The Rules of Rape Culture: On Self-Help and Self-Blaming

The neglectful blogger returns!  So for the extremely small number of readers that have remained, I finished the MLIS and have now embarked upon the PhD in Library and Information Science.  Right now, I'm in a tiny limbo for another week or so until the PhD classes start.  Since I'm just taking Storytelling and International Children's Literature in the first part of the summer, I have been cramming all the extracurricular reading I can manage into the nooks and crannies.  My current read is Jessica Lamb-Shapiro's Promise Land:  My Journey Through America's Self-Help Culture, and chapter 2 horrified me.

A little confession:  I kind of hate self-help as a genre.  For the most part to me the books seem disingenuous and creepy.  I know that some people claim they worked for them, and I am genuinely glad that they were helped.  But I still hate the whole lot of it.  I particularly hate the "find-a-man," marriage section and their seeming need to time warp back to the 1950s to "help" people with relationships.  When I was in high school, a book called The Rules came out.  I never read it; I was then in the throes of my I'm-going-to-hell-because-I-like-girls thing.  The Rules was about as far from my interests as you could have gotten at that point.  I truthfully don't know if girls I went to school with read the thing, but I think I remember some talking about it my senior year.  Regardless of my memory, my age group would have at least known about and been cognizant of the book.

Like I said, I never read it.  In fact, I can say with certainty that until I started chapter 2 of Lamb-Shapiro's books, I knew next to zero about the content.  I knew it was gaggingly old-fashioned and led women to believe that they could control men and relationships with weird rules.  What I didn't know is that it is completely crazy and suggests crap straight out of a 1952 Ladies Home Journal.  In the book and seminars (which are still apparently a thing), women are counseled to play the ever-popular hard-to-get and manipulate the men they are dating at the same time.  Some advice from the book, quoted by Lamb-Shapiro:

• Don't sound cynical or depressed...act as if you were born happy.
• Be quiet...Sometimes men want to drive in silence...Don't ruin his concentration.
• Hide self-help books, Prozac, bathrobes, and apparently anything that might let him in on the secret that you aren't a Stepford girlfriend before he comes over.

They also tell women how many times a week the man should be allowed to see her (only once a week the first month and only a very little more as the relationship progresses).  He is supposed to be driven crazy by the lack of access to you.  Right now, some of you are saying, well, even though this advice seems a bit archaic and icky around the edges, it doesn't seem to deserve the blog title.  

I'm getting to that.

So, in Lamb-Shapiro's book, she is attending a Rules seminar, and a woman stands up to give her "success story."  You know, to be the after image.  She supposedly followed the book and purchased the private sessions with the authors for a makeover and consultation (which incidentally includes advice on plastic surgery), and BAM! she lands her a man.  She mentions that there are a few problems during the engagement, but she just kept throwing the Rules at him hoping to fix it.  They married, and she finds out he's a touch on the abusive and angry side.  The authors, who of course have written The Rules for Marriage, help her once again, and she once again throws Rules at him trying to fix the relationship.  Luckily, she got out of the marriage before it escalated, but her explanation is that she did not follow the Rules closely enough.

Pause.  Read that again.  This woman blamed her abusive marriage on the fact that she did not follow some arcane and ridiculous self-help book closely enough.  The book explicitly states, "Abuse doesn't happen in a Rules relationship because when you play hard to get and he works like hell to get you, he thinks you're the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world, even if you're not.  He treats you like a precious jewel."  In another part of the book, they claim, "It's good when men get upset; it means they care about you.  If they're not angry, they're indifferent, and if they're indifferent, they've got one foot out the door."  Women are counseled to be sexually distant and not talking about "your needs" unless asked.  What we have here is a recipe for a dangerous relationship.

I am perfectly aware that the self-help genre in general thrives because it makes users believe that if what they're peddling doesn't work, it's because they didn't try hard enough.  That's bad enough when you're talking  How to Be More Positive, but when you're making people believe it is their supposed bad direction following that caused a spouse to abuse them?  The brakes need to be put on, folks.  

In a related vein, during the seminar one of the authors is discussing "allowing" the man to see you.  She says that she limited her now-husband to the recommended number of times in the book.  He wasn't "allowed" to talk to her more than five minutes a day, but now that they're married he can talk to her all he wants.  "But he gave me rings, he bought me a house; he owns me now, so it's okay."  

This, people, this sort of derivative drivel out of the stone ages is what's driving rape culture.  People are brought up hearing this sort of "advice" and believe it.  Women aren't supposed to make their sexual voices heard, so they don't.  They believe that being raped or in an abusive relationship is the end result of their own lack of ability to be a "proper woman" of some sort.  Can we please agree that this is not the way to create a functional society?

The Rules may not be relevant in itself anymore, but the advice it gives is still here.  The seminars they offer still get paid for and attended.  Yet more women are being set up as victims and told they cannot be the main character in their own lives.  This is not okay.

Why We're Fighting

Some days, days like today, all I want to do is curl up on my couch and cry and hide and hug my wife.  Apparently in Missouri, a gay man was arrested for trying to see his partner in the hospital.  The sick man's family didn't want him there, and the nurse refused to look at the power of attorney papers they had.  He was handcuffed and removed from the hospital.  Now he can't return at all because the hospital has placed him under a restraining order.  You can read the full story here.

I am constantly told by straight people, both ally and enemy to the gay community, that full marriage is not required.  That we have the capability of being just as protected as any hetero couple out there if we just have the correct legal papers in order.  Well, here's a newsflash for those who agree with that idea:

THEY HAD THE LEGAL PAPERS IN ORDER.

One more time in case you didn't quite understand:

THEY HAD THE FUCKING PAPERS IN ORDER AND STILL WERE NOT PROTECTED.

Regardless of the fact that Obama signed something "guaranteeing" that we would not have to deal with situations like this, apparently we still do.  Full legal marriage would prevent things like this.  A stack of papers "simulating" marital status does not.  This poor man just wanted to see his partner, who was lying sick in the hospital, probably just wondering where his partner was.  There is no telling what the stupid family told him about the absence.  They were obviously not the most supportive of the relationship from what I can tell.

THIS is why we keep fighting for marriage. Not civil unions or domestic partnerships, but full, protected marriage.  Yes, we take these lesser items when offered because any protection is better than none at all.  I will sure as hell be in line May 1 when Leon County, Florida starts letting us register as domestic partners.  We need the protection.  Just last year my partner had to have a surgical procedure, and I damn near gave myself an ulcer being terrified and worried that if (Goddess forbid) something happened I would be denied access and decision making ability.  That her family, which is 6 hours away and Jehovah's Witness affiliated, would be the only ones allowed to choose what happened.  I live my life this terrified.  What if I get hurt at work or somewhere, and they don't let her in to see me or make decisions for me?  What if...what if...what if... 

I'm tired as hell of living life terrified.  I decided long ago that my orientation and relationship were not secrets to be hidden.  I have not once changed a pronoun or deferred a conversation because I was worried about the consequences.  I am proud to be who I am, and I am certainly proud to be with my awesome wife of 15 years.  She's amazing and beautiful and brilliant and wonderfully geeky, but my pride will not protect us.  It will not grant either of us the power to control decisions if the worst happens.  And apparently neither will those papers of approximation. Think about that the next time you want to tell me a union or partnership or talk with a lawyer will be enough.    

She has such pretty face...

A good friend of ours is expecting a daughter, and I was picking up a few more things for her baby shower gift in Wal-Mart today.  I came around the corner and found this:

This is a onesie starting in size 0-3 months.  ZERO TO THREE MONTHS!  On the other side of the rack was one intended for boys in gray that said "Don't call me chubby. This is all muscle."  

So what?  A lot of people (including the woman working the infants section) think this is cute.  It is not cute, and let me tell you why.  I've pretty much always been a big girl.  I started gaining weight in fourth grade, and it has fluctuated up and down my whole life.  As a kid, I dieted all the time.  I tried all the ones in the women's magazines laying around the house, and I even checked weight loss books out of the library aimed at kids.  People took it upon themselves to tell me "You have such a pretty face." and "You'd be so much prettier if you just lost a few pounds."  Bullies at school called me a variety of uninspired and cruel names.  I learned to hate my body, hate what it looked like, and it has only been in the last couple of years that I have finally come to a cease fire.  I'm 33.  So for 20+ years, I put tons of energy into hating and hating and hating the one and only body I have.  Yes, I am heavier than I would like.  I would  not be averse to dropping a few pounds in order to be able to buy some of the clothes I like that do not come in my current size.  However, no matter how big or small I am, it has nothing to do with who I actually am, but I was brought up in a society in which one's worth is believed to be tied to one's weight.  Is this really a tradition we want to continue?

No child, girl or boy, needs to grow up in an environment of shame and self-hatred.  There is nothing wrong with promoting healthy living, but there's a fine line between that and the area in which fat-shaming and the offensive onesie live.  The baby I was buying gifts for is not my own, and I do not plan on having any.  I do, however, have very fertile friends, and I want more than anything to promote a world in which our friends' daughters and sons are brought up to value their intelligence, kindness, and courage rather than the size of their jeans.  A world in which onesies like this are not a reality.  A world in which no one hears "But you have such a pretty face" anymore.  

Waxing Poetic the Tenth, Poetry Month Day 9: Just Give Me a Chance

I don't want to jinx things, so I'll just say that the title and some of the sentiment of today's choice is all I want to scream.

Waxing Poetic the Ninth, Poetry Month Day 8: "We Didn't Vilify White People..."

Continuing with my spoken word series here, I present you the amazing Suheir Hammad, a woman of Palestinian heritage with more talent in her little finger than I have in my whole head.

Waxing Poetic the Eighth, Poetry Month Day 7: What Teachers Make

I have had some brilliant teachers in my time, both as a kid and in college. Not only that, but I have some awesome friends who are teachers. AND I have discovered just how much I love to teach while guest lecturing to Women's Studies classes. So needless to say, I adore Taylor Mali's poem "What Teachers Make." If you haven't heard it before, you are in for a treat, and if you have, do yourself a favor and check out some of his other work. You will not be sorry. I heard him last year on campus, and it was one of the best readings I have ever been to, bar none.

Waxing Poetic the Seventh, Poetry Month Day 6: Why So Damn Serious?

According to some of my former workshop members, poetry is not supposed to be funny. When faced with a perfectly brilliant verse about how some other girl's shoe ruined everything or an equally awesome one in praise of asses, they turned their noses (already in the air as it was) up and declared them unworthy. And while I am no expert, I am capable of identifying good poetry, and these were great. But they weren't serious. They weren't good enough to join the "He-Man Stuck Up Poets Club." Well, pardon my French, but fuck them. Poetry is the language of humanity, and we are not serious all the time.

In that vein, here's Beau Sia:

Waxing Poetic the Sixth, Poetry Month, Day 5: I Do

As a poet, I never think I've written about certain aspects of my life enough. My OCD is one of these, but I have at least done some nonfiction and blogging about it. The lesbian aspect of my identity has not appeared nearly as much in my writing, which is why I am particularly excited about my newest news. I've never done a public reading at an open mic or anything. The closest I've come is reading a poem at our friend Violeta's memorial service. Buuuuut...during this year's Pride celebration, I'll be reading with 5 other local LGBT writers! I'm really excited (and a bit scared), and I wrote two new poems specifically addressing my lesbian identity, or at least the growing up with it. I think they're pretty good, but we'll see how they go over on the 18th.

In the meantime, today's selection is from the awesome lesbian poet and activist Andrea Gibson. FSU's Pride Student Union is hosting her on campus on the 14th, and she is going to be amazing. This is "I Do," which is beautiful and heartbreaking and well, here it is:

Waxing Poetic the Fifth, Poetry Month Day 4: What Women Deserve

If you don't know that certain people are leading a war against women, you haven't been paying attention. Being a woman in this country right now is no easy thing, and minority women have it even worse. On the one hand, politicians don't want standard healthcare because that would be too much government control for their taste. On the other, they want to legislate women's health at every turn. You can't have it both ways.

With all this in mind, today's selection is the incomparable Sonya Renee with "What Women Deserve."

Waxing Poetic the Fourth, Poetry Month Day 3: Southern Heritage

Even though I am terrible at memorizing my own poems, I adore Slam Poets and Spoken Word Poetry. Def Poetry Jam is one of my all time favorite shows. How could you not love a show dedicated to the beautiful, funny, amazing poets they feature? As a matter of fact, I don't know how anyone could not love spoken word, but there are those that don't. Having semi-recently graduated from a creative writing program, I can tell you that there are those that not only don't like spoken word, they look down on it. They claim that "classic" poetry is more complex and better than spoken word. While I get that everyone has different tastes, but this is more than that. It's elitism, pure and simple. I love poetry in general, but I tend to identify more with poets who come from my sort of background and also those who come from other minorities and oppressed groups. Not to say that these people don't write "classic" poetry, but spoken word seems to provide more of a haven for us. There will likely be much much more spoke word in these poetry posts, so get ready. :-)

Jason Carney's "Southern Heritage" is a particular favorite of mine. He is brilliant, and I love all his work. But something about this one speaks to me specifically. Whether it's the Mawmaw or the Native heritage or the outrage, I don't know. I just know that I get chills every single time I listen to it.

Waxing Poetic the Third, Poetry Month Day 2: The Mustn'ts Can Stuff It

So, it's Poetry Month again, and as I am a poet...well, I write poetry. Calling myself a poet makes it seem a bit more solid of a vocation than it is right now. In any case, I write the stuff and love reading it as well. On terrible days, I can feel raw and exposed and pained, but then I read certain poets or poetry, and I'm good at least for a while.

In celebration of this awesomely nerdy month, I'm going to try to post an awesome poem of the day. Whether or not this happens is another story (note the italics and use of the word "try."As we can see, it's the 2nd, and this is just the 1st post...) To sum up: there will be poems, though how many is not for sure. Enjoy! And if you have an awesome suggestion for a poet or poem for me to check out, let me know please!

Today's selection is a short and simple one: my favorite Shel Silverstein poem. I've had it memorized since about age 6 and have threatened to get it tattooed somewhere on my person, although this has not yet happened.

Listen to the Mustn'ts

Listen to the MUSTN'TS, child,

Listen to the DON'TS.

Listen to the SHOULDN'TS,

the IMPOSSIBLES, the WON'TS.

Listen to the NEVER HAVES,

then listen close to me--

Anything can happen, child,

ANYTHING can be.

I still love this poem. While I have been told (both as a child and an adult) that it reinforces unrealistic beliefs in the "Dream It, Be It" philosophy, I choose to ignore that. Sometimes it's about wanting to grow up and be a cowgirl/astronaut/writer/teacher. Sometimes it's about grad school, but sometimes it's just about paying the rent when you are sure you will never have the cash by the 1st. Lately it has been more of the second and third. In either case, Shel has always been a comfort to me, and for that I will always be thankful to him.

Book Life 23: Reading Like a 5-Year-Old

For those of you who don't know, I have been employed at the Tallahassee Scholastic Book Fairs Warehouse since August. It isn't nearly as fun as it sounds, as I'm one of the grunts who fills and totes boxes all day in the cold/heat of the warehouse, but it is a rockin company to work for nonetheless. Not to mention, I end up feeling like I've done something decent at the end of the day. After all, I'm sending books to kids; can't be all bad, right? I mean, think about it...especially if you grew up in a rural area pre-internet (yep, old) like I did. Book Fair week was like fucking Christmas morning! Suddenly, where there had been only Wal-Mart to feed your book buying cravings, there were these shiny silver cases sitting in your school library! (And let me note that this was pre-Wal-Mart Supercenter. All we had was a very dinky regular WM with a very dinky book aisle. And yes, I practically lived at the city library, but there's something about owning your own books, you know?) Anyway, I digress...It was like Christmas and your birthday all rolled into one...well, it was for my geeky ass anyway. I never failed to get in trouble during book fair week. In junior high, they would let us go down to the library a couple at a time during English class to shop everyday. The teachers soon learned to make me wait before sending me, because I would spend the WHOLE class wandering down there. As a poor kid, I only had a very limited amount to spend, and by God, I was going to get the most out of every dollar. Screw those posters! Hand me Sweet Valley High, bitches!

With all that said, working at the warehouse has screwed with my reading list somewhat. Between the gift certificates we got during the winter sale and random things along the way, fully half of the 38 books I've read since January 1 have been classified as YA or children's literature--some old classics I'm rereading and some new and interesting discoveries. No, I have not quit reading "adult" literature (sounds like porn, huh?), but reading all this kids' lit has made me think about a few things. When we were little, there were a lot of people who viewed book fair day or library day as a revelation, as a beautiful, exciting thing, but as they get older, they lose the fascination they had so easily as a kid. Books lose that spark. Now, for me they never have. I can be just as excited wandering into a bookstore now as I did going to the book fair or library then, but I am a super book geek of the highest caliber. So I don't count. Take some of the people I work with for example. Scholastic implemented a "Stop, Drop, and Read!" initiative last season for all its branches. For 15 minutes a day, we stop
working and read. For me, this is fucking amazing! Pay me to sit and read? Yes, please! But for others there, it seems to be a chore...just one more thing that must be done before going home for the day. Some even seemed horrified by the idea, which I just don't get.I've noticed a couple of people, however, that have started reading during breaks or bring their own book now instead of just grabbing one of the ones from the warehouse since we've been doing this. It made me smile before, but now that I've been reading so much kids' lit, I think I understand it even better.

Reading children's literature is unlike reading any other genre. The stories are meant to be engaging at all times and to slip teaching moments in when possible, almost covertly. That way, kids are entertained and find themselves understanding new things without a lecture, and that makes a child feel amazing--to feel like they have figured something out without an adult leaning over their shoulder, regardless of what it is. I'm not saying these co-workers necessarily learned anything from reading the books at the warehouse, though I'm sure they did. What I am saying is that, just like I have been the past few weeks, they are being reminded of what it felt like to read as a kid, when every page felt like an actual door opening and we weren't so hard to impress. In turn, this is making them want to read more outside those 15 minutes.

I bitch and moan all the time about grown ups who claim to hate reading. I'm of the mind that no one can truly hate reading; it's just that they haven't found that one book that will just blow their minds. Maybe the problem isn't even that they haven't found the magic book. Maybe they just need to be handed a copy of Bridge to Terabithia or A Wrinkle in Time or Little House on the Prairie to remind them how awesome reading and books are. In short, they need to read like a 5-year-old. But you don't have to take my word for it...go find a kids' book you loved. Read it again, and I guarantee you, you'll see what I mean.

Adventures in Women's Studies: Purity-Mongers Strike Again

Earlier this week, I guest lectured in a Gender and Pop Culture class using the research I did for my honors thesis--the Duggars, Quiverfull, purity movements, and the like. It went quite well as usual, and we ended the class by watching the new 45 minute documentary of Jessica Valenti's The Purity Myth. She analyzes the obsession with a woman's purity and how this in fact sexualizes women and girls even more by placing their entire worth between their legs. Excellent watching. Find a way to view it.

In any case, it just so happens that Valenti was also just on Anderson Cooper debating with Randy Wilson, who is the male half of the couple that created the infamous Purity Balls, ample footage of which can be found on you tube. The usual arguments were made (brilliantly on Valenti's part, weak and insane on Wilson's in my humble opinion), and much merriment was had by all the feminists. Then they discussed a you tube vlog that went viral at the end of last year, posted by a 13-year-old Canadian girl about slut shaming.

Slut Shaming: the act of shaming a woman as a slut for her actual or perceived sexual activity based on rumor, attire, or knowledge of her personal life; most important to note is that it is solely aimed at women

She should be explaining this to a majority of the grown women I know. She breaks down how it contributes to sexism and rape culture and basically does the universe a service by putting this out there for her audience. The after-show "continued discussion" featured several audience members quietly losing their shit over how this 13-year-old was discussing sex and sluts. "She's so young." "She's advocating sex at 13." "She's too young to know anything about this." Okay, I usually have some issues with the current youth movement's insistence on supporting youth rights as extensively as they do. Don't get me wrong. I do think that young adults should be taken seriously, but they are still young adults, which means they do still need guidance and not all of them are as capable and mature as the movement would have you think. However, this girl is obviously quite knowledgeable, and the fact of the matter is that she never advocated sex for 13-year-olds. Not once. She never said she was having sex. Not once. She never even said that all her friends were having sex. Again, not once. What she advocated was well-informed, consensual, safe sex for those who are mentally and physically prepared to deal with the act and its possible consequences--an excellent thing to stump for as far as I can see. These women (and notice that it was only women) who basically attacked her mentally blocked everything she said except "have sex," instantaneously morphing a mature, well-thought-out, brilliant message that should be standard fare in any household into a blanket endorsement of child sex. In the process, they absolutely lost the message, one that they would have done well to absorb. There are kids having sex at 13 (and younger in some cases), and they have internalized the larger culture's ideals that a woman having sex at any age is a slut but a man is a stud. This is not new, but it is still a problem and needs to be addressed as such by women of all ages.

Valenti's main argument is that by focusing our attention completely on whether or not a girl or woman has had sex or not is painting her as nothing more than a sexual creature, which is exactly what the purity movements claim that larger society does and what they claim to be fighting by shoving the purity ideal down the throats of people at every turn. What they need to understand is that no one is attacking the idea of not having sex. That's fine. But they also need to understand that they need to stop attacking the idea of having it, which is also fine. A woman is not only the area between her legs, not just the number of times she's been intimate, and not solely the length of time she remains celibate; she is a complex creature with wants and needs every bit as important as her sexual activity or lack thereof. In short, can we please start telling our daughters and sons that the body is an amazing thing that houses the wonders of the mind and soul, which are truly the markers of a person's worth, and that there are better things to worry about than how many times the kid in the next row has or has not done the deed.

It's a Small, Disordered World

My entire life I have fought to conceal my OCD and its weirdness, the oddball compulsions, and general insanity accompanying it. I never wanted people to notice me checking the door locks over and over, the way I have to walk on sidewalks with cracks, and the way I can't function properly on brick or cobblestone walkways. Now I find myself expounding and expatiating on every bit of minutiae associated with it--in blogs, essays, and (at least attempting) poetry. On the one hand, this makes me vulnerable to comments I would otherwise be able to avoid, and on the other I'm making myself part of a community. So, what's the point? Earlier this evening, I read some comments on another OCD blog asking for help. The person was dealing with a particular type of obsessive thought and was trying to find out whether he was alone. While it is true that every person experiences their disorder in different ways, obsessions and compulsions repeat themselves over and over. I used to have the very kind of intrusive thought the commenter was worried about, and I was able to reassure him he is not alone.

Honestly, I have no other real point here...just that I am constantly amazed at how freakin' small the world gets everyday.

Scary Numbers, or What is Wrong with These People: A Brief Discussion of Rape Stats

While driving home today, I saw a billboard posted by a group called FSU Measure Up. In short, it's a "social norms initiative" which aims to "correct misconceptions about male students in regards to promiscuity and sexual violence" (from their "About" page). Anyway, the text read something like "FSU Men understand the importance of getting consent before sexual intimacy." First of all, let me say that I certainly support the idea that the men at FSU have figured out this apparently esoteric piece of knowledge, but...so I went and poked around the Measure Up website and found the following bits of info:

"88% of FSU men have gotten consent before sexual intimacy."

"97% of FSU men would do something to help a woman if they Saw her being mistreated."

"93% of FSU men would respect someone who intervened to prevent abuse or sexual assault."

Again, good, but...Since when did the notion that one needs consent before sex become such a revolutionary idea? And who are these 12% that did not get consent? Because, hello, that's rape and a crime, and my first inclination is expulsion. Except of course, these were, I assume, anonymous surveys, and so the people conducting them don't know which ones were the miscreants. Who are these 3% who would ignore the mistreatment, and why did so many of the 97% lie on this question? I'm sorry, but it's a valid question here. And the 7% who would not respect someone who intervened need their asses beaten. Here's one more thing to ponder: Why don't these numbers add up? These appear to be all from the same survey, so in theory, the men who got consent would have answered positively on other questions.

I'm just absolutely floored by the need for this campaign. As my friend Eric said, "What ought to be basic human decency is now award-winning behavior: 'Don't I get pie for not raping you?'"

On Gaps in Posting

So, I've been away. For a while. Work has exhausted me to the point of not being able to think clearly, and the blog has suffered unfortunately. Let me catch you up:

1. The biggest news is that I have had an essay accepted for publication in an anthology! It's basically my final project from Nonfiction last spring about OCD, and the anthology, It's All in Her Head, will be out in Spring 2013 from Seal Press. More news as I receive it.

2. I've been working my ass off at Scholastic book fairs packing the fairs for schools. If your kids go to a school in north Florida or extreme south Georgia, I've probably packed the fair that landed in their school library. Excellent company to work for, though I am wiped out at the end of the day. Many interesting thoughts about books and reading due to being there, which will come later as I try to get this poor neglected blog back on the rails.

3. I've been sporadically guest blogging at Queer Mental Health, and just this evening, I also guest blogged at Vocal Youth, which is run by my amazing friend A'ishah.

4. Lastly, for now, I have submitted my application for grad school--this time to the MFA program at FSU. Failing that (after I have my mental break and attempt hari kari), I'll put in for the library science program. More news on that as I receive it as well.

Other than that, I've been reading like a mad bastard. My profile at GoodReads will attest to that, and hopefully I will be blogging reviews again soon. For all those two or three of you that read this, sorry for the neglect, and I hope to have this thing going again soon. Peace!

Book Life 22: Never Drink Your Rich Roommate's Champagne, or Rural Boy Goes Ivy League, A Semi-Tragedy (Plus One Awesome Chunk of News)

As a book geek of massive proportions, I have been suffering a deep blue funk over the closing of Borders. While I try to shop my local used bookstores for the most part, sometimes you gotta hit up the big shiny bookstore, you know? And Borders was the best of the ones I'm familiar with. I found the book I'm blogging on there in the bargain section slashed another 50% because my beloved Borders is going under. I'm glad to be able to afford a few books I've been wanting because they are so cheap, but I hate the reasons for it. But I digress...

Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overacheiver by Walter Kirn

If you are at all familiar with this blog, you know that I am from a low SES rural background (and continue to be) and have had some difficulties adjusting to life in a town seemingly stuffed with entitled, pretentious people. (My previous rantings on the subject can be found listed under the "poverty" tag in the cloud to your right.) So when I saw this book, I snatched it up immediately, thinking I'd found some wonderful if distant authorial soul mate. Eh, not really.

Though I enjoyed the read, I found myself constantly searching for the thing the title and blurb promised. I understand why he included early memories, because after all, it is a memoir. However, most of it didn't seem to click with the expectations an initial glance gives you. Once he arrived at Princeton, it appears with his first roommates, a snobby group of over-privileged people I wanted to smack and other classmates wandering about in the background of the narrative. It falls away again shortly thereafter only to resurface here and there in the second half of the book, in between drug addled hazes and what looks to be an exhaustion-based disconnection with reality. As I've said about many a memoir I have read, I was not there and can make no claims about what did and did not happen and how it affected the author. But in many places, it seemed less to be the overwhelming nature of being thrown into the company of a class he was unfamiliar with than his own preexisting issues.

Knowledge is a reckoning...a way to assess your location, your true position, not a strategy for improving your position. (p.23)

Having said that, I did find a few places in which I was nodding in agreement. It isn't that it was a bad or poorly conceived book. (I think more people from rural, low income areas/backgrounds need to express these things, hence the reason I am always ranting on about them and reading this book.) I simply think that if he wanted to write a memoir about his discombobulation and how he dealt with the upper class twilight zone he ended up in, he could have done a much better job. I wanted more of the actual conflict and how he proposed to combat it. I don't mean to give anything away, but at the end when he finds himself deeper in an upper class arena than before, he makes no mention of it. It's presented as a moment of "whoo hoo! I got this!" rather than what could prove to be a shove into an even more pretentious pit of vipers. I know he couldn't conceivably go on forever; a book must end somewhere, after all. I just wish he could have acknowledged the depth of the issue and the effects it would have on him in the future or even how it has affected him now that he's all grown up and distanced from the actual events.

In the end, if you're looking for a more eloquent and extensive discussion of the problems I ramble on about on occasion, this isn't exactly it, but read it anyway. It does have its moments.

And now for something you'll really like...

In other book related news, it pays to follow authors you like on Facebook. Why is that, you ask? Because sometimes they post interesting and awesome things. Take yesterday for example. Chuck Palahniuk posted an opportunity for bloggers: all you had to do was email Double Day with your blog and physical address for a chance to read and review his new book Damned before it hits shelves in October. As you may have surmised, I will be one of the lucky ones. It isn't as if I've become entitled to an exclusive audience with the book, but it is pretty darn cool nonetheless. I have no idea when it may arrive, but rest assured you will know when it does. Stay tuned.

Book Life 21: In Which I Ramble About the Abortive Ending of the Vampire Chronicles

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you have not read the last two Chronicles books, and do not want anything at all spoiled, do not read this. I despise spoilers, and would not want to ruin the experience for you.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been rereading the Vampire Chronicles in their entirety which I don't think I've done since the last one was published. Oh, I pick up Body Thief or Memnoch occasionally, but this time I started at Interview and just finished the last page of Blood Canticle. Up through Blood and Gold, which is (finally) the full tale of the life of Marius, I remembered how much I loved the Chronicles. I am a self-avowed fan of Lestat and most of the books Anne Rice has written. I've read all of them, Mayfair series, Violin, Servant of the Bones, the erotica, etc. Anyway, I've been pondering what went wrong with Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle, because most assuredly, something did go wrong.

It isn't that the final two books aren't well written. I'm pretty sure it is impossible for Anne to write badly (although I haven't read and don't plan to read her newest ones so they could be terrible for all I know). However, something changed with Memnoch, and the series slowly drifted apart from there. If you haven't read it, Memnoch tells the tale of Lestat being courted by the Devil himself and taken through the "true" history of creation, God, etc. Being the religion geek that I am, I liked this book a great deal. I took issue with some of the plot twists at the end, but all in all, I enjoyed it. After this you have The Vampire Armand, Pandora, Vittorio, Merrick, and Blood and Gold. Armand is a whiner, but it was a good read. Pandora and Vittorio are largely outside the realm of the Chronicles (with the exception of Pandora's involvement with Marius), but excellent books. Vittorio is beautiful and strange enough that I forgive its digression. Merrick is the first book in which Anne tried to meld the Vampires and the Mayfairs, but it works in this one. Merrick is distant enough from the Mayfair series that you don't get bogged down, and frankly I just loved the Voodoo in the story. Blood and Gold is oddly framed, but being that it is Marius, it's fine. Then the train wreck happens. The thread of the main Chronicles story gets lost somewhere in Armand, and since the next few books are digressions, it just drifts away entirely until she attempts to find it again in Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle.

*Sigh* The problem with the last two books is that they really don't want to be part of the Chronicles. Were it not for the fact that Lestat frames the first and narrates the second, they would have no ties whatsoever and could be continuations of the Mayfair Witches (especially Canticle). Here's the issue: Anne broke with the Catholic Church years and years ago, and sometime just before Memnoch she began to reconcile with them, which intensely colored her writing. She began to to think of the Chronicles as "darkness" and even titled her fairly recent memoir Called Out of Darkness. She started the fictional accounts of Jesus' life (which on the whole are not terrible--again, religion geek) at this point, and even appeared on that horrific show The 700 Club (see my response to that HERE). Even more recently she has broken with the Church again, but kept her Christianity. But now I'm digressing a bit. The point is that this all affected her books immensely. If Memnoch wasn't enough to prove it to you, Lestat's philosophizing throughout Canticle should do it.

I think Anne felt some modicum of responsibility to her long time loyal fans to finish the series rather than drop it at Marius' tale, but rather than take the time to properly end it as it warranted, she decided to rush the job. Blackwood Farm seems to travel on an odd and twisty path that makes little sense at times, though it is, of course, beautifully written as always. Toward the end, we get another main character shoehorned into our little universe, and at first, she seems okay--one of those characters you can stomach but don't really grow to love. The first time I read this (and this time, because I didn't remember what happened) all I could hope was that Mona would fade out of the picture early into Canticle, though I knew she'd appear because of the way Anne structured the end of Blackwood Farm, ending it in the middle of Lestat making her a fledgling. How sadly wrong I was. In all the Anne Rice novels EVER, there has never been a major character that I didn't grow to love in some way--until Mona Mayfair. She is the most horrendous little monster, and it gets to the point that every time she opens her mouth you think you can't dislike her more. Then she proves you wrong. She effectively ruins most of Canticle for me.

Now, I have heard (a few) dissenting opinions. There are those that actually like Mona, though how I will never know, and I'm sure those people think Anne did a wonderful job closing out the Chronicles. I am not among them. She dispatches Merrick Mayfair into the great beyond with so little fanfare that it's insulting (both to the character and her readers) in order to tie up a major plot line in Farm. I mean, really, how in the hell did she justify that mess to herself? Merrick was a powerful enough witch and Voodoo priestess that she could have sent Goblin's soul into the light without flinging herself into the flames as well. Hell, she was aiming to do just that in Merrick with the ghost of Claudia. Just ridiculous. Then Canticle, instead of truly focusing on Lestat, as the last of the series should have done in my opinion, she centers it on Mona's involvement with the Taltos (from the Mayfair Witches trilogy) and her unending ability to be one of the biggest bitches in christendom (oh, and Lestat's inexplicable obsession with Rowan Mayfair). Most of a few chapters in the middle are her being bitchy, Lestat getting angry at her, and Quinn being the go between. It was unbearably tedious. Frankly, he should have let her die on her bower of flowers in Quinn's bed at the end of Farm and saved us all the trouble.

In the final analysis, what I think happened is that Anne felt she needed to give her fans an ending to the Chronicles and (for some unknown reason) one to the Witches as well, so she threw them in her mental blender and voila! She used Farm to shove Mona into the picture, giving the Mayfairs a reasonable claim on story space, and then she used Canticle to play out the end of the Taltos saga. I might not be so aggravated by all this if she didn't attempt to call them both Chronicle books. Had she simply been honest and presented them as a bizarre (and wholly unnecessary) extension of the Mayfairs, I would at least have known what I was walking into: A hot mess, but at least a properly categorized one.

Waxing Poetic, the Second: I Could Totally Be His Groupie, or In Love with People I've Never Met

I stumbled across this poem while searching something else this morning, and of course, I fell in love with it as I do all of Alexie's work. Right now I'm in the middle of rereading the Vampire Chronicles again, but I think I may be working my way through all of Alexie's books again after this. I swear I could just fall into his books and poetry and live there under his ash-blasted skies and strange sun. I've told Anna before that if he ever showed up at our front door, I would not be held responsible for my actions. Of course, all he would have to do is read me his poetry all night...

Go, Ghost, Go by Sherman Alexie

At this university upon a hill,

I meet a tenured professor

Who's strangely thrilled

To list all of the oppressors --

Past, present, and future -- who have killed.

Are killing, and will kill the indigenous.

O, he names the standard suspects --

Rich, white, and unjust --

And I, a red man, think he's correct,

But why does he have to be so humorless?

And how can he, a white man, fondly speak

Of the Ghost Dance, the strange and cruel

Ceremony

That, if performed well, would have doomed

All white men to hell, destroyed their colonies,

And brought back every dead Indian to life?

The professor says, "Brown people

From all brown tribes

Will burn skyscrapers and steeples.

They'll speak Spanish and carry guns and knives.

Sherman, can't you see that immigration

Is the new and improved Ghost Dance?"

All I can do is laugh and laugh

And say, "Damn, you've got some imagination.

You should write a screenplay about this shit --

About some fictional city,

Grown fat and pale and pretty,

That's destroyed by a Chicano apocalypse."

The professor doesn't speak. He shakes his head

And assaults me with his pity.

I wonder how he can believe

In a ceremony that requires his death.

I think that he thinks he's the new Jesus.

He's eager to get on that cross

And pay the ultimate cost

Because he's addicted to the indigenous.

The Jesus Rede?: In Which a Pagan Considers the Seeming Impossibility of Christo-Paganism

Quite frequently, I stumble onto a topic that fascinates me, and then I devote inordinate amounts of time and energy pulling it apart. This is how the entire Quiverfull honors thesis occurred. Last night I watched The 19th Wife, a murder mystery about fundamentalist Mormons in polygamist marriages, and it sparked the long ignored desire to learn more about Mormonism in general. I already have the list of books ready. By the same token, a search for a long-forgotten novel about witches in a swamp randomly pulled up a list of books about, of all things, Christian Paganism. After posting a short status on it on Facebook, there ensued a civilized discussion about and wondering over the topic. Of course, someone interjected that they believe that the amalgamation is a natural progression for someone raised in a Christian background, then stated the use of statues of the Virgin Mary in some Pagan ritual. *sigh*

Okay, I have a small Mary on my altar. While I spent my youth among the pews of various Protestants, I was never really Catholic, but I recognize that Mary is truly an altered version of the Goddesses of old. She was the Christian face of Isis and Cerridwen and so many others, and this is why she sits among Kwan Yin and Ganesha and my dragons on the polished wood. Not because she represents some connection with a faith that I have long abandoned. When I stepped away from Christianity, I stepped away. Now maybe that was my own particular experience. Maybe no other ex-Christians/current Pagans had this experience, but I know this isn't true. I've met too many who went through the exact same thing. In addition to all this, I for one have quite a large amount of respect for most of the teachings of the man who was Jesus. I think he did exist, but that he was simply a brilliant philosopher much like the Buddha or many other before and since. I don't worship him on my particular altar, but I see how some Pagans could include him in their own worship--at least the teachings of love, not the idea of him as the son of the Christian God.

Having said all that, here's what I really think: there is no way to truly mesh Paganism in any form with Christianity. The Christian religion, at its heart, is based around the notion that God required a bloody human sacrifice in order to redeem humankind of its sins. This is antithetical to everything I've ever learned about Paganism in general. Our Goddesses and Gods do not require, do not ask for blood on their altars, and we do not need to go crawling on our knees for forgiveness for "sins." Whatever we do, we do. I have gone to the Goddess and God to ask for help in overcoming the faults that caused me to make some error, but never for forgiveness. That is something I must give to myself. In any case, my point is how is it possible to wed a religion drenched from its very beginning in blood to one opposed to such things. Yes, I plan on delving into the books written by those in the various Christo-Pagan traditions in order to see what they say about their own faith, but I am at a complete loss to even begin to fathom how they convince themselves this works.

If there are any Christo-Pagans/Trinitarians/etc. reading, please feel free to contact me with your own explanations. I am truly interested, despite my utter lack of faith in the possibility.

P.S. For those who call themselves "Christian Witches," how exactly do you gloss over the injunction of "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."?