My favorite cartoonist: Berkeley Breathed

A few weeks back Wifely and I stayed at a (h/m)otel because our home AC motor blew up. All our creatures — Gibson the Dog, Betty the Cat, and Henry the Cat — stayed with us. I loved the clarity of the clean rooms — there wasn’t Stuff all over the place. Just us, just what we needed to MY TEETH LOOKED EXTREMELY WHITE SO THAT WAS LIKE AN AWESOME THING (Sorry! Her TV interrupted my blog!) I was saying, It was just us, it was just a little home with only what Kate and I needed to be together. DARK AS THE FRICKIN’, LIKE, CHALKBOARD (Sorry again; trying to ignore it!)

Wifely was watching one of her most cherished shows, Jersey Shore.

Essentially, Chuck E. Cheese’s for adults.

One of my earliest memories of TV is watching, from across the room, a friend and his brother watch it. I remember their hands descending into the popcorn dish, lifting the popcorn to their mouths, their mouths chewing, gazes never leaving the screen, not even when it changed from one show to another, because it didn’t matter to them what they were perceiving. Unlike readers, who actively collaborate with texts to create stories in their minds, these two were passive receptacles of whatever was decided by whomever to be stuffed down their eyeballs.

I’m not opposed to entertainment; I’m opposed to mindless entertainment. He better not hope I don’t find out his name, bro. (What?)

Shadowgate

A 2010 BLS survey says on average almost everyone 15 and up in the States watched nearly three hours of TV per day every day and I assume they will do so for the rest of their lives. There’s enough time to be mindless when you’re dead. I’m from THE SHORE BITCH!!! (Okay?)

Give me a piece of my preferred mindless entertainment and you will receive a lengthy confabulation justifying its importance. One man’s treasure, yadda. Actually I think it’s the BIG LOUD BASHING NOISE of TV that bothers me, the whole disorderly, sensate chaos of the thing. How the hell is that relaxing? I must be the wrong Myers-Briggs. Somebody pull out the McLuhan and say something wiser, because right now I have to put on some headphones and go write a scholarly article on the hobbies of the Puritans.

I HATE TV by Douglas Lucas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.douglaslucas.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.douglaslucas.com.

Isn’t Prada Marfa an oxymoron?

This sight alone made the Roswell leg of the trip worthwhile:

El Capitan in Guadalupe Mountains National Park

We didn’t do much in Roswell, so here’s Megadeth playing you a song portraying the real truth of what happened there in 194-whenever:

Coming home from New Mexico — a tiring nine-or-so-hour drive — we scoped out this building:

Housing Crisis

Roof Needs Some Work

And at least we actually did see this alien, ejecting from its UFO:

OMG! (adaptation of erin m pic)

The trip was wonderful, and it also feels good to be home, refreshed. Yay!

ALIENS by Douglas Lucas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.douglaslucas.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.douglaslucas.com.

Welcome to downtown Marfa, Texas

For our first wedding anniversary(!!!), her birthday, and my student-teaching’s successful conclusion, Wifely Kate and I have taken a road trip to Marfa, Texas. It’s an incongruously posh West Texas town of about 2000 people, each better dressed and better groomed than you. Cross Stuff White People Like with Fort Worth’s aggressively vegan Spiral Diner, write it up in the New York Times, and you’d wind up with something like this town. More laid-back than Austin, and on average, more expensive, too. No Shiner on tap at a hotel courtyard, but there’s Brooklyn Lager!

We’re having a wonderful time, enough for me to let loose with this good-intentioned mockery.

Close to the nearby megalopolis of Ruidosa, Texas

The drive down took us eight, maybe nine hours, including two or three stops. To ease the journey, we created an iPod playlist to randomize 1) her songs that I can withstand (“Firework” by Katy Perry) and 2) my songs that she can withstand (“Got a Match?” by the Chick Corea Elektric Band). I named the playlist “Marfa Double Boo.” You see, I call her Boo, she calls me same; hence: Marfa Double Boo.

Dust Devil Approacheth

Dust Devil is Furious!

One thing about Marfa this summer — it’s HOT. Dust devils such as the one pictured above often arise, according to meteorologist Jeff Jamison, in “extreme temps >100 degrees,” where “the air is rising quickly [and] there’s enough shear above.” It’s a “tube of wind.” He goes on to say “Usually doesn’t do much damage and they do scoot along quickly.”

Ruidosa, Texas, nearby; 2000 population: 43 people

When we returned to Marfa from driving around Presidio (a town along the US-Mexico border), we had to pass through a US Border Patrol checkpoint. I expected some sort of drama, but really, when I rolled down the window, the authority figure just said: “Citizenship?” The responses which leapt to mind included:

• Yes, please.
• I’ll take three.
• What about it?

The correct answer was “American.”

Marfa Farmers Market

The food here is fantastic, nobody locks up their doors or bikes, the stars overhead are plentiful . . . and the famed Marfa lights, allegedly paranormal lights that do float in the sky strangely, are, well, a little lame. Possibly they’re just ordinary lights reflected by atmospheric conditions that are abnormal due to sharp differences in temperatures and elevation. On our anniversary night, at the official Marfa lights viewing station — where we drank champagne saved from our wedding — true believers insisted to one another that the lights are indeed a paranormal phenomenon. Frankly I think the city of Marfa pays some guy to stand out there with a flashlight, but make up your own mind via the great 80′s competitor to 60 Minutes, Unsolved Mysteries:

There’s a really cool bookstore here called Marfa Book Company (yelp). They had a great selection (including both their fiction & nonfiction), they were friendly to Gibson the Dog, and when I told them I was impressed they had Ted Chiang‘s short story collection, they asked if I’d recommend something similar they could add. (I suggested Chiang’s book The Lifecycle of Software Objects).

One drive we took brought us close to Big Bend National Park — that’s Mexico, right across the Rio Grande:

Near Big Bend National Park

TxDOT Teepees?!

Tomorrow we head to Roswell, New Mexico, where we’ll spend a night, hopefully not abducted by aliens or Stalin-Mengele, before we then head home.

Mrs Boo Ready to Go

Marfa Double Boo by Douglas Lucas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.douglaslucas.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.douglaslucas.com.

Gibson the Dog

You’re lying in bed. All at once big dog paws paddle your forearms. Heeding the PetSmart trainer, you do nothing, and so your dog scrabbles around the bed to your wife‘s side. He paddles her face and, play-acting at punishment, she says his name again and again in a high, gentle voice. “If you’re going to reprimand him,” you say, “make up your mind to reprimand him and do so without compromise. Anyway, he needs to be in his crate.” “I don’t want to ruin who he is,” she says. “I don’t want to crush his spirit.”

How do you reply to that?

Betty the Cat

All the same, I’m glad we, thanks to Kate, have our animals: 2 cats, 1 dog, 2 humans. Our shared feelings and inside jokes about them have become quite specific. For instance, we’ve decided Betty is less judgmental than Henry. She’s probably also a Democrat, whereas Henry’s Republicanism is evident from his aristocratic nature. Our reasoning about, and fine-point debate over, these insights go on endlessly. It’s very important.

Henry the Cat

Henry, the first pet, displays clear anger toward his fellow pets who suck attention away from him. So sometimes to give him special attention we take him with us when we go get frozen custard from Curly’s. (Henry doesn’t eat the desserts there; he just travels along.) Regardless of his anger, Henry always likes to sleep sweetly in a certain spot on the bed next to Kate, whereas Betty typically seeks her own private locale. Gibson? These days he stays in his crate.

It’s a Zoo in Here by Douglas Lucas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.douglaslucas.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.douglaslucas.com.

Right now the coordinating teacher and I are together in the same classroom throughout the day. She’s running the reins, and I’m just observing, sitting at the side. Eventually I’ll be able to lead some activities. I’ve done that before when I’ve substituted for the same groups of students across a continuous week or so, but this would be more serious, especially as it’s long-term.

The day began quite early; my alarms blasted off at about 4:30am. I showered & got ready, and Wifely Kate cooked breakfast:

iPhone pic by me, public domain for you. Food by Kate!

How awesome is that? The coffee was ready and everything. I was able to write fiction for about an hour and fifteen minutes — quickly revising (line-editing) an older, completed story so I can re-submit it; didn’t quite finish, since I’m having to fact-check some details — and then I headed to campus, the lunch Kate packed me in tow. At noon-ish I discovered she’d left a note in my lunchbox. The note talked about how proud she is of me. I got teary-eyed!

The coordinating teacher uses a Promothean ActivBoard (I’m not sure if the link points to the exact same model) in some very effective ways. For one portion of the classes, she shows multiple-choice math questions on the ‘Board, then the students record their answers using controllers — all students have one on their desks. The coordinating teacher shows the results on the ‘Board — as a bar graph; looks like something off Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? — and uses them not just to motivate the class (the students love the video game-y vibe), but also to hone in on the students’ misunderstandings of the material in order to explain it again. Good real-time assessment.

The ‘Board can even export the collected data, so at a later time, we can analyze the answer statistics more precisely to spot recurring troubles. Totally something out of a Tim O’Reilly project.

Since I was mostly only observing — catching up to speed on this campus’s schedule, rules, etc. — I focused on watching one student at a time. (I’ve blogged before about developing observation skills. As for characterization, can a writer quickly notice in real-life what makes another person absolutely unique?) I noticed a boy whom I think might need glasses. Squinting, tilting his head to see better, putting his face inches from his paper. There’s a school program to address vision issues, but I’m not sure how prompt it is. Watching how in need and at risk students are can be upsetting. I’ve seen it before, substituting.

This particular student is enthusiastic, often raising and waving his hand even before the teacher asks another question. His enthusiasm hasn’t been disruptive. He seems to be a bit in his own world — smiling to himself, thinking his own thoughts. Good kid.

After leaving the campus, I went to Stay Wired! Coffeehouse and Computer Service for two hours, where I’m helping out as a computer tech. After my two hours were up, I informally sat in on a meeting for Democrat Cathy Hirt‘s campaign for the Fort Worth mayor position. There, upon being asked, I talked a little about my experiences and observations working for the local public school system.

I have to confess I’m bewildered about the relationships between my roles as a writer, teacher, newbie activist, blogger, and tweep (Twitter person). For example, working as an activist differs from volunteering for a political campaign (as I did for Bill White), from working for one in an official capacity, from blogging reportage or opinion about it, from incorporating observations of a campaign into a fiction project, etc. It’s a bit unnerving when you’re sitting there with a few people talking local politics and you’re trying to figure out which hat you’re wearing, so to speak. I have no real idea how to resolve these mini-conflicts, and there’s no one right answer.

The convention for blogs to be frequently updated conflicts with my personal preference for long-form or at least mucho-revised writing; and, when I’ve tried to blog long-form writing in the past, it’s often come off as too complex (Latinate, twisted syntax…) and hasn’t been revised well enough — a bad compromise between careful long-form writing and a quick blog post. Really, if you’re blogging long-form pieces, you’re essentially writing e-books. Since I consider myself a non-commercial writer (i.e. my goal isn’t profit; that possibility is a fringe benefit; I don’t mean that I consider myself highbrow — I try not to think in those terms), I’m not against the idea of eventually releasing more of my creative writing (fiction and otherwise) under Creative Commons licenses, but I sense that right now, I still need the bigger bullhorns and reputation-build of established venues (i.e. magazines, publishing houses).

The increasing online success of vkgoeswild (Vika Yermolyeva) has been a bit of an eye-opener for me. I thought she was cool before she joined forces with Dresden Dolls drummer Brian Viglione (Hipster cultural capital snobby-stupid FTW! =p). Vika supports herself by receiving online tips and selling customized transcriptions online. Other artists and bloggers have figured out similar business models (search through Boing Boing for many examples and discussions). But for creative writing, I just don’t excel at the very short, very quickly written form, which seems to be necessary to any feasible online business model I can actually think up for right now.

Besides, I love teaching!

Public domain pic thanks to Amada44

The campus is an elementary school. I’ve substituted a fair number of times in the middle and high school grades, as well as in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. I love kids and I love teaching. It requires patience, empathy, honesty, effective communication, a strict but fair approach, courage, an understanding of how people (young folk are people, too) need structure, a knack for facilitating group activity, good documentation skills, the ability to coordinate with coworkers…

So I’m confident in my abilities and experience. The anxiety comes from other causes. I’m not at all the best when it comes to crossing t’s and dotting i’s when time is of the essence, and that’s a necessary part of most work. I still don’t have many of the nitty-gritty details figured out (where do I park?), but I’ve always been able to improvise as a substitute. “Bring it on!” is my basic attitude, but everyone, including me, gets scared.

Wifely Kate has been so supportive and generous with her help. This weekend we did a lot of prep stuff, such as buying me more button-down dress shirts, cutting my hair (I still have a big ol’ shock of cowlick-y hair, which seems to be undefeatable). Marrying her has been the best thing that ever happened to me. And not just because she’s cooking breakfast and packing my lunch in the early, early morning as I get my creative writing in before driving to campus.

Schoolteaching is also scary because of possible political and work-world implications of online activity, online personal opinions. Working — at least as a substitute — has made me an official public servant. And there’s a lot of controversy over schoolteaching — for example, the Texas textbook controversy. What if something I tweet — such as this in favor of journalist Glenn Greenwald – bothers a parent or a supervisor? Oh well! I don’t really know how to handle that other than how I handle personal interaction in general, which is to try to be honest, fair, and diplomatic. I’m not one to stay quiet and keep my head down.

I’m ready. Again: Bring it on.

I need to make public something else soon, too, but I’ll leave that as a cliffhanger due to time constraints: I gotta get some sleep!

Right when Kate woke, she hurried me out of the house to help her get lumber for her square foot gardens. She and I found the lumber, then went to La Familia for lunch. As per their custom they set my margarita on fire. Word.

As she gardened I read Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin, and the weather was warm enough to forgo layering. I could lie out there on the grass for hours with her.

We went downtown later, to the Flying Saucer, where I continued reading Franklin and she read Brian Stableford’s amazing story “Mortimer Gray’s History of Death,” a long-standing favorite of mine.

Back home we watched the first episode of HBO’s Rome series. Eventually Kate put on Rainbow Brite (see embed below), which caused our mind meld to come to an abrupt halt.

Ever notice how, often, when people are having a perfectly good time, and the time comes to a close, somebody’s got to go and spoil it? Takes a lot for some folks (such as myself) to be okay with having an ordinary, happy day. Ah, that’s a long story… But today was great, through and through.

A February 2010 article in the Concord Monitor says:

Keeping Up With the Kardashians has averaged 3.7 million viewers this year, double last season’s total, and was especially successful in the young, female and free-spending demographic coveted by advertisers. According to Nielsen, Kardashian viewers tend to be single, college-educated women with no children, white-collar jobs and annual salaries of more than $60,000. The show is the highest-rated series on cable among women between the ages of 18 to 34 and occasionally beats even the network shows in its time slot for those viewers.

According to the almighty Wikipedia, “Kimberly Noel ‘Kim’ Kardashian (born October 21, 1980) is an American celebutante, socialite, television personality, producer, actress, and model.”

When I ask, viewers of the show — yeah, yeah, a very limited sample size of them — often tell me vigorously that (in my words) when they watch they maintain emotional distance from the content and, basically, (sometimes) laugh at the (sometimes) immaturity of the people/characters. I suspect this is for the large part untrue.

I think the show’s attraction comes from a different source. Some of the attraction, obviously enough, is the vicarious experience of fantastic wealth, and some must be the feeling “At least I’m not doing as bad as these immature people.” Those feelings combined give compensatory/escapist relief. But I don’t think they alone can account for the show’s huge draw.

Actually I think viewers really identify with much of what the show’s characters are saying, doing, feeling. Some of what they’re saying (including from other episodes), loosely transcribed: “It’s really hard to express your feelings”; “You need to pay attention to your responsibilities”; and so on. None of that is particularly false, or different from what many say in private. But since the Kardashians is so jam-packed with such comments expressed in such loopy settings, the comments seem ridiculous enough that people feel safe identifying with them. (I mean, imagine footage of a President’s cabinet sitting around talking about such things. THAT would really trouble people.) With the truth spoken by Kardashian semi-fools, viewers can assure themselves aloud that they themselves don’t really assert such things, and simultaneously let themselves privately identify with such emotions. They can secretly, privately take refuge in the Kardashians expressing them; with them it can feel okay to feel the plight of the spoiled, to hear the parental advice, etc. I’m not sure this is a benign thing ultimately, but I think it’s what’s really going on.

There’s a useful lesson here for creative writers. Part of writing is realizing and admitting that it’s all true, the entire wide gamut of emotions and ideas and morals, inside each and every person. Evil tendencies of thought, lazy motives, good moments of charity and maturity, etc. Plausible characters should encompass all that, as we all do.

I’m going to compare the Kardashians with another I consider similar enough in some aspects, Bridezillas. A clip from that show (much less benign):

I can’t find good info on Bridezillas’ viewer demographics, but there’s this press release:

Available in over 76 million homes, WE tv’s programming offers viewers compelling perspectives on women’s lives ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary, presented in a non-judgmental voice. The network’s popular original series include the signature show Bridezillas

There’s nothing in the show’s content to indicate it’s supposed to be taken one way or the other, either, and the above press release emphatically claims its representation of the individuals’ lives is “non-judgmental.” But sometimes viewers for this show tell me they watch it in some sort of “ironic” manner, meaning they say they don’t “really” invest in the individuals’ lives, but rather laugh at them, regard them with scorn.

Again, I don’t think their claim is true; I think it’s a smokescreen. I bet the show serves as a way for (many of) its viewers to get out (maybe as catharsis) those unacceptable emotions we all have. Wish there were some healthier way of doing it. Who knows, though? Maybe viewing the shows is as a-ok as anything else.

I don’t like, and can’t get behind, the actors serving as human guinea pigs, though, or as fodder for other people’s amusement or vicarious release of negative emotions.

Take all this with a grain of salt. I haven’t watched much of these shows, I haven’t read or thought much about them. But I do think much more is going on here than what is claimed or what meets the eye.

Tyler the Handyman

The actual platform — the piece parallel to the ceiling — is a chainlink fence’s gate. At each of the four corners, Tyler used chains (he adjusted the lengths for leveling) to connect the gate to circle screws he’d driven into the ceiling. Some of the cookware rests atop the gate, and baskets hang from the gate by hooks or cut-off coat hanger tips that serve as hooks.

Kate the Cook

The task was no more complex than it looks, it cost only about $50-$60, but it did take a fair amount of time. However, not as much time as the indefatigable Martha spent in prison.

FRITTATA ON YOUR FLOOR

Wikipedia says a frittata is “an egg-based dish similar to an omelette or quiche, either simple or enriched with additional ingredients such as meats, cheeses, vegetables or pasta. It may be flavored with herbs.” But, nope. It’s a bomb!

WELL, NO, NOT REALLY

Recipe for Fritatta Bomb

• Procure a pie plate [sic].

• Spray pie plate with PAM, or perhaps gasoline.

• Within the pie plate, sautee garlic, onion, and peppers — as in pepper spray.

• Put in additional food: celery, carrots, brussels sprouts, egg — maybe rat poison, too.

• Take to detonation location, set on (portable) stove, cook.

• Run away before explosion.

• Chortle.