Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Your City Guv-ment at Work
I wish I had been a better citizen. Perhaps I could be sitting out on my porch tonight, tripping on on the cool little kids' costumes as they come around for their treats.
Alas, I am not. I did not read up on the City of Norfolk's Halloween law, which states that trick-or-treaters must be 12 or under to lawfully take part in the festivities, Satanic or otherwise evil as they may be. Sadly, I also don't even know how long this law has been on the books. Sadly, I won't be around to notice whether or not it does any good. I'll be upstairs with the lights off or somewhere else around town. Why? Read my previous entry. It seems I'm not the only one bummed about the lack of legitimate participants. Either that or the city leaders don't want hords of adolescents out skulking around the 'hood, trolling for candy.
Read the City of Norfolk's Halloween law here.
Monday, October 30, 2006
A Possible Explanation
One possible explanation for recalcitrant hairdressers and their ilk objecting to Halloween could be they're just too young.....
to remember these:
This is how you rock Halloween. Yes, I once had one of these of the Batman variety, complete with plastic mask with pointy ears. The mask would kind of rough up the skin around my eyes and leave little blisters, but you looked SO FREAKIN' COOL, you didn't care. After the first hour of trick-or-treating, a film of sweat and one's breath would eventually condense and start to drip down onto the front of the suit. Again, we just didn't care.
Have a field day here.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
A Halloween Tale
When I moved to Virginia in 1996, one of the first indications that I wasn't in the real world anymore came around this time of year when I went to have my hair cut at a local salon. This was before I came to my senses and started spending my tonsorial dollar in a reasonable fashion. I had been going to the same stylist since we arrived in town and thought I had a sensible business relationship with this sensible woman, who we'll call Sandy.
Well, it was a few days before Halloween and I knew Sandy had a couple kids, so I asked what I thought was an innocent question: What are your kids dressing up as for Halloween? At the time, this was a big deal to me as, then, I still enjoyed sitting out on my front porch and passing out candy to the kids who came around the neighborhood. This was before my neighborhood was overrun with grocery-bag-toting teenagers without costumes who just about killed my enthusiasm for the day. More on that some other time.
Silence. A long silence. Then she said, "They don't have costumes. We'll probably just go up the harvest festival at church."
Looking back on it, this should have been an enormous, truck-stop-sized red flag. But, clueless lad that I am, I continued.
"Do they have trick-or-treating up there," I asked.
Another pause. "We don't celebrate Halloween. It's the Devil's birthday."
Talk about a conversation killer. She went on to tell me how she didn't believe in the death and evil that Halloween promotes and that she cared far too much for her children to allow them to be exposed to such nonsense.
I sat dumbfounded and silent. I had heard about these people, but had never been in close proximity to one. By steering clear of their natural habitat -- Christian bookstores, churches, CBN viewing parties -- I thought myself safe. Hah! I wonder if the Christian Coalition's master plan of populating seats of power with their own kind included hairdressers?
I never went back to that stylist.
Of course, anyone who's lived in the South for very long can tell you that churchgoing is a team sport here, with recruiters and coaches waiting at every turn. I long ago lost track of the number of people who have asked me where I went to church. When I indicated that I hadn't been in a long time, many would look on me with gleeful pity and suggest that my wife and I attend THEIR church. Come, you'll really enjoy it. There are some really cool people. We tried this exactly once. F-ing liar!
Growing up in the Midwest, one's church habits were more like golf; you may play with other people, but, essentially you're essentially doing your own thing. And, heavens, people didn't ask you where you went. They'd nod politely, then go back to their friends and talk about what a slacker you are in the way God intended -- behind your back.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
You Got Served!!!!!!!!
So I had a conversation last week with a friend who's in the same creative writing program from which I graduated. She's contemplating giving up on the program, at least on the poetry emphasis she's currently working towards, and working on nonfiction instead, the rationale being that nonfiction is a more profitable field. The worst thing, she said, would be writing for other poets, which is what happens when a beginning poet publishes a book of poems and it sits on the shelves, gathering dust. And, she said, she looks at the work of her colleagues and feels that theirs is better than hers, or, at least, they think theirs is better. So, wanting to avoid this whole situation, she is contemplating going another direction.
Too bad I couldn't tell her about this...
Occasionally, poetry does go up for public consumption. A week or so ago, when I read about the dedication of the renovated Fountain Square in my hometown of Cincinnati and the celebration featuring music acts including Los Lobos, I remember thinking, "Uh-oh," when I saw that Nikki Giovanni was one of the performers. She was scheduled to read a poem called "I am Cincinnati," which she wrote for the occasion
Turns out that the poem, duh, was not the touchy-feely ode that some lame-brained chamber of commerce wife thought it would be.
In the text, which was read aloud at the Saturday celebration, Giovanni called fellow Cincinnati native, former U.S. Treasurer and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Kenneth Blackwell a "political whore" and a "son of a bitch." The poem also made reference to the shooting of a black man in Cincinnati's Over the Rhine neighborhood by the city police.
The exact Blackwell quote:
I am not a son of a bitch like Kenny Blackwell…I will not sell my soul for my ambition…I do not use the color of my skin to cover the hatred in my heart…I am not a political whore…jumping from bed to bed to see who will stoke my need
Other reactions, according to The Enquirer:
Officials from Cincinnati City Center Development Corp. (3CDC) said in a statement Monday that Giovanni's remarks, which drew gasps and some applause from the audience, were "completely inappropriate" for the event.
Giovanni isn't happy about the criticism or controversy. But she's not apologizing, either.
"All I have is my voice," she said. "I don't want it silenced. We were on (Fountain Square) where the Klan gathered to speak. I'm not sure as many people called to complain about what the Klan had to say as what I said."
Giovanni said Fountain Square has a long history as a place where controversial and sometimes unpopular issues are voiced.
"There's never an appropriate place," she said. "The square is a place for free speech and public dialogue."
Further:
The reference to Blackwell wasn't the only part of the poem that drew ire.
Keith Fangman, vice president of the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police, was unhappy about a line in the poem that referred to police shootings of young black men. He called the reference "inflammatory."
"What a great way to welcome the cop-hating, racist element back to Fountain Square," he said sarcastically.
Fangman said (city chamber of commerce) leadership was to blame for the "PR nightmare" created by Giovanni's remarks. "Any imbecile should have known that Nikki Giovanni is an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, left-wing, political militant and should never have been invited to speak at this celebration."
So, all you promising poets out there, this is where the rubber meets the road. I'm no fan of Blackwell, a Republican, and the fact that he got served in public by a poet from Virginia Tech tickles me to no end. But the fact that this moment was delivered by the written/spoken word just goes to show that it's not "just for other poets."
Finding that audience, well, that's another story.
Even more fun has been the reaction to the poem in the editorial pages of the hometown paper. Understand this: Cincinnati put the "pro" in provincial. The paper's opinion leaders did not disappoint:
Free speech vs. bad mannersIt's always surprising when talented people suffer from self-inflicted wounds. Nikki Giovanni's classless diatribe on Fountain Square Saturday was a bullet to her credibility.
Good poets use words to help us see the nuances of the world in front of us. But there was nothing nuanced about Giovanni's performance. She acted like a bully and delivered a verbal sucker punch when she used the rededication of the square for an assault on gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell.
Giovanni is a talented poet, raised in Greater Cincinnati. It was because of that talent that she was invited to participate in what was supposed to be a celebration of the city and an open-armed invitation for people to come downtown.
And this from one of the readers:
Again, young poets, I ask you...are you eager to reach and serve this audience? Methinks such things are better screamed out, even in a soft voice, in public spaces where everyone can hear.Giovanni missed out on manners class
I rarely concur with The Enquirer's editorial positions, and even rarer are the occasions I agree with Bronson. But just as we have snow on Opening Day in Cincinnati, it happens. Both the paper and Peter Bronson nailed it in regards to Giovanni's "poem": utter rudeness. How pathetic that a self-proclaimed activist would squander an opportunity for positive impact, electing instead to politicize and divide. How chic is it to be rude, Ms. Giovanni? Do not flatter yourself - that kind of banal publicity-mongering doesn't even warrant controversy. We do value our manners here in CincinnatiManners do not preclude discourse, do not preclude passion for our issues, past and present. Manners are what let us come together without fear of name-calling, to celebrate even that which is controversial. Giovanni apparently missed that class in "activist" charm school.
Kathryn Brown
Loveland
Sunday, October 15, 2006
More Books!!!!! Yeah!!!!!
One of the things I love most about Virginia in the fall is the weather (like today, sunny with a high in the low-60s) and our annual trip to the Green Valley Bookfair.
Though it's open at five other times throughout the year, Sonja and I tend to make this a part of our wedding anniversary trip. There's something about the fresh mountain air that makes a body go crazy for new books at bargain prices.
Among today's acquisitions:
Chain of Command, Seymour Hersh
Wait....the Bush Administration misled the American public on the War in Iraq? Where does this guy come up with this stuff?
At Home in the Heart of Appalachia, John O'Brien
Jump the Shark, Jon Hein
Ted McGinley=the kiss of death
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
Love this guy's work.
Paris to the Moon, Adam Gopnik (large print)
I heard it was good and with my eyesight, I figure I'd better get used to these editions
A Vast Conspiracy, Jeffrey Toobin
The Clinton impeachment saga revisited
The Kingdom by the Sea, Paul Theroux
More Anglophilia
Mad Ducks and Bears, George Plimpton
Did you know that Plimpton wrote a book about the Truman Capote in his "In Cold Blood " period?
The Faber Book of America, Christopher Ricks and William Vance, eds.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Bush Bloody Bush
I'm probably behind the curve on this, but I ran across this clip today on my favorite web audio feed at www.appalshop.org. Enjoy!