"Sent from Down Below"? Rhetorical Constructions of Mother and Daughter-In-Law Relationships

Not too long after I was married, I ran into a colleague in the copy room who asked me point black: "Do you get along with your mother in law?" I replied that I did, to which she shot back, "I don't", and proceeded to catalog several woes bestowed upon her by her husband's mother in the twenty plus years they had been married. The narrative ended with her telling me that she and her mother in law had not spoken in five years. Unsure of what to do with this information, I tucked it away in my memory bank with the rest of the mother-in-law-hell stories I've heard--some fictional, some real.

In popular culture, the connotation of the word "mother-in-law" is overwhelmingly negative. Google the phrase and instantly, before you've even finished typing it, the search engine will let you know you can find information from the following categories: "mother-in-law hell", "mother-in-law problems", and "mother-in-law quotes (none of which, I can assure you, are flattering)". There are forums endearingly titled, for example, "I Hate My Mother-in-Law," which has the chuckle worthy description: "Join 1611 friendly (my italics) people sharing 1519 true stories in the I Hate My Mother In Law group."
One of the most damning rhetorical constructions of the mother-in-law is, of course, Ernie K. Doe's song, simply titled "Mother-In-Law," in which an anguished son-in-law, sounding on the verge of tears, chronicles the overbearing tactics his mother-in-law uses to demean him:

Satan should be her name
To me they're bout the same
Every time I open my mouth
She steps in, tries to put me out
How could she stoop so low



Daughters-in-law, however, are less overtly the target of public animosity on the web and in the world of popular music: I found no actual forums designed to give mothers-in-law a place to vent their venom against their sons'/daughters' wives. Still, there are many pages of the "Dear Abby" sort where mothers-in-law contribute questions and get advice for "dealing with" difficult daughters-in-law.When you think about it, even basic home architecture seems to poke fun at the mother-in-law with the classic "mother-in-law" house: such "houses" are basically puny little detached huts that house guests or visiting family, and the cultural implication, I suppose, is that mothers-in-law should at all costs be kept at arm's length should they dare to breach the daughter in law's territory.Regardless, the simmering conflicts, presented though pop culture and online, centering on the mother-in-law as a trope do not seem in danger of relenting any time soon.For that to happen, there would need to be some kind of stasis possible, and for now, the cultural portrayal of mothers-in-law seems perpetually stuck in adhominem territory, which is always a bad thing for argumentation, no matter how entertaining the results may be.

Lamar of days past II

If you had the mental fortitude to make it through the first blog post about Lamar's 85-86 catalog and followed the link here on purpose, congratulations! You are in for a treat. This post will illustrate a little more of what was presented as normal campus life, as well as a long abandoned late registration policy that you might find intriguing. I made these discussions two separate links because, let's face it--there's only so much 80s you can handle in one blog post.

In this next candid shot, we see dueling 80s hairdos--the dental student's styled helmet head vs. the patient's Farrah hair--who will win?



Along with the totally "unstaged" shots of two students together doing academic-type things, we also have several of just one lone student reading, because, as we know, college students read all the damn time, especially when they don't know they're being photographed.

This next picture has a kind of eerie stalker feel to it--you can almost hear the heavy breathing. This poor young woman in her 80s skort and jellies shoes has no idea she's being photographed while she studiously reads up for her Shakespeare class. And again, we're left wondering why this girl is the sole student on campus--is this catalog supposed to be set in a post-apocalyptic era?













Look out, Steffi Graff! This up and coming Vidorian is gonna smoke you at Wimbledon! The young woman below seems to be playing tennis all by herself, and also seems befuddled by just what the racket is for, and the ball for that matter, but by God she's sure she's jammin' in those tennis shorts and t-shirt.














Here we have a young man with windblown hair (Flock of Seagulls fan, perhaps) who is pretending to be mildly pensive about ECONOMICS, Principles of Accounting, and something else--perhaps the text from his Afro-American music course, where the class is studying iambic tetrameter in the lyrics of Schoolly D?














Here is an interesting study--I call it "Lady with Beaker"--this young woman made sure to tease and aquanet the bejeesus out of that mane before she made it to campus where she is, as we can see here, in the process of inventing a hairspray with even more hold.














In perusing the actual text of the catalog, I came across a policy that made me almost cry--from laughter. When you look at the academic calendar below, you will notice that classes begin on August 29th, and late registration ends on August 30th.



However, I do suspect that back in '85, this rule was followed much more stringently than it is now, when "late registration" actually seems to extend about two weeks into the semester.

Overall, what I learned from writing all of this is that college catalogs can function as a kind of unintentional time capsule--they are relics that can tell us quite a bit about a region's attitudes toward everything: education, clothes, hair, and they can also make us realize why the Humane Society is a good thing.

Lamar of days past...

A week ago, I was looking through old Lamar catalogs, trying to get a sense of what the advanced English courses looked like in the 70s and 80s. My original goal was to chart the development of the program, but then I got sidetracked by the utter awesomeness that is the Lamar General Catalog: 1985-1986. Everything you loved or hated about the 80s is here, and no, I have not cleverly retouched any photos to make them even more 80s-ish—you truly can’t make this stuff up. Please, join me as we take a visual tour, cover to cover, through what I now believe to be Lamar’s heyday as an institution of higher learning.



This cover tells us a lot--are these two students hiding from something? The fashion police, maybe? Fortunately, they both have the appropriate mid 80s coifs--she has some sort of graduated mullet, and he looks like he's rocking the man-perm. But honestly, wouldn't a college catalog be more appealing to prospective students if it was made to look as though there were more than two students on campus?

In essence, I would say the tone of this book goes something like this: Hey, students! It’s 1985! Reagan is President! Woo hoo! Forget Southeast Texas’s horrendously dismal economy—come to Lamar, where you can major in courses with ridiculous and politically incorrect titles such as, Education 432: Educating the Culturally Different, (WTF?!) Education 3311: Identification and Habilitation of the Mentally Retarded, and Music 333: Music of the Afro-American—a course described in the catalog as “A general study of the present day American Negro music and a study of the Afro-American music historical background”. Hell, yeah! We be down with the “Negros” at Lamar—just look at how many African American students we have pictured in this catalog!








As we well know, the 80s ushered in a whole new age of technology--the Commodore 64, etc. Lamar was on top of this trend, offering students access to a happenin' "Computer Center," in which "all jobs are automatically scheduled by the computer which considers computing time and storage requirements as well as other factors." Wow--that just sounds so neato and futuristic! Bite it, MIT! We got a main frame, and we're goin' FORTRAN on y'all's asses!



Hey, look, it's Bill Gates! Oh, wait--Nope--it's just a student channeling his inner nerd in the "Computer Center" and doing some sort of ancient CAD.



80s Lamar made every effort to make us believe that all over campus, you could find pulchritudinous (look it up) coeds strategically posed and chatting it up about their academic interests--basically, these following captions have the stink of a Sears Roebuck catalog ripoff all over them.



My, Becky and Ted are up awful early to be so chipper about whatever it is they're doing (none of the catalog photos had captions) in the Computer Center. Perhaps Ted is simply trying to get up the gumption to ask Becky to go see Back to the Future with him. By the way, Becky, nice feathered hair! And I looooove the thin silk long-sleeve belted dress--a must have for the 80s working girl.

In the following photo, we're catching up with Rocky and Janelle, who have just come from their Psychology 434 course: "An Introduction to Group Psychotherapy" (also a real class from the catalog)--they're discussing deep stuff about feelings, and Janelle, who seems to have just walked off the set of a commercial for feminine products, is trying to restrain herself from asking Rocky what is up with his barely-there polka dotted wife beater tank top and too-small Converse sneakers. I also have a really uncomfortable feeling that this photo should have had a caption reading, "Pay no attention to the three African American students in the background." Or at least a speech bubble for Rocky that says, "How you doin'?"















And here we have Peter and Sandy (oh, the sad, sad early days of experimenting with highlighting one's hair at home) cheerfully completing a very 80s pre-PETA science lab dissection project (yes, they really are dissecting what you think they are dissecting--and they're smiling while they're doing it).



I imagine their conversation went something like this:

Sandy: Hey, Peter, it seems like since Dr. Smith has taken over as head of Biology, we're not having that pesky feral cat problem on campus any more. I wonder why?

Peter: Yeah, totally. Hey, let's go see Police Academy 2 tonight!

Sandy: I'd love to, but I have to take my daughter and stand in line to get her a Cabbage Patch Kid at Toys 'R' Us.


Oh, did I forget to mention that animals were harmed during the making of this catalog?

So, there you have it--Part 1 of Lamar in all its BASIC, COBOL, cat dissecting, goofy nerd, 80s glory. Part II explores even more visual evidence of Lamar's 80s shenanigans.

The Homework Machine

The other day I was reading some Shel Silverstein poems from A Light in the Attic (1986), and one in particular struck me as having relevance for contemporary first year college students. It's called "The Homework Machine." Here it is:

The Homework Machine, oh the Homework Machine,
Most perfect contraption that's ever been seen.
Just put in your homework, then drop in a dime,
Snap on the switch, and in ten seconds' time,
Your homework comes out, quick and clean as can be.
Here it is--"nine plus four?" and the answer is "three."
Three?
Oh me...
I guess it's not as perfect
As I thought it would be.

When I reread these lines for the first time since I was ten, I realized that Silverstein was a prophet who foresaw the impact that the internet would have on education, or, at least on my little microcosm, freshman writing. To many of my students, Google is the homework machine; it inspires awe with its ability to take students to all kinds of "reputable" sites (read Wikipedia, and that's on a good day) that answer their questions. Instead of "dropping in a dime," they enter search terms, and viola, their "homework" is instantly in front of them, ready to be plucked from cyperspace and pasted into their essays. The problem, though, is that, unlike the child in the poem, who recognizes that "three" is not the appropriate answer, many of my students tend to trust whatever they find, hoping that a mumbled statement that "well, I found it on the internet" will assuage my suspicions that Harriet Tubman may not have, in fact, been the first black woman to refuse to give up her seat on a bus to a white person.* I do not think the situation is hopeless--what I do think, however, is that I am going to need to do quite a bit more instruction on how to evaluate online source material. Yes, I am competing with the deceptively credible internet, but I am sure this can be done, somehow.

*It should be noted that Rosa Parks actually was not the first black woman to refuse to give up her bus seat--Claudette Colvin was (in 1955, months before Parks did the same thing), according to NPR's story: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101719889

Although I did in fact find this tidbit through the "Homework Machine," I am more inclined to see its contents as credible because (1) it is through NPR and (2) well...in 1955, buses had been invented and in use for at least 6 years, whereas Tubman died in 1913.

Thinking about Pink

In the midst of the giddy "I like it on..." facebook status updates and various other attempts to make breast cancer awareness a number one priority in the month of October, I am beginning to ponder just what "awareness" (of any disease, really) means for a culture that, for the most part, would rather focus primarily on cures and survival. (Cures and survival are *really* good things, so please know that I am not promoting a pessimistic view of the entire agenda--after all, part of its purpose is to raise money to help fund needed research.) The area in-between, however, by which I mean the treatments that can often be brutal, the uncertainty of making it through them, and, yes, even death, seems largely ignored by the mainstream media. What I am getting at is this: how "aware" is anyone really willing to be when it comes to the gray area of Stage IV disease?

Many women with metastatic disease live perpetually in the shadows of the "think pink" movement--why exactly this is, I am not completely sure, but I suspect it has a lot to do with the fact that they are, as they (and we) well know, probably going to die from the illness. Whether it may be two years or fifteen years down the road, who knows? But let's be honest--that's scary as hell. To them. To their partners and children. To us. And, given the sometimes fiercely overbearing rhetoric of those campaigns only concerned with promoting survival/cure as the only possible laudable goal of the cancer patient, they are considered to have "lost" their "battle" with the disease and are painted as "succumbing" to it (if, indeed, they are painted at all). I argue that these women should be acknowledged as having just as much relevance to the fight against cancer as those who have emerged from their own treatments without metastases. They have, quite often, participated in experimental drug studies to help researchers create better treatments. They have, through pain and uncertainty, raised children, held jobs, and kicked ass.

Rather than serving as frightening reminders of our own mortality, these women are, instead, a testament to strength, grace, and unbelievable perseverance. After my mother passed away from breast cancer in 2005 (after having lived with mets for ten years), I stumbled upon an online community called "bcmets"--a discussion board whose members are almost all women with metastatic breast cancer. They give each other candid advice, console each other's families when a member passes, and maintain a positive, caring approach to living in that precarious space between life and death. There is nothing maudlin about these women; instead, they seem to display a wisdom that comes, I suppose, from pondering all sorts of very heavy questions on a regular basis.

So, if I am going to do my part for raising awareness of breast cancer, my contribution is going to be to publicly declare admiration for those women out there with Stage IV breast cancer. They have not lost the battle.

Setting the record straight

I know bad movies. And I can even admit when I have chosen one either to rent or see at the theater (I will, in fact, discuss such an instance, with a qualification or two that kind of shifts some of the blame, further below). But I have to set the record straight about something--"Fame" vs. "The Last Airbender".

On our first date, my husband and I went to see "Fame"--an event that he attributes entirely to me to this day. And it was a bad movie--the writing was bad, the acting was bad, and it even had no resemblance to the early 80s series of the same name, which was slightly less bad. Yes, I did in fact choose that film, but it was one of those instances where you show up at the theater, see what is about to start playing within the next 30 minutes (which limits options quite a bit) and pick something (this is the part I blame on my sweet hubby). I believe we were left with two options--the other one was something starring Matt Damon, and clearly I chose the wrong option. but yes, I did in fact choose "Fame." And we proceeded to sit next to each other, squirming uncomfortably, for the next hour and a half. So, I more or less attribute our "Fame" fiasco to haphazard moviegoing and a lack of preparedness. Shame on both of us, I say!

Yesterday, we went to see "The Last Airbender" with our friends and their daughter. Wow. It was bad--but at lunch afterward, the love of my life reassured everyone that it was not as terrible as the infamous "Fame," which he also made sure to declare that I had chosen for our first date. Here is where I must protest. And actually, my favorite movie review site, rottentomatoes.com, agrees with me, awarding Airbender a measly grade of 8 out of 100 (out of 114 reviews, 9 were positive--lukewarm, really), and Fame a 27 (out of 104 reviews, 28 are "fresh" and 76 are "rotten").

With "Fame", you had many of the usual elements of a bad film--undeveloped characters you don't care about, cliches in the script, cliches about people not making the cut, bla bla bla. But with films like that, they allow you to check out emotionally and think about other things. With "Airbender", I felt like I was being assaulted...assaulted by every kiddie epic cliche in the book (the weird names, the pseudo mythology b.s., etc.) and bad kid acting, which runs neck and neck with being assaulted by bad tween acting, such as appears in "Fame", but "Airbender" was still far more damaging to my psyche. In fact, I told my husband when it was all over that this is the first time I have had a real fear that a movie would never end. Given a few hours to contemplate that, I thought maybe I was overreacting, but then I read a review by Charlie Anders that describes in more detail that exact same sentiment:

"You resist following this movie into the dark, scary place where heroes are pieces of furniture and heroism is a Monty Python routine performed by someone who's never seen the original episodes. But then it's too late - you've passed over the threshold, you are committed, you are on the journey and the story won't let you go. You have been drawn into a place where you will lose, not only your power as an audience member, but quite possibly your mental faculties altogether." (the full review is at http://io9.com/5576076/m-night-shyamalan-finally-made-a-comedy)

I am not going to re-enumerate the Airbender's many shortcomings, because so many others have already rushed to do it in some kind of mass public service announcement to spare other innocents the pain of sitting through this thing, but simply have to say...Fame was not this bad.

And to my sweet husband, I love you! And I'm off to play with the pup now.

New Puppy

I am supposed to be working on a way to do a quick and easy "semiotics for dummies" for my students tomorrow, but since there really is no way to introduce semiotics except to go the long and painful route, I am going to jettison that effort in favor of blogging about our new puppy.

Our new puppy is named Virginia Woof (a name my husband picked out long before we even had a dog), and she is a 5 month old Boston Terrier. We obtained her from a breeder--working with a breeder was a completely new experience for me, as I've usually in the past bought animals from the pound who have no apparent bonds with other humans--one of the perks of this arrangement (that I have a new appreciation for) is that people who have become attached to the dog do not call you for weeks afterward asking after the pet's health and temperament. In our case, the breeders consider their dogs and their respective litters to be like children, and so cutting the cord has proven to be rather difficult for them even though the check cleared about a week ago. That said, I don't mind giving an update once in a while, but really, what those updates amount to are something along the lines of, "yes, she's still teething, yes, she's still going on the floor, and yes, I'm still not going to take her up to my office with me so that she can spend every waking hour with me--she'll get over it."

Our new puppy came with several semi-promises, including that she was "semi" lead trained and "semi" potty trained. I've since learned that being "semi" potty trained is kind of like being a "little bit pregnant," as in, ain't no such damn thing. "Semi" potty trained means that Virginia goes when she needs to go wherever she happens to be at the time--if that somewhere happens to be outside, then so be it--I guess that's the semi-part--she gets it right about %50 percent of the time. But hey, it's kind of like that "acceptance of approximations" phase I tell my pedagogy students about--sometimes you have to recognize that "errors" are merely fumbles on the way to mastering the skill. But that may be a bad comparison after all, because teaching writing generally involves less lysol and fewer unpleasant smells...generally.

However, our new puppy is as cute and loving as she can be--all ears and big, inquisitive dark eyes. She loves to nap with us and makes us laugh by doing all kinds of cute puppy things to get a treat. So, despite any frustration with her learning curve, we are more than happy with our new four legged addition to the family.

The Onion, Once Again, Hits Too Close to Home

I just ran across this story ("Watching Faces Of Students As They Finish 'The Lottery' Highlight Of English Teacher's Year") from my favorite news source, The Onion. For any of those who have an interest, here's the link:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/watching_faces_of_students

I didn't laugh. I didn't find it rotflmao funny or lol funny or even "funny ha-ha" funny. And here's why. I read it and I was like, yeah? So? Welcome to my world, Miss Hamlin. So in lieu of an explanation, I'll offer my own eerily similar anecdote. I've had the opportunity to teach quite a few sections of our sophomore American lit survey: the one where students assume that the boring early travel literature and boring puritan poetry are surely a portent of more boring things to come, so they quit doing the required reading except sporadically because they *think* they can figure out when the pop quizzes are going to be. My favorite part of the year is when we get to Ginsberg's "Howl," which I pretend to believe they've read prior to coming to class. I like to instantly figure out who read and who didn't by asking them to re-read roughly lines 25-29, as though I think there is something particularly compelling in just those lines. In reality, what I'm doing is having them read the line about "cock and endless balls," because those who have read won't say anything or even flinch, and those who have not either squeal in horror or snort with laughter. It's a ridiculously stupid way to amuse myself at my students' expense, but there you have it.

A Cautionary Tale about Differing Philosophies of Gift-Wrapping

Some people are meticulous when it comes to wrapping Christmas presents. They carefully pick paper that suits the occasion, the gift itself, and possibly even the personality of the person receiving the present; then, they work assiduously to cut in straight lines, tape everything together neatly, and then proudly present their handiwork with a self-satisfied grin, perhaps hoping that someone will say, "Ooooh, what a beautiful wrapping job! I honestly hate to open this!" I used to be one of those meticulous wrappers, though I cannot say this without any qualification--I was meticulous until, say, around the age of twelve when my mother stopped paying me ten cents for every neat wrapping job. After that, I became a lazy wrapper, and I have remained one to this day, at thirty-two years of age.

I am, unfortunately, one of those awful people who tends to prefer to buy those ridiculously overpriced gift bags--the ones that (whether or not this is an accurate sentiment) scream, "I dumped your gift in here because I didn't have the five minutes it would have taken to wrap it myself. Seriously, I'm just not that into you. But hey, at east it's a pretty bag. And I even did that swirly thing with the ribbon that's tying it together." Sometimes I even "regift" the gift bags that are given to me by friends and relatives who belong to my same lazy wrapper cohort. (I know: does it get lower that that? Well, read on...)

But the point of this post actually pertains to marriage, and how a husband and wife navigate and come to grips with their different points of view about gift wrapping. This, the issue of one's approach to preparing presents for family members, may actually be one of those questions a couple should ask each other before getting hitched, right up there with "Are you religious?"

I recently spent my first Christmas with my new husband, a wonderful man in every way imaginable. He did, in fact, wrap all of his presents to me very nicely, in several different patterns of Christmas wrapping paper. It was so sweet, and it gave me the chance to see each one several days before the holiday and wonder what each one was. I, in turn, did not wrap any of his gifts, but instead chose to lay them all out on the couch before he woke on Christmas morning and pretend that Santa had come. Perhaps that's a lame approach for people in their thirties, but, hey, I wanted to be creative on our first holiday. But I've never seen anyone pull a move like he did for his brother, for whom he bought some nice beer.

Who says you can't wrap an entire present in electrical tape? Not my innovative husband, that's for sure. So, that's exactly what he proceeded to do (as a joke, but still), and the job took several minutes, as I looked on in amused shock. Now, I am convinced that many women, faced with such a spectacle, might begin to question the entire foundation of their relationship. "Who is this man?" They might wonder in the wee hours as they look over at their sleeping spouse. However, I think I can see us using our disparate gift wrapping philosophies to bring us closer together. His birthday is coming up, so who knows? He may get something covered in aluminum foil, or even normal wrapping paper, but with a Hello Kitty motif...

How to Teach Writing?

Clancy Ratliff, author of the blog Culture Cat, wrote the following, and I feel compelled to use this juicy tidbit as a springboard for this post:

"On a somewhat related note, I have a confession to make. I have now been teaching writing and studying composition theory for just over ten years. Over the years, I have come to realize that I have no strong opinion one way or another about How Writing Should Be Taught. I honestly think that students can learn useful skills in an expressivist course, a rhetoric-heavy course, a writing-about-literature course, a current-traditional course, a cultural studies based course, etc. I can't decide if this makes me a terrible writing program administrator or an excellent one."

Reading this comment was especially freeing to me as someone who has taught first year composition as a t.a., adjunct, and assistant professor for the last eleven years. Even in that short amount of time, I have seen perspectives shift within the profession regarding what approach to writing is best for our students. And I've tried several--believe me--here are some of the course content formats I've experimented with, beginning with my earliest days as a teaching assistant:

Writing about Generational Theory
Writing about Education in America
Writing about Language, Power, and Society
Writing about Literature
Writing in Response to Essays

These approaches, I would argue, worked just fine as far as creating a class that fulfilled all of the goals of a first year English course, one of which is to link the four language arts: speaking, listening, reading and writing. Students did all four, perhaps sometimes unsure of how every activity or assignment would aid them, but still, they completed their assignments. For the past five years, I have taught our second semester composition course as a writing about literature course, which is in adherence to the department's standards. Some of the original arguments against using second semester comp as "writing about literature" (see the Lindemann/Tate debate for more explanation) focused on the problems with the trend of having students read literary works and then, with no modeling or scaffolding of the writing process, produce essays that were nothing like what they were reading. Others argued that because first year composition should stand alone and not as a service course for upper level literature courses, the readings for these courses should not be comprised of fictional works. My experience in teaching 1302 as "writing about literature" has been that with enough modeling, students can successfully produce essays in the same genres they would produce in a course that does not use literature as the main reading content.

In teaching writing the one thing that I am absolutely sure of, and which is in accordance with the findings of Ronald Kellogg, author of The Psychology of Writing, is that in order to become better writers, students need sustained, repeated practice at writing in environments that are as distraction free as possible. This may seem like a small and obvious revelation, one that I should have come to early in my teaching career, but in truth I think that realizing this has allowed me to shut out some of the noise of the "Students should read/respond to this specific type of text in order to improve their writing skills" arguments that come and go.

One of the pitfalls I've discovered in teaching first year writing relates to that gray area of having students write about what they are interested in, which is, I think, I noble goal that most of us strive to reach, but a difficult road nonetheless. Students' interests shift constantly, and simply telling them something along the lines of, "This next assignment allows you to write about a topic you have an interest in" is generally not enough to ignite inspiration in students who (1) may have an undecided major, (2) may have already bitten off more than they can chew in taking too many hours. The idea of writing and having that writing critiqued is intimidating enough, but the idea of writing about a subject you genuinely are passionate about and giving that writing up for critique is downright scary. Furthermore, a student who begins the task of a research essay on, say, gender bias in the workplace, which he or she cheerfully assures you is an issue near and dear to his/her heart, may grow to despise that topic as the demands of prewriting, researching, annotating, and drafting pile up. This shift in attitude toward the topic (which I often see happen in our second semester first year composition course, which requires a significant research component) does not discourage me as it did when I began teaching. Instead, their frustration, I think, mirrors the frustrations of any serious writer who takes on a significant project and, along the way, has their own ideas challenged, runs into writers block, or, conversely, feels filled with too many ideas and no sense of organization, and sits down to draft at times when they would much rather be doing something else. I go through the exact same process (several cycles) with every article I write. And, as with most of my students, I go through the process hoping that what I am producing will be of value to someone else--that it will simply be read. My aim in teaching first year composition is not to make it "fun", necessarily, although I do my best with my classes to excavate whatever fun might be lurking beneath the mountains of work in a sixteen week semester, but to instead help students through what I know to be the processes that will lead them to produce work that showcases their best efforts.

Memoirs

Memoirs (those that involve a considerable amount of biographical information abut a deceased person) are a curious genre--I just finished Ann Patchett's rather controversial narrative of her friendship with poet Lucy Grealy,Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, and, though I can certainly understand why Grealy's sister felt her grief had been "hijacked" by Patchett's haste to publish this work so soon after Lucy's death, reading it has made me more attuned to the inherent problem of memoir writing in general. This problem is that memoirs are just that--memoirs--written through the limited, imperfect terministic screens of human beings who are not necessarily intent on telling the "Truth," but rather a version of the truth. A version that suits them, a version that suits others, or a version that seeks to paint things as happier than they really were. And even for those who claim to give "the real story" in their memoirs, their tales are just that--tales. And they are dicey to write because, inevitably, you, as the memoir writer, will be vilified by someone who knew/loved the subject of the memoir as well as you and takes umbrage at the way you tweaked a story or left something out.

The sensitivity it takes to write a memoir has become more plain to me in the years since my mother's death. Several of her dearest friends, whenever I visit them, tell me that they are waiting for "that book you are going to write about your mother." This is a book that they created from thin air with the best of intentions. To them, this makes perfect sense--I write and teaching writing for a living, so why would it not be a perfectly natural impulse for me to take on exploring my mother's life in words? The thing that keeps me from taking on this task, and will probably keep me from it forever, is this: what they desire is not reallya book about my mother--it is a book about my mother the saint. But sanctification is boring, and I'd wager that even my mother wouldn't want to be associated with something so maudlin or saccharine. In reality, I could, and would love to, write a witty and fun memoir of my mother that unapologetically explains her through my eyes--but that effort, no matter how sincere and respectful, would undoubtedly fall short of everyone's expectations.

Here's an illustrative example from my own life, which I consider to be analogous to the tricky territory a memoirist must navigate:

The morning after my mother died, I was up at the funeral home making all kinds of arrangements, and I was told that I had 24 hours to gather up and deliver fifty photographs of her so that they could create a slide show for viewing at her funeral. I tried to find the ones that would display a kind of chronology--her as a little girl, her as an adolescent, her getting married, her with me as a baby in the hospital, and so on--the point, as I intepreted it, was to, in pictures, tell the story of my mother's life. However. There was this one photograph of her that, to me captured so much about her--it was of her sitting at a table in a restaurant about to take a bite of her salad, looking at my dad as if to say, "I'm going to shove that camera up your ass." She had this thing she did with her mouth when she was angry--we all knew that look--it was spectacular. I thought everyone would laugh when it came through on the slideshow rotation. Instead, there was a collective silence among the audience--almost a feeling of "Wow--she didn't want her picture taken then, I can't imagine she'd want it up here for all of us to see. What bad taste!" The air seemed to be sucked from the room in a vaccuum of awkwardness. Looking around, I literally wanted to say, "Hey, lighten up! You know this is hysterical. And you know that at some point, she looked at you like that too." But that experience taught me quite a bit about the rhetorical tact needed in such situations.

Incidentally, I recommend that if you do plan to read Patchett's work, you read Grealy's memoir of her own life, Autobiography of a Face first. If you read Patchett first, you may, as many people have been, be turned off by the image of Grealy that she gives us (much of the last part of the book focuses on Grealy's herion addiction, which, though part of the truth of Grealy's life and likely the reason for her early death at thirty-nine, gave me the uncomfortable feeling of reading tawdry tabloid fodder). Better yet, read some of Grealy's poetry first--sadly, 99% of the publicity surrounding Grealy, especially after her death, seems to revolve around the fact that as a child she had a good portion of her jaw removed, and, throughout the rest of her life, made her way through countless reconstructive surgeries, many of which failed. But, what seems to get lost in all of this is the fact that Grealy was actually an accomplished poet and writer. I can't say with any credibility whether she was a "great" poet, largely because I cannot find any of her poetry--but, when I do find some, I may post about it.

More Ancient Cyborg Pop Culture

Given my obsession with late 60s, early 70s man vs. machine films, I thought I'd use this post to pay homage to one of the lesser known ones, called "Westworld" (based on a Michael Crighton work). Now, technically, it's basically a B-movie with an interesting premise: people have created the ultimate vacation getaway ("Delos"), which is staffed (I guess you'd call them "staff") by robots who, gosh darnit, look just like people, so no one knows for sure who's human and who's mechanical, but that's alright because this is a technological utopia...right? (cue ominous music). I realize that having actors walk around in period costumes to play the robots saved a bundle on any kind of special effects, but I actually think that move is what makes the film much creepier. Still, it plays on that predictable idea of what kind of hell-on-earth ensues when we put too much faith in technology and give far too much of our agency over to it and let it run amok. Completely unlike "The Forbin Project," where the tech is clunky and obvious and loud and terrifying, "Westworld" portrayed the tech as silent, invisible, and trustworthy--until it breaks down (and the breakdowns make for some amusing scenes, such as when a young, attractive female robot "malfunctions" and slaps a rather rotund, balding middle aged male tourist who's trying to make advances on her).

More importantly, though, this was the first film to use any kind of advanced (though primitive by today's standards) CGI techniques--those mainly relate to the parts of the film where you are supposed to be seeing everything through robot-Yul Brynner's eyes and everything gets all pixilated and grainy. So, in that sense, hooray for Westworld.

I can't find an actual clip of what I'm talking about, but here's the trailer:

Why I'm Smarter than Suze Orman

The other day I was flipping through the channels and happened across the Suze Orman show where she takes calls from people (many of whom seem to be perilously and blissfully unaware of their impending financial doom) who are hoping to get a loan for this or that strange high priced knick knack that they are convinced will increase their quality of life. Suze then breaks it down for them, asking them questions about their income and savings, etc., and then tells them whether she would approve or deny them the loan. Many of these people seem to have little contact with what you or I would call "reality."

Here's a hypothetical, condensed (though not exaggerated by any means) example of a typical interaction between Suze and loan seeker:

Suze: Hello caller, what do want a loan for?

Caller: Hi Suze! I really, really want a life size replica of the Kool-Aid man from those commercials. It would go great in my living room as a conversation piece.

Suze: How much does it cost?

Caller: $15,000. It's a collector's item and there are only two in the world. But I need it!

Suze: So, tell me about your income.

Caller: Well, I'm currently unemployed, living with my parents, but I have $600 in savings and--

Suze: Denied!

So anyway, on the show the other night, a man called up saying he wanted to purchase a seaplane for $165,000. He sailed through Suze's interrogation of his financial situation (though he is really not affluent by any means) and she approved his request for the loan.

Here's what Suze did not take into consideration, and here's why she should have denied his loan: The cost of the plane itself is only the beginning and it is soon eclipsed by other stratospheric expenses such as insurance, fuel, and aircraft maintenance. If Suze knew about these things, she would have, I have no doubt, taken them into account.

It is a rare day indeed when I find myself in disgreement with a money whiz like Orman, so I thought this event was worth posting about.

"Smart Room"? I Beg to Differ!

Well, I suppose now is as good a time to quit procrastinating on updating my blog as any. I am in the Maes building, after having just given my summer students a grammar practice test, and I am really not looking forward to stepping out into 96 degrees.

But here is my observation--this classroom is a "smart room": in theory, it should cater to the instructor's every whim just like George and Lydia Hadley's "Happy Life Home" in Ray Bradbury's story, "The Veldt." All the necessary equipment is here--the console holodeck thingy, the projector mounted up on the wall, the way cool screen I can pull down with a switch, and a remote control. Here's the thing--none of these high tech items seem to be willing to communicate with each other. When I turn on the projector, it says there is "no signal" from the computer--and I know very well it is lying. It is laughing at me! Someone stop this mad, conspiratorial collaboration among machines to ruin my career!!!!!

Cool Robot Stuff

In lieu of taking a break from revisions on an article that is slowly killing me, I thought I would offer up some observations from the world of robots, fact and fiction (well, really, which is which at this point?).

The first is a fascinating clip of "Roboman," the robot twin of the Japanese scientist who created him--note how near the end of the report it is stated that Ishiguru feels that such beings might be used to study human behavior--interesting stuff!

The second article, which I happened across just the other day, is entitled "Real Soldiers Love Their Robot Brethren". I think the following quote, which I actually find quite moving, speaks for itself:

"One EOD soldier brought in a robot for repairs with tears in his eyes and asked the repair shop if it could put "Scooby-Doo" back together. Despite being assured that he would get a new robot, the soldier remained inconsolable. He only wanted Scooby-Doo."

And for anyone who would immediately dismiss this as "twaddle", I would urge him or her to think of some piece of machinery that has impacted his or her life in such a way that made the device seem animate. For me, the list might be quite long, starting with, of course, Speak'N'Spell.

And lastly, in order to tie up the threads of this human/machine emotional connection theme, I give you a clip of an early first season "Twilight Zone" episode (no, not the lame-o 80s Twilight Zone but the actual original late 50s series) called "The Lonely," in which a man who has been wrongly convicted of a crime is banished to a distant planet with only "Alicia," his human-on-the-outside, robot-on-the-inside companion, to keep him company. At first he is completely repelled by her and her audacity in looking like a human but being a machine, but eventually the two form a strong bond (to the point that he refuses to leave the planet without her and will not accept that she is, after all, a mere robot). Despite TZ actors' apparent inability to properly pronounce the word "robot," I actually found this episode to coincide somewhat with a theory a student introduced me to last semester--the "uncanney valley" concept.

Deep Fried Curiosities

Following Thomas Browne's 17th century line of thought concerning keeping a "cabinet of curiosities", I thought that perhaps my own blog could serve as a kind of "cyber-cabinet" of my own odd experiences. Most of these little narratives have simply been tucked away in my memory for years now, just waiting for the right medium to come along to unleash them.

It's no secret that ghosts are big business. It seems that every time I turn around, there's some "10 Scariest This" or "15 Creepiest That" show on that purports to tell us that all the enticing details of places inhabited by, as my dad would call them, "haints." Well, the other day I was working on the computer and half-listening to the t.v., and the Travel Channel was running a thing about haunted restaurants. At the top of the list was "Catfish Plantation" in Waxahachie, Texas.

I've actually been to Catfish Plantation several times (as a kid). I had heard the hype (you know, the typical redneck-on-the-street interivews where people say things like, "that ghost threw a piece of broccoli clear across the room and hit me in the head!") on a local news station and, as kids are wont to do, I informed my mother this place was a must see. She agreed.

So, we went--I must have been thirteen at the time. (The food there is actually fabulous, by the way, if you're into "down home" southern fried stuff--I think this is actually the first place I ever had fried pickles, but I digress...) We ordered cheese sticks as an appetizer. At one point, when I happened to be looking away, my mother gasped in horror and swore up and down that some unseen entity had made one of the mozzarella sticks disappear and caused the tissue paper lining the basket to "float up." I did not count the cheesesticks before the incident, so I had nothing really to go on, but I bought into the idea that our foodstuffs had been violated by an apparition. It was thrilling.

Before we left, we passed the guestbook in which patrons write brief descriptions of their alleged encounters with C.P. ghosts. I read through a few--many were elaborate narratives focusing on some romanticized vision of a woman in a white flowing gown or a man in a suit that made him "look like he was from the 1920s." I brazenly added my own succinct experience into the mix. It read, "Ghost stole a cheesestick." Nothing more, nothing less.

Oh, no he didn't!

Recently, a Chronicle of Higher Ed article by Geoffrey Pullum entitled "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice" spewed forth venom (thinly couched in academese) about Strunk and White'sThe Elements of Style. Among the author's issues is the volume's increasingly apparent lack of pedagogical application:

"The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it."

Much of Pullum's article is a sanely reasoned journey through the contradictions found in the text--in short, Strunk and White do not seem to practice what they preach, and several of their examples do not even fit with the rules they are attempting to discuss. Point taken. But there is a subtext to the piece that I, as someone gearing up to teach a course in advanced argumentation, find just plain sad--it is Pullum's insistence on tapdancing on Strunk and White's graves (metaphorically) through incessant name calling. In prefacing his "ad grammarian" attack (in which he dubs Strunk and White bossy and "idiosyncratic bumblers"), where he cites both Strunk and White as "grammatical incompetents," Pullum simply assures us that "The authors won't be hurt by these critical remarks. They are long dead." It's almost as though Pullum takes great delight in the fact that these men have long since been six feet under, because their inability to retaliate allows him carte blanche to say whatever without fear of refutation--his glee at having the last word just seems rather offputting. I mean, really--put yourself in Strunk and White's shoes. Or, better yet, I'll use myself as an example. Let's say I write some little tome that enjoys some popularity but has some real flaws. And let's say I kick off, and somewhere down the road, someone smarter than I am decides to write a scathing review and mentions that, hey, it's not like Pace can say anything--she's dead, you know--so, nyaaa nyaaa nyaaahhh! I believe that Aristotle would hang his head in shame at such a cheap shot.

Though, despite the name calling, I do find much of Pullum's perspective intriguing, I do take issue with one particular point he makes, and since he is not long dead, I will handle my response with more tact than he has shown. Pullum writes:

"Several generations of college students learned their grammar from the uninformed bossiness of Strunk and White, and the result is a nation of educated people who know they feel vaguely anxious and insecure whenever they write "however" or "than me" or "was" or "which," but can't tell you why. The land of the free in the grip of The Elements of Style."

I truly find this claim a bit optimistic, but perhaps I am simply hampered by geography. Dr. Pullum, can you point me to the location of this "nation of educated people" who feel twinges of insecurity over their choices of which/who/whom/than/however? Because, you see, I have taught introductory composition for around ten years, and I'm pretty sure these hordes of overconscientious would be grammarians do not live in my vicinity.

How soon we forget...

The other day my dad reminded me that our first computer was not in fact the Commodore 64, but rather the TI-99. (Texas Instruments was also responsible for the infamous and beloved Speak and Spell, and so in my book they can do no wrong.) This computer came out before floppy disks--to operate it, one needed cassettes/cartridges.



One can also visit the very cool site dedicated to all things TI.

Some things are still under construction, but you'll get the gist of the amazing-ness that was Texas Instruments in its 80s heyday.

To Tweet or not to Tweet?

The other day, my dad and I were watching the news (CNN possibly), and at the end of the broadcast, the [male] anchor (in a move that is becoming more common and less likely to evoke giggles) said, "Be sure to follow the rest of the story on Twitter as it evolves." My dad (who talks to the t.v. quite a lot) offered the following bit of wisdom: "No grown man should have anything to do with anything involving the word "twitter." I concurred, as I always do with dad's edicts. Issues of manhood as they relate to digital status updates aside, however, the incident got me thinking further about my own attitudes toward various digital media.

Twitter has become a topic that has woven itself in and out of discussions in my multimedia writing class--I may, unintentionally, have poisoned the class's attitude toward microblogging in showing everyone the "Trouble with Twitter" video--perhaps, though, there are a few closet tweeters in the bunch who will (I hope) prevail and continue to microblog. I say go for it--it's all good.

Anyway, I started wondering just why it is that I am so sure I will never use Twitter, and I came up with an answer--my life is simply too boring (not in a bad way--just not in a way that is worthy of updates that make me look as though I am breathlessly sprinting from one adventure to the next). Blogger blogging has much more to do with what I am thinking than what I am doing, and therein lies the issue. Twitter's prompt, which one cannot escape, is "What are you doing?"

And, really, even in face to face conversation, I hate it when people ask me, "So, what are you doing?" as if they are waiting for me to say something like, "Well, my first novel sold really well, I just got back from a safari, and I'm really big in Japan. (I have a dear friend who hates that question even more than I do, and her stock response is "Whatever the hell I want to.")

If I were an avid tweeter, here is what an average morning's tweet's would probably look like:

8:30--enjoying Cheerios with a banana
9:33--trying to find a matching pair of socks
10:02--giving up on finding a matching pair of socks and who cares anyway because they're all either navy or black and my shoes will cover them up
10:46--getting ready to go to Lamar

I think you see the problem...

But--what if Twitter's prompt were "What are you thinking?" Such might be the beginning of a fantastic tool for low stakes freewriting that would allow students/writers to update their thoughts (from their cell phones, keyboards, etc.--from anywhere at any time), preserve them, and come back to them later on in the quest to construct an essay from their piecemeal observations. Plus, their classmates would be more likely to "tweet" back and create some really interesting cross referencing discourse. Here's the bottom line--I am planning to pervert Twitter for my own purposes and use it in the service of prewriting.

I'm not a doctor, but I play one on the internet...

In light of the class discussion we had concerning Hayles' comment (in "An Interview/Dialogue with Albert Borgman and N. Katherine Hayles on Humans and Machines") about the potential future of medical diagnosis:

"HMO's are considering programming their computers to make medical diagnoses and recommend treatments based on probability distributions. That's a timesaver, to be sure, but has it crossed the line between calculation and moral judgement?" (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/borghayl.html)

I got to thinking about another aspect of the issue: humans interacting with machines to diagnose themselves. There have been cases where people, frustrated by a string of doctors who were baffled by their symptoms, tenaciously searched the net until they indeed did find others who were experiencing the same things and found a name for their malady (which then in turn led them to the names of specialists who could actually help them). That, to me, is progress, and something close to the kind of "productive partnership" between humans and machines that Hayles alludes to. But there is another side to be explored, and that is the (sometimes) relative ineffiency and hypochondria inducing nature of that cyber-quest for answers. Check out, for example, the "symptom checker" on WebMD:

http://symptoms.webmd.com/symptomchecker

All you have to do is plug in your sex, click on where it hurts, and (though you can further narrown down symptoms) bingo, up pops a list of possible afflictions (we are, as always, dealing with probabilities). For example, if I indicate I have pain in my upper abdomen, according to WebMD, I could be suffering from anything from depression to sclerodoma. The vagueness is amusing, though the list does provide me a starting point to dig deeper into the rest of those diseases. But I also wonder whether I would really be able to handle being told exactly what is wrong with 100% accuracy after a few clicks of the mouse. In other words, if I had a terminal illness, I would rather hear that news from a human than my pc.

Another issue I've noticed (not that I spend hours surfing for this kind of thing, but there have been one or two times-ok, maybe more like 20--when I was sick and just wanted a clue as to whether I should just ride it out or go ahead and make an appointment) is the incredible overlap of symtpoms that span minor to major illnesses. For example, let's say one is having fatigue, general malaise, a sore throat, minor headaches, and trouble concentrating. Here's my tasteless parody (though not too far removed from reality) of what that person might find if s/he tried to get to the bottom line.

Common Cold

Early Symptoms Include:

fatigue
general malaise
sore throat
minor headaches
trouble concentrating
(and so on...)

Prognosis: With rest and frequent intake of liquids, a full recovery should occur in a week or two.

Mononucleosis

Early Symptoms Include:

fatigue
general malaise
sore throat
minor headaches
trouble concentrating
(and so on...)

Prognosis: May require hospitalization at some point, but patients generally recover within a few months.

Bubonic Plague

Early Symptoms Include:

fatigue
general malaise
sore throat
minor headaches
trouble concentrating
(and so on...)

Prognosis: You will most likely die horribly. But if you do survive, good luck leading any kind of a normal life because you will be permanently scarred both emotionally and physically.


Ebola

Early Symptoms Include:

fatigue
general malaise
sore throat
minor headaches
trouble concentrating
(and so on...)

Prognosis: You will die really horribly. No seriously--you don't even want to know.

And, finally, (drumroll, please), I give you Swine Flu:



My point is this--this kind of information was always available to people in books, but who has ever had the time to go thumbing through medical journals? By the time you figure out what's wrong, you're over it. But with the internet, there's immediate access to that same information that can be detrimental in its futility.