Capricious, like that.

7 weeks 3 days

2009-06-07T12:35:00.000-07:00

At 7 weeks 3 days, it's the size of a strawberry. Larger than a raspberry. Smaller than an apricot. It has eyelids, elbow joints, fingers. Each day its sweetness multiplies. They found four more bodies today from the Air France crash in the Atlantic and somewhere floating near the surface: a briefcase with the Airbus A330 ticket inside. Somewhere a mother sits waiting for a sign of her son sunk somewhere in that vast ocean. I sit too, on the shore of a different ocean, waiting.

sport the stache

2009-04-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the third night of WCNY's televised auction, our annual fundraiser that brings in 5% of our station's annual budget while also battering staff with its painfully late nights and unhealthy food choices (I've already had 2 Harrison Bakery donuts, 2 of Tom Murphy's homemade cookies and a handful of M&Ms). Seemingly composed people lose their patience and begin to nip. Everyone becomes aware how little liquor can be found. I find my husband fast asleep each night I return home and slip quietly into bed near 2 a.m. unable to fall fast asleep. TelAuc is a bitch.

To counter the malaise and irritability, I decided tonight to see if I could convince 7 adults to sport one of these "Self-Adhesive Stylish Mustaches." Consider it a social experiment exploring which staff will be most likely to sport the stache! Will it be the high-spirited CEO who already sports a real stache? Will it be the whacky producers or the witty art director or will I find telemarketers spilling out from behind the scenes dying to stick on a stylish stache of their very own? We'll see. Wish me luck... more soon!

Pheww - that was exhausting!

OK, a summary of the results of tonight's experiment:

The NOs: the accountant, the accountant's assistants, the art director (!), the vice president of television, the host of a late-night public affairs program, the entire membership department, the coordinator of volunteers and special events, the already-mustached people, the entire auction department, three salespeople.

The MAYBE LATERs: Surpisingly only one person placated me with this answer, and he was a producer, though one out of his element at the time he was asked and likely to have fallen into the YES category had he not been surrounded by strangers.

The WELL-OK YESes: one salesperson, who randomly took the Grandpa mustache and looked odder than most in the photos; and the producer who fittingly took the Weasel mustache but was never seen with it on.

The HELL YESes: The graphic designer sported the Bruiser mustache, though she looked more like a female Hitler; one salesperson who was ecstatic that the Hollywood mustache was still available and donned it in the blink of an eye; a cameraman who ran camera all night with his Hero mustache on; me, who taped the Sherriff mustache to my lip and looked freakishly like my father; surprise of the night: the gorgeous television reporter who exclaimed "I'm such a dork - I love this kind of thing!" and asked me to take her picture with the Square mustache on!

It's hard to draw a conclusion from these results. Some of the night's NOs have been known on occassion to wax whacky. Membership, for example, is letting me take actual mugshots of them for the next employee newsletter. The accountant entered his fixings into a recent chili cook-off with a giddy competetiveness. And a few of the HELL YESes could have easily gone NO had the night been a bit different for them. For example, the sales guy who nabbed up the Hollywood stache spends most nights working past nine and had I caught him on one of his defeated nights, he might have turned me away. So, this wasn't an experiment that definitively established who was fun and who was not, but rather who I caught in what moment and in what mood.

I guess the only real conclusion that I can come to is that on the third night of auction, with five more nights ahead and only two behind, 7 people were still having fun, or at least desperate enough to make some.

Here's a shot of the crew (I got someone to wear the Weasel afterall!):

book review #1: then we came to the end by joshua ferris

2009-04-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

There’s a catharsis that occurs when common experience unearths from a new book, when the shoot of that new plant pokes its green hand above the soil and reaches high past its moss mat feeling about for tenable growth. We find in that shoot’s flight fragments of familiarity: a common conflict, emotion, situation. It resembles for us a collective sigh, when all of humanity takes one deep breath in, one long breath out. “We are the same,” that breath seems to say. Our pettiness, our dreams, each false sense of individuality, each real nugget of uniqueness, dissatisfaction with the moment, sudden awakenings, debts, gluttony, temptations, foul human thoughts. The same.

Such experience plumps out the pages of Joshua Ferris’ debut novel, Then We Came to the End (published 2007), which follows a crew of employees at an advertising agency during the 1990s. The cast of characters runs the gamut, from the unhinged atheist prankster to the hardened female executive. We follow them as they move in and out of advertising projects, worrying each day about the tenuousness of their employment.

There are a few things that distinguish this book (aside from the gold “National Book Award” stamp in the upper right corner). First, humor. It’s not often a novel hits on various types of humor, but TWCTTE hits on slapstick, exaggeration, witty banter, absurdity, whimsy, blunder, to name just a few. Take for example the ridiculousness of the advertising projects they’re assigned: make breast cancer funny to breast cancer victims; make buying this type of printer ink heroic. Or a few scenes involving the copy machine: Tom Mota caught by his supervisor printing pornographic materials; Hank Neary photocopying books because the printouts can be easily disguised as work material; Chris Yop copying his resume without shame the day after he has been fired. Ferris is able to put his cast in outrageous circumstances and poke fun at these characters without stripping them completely of their amiability.

Second, Ferris uses a unique point-of-view called the collective “we.” In an interview published at the end of the paperback version of the novel, Ferris says: “My father took a great risk around the time he turned fifty by starting his own company. It was small at first; he was his only employee. Yet his message machine told callers that “we” weren’t in right now...” This is where the idea originated for Ferris’ collective “we” point-of-view. It’s an effective choice for the novel, to say the least. We move in and out of scenes, unsure which of the crew the “we” represents at any given time, galloping from cubicle to cubicle for gossip or bitch sessions or fights or “private” conversations. It affords Ferris the opportunity to explore the whole of the organization, down to the security guard, without need to switch point-of-view. In addition to the freedom it affords Ferris, the collective “we” is simply fun to read. And for readers with experience in an office environment, it’s laughably familiar.

Third, structure. Sandwiched between two “we” sections, the point-of-view pulls in close on one character and switches to third person. Ferris calls this section the “book’s emotional heart,” the organ of the novel’s body that gives it life. While much of the “we” sections seem dangerously devoid of conscience, integrity and emotion, the heart of the novel lays the pavement that leads to moral recognition and redemption for the remainder of the novel. It was a brilliant choice on Ferris’ part and an anchor weighting the text down.

Visit http://www.thenwecametotheend.com/ for more details.

"up" by bridget carpenter

2009-03-08T07:39:00.000-07:00

Syracuse Stage presented Bridget Carpenter’s comedrama (did I just make up a new word? – I’m a bit giddy about that!) “Up” last weekend and I scored a few seats so Joey and I could go. I won’t weigh you down with a complete review of a play you’ll (sadly) likely never have the opportunity to see, but in short the story picks up with Walter Griffin about fifteen years after his successful weather-balloons-tied-to-a-lawn-chair launch which carried him 16,000 feet (3 miles) up.

The play explores where reality and dreams meet. At times that place sees our dreams become reality, as witnessed when a hack inventor like Walter fulfills his lifelong dream of flying while tethered to weather balloons. And at other times, our reality becomes a series of dreams that overwhelm our capacity to function in society, often strong-arming us by necessity into sacrificing our dreams to survive. What is interesting is how unrealized and realized dreams can both affect us like the hammer of a god. Indeed they did the real Walter, as according to the theater’s playbill Walter hiked into the woods at age 44, years after the successful launch and subsequent failed attempts to match his earlier success, and shot himself straight through the heart.

What goes up must come down. Perhaps this is the beautiful tragedy of it all, the truth that truly moved me during this play. Many people spend a lifetime chasing that elusive dream and in their chase become jaded, disillusioned, apart from life, by the chase. And yet we witness the same qualities of life in a man who has realized his struggles to hold on. Is it the dream, then, that shatters us?

As a few side notes, the daring Philippe Petit who tight-rope-walked between the Twin Towers in 1974 (coincidentally the year that I was born) makes a few appearances in the play and acts as Walter’s counselor. Check out the documentary about Petit called “Man on a Wire.” Also, though it does not appear to follow the same plotline as Walter’s life, Disney/Pixar is releasing an animated film on May 29 called “Up” about a 78-year-old man whose lifelong dream is to travel the world and whose dream is realized when his home tethered to a zillion balloons begins to float away. Perhaps Bridget Carpenter will follow up with Carl Frederickson a decade after his tour of the globe to see exactly how realizing his dreams has truly fared.

watchmen

2009-03-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

(WARNING: Dad, I’m using this space to openly express myself, without censorship or judgment. If you’ve returned to this blog at some point to see how I’m doing, please know you might read some things you’d rather not know. Like this entry. I’d like to think by this point you know I’ve had sex before, but if you’d still like to hold on to that fatherly illusion (completely understandable), do not read this. I’ll try and warn you on other entries as they come up. Love you. Hope it’s hot in the desert!)

“Watchmen” was my first as graphic novels go, and not too dissimilar (forgive me for saying it) to that awkward other first Halloween of 1993 when I lost my virginity to a drunken, face-painted jester with a long hat split into two belled ends (uh, I said Halloween, remember?). Each was unfamiliar, treacherous in its mere mystery, altered over time by the randomness of my memory, and unsettling – however exhilarated I was to simply have both vast unknowns revealed.

If you think it odd that I might be comparing the very meaningful act of first sexual encounters to the experience of reading a little picture book, then you clearly have never read a little picture book. In fact I’m more inclined to share with you “Watchmen” than I am that Halloween night, and it’s not for any puritanical modesty (please, I’m so beyond that) but rather that one is more vivid, more plot-ridden, more packaged, more for sale at your local comic store, more likely to have a feature film of the same name COMING MARCH 6 TO A THEATER NEAR YOU! Can you guess which of the two I’m referring to? Let me give you a clue: it will have plenty of face paint and sex, but no jesters.

So what was it that caped me into the caper? What dialogue bubble dragged a literary zealot from her Gogol and Bolaño into the realm of bathroom readers without so much as a kick or a scream? (In point of fact, I put aside Dostoevsky’s “Brothers Karamazov” after reading – and enjoying – its first 100 pages so that I could tackle the literary tome “Watchmen”).

So what was it? Dare I say the simplicity of its morality, the directness of its plot, and the funness of its format. “Eek!” my literary professors would scream, not only for my shallow literary pursuit, but my unforgivable attempt to make the adjective “fun” into a noun. But sometimes sweet and shallow wins the day, professor. Throw into the package a villain who’s killing off masked heroes, a group of vigilantes without any real superpowers who dress in tights and save people from burning buildings, a trip to a biodome in Antarctica and a feisty foul-mouthed journalist and I can’t strip myself away.

Plus, Dave Gibbons rocks. Especially with the pirate comic book within the graphic novel illustrations – holy cow, am I really marveling over his rendering of a raft made from the bloated remains of an entire crew? Why, yes I am, and with a strange sense of pride, as though I’ve found myself among the ranks of a whole new group of misunderstood masses who have found the marriage of artwork and words tells a pretty mean story, a whole new group that really, really gets me right now.

SEE YOU FRIDAY!

sm(ART) thinking

2009-03-01T07:59:00.000-08:00

I’m back, and this time I mean business with this blog thing, if only to write mundane wrap-ups of my week or ponder on the origins of Pringles. I suppose you’ll just have to bear with me. This is a pretty big transition in my life, during which – in my attempts to truly embrace my art – you are stuck with both my best and my worst. What I am aiming for is to understand exactly where my art lies, in the moment, in that split-second between sentences when the art that exists (the sentence on the page) spawns another idea which becomes another sentence. For where that art lies is where I must exist. It’s the moment when the past and future drift away and in that moment a driving momentum picks up, a momentum that pushes toward a certain vision or imagination without losing sight of the now.

I am reading Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by Bayles & Orland, which is where much of my direction these days comes from. HISTORY: About a week ago I found myself wondering why I spent so much of my energy avoiding my art, why I found it painstakingly difficult to even sit down to the computer, let alone find it in myself to spend hours pecking away at some keyboard in the word hunt for that story or novel. And yet, I yearned for it. I yearned to spill myself into a moment, to lose myself in the gesture of a character or the creak of a nearby floorboard. What is it, this chasm that separated me from my art? And while I’m not completely sure I understand where the core of my trouble lies (if indeed there is a core trouble and not a cluster bomb of scarcely-related issues), what reading this novel – now in its 8th printing – has done for me is made me understand I’m in considerable company, that artists struggle with the same things I struggle with and that the true separation between the haves and the have-nots is a willingness to struggle, a commitment to pursuing your art, however it may come.

More on the Art Pursuit later, as it evolves... It’s Sunday, and so for the working-class artist, it is that one day a week I set aside for my art. For my pursuit of art. Whatever that may mean.

movie review - "semi-pro"

2008-03-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

Will Ferrell movies are like pizza: even when they’re bad they’re good. While “Semi-Pro” is no deep-dish olive and pepperoni, it’s enough to keep us Ferrell fans sated.

Ferrell stars as the flashy buffoon Jackie Moon, owner-coach-player of the worst team in the American Basketball Association (ABA), the Flint Michigan Tropics. When the National Basketball Association (NBA) announces its plans to absorb four ABA teams, Moon and his Tropics attempt the impossible – to win 4th place and snag the NBA prize.

While the film is vulgar, stupid and downright absurd (with Ferrell sporadically erupting into his trademark tantrums and balderdash), semi-serious subplots emerge with co-star characters Clarence “Coffee” Black (Andre Benjamin) and Monix (Woody Harrelson) weaving into the narrative struggles of self-doubt and self-actualization.

You won’t be moved to tears or split your gut laughing, but Ferrell’s comedic doofus genius and the subplot drama makes for an entertaining 90 minutes.

cny stop #1: the seward house, albany, ny

2008-02-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

A few Saturdays ago I drove 20 miles west of Syracuse to Albany, NY, a city of about 100,000 people. I was excited to finally tour the Seward House, home to the late statesman William H. Seward, and a major tourist attraction in Central New York. I had been anxious for this trip for weeks; not only did it jumpstart my northeast U.S. history tour, but it also marked the beginning of my Central New York exploration in earnest.

Entering Auburn, I was greeted by blocks of standard strip malls (Big Box stores, neon lights) and the sudden hustle of cars zipping by. At first sight, I could have been anywhere—in the Midwest, driving through some suburb of Chicago. It seemed unimaginable to me that this cement symbol of consumerism, a familiar blight throughout our country, was once plush with 20-foot chokecherries and Cayuga Indians, was once home to the likes of William H. Seward and Harriet Tubman. As I neared downtown, however, the town showed its history: Willard Memorial Chapel this way, Harriet Tubman’s house that way, the Auburn Schine Theater, Fort Hill Cemetery.

Walking up to the Seward House, I tried to imagine Secretary of State William H. Seward (1861-1869), home from Washington, D.C., walking up to his grand Federal house on South Street. He was a tiny wisp of a man with red hair and a thin, long nose. Was he excited to see Frances after their long time apart, or were his thoughts on political matters? Standing in front of this great house, it was not a stretch to imagine the greatness of the man that lived within it.

Bob Hill was my tour guide, or “docent” as his nametag read, and for the next two hours Bob lectured with a seemingly endless enthusiasm and knowledge.

The top 10 things I learned about William H. Seward:
1. He was New York State Senator.
2. He was New York State Governor.
3. He was a United States Senator.
4. He was Secretary of State under President Abraham Lincoln.
5. He loved brandy and Cuban cigars.
6. From an early age he felt slavery was an immoral institution that went against the fabric of this country’s founding principles.
7. He was pretty short, so in most paintings and photos he is shown sitting down.
8. He was stabbed the night President Lincoln was shot at Ford Theater. Though Seward would survive the attack, he would never really recover (his wife, Frances, died a few months after the attack).
9. He was the key player in the purchase of Alaska from Russia.
10. The Seward House was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Seward worked with Harriet Tubman to house slaves bound for Canada.

Visit the Seward House website for hours and admission costs. 33 South Street, Auburn, NY; 315-252-1283.

the lieutenant of inishmore

2008-02-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

Syracuse Stage ended its second-to-the-last production of the Martin McDonagh play "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" Saturday night to a standing ovation. The ovation started as they all do, with a lone, fervent fan rushing to his feet at the play's end, smacking his two hands together so hard it seemed he was channeling the propeller of a military aircraft. Then followed the guy behind him (likely because he could now only see the jiggling bum of the Lone Fan in front of him). And then others followed, myself included, until the entire house was up on its feet, each of us returning to the cast what they had given us over the play's two hours: a completely unexpected gift.

Padraic, the central character, is a righteous vigilante so mad in his approach that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) would not allow him to join. He joins a splinter group instead, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), where he spends his time dosing criminals with pulled toenails or blown-out brains. When news makes its way back to the INLA that Padraic is thinking of splintering from the splinter group, the wheels of this play are set in motion. In an attempt to lure Padraic home to Inishmore to his doom, the INLA kills the only thing Padraic ever loved: his black cat, Wee Thomas.

Donny and Davey stole the show. Don Amendolia played Donny, Padraic's father, seamlessly stacking before us the trappings of a fool-hearted, mischievous drunkard hard set on deceiving his son to save his own hide. The dim-witted Davey, a neighborhood outcast, was played by Patrick Edgar. Edgar assumed the role of Davey from the top of his head straight to his toes: the slapstick, the confused expression, the uncontrollable ire, the flip of his frizzy hair, the straight-backed riding of the pink bicycle. To see the entire cast listing, click here.

So why a standing ovation, you might say. Wasn't this play nothing more than a dark episode of "Three's Company", a zany whodunit peppered by dimwits? Well, yes. Except this play probed at the hypocrisy of human nature in a way that was playful and provocative all-the-while ridiculous and absurd. For me, it turned my attention to the war in Iraq and the hypocrisy of human nature at work in that arena.

Do I think George W. Bush will bawl like a schoolboy when his beloved Scottish terrier Barney kicks the bucket? I sure do. If Iraq were inhabited by Insurgents and Barney-clones, do I think that "Dubya" would make a special trip over to Iraq to see how best to preserve the Barney-clones while still laying waste to the Insurgents? I sure do. Because it would become personal. The righteous indignation "Dubya" has for the evil-doers would be complicated by the risk to something he truly loves. And I would bet that "Dubya" wouldn't jeoporadize one Barney clone if he could help it. I'm not singling Bush out; there are examples of hypocrisy in my own nature that I can't seem to explain. Like how I "rage against the machine" but shop at Wal-Mart. Or how I am a vegetarian with lots of leather shoes. But "Dubya" parallels best with "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," so there you have it.

So to see Padraic, a righteous vigilante so sure that he is bringing freedom to his country, completely side-tracked by the death of Wee Thomas, it calls up our desire to preserve innocence and annihilate corruption. So I guess that's why I stood up. Because somewhere between gags and laughs a real message came through, one that made me think about the root of human nature and all of its harried hypocrisies.

magic mushroom soup

2007-11-18T13:40:00.000-08:00

Joe and I are attempting to create/compile enough recipes for a holiday recipe book gift. For those out there who like to soil their nailbeds with the flesh of vegetables and the scent of garlic, try this recipe and let me know what you think.

2 tbsp olive oil
8 cloves of garlic, minced
4 c baby bella mushrooms, sliced
4 small shallots, sliced
1 large potato, peeled and cubed
4 c vegetable broth
1 c milk
1/4 c parsley, chopped
3/4 tsp cumin
3/4 tsp coriander
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne
1 tsp salt
pepper, to taste
plain croutons
sour cream

Heat a large soup pot on high until just smoking. Add the olive oil, mushrooms, and shallots. Cook on high for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add the garlic and sautée about 5 minutes. Then add the potatoes and sautée for 5 more minutes, stirring often and scraping the bottom of the pan.

Add the broth and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer under a covered pot for 20 minutes. Remove the pot top and add the milk, parsley, cumin, coriander, paprika, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Using a slotted spoon, scoop out 4 scoops of soup chunks and place them on the side. Blend the remaining soup mixture in a blender until smooth. Pour the blended soup back into the soup pot and return the unblended soup chunks.

Pour the soup into the soup bowls for serving. Add 15 croutons per bowl, and swirl a teaspoon of sour cream in the center. Top with a bit of paprika and parsley. Serve!

beyond the chip

2007-11-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

What does this potato chip remind you of? A portal into the realm of tubers? A night of Dungeons and Dragons? The moon?

armenian genocide: an attempt at bipartisanship

2007-10-11T06:04:00.000-07:00

It is in my character to be reactionary, to empathize with the liberal side and condemn the conservative side, often without any tangible knowledge on the matter or facts at hand. So, when President Bush and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently warned the congressional House Foreign Affairs Committee against passing a bill that would officially rule the mass killings of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915-1923 a “genocide”, I found my chance to attempt impartiality.

COUNTRY HISTORIES
Armenia History: "Armenia prides itself on being the first nation to formally adopt Christianity (early 4th century). Despite periods of autonomy, over the centuries Armenia came under the sway of various empires including the Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Persian, and Ottoman. During World War I in the western portion of Armenia, Ottoman Turkey instituted a policy of forced resettlement coupled with other harsh practices that resulted in an estimated 1 million Armenian deaths. The eastern area of Armenia was ceded by the Ottomans to Russia in 1828; this portion declared its independence in 1918, but was conquered by the Soviet Red Army in 1920. Armenian leaders remain preoccupied by the long conflict with Muslim Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a primarily Armenian-populated region, assigned to Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1920s by Moscow. Armenia and Azerbaijan began fighting over the area in 1988; the struggle escalated after both countries attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. By May 1994, when a cease-fire took hold, Armenian forces held not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also a significant portion of Azerbaijan proper. The economies of both sides have been hurt by their inability to make substantial progress toward a peaceful resolution. Turkey imposed an economic blockade on Armenia and closed the common border because of the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas." (excerpted from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook)

Turkey History: "Modern Turkey was founded in 1923 from the Anatolian remnants of the defeated Ottoman Empire by national hero Mustafa KEMAL, who was later honored with the title Ataturk or "Father of the Turks." Under his authoritarian leadership, the country adopted wide-ranging social, legal, and political reforms. After a period of one-party rule, an experiment with multi-party politics led to the 1950 election victory of the opposition Democratic Party and the peaceful transfer of power. Since then, Turkish political parties have multiplied, but democracy has been fractured by periods of instability and intermittent military coups (1960, 1971, 1980), which in each case eventually resulted in a return of political power to civilians. In 1997, the military again helped engineer the ouster - popularly dubbed a "post-modern coup" - of the then Islamic-oriented government. Turkey intervened militarily on Cyprus in 1974 to prevent a Greek takeover of the island and has since acted as patron state to the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus," which only Turkey recognizes. A separatist insurgency begun in 1984 by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - now known as the People's Congress of Kurdistan or Kongra-Gel (KGK) - has dominated the Turkish military's attention and claimed more than 30,000 lives. After the capture of the group's leader in 1999, the insurgents largely withdrew from Turkey mainly to northern Iraq. In 2004, KGK announced an end to its ceasefire and attacks attributed to the KGK increased. Turkey joined the UN in 1945 and in 1952 it became a member of NATO. In 1964, Turkey became an associate member of the European Community; over the past decade, it has undertaken many reforms to strengthen its democracy and economy enabling it to begin accession membership talks with the European Union." (excerpted from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook)

ISSUE AT HAND
First, a clarification. While reports repeatedly refer to a "bill" passing the committee, we are actually dealing with a "resolution" that, if passed, would have no legal implications. I might not be explaining that well/accurately, so please feel free to comment if you have more information. The resolution, if passed, would officially state the US's opinion, for lack of a better word, that the Ottoman Empire conceived and executed an Armenian genocide from 1915 through 1923. You can read the full resolution drafted by Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Cal) here.

To watch an interview between Congressman Schiff and Secretary Rice, click here. It was my hope that this interview would make clear the two opposing sides: the Schiff-side that is pushing for the passing of the resolution, and the Rice-side, the side that is opposed to the resolution's passing. I'd ask that you watch the interview first before reading on so that you can make your own assessment of the interview.

Rice avoids directly answering Schiff's questions and Schiff constantly interrupts Rice to make accusations. It's a perfect example of the political polarization in our country, and why people like myself find it difficult to be informed and impartial, or to even bear witness to what constitutes a debate these days. Schiff entered into the "interview" believing he knew exactly what Rice would say, and Rice entered into the "interview" knowing exactly what she needed to say. So when Rice began to state her Agenda, Schiff countered with his Agenda. It's like watching two people who are supposed to be looking at one another looking into separate mirrors instead; neither sees the other, only the reflection of what they already know reinforcing their existence, their purpose.

Of the two, I know Schiff's position—that I can solidly say. His case as stated in the resolution is clear, informative and persuasive. I agree with him. If all of the facts he provides are accurate and true, and the US has made it their business in the past to make public their "opinion" of other atrocities constituting genocide, then yes, the US should declare the atrocities committed against the Armenians by the Ottoman Turks genocide. Unless, of course, the opposition has a solid argument that we should consider.

Rice repeatedly states that the US should butt out and leave it to the two countries to settle, but then why has the US made it their business in the past? When Schiff asks this question directly, Rice evades. Secretary Rice: is this some new resolution that the US intends to maintain in the future, meaning, has the policy on US recognition of genocide changed? In 2004, your predecessor Secretary Colin Powell declared the killings in Darfur genocide. Why can’t you? President Bush addressed the Armenian genocide resolution by stating that "its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror". Okay, so the opposition is a military strategy? If this is the case, why does Rice not state this? I want to hear more about this, Mr. President; can you please call Secretary Rice and give her a heads-up so she can accurately report your administration’s actual position? I’m really trying to be impartial here, so it would help if you guys could keep on the same page.

I entered this exploration hoping to find both sides of the coin so that I could compare them and make an intelligent, thoughtful assessment. But what it comes down to is that Rice's side of the coin is evasive, dishonest and uninformative, and, in the face of this position, Schiff's side in exasperated and aggressive. I feel cheated.

Maybe someone out there can give me a clearer picture, information, so that we can have an informed discourse?

heather-in-the-puppet

2007-10-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday I began my puppetry internship with the Open Hand Theater (OHT) in Syracuse, NY. OHT was founded in 1980 and provides adult and children puppet theater, puppetry workshops, a summer circus camp, educational outreach programs, and more.

The red-brick castle built in 1890 houses OHT as well as the International Mask and Puppet Museum, which opened in 1999. Their current museum exhibit is Puppet Arts of India.

I volunteered for Tom Knight's 11am showing of Library Boogie. Tom sang songs like The Garbage Monster where a scary beast puppet made entirely of plastic, aluminum, glass and paper materials is destroyed through the environmentally friendly act of recycling, and The Solar System where Tom placed what looked like the skeleton of an umbrella strapped to a bike helmet on his head and began adding planets to the umbrella arms, one by one, all the while spinning around and rocking his head.

The thing I enjoyed most about the event was that it existed, that there is a place where imaginations run amok, where men with silly blue felt birds on their hands can sing "So my pretty purple pumpkin was squished just like a squash" to a row of dancing children, where adults screech like monkeys and children flit about from one shiny toy to the next. For whatever reason, the show made me think of a pufferfish sitting on the deep sea floor, looking extremely silly with those baggy cheeks and that fixed gaze, just sitting there, stone-still. A shark slid by and that pufferfish rounded out, filling its elastic tummy with too much water, sucking us all in past his slimy fish lips; first the blue felt bird, then the children, metal chairs, some live zebra I hadn't noticed before, then me. It was so quiet inside the belly. Then the music cued up, and, oblivious to the world outside, we all clapped loudly as Tom shouted: Alligator jump, Alligator slide!

blog envy

2007-09-29T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here lies an homage (hom·age, noun: 'ä-mij, 'hä 2. a: -expression of high regard) to my favorite blog, a blog that is like rolling around on a carpet sodden with culture, saturated by poetry, cultural event reviews, international news, sports, and personal essay. This blog-o'-glory is at http://jstheater.blogspot.com/ and is run by John Keene, Associate Professor of English and African American Studies and Director of the English Major in Writing at Northwestern University.

While a graduate student at Northwestern, John taught two of my fiction workshop courses. In each class John referenced literary works and my notebook filled with references to authors whose names I couldn't pronounce: Michel Houellebecq, Nathalie Sarraute, Camilo José Cela, Guillaume Dustan, and so on. I was always humbled by his depth of knowledge, his energetic approach, his broad-minded worldview, the thoughtful connections he made between people, events, literature. His blog is no different. This past week, John reported on: the 2007 Rugby World Cup, a recent flare-up at the Poetry Society of America, literary and musical events in NY, commentary on the Myanmar and Jena Six protests, a list of some recent MacArthur Award recipients, the closing of a historic Spanish-language bookstore in NY, commentary on the disappearance of gay characters on network television, a call for supporters of Habeas Corpus to lobby their US Senator for its restoration, and so much more. All in a week's work!

What I admire most about John's blog is what I admire most about him as a person: his blog is entirely personal without a shred of self-importance. His entries yield a concern for humanity, a constant heart of art, and a citizen's activism that shuns the passive participant. John is the inspiration for my own blog.

Wikipedia Biography: John R. Keene Jr. (b. 1965) is a writer, translator and Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at Northwestern University, Illinois, United States. He has a B.A. from Harvard and an M.F.A. from New York University. He was a longtime member of the Dark Room Collective, an organization that from 1988 to 1998 celebrated and gave greater visibility to emerging and established writers of color. His first novel, Annotations, was published by New Directions in 1995. A new collection of poems entitled Seismosis was published by 1913 Press in 2006. [1]