As a member of the East Tennessee State University faculty, I get to take one class for free every session, should I choose. I do. I have taken graduate-level courses in incorporating software into teaching, a number of entry-level fitness classes with the ROTC program, and, lately, guitar lessons through our Bluegrass, Old Time, and Country Music program. They have all presented challenges, but the guitar classes have required me to unlearn years of habit, assumption, and seeming familiarity.
I got my first guitar when I was in my early teens, and I never had formal lessons. With the guitar, I got a book that offered chord diagrams, and, in those days before the Internet, I had to resort to music books and playing by ear. I was pleased to learn particular patterns in learning rhythm guitar, and, since I was playing mostly to relax myself, I felt comfortable with what I had accomplished. There lay the problem, being comfortable.
In the intervening years, my relationship to the guitar changed. I took it to college, and even before my wife and I had children, I was still playing regularly at home, mainly to relax. When the kids starting coming along, though, I had to start putting some personal things aside. They required so much attention that between home responsibilities and work responsibilities, it was all I could do to keep up. I still feel that way, but as the kids got more and more self-sufficient, other matters arose.
About three years ago, I decided it was time to start reclaiming some of those parts of myself that I had neglected. I started getting up earlier in the day so I could have some selfish time. I started running. I started paying more attention to my creative writing. I decided that I wanted formal guitar lessons. I found out that I should have always been running. I found out that I missed creative writing. I found out that there are a number of ways to play guitar, and I had cornered myself for years.
My guitar teacher, Dave Yates, started my off by asking why I was thrashing, a churning style of playing chords that I grew to understand could compromise my effectiveness in accompanying a soloist. He encouraged my playing by ear. He emphasized that there is more than one way to play a chord, and that it is better to select a particular configuration for the given situation than to assume that the same configuration is right every time. He wants me to "stop thinking too much."
Why is it that so many people tell me that I think about things too much?
He means that I should practice and let a combination of growing familiarity and muscle memory take over until I can talk while playing--maybe singing later, but he should be wary of that step--and I am working to get there. Right now, he is wanting me to learn to play "When You Say Nothing at All," a song covered by Alison Krauss, and even when I get the guitar part to where I will be comfortable to play in front of others, my vocals will never be as sweet.
Someone will probably tell me that I am thinking about it too much and that I should just sing.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Ten Years Ago This Morning
This morning, I have already been awake for hours. In a while, I will call my parents, and I will get in touch with my son away at college. I have already prepared barbecue pork for tonight's meal, and I am about to return to the weekend chores, both housework and paperwork. This afternoon, my wife is going to a "grandma shower" for a friend who will need stuff in her house for when the newborn grandchild visits, and I will have some time alone with the younger kids. It feels a lot like a regular Sunday around here.
On television, they show depictions of ceremonies in remembrance of the immediate victims of the 9-11 attacks as they acknowledge how much so many of us globally have been affected, and I am finding these ceremonies much more moving than I expected. I had forgotten how powerful uncertainty can be.
On that morning ten years ago, I was the undergraduate director for the East Tennessee State University English Department, and that position, as well as my teaching assignments, required a great deal of attention. My wife and I had dropped our children off at school and daycare, and I was running music in my office as I dealt with that day's paperwork. I always keep my office doors open when I work, and I could tell that something different was going on in the hallways. One of my colleagues, clearly shaken, told me what had happened, but she had only sketchy information. My wife called, too, and we talked matters out, assuring ourselves as best we could with the limited information we had. I remember, though, that we both were frustrated that we could not pull up the CNN website, and at about the same time we realized that we could tune into National Public Radio for information. We decided to leave the children where they were--the schools were permitting parents to pick up children, but we saw no point in rushing home to huddle--rushing anywhere seemed beyond question, and as much as I yearned to have all of the family members together, I knew that our running down to Alabama would still need to wait for a couple of weeks. We needed to hold out for a bit of information before acting; it was a time to curb reflexes and to avoid being overwhelmed by emotion. We needed to grieve, but, as with other circumstances calling for grief, we had to remember and prepare for living the next few hours to preserve our own hope and to preserve it in our community and families.
I do not think about 9-11 specifically every day, but I do think about how our world has changed so much in the past decade. Every day, our nation is at war. Every day, our elected officials (I cannot bring myself to refer to the majority of them as "public servants" any more) disagree over philosophy and neglect pragmatism. Every day, I see the increasing gulf between the creed that all are equal and actual practice, in both domestic and foreign policy. Every day, I find myself romanticizing a past where life seems much more simple from today's perspective, even though I know better.
Then, with any luck, I will catch someone smiling, I will hear a lyric, I will have an opportunity to show kindness, I will share a laugh about pure absurdity, I will disagree in a friendly way with someone, I will remember someone, I will overhear a loved one in another room.
These 9-11 commemorations touch tender places, and, as with other mourning, I adapt as many of us do, with gratitude for those who help us and hope for those we help in turn.
On television, they show depictions of ceremonies in remembrance of the immediate victims of the 9-11 attacks as they acknowledge how much so many of us globally have been affected, and I am finding these ceremonies much more moving than I expected. I had forgotten how powerful uncertainty can be.
On that morning ten years ago, I was the undergraduate director for the East Tennessee State University English Department, and that position, as well as my teaching assignments, required a great deal of attention. My wife and I had dropped our children off at school and daycare, and I was running music in my office as I dealt with that day's paperwork. I always keep my office doors open when I work, and I could tell that something different was going on in the hallways. One of my colleagues, clearly shaken, told me what had happened, but she had only sketchy information. My wife called, too, and we talked matters out, assuring ourselves as best we could with the limited information we had. I remember, though, that we both were frustrated that we could not pull up the CNN website, and at about the same time we realized that we could tune into National Public Radio for information. We decided to leave the children where they were--the schools were permitting parents to pick up children, but we saw no point in rushing home to huddle--rushing anywhere seemed beyond question, and as much as I yearned to have all of the family members together, I knew that our running down to Alabama would still need to wait for a couple of weeks. We needed to hold out for a bit of information before acting; it was a time to curb reflexes and to avoid being overwhelmed by emotion. We needed to grieve, but, as with other circumstances calling for grief, we had to remember and prepare for living the next few hours to preserve our own hope and to preserve it in our community and families.
I do not think about 9-11 specifically every day, but I do think about how our world has changed so much in the past decade. Every day, our nation is at war. Every day, our elected officials (I cannot bring myself to refer to the majority of them as "public servants" any more) disagree over philosophy and neglect pragmatism. Every day, I see the increasing gulf between the creed that all are equal and actual practice, in both domestic and foreign policy. Every day, I find myself romanticizing a past where life seems much more simple from today's perspective, even though I know better.
Then, with any luck, I will catch someone smiling, I will hear a lyric, I will have an opportunity to show kindness, I will share a laugh about pure absurdity, I will disagree in a friendly way with someone, I will remember someone, I will overhear a loved one in another room.
These 9-11 commemorations touch tender places, and, as with other mourning, I adapt as many of us do, with gratitude for those who help us and hope for those we help in turn.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
How Was My Football Weekend? It's Easy to Figure Out . . .
For me, there is no other worthwhile spectator sport than college football, particularly Southeastern Conference football. I will sometimes watch a pro football game, and I enjoy Olympic events, but for consistent emotional wringing, I go to college football. So, for the convenience of any blog readers, here is the easy way to figure out how my college football week has gone.
I always want Alabama to win. If Auburn is not playing Alabama, then I want Auburn to win. I always want the western division of the SEC to win over an eastern division rival. I always pull for an SEC team who is playing for someone outside the conference.
My reasoning is that I always want Alabama to play the absolutely best opponents possible, and, given conference commitments (SEC teams play eight conference rivals during the regular season), Alabama, like every other SEC team, needs all its conference opponents to prove themselves against teams outside the conference. Georgia's loss to Boise State in the 2011 season opener, for example, hurts the entire SEC and will inflate Boise State's rankings. While Alabama will not play Georgia this year (unless they meet in the conference championship), the SEC needed that Georgia win.
So, Roll Tide! I bleed crimson, but my family is full of Auburn fans, so War Eagle, too, 364 days of the year.
I always want Alabama to win. If Auburn is not playing Alabama, then I want Auburn to win. I always want the western division of the SEC to win over an eastern division rival. I always pull for an SEC team who is playing for someone outside the conference.
My reasoning is that I always want Alabama to play the absolutely best opponents possible, and, given conference commitments (SEC teams play eight conference rivals during the regular season), Alabama, like every other SEC team, needs all its conference opponents to prove themselves against teams outside the conference. Georgia's loss to Boise State in the 2011 season opener, for example, hurts the entire SEC and will inflate Boise State's rankings. While Alabama will not play Georgia this year (unless they meet in the conference championship), the SEC needed that Georgia win.
So, Roll Tide! I bleed crimson, but my family is full of Auburn fans, so War Eagle, too, 364 days of the year.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Like Michael J., Tim, Jack, Hank, and Me
Yesterday, while I was teaching a class about Huckleberry Finn, I noticed a couple of students in the back corner as they were gesturing and giggling a bit. Since it is the beginning of the semester, I did not make an issue of it, because even university students tend to settle down a couple of weeks in. After class, the two came up to speak, and I thought that it was likely that they were going to ask a question about the material that I had just covered. I thought that I would be nice about repeating myself, and then the next class would go a bit smoother. One of them smiled and said, "You know that show King of the Hill? You look just like him. You are so funny."
They were thinking of Hank Hill, the lead character of King of the Hill, an animated series about a socially conservative Texan who deals with the shifting standards of contemporary American life. Of all the responses that ran through my mind, I told them that I had won a look-a-like contest at one time, and they both offered that "compliment" again and left smiling. That is not the first time that a student here on the ETSU campus has told me that I look like Hank Hill, and I have to admit that I have difficulty imagining a situation where one welcomes the comment that he resembles a cartoon character (unless attending a comics convention or joining a cosplay group), but I just felt unprepared to hear it yesterday, and I really did not want to hear it from a couple of my students.
Part of that unpreparedness comes from my being accustomed to being unseen by so many of the students here on campus when I am outside the classroom. The fact of the matter is that I do resemble Hank Hill a bit. We are both relatively tall, we are both a bit thicker in the middle than we would like, and, while Hank is a bit younger than me (I think he would be in his mid-forties or so), when I have a short haircut and wear my usual style of glasses, the similarities between our facial features appear more prominent. I was even wearing a blue work shirt yesterday, and I wear jeans every day. I was just a bit more like Hank yesterday than usual. I might as well also admit that my consciousness of their comparing me to Hank will affect the way I conduct the class, at least for a while. And, while I am at it, I might as well further admit that being told by pretty young women that I resemble an ordinary-looking cartoon character wounds a bit.
It shouldn't. They certainly did not intend to be hurtful and would likely feel shamed were they to understand what the comment did. And I have coped with this face for a long time--about twenty years ago, I looked in a mirror and realized that instead of looking like Tim Robbins, I looked a lot more like Michael J. Pollard. When my self estimation slipped from Nuke LaLoosh to C. W. Moss, I dealt with it. Even years later, when I posted a still image from Eraserhead on my office door and a student confused Jack Nance for me, I just smiled and shook my head.
I am more likely to see specific facial features when I now look in the mirror, the similarities of my eyes' shape with those of my father, how I have my mother's nose, even how I've seen that same hair curl on two or three of my family members. I see myself in such a context that I do not see Hank Hill unless I look for him. With any luck, over the semester my students will see enough of me so that they do not see Hank unless they look for him.
Physical vanity, and at this stage of my life, too--sometimes I surprise myself.
They were thinking of Hank Hill, the lead character of King of the Hill, an animated series about a socially conservative Texan who deals with the shifting standards of contemporary American life. Of all the responses that ran through my mind, I told them that I had won a look-a-like contest at one time, and they both offered that "compliment" again and left smiling. That is not the first time that a student here on the ETSU campus has told me that I look like Hank Hill, and I have to admit that I have difficulty imagining a situation where one welcomes the comment that he resembles a cartoon character (unless attending a comics convention or joining a cosplay group), but I just felt unprepared to hear it yesterday, and I really did not want to hear it from a couple of my students.
Part of that unpreparedness comes from my being accustomed to being unseen by so many of the students here on campus when I am outside the classroom. The fact of the matter is that I do resemble Hank Hill a bit. We are both relatively tall, we are both a bit thicker in the middle than we would like, and, while Hank is a bit younger than me (I think he would be in his mid-forties or so), when I have a short haircut and wear my usual style of glasses, the similarities between our facial features appear more prominent. I was even wearing a blue work shirt yesterday, and I wear jeans every day. I was just a bit more like Hank yesterday than usual. I might as well also admit that my consciousness of their comparing me to Hank will affect the way I conduct the class, at least for a while. And, while I am at it, I might as well further admit that being told by pretty young women that I resemble an ordinary-looking cartoon character wounds a bit.
It shouldn't. They certainly did not intend to be hurtful and would likely feel shamed were they to understand what the comment did. And I have coped with this face for a long time--about twenty years ago, I looked in a mirror and realized that instead of looking like Tim Robbins, I looked a lot more like Michael J. Pollard. When my self estimation slipped from Nuke LaLoosh to C. W. Moss, I dealt with it. Even years later, when I posted a still image from Eraserhead on my office door and a student confused Jack Nance for me, I just smiled and shook my head.
I am more likely to see specific facial features when I now look in the mirror, the similarities of my eyes' shape with those of my father, how I have my mother's nose, even how I've seen that same hair curl on two or three of my family members. I see myself in such a context that I do not see Hank Hill unless I look for him. With any luck, over the semester my students will see enough of me so that they do not see Hank unless they look for him.
Physical vanity, and at this stage of my life, too--sometimes I surprise myself.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Submission
"Submission," a term used for sending material for the consideration for publication, has a number of other not necessarily related meanings that do not necessarily correlate with this activity, but I cannot help but think of those other meanings. A few years ago, as the faculty advisor for The Mockingbird, the literary arts magazine composed by students at East Tennessee State University, I had to explain to an otherwise intuitive student that posters reading "Submit to the 'Bird" could have unintended results. The answer, of course, was to make the poster even more forceful, by adding a jabbing, pointing finger to indicate the absurdity of the word's ambiguity.
So, I am aware of these meanings as I have made a recent challenge to a couple of friends that we would send at least three poems out for consideration by the end of the week. I have plenty of other writing to do--I have a co-editor who has been fairly patient in my finishing one essay in particular--but I am also thinking of the various other writing that requires my attention, such as developing this quasi-informal blog entry to get myself warmed up for even more writing later tonight.
I find a contrast in this approach to finishing the writing. Part of me argues that I need to go ahead and complete the routine forms, recommendations, and reports so I can devote more attention to the creative, scholarly material, and I tend to hold that as a key position, so I grind that material out. It will be correct and carefully crafted, but it will also be plain and virtually untraceable to me, except for its being attached to an e-mail I send. That product should have those characteristics, though, because the mundane processed writing does not need to have a specific identity behind it. I can concentrate instead on the more personal material, the essays and creative writing that I want readers to identify with me.
I am concerned about having a lot of projects in the works at once, but I have had to become accustomed to performing many jobs at the same time. I contrast my mother's cooking style with that of one of my aunts. My aunt notoriously would cook only one food item at a time; a big meal would take her hours, and we sometimes risked food poisoning as the first-prepared foods waited on her counter for the remaining dishes to be complete. My mother, on the other hand, can have all the stove eyes, the oven, a crock pot, a convection oven, the usual oven, and a food processor all going at the same time, and the food is always good, and there's always plenty of it, too. I would not have six or seven writing projects going at the same time, but I am relatively accustomed with two to four, knowing that if I get stuck in one, I can move another along.
So, Roxanne, if you happen to be reading this blog, I am working on the Merle Haggard essay, and I am outlining the Johnny Cash one, too. Judy, I will have that faculty activities report to you in a couple of days. Catherine and Adam, I am polishing those poems while waiting in parking lots for my kids to come out of school. I will not forget the class prep, either.
By the way, please get a look at the 2010-2011 issue of The Mockingbird by clicking this link.
So, I am aware of these meanings as I have made a recent challenge to a couple of friends that we would send at least three poems out for consideration by the end of the week. I have plenty of other writing to do--I have a co-editor who has been fairly patient in my finishing one essay in particular--but I am also thinking of the various other writing that requires my attention, such as developing this quasi-informal blog entry to get myself warmed up for even more writing later tonight.
I find a contrast in this approach to finishing the writing. Part of me argues that I need to go ahead and complete the routine forms, recommendations, and reports so I can devote more attention to the creative, scholarly material, and I tend to hold that as a key position, so I grind that material out. It will be correct and carefully crafted, but it will also be plain and virtually untraceable to me, except for its being attached to an e-mail I send. That product should have those characteristics, though, because the mundane processed writing does not need to have a specific identity behind it. I can concentrate instead on the more personal material, the essays and creative writing that I want readers to identify with me.
I am concerned about having a lot of projects in the works at once, but I have had to become accustomed to performing many jobs at the same time. I contrast my mother's cooking style with that of one of my aunts. My aunt notoriously would cook only one food item at a time; a big meal would take her hours, and we sometimes risked food poisoning as the first-prepared foods waited on her counter for the remaining dishes to be complete. My mother, on the other hand, can have all the stove eyes, the oven, a crock pot, a convection oven, the usual oven, and a food processor all going at the same time, and the food is always good, and there's always plenty of it, too. I would not have six or seven writing projects going at the same time, but I am relatively accustomed with two to four, knowing that if I get stuck in one, I can move another along.
So, Roxanne, if you happen to be reading this blog, I am working on the Merle Haggard essay, and I am outlining the Johnny Cash one, too. Judy, I will have that faculty activities report to you in a couple of days. Catherine and Adam, I am polishing those poems while waiting in parking lots for my kids to come out of school. I will not forget the class prep, either.
By the way, please get a look at the 2010-2011 issue of The Mockingbird by clicking this link.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Affirmation
Firstkid came in last night from college, a doctor's appointment today the reason. I cooked some of his favorite food last night, and he made a comment about how there was not cooking like that down at university. He seemed happy and engaged in his studies, he's making friends, he's proven that he is getting more and more self-sufficient, and, later, he referred to going back down to Knoxville as heading "home" and then caught himself and made sure we understood that our house is still his "home," too.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Restless
Last night, I watched Michael Cody, a colleague in the ETSU Department of Literature & Language, give a solo acoustic concert in a coffee shop in neighboring Kingsport, Tennessee. He played a mix of his original songs ("Genesis Road," "In the Jaws of Modern Romance," and a song I think he titled "There's Always a Train") and some cover material, notably Bruce Springsteen's "Gypsy Biker" and Golden Earring's "Radar Love" (the latter without the extended instrumental break). He cannot stand still when he performs, he has a surprising range as a vocalist, and he has a canny ability to put together a set list. He was happy and comfortable, and everyone had a good time.
. . . except the evening made me restless. During performances I have to endure one of two kinds of restlessness. The bad one has to do with my yearning for the ordeal to end. The other kind, the kind I suffered last night, was the urge to start making something. I was listening to Michael, but I was also watching his left hand to figure out chord progressions. It was all I could do, when I got home, to keep from grabbing a guitar and working out how he had played some of the songs. That is always a positive experience; it comes from readings and workshops, from particularly successful classes, from conversations with friends over shared interests; a lot of my best work comes from this restlessness.
Michael made me restless. He performed songs, and he sometimes performed them as if there were no one there to watch him, lost in the pleasure of playing, making self-deprecating acknowledgment when he came back to us in the audience. It was in no way a selfishness on his part, because he erased himself in a way, giving himself completely to the performance and making himself his own instrument. It was a pleasure to see his happiness to perform.
You can enjoy his studio-recorded performance of his original song, "Homecoming," here, and you can feel some of that restlessness, too.
. . . except the evening made me restless. During performances I have to endure one of two kinds of restlessness. The bad one has to do with my yearning for the ordeal to end. The other kind, the kind I suffered last night, was the urge to start making something. I was listening to Michael, but I was also watching his left hand to figure out chord progressions. It was all I could do, when I got home, to keep from grabbing a guitar and working out how he had played some of the songs. That is always a positive experience; it comes from readings and workshops, from particularly successful classes, from conversations with friends over shared interests; a lot of my best work comes from this restlessness.
Michael made me restless. He performed songs, and he sometimes performed them as if there were no one there to watch him, lost in the pleasure of playing, making self-deprecating acknowledgment when he came back to us in the audience. It was in no way a selfishness on his part, because he erased himself in a way, giving himself completely to the performance and making himself his own instrument. It was a pleasure to see his happiness to perform.
You can enjoy his studio-recorded performance of his original song, "Homecoming," here, and you can feel some of that restlessness, too.
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