What are we reading?

For me, it's currently Rick Bragg's All Over but the Shoutin', which I'm dashing through in time to do an oral report on for my memoir class. And in a word, the book's frustrating. I wait for it to settle down, but apparently it won't. Actually, now that he's into his dashing-around job-changing years at various newspapers, I'm just sorta rolling with it. I guess it's a memoir, but it sure is loose--not with the facts (I presume), but with the development.

I looked up Bragg on the lazy man's dream, Wikipedia, and found links to other places which limned his resignation from the New York Times a few years ago, because he'd taken credit for, or written himself, a story based on a stringer's notes and observations without giving credit to the stringer. Doesn't sound very sporting, and Bragg was apparently nonchalant and upfront about it, claiming to have done nothing that other writers haven't gotten away with. So since learning this, my estimation of him has gone down slightly.

The book is just ah-ight. The man had an amazingly hardscrabble childhood, and his mother sounds like a saint. I could read a whole book about her. Dare I say the book is more telling than showing? I extremely liked the chapter about when he went to the Baptist church; it's one of a few times where the writing is stopping to take a breath.

I don't really know how to focus this oral report I'm to do, yet, but I imagine I'll figure it out. I have two degrees in English, after all.

A new leaf, turned over.

Yes, I appear to have returned, but who knows, I may burrow deep again soon.

I proposed to the lovely lady on 8/28 and got a yes, so that's been the biggest deal of my life, so far. It was done just right, if I do say so myself. We went to one of our favorite local restaurants, I got down on one knee, and I was nervous. And dinner was just lovely, and the couple at the next table bought us each a glass of wine! I thought we were in a Frank Capra movie.

So plans proceed apace. We're this close (already) to nailing down the venue and the band, and the photographer may not be far behind. The date isn't until May next year, but why wait, especially when you're hyper-motivated?

I'm just trying not to think about the money...

On another note, and to reference the title, I've made a vow to spend less time grading essays this fall. I *must*, to stay sane. I have more students this fall than ever before. So far, so good: I churned through 18 short essays (1.5-2 pages each) in 2 hours this afternoon, roughly 9 per hour or 6-7 min. per essay. I'm forcing myself to write less or not at all on the essays themselves and just on my rubric sheet. Because you know, how many students really read what I write or care to delve into why they received the number they did? The ones who care are the (few) ones who sought me out in previous semesters and will do so again.

Everyone in this course has to revise two essays and re-submit them. Maybe, just maybe, my new method will force them to really re-read what they turned in.

In any case, it's a survival technique. And I finally don't feel guilty about it, after 10-plus years of full-time teaching. Wow. Maybe tomorrow I'll go bungee jumping.

He lives! (Actually, a cheat.)

Meme again stolen from seabird78--here we go. Like seabird78, I will not tag:

A) People who are tagged must answer on their blogs and replace any horrid question with questions of their own design.

B) Tag 8 people to do this quiz. These people must state who they were tagged by & cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by. Continue this game by sending it to other people.

1. How many songs are on your iPod?
I still don't own one. But on/in my iTunes player on this here computer, I dunno--150, perhaps.

2. Last book I really enjoyed?
American Band. About a marching band, and not Grand Funk.

3. Are you going to any concerts soon?
Probably Nanci Griffith, Variety Playhouse, early Oct.

4. What is your favorite scent?
Spearmint. Also honeysuckle.

5. If you had a million dollars that you could only spend on yourself, what would you do with it?
Pay off credit card, buy a new house, go wild on iTunes. The rest--yes--I'd probably save. And I'd teach part-time only.

6. What is your theme song?
Nearsighted, by Rupert Holmes.

7. Do you trust easily?
Yes.

8. Do you generally think before you act, or act before you think?
The former, big-time.

9. What are you most looking forward to right now?
In 2 hours, a lovely dinner and wine and talk with my fiance and two good friends.

10. Do you have a good body image?
Mostly, yes.

11. What's one thing you love to do that you really suck at?
Wow. I don't know. I tend not to pursue things I suck at. For a while last winter, yoga.

12. What websites do you visit daily?
Gmail, NYT, AJC, YouTube.

13. What have you been seriously addicted to lately?
String cheese.

14. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
Well, indirectly tagged by seabird, I'd say introspective, slow to judge, anxious about writing--just like me!

15. What's the last song that got stuck in your head?
More Today than Yesterday, by Spiral Starecase (yes, that's how they spelled it).

16. What's your favorite pair of pants?
They're light-chocolate brown with pinstripes.

17. Do you think Rice Crispies are yummy?
Neutral.

18. What would you do if you saw $100 lying on the ground?
Take it and run.

19. What [item] could you not go without during the day?
My wallet.

20. What should you be doing right now?
Making a list of potential wedding invitees.

College success and the anxiety of influence.

According to Harold Bloom, Milton wrote with the anxiety of having come after Shakespeare. In the same vein, I'm teaching this college success course with a good deal of anxiety and uncertainty, esp. since I'm teaching it in the shadow of one of my colleagues, who's helping me out, has taught the course a long time, and is the guru.

This afternoon I was consulting with her about assignments and course content, and the old demons took over: "I can't possibly teach this course as well, there's no way, I'm not qualified," et al. Monkey mind. And I was stressing so much that I was barely aware of my desk, my clothes, my department mates. I haven't felt that wooged out from teaching in years, possibly not since my first semester as a full-time tenure-tracker 12 years ago.

But I got through both sections tonight, and it was fine. The biggest challenge will be figuring out how to effectively teach this stuff in two 50-minute sections per week I loathe 50-minute classes even more now than I used to, esp. since I'm used to 75, 105, and even more minutes per meeting. I can change my mind in 50, and that's about it.

Still, when I can burrow past the self-doubt and the stress of teaching a brand-new subject, I can see enjoying it. I actually did enjoy the second section tonight; they supplied a good deal of the energy, and I just had to conduct the orchestra.

As long as I can stay two steps ahead, maybe I'll be ah-ight.

You never step in the same stagnant pool twice.

And so, on to another fall semester and a fresh crop of willing suckers.

Check that. Time for another fall semester and an exciting horizon of boundless opportunities!

I'm trying to channel a little more of the latter sentiment, though not in such gross terms. This college success course I will soon be teaching (first section in 4 hours!) has me wanting to be a little more peppy, a little more positive about this place. We'll see if it lasts. Their first assignment is a time management exercise, in which they have to keep a log of everything they do for a week and then perform some mathematical analysis. How does that sound?

This course has me feeling like a newbie all over again, though I'm much less of one than I was when I first began this enterprise in spring '95 (!). I intend to stay at least two steps ahead of the students, which is the same way I've always taught a course for the first time. Is there any other way?

I remember my intense "fish out of water" feelings from '95, and I remember how ambitious and rose-colored I was. I think my first-ever syllabus required eight essays, possibly nine. I remember breaking into tears one day and being consoled outside the room by a student. I also remember the intense notes I took from the textbook; I still have them here. I thought I needed to write it all down because it was all important.

I don't know much, but I know this: I've learned the art of faking it. So if I blunder through a class meeting or two, I won't be hard on myself--or not as much. I have the beginning and the end of the cousre figured out, but the middle is proving squirrelly. Luckily, our college-success guru is across the hall, and I will pepper her with questions later this week.

Did I mention I'm looking forward to teaching this course?

It's a Kingsized world of love.

This weekend, we two and a mutual friend journeyed into town for what's fast become a semi-ritual for us: the annual Elvis "death day" show at the Variety Playhouse, put on by lead man Mike Geier and a collective known as Kingsized. (Geier is a large man and sings full-throated, hence the name.)

I mean to tell you: these guys are super. They channel the latter-day Elvis, mostly, but they channel him and that well-hewn early-70s soul-country vibe without slavishly imitating either. They pull out all the stops, and then some: Geier's the main attraction, but there's also the rhythm section, a 5-piece horn section, a percussionist, and the Sweet Potato Inspiration Choir. Oh, and toss in the Dames Aflame; they're a local go-go-ish dancing troupe who provide nice, um, choreography. There's barely enough room onstage to hold them all.

Anyone who digs Elvis from the '68 comeback special on will probably dig Kingsized. They toss in a few early nuggets (thankfully, no "Heartbreak Hotel") but focus, rightly I think, on the more interesting and complicated body of work after Elvis gave up movies and returned to live performance. So you get the brass-heavy showstoppers ("Polk Salad Annie," "An American Trilogy," "Never Been to Spain") mixed in with some of the schmaltz ("My Way," "Bridge Over Troubled Water") mixed in with the gospel stuff ("How Great Thou Art," "Run On for a Long Time"). And they're further savvy by throwing in a few things which Elvis never covered but could have, such as "Little Egypt" by the Coasters.

The last two shows, Kinsgized has added an encore in which they leave behind the Elvis tribute and do a couple of similarly appropriate numbers. As mentioned, Geier has a bear of a voice and so needs the right vehicle. This time, they did a superb "With a Little Help from My Friends" (Joe Cocker, not the Beatles) and "Come Sail Away"; for me, Styx has always been a little icky, but they did it well.

I hasten to add this is no camp. This is a solid, well-built band. It's the perfect way to keep alive the spirit of Elvis. I like to think the King would have approved of Kingsized.

Two from Kay Ryan, new U.S. Poet Laureate.

I've just discovered Ryan's work--not hard to do, given how much out of the poetry loop I am, but apparently she's a low-profile person by nature, a bit like former laureate Ted Kooser in that sense. She teaches developmental English in the Marin area of California and has very quietly published 4-5 books over the last decade and a half.

She writes compressed gems such as these two (from her 2005 volume The Niagara River). Look/listen for her gentle internal rhymes and dig those sly line breaks. The poems are not quite like anything else I've ever read. She's being compared to Dickinson, but Dickinson is a lot wilder and more profane by any stretch. Enjoy...

The Best of It

However carved up
or pared down we get,
we keep on making
the best of it as though
it doesn't matter that
our acre's down to
a square foot. As
though our garden
could be one bean
and we'd rejoice if
it flourishes, as
though one bean
could nourish us.


Ideal Audience

Not scattered legions,
not a dozen from
a single region
for whom accent
matters, not a seven-
member coven,
not five shirttail
cousins; just
one free citizen--
maybe not alive
now even--who
will know with
exquisite gloom
that only we two
ever found this room.

What kind of man watches Man vs. Wild?

Answer: me. But only because the young lady had it on the other night, and only because her brother raves about it. So I've seen parts of two episodes, the one in Alaska and the one in the Baja desert.

I have just one question: for whom is this show designed? The dude (Bear) dispenses wilderness survival tips to an audience who will never hike through the Baja desert, let alone hike with only a knife and a tiny backpack. His peeling back the snake skin to pee into it (and thus to drink the pee and keep himself going) was morbidly fascinating, but I mean, all this advice ("Make sure you chop the head off and bury it, because the venom is still active!") is needless for me.

It would be more effective as a straight travel/adventure show, and it's pretty effective as it is. But you know what I want to see? A series about this dude's camera crew. They have to do what he does, but with cameras and mikes and all sorts of shit.

Part 2: Return of the civic spirit (somewhat) and beginning of the fall.

Not to overstate the case, but so far, for no particular reason, I'm feeling a bit more outreach-y, like I don't mind doing my civic duty. Tomorrow I'm helping out for an hour with registration after my advising is done; we have a ton of students descending upon us tomorrow, and I'll be answering general (hopefully easy) questions, directing them to the right buildings, pointing, showing, etc. Labor Day weekend, I'm volunteering at a local book festival by serving at the "concierge" desk one morning--probably the same sort of pointing and showing and answering.

And I'm still volunteering with our literacy volunteers organization, tutoring a student once a week in basic, basic, basic reading skills. I haven't mentioned it here yet because...well, progress has been slow to non-existent. I may elaborate later.

The young lady hopes to begin volunteering at a local animal shelter soon. She's already been through the training/orientation, and it kinda interests me, too.

Anyway, I'm not justifying my existence by writing this. I just mean to say that I'm feeling light about all of this, that it's no imposition, and that I'm doing something besides what I'm paid to do--something satisfying.

Return of the civic spirit (somewhat) and beginning of the fall.

Why, hello.

Out of the loop for a while, there. No reasons, really: no vacations, no house projects, nothing much other than staying out of the heat. I admire those of you out there who update every day; I wish I could, but I feel compelled to update only when there's something to update.

And now, frickin' fall semester is upon us like a loan shark. Lots of bustle today and yesterday. Yesterday was the annual college-wide "convocation" at our campus, a joyous occasion in which we all convocate and presumably share tales of the summer, but in which we mostly listen to administrators justify their jobs. Lots of razzle-dazzle, lots of encomiums, lots of abstractions and buzzwords. In the morning session, In a gym filled with, I don't know, 1000 people, such exhortations rang hollow. I got so dithered up about the level of hot air in there that I left at break and went back to my office to get work done. Which I did, lots of it.

Today, another meeting at our campus, this time just for our campus faculty (we have multiple campuses), and it wasn't so much a meeting as a facilities update and a brief intro of most of the department heads and visible folks in registration and such Not even a welcoming of the new faculty hires, because the dean didn't have the full list available. (This place is infuriating sometimes for how much faculty are shoved aside, but that's another post.) In short, I could have slept for another hour.

The upside is that I then had 3.5 hours between the end of that meeting and the beginning of our department meeting, during which I knocked out part of my evaluation portfolio due next Friday and made sure I had all the needed copies. (I'm up for promotion to associate professor, so I don't want to wait until last minute.) And I crossed off a few more items on my to-do list for the college success course, and emailed a couple of people about a couple of things.

Then the department meeting at 2:00. We are an enormous department now. I counted 31 people there including the chair. We lost one of our campuses this spring due to UGA usurpation (though we opened a new one way out east), so several faculty in the diaspora transferred to our campus. Plus, we have six new tenure-trackers. Of course, the campus has barely enough space to house everyone, and this fall, major renovations will begin on one building, soon to include two buildings, thereby creating more displacement.

It's kind of wild and fun, actually. This meeting today may also mark the only time most of the full-timers and term-to-termers are gathered in the same room. Now it's off to our disparate schedules and preps.

I'll elaborate on the first half of the title in the next post.