peachjolyranchr's Xanga

Your summer reading list

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:39:52 GMT

According to this meme that's been making its way around The InterWebs, "The Big Read reckons the average adult has read only six of the top 100 books it's printed." I've read almost a quarter of the books listed below (yes, I really read Moby Dick all the way through, and yes, it's brilliant), and I just started On the Road (so far, also brilliant: "... The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'").

You? Any books I should definitely move to my "intend to read" list?

1. Bold the books you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline the books you LOVE.
4. Star next to the books you're reading/have read some of.
5. Copy, paste and repeat.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen*
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck*
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwel
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac*
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker*
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

The Car Crash Story

Thu, 29 May 2008 23:59:41 GMT

ME: Did you listen to the song yet so I can tell you my story?
GRACE: yes
ME: OK
ME: So I was in a car accident yesterday
GRACE: what?

The spectacular three-car pile-up was the weekend before Memorial Day weekend in Springfield; my IM conversation with Grace, that Monday at work in Chicagoland.

OK, so you're not really supposed to converse about the details of a car accident with anyone other than the police and your insurance agent. But I don't really remember the details: One minute I was stopping behind a car at a stoplight. The next, I was crashing into it. And in the week-or-so since, the more I'm able to unravel the 120 threads that immediately began spooling in my thoughts, the more The Car Crash Story has become slightly less tragic and actually a little hilarious. That's grace.

At the time, the whole thing was just incredibly disorienting because (1) I didn't realize I was crashing and (2) I took a real wallop when I did because I drive a tiny Volkswagen Bug. I crashed, and then I was face to the steering wheel, seatbelt wrapped around my neck, my car filling with smoke, trying to figure out what just happened. Actually, I believe my first thought was, "Something ... something ... time machine ... WHAT IS THIS WHITE THING, AND HOW DID IT GET IN MY CAR?!!"

The white thing was the passenger-side airbag.

It took me a while to figure that out through the smoke and the gratuitous amount of chalky dust the airbag shot into my face, shrouding everything inside my car in a blanket of white. Which made me pretty sure for a fleeting second that I was dead. I'm dying and I'm dead. I've died. Which should make you think of C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, because that's what being pretty sure I was dead made me think of. That, and how much I hate buses and what "shining figure" I knew in life would come to pick me up at the bus stop and accompany me to heaven proper. (This is where a working knowledge of the book's plot may come in handy.)

That figure apparently would be my friend Lewis, who is an incredibly talented musician. I'd just uploaded a bunch of music from his new Web site onto my iPod before my long drive down to Springfield ...

ME: And then what comes up on my iPod's shuffle, but this song
ME: And I'm like, "Lewis? Lewis is coming to take me to heaven?"
ME: ME: "Of everyone that I met during my lifetime, JOEL'S ROOMMATE is the one that comes to take me to heaven? REALLY, GOD?!!"
ME: Then my car started making a hissing noise and I realized I was still alive and jumped out. The End.
ME: wow
ME: When you die, Lewis comes to take you to heaven

Outside the car, I had a fleeting moment of excitement when it occurred to me I had SINGLE-HANDEDLY SHUT DOWN INTERSTATE 55 (allegedly). Until I realized that was NOT A GOOD THING.

It didn't take long for police to arrive on the scene. Then a fire truck. And an ambulance. AND, because Springfield is such a small town, everybody's families. And one of the fireman was the brother of a girl in my high school class. Really small town. Both my parents, my sister Annie and her longtime ... um, "man friend" Brian all closed ranks around me, apparently looking very small and scared and sore and even more like a 16-year-old than usual in the midst of the commotion I'd caused (allegedly ... I'm a reporter; I write this stuff in police reports every day).

After everybody else drove off and my smushed Bug was towed away, my dad took me to rent a car so I could drive back to Chicagoland that night. Apparently, in all of Springfield, there were only three cars for rent: a Cadillac, a Ford Explorer and a Dodge Magnum, which seemed like the smallest and least gas-guzzling of the options.

In reality, this thing is a hearse. There is no earthly reason to drive a car this big and black that does not involve transporting bodies. It is so long, it literally hangs out past any sports utility vehicle, minivan or pickup truck parked in a lot. Every spot in this car is a blind spot. Also, it has Michigan license plates. Michigan plates beginning in "B-E-D" and ending in a random series of numbers. I think my mom even may have teared up when she saw me behind the wheel, even smaller and more scared and looking like it was my first day with a driver's license.

But the worst part of the car accident is that now everybody thinks I am from Michigan, and I am a sleepy Michiganer ... Michiganite ... Michiganian ... ?

GRACE: i feel like your life is like that movie... across the universe
GRACE: that's what i imagine your life to be like
ME: LOL
ME: Why?
ME: Because I do a lot of drugs and randomly burst into song?
ME: Or how am I supposed to interpret that?
GRACE: just
GRACE: that your life is set to song
GRACE: and i imagine lots of swirly colors around
GRACE: and it's trippy music
GRACE: not justin timberlake
GRACE: lol

Quote of the week

Sat, 17 May 2008 10:49:00 GMT

Jen wins this one.

The scene: We went out for drinks Thursday to discuss her quickly-approaching bachelorette party, which I, as her unofficial matron of honor, am attempting to help plan. To our left, an older gentleman, sitting by himself, generally bothering the bartendresses and sending back his appetizer orders repeatedly. To our right, a pair of men about our age, one in a suit and the other in an ill-considered Pac-Man T shirt, who continued to stare extremely obviously at us throughout the night.

"Don't worry," Jen said. "If they come over here, we'll just flash them our ring fingers."

Her ring finger is, of course, sparkling with diamonds. Mine is stamped "True Love Waits."

Honestly, the ring seemed like a good idea when I was 18 and attending a Lutheran high school. Now it's just cheesy and slightly embarassing, but it's too noticeable after six years to ditch without everyone thinking I've changed my mind about that whole "waiting" thing. I haven't, but I'm not sure if that fact or the wedding-looking ring on my finger was meant to repel Pac-Man and Co.

This apparently just occured to Jen as the words left her mouth. And here comes our quote of the week:

"Hey, is that a 'True Love Waits' ring? Can I see it? I've heard they exist, but I've never actually seen one before."

And just like that, I became a mythical creature. The mythical, still-slightly-cheesy, 24-year-old virgin, wearer of The One Ring.

Also, yes, I am the matron of honor. Not maid. Meaning I'm going to have to get married in the next four weeks or I'm going to be seriously shirking my responsibilities at Jen's wedding.

A life of moral stuntedness

Thu, 15 May 2008 01:27:19 GMT

I started going to Concordia University Chicago when I was about 2 years old.

I wasn't taking classes. Not that I can recall. Apparently, my parents handed me over to let the kids studying for education and M.R.S. degrees watch me or test me or practice on me or implant microchips under my skin coded with the Mark of the Beast. They can't recall exactly what I was doing there either. When Sarah started at Concordia, I asked her to look into this, see if they're still tracking me. She couldn't find anything.

But this weekend my mom found the results of some other tests to which I was subjected, a "child observation testing assignment" my uncle completed for nursing school. It was one of many things, including a slew of my own baby pictures she foisted upon me this weekend when she and my dad came up to Naperville for Mother's Day weekend to look at apartments. Better those cherished family memories junk up my apartment than hers ...

That's me, right. You can tell because my cowlick-y, Polish hairstyle hasn't changed much, or at all, in 22 years. Nor, apparently, has my tendency to "think a little preoperational moral-wise."

The paper starts:

Emily, the oldest, is six years 10 months old. She is 4 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 66 pounds. She was five weeks premature at birth. She has light brown hair and will be in the second grade this fall. Emily is a sensitive child and a fast learner. At times her understanding and speech seems to be quite advanced for a child her age.

Annie, her sister, is five years 11 months old. She is four feet tall and weighs 50 pounds. Annie will start first grade this fall. Annie has dark hair. She's a little more soft spoken and not as outgoing as Emily. She plays more physically than Emily, who is more into books and art.

... I then asked Emily if she would come into the kitchen so I could do some testing on her. She didn't mind leaving the game, she loves to be tested.

The first few tests yielded entirely unsurprising results: I am a nerd! I like books! I have a freakish memory. I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. Annie can put toothpicks in order of length.

Then we started testing my moral aptitude. If I was the only witness to a fight at school and the principal asked me if my best friend was involved and he/she was, would I say what I saw and why?

When I asked Emily this question she said yes she would say what she saw. When I asked her why she said she would have to if she (her friend) did something wrong. Then I said, "What if it would get her into trouble?" and Emily said, "It wasn't the right thing to do." Then I said, "But wouldn't you like to help a friend?" And Emily said "No, because it's not the right thing to do."

This answer, my uncle wrote, was below my age level, indicative of "a kind of belief in a golden rule of right and wrong that her friend broke" and my "egocentrism in not being able to think about it from her friends point of view."

I seriously question this conclusion. I also seriously question my uncle's disregard for the comma. And the apostrophe. And his qualifications to play moral arbiter. I'm not sure a professed belief in the Golden Rule makes me a selfish, ego-driven retard with the moral capacity of a 5-year-old. (To be honest, I'm not even sure "telling the truth" falls under the banner of the Golden Rule.)

Nor my answer to a question regarding whether Jack stealing a yo-yo from a dime store for himself or Jill cracking open the store's cash register and stealing $100 for a poor woman committed a more serious crime. I said Jill did. And I've read enough police reports to be pretty sure police would still agree with me.

I think those answers make me Lutheran. And a terrible postmodern. I still am.

The test most indicative of the future personality of my sister Annie, the pretty one who is much-preferred by the opposite sex?

Question 19 on my assignment sheet reads ... 2-12 year olds: Who do you like to play with (if boys or girls rather than names are given, record that)? Can you tell me who your friends are?"

Results: I asked Annie these questions and to the first question she answered boys. When I asked her who her friends are she said Adam and Bradley.

Interpretation: Although Annie has some girl friends, her next door neighbors are two little boys named Adam and Bradley and she spends most of her playing time with them. I believe Annie and Adam said something about getting married some day.

Some things never change. But that's coming from me, the morally stunted anti-postmodernist.

Emily rocks!

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:09:08 GMT

I think this started in college as a self esteem-building exercise.

I mean searching the Internet for songs with my name -- Emily -- in the title. Has anybody else ever done this? No? Just me?

It's not like I have one of those names made famous in song like The Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" or The Police's "Roxanne" or even Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." Building my iTunes playlist -- optimistically titled "Emily Rocks!" -- has taken some effort. But it would be well worth it, I thought when I started, to craft a collection of wistful love songs written about me. Songs about my great beauty and undeniable feminine charm. Songs that would give the ol' self esteem a boost every time I listened to them.

As it turns out, there are a lot more songs about me than I had imagined. Apparently I was very popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, the consensus seems to be Emilys are bizarre women who lead lonely, tragic lives.

For instance, Pink Floyd released a song called "See Emily Play" on their 1970 album Masters of Rock. Unfortunately, I don't so much play in the song as I do "(try), but misunderstands / She's often inclined to borrow somebody's dreams till tomorrow."

Then there's this part: Soon after dark, Emily cries / Gazing through trees in sorrow, hardly a sound till tomorrow.

Elton John, in his 1992 song simply titled "Emily," has this to say about me: Emily walks through the cemetery / Past a dog in an unmarked grave / The old girl hobbles, nylons sagging / Talks to her sisters in the ground.

The Zombies' 1968 paeon in my honor, "A Rose for Emily," is so horribly depressing it really needs to be presented in its entirety:

The summer is here at last
The sky is overcast
And no one brings a rose for Emily

She watches her flowers grow
While lovers come and go
To give each other roses from her tree
But not a rose for Emily

Emily, can't you see
There's nothing you can do?
There's loving everywhere
But none for you

Her roses are fading now
She keeps her pride somehow
That's all she has protecting her from pain

And as the years go by
She will grow old and die
The roses in her garden fade away
Not one left for her grave
Not a rose for Emily

Emily, can't you see
There's nothing you can do?
There's loving everywhere
But none for you

"A Rose for Emily" is also the title of an equally cheery short story by William Faulkner. In it, I am an eccentric spinster who inexplicably poisons her lover, then shares a bed with his rotting corpse for 40 years until her own, eventual death.

Really? No, I mean ... honestly? Is this the picture people are getting when I introduce myself? Is there any other name about which more unfortunate songs are written?

Ah, well. At least Simon & Garfunkel are on my side. I like them best anyway.

An Easter E-mail

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:23:42 GMT

Every once in a while, since my sister taught my mom how to use The InterWebs, we get the cutest e-mails from our little Polish mother.

This one is regarding Easter, so, kids, if you haven't yet figured out your parents are in cahoots with the Easter Bunny (someone has to let him know when you've moved and whether he ought to bring a basket -- he's no Santa Claus), you might want to skip this entry, even if it was a long time in coming, and you miss me terribly.

Some background: My sister recently called my mom to make sure she'd be getting an Easter basket this year. My mom, in turn, called me to make sure I'd be coming home for Easter this year to get mine and make it worth her while. Annie is 22. I'm 24. And we still sleep over at our parents' house on Christmas Eve, just to torture them.

(Paranthetical explanations, mine...)

OK, I did the bunny thing yesterday. Actually, I pretty much have fun with the holiday stuff still, even though I whine that I have to do it. I even got Brian (my sister's sometimes-boyfriend) a big chocolate Bugs Bunny, and if he is not around at Easter, the bunny is MINE, ALL MINE! (Don't tell him, Annie.)
So I talked to Grandma Flo, and she says Angela (my cousin) told Harley (my cousin's kid, who is maybe 10) he's too old for an Easter basket, so he's not getting one this year. I guess he doesn't go to church either, even though his grandmother across the street does.
So here's what I've concluded. If you don't go to church and if you don't celebrate the holidays in fun ways, then for Harley, Easter is just going to be a regular Sunday this year.
Maybe it was a chore to drive to Ohio and drag all the candy and baskets with us and get up at the crack of dawn to go have Easter breakfast in that falling-down building across from Grandma's church (which is how we always celebrated Easter growing up, in case you couldn't gather from the context clues), but in retrospect it was fun, and it's still fun.
I can't wait to wear my Palm Sunday outfit next week!!!
Mom OX OX

I feel like this explains a lot: my experiential bent, my love of random Jewish holidays and Christian holidays only I seem to observe. I've always liked celebrating the holidays in fun ways. I like to understand them, taste them, dress for them.

Take, for instance, Palm Sunday, coming up this weekend. In the church year, Palm Sunday is the first day of Holy Week, marking Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem before His death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter. Christians generally observe the holiday by waving palm branches and shouting "Hosanna" in church services. In my family, Annie inadvertently started a new family tradition when she happened to buy a tropical-print dress at about the same time as Palm Sunday last year and decide to be the belle of the ball by wearing it to church. Just to spoil her fun, Mom made sure both she and Grandma Flo had outfits adorned with palm trees to wear to church -- and I drove three hours down from Chicago to wear a pair of palm-frond earrings.

So don't forget to celebrate the holidays, even the random ones like Palm Sunday. They're hectic and crazy. But they're fun and, sometimes, even meaningful -- even if they only mean your family is crazy.

A Super Duper Week

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 19:30:48 GMT

Updated Tuesday, Feb. 11.

Super Tuesday is my Super Bowl. Politics are my sports, my soap operas, my celebrity gossip.

So you can imagine just how super last Tuesday -- so-called Super Duper Tuesday because, on that day, more states held caucuses and primary elections than on any other day in American history -- really was for me. I even had a super duper party at my super duper new apartment.

There were handmade posters ...

(Jen is, of course, best known for managing Sarah's high school campaign for class president; or rather forgetting she offered to manage Sarah's campaign, then taping a "Sarah 4 Prez!" sign to our candidate's locker.)

There was also a pizza caucus: Sausage supporters gathered by the snowflakes on my dining room wall, The Meats on my couch and The Works in my entryway. In the end, The Works narrowly defeated The Meats when my friend Nathanael and I persuaded Jen's fiance Mike off the couch.

Also, we recorded primary predictions. Mine were eerily accurate -- about 75 percent accurate in the end, and only because I forgot to fill out several states on my prediction sheet. I even called the Huckabee states!

With all the attention I devoted to the elections, even if I'd just moved and wasn't able to register to vote in time at my new address, there was no way I was going to miss this little gem, the fact that an election judge at a Chicago precinct gave voters a stylus meant for use with an electronic voting machine to fill in their paper ballots, then told them it was INVISIBLE INK!!! And when I noticed Wonkette, part of Gawker Media and one of my favorite blogs, had missed it ... well, I had to send the Wonkette team a link. And they posted it. MAKING MY LIFE COMPLETE.

But back to my primary-predicting abilities. Here's where I think tonight's votes will go:

Kansas (Republican primary): Huckabee (not a prediction, MSNBC called the state earlier in the day)
Nebraska (Democratic caucuses): Obama (who, I hear, generally does well in caucuses)
Louisiana (primaries): Obama and McCain
Washington State (caucuses): Obama (AH! this is a tough call!) and McCain

When Xangans collide

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 15:14:09 GMT

I've chatted on AIM with Dan of TheTheologiansCafe fame. I've even exchanged Christmas cards with the ChristianFictionQueen and career advice with novelle361.

Last month, I finally met another Xangan face to face, poet Saadia Ali Aschemann. I wrote a Readers' Reporter article about Saadia, then met the Xanga poet at The Flagstone Pub after a book event in Geneva. Saadia, it turns out, is the warmest person you could ever hope to meet, giggling with my coworkers and me and calling me "luscious" and "a poem waiting to be written."

Hopefully, that doesn't mean I'm a disaster. Most of the poems I've written have been disasters.

Take, for instance, that period during my freshman year of high school in which I thought I'd invented surrealist poetry...

Surrealist Poem #1
What do you want?
I want to leave the room.
Nooooooooo!
What do you want?
I want a car.
O-K.
But I can't leave the rooooooooom!!!

Surrealist Poem #2
Chicken?
Do chicken like apple?
Nooooooooo! Chicken like orange.
Oh. What chicken favorite color?
Chicken like orange. Chicken no like apple.
Chicken like green?
Nooooooooo! Chicken no like green.
Apple green. Chicken no like apple.
Chicken like orange.

Surrealist Poem #3: Do I Have to Say This All Over Again (or "Long Title")
Where cheesy poof?
Cheesy poof in freezer.
Cheesy poof freeze, no mold.
Badbaddonoteat.
Cheesy poof go in shrine.
Cheesy poof no fire.
Fire! Fire!
Cake flambae for Sarah.
Sarah birthday October 16???
Happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday to you.
You have the appearance of a small, hairy primate
And the scent of one, too.
I want cheesy poof!
Cheesy poof you, no?
Nooooooooo!
Cake flambae for Sarah birthday!!!

My sophomore and junior years were my most prolific. I had an angsty, poet boyfriend I really liked at the time, and my attempts at poetry were appropriately angsty and sappy depending on whether he had broken up with me that week. Far more embarrassing than surrealist poetry.

By my senior year of high school, I had become enthralled with 18th Century British poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge after reading his epic narrative poem, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." Also, after catching his glassy-eyed appearance in the famous painting by P. Vandyke on the cover of The Portable Coleridge.

Naturally, I wrote several papers on his opium-induced genius and composed odes in his honor...

An Ode
Judalations
Jubilations
Tribulations
Temptations

Blessed be the albatross
And thou -- Coleridge

Your Glittering Eye, Entrancing
Your glittering eye, entrancing
I, but a three-year's child
You (Gerber baby)

Your glittering eye, glazed over
I, but to sit and listen
You (jelly donut)

Your glittering eye, repeating
I, but to hear colors
You (water snake)

By my junior year of college, I'd fallen for a classicist and yet another poet; the poet being Stefan George, also a poetry translator, German, died just as the Nazi Party rose to power. So I took to translating his very good poetry, rather than attempting to write my own very pitiful poetry.

Few of George's poems have ever actually been translated into English that I could find, so I ordered antique copies of his books online and began translating them myself. I completed my favorite poem "Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme" and the first few stanzas of "Der Widerchrist" before abandoning that project for several reasons: (1) my German is as pitiful as my poetry, and (2) people go to school for years to learn to simultaneously translate words, meanings, rhythm and rhymes.

Obviously...

Der Widerchrist (Stefan George)
Dort kommt er vom berge ... dort steht er im hain!
Wir sahen es selber ... er wandelt in wein
Das wasser und spricht mit den toten.

O könntet ihr hören mein lachen bei nacht:
Nun schlug meine stunde ... nun füllt sich das garn ...
Nun strömen die fische zu hamen.

Die weisen die toren - toll wälzt sich das volk ...
Entwurzelt die bäume ... zerklittert das korn ...
Macht bahn für den zug des Erstandnen.

Kein werk ist des himmels das ich euch nicht tu.
Ein haarbreit nur fehlt und ihr merkt nicht den trug
Mit euren geschlagenen sinnen.

The Antichrist (my translation)
“He comes from the mountains ... he stands in the plains! We
Happened to see it ... he changes to wine
The water and speaks with the dead men.”

O could you have heard it my laugh in the night:
Now strikes my glad hour ... now fills up the trap ...
Now stream all the fish into netting.

The wise men the foolish – they join in the craze ...
They uproot the trees and they mow down the grain ...
Make tracks for the train of the Risen.

No work is of heaven I won’t do for you.
Though something is missing you don’t notice lies
With all your five senses now stricken.

Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme (Stefan George)
Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme
Du wie der morgen zart und licht
Du blühend reis vom edlen stamme
Du wie ein quell geheim und schlicht

Begleitest mich auf sonnigen matten
Umschauerst mich im abendrauch
Erleuchtest meinen weg im schatten
Du kühler wind du heisser hauch

Du bist mein wunsch und mein gedanke
Ich atme dich mit jeder luft
Ich schlürfe dich mit jedem tranke
ich küsse dich mit jedem duft

Du blühend reis vom edlen stamme
Du wie ein quell geheim und schlicht
Du schlank und rein wie eine flamme
Du wie der morgen zart und licht.

You slim and pure just as a flame is (my translation)
You slim and pure just as a flame is
You as the morning soft and light
You blooming twig from noble branches
You as a stream so deep and quiet

Walk on with me to sunny green meadows
Light my way through shadows of death
Surround me in the evening doze
You cooler wind you hotter breath

You are my wish and all I think
I breathe you in with every air
I drink you in with every drink
I kiss you with each fragrance fair

You blooming twig from noble branches
You as a stream so deep and quiet
You slim and pure just as a flame is
You as the morning soft and light

I've yet to enter a post-collegiate poetry phase. Which, I think, after this retrospective, is probably for the best. I'll leave the poetry to the professionals -- and my more talented friends -- for a while. Like Saadia.

I may be a poem waiting to be written, but I won't be writing it myself. Feel free to comment with your interpretations. Or embarrassing examples of your own poetic past.

Bylines of Brutality: What happens when journalists are forced to work holidays

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 16:32:00 GMT

I wanted to do something festive for MLK (J...Day...), so I wore a scarf my cousins made me for Christmas that resembles a boa and appears to have little polar bears on it. Because when I think of what Martin Luther King, Jr. did for this country, I think polar bears.

"You're special," my editor told me.

That's right. I worked the holiday, because THE NEWS DOESN'T TAKE HOLIDAYS. Instead, reporters sit idly at their desks, making phonecalls normal people who have the day off won't return and forwarding ridiculous articles around the newsroom, such as May's Five Things You Should Know before Dating a Journalist, or the following, circulated today.

It's a hilarious reminder that maybe you should be nice to me, really, you should. I hang out in elevators with Drew Peterson. Craig Stebic's father invited me to the family's cabin in Michigan. And I've been taking notes...

Bylines of Brutality
As Casualties Mount, Some Question The Emotional Stability of Media Vets

An Iowahawk Special Investigative Report
With Statistical Guidance from the New York Times

See original article, with links and a statistical chart, at Iowahawk.

A Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a violent drunken rampage, assaulting a police officer. In England, a newspaper columnist is arrested for killing her elderly aunt.

Unrelated incidents, or mounting evidence of that America's newsrooms have become a breeding ground for murderous, drunk, gun-wielding child molesters? Answers are elusive, but the ever-increasing toll of violent crimes committed by journalists has led some experts to warn that without programs for intensive mental health care, the nation faces a potential bloodbath at the hands of psychopathic media vets.

"These people could snap at any minute," says James Treacher of the Treacher Institute for Journalist Studies. "We need to get them the help and medication they need before it's too late."

Statistics of Shame

Accounts of media psychopathy, while widespread, have until now been largely anecdotal. In order to provide a more focused and systematic study of the crisis, Iowahawk researchers set out to identify and tabulate criminal arrests and convictions of current and former journalists. While by no means comprehensive, this 10-minute project yielded a grim picture of a once-proud profession now in the grips of tragic, drunk, violent, child-raping rage.

The stories cited in the opening paragraph, while instructive, are by no means isolated. Google searches return hundreds of crimes attributable to workers in America's media industry, and millions of pages containing the terms "journalist" and "murder." They are as shocking in their detail as they are in their number.

While some journalists' alleged offenses are limited to propery crimes and theft -- such as Redwood City (CA) radio reporter Joe McConnell and Former Detroit TV Reporter Suzanne Wangler -- often they take a darker turn, resulting in public endangerment. Current and former journalists seem particularly enthusiastic about driving the nation's highways and streets in drug and alcohol fueled stupors. Among the journalists arrested or charged with DUI offenses since 2000 include Salon and Guardian columnist Sidney Blumenthal, Chicago TV news anchor Walter Jacobson, Kansas City TV reporter Steve Shaw, Nashville newspaper columnist Brad Schmitt, Albuquerque Journal reporter Chris Vogel, Rocky Mountain News editor Holger Jesen, New York Post Columnist Richard Johnson, Idaho State Journal columnist Brady Slater, Tampa Tribune editor Janet Weaver, St. Petersburg Times reporter Eric Robert Gershman, and Lexington (KY) TV reporter Angelica St. John.

How many unsuspecting American motorists and pedestrians remain at risk from alcoholic media professionals is still a matter of scientific conjecture, but one thing is certain: journalists can be even more deadly outside their cars. Often the journalistic gateway to violent behavior begins with stalking and trespassing -- such as has been alleged of People magazine reporters Jeffrey Neal Weiss, and, in an unrelated incident, Don Sider. But sometimes, as in the case of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, serial stalking behavior goes unpunished and the perpetrators go on to seek more serious thrill-crimes. Journalists recently charged with violent offenses include New York Times reporter and alleged batterer Michael Katz, British reporter Ben Stubbings, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Margaret Gillerman, charged with striking a police officer.

Often, the objects of journalist rage turn out to be the perpetrator's own family and loved ones. For example, in 2005 Chicago Sun-Times Columnist Neil Steinberg was charged with domestic violence for striking his wife in an alcoholic rage. But this tendency obeys no gender, as evidenced by domestic violence charges against female newspaper editor Rebekah Wade, and Tampa reporter Roxanne Evanina, charged with domestic battery for spraying bleach into her boyfriend's face.

But the Americans most vulnerable to attacks from media sociopaths are its smallest. A shocking number of journalism-related crimes involve child molestation, child pornography, and internet stalking of minors. Journalists recently charged with sickening crimes in this category include Arizona newspaper editor Lindsey Stockton, Arkansas radio reporter Charles "David" Ballard, New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter William Kalec, Former KTTV-TV Los Angeles reporter Rod Bernsen, Washington DC TV weatherman Bill Kamal, and Noel Neff, former editor of the children's magazine Weekly Reader.

In recent times, the national journalist crime spree has taken an increasingly deadly turn. A typical case in point is former Savannah newspaper reporter Donald Lowery, charged with robbing a bank with a sawed-off shotgun. Sometimes arrests are made before bloodshed, such as in the case of Oak Ridge (TN) newspaper reporter and alleged murder plotter Michael Frazier, and former San Francisco AsianWeek columnist Kenneth Eng, arrested for threatening a Virginia Tech-style massacre at a New York University commencement. All too often, though, the warning signs come too late. Recent years witnessed several journalists arrested on murder charges, including longtime Hartford Courant reporter Gregory Robertson and Missouri radio host and reporter James Keown, charged with fatally poisoning his wife by spiking her Gatorade with antifreeze.

Roots of a Crisis

Despite of the ever-growing and bloody toll of victims of media-related crimes, some observers counsel against jumping to conclusions. Among the defenders is University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds.

"I think it's unfair to single out journalists as thieves, or violent, or drunks, or child abusers," says Reynolds. "Sometimes they're all of the above."

He cites the case of Kevin Lee Pettiford, a Knoxville journalist charged with abducting and threatening to kill three minor girls during a drunken high speed chase to an attempted bank robbery.

Others believe that the roots of media sociopathy are rooted in journalistic culture itself. Bob Owens, an analyst with the non-profit Media Violence Project, says the seeds of violence are planted early in the journalist's training.

"These idealistic kids show up at J-School, hoping to change the world and become the next Woodward and Bernstein or Edward R. Murrow," says Owens. "The next thing you know they're taking Comparative Lit under some tenured Po-Mo drill instructor, and they just totally snap."

Owen cites the well-known case of University of Florida college newspaper columnist Andrew "Don't Tase Me Bro" Meyer, as well as LSU Daily Reveille writers Donald Hodge and Mathew Sanders, charged in two separate unrelated incidents of disorderly behavior.

Making matters worse, those who make it through J-School boot camp often have psychic difficulty adjusting to life in the field.

"The working journalist patrols a world where up is down, black is white, and every gendered pronoun is a potential career killer," says Owens. "Everything, including reality itself, is secondary to the correct narrative. Honestly, it's a miracle we've kept the violence to the level it is."

Ominously, Owens warns that the current toll of victims is only the tip of the iceberg.

"With the current media industry economic quagmire, more and more of these people are being turned out in streets, with no discernible skills, especially rudimentary math," says Owens. "The only thing they know how to do is make stuff up, and they really can't even do that very well. It's like a big incompetent powder keg ready to go off."

Searching for a Cure

Long-time media observer Treacher sounds a similar alarm bell.

"Unless we do something quickly, America's editorial offices and news studios will become potential killing fields," says Treacher. "It's not enough that we treat media veterans with revulsion and contempt. They also deserve our pity."

Among the programs Treacher suggests are intensive anger management, drugs, psychotherapy, lobotomization, and "an anti-retard patch of some sort."

"Maybe they could spend some mandatory shifts at the Sudoku desk, to help them with math and reasoning skills," he adds.

Like Owens, Treacher believes there is a strong correlation between journalism and sociopathy, but he has his own theory.

"Actually, I think the effect is in the opposite direction," explains Treacher. "Journalism doesn't always cause stupid, but stupid sure causes journalism."

Take 12 on the 12th

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 00:41:19 GMT

Take 12 pictures on the 12th day of the month for 12 months. I pulled that idea from a scrapbooking magazine I flipped through last night at Barnes and Noble. I thought it was a pretty good idea. Of course, I thought that today, Jan. 13.

Here's hoping I remember to pick up a camera Feb. 12. In the meantime, here are 12 pictures from earlier this month.

On New Year's Eve, the Hilton sisters counted down to 2008 at LAX in Las Vegas. Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz took the DJ booth at Skybar at the Shore Club in Miami, and MTV's New Year's Eve party in New York featured appearances by Internet celebrities Perez Hilton and Tila Tequila, as well as a whole host of people I don't know who are hip with the kids, I guess.

But here in the Midwest, there was me and there was a party Dec. 31 at The Lion Head Pub in Chicago.

Jenny the Nurse invited me to The Lion Head with her friend Holly; Holly's husband, Brian, and Brian's brother, Chad, all from Indiana. A $50 ticket covered admission, dinner and unlimited drinks...not to mention one of those nifty, pink paper, I'm-21 bracelets.

But Jenny proposing in front of everyone? Priceless...

Actually, she was helping me sop the drink off my brand-new Vera Wang (for Kohl's) dress. Within minutes of our arrival, a busboy dropped a full drink in my lap. He then ran away looking terrified, and we didn't see him again for the rest of the night...

Anyway. The whole thing was very romantic. Until Holly got involved...What...?

Jenny's friends and I pretty much hit it off right away when I pulled a deck of playing cards, each with a different drink recipe, out of my clutch. Although, we didn't make it far very far into the deck. There were a lot of restrictions on what, exactly, a free drink entailed.

Luckily, the bartender was far more competent than the busboy. She was the James Bond of bartenders with her light-up lip gloss...

Proving my theory that the more you drink, the more pictures you take, we decided to photograph the most exciting countdown of the evening: How many drinks we'd had.

Drink no. 1...

Drink no. 2...

Drink no. 5, and WE'RE DONE...

My hand looked a little weird in that picture. Kind of like...Yeah...

I'm pretty sure Brian didn't really have 18 drinks, even if they were very small, very weak and half-filled with ice...

In between drinks, I discovered SUCKERS! IN THE GIRLS' BATHROOM! Classy...

We never identified the mystifying flavor of the sucker (I guessed mango), but Jenny was ready to move on to the dancing portion of the evening. For a pub, The Lion's Head had a lot of dancing. And scary rap music...

Even I danced...in my own special, Polish way. And every time the DJ played a Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake song. Because I'm pretty sure the last time I went to a dance, that's what was cool...

Even that couldn't spoil our good time! And, no, for those familiar with my signature moves, I didn't do The Washing Machine. Or The Sprinkler.

It was a fabulous evening, the kind of Paris Hilton evening every 20-something single girl should experience once in her life. But maybe just once.

HAPPY 2008!!!