A Secret Whale

As Jeff and I left the highway from our jaunt to Kim Ann's Sandy Valley Film Shorts Night, a flash of blue caught my eye -- I was almost certain that I had spotted a whale. Do you remember the moment in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius? The moment where they spot the whale?

After we tried driving behind factories and climbing over fences and skirting barbed wire, we stumbled upon a path that took us right there.



Once we were close, we ran like kids with wild abandon.



How lucky could we be? To find a remote, mysterious, secret, abandoned whale. (here I stand triumphantly astride the beast)



Part of me is dying for one of you, dear readers, to explain why and what this whale is doing in the heart of decrepit Canton, Ohio.



The other part of me wants to drive downtown and find out that the whale has disappeared and the whole thing was a kind of Narnian, Door In The Wall experience.

Five Big Ideas That I'm More Than A Little Suspicious About:

New technologies offer us faster and more effective ways to accomplish things that matter more to us.

Groups of people are best served by a strong visionary leader who is not afraid to make decisions that will make the group more effective and focused.

The most significant threats to our way of life exist within THOSE people taking THOSE actions over there. (Maybe we should stop them.)

Good ideas naturally get bigger, better-known, and more widely admired.

We'll best solve our problems if we are more rational and follow formal processes.

Saying Goodbye to Caleb

Kara came from South Carolina for Caleb's graduation

a typical Caleb moment -- enthusiastic, talking
Caleb was my student course assistant for two years, and has gradually become a grafted-in member of the family. For the last year, he's lived in our basement, eaten with us, built amazing air-forts for the kids, improved the ball skills and math skills of both of our kids, played some amazing games of Settlers of Catan, and talked and listened and shared life -- we'll miss him.

Transition Time

The Department, originally uploaded by redbaerd.

Joe (in the middle) just retired, but his enthusiastic, generous spirit will (I hope) live on in our department. I'm deeply grateful to work with these capable, reflective, engaging & kind people.

Friday Night Out

Friday Night Out, originally uploaded by redbaerd.

Caleb & Kara let us join friends at an art show for Scott Meier down at KC Glass then out for dinner. So nice to be grown ups having fun

Disney Wants to Protect Your Children

Were you as unfortunate as I yesterday? Each time I had hoped to hear a bit of news on the radio, instead I was met with the latest moment in the unfolding Miley-Cyrus/Hannah-Montana-poses-for-provocative-Vanity-Fair-photos-"scandal"? (if you were lucky enough to avoid it, but want to get up to speed, read here.

The most hilarious moment for me was when I heard what a Disney spokesperson had to say about the "situation":

“Unfortunately, as the article suggests, a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines"

Are you even *kidding* me?!

Disney thinks it's UNfortunate that a media superpower would manipulate a 15 year old in order to sell more product?

Isn't that *all* that Disney does?

If this is our first glimpse of another pathological addiction to performance-adoration-approval-exposure-starlet-in-the-making (and I hope, Miley, that it's not, but remember, please, where Britney and Christina got their starts...), then who should we blame exactly for manipulating children?

Do you think if I tried hard enough I could work up a big scandal over "Princess Culture" and see what Disney's spokesperson has to say about that? Has anyone been to the Disney store in your local mall recently? Have you noticed how judicious, reasonable and detached the children's decision-making processes are?

Oh well.

It's always most distressing in America when we find out that underneath their clothes -- everyone has -- skin!

Shocking.

Human Interest

This story ran in our paper yesterday. It's a tale about a woman who managed to articulate finally and publicly things she could never, for whatever reason, say while she was living.

The slightly built woman who'd cooked children's lunches for 30 years in Perry Local Schools cafeterias was meticulous. Aggie made five requests in that will: Granddaughter Lesley Baker inherited an heirloom dinnerware set and $500. Grandson Corey Baker got $500. Daughter-in-law Denise Baker inherited the sterling silverware. An heirloom walnut stand and most the rest of her estate was to go to her only child, Leonard Baker, born from a previous marriage.

Her husband?

"I give and bequeath to my husband, Cletus E. Meyer, the sum of $25 and no more," she wrote. "Because of his treatment towards me and his lack of consideration for me and towards me during our marriage."

Read the rest of the story here.

Wills are a curious thing, because they, like text (and through text), solidify a particular part of reality into a more rigid, more permanent reality that transcends a number of other realities.

I found this story fascinating since Aggie went on to live with Cletus for (apparently) more than 15 years. Did she think of the will very often during that time? Was it a secret space of solitude that allowed her to survive more abuse? Or a mental rehearsal of final revenge that sustained her? And there are so many other options.

Almost just as fascinating as the story were the comments that followed. After reading enough of those who shamed the newspaper for printing "personal matters" and "private" information -- I decided to join the fray. I wrote:

he reason I appreciated this story is because it is, emphatically, a human interest story.

Are there other stories surrounding this story that are incomplete in this telling? Of course.

But the one story that is absolutely told is a story that Aggie wanted to tell, but for *whatever* reason -- couldn't tell.

Her sister and her son knew that there was more to her story than she was telling, but for *whatever* reason, she didn't.

Some of those *whatever*s probably included the fact that people called such stories "private" and "personal matters" and "dirty laundry."

I believe that this particular story is much larger than these column inches can contain, but admirably, Tim Botos manages to convey that complexity and leave those questions open to any reader. He also manages to articulate a story about the power of silence and the power of confession: powers that all of us have feared and experienced in our lives. Telling such stories is in *our* Human Interest.

Dysfunctional H

I never realized tat you made my speech sound so much smooter.

I never realized ow you made my diction sound more proper.

I admit to never tinking ow much your presence adds a cusion of air to te world.

But now tat you're not responding to my usual gentle nudges and I have to press so much 'arder.

I realize just How valuable you are, H.

Sorry it took me so long.

The Case For The Interrupting Cell Phone

I used to pity people whose cell phones interrupted our meetings or our classes. Those poor laggards, I thought, haven't quite figured out how to manage these new devices.

But then I had an epiphany one day when, during a meeting, I realized that someone's phone was ringing as if to signal us that our conversation had become circular, indulgent, mistaken. I realized, in short, that the cell phone ringing was not, probably, primarily the person who was calling the other person, who was, in turn pushing the IGNORE button and blushing and not answering the person who thought that they were calling.

The ring of the cell phone interrupting the meeting is the convergence of fate and synchronicity. It is the world reminding us to return to what we're about.

There are those who think that the robots will conquer the world, that just because they are not biodegradable, somehow they will Go On.

But I know our mother earth will outlast them. She will use them like the puppets they are. So think of the next annoying cell phone ringer that interrupts your quotidian flow NOT as an inconvenience, but as a zen alarm. Are you where you should be? Is this what we mean to be about?

Sure. Push the IGNORE button, but don't ignore the deeper meaning.

Big Weekend

After the Open Frame Film Festival was over, we drove north to Michigan and look who we met!



Our new niece Sophia.

It turned out that we liked her immensely. She's quite easy to get along with.

We also attended the wedding of Daniel and Katie. Pictures are here (though strangely compressed, click them to see the full range of photos) & see more at my flickr.

Buzz

My Great Friend, Cliff pointed me toward this film which I haven't seen yet -- but which manages to, just with the title and website, capture my ongoing ambivalence toward my job, my past, & too much of the rhetoric which seems to define American Popular Culture.



Check out Cliff's review, the website & stay tuned -- I'm going to try to screen the film asap...

Working Right Now For Tomorrow's Success

With the tax deadline barely cleared from my front burner, several other imminent deadlines governed my day -- Joe's senior thesis needs to be delivered pronto into the hands of his committee & all that hindered it were my final comments and approval, I have been planning to enter _Preacher Boy_ into Scriptapalooza and had til midnight, the _Screening Room_ needed my technical assistance and equipment provision by 7, and of course the looming film fest and trip north this weekend -- the day was a blur of racing and errands and juggling.

It's hard for any immediate events or urgencies to weigh very strongly against you on a day when your head is at least four hours, if not four days, in the future; on the other hand, living through a day without actually being present -- living instead in theoretical time -- seems like it may end up being as existentially wrenching as waking up one morning to realize that you're actually just a clone of Andrew1.

Grill Dreams

In Ohio, during April, we stand outside in the freezing rain, beside our grill which cooks the steaks that we have staked too much faith in to abandon now.

There was, after all, three days in a row of sunshine. Arguably it was flip-flop weather! So of course it's time to grill out.

So there we stand, all the rainy weekend, clinging to our beers, trying not to shiver or stand too wimpily close to the grill for heat. We try to make jovial conversation and exchange playful taunts and barbs like we would if we had just spent a day doing backbreaking summertime labor or if we had just finished an enthusiastic game of ultimate frisbee.

Maybe somewhere between the sizzling pork chops and our attempts at breezy, unwound summertime conversation, we will coax the gods to relent. To revisit our cloudy climes with better weather.

And as the inclement memories of the weekend begin to fade into the workaday rhythms of Tuesday morning, we still haven't shaken the sore throat and runny nose that seems to be the only fruit of all our ritualistic dreaming.

That and one more leftover porkchop in the frig.

Summer? (even spring?) Are you listening?

We need you here in Ohio.

Please.

Quick Update...

Because the little igoogle weather box tells me that sun will prevail today, I've already made plans to ride my bike to work. This is a monumental day for me, because in a better world, I would ride my bike to work every day. In an even-better-than-that world? I would trade in my minivan for a bike. I'm considering moving into those worlds, but such changes are not individual ones, they have pretty monumental effects on the people around me.

(Not that there are any changes that *can* be made in a purely individual way...)

The fact that there are only two more weeks of classes (seven total meeting times!) this semester astonishes me. I feel excited to finish the process to move toward a new beginning, but I also feel distraught that this will be the last time I get to spend with most of these students. It makes me want to do something desperate and extravagant to elevate these last two weeks of discussion and interaction to new heights! But I've learned (from 20ish semesters in a row of these emotions) that probably faithfully continuing the patterns we've already developed together will work better. Radical change rarely ends up being what we hope it will be.

Do things accumulate weight for you the longer they hang around? Because there are about four emails I need to write right now, relatively insignificant ones, that just feel absolutely overwhelming. Also there are taxes to be done. And my Christmas cards. I've given up on actually sending them, in favor of, instead, sending out a nice long old-fashioned (as in from the early nineties old-fashioned) mass email. But I've tried to start writing it five times and each time the balance between listing important events, writing witty commentary, and being frankly honest and reflective about what it is like to be almost forty...overwhelms me and I e-crumple the word doc and shoot it in a glorious arc across my desktop and into the trash. The unbearable weight of commitment.

Lynn's job is coming to an end this year, because the federal grant funding her work has been depleted. There are many potential opportunities opening to her, but nothing feels clear. This transition is a strange one, because out of the family, her discover of her personal passion for adolescent literacy in urban and under-resourced populations feels like the most solid thing to emerge in the last ten years. We can all feel good about supporting the cause. It's a perfect meet-up between her best gifts and a particularly great need. So it feels a little strange that this job is withering...

I feel much better about my job than I have in a while. I feel keenly how good it is to work with capable and generous peers regardless of how ambivalent one feels about the institution or the "leadership" therein. The day-to-day "grind" also feels lucky, and there are constantly opportunities opening up in the surrounding community. All that holds me back, seemingly, is the scarcity of time.

On the other hand, writing hasn't been going so well for awhile. I'm not sure if that's about my inability to commit to projects fully or if my inability to commit fully to projects thwarts them too close to their inception.

I keep hammering away at editing the short films, and still thoroughly enjoy the work, in the rare moments that I get enough time to accomplish anything meaningful with them.

Garry is not doing well, but not particularly worse. Cancer, like everything else, pains everyone around, even though its most brutal work is done inside the body of just one person.

I am thinking often of you, friends and family who are far away. Sometimes, because I imagine how much better life would be if only we were able to see each other more like back in the day....or like that one time...Other times, just because I'm grateful for how your voice and presence has shaped my life and vision.

April Fools: The List

April Fools jokes played on me included:

- A hanging paper spider in the dark doorway when I got home after midnight,

- "Dad, I hurt my toe at school today,"

- "Dad, my teacher yelled at me today,"

- "OW! ow! Stop it! Jaelyn hit me, dad,"

- (overheard as Lynn arrived home)"Addison, are you serious? You better not be...Addison, tell me the Truth. Addison! I think we better tell your dad. You said that to your Teacher?!" (all the while Addison is barely supressing his smile, convincing me that he is playing an April Fools Joke on his MOM, only to find out that he is her, not-so-convincing confederate in duping me.)

- the five students who didn't show up for the advising appointments they signed up for (those were April Fools jokes, weren't they? because I'm sure people weren't just slacking...)

- "Dad, I hurt my toe at school today,"

- "Dad, I got in trouble today with my teacher,"

-- oh, did I already tell you those ones -- so you mean April Fools jokes don't work the second and third times you tell them?

Could you email my kids and tell *them* that?