Comma Dot Comma

I’ll be teaching two online creative writing courses through the Piper Studio this summer, starting June 2. Discount summer rates of $100 for an eight week course. Same ones I mentioned earlier this spring, and still buckets of fun!

I’m suprised by what a fan of online writing courses I’ve become over the past four years– before I started doing it I wondered if you could create online the “warm fuzzy” atmosphere needed to encourage new or sensitive writers. As it turns out, you can. The trick is in the persona– the teacher has to have a very strong presence that sets the tone and erases the antiseptic feel of plain black letters on a white screen. Some people go the mothering route; others the philosophical route; I go the zany-yet-thoughtful, faux bossy route. It’s sort of like blogging in that you take some true version of yourself, and highlight/intensify certain aspects of it so they carry through a two-dimensional medium. Or like public speaking, where you still speak from the heart but change your pacing and volume from normal conversation. The teacher has to be the leader in humanizing the environment, and then the students usually follow suit. The medium itself becomes a way for everyone to develop his or her writing.

The other thing I’ve noticed about online teaching is that you need so many more instructions! We have no idea how much information we exchange via eye contact, tone, and body language. In a face-to-face classroom, I can give a one-line verbal assignment (”Write a poem in which an inanimate object complains”), judge from people’s expressions if they understand what I’m asking them to do, and follow up with just the right amount of explanation. Online, obviously, that does not work at all. I’ve been on the receiving end of opaque instructions and find the experience exasperating. “Answer the review questions.” What review questions? Where? Do I just answer them in my head or is there a screen where I must enter the answers? Online teachers, do not exasperate your students. Sometimes the poet in me cringes at the wordiness of online assignments, but if the person can just get straight to work without feeling confused about what needs to be done, every word is worth it. Even if there are very few requirements, I write that down: “Choose any subject, style, and length that you want.” I want my students to spend their energy on the creative process of writing and not on mindreading.

Two movies worth watching side by side: Ushpizin and A History Of Violence. In the first, an Israeli flick, we throw our lot in with a man who has repented of his life of crime and, with his wife, joined an orthodox community to study the Torah and start a family. Two characters from his old life suddenly appear to disrupt his hopes of a new start. In a History of Violence, which stars the fantastic Viggo Mortensen, we throw our lot in with a man who has repented of his life of crime and settled in small-town, family-values America to raise a family. Characters from his old life suddenly appear to disrupt his carefully maintained existence.
The two films could not be more different tonally—Ushpizin is brimming with Divine Providence and optimism that good will prevail. The threats that come Moshe’s way certainly feel real, but they never overshadow the sense of God’s beneficence in the midst of trials. And it’s pretty funny; an outlandishly expensive lemon serves as a key plot point, for example.
A History of Violence, on the other hand, starts at its emotional feel-good high point and deteriorates from there. I’m sensitive to onscreen violence and spent about a third of the movie with my eyes closed (Note: this movie has extreme violence so may not be a good option for everyone). God’s presence is faint and oblique; Tom, it seems, must save his own life, destroying every connection to his old ways with any weapon that comes to hand. “What can I do?” Tom asks at one point. “You can die,” says the other guy. You can guess how well that goes over.
For the man in each movie, the violent past is always looming. He thought he was free, but it has hunted him down, insisting at every turn that the new man, the gentle family man, is false. The brutal man is the real one. It brooks no arguments and gives no mercy. He has fled to the safest place he can find and it is not safe enough to protect him or his family from his old self. What is a reformed criminal to do to keep (or lose and then find again) redemption? I like these two stories together for the way they trace different answers to that question.

Today I read an interesting article in the L.A. Times about young white Christians living communally: “What Chores Would Jesus Do?” The Revealer, one of my favorite (if sometimes snide or too critical) guides to Christianity in America, tipped me off. Following on my recent post about Protestant convents, this article shows some of the challenges and rewards of self-chosen religious communities, and in some ways echoes the experiences of friends I know who have embarked on similar ventures. I appreciate the honesty of the interviewees, but the story departs from the ones I know personally (for example, Sumner House, many of whose original members have since married) in its strongly negative tone. Living in community, whatever the goals of that community may be, is a mixed bag, but does allow all kinds of love to grow.
I also found the 100ish comments, mostly by evangelical Christians, fascinating. A large number of people seem to find serious doctrinal danger in the choice to pursue to personal sacrifice and service. The community members are advised again and again to not take on too much– be friendly to everyone, volunteer at the shelter once a week, anything beyond that is excessive, especially if you have kids. “we are not all John the Baptist” said one. People worried that these folks had abandoned the idea of grace. On the other hand, some people wondered what all the moaning and groaning was about– these commenters do way more to actually help people every day instead of just talking about it, so what is the big deal? A few people advised this group to check out St. Benedict’s rules for monastic life, which I thought was a good suggestion– I’d never heard of his advice book before.
Myself, I suspect that this group is having a hard time in part because they took on so many different goals at the same time: Living in community, defining and living an economically simple life, and moving out of suburbia in attempt to serve their less-well-off neighbors. Any one of those is a radical change from typical America. But I’m glad they’re trying it, and pray that God will bless them with increasing stores of love.

At the Phoenix symphony, the cheap seats are right up front, Dr. G and I discovered last night. Mostly what you get to see from row three are the black-clad legs of all the violinists. We couldn’t see any woodwinds at all, except for the occasional flash of an oboe. Which was fine, because hearing is more important than seeing at the symphony, even if you mostly hear the group of instruments facing you most directly. I was happy to be in the front; it gave me extra occasion to swish my puffy flame-orange skirt as we trod down the aisle. I only have occasion to wear the skirt about once a year so I have to take advantage of every swishable moment.

We were there to hear Dvorak’s Symphony #9 From the New World, an old favorite from which movie score composer John Williams has ripped off many a musical idea. “Here come the Storm Troopers!” whispered Dr. G at one point during the concert. Dvorak is one of the more rock n roll classical composers– not afraid of nice hooks, fast riffs, drums, or wild dynamics. What’s not to love, except a little bombast? I myself love a little bombast.

One fact that caught our attention on the program was that he was lured to America by a salary 25 TIMES as high as his music professor salary in Prague. Dr. G worked out that it would be like going from $50k a year, to $1.25 million a year, and added that he would quite happily settle nearly anywhere for that big of a jump. “Great!” I said. “Now, how are we going to get someone to offer you 25x your salary?” My idea is, we get him to stop a troubling crime trend with an apropos policy recommendation that captures Oprah’s attention. Then she bankrolls him as her personal crime consultant, so he appears regularly on the show and contributes to the reduction of crime nationally by bringing scholarly wisdom to the masses. It’s a win-win. Dvorak inspires me to think big like that.

In these two videos, which I found in the archives of Killing the Buddha, Woody Allen interviews Billy Graham. Other commentators place the interview in 1969, the Summer of Love. I find it funny and delightful. The two men are so different, and yet seem to enjoy one another’s company, trading quips and making deals.

WOODY: I’ll tell you what. If you come to one of my movies, I’ll come to one of your revival meetings.
BILLY: Well, now, that is a deal! (They shake hands) I would like to come back and report on that. …
WOODY: You could probably convert me because I’m a pushover.

Like other bloggers before me, I must remark on how good natured and honest they are with each other, and how unlikely such a meeting seems in this day and age. And what a mix of character and charisma that Billy Graham has! He was something else in his day.

Saturday afternoon in Baltimore. A group of kids roars by on their motorbikes, doing handstands and wheelies. An artist with a cut hand lets us into the abandoned warehouse where the unsplendid poetry reading is. He was prying a glass block out of his porch when the gas inside caused it to explode, but he still seems cheerful. The poets and grad students and poetry lovers drag chairs around while we editors set up the food and drink table. Everybody reads and eats and talks about art and politics and religion and football and baseball and commuting but we’re hungry for real food. How about the Red Square? Three of the members of our group, strangely enough, speak Russian. We head downtown to the basement restaurant where it turns out they are entirely out of borscht. It’s one of those places where the service is so uneven and the food so late in coming that you suspect it might be a front for illegal activities. We note the large fifty-something man with his back to the wall, surrounded by two apparent lieutenants and a pretty woman. What’s their story? There are lots of sequin-clad women around. Then the disco ball starts spinning and two lounge singers get up on stage to trade off Russian Karaoke tunes. The blonde is in a flowy see through shirt and the guy is young but bald with the widest lapels we’ve seen since the seventies. We are all shouting to hear one another, and I’ve pushed the vestiges of my stroganoff into an interesting shape on the plate. Betsy asks for the check. “No! No! You must stay!” says the waiter, plaintively. Much arguing among the poets about whether or not the bill and each of our portions are calculated correctly. Some of us were, perhaps, thrown by the commas in place of decimals. We exit onto the sidewalk and stand around wrapping up half-finished conversations. The most daughty of us officially breaks the group with a wave and a determined march toward her parked car. We disperse.

Probably you saw this months ago, but it’s a fun send-up.

Looky! Three posts in one day. Pace yourself– they have to last all week since we (yes, that’s the royal we, plus Dr. G) will be on vacation. We will be near jungles, volcanoes, reefs, and beaches. We will also be near ceviche and coffee plantations and bad roads. If you guess the location, I will bring you some cooled lava for a prize.

This post is devoted to strange yet wonderful out-of-print Christian-themed music from the 70’s. Our first entry is from a band called Daniel Amos. It’s the title song from their 1977 album, Shotgun Angel. It’s a country tune about a lonely trucker. Jesus talks to him through the CB radio and makes his truck fly through the air instead of driving on the road like regular trucks.

The second is from a family band called the 2nd Chapter of Acts. The start of their musical career is very sad– their parents died and they sang around the piano to share their grief. This song from 1975, “The Devil’s Lost Again,” ROCKS. And the women make chicken sounds repeatedly in the bridge and the fade-out.

I don’t think you’d get either of these beauties on Family Life radio today.

Shotgun Angel

The Devil’s Lost Again

The Weasely Twins join the Death Eaters, Snape abandons wizardry to open a goth-inflected haberdashery shop for Muggles, and, in keeping with the twins theme, it turns out that Harry and Voldemort were originally conjoined at the forehead but magically separated after the birth and raised apart, their brotherhood kept secret until the final climactic scene in which their mother returns to make them shake hands and say three nice things. Flowers bloom as expected in the spring.

Just kidding.  I have no idea what happens in the new book. But the general H. P. hoopla is getting to be a bit much, is it not?

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Princess Bride and you can check out how the cast has aged on ABC News. For previously mentioned reasons, I’m not having people over, but if I were, it would be a good time for a Princess Bride movie-watching theme party.

Decorations: Leading up to the front door, stake a sign that says “fire swamp.” Then line the walk with tiki torches, pools of sand, and fake rats. Inside, small vases of yellow flowers the color of buttercups, after princess buttercup. If you want to get fancy, go for a mix of pirate plates and plates with flowers on them. The tablecloth could be butcher paper or vinyl on which you draw a simple map of the kingdom, including the castle, the Pit of Despair, the forest, the fire swamp, the cliffs of insanity, the sea where the Dread Pirate Roberts roams, and the farm.

Food: Serve Iocane Powder Punch in plastic goblets. Any punch mix will do; it’s the name that makes it. It might be fun, depending on the crowd, to selectively add food coloring to some of the goblets’ contents so a few people with stained mouths turn up “poisoned.” Then you’d also have to have “Ressurection” Chocolate Truffles, round ones that look like the medicine Miracle Max used to revive the mostly-dead Westley. Also, since it’s movie time, popcorn, but maybe do something out of the ordinary with it. Add bowls of peanuts scattered around with signs that say, “No more rhymes now, I mean it! Anybody want a peanut?” Some salted, some candied, some otherwise flavored. If you want more substantial food, add items from the wedding feast (in the room where Inigo Montoya confronts the six-fingered man), including roasted chicken, grapes, and a wedding cake.

Activities: Watch the movie, of course. If your friends are diehard fans, you could turn the sound off for specific scenes and have a contest to see who can quote it best. “Spot the goofs” could be fun too. You could also do a Princess Bride Trivia Quiz, with a T-Shirt or Messenger Bag as a prize. You could optionally make it a costume party, though I find that most guests resent being asked to go to the trouble of finding costumes. But maybe that’s just my group of friends.