. I thought for a moment that I should nudge my friend awake, but I decided not to. I decided that I wanted this part of the trip to be just mine. I considered telling her about it later, but even the idea of it I wanted to keep for myself. I stared out the window until the sea opened up and the icebergs began to look like fishing boats.

Sometimes laughter and perfect views are better without anyone to share them.

pop a top

My dad (who spent much of his career as a substance abuse counselor) told me once that it was a good thing I didn't drink because I'd probably be an alcoholic. He doesn't remember telling me this and he feels guilty about it, but I always wonder what he was trying to get at. He wasn't saying this to scare me straight. I was well into adulthood and I'd already established a clear pattern of non-drinking behavior. I mean, I had a party in February and there's still a six-pack in my fridge. And I can't think of any other particularly addictive habits I have. There's the coffee, but even that's pretty restrained.

So I'm not a drinker, but I love drinking songs. It doesn't really matter who the artist is--if the song's about drinking, chances are I'll love it. I've never been able to figure out why I like drinking songs so much. Maybe it's because my dad is right and I have some inner alcoholic, who's hollering amen and waiting for the next round.

You can check out CMT's list of the top 40 drinking songs here I'm not sure "Friends in Low Places" should be #1, although it is the song I most want to sing karaoke.