In our small circle, my wife and I are the Lennon & McCartney of almond pound cakes, that is, we both bake them, we both share them with mutual and different acquaintances, and we kind of share the credit, sometimes taking it if the other has baked it (throughout their career as Beatles, John and Paul agreed under contract to share the credit of each of their songs, no matter how involved the other might have been in its composition; that is why we see both their names associated with the almost exclusively Paul "Yesterday" and the almost exclusively John "A Day in the Life"). We bake a lot of almond pound cakes. One Christmas season not so long ago, we baked almost thirty within a one-week range of time. We began giving them to people as a show of good feeling, and, as we have grown to know more people, the list expands. There have been a couple of years where we have fallen off production, such as the 2012 let's-make-sure-Alan-doesn't-relapse-into-the-Thanksgiving-pneumonia period, but the production has been fairly consistent over time.
We use a recipe that we found in the Southern Living Annual 1990 Cookbook, with some variations. I am happy to share the recipe, by the way, but I would prefer not to post it here and incur the wrath of Time-Warner Communications. Let's just say that it is a rich recipe, calling for five eggs, three cups of sugar, and some obvious, tasty ingredients such as vanilla and almond extracts. In fact, the recipe in the book is for a lemon pound cake, and we adapted it in a successful attempt to replicate a recipe that my mother "followed" when I was a boy. I say "followed" because there lies the difference in how BetterHalf and I approach baking these cakes. When I say that she does not care to watch me do it, I think that I relate the root of the difference.
BetterHalf approaches baking these cakes as a romantic scientist, and I approach baking them as a pragmatic artist. I understand that it looks as if I have my modifiers wrong, but she loves the idea of the recipe. I don't mean to suggest that she is hidebound by it, but she likes to follow it. She likes the process--I don't blame the cooking shows on television for all of this tendency, but when she decides to try a recipe, every ingredient gets measured and placed in its own dish, she follows the order of procedure in the recipe, and that first attempt's success weighs on her careful execution of those descriptions. It's as if she is attempting to replicate a lab experiment, which she is, in a way, and she will tinker with the experiment in subsequent attempts. That first time, though, measures her success in how well she can do what the book says.
I, on the other hand, want the cake, and I tend to cut corners a bit, because I am also one who is concerned about cleaning up while preparing the recipe. So, for example, rather than put the milk, the almond extract, and the vanilla abstract in separate containers, to add them all later, I just put all the liquid ingredients in one measuring cup. Rather than soften butter, I melt it to speed mixing later, and I melt it in the same vessel I will blend in. I see myself as cutting time and work in order to concentrate on getting a tasty cake out of the effort. Did I put in too much vanilla? A drop won't make a difference, and, if I miscounted the eggs and put in an extra one, so be it. That kind of approach drives BetterHalf nuts.
But the cakes always turn out tasty, and I look forward to my diet cheat days when I can eat more than just the slightest taste. However, I imagine that now some cake recipients will want to know who actually put which cake together. Look and see how the almonds are arranged on the top. I discovered a couple of years ago that if I missed a spot in preparing the pan, I could put an almond over the missed spot to help prevent sticking. The side effect was the delicious taste of a roasted almond in a random slice of cake. If you see a cake with almonds clustered at random, that's probably one I put together. BetterHalf will have hers evenly spaced, all the way around.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
I Know Someone Who Has Fantasies of Committing Suicide
My background has led to my having relationships with gun fetishists. I am not talking about regular gun owners, the ones who own a pistol for protection and/or rifles for hunting. I am talking about the people who yearn for semi-automatic weapons, who relish their prerogative to own one hundred-round magazines, who pack gun stores every time our president says something about gun control, who, in spite of their having sent their children to public schools and universities, having received treatment in clinics and hospitals subsidized by the government, and having enjoyed the protection of forces ranging from military troops and federal agents to local police, firefighters, and rescue workers, who pay lower fuel prices because of government subsidies and drive on roads built and maintained by that same government, who eat government-subsidized foods, who live and work in companies, factories, and communities of people who also have benefited from these same programs, consider themselves "libertarians." They believe in their hearts that the federal government wants weapons to be registered so that one dark day the government will show up and take their weapons away, so they buy more weapons than they could possibly fire off in an attack and so much ammo that they have serious storage problems. They imagine that someday they will be taking a stand somewhere and will kill off as many of those government troops as they possibly can. If they pursue their fantasy long enough, they imagine that they will die valiantly, their weapons clutched in their cold, dead hands, just as Charlton Heston, the Moses portrayer turned National Rifle Association president, claimed would be necessary to get his guns away from him.
In sum, they dream of committing murder-suicide, except that rather than turning their weapons on themselves, they will be committing suicide by proxy, making it necessary for a marksman to take them down in the midst of their defending their liberty to have the potential to kill people.
Of course, they do not necessarily follow their imagined scenario to its logical conclusion. These folks to a person tell me that mentally ill people should not have access to firearms. But they, unlike the great majority of the members of our American community, are opposed to background checks. They dislike the idea that people who take some medications should be denied access to guns. They hate "big government," and they to a person hate "socialized medicine" (even the ones who are on Social Security, receive disability payments, and get treatment from the Veterans Administration), but they apparently have no idea how people are supposed to afford treating the mentally ill. They do not want mentally ill people to get guns, but they are opposed to every conceivable step one can take to prevent the ill from getting those guns.
These people trouble me. There are so many of them that they appear to be "normal," a significant, vocal portion of the demographic that we have to accept as neighbors, that our elected officials have to court as constituents. They intend to do harm. They feel committed to the idea that, under specific circumstances, they will do harm. They do not intend to live long enough to see the consequences of that harm.
At least we agree that mentally ill people should have restricted access to firearms.
In sum, they dream of committing murder-suicide, except that rather than turning their weapons on themselves, they will be committing suicide by proxy, making it necessary for a marksman to take them down in the midst of their defending their liberty to have the potential to kill people.
Of course, they do not necessarily follow their imagined scenario to its logical conclusion. These folks to a person tell me that mentally ill people should not have access to firearms. But they, unlike the great majority of the members of our American community, are opposed to background checks. They dislike the idea that people who take some medications should be denied access to guns. They hate "big government," and they to a person hate "socialized medicine" (even the ones who are on Social Security, receive disability payments, and get treatment from the Veterans Administration), but they apparently have no idea how people are supposed to afford treating the mentally ill. They do not want mentally ill people to get guns, but they are opposed to every conceivable step one can take to prevent the ill from getting those guns.
These people trouble me. There are so many of them that they appear to be "normal," a significant, vocal portion of the demographic that we have to accept as neighbors, that our elected officials have to court as constituents. They intend to do harm. They feel committed to the idea that, under specific circumstances, they will do harm. They do not intend to live long enough to see the consequences of that harm.
At least we agree that mentally ill people should have restricted access to firearms.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Next Big Thing Blog Hop
“The Next Big Thing” is a blog hop where writers around the world share what they’re working on by responding to the same ten questions. Linda Parsons Marion invited me to participate, and you can read her post on Facebook. I’m tagging Sylvia Woods, Georgia Green Stamper, and Dan Westover for next week.
What is the working title of your book?
I am likely to title it In the Backhoe’s Shadow, which is a line from my poem, “Jones Valley,” first published in Louisiana Literature. In the poem, the speaker notices the gravediggers who wait in the backhoe’s shadow for the mourners to leave a new grave and briefly envies their sense of routine while others suffer such loss.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
This collection of poems comes from my growing awareness of generational shifts as I have become middle-aged, seeing the effects of time not only on my parents and children, but also on standards of value and standards of living. I have become more aware of how notions of family and tradition have changed in the past few decades, and, prompted by some family experiences, I hope to preserve sense of belonging. I am also, I admit, trying to figure out explanations for odd pieces of experience. “Mandolin,” first appearing in The Connecticut Review, came from my learning at fifty that my maternal grandmother insisted that her new husband stop playing his mandolin once they got married. I was astounded by that information; everyone had always encouraged me and my brother to learn to play music, as my wife and I have encouraged our children. Since my grandmother passed away many years ago, I of course could not ask her why she banished the mandolin; however, I pondered reasons for a long time and came up with some explanations, mostly centered around a young wife who believes her husband sings about experiences he yearns to have. I’ll never know my grandmother’s true reasons, of course, but I benefited from considering possible reasons.
I also started mandolin lessons pretty soon afterwards.
I think I am likely to face a couple of uncomfortable reactions to some of these poems, though. In some cases, for the sake of the poem, I have fudged on facts a bit and will have to plead “poetic license.”
Another situation that may crop up will come from my mixing completely fictional first-person narratives in with the more autobiographical material, some of it scandalous, so I am expecting interesting conversations in future family reunions.
What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry, with a mix of lyric and narrative pieces—
Which characters would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I wish I could tell you that Tim Robbins would be perfect to play me, but mirrors have insisted over the years that either Michael J. Pollard (Bonnie and Clyde) or Eraserhead-era Jack Nance would have much closer physical resemblance. I think I would want Atticus Finch to consult with Sheriff Taylor in Mayberry, and go for that feel as long as the film can sustain it. Finch could use some of the relief, and Taylor could use some of the help.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
I was listening that whole time, but I’m still trying to understand.
Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I have not started sending this manuscript out yet. I am new to the idea of publishing a creative volume, more accustomed to submitting single pieces to journals; my book publication experience has been with academic texts, and I am not certain how that experience will translate. The great majority of these poems will have been published in various journals. This collection will be my first book-length creative manuscript submission.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
It has taken a bit over three years so far. I have been balancing creative writing with academic and scholarly writing, presenting papers, and publishing essays. My co-editor Roxanne Harde and I have a collection of essays, Walking the Line: Country Music Lyricists and American Culture, coming out later this year, and preparing that volume has taken a lot of concentration and energy. I do not know what it would be like to have the liberty to focus on creative writing alone. So, I’ve been piecing this manuscript together for quite a while.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Most of these poems describe ordinary circumstances that carry emotional resonance not obvious in the immediate experience, so the content would compare to any number of works.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
As I have mentioned before, questions about family and tradition have prompted many of these poems. I confess that a couple are a product of useful eavesdropping, but I have an immediate tie, either through personal experience or through having integrated family stories, to the situations in most of the poems. Of course, saying that any of it “really” happened is another matter. This volume is not a family history so much as an exploration of family and its meaning—I incorporate family to illustrate, not to define.
Regarding the writing itself, part of what happened was in spring 2008 I was at a scholarly conference and met someone who had been serving as associate dean at another university, and, when she learned that I had just gotten a similar appointment, she said that I “would never get anything written.” I took that comment hard, because I was still teaching and working on some projects. Her comment strengthened my resolve that I would continue writing as much as I could. Then, that fall, Jesse Graves joined our faculty at ETSU, and Dan Westover joined us in 2010. I cannot express how appreciative I have been of the catalyst these two have been to my writing, with the encouragement that they have offered and continue to offer. As I completed a book project, I was beginning creative writing again after a long fallow period, and I have regained a feeling of needing to write. I also began attending conferences that concentrated on writing (I have attended every Mountain Heritage Literary Festival at Lincoln Memorial University, for example), and I have come to recognize writing as a community activity. The generosity offered by these folks can be overwhelming at times, just overwhelming.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
On the submissions page for Appalachian Heritage, George Brosi expresses editorial preferences like so: “Please spare us the 'Papaw Was Perfect' poetry and the 'Mamaw Moved Mountains' manuscripts.” My work is not nostalgic, romantic, or sentimental, although I hope it does convey feeling and thoughtfulness, with a bit of mischief thrown in.
Coming up next, week, look forward to hearing from Sylvia Woods, Georgia Green Stamper, and Dan Westover. Thanks for reading!
Friday, December 28, 2012
I Think DC Comics Is Breaking Up with Me
I returned to reading comics in the mid '80s, while I was writing my dissertation on attempts to define race in African American novels addressing the issue of racial passing. In hindsight, I can see how my interest in dual identities led me back to reading comics as a light relief from the scholarship, but I must acknowledge that two major factors were also at work at the time. Alan Moore was writing the mini-series Watchmen, and Frank Miller was offering a dramatically different take on Batman in his mini-series, The Dark Knight Returns. Both of these works were from DC Comics, publishers of the Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Justice League comics. Radically different interpretations of a dystopian America, each prompted by the political inequities of the Reagan administration, Watchmen and DKR appealed to me, emphasizing the necessity for personal responsibility and resilience while also encouraging me to follow writers in a genre I had always loved but had put aside in my high school years.
This new engagement led to my continuing to follow specific writers' works and the works of related authors as I discovered them. Moore was involved in DC's Swamp Thing and Hellblazer, core titles of what would become the DC Comics' imprint, Vertigo, a line of comics intended for grown-up readers who were interested in reading horror, crime, and speculative works in the graphic format. Having been a long-time reader of Heavy Metal, a compilation magazine that at the time offered cutting-edge European comics, I found Vertigo a welcome experiment. When DC made the move of carefully segregating Vertigo characters from the mainstream universe, assuring, for example, that Swamp Thing would have only limited contact with the costumed heroes of the regular DC Universe, that the occult matters addressed in Hellblazer would stay in that title, limiting the aggravating tendency of grand, multi-title crossovers so common in the DC imprint, and that creator-owned, limited-series titles would assure a satisfying story arc in title after title, I became devoted to that imprint. I got to read Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man. I saw the horror and outrage of American culture reflected in Garth Ennis' Preacher. I suffered the serial heartbreak of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Only rarely had the more mainstream comics affected me as these works had. I wrote conference papers about them and even published an article about Hellblazer in a national journal, an unusual but welcome addition to my professional CV.
(Permit me parenthetically to mention that I also followed the DC imprint Piranha Press, whose central title, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, delighted me but exasperated my comics dealer at the time of its publication. Piranha was a writer's imprint that had a more outre feel than Vertigo. I miss it.)
Nevertheless, I find myself with the realization that while I have read and enjoyed Vertigo Comics for a generation now, the comics industry has changed radically in that time. Part of the change has come from its misapplication of its success in the '80s. Many in the industry, seeing the violence in DKR and thinking that it was the most marketable aspect of the work, permitted the ongoing mainstream series to rely more and more on violence as a primary selling point--rather than relying on authorship to complement its art, these comics began to play a game of chicken in seeing who could up the ante further with bloodbaths and ruthlessness, at the cost of character development and story. Entire issues of some comics would wind up being little more than a continued fight scene throughout. The other disturbing element of the industry, the more and more obvious tendency of the corporations to exploit their creators to the point of stealing their creations from them, hurt as well. Creators were dying in near poverty while huge corporations were garnering obscene profits from their work. Even DC, who gained a great deal of critical and commercial success from Watchmen, denied Moore royalties from products they labeled promotional rather than commercial. These issues, in concert with questionable editorial decisions such as forcing Rick Veitch to abandon a Swamp Thing time travel storyline where the title character was to encounter Christ and a telephone survey to determine whether the new Robin, Jason Todd, was to die in a Batman story arc, led to my understanding more and more the distinction between comics as product and comics as a means of expression. Of course, I side with the creators and grow increasingly resistant to overt editorial decisions to move mere product.
In the past year, DC has condensed the Vertigo line considerably, and, next March, DC will have ended the long-running Hellblazer series at #300--a twenty-five year run. Its doing so makes an abrupt shift in policy; earlier, in its relaunching its entire mainstream DC Universe line in 2011, DC took two characters long associated with Vertigo, Animal Man and Swamp Thing, and placed them in the mainstream DC Universe, but these characters did not have titles currently running under the Vertigo imprint at that time. DC's step of cancelling Hellblazer moves its main character, John Constantine, squarely in the DC Universe, no longer half in and half out as he has been since the introduction of DC's Justice League Dark. With Constantine, the title character will find himself set fully in the DC Universe. In diminishing Vertigo, DC Comics has made its choice to reduce the number of titles whose approach I prefer to read, a move intended to beef up its line intended for action-oriented readers. This move, along with its letting go one of Vertigo's most influential editors, Karen Berger, suggests to me that DC no longer considers me a part of the reading demographic worth its vigorous attention. DC is withdrawing from me.
At this point, it is still withdrawal. There are still great Vertigo titles, most notably Fables, a consideration of how iconic figures of legend continue to interact in the current world. Vertigo will also soon offer a mini-series written by Neil Gaiman that offers more background stories about Morpheus, the lead figure of Sandman. Grant Morrison is currently writing solid Superman and Batman stories, although his involvement with Superman ends in early spring 2013. Further, as a life-long Batman fan, I cannot help but continue to pick up Detective and Batman (Scott Snyder's writing on the latter title engages me). I have also found that Dark Horse Comics offers some titles that have the feel that Vertigo has maintained, so I am also following Mike Mignola's work involving Hellboy and BPRD. I am not quitting comics cold turkey, but I see my pull list dwindling, down to a third of its former length, and I cannot help but sense that the comics industry is cycling me out.
This new engagement led to my continuing to follow specific writers' works and the works of related authors as I discovered them. Moore was involved in DC's Swamp Thing and Hellblazer, core titles of what would become the DC Comics' imprint, Vertigo, a line of comics intended for grown-up readers who were interested in reading horror, crime, and speculative works in the graphic format. Having been a long-time reader of Heavy Metal, a compilation magazine that at the time offered cutting-edge European comics, I found Vertigo a welcome experiment. When DC made the move of carefully segregating Vertigo characters from the mainstream universe, assuring, for example, that Swamp Thing would have only limited contact with the costumed heroes of the regular DC Universe, that the occult matters addressed in Hellblazer would stay in that title, limiting the aggravating tendency of grand, multi-title crossovers so common in the DC imprint, and that creator-owned, limited-series titles would assure a satisfying story arc in title after title, I became devoted to that imprint. I got to read Grant Morrison's run on Animal Man. I saw the horror and outrage of American culture reflected in Garth Ennis' Preacher. I suffered the serial heartbreak of Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Only rarely had the more mainstream comics affected me as these works had. I wrote conference papers about them and even published an article about Hellblazer in a national journal, an unusual but welcome addition to my professional CV.
(Permit me parenthetically to mention that I also followed the DC imprint Piranha Press, whose central title, Beautiful Stories for Ugly Children, delighted me but exasperated my comics dealer at the time of its publication. Piranha was a writer's imprint that had a more outre feel than Vertigo. I miss it.)
Nevertheless, I find myself with the realization that while I have read and enjoyed Vertigo Comics for a generation now, the comics industry has changed radically in that time. Part of the change has come from its misapplication of its success in the '80s. Many in the industry, seeing the violence in DKR and thinking that it was the most marketable aspect of the work, permitted the ongoing mainstream series to rely more and more on violence as a primary selling point--rather than relying on authorship to complement its art, these comics began to play a game of chicken in seeing who could up the ante further with bloodbaths and ruthlessness, at the cost of character development and story. Entire issues of some comics would wind up being little more than a continued fight scene throughout. The other disturbing element of the industry, the more and more obvious tendency of the corporations to exploit their creators to the point of stealing their creations from them, hurt as well. Creators were dying in near poverty while huge corporations were garnering obscene profits from their work. Even DC, who gained a great deal of critical and commercial success from Watchmen, denied Moore royalties from products they labeled promotional rather than commercial. These issues, in concert with questionable editorial decisions such as forcing Rick Veitch to abandon a Swamp Thing time travel storyline where the title character was to encounter Christ and a telephone survey to determine whether the new Robin, Jason Todd, was to die in a Batman story arc, led to my understanding more and more the distinction between comics as product and comics as a means of expression. Of course, I side with the creators and grow increasingly resistant to overt editorial decisions to move mere product.
In the past year, DC has condensed the Vertigo line considerably, and, next March, DC will have ended the long-running Hellblazer series at #300--a twenty-five year run. Its doing so makes an abrupt shift in policy; earlier, in its relaunching its entire mainstream DC Universe line in 2011, DC took two characters long associated with Vertigo, Animal Man and Swamp Thing, and placed them in the mainstream DC Universe, but these characters did not have titles currently running under the Vertigo imprint at that time. DC's step of cancelling Hellblazer moves its main character, John Constantine, squarely in the DC Universe, no longer half in and half out as he has been since the introduction of DC's Justice League Dark. With Constantine, the title character will find himself set fully in the DC Universe. In diminishing Vertigo, DC Comics has made its choice to reduce the number of titles whose approach I prefer to read, a move intended to beef up its line intended for action-oriented readers. This move, along with its letting go one of Vertigo's most influential editors, Karen Berger, suggests to me that DC no longer considers me a part of the reading demographic worth its vigorous attention. DC is withdrawing from me.
At this point, it is still withdrawal. There are still great Vertigo titles, most notably Fables, a consideration of how iconic figures of legend continue to interact in the current world. Vertigo will also soon offer a mini-series written by Neil Gaiman that offers more background stories about Morpheus, the lead figure of Sandman. Grant Morrison is currently writing solid Superman and Batman stories, although his involvement with Superman ends in early spring 2013. Further, as a life-long Batman fan, I cannot help but continue to pick up Detective and Batman (Scott Snyder's writing on the latter title engages me). I have also found that Dark Horse Comics offers some titles that have the feel that Vertigo has maintained, so I am also following Mike Mignola's work involving Hellboy and BPRD. I am not quitting comics cold turkey, but I see my pull list dwindling, down to a third of its former length, and I cannot help but sense that the comics industry is cycling me out.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Newtown and News
My heart goes out to the community of Newtown.
I wrote this material in reply to an e-mail I received Saturday morning, as my colleagues and I were closing a semester and coping with the news from Newtown. My comments about gun violence, weapons fetishism, and the like are elsewhere, not hard to find. I write here about the media. I have made a few editorial changes from my original e-mail.
Good morning, everyone. I am on campus—I got here early, thinking I would get some writing in before attending the convocation, where I will be editing an article while the names get called out. I will be in DJ mode there, the way I used to work in my hometown country station, listening just enough to catch the cue for the next action. In this case, rather than waiting for a song’s end before starting the next track, I will kind of wait for student’s names I recognize to see them walk with the empty diploma holder in hand.
Last night, Middlekid took a field trip to Knoxville to hear a symphony concert of Christmas music. His band teacher made the arrangements. At home, Firstkid took over one of the couches and stayed online while Dotter watched a newly-released director’s cut of Little Shop of Horrors. In this original version of the musical, not widely released because it tested poorly with contemporary audiences, the heroes die near the end, before the giant alien carnivorous plants take over the entire world to doo-wop-influenced eighties synth. Betterhalf worked until 8:00, because her company installed new programming, and she along with two other women were getting all the files straight so doctors and health providers in the area could get paid as they should.
This morning, while on campus, I checked. Our Department of Communication does offer a course in journalistic ethics. It is a sophomore-level class.
Over the past day, I have seen nationally renowned networks place seven-year-olds on television to discuss hearing shots. I have read how the networks got the name of a suspect wrong, sending the misinformation out globally before getting the information right, and completely misrepresenting the shooter's first victim, his mother, and her relationship to the attacked elementary school. At least one journalist started approaching relatives of victims through direct messaging them on Twitter; someone called the grandmother of the shooter to ask her what she thought before she had gotten official word of the incident; the estranged father of the shooter was ambushed with a microphone, completely oblivious to the reason why until the “reporter” shoved the microphone on his face. Opinions of people on the street are everywhere, and, of course, to preserve themes, some of them are even saying that somehow the shootings are more horrible because they have occurred during a holiday season, as if it would be better had it occurred in August.
These are the networks who, in their rush to be first, told us that in the Sago Mine disaster, only one person had died and the rest of the trapped miners had survived, when it was the other way around. These were the networks who prematurely reported that the Supreme Court had determined that the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, when the findings were the exact opposite. These are the networks who declared George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 election, networks that accepted the notion of “embedded” reporters without fully considering that embedding reporters means that someone is controlling their access to events, networks that were considered heroic when they were doing their jobs by showing the neglected atrocities of Katrina’s aftermath, night after night for almost a month. These are the networks that devote hour upon hour to pundits and commentators because, even when a newsworthy event occurs, the rush to get footage on the air conflicts directly with the need to digest the information, check it for accuracy, and explain what has happened. They apparently feel pressured to rush content, because anyone with a webcam can offer opinion, too, ranging from the distressed call for everyone to love everyone else to the declaration that we should put concealed weapons on kindergarten teachers to prevent situations like yesterday’s from happening in the future. The internet makes it possible to find someone in agreement with just about every opinion imaginable.
And, to top it off, yesterday Rupert Murdoch was communicating his dismay. Since he owns Fox News, perhaps he could exercise some editorial direction and influence that network’s take on the events. Because, after all, in a world where we are quick to blame a couple of Australian shock jocks for causing a British nurse’s suicide with a telephone prank, perhaps even a global media magnate could consider that airing inflammatory viewpoints for profit and political sway could contribute to a climate where horrors become a part of the new normal.
One of my colleagues noted that one of his mythology students was dismissive of the course content because those gods are "not real, anyway," while my colleague had attempted to demonstrate that those unexplainable forces still exist, that our human impulse to embody explanations persists. In the wake of this heart-rending incident, many commentators were quick to refer to the shooter as "pure evil," participating in that cycle of attempting to put a face on a combination of factors difficult to weigh, measure, and confront. Sometimes the resonance of a story, especially as it gets repeated in various forms, does not become immediately apparent. Only rarely have I seen immediate effect from whatever I accomplish in a classroom.
I’m heading over to an event filled with hope and relief. It’s time for convocation.
I wrote this material in reply to an e-mail I received Saturday morning, as my colleagues and I were closing a semester and coping with the news from Newtown. My comments about gun violence, weapons fetishism, and the like are elsewhere, not hard to find. I write here about the media. I have made a few editorial changes from my original e-mail.
Good morning, everyone. I am on campus—I got here early, thinking I would get some writing in before attending the convocation, where I will be editing an article while the names get called out. I will be in DJ mode there, the way I used to work in my hometown country station, listening just enough to catch the cue for the next action. In this case, rather than waiting for a song’s end before starting the next track, I will kind of wait for student’s names I recognize to see them walk with the empty diploma holder in hand.
Last night, Middlekid took a field trip to Knoxville to hear a symphony concert of Christmas music. His band teacher made the arrangements. At home, Firstkid took over one of the couches and stayed online while Dotter watched a newly-released director’s cut of Little Shop of Horrors. In this original version of the musical, not widely released because it tested poorly with contemporary audiences, the heroes die near the end, before the giant alien carnivorous plants take over the entire world to doo-wop-influenced eighties synth. Betterhalf worked until 8:00, because her company installed new programming, and she along with two other women were getting all the files straight so doctors and health providers in the area could get paid as they should.
This morning, while on campus, I checked. Our Department of Communication does offer a course in journalistic ethics. It is a sophomore-level class.
Over the past day, I have seen nationally renowned networks place seven-year-olds on television to discuss hearing shots. I have read how the networks got the name of a suspect wrong, sending the misinformation out globally before getting the information right, and completely misrepresenting the shooter's first victim, his mother, and her relationship to the attacked elementary school. At least one journalist started approaching relatives of victims through direct messaging them on Twitter; someone called the grandmother of the shooter to ask her what she thought before she had gotten official word of the incident; the estranged father of the shooter was ambushed with a microphone, completely oblivious to the reason why until the “reporter” shoved the microphone on his face. Opinions of people on the street are everywhere, and, of course, to preserve themes, some of them are even saying that somehow the shootings are more horrible because they have occurred during a holiday season, as if it would be better had it occurred in August.
These are the networks who, in their rush to be first, told us that in the Sago Mine disaster, only one person had died and the rest of the trapped miners had survived, when it was the other way around. These were the networks who prematurely reported that the Supreme Court had determined that the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, when the findings were the exact opposite. These are the networks who declared George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 election, networks that accepted the notion of “embedded” reporters without fully considering that embedding reporters means that someone is controlling their access to events, networks that were considered heroic when they were doing their jobs by showing the neglected atrocities of Katrina’s aftermath, night after night for almost a month. These are the networks that devote hour upon hour to pundits and commentators because, even when a newsworthy event occurs, the rush to get footage on the air conflicts directly with the need to digest the information, check it for accuracy, and explain what has happened. They apparently feel pressured to rush content, because anyone with a webcam can offer opinion, too, ranging from the distressed call for everyone to love everyone else to the declaration that we should put concealed weapons on kindergarten teachers to prevent situations like yesterday’s from happening in the future. The internet makes it possible to find someone in agreement with just about every opinion imaginable.
And, to top it off, yesterday Rupert Murdoch was communicating his dismay. Since he owns Fox News, perhaps he could exercise some editorial direction and influence that network’s take on the events. Because, after all, in a world where we are quick to blame a couple of Australian shock jocks for causing a British nurse’s suicide with a telephone prank, perhaps even a global media magnate could consider that airing inflammatory viewpoints for profit and political sway could contribute to a climate where horrors become a part of the new normal.
One of my colleagues noted that one of his mythology students was dismissive of the course content because those gods are "not real, anyway," while my colleague had attempted to demonstrate that those unexplainable forces still exist, that our human impulse to embody explanations persists. In the wake of this heart-rending incident, many commentators were quick to refer to the shooter as "pure evil," participating in that cycle of attempting to put a face on a combination of factors difficult to weigh, measure, and confront. Sometimes the resonance of a story, especially as it gets repeated in various forms, does not become immediately apparent. Only rarely have I seen immediate effect from whatever I accomplish in a classroom.
I’m heading over to an event filled with hope and relief. It’s time for convocation.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Thanksgiving 2012
Actually, today is Black Friday. Wal-Mart workers are on strike, two of the three kids (they are all home) are still asleep, and Betterhalf is about to slip out to her favorite store for a little shopping. I have not written a blog entry in months, but I have some things on my mind. Let's unpack for a while, shall we?
First of all, this holiday has not been as expected. I have pneumonia this year, brought on, at least in part, by my pushing too much to get a lot of work done this semester, teaching an extra class, presenting three conference papers, attempting to complete a book (still working on securing rights to quote lyrics, by the way), and carrying on the usual teaching and administrative responsibilities. It has been a long ride, but the semester is almost over, and I am looking forward to the spring.
I have had some modest success in publication this year, as well.
But, more important than work, always more important than work, is seeing how well my family is doing. My parents are in good health, my kids are flourishing, and my wife just loves the job she started last January. It is a pleasure to see them so happy and engaged in day-to-day life--they all have something to look forward to, and I can think of little more important than that.
I wish we could have travelled this weekend, but this little Thanksgiving has meant a great deal to me, too. I am about to start grading essays, I will get to teach again on Monday (I have been out for two weeks), and, surely, I will eventually begin enjoying the creative effects of codeine that Coleridge supposedly enjoyed--all right, that last part is a lie. I will recover from this bout of pneumonia just as I always have, and I will establish a new normal to adapt.
I hope you all have enjoyed a restful, satisfying holiday.
First of all, this holiday has not been as expected. I have pneumonia this year, brought on, at least in part, by my pushing too much to get a lot of work done this semester, teaching an extra class, presenting three conference papers, attempting to complete a book (still working on securing rights to quote lyrics, by the way), and carrying on the usual teaching and administrative responsibilities. It has been a long ride, but the semester is almost over, and I am looking forward to the spring.
I have had some modest success in publication this year, as well.
But, more important than work, always more important than work, is seeing how well my family is doing. My parents are in good health, my kids are flourishing, and my wife just loves the job she started last January. It is a pleasure to see them so happy and engaged in day-to-day life--they all have something to look forward to, and I can think of little more important than that.
I wish we could have travelled this weekend, but this little Thanksgiving has meant a great deal to me, too. I am about to start grading essays, I will get to teach again on Monday (I have been out for two weeks), and, surely, I will eventually begin enjoying the creative effects of codeine that Coleridge supposedly enjoyed--all right, that last part is a lie. I will recover from this bout of pneumonia just as I always have, and I will establish a new normal to adapt.
I hope you all have enjoyed a restful, satisfying holiday.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Long Summer (So Far) of Writing
It's been a while since the last post, but life has been pushing, and I have been pushing back. The summer began with my department's having to evacuate our building, so I have been working in a space that looks like the set for Sanford & Son, and it's been difficult to focus on composing while thinking of the moving job to come. At the same time, though, I have been writing chapters of a book to be published this fall--I am co-editing a volume of essays about the interaction of country music lyricists and American culture. My co-editor, Roxanne Harde, and I have been bearing down on this project for the last year. I am down to tweaking a chapter on Cindy Walker and Lyle Lovett (I have already written chapters on Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, as well as co-writing the introduction with a discussion of The Dixie Chicks) and securing the publishing rights to reproducing some lyrics. I will make a big announcement when it appears.
There have been other writing projects, as well. I have been writing some poetry, and I have managed to place some, as well. I also received a few days ago Louisiana Literature's spring 2012 issue, which contains my two poems "Jones Valley" and "Copperhead." My blog's title comes from a line in "Jones Valley." I have poems accepted at a handful of journals, including Cape Rock Journal, The Connecticut Review, and Stoneboat, among others, and I will have two poems in the "Tennessee" volume of The Southern Poetry Anthology, due next year. I am also revising a couple of academic articles that will appear in scholarly journals in the next year, and I am scheduled to present two papers this coming fall semester.
Did I mention that I'm taking mandolin lessons, too?
I just want to assure you that absence from the blog does not mean I am slowing down. I'm pushing harder.
There have been other writing projects, as well. I have been writing some poetry, and I have managed to place some, as well. I also received a few days ago Louisiana Literature's spring 2012 issue, which contains my two poems "Jones Valley" and "Copperhead." My blog's title comes from a line in "Jones Valley." I have poems accepted at a handful of journals, including Cape Rock Journal, The Connecticut Review, and Stoneboat, among others, and I will have two poems in the "Tennessee" volume of The Southern Poetry Anthology, due next year. I am also revising a couple of academic articles that will appear in scholarly journals in the next year, and I am scheduled to present two papers this coming fall semester.
Did I mention that I'm taking mandolin lessons, too?
I just want to assure you that absence from the blog does not mean I am slowing down. I'm pushing harder.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
End of a Difficult School Year
A friend commented a few days ago that I had not posted a new blog entry for a while, and, frankly, I confess that I have not felt as if I had much blogworthy to describe. The past nine months have been whiplash ups and downs, and I am seeing so many changes in progress that bearings get more and more difficult to determine.
Today, though, I am going to dwell on the positive events. I am going to leave out the usual good stuff for which I am grateful, the good health of my family and friends, the network of kind feeling, and the other award-acceptance kind of stuff that one has to acknowledge. Consider those things acknowledged. Here are the positives:
That's about all to blog about now. I am seeing some light.
Today, though, I am going to dwell on the positive events. I am going to leave out the usual good stuff for which I am grateful, the good health of my family and friends, the network of kind feeling, and the other award-acceptance kind of stuff that one has to acknowledge. Consider those things acknowledged. Here are the positives:
- My wife and kids have gotten opportunities that have made them happier. Betterhalf got a better job where she feels challenged and appreciated. Firstkid is doing well off at that out-of-town university. Middlekid feels confident in what he is doing, taking to books and band. The Dotter's talents are starting to blossom--she placed in a poetry contest, she draws all the time, and she's excited that she'll be playing flute in band next year. Things seem to be paying off for all of them.
- This past spring, I had the single best teaching semester I have had in more years than I can remember. I taught a senior-level novels class filled with bright, articulate students, many of them talented writers, as well. I also taught a graduate-level novels class that taught me a great deal in return. After a difficult fall semester, this past spring semester offered a great deal of relief.
- I actually began feeling more like a writer this past year. I had some modest success in getting poems accepted to some respectable journals, I am co-editing a book of essays about country music lyricists (due out at the end of this year--wait for the announcement), and I have placed other pieces. My goal for next year is to feel more like an accomplished writer.
- I am getting closer to a sense of where I fit in my work as a teacher and as a semi-administrator. I think I am finding the balance.
That's about all to blog about now. I am seeing some light.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Springsteen's Back, and He's Pissed
Hello, all. I have been performing feats of administrative calibration and entropy for the past few weeks, and I have not, aside from some embarrassing personal stuff and revelatory wakefulness, had that much appropriate to write about for great public consumption. I have also been waiting for weeks for Bruce Springsteen to release his promised new album, Wrecking Ball, and I have listened to it more than a couple of dozen times over the past few days. I think it is time to share some opinions with you, and, Boss, if you read these comments, know that they are from the heart. I will not make these comments pretty. I bought Working on a Dream, and, while I enjoyed some of the tracks and appreciated your paying tributes to all kinds of pop music (especially your tribute to The Byrds, "Life Itself," and the Orbison tribute of "Queen of the Supermarket"), and I thought that a couple of tracks really belonged on Magic (the title track and "Queen"), I just could not find myself loving the album as a whole. I was particularly let down by having the heavenly, loving "The Last Carnival" followed by the bathetic "The Wrestler." I realize you earned an Academy Award nomination for that song, but the repeated images of "one" as disability, culminating in the one-legged dog image, became pitiful to an absurd extent.
Because, I have to say, I think Magic is the single best album you've released in the latter part of your career, even better than The Rising, another album I deeply admire. While The Rising offers us encouragement in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon, it also expands our concepts of hope. I believe when I hear that album that you have distilled the urgent need so many of us felt for assurance in our capacity to endure and revive. I think Magic surpasses The Rising, however, in that you voice the disgust many of us feel in having been flimflammed through our attempts to survive those losses. Your songs do not always overtly attack the empowered administration at the time ("Magic" itself offers a subtle yet sharp attack), but the entire album harnesses that frustrated energy of Born in the U. S. A. and demonstrates, often with kindred musical stylings but always with the same intensity, that even a generation later we wind up resisting those same strangling, impersonal "leaders" who screw us at seemingly every turn. I have got to say that as an album, Magic stands up, track to track to track. I can and have listened to it for hours.
Oh, I'm writing as if Springsteen is reading this note. Let me back up a bit. Wrecking Ball takes all the intensity of an E Street Springsteen and broadens the sound by augmenting it with Seeger Sessions instrumentation. As a result, many of these songs are more amplified folk than rock. It works, making Wrecking Ball an Americana album pulling from all kinds of American song traditions and making a rompin', stompin' breakdown/hoedown of an album. The great majority of the album offers political commentary as the Boss takes stock of America in its second decade of the new century. By the Boss's reckoning, we are in rough shape. The majority of the songs have a setting of financial woes--even the moving love song, "This Depression," repeats "I need your heart," as if the only sustaining factor in our times is love. "Easy Money" at first sounds like carefree encouragement to make a quick buck until the lyrics reveal criminal intent. The desperation of "Jack of All Trades," which begins with a list of skills held by the singer and the jobs he can do, ends with his assertion that he would also be able to kill those responsible for causing the hardships. More often, though, the songs offer encouragement, a call to faith, persistence, and courage as well as a confidence in heart and persistence. From the comic image of the dead's waiting to reclaim their own in "We Are Alive" to the open defiance of "Wrecking Ball," "Death to My Hometown," and "We Take Care of Our Own," to the promise of "American Land" (the final track sounding like the best Pogues imitation ever), Springsteen calls on us to persist and withstand the hard times. Sometimes a rock chant makes me believe that will work. In this album, it does.
Is Wrecking Ball as good as Magic? I still prefer the older album. First, "You've Got It" is a straight love song, and that fact makes it different from every other song on the album--even "This Depression" emphasizes the financial characteristics of that song's setting. I also wish there had been one good close harmony like on "Gypsy Biker" from Magic. That last is a matter of taste, I admit, but the sadness on Magic has a grim defiance to it that the elegaic songs on Wrecking Ball could sometimes use.
But if Springsteen and/or his people find this blog, I also find myself asking if there is an intended but unacknowledged ambiguity in the opening track, "We Take Care of Our Own." In the lines "Wherever this flag's flown, / We take care of our own," and the lines, "There ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home," especially in the contexts of mentioning New Orleans and "shotgun shacks," it seems to me that a couple of things are happening. First of all, the song appears to assert that the government has not helped the poor enough (if "the cavalry," so often a symbol of help in desperate times, doesn't help, then we must rely on each other in our own communities). I also noticed that all the places mentioned in the song are American places. The fact of the matter is that with our many international obligations and engagements, our flag flies all over the world. Springsteen's song appears to be making the comment that we Americans are always looking out for American best interests, no matter what our overseas engagement happens to be and what the consequences might be to the indigenous people. I suspect that Springsteen intends for these comments to remain subtly in his work, and I am surprised to hear that the Obama re-election campaign may be considering it as one of its rallying songs. "We Take Care of Our Own" sounds to me like something the singer of "Born in the U. S. A." would be singing a generation later.
I am awfully fond of Wrecking Ball as an album, and I will likely listen to it as a complete work again and again. When Bruce delivers a state of the union album, it is spot-on and worth listening to. It's time to listen again.
Because, I have to say, I think Magic is the single best album you've released in the latter part of your career, even better than The Rising, another album I deeply admire. While The Rising offers us encouragement in the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon, it also expands our concepts of hope. I believe when I hear that album that you have distilled the urgent need so many of us felt for assurance in our capacity to endure and revive. I think Magic surpasses The Rising, however, in that you voice the disgust many of us feel in having been flimflammed through our attempts to survive those losses. Your songs do not always overtly attack the empowered administration at the time ("Magic" itself offers a subtle yet sharp attack), but the entire album harnesses that frustrated energy of Born in the U. S. A. and demonstrates, often with kindred musical stylings but always with the same intensity, that even a generation later we wind up resisting those same strangling, impersonal "leaders" who screw us at seemingly every turn. I have got to say that as an album, Magic stands up, track to track to track. I can and have listened to it for hours.
Oh, I'm writing as if Springsteen is reading this note. Let me back up a bit. Wrecking Ball takes all the intensity of an E Street Springsteen and broadens the sound by augmenting it with Seeger Sessions instrumentation. As a result, many of these songs are more amplified folk than rock. It works, making Wrecking Ball an Americana album pulling from all kinds of American song traditions and making a rompin', stompin' breakdown/hoedown of an album. The great majority of the album offers political commentary as the Boss takes stock of America in its second decade of the new century. By the Boss's reckoning, we are in rough shape. The majority of the songs have a setting of financial woes--even the moving love song, "This Depression," repeats "I need your heart," as if the only sustaining factor in our times is love. "Easy Money" at first sounds like carefree encouragement to make a quick buck until the lyrics reveal criminal intent. The desperation of "Jack of All Trades," which begins with a list of skills held by the singer and the jobs he can do, ends with his assertion that he would also be able to kill those responsible for causing the hardships. More often, though, the songs offer encouragement, a call to faith, persistence, and courage as well as a confidence in heart and persistence. From the comic image of the dead's waiting to reclaim their own in "We Are Alive" to the open defiance of "Wrecking Ball," "Death to My Hometown," and "We Take Care of Our Own," to the promise of "American Land" (the final track sounding like the best Pogues imitation ever), Springsteen calls on us to persist and withstand the hard times. Sometimes a rock chant makes me believe that will work. In this album, it does.
Is Wrecking Ball as good as Magic? I still prefer the older album. First, "You've Got It" is a straight love song, and that fact makes it different from every other song on the album--even "This Depression" emphasizes the financial characteristics of that song's setting. I also wish there had been one good close harmony like on "Gypsy Biker" from Magic. That last is a matter of taste, I admit, but the sadness on Magic has a grim defiance to it that the elegaic songs on Wrecking Ball could sometimes use.
But if Springsteen and/or his people find this blog, I also find myself asking if there is an intended but unacknowledged ambiguity in the opening track, "We Take Care of Our Own." In the lines "Wherever this flag's flown, / We take care of our own," and the lines, "There ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home," especially in the contexts of mentioning New Orleans and "shotgun shacks," it seems to me that a couple of things are happening. First of all, the song appears to assert that the government has not helped the poor enough (if "the cavalry," so often a symbol of help in desperate times, doesn't help, then we must rely on each other in our own communities). I also noticed that all the places mentioned in the song are American places. The fact of the matter is that with our many international obligations and engagements, our flag flies all over the world. Springsteen's song appears to be making the comment that we Americans are always looking out for American best interests, no matter what our overseas engagement happens to be and what the consequences might be to the indigenous people. I suspect that Springsteen intends for these comments to remain subtly in his work, and I am surprised to hear that the Obama re-election campaign may be considering it as one of its rallying songs. "We Take Care of Our Own" sounds to me like something the singer of "Born in the U. S. A." would be singing a generation later.
I am awfully fond of Wrecking Ball as an album, and I will likely listen to it as a complete work again and again. When Bruce delivers a state of the union album, it is spot-on and worth listening to. It's time to listen again.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
My Sense of Time Is Slipping
As March begins here in east Tennessee, we have already seen spring-like temperatures, there are budding plants in my front yard, and the grass could use a mowing. I am grading essays and realize that the semester has already reached its midpoint. I have been writing regularly, submitting regularly, and attending more meetings than I can remember. I am not certain how so much gets accomplished, and I can always think of more to do. I find myself in this situation every semester, and work offers only a version of what I see at home.
There are times when all I can do is look at my kids and try to see where they went. Firstkid is off at college, and he stands assured and happy in that part of his life. Middlekid is taller than his mom, and those baby cheeks from only last year are gone. Thirdkid has started losing that awkwardness of being too tall too fast, and I am pleased to see how comfortable she has become with herself, hoping she can keep that confidence as the added pressure of middle school starts.
I'm just checking in now. I got an idea for some writing that I need to pursue, and I have some personal editing to do--not only in my writing but in the way I will face the end of the semester. My window is open today.
There are times when all I can do is look at my kids and try to see where they went. Firstkid is off at college, and he stands assured and happy in that part of his life. Middlekid is taller than his mom, and those baby cheeks from only last year are gone. Thirdkid has started losing that awkwardness of being too tall too fast, and I am pleased to see how comfortable she has become with herself, hoping she can keep that confidence as the added pressure of middle school starts.
I'm just checking in now. I got an idea for some writing that I need to pursue, and I have some personal editing to do--not only in my writing but in the way I will face the end of the semester. My window is open today.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Where I've Been
The break between semesters had me working hard, and I am just now returning to creative writing (I wrote a so-so draft of a poem today, but at least I wrote something). In the past five weeks, I graded a lot of final exams, polished part of an intro for a collection of essays due out late this year, finished one of the essays and wrote another one from scratch, wrote two conference papers, and made it through the first Christmas holiday with the experience of having Firstkid home from college along with the new teen and the restless tween. It was a busy time all those weeks, but here I am on the other side, wife happy in her new job, kids happy to be back at school (yes, all three of them), I happy to be back in the routine, as of five minutes ago the proud owner of a brand new rejection slip (not even a letter) from a journal whose initials spell a negative conjunction.
This afternoon, I get to re-read passages of Moby-Dick and Sister Carrie to prepare for the classes I teach tomorrow.
My department is hosting a poetry open mic event tonight, and I am looking forward to participating. I could use some creative recharging.
This afternoon, I get to re-read passages of Moby-Dick and Sister Carrie to prepare for the classes I teach tomorrow.
My department is hosting a poetry open mic event tonight, and I am looking forward to participating. I could use some creative recharging.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Old Christmas in Holly Pond
When I was a boy in the 1960s, the majority of my extended family lived no further than twenty miles from my home in north central Alabama, so I pretty much took it for granted that I would see just about everyone fairly regularly, but not always in big groups. We kept many scheduled family reunions then, the summer ones usually corresponding to decoration Sundays at family churches, a couple of more modest meetings at Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, and the big Christmas one, with my lone surviving maternal great grandmother being its focus. Usually, on Christmas mornings (the lone exception's being the year my younger brother had the mumps), we two kids and our parents would open presents, eat breakfast, and then head out to Holly Pond for the noon meal, the house full of relatives and the weather usually accommodating the many cousins' spilling outside to play all over the farm. The old house couldn't contain everything that was in it.
My maternal great-grandmother lived in a house trailer next to the house of my mother's younger aunt, Jean, and her husband, whose given name was Charles but who was usually called "Chuck" or "Chunk." Uncle Chunk Yeager was a tall, happy man, with tanned skin and a salt-and-pepper mustache, sometimes, and I have always associated his leathery, comfortable look with cowboys. He was consistently one of the most cheerful men I have ever known, easy going and hospitable. He made every child who visited his home feel welcome, and I have always wished that he had lived long enough to meet my younger children. Jean was just as loving, and it meant a great deal to be around her. After we lost Uncle Chunk, she seemed diminished in a way she could not overcome, and our subsequent gatherings always missed someone. Their children, Richard and Melanie, were lucky to have them both.
My maternal great-grandmother, Eula Snuggs, surprised me all the time. An awfully energetic and matter-of-fact woman, she made an early impression on me when I once saw her injecting insulin in her abdomen, standing right in front of the open refrigerator door with syringe in hand. One Christmas, someone thought it would be funny to give her a pair of Tobasco-red panties, and she held them up to herself and showed them off to everyone in the house, deflecting the joke from her. Her trailer was her own choice for her own independence, and I hope that when my own mother reaches that age, she will preserve those best aspects of her grandmother's character.
My favorite times in Holly Pond were at the old farmhouse. Jean and Chunk later sold that land and built a new house about a mile from it up the dirt road and closer to the main road, but I associate big Christmas with the old house. First of all, no matter what the weather happened to be, there would be the same feeling walking in. We would enter through what was essentially a utility room, through the back door. In this narrow room of the house, basically a hallway, was a closet, the chest freezer, the washer, and the dryer. On these appliances, the guests would place the various desserts they had brought. The kids would usually eat Christmas dinner there, standing with our plates on the appliances and eying the desserts. This room passed for the "big kid" table, the transition between being tended to as an infant and later tending to infants of one's own; eating there marked a stage of maturity.
Every Christmas (and, for many years, the first Sundays of May), I had to brace myself before going into the kitchen from the utility room, because suddenly there would be so much heat (ham and turkey and dressing and rolls had been in the oven for hours; every eye on the stove had a bubbling pot on it; the percolator had been running full bore since daybreak) and so many cheerful voices and good smells that I still cannot distinguish the emotions from the sensations. This was not the good cheer so often promoted in the mass media, the elegant cocktail party, the ski lodge fireplace, the sleigh ride through snow-covered landscapes. We rarely saw more than a few flakes of snow, and it was usually jacket weather, and my cousins were rarely in gowns except for proms and weddings, where the tuxes were rented, and if there were a little wine on the premises, its consumption was furtive. It was a comfortable, family, come-as-you-are, covered-dish Christmas of affection and fellow feeling, the shared delight of one's accomplishments and the unbounded sympathy for one's problems.
Later, when I got engaged, my wife-to-be was accepted and fit in immediately; years later, our oldest child was brought in just as quickly, just as I have seen so many new family members welcomed (I still remember his giggles that first Christmas there, when he got a plush ball with a sleigh bell inside it). Jean and Chunk always remembered every child who was to attend, and each received a modest gift until he or she graduated high school and became, sort of officially, an adult.
I miss those voices, the nasal twang of Jean's welcome, Granmaw Snuggs' saying "here" as if there were a Y in it ("come hyeah"), my grandmother Portis' mispronouncing her own married name (Henderson) as "Henneson." I miss the heartiness of the Yeager men's voices, even as Richard came to sound more like his father. I can still hear the crackle of the gravel on the long dirt road as I would doze off in the backseat after a long, full, happy day.
Today, in Johnson City, our family visits' having already taken place in the past few weeks, my kids are in the main room, playing video games; my house smells of the food I am preparing for supper tonight; my wife takes some personal time to read a fantasy novel before, more than likely, falling asleep in a needed nap. I have spoken to my parents, and they are well; I have texted my brother and his family, because it is Sunday and they have church activities; I plan part of the new year and hope the best of what I cannot foresee or affect. We are making a different Christmas now, preparing for the future when our children will come to visit us and associate Christmas with this one of many homes we love. Still, every time we go to visit family in Alabama, we drive through Holly Pond, and I yearn to turn from the two-lane state highway onto the familiar country road each time we pass it. Just now, in my heart, I have made that turn again.
My maternal great-grandmother lived in a house trailer next to the house of my mother's younger aunt, Jean, and her husband, whose given name was Charles but who was usually called "Chuck" or "Chunk." Uncle Chunk Yeager was a tall, happy man, with tanned skin and a salt-and-pepper mustache, sometimes, and I have always associated his leathery, comfortable look with cowboys. He was consistently one of the most cheerful men I have ever known, easy going and hospitable. He made every child who visited his home feel welcome, and I have always wished that he had lived long enough to meet my younger children. Jean was just as loving, and it meant a great deal to be around her. After we lost Uncle Chunk, she seemed diminished in a way she could not overcome, and our subsequent gatherings always missed someone. Their children, Richard and Melanie, were lucky to have them both.
My maternal great-grandmother, Eula Snuggs, surprised me all the time. An awfully energetic and matter-of-fact woman, she made an early impression on me when I once saw her injecting insulin in her abdomen, standing right in front of the open refrigerator door with syringe in hand. One Christmas, someone thought it would be funny to give her a pair of Tobasco-red panties, and she held them up to herself and showed them off to everyone in the house, deflecting the joke from her. Her trailer was her own choice for her own independence, and I hope that when my own mother reaches that age, she will preserve those best aspects of her grandmother's character.
My favorite times in Holly Pond were at the old farmhouse. Jean and Chunk later sold that land and built a new house about a mile from it up the dirt road and closer to the main road, but I associate big Christmas with the old house. First of all, no matter what the weather happened to be, there would be the same feeling walking in. We would enter through what was essentially a utility room, through the back door. In this narrow room of the house, basically a hallway, was a closet, the chest freezer, the washer, and the dryer. On these appliances, the guests would place the various desserts they had brought. The kids would usually eat Christmas dinner there, standing with our plates on the appliances and eying the desserts. This room passed for the "big kid" table, the transition between being tended to as an infant and later tending to infants of one's own; eating there marked a stage of maturity.
Every Christmas (and, for many years, the first Sundays of May), I had to brace myself before going into the kitchen from the utility room, because suddenly there would be so much heat (ham and turkey and dressing and rolls had been in the oven for hours; every eye on the stove had a bubbling pot on it; the percolator had been running full bore since daybreak) and so many cheerful voices and good smells that I still cannot distinguish the emotions from the sensations. This was not the good cheer so often promoted in the mass media, the elegant cocktail party, the ski lodge fireplace, the sleigh ride through snow-covered landscapes. We rarely saw more than a few flakes of snow, and it was usually jacket weather, and my cousins were rarely in gowns except for proms and weddings, where the tuxes were rented, and if there were a little wine on the premises, its consumption was furtive. It was a comfortable, family, come-as-you-are, covered-dish Christmas of affection and fellow feeling, the shared delight of one's accomplishments and the unbounded sympathy for one's problems.
Later, when I got engaged, my wife-to-be was accepted and fit in immediately; years later, our oldest child was brought in just as quickly, just as I have seen so many new family members welcomed (I still remember his giggles that first Christmas there, when he got a plush ball with a sleigh bell inside it). Jean and Chunk always remembered every child who was to attend, and each received a modest gift until he or she graduated high school and became, sort of officially, an adult.
I miss those voices, the nasal twang of Jean's welcome, Granmaw Snuggs' saying "here" as if there were a Y in it ("come hyeah"), my grandmother Portis' mispronouncing her own married name (Henderson) as "Henneson." I miss the heartiness of the Yeager men's voices, even as Richard came to sound more like his father. I can still hear the crackle of the gravel on the long dirt road as I would doze off in the backseat after a long, full, happy day.
Today, in Johnson City, our family visits' having already taken place in the past few weeks, my kids are in the main room, playing video games; my house smells of the food I am preparing for supper tonight; my wife takes some personal time to read a fantasy novel before, more than likely, falling asleep in a needed nap. I have spoken to my parents, and they are well; I have texted my brother and his family, because it is Sunday and they have church activities; I plan part of the new year and hope the best of what I cannot foresee or affect. We are making a different Christmas now, preparing for the future when our children will come to visit us and associate Christmas with this one of many homes we love. Still, every time we go to visit family in Alabama, we drive through Holly Pond, and I yearn to turn from the two-lane state highway onto the familiar country road each time we pass it. Just now, in my heart, I have made that turn again.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Oh, Rejection!
I have received two rejection notices in the past few days. One of them came from a literary magazine in west Tennessee, and all it contained was a slip of paper about the size of a business card, offering some vague comment about how my work did not suit the magazine's needs. The paper looked as if it were cut by hand from a larger sheet. My work had been with the magazine for just a couple of weeks. I felt dumped.
The other rejection notice was on stationery, and, while it contained a typed, likely canned rejection, someone on the staff wrote a note of thanks on it and signed it with initials. This journal had had these poems for a couple of months, and, to be fair, I had to contact them twice because I had simultaneously submitted the poems, and three had been taken by other journals.
Here at the end of the year, I imagine I will be receiving more rejection slips as various journals complete their selections, but I hope that they are not as discouraging as a processing slip from an anonymous inspector.
The other rejection notice was on stationery, and, while it contained a typed, likely canned rejection, someone on the staff wrote a note of thanks on it and signed it with initials. This journal had had these poems for a couple of months, and, to be fair, I had to contact them twice because I had simultaneously submitted the poems, and three had been taken by other journals.
Here at the end of the year, I imagine I will be receiving more rejection slips as various journals complete their selections, but I hope that they are not as discouraging as a processing slip from an anonymous inspector.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
About Karen Cajka
When I was putting together my application for promotion to professor here at East Tennessee State University, I was having a bit of difficulty writing my teaching philosophy. I had written one a number of years ago, back when I applied for my position here, and I had, of course, read a number of them in my serving on many hiring committees for my department. I was struggling with this particular one, though. I wound up writing a personal account, describing how key professors in my own experience as a student shaped the way I teach and think about students. I just could not separate myself from the document enough to determine whether I had what I needed.
Fortunately, as I was walking around campus on that Saturday, clearing my head a bit away from the keyboard, I found Karen Cajka coming in to get some work done in the Women's Studies office. As we were talking, she found out how I was stuck and offered to look at what I had written. I returned to my office and e-mailed her a draft; half an hour later, she invited me to come over to her office to talk about it.
Karen had a lot of strengths as a teacher, and one was that she was up to date on the education jargon I do not know. Her review of my teaching philosophy document was essentially taking what I had described and explaining what terms I needed to include in introducing those experiences. With her background in education, her understanding of what reviewers might be looking for, and her appreciation of nuance--she didn't ask me to change my writing voice, just to incorporate more terms--her suggestions helped me feel more confident in expressing how I go about teaching. Clearly, one of her other strengths as a teacher was to help others understand how they, too, are teachers. I will always be grateful for her helping me to put that understanding into words.
It's the other stuff that is difficult for words now. Karen and I disagreed on a lot of small things. I am a morning person, and she just did not care to start the day so early. We disagreed about whether first-semester composition students should have creative literature for a subject ("We're not trying to make them into English majors, Alan!"). We disagreed about traditional grammar teaching methods, as well, in spite of my pointing out the irony of her being an expert in The Forgotten Women Grammarians of Eighteenth-Century England. We've had good-spirited, but definitely spirited, arguments over the modern tendency to offer "their" as a catch-all referent to any singular noun (as in Karen's preferred "The student has their priorities" instead of my preferred "The student has his or her priorities" or "The students have their priorities"). "Language evolves, Alan!" she'd say, and I would concede it does. It does. But these exchanges, friendly back-and-forth stuff, really, were nothing compared to her ability to persuade folks on major points. I have served on many committees with Karen, from revamping our department's composition series for first-year students, to refining our curriculum for the next decade, to selecting new faculty members to join us in our department, and Karen was always armed with all the information she could get, often with charts and tables to illustrate what she had discovered. I have also turned to her more than a few times when I had questions about particular social issues where I did not want to reduce my wrestling with a problem to mere categorization. For the longest time, for example, we discussed whether "ginger" is a derogatory term in reference to a group of people. She understood how seriously I was taking that question and helped me deal with it.
Karen's professional accolades do not offer a full picture. She has influenced too many people to count. Just Karen--her students adore her, her colleagues admire her and depended on her, and her friends are having such a difficult time now, starting back up. She knew what was needed and how to help.
A few months ago, for example, when I was feeling dogged and blue, she asked me what was going on. And I explained, aside from the administrative and professional stuff that was going on at work that home life was shifting, with firstkid's soon moving away to college, and my needing to pick up even more household responsibility with my wife's returning to school on top of her full-time job, and the younger two kids' having so many activities requiring my logistics. After I described my usual day, she laughed and said, "Alan, you're a working mom." From a director of a women's studies division, that's a pretty high compliment. From a friend like Karen, though, it was affectionate understanding. She was so good at seeing how things matter, and her advice was direct and clear and thoughtful.
She laughed without reserve, she had a facial tic of twitching her nose once or twice to indicate she was thinking, and she agreed with a happy, embracing "I know!" Yes, she did. She knew a lot, and we were all fortunate she shared it with us, and we will preserve as much of it as we can.
I haven't written how I feel about her, but she knows.
Karen Cajka, 1966-2011 offers a tribute by our colleague, Phyllis Thompson.
For another fine appreciation of Karen, please see this entry on Amber Kinser's blog.
Fortunately, as I was walking around campus on that Saturday, clearing my head a bit away from the keyboard, I found Karen Cajka coming in to get some work done in the Women's Studies office. As we were talking, she found out how I was stuck and offered to look at what I had written. I returned to my office and e-mailed her a draft; half an hour later, she invited me to come over to her office to talk about it.
Karen had a lot of strengths as a teacher, and one was that she was up to date on the education jargon I do not know. Her review of my teaching philosophy document was essentially taking what I had described and explaining what terms I needed to include in introducing those experiences. With her background in education, her understanding of what reviewers might be looking for, and her appreciation of nuance--she didn't ask me to change my writing voice, just to incorporate more terms--her suggestions helped me feel more confident in expressing how I go about teaching. Clearly, one of her other strengths as a teacher was to help others understand how they, too, are teachers. I will always be grateful for her helping me to put that understanding into words.
It's the other stuff that is difficult for words now. Karen and I disagreed on a lot of small things. I am a morning person, and she just did not care to start the day so early. We disagreed about whether first-semester composition students should have creative literature for a subject ("We're not trying to make them into English majors, Alan!"). We disagreed about traditional grammar teaching methods, as well, in spite of my pointing out the irony of her being an expert in The Forgotten Women Grammarians of Eighteenth-Century England. We've had good-spirited, but definitely spirited, arguments over the modern tendency to offer "their" as a catch-all referent to any singular noun (as in Karen's preferred "The student has their priorities" instead of my preferred "The student has his or her priorities" or "The students have their priorities"). "Language evolves, Alan!" she'd say, and I would concede it does. It does. But these exchanges, friendly back-and-forth stuff, really, were nothing compared to her ability to persuade folks on major points. I have served on many committees with Karen, from revamping our department's composition series for first-year students, to refining our curriculum for the next decade, to selecting new faculty members to join us in our department, and Karen was always armed with all the information she could get, often with charts and tables to illustrate what she had discovered. I have also turned to her more than a few times when I had questions about particular social issues where I did not want to reduce my wrestling with a problem to mere categorization. For the longest time, for example, we discussed whether "ginger" is a derogatory term in reference to a group of people. She understood how seriously I was taking that question and helped me deal with it.
Karen's professional accolades do not offer a full picture. She has influenced too many people to count. Just Karen--her students adore her, her colleagues admire her and depended on her, and her friends are having such a difficult time now, starting back up. She knew what was needed and how to help.
A few months ago, for example, when I was feeling dogged and blue, she asked me what was going on. And I explained, aside from the administrative and professional stuff that was going on at work that home life was shifting, with firstkid's soon moving away to college, and my needing to pick up even more household responsibility with my wife's returning to school on top of her full-time job, and the younger two kids' having so many activities requiring my logistics. After I described my usual day, she laughed and said, "Alan, you're a working mom." From a director of a women's studies division, that's a pretty high compliment. From a friend like Karen, though, it was affectionate understanding. She was so good at seeing how things matter, and her advice was direct and clear and thoughtful.
She laughed without reserve, she had a facial tic of twitching her nose once or twice to indicate she was thinking, and she agreed with a happy, embracing "I know!" Yes, she did. She knew a lot, and we were all fortunate she shared it with us, and we will preserve as much of it as we can.
I haven't written how I feel about her, but she knows.
Karen Cajka, 1966-2011 offers a tribute by our colleague, Phyllis Thompson.
For another fine appreciation of Karen, please see this entry on Amber Kinser's blog.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
About Christmas Music
A couple of weeks ago, a sales representative in the Johnson City, TN, Books-a-Million told me that I should have asked permission before taking a shot with my camera phone of one of the displays. I was photographing a Christmas display that had gone up in the middle of October. Already, like many of the other stores in my area (I suppose around the country), the retailers are getting in another early shot at the holidays, fearful that we consumers may forget that the holidays are on the way and that they will not be able to make sales quotas yet again. I am not going to go all nostalgic about the days when people hardly mentioned Christmas until we had begun eating the Thanksgiving meals, but something shook me this morning in a way I did not expect to feel. I was in a local supermarket, and I thought I heard Christmas music playing in the background. I nearly bolted.
Some of you may not know that I was a disc jockey at a small country station in my hometown, and, since I was a part-timer, I had a lot of the impossible holiday shifts. One year, the management thought it would be a good idea to run Christmas music for the entire programming day. I had exposure to Christmas music that hardly anyone would want to hear, and I had a lot of exposure to it.
Basically, there are two main problems with Christmas music. There is not a lot of good Christmas music, and the good Christmas music there is rarely gets the performance it deserves. These problems are particularly related in the music industry, so some explanation is in order.
Remember that performers earn money on Christmas recordings in two ways. The first has to do with performance rights, in that sometimes a performer offers such a definitive recording of a song that it become the version that just about everyone wants to hear. The other way is to write a Christmas song and to earn royalties from it. The second method offers a surer way to earn money from a song, because it is, bluntly, easier to sell folks a song than to make a lot of people love a recording so much that they want to buy it and hear it a great deal (when one factors in that a fan is going to buy practically every album an act releases, then one can see how easy it can be for a Christmas album to serve as a quickly produced product--hardly any new songs need to be written, it requires less marketing, and the company has a rough assurance of how many units will sell--there's a Lynyrd Skynyrd Christmas album still available). If all one is concerned about is turning a quick profit, Christmas songs have only to contend with other Christmas songs that will make for immediate competition.
For example, one of my favorite modern Christmas songs is Mel Torme's and Robert Wells' "The Christmas Song," the one that starts with "Chesnuts roasting on an open fire." The Nat "King" Cole recording of that song has become the standard. I imagine that Torme probably earned more money from that song than anything else he ever wrote or recorded himself, and, while Nat "King" Cole likely made some money from it, I doubt that his earnings came anywhere near Torme's and Wells'. Generally, performers make more money from their live performances than from their recordings, unless they are fortunate enough to have hits with songs they have written themselves.
Now, with Christmas music, we face the situation where people want to hear the traditional songs, but there is no real money for the performers in recording songs written by someone else. For that reason, most Christmas albums will feature an original song or two, usually written by the recording artist, so that when the albums sell, the artists will derive some extra income from the songs that they have written. Sometimes, these songs can be awfully good. Patty Loveless co-wrote three of the songs, "Santa Train," "Christmas Day at My House," and "Bluegrass, White Snow" on her Bluegrass & White Snow: A Mountain Christmas, and the songs convey a genuine sweetness contemporary songs rarely achieve. I also have to mention Tim O'Brien's "Making Plans" as a heartbreakingly good song about looking forward to coming home for the holidays. At the same time, Alan Jackson's "Merry Christmas to Me," on his Honky Tonk Christmas, is about as derivative a regretful break-up song as you can expect, only with Christmas trappings. Unfortunately, many of the new songs fall into this category of profitable album filler. I have to give Jackson credit, though, because another song on that album, "The Angels Cried" by Harley Allen and Deborah Nims, offers a perspective on the Nativity story one does not always encounter, the poignancy of the angels' knowledge of what the Christ Child would have to endure. Like few other contemporary Christmas songs, such as "There's a New Kid in Town" (written by Curly Putnam, Keith Whitley, and Don Cook). Joni Mitchell's "River," and Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas from the Family" (a genuine O'Connoresque short story), these songs avoid the overt attempts at novelty hits and wearying retreads of "Twelve Days of Christmas."
I also face the problem during the holidays of hearing so-so versions of legendary songs so that we wonder how anyone could have considered them good ideas. To be fair, every once in a while, someone will record a familiar song in such a way that it comes to rival a classic performance. For example, Bruce Springsteen's take of the Crystals' version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie) has an expression of joy in it that trumps the preciousness of the more traditional arrangements. As derided as Bob Dylan's Christmas in the Heart has been in recent critiques, his version of "Must Be Santa" (William Fredericks and Hal Moore) makes the traditional arrangements of all the other songs on the album seem anemic by comparison. Unfortunately, given the sales imperatives of making new seasonal profit, all too often the newer versions of songs seem ill-judged at best (Stevie Nicks released a version of "Silent Night" that attempts a solemnity but manages somnolence--I am sorry, Ms. Nicks, I have followed your career since "Frozen Love," but I have to be honest), and malicious at worst (Winger's "funky" acoustic version of "Silent Night," which begins with a fine traditional approach but turns into the sonic equivalent to getting a beautifully wrapped Tupperware pasta steamer in a "dirty Santa" exchange). What promises to be "heavenly peace" does not always turn out to be so.
Honestly, I understand that there will be a wide variety of taste and experience in selecting Christmas music. Madonna's "Santa Baby" (Joan Javits and Philip Springer) is an amusing "material girl" take on Eartha Kitt's version, but I like them both because I know them both. My younger children like the novelty songs, even the one where a drunken grandmother dies by reindeer hooves. And, frankly, there are times when I could hear Sarah McLachlan sing just about anything, so when she offers variations of "What Child Is This?" I go along. Still, I find some solace in selecting recordings and playing them rather than risking whatever might show up on the radio, and I dread what I might encounter in the store public address systems.
I am still looking, though, and finding treasures. Just recently, Sting released If on a Winter's Night . . . and I found on it versions of "Gabriel's Message" and "Cherry Tree Carol" that illuminate the lyrics. When Emmylou Harris released an expanded version of Light of the Stable, I was pleased to find yet another version of "Cherry Tree Carol" there. And, a couple of years ago, I found on James Taylor's A Christmas Album "Some Children See Him" (Wihla Hutson and Alred Burt), a song I remembered from my boyhood. But it seems, at least to me, that some of these songs have been performed for the joy of recording them. No one sings "The Cherry Carol," particularly in our political/social climate, expecting a hit.
Some of you may not know that I was a disc jockey at a small country station in my hometown, and, since I was a part-timer, I had a lot of the impossible holiday shifts. One year, the management thought it would be a good idea to run Christmas music for the entire programming day. I had exposure to Christmas music that hardly anyone would want to hear, and I had a lot of exposure to it.
Basically, there are two main problems with Christmas music. There is not a lot of good Christmas music, and the good Christmas music there is rarely gets the performance it deserves. These problems are particularly related in the music industry, so some explanation is in order.
Remember that performers earn money on Christmas recordings in two ways. The first has to do with performance rights, in that sometimes a performer offers such a definitive recording of a song that it become the version that just about everyone wants to hear. The other way is to write a Christmas song and to earn royalties from it. The second method offers a surer way to earn money from a song, because it is, bluntly, easier to sell folks a song than to make a lot of people love a recording so much that they want to buy it and hear it a great deal (when one factors in that a fan is going to buy practically every album an act releases, then one can see how easy it can be for a Christmas album to serve as a quickly produced product--hardly any new songs need to be written, it requires less marketing, and the company has a rough assurance of how many units will sell--there's a Lynyrd Skynyrd Christmas album still available). If all one is concerned about is turning a quick profit, Christmas songs have only to contend with other Christmas songs that will make for immediate competition.
For example, one of my favorite modern Christmas songs is Mel Torme's and Robert Wells' "The Christmas Song," the one that starts with "Chesnuts roasting on an open fire." The Nat "King" Cole recording of that song has become the standard. I imagine that Torme probably earned more money from that song than anything else he ever wrote or recorded himself, and, while Nat "King" Cole likely made some money from it, I doubt that his earnings came anywhere near Torme's and Wells'. Generally, performers make more money from their live performances than from their recordings, unless they are fortunate enough to have hits with songs they have written themselves.
Now, with Christmas music, we face the situation where people want to hear the traditional songs, but there is no real money for the performers in recording songs written by someone else. For that reason, most Christmas albums will feature an original song or two, usually written by the recording artist, so that when the albums sell, the artists will derive some extra income from the songs that they have written. Sometimes, these songs can be awfully good. Patty Loveless co-wrote three of the songs, "Santa Train," "Christmas Day at My House," and "Bluegrass, White Snow" on her Bluegrass & White Snow: A Mountain Christmas, and the songs convey a genuine sweetness contemporary songs rarely achieve. I also have to mention Tim O'Brien's "Making Plans" as a heartbreakingly good song about looking forward to coming home for the holidays. At the same time, Alan Jackson's "Merry Christmas to Me," on his Honky Tonk Christmas, is about as derivative a regretful break-up song as you can expect, only with Christmas trappings. Unfortunately, many of the new songs fall into this category of profitable album filler. I have to give Jackson credit, though, because another song on that album, "The Angels Cried" by Harley Allen and Deborah Nims, offers a perspective on the Nativity story one does not always encounter, the poignancy of the angels' knowledge of what the Christ Child would have to endure. Like few other contemporary Christmas songs, such as "There's a New Kid in Town" (written by Curly Putnam, Keith Whitley, and Don Cook). Joni Mitchell's "River," and Robert Earl Keen's "Merry Christmas from the Family" (a genuine O'Connoresque short story), these songs avoid the overt attempts at novelty hits and wearying retreads of "Twelve Days of Christmas."
I also face the problem during the holidays of hearing so-so versions of legendary songs so that we wonder how anyone could have considered them good ideas. To be fair, every once in a while, someone will record a familiar song in such a way that it comes to rival a classic performance. For example, Bruce Springsteen's take of the Crystals' version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" (John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie) has an expression of joy in it that trumps the preciousness of the more traditional arrangements. As derided as Bob Dylan's Christmas in the Heart has been in recent critiques, his version of "Must Be Santa" (William Fredericks and Hal Moore) makes the traditional arrangements of all the other songs on the album seem anemic by comparison. Unfortunately, given the sales imperatives of making new seasonal profit, all too often the newer versions of songs seem ill-judged at best (Stevie Nicks released a version of "Silent Night" that attempts a solemnity but manages somnolence--I am sorry, Ms. Nicks, I have followed your career since "Frozen Love," but I have to be honest), and malicious at worst (Winger's "funky" acoustic version of "Silent Night," which begins with a fine traditional approach but turns into the sonic equivalent to getting a beautifully wrapped Tupperware pasta steamer in a "dirty Santa" exchange). What promises to be "heavenly peace" does not always turn out to be so.
Honestly, I understand that there will be a wide variety of taste and experience in selecting Christmas music. Madonna's "Santa Baby" (Joan Javits and Philip Springer) is an amusing "material girl" take on Eartha Kitt's version, but I like them both because I know them both. My younger children like the novelty songs, even the one where a drunken grandmother dies by reindeer hooves. And, frankly, there are times when I could hear Sarah McLachlan sing just about anything, so when she offers variations of "What Child Is This?" I go along. Still, I find some solace in selecting recordings and playing them rather than risking whatever might show up on the radio, and I dread what I might encounter in the store public address systems.
I am still looking, though, and finding treasures. Just recently, Sting released If on a Winter's Night . . . and I found on it versions of "Gabriel's Message" and "Cherry Tree Carol" that illuminate the lyrics. When Emmylou Harris released an expanded version of Light of the Stable, I was pleased to find yet another version of "Cherry Tree Carol" there. And, a couple of years ago, I found on James Taylor's A Christmas Album "Some Children See Him" (Wihla Hutson and Alred Burt), a song I remembered from my boyhood. But it seems, at least to me, that some of these songs have been performed for the joy of recording them. No one sings "The Cherry Carol," particularly in our political/social climate, expecting a hit.
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