The obvious flaw in her memoir is that it is not true that my posts both mention her by name and criticize Walls. There were two posts, one that described the class, flatteringly favorably and mentioned the teacher by name and a separate post, six weeks later that described the work by Walls but barely referenced the class and did not mention the teacher at all. Certainly her 500-word argument does not give any textual evidence to back up her claims. So to the extent that it is not provably true — it is actually false — and seems to be pejorative — she says I am old and out of it and my writing she claims sucks, is a “rant” is “angry” apparently does not depict the work I am claiming to comment on, I’m lost or fumbling in the dark, intellectually, critically, by her estimation –and I’m paraphrasing obviously, despite the 26 objections I could get to in a close -reading — is it slanderous and libelous?  I would say it is at least fair to ask. To ask her, or her editor (the blog-leader, a teacher at San Francisco State), or her Dean or even if needs be a court.

It is not true her statement that I did not need the credit. I paid the same fees to register as everyone else so I would expect the same in the exchange as anyone else, even if I already have a degree. But to the extent her recollection of the experience of teaching me is so negative and seemingly biased, I wonder if she was able to keep such bias out of her grading process. Were my grades indicative of my work, or did she mark me down accordingly? (I actually never learned my grade; she had said towards the end of the quarter that I may have been mathematically eliminated from passing, based on certain tasks I never turned in or completed; I did continue the course and turned in a few more papers and the in-class final exam, and by my standards did decent work).

I said to her in an email, after I discovered her memoir, which she later apparently had taken down, that I thought the subject of blogging per se was a red herring, that perhaps her problem with me was something more fundamental, like a discomfort with having such an experienced writer or person in her class. She basically stone-walled me, and here I am 5,000 words later, still processing it.

Obviously I could write a more direct demand letter to her or her dean.

But I could lead twenty lives before I’d come up with anything (and this is like comic relief in the classic sense) as poetic as this old Archers of Loaf chestnut)

Yes it’s the spit on his chin that makes us nervous
Yes it’s the spit on our chins that makes us numb
It’s the high price from the crowd that’s gathering
Cutting off the false communication

Song is called “Fabricoh” I have no idea other than it rocks and probably still reverberates

Girlfriend and her co-worker finish their drink and co-worker is about to leave and I ask her her relatively objective and sage wisdom on all this: short of reading from the teacher’s memoir or my response she suggests the breach of privacy is the salient point, the identifying me by my (middle) age(dness), the invasiveness. I suggest that “Middle age starts when you stop riding horses or painting or writing” or “rocking out”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afe1QFRw33c

edit to add, next day, at Coupa, after some coffee and New Saw salad:

obviously not where I started, but this is turning into a paean to Eric Bachmann and Archers of Loaf, an influential indie band of the nineties who were a huge influence on my work as Earthwise Productions and Cubberley Sessions/Palo Alto Soundcheck; I had heard the band, thanks to the good luck of having a cluster of friends in Chapel Hill/Carrboro/Old 86 before even conceiving of going all in, bare-back, as The Underground’s guy in the 650. Which reminds me — I was thinking about this while smearing an expensive faux French milled soap –with water — on my sagging middle-aged flesh — in the shower — this a.m., not three hours ago, that there was some kind of rumor, not inconsistent with something L.B. Jones said in his “Ordinary Money” that maybe the C.IA. had recruited some believably hip people to tour the circuit of former high school auditoriums and American Legion Halls (ironic that) to figure out whether indeed there was a revolution brewing in these people creating expression not obviously valuable to the powers that be, in this case large corporate kiratsu like Sony, Warners et al — the major labels. Flash forward twenty years and I am standing in line at Wells Fargo bank and there is a standard with a picture of a mixed race woman (not Esperanza Spalding) with big hair and and electric guitar — there’s a tv commercial that says even if your idea of a start-up is becoming the next Esperanza Spalding-meets-Crooked-Fingers we can loan you money. Some people said–as I was saying– maybe AOL were actually government spooks. If so, fooled me. Fooled me twice, shame on me. Search-injuning my phrasing and reference to above title, “spit” “chin” leads me to two pretty contemporary and much better written paeans to AOL in venerable Pitchfork, pertaining to reissues of Vee Vee and All the Nations Airports. Terry and I did catch AOL reunion tour at GAMH recently, although I did not say hi to EB. Compared to a couple years ago when I called the bar phone at Bottom of the Hill to get Eric on phone post-hit and apologize for not making his show, and he calls me “sir.” The Pitchfork twines reference either Bachmanmisms that would apply here, about self-effacement and not being heard, you can suss out for yourselfs. (still thinking about whether audience here is large enough to use plural or singular, split the difference with “yourselfs”. Also, meant to say that the “search” also suggests looking at “split” for “spit” as in commercial releases shared with other bands; plus I think of “spine” for “spit” and that I thought of trying to contact AOL while on that tour, in PDX after SF and a piece of public art that that looks like a giant pin (see “Web in Front” — and I share a birthday with Claes Oldenburg). 

Rambling on: made not to self to post, elsewhere that if this whole blog-thing is a memoir of work done twenty to ten years ago in the under crowd , which was overcrowded then sunk to bottom of ocean like Atlantis, or replaced by Finney-esque “pods”, pods with Pandora (ironic), that it is a cross between Danny Goldberg’s “Bumping Into Geniuses” and Adrienne Rich “Fact of a Doorframe.” 

phone rings