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.

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 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.

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.

Book Life 20: Vampires and Philosophy, or Lessons Mema Taught Me

Some of you are going to laugh at me; I accept this. It has happened before, trust me. My own beautiful, loving wife thinks me utterly mad, as does at least one of my oldest friends, but oh, well...having said that, here we go.

I am one of those people who believe that, yes, one person can change the world. It may be one tiny action at a time, but it is possible. I have always believed this, taught at the knee of my Mema that every nice thing you do means something. She never said the exact words, "you can change the world one act of kindness at a time," but that's damn well what she taught me. Small acts of respect and kindness are sometimes seen as simply good manners, especially in the South, but for those lucky few of us brought up by people like my Mema, we know that it's more. It's the only way that we can affect any positive change in the world.

What brings this up, you ask? I've been rereading Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles and just finished The Tale of the Body Thief. So what? Completely unrelated? Not so! If you've never read it, this is a story of astral projection, human and vampire nature, and the very nature of good in the universe. In this novel as in none of the others of the series (save perhaps Memnoch the Devil) does Lestat wax quite so philosophical. He ponders the nature of his soul when anchored in human and vampire flesh and the ideas of good and evil as affected by souls in those two spheres. In one particular section, Lestat is discussing the work of Rembrandt and his theories on his life and art.

With each portrait he understood the grace and goodness of mankind ever more deeply. He understood the capacity for compassion and wisdom which resides in every soul...At last the faces Rembrandt painted were not flesh-and-blood faces at all. They were spiritual countenances, portraits of what lay within the body of the man or the woman; they were visions of what the person was at his or her finest hour, of what they stood to become...[His many self-portraits] were his personal plea to God to note the progress of this man, who, through his close observation of others like him, had been completely religiously transformed. "This is my vision," said Rembrandt to God. (The Tale of the Body Thief, 36)

The first time I read this, I was consumed in relief that at least one other person (Anne Rice through her creation) felt the same as I: that the true nature of humanity is goodness and compassion and love, though it may be hard to see at times. All humans have the capacity to love and do good, though some, for whatever reasons, do not show it. And it is for this reason it is so important to do good and kind things. Sometimes, I think, it is enough to let others know that kindness still exists. In some cases, that may be enough to keep that tiny spark of humanity glowing, and it has always been my opinion that once someone is shown true kindness that they will feel compelled in some way to show this to others. Here again, Lestat (and Rice) and I agree.

What a miracle, I thought. One tiny flame could make so many other flames; one tiny flame could set afire a whole world. Why, I had, with this simple gesture, actually increased the sum total of light in the universe, had I not? (The Tale of the Body Thief, 116)

He is literally speaking of candles here, but taken in the greater context, it's easy to extend that to actions in the world. I think Mema would have liked this part of Lestat; unfortunately, the whole blood drinking thing may have constituted a problem.

Book Life 19: I Have Always Relied on the Awesomeness of Ballsy Southern Broads

When I was about 16, I bought a copy of Brett Butler's Knee Deep in Paradise in the Wal-Mart book aisle. This was before my hometown had a Supercenter, and I haunted that aisle to the point that I can still see it in my head. At the time, I was up to my neck in self-loathing Evangelical fervor, convinced of my own damnation and living in a black cloud of suicidal funk because of it. As was my habit prior to and after that time, I buried myself in books that, surprisingly, were more supportive of that little lesbian hiding within than the psycho that was wandering around on the surface. I found E. Lynn Harris' first novel (Invisible Life) at our library (I still marvel at that), and Brett Butler in Wal-Mart. Now, Butler is not gay, but she has had a similarly disjointed and broken life. And she hails from my neck of the woods--proof that you can be as odd as we seem to be there and survive, even thrive.

The 90's were rife with comedians and stand-up specials on every channel, but none of them ever caught my attention like Butler. Despite the jokes, something told me she had been as destructive and destroyed as I was at the time, and I loved her for it and have ever since. To this day, if I still had copies of her specials, I guarantee I would laugh until I hurt myself at her. I still quote things from her specials now. I watched every single episode of Grace Under Fire and was heartbroken when it no longer existed.

When writing, I could call myself back from the darkness, rest and reclaim things I'd let go of long ago.--Brett Butler

In the years before the internet was the monstrosity that it is now, I never really knew when books I would be interested in would be coming out until they hit the shelves at Wal-Mart or the library. So I had no idea her book was coming out until I stumbled upon it that day. It was profound enough of an experience that I remember it nearly 17 years later. Much like the Harry Potter releases so many years after, I did not sleep that night so I could devour the book. Then I read it again. And again.

I recently found another copy in one of my used book haunts and snatched it up immediately, worrying that I had only found it so engrossing and profound because of the time in which I first read it. I was wrong. I still see my own shattered years in hers, though the shattering was due to much different events, and my family in hers, both of which collapsed under the weight of their own particular Southern dysfunction. This has been less of a review than a love letter to one of my favorite famous women and her book, I know, but I don't think it could have been anything less. It is strong, intelligent Southern women like Brett Butler that make me proud of my Alabama roots. She is what I think Mema was to me but would have been publicly had she been born much later and what I hope I am or will be.

Not Without My Books, or Change is a Four-Letter Word: Hoarding Rears Its Ugly, Cluttered Head

This afternoon Anna had a sudden urge to see what the living room would look like rearranged. So she found a program online, and I spent the better part of an hour or so calling out the measurements of everything. Basically, it all came to nothing because the stuff we have simply doesn't seem to work in any other configuration, but I do have a point to this...Afterwards, Anna was saying that we have too much stuff--primarily books. It isn't that she doesn't like books. Quite the contrary. She loves to read as much as I do, but she simply doesn't have the need to keep them once they're read for the most part. I like to keep a great deal of mine, mainly because I'm always certain that, at some point in the future, I will want to reread it or will need it for something, and therefore in order to save the trouble of finding and buying it again, I should keep it. In the past, I have been proven quite right in many cases. Some of my books show the wear of many, many readings. Some I may have only reread once or twice, but they are either difficult to find or simply things that I love and want around. Some are, well...

Anyway, during the course of the conversation, I burst into my usual frustrated tears. My immediate response was to go on the defensive. "I did good! I've gotten rid of a ton of stuff!" And I have been good and gotten rid of a ton of stuff. Our closet can testify to that. My gods the amount of crap we cleared out over the past few months, when one counts the storage apocalypse as well as the closet! But certain things, books in this case, I absolutely panic at the thought of clearing out. Take my "school" bookshelf for instance. There are things on there that I have used many times, and were I in graduate school right now, I would be using them again--books I have kept from various classes, some from my honors thesis, and a few (*cough* 9 *cough*) versions of the Bible for comparative purposes. The problem is that I am not in grad school and don't look to be for quite a while. I can't afford to retake the GRE without a job, nor can I afford the application fees. And besides all that, even if I got into a graduate school right now, we certainly couldn't afford to move to wherever it might be. But I just can't get rid of them. If and when I needed them, it would prove difficult and expensive to replace some of them, so I should keep them. Not to mention the fact that if I got rid of them, it would be like I was admitting defeat in a way, letting FSU's rejection decide that I'm not going to do what I want to do...

When really...it's just trading in or selling some books that I'm not using at the moment...I hate OCD.

Book Life 18: These are Not the Pagans I Was Looking For

I should be asleep right now. Except for a two hour nap yesterday and around the same this evening, I've been up since 9 am Sunday. Stayed up, played D&D, came home, watched the season finale of Game of Thrones, and should have crashed. My body, however, had different plans. So I picked up the next book on my to-read list (at least the next one I have), which is the book you see to the left, Pagan Visions for a Sustainable Future edited by Ly de Angeles, Emma Restall Orr, and Thom van Dooren. I was very excited when I bought this book a while back, because as my fellow PSA (Pagan Student Association) members at FSU can tell you, Pagan Ethics is one of those things we can discuss for weeks. Those were some of the most involved and popular discussions at our meetings, in fact. The popular thought is you can ask 10 Pagans a question on anything and get at least 15-20 responses, and it's true. We do love to discuss and pick apart and analyze and debate, which is a good thing. It means we are open minded and civilized enough to realize that we are not going to agree completely and that's okay. Anyway, all of the above is to say I was quite enamored of the idea of this book when I bought it. There aren't very many Pagan Ethics books floating around, after all. However, of the many many books I have read over the years, Pagan literature has been the genre that has most disappointed me, and unfortunately, this book falls into that category.

The introduction rekindled the excitement I had when I found it:

"We make jokes about..."superstar Pagans" and "cash-register Druids," and all the while these people are becoming more and more common...What is so significant about these people is that they are coming to define what Paganism is...to a public that is greedy for anything even slightly sensational."--Thom van Dooren, "Introduction"

I loved this statement and a few other similar to it, because it's just true. Non-Pagans who have delved even shallowly into our literature for their own edification will likely recognize a handful of names like Scott Cunningham, Silver Ravenwolf, and Starhawk; they tend to serve as our emissaries into the wider world whether we wish them to or not, based entirely on their wide availability and copious publications. This is not to say that I have not read them. On the contrary, as a young solitary Wiccan 12 years ago, Cunningham was one of my go-to reads, and Starhawk pops up in Women's Studies and Religion texts all the time. This is also not to say that I like them. Cunningham had excellent information, and I think he's awesome. Silver Ravenwolf I believe is a blight on the Pagan world, and as my friend A'ishah and I have discussed many times, I am tired of Starhawk. From all appearances, she is the only feminist Pagan woman writing anything ever, and not all of it is worth the paper upon which it is printed. Certainly I am not saying that just because these are popular authors they have no worth, but as van Dooren pointed out, this problem is that they are coming more and more to completely represent Paganism. Ravenwolf and even Cunningham represent only one particular portion of the Pagan community, and yet, they are constantly put forth as representatives of our entire community. My Paganism is absolutely not that of Ravenwolf, and it has not been that of Cunningham for years. However, due to their place as spokespeople, we are all specifically Wiccan and solitary and etc. to outsiders.

Wow, I kind of veered off topic there...My point is that this book's intro set it up to be the response to that erroneous appearance with all the talk of superstar Pagans, but then it went down in flames. My excitement over the book made me forget the cardinal rule of buying Pagan books: always read the contributor list. There's Starhawk rearing her over-published head. I realize that many consider her not a superstar Pagan but a classic Pagan author, much like others in various other religious sects. But I can guarantee you, given the experiences I've had in Religion and Women's Studies courses over the past few years, she falls more into the former category than the latter. And maybe these editors see her as that classic Pagan author, but I think to do that, one has to ignore the place she is given in academic circles beyond the Pagan community. By placing her in this collection, they lost all credibility to me. Of course, many of the articles were well-written and maybe thought provoking for those in the particular groups addressed, but for me it was all overshadowed by that contradiction between ideal and published reality.

My kingdom for a good, solid Pagan Ethics book, one that does not privilege Starhawk and/or the Wiccan community. There are other Pagans out here, I assure you.

Book Life 17: "Poetry Should Not Flinch"

Given that one of my degrees is in Creative Writing, it should come as no surprise that I love poetry. I write it when my brain wants to cooperate, and I read the good stuff when I find it. Poetry is kind of like drugs: the bad stuff can really screw with you, but the good stuff, ah, now that will get you strung out wanting more.

Elegy for the Southern Drawl by Rodney Jones

I stumbled on this while picking books at Powells.com to use my trade credit on, and I am so glad that I did. Jones is an Alabama-born poet with a beautiful voice. The title quote is from his poem "A Coronary in Liposuction," and I swear it's going on the "maybe one of my tattoos" list. After reading this book, I immediately realized I'd read a poem of his elsewhere, and lo and behold if I didn't find it in one of my favorite collections ever: Working the Dirt: An Anthology of Southern Poets edited by Jennifer Horne. I picked that one up in a tiny bookstore in Monroeville, AL when we went home to visit. I fell in love with it, and there Jones was on page 164. Too bad I'm so broke, or I'd order the rest of his books right now!

While I'm on the subject of poetry, I have also recently had the good fortune to read The Alphabet Conspiracy by Rita Mae Reese. A friend and former professor gave me a copy, and it's wonderful.

Book Life 16: Love Letter to a Fiction

Natalie: "I am [your friend], Ambrose."

Ambrose: "No, you're a black widow, wooing men to their doom with your feminine wiles."

Mr. Monk: "You wooed? With your wiles? What are you doing waving your wiles around?"

--Mr. Monk on the Road

(I reeeeaaaallllly want the snowglobe and bobblehead that USA used to sell...they are so awesome. The only thing better would be getting my books autographed or getting a signed pic of the cast *swoon*.)

For anyone who knows me or reads this blog, it should come as no surprise that I am in love with the Monk series (book and television). Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out and Mr. Monk on the Road have been glaring at me from the book shelf since the latter came out in January, but schoolwork kept me from them. I finally got to read them over the last couple of days, and as usual, I was blown away. Couldn't put them down. It's hard to discuss plots of Monk books without accidentally giving too much away, so I'll leave that alone. However, I have to applaud Goldberg's depictions of anxiety disorders once again.

I've had a couple of conversations in online OCD groups about Monk, and the reviews are somewhat mixed. Most people I've asked like the show, but there are always a few who have issues. I've never understood why those few don't like Monk. Yes, he is slightly exaggerated at some points, but for crying out loud, it's a television universe. TV always exaggerates, even if just a little. What the Monk books and show manage to do is mystifying to me. OCD is never treated as a joke in itself (like Monica in Friends); there are characters here and there who consider Monk's issues to be a joke, but that's how it is. I can tell you from plenty of experience that a good number of people think OCD is not even a real disorder, that those of us who have it are simply looking for attention or are inflating our claims. Monk is as real a fictional character as I've seen in quite a while. His disorder does not disappear when he needs to catch the bad guy; in fact, it has prevented the catching of the bad guy in several instances. He gets better and worse depending on stress and situation, and that's definitely true. Almost better than the realistic OCD is the fact that he is not a saint. Television sometimes likes to paint those of us with mental disorders as innocent victims of circumstance who should have halos. Well, victims we may be on occasion, but innocent with halos? Definitely not. Monk has figurative warts (literal ones would obviously have to be removed immediately), and the show does not hesitate to show that he is not perfect or a saint. He's just a guy who happens to have OCD, albeit a much more severe case than many, and he's brilliant. I'm woman enough to admit that I miss him between books now that the series is over.

Book Life 15: Deep South Musings

I can always tell when I am the most homesick. The radio stays tuned to country, and my reading list tends to be filled with books somehow attached to Alabama or the South in general. Case in point: Confederates in the Attic and The Devil Amongst the Lawyers.

Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War by Tony Horwitz

Despite my upbringing in the Heart of Dixie, I have never been a Civil War buff. In fact, I tend to ignore it as much as possible for sheer annoyance factor. Once you've listened to your paranoid, racist stepfather discuss the technicalities of Pickett's Charge or why the CSA should never have lost this or that battle ad nauseam, you start to hate the topic. That being said, I've always been fascinated by the obsession with the War Between the States, or "War of Northern Aggression" depending on who it is you're talking with, and the people who are basically knee-deep in it 24-7. Horwitz was as well, and wrote this fabulous book. My first concern when I pick up any book about the South is how the author is treating it, especially if they themselves are not from the South. I shouldn't have worried about this one. Horwitz does the near impossible in that he manages to give a fair view of some of our, shall we say, less-enlightened citizens while describing the rest of us and our home as it is. I don't mean that he's whitewashed over our failings; no, he includes those. However, he also does not sweep in as the city intellectual and talk about the areas he's visiting as Deliverance II. Even if you hate the Civil War, this is worth the read.

The Devil Amongst the Lawyers by Sharyn McCrumb

"There is no more vicious bigot than a city intellectual contemplating someone to whom he feels intellectually or morally superior."

This is the latest of McCrumb's amazing Ballad Novels, set in the Appalachians of Tennesee and the surrounding areas of Virginia and the Carolinas. If you've never read anything of hers, stop reading this right now and go order everything in the Ballad series first, then everything else. Not only are they excellent mysteries, they are addictive as hell. This is the first book I've read in a long while that I could not make myself put down. I read the entire thing (minus the first 50 pages whoch I read before falling asleep sitting up last night) this morning...admittedly not an unusual occurrence for me, but still. McCrumb, like my favorite sci-fi author Octavia E. Butler with feminist problems, manages to work complex issues of poverty and rural life into the narrative without getting preachy or heavy handed. I honestly cannot say enough wonderful things about these novels.

Anyone who knows me (or hell, anyone who's paid attention to this blog) knows that the misrepresentation of the South, particularly the mountain and rural South, is one of my pet projects. Women's Studies failed me on these points, and I abandoned it as a graduate pursuit partially because I could not stand the thought of ramming the topic into conversation for the next 30 or 40 years. More importantly, I had conflicts over this very issue on at least a weekly basis in classes across my particular academic spectrum. (See this blog for the last one of the spring semester.) I honestly don't know what this means for my future in academia. Maybe it's just particularly bad down here in Florida, who knows...All I do know is that I am relieved and overjoyed to find books that don't paint all of us as slack-jawed morons.

Book Life 14: Deeply Wonkified, A Trip Into Chuck Klosterman's Brain

Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

I picked this book up originally because I had read a short piece of Klosterman's on the internet somewhere and thought he was fairly amusing. I found him funny enough in this book to laugh a good bit, but I did have my issues. He's primarily a pop culture/music critic, and we differ greatly on some points. For instance, he doesn't seem to like The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother very much, calling their "credibility" into question, but immediately after that he calls The Simpsons "high-end" comedy. Don't get me wrong; I make no arguments that BBT or HIMYM are high-brow, and I sort of like the Simpsons, more several years ago than now. ( I remember watching the first pieces of it on the Tracey Ullman Show and then its very first episodes back when they originally came on and liking them.) But I mean, really? High-end comedy? Doubtful.

I only skimmed the football essay, because well, it got a bit technical. While I love to learn about a wide variety of things, specific plays and strategies in football are not among them. (Even he acknowledges that this will likely happen) That said, I LOVED his discussion of time travel. Even though it is one of my pet loves, I am not so ridiculously blind that I can't see the paradoxes and holes in it, and he does a pretty great job talking about them. I did enjoy the way he structured the essays, and the pieces on David Koresh and the Unabomber were really interesting. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for cult leaders and misanthropes.) Oh, and did you know that Werner Herzog made a "1976 Bavarian glass-blowing epic [called] Heart of Glass"? A glass-blowing epic? Who knew?

It isn't that this was a bad read, and I may pick up one of his other books in the future. However, it will likely only be if I find it at a used bookstore at which I have credit.

Panic and Doom/Book Life 13: In Which the Recent Graduate Comes to Terms with Said Graduation and Buries Her Panic in Books

Well, here we are: the very first post-graduation blog post. As of about 10 pm Friday the 29th, I became an alumna of Florida State with a BA in Religion, minor in Women's Studies; a BA with honors in Women's Studies, minor in Religion; and a BA in Creative Writing, minor in Latin. Since then, I have had about 3 panic attacks and at least one minor breakdown. Yes, I'm happy and proud of myself; after all, this is something I've been looking forward to for quite some time now. The entire seven years I was out of school, all I could think of was getting back in and finishing what I started, and I finally did--three times over. But now, without homework and classes, I am utterly lost. When I graduated high school, I knew I was headed off to college, so everything was cool. Now, I have no plan. With the Religion department rejecting me yet again, I have been left to wander about in my own ruminations, and as anyone who knows me well will tell you, my ruminations are no place to wander aimlessly.

Thus, I have spent the last week or so since the official "hell no" from the department showed up in my mailbox going over and over my choices. First of all, I HAVE to get a job, which is much easier said than done in this town, open availability or not. Anna needs a break, and we need to pay bills. Second, I have to figure out what happens next. There is a short list of schools that I would love to attend for my MA/PhD, and there's also Teach for America, which embodies many of my most deeply held ideals about changing the world. Of course, any of those choices hinge on my acceptance to said program, none of which are simple to get into, and who wants to give me enough of a financial package. Right now, though, I just need a paycheck.

Okay, enough of my panicked existential angst about the future...since I am no longer writing papers and studying for tests, I once again have time to read whatever the hell I want for the first time in ages. :-)

Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card

"Who cares if a mathematician calls us dirty names like 'unreal'? They say such slanders about the square root of minus two as well."--Diko, in Pastwatch

I first read this book several years ago and fell in love with it. Normally, I am not that much of an Orson Scott Card fan--not that he isn't great, but just not one of my favorites. This particular book, however, is neither part of any of his series nor like any of his other writings as far as I can tell. Written from a far future vantage point, the human race has just been through a century of warfare, famine, and other horrors and is now living in a time of peace and plenty. They've developed what is called Pastwatch, which has built machines capable of looking at the past. As it progresses, they figure out that they are actually capable of changing the past as well, and one scholar discovers that Christopher Columbus may very well be the point at which all future conquest and evil began. I won't go on, because, you know, spoilers, but rest assured it is worth the read. Even if sci-fi isn't usually your thing, Pastwatch should be on your to-read list, if for no other reason than Card has discovered the most seamless way of working historical research into fiction than I've seen in a long time.

I'm Having an Affair with an Adverb: Waxing Poetic, the First

It's no secret that I love poetry; I've written it (and everything else I can manage) for as long as I can remember. Being in poetry workshops has only made this love an obsession. Everything I think tries to come out in lines, in fact. Anyway, the point is that I tend to fall desperately in love with words and poems and lines and, well, I get somewhat carried away at times. The following is one poem I've become engrossed in. The bolded lines I'm in love with...

* * * * * * * *

Monet Refuses the Operation by Lisel Mueller

Doctor, you say that there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and changes our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end.

Book Life 12: Geeky Revisited, Awe, and We Was Po': Another Voice

Once again, it's that magical time of year--those few weeks when, even though one semester has ended and another has yet to begin, there is wonder in the air. What? No, not the holiday season. I mean that small span of time in which there is no homework and I can read whatever I want! I've already gone through 7 books with way too many more waiting in line. Hence, time for another book life blog!

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so." -Douglas Adams

Even though I've read them before (many times before, as a matter of fact), the five books comprising the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy never fail to amaze me. (And yes, for those of you unfortunate enough not to have read these novels, I did say five books and trilogy.) Funny as hell and just plain well-written. If you've never read them, please do. You will thank me later, and remember "Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe, "said Slartibartfast, "there is a reason."

Just plain beautiful.

I have never met a Sherman Alexie book I did not love and whose children I did not want to bear. War Dances is no different. Gorgeous poetry and awesome stories. That is all.

Down Home Economics

The last book in this post is Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War. Essentially the author, Joe Bageant, moves back home to his small Virginia hometown after about 20 or so years and explores the lower working class culture in which he grew up. While I wasn't thrilled with the underlying tone he took when talking about his brethren at a few points, it was overall a really good discussion of issues not usually covered. The rural poor are generally ignored in favor of highlighting the urban poor. This is not to say that either is more important or poor than the other; both situations have their own peculiar obstacles to overcome. It's just that in academic and political discussions of poverty, the plight of the rural poor is generally overlooked or assumed to be covered under the umbrella of "poverty" which is really just urban. I'm not entirely sure that I agree with some of his views about gun control and a few minor details, but as a whole, this is an excellent book--particularly for those of us from this sort of background lost on planets not of our making. For my fellow religion geeks, he does a fairly good job of incorporating fundamentalism into his observations. And the chapter on the Social Security system, healthcare, and the poor elderly is amazing.

"He would say that my soul is troubling me and that I need to be washed in the blood and redeemed by the grace of him who bled for our sins. I'd say that I am troubled by the distinct impression of approaching trihorned fascism--part Christian, part military, part corporate."--J. Bageant