Wow, to say the least

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/science/earth/07security.html?_r=1&hp 

An interesting article from this morning’s Ny Times on the Copenhagen Talks and how they will deal with protestors.

Growing on a Belly full of Books part Three

I read that book all day: in between patients, during lunch, even snuck into the bathroom for five minutes of uninterrupted blissful reading peace. Once I got off around eight-thirty p.m. I went back to my barracks, showered, then retreated into my sleeping bag not to sleep but to plunge back into The Catcher in the Rye. For once I was thankful that my bunk was cursed with being right next to the door and therefore always basking in the alien green light of an exit sign; that intensely green glowing sign which I normally cursed for its very existence, always contemplating smashing it during the night as it illuminated my face. That night it magnificently lit every word up allowing me to finish before morning. I felt so connected, so full, it was glorious. I didn’t even mind seeing that nauseating face in the morning.

            I know now why I read the way I did, I was trying to save myself. I was a low ranking enlisted female stuck on a two mile by three mile guarded base and in most of the minds of the male ran world of the Navy, no one can be dumber and more useless then a low ranking enlisted female. Like Alexie on his Indian Reservation expected by both Indians and non-Indians alike, to be nothing but a dumb Indian, I refused to be some stupid little girl; brainless dimwitted words would not fly out of this mouth. I would not let them make me think that my mind was weak; I would feed my mind with the nourishment of books and words of strength. I would not give in and play a role. I would save me from all of that; I would read with insatiable hunger.

Then it happened: I was noticed for being smart, for picking up on problems and solving them efficiently. Low and behold I was put in charge, me a low ranking enlisted female. At first I thought they’d lost their minds, maybe it was it was the heat. Only they hadn’t and I really was in charge. This did not go over well for some of my higher ranking male counter parts but it didn’t matter to me, like Alexie I refused to fail. I was constantly battling these men, threatened with being charged with petty things like not calling them by their proper rank and showing them the proper respect that they thought they’d earned. They tried to belittle me, question my given authority over them, and sabotage my clinic, yet for all their efforts they never succeeded. I was always one step ahead of them. That’s not to say that at times I wished I just fit in but in the end I knew I didn’t need them, I had books.

Growing on a Belly full of Books part two

When on deployment I saw the same people everyday, woke up with them, went to breakfast, to work, to dinner, shower, and finally back to sleep with them. It’s stomach-churning. No, I am not exaggerating. Imagine how it feels working with someone who is just maddening. Go ahead close those eyes and picture them. Now imagine waking up and seeing that face everyday for six months. Frightening isn’t it? I know, trust me I know.

Early one morning, in an attempt to escape that face that still haunts me to this day, I got up at three-thirty in the morning and headed over to the medical clinic I worked in. I was currently out of reading material so I thought an empty clinic would be prime time to surf the internet for new literary snacks. As always when entering the clinic I went straight for the break-room to put on some coffee (thank you random churches throughout America for sending us my other drug of choice, caffeine) when I saw it laying there on the table. Battered and worn, calling for me to help it was The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I immediately started reading, there was nothing else, and not to mention how invitingly it looked at me. It was like a fat fluffy puppy that needed to be loved.

From the first few pages I felt instant connection with Holden Caulfield, the protagonist. Holden, begins his story by describing his fancy private school, how they advertised about creating poster boys, making them eloquent successful men; while in reality the school was full of crooks that stole from their classmates, one of them being Holden, and weren’t being molded into anything really. They were who they were despite the efforts of the school. Here I was surrounded by people who were who they were despite the military’s attempts to mold them into something more, something full of honor, courage and commitment. Holden shouldn’t have had his things stolen if he was in a school with such upstanding boys but they were stolen none the less. On a guarded military base it shouldn’t have been unadvisable for me to walk around alone any where by myself day or night. Holden knowing that he was surrounded by phonies should have locked his things up; I knew I was surrounded by phonies. Consequently I never went anywhere alone, either a friend or a weapon accompanied me, so I never lost anything, not in Kuwait.

 Next thing I knew people were filling in for the work day to start so I began asking everyone if this was their book, I didn’t want to be a book thief, no matter how desperate I was. Nobody claimed it though. How could this book just appear out of nowhere, I thought. Clearly The Catcher in the Rye was divine intervention.

Growing on a Belly full of Books part One

“Find a way to make beauty necessary, find a way to make necessity beautiful.”

- Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

Have you ever opened an oven that was set to four hundred degrees and looked in? It snatches your breathe away in one burning gasp, dries your eyes instantly, makes you think, “Damn, that’s flipping hot.” This is what it was like for me to step off the plane and enter Kuwait as a Hospital Corpsman in the U.S. Navy. The heat wrapped its body around me while the sand brown landscape pierced my eyes. Where oh where was the color!? I grew up in Southern California, was stationed in Washington state, I needed mountains, I needed trees, I needed to see the ocean. I was not going to get any of that here, maybe a glimpse at the ocean if I was lucky but let’s face it I’m just not that lucky. Thankfully desert cammies come with paperback sized pockets on the pant legs; thankfully I thought ahead and placed a copy of Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels into one of those pockets. Just feeling it pressed against my leg was an enormous encouragement. “Don’t worry it,” it said, “Just wait till we get off this nauseating bus ride and then you can read me.” Oh and read I did.

There’s nothing more filling to me then to devour a book. I love eating page after page shoveling more into my brain like Thanksgiving pie. Books are what keep me sane, they let me fall into other worlds, walk the streets of Venice, sail the Arctic Ocean, smell the dirt in Africa, and so much more. From the time I started reading I never go anywhere without one. You never know when the friend you’re meeting for dinner is going to be late- that’s prime reading time, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you amazon.com and my most phenomenal best friend Meghan for the multitude of books they supplied with such swiftness. Just like Sherman Alexie in his essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me,” I knew what it was like to try and save myself by reading. Anne Lamott summed it up just right for me when she said, “Because for some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth.” (15)

The problem with being a book eater out in the desert is that your food supply dwindles quickly and there isn’t a local book store to refill it. You’re left to wait for the mail which takes roughly two weeks. To be honest it really isn’t all that long of a wait, if you have enough to munch on that is. I felt like Alexie reading magazines, wall postings, “anything with words and paragraphs” (14) when I didn’t have a book. Sure I reread the ones that I already had, hell I even badgered people who had one in their hands. I was like a crack addict licking my lips with sweaty palms waiting for my crack to come. “Is that a good book? Do you have any others? Can I look at it while you’re eating?” How could they expect me to deal with this brown hot bullshit all day everyday without a reprieve? And then it would happen, the mail would come and as soon as I had a free minute, I’d rush to the administration tent to see if my name was on the mail list. Thank God Meghan loved me, if it wasn’t a book, she’d at least always send me a letter. Sometimes it would be filled with little snacks, newspaper clippings from the Cal Daily. Oh those eccentric little articles were amazing they made me feel connected to something sane.

Wait, what?

“What am I trying to say and dear God how do I say it?!” This is the vein of every writer’s existence, that pulsing blue and purple vein that makes one’s head hurt. It can be very difficult for a writer to take their thoughts and ideas and put them to paper. Sure most writers can talk about their ideas and describe them out loud, but when it comes time to write them-well that’s another story. Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird reminds writers that when their work is being read they are not a parrot sitting on the reader’s shoulder adlibbing and clarifying, “the material has got to work on its own,” she painfully reminds all budding authors (Lamott 57). Andrea Lunsford in The Everyday Writer shares a similar opinion, emphasizing how a sentence must make itself clear for a reader to understand it; unlike a writer sentences have no facial expressions, no arms to gesture with and no voice to change pitch. The words and the way those words are strung together must convey all the meaning that the writer intends as if he or she was speaking. Now, how to do that?

            Lamott writes that there must be movement for the audience to keep its grasp; a writer must flow with their rhythm, tone, and mood. She suggests that ABDCE: Action, background, development, climax and ending, work for more then just short story writing (Lamott 62). All writers should want to seize their readers like a bomb exploding; the flying debris and fire catching their reader’s eyes and making them burn with desire to keep reading to find out why. The key is to give readers the why in a way that flows and keeps their attention. Using ABDCE helps writers take their readers from point A, the beginning, to point B, the end. ABDCE is what needs to happen to get to and from these points in an organic way (Lamott 92).

            Lunsford tells writers to think carefully about what they want to write and try to arrange ideas in climatic order so that their work flows smoothly and clearly from point A to B; very similar to Lamott’s perspective. She warns that emphasis on the wrong part of a writer’s sentence can cause a different meaning and in effect lose the reader. Lunsford reminds writers to strive for consistency and completeness, especially when making comparisons. To strengthen ties between two similar ideas she suggests use of a coordinating conjunction or semicolon.

            Both Lamott and Lunsford encourage the use of metaphors to express thoughts and ideas. Lamott asserts, “Metaphors are a great language tool, because they explain the unknown in terms of the known” (Lamott 77). This is all fine and dandy Lunsford believes as long as these metaphors, comparisons, are complete and clear. Ultimately both authors agree that writers should not only read their work out loud to make sure it flows and makes sense but they should also have it proof read several times so that the readers can let them know where they need some patching up.  

Oh and um if you were wondering what kvetching was here you go- A chronic, whining complainer. 

Works Cited:

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. New York: Random House, 1994. Print.

Lunsford, Andrea. The Everyday Writer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. Print.

 

Part two of Daring to Imagine

Vacant lot gardeners’ months of hard work are sometimes wrought with battles fought against the land owners and even city officials who feel that “open space is inconsistent with home ownership” (Carlsson 93). Battles that are sometimes lost, as seen with the La Regional Food Bank’s garden in South Central Los Angeles. The Food Bank saw a vacant lot, where the Earth was rejecting the asphalt that burned into her skin pushing it up and away; a lot littered with trash demanding loving attention. They came in and after thirteen years turned it into a blossoming community garden. Employing three hundred and fifty farmers to cultivate the land and provide food to the local families. Until the original owner went to the city council and regained his title to the land after seeing his lot cleaned up and at zero cost to him. He then had the sheriff’s department evict protesters and farmers and bulldozed over a decade of farming (Carlsson 95).

            Momaday writes the Kiowas “never understood the grim, unrelenting advance of the U.S. Cavalry” to drive them from their land and take what was rightfully theirs (6). They had inhabited the Plains for hundreds of years, built a society there, learned to coax food from the Earth’s harsh skin; why anyone would want to destroy the balance and harmony they created there was beyond them. They had no sense of land ownership and money; they weren’t there for monetary gain but merely to live. The plight of the Native Americans resonates with the vacant lot gardeners struggles to save their community gardens from the market hungry capitalists.         

            Not all of these battles are lost. Many vacant lot gardens still exist after years of hard work and dedication. Take New York City during the late 1990’s for example when then mayor Rudy Giuliani began a campaign to sell community gardens in an attempt to enhance his city’s finances stated, “If you live in an unrealistic world then you can say everything should be a community garden” (Carlsson 93). Thankfully due to the hard work of many vacant lot gardeners and their organizations Giuliani was not able to sell off all the land. Some may see this as a failure or loss since many gardens were destroyed and sold off but the mere survival of many more is testimony to the fact that community gardens can be saved. Steve Frillman from NYC’s Green Guerrillas sums it up best for vacant lot gardeners telling them all they have to do is, “Stand your ground, pitch a tent, and invite people in who are willing to do hard work…don’t get too caught up on consensus, and don’t get discouraged by conflict” (Carlsson 107).

            Even the Kiowa did not suffer complete defeat of their community and ways. This can be seen in Momaday’s recollections of stories told to him by his grandmother like the legend of the Devil’s Tower and the creation of the Big Dipper. Momaday’s own personal journey of retracing his people’s move from the mountains in Yellowstone to Rainy Mountain is a battle won; because of the knowledge passed down to him from his grandmother and “the aged visitors” who came to her house, Momaday was able to learn the ways of the Kiowa (11). “The journey recalled is among other things the revelation of one way in which these traditions are conceived, developed, and interfused in the human mind,” states Momaday(4). Why is it so important to recall this journey? By infusing it into the minds of the next generations the Kiowa are ensuring that their way of life, their culture, will continue on despite all the barriers trying to bring it down.

            “Vacant lot gardeners of today are doing more than just growing food they are growing communities, people and food all at the same time” (Carlsson 91). They are taking a journey much like Momaday described in “The Way to Rainy Mountain.” The journey the Kiowa took was a time in where they learned how to survive in a new environment and created traditions and stories to pass on to the coming generations, so they too could survive. A journey that vacant lot gardeners of today are taking, by trying to find a way to survive in a new environment away from capitalism, so they can pass these revelations on to their coming generations. Both journeys are expressions of the human spirit “and that expression is most truly made in terms of wonder and delight” through daring to imagine a different world (Momaday 4).

Daring to Imagine a New World with Chris Carlsson and N. Scott Momaday

Here’s part one:

There is something beautiful when smelling wet soil and seeing the brilliant reds, deep purples, and luscious greens immerge from its depths. Magic happens whenever food is involved: laughter, stories, knowledge and the sense of being a part of something; even if that something is not within the public domain but with the Earth herself. Chris Carlsson in Nowtopia writes about community gardens engendering that magic by bringing people together, “for a new kind of extended family living based not on blood relationships, but friendships, mutual aid and intergenerational support among neighbors” (94). N. Scott Momaday in “The Way to Rainy Mountain” writes about more than just his grandmother and her impact on him, he is writing about his people the Kiowas and just how important their rituals are to the land they live in. Momaday reminisces about his Kiowa grandmother’s home describing it as being full “of coming and going, feasting and talk,” which is also true of urban community gardens (8). Both Momaday’s grandmother’s house and many community gardens sit quiet now, almost entirely due to capitalist greed and re-appropriation of their land.

            Many parallels can be seen in both of these stories from the conscious choice to change their worlds and create new traditions to the devastation that occurs when capitalists move in. The lots, urban gardens sit on, are worth more monetarily to the owners if sold or developed rather than remaining community gardens. However, value and worth are different to many people; sometimes money isn’t worth more than a sense of belonging and community. The greed that capitalism breeds has reared its head many times throughout history: from pushing Native Peoples, like the Kiowas, off their land, essentially annihilating them, to destroying the sense of community and self sufficiency of today’s communal gardens. However, both vacant lot gardeners and many Native Peoples continue to fight, they have, as Momaday writes, “conceived a good idea of themselves; they [have] dared to imagine and determine who they [are]” (4).

            Carlsson asserts community gardeners are “teaching young activists…helping the new generation sink their own roots into their community,” they are teaching them how to find balance in a capitalist world, which proclaims the only way to be happy is to spend money (94). Vacant lot gardeners turn abandoned lots that are full of broken glass, drug dealers and gang members into aesthetically pleasing gardens that go beyond simple eye candy; they are building communities through volunteer work. Some volunteer up to twenty hours a week of their time on top of working forty plus hours. To some, like Sarah Ferguson, these gardens are like churches where the ritual digging, planting and harvesting brings them faith in both themselves and their neighbors (Carlsson 92).

Momaday chronicles the Kiowa’s move from the mountains of Yellowstone to the flat Plains citing the obstacles that they had to overcome in order to find balance and harmony in place where some of the most extreme weather reigns. The Kiowa obtained their Plains culture from the Crows who had inhabited the land long enough to know how to survive. They taught them how to live with courage and pride so that “no longer were they slaves to the simple necessity of survival” (Momaday 6). Through rituals like the Sun Dance, the Kiowa were able to find solace in their land; much like the vacant lot gardeners of today, who are searching for escape from the drudgery of everyday work in the capitalist world.

A little thought

Spanish 2 with Senorita M. Ever since every time I try and speak Spanish the words just refuse to roll out of my mouth, it takes extreme effort and force to make those words come out. Now my Spanish ear wasn’t affected by this stroke, it can understand to a functional degree. David Sedaris and I share something in common when it comes to language. Sure he was learning French and I Spanish but the struggle is one in the same. We were both ignorant of our foreign language short comings but boy oh boy did our teachers point them out. In Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris states, “My only comfort was in knowing I was not alone,” this is true for many students attempting to learn to speak in another language. There’s nothing like a common strife to bring people together.

            Sure I took Spanish One freshman year but I’m going to be honest with you and let you in on a little secret, I’m surprised I left that class being able to count in Spanish and tell people what my name was. However I walked into Spanish Two with some confidence, thinking to myself, “Ahh yes, this is going to be good. I’m totally going to do well.” This confidence was short lived at best. I knew I sounded beyond white when I spoke but somehow I overlooked that in the spirit of learning. Not for long though, not for long.

Don’t Just B.S. You’re Way Through

Not only must you know what you want to say, you must also believe in what you are saying. Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird states that “the core, ethical concepts in which you most passionately believe are the language in which you are writing” (103). If a writer doesn’t have a clear view of what they themselves are saying then guess what? The reader isn’t going to know what they are saying either. The language will flip and flop back and forth confusing the writer on what he or she is trying to actually say and ultimately losing readers. Andrea Lunsford in The Everyday Writer writes in her section on sentence grammar how important stringing the right words together is. Writers should strive to create clear writing by using proper grammar and mechanics so that readers can understand and even enjoy what is being said.

Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird tells perspective writers that no matter what they’re writing, fiction, non-fiction, essay, that their job “…is to present clearly your viewpoint, your line of vision”( 97). This is vital to creating entertaining and even educational writing, no one wants to read a piece of work where there is no point; because that’s what happens when a writer does not present a clear viewpoint, they offer no main point, no reason to have their work read. On top of offering a clear vision, Lamott writes that it is equally important for writers to believe in what they are saying. When a writer doesn’t believe in what they are putting out a reader can feel it, they know that the work is forced and contrived. Lunsford states that one way for a writer to engage their audience better is to use more vivid and specific verbs; “When used skillfully, verbs can be the heartbeat of prose, moving it along, enlivening it, carrying its action” (279). She doesn’t let writers off so easily though, following up that statement with a long reminder of correct verb usage among many other sentence grammar no-no’s. Without proper sentence grammar meanings can be lost, viewpoints not understood, and no one wanting to read the rest of the writers work. Lunsford reminds writers of the many irregular verbs that exist in abyss of the English language waiting for unsuspecting victims to try and use them so that they may trip them up and make them sound as if they were from the Ozarks. Lamott writes that “to be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind,” this is what writers should strive to do. Grab the reader and take them for a ride, the world today looks for shiny lights and loud noises to accompany them on roller coasters and so writers must include those in their pieces. They should use exciting verbs to help them create the ultimate ride because as Lunsford says, “verbs are among the most important words because they move the meanings of sentences along” (263.)

Take your blinders off

Darwin’s theory in its most basic form professes that in order for an organism to survive it must evolve. We human beings are not above this theory as we well know, but how well do we all know that? Our minds and bodies have changed drastically over the millennia from the fickle atoms Bill Bryson writes about in How You Became You; to the complex millions of atoms we are today (Bryson 94). Scientists and people in general must look at more than the big picture; we must look at how each puzzle piece fits to create the big picture. Chris Carlsson in Nowtopia notes how important it is to observe “the gamut of human-nature relationships through time, while still embracing the tenets of modern science,” these relationships include one cell organisms to humans, men to women, cities to country-sides, humans to Earth (Carlsson 58). Sharing a similar belief as Carlsson, Natalie Angier writes in her essay Men, Women, Sex, and Darwin of how misleading it can be to believe that one single theory holds all the answers.

Much like the scientists Carlsson mentions, who believe that their own specific branch of science holds the golden knowledge and all the answers, so do the evolutionary psychologists that Angier writes about. “Hardcore evolutionary psychology types go to extremes. Ringing confirmation for their theories even in the face of feeble and amusingly contradictory data,” Angier disputes their “feeble” data over and over again in her essay citing evidence from statistics, university studies, all the way to animal observations (Angier 30). Angier, Carlsson, and Bryson contend that biological evolutions happen constantly and if we don’t change accordingly then the world will become increasingly harder to live it; whether that difficulty arises from lack of environmental resources or understanding, communication and true equality between men and women.

Carlsson believes until professionals take off their blinders they will never be able to make a real difference in the eroding environment because they are too absorbed in their own field to see how everything fits in the big picture (Carlsson 62, 75). We must be prepared to evolve and change perhaps everything about ourselves, not just our actions but our thoughts as well because as Bryson states, “survival on Earth is a surprisingly tricky business…we come from a planet that is very good at promoting life but even better at extinguishing it” (Bryson 95).