An experiment

Bear with me for a moment, folks: I've grown bored with myself.

Bored with my writing, which has grown ever more academic and dense. Bored with my thinking, which feels hopelessly unremarkable. Bored with my scholarship, even as it is becoming more relevant and interesting. Boo-frickin'-hoo, right? But here's the thing: nothing worth reading has ever, I assume, come from a bore: "that which is written without labor is read without pleasure," as Johnson wrote, and labor may be a lot of things, but it is never boring.

So this morning I had a thought. I scribbled a couple lines of verse

September's final kiss--
light frost at morning's light,
the delicious scent of autumn's breath
brings promise and renewal.

(go easy on me . . . it was just a few lines of scribbled verse while I was waiting for my coffee to brew. Anyway . . . )

Autumn, for me, is the very essence of beauty and renewal, and here we are on the cusp of October. In honor of October, then, and in an attempt to shake this ridiculous self-indulgent boredom, I have decided to carry out a little experiment: once a day, for the next 31 days, I will post something that has struck me as beautiful, beauty being as good a criteria as any, I suppose.

In doing so, I want to remind myself to "look up and out"--up beyond my immediate frame of reference, out beyond the end of my own nose. In posting every day, I hope to establish a bit of a rhythm, a bit of discipline in my non-academic writing, a scheduled 'break' from the academese that will, in turn, improve my other writing efforts. I also hope that, maybe, those of you who read my musings here will enjoy the fruits of my little experiment . . . and by the end I might have created an interesting little October essay. So, I guess we'll see.

Eight Years

I'm doing what many are doing today: remembering. It comes to me in snapshots now, only eight years later, rather than in a neat and consistent narrative. Maybe that is how I experienced it, through the burdened silence and plethoric fog of disbelief and nascent grief. Snapshots.

We thought there had been a terrible accident when we turned on the news. Kurt had come by for breakfast, as was our routine. We sat in my living room, on the loveseat, eating cereal and trying to understand what we were seeing. Even the news team speculated that some freak accident had caused the plane to smash into the tower. Then, in just a glimpse between the towers, the cameras caught the second plane.


That striking, clear sky seems to have worked its way into our collective memory. Calm, still, unchanging blue.


In moments, I tried to get in touch with my friends who were in NYC: Lucy, my oldest and dearest, who worked for Viacom at the time. David, a doctoral candidate at NYU. Both responded. Lucy wanted information; they were in some sort of lock-down in her building in Midtown Manhattan, and little information was coming in. David was across the river, in a laundromat in Hoboken, describing what he saw. I saved those e-mails for a long time. Eight years and several computers later, I'm not sure where those files are.


With the world's attention on New York and, by this time, D.C., the news out of PA was but a footnote, an aside: "Another plane has gone down in rural Pennsylvania, about 60 miles south of Pittsburgh." That's it. No detail. Selfish, I know, but those were the most chilling 14 words I had yet heard. I called my Dad. No answer. I called my mom. No answer. No answer. God.


I finally reached my mother some time later. She hadn't yet heard.


Later, I talked with my friend, Ryan, who lived about a mile from the crash site. He said the sound of impact woke him that morning.


I went to campus. Classes had not yet been canceled. We gathered in our offices and in the hallway, piecing together what we knew, what we thought we knew. In the Midwest, there was increasing anxiety about the security of Chicago. Would it be targeted, too?


Classes were canceled by the late morning or early afternoon; my very dear friend, Bill, and I walked across campus together to let our students, who were likely already on their way to class, know. I spoke to my students briefly--they were already in their seats. I have absolutely no idea what I said.


I spent the rest of the day in the campus cafeteria, huddled around a TV on a tall, rickety media cart with Bill, Nicky, Alex, Peter, Geoff . . . a few others came and went. Alex was feeling particularly bad after chastising the students in his early class for their lack of attentiveness and apparent apathy; he had not yet heard about the attacks when he did so, but they had.


That evening, Kurt and I went to his folks' house. We were all . . . quiet. And even though Kurt and I were not yet married--were not even yet engaged--it was very important, somehow, to be with family. And that's exactly what they were . . . even then.


What is extraordinary to me is the immediacy of these snapshots, fragmented though they may be, and the banality of them. The logical memory recalls, reflects, but the emotional memory seems to evoke, and in doing so eight years could be eight seconds or eight decades: the heaviness, the quietness, press as fully and steadily as they did in those moments eight years ago, slipping, somehow, into timelessness.

Of Rescue Plans and Five-Paragraph Essays

My pal Bradley brought this piece to my attention this morning, so I thought I'd share. I'd be very interested to hear folks' thoughts. My initial thoughts follow.

A Rescue Plan for College Composition and High-School English by Michael B. Prince, associate professor of English at Boston University, where he directed the College of Arts and Sciences Writing Program from 2000 to 2008.



Image by Jordin Isip for the Chronicle Review

I need to read and consider the piece more carefully, and a bit more coffee wouldn't hurt. Still, my initial response involves bristling at the notion of 'a rescue plan' (in the singular) for 1. High School English, 2. the SAT et al. AND 3. College Composition. Conflating these three very (fortunately) distinct, very (unfortunately) divorced projects seems problematic from the get-go. Yes, HSE tends to teach to the SAT in addition to addressing, broadly and in the best circumstances, rhetorical awareness. Yes, the SAT metric is based on approaches to writing that run counter to the values and strategies about writing that we comp/rhet folk introduce and/or promote and support in our classrooms. I'm not sure, however, about Prince's argument about FYC: there are exciting and emergent approaches happening in FYC across the board: private schools are implementing a rigorous rhetoric-based curriculum, larger schools are working on interdisciplinary collaborative approaches to the curriculum with 'pods' and, at UW, FIGs (an incredible program, by the by). Change is happening, but it is an evolution. Just go to Cs and you can see countless panels that explore innovative, promising, grounded approaches. College Composition needs not be 'rescued.' I'm excited enough about what is going on in FYC that I requested it this Fall after teaching mid-levels and doing WPA work these several years; what I will engage this Fall is a very different approach than it was just five years ago.

I am firmly in the camp that sees the need for rhet/comp courses to be content courses (as opposed to 'skills' courses), and it is a growing, if contentious, movement. The fact remains, however, that "rhetoric is at once everywhere and nowhere": what student learn in FYC et al. rhet/comp courses will be useful and applicable in other endeavors. Critical thinking is a rhetorical strategy . . . and it is not the only rhetorical strategy we teach.

The Palin Rhetoric

So, I admit it: I've been a lazy blogger of late, more often cribbing discussions I've been having on Facebook than posting original content. But hey--I'm claiming intercontextuality and continuing with the trend (truly, though, I just happen to think some discussions are worth of wider circulation).

The most recent lazy blog, then, comes from a story posted by my friend, Bradley, who readers may notice makes a frequent cameo on this blog. Anywho . . .

Today Bradley posted a link to Dahlia Lithwick's piece for Slate, "Lost in Translation: Why Sarah Palin really quit us." Thought provoking and accurate, the piece got me thinking, so here are my 2-cents:

I couldn't agree more with Lithwick--but I think it goes even a little deeper than a lack of rhetorical finesse. I think Palin is trying to invoke a particular vernacular that signals that she is a "real deal, everyday American gal." I have always argued that Bush-43 utilized a very carefully crafted ethos through his bumbling, good ol' boy vernacular--and say what you will, it worked for a long, long while. His manner mitigated the ivy league/working class tensions that exist in the minds of many, and it prompted his opponents to "misunderestimate" him. Ultimately, that ethos failed and came back to bite him, but I have little doubt that it contributed to his initial, broad appeal. Still, when necessary, Bush could deliver a clear message and even a powerful, effective speech (think his 9/11 speech, which is, rhetorically speaking, quite well crafted and effective).

Now, for Palin (and thanks to Bush-43) that card had been played, and it is now a tired routine. That was strike 1. Strike 2: Palin never played that card half as well as former President Bush.

Strike 3, I think, came in the form of her bull-headed unwillingness to think about her audience and unique rhetorical situation. I've known plenty of people with good ideas who simply cannot communicate them; I've known wonderful communicators who were, after the lovely rhetoric, devoid of good ideas. Palin, I think is a unique case. She seems uninterested in communicating, and so we are left wondering IF she has good ideas. It seems that Palin speaks for an audience of ONE (that one, of course, being herself--and therefore, her discourse is deeply encoded, perforated as if awaiting Gestalt intervention). In studying interaction, once can really only observe and assess what the participants treat as real; in Palin's case, even that is unclear.

Ultimately, she reminds me of the student--and anyone who teaches writing and rhetoric at an intermediate or advanced level knows this student-- who writes in a jumbled, garbled, rambling, ‘noisy’ style completely devoid of internal logic and who seems insulted, affronted that you, as the instructor, don’t ‘get’ his or her genius. It is a challenge to explain just where the writing goes wrong, and a greater challenge to convince the student that there is a problem, one that he or she can overcome.

Ultimately, both parties can end up repeating themselves with growing frustration as they ride this rhetorical Ferris wheel, an unsalvageable situation until at least one party is willing and able to shift into critical engagement mode and slow the ride. In the case of Sarah Palin, neither party seems willing—and she seems particularly resistant, electing instead to yell “faster, faster!”

I think her resignation is a direct result of this crazy ride. Her motivation may truly be noble, but who could tell? And that, I think, is truly unfortunate.

Big Does Not Equal Ubiquitous

Just this morning, a friend drew my attention to yesterday's New York Times Op/Ed by Paul Krugman, "The Big Hate," and it got me thinking . . .

While Krugman's point is well taken, I still think it is a dire mistake to conflate the positions of the loudest, most violent and even sociopathic members of our society with a broader ideology and political organization. The logic doesn't hold: these token 'members' of a group are outliers, and they do not necessarily represent the views or actions of the wider, inherently diverse constituency to which they claim membership . . . and that holds true for any extreme and misguided manifestation (or bastardization) of a political, social, or philosophical position.

With the increasingly violent and tragic events of the past month--slain doctors and Army recruiters, shrill 'celebrity' commentators, horrifying and ugly physical reminders of diseased, seething, and still-extant hatred played out in the halls of a national memorial and monument--attention must be paid to the relationship between language, thought, and action (a matter explicitly rhetorical).

That said, to my mind one of the biggest threats to civic discourse is the all-too-common practice of fallacy that leads even the most well-intentioned among us to permit a small yet terrible number of self-sponsored individuals to represent the attitudes and behaviors of a larger cohort. Seductive though it may be to hold these specimens up as examples of the thoughts and behaviors one, personally, finds objectionable or even reprehensible as a means to oppose and critique, the practice compromises temperance and undermines reason, progress, and responsible engagement.

(Re)Imagining a Common Ground

I have a very difficult time even talking about what has become such a divisive, sedimented 'abortion trope' in our civic discourse, and I have grown weary of the equally emotional, vehement opposition (to put it politely) and even disdain that I encounter--have come to expect-- when I express my opposition to elective abortion. I have in recent years, therefore, opted not to engage the discourse.

That said, Ross Douthat's 8 June 2009 New York Times column, "Not All Abortions are Equal," struck me as worthy of consideration, especially this passage:

"But the law is a not a philosophy seminar. It’s the place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense. And it can take account of tragic situations without universalizing their lessons.

Indeed, the argument that some abortions take place in particularly awful, particularly understandable circumstances is not a case against regulating abortion. It’s the beginning of precisely the kind of reasonable distinction-making that would produce a saner, stricter legal regime."

Perhaps, by re-imagining the common ground, the ability to engage thoughtful, respectful, worthwhile discussion about abortion is actually possible. With any luck, deliberative and responsible discussion will mitigate the violence--both in the language and in the unthinkable acts of physical violence we've seen in recent weeks.

"Unconditional Love"

After all that seriousness, a little hockey levity.

This is what happens when a Pennsylvania Girl Marries a Michigan boy.

This is my mother-in-law, Suzanne, my father-in-law, Bob, and my kids, Anya and Gideon, ready for Game 5.

Cheers!