[shadowy@pylduck.com]
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Tee hee. I'm amused by the simplest things. I'm amused by my students' confusion about how to address me. Raised to be formally respectful to their teachers and authority figures in general (I think), they call me "sir." I ask them please to call me "Paul" and I still hear "sir" often. It's not entirely unpleasant, but funny to consider the extent to which they are trying to deal with this incongruity -- a teacher they must respect, but one who doesn't want to be called "sir." Today, I received an e-mail from one of my students with a greeting that emblematizes this confusion. He wrote, "Hey sir ... " Heh.

In any case, it is interesting for me to consider how people show respect. In some circles, the formal aspects are most important. In others, respect is less about formalities and more about respecting others as people. Or maybe that's just the culture in which I grew up.

It was quite a surprise to me a few years ago when Joe told me he was afraid of flying. I'd never really thought that many people were actually afraid of flying. Maybe some older people -- those who lived through much of their lives before commercial air travel became commonplace. I was used to flying on planes because I went off to college on the other side of the continent from home. I never really gave flying much thought. It was a plane. It was in the air. It made loud engine and/or propeller noises. But afraid of it? Of falling out of the sky? Never. It seems that there are many people much more concerned about flying than I thought, though. ([Choire's] post is the spur for this rambling.) And now, I am beginning to pick up a fear of flying... a sort-of-undefinable feeling that something might go wrong on this flight...

I've always gone about life as if things are always going to come out OK. Not quite the optimist like Voltaire's Pangloss (?), but at least confident in the utter mundane-ness of my life, of uneventfulness -- and awful things, of course, are eventful. I haven't been wrong (yet). But as the years pass, I'm also less able to hold on to this kind of naivete, this feeling that things will always turn out for the best just because. Maybe it's because I've seen more of the awful things that do happen to people every day. And I've seen awful things happen to people I know directly.

One of the more disconcerting revelations, though, is the idea that there is no moral universe -- at least not one readily discernible. There is no poetic justice; nothing to say that "good" people come to happy ends, "bad" to unhappy and tragic. At times, I despair of this world that is so untidy, so unlike a storybook world. But at other times, I feel that there is much that is possible, that despite the unpredictability of life and tragedy, there are an infinite number of things we can do to make our world our own.

It's nice to be in a computer classroom. My students are doing a workshop now, reading their radio show program proposals to each other. It's kind of strange when the groups don't finish at the same time, and that last person is still reading his proposal to his group in a silent classroom. I'll have to think about how to deal with that, maybe.

I'm glad this class session requires much less of me. I just had to walk through the commenting / workshop process with them once, and then they're pretty much on their own for the rest of class.

Where did I learn my instinct to step back from all situations and deliberate? Evening thoughts just tumbling through my head, events of the day and past week flashing by -- seemingly randomly (am I awake-dreaming?). A line from a book I'm reading, understanding an action or any something means forgiving it. Is that true? The elaborate ways we have developed excuses and explanations for things in order to deflect responsibility or at least defer accountability. But these excuses and explanations make sense, must count for something, right? Because taking them all away doesn't justify anything, doesn't leave us with a tabula rasa of social interaction. We don't act in a void or vacuum. Nor do we think in one. A similar debate raised in a class this week, the influence of genetics on characteristics and such that cultural studies has worked so hard to expose as being at least to some extent environmentally / situationally / culturally influenced.

With song titles like "Hidden Place" and "Cocoon," softly angelic choirs, and muffled beats that clatter like Mom in the kitchen, it's a lot more appropriate soundtrack to drinking hot cocoa under the covers than hitting a dance floor. "It's about not speaking for days and daydreaming and it's snowing outside," Björk says over lunch on land in the Central Park Boathouse. "It's about zooming in and finding heaven underneath your kitchen table. Most people think that the life they lead is boring and the noises they hear every day are ugly. But if you take those same noises and make them into something magical and out of the ordinary, I think that's brave." -- from the October 2001 issue of Spin

How much do I love [Björk]?? I always did, but now that she talks about "not speaking for days" and conjures up that beautiful idea of heaven under the kitchen table, I am just that much more smitten by the music and personality of Björk. I love her imagination and the stunning visuals she creates in her media appearances and videos (this Spin article mentions the importance of the visual field in Björk's music). I wish I could explain my fascination with her more. But in lieu of adequate words of my own, I offer [this article] at [Salon.com].

Two things I really hate about other drivers (both experienced this evening as I drove to the library):

1. when they insist on turning onto a road or turning across a lane of oncoming traffic (meaning me) just because there is a large vehicle -- a truck or bus -- blocking their view of said oncoming traffic (if you can't see it, it doesn't exist), and
    


2. when they are in the wrong lane for a turn at an intersection and they still insist on getting over to the correct lane except the best they can do is block off at least two lanes of traffic so they can sit there waiting for the next round of green lights for the turn lane.

What I should've done in class yesterday was bring up the questions I had about biography in literary studies. We had to read a biography of the Brontës for class, in addition to some of the juvenalia of Charlotte. Most people in class thought that biographical works on the Brontës relied too much on finding biograhical experiences that mapped in a one-to-one relationship to their fictional characters, events, and settings. I agreed with the general uneasiness about that kind of literary scholarship -- but then I was left wondering, what should literary biography do? I should have brought up this generic question in class, but I didn't. In some senses, I felt that the question would've been too common-sensical, something that everyone already was asking in their discussion. But really, I do think that explicitly naming things, asking questions, is the only way to get at the heart of problems of disciplinary knowledge.

So I wonder why I and many other people are interested in the lives of our favorite authors. What kind of information or understanding do we seek? Generally, it seems that we want to know how in the world someone could come up with the kinds of moving, well-drawn characters, situations, settings, and plots that we love. But does knowing about a person's external life necessarily mean I know about her interior life? And if not (as I and most people would argue), what is that relationship between the factual elements of a person's life and the creative world she imagines? I wish I were more articulate on-the-spot. Or maybe better prepared for class.

I'm going to have a lot -- probably too much -- on my plate this semester. But I'm definitely one of those people who has a hard time letting go of certain possibilities. I have the opportunity to work as a research assistant (I know how messed up that sounds) for [M. Jacqui Alexander], and since her work fascinates me (even though I've not read a lot by her), I couldn't pass it up. I'm really going to have to learn how to make the best of my time and I won't have much free time for other things...

But sometimes distractions can't be helped. A friend of mine from college stopped by last night on her drive from Connecticut to Florida (more movement!). We had a nice dinner out and chatted a bit. Then I had to prepare for class, though, so she went off to sleep. And bright and early today, she left for Day 2 of her drive as I left for campus at 6:45 am. I really do miss having the kinds of friends I had in college -- even if I'm often amused at how close some of my college friends feel about our relationship (often they feel like we're really close -- almost best -- friends, but I think we're just good friends or acquaintences).

[Björk's] new album, Vespertine, is out today! I'm going to get it on my way to school in a little while. Listening to the Sugarcubes now. I love the guy who talks in the group. Kinda in a sing-songy way, but not in any discernible melodic strain. I imagine myself, if ever I were to be in a rock band, to be this sort of band-player -- the one who makes dramatic monologues.

From my friend milypan: [Prairie Farmers Reap Conservation's Rewards]. I don't like the duck hunting aspect of much wildlife/fowl conservation efforts, but at least the ducks have their wetlands! I'm confused about the state of agriculture, though. And admittedly, I really don't know much about the history of agriculture in the United States, but I was under the impression that there are often government subsidies to plow down crops instead of harvesting them in order to keep market prices at certain (higher) levels. So wouldn't restricting the amount of land used in the first place for planting row crops help to limit "supply"? Especially given this sentence from the article -- "Thanks to technological advances and the globalization of the food market, there is a glut of grain worldwide, and prices have remained flat at 1960 levels." -- it seems like even agribusiness would appreciate conservation subsidies...

Blogspot seems to be a very slow host. Maybe having my students keep writing journals on-line wasn't such a great idea after all...

[Growing Audience Is Turning to Established News Media Online] I do watch the evening news on television, but otherwise I rely on on-line news sites. I want to find some different sites, but I, too, seem to gravitate towards providers who have come from off-line pasts in print or broadcast journalism.

Oh my god: [Aaliyah, Singer and Actress, Killed in Plane Crash]

In some ways, it's especially tragic that the other seven people killed in the crash and the seriously injured sole survivor seem to be mere side notes to the headline death of [Aaliyah]. But that's the thing about celebrity death: the closeness of the figure to a general public, the images and sounds that linger after death like a haunting. The albums will still be played; the movies still be screened; but Aaliyah is gone.