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May 31, 2008

Why I HATE Going to the Hair Salon

To paraphrase Dorothy Parker: I hate getting my hair done. I love it when it's done.

I like how I look with a nice, recent, even haircut. I like how I look when all my gray hair becomes the same color as the rest of my hair. I like how I look when strands of hair framing my face are highlighted a nice caramel color.

But I HATE the process of having it done.

There are several reasons for this.

One is that I'm cheap, at least when it comes to stuff like this. I have good hair, and I like to keep it simple, so I don't need an expert stylist: someone who can even up the ends is good enough, so I'm inclined to go for ten dollar haircuts, about once every ten to 15 months. And that's fine, when all that's involved is cutting. But add color, and you need to have someone who knows what they're doing, and you have to maintain it.

I colored my hair for a little more than two decades, starting the summer before seventh grade, when I was 11, and Sun-In was all the rage. I went on to color it red a few times, and magenta twice, and black once, but mostly I went with blonde highlights, especially during the 80s, when almost everyone had highlights.

And then I hit my late-early-30s and I quit with the color. I decided I was sick of the bother and didn't want to send any more nasty chemicals down the drain and that my real hair color wasn't so bad.

And that was great for a few years, and then I started going gray.

And I lived with the gray for a few years, and then Matthew asked me to be in his wedding, and I decided I didn't want to be gray in the photos.

That was a year ago, and I've kept up with the color since, more or less, for a variety of reasons, though the stylist always chastises me for the fact that I go as long as possible between touch-ups.

Yesterday I had it done again and I am just about to decide that I must STOP.

Yes, money is a factor. I hate spending a big chunk of change to make my hair look like it used to look on its own. Time is a bigger one.

I find sitting there by the dryers waiting for the color to work BORING BEYOND ALL BELIEF. I could be doing the most interesting or enjoyable thing in the world--say, writing a blog entry, or eating gelati, or reading Austen--but if I was doing it to pass the time while my hair was being colored, I would still be impatient and irritable and watching the clock and muttering under my breath, "You better come over here and rinse this shit out of my hair in the next five minutes, or... or else I'll just sit here and keep muttering"--because really, what am I going to do? Attack my stylist with a hot curling iron? Rinse my hair myself? I don't know why 40 minutes pass so very slowly and are so vastly unpleasant to live through while there are a bunch of toxic chemicals concentrated on my head, but the fact of the matter is, I just can't WAIT to have all that shit removed from my scalp.

And then it gets rinsed and then I get my hair cut, and while it's being cut I have to listen to shit like this from the patron at the next styling station, some well-to-do 40-something woman wearing really dreadful sandals with all sorts of glittery jewels on them:

"I just couldn't believe it when none of my kids have blue eyes! Damien, my husband, he has blue eyes, and so does everyone in his family--I mean EVERYONE! Whereas in my family, some people have blue eyes and some are brown, so I thought for sure the kids would get his eyes--but nope, all four them have my brown eyes."

And I'm sitting there thinking, "Lady, didn't you pay attention in seventh grade when they taught the introduction to genetics and told you all about Gregor Mendel and his sweet peas, and used blue versus brown eyes to explain, in a very simplified way, the concept of recessive genes?"

That's the real reason I hate getting my hair done: listening to the dumb shit people talk about in hair salons. I went to a new stylist yesterday because I simply couldn't stand my old one anymore: she was a nice person, but god, she was STUPID! I couldn't bear to hear any more statements like those she'd expressed over the last few appointments, such as 1) Across the Universe was the best movie EVER, and if I didn't like it I must not be a real Beatles fan like she was, never mind the fact that she born well after Lennon was shot, and whereas I was listening to their music when they were actually a band, or 2) she didn't really like Heath Ledger but thought it was too bad he committed suicide--because it HAD to be suicide; it couldn't be an accident, not if he was depressed, or 3) George Clooney was indeed very handsome, but that Michael Clayton movie just looked too serious, or 4) it's completely shocking that a movie made in Spain is in Spanish rather than English, and it's very weird of me to watch a movie by Pedro Almodovar when there are all these great American movies to see first.

I guess it makes me a bitch and a snob to feel so superior to people just because they're criminally ignorant fools.... I sorta feel bad about that, but I also think a way to avoid feeling superior is just to stay home and not subject myself to people who annoy me so much. So I may just live with the gray at my temples and not get my hair cut for another year, until it looks so ragged and unkempt I just can't stand it, and then get the cheapest, quickest hair cut I can manage.

Posted by Holly at 9:28 AM | Comments (10)

May 27, 2008

That Which Is Evidence of Summer's First Real Foray into This Interminable Cold Late Spring, Being My Toenails

I have an absolute horror of cold feet, perhaps, because as my acupuncturist constantly reminds me, I am particularly prone to them. "Your feet are so cold!" she'll say, feeling my toes before sticking a few needles in them. "You must remember to keep them warm."

It's counsel I don't need. When I was young I always wore socks or footsies in all but the warmest months (which admittedly constitutes about half the year in Arizona). Living in Taiwan gave me an aversion to walking around the house without some sort of substantial slipper or flip-flop on--the second you walk into someone's house, including your own, you're expected to remove your street shoes and don "two syes," or "escape shoes"--so it's rare that I go unshod, even inside. If it's under about 85F, I have slippers on; if it's under 75F, I have on slippers and a pair of socks; if it's under 50F, I have on slippers and TWO pair of socks.

This makes it hard to paint my toenails, though I really enjoy a nice pedicure. Because not only do I have to take my socks off to paint my toenails, I have to leave the socks off long enough for the polish to dry. And if you apply multiple coats--and I often do, because that one-coat stuff doesn't usually work--that can take a long time.

At one point this past winter I tried cutting the toes off a pair of socks that already had holes in them, so that only my toes were exposed for painting; everything else could stay warm. It worked OK-ish, in that my ankles felt fine, but my toes got VERY cold.

So it's a big deal when it's finally warm enough for long enough that I can paint my toes in relative comfort. And that happened over this weekend, though after two nice days, it got crappy again. It was a pleasure to wake up this chilly, dark damp morning and see the shock of bright color on my very neat, nice toes, particularly since I have lovely (albeit large) feet, even if I do say so myself. It's one reason I like pretty shoes so much: they flatter one of the nicest parts of my body.

I would include a photo of what my toes look like, but I've already done it here.

Posted by Holly at 2:28 PM | Comments (7)

May 26, 2008

Stop and Smell the Lilacs

Over the weekend I complained to a friend about some problem that's causing me anxiety and frustration. "I'm going to give you the standard cliched advice," she said. "You know: take one day at a time, and stop and smell the roses."

"Roses aren't out yet," I said. "I can't stop and smell them. Lilacs are doing pretty well right now, though, and I always stop to smell them."

I wasn't kidding, either. I love lilacs. I do my best to smell every single lilac I can find, because the sad truth about lilacs is, the blossoms are intensely beautiful to look at and to smell, but they don't last all that long, so you've got to sniff 'em while you can. Walking is one of my main forms of exercise; one particular route I often follow has several lilac bushes along the way, and I stop to enjoy each and every one I encounter.

I've noticed two things while doing this: 1) Some people seem to think it's really weird and roll their eyes at me, as if I've done something vulgar or indelicate. 2) Plenty of other people do it too--thank god, I might add, because it shows that it's not so very weird for me to smell a lilac, and also because it's really pleasurable and I don't think I should be the only one to enjoy this pleasure. A week or two ago, I turned a corner one evening to approach a yard that boasted two enormous lilacs, one white and one more, well, lilac-colored, only to see that the lilacs were already being sniffed. This couple had split up so that each of them could smell one of the plants. I slowed down, because although I have no hesitation about doing this myself, in public, somehow I'm shy about doing it in public with strangers. But as soon as they walked on I head straight to the bushes and smelled each one.

I got tired of relying on other gardeners for this pleasure, so a few years ago I planted my own lilac, past the corner of the garage, where I can still see it from the porch. I walk out and smell it a couple of times every day. I suppose I could cut a few stalks and bring them inside, but I rather like to leave flowers on the plants that produced them. It seems selfish to cut them. After all, they last longer if they're uncut, and then the garden as a whole is this pleasurable thing, not just for me but for others who see it.

Anyway, until we find a way to transmit smell over the internet, you'll have to settle for a visual depiction of my lilac, taken this morning.

Posted by Holly at 1:25 PM | Comments (1)

May 22, 2008

Who Killed Literature AND Criticism? Cultural Studies! (A British Guy Said So)

About two weeks ago, I posted something on What Literary Critics Actually Do, saying I'd follow up on the topic because I had more to say. I actually have said more; I wrote a couple more blog entries; I just haven't gotten around to posting them.

But turns out there's no real need to explain what it is I as a literary critic do, because I have followed the author (which I also sort of am, in a non-Foucauldian sense), and died.

That's right, the literary critic is dead. And who killed her? Cultural studies, that evil creation of second-rate thinkers and writers tired of being considered second-rate! This according to some British academic named Ronan McDonald. Though, according to a discussion on Salon, bloggers have to be blamed as well, because their democratic impulse, their arrogant assumption that their preferences in literature should matter enough to them to express them from time to time, have helped keep her dead. Oh yeah, I've also been told a time or two that Oprah helped as well, with her book club, getting publishers to paste a sticker on some books and not others, so that the sticker-bearing books are seen as special when they might not really be. Naughty cultural studies! Naughty bloggers! Naughty, naughty Oprah!

I admit, I haven't read the book announcing all this, The Death of the Critic by Ronan McDonald. All I've read is the blurb on Amazon, which reads

McDonald argues that crowing blog-based citizen opinionistas, triumphant over shrinking print media coverage of books are simply kicking a dead horse; the lit critic, it seems, was killed already by the an out-of-control sense of cultural relativism, which has over the 20th century wormed its way into literature programs, engendering artistic and aesthetic relativism. McDonald contends that the idea of artistic expression's equanimity, and the subsequent equanimity of opinion regarding that expression, has marginalized the important and difficult work of honestly evaluating artistic worth. Emphasizing literature, his specialty, McDonald illustrates how trendy efforts to make art more scientific, more academic or more cultural ultimately undermine its role as art, making it more difficult (if not impossible) to consider with the language of art. McDonald illustrates how specific movements-including romanticism, fin-de-siecle and radical aesthetic individualism-have obscured and in some cases removed entirely those traditional standards of value. A daring, but fitting, comparison between aesthetics and ethics shows how standards may be relative but are never irrelevant; McDonald's cogent, largely convincing attempt to pin the critic's murder on relativism is sure to raise eyebrows among academics, though it doesn't do much to instill hope of the critic's resurrection.

here's what I want to say:

the language of art is dead because of fundamentalist religions like Mormonism, because of the uniform way the west in general and western religion in particular treats texts, including evocative and symbolic texts. As Karen Armstrong writes in The Spiral Staircase,

Sacred texts cannot be perused like a holy encyclopedia, for clear information about the divine. This is not the language of everyday speech or of logical, discursive prose.

Rather,

theology is--or should be--a species of poetry, which read quickly or encountered in a hubbub of noise makes no sense. You have to open yourself to a poem with a quiet, receptive mind, in the same way as you might listen to a difficult piece of music.... You have to give it your full attention, wait patiently upon it, and make an empty space for it in your mind. And finally the work declares itself to you, steals deeply into the interstices of your being, line by line, note by note, phrase by phase, until it becomes part of you forever. Like the words of a poem, a religious idea, myth, or doctrine points beyond itself to truths that are elusive, that resist words and conceptualization. If you seize upon a poem and try to extort its meaning before you are ready, it remains opaque.

(I sorta don't believe this bit about fundamentalist religions killing the language of art, by the way; and I sorta do. It's possible, I think, but I can't really say definitively that that's what's to blame, more so than anything else. I threw it in part just to show that you can blame anything for a particular situation.)

I mentioned in my last post on this topic that I read every single word of The Canterbury Tales in middle English as an undergrad. What I didn't mention is that the class in which I did so was one of the most boring of my life. It was all explication; it was all, "Here's what this phrase means; here's what Chaucer was trying to show in this passage; here's why this is so brilliant." Oh, god, it was painful, and so fucking encyclopedic! I swore then and there that I would never adopt that mode of teaching. When I compared it to the method of teaching in most of my other courses, well, I could see a huge difference in how exciting and meaningful the conversations were.

I have always trusted that my students will "get" why the great works I'm teaching them are really great works, at least some of the time. They don't always, and I admit that sometimes that upsets me, but I have told them it doesn't matter whether or not they like a text, that they're free to hate things and to express that hatred in class discussion (though not in their papers--more on that later) and I try to stand by that. I also try to give them that empty space Armstrong mentions, in which the text can declare itself to them, whereas so often in these classes where the whole point is to convince you that something incredibly boring and irrelevant like The Faerie Queen was great art 400 years ago and should still be recognized as great art now, are just fucking coercive. In a class I taught a few years ago, there was a moment, after we all finished Lolita, when we talked together about why it was such a magnificent work of art. I was happy that my students came to that opinion, and came to it on their own. Getting them to understand that was NOT my primary objective.

Anyway. There are other reasons why I'm pissed about this. I didn't come across McDonald's book on my own; I found it via a review on Salon, in the form of a conversation between two book critics. (Book critics are people who help others decide whether or not to buy a book, and they do this by writing about it in popular magazines or newspapers. This as opposed to literary critics, people who study literature in some systemic way, with an area of specialized expertise. I won't deny there are people who are both, but it's not always the case.)

The tagline for the review reads, "In the age of blogging, great critics appear to be on life support. Salon's book reviewers [Louis Bayard and Laura Miller] discuss snobbery, how to make criticism fun and the need for cultural gatekeepers."

It's in the form of a Socractic dialogue (somewhat reminiscent of the great critical essays of Oscar Wilde--The Decay of Lying, The Critic as Artist--but not nearly as insightful, witty or wise), and starts out with this from LB:

Book reviews are closing shop or drastically scaling back inventory. Film critics at newspapers all over America are getting tossed on their ears. TV reviewers are heard no more in the land. All the indicators suggest that America's critics are becoming an increasingly endangered species.

Or maybe something a little more than endangered, judging from the title that's just come across our desks: "The Death of the Critic." Ronan McDonald, the author, is a lecturer in English and American studies at Britain's University of Reading, and he's particularly exercised by what he sees as the loss of the "public critic," someone with "the authority to shape public taste." It's only in the final chapter that the mystery behind the critic's disappearance is solved. The culprit is none other than ... cultural studies! (With a healthy assist from poststructuralism.) By treating literature as an impersonal text from which any manner of political meaning can be wrung, cultural studies professors have robbed criticism of its proper evaluative function -- the right to say this is good, this isn't, and here's why.

it goes on to this:

Laura Miller: I suppose it's only natural that McDonald, being an academic himself, would blame the academy. He believes that substantive scholarly criticism acts as a foundation for serious non-scholarly criticism -- such as reviews and essays in newspapers and magazines -- lending credibility to the idea that criticism (specifically, literary criticism) is a job for trained experts. When academia falls down on the job of, as you put it, saying what's good and what's not, then all criticism starts to look arbitrary and dispensable. We don't have celebrated "public critics" now because critics don't care about the public, not because the public doesn't care about critics. What do you think: Is criticism responsible for its own demise?

Bayard: I think critics are just the canary in this particular coal mine. It's no accident that McDonald locates the "Golden Age" of criticism at the midpoint of the 20th century, which was also the apogee of the modern novel, particularly the American novel. Novels -- and novelists -- mattered then in a way they simply don't today. (William Styron's posthumous essay collection is a potent reminder. The man got invited to the Kennedy White House on the strength of one novel!) Even if you think critics are parasites, you have to acknowledge they can only survive when their host organisms thrive. In this regard, I think McDonald is right: If we want to bring the critic back to life, we first have to resuscitate the novelist.

And frankly, there's precious little that gets me more hot and bothered than talk like that, the idea that the only literary art form that REALLY matters is the novel. Yes, there are plenty of great novels that I REALLY love, but they are not the be-all and end-all of literature. After all, they've only been around for 400 years (Don Quixote is usually considered the first, and it was published in 1605), and oh, the effort it took to validate them as "respectable" literature and "high" art! For a long time they were this third-rate literary form because (gasp!) they were really popular among women! In fact, even women could write them! They didn't take that much actual knowledge, you see; you could produce them out of your imagination!

Then the discussion descends into this circle jerk (albeit a small one) in which LM and LB talk about the critics whose prose they love, though they never read the books these people mention: critics, who "can misinterpret and misevaluate to their heart's delight as long as they make the words dance," and then they both agree that it's good to read Northrop Frye.

And then they mention this bit from McDonald, and add their own interpretation:

McDonald mentions that one of academia's last havens for evaluative criticism has been the creative-writing class, and he suggests that universities should offer more in the way of "creative criticism" classes, teaching the craft of interpreting other people's works. All the same, I'm skeptical this would reverse the current state of affairs. People will only value literary criticism to the extent they value literature. Unless we can arrest the decline of reading -- and even Harry Potter hasn't managed that wizard's trick -- then criticism will be swept away in the same mud slide.

What the fuck?

First of all, haven' t they read the stuff about how reading is actually at an all time high? Book clubs flourish. Book stores make huge profits.

Secondly, I teach creative writing courses. I teach criticism courses. I have taught--and produced, and published--creative cross-genre criticism. So I think they're full of shit and don't know what they're talking about. And to substantiate that, I should probably post some of the other things I've written for this series, and I'll do that soon.

Posted by Holly at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2008

What I Read This Morning That Made Me Want to Go Back to Bed

So, the first thing that upset me was this article on mountaintop removal. I remember my sister, the hardcore Republican whose favorite channel is Fox News and great idol is Bill O'Reilly, telling me a few years about some tv show she'd seen on mountaintop removal, how horrible it was, how she wept as she watched it.... But did it make any difference at all in the way she shopped, consumed energy, thought about politics, or voted? Not a whit. She just thought it was too, too bad that these lovely mountains she'd never see were being destroyed. But she'd never see them, so why should SHE sacrifice or change anything about her life to save them?

Then there was this story about people facing economic hardship abandoning their pets. It struck me in part because I'd recently written something about the Mormon practice of stockpiling a two-year supply of, ideally, everything you need for two years: food, water, clothing, toilet paper, dog food. Yes, dog food: because, as I wrote, "You can't neglect to feed your dog just because Armageddon comes along." Hard times aren't Armageddon, but people are still throwing their cats out on the side of the road, tossing puppies down garbage chutes. I guess if people really don't have the money to feed their pets or get them veterinary care, they really don't have the money, but until it's truly a matter of feeding the dog or feeding the kid, couldn't they forgo some other luxury and honor the commitment they made in adopting the animal in the first place?

Finally, there was this piece from Salon called Little Girls Gone Wild, featuring an interview with M. Gigi Durham about her new book, The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It.

You have to have a subscription to read Salon, so you might not be able to see the article. But there's some pretty good stuff in it, for instance, this:

Salon: What are some of the distortions that girls learn from magazines and advertising about what girls' sexuality is all about?

MGD: If you've got it, flaunt it. Sex is only about baring the body, and exhibiting the body, and especially girls' bodies. That's a very narrow definition of what sexuality is. At the same time, you can't express yourself, you can't enjoy your body, you can't feel like your body is sexual unless you've got this perfect, sex goddess anatomy, which is something like a Barbie body. That's ridiculous, too. It makes girls end up hating their bodies, and not enjoying their own sensuality and sexuality. That's a real problem.

Then, there's this insistence that younger and younger girls are sexual. There's this huge emphasis on linking youth with sexuality. People mature sexually throughout their lives, and there is a lot of scientific evidence that women who are past menopause really enjoy sex. Children who are 12, 13 years old are not in a position to understand or cope with their sexuality very well. Linking sex to youthfulness is really dangerous.

Girls are always supposed to be changing their bodies and dressing up in order to attract male attention. There is not much emphasis on girls enjoying their own bodies, or even any reciprocity where boys might be thinking about what they could do to please girls. It's not very mutual.

So read all that if you want to feel worse too.... Or maybe I feel better, because at least someone is confronting the problem, getting the word out there. I don't know. MGD also advocates talking to children--even two-year-olds--about what marketing is and how it works, as in this:

I've done it. If they're watching a commercial on TV, and there is a toy, you can just start talking to them: "Do you think that toy is as good when you bring it home as it is on TV? Do you know why they make it look so fun, and like these kids are having so much fun? Because they really want you to spend money on it."

They understand.

Posted by Holly at 9:00 AM | Comments (5)

May 16, 2008

Yeah Whatever: My Life in Music (with video)

The meme I provided last time required you to answer questions about your life with random songs from your itunes program.... I thought, why not choose the answers, from the songs I like best? I have friends who never rate stuff, but I do--I assign one star and five stars and there are even songs I hate so much that I uncheck them from the program, though I don't delete them because I want to preserve the integrity of the album they're on.

So I took Wednesday's questions and devised a new meme. For this one, you answer the questions by going through your top-rated songs and finding ones whose titles actually help answer the question, more or less.

And because my favorites are weighted heavily in favor of 80s pop, some of it a tad obscure, I've included videos for some of the stuff that never hit the top 40.... also videos I really love. For instance, I love Robert Smith in the bear suit, but just about everyone who watched MTV in the late 80-early 90s saw the "Why Can't I Be You?" video.

Anyway. The videos do not provide the answers to the questions; the titles do.

1. How would you describe yourself?
True to Live (Roxy Music)

2. What is your motto?
Express Yourself (Madonna)

3. What do you think about often?
The Politics of Dancing (Re-Flex)

4. What do you think of your family?
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pink Floyd)

5. What do your parents think of you?
Not a Virgin (Poe)

6. What do you think of your friends?
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)

7. What do your friends think of you?
She Talks in Stereo (Gary Myrick & the Figures)

8. What do you think of your best friend?
Why Can’t I Be You? (The Cure)

9. What is your best friend’s theme song?
Don’t Feel Sorry for Lover Boy (Scritti Politti)
The song is also called "Oh Patti," but this title is funnier. One of the first conversations I had with my BFF CSV involved her explaining why she reviled the song "Everybody's Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy.

to my knowledge, Scritti Politti is the only band with a song titled "Jacques Derrida," and a band name that comes from the writings of Antonio Gramsci. That's not why I love SP: I love them for the perfect pop songs Green Gartside produces. White Bread Black Beer is one of my favorite albums, even if it does have a couple of really crappy songs on it, because the great songs are SO great.

And hey! I just noticed that in this video, someone is typing, on a TYPEWRITER! An IBM Selectric, complete with one of those rolling balls instead of daisy wheel. Truth be told, I LOVED my old selectric--they were great machines for their time, one of the best typewriters ever.

10. What do your coworkers think of you?
Blasphemous Rumours (Depeche Mode)

11. What do you like in a guy/girl?
Doot-Doot (Freur)

I'm not talking about those dreadful crimped mullets.... I'm referring to the indefinable, ineffable something expressed by a meaningless phrase.

12. What do you think when you see the person you fancy?
I Think I Love You (Voice of the Beehive, covering The Partridge Family)

13. What do you want to tell the person you fancy?
Let’s Go Crazy (Prince)

14. What is your hobby/interest?
Sound and Vision (and creativity, David Bowie)
Fashion (and textiles, David Bowie)
Life on Mars (and on earth, David Bowie)
Suffragette City (and feminism in general, David Bowie)

15. What is your biggest fear?
Love Will Tear Us Apart Again (Joy Division)

16. What is your biggest secret?
A Question of Lust (Depeche Mode)

17. If your heart could talk what would it say?
Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken? (Lloyd Cole and the Commotions)

18. What is your theme song?
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths)

19. What do you want to be when you grow up?
So Alive (Love and Rockets)

20. What song will they play at your wedding?
I Feel Loved (Depeche Mode)

21. What will they play at your funeral?
Young Americans (David Bowie)

22. What is your mood right now?
John Barleycorn Must Die (Traffic)

23. What will you repost this as?
Yeah Whatever (Moev)

24. What does your future look like?
God Only Knows (Beach Boys)

I tag everyone.

Posted by Holly at 9:14 AM | Comments (4)

May 14, 2008

Fifty Ten Fold

I haven't done a meme in almost a year. My favorite of the ones I've seen bouncing lately around blogs I read is a version of the last one I did, oh so long ago; even though some of the questions are different, I don't see much reason to do it again, so I'm going with the meme I like second-best.

I got this from McCutcheon's Squishy Thoughts. Here's how it works: you take the questions, get your itunes ready, and hit "next." Each song that comes up is the answer to the question before you.

I think the quiz was designed by high school students, because there is an emphasis on things like "best friends" and "the person you like." Some of the questions were so adolescent I had to change them, and I also had to put the whole thing in some coherent order--they were utterly random. I know, I know, that's really geeky of me, to revise a meme, but I can't help it.

Anyway, despite those flaws, the meme still appealed to me, so here it is. It tells you more about my music collection that it does about me, but what the hell.

1. How would you describe yourself?
Sixty-eight Guns (The Alarm)

2. What is your motto?
Send for Henry (Trashcan Sinatras)

3. What do you think about often?
In Dulce Decorum (The Damned)
That one’s true--I do think about World War I fairly often.

4. What do you think of your family?
Big Sister’s Clothes (Elvis Costello)
Indeed!

It’s easier to say ‘I Love You
than ‘Yours Sincerely’
I suppose
All little sisters
like to try on big sister’s clothes

5. What do your parents think of you?
Shout (Tears for Fears)
Yeah, that’s pretty apt

6. What do you think of your friends?
I Wanna Be Your Lover (Prince)
Yeah, I want to sleep with ALL my friends.

7. What do your friends think of you?
Little Earthquakes (Tori Amos)

8. What do you think of your best friend?
AOKO (Freur)
GREAT song, by one of the best bands almost no one has ever heard of

9. What is your best friends theme song?
Night of the Swallow (Kate Bush)
Which of my BFF’s will claim that one? Saviour Onassis? Is this yours?

10. What do your coworkers think of you?
Just Call Me Joe (Sinead O’Connor)

11. What do you like in a guy/girl?
Pineapple Head (Crowded House)

12. What do you think when you see the person you fancy?
Take a Look (Liz Phair)
I guess.... Especially as I don’t really fancy anyone right now, aside from Richard Armitage, whom I’ve never met.

13. What do you want to say to the person you fancy?
Cars (Gary Numan)

14. What is your hobby/interest?
Glass Candle Grenades (Cocteau Twins)

15. What is your biggest fear?
Café Canada (Nick Heywood–you know, the cutey from Haircut 100)

16. What is your biggest secret?
Gratitude (Oingo Boingo)

17. If your heart could talk what would it say?
Teenage Wildlife (David Bowie)

18. What is your theme song?
Deep Honey (Goldfrapp)

19. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Keep Me in the Dark (Arcadia)

20. What song will they play at your wedding?
Madonna of the Wasps (Robin Hitchcock)

21. What will they play at your funeral?
Good Morning Britain (Aztec Camera)
Except that my sister and I decided in 1984, after we saw “The Big Chill” where “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is played at a funeral, that we both wanted “Young Americans” by David Bowie to be played at our funerals.

22. What is your mood right now?
Ocean Rain (Echo and the Bunnymen)

23. What will you repost this as?
Five Ten Fiftyfold (Cocteau Twins, again)

24. What does your future look like?
More Than a Party (Depeche Mode)

Keep telling us
we’re to have fun
then take all the ice cream
so we’ve got none
this is more than a party

Wit and wisdom like that are one reason DM is one of my favorite bands in the first place!

p.s. I admit I cheated a time or two.... If a song came up that I’d never heard (and there are plenty on my itunes, thanks to my brother, who gave me his entire library, including a lot of industrial stuff from the early 90s), I skipped it and went on to something I actually know.

Posted by Holly at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)

May 13, 2008

Yogurt: What Else Could a Woman Possibly Need?

I found this on Salon's Broadsheet--it's too good not to share. It's "'substitute for human experience' good," at least for "the class that wears gray hoodies," sporting the "'I have a master's but then I got married' look."

Posted by Holly at 8:58 AM | Comments (8)

May 12, 2008

Habits vs. Routines vs. Accomplishments, and the Overriding Significance of Goals

Last week someone emailed me a story from the NY Times, and when I read it, I happened to look at the list of "most popular emailed stories." Near the top was something titled Unboxed: Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? Which was a question I wanted to read about and have answered.

One of the reasons I continue to value my Mormon upbringing was the whole goal program I grew up with. There was this official church curriculum for teenagers, which presented them with six specific areas of well-rounded humanity--physical health, spiritual development, social interactions, personal ethics, I don't remember them all--and we were expected to set and complete two goals in each area every year while we were in junior high and high school. If young women completed the program satisfactorily, they got a really ugly necklace. I don't remember what young men got. Maybe a merit badge; their version of the program might have been tied up in scouting, which the church has sort of commandeered.

I used the goal program to great advantage, collecting a slew of virtuous habits such as thrift and punctuality. I made running three miles every school-day morning a habit--albeit one I hated--and the fact that I managed to do that for a full year helped me acquire that necklace I never wore once. I wasn't in it for the necklace, you see: I was in it for the habits and the accomplishments themselves.

And yes, I didn't just focus on habits; I also set goals for specific accomplishments: prepare a bassoon solo for regional Solo & Ensemble competition. Be valedictorian of my crappy high school, just like my big sister--which included all sorts of habits for how I dealt with school work: listen in class, take good notes, attend to assignments promptly, complete them thoroughly, keep them organized so I could find things when I needed them, etc.

I still have all those habits--or rather, their equivalents in the adult world--and I don't want to relinquish them; they've served me well. I can find stuff when I need it. I don't bounce checks or get parking tickets or library fines or any sort of late fees. If I'm given a specific project to complete, I pretty much get it done on time.

And yet, I can feel a laxness and laziness and tiredness in the way I approach my habits. Now that I'm in my 40s and have been keeping an elaborate to-do list since I started grad school (my to-do list as an undergrad wasn't so elaborate, but I certainly had one), it's not really a habit; it's more an element of my character.

My goals these days are almost always about accomplishments, rarely about habits. I think this is a problem. Because while some of the habits I worked hard to cultivate have become an integral part of my personality, other habits I've acquired are more like the absence of intentional habits--just lazy routines.

One the thing I like about academia is that on the days I don't teach--and if I'm lucky enough to get a schedule were I don't have to be in a classroom until after noon, even on the days I do--I don't have to set an alarm clock. This means I habitually go to bed and get up whenever. Admittedly, I have sleep issues, and having to set an alarm is sort of anxiety-inducing for me; and yet, given that I usually wake up around 8, I would hope I'd be able to create a more structured, although still not rigid, approach to retiring and getting up.

Then there's what I do when I get up: I habitually sit down at my computer and read the news until I A) run out of news or B) get bored. I could devise a schedule; I could also say that other things would take precedent over reading on-line newspapers every morning. But it's a morning-appropriate task, and my brain isn't always ready for something for strenuous first thing in the morning....

I don't entirely know where I'm going with this, and that's part of the problem--not for this entry, but for my life. I want some new habits, but the thought of pursuing them seems vaguely uncomfortable--which is precisely what I should be seeking. I found the NY Time article really compelling for statements like this:

brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try ­ the more we step outside our comfort zone ­ the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

I have been trying to step outside my comfort zone in the last few days, in small ways. Friday I spent a good deal of time in the car, and I forced myself to listen to my least favorite of the radio stations I can tolerate: NPR. (I know I seem like the kind of person who should love NPR, but prefer music to talk on the radio.) I've been setting my alarm clock for 8 a.m. and making sure I'm in bed by 11:30 p.m. I even did yoga yesterday! Now there's a habit I'm sorry I lost: poses I used to be able to hold for a good long while I couldn't even get into in the first place when I tried them last night. I lost that habit--which I loved, which sustained and enriched me--for a variety of reasons: I moved away from Iowa City, where I had a house with a big expanse of bare floor perfect for plopping down a yoga mat at a moment's notice, plus a yoga teacher I adored who would teach me new stuff every week; and I got cable.

But I don't just want to do something new and different, once or twice--or something old abandoned so long ago that it feels awkward and difficult. Yes, I would love to take a ceramics class--I've wanted to do that for a long time. But I don't know if throwing pots would become a habit for me, and I want some new habits.

But what? I guess I could start crocheting more and knit less. I could follow Benjamin Franklin's template, provided in his autobiography, for "the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection":

1. Temperance
Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. Silence
Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order
Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution
Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality
Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself, i.e., waste nothing.

6. Industry
Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity
Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice
Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation
Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness
Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation.

11. Tranquillity
Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. Chastity
Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

13. Humility
Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

But to be honest, that was part of my model back when I was a teenager, so even though I'm not as successful in some of the areas as I once was, they all seem pretty familiar....

I could resolve to blog every morning, or every other morning.... I could resolve to be a more faithful, regular commenter on my favorite dozen blogs or so. (That means your blog.)

Is anyone willing to help me out with this? Having had a few posts lately that garnered a lot of comments, I am reminded again that there's just no predicting what people will feel like responding to, and I also think that asking for comments is sometimes the surest way not to get them. But I'm taking the risk. Gentle readers, what are the habits you find most useful and or/enjoyable in your own lives? What are the habits you would most like to cultivate?

Posted by Holly at 8:23 AM | Comments (10)

May 9, 2008

What Literary Critics Actually Do

Over on Letters from a Broad, there’s a discussion about individual tastes in literature, and how to think about things when personal tastes violate the received wisdom and authority of experts in literature--people with PhDs. The discussion really upset me, not because anyone said anything particularly insulting or offensive--on the contrary, many comments were quite astute--but because it made me confront, more forcefully than anything has for a long time, that most people don’t understand in the slightest what I do. They don’t understand academia in the humanities; they don’t understand the way literary scholars approach the study of literature; they don’t understand the way literature is taught or the rationale for it.

It’s not like this is necessarily anybody's fault; relatively few people get PhDs in English, so why should the rest of the world understand what it’s like to do that? The grueling hours involved in being a grad student and teaching freshman comp (which is the primary way graduate studies in English are funded), the sheer drudgery of grading paper after paper (many of which are heartbreakingly bad), aren’t the least bit glamorous, so you can’t blame people for not wanting to hear more about the whole business. And in order to get a PhD, you have to study something in such depth that sometimes you can’t even explain easily your specialty to grad students focusing on other periods or genres of literature.

And it’s also not like I ever really forget this; I am reminded every time I’ve mentioned to someone over the past few years that I’m not really happy in my current situation and would like to find another. “Have you considered applying to this really cool college in this really cool area?” they sometimes ask me. “You should send in your resume.”

But an academic doesn't have a resume; she has a curriculum vitae. And you don’t simply send it to any institution you’d like to work at, because it won’t do you any good: colleges and universities don’t just hire English professors; they hire specialists, to do specialized jobs, and they do it at specific times, when they have a specific need.

Furthermore, the job of an academic is not merely to pass on but to generate knowledge. It's not the job of English professors to tell students what the masterpieces are and how to recognize them, as was Chanson's assumption on Letters from a Broad. That hasn’t been the goal of literary studies for a long time; it wasn’t what happened when I started college in the early 80s. Instead, literary scholars broaden the scope of questions that can be asked about texts, both general and specific. In order to do that, you have to be trained in the types of questions that have been asked. Certainly that includes attention to criteria for excellence, but its also includes interrogating those criteria, not merely reiterating them.

Neither my undergraduate degree nor grad school involved going into classrooms and talking about “great books” and why they're great, which is an entire curriculum (not just a single course) that is increasingly rare in colleges and universities, although people like Allan Bloom are always arguing that we wrong to abandon this approach to literary studies. Certainly there was attention to the canon, to the foundational texts of English literature, and I personally am glad that I read every last word of The Canterbury Tales--in middle English, no less. But the fact of the matter is, I read that as an undergrad, and that’s where I think students should read things like that. I think it is irresponsible of undergraduate English departments to produce graduates who do not have a solid foundation of knowledge of English literature through its history, and one of my dissatisfactions with my current institution is that we do just that.

But students don’t merely read texts; they discuss them. It’s not enough to read Chaucer and Beowulf and a few representative texts tracing development in the novel in the 18th century. Partly because professors have to have a way of assessing how well students have read the texts and how sharp their analytical, verbal and creative (and here I am not talking about creative writing, but creating ideas) skills are, students must write papers. And to do that, undergrads must learn the art of critical analysis and literary scholarship, which is also what you do in grad school, only in more specialized terms.

If I hadn’t already known how to write papers and analyze texts when I got into grad school, I wouldn’t have A) gotten in or B) succeeded once I got there. I admit I didn’t like my PhD program in a lot of ways, but I am figuring out that that might have had a lot to do with the particular time I went to grad school: the 90s, the heyday of theory. I hate Barthes and Judith Butler and dear god, I can’t believe I had to read Althusser’s dreadful piece on ideological state apparatuses THREE FUCKING TIMES! I don’t remember a single goddamn thing from it, which to me is a sure sign that it lacked substance and import, because I generally have an excellent memory, especially for things I've read.

As an aside: what I really remember about Althusser is this anecdote from his autobiography (which I also read--it was written to explain why he murdered his wife--short answer: she wanted him to) about how he stuffed bread in his ears when he was institutionalized as a young man, because the mental hospital he was in was so noisy. Then the bread got moldy, and caused him great pain, but he’d stuffed it in too deeply to fish it out. And because he was sort of crazy, the doctors didn’t believe him when he said, “I’ve got moldy bread in my ears and I can’t get it out, but it really, really hurts.”

But I digress.

The larger point is this: to get a PhD in English you must (ideally)
1. Be a reasonably competent (but not a great) writer. True eloquence is not necessary; the ability to produce comprehensible prose should be.
2. Understand the criteria by which literature has historically been judged, and understand as well the ways those criteria have been challenged and changed.
3. Have a sophisticated understanding of the questions that have already been asked about specific texts and the larger endeavor of literary studies, so that you can then ask sophisticated questions yourself. This means reading not only literature, but criticism, and producing criticism yourself.
4. Have an area of expertise, something you study in depth. Thus, in addition to knowing enough about the canon of English literature that you can chat about it at cocktail parties, you must know a decent amount about the canon or foundational texts of your own genre. Not everyone who studies literature needs to read the Confessions of St. Augustine, but I do, because my area of specialty is nonfiction, and The Confessions constitute one of the earliest and most important texts in the history of autobiography. The same goes for Rousseau (who also called his autobiography his Confessions) or Montaigne (who invented the essay, when he began to make “attempts” or “essays” in writing to understand his life, his mind and his times back in 16th century France).

This is long enough for today; I’ll continue it later.

Posted by Holly at 8:29 AM | Comments (7)

May 8, 2008

The Joy of Making Holes in Your Knitting

I wrote the other day that socks are not my choice for knitting. No, what I really like to knit is stuff with holes in it--in other words, lace. Here's the last project I finished before I started the socks:

That view shows it draped over a chair so you can see what it might look like when worn; here's a view that shows it spread out on a bed, so you can see how big it is:

I loved making this shawl--just LOVED it. I liked the lace, which is a basic leaf pattern I learned quite easily. I could have managed the body of the shawl on my own, but I knit it as part of a class so that I could learn to do the Vandyke border. That was tricky enough that I'm glad I had someone walk me through it, but once I understood it, it wasn't hard.

And I'm really pleased with and proud of how well it turned out. I think it's flat-out gorgeous.

I also discovered that I like shawls as garments. I have not worn shawls much before, but actually they're a great garment for someplace like Arizona: just enough coverage that your skin isn't cold, but not so heavy that you get overheated. And they're pretty. I wish I had realized sooner that I love shawls, but I intend to make up for lost time.

Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (5)

May 7, 2008

It's ALWAYS Her Fault

I can't even comment on this story about a man who faced no charges or prosecution for killing his wife's lover, while she was tried and convicted for involuntary manslaughter, so I'll let columnist Jacquielynn Floyd and blogger Melissa McEwan do it instead, and provide this link to background on the case.

I will only add, that if the jury in Texas were to decide the Johnny Vegas business, I'm sure they'd figure out a way to make it all the fault of the woman he had hauled on stage. Don't punish the man with the gun or the power; punish the woman. At all costs, punish the woman.

Posted by Holly at 9:05 AM | Comments (14)

May 6, 2008

Now I Can Say I've Done It

A million years ago, I mentioned that I wanted to learn to knit socks, just so I understood how to turn the heel. Well guess what: I spent three Mondays evenings getting instructions on sock knitting, and last week I finished my first sock and started my second. The completed sock looks like this:

The second currently looks like this:

I do like the yarn I got, though I had a hell of a time finding something I liked well enough to knit with. It's more subtle in its self-striping than some yarns, and it would have been fun to work with something more dramatic, but unfortunately the taste of the owners of my nearest yarn store doesn't match my own: they favor pale and bright colors while I like dark colors.

But I have to say, sock knitting is not going to be my thing. I like double-pointed needles, but the ones you need for socks are TINY. And just working a rib stitch for seven inches is BORING. Yes, turning the heel is fun, and amazing: socks are truly a marvelous feat (get it?!) of engineering. But I just can't see doing all that work for something that will get worn out fairly easily--at least, not on a regular basis.

I was thinking about the wearing-out business at one class. I'm notorious for wearing things until they are in tatters, then finding some use for them when they're no longer wearable. Old socks, for instance, are good for polishing shoes. But I can't see using what's left of this sock after it gets a hole in the toe for polishing shoes.

So I asked the teacher what she did when a hole appeared somewhere in a sock she knitted--how she darned them, what she did with the sock after darning was no longer an option. "I don't know," she replied. "I've never had a sock get a hole in it. I don't wear any single pair often enough for them to get holes--I've knitted well over 70 pair."

The thought of knitting 70 pairs of socks in my life was enough to make me ram a double-pointed sock needle into my eye. If I manage half a dozen, I'll be impressed. People tell me I might change my mind, that knitting socks is addicting. Maybe... but I just have too many other kinds of knitting I prefer. I imagine my knitting addiction will run in another direction.

One friend told me she likes to take a sock project with her when she travels--it's a small project on small needles, and you can do it on planes and so forth. That makes sense--I can see myself doing that. And I also intend to wear the socks I've knitted, to the point where they do get holes. Which means I'll also have to figure out something to do with the yarn salvaged from old socks. If this pair ever gets a hole in it, I'll unravel what's still good and make something else.

Posted by Holly at 10:05 AM | Comments (3)

May 2, 2008

Hey, Don't You Know Sexual Assault Is FUNNY and FUN?

Good god. Some British "comedian" has apparently... I don't know what to say. Go here and read about some piece of shit with the stage name Johnny Vegas who got up on a London stage last week, announced that he had no material, and so decided to have some woman from the audience carried on stage so that he could sexually assault her. Mary O'Hara, a writer for the Guardian, saw the "performance" and wrote a blog entry about all the ways in which it "crossed a line." And of course people come along in the comments and defend Vegas, and explain why it WAS funny AND entertainment to see a young woman assaulted and humiliated in front of an entire audience.

And then there's the nightmarish story of Josef Friztl, the Austrian who kept his daughter Elisabeth in the cellar for 24 YEARS, during which he repeatedly raped, beat and brutalized her, and father seven children by her.

OK, one was intended to be an evening of "comedy" where what really mattered was that the man doing the assaulting got off on it, while the woman being assaulted did not, so that eventually the assaulter wanted to be hidden from public view (he asked that the curtain go down so no one could see the end of his "act"); one was intended to be a way of life where what really mattered was that the man doing the assaulting got off on it, while the woman being assaulted did not, so that eventually the assaulter wanted everything hidden from public view.

Anyone seeing the connection here?

Posted by Holly at 8:29 AM | Comments (30)