CAMEOS

My face and my flute, respectively, show up in these things.
New Thunderant video "One Man Show," in the trademark painful/hilarious style:

Chris Johanson installation at Deitch Projects in New York:

I can't wait to see (and hear) this. I love his stuff.

NOSTALGIA LACQUERED WITH RAGE

Charles Baxter, I can't get enough of your writing about writing. I am now reading Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction for I think the fourth time (and not the last--I assigned it to my advanced fiction workshop this semester.) I read part of it every morning at my writing desk. I have taken to recording great lines in red ink in my notebook, interspersed with my own black-ink notations and story bits.

This morning I came upon this, a bracing and sharp observation that is particularly germane in this increasingly strange and obsessive Palin drama. Writing about how reactionary politicians "have done their best to co-opt the family and turn it into a kind of kitsch social unit," Baxter ties it into art:

The concept of "family values" is inherently rigid and inflexible. It's meant to stop thought. Good fiction and theater usually assume that "family values" should be in some kind of interesting uproar. To remove the contrast from within the family and to substitute an idea of uniformity is to kill off art for political ends. The family becomes a small molecular army, on the march for rectitude. Political representations of "family values" thus have a quality of poster art, and because they have a relationship to propaganda, they are nearly always tainted by a feeling of false surfaces. In other words, they have a mean-spirited wish to be endearing and cute. The result is a sort of nostalgia lacquered with rage, characteristic of the art of police states.

It's in the essay "Counterpointed Characterization" if you want to find it.

The only other thing I will say about Sarah Palin, because I literally woke up and sternly imposed upon myself a moratorium for today--I can't help it, I am fascinated and revolted on every level, as a media junkie, a feminist, a native of a rural small-town hunting-territory backwoods town rampant with teen pregnancy--oh my god, can you imagine if the mayor of like, Detroit Lakes became the Vice Presidential candidate?--anyway--is, you know this gravely-concerned refrain of "unwed teen mother, so sad"? Well, just as troubling and sad, in my experience, is a WED teen mother.

And just one more thing: I really like this knowledgeable and funny and informed blog Mudflats by an Alaskan writer, who, along with providing smart analysis from a depth of accumulated experience and knowledge, even provides the service of driving around Wasilla and photographing the bleak little town, which reminds me of Bagley or Wadena or something.

Now I have totally disobeyed myself.

SUMMER NIGHT NOISE

This is what it sounds like outside my house at night. No volume adjustments have been made.

It is like the cricket Fourth of July out there, every night.

(Strangely, when people refer to my new location--a town of 9000 surrounded by cornfields--as "rural," my knee-jerk reaction is to protest. Rural? I live In Town! With neighbors whose houses I can (sort of) see outside my window!)

WHY AM I WRITING A SYLLABUS

Look, it could be so simple:

I like that How To Overcome Writer's Block and How To Write A Book are brief enough topics to be rolled into one two-hour workshop. In Cleveland.

TRANSIT

I have been crossing time zones a lot. This is what I have looked like for the past two weeks:

I am settling in now. Incidents and other reports coming soon.

ARTIFACT #5: BEST RUM CAKE EVER

I found an ancient mimeograph of this folded into my great-aunt Adeline's* first-edition Scrabble dictionary.

Best Rum Cake Ever

1 or 2 qt. Rum 1 cup butter
1 tsp sugar 2 large eggs
1 cu dried fruit ¼ tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda lemon juice
brown sugar chopped nuts

Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. Good, isn’t it? Now go ahead. Select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again, it must be just right. To be sure the rum is of the highest quality, pour one level cup of the rum into a glass and drink it as fast as you can. Repeat.

With an electric mixer, beat 1 cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 seaspoon of thugar and beat again. Meanwhile, make sure the rum is of the finest quality. Try another cup. Open 2nd quart if necessary. Add 2 arge leggs, 2 cu. fried druit, and beat till high. If druit gets stuck in beaters, just pry it loose with a drewscriver. Sample rum again, checking for tonscisticity. Next sift 2 cups of pepper or salt (it doesn’t really matter), sample the rum again. Sift ½ pint of lemon juice. Fold in chopped butter and strained nuts. Add 1 babblespoon of brown thugar, or whatever color you find. Wix mell. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 gredees. Now pour the whole mess into the coven and ake. Check the rum and bo to ged.

* Adeline: 94, walking, and still reading political hardcovers every day.

ARTIFACT #4: I LOATHE THE OPERA

From the Opera News office, New York, 1997.

My first job out of college was at Opera News, the magazine published by the Metropolitan Opera. One of my tasks was to trudge through a box of blow cards (that's what they call those things that flutter out of magazines) and sort each one according to its source code (on this one, DUT81). Of all my lowly duties, I detested it most.

This card (apparently a group effort!) came in like a beacon from the outside world. It hung above my desk for the rest of my morose tenure there. Cheered me every time.

ARTIFACT #3: OUTLET INCIDENT

From the Park Rapids Enterprise incident report.

ARTIFACT #2: I'M NOT SURE WHAT WE'RE DEALING WITH HERE

From the Iowa City Add Sheet (sic), circa 2000.

ARTIFACT #1: THE TROUBLE WITH WOMEN

No time to write. But am finding funny scraps from the archives. Quote from a student's research paper about divorce, as-is:

Women seem to be giving out sex easier than before, being promiscuous results in guys less interest for monogamy. Could this be a reason our marriage numbers are dropping?

(In case you are wondering, the author is a U.S. born-and-bred English speaker.)