The Writer's Poke

A student of a colleague of mine recently got very upset with him because he used Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States as the class's textbook. She didn't appreciate what she saw as Zinn's liberal slant. Of course until very recently, the common person wasn't even worth historical investigation. History has typically been reserved for gods and generals. "Does history change?" I ask my students. Of course it does, one responded. After all, historians dig into the archives , find out new information, and that new evidence changes the way we think about what has happened. In truth, history is all about evidence, to be sure. But more than that, it's about focus and interpretation. And, that, my friends, is why history changes. There is no such thing as the past. It's all constructed. And as Winston Churchill himself once said, "History is written by the victors." That doesn't mean that all victors are liars, but it ...

Longing and lust are connected. I don't think there's any argument about that. And while I don't want to offend anyone, I really believe that the longing to believe in the existence of God can easily turn into lust. The extreme examples of spiritual lust are people that speak in tongues, chant Jesus's name, or get lost in a wave of emotion. Some will say, "These are just folks wrapped up in the Holy Ghost." Call it what you want, but it doesn't seem very much different to me than people caught up in a lustful romp. Don't get me wrong: there's nothing necessarily wrong with a good, lusty romp. But let's call it what it is. On the show 30 Rock , Tina Fey's character, Liz Lemon, carries the torch for "Flower Guy." When she sees him walking into a church on a Tuesday, however, she views that as a major warning sign. Why do some guys, she wonders, seem so normal, and yet have weird obsessions and dark secrets? In Flower Guy's case...

Earth, as we know, is the perfect distance from the Sun for human life. Venus is too hot and Mars is too cold, but the Earth is like Goldilocks's porridge: just right. The gravitational pull of the Sun is pretty incredible, though, when you think about how far away a planet like Neptune is. In fact, scientists believe that there are celestial bodies farther out than the dwarf world of Pluto that still find themselves in orbit around the Sun. Tonight I was just sitting around thinking about love, as I am wont to do, and I thought: people have orbits, too. Think about the friend that you don't see for a year, for example. Everyone seems to have someone like that, a Haley's comet friend that they can "pick right up with" as though no time has passed by. And then there are the people you interact with daily, much like the Moon interacts with the Earth, say. Some people might be like the Sun, attracting a whole solar system of folks, whereas others might be more like o...

Canadian professional wrestler and former World Champion Bret "Hitman" Hart released his autobiography a couple of years ago. The problem was, it was initially only released by his publisher, Random House, in Canada. Fans and readers in the United States would have to wait an additional year for the book to be published south of the border. I didn't feel like waiting, so I jumped on to the Canadian version of Amazon and placed my international order. In addition to the main amazon.com site, amazon also has international sites for Canada, the UK, China, Japan, Germany, and France. If you haven't looked at the international amazons, I'd encourage you to do so. It's interesting to see what pops up on the various home pages. Japan's, for example, promotes watches, shoes, and anime, whereas Germany is apparently more interested in DVD's, digital cameras, and electronics. Although I only speak English, I think I could navigate my way through the non-English ...

On our flight to Zurich, I had some time to kill. Fortunately, most airlines these days come equipped with monitors attached to the back of each seat. And Swiss Air offered us a variety of time-killing options. I was happy to see that one of the free games available was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I always do pretty good at the questions when I'm watching the TV show at home, but once I started playing the game on the plane, I realized just how little I really know. Swiss Air's version of Millionaire was from the UK, and since I don't know much about soccer or cricket or UK geography or UK pop culture, I had trouble getting past even the first or second question. In other words, anyone from the UK that happened to be watching me play would undoubtedly have thought that I was one great big dummy. Knowledge, it seems, has a cultural context. How often we overlook that. How has your culture informed what you know? "The only source of knowledge is experience." -- A...

"If there's a camel up a hill..." Wow. I'm totally speechless.

People are speculating on what Palin's next move will be now that she's resigned her governorship . I wonder if Hugh Hefner's or Larry Flynt's people have made her an offer... By the way, what are the main duties of the governor of Alaska, anyway? And if Palin cannot fulfill the duties, does that mean that the first runner-up assumes the throne? Does the runner-up get her crown, too? Photo from http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

I carried her into the room and sat her down on the metal examination table. The doctor knocked on the door, entered, and briefly explained how the shot would work. He explained that I could stay or go; I elected to stay, and I watched as he injected death into her body. She was too weak to fight it, and in a matter of seconds, she was dead. The hardest part was watching her body briefly contort and convulse. As the magic potion did its work, she lost all muscle control. And then she was still. What was once a living, breathing being was now eight pounds of biohazardous waste. Other than when I've killed the occasional fly or bug, the euthanizing of a cat is the closest I've come to the death experience. But I've always had a morbid curiosity about the process of dying. At one moment in time, a person could be both instantaneously alive and dead. What is that moment like? Actually, the state of death isn't so clear cut. The body starts preparing for it weeks, if not m...

People that go through Near Death Experiences ( NDEs ) describe how their spirits leave their bodies. They might watch from above, for example, as doctors work frantically to save their lives. But whether real or imagined, survivors of NDEs often find that the purposes of their lives have totally changed. For some, the NDE itself gives life a purpose that it had heretofore lacked. Most of us will never have a NDE , and there's no reason to wait for one, or heaven forbid, seek one out. Although it might not be nearly as sexy among the paranormal clique, why not have your own Near Life Experience (N LE )? That is, go off to the woods like Henry David Thoreau for a few years. Or, hell, if you insist on being more practical, just go to the local Holiday Inn for a weekend. Bottom line, set time aside to be by yourself, and focus solely on where you are, where you've been, and where you want to be. How many people do that? Why should it take the scare of death to wake you up to how...

My wife would have you believe that I'm a sexy beast. But here's the world's worst kept secret: For just about everyone in the world except her, I'm not. Would I mind being a popular object of desire? That's an interesting question. And I guess the answer would be: no, I wouldn't mind, as long as being objectified didn't turn me into a Fabio-style running joke. It's always made me curious, though: how do hot chicks feel about being sexualized ? Do they dig it? Children, I know there's no right or wrong answer to my query, but most must. Although we've been told that the objectification of women is wrong, because it inevitably leads to viewing women as less than human, we know that such a belief is incomplete. In fact, such a belief is probably more damaging than the potential problem it warns us against. Tangent: Ever notice that no one complains if you objectify someone for their IQ? Maybe it's time for fans of Einstein to unite and put an e...

The past is farther away than the nearest star. We reach for it with our memories, but like a pawn in a game of chess, we can never move backwards. How does one measure ten years? A decade is such a short period of time, and yet as I look back ten years, I make startling discoveries. Ten years ago, I wasn't married. Ten years ago, I had lived in the same state my entire life. Ten years ago, I had never made more than $20,000 in a year. When we look at the stars, we see them from the perspective of the Earth, as though where we are in the universe is the center, and the stars are on the periphery. Likewise, when we look to the past, we assume that the present moment is the place we start when measuring distances of time. With each passing day, we have the opportunity to achieve more. But paradoxically, the more we achieve, the less satisfied we may become. Achievement becomes a burden that some cannot escape, and the longing for a simpler time draws us back to the past. We may or m...

Many consider Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8 1/2 to be one of the best films ever made. I don't know if I would go that far, but it certainly is cerebral. Much like Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, reality, memory, and fantasy blur together. The scene from the film that sticks out most to me is when all of the women in Guido Anselmi's life assemble in one room. Here are his wife, his mistress, old girlfriends, and possibly even women that simply caught his eye for a brief moment on the bus. What an odd and potentially horrifying scenario! And yet, all the women wear big smiles, and everyone appears to be having a jolly-good time -- almost as if they are attending a pleasant memory reunion of sorts. Why do certain memories stay with us? According to Edmund Bolles , "We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay attention to what we want." So what exactly does Guido want? That's a question that works on many levels,...

Meredith Brooks keeps releasing albums, bless her heart. But basically she's a one-hit wonder best known for her 1997 song "Bitch." Some of you might remember that song, whose refrain goes: "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm mother" etc. In essence, Brooks is saying: there are many different facets to my being, so don't try to categorize me. I have to tell you that I find it somewhat ironic that her entire musical career, then, has been completely engulfed by this one song. Although she's released a number of albums since this song, people heard "Bitch" so many times that they decided they never needed to hear another Brooks song for the rest of their lives. And yet, I was sitting in my office the other day, and someone's cell phone went off in the hallway. Brooks' song was the ringtone, and someone was apparently calling for the "Bitch." What does your ringtone say about you? Or, if you don't ha...

When I realized that Tavi could start repeating back what I was saying, I quickly taught her to say "Daddy's awesome!" Now she can say it on command, and sometimes she will even say it voluntarily out of the blue. Pretty cool. And, well, I am awesome. No doubt. But am I more awesome than Eta Carinae , a star that is 4 million times brighter than our own sun? Carl Sagan used to be fond of saying, "We're made of star stuff." And when you think about it, that's pretty darn awesome. But what makes humans more awesome than even the most humble star? Some might say, "We have the ability to realize just how awesome we are." Really? Is that all it takes to make us more awesome than stars? Where do stars go when they die? Nowhere. No one claims that there's a heaven for stars. Yet, we, that are made from stars, do have a heaven? Strange what self-reflecting beings can come up with... What makes you so awesome? "If we long to believe that the s...

Those that have taught (or taken) Freshman Composition in the past 15 years are probably very familiar with Judy Syfer's classic 1971 feminist essay "I Want a Wife." In it, she assumes the voice of the typical male chauvinist, describing all the things a good wife must do: not complain, please sexually, put herself second, take care of the kids and all of the housework, etc. Throughout the essay, Syfer's running refrain is "I want a wife," and after she's done cataloging the wife's "traditional" duties, she rhetorically asks: "My God, who wouldn't want a wife?" Of course her point isn't that a wife should be defined in the traditional way. She shouldn't be the husband's servant. The essay calls for liberation and a redefining of what we think a wife should be. About twenty years later, RATT released a song called "I Want a Woman." This song is so complicated and deep that it would be impossible for me ...

I watched Pinocchio for the first time last night, and what a quaint story it is by today's standards. Here's a wooden puppet that would love to become a boy, but to do so, he must prove himself. His task is to avoid lying, avoid smoking, and for god's sake, avoid playing pool. Real boys know right from wrong, and they choose to live according to their consciences. Most of the focus in the movie is on Pinocchio, but it's quite clear in the Paradise Island segment that boys who "sin" aren't any better than marionettes (or jackasses). They're just controlled by different strings. Pinocchio's "conscience" is Jiminy Cricket, which is interestingly a euphemism for Jesus Christ. Unlike a "real" conscience, and unlike Jesus Christ, Jiminy is not perfect. He's a little bit of a ladies' man, and one wonders if perhaps sometimes a conscience itself doesn't need a conscience. But both Jiminy and Pinocchio grow by film's ...

The sound is a little off, but the lyrics are crazy-good. Mariah fans and anti-Mariah haters alike should be able to appreciate this one...

http://www.laughbreak.com/lists/numbers_of_the_beast.html This scummy kid walked out of the bathroom, and the first thing I noticed about him was his earring. In 1987, not too many guys wore earrings at my junior high. His was an inverted cross, and I remember wondering why anyone would want to wear an inverted cross. To my mind at the time, that was a symbol of Satan, and I couldn't understand why anyone would want to join the losing team. Later that year, I found myself doodling the number 666 on one of my notebooks. When my dad saw the notebook on the kitchen table that night, he nicely recommended that I scratch out that number and not ever doodle it again. Why? I asked. How can that number have any meaning? Surely the devil doesn't really have a "human number." But Dad explained that it wasn't the number that mattered so much as how other people would perceive the owner of the notebook. Somewhere between seeing that boy coming out of the bathroom and doodling...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0AGiq9j_Ak In the original 1992 Gatorade commerical staring Michael Jordan, a chorus of children sing "If I could be like Mike" while a montage of basketball images cascade across the screen. In four specific scenes, we see Mike hold a Gatorade product in his hand, but only in one of them does he hold the cup to his lips. Does he actually take a sip? The scene cuts away before we can know for sure. And what exactly does "Be Like Mike" mean, anyway? The message at the end of the commercial isn't very subtle: "Be Like Mike. Drink Gatorade." The commercial actually ends with this command (in black and white no less). Whoever designed the commercial didn't want you to simply "be like Mike"; they wanted to make sure that you got the message that you should be drinking the green liquid (and how exactly do you describe the taste?) at all times. If we are to "Be Like Mike," does that mean that we should ...

As careful readers of my blog will recall, as an undergraduate in college I wrote a poem called "Zugzwang und Zwischen ." This was the first time that I explored the idea that freedom from choice could be beneficial. It's surprising what you find out about yourself when you spend a lot of time writing. I'm not sure I would have ever expressed that belief had I not written a poem about it. But give it some thought and see if it doesn't make some sense. Isn't it true that most of us sacrifice choices in our lives? Why on earth would we do that, unless we expected to receive some sort of benefit? Example: most of us marry, and for most people, marriage is a contract between two people -- you "forsake all others." In other words, you give up choices, yes? And at least initially , most people find value in the institution of marriage, yes? Now, we can quibble over how high the divorce rate is, how many people cheat on their spouses , etc. But just take t...