“lonely old courage-teacher”

31 May 2025: 

“Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?” –Allen Ginsberg’s closing line to “A Supermarket in California”

Like every year when we reach May 31, I find myself thinking about Whitman. This year, with everything that he loved about America under attack, I find myself voicing the least poetic and almost embarrassing echo of Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California.” 

This could not have been the America Whitman had in mind when he took his last breath. The ignorance, hate, and cruelty can bring you to your knees with sadness. (And here I think of the bowed knees in "The Wound Dresser," an symbol of devastation, exhaustion, and deepest pain, but also respect, holiness, humility, and servitude.)

And here I see that maybe I am wrong or at least not completely right—and here I contradict myself, I guess—because he also would see a lot to love and so many to root for. On a quiet Saturday night, my mind fills with images of those who give me faith and hope, even if they sit alongside all of what makes me despair. 

Our “lonely old courage-teacher” is more important than ever. 

Even As We Breathe

30 May 2025: Just finished Even As We Breathe, by Anne Saunooke Clapsaddle, this fall's Appalachian Heritage Writer-in-Residence. I enjoyed it, especially the way Clapsaddle plays with memory and storytelling, with our young narrator conjuring, for instance, vivid memories of moments he couldn't possibly remember (or could he?). 

I also admire a book that honors the kind of relationships or love that defy easy categorization. In one scene, Cowney, as an old man, reflects back on his youthful, love-struck self: "I couldn't understand why we weren't an automatic fit for each other, a promised pair in this strange place. In the years since, I have learned that not all love is made of equal parts. There are more kinds of deep affection than we are sometimes willing to accept in our society" (106).

Work Cited

Clapsaddle, Annette Saunooke. Even As We Breathe. Fireside Industries Books, 2020. 

Still scared and nosy...

29 May 2025: A handywoman (who is also a former student) came over today for a couple of projects. Once again, Jo proved herself to be both scared and nosy, with nosy winning out eventually, as she crept closer even with the loud sander going.

Quite the resume...

28 May 2025: As I type up notes this evening, I am continuing the very slow first-time watch of C.S.I. (started last summer). I made it to season five, episode 15, where a very familiar face played the very much non-nurturing mother of an "adult baby." (This show is so wild...)

Anyway, the actress, Nan Martin, had a long career, but two iconic (to me) roles stand out: Freddy Krueger's mom in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Child and Frieda Claxton on Golden Girls. 

What a career! 

Do cats hallucinate?

27 May 2025: When I got home from trivia a bit ago, Jo was chasing something around the house quite insistently. But I didn't see anything. She would stop for a bit, then take off again, agitated as heck. But still, I couldn't see anything. I was like, "Ummm...is she seeing something that isn't there?" Was she hallucinating? 

And then I went into a mini-spiral: is it because she only has one eye? Is it because she's sick? She did sneeze a time or two and had a little more sleep in her eye than usual? And if she is seeing things, what does that mean? 

Never was more relieved when an actual fly moved through the room. Whew! 

(It even dive-bombed my head as I typed this; I suspect she's already made contact with it and it isn't at full-abiilties!)

And, yes: they can hallucinate, apparently, but she wasn't. 

He even taught the cat tricks...

26 May 2025: I really love a piece like Kevin Mac Donnell's essay on George Griffin, who worked as a butler of sorts for Sam Clemens and his family for years and who a model for Jim in Huck Finn (along with two other men). It's a combination biography, literary criticism, and detective story. Mac Donnell tells readers the story of George's life--a truly astounding one, fit for a movie or a stand-alone book. Then he introduces and does a close reading of a recent discovery--the only known photo of this extraordinary man. 

Mac Donnell is such a good writer that he makes it work better that you expect it to--the whole thing: the biography, the historiography, the authentication and verification of that photo. It's a lot to do in a limited space. And then he just nails the ending, explaining why that photo matters.

“We have had a much longer time to think about Mr. Griffin than Huck had to think about Jim, but have we really seen Mr. Griffin before us all that time? If not, we can certainly see Mr. Griffin before us now. He meets our gazes, eye-to-eye, confident, human, knowing. Do we see his humanity? We Americans—all of us—have had a very long time to look into the faces of others who do not look like us—others—whose races, ages, sexes, ethnicities, heights, weights, disabilities, sexual identities, religions, and socioeconomic classes do not mirror our own. Surely, we see their humanity. But as we move forward, shall we, like Huck, be willing to go to hell for the sake of our common humanity?” (44).

[And yes: Griffin taught one of the Clemens' cats, Abner, how to ring the bell four times "like a servant" (19).]

Work Cited

Mac Donnell, Kevin. “George Griffin: Meeting Mark Twain’s Butler Face-to-Face.” Mark Twain Journal, vol. 62, no. 1, 2024, pp. 11–58.

"Exodus"

25 May 2025: Finally getting caught up on the last season of The Handmaid's Tale and though there are lots of legitimate criticisms to make of the show, darn it if it still doesn't get to me. One line in "Exodus," the episode I just finished, made me tear up (even as I was annoyed at myself for being taken in): 

"We're rising up because in each and every one of us is this immaculate soul that was given to us by God that is just crying out for dignity and freedom."

Pretty good writing, especially in these hard days.

"Sometime in the Morning"

24 May 2025: Felt the urge to listen to The Monkees on my evening walk. I remembered how much I really liked this one when I was little.

Late afternoon soak...

23 May 2025: My nightly bath is a simple luxury, a way to wind down before bed--and I love it so much. But a new(ish) player on the scene--a late afternoon soak--is also quite nice. Took one today around 4:00 when I got home from working on campus. Especially on a Friday with no plans, this earlier indulgence works really well.

"not a labor of exposition so much as a labor of discovery"

22 May 2025: Getting started in earnest working through the articles and books for the “Year’s Work in Humor Studies” that I am once again co-writing, beginning with the Twain stuff. I found myself really into Bruce Michelson’s piece about what Twain can teach us about AI. Here’s a long passage that I enthusiastically marked up (setting up Michelson’s point that Twain is a writer work turning to on this topic): 

“Utterance that matters to us is not a labor of exposition so much as a labor of discovery. We become who we are, we construct and furbish our own consciousness by struggling for the right words; and the result—again, if we are lucky—is not just felicitous utterance but deeper and richer inner life. The kind of writing that matters is never a low-engagement process of fitting discourse together like pieces from an IKEA flat-pack. The effort of revision, of ruthlessly interrogating ourselves on relationships between each possible utterance and the next, is not a tidying up but a telling of a story— in some dimensions always a fiction—of one’s own mind in motion, describing or implying cognitive and emotional journeys with more poise and clearer steadier direction than the actual jumps, backtracks, and flashes from which presentable thinking might (thanks to these private struggles to find the words and the order) eventually emerge. Which leads to at least one collateral paradox: though veteran teachers may see a measure of truth in my attempt here to describe these dynamics, they also recognize how difficult it can be to convey it, given the imperatives and longstanding practices embedded in how American colleges and universities normally teach the production of passable expository prose” (4-5).

Work Cited

Michelson, Bruce. "Mark Twain Legacies in the Dawn of Gen AI." The Mark Twain Annual, vol. 22, 2024, p. 1-20.

Old school research tools...

21 May 2025: Betty has mostly moved out of her office leaving just a few remants behind, including a big stack of these: old school volumes of the MLA Bibliography. I never had to use these paper copies--databases came just in time for me--and holy cow, I am grateful for that.

Summer Institute planning...

20 May 2025: We had a really good and productive meeting this afternoon planning for our NWP Summer Institute. I love the reminder of how smart and creative my colleagues are. 

Now I need to prepare for my "day" of the pre-institute. Here's hoping some good inspiration hits me tonight or tomorrow morning. 

"Sugar in the Tank"

19 May 2025: Digging this one...

Quiet May Sunday...

18 May 2025: Maybe the most public part of my day today was getting a breakfast sandwich at Sheetz. Didn't even really pass too many people on my walk later in the morning. Spent the rest of the day home with Jo and Veronica, just taking it easy. 

It's been a nice day overall. Finishing it up by doing some early work on this year's "Year's Work" essay for Studies in American Humor and watching the Yankees/Mets game. 

Tote painting...

17 May 2025: After a strage start and hard start to the day--meeting with the claims adjustor for my parents' house--I was glad to spend the afternoon with Jane. We painted these tote bags that came as part of an arts & crafts subscription for adults subscription that Erin and her family gave me for Christmas. Then we got lunch in town and ice-cream at Rockhill Creamery. Just a really nice day.

My tote; I am so bad at art, so I went for simple and Whitman-esque.

Jane's tote, which is much prettier and much more ambitious!

"all kinds of magic in the world..."

16 May 2025: “There are all kinds of magic in the world…And the sort of magic that ensures that when someone has decided that they would like a cat, a cat finds their way into their life” (59).

Working on some more notes for my SSAWW paper and came across this quotation that delighted me the first time I read Not Quite a Ghost. (I alluded to the book's cat in this post earlier this week.)

Makes me think of these two, who bring me so much happiness.

Work Cited

Ursu, Anne. Not Quite a Ghost. HarperCollins Publishers, 2024.

Jo, But Make It Lil Jo...

15 May 2025: Riffing on a social media account for my title here, but I realized yesterday that there's a connection between my first view of Jo (on Petfinder) and her "new" skill/habit--which she has gotten better at.

This morning, I found another example, though not as dramatic...

Fresh cut...

14 May 2025: Got my hair cut this morning and once again had a great conversation with Isabelle. This time we talked about her recent family cruise where she and her husband renewed their vows, along with her daughter and son-in-law. It was an especially fun conversation because we talked about the plans during my previous visits. Sounds like everything went really well, though she said it was tiring (ha!). She even showed me a sweet video. 

"Return need not be regression"

13 May 2025: “Power, too, can be adapted—that is, destabilized, disrupted—and again both memory and mutation, theme and variation are at work. Return need not be regression” (Hutcheon 175).

Thinking a lot about Hutcheon's work on adaptation--particularly this idea--as I conceptuatlize my SSAWW paper, about a YA book inspired by Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper." 

Work Cited

Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2013. 

Yardwork day...

12 May 2025: I had planned to do some work in the yard today--a trip to Home Depot for some plants that I would then plant/pot when I got home. Then tomorrow, I thought I'd go to the really good nursery in Maryland for the rest of my plants and put them in the ground in the next couple of days. But the weather was so nice today and Home Depot's selections were not great. Plus, I realized that it's supposed to start raining this evening and there's rain in the forecast for until Thursday...so I also wanted to mow the lawn today. By about 9:30 a.m., I was ready to go "all in" on a yardwork day. 

Cleaned out the flower beds and then mowed the lawn (mowing over all the weeds I had pulled). Drove to the other nursery and got the good stuff. Put it all in the ground or in pots on the porch and deck. Feeling tired, but accomplished.

The SSAWW essay work I had planned for today (most of it, anyway) can wait until tomorrow--a better rainy day activity than mowing or planting! 

Jo's new skill...

11 May 2025: This one is sort of my fault: I would place a toy on top of their new scratching post for Jo to stretch up to and knock down. She loves it when I do this. But her new skill must be, in her mind, the next, natural step. 

Can't be comfortable but she does it again and again. Such a cute little weirdo.

Graduation 2025

10 May 2025: Another graduation in the books! Managed to get most of our graduates in this picture.

School Spirits

9 May 2025: Besides a bit of work on my SSAWW paper and some little things on campus, I've been kind of lazy when it comes to work these past two days. And that's okay. One sign of that laziness? I just kind of randomly decided to start a new series on Paramount+, School Spirits. Since yesterday, I've watched the first six episodes and it is fun and smart, with some Veronica Mars and Buffy vibes. 

"Let me just exist with you..."

8 May 2025: This morning, I finished reading (well, listening to) Pageboy, Elliot Page's memoir. It's really a terrific book--smart, searing, sad, and, ultimately, uplifting. It's also structurally fascinating--non-linear, with some chapters that are just vingettes and others that stretch into deep dives. Ultimately, I just found myself rooting for him again and again, wanting him to find peace, love, and comfort, a set of wishes for him that extend so effortlessly (because of his artistry) to everyone else who struggles with their identity. 

Just a couple of powerful passages:

About the life-sustaining and indeed life-saving importance of representation and visibility: "My heart aches for my younger self. A tiny bug running to the rim of an upside-down juice glass. What a difference it would have been to sit with queer and trans pals and have them say, 'I feel that way, too. I felt that way, too. We don't have to feel that way. You don't have to feel that way.' Not a magic eraser of shame, but it would have undoubtedly quickened things up.”

And, towards the end: “Let me just exist with you, happier than ever.” Such a simple plea--"Let me just exist with you"--but one that is somehow controversial today.  

"And Zero at the Bone"

7 May 2025: Every time I come across these neighbors--every time, no matter the size--Dickinson's last line comes to mind.

"there should be a cat in every book..."

6 May 2025: Started working in earnest on my SSAWW 2025 paper today, which included revisiting this charming interview with Anne Ursu, whose YA novel, Not Quite a Ghost,  I am writing about. Hard to disagree with her on why she added a cat to the book: "I did have to have her discover a cat because, I mean, first of all, there should be a cat in every book, but also, she needed something to interact with." 

A bit of good news!

5 May 2025: Very pleased and grateful to have gotten an award today--and to see some of my favorite colleagues get some recognition, too.

Nickel Boys

4 May 2025: I finally watched Nickel Boys today and really liked it. I read the book when it came out and realized that more of it stuck than I thought. This might seem like a bit of a strange comparison, but the adaptation reminds me of Fun Home's journey from graphic memoir to musical. The adaptation is faithful, but also so distinctly itself. Nickel Boys (the movie) is so beautiful and plays with perspective in fascinating ways. 

"The Piano Tuner's Wives"

3 May 2025: Listened to this story today while doing chores and taking my walk. Like every William Trevor that I've come across, I found it so beautiful and moving. 

Betty' retirement...

2 May 2025: 

[Catch-up post]

Yesterday, we celebrated our beloved department chair's well-earned retirement. Sally and her husband hosted a really lovely gathering. It was one of the nicest night I can remember in a long while and a perfect celebration of someone who has meant so much to all of us. 

Spring 2025 Grading: DONE!

1 May 2025: Just hit "submit" on my last set of grades of the semester. These English 204 exams were kind of fun, especially when the students let themselves respond to prompts as genuine people. Talk about what surprised you, what you liked, which texts stuck with you. That stuff is so great. 

Anyway, here's to another semester in the books (almost) and to (we pray) a relaxing and restorative summer.

But first, some chair dancing, to this 80s classic that popped up on Pandora: Madonna's "Who's That Girl?"