P.S. To the previous post:
In the name of humanity, I think that Christiane Amanpour should have some eggs frozen, and John Stewart should have some sperm frozen, so that by the time the bird flu pandemic hits or Kim Jong Il starts pressing buttons at will, America has a back up plan for repopulating and can start from scratch with Amanpour/Stewarts. It's worth considering.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
This just in...grrrls rule!
Christiane Amanpour can make me care about things that I would otherwise have little to no interest in: Hamas, Peabody awards, integrity. Her journalism is raw, without agenda, unlike the lisped, affected, camera-loving bobbleheads that report most news. Whether she's in a head scarf against the backdrop of a war-torn country or leading a panel discussion on Clinton's Global Initiative (www.ClintonGlobalInitiative.org), she feels refreshing to me, like the crisp release of pressure when opening a soda.
She has a somewhat manly quality, and maybe that's where her appeal lies, (I mean come on, does any self-respecting woman really take spritey Katie Couric seriously?). Her hips are narrow and her shoulders are broad. Her breats her only curves. Her hair is thick and black - no highlights, creams, or hairspray. Even without extensive styling it holds up like the baby-boomer housewife down the street whose natural style and body send the neighborhood wives to the salon in droves. Her features are a mixture of handsome (a strong chin and nose), dark (wide, piercing eyes and Iranian coloring), and feminine (full lips and high, cupped cheekbones).
In Hollywood, Catherine Zeta-Jones would be Amanpour's best, albeit sexified, match. They both have that nearly full British accent (Christiane born in London, lived her first 11 years in Tehran, then back to London). They both have deep, masculine voices: Catherine's is alluring in a Kathleen-Turner-come-hither-raspiness, and Christiane's is low and deliberate like the steady delivery of Walter Chronkite, a mid-range register appealing to the masses, dispensing words like tools of metal and wood.
She doesn't pose for the camera. Most reporters look into the lens like dogs when a treat is dangled in front of them, cocking their heads and pricking their eyebrows. They try to sensationalize the news with their pitchy voices and dramatic pauses in their speech. Christiane doesn't do that because she doesn't need to. She's objective. Purposive. She has the balls and the calculated restraint to let the story speak for itself.
She is the consumate correspondent; the regaled reporter; a cool chick.
She has a somewhat manly quality, and maybe that's where her appeal lies, (I mean come on, does any self-respecting woman really take spritey Katie Couric seriously?). Her hips are narrow and her shoulders are broad. Her breats her only curves. Her hair is thick and black - no highlights, creams, or hairspray. Even without extensive styling it holds up like the baby-boomer housewife down the street whose natural style and body send the neighborhood wives to the salon in droves. Her features are a mixture of handsome (a strong chin and nose), dark (wide, piercing eyes and Iranian coloring), and feminine (full lips and high, cupped cheekbones).
In Hollywood, Catherine Zeta-Jones would be Amanpour's best, albeit sexified, match. They both have that nearly full British accent (Christiane born in London, lived her first 11 years in Tehran, then back to London). They both have deep, masculine voices: Catherine's is alluring in a Kathleen-Turner-come-hither-raspiness, and Christiane's is low and deliberate like the steady delivery of Walter Chronkite, a mid-range register appealing to the masses, dispensing words like tools of metal and wood.
She doesn't pose for the camera. Most reporters look into the lens like dogs when a treat is dangled in front of them, cocking their heads and pricking their eyebrows. They try to sensationalize the news with their pitchy voices and dramatic pauses in their speech. Christiane doesn't do that because she doesn't need to. She's objective. Purposive. She has the balls and the calculated restraint to let the story speak for itself.
She is the consumate correspondent; the regaled reporter; a cool chick.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Best if purchased by 5/17/last semester
My poetry is like a loaf of Wonder bread. If you don't keep it in the refrigerator, it will get stale and grow mold within a few days.
These are some gems from the deep freeze that I came across from my poetry class last semester and that my professor liked. I was forced to write stuff, and this is what I came up with. Since any piece of writing doesn't truely exist as art until it has an audience, I thought I'd post them. (The other four poems I had to write were dried into croutons for the birds long ago.)
Spring
The dogs are prepared for spring,
sheared like sheep in the
early Saturday sun. Blue postures on the porch
as the horse clippers lay tracks on his back,
and fur falls to the concrete collecting in a
loose merle fluff at his feet, or flies into the trees,
soon to become cribs for bald,
blind birds.
Cobber, the other, is dreaming under the car
and the machine’s buzz. His legs pump horizontally, taking
him nowhere. His lids beat as if he were seizing,
and I see the backs of his eyes – mucid, milky bulbs,
showing him nothing. Blue yelps and wakes his litter-mate.
A skin tab on his stomach got caught in the blade sending two crimson missiles
from his tuck, that spread into roses
upon impact. I put one finger on the wound. Cobber
tries to sleep. Blue’s blood coagulates. The sun warms
and melts snow.
I woke to silence on Thursday morning.
No cockatiel squawks or cat-calls from the cage in the foyer. I found
Mr. Yellow far from his perch, half-paralyzed, resting on the bedding.
With his beak and left foot, he drug his right side,
rung by rung, to the top of the cage, carrying his distress
like Quasimodo and the tower, trying to convince me
he was okay. Cancer. An olive-sized tumor on the x-ray.
“Probably on the testicle,” said Dr. Dan,
“It pressed on the nerve and paralyzed his right side.
Poor little guy.” A tumor as big as my thumb
in a bird as big as my hand. If we had caught
it earlier, even as recently as September, we could have helped. But birds
don’t show illness. In the wild, at the first sign of injury,
the bird will be killed. I whistled with Mr. Yellow the day before
we gassed him, blissfully unaware.
moon glow
she gives us light
rippled blue on lake waves
bright white on winter’s sheets
creamy through our window pane
showing you the way - your calloused hands
that fumble in her absence - not at all
during the day
rough on pink skin
i don’t want the light on
i want to show you with my
moon glow
-Thank you and good night.
These are some gems from the deep freeze that I came across from my poetry class last semester and that my professor liked. I was forced to write stuff, and this is what I came up with. Since any piece of writing doesn't truely exist as art until it has an audience, I thought I'd post them. (The other four poems I had to write were dried into croutons for the birds long ago.)
Spring
The dogs are prepared for spring,
sheared like sheep in the
early Saturday sun. Blue postures on the porch
as the horse clippers lay tracks on his back,
and fur falls to the concrete collecting in a
loose merle fluff at his feet, or flies into the trees,
soon to become cribs for bald,
blind birds.
Cobber, the other, is dreaming under the car
and the machine’s buzz. His legs pump horizontally, taking
him nowhere. His lids beat as if he were seizing,
and I see the backs of his eyes – mucid, milky bulbs,
showing him nothing. Blue yelps and wakes his litter-mate.
A skin tab on his stomach got caught in the blade sending two crimson missiles
from his tuck, that spread into roses
upon impact. I put one finger on the wound. Cobber
tries to sleep. Blue’s blood coagulates. The sun warms
and melts snow.
I woke to silence on Thursday morning.
No cockatiel squawks or cat-calls from the cage in the foyer. I found
Mr. Yellow far from his perch, half-paralyzed, resting on the bedding.
With his beak and left foot, he drug his right side,
rung by rung, to the top of the cage, carrying his distress
like Quasimodo and the tower, trying to convince me
he was okay. Cancer. An olive-sized tumor on the x-ray.
“Probably on the testicle,” said Dr. Dan,
“It pressed on the nerve and paralyzed his right side.
Poor little guy.” A tumor as big as my thumb
in a bird as big as my hand. If we had caught
it earlier, even as recently as September, we could have helped. But birds
don’t show illness. In the wild, at the first sign of injury,
the bird will be killed. I whistled with Mr. Yellow the day before
we gassed him, blissfully unaware.
moon glow
she gives us light
rippled blue on lake waves
bright white on winter’s sheets
creamy through our window pane
showing you the way - your calloused hands
that fumble in her absence - not at all
during the day
rough on pink skin
i don’t want the light on
i want to show you with my
moon glow
-Thank you and good night.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five years ago
Five years ago, I had just started my second year at the University of Iowa. I was living in my first apartment, alone, located behind a frat house on Oakridge Avenue, which we affectionatley referred to as "The Oak Ditch Holler". There were huge trees, a ditch, a stream, and altough it got too dark at night, it made me feel safe.
It was Tuesday. I got out of bed, took a shower, and fixed myself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with no milk because it gets soggy fast. I sat down on my purple couch and turned on the television to The Today Show. I must have been watching something on NBC the night before. Matt and Katie looked somber, but they delivered the news in the clear, steady voice that makes network anchor.
Someone was crashing planes into buildings.
When I left my apartment for class there was a helicopter circling the Old Capital overhead. When I arrived, my Professor (Margaret something) was crying at the front of the room. She was born in upstate New York and lived and wrote for twenty years in Manhattan. One of my classmates, a feminist with a bleached pixie cut, was crying with her. Her uncle worked in the World Trade Center and she couldn't get through to anyone on the phone. Details started leaking out from my other classmates: it wasn't an accident; all flights are grounded; thousands of people are dead. Two thousand seven hundred and forty nine, I learned today.
I spent the rest of the day in the student union, huddled around big screen tv's with strangers.
I didn't think about the future or what any of it meant because it was too soon. No one realized that it was far too late.
It was Tuesday. I got out of bed, took a shower, and fixed myself a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch with no milk because it gets soggy fast. I sat down on my purple couch and turned on the television to The Today Show. I must have been watching something on NBC the night before. Matt and Katie looked somber, but they delivered the news in the clear, steady voice that makes network anchor.
Someone was crashing planes into buildings.
When I left my apartment for class there was a helicopter circling the Old Capital overhead. When I arrived, my Professor (Margaret something) was crying at the front of the room. She was born in upstate New York and lived and wrote for twenty years in Manhattan. One of my classmates, a feminist with a bleached pixie cut, was crying with her. Her uncle worked in the World Trade Center and she couldn't get through to anyone on the phone. Details started leaking out from my other classmates: it wasn't an accident; all flights are grounded; thousands of people are dead. Two thousand seven hundred and forty nine, I learned today.
I spent the rest of the day in the student union, huddled around big screen tv's with strangers.
I didn't think about the future or what any of it meant because it was too soon. No one realized that it was far too late.
Saturday, September 9, 2006
Never wear a red polo to Target...
...especially on a day when there are tornados sucking up earth in all the surrounding counties and the emergency sirens are sounding as you pull into the parking lot. I don't care how much you need ice cube trays and a drain plug for your sink. Don't go to Target at all in these conditions, and if you absolutley have to, don't wear a red polo. Customers will approach you and ask you where the George Foreman grills are, even if you're wearing black pants, have a basket full of merchandise, and there is no trace of a walkie-talkie on your body. Then, when a tornado is spotted a few miles west of the city and you're coralled into the back room with every other customer and employee in the store, you'll find yourself avoiding eye contact with everyone because you're afraid they'll ask you when they can leave or how sturdy the building is or "doesn't this place have a basement?". You'll find yourself on the fringes of the mob, slinking down the baby doll isle, willing to risk being sucked into the vortex outside just because you wore your red polo to Target.
In a nutshell, that's how I was welcomed back to Mankato...in confusion, chaos, and frustration. But I only have myself and my Phoenix Staff shirt to blame. I hold no grudges. I went to Target last night for a hairbrush and a surge protector. I left with those items plus granola bars, a book that I won't have time to read, a prayer plant, and cork coasters.
School feels good again; familiar in many ways. Yesterday I felt the muscle soreness at the base of my neck that comes from toting between ten and thirty pounds every day in my backpack. The walk from my apartment to campus is considerably less this year (only about ten minutes from apt. door to office door), but it will still take a week or two to get used to. When I'm not wearing a skirt and have decent shoes on, I ride my bike, which cuts the commute in half but has it's own drawbacks: windblown hair, which can either look good or awful, and grease marks on my pants from the chain. Usually I just hike one pant leg up like LL Cool J to avoid that, but sometimes the wind is just too damn cold. Another familiar feeling is always being prepared with something to say in my Wednesday class that goes from 3:00-6:00 in case my stomach starts grumbling audibly. That's so embarassing. Who schedules a class through dinner time? Isn't dinner the most important American meal? Do they want me to lose all sense of my own culture? I'd be happy to live the Spanish lifestyle with siesta's and mid-day naps, but until then I'll just have to be ready to speak over the grumble.
The familiar is good to know, but rarely exciting. I have a batch of students now (hopefully the first of many batches) which is wonderful and exhilirating, but wierd because we co-exist in the same, relatively small, community. It didn't really occur to me until the end of the first week of class that I would be running in to these kids on campus. I was walking across the street and heard "Teacher, hey teach!" shouted from a car. Since I'm not used to being called "teacher" I didn't realize he was addressing me until he drove off and I saw the baseball hat he wears every Monday and Wednesday and realized who it was and that he was shouting to me. I'm afraid that 1) I won't recognize all my students and remember their names so I'll ignore them when I pass them in the halls, and 2) somebody will catch me when I'm having a really bad day or I'm in a pissy mood. I'm not exactley 'eternal sunshine' but I'll have to learn to fake it...but I detest even the idea of that...so I guess they'll just have to take me or leave me. Can't be everyone's best friend. I'm sure I'll run into kids at the gym when I'm sweaty and I have a scowl on my face from the soreness in my legs. God - what if I run into them at the bar. Shit. Maybe I can become the "cool teacher" who is "so laidback" and "throws back a few cold ones with us". So it is - so it shall be.
There's a skinny, mop-headed kid who brings his guitar to the plaza outside of Armstrong Hall (English building) and plays Sublime, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and takes requests. He played Sweet Baby James for me last May. His name is Jon - no 'h' - and he's got a sweet voice that can follow a melody anywhere. We have a loose agreement from last semester that I would accompany him with my mad tamborine skills. I haven't seen him around this year, which is disappointing, soI keep the window in my office open so I can listen for him. Maybe he's found another window in another building to play under. Maybe he's found someone who actually owns a tamborine and will shake their hips when they play.
In a nutshell, that's how I was welcomed back to Mankato...in confusion, chaos, and frustration. But I only have myself and my Phoenix Staff shirt to blame. I hold no grudges. I went to Target last night for a hairbrush and a surge protector. I left with those items plus granola bars, a book that I won't have time to read, a prayer plant, and cork coasters.
School feels good again; familiar in many ways. Yesterday I felt the muscle soreness at the base of my neck that comes from toting between ten and thirty pounds every day in my backpack. The walk from my apartment to campus is considerably less this year (only about ten minutes from apt. door to office door), but it will still take a week or two to get used to. When I'm not wearing a skirt and have decent shoes on, I ride my bike, which cuts the commute in half but has it's own drawbacks: windblown hair, which can either look good or awful, and grease marks on my pants from the chain. Usually I just hike one pant leg up like LL Cool J to avoid that, but sometimes the wind is just too damn cold. Another familiar feeling is always being prepared with something to say in my Wednesday class that goes from 3:00-6:00 in case my stomach starts grumbling audibly. That's so embarassing. Who schedules a class through dinner time? Isn't dinner the most important American meal? Do they want me to lose all sense of my own culture? I'd be happy to live the Spanish lifestyle with siesta's and mid-day naps, but until then I'll just have to be ready to speak over the grumble.
The familiar is good to know, but rarely exciting. I have a batch of students now (hopefully the first of many batches) which is wonderful and exhilirating, but wierd because we co-exist in the same, relatively small, community. It didn't really occur to me until the end of the first week of class that I would be running in to these kids on campus. I was walking across the street and heard "Teacher, hey teach!" shouted from a car. Since I'm not used to being called "teacher" I didn't realize he was addressing me until he drove off and I saw the baseball hat he wears every Monday and Wednesday and realized who it was and that he was shouting to me. I'm afraid that 1) I won't recognize all my students and remember their names so I'll ignore them when I pass them in the halls, and 2) somebody will catch me when I'm having a really bad day or I'm in a pissy mood. I'm not exactley 'eternal sunshine' but I'll have to learn to fake it...but I detest even the idea of that...so I guess they'll just have to take me or leave me. Can't be everyone's best friend. I'm sure I'll run into kids at the gym when I'm sweaty and I have a scowl on my face from the soreness in my legs. God - what if I run into them at the bar. Shit. Maybe I can become the "cool teacher" who is "so laidback" and "throws back a few cold ones with us". So it is - so it shall be.
There's a skinny, mop-headed kid who brings his guitar to the plaza outside of Armstrong Hall (English building) and plays Sublime, Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and takes requests. He played Sweet Baby James for me last May. His name is Jon - no 'h' - and he's got a sweet voice that can follow a melody anywhere. We have a loose agreement from last semester that I would accompany him with my mad tamborine skills. I haven't seen him around this year, which is disappointing, soI keep the window in my office open so I can listen for him. Maybe he's found another window in another building to play under. Maybe he's found someone who actually owns a tamborine and will shake their hips when they play.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)