Failure is the Only Option, or: 2,806 words on my difficulty using words

1

This essay is a failure. Because all essays are, if you subscribe to a certain theory of writing as a failed attempt to express ideas, thoughts, emotions, all that ethereal stuff we’re tasked with expressing. Or not—maybe you’re into repressing that shit.

I used to tell my students that “essay” means “attempt,” which I hoped would help them relax when asked to do some writing. Dream on!

Having an Instagram account and not a real idea of why, I’ve followed many a hashtag, among them #samuelbeckett. As a result, I’ve seen plenty of photos of the ultra-photogenic writer, as well as countless uses of this quote from Worstward Ho: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Beckett’s “Fail better” is often used to make people feel good about fucking up. The larger quote usually comes accompanied by motivational poster imagery: flowers, sunrises. . . one expects a cat holding onto a rope will pop up at any moment. Hang in there, Baby, and fail better!

All this sunshine runs contrary to my reading of Worstward Ho, a text that seems to want its reader to reach for the bottom. But who cares about authorial intent? Clearly not the Silicon Valley gurus who’ve hijacked Beckett’s words.

2

I am not one to use the Beckett quote in either the overly simple Fuck it, let’s jump into the abyss sense or in the manner of the startup tech bro. Mostly, I try not to use it, as the quote is so divorced from its source that it’s in danger of losing whatever meaning it may have had. (Ironically, this loss of meaning may be in line with Beckettian ethos. Sam has his revenge.) I do think often, though, of another quote from Beckett: “Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.”

Of course, as Art Spiegelman pointed out, Beckett said those words.

There’s the rub: to express ideas, we need language, even when the idea is that language is both a mere attempt (often a failure) and an assault on silence. This seems the kind of Zen contradiction monks might meditate on, and I’ll not go too far down that road, but suffice it to state that Beckett was onto something. Language solves as many problems as it creates. At least we hope it does.

3

All this is a long way of introducing my real topic: my inability to express my feelings about visual art without sounding like a ninny. Inspired by my Facebook post of a painting by Remedios Varo that I shared along with the proclamation: “My favorite thing about not studying visual art is that I lack the words to convey why I like the stuff I like. And I like Remedios Varo,” it was suggested (Hi, Billy!) that I try to write about an art form outside my wheelhouse. I’ve studied literature and writing; I’m an autodidact when it comes to film and music—in short, while hardly an expert, I feel capable of discussing literature, film, and music. But not painting.

I love visual art. I have favorite painters (Francis Bacon, Ivan Albright, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Gertrude Abercrombie, the before-mentioned Remedios Varo). The Art Institute of Chicago remains my most beloved spot in the city. I love the big dead Jesus renaissance stuff. I love the conceptual pieces that piss people off. Dadaism still excites me. I’ve defended that big all-black canvas called “Painting” against claims of “Well, I could do that.” Rothko’s blurry red cubes? Love ‘em. Bruce Nauman’s Clown Torture? Applause! And I even love the hazy Monet paintings, all but those damn wheat stacks. Mexico’s muralists, Russian propaganda posters, Italian Futurism. . . all of it wonderful! I love it all (except Primitivism— fuck that colonialist condescension).

But that’s about all I can say. If I look at the Varo painting I shared on Facebook and try to explain why I like it, I fail. First stabs at forming a recognizable idea are aimed at the technique, as if I know anything about that. But I can see deliberate brushstrokes, shading, attention to what light does to a human form. Clearly Varo is adhering to some traditional representation even if she juxtaposes dreamy surrealism— the caged moon and celestial meat grinder. I immediately make a connection to the work of René Magritte who wanted to be a surrealist but wasn’t going to stop painting men in hats. You can melt some clocks or you can proclaim a perfect looking pipe is not a pipe. There’s more than one way to skin an oboe.

So, I’ve stated my love for specific artists and movements, and I’ve done a very small amount of thinking/writing about the Varo painting. None of this would get published in Artforum, though, would it?

4

My inability to properly articulate my appreciation for visual art bothers me not a whit. I’m not so thoroughly academic as to dissect art to the extent that its parts are laid out neatly for my understanding, but considering I teach composition and the occasional literature class—and that I’ve written two books in a sort of “Look at me! I’m a writer!” gesture—I do recognize some of what’s going on in a piece of printed material. I often wonder, Why did this writer do this? Why resort to an easy metaphor? Oh, this is a fresh approach to internal dialogue. But isn’t this paragraph bordering on purple prose? Oh wow, haven’t seen that before. Look at this deliberate lack of punctuation—someone thinks they’re Kerouac. I was listening to a podcast the other day where the important man being interviewed failed to name Neil Postman as the source of three of his ideas, and it drove me fucking mad. I’m not the most widely read dude, but I read as much as I can. I like recognizing references, seeing the progression of thoughts and the signaling back to past works and concepts, and yes, spotting when podcast guests fail to credit their obvious influences. I like to know about books and writers and have something to say about them. And all of this. . .  I guess I’ll call it “training” has (thankfully) not robbed me of the pleasures of the well-written book, story, essay, or poem, but I do admit to having enough of an understanding of what’s under the hood to see what a writer’s doing.

I have no such insight when it comes to visual art.

I’m not a musician, but I fuck around on guitar. I took lessons in high school and played in garage bands and even in front of people at parties, but my skills never evolved past basic chords and scales. Still, when I hear some rock songs, I know what the guitar player is doing. I know enough to talk, often pompously, about why some guitarists are overrated (looking at you, Clapton) and who I think are the best alive (Robert Fripp and Andy Summers). I can invoke the Aeolian and the Phrygian modes and smile when people talk about Jack White’s genius all the while silencing the part of me that wants to say, “Fuck that guy—listen to Greg Ginn or Jim Hall or fucking Django Reinhardt!”

But with visual art. . .  there’s still the magic of not understanding. I don’t know much about craft, and whatever history I’ve studied is limited. Because I don’t really care about the academic side of it all— I just love the stuff I love, probably because I don’t always “get” it. Or I get something, but that something eludes perfect description.

Okay, here are a few thoughts from two movies:

In an underrated movie from the world’s most overrated filmmaker (and big time creep), Woody Allen’s Another Woman contains a scene where Gena Rowlands’ character meets Mia Farrow’s in an art gallery. The Farrow character is weeping at the sight of a Klimt painting. Rowlands’ character, an academic, tries to tell the crying woman that she ought not to react that way— this is from a very happy period of Klimt. The academic is attempting to stifle a sincere emotional reaction to a work of art. Why? Because the academic’s big brain knows about the painting, whereas Farrow’s character is simply reacting. How often does this sort of thing happen? Are we trained by, and as, academics to detach? Possibly. I’ve met people who’ve said that grad school made them never want to pick up a book again. I know English majors who graduated and never read anything other than the occasional celebrity memoir. I made it out of grad school with my love of literature intact, so it’s not like all of us suffer such a fate. Still, there is something to this example from Another Woman, the emotional confronted with the cerebral, that sticks with me. What has Rowlands’ character, with all her erudition, lost? Is there a Gena Rowlands and a Mia Farrow in my head, always battling it out? Do I too often dry the honest tears of my inner Farrow and let Inner Rowlands go on talk talk talking?

There’s a good chance I’ve seen Monster’s Ball, but all I remember is that a guy on death row sketches people and says, as criticism of the camera, that it takes a human being to see a human being. This may be why I react more strongly to painting than photography. This may be why I respond to the art that I respond to, even if it’s not portraiture: a painting is a human’s unique view of something rendered carefully through a process I don’t really understand, made available to all for their engagement or lack thereof. But through that rendering, something more than the subject is revealed.

If we believe—and I do—that writing exposes something about the writer (shattering the myth of objectivity), why not use the same idea to understand visual art? Not a mind-blowing concept I grant you, but this is where my head is, where I might start to articulate my love for Varo, Bacon, Albright, and all the other artists I admire. Each of these painters would see a shared subject differently. Their art is a form of communication, of the subject and of themselves. Which is why I love their work, but also why I grapple to communicate that love, being trained since birth to use words in a way that, honesty, feels criminal the older I get.

5

Here goes:

I turned 50 recently. No big deal, really. If reaching the half-century mark did anything it was to remind me that I don’t give a fuck about birthdays. And I’m in better shape—physically and mentally— now than I was at 25, so I find it hard being weepy about “getting on.” Nevertheless, I’ve not escaped all of the existential thoughts that come with this “milestone.”

A lot of my thinking lately is on the impossibility of language, the before-(inadequately)-mentioned ideas born of a mangled reading of Beckett and my own simple-headed view that language is a con.

At risk of pissing off potential readers, especially fellow writers who know better than to use the 2nd person POV, let me ask you a question. Have you ever been struck wordless by a work of art? Because I have.

The first time: after watching Mike Leigh’s film Naked in 1993 at the Three Penny on Lincoln Ave. My friends all wanted to talk about it. I had no words. The movie was that devastating. And I found myself annoyed at these people who felt the need to immediately examine the movie, to have an opinion—the “correct” opinion. Fuck me, can we just take a minute to let it all sink in, to process the feelings the movie conjured? Can I pause and come to grips with my own complicated reaction? Forcing words felt wrong, stupid.

The first time I saw Ivan Albright’s That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door) at The Art Institute, I was again silent. The person I was with made comments. Look at the attention the artist paid. Albright used brushes trimmed of all but two of their hairs to get some of the tiny details. He was meticulous, you can see. Blah, blah, blah.

Still my favorite painting, I can’t say much about That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (The Door) except, well, that it’s my favorite painting. Maybe deciding on words to describe the painting would ruin it? There’s magic here, people. Why the fuck would I want to kill that?

In his intro to Anne Sexton’s Transformations, Kurt Vonnegut shared a story about quitting teaching when he realized it was criminal to explain works of art. He’d been tasked with lecturing on Dubliners and found, as he was in front of a room of students, he had nothing to say. Not because he disliked the book, but because, again, it felt wrong to reduce such an achievement through whatever lecture he’d planned. One might say this is a cop out, but I get it.

Which brings me to another example of the difficulty of discussing powerful works of art. Roger Ebert reviewed 2001: A Space Odyssey and used plenty of words, but I only remember his quote from E. E. Cummings “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing / than try to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” The idea being that Ebert was happy accepting the mystery of Kubrick’s film, recognizing that over-analysis would kill the magic. Sometimes you have to leave the stars alone and just appreciate how beautiful they are.

Years later, when 2010: The Year We Make Contact was released for reasons I’ll never understand, Ebert referred again to the Cummings poem and said that the unnecessary sequel tried to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

But here’s the thing I’m just now understanding: Ebert used a poem to discuss 2001, and again in his review of 2010. He may have been speaking to the problems with over-analysis, but he still USED WORDS.

Which sorta brings me back to the point of this section of this essay: I’m losing my faith in words. Ebert didn’t— motherfucker kept writing to the very end. And Vonnegut, despite his wordlessness regarding Dubliners, wrote plenty, even later in life when he seemed more interested in his visual art. Critics abound— no one, be they learned or ignorant on their subject, is shutting up anytime soon. And maybe they shouldn’t. (Maybe?) Even when we feel speechless in the face of beauty, truth, or whatever the hell it is about a work of art that challenges, we should likely try to say something. I mean, we can’t just go, “Uh. . .  wow. . . like. . . whoa.” For fuck’s sake, I pass myself off a writer and I can’t write about this subject? Really, Vince. Fuck off, dude. And what’s this shit about the failure of language? It’s been working pretty well for a lot of years, the exact number you could easily google but you’re too lazy and, fuck it, you’re flowing now, aren’t you, adding words words words to this already long (2,558 words, as of this moment—whoops, it’s grown to 2,567) essay, flowing and spouting and writing and thinking and feeling compelled to share these thoughts because it’s soooooo important that it all be shared and that you land on some terra firma in this otherwise abstract clusterfuck of a blog post like it fucking matters and anyone gives a goddamn.

Sorry. I can get a little combative with myself.

Perhaps the best I can do is conclude that however much I write, and regardless of the hours I might spend thinking about this stuff, I’ll never really feel comfortable with my ability to state what I feel about many subjects, not the least of which is visual art. I mean, do I really have anything important to say on the things I feel comfortable discussing? No, not really, but has that stopped me from flapping my gums? Nah. So I can live with the failure. Because what would be the point of succeeding, anyway? If one were to actually say the perfect thing about a painting or book or song or whatever, they’d win the game. No point thinking about it anymore. Where’s the fun in that?

6

Best art criticism I’ve ever heard came from my boss at the bookshop where I worked in the 1990s. He summed up his appreciation for the Dadaists and Surrealists this way: “They looked at the Impressionists and the shit that came before and said: ‘Blow it out your ass!’”

CDC Mask Guidelines: What's Allowed?

The CDC’s latest guidelines suggest that it is safe for the fully vaccinated to suspend mask wearing in most circumstances. Of course, one cannot be sure who has been vaccinated and who has not, not without some sort of vaccination passport issued under strenuous oversight. Lacking such verification or any federal edict, municipalities are being left to decide for themselves how they will use these guidelines to make policies. Despite the city-by-city hodge-podge, there are some agreed upon regulations. Here is what each American needs to know regarding when to go without a mask in a public space:

If you have been fully vaccinated, you may go without a mask if your last name cannot be used as an adjective.

Groups may gather without masks so long as the amount of people in the group does not add up to a prime number.

If you read something on Facebook about vaccines, you are now a medical doctor and know whether or not to wear a mask.

If you’re aware of only your own healthy body, and don’t know or care about the immunocompromised, you can go without a mask the same way you’ve gone without awareness that people unlike you exist.

If you adopted a shelter dog during the pandemic, you can pat yourself on the back. Oh, and wear a mask in stores, maybe?

Jogging or biking without a mask is permitted, so long as you know that you’re going to die one day like everyone else.

Writers who’ve penned their own King Lear during the pandemic are likely immune to Covid and self-criticism, thus they may go maskless.

Doctors, nurses, and all frontline workers should continue to wear masks when appropriate and are allowed to each punch one anti-vaxxer in the face.

Anyone who injected bleach into their veins is dead. They may go without a mask.

It is recommended that Joe Rogan wear his mask inside his mouth.

Masks are required at indoor establishments, especially bars and restaurants. All food will be blended and liquified to facilitate consumption through a straw that can easily be slid under a mask.

If you’ve created a fake vaccination card, congratulations: you’re smarter than the rest of us. You may do as you please.

M95 mask wearers may continue to shame cloth mask wearers.

You’re allowed to go maskless even though… I mean, have you looked in a mirror lately?

The Soft Lunacy Postscript II: Forever Incomplete

During yesterday’s run around the neighborhood—a function of my (sometimes wavering) resolve to stave off physical decline—I passed a Little Free Library. As I often do, I stopped to see what was inside. I expected I’d leave with zero, as these things are typically full of kids’ books or weather-beaten paperbacks too moldy to bring home.

But not that day!

Well whaddya know—volumes IV, V, and VI of the Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw with Prefaces. And in great shape! I have a few odd volumes from the collection at home, which I’ve kept since the 90s when the used book shop I worked for went out of business and I snagged a lot of treasures. The store only had three out of six volumes, but I was happy to have the hardbacks, being a fan of Shaw’s Man and Superman and thinking I’d read some more of the guy.

I cut the run short and took the books home, hoping (because I couldn’t remember for sure) that I had volumes I, II, and III on my shelves. After all these years: a complete set!

But no. Those old books are gone. I’ve checked and rechecked and checked again, but the only volumes from the Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw with Prefaces in my apartment are the ones I just dragged home after an aborted jog. Because, of course, I sold the other volumes in 2016 when I got rid of 2,000 of my books because I was sad and because keeping things seemed stupid. I don’t know why I decided that three volumes from the Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw with Prefaces weren’t worth keeping. I’d had them for nearly 20 years. And sure, I’d not read every play in those three odd volumes, but I’d read some. And there’s still time to read more. Because books are an investment in future reading, even if that future is decades away.

I look at volumes IV, V, and VI. Beautiful. I very much want to keep them, even if the collection in my library will again be incomplete. Maybe I’ll find volumes I, II, and III in a Little Free Library in 24 years. Maybe then I’ll have a complete set. Or maybe I am fated to never have all six volumes in my library. Maybe it was decreed by the book gods that my collection forever be piecemeal.

By the way, a full set of the Collected Plays of George Bernard Shaw with Prefaces is going for $280 online. Fuck me.

On Teaching Comp and Digressing

Not even 30 pages into this book, Useless Miracle by Barry Schechter, and already there’s a bit about a university professor who, as punishment for speaking against his department, has to teach “all comp for a year.”

I suspect this is not Schechter disparaging the instruction of composition so much as painting realistic characters, but I’m pissed off anyway. University professors, especially the ones at big schools like Northwestern (hi, Barry!), view teaching composition as a lowly practice unworthy of their PhD’d selves, they with so much more to offer young minds. As the famous anecdote goes, the newly hired English professor is likely to say: “I didn’t spend six years learning old English to teach comp!”

I teach composition. I also get to teach other courses from time to time, literature courses of my own design. But I’ll confess: I’m not a great literature instructor. There’s so much to say about the texts I choose to inflict on my students, yet I realized again last semester, somewhere around midterm, that explaining works of art— to quote Kurt Vonnegut— is criminal. I don’t explain them so much as offer context and try to create dialogue, even if it does often devolve into what each student thinks the books mean. Well, at least what each student willing to speak thinks the books mean.

There are better ways to teach literature, I know, and on my best days I do okay, but years of teaching composition have changed the way I think about teaching anything. Or ruined me for other courses? Maybe. Hard to say, and if I’m grappling with my thoughts here you’ll forgive me, but that is exactly what I try to get my ENG 101 students to do. Forget trying to have your ideas in mind before you put pen to paper (er, fingers to keyboard). The essay is a means of finding out what you think. Writing is discovery.

But who wants to read that?

That’s the thing: we’re used to reading finished thoughts, not ideas in the process of forming. And sure, editing and revision are essential to writing, as is solidifying ideas. But maybe there’s something behind the teaching of comp, or at least this aspect of it, that should be more permitted and practiced: the admission that our ideas are lumpy and in need of polishing. But they can’t be smoothed and polished until we articulate them. And often they will remain flawed, ideas we’re likely to refine (or jettison) with some maturity and experience. But I seem to exist in a world that insists one have their thoughts perfectly formed, and that these thoughts be defended forever and ever, amen. How does one evolve if they’re never wrong?

Anyone familiar with Montaigne knows that the essay as we too often understand it now is not exactly what good ol’ Michel was practicing in the 16th century. Students tend to think that their writing must always be “correct,” by which they mean grammatically flawless, but also, not far behind mechanical worries, they believe they must have a perfect argument. They see their task as just that: a task. They have heard me and others like me drone on about audience and purpose. Then we tell them to make a claim, support it. Then we challenge the claim because we want them to understand that counterarguments, properly addressed, will strengthen their theses. We use the word “thesis” interchangeably with “claim” and “argument” until they can’t decide if these words are synonymous. Probably not, but it’s too late in the semester to ask for clarification.

The idea of the essay as a mess does not register. And I can’t exactly tell my students that essays are, by their nature, messy. At least not good essays. Revealing that belief, and it is my belief, would be tantamount to permission to dash off some piece of crap and demand an A.

What I can do is tell them that essays, at least in their initial stages, can and should be messy, by which I mean that they should represent the messiness of human thought. Does anyone really know what they think about any given subject, news item, social trend, or work of art? Not without considerable thought, often the result of considerable reading. Assuming not everyone spends their quiet moments in deep contemplation, not with infinite podcasts and playlists vying for attention, the best way to begin to start to maybe know what one thinks is by writing those thoughts down. In comp we call this “journaling” because we can’t call it essay writing. And the journals usually become the more sophisticated essays, but, again, the lesson is that the essay must be a perfected thing with unassailable evidence backing every claim. And sure, I want to read essays like that, but I know they come after essays like this. And I know that essays like that are often the result of the digressions in essays like this, avenues of thought that only arrive in the moment and, when ignored, vanish.

For fuck’s sake, where’s the risk in a perfectly executed essay?

To be clearer (let’s hope): I prefer to think of essays as conversations, dialogues rather than monologues. The possibility exists that the essay I write today will be challenged by someone else’s ideas. The chance that I’ll then revise my ideas is more than likely. I change my ideas all the time. Why? Because I know that these are merely my ideas in the moment. But how would I (or anyone else) understand them were they not written down? And how would I write them if I was too afraid of being wrong?

Marc Maron has a bit in his standup special Thinky Pain where he discusses his habit of not preparing. He says that he doesn’t like preparers, that when one boasts of their preparation he thinks, “Well you’re a coward. Where’s your sense of adventure?” He then justifies his fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants style this way:

“In my mind, if I don’t prepare and I pull this off, I’m a fucking genius! And if I don’t pull it off. . . Eh, I didn’t prepare.”

This sums up my teaching style. I like to enter the classroom with an idea of what’s going to happen, but I prefer the moments of spontaneity, the organic moments of connection with students when they offer something to the mix that alters whatever plan I had. On good days, this reminds me that I love teaching comp, for composition works the same way: have an idea and be ready for it to take you someplace else. Go with the changes. See where they bring you. Back up and move away from the dead ends. Steer confidently into the whatever. Sounds like bullshit motivational poster slogans, but I believe digressions can lead to interesting places that allow students to have more of a sense of belonging in the classroom. I mean, sure, my job is also to keep things on track, and I don’t tolerate irrelevant tangents, but a little venturing outside the plan can be good. If I really want students to be the co-creators of the class, then I have to be open to some level of digression. Maybe that’s not the right word. . . Maybe I need one of those cute academic phrases, the kind that twist the English language and sound both important and ridiculous, something like Guided Departuring.

This is a long way back to where I started, where I wanted this to go, but so goes the digressive essay.

(Speaking of: go back and read Montaigne. The guy was certainly fond of digression. I wonder what a contemporary comp teacher, much less an editor, would’ve said about Of Cannibals.)

Is comp derided because it’s thought to be lesser than, say, Gender and Class Politics in Harry Potter? Are survey courses somehow a notch above comp, thought likely a notch below Eschatology in Contemporary American Novels Written by David Foster Wallace? Are we basement dwellers of the Ivory Tower deluding ourselves when we claim that composition offers more flexibility, malleability, and freedom than courses taught by the more accomplished faculty? We might venture such a claim, even have our colleagues nod in assent at the faculty parties, though they’d likely chuckle and look at each other knowingly once we’ve headed to the cheese plate. Oh, Vince. . . let him believe what he needs to believe. Poor bastard.

I was inspired to teach by teachers I liked. Some of them were comp teachers. The best of them, a guy named Southard who worked for the community college I, directionless, landed in, seemed to be having a good time. He saw me reading a Kurt Vonnegut book before class and then decided to use Vonnegut as the basis for the day’s discussion. Improv in the classroom. When I realized “These guys make this shit up!” I was indescribably happy. They’re winging it, just like me! That made me feel a part of the class more than any rote lecture.

Of course, Southard wasn’t completely improvising. But I liked the spontaneity he cultivated. Southard did stick to the important stuff. He talked about the ways we write, the reasons we write, the discovery possible when we write, and sure, occasionally, the ways we have to write. Sometimes we have to write because a teacher is making us write, and they will have expectations, they will ask that the way we write resemble the way they write and the way their teachers wrote, and don’t forget your MLA formatting. But I only remember the fun the guy was having. Can’t say all my teachers were that footloose and fancy free.

This essay is getting too loose.

Okay. Just walked my dog and now, coming back recharged, I’m ready to sort through the rest of my feelings on. . . What’s the topic again? Oh right, teaching comp.

Maybe the reason teaching comp is seen as a punishment or a lowly state within the academy has to do with the impossibility of the task. There’s no way to teach someone to write other than make them write and offer feedback on the writing, how I experience what they wrote—more importantly, how the students’ peers experience it—and what good habits I’ve cultivated over the many years of trying and failing to put words in a logical, pleasing order. But the end is almost always the same: the students pass my class and go on to bigger challenges that I can’t prepare them for. Not in 16 weeks. The best I can do is remind my students that writing is about practice. Unending practice. They’re writers for the rest of their lives. It gets easier, sorta. Their writing will get better the longer they keep writing. My class is a launching pad, a place to take time to make messy essays and then knock them into some kind of shape, and, equally important, to sort through their thoughts and draw on their perspectives. And sure, we go over the discipline of writing, the multi-draft process, the need for care, the attention to mechanics (eventually) and the consideration of the reader. But my class is a luxury. The time we spend on essays is not time they will have in other classes. We slow down, focus, evaluate, revise, reevaluate, re-revise, reflect. Other classes ask for finished products without the same slow, communal approach to composition. And then these instructors have the gall to ask me why their students can’t write.

The impossibility of the task, again, is baked into the comp class. But, more deterring to the careerist academic, comp requires grading freshman papers, which, most of the time, do not make for fun reading. The profs don’t want to waste their precious headspace on half-baked arguments and entry level scribblings. They want big, heady papers on the big, heady concepts they teach. The Semiotics of Oral Sex. Post-Humanism and the Novels of Don DeLillo. That sorta thing. Evaluating ENG 101 writing would be beneath even the fledgling English prof. And once they get tenure? Forget it.

The bigger schools force comp instruction on graduate students. Want that PhD? Get ready to commit yourself to some unpaid labor— the worst labor you’ll ever endure! In the process, the schools pass on the belief that teaching comp is shit work, something one does out of duress, nothing a serious academic would ever deign to do, not if they want to show their face at the next faculty function. The more beneficent faculty members tell me I’m “doing the lord’s work” and offer mock admiration. Okay, not all of them; superciliousness and tenure don’t always go hand-in-hand, and I know many of these comments are born of good intentions, but when I hear them (and I do) I can’t help but bristle.

The problem is simple: instructors, all of us, have the responsibility to teach students how to write. Step one being recognizing that the task is difficult, but so are most things worth fighting for. If they understand that my classes are introductions, that the students who leave ENG 102 are still developing writers— if they understood that WE’RE ALL STILL DEVELOPING WRITERS— then they’d: 1. stop complaining to me that their students can’t write (to which I always want to respond: Well, they’re your students) and 2. stop patronizingly thanking me for my service.

Admission (upon review of the previous paragraphs): I’m jealous of the English profs. They have higher degrees than I do. They have specialized understandings of topics in literature, whereas I’ve approached my studies like a salad bar— bites of phenomenology and reader-response criticism, a few scoops of formal poetry, big helpings of Silver Age Russian and 20th Century Latin American lit, way more Irish literature than I’ll ever fully digest, a bit of the Harlem Renaissance for dessert. They have tenure (some of them, the rest are fucked); I’m forever on the non-tenure track. And yeah, they have more respect in some circles, but the more I think about it (which I’m doing by writing about all this) the less envy I feel. I mean, it’s not like the English professors are especially valued by many of the administrators who’d place their courses first in line for budget cuts. Students will always need writing teachers. I get a mix of all majors in my often-packed classrooms. Can the instructors of Hermeneutic Analyses of Gertrude Stein and Lady Gaga say as much?

Sorry— this isn’t a competition. If I’m making it one, perhaps it has something to do with the way I’ve been made to feel by others in my professional orbit. And, again, I like teaching comp. It offers a lot of room to design courses around pet themes, provides an important micro-focus on writing, incorporates emerging scholarship, embraces contemporary topics, and is dependent on student interaction and activities that are more engaging than straight lecture. And if I love it this much, why did one throwaway line in Barry Schechter’s new book piss me off so much? Maybe because Schechter is satirizing true feelings of academics? I dunno. . . so far, the book seems less pointed in that direction. Maybe I recognize what I already know but don’t always consider: there’s a totem pole, but even so, being lower on it doesn’t have to be bad so long as you like where you are. And I do. I mean, a few extra bucks would be nice, and maybe some support from colleagues. But maybe, much like the poets I know who lament their insulated community while doing everything possible to alienate potential readers, we’re doing this to ourselves, relishing our underdog status, lashing out at nothing, penning digressive multi-paragraph essays in response to a small moment in a novel that is really not interested in trashing composition instruction.

Damn.

Well, if ever there was a representation of my exploratory approach to composition, and my tendency to make micro moments into macro concerns, it’s this essay. But I do feel better having gotten all this off my chest. Whew. Stretch. What’s for lunch?

The Soft Lunacy Postscript: Every Four Years

 In 2016 I sold a bunch of books. Like, 2,000. This made a small dent in my home library, the thing I’ve been building for most of my adult life like it was the damn cure for cancer. Like it was the cure for something less tangible. The cure for my occasional ennui.

We all need a hobby, I suppose. I have two: collecting books and writing things that, most of the time, never make it into print. The stuff that does tends to embarrass me. This hardly stops me from writing and trying to get the stuff “out there.” After it’s “out there,” like a drunk, I wake up the day after and feel the need to apologize.

The result of 2016—which many of us felt was a nightmare—was, along with the deliberate loss of many books, the first draft of a manuscript. It took two more years to get this sad sack account of losing my dog and selling my books and reevaluating my relationships into some kind of publishable shape, and in 2019 The Soft Lunacy was released.

Since 2016, my wife and I adopted a new dog. Then we moved into a new apartment one door from the last, because I just can’t seem to leave this block. I weathered a few other setbacks and kept myself as optimistic as I am capable of being.

What else? Oh yeah. . . we elected a narcissistic manchild president and a virus (the response to which the manchild president has bungled so spectacularly it almost seems planned) has killed (as of this writing) around 333,000 people in the U.S. of A., my country, the one I’ve been told my whole life is the best in the world. We do love our bullshit, don’t we?

It’s pointless to bitch about anything other than sickness, death, unemployment, or small business closings in 2020. Honestly, I can’t complain about much. I am not ill (knock wood) and I have a job and have been able to work from home since March. I am happily married. I have no children to homeschool. I am rarely bored at home. I like it here. The dog forces me to take walks, and my wife is insistent that I not become a total shut in. I’m managing small bouts of exercise and trying to eat well. I’ve even slowed down on booze. And, after decades of collecting, I have plenty of books to read. It’s like I’ve been planning for this pandemic since my teens, stocking up on printed entertainment in case the grid goes and the electronic devices fail.

Here’s a complaint anyway.

Last weekend, I was relaxing on the couch with J R by William Gaddis and a cup of Earl Grey and my dog on my lap. The reluctance to move my pup, who was sleeping peacefully and looking so adorable I couldn’t bear to disturb him, kept me from getting up to urinate. Eventually I had to attend to the needs every creature must address. I got up to piss.

In the bathroom, midstream, I could hear something. Something like a waterfall. I looked down. No, it wasn’t coming from me, despite being in the act of emptying my bladder. This was bigger than any watery sound I’ve ever produced. This was. . . coming from the next room? I’d better investigate. Of course, having downed two cups of black tea that morning, my bladder wasn’t so quick to empty, no matter the level of urgency with which I told myself to hurry the fuck up.

In the back room of my apartment, a second bedroom we call “the study” as it houses a good chunk of my library, water was pouring in from the windows and ceiling. A lot of water. A rainstorm isolated directly above a couple hundred stacked books. Ignoring the obvious “How is this happening?” question, I scrambled to save the books, quickly realized many were beyond saving but others, those stacked below the top, might be salvageable. Of course, there being numerous stacks, I had to save the more important books first. This being the closest thing to a Sophie’s Choice I’ve ever experienced, I can’t say I acted with anything other than pure instinct. Save The Recognitions by Gaddis—I’m deep into J R and I might want to read the other fat, challenging Gaddis novel someday. Oh shit, all the Salman Rushdie books are getting soaked. There’s no saving The Satanic Verses—fuck, it’s now unreadable. Khomeini has his revenge at last.

I got every damn book out of harm’s way before calling my landlady and asking What the hell? Based on the description of the water’s manner of ingress, she determined it had to be coming from the outside back steps where she has a hose coiled outside her door. It’s been cold in Chicago, and her husband, after trying the hose and discovering the flow was frozen, forget to turn off the water. The weather warmed that morning, and the hose started working. Who knows how long it took for the relentless shower to flood the back wall and penetrate the windows and overhead light fixture? What does it matter—the damage was done. Close to two hundred books are now mildew stinking, warped trash.

The majority of my library is in the living room with a good chunk shelved by the front door and a lot of poetry in the dining room. These are the most cherished books in my collection. Those in the study are hardly what we used to call the déclassé books, more the ones I needed to put somewhere. Not the ones I was getting ready to read anytime soon. All the Bulgakov and Joyce and Flann O’Brien and Beckett and Vonnegut and Italo Calvino and Kafka and Ali Smith and Jeanette Winterson and Cabrera Infante books were in the living room. Most of the books published by Dalkey Archive, NYRB Classics, Open Letter, Archipelago, and Melville House were in the living room as well. (Yes, I organize my books by publisher as well as by author.) Some of the better art books were spared. But I lost signed copies of some of my friends’ books. And some gems were hidden in those stacks. When you’re sitting on 6,000 + books, you forget what you own. Sorting through the damage, I rediscovered a few books that I should’ve read by now or would’ve loved to keep. And some books were special to me. Sure, I can replace my destroyed copy of Les Chants de Maldoror, but this is the copy I bought in 1996 after fighting with the bookseller who responded to my request to hold the copy with, “You sure you’re gonna come back for it?” a question so obnoxious I complained. The owner overheard me sparring with the clerk and smoothed the situation by offering me 10% off. So yeah, I can get another copy, but this one conjures a memory.

The memories we attach to books (among other items) are what makes them special. I tried to convey this in The Soft Lunacy. Each chapter was inspired by a book or a literary idea, some underpinning to connect the wayward tales of drinking and fucking up along the lines of what Sergei Dovlatov did in The Suitcase. When the book was finally published, I was happy that— to the best of my ability— I’d made some kind of case for my obsession. And I felt like I could put all the pain of 2016 behind me.

2020 has been worse. Not for me, exactly, but for others, for the country, the world. I’ve managed to stay more than sane in my near isolation, only venturing out when necessary and trying very hard to minimize direct contact with humans. Again, I’ve been fine, but I’m well aware that the year has been rough for a lot of people. There are those who’ve lost family and friends and livelihoods. And then there are those who are not dealing well with decreased social interaction. And there’s been plenty of social unrest for legitimate reasons, not to mention plenty of protest over absolutely silly misunderstandings of the concept of “freedom.”

My hope— and I am not alone— is that we come out of this time better than we were before. Maybe “hope” is the wrong word. I don’t really think this will happen. Cynical again, but the powers that be won’t let go of that power willingly, and if we want to remake society so that it is more equitable, and reform our governing entities so that they are better prepared for true crisis, we have to do a lot more than we are willing to do. That I just deleted “capable” in the last sentence and replaced it with “willing” is a sign of hope, albeit a small one.

It took a pandemic to demonstrate exactly how precarious our hyper-capitalist society is, how close we’ve always been to ruin. Anyone ready to take a good long look might’ve told us this, but why look when we’re all enjoying the spoils? What’s that? Not all of us enjoyed those spoils? Well, sure, but we’ve always been good at ignoring them.

Whether or not we reform capitalism, the police, the government, our system of educating people— really most of the way of we live our first world lives— is yet to be seen. Again, I doubt anything permanent will occur. We tend to forget easily, so as soon as the party starts up again we’ll be back to living outside our means and accumulating for the sake of accumulation and blaming immigrants and the poor when things collapse. But let’s hope not. Prove me wrong, America!

As for my accumulation, I’ve spent the last four years buying books at such a pace I’m well on my way to replacing the 2,000 I sold in 2016. My recent loss of 200 hasn’t hurt too much. If anything, it’s caused me to revisit the question that kicks off The Soft Lunacy: why do I collect these damn things? In the book, I suggested that collecting is a form of control in a chaotic universe. I’m still of this opinion, though why collect books? They take up space, are a pain in the ass to move in bulk, and the titles I haven’t read are a cause of shame, glaring at me from the shelves. It’d be easier to collect coins or stamps. But I’ve always wanted to be surrounded by books, to sense the possibilities in the unread titles, revisit favorite stories and poems, bask in the aesthetics of bound pages, relax in the comfort of these products of intellectual toil. And while this recent setback has reminded me that these objects are vulnerable, the permeance of a book is still a cherished thing, especially in 2020 when so many trusted institutions are going belly up. Stalwart businesses, restaurants, movie theaters, cafés. . . vanishing in the wake of a pandemic our leaders were ill-prepared to face.

Capitalism took it on the chin this year. At least the kind of capitalism I was raised to believe in, the kind that rewards hard work and industriousness and small businesses and independent spirit. Instead, we see that the only behemoths will endure, not to mention triumph. Bezos made out like a bandit in 2020. The little neighborhood bar around the corner? God, I hope that survives. Those indie bookshops that got me to move to the north side? Praying for them.

I did a lot of my book buying this year online. Not wanting to give Bezos a buck more than I had to, I went directly to publishers’ websites. Here are a few:

https://archipelagobooks.org/

https://www.mhpbooks.com/

https://www.dalkeyarchive.com/

https://www.ndbooks.com/

https://www.openletterbooks.org/

https://www.nyrb.com/

http://deepvellum.com/

I also shopped using these local bookshops’ websites:

https://pilsencommunitybooks.com

https://www.unabridgedbookstore.com

https://www.semicolonchi.com

https://www.open-books.org

https://www.semcoop.com

https://www.powellschicago.com

https://www.volumesbooks.com

My money went directly to publishers and bookshops. And yeah, Bookshop.org is a great alternative to Amazon, but if you really care about helping struggling small businesses, why go through a third party? Why allow any of your money to go to an intermediary?

Buying books became a mission to save indie stores and small presses. I was going to buy books anyway, but now I had a more concrete justification for my soft lunacy. Whatever works.

That 2016 was a lousy year and that 2020 was lousier, and that one year saw Trump ascend to the highest office while the other saw him knocked from it, is not lost on me. 2016 ended on a sour note, at least for those of us who see the president as the representation of the worst qualities of the United States of America. And yes, he’s leaving office, but his defeat came after a long, ugly, stupid fight after four long, ugly, stupid years. I can’t help but see this recent loss of books as (pun warning) bookending this weird time in my life and my country. Perhaps this is the way things will be for now on. Every four years I’ll shed some books and the world outside my door will be strange. God, I hope not. I hope for stability and wisdom and quiet speculation and civil discourse and rational thinking and emotional highs and lows born of joy and sincerity rather than knee-jerk reactions and fear. I hope for what books represent and demand: patience, curiosity, engagement, insight, adventure, ambition, knowledge, challenge, reward. More of that, please, on paper and saturating the collective culture.

Truth and Bullshit, a Balanced Diet

Once upon a time, I was in grad school. And what a time it was! A time when I found myself in conversations about things like genre and the ways in which one genre can get away with something another can’t. Though I never quite agreed. Chalk it up to my contrarian nature, but I was all for collapsing the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction, even fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, sure, why not?

During one class, a peer offered the following: “I prefer nonfiction. I like truth.”

This otherwise intelligent human actually said this!

As a means of bursting her bubble, I brought up some outside-of-class reading, specifically Charles Mingus’s memoir Beneath the Underdog. The book is fun, but obviously bullshit. Are we to believe that Mingus slept with that many sex workers in one night? Read it for yourself and judge.

Mingus’s book was not the first piece of so-called nonfiction to raise a red flag, but it remains my clearest example of a memoir that stretches the truth. Of course, I knew this was the function of memoir already, having read another jazz great’s nonfiction book, Miles by Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe. I also went to a reading by Troupe and heard him tell a story about working with Miles. Troupe had the audacity to fact check the stories Miles was telling him, the ones that were going in the book. When Troupe suggested that Miles’s stories were not lining up with the facts, Miles replied: “Quincy—whose fucking book is this? Write what I say!”

*

The big blow to truth in memoir came when Oprah crucified James Frey. To save face once Frey’s A Million Little Pieces was found to be almost entirely bullshit, Oprah— who’d chosen the memoir for her book club— brought the author back to her show (why did he go?) because her loyal fans required a sacrifice after this terrible man tricked their daytime deity.

Frey, by the way, is an asshole. I have zero sympathy for the guy, though I do still wonder how so many readers could’ve been duped by his book. From the little I’ve read, he makes claims that are obviously false. Something about boarding an airplane covered in bodily fluids, him being all junk sick, as if the airline would’ve let him board in that condition. That, along with other tells, should’ve clued readers in.

I don’t think readers were blind to fabrication. They just believed what they wanted to believe. It’s an inspiring story (I’m told). Guy kicks junk, takes control of his life. We like that story. Why fuck it up with critical thought?

*

My classmate’s claim, that she preferred truth to fiction, stays with me. It was with me when I wrote a memoir. I included a Vonnegut rip-off intro that offered some of what I stated above, summarizing the debate as being between truth and bullshit. I advised readers that what they were about to read was mostly true with a dash of exaggeration. I felt the need to do this because my publisher said it was a good idea. Any investigation into my memoir (as if that was ever going to happen) would reveal that some of the events were made up. Well, not really. There were composite characters, altered details, changed names, and recreated conversations that could never be 100% accurate. Too many years and beers— my memory’s not that good.

As I was writing this intro, I thought, “Jesus, who cares if memoirs are true?” Apparently, people do. A lot of them. Nonfiction is still very popular. We privilege experience over imagination. No wonder we’re such a sad society.

*

Since I don’t get many reviews, they’re easy to avoid, but I try not to read them anyway. Especially after I read one very bad review of my memoir that cited the fact that so much of it wasn’t true. Of course, this more than hints that the Amazon reviewer (anonymous, of course) knows me, or knew me, and has some beef with yours truly. Likely candidates shall not be listed here; suffice it to state that there are many.

If the basis of the bad review is that I made shit up, well, fuck that reviewer. Again, who gives a damn? I didn’t lie in an irresponsible manner. (What a strange sentence.) And again: anyone reading a memoir should know that they contain traces of bullshit. You’re reading the account of events from one person’s perspective. You know the problem with that. You’ve seen Rashomon, right?

*

Angela’s Ashes tends to get the recent credit (blame?) for the popularity of memoirs. It was a very successful book. Publishers, subject to the whims of the market and not all mavericks on a mission to elevate culture, naturally went looking for the next big memoir. And the next. And the next. The results were many, among them the furthering of nonfiction as a preferred genre and the expanding homogenization of contemporary literature. The market is a powerful thing, folks!

It’s not like Americans were devouring novels by the ton anyway, so I suppose anything that gets people reading is good. And there are some great memoirs and essay collections out there. (I can recommend a few.) Still, I can’t help but wonder if one of the effects of this truth over imagination thing is that readers began to insist on believability in everything they read. Hard to imagine an Italo Calvino book having a place in that world.

I don’t assume everyone cares. And even those who might make a passionate defense of truth, or even verisimilitude, in literature may not agree with what I’m about to suggest, but that’s hardly going to stop me.

* 

Thesis: We need narratives; we love them. But truth is not always interesting. So, when crafting stories from banal reality we tend to zhuzh things up, massage the facts, add some fun details born of imagination, exaggerate a touch. As consumers of narratives, we can’t admit that we’re enjoying bullshit. We need to believe these stories are true. This is a relatively benign practice, though I can also see the dark end of the spectrum. And it’s dark, so much so that I’ll still argue against devaluing fiction in favor of “nonfiction.”

Let’s talk about conspiracy theories.

In the book A Lot of People are Saying: The New Conspiracism and the Assault on Democracy, Nancy L. Rosenblum and Russell Muirhead make the point that there’s little theory in what we call conspiracy theories, at least the ones of the last few years. Theory requires something more than what the average Trump supporting truther or climate change denier peddles. The closest thing to a theory is what the QAnon folks believe, that a secret cabal of democrats are running child sex rings, that Hollywood elites are regular customers of this sex ring, that Trump knows about it and is on a mission to eradicate it, thus the need for him to remain in power. They believe that all the attempts to check his extra-legal behavior are really just liberal pedophiles and their enablers trying to keep the perverted party going, and that the liberals’ hatred of Trump has nothing to do with Trump’s many loathsome qualities and everything to do with stopping this man on a righteous mission. Because liberals apparently know about all this creepy sex ring stuff and are immoral enough to let it happen.

The irony of Trump being an accused sexual offender, and close pal of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, is lost on these folks. No amount of evidence that challenges their belief is enough. Pizzagate being exposed as batshit crazy nonsense has not stopped the #pizzagateisreal hashtag from cluttering social media. There is a narrative, and no facts will shatter it. The best you’ll get is, “You have your sources and I have mine” as if all sources are equal.

That so many of the contemporary conspiracy theories (the racist birtherism that plagued Obama, the 9/11 was an inside job story, the Hillary Clinton is a lizard person insanity) are such obvious fiction matters not. Nothing will stop the locomotive of bullshit. Currently there is a segment of this country that believes that the 2020 election was rigged, that Trump won, that Biden is going to be an illegitimate president. Based on the shakiest of “evidence,” the theory gains strength the more we deny it. Of course, not fighting such claims won’t make them go away either. Damned if you do or don’t. There’s no getting rid of these weeds.

I wish I could recommend fiction as the alternative. If I am right, if our need for stories is that important, why wouldn’t a good novel (or a series of them) take the place of conspiracy theories? Well, obvious answer: because we know novels are made up. The fact that they are marketed as novels tells us so. This we cannot abide. But when bullshit tales are sold as truth— that plays!

Conspiracy theories are fun. They have drama, intrigue, political shenanigans, clear cut good and bad guys. There’s often sex. There’s almost always murder and violence and juicy stuff like that. And they make people feel smart. There’s a level of sophistication to some of these stories. Or at least a complex rabbit hole to fall down. They distract, describe what is ether too difficult to explain or astonishingly simple to accept. So yeah, a good John Le Carré book might offer something similar, but why read a book when there’s 8chan?

*

What about movies, Vince? What about Netflix shows? People love those and they’re obvious works of fiction. No one believes the Avengers are real.

Well, yeah.

We’re more than willing to suspend disbelief when watching a story told on a screen. Movies and TV shows get a pass. But the critics of these shows and films almost always pounce on the smallest seam showing.

The split opinions generated by The Queen’s Gambit are a great example. Yes, it’s clearly unrealistic. As more than one critic/viewer has pointed out, chess matches are not that exciting. “I’ve been to chess matches. I can tell you that they’re dull. Not like in that show.” Of course, if the show accurately portrayed chess matches it would have very few viewers. But this is entertainment, remember? UGH. . .  fucking poetry-assassins. 

The implication that we must believe every detail of a piece of fiction has always irked me. I don’t give all obvious bullshit a pass, but a little is fine. A doped up, well dressed, cute little pixie who beats damn near everybody at chess, even when hungover and pilled to the gills— I can get behind that even if I know, yeah, it’s a dash unrealistic that anyone would be that good at chess. Or not. I don’t know and I don’t care. There’s a damn pandemic going on, folks. I’m indoors a lot. I like my distractions, and The Queen’s Gambit served me well enough.

I wonder if these critics penned smug take downs of Bugs Bunny when they were wee tots. Am I really supposed to believe that a rabbit can talk?

I’m not a big fan of Trainspotting, but I remember a friend hating the film because he said, “I didn’t believe any of those people were junkies,” yet he had no problem with Pulp Fiction, which is nothing but fantasy. Was his reaction based on the idea that Trainspotting is less cartoonish than Pulp Fiction? Because it isn’t. I mean, a guy falls into a toilet in the movie, so, um. . . ?

And there’s the other thing: whenever I see a film or TV show that begins with “Based on a true story” I have to wonder why that matters. But I suspect that viewers, consciously or subconsciously, afford the film or TV show making this claim a higher level of respect. This actually happened! WOW!

Why do we prefer experience, so-called truth, to imagination? What’s wrong with make believe? In some cases (the above referenced conspiracy theories) the consequences are huge, but in entertainment, why is nonfiction, or stories inspired by truth, somehow better than fiction? What do we lose when we toss fiction to the side so we can marvel at shit someone claims to have gone through? Do we lose the ability to imagine better worlds?

Let’s say we do. The obvious outcome of devaluing imagination has to be bad. I imagine (ha!) a society that accepts mediocrity, corruption, discrimination, inequality, and immorality as normal and dismisses ideas to address these wrongs as foolish. We all know politicians lie, racism and sexism are common, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, boys will be boys, you can’t fight city hall, what’s the point? Pass me that burger/bottle/needle/smartphone.

Apathy, people! That’s the outcome of a failure of imagination.

Liberals like myself are often called Pollyanna optimists who delude themselves into thinking anything might change. Why bother? Nothing changes. Well sure, not with that attitude.

*

Having run through 98% of what’s currently streaming (or so it feels), I was happy as fuck to see something new on Amazon Prime Video. Well, not new, as I’ve already seen The Big Short, but that didn’t stop me from giving it another watch.

Along with having a fine if infuriating story, the form of the film is admirable. The praised and (I’m sure) maligned fourth wall breaks are not exactly new, but when the characters glance at the camera and confess that a detail in the story is made up, or that this part actually happened, director Adam McKay manages to both subvert the idea of the true story and reinforce the concern for facts in storytelling. Despite a tale being based on real events, we have to know that it’s too good to be true. This thought being buried in the subconscious, it’s easy to ignore the bullshit, but McKay had to know that the inner critic would pick apart the wilder moments in the tale. So why not address them? Why not have an actor look at us and tell us that this part is bullshit? The true story of how a couple of kids stumbled onto a crazy opportunity is not as fun or cinematic, so why not confess the lie? By doing so, McKay allows the viewer to feel let in, to have their inner critic quelled a bit. Later, when another actor tells us that this part is true, we believe it because we know the film is willing to tell us what to and what not to believe. Both our subconscious understanding that all stories are at least a little made up and our pesky need to believe are fed. Kinda genius.

I wish more films would do this. And more books. Why not just come out and say it: the important word in “based on a true story” is “based.” There’s some finesse in here that’ll gloss over the mundane. Character names may be made up. One person may be a stand in for three, because one is easier to juggle than three. Dialogue is almost entirely invented. But the spirit is true. And the important stuff, the stuff you really need to know, is real. In the case of The Big Short, what we need to know is 100% true, despite the artifice that makes us smile. Because the 100% true stuff isn’t funny at all.  

*

I’m not asking that all stories structurally resemble The Big Short. And I’m not really arguing that people need to embrace fiction (or poetry) over nonfiction or jettison their love of true stories. I simply believe that we need to adjust our understanding of truth when dealing with art. What is the greater truth? Is it that war is hell? Okay, so if I get that message from Full Metal Jacket, a work of fiction, as opposed to Ken Burns’ Vietnam documentary, is the conclusion not the same? I may not grasp the entirety of the conflict, sure, but I’m brought to a different, equally valid truth by the fiction. Would a true story of doomed lovers be any more powerful than Romeo and Juliet?

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe is a fantastic book. Chock full of detail— and photos lending veracity to the tale—the book is one of the best accounts of what the Irish call The Troubles that I’ve come across. But I picked it up because I’m a fan of Seamus Heaney, whose poem “Whatever You Say, Say Nothing” inspired the nonfiction book’s title. And while the poem, considerably shorter, could never be as packed with information, there no less truth in it. Why not read both? Might that offer a truer truth, a more informed understanding of the reality?

We might do better with a richer diet. Nonfiction with some poetry supplements. A couple of novels and some plays thrown in to offer spice. We’ll be as nourished, and it’ll all taste better.

On Teaching and Failing (a sorta rant)

I’m not a great teacher. Or a bad one. Neither the inspiring type you’d see in the movies—no one’s standing on their desk for me—nor the guy sleeping in his chair while his students take cookie-cutter exams. I assign papers— rarely, if ever, tests. My teaching life has been dominated by reading essays (mostly written by college freshman) and trying to find ways to make the students writer “better,” whatever that means. To get them to do this, I assign readings that I think will generate interesting discussions followed by informed essays. Not always the case. Is there a universally interesting topic?

In my decade + of standing in front of a room of excited, anxious, bored, eager to impress, combative, tech distracted, or not-quite-sure students (and almost eight months of trying to teach over Zoom), I’ve made some observations, as well as serious adjustments to my plan. Much like the Cubs fans whose mantra “Next year” has carried them through many a sad autumn and winter, no semester is finished before I proclaim, “I know what to do differently next time.” But here’s the thing: I really don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing.

This is not something I’m eager to admit. While I am self-aware enough to know that, yeah, no one’s reading this, and if they are they’re probably not in the position to offer me a sweet gig teaching creative writing, I’m nevertheless hesitant to type those words. Years of faking it until I make it (should be any day now) have conditioned me to never admit the truth: I’m flying half blind.

*

My first semester teaching college composition was brutal. Thankfully, I had sample syllabi to guide me, some support from my department director, and my own history of taking comp classes to draw on. I remembered the assignments I had to endure: describe baseball to a Martian. Pretend you were burglarized and write a police report about the goods stolen from your room. That sort of thing. The comp teachers were interested in detail, description, precise language, and explanatory sentences. They were not interested in validating our lived experience or personhood or any other trendy grad school phrases I might employ. They wanted us to write well.

We students, naturally, assumed there was a way to write well, and that we did not possess the skill to do so. Or maybe some did, because writing well was an inherent talent, and one either had it or didn’t.

I didn’t. I was a remedial kid all through high school who went directly to a junior college because my guidance counselor didn’t think it was worth my time to apply anywhere else. And while that school (Moraine Valley Community College, god bless it) remains the best of all the colleges I’ve attended (and I have an MA from Northwestern, thank you very much), it does not share the reputation of the so-called “real” universities. I was a lousy student in high school made well aware that I did not belong in a real college. I knew who I was and what I wasn’t, and I was not an academic, much less a good writer. Go ahead and try to teach that kid.

Pecking away at the clunky keyboards of 1989’s computer labs, I approached my assignments like the chores that they were. As much as I hated tests, I would have welcomed them instead. At least a test ends before long. I knew I had the hour to do my best, make guesses, pray for a C. Then it’s over and time to forget it, go grab a smoke with the gang in the student center before the next class. But an essay. . . There’s a due date, sure, but writing it means making time. It means ignoring the radio and the TV and the nice weather and sitting in front of a computer (not an everyday thing in the late 80s-early 90s). It meant going to a computer lab, never fun. I was freaked out by the amount of time I had to write. Of course, I spaced out until I had no chose but to admit defeat, say fuck it, I can do this tomorrow, the assignment hanging over me. There’s always tomorrow until there isn’t.

But here’s the thing: for as much as I hated writing, I liked reading. Mostly horror novels, then some “literary” stuff, Anthony Burgess and George Orwell at first, their books being sensational enough to capture my interest. And then I found Kurt Vonnegut in the library and his books were all I wanted to read.

None of this was on the syllabus. Most of it was dismissed by the academy, if the academy deniged to comment. To this day, I know English profs who’ll scoff at the suggestion that Kurt Vonnegut is the finest 20th century American novelist. I’m open to the debate. The profs might bring up names like Pynchon or DeLillo or other heavyweights with heavy books, but they usually just assess Vonnegut as “light” and fun, sure, but not “serious” literature. Because serious literature, apparently, should not be fun. It should be homework.

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I’ve read comp theory and other pedagogical texts that discuss the important link between reading and writing. But what’s the point when we’re asking our students to read what we think they should and write in ways that are foreign to them? If any of my teachers would’ve allowed me to write a paper on Stephen King or Vonnegut, I might have seen myself differently. I might have understood that I had a right to enter the big academic discussion and share my point of view. I know this for certain, because a teacher did just that. I enrolled in a class through my community college’s Alternative Learning Center where I got to pick my teacher, and, with his blessing, I got to pick the books I wanted to read. The sole requirements of this independent study were that I check in with him periodically and write papers on the books, the topic of which he’d help me develop, but mostly I was free to write what I wanted, reactions to the horror novels I chose as the course’s theme, observations on the structure of the novels, insights into the way this genre adhered to classic storytelling arcs as well as ways they subverted them. I wrote with abandon and joy. I got an A.

Those essays were likely crude mish-mashes of awkward sentences and goofy syntax, not to mention littered with spelling errors (these were the days before Grammarly or even spell check). But my instructor wanted to see something other than perfect grammar and punctuation. He was interested in my ideas and reactions to the texts. And I had a lot to say about them. He must have known that, eventually, I’d get to a place where my thoughts were better expressed. His job was to get me thinking. And the best way to do that was to let me explore a genre I enjoyed. Of course, he worked with me to make sure I was articulating something, analyzing the texts, and thinking beyond my cursory responses, none of which felt like a chore because I loved the material. And I loved the conversation, the discussion between me and the text and the instructor. I loved sharing my insights, even if I didn’t think of them as insights. Probably because I wasn’t burdened by the need to produce insights.

Within a year, I reading Byron, Kerouac, Bukowski, Anne Sexton, Hemingway, the sort of stuff I can’t read now but got me excited as a twenty-year-old. But my writing didn’t improve. That may have had something to do with my next step in higher education, for I’d gone as far as I could in junior college. Transferring to a university, I experienced a culture shock. No one was holding my hand or letting me find my own footing or whatever other metaphor I might mix. Thinking that I’d had some success with reading books and writing on them, I declared myself an English major. I was assigned the classics: Don Quixote, Astrophil and Stella, Don Juan, The Divine Comedy, and a bunch of other books I was half-ready for. Some stuck, others. . .  not so much. But I managed to write a few good papers before I decided that school and I were a mismatch. The root of this conclusion: I didn’t understand the logic of taking classes not in my major that I would only pass by the skin of my teeth. I wasn’t learning anything, just memorizing enough to get a C, at best. And yet I was supposed to take on more debt so that I could pretend I knew something about algebra?

My rejection of college, this complaint about core requirements, was hardly original. I was not the first to make this criticism. And while I can (sorta) defend the core curriculum now, I’m sympathetic to the problem: students are not being told why they need to know a little about philosophy, science, mathematics, literature, and history. And they are not made to see that all these studies are related. But, and this is the biggest issue, they are being graded on their ability to grasp concepts they don’t think they need to know. Not to mention a college degree has become the new diploma, a rite of passage before one goes off to the professional world. How exactly is one supposed to “appreciate” poetry if they’re just in school to get a BA and then, hopefully, a steady gig?

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As I am not the first to make any of the above observations, what I am about to propose is also nothing new. But that hardly means that this proposition is without merit. Scores of academics will disagree, possibly just as many who might agree—there’s no way for me to measure, as I’m a non-tenure track faculty member and need not burden myself with making a qualitative or quantitative study of this. I’m just a guy writing a blog post, so I can write whatever I want without backing any of it up. What fun!

The idea, right. . .  here goes:

Grades are dumb. We should stop giving them. They serve no real purpose. Sure, they allow us to evaluate students, rank them, give them a sense of satisfaction or, all too often, failure, but what do they really mean? Maybe, and for all I know this may not be the case, they make more sense in a math class where there are right and wrong answers and a good (if confusing) system of demonstrating why and how an answer is right or wrong, but for English classes? Nah. They do more harm than good.

I’m currently wrapping up a semester with one class devoted to tutoring pedagogy. It’s a fun class for me, and the students appear to enjoy it. This is a class that requires a set amount of “experiential credits” mostly achieved through tutoring my other students in ENG 101. Of course, this being a class held over Zoom, earning these credits is not always easy. But even if we were meeting face-to-face, the outside of class requirements are difficult for busy students to complete. One student sent me an email arguing that I am valuing quantity over quality. If they are able to generate good reflections and create a solid tutoring philosophy from three sessions—all three possibly offering different experiences that cover a decent range of tutoring challenges—then are they not enough? Do students really need a full seven sessions, especially when their time is otherwise taxed? What else am I doing here but generating anxiety?

I knew this already. I’ve often dropped a few of the experiential requirements or found ways for students to earn these credits through alternative assignments. My student wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. And yet, every year I make it mandatory that the students spend at least seven hours outside of class working as tutors. Because, I guess, seven is the correct number? Ironically, I only make my actual tutors—the ones getting paid—train for approximately three hours (the very number my student suggested was sufficient).

It appears I’m as guilty as the rest. Rather than let the students develop the curriculum with me, I impose one on them. There’s a standard, one above questioning. This is the way it is. Do it and do it without asking why and you’ll get a good grade. Question, defy, or slack when it seems pointless and watch your GPA suffer!

*

To consider what I think education ought to be, we’ll go back to the philosophers, both students and teachers, who used to get together to talk about stuff for a long ass time. Rather than measure learning in some systemized way, they had a chat. The wise man (who knew he was wise because he knew how little he knew) asked questions, sometimes in an annoying manner, and then more questions once there were answers, because the answers often caused more questions, and a back-n-forth occurred. This was called discourse. The chats could be long or short. They might go on as long as they needed to or fizzle. But they were not confined to an hour and fifteen minutes, not counting the time it takes to document attendance and set up the damn PowerPoint slideshow.

The idea of Socrates giving Plato a letter grade makes me laugh. Well, now, Plato, you’ve done well this term, though you did disappear for a bit after Spring Break, and now that we’re a week away from the final exam, I’m concerned about the make-up work you need to complete in order to pass. Your last three quizzes were good, but you’ve missed more than the absences allotted by the syllabus, so I’m not sure you’ll be able to get by with more than a C-. You might consider taking this class again when you have the attention and time to devote yourself to it. If you have any other questions, email my TA.

Maybe I’m over-romanticizing classical ways of creating knowledge. After all, I’ve not read the Greeks for a long time (and only because a philosophy teacher made me), so I’m likely full of shit. But I do know that the way I came to see myself as worthy of remarking on anything related to school was through exploration of my own interests coupled with some engaging instructors who saw that their job was to get me to give a damn about the course rather than expect me to care or prostrate myself before their alter.

This is not to say that we should bend completely to the will of the students, but jeesh. . .  maybe start by appealing to them a little? In a class like ENG 101, often the first class incoming freshman take, what is accomplished by inundating students with material they can’t relate to? Sure, that’s going to be much of what they encounter in college, but maybe let’s get their feet wet with some topics they can respond to. And let’s have some discussion. Drill for skill quizzes and lectures where the students never get a chance to talk are doing nothing for the aspiring writer/thinker. They need to read, think, engage in discussion, talk, venture ideas, have them challenged, think some more, talk a lot more, get ideas, write notes, write drafts, have them read, get both feedback and feedforward, rewrite drafts after seeing the perspectives of their peers, add to their ideas, develop their arguments, and sure, polish their writing, but based not on strict grammar rules (many of them debatable) but to achieve a form of clarity that reflects a reader’s ability to follow the writer’s ideas. This comes only after the writer knows what it is they want to say, not to mention sees themselves as worthy of saying it.

When instructors complain about shitty papers, what they mean (when not being strict grammarians) is that the students are not making sense. This is likely because the students don’t know what they think about a subject because they have not been encouraged to see themselves as having anything to say. They don’t know or they don’t care. And so they churn out something resembling an argument that is muddled and confusing. When they know, when they care, when they feel permitted to comment, they comment with clarity, despite a few fragments and run-ons.

But I have to wonder: why are we even teaching them how to write?

At the risk of making my profession obsolete (more so than it is already), I can’t help but wonder what we really seek to achieve when we teach comp. Stanley Fish believes that the good comp class will examine writing with an emphasis on syntax and the way writing refines thinking. His critics argue he’s reinforcing classist and racist traditions that created so-called “standard English,” which doesn’t allow for regional or cultural dialects other than white English. Fish would hate my classes. He’d argue that what I am teaching are Social Justice Studies or Contemporary Issues courses. He disdains the practice of assigning readings that the students are expected to respond to at the expense of close scrutiny of sentence construction. And he’s probably right, but I don’t care. I know my students. The ones who like my classes tell me they like arguing about things, especially during class discussion. My hope is that they then make these arguments in writing, having the ability to come up with salient points and after addressing counterclaims verbally. Because most of us do this all day long. We talk, argue, often without thinking, sure, but sometimes the only way to understand what one really feels is through exhausting the knee-jerk reactions and addressing the constraints that produce opinions. We obnoxious instructors call this “Interrogating assumptions.” We push students to go deeper, sure, but only after they feel comfortable speaking their minds. Imagine that: a classroom of experts all qualified to discuss ideas and issues, all with points of view informed by their races, genders, cultures, religions, and unique experiences. Sounds a dash better than being lectured.

So again, I ask: why do we insist that the end result of this discussion be written essays? Okay, I know—the written word is a supremely beautiful thing, and important across disciplines, and clear writing is prized in just about every profession imaginable, but if my real goal is to have students be able to make strong arguments and examine ideas and develop “new knowledge,” and if they can do this without having to slog through textbooks and spend anxious hours trying to put in writing what could more easily come out of their mouths—and if what comes out of their mouths is likely easier for me to follow than the rushed essays that don’t resemble what I call “good writing”—then what’s the point? Why not judge them on in-class discourse? The ideas may be as defensible as any they’d pen, yet, when grading the written work, I’ll ding them on grammar and, god help us, MLA formatting? Fucking silly, really.

*

Might we practice a form of education that allows students to co-develop the curriculum? Might we spend more time (without any clock ticking to tell us that the class is soon to conclude) engaging in verbal discourse, following the natural progression of a conversation with its many strands of thoughts and related ideas and, sure, digressions? Might we make education voluntary, subsidized, a thing born of a desire to grow and learn and challenge, something fun, an enterprise that needs no long think pieces or blog posts (ahem) to justify? Might we create a space for free-flowing dialectics? Could we possibly divorce higher learning from the trade school mentality (trade schools, ironically, present better opportunities for “problem posing” education than some universities) that churns out trained professionals? Might we return to a place where education, at this level, is seen as a chance for intellectual development, not a necessary step before going to law school and getting a clerkship, first-year job, partnership, mansion, boat, trophy spouse, secret paramour, divorce, ulcer, forced early retirement? Am I mad to imagine higher education with fewer administrators and less bureaucracy? Okay, sure— I’m going too far with that last question.

*

Look, I know I’m talking (er, writing) out of my ass here. Rather than let this already lengthy blogthing devolve into full rant, I’ll wrap up with a sort of statement of concerns:

• We in the comp circles are not really preparing students for the expectations that other classes will put on them. Their history, psych, soc, and poly-sci instructors are probably unconscious prescriptivists. They won’t be as willing as us to overlook grammar and punctuation errors.

• Those outside of comp circles need to chill on grammar. Look at the ideas. Relax a wee bit on the mechanics. Recognize that some of these so-called rules are indefensible, and all of them are made up anyway. Clarity is all that matters. When grammar and punctuation aid in clarity, bring it up. But is anyone ever really confused by a comma splice? Do too many adverbs really bother you (if so, sorry).

• All of us, regardless of our discipline, should rethink what we do in class. How much time do we allot for discussion? Do we encourage students to bring their experiences into the discussion? Are we making space for work that speaks to them or are we pushing the same texts we endured because, well, I had to read this, so fuck you? If we are teaching a survey course, can we look beyond the cannon? If we’re teaching the first half of a Brit Lit survey, have we included Aphra Behn? If we’re teaching 20th century American lit, how much of the Harlem Renaissance is represented? (For the record, I need to improve here.)

• Have we tried to reclaim a kind of educational practice that values real learning, not just validating students for going through the motions and memorizing things and regurgitating them for a passing grade?

• Are we, in our well-meaning liberal approach, validating students without challenging them? Are we being unconsciously oppressive by championing their “natural voice” even when that voice creates sentences that are objective muddy? Are we ignoring the English language learners who just want some understanding of how standard English grammar (with all its racist, classist, sexist baggage) works? These are the students who won’t feel “empowered,” despite all our rhetoric, when they don’t have command of the language.

• Have we explained the benefit of studying subjects outside of majors? Do we have a good justification for the core curriculum? Do we fail in our effort to create “complete” students?

• Are we too far gone?

Regarding the last concern: I sure hope not. And I don’t necessarily believe so. But I have my concerns. I doubt they’ll vanish, but I can try to do my best to address them and tailor my practice accordingly. Still, it’s a hard fight when the culture has morphed education into a product with tangible results and an arbitrary grading scale.

Oh well, no point ranting onward. Fight the good fight and work within the system to change it, I guess. That or quit and start my own school based on my half-assed ideas. Maybe I’ll get lucky and strike it rich and can operate this imaginary thinkatorium independent of the need to make profit. Best get to work on the big best seller.

Rethinking RHCP, or: How I Grew Up and Realized That This Band Sucks

It’s likely that you’re like me inasmuch as you retain fondness for music from your youth. Of course, there comes a time when one simply must grow up, but that hardly means abandoning everything that made you oh so happy during those awkward teenage years and early fumbles into adulthood. For males—if I may generalize a bit—those fumbles last way too long, thus the prevalence of 38-year-old dudes in Sublime T-shirts.

My Spotify playlist is not short on Slayer. Or Pig Destroyer. Or The Dead Milkmen. Spotify is as much a tool for discovering new (to me) music as it is a supplier of dopamine via nostalgia. But there are some bands that I’ve just outgrown. And while it’s not my place to suggest that you outgrow them too, I might ask: can you really defend this band?

Here’s one band I can’t defend: Red Hot Chili Peppers

My god, Red Hot Chili Peppers suck. And I don’t just mean that they suck your kiss. And let’s talk about that song for a second. It’s reason #1 that I stopped listening to this band. Prior to Blood Sugar Sex Magik, I was heavily into RHCP. Mother’s Milk and Freaky Styley were my favorite records, Uplift Mofo Party Plan somewhere up there as well. Three solid records, in my callow view. The band was raunchy and stupid, and I was 20. A perfect pair (not a tit joke, despite the fact that, you know, I’m discussing the fuckin’ Peppers). I drove to the Chicago Ridge Mall to pick up a copy of the last RHCP record I’d ever buy—the one where they spell Magic “Magik”—popped in the cassette (those were the days!) and rode back home to the strains of the saddest, slickest, dumbest thing I’d ever heard.

It’s not that Blood Sugar Sex Magik is a departure for the RHCP. It has that whole punk-funk thing in spades. The only differences between it and the previous records are that this one is really long with waaaaay too many songs and that some of those songs are serious, or as serious as a song can be from a band called Red Hot Chili Peppers. Okay, sure, Anthony Kiedis was working some shit out with “Under the Bridge” and, I dunno, trying for once to be sympathetic to women on “Breaking the Girl”, and good on him for trying, I guess. But, you know, hard to take these stabs at profundity seriously when they’re paired with “Suck My Kiss”, which remains the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m well aware that “Muskrat Love” exists.

“Suck My Kiss” sums up this band: seems kinda edgy when you first hear it, but quickly becomes irksome. And, frankly, embarrassing. Not just for them; the listener is embarrassed as well. It’s a song that does nothing good for anyone. A 3 minute 39 second squirm is one appropriate response, the other being an eye roll. The riff is. . . fine, though hardly impressive, especially as it comes from a band that people constantly tell me is populated with good musicians. The lyrics though. . . insufferably dumb, salacious only if you’ve never actually had sex, and delivered in the quintessential white boy rap style that plagued the early 90s. Thankfully white people have grown up and stopped rapping and slapping their bass guitars. Well, most of us have.   

I won’t go into “Sir Psycho Sexy”. But seriously: shame on everyone involved with that song.

So yeah, Blood Sugar Sex Magic (let’s spell it correctly, guys—you’re not Aleister Crowley) was the record that made me rethink my interest in a band that uses a close-up of an asshole as their logo. The question being: can I defend this band? The answer, unequivocally: no.

One last thing about Anthony Kiedis:

Without a doubt, he’s the biggest douchebag in rock and roll, and that’s saying something. I think I might be able to stomach RHCP were he not involved with them. Those early records buried his vocals a bit, which is why they were tolerable, but the clearer his voice in the mix, the worse the effect. Who told him he can sing anyway? It’s a bit of a shame that his strength is white boy rap, because that should not be anyone’s strength. Case-in-point, my favorite band: Mr. Bungle, fronted by Mike Patton who certainly has some sins on record. But Patton’s more than atoned for Faith No More’s “Epic” through decades of incredible music. And he can fucking sing. But Kiedis has always had beef with Patton, as he accused Patton of stealing his act. And you know what, maybe there’s a valid claim that the early work of Patton has some RHCP DNA in it, but, um, Anthony. . . have you heard your records? So, you invented funk music? Nothing derivative on Freaky Styley?

Anyway, years after Patton had established himself as an adventurous, multifaceted vocalist, and after Mr. Bungle released three records full of composition and musicianship RHCP couldn’t touch on their best day, Kiedis was still holding a grudge, so much so that he got Mr. Bungle kicked off a series of festival gigs. Keep in mind that RHCP were one of the biggest bands in the world and Mr. Bungle was not. It’s never a good look for a middle-aged millionaire to throw hissy fits or be the petty Goliath. Ask Lars Ulrich. Bungle being Bungle, they retaliated hilariously by dressing up as the Chili Peppers, mocking their drug use on stage, and playing a bunch of their songs to prove how easy they are to learn and perform. No one, save for the audience of that Michigan concert, knew about it, until the bootleg of that show leaked (YouTube has the whole thing—worth a watch). And thank you to the bootlegger for capturing that mockery and reminding me that the Chili Peppers are laughably overrated and, at best, a juvenile joke I thought was funny when I was a younger man. Oh, to be a kid again. Actually. . . nah. I’m happier now, and my music collection is better.