That's when the night is always darkest. I've been here nearly two months and there have been a lot of ups and downs and there are a lot of people who helped me through, whether they were very close or very very far away. I'm not naming names, but you've all been invaluable, and for that, I'd like to tell you to see "Dark Knight" immediately.
(Un?)Fortunately for you, you won't have the pleasure of sharing a train ride to the theater with a starry-eyed, toothless Haitian man who held a 100-block-long conversation with no one in three different languages about the sweet tea from McDonald's - to be fair, it really is a bargain. And I have seen more ridiculous things since I came to New York City: a man walking down the street hand in hand with his girlfriend wearing a shirt that read "I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one," for instance, or a guy and a girl stopping their car in the middle of Broadway to drag out the front seat passenger and beat him senseless and drive on. But something about the timing of this particular lunatic sighting made it absolutely perfect, his shining gums limned with the evening sun as the 1 train climbed above ground to 125th Street, my favorite stop on the track. I was very sorry to go when my stop came.
As for the movie, it's late, and I'm not going to ruin anything for anyone, so all I'm going to say is that Harry and I left the theater literally incredulous at how much we had just enjoyed ourselves. Everything about it is perfect: the pacing, the performances, the score, the message, and it was exactly what I needed. Tomorrow I start my new job, which I'll blog when I get home, but for now I need sleep while the night is still dark.
7/22/08
7/19/08
The PLOTUS Eaters.
There's a new Poet Laureate, and it's Kay Ryan. Now if we can just manage to avoid electing John McCain come November, I think the United States can get itself back on the right track.
Honestly, this is really excellent news. While almost anyone would have been an improvement over Charles Simic, the appointment of Ryan is going to take the post in an entirely new direction, regardless of whether Ron Silliman thinks she's a "Poet of Quietude" or not. Seeing new poems of hers in Poetry is basically the only reason I bother to buy that publication any longer, and I can't imagine why The New Yorker's poetry editor chooses to print her work so often seeing that it runs directly counter to the magazine's apparent goal of killing its readers with boredom or American poetry with inanity. But I'm at least 80% sure I didn't start a blog to be mean to people I don't have to see in real life (check the previous entry, there are still some kinks I'm working out.) Anyway, Kay Ryan can do more with four four-word lines than Simic can with twenty - I'm in perpetual admiration of her economy, intelligence, and perceptiveness.
There are a lot of writers out there, however, who are dissatisfied with the decision because they don't feel Ryan is experimental enough, and Silliman spends some time dissecting the media's designation of her as "outsider" on his blog. As someone who really does operate on the fringe, I guess it's his prerogative to take issue. But could we be more mature about this, please? The problem with the School of Quietude/Post-Avant dichotomy isn't just that it's a crude and meaningless apparatus for understanding contemporary American poetry, or that it falls apart entirely when applied to individual poets. It's that it turns contemporary poetics into a battlefield instead of a discussion, a place where you have to pick sides, where there's a right answer and a wrong one. Nerds and jocks. I think Silliman writes very well, and he definitely maintains one of the best poetry sites in the blogosphere. But give me a break:
This places Ryan into an interesting situation. Expectations could hardly be lowered any further. The task before her is not simply to find new and useful ways to promote the diversity of American poetries, but to rehabilitate the office of PLOTUS itself. She can begin by presuming that she represents all of the poets & poetries of the nation, not just the same little clique that’s clung to the job since 1937.
Seriously, this is starting to sound way too much like high school. Anyone willing to claim that Robert Penn Warren and Gwendolyn Brooks belong to the "same little clique" obviously hasn't looked farther than the shallowest formal resemblances, but it's just easier to make a blanket statement about the entire 71-year-old position because Penn Warren taught Robert Lowell who was friends with Elizabeth Bishop and they all knew Cleanth Brooks! It's a peculiar trait of experimental poets, that they guard their fringe status ferociously but seem relentlessly preoccupied with the mainstream. Like how Rayanne and Angela would get into those enormous fights almost every episode of "My So-Called Life" but would always work it out because, secretly, they wanted to be each other? I'm not suggesting a poetry beyond schools. But maybe I am? I just think it's dumb not to admit that you'd like to have Angela Chase's nice family or be adventurous and devastating like her best friend. That's how poetry evolves and things get better. When you don't do that, there's no way you can grow, and there's a character in the show for you too: his name was Brian Krakow.
Honestly, this is really excellent news. While almost anyone would have been an improvement over Charles Simic, the appointment of Ryan is going to take the post in an entirely new direction, regardless of whether Ron Silliman thinks she's a "Poet of Quietude" or not. Seeing new poems of hers in Poetry is basically the only reason I bother to buy that publication any longer, and I can't imagine why The New Yorker's poetry editor chooses to print her work so often seeing that it runs directly counter to the magazine's apparent goal of killing its readers with boredom or American poetry with inanity. But I'm at least 80% sure I didn't start a blog to be mean to people I don't have to see in real life (check the previous entry, there are still some kinks I'm working out.) Anyway, Kay Ryan can do more with four four-word lines than Simic can with twenty - I'm in perpetual admiration of her economy, intelligence, and perceptiveness.
There are a lot of writers out there, however, who are dissatisfied with the decision because they don't feel Ryan is experimental enough, and Silliman spends some time dissecting the media's designation of her as "outsider" on his blog. As someone who really does operate on the fringe, I guess it's his prerogative to take issue. But could we be more mature about this, please? The problem with the School of Quietude/Post-Avant dichotomy isn't just that it's a crude and meaningless apparatus for understanding contemporary American poetry, or that it falls apart entirely when applied to individual poets. It's that it turns contemporary poetics into a battlefield instead of a discussion, a place where you have to pick sides, where there's a right answer and a wrong one. Nerds and jocks. I think Silliman writes very well, and he definitely maintains one of the best poetry sites in the blogosphere. But give me a break:
This places Ryan into an interesting situation. Expectations could hardly be lowered any further. The task before her is not simply to find new and useful ways to promote the diversity of American poetries, but to rehabilitate the office of PLOTUS itself. She can begin by presuming that she represents all of the poets & poetries of the nation, not just the same little clique that’s clung to the job since 1937.
Seriously, this is starting to sound way too much like high school. Anyone willing to claim that Robert Penn Warren and Gwendolyn Brooks belong to the "same little clique" obviously hasn't looked farther than the shallowest formal resemblances, but it's just easier to make a blanket statement about the entire 71-year-old position because Penn Warren taught Robert Lowell who was friends with Elizabeth Bishop and they all knew Cleanth Brooks! It's a peculiar trait of experimental poets, that they guard their fringe status ferociously but seem relentlessly preoccupied with the mainstream. Like how Rayanne and Angela would get into those enormous fights almost every episode of "My So-Called Life" but would always work it out because, secretly, they wanted to be each other? I'm not suggesting a poetry beyond schools. But maybe I am? I just think it's dumb not to admit that you'd like to have Angela Chase's nice family or be adventurous and devastating like her best friend. That's how poetry evolves and things get better. When you don't do that, there's no way you can grow, and there's a character in the show for you too: his name was Brian Krakow.
7/18/08
The Life Vicarious gets low-down.
To my blog -
Being both nascent and neglected, you bear a lot of unfortunate resemblances to an unwanted child. I know I haven't always been the best mother or given you a lot of stability. I wrote a whole essay on critical responses to "Sex and the City" and then left you to fend for yourself for days. I allowed Anthony Lane to come up twice over the course of twelve entries. I can't decide how I want to raise you - whether you're going to be about my life in New York City or literature, and it worries me that I feel I have to choose. What's worse, I don't feel like I know who you are at all. Are you confessional? Snarky? Highbrow? Lowbrow? Some bastard confluence of all four? Parenting is hard, but I want you to know that I always always wanted you.
So many thanks to The Life Vicarious for babysitting on Thursday with a rewrite of the July 14th entry:
Everyone is yelling at us for neglecting this blog like a dumpster baby. We didn't even know anyone we know valued such things (websites, developing human life, both major time wasters.) But now like a deadbeat dad who didn't see the money-making potential a well-disciplined child could produce through corporate sponsorship, we say give us back our baby so we can paint it!
Sometime very soon we, I mean I, plan to return the favor. Just now I and my dumpster baby have a tanning salon to visit.
Being both nascent and neglected, you bear a lot of unfortunate resemblances to an unwanted child. I know I haven't always been the best mother or given you a lot of stability. I wrote a whole essay on critical responses to "Sex and the City" and then left you to fend for yourself for days. I allowed Anthony Lane to come up twice over the course of twelve entries. I can't decide how I want to raise you - whether you're going to be about my life in New York City or literature, and it worries me that I feel I have to choose. What's worse, I don't feel like I know who you are at all. Are you confessional? Snarky? Highbrow? Lowbrow? Some bastard confluence of all four? Parenting is hard, but I want you to know that I always always wanted you.
So many thanks to The Life Vicarious for babysitting on Thursday with a rewrite of the July 14th entry:
Everyone is yelling at us for neglecting this blog like a dumpster baby. We didn't even know anyone we know valued such things (websites, developing human life, both major time wasters.) But now like a deadbeat dad who didn't see the money-making potential a well-disciplined child could produce through corporate sponsorship, we say give us back our baby so we can paint it!
Sometime very soon we, I mean I, plan to return the favor. Just now I and my dumpster baby have a tanning salon to visit.
7/14/08
Okay, I'm the girl who sucks.
Everyone is yelling at me for neglecting this blog. I didn't know that many people read it! I have things to write about and things to think out by writing about them and all of it, but they will have to wait until this evening. In the meantime, entertain yourselves with Chris Onstad's interview in The New Yorker online. A gem, in which Chris asks the question that's been on every New Yorker reader's mind for a while now:
Onstad: I haven’t seen much Malcolm Gladwell lately, and I wonder if that’s because he’s busy running more social experiments centered around his haircut. Also, I thought it was lame that Anthony Lane acted like he didn’t care about the Rolling Stones. That is ridiculous, not to care about that band in a really heavy way. Is he (originally) from space?
7/3/08
And spoonbills.
This week has been way too crazy to process in any other fashion besides itemization. I'm not sorry, and you'll have to deal with it.
Wednesday (last week): Hit the nadir of my homesickness and big city blues, proving to myself and everybody around me that I am tenderhearted like whoa - and affirming the observation of a friend who would know that applying at Momofuku would have been a pretty bad idea. Ate a truly awful slice of pizza at a restaurant owned and staffed by the truly well-meaning in Jersey City. Spent the rest of the day back in Manhattan, bumming around Lincoln Center and pretending to be interested in spa promotions so vacationing hippies would keep talking to me. Yeah, more than 8 million people live here, and yeah, it really gets that lonely.
Thursday: Got my hair cut by a sweet Californian Aveda student at their Spring Street campus, which I have to say was probably the best $20 I've spent in recent memory and definitely the best $20 I've ever spent on my hair. I haven't worn a bob since fifth grade; I've never had a short haircut that didn't make my head look like a triangle. Rachel, if you're reading, you did really excellent work. I was so inspired by this haircut that I walked 40 blocks down Broadway, applying for job after job after job. Rachel, I wish you could cut my hair all the time, but we both know that is not how Aveda works.
Friday: Took a walk through Central Park with Jeremy and ended up at the Met, an odd choice since his ex girlfriend works there, but I think he wanted to take me someplace with a little class after sending me to Brooklyn and calling to cancel our lunch date while I was on the train. Anyway, good times were had despite being on the lookout for a brunette with green eyes and a taste for boys' hearts - we saw the Superheroes exhibit and then debated about the difference between art as ritual and art as abstraction while trying to decide which New Guinean mask terrified us more. Then it was up to the roof to see the cocktail drinkers, the Koons exhibit, and the sunset (listed in order of amusement afforded). Following that we met up with some folks in Chinatown for dinner at Nice Green Bo, where the scallion pancakes and crab/pork dumplings were completely worth waking up with night sweats from all the MSG. Seriously, go there. You will be sorry, but you will not learn your lesson.
Saturday: Dinner with Harry at Ruby Tuesday's in Times Square, where all the plates are rectangular and the entire waitstaff is about to be the next Broadway sensation. Harry really likes Ruby Tuesday's. I guess I see his point, but did they have to add a gratuity to our check? It would have been nice to decide for myself if I wanted to give our waiter %18, no matter how sculpted his arms or how much gel he had in his hair. The night got way better, though, as we made our way over to Gramercy to see some friends of Harry's in a ballet-butoh fusion performance where girls danced with hand puppets and desecrated the flag. Girls wearing wedding dresses and red, white, and blue face-paint.
Sunday: Went out for The Hold Steady at the first of JellyNYC's Brooklyn Pool Parties this summer. Made awkward conversation with a very polite Swedish man who had never heard of The Hold Steady but had been sent to the concert by a host who was too busy to entertain him. He and I lost track of each other, though, when it started completely fucking pouring. J Roddy and the Business were high-energy but repetitive and of course The Hold Steady kicked ass, but the real heroes of the afternoon were The Loved Ones, who played through the rain despite the risk of imminent electrocution. Being surrounded by sweaty, drunk, soaked moshers and crowd-surfers made me feel 14 again. It barely even mattered that The Loved Ones play slightly less interesting music than Good Charlotte.
Monday: The Fancy Food Show! Basically what happened is that I posed as a journalist, having been invited by a real journalist, and ate until I could barely breathe. Best food sampled? Lobster mac and cheese. Most randomly ubiquitous? Aloe vera juice (being offered for some reason by five different countries on both levels of the convention center). Biggest letdown? Freesecake. Most amoral? Vosge's chocolate-covered bacon. There were also shortbreads, barbecue sandwiches, flavored honeys, and exotic potato chips in abundance, all of which made me very happy.
Tuesday: Digesting.
Wednesday (yesterday): Incidentally the one-month anniversary of my arrival in New York. Group interview at Urban Outfitters. I know, I know. It was bizarre on too many levels to enumerate and I'll probably write a separate entry just about that, but for now let's just say that we sat in a circle and answered questions about our favorite bands. It was like a casting call for an Upper West Side season of "The Real World". Everyone in attendance had a Dream. There were two dancers, one rapper/model, a jazz pianist, a med student, and a Guns n' Roses fan working on his first novel.
I was nervous, I'll admit it, but the people in charge decided I was hip enough to work there. Which is really pretty amazing. In the span of a week I have evolved from a jobless wreck who would get all teary-eyed for hours at the Florida birds exhibit in the Natural History Museum to one of the city's pre-eminent purveyors of cool, and someone who can afford groceries at that! I even get discounts. But I won't lie to you; I will probably still spend my time staring at stuffed egrets.
Wednesday (last week): Hit the nadir of my homesickness and big city blues, proving to myself and everybody around me that I am tenderhearted like whoa - and affirming the observation of a friend who would know that applying at Momofuku would have been a pretty bad idea. Ate a truly awful slice of pizza at a restaurant owned and staffed by the truly well-meaning in Jersey City. Spent the rest of the day back in Manhattan, bumming around Lincoln Center and pretending to be interested in spa promotions so vacationing hippies would keep talking to me. Yeah, more than 8 million people live here, and yeah, it really gets that lonely.
Thursday: Got my hair cut by a sweet Californian Aveda student at their Spring Street campus, which I have to say was probably the best $20 I've spent in recent memory and definitely the best $20 I've ever spent on my hair. I haven't worn a bob since fifth grade; I've never had a short haircut that didn't make my head look like a triangle. Rachel, if you're reading, you did really excellent work. I was so inspired by this haircut that I walked 40 blocks down Broadway, applying for job after job after job. Rachel, I wish you could cut my hair all the time, but we both know that is not how Aveda works.
Friday: Took a walk through Central Park with Jeremy and ended up at the Met, an odd choice since his ex girlfriend works there, but I think he wanted to take me someplace with a little class after sending me to Brooklyn and calling to cancel our lunch date while I was on the train. Anyway, good times were had despite being on the lookout for a brunette with green eyes and a taste for boys' hearts - we saw the Superheroes exhibit and then debated about the difference between art as ritual and art as abstraction while trying to decide which New Guinean mask terrified us more. Then it was up to the roof to see the cocktail drinkers, the Koons exhibit, and the sunset (listed in order of amusement afforded). Following that we met up with some folks in Chinatown for dinner at Nice Green Bo, where the scallion pancakes and crab/pork dumplings were completely worth waking up with night sweats from all the MSG. Seriously, go there. You will be sorry, but you will not learn your lesson.
Saturday: Dinner with Harry at Ruby Tuesday's in Times Square, where all the plates are rectangular and the entire waitstaff is about to be the next Broadway sensation. Harry really likes Ruby Tuesday's. I guess I see his point, but did they have to add a gratuity to our check? It would have been nice to decide for myself if I wanted to give our waiter %18, no matter how sculpted his arms or how much gel he had in his hair. The night got way better, though, as we made our way over to Gramercy to see some friends of Harry's in a ballet-butoh fusion performance where girls danced with hand puppets and desecrated the flag. Girls wearing wedding dresses and red, white, and blue face-paint.
Sunday: Went out for The Hold Steady at the first of JellyNYC's Brooklyn Pool Parties this summer. Made awkward conversation with a very polite Swedish man who had never heard of The Hold Steady but had been sent to the concert by a host who was too busy to entertain him. He and I lost track of each other, though, when it started completely fucking pouring. J Roddy and the Business were high-energy but repetitive and of course The Hold Steady kicked ass, but the real heroes of the afternoon were The Loved Ones, who played through the rain despite the risk of imminent electrocution. Being surrounded by sweaty, drunk, soaked moshers and crowd-surfers made me feel 14 again. It barely even mattered that The Loved Ones play slightly less interesting music than Good Charlotte.
Monday: The Fancy Food Show! Basically what happened is that I posed as a journalist, having been invited by a real journalist, and ate until I could barely breathe. Best food sampled? Lobster mac and cheese. Most randomly ubiquitous? Aloe vera juice (being offered for some reason by five different countries on both levels of the convention center). Biggest letdown? Freesecake. Most amoral? Vosge's chocolate-covered bacon. There were also shortbreads, barbecue sandwiches, flavored honeys, and exotic potato chips in abundance, all of which made me very happy.
Tuesday: Digesting.
Wednesday (yesterday): Incidentally the one-month anniversary of my arrival in New York. Group interview at Urban Outfitters. I know, I know. It was bizarre on too many levels to enumerate and I'll probably write a separate entry just about that, but for now let's just say that we sat in a circle and answered questions about our favorite bands. It was like a casting call for an Upper West Side season of "The Real World". Everyone in attendance had a Dream. There were two dancers, one rapper/model, a jazz pianist, a med student, and a Guns n' Roses fan working on his first novel.
I was nervous, I'll admit it, but the people in charge decided I was hip enough to work there. Which is really pretty amazing. In the span of a week I have evolved from a jobless wreck who would get all teary-eyed for hours at the Florida birds exhibit in the Natural History Museum to one of the city's pre-eminent purveyors of cool, and someone who can afford groceries at that! I even get discounts. But I won't lie to you; I will probably still spend my time staring at stuffed egrets.
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