To the extent that “Plastic Alto” is a memoir of the concert series I produced in Palo Alto, 1994-2001, I am influenced by Danny Goldberg’s “Bumping into Geniuses”. He says he’s kinda smart but had a talent for surrounding himself with true geniuses and bumping into them (as opposed to bumping them off, which would be in a famous book about radio payola). Meanwhile I am recalling taking a course on modern poetry at Dartmouth fall, 1985 with Tom Sleigh and reading Adrienne Rich “Fact of a Doorframe” which says something about having something to hold onto as you bang your head again and again, like a Sysyphus or Prometheus. I think my paper or classroom report must have been barely passable. I recall not knowing what “makeba” meant. I think I did better, somehow, with Elizabeth Bishop “the Fish”.
Here are two links to the main texts. I should probably link to Marian Makeba, who came alive to me in the film about Ali in Zaire (and I admit I rooted for George Foreman at the time).
(I would have seen this in a different edition, of course)
I may still have my edition on my shelves, although I did recently deaccession about 1,000 cd’s and 300 books, most to last-man-standing indie shop but one-tenth to public library sale — I wish I had given it all. Here is the relevant Makeba line:
as Makeba sings a courage-song for warriors music is suffering made powerful
During my stint last fall as a “junior historian” at Guy Miller Archives of Palo Alto Historical Association at Room H-5 at Cubberley Community Center the former high school (NFL’s Art Kuehn played for the Cougars there), I turned over a clipping, I think it was Mike Doyle’s long story listing all the music venues of the time, in the Palo Alto Weekly, and noted a recap of a Paly Vikings football game that said something like “Jim Harbaugh running for his life…”
That, plus Ann Killion’s recent piece in Chron about Harbaugh’s “act has worn thin” had me thinking about my otherwise dormant research project and performing arts spectacle, “The Harbaugina Monologues” in which I work through, sometimes in front of an audience, sometimes merely here in the blogosphere and alternative-reality of “Plastic Alto”, the fact of being a life-long Stanford and 49ers fan AND hating Harbaugh since about 1981. (Search “harbaugh” or “harbaugina” here in the internal search feature for more info).
Plus I was reading a Philip K. Dick collection of essays and had this notion: maybe the rumored mutiny against Captain Comeback is true and worse than that in caused some kid of psychic break from which Our Boy Jim has never completely gotten over. Maybe what drives him, beyond money you can earn throwing a football 70 yards with tight spiral and later picking the Colin Kaeperniks over the Russell Wilson’s and motivating them, is trying to outrun whatever it feels like, with guys chasing you and the nagging feeling that your own teammates, you are not sure whether to trust. Clearly I have no idea and am just speculating. (And am no Philip K. Dick, clearly, and thru a scanner darkly, without total recall, and maybe via my own volition and free will).
So I thought of a post here called “Run From Daylight” which references a book by Vince Lombardi., “Run to Daylight” which I think means that as you approach a mass of men you run towards the least dense portion of the scum, where there is “daylights” and not “three yards and a cloud of dust”. And not, if you permit my mind to wander as is my nature these days, like the paintings by Theopholis “Bill” Brown, circa 1958, in Life Magazine (ask Matt Gonzalez, who has seen them, and found a set for Bill, who is now in heaven), in which he merely painted the form and did not preserve the color-coded distinction of who is blocking whom, he painted all 22 or so as one tangled mass. Which is also, with the slight exception to what I seem to be saying about Our Boy Jim, although if you read it thru you may note that I suggest an exit strategy, a happy ending, as it were, that when I think of my old teammates in football, baseball, basketball, tennis or bowling, and our opposition, I think of us all the same, that the guys I was against 40 years ago I am now for; if I meet one, as time to time I do, I think of us having both survived something, or learned from each other, as being one, one mass.
Oddly, I had thought the title “run to daylight” was from guard Jerry Kramer’s bio and not Vince Lombardi’s, which I thought was called “Winning is The Only Thing”. I read a lot of these books when I was a kid, and actually, with my neighbor Andrew Dieden, used to write NFL teams and players asking for photos and stickers, circa 1972. (And that was the chief thing Andy recalled of our youth, when he contacted me out of the blue a few years ago: Are you the Mark Weiss with whom I would write to NFL teams asking for stickers?).
Do note that this version of Kramer has a forward by Jonathan Yardley, whose son Jim Yardley attended Gunn for one year, 1980-1981 and recalls sacking Jim Harbaugh twice (although I think Harbaugh was yanked for Paul Kraft, but close enough).
I wrote to Ann Killion and am curious whether she takes the bait or ignores this somewhat trivial set of data and ideas. I may end up posting my note to her here but will first see if she wants to use it somehow in her work.
Also in a somewhat related matter, I saw Seattle Seahawk Super Bowl champion Russell Wilson on Charlie Rose’s show and was pleased to note he is actually the son of former Dartmouth standout wide receiver Harrison B. Wilson (known as “Harry B” or “HB Productions, and a teammate of NFL standout Reggie Williams), and nephew of Dartmouth Trustee Stephen Wilson. Showing my true color, (Big Green), methinks young Wilson could quit the day job (ala Steve Young) and maybe think about the White House some day. (Also thinking of Bill Bradley, “A Sense of Where You Are” by John McPhee). Wilson ended up on my Fantasy Football team and helped me “place” two years in a row — I knew there was something I liked about him.
We refrained from saying “hey” to Jim Harbaugh at recent Stanford hoops game, I describe below. I am probably through with working through all that as a monologue but may update from time to time here.
I’m curious what I would have thought of Philip K. Dick if I had met him in his prime, as a peer: would I be in awe of his genius or detecting something sad or tragic or amiss? I think generally with people they are that much more deeper than we could know; it is especially dangerous to try to understand so-called celebrities we don’t know. I liked the way Rachel Kushner phrased such, in something I ripped and re-posted — I don’t know Rachel but have met her parents. I also said somewhere herein recently: Who’s afraid of Helen Sung?
I think Archers of Loaf have song about “the light”. Maybe outro with that, if I find it.
Tig Notaro and fact that she appeared at Stanford a few weeks ago but I saw the flyer too late and am losing a step. I had pretty much abandoned the Harbaugh tribute excepting fact that Ann Killion had a rant claiming “his act has worn thin” which I wanted to note and respond to, plus the fact that Steve Cohen and I sat within spitting distance of Jim Harbaugh at Stanford-Utah basketball game and that Our Boy Jim was there with his four-year-old daughter from his second and current marriage and had trained her to wave a pom-pon non-stop until start of fourth quarter and that visiting high school girls basketball teams wanted to pose with him en masse. Weird (and I probably should not comment, and had refrained until just now, and bury this, sort of. There is also something about Harbaugh doing push-ups at Marine World in Vallejo Six Flags with a female walrus, that a couple electronic news outlets recast. Big ups for Six Flags) -30- (this is actually pasted in and carried over from an update to something about Michigan politician Lisa Brown; somewhere I have a photo of my friend Steve at the Stanford-Utah hoops game that may or may not have Harbaugh visible in the background behind Steve…Tig Notaro was featured in the Times and had a riff about running into Taylor Dayne and I was comparing her use of that quasi-relationship to how I handle my set of ideas about Jim Harbaugh…-ed)
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”:
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.”
Charles “Snooks” Cohen, Eric “Big Chief” Cohen and Steven “Jacques-Imo” Cohen, aka The Wild Cohen-Nolas, Garden District, St. Patrick’s Day, NOLA, March 17, 2014
What do you call a tribe of wild Swedish, Jewish, Irish, black Indians?
Wild Cohenolas?
Wild Cohen-Olafs?
Wild Cohen-NOLAS?
Wild Cohen-NOKAS?
Flogging Mohel-ies
Poincare Vieux Carre conjectures?
Seeking Prime (or corned beef) on the Zeta Landscape (Garden District)?
Hey Poincare a-Way?
actually makes me want to produce a set of songs that merge Multiplication Rock with Funky Meters, as if Dr. John had an Erdos number….
The Reimann Night Trippers
De Who Dat Irrationals?
I mean, The Riemann Sumpin’ Sumpins
The Wild Tcohenoupitoulas (that one was forced)
The Not-Non-Funky Wild Ignorabimuses (Ig-nore ABBA Muses)
The Artists formerly Known or Not Knowable as .
I think I’m sticking with Not Non-Funky Ignore ABBA Muses, cause it has a recursive Swedish strain, a double-negative, the Hebrew word for “DAD” and just a touch of metaphysics. Make it not non funky!
edit to add, this just in, from fabulous Maple Leaf Bar:
who dat at maple leaf bar baby?
edit to add: under possible Cohen-inspired band names, either puns on name or math-heritage
Where Y’at, Mu? (Dr. John has a song, “Where Y’at, Mule?”)
“To Foothill, Fondly” is a working title to a “Plastic Alto (wordpress, or markweiss86.wordpress)” post on which I am ruminating. (which sounds like I’m lifting my leg on a physical post; 5,000 words-worth like after a very long night at the pub, or we’ve kept Frida cooped up all day, although she is female so that doesn’t quite work either;)
Foothill in this case if Foothill College, a local and nationally-regarded community educational asset, from which I have taken several clusters of courses over the last couple decades, since graduating from my actual Alma Mater. “Fondly” meaning, roughly speaking, with care, affection, regard, of a positive nature. (Which reminds me, as I sit here with MY NEW COMPUTER, at Peet’s Coffee in Palo Alto, on University –different University — Foothill is on El Monte — but continuing a “learning” theme, semantically, yet subtly– that yesterday I worked on this from my desk — kitchen table — at my home office — one br apartment — I glossed actual meanings — etymology, comparative uses — from my trusty Webster’s Ninth, yet here I am traveling bare-back, and without my typical book-bag, well, there’s always NOW the search-injuns…)
Since the subject is at least indirectly or secondarily prurience — obscenity, morality, “morals” compared to “ethics”, and I am being slightly provocative — for a guy with close to no readers sitting by himself in the corner of a cafe on a warm quasi-spring Sunday early afternoon — I should add that “To Foothill, Fondly” is a revision of the previous thought: “Fondled at Foothill”. If I said that, and I am trying not to, at least not in the headline, I am speaking metaphorically, of course. I would mean intellectual “fondling”, which I would guess, until continued rumination modifies, means to be touched but in an inappropriate way. Let me be clear: I was never actually physically abused or sexually abused in a physical way by any person, not by staff, or fellow students nor by strangers stalking the open and somewhat remote campus. I’m just toying with the phrase, and the pun on fondness with fondle. Fondly v. fondle. (Fondle can still have a non-pejorative sense, but it seems it is more often nowadays used as a pejorative). A previous idea I had was something about “College Try” a version of “the old college try” which Websters notes has something to do with “zeal”. And I am trying to distinguish “zeal” from “over-eagerness”. I also have something in my notes, on my stupid cell phone (i.e., not a smart-phone) “why we fig” wherein I was contemplating how to reference “why we fight” with the fig left in Milton’s “Paradise Lost” which I read and wrote about in Chauncey Loomis’ English 5 class (the same class, I believe, made legendary by the Donald Sutherland character in Harold Ramis’ “Animal House” — SAT AN — although I was a generation later — although come tot hunk of it (“to think”> tot hink> tot hunk thanks to supersmart NEW COMPUTER). STET — I thought on that while riding an intellectual horse of a completely different color: I was writing about Palo Alto’s “Photo Release” form, which I took as a overly broad waiver of Constitutional Rights, 1 and 4 I think. Maybe 1 in 5. I do mull words a lot, which probably pisses of the anti-Semantics.
I shot the bamboo but I did not kill the deputy
Somewhere I am getting to a letter, perhaps to Dean of said school, perhaps to “(Moses Waxes) Hot (in Anger For)” Teacher (which is from Exodus, which reminds me this is my stop, nearing — and I am also via Webster my Webster trying to discern “anger” from, say dissidence ) perhaps here, open letter, to the billions of non-readers of Plastic Alto, wherein whirring I describe, hopefully emulating L. Brandeis more than R. Firefly, speak plainly man, the argument: is this defamation? is this libel? Is this slander? Is this age discrimination? Beyond just being ludicrous and a faulty memoir and bad reporting.
Here is the allegedly offensive passage (again, distinct from my overall experience which I had thought of as worthwhile). I may be doing a “close reading” of below, line by line or word by word and overall:
My most pressing concern about blogs, however, has to do with the question of audience and voice. Benson and Reyman note that many students “reported that online writing is more like talking to a ‘best friend’ than talking to a public audience” (20). This point touches upon an experience I had a couple of years ago with a student who was an avid blogger. This startling experience effectually discouraged me from exploring blogs as a pedagogical tool until now. This student was a middle-aged man from Palo Alto, a political activist who maintained a blog to express his views of politics, literature, music, art, and other interests. He was taking my English 1B class because he was interested in the class theme of “Inequality and the American Dream,” but not because he needed credit for the class. As the class read Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle –usually a popular book with students–, this student became enraged by what he saw as the immoral and fabricated story told by Walls, and he posted a rant on his blog about the memoir. The rant was not based on close textual analysis, but rather on the student’s speculations about Walls’ psychological condition, none of which could be corroborated by evidence in the text itself. Something about this text deeply irked the student, and he used his blog as a forum to air his many grievances.
While under other circumstances I would not be concerned with a students’ writing on his own blog, the fact that this post discussed me by name and revealed details of my course to the general public made me distinctly uncomfortable. I had a tense discussion with this student after reading the blog post (which he had voluntarily shared with me), and although he seemed to understand my concerns, he professed that he could write whatever he wanted on his own blog, and he would not delete this post. This experience exposed me to the murky and sometimes unclear boundaries between public and private writing, and between academic and personal viewpoints. It also showed me what might happen when a student discusses academic material in the informal space of the blogosphere, a space that this student used to express his views in an angry, unfiltered, and unrestrained way. So, as I keep this week’s readings about blogging in mind and prepare to assign a course blog in my own classes, I wonder how we as instructors should address those students who might use their writing on a class blog to create unruly, even angry posts based on speculation rather than textual analysis. How do we strike a balance between creativity and freedom on the one hand, and adherence to academic conventions and propriety on the other? How do we keep freedom of self-expression from devolving into uncritical ranting? I hope our discussion in class can shed light on these questions.
(notwithstanding copyright rules and mores about lifting, in this case, exactly 482 words–I had tried to re-blog previously, but the other bloggers disabled that feature. I am also not mentioning by name the teacher, although I am conceivably arguing that her post might defame me even without mentioning me by name, because I am easily identifiable — and had mentioned her in my comments — add to the list above the advisability of a teacher revealing in blog the content of a student’s work, as she did. At least get your facts right, lady. And saying “I did not intend for you to see the post, I intended to make it private or restricted or password protected” is like saying “I didn’t know the gun was loaded”.
There’s also correspondence between self and teacher, which I will keep as deep background, for now. And the actual coursework, as distinct from the blog posts, which are searchable below, or I’ll link to as necessary.
In some ways I would rather be writing about New Orleans (“Hey PA_ A-Way”, a play on Meters song “Hey Pocky A-Way”, about the lack of a cultural clave here in Palo Alto, or the effect of the corporate monoculture here, especially all the 1s and 0s types — compared to my 1 and 4 or 1 and 5 — and something I was thinking about Turing: Are we becoming more like machines as we strive to create a machine more like us? ).
I want to at least, with trusty W9 in hand (that’s a book, not a tax form or weapon), revisit the various etymologies from yesterday (literally, from Saturday, March 15, 2014, although my English I am trying to keep hovering around 1986 and W9 not the corrupted evolving Tenth or Eleventh or whatNOT.)
Angry Young Men, British, 1950s. Kingsly Amis et al
indiscrete vs. indiscreet (as in teacher was indiscreet if not illegal in revealing publicly what her student wrote privately and indiscrete in lumping the classwork with the blogwork in her faulty memoir)
(edita, from after the Fabricoh riffs, but I am adding it here: 1)Chuck Palahniuk, in his 2007 book of the same name, suggests that “Rant” is onomatopoeic, that the word sounds like “vomit” the act; great!
It’s also true that 2) my K thru 4 elementary school is called Foothill, in Saratoga, Calif, about 15 miles south of Palo Alto, if that somehow features in my contempt for Wall’s childhood stories themselves, and I’m somehow projecting an overreaction on the junior college years later, I doubt).
edita
from Charles Isherwood long review in Feb. 2012 i.e. simultaneous to Foothill class in New York Times, Broadway revival of John Osborn’s 1956 play: The economic malaise smothering the globe today, leaving a generation of young men gloomy over their diminished prospects, might seem a viable occasion for another bruising few ro
edita-anita (edita, part two, an hour later, after a break to read sports section, Sporting Green):
I hope to see the documentary film “Anita” by Freida Mock about Anita Hill — news of which I surfeited to (surfed to) after reading Times ($15/month) about “Tim’s Vermeer” which plays tonight at 6:15 in nearby Menlo Park Guild, trumping “Casablanca/Indemnity” here on Uni — for the record: I remember catching bits of the Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas hearing while touring North Carolina in 1991, and that I believed her but not him. Not sure how snugly this graph fits up here in Plastic Alto 2014 “to foothill fondly full-fledged” et al. Link.
Her memoir, noted in passing in Times:
Regarding Walls, I had argued that it was below par relative to two other texts in the 2011 course (itself a first-time offering): Steinbeck, “Tortilla Flat” and Boyle, “Tortilla Curtain”. Maybe I was just tiring of the course, but I argued that among its other flaws, I questioned it’s use of too personal detail, and the author’s alleged sexual misadventures, as relevant or not relevant. In fact-checking all the above, I searched “jeannette walls” and “fondle” to see how frequently other critics raised this point. I was certainly not shocked or offended by the passages, just questioning their necessity. That it provoked such a remembrance from the instructor, I am surprised, and disappointed that she took such liberties with her version of our experience. It seems that the passage or post has been deleted from blog, Teaching Writing in a Digital Age, not just having the reblog feature disabled. I would have argued for (and still may) not that it be taken down, just that I be given a fair chance to respond, which is the nature of the internet or blogging, as I see it. And although this exercise is “To Foothill…” I note the blog is headquartered at SF State.
Or maybe I was disturbed by Walls claiming that her brother Brian was fondled by their grandmother.
Weird, Weissian and web-like digression to factoid/footnote: searching “paradise lost” and “fig leaf” reminds that Dartmouth’s David Scott Kastan — who I don’t recall actually studying with, although that might have been difficult to avoid — edits a version of Milton and has notes on the fig leaf thing. The tree with the leafs distinct from their fruit-bearing cousins; in parts of India (“Indian” which always gets my red blood boiling and waxing hot); and like “targes” shields from “Amazonia” which is loaded in this age. It did say, shields, right? No, “shield” singular, in 2005 edition from a Hackett Press of Indianapolis (!), “fig” highlighted on line 1101.
Moses waxing hot: I’d say, superficially, since my stop was a whiles back, save for another day other than Exodus 32:19 or so in King James but I would want to compare Robert Alter on the topic, balancing my Webster Ninth fundamentalism (weird as it is) with my Alter alterations. His “anger” waxes hot, sometimes it is his “wrath”. Compared to my contempt for Walls. This is a hot mess, even for a self-labeled “draft”; the last 1,000 or so words (and 20 or so ideas) just falling out like dirt from the ball of roots of a garden plant, messy. Which reminds me of Nellie McKay talking to Ian MacKaye in Austin SXSW 2009 and then saying she is “mucking” it up. Or am I making it up? How can I make it up to you?
The snake me beguiled and I did eat, Eve say, or Jeannette or whoever. (it’s actually “serpent” who does the “me-beguiling” trick..n.b.) line 162 or so.
edita 3: I guess I could return to this some day and put about 10 or fewer footnotes in the actual rip from TWIDA and then refute or rebut in short little essays her usage or implications or call out the assertions of truth that are not provable, and where she is wrong, or I am wronged. (distinct from demand letter or “dear dean” — in our recent correspondence, it quickly went sour and she declared an impasse).
edit to add, next day:
This point (touches upon)1 an experience I had (a couple of years ago)2 with a student who was an (avid blogger)3. This (startling experience)4 (effectually discouraged me)5 from exploring blogs as a (pedagogical)5 tool until now. (This student was a middle-aged man from Palo Alto)6, (a political activist)7 who (maintained a blog)8 to express his (views of)9 (politics, literature, music, art, and other interests)10. He was taking my English 1B class because he was interested in the class theme of “Inequality and the American Dream,” (but not because he needed credit for the class)11. As the class read Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle –(usually a popular book with students)12–, this student (became enraged)13 by what he saw as the (immoral)14 and (fabricated)15 story told by Walls, and he (posted a rant )16(on his blog)17 about the memoir. The (rant)17 was not based on (close textual analysis)18, but (rather)19 on the (student’s speculations)20 about (Walls’ psychological condition)21, (none of which could be corroborated by evidence in the text itself)22. (Something about this text)23 (deeply irked)24 the student, and (he used his blog)25 as a forum to air his (many grievances)26.
While under (other circumstances)27 I would not be concerned with a students’ writing on his own blog, the fact that this post discussed me by name and revealed details of my course to the general public made me distinctly uncomfortable. I had a tense discussion with this student after reading the blog post (which he had voluntarily shared with me), and although he seemed to understand my concerns, he professed that he could write whatever he wanted on his own blog, and he would not delete this post. This experience exposed me to the murky and sometimes unclear boundaries between public and private writing, and between academic and personal viewpoints. It also showed me what might happen when a student discusses academic material in the informal space of the blogosphere, a space that this student used to express his views in an angry, unfiltered, and unrestrained way. So, as I keep this week’s readings about blogging in mind and prepare to assign a course blog in my own classes, I wonder how we as instructors should address those students who might use their writing on a class blog to create unruly, even angry posts based on speculation rather than textual analysis. How do we strike a balance between creativity and freedom on the one hand, and adherence to academic conventions and propriety on the other? How do we keep freedom of self-expression from devolving into uncritical ranting? I hope our discussion in class can shed light on these questions.
Well, ok, I have to stop at 26 or so comments, in order, and not prioritized, because my girlfriend called just as I started getting into this and it is now — a couple days later — St. Patrick’s Day — and we have some corned beef to rant at, I mean eat. Like the serpent beguiling Eve and the Apple. But I will have to get back at my thoughts before I forget those 26 reactions, which would be a lot better if I prioritized them. At (22) I started thinking of Rosanne Rosannadanna, a Gilda Radner (not Rant-ner) character on the original SNL who would start a news commentary and they would stop to correct her and she would say “never mind”. When the teacher claimed in her post that I said things in my post “none of which could be corroborated by the text itself”. Huh? None of what I said came from reading the text itself? As distinct from what I actually said in my so-called “rant”, that I recommend people could stop at page 144 of 288 — she was not claiming that I was quoting from parts of the book I claimed not to have read, or that I was making up, the parts about when flying elephants perhaps Dumbo come to life and escape from Anaheim and chasing them down in the Arizona desert, traumatized her, young semi-fictional future MSNBC gossip columnist and spokesperson for the world’s dispossessed, I did not claim in my post that perhaps what actually happened was it was not her uncle in the front room with dagger but a flying elephant come to life and escaped from Disneyland; she does not accuse me of being on acid just of perhaps quoting from the wrong text entirely — oh, are we still on Walls? I thought we were back on Boyle and his magic coyotes? Nevermind. But actually my point was to question (is that allowed, ? question mark, questions Mark) her credibility, how do we know this actually happened — it is marked “memoir” or non fiction, and she is claiming therefore to not be fabricating or embellishing or using what Twain would call ‘stretchers’ (but of course he did this in a preface to a work of fiction), so why would I claim that the things she may be making up — specifically about whether her brother was sexually assaulted by her grandmother — had to be supported by other things in the text? I was suggesting some editing, elision –do we really have to accuse grandma of this? If it did happen, why should we care? But do we really have to hear about it? I was certainly not arguing that Walls’ work would be improved if she added more details, like a foreshadowing in a previous chapter (“I had started to notice my little brother’s quaint habit of not pulling up his snuggies all the way, exposing his four year old butt crack, like in those old suntan lotion ads, and worried that someday, before he became a cop, that people, perhaps even our own family, might take too strong an interest in both his physical appearance, and his trusting non-Rex-like nature, here in Arizona, before we got to West Virgina” — NOT). But none of which could be corroborated by evidence in the text itself)22 would be as if I would be eating my own hand, as Shakespeare would say, and thank god for that.
This student was a middle-aged man from Palo Alto)6, (a political activist)7 who (maintained a blog)8 to express his (views of)9 (politics, literature, music, art, and other interests)10 So to the extent that Terry does come home with a co-worker and they have poured me wine but are otherwise content to rehash their events of the day and leave me be with my debauchery (writing, not roaming the streets in a green hat and bumping into people and burping and getting rid of snakes — shit, I’m getting riffs on snakes — which reminds that Jeremy Postaer, the famous art director — WHEN I WORKED AND ASPIRED FOR ONGOING WORK AS A PROFESSIONAL WRITER, YES WRITER, PART OF MY EXPERIENCE BROUGHT TO BEAR IN WINTER, 2012 TWO YEARS AGO, IN THE REMEDIAL ENGLISH COURSE AT THE LOCAL JUNIOR COLLEGE, IS BEING A PROFESSIONAL WRITER, HELLO?!-showed me a doodle from his idea book — this was before there were blogs — the notebook, as I recall, was comprised of thin sheets of paper bound together closely between two thicker pieces of paper, or card-board, a special type of paper, perhaps bound by spiral thin metal — that was a pictogram of my name, a “W”, and eyeball and two snakes hissing, and I recall at least once trying to claim my last name was Two Snakes, again this was a couple years after reading and writing on Milton at an Ivy League college but well before starting a blog. Any hoo, my problem, not that I am angry, at the git-go of her memoir is (6) her reference to me as “middle aged”. Or actually, a middle-aged man and (7)”political activist” (I will get to the 8, 9 10 in a minute). So my first question, as I ponder all this, and wonder about issues and terms like libel, slander, defamation is, is it fair comment for teacher to write about me and refer to me as “middle aged” “political activist”? Strictly speaking I guess it is fair comment and not an assertion of fact, nor a provably true statement that she cannot prove — the basic test for libel, I recall from both undergraduate studies of journalism, professional experience and recent reviewing of such based on Anthony Lewis’s book about Sullivan v. New York Times (“Make No Law”), but is it accurate enough? I would say, and do say, for instance, and its that time of year, when I pay taxes I call myself, and my accountant reminds me, when he pre-prepares my dossier, “concert promoter and arts administrator”. More specifically, my trades are concert promoter and artist manager, in the music business; since 1994 and ongoing, as an “ongoing concern” as they say, I am the sole proprietor of an entity called Earthwise Productions, that has produced about 300 concerts or so over the years and has managed (or I have) about 20 acts or acts — I sometimes say that I had a business to consumer model then added or emphasized a business-to-business model, so my basic trade is like a marketing executive or entrepreneur who uses his marketing and communications training to help the arts or artists (and in fact in recent years, although I have curtailed most of my work in music per se I have added at least one visual arts client– I am or was like his agent –actually a lot of this stuff you can find reference to here, at the blog, “Plastic Alto”, which maybe started perhaps to generate leads for my business. I mean, yes I do put a lot of energy into local politics and ran for office, for Palo Alto City Council twice, in 2009 and 2012, but I would say it is more accurate to say I am a small business owner or arts professional than “political activist”. I have been called an “activist” before — the then-Mayor of Palo Alto Yiaway Yeh, at a public hearing, — I was being interviewed by council for potential membership on the planning commission, he said “You are an activist — will you be able to work on a commission?” the context was that relative to some other candidates, my tactics and profile, writing letters, speaking at meetings, was of a dissident or someone speaking up — I did not take it as a slur (but in fact downplayed it and said my training was journalism which entails and requires a certain amount of listening and processing information, as compared to speaking out). But I would say in a classroom environment, a writing lab, it is more accurate to say I am a business person who writes or wants to learn to write better, interested in continuing education AND DABBLES IN LOCAL POLITICS than to say that is my primary occupation. I would question her usage of middle aged political activist is rather contrived to make me sound like an extreme rara avis rare bird and meant to belittle and dismiss my opinions rather than the more obvious point that as someone who had completed his formal education and achieved a b.a. (in English, no less) and had numerous life experiences (in arts and communications and rhetoric-related fields) that I should be given benefit of the doubt not increased skepticism to the extent that I have novel ideas or approach the task at hand from a different perspective. It is not untrue to call me a “political activist” but truly more accurate and appropriate for the discussion to think of me as something more mainstream, like my actual job title (even if that is a pretty obscure career, and that I am a small fish in those realms — there is a revenue stream and set of establish tactics for making money, in music and art, as compared to being a “activist” which sounds like, who knows? It sounds pejorative. Not to mention that my background also includes professional experiences at two daily newspapers, several ad agencies and pr firms et cetera. It would be more true for the teacher to have said “My class of winter 2012 was interesting because in the mix was a former professional journalism and advertising writer who wanted to hone his political skills and bring a literary perspective to local politics, and he brought a lot of life experiences to his views of the texts, their authors and the topics we explore, in ‘inequality and Americana'”. Or just call me the old weird guy, whatever, if that fits your purpose. But not in print!
The 8-9-10 is that by close-reading here her note the distinction between what my blog actually is and how she describes it. I say “your source for jazz, rock art and local politics” compared to her procrustean and twisted “politics literature music and art”. Point of fact I do discuss authors: Alden van Buskirk, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Hirschman, Sylvia Brownrigg, Wallace Stegner, Dao Strom, Rachel Kushner, but I guess I am slightly less-conscious of it; nonetheless it should augment my credentials in Foothill’s English 1B, the fact of my blog or my actual experience.
There’s the issue of whether it is appropriate at all or legal for a teacher to discuss her student’s work in a public forum, even a blog. Is it discriminatory, a type of age-discrimination, for her to reveal my age or call me “middle aged”? If Southwest Airlines calls their flight attendants “middle aged” and then dismisses them, they get sued big time. How is this different? (I do feel “dismissed” in a sense). Why does she start with the term “middle aged”?
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”:
Mostly pictorial depiction of the excitement of consolidating two Public Storage Spaces to one, saving about $200 per month, and what to do with all that stuff?
Partial setlist, Zion I at Kappa Sig Parking lot, presented by SCON, via Soundhound, captured by Steve
When I was selling off the first load of about twenty boxes of cd’s and one of the last remaining record stores, Diego the clerk was tripping out over my having an early Zion I record. He suggested that I take it back from the sell pile and deal it myself on one of the trendy and newfangled online markets. He thought I could get $200 for this perhaps rare or out of print title (“they got screwed by their label”, he suggested). Well he checked it a minute later and yeah maybe someone would have paid me $20 online versus this store will offer it to lucky old school drop by customer for about $12 or so — they gave me $1 or maybe $2, which was par for the course or in actuality well above par.
But I thought it weird or synchronicity or sign of there actually being a Higher Power that at the Stanford CoHo a day or so later, there was a Zion I flyer about a show coming up. I reminded Steve that night that the thumping noise he was hearing was not the Nobel Prize winner celebrating with his wife but the concert he could not miss nearby. So Steve peeped it out and even captured via Soundhound this partial set list:
MORE TO COME, FO SURE
HIT EM
BIRDS EYE VIEW
SILLY PUDDY
(well, that could have been what he heard from the unit above….)
And the end of the day, or the week, I had sold off about 1000 cd’s, 200 books for a grand total of about $200 plus a small bookcase I took in trade, and two more cd’s, of the Fleshtones, because I had bought a recent book on them, and Vince Guaraldi “Peanuts” because of my recent jazz ponderings. I also donated another 100 cd’s to Friends of Palo Alto library and about 50 books. (I kinda wish I had bypassed the whole record store experience and donated everything, but I needed that extra bookcase for my additional “new” cc’s.
One of the bittersweet experiences was recycling about 200 tape cassettes of bands I had encountered during the heyday of Earthwise’s Cubberley Sessions and Palo Alto Soundcheck, 1994-2000, which I had dutifully kept alphabetized, boxed and stored, for 14 years, which cost me about $500 to $1,000 pro-rated, but I felt some kind of obligation to these bands and artists many of whom I met personally and knew or know. Steve caught this snapshot of me saying goodbye to each, one by one.
Saying au revoir to mediated versions of great bands and artists like Vaportrail, Laughingstock, Engorged with Blood and 200 of their cohorts, from back in the day, prospective performers at the Cubberley Sessions
Steve also shot these photos of the hip hop concert which literally brought the music to his doorstep and further inside:
This is the poster I noticed, first at CoHo:
If this is an odyssey in the classical sense, it is fairly pedestrian, back and forth from storage spaces to my apartment, to the record store, more emotionally than physically draining (especially since Steve Cohen did more than his share of the literal “heavy-lifting”, he a former member of both the 175 and 200 Pound Bench Press club, at Gunn High, and a prospective discount member of Muscle Beach), because it really was hard to say “good bye” to a lot of this good music. We did enjoy the excellent service we got at PS Storage by Peggy Madden, who is from Deerborn, Michigan and a former Ford employee before going full-Cali more than a few years back, she said. We also got excellent service from her co-workers James, Margaret and Shawn. (They asked me to do a review for social media but I draw the line here at WordPress — I received no compensation for my efforts other than this smile:
).
That photo is part of the text, in the parenthesis, followed by a close parens, although it does look like the emoticon for a smile. Funny how that works out. 🙂 :p
Here’s a couple snapshots boxes of cd’s followed by two of the workers at the store. I won’t use her name here, but I was intrigued by the book buyer who said she is working on her novel; I mentioned to her Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, and also asked her if she had read Louise Erdrich.
Silly pudding:
Describing Animals and other demo tapes I dutifully stored for 15 or more years; I kept all the cover letters, press photos and one-sheets.
My stuff about to get me stiffed more or less at last-man-standing retailer; I wish I had just taken it all to the library, to donate, for their monthly bazaar.
William Hooker, one dollar, Beth Lisick 25 cents; so it goes
God bless Kelsi Arnold, of San Jose — temped to see if that number still works
I saved for years and now have parted with numerous back issues of Pollstar rosters, current versions of which are probably still pretty useful to managers and promoters
I played a large scale version of Rock, Rot or Rule
This guy chatted me up while scanning the barcodes of my cds; he had an interesting notion of remixing a 1970s jazz piano dude I like
Open letter to Jordana Finnegan, PhD and writing instructor at Foothill College: I’m sorry that I was such a burden to you. At the very least you should know that I respect you fifty times more that I respect Walls.
I’d certainly be willing to edit any of this that you think is incorrect or unfair. I also think you are confusing texts I turned in to you, that were private, with comments I posted on this blog regarding Walls. Mark Weiss
I posted this on the Palo Alto Weekly comments board, the lone dissenter among a dozen or more zealot-regulars salivating for the corporate-pseudo-donation of fiber ring (faster internet to the homes):
Posted by Mark Weiss , a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
3 minutes ago What else can we do to make ourselves more useful to their agenda? Please!
I am probably over-due to update my Ludditte and pro-Democracy rant. I started to post something slightly longer (and more smarmy) with references to Anthony Burgess (“A Clockwork Orange” “queer as a clockwork orange” the Locovic or whatever Technique, pun on corporate name in instant case compared with slang “droogs”), Allen Ginsberg (“Moloch” – cannot tell if I use that line too much or not enough, plus “what Phoenix smashed and ate their brains?”) George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Philip K. Dick (caught exactly 13 minutes of “Minority Report” or captured it and viewed: reminded of Planning Commissioner M. Alcheck stating that he admired the futuristic cars in that movie, for traffic control), McChesney (“Dollar-ocracy” on Moyers, on tape, may view again), Jeff Clements (“corporations are not people” i.e. fighting “citizens united”), Jerry Mander (four arguments, absence of the sacred), George Packer (The Unwinding; also Nancy Packer “fifo” riff), Abraham Lincoln (Gettysburg address– see below, excerpt). Also, new David Eggers book.
I am phasing out posting on PAW site. Trying to channel the energy to other places. Wanted to post a pro- Kevin Skelly message but found they had limited the comments, after 100, to registered users, plus they delete a lot of stuff. Almost split the difference with “maybe we can contract this corporation to issue us a driverless car to run the school district” a little obscure, under fiber thread.
I will have to look it up whether what I posted is too simply “troll”. No room for dissent on the net.
See also: click thru to Palo Alto Hacker day and database databases (sic).
To Solve Everything Click here, by Evgene Morozov — have read quickly should try again and learn to spell his name. Evgeny, that is. (Not to be confused with Eugene S. Robinson rookie card). Also, the title is “save everything” not “solve”. Techno-solutionism, his neologism. Actually, he uses “solutionism”, my bad.
Am off to Frank Capra Science films, for whatever that adds to the equation. After five or six nights of Capra at the Pack, I think now of “capra-esque” as a back-handed compliment, thanks to David Thomson. Here is link to Weekly on what was this topic:
we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Abraham Lincoln, 1863 at Gettysburg
Basically I am bemoaning how much of the public space is devoted to corporate public relations agenda, plus still questioning the role of the proliferation of computing. How soon until all dissent is deleted?
also: Kurt Vonnegutt, “Player Piano” from about 1960
edit to add, a few minutes later, after checking back to see when my post makes me like the famous martyr struck by arrows, after re-reading Paul Losch and someone else offering a link to said Corporate’s own propaganda, I quote, re-naming as STEAMROLLING OF LOCAL GOVERNANCE PROCESSES
Streamline local government processes. Finally, cities and counties can take a look at some of their existing government processes and think about how to streamline and standardize them. For example, building a fiber network can require a lot of construction permits. By establishing a standard permitting process and publishing it for potential providers to see, localities can clearly indicate to network providers that they’re ready for a major infrastructure project. These providers can play a role, too — if they decide to build fiber in an area, they can share their building plans with localities ahead of time, and determine a rolling timeline of permit requests, to save localities from being inundated with thousands of permits at once.
George Packer, in May, 2013 The New Yorker plugging Evgeny Morozov. The article is called CHANGE THE WORLD: How Silicon Valley is Applying its Mindset to Local Government or something like that.
This all reminds me of the scene in the Matrix where the character is offered the chance, via a blue pill, to forget that he is part of the resistance and join the matrix, which is basically all of human race save a few dissenters, being happily hooked up to the system, used as pure power source and lifeblood to the actual players, in this case a network of machines. As in, how much in flat cash, as opposed to a small (on order of ten million dollars) in kind donation by a large (on order of 100 billion, i.e. at least 500 times greater entity — we are a tick on their mastiff back) for each of us to renounce citizen ship in the human race in exchange for being just one more asset? How much in cash would each of you take, today, to renounce membership in the human race and open society to become forever merely the property of a corporate entity? And what is Feudalism in a post-Democratic completely wired corporate dollarocracy? It is not a stupor with arteries coming out of our necks to lubricate the machine but how far from that are we?
“Building a fiber network requires a lot of construction permits” to me reads as “Building a ‘dollarocracy’ or whatever we call this requires a lot of people taking the blue pill…why don’t we just put it in the water?” I mean too bad these guys didn’t get here ahead of Columbus and instead of merely spreading chicken pox they might have re-wired our brains by technologies…Gives new meaning to “rape and pill-age”. Maybe they will invent a time machine and actually go do that. (Although Steven Hawking says if time machines will someday be invented we would already by overwhelmed by tourists from the future).
Here is a brief excerpt from Packer; the article is like a preview for “The Unwinding” which is much longer, not didactic, and describes interrelated phenomena in various cases and parts of the country: Technology can be an answer to incompetence and inefficiency. But it has little to say about larger issues of justice and fairness, unless you think that political problems are bugs that can be fixed by engineering rather than fundamental conflicts of interest and value. Evgeny Morozov, in his new book “To Save Everything, Click Here,” calls this belief “solutionism.”
edit to add, days later:
Posted by Mark Weiss, a resident of Barron Park
0 minutes ago
Government is a “we” not a “they”.
Jeff Hoel is a citizen.
Google is a corporation seeking to maximize, in their every act, their profits, power and sphere of influence. They are not a philanthropy or our friend.
Read my blog, “Plastic Alto: Corporate Hardwire to the Home”, for more of my qualms about this but simply put I do not think we should spend any tax dollars or staff time on this contest or stunt.
(see link in my previous post)
When FTTP is right for Palo Alto, we should budget for it ourselves.
Hi. I wrote a long essay on the history of jazz in Palo Alto and included Matt Haimovitz as a footnote, sparked to do such because Ropeadope had included on its blog a link to an item on Matt in the Cincy newspaper and a nice photo. Which subsequently disappeared from my wordpress blog so I thought to re-capture it here.
Coinkydinky, I caught Benjamin Simon and PACO doing a tribute to late Beethoven the other night at Stanford — all of which to my mind begs the question: why is there no proper concert hall in Palo Alto. It would have been great to entice Matt into the debate about getting The Varsity Theatre back on line as a performance venue.
So, and yeah, this is Matt at CBGB I know.
Mark Weiss
also interviewed Matt by phone for KZSU and in-studio jam with Kraky and SoCalled.
.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 