The Weekly Rader

Guest Post: Scott Andrews on Teen Superheroes

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:15:00 +0000

THERE ARE FEW GENRES more conducive to obsession than those of the teen-meets-love-and-danger variety. Here, Scott Andrews takes a look at the recent phenomenon of Teen Superheroes movies.

Andrews is an enrolled member of the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma and teaches American and American Indian literatures at California State University, Northridge. His reviews, essays, poems, and stories have appeared in a variety of journals including Arizona Quarterly, American Indian Culture and Research Journal, Studies in American Literatures and others.

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Smells like Teen Superheroes

“New Moon” will be in theaters soon, and with it will come another wave of vampire-mania. Perhaps I should not write “another,” since the present wave has not subsided. In fact, it has swelled further, with EVEN MORE novel series and TV series about beautiful bloodsuckers.

It was a couple of years ago, while watching previews for “Twilight,” that I began to wonder about possible connections between this tidal wave of hemophiles and other trends in popular culture that appealed to young Americans. There seemed to be something swirling in the collective American ectoplasm that had coalesced into some critical mass.

First there was “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” published in the United States in 1998. The first X-Men film was released in 2000, though the comic book had been around for decades. “Twilight” was published in 2005, though Stephanie Meyers says the story came to her in 2003. “Heroes” arrived on NBC in 2006. “True Blood” on HBO in 2008, though it doesn’t clearly target a young audience. “The Vampire Diaries” on the CW this year.

The life of an American teen is often times filled with anxiety, emotional turmoil, and alienation. This is true whether one is wealthy or poor, male or female. This is true regardless of race. There is something about being a teenager that makes one feel apart from the crowd, unusual. While my generation (I am in my 40s) identified with our sense of being lovable but damaged goods -- for instance, the short-lived TV series designed to appeal to my generation’s sense of nostalgia, “Freaks and Geeks” – the current batch of teenagers and college-goers seem to find it more pleasurable to imagine themselves to be different because they are special.

Misunderstood rather than misbegotten. Gifted and powerful rather than awkward and fearful and acne-plagued.

They have taken the leap from the John Hughesian question “Why can’t I date a cheerleader?” to “Save the cheerleader, save the world.”

But I am not thinking of just wizards, mutants, and vampires. “American Idol” started rocking America’s world in 2002. “America’s Next Top Model” walked the runway in 2003. And before them, even before Harry Potter, came the grandfather of all Reality TV: “The Real World” on MTV in 1992. Young people, previously unknown, were instantly important and famous, though not necessarily talented. The emotional, social, and sexual problems of young people were no longer the subject of “After School Specials” – they were primetime, they were ratings hits. The American fascination with these young people was understood as a measure of their importance. Notoriety was understood as noteworthy.

For many decades, people were familiar with the “American Dream.” For the immigrant, this was the belief that one could come to the United States, work hard, and save money. Eventually one could obtain a comfortable lifestyle – and an even better lifestyle for one’s children. For a long time, the American Dream for the immigrant was similar to the American Dream for the citizen. You know, the dream of the happy family and the house with the white picket fence. Eventually the American Dream changed. You could say it got “super-sized.” It became the belief that if one worked hard, saved money, and took advantage of opportunities for investing or starting one’s own business, eventually one could obtain a more-than-comfortable lifestyle – one might even become rich. You know, that happy family and a house with the white picket fence, a deck in the backyard, a shiny Viking refrigerator, a sedan and an SUV in the garage, two Sea-Doos, and a time-share on the lake.

I think perhaps the American Dream has morphed again. I think it includes getting rich, but I think it has skipped the “work hard and save money” elements. In their place has been added “get famous” and “right now.” The work ethic of my parents that was based on delayed gratification became the credit-card fueled consumer culture of my generation that wanted instant gratification. And the generation that has been raised by my generation has gone a step further into instant great-ification.

The advent of instant celebrity status is thanks largely to the Internet and its inbred cousin, reality television. Think Tila Tequila. Think that strange kid singing “Chocolate Rain.” Perhaps we should thank Paris Hilton, the Queen of Instant and Talentless Celebrity Status, whose career was launched in 2003 with a sex video that was viral on the Internet and, later that year, with “The Simple Life.” She is the T-1000 to Puck’s T-1.

I see a wave of narratives about young people who discover they are not just dorky and weird – they are different with a difference. They have special powers! And they have them right now! Not after years of training but now! Even Harry shows up at Hogwarts with abilities other students do not possess. Instant wealth has been symbolically replaced: They can fly! They can stop time! They are indestructible! Their powers, like wealth, allow them to go places and do things that other people (normal or middle class) cannot. Or in a more mundane setting, there is no need for years of apprenticeship – get up on stage, you 20-year-old, and sing so Simon can make you famous tomorrow!

It is easy to think of these changes as the product of young people being spoiled by the relative wealth of their parents’ generation. I wonder, though, if it might speak also to a fear. Perhaps the world that lies ahead of these young people is so scary, so confusing, filled with so many choices as to be paralyzing, that imagining superpowers and immortality is reassuring.

I can totally relate.

How The Sunrise Rock Cross Controversy is about Semiotics

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0000

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT to take down a cross that has stood as a symbol for American soldiers who have died during combat?

Well, in part because it is a cross.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard an unusual case that pitted freedom of expression against freedom of (and from) religion. In the Mojave Desert, a large metal cross looms above a rock outcropping. The cross is not part of a church. It does not belong to a religious organization. It was erected by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) to honor their fellow military men whose lives were lost during war. Now, some want to see the cross taken down, claiming that it privileges Christianity, when many soldiers were Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or agnostic. And, since the cross stands on public land, there is a concern that it butts up against the Constitution's Establishment Clause--or what Thomas Jefferson called "the wall of separation between church and state."

At the crux (pardon the pun) of the argument is what the cross stands for.

Can a cross, for example, symbolize something more than Christianity? Or, more importantly, can a cross symbolize something that is not Christian? Is it even possible to see a cross and not associate it with religion? Judge Scalia argued in court that the cross is the default marker in the United States for the dead. Crosses in church might signify "Jesus" or "religion," but crosses on the side of the road, Scalia would say, signify "death" or "memorial."

Previous courts have held that the cross is a religious icon and breaks the law. In fact, it's been boarded up for two years now. The image of a boarded up cross raises its own issues, but the very notion that a cross could stand for many things but not one thing is a provocative notion.

Semiotics is the study of signs--what they mean, how we interpret them, and how they carry power and affect our lives. Every semiotic text has a signifier and a signified. The signifier is the object, the sign, the symbol; the signifier is what that symbol or sign means or stands for or evokes. In the United States, if we see a red octagonal sign with the markings S T O P on it, we know to stop moving. If we see an American flag, we don't think of Albania. In America, the signifer "flag" evokes many, many, signifiers.

In this case the signifier is the cross. What is at stake, though, and what remains the source of the lawsuit is what is being signified.

How can such a widely recognized and such a wholly sacred siginifier like a cross carry such different meanings? Well, in truth, loaded signifiers are the most likely to cause offense. Take the Confederate flag, for example. For some Southerners, the signifier of the flag signifies "heritage," "pride," "tradition," and "a way of life." For others, though, the very same object connotes "hatred," "slavery," and "racism."

The cross is no different. For Christians, it might signify "Jesus." For militant Muslims, the cross might carry connotations that are more about the West than about religion. The cross can also be a signifier for the Ku Klux Klan. And, if you are a vampire, the cross enjoys a whole different set of signifying powers--none of them good.

To be sure, Judge Scalia is correct that in the United States we tend to assume a cross in a graveyard signifies death. But, the setting of a cemetery helps you read the cross as a burial marker, not so much as a religious symbol. This is a good example of a signifier being contextual. A cross on fire in a front yard means one thing; a cross with a singular flame and a halo means something else. In the case of the Sunrise Rock Cross, there is no cemetery. There are no other markings to indicate that the space is a place of burial or mourning. It is public land and fairly vacant.

In this setting, a cross, in general, probably signifies a church is nearby or a Christian has simply erected a big cross on his land to show the world his level of religious commitment. The question is, does a big cross like this on public land with nothing else around it to signify "war dead," mean that the federal government is privileging Christianity and sanctioning one religion (and one religious symbol) over others.

The answer is yes.

Does that mean the cross should come down?

Well, that's complicated. And it shall, at this point, have to remain the subject of another post.

But, I'd love to hear what you have to say about this topic.

My Favorite Recent Album: The Granville Hicks

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 02:56:00 +0000

LAST WEEK WHILE ENJOYING hip pizza in a hipster pizza joint in the hip Mission District of San Francisco, I overheard a table of hipsters talking about The Granville Hicks. "Have you seen the album cover?" one asked. "They look like retarded Avett Brothers."

With various densities of facial hair, The Granville Hicks, do, in fact, resemble the Avetts, though, it must be said, the Hicks seem slightly less evolved.

That's until you listen to the music.

The first cut on the new EP, "I Want to be a Marxist Cowboy," underscores the band's earnestness--both in terms of musicianship and political leanings.

If Toby Keith can link anti-Muslim sentiment with the triumphalism of American culture, then The Granville Hicks can link the blue collar working-class value system of the American cowboy with the philosophy of Karl Marx. There has long been a secret handshake between country music and capitalism, but with this new album, The Granville Hicks give the latter the finger.

Like many Merle Haggard or Conway Twitty songs, the Hicks interlace talking with singing. However, what distinguishes these tracks from classic talking songs like "Hello Darlin'," is the fact that the Hicks begin some of their songs with readings from Marx. Casual listeners might expect "Back in the Party Again" to be about tequila, but in fact, it's about Communist Party enrollment.

From a musical perspective, it's hard to figure out what all three of the Hicks do. With only one voice and one guitar on most of the tracks, it has lead some to speculate that the three members of the band rotate duties, so as to share, equally, in the labor and distribution of their musical goods.

Having dubbed their brand of music "Communist Country" and "Marxist Twang," the Hicks might swim in dangerous waters. Country music has pretty much staked out patriotism. Its lifeguards tend to let only certain kinds of swimmers in the pool, and our fear here at TWR is that they will let the Hicks drown.

Unless readers and listeners like you become the life vest the Hicks need.

Grading Obama's U.N. Speech

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:11:00 +0000

IT'S A CLASSIC RHETORICAL move. Define who who you are by articulating who you are not. At his speech before the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, President Barack Obama made it pretty clear that he is not George W. Bush.

The President's talk, shorter than Moammar Khadaffy's and less racist than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's, not only addressed the responsibility of steering the ship of state through the gnarly waves of the present moment, it also charted the ideological course of the next three-plus years of his presidency. How did he do? If his speech were a freshman essay, what would his grade be?

In truth, his plan (or "pillars" as he calls them) looks beyond three years, in an attempt to ensure the future that "we want for our children:"

non-proliferation and disarmament; the promotion of peace and security; the preservation of our planet; and a global economy that advances opportunity for all people

I know what you're thinking--the president plagiarized George Bush! It sounds so much like the former Commander-In-Chief, Mr. Obama must have bought a speech online and passed it off as his own. Well, rest assured, I ran the text through turnitin.com, and it seems okay.

Whew!

Who wants two Joe Biden's in the White House?

It's hard to imagine the former president believing such things, much less talking about them at the U.N. One has to wonder what the audience was thinking as they heard Mr. Obama speak. Are the two men (Obama and Bush) really as different as they appear? What must the American populace be like to have elected, back to back, such radically different souls?

I would say that the America who voted for George W. Bush is the America driven primarily by pessimism: fear of the other, concern over what some see as a deteriorating moral fabric, and secret man crushes on Karl Rove. Those who swept Mr. Obama into office are those Americans who, at least for the moment, are driven by optimism: the now over-used sense of "hope," the promise of change from the politics of pessimism, the secret comb-over envy of Joe Biden.

There is a fine line between naivete and optimism. How you see Obama will determine how you would grade his speech. If you are inclined to find him more rhetorically gifted than politically so, then you are likely to agree with The Weekly Standard's Steve Hayes who described the address as both "embarrassing" and "dangerous."

Juan Williams on the other hand, thought the speech was "terrific" because "President Obama laid out concrete steps that his administration has taken since coming into office to prove that they, in fact, want to work with the rest of the world."

I'm more inclined to agree with Williams here. Like any good essay, his speech had a thesis. Its tone was neither too lofty nor too chatty. He was funny but serious; humble but presidential. Most importantly, as Williams notes, he gave specific examples of how we wanted to construct his pillars. Or, in the parlance of writing pedagogy, he supported his thesis.

As for content, it evoked MLK (without the biblical overtones) and JFK (without the triumphalism). This spooked Charles Krauthammer, who waxed nostalgic about American rhetoric of superiority:

Obama's speech is alarming because it says the United States has no more moral right to act or to influence world history than Bangladesh or Sierra Leone.
It diminishes the United States deliberately and wants to say that we should be one nation among others, and not defend the alliance of democracies that we have in NATO, for example, or to say as every president has said before Obama that we stand for something good and unique in the world.

And so, there you have it. Arguably the dividing line among Americans in regard to Mr. Obama. Either America is morally superior and should determine policy in other countries, or . . . not.

There is a pretty well-documented track record throughout history when empires try to impose values on other cultures. So, even when both content and form are taken into account, Mr. Obama does well here. He gets an A-.

Ten Commandments of Blogging

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:09:00 +0000

ABOUT A YEAR AGO, the Evangelical Alliance, an evangelical Christian organization in the U.K, hit the breaking point with bad behavior among Christian bloggers. Name calling. Flaming. Death threats. Sexist and racist posts. Inappropriate jokes about Luther and Calvin.

Among Christians, you say? Impossible!

Apparently, it was so possible that the group (EAUK) published a Ten Commandments of blogging in hopes that these rules of the virtual Moses might keep the Joe Wilson of Christian blogging in line.

So, we thought in the spirit of bad blogging behavior in general, we'd look at the various ways TWR has violated these commandments:

1. You shall not put your blog before your integrity.

That ship pretty much sailed when we graded Sarah Palin's speech, wrote about MIke Huckabee and Chuck Norris, and printed anything by Greg Barnhisel.

2. You shall not make an idol of your blog.

We broke this forthwith.

3. You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin.

TWR always sins in public, even when we cheat.

4. Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog.

Okay, we didn't break this rule. We take too many days off the way it is.

5. Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes.

We did not honor, but we did acknowledge, Stuff White People Like and their mistakes.

6. You shall not murder someone else’s honour, reputation or feelings.

D'oh!

7. You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind.

Busted again!

8. You shall not steal another person’s content.

Even if it's for noble causes? Or in service to the Lord?

9. You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger.

What if, as in this case, the blog sucks?

10. You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content.

Are you joking? TWR wouldn't envy the hits of, say, Stuff White People Like. Would it? Would it?

Fox News Leaks Draft of Obama's "Welcome Back to School Speech" -- A TWR Exclusive

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:55:00 +0000

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, TWR is one of the first media outlets to see a copy of the original draft of Obama's speech to America's schoolchildren. Fox News has obtained a copy of the original draft of the speech and has leaked it to selected venues.

No doubt the final version will look very different after the president's handlers get a hold of it. But, the following gives us a fair and balanced look at how our leader truly thinks:

Good day Comrade Children!

On behalf of Vice-President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, all of my advisory staff, the Black Panthers, and lesbians who want to marry, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for looking very, very deeply and in a very relaxed manner into your tv screens or monitors.

Nothing is more important to us than the clear and malleable minds of America's youth, and nothing is more sacred than the unity of the world's workers and future voters. That's you!

You're probably wondering why I've chosen to talk to you today. It's very simple. We've come to take over the world. In fact, it's already begun. See how easy it is to disrupt the American educational system? How fun and simple to grab your attention inside the walls of your very own school? Well, we do stuff like this all the time. In fact, we've been watching you since January, and you know what, we're watching you right now! In fact, let me take this moment to offer my condolences to you, Billy Carlson, in the Rutabega County school in Iowa. Tough break about your dad. Our death panel just gave him the thumbs down.

One reason we want you to pay attention to us, to pay very, very close attention to us, is because we have removed your textbooks. That's right. You no longer will use textbooks written by people who like Jesus. Instead, you'll just read Mother Jones and posts from The Daily Kos. This way, we can feed you all of the right information.

Indeed, recent studies show standardized test scores in history have fallen over the past decade. History is very important, especially if you know how to tell it. Under my regime, we'll let you know what history is so that there will be no confusion come voting and donation time. For example, in our chapter on the two party system, the entry on Republicans describes them as rich men who hate sick people, who want to replace swing sets with oil wells, and convert every rain forest into a golf course. We also give evidence of their plot to kill Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins,

And, killing people is bad---unless of course, it's babies. But, that's part of your homework assignment for next class period. Tonight, I want you to go home, laugh at your father for not having a gun, then play this very cool liberal establishment game (compatible with both X-Box and Wii). When you're done and before you refuse to say your prayers, write a 500 word essay on why we should raise taxes to support Planned Parenthood.

As you know, the major aim of liberals as stated by its atheistic leaders more than 30 years ago, is to create a Red America, thence a Red Israel, wash it with a Red Pacific and then enslave America. It is a task for which we can claim no special credit for doing. It is one which we are obligated to perform. It is one of the tasks for which we were brought into this world and for which we were born. If we fail to use all the powers of mind and body which Marx gave us, then I am sure our mothers, wherever they are tonight, may well sorrow for the day of our birth.

Let the conservatives tremble at an Obama revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. You have a world to win.

To help you in this battle, we have removed all of the American flags from the room and replaced them with banners featuring my face surrounded by golden light and a basketball. Pledging allegiance to me will help keep you focused on the task before us. Remember: Obamaism may be summed up in the single sentence: "Abolition of private property." "From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his needs." Okay, that's two sentences, but in my school, we don't worry about fuzzy math.

Sex, Religion, and Politics: The Trinity of Submission

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:47:00 +0000

WE THOUGHT OUR RETURN from summer hiatus should be gentle and gradual, so we decided to focus this week's post on the most innocuous of subjects.

Actually, the topic was generated by Red Room, a San Francisco-based social networking site for writers, who sought provocative dialogue on those very topics polite conversation ignores--sex, politics, and religion. The topic and its very verbotenness both annoyed and intrigued.

A number of concepts connect sex, politics, and religion--strong belief systems, rules of transgression, long complicated histories of bad behavior, some unyieldingly bad poetry, and saddest of all, Mel Gibson movies. But, what makes these three arenas of human participation particularly powerful is the degree to which they are ultimately about submission.

We like to imagine all three as forms of proactivity, which, of course, they can be. But, really, for this triumvirate to accrue any power at all, they require us, on some level, to submit. Theirs is the world of the relinquish, the bequeath, the surrender. They ask not only that we dominate but that we be dominated. We rarely like to think in these terms about such important aspects of our lives. As Americans, we hate to think about being dominated by transcendent forces. We think it undermines our agency, our identity, our ability to control destiny.

Think, for, example of the supplicant. The beggar and the believer, the subject and the subjected. He who bows; she who is bowed to. That image fits in any of these three puzzles and perhaps explains the intense and interrelated intimacies of politics, sex, and religion. Supplicate is Latin for "kneeling down." Submission (sub-missio) is Latin for "letting down." In public, we are all about being upright, but in private, any number of things might make us drop to our knees.

This is one reason these topics are off limits. In public settings, it's uncomfortable to talk about private submissions. But, it's also the main reason they make for such good novels, compelling movies, and voyeuristic reality TV. In the lockbox of our hearts, we know we are shaped and shadowed by these concepts; in fact, almost nothing has more control over the moral contours of our lives.

And so the secret conservative, the closeted believer, the passive dominatrix all go about their lives engaged and active, prostrate and submissive, perhaps overcompensating in one area of their lives as a means of seeking equilibrium: the calm surface of life's mirrored pond.

Thing is, we know we all dive in to drown.

Hiatus Haiku

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:23:00 +0000

TWR

goes on summer hiatus

until mid-August.

Banning Alexie?

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 17:52:00 +0000

"I BEGAN READING, AND I started to cross out sections that I didn't want him to read," she said. "Soon I thought, 'Wait, this is not appropriate; he is not reading this.' "

The "she" is Antioch, Illinois parent Jennifer Andersen, the "he" is her 14-year old son, and the book is Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, last year's winner of the National Book Award for Young Adult Fiction. As it happens, The Absolutely True Diary is also a recent addition to the Antioch High School's curriculum for incoming freshmen.

Andersen, who is quoted in a Chicago Times article, claims the book does not meet community standards and wants it removed from the curriculum. She and other parents have complained about vulgar language and overt sexuality in Alexie's short novel, arguing the book's content is at variance with what should be condoned in high school.

Andersen, who is clearly well-meaning, falls into the trap that plagues many parents, lawmakers, and even other students--she assumes that teaching a text is the same as condoning the content of that text.

For example, one of her complaints is that the book contains curse words that would not be allowed in the halls of the school. And so, by having students read this book and these words, the school is, in effect, putting its stamp of approval on those words.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Teaching is not endorsing.

In fact, some of the best teaching arises out of difficult material--material the teacher and student find objectionable, complex, and problematic. In truth, you actually want your child to work through potentially inappropriate material, and ideally, that will happen in a sound educational environment. This is because you want your kids--and other kids--to have good reading and interpretation skills. You want them not to misread. You want them armed with the ability to know the difference between advocating and expressing.

Sure, I think it's probably not a good idea to have high school freshmen reading Tropic of Cancer, but it's a great idea for students to read Alexie's novel--written for and about young kids--in high school.

Back to this notion of community standards. Education is not a strip club, it's not church, it's not the public pool. Education is about ideas, and it's about acquiring skills and abilities that make young people smarter and more capable older people. I'm fascinated by the fact that the parents ignore the theme of the book, whose message is entirely positive and totally in line with community standards (whatever that might mean) and focus instead on language their kids probably use on a daily basis.

Americans have never been good readers; we often choose surface over substance. This is a fine example.

Ignore the message; kill the messenger.

Repeat the cycle.

It's refreshing, then, to read that Antioch school board President Wayne Sobczak thinks the book will get to stick around.

Good news for now, but what if they want to teach Huck Finn?

Reading the Burka

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:44:00 +0000

EARLIER TODAY, FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy dissed the burka.

In a policy speech before a parliamentary committee, Sarkozy argued that the burka devalues women and in so doing is, in essence, at variance with French values. "The burka is not a sign of religion," Sarkozy quipped. "It is a sign of subservience."

This notion of the burka as a symbol--as a loaded text--is something that had gone underexamined in Western culture. In truth, the burka doesn't cover the body much more than a traditional wedding dress and veil, but as symbols they do vastly different cultural work.

For Sarkozy, the experience of the individual woman wearing the burka is less important than what the burka indicates. The burka does not itself repress, Sarkozy might assert, but as a semiotic text it signifies repression. And, in a world that relies on symbols and symbolism, to symbolize is to be. So, even if a garment does not literally restrict--as a wedding gown might--if it signifies restriction, then it restricts. It is for this reason that he is considering banning the burka in France.

Typically, when we think of censoring clothing, it is because the item in question is too sexually explicit, too revealing, but in the case of the burka, its transgression lies in its extreme coverage. Not enough is revealed. It denies (or indicates denial); it restricts (or suggests restriction); it shames (or signifies shame). For Sarkozy, the burka also represents a lack of independence. It is, Sarkozy claims, a garment that embodies subservience.

The question is, why fight a garment and not the ideology that creates the garment?

Don't misunderstand. I'm no fan of the burka. But, the gesture feels empty. Perhaps this is because the push to ban the burka takes place in the same symbolic field as the burka itself. Put another way, if the burka's offense is symbolic, "banning" it is as well.

On the other hand, could such a decision backfire?

Mohammed Moussaoui, head of the French Council for the Muslim Religion, understands the power of semiotics and political symbolism. For him, such a decision will lead to "stigmatising Islam"--a fascinating choice of words, given "stigma's" roots in Christianity. The stigmata--the holes in the recently crucified hands of Jesus Christ--served as a symbol not simply that Christ died but that he was resurrected. Religious symbols beget religious symbols.

Either way, Moussaoui knows that a public policy outlawing clothes sends a message not just about the garment but about values. Sarkozy knows he can't outlaw Islam (or the radical factions of it), so perhaps he can do the next best thing--take away some of its semiotic power.

How the Questions Surrounding Sonia Sotomayor Can Be Answered Via Literary Studies

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:35:00 +0000

TWO MAIN ARGUMENTS HAVE framed the predictably combustible conversations surrounding Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court—her ethnicity and her stance on interpreting the constitution. Both, critics and supporters claim, will affect how she adjudicates and, perhaps, how good her decisions are.

Law and literature enjoy a great deal of overlap, though rarely does one affect the public function of the other. In the case of Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, though, two of the most important recent issues in the world of literary studies actually shed light on the hot-button issues surrounding Judge Sotomayor's accomplishments and abilities.

First is the sticky notion of interpretation. Sotomayor is accused of being a fluid or liberal interpreter of the law, as opposed to someone like Antonin Scalia, who advocates for a conservative or "literal" approach to the constitution. For him, judges should look through history to the "original intent" of the founding fathers and, based on the intentions of the authors of the constitution, adjudicate appropriately. Judge Scalia has long defended "textualism" and "originalism," just as many literary scholars have championed what we might call "authorial intent." All of these terms get at the same thing--figuring out what the author of the document initially intended.

In the law, as in literature, such a project is nearly impossible.

We barely know our own motivations on a day-to-day basis, so it's neither plausable nor tenable to base one's approach to legal or literary texts on what we think the author may have intended 200+ years ago. Such approaches assume a fixed and static textuality and a fixed and static culture. The law, like literature, changes over time. So rather than try to get inside the head of a long-dead author (who does not himself change), it is better to look not at the author but at the text. Instead of asking what the author meant, we should be asking "what work does the text do?" It is this latter question that opens up people-centered documents like the constitution and novels to the beauty of human change.

What work a text does is also linked to questions of ethnicity.

Judge Sotomayor has been criticized for acting as a "Latina judge," much the way writers like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros and other authors have been critiqued for writing from a decidedly ethnic perspective. But, opening the literary canon was good for literary studies, just as opening the judicial canon will be good for the law.

We want our literature to reflect our diversity, so we should also want the body ruling on our laws to reflect that pluralism as well. The great mistake conservative commentators make is assuming that Anglo males do not adjudicate from a position of race or ethnicity. They most certainly do; the reality is, though, that such a position often merges seamlessly with the hegemonic values that have aggressively shaped our culture for the past three centuries.

With a new millennium, a new president, and an evolving cultural ethos, it's time for the law to take a page from its literary brother. Both our country and our legal system will be the better for it.

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:59:00 +0000

KINDNESS, APPARENTLY, IS IN. At least according to today's New York Times, which charts a spike of niceness on the big board of contemporary culture. I would agree. I was puzzling over a post for today on the dramatic increase in the frequency and eagerness with which people hold open doors, when I came across today's story in the Sunday Style section.

Sure, crankiness is still as prevalent as exhaust, but, for whatever reason, more and more people seem to be nicer. I think this is nice. But I'm curious why this is the case. Why now when so many things are going wrong?

My hunch is that the social contract becomes more important as legal and cultural covenants blur. Clear demarcations in culture, class, ethics, and morality lend themselves to organized behavior. Everyone knows what to expect from everyone else. Kindness isn't needed because order exists instead.

But, order's stock is plummeting.

The world is in flux. America, known for its ability to black and white itself into tedium, is going gray. Hazy beyond recognition are the lines between public and private, right and wrong, legal and illegal, ethical and unethical, the virtual and the real. Forget video games and chatrooms and cell phones. Contemporary cultural enmeshment is forcing us to redefine and rethink every form of information and identity. For example, people are now announcing divorces on Facebook, effectively doing away with the discreet conversation. The State of California keeps reversing itself on whether certain humans can or cannot marry, suggesting that the most sacred, most fundamental issues of morality can be inverted from one day to the next. Authors and publishers continue to pass off fiction as autobiography, and the most popular (and sometimes the most entertaining) television is a form of reality that is not really even real--nor is it fake.

In times like these, when almost nothing is certain--will we be married tomorrow or not? Will our banking system exist or not? Will we have a house or not?--manners often replace morality. One of the great ironies of the polis is that in times of extremis, the invisibility of the social contract provides an ordering mechanism that other more concretized systems do not.

In other words, being nice makes us feel grounded. It restores order. It calms and soothes. It reassures. Our economy may sink into a recessional morass, but you might get the thank you wave for letting some schmo squeeze into the lane in front of you.

It's really not a bad trade-off.

The Topps Obama Trading Cards

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Fri, 08 May 2009 02:37:00 +0000

IT WAS WITH A mixture of fear and anticipation that I opened up the new Topps Obama trading cards. I was excited because I thought there might be some images of him wrestling with Hillary Clinton or dunking over George Stephanopolous.

Imagine my disappointment when the most action-packed card was not him decking John Edwards or tripping Bill Bradley, but the moment just after David Axelrod told yet another knock-knock joke. It was worse than all those football cards of offensive linemen in the three-point stance.

I wouldn't even need doubles to trade that card.

Another letdown was the sheer number of ties in the Obama trading cards. No one wears ties on baseball or basketball cards. Can you get excited as a collector when the star on the cards never seems to change his white collared shirt? It seems unlikely?

Wait, when did this post become an Andy Rooney routine?

Regardless, I was also hoping for some super cool stats on the back, like the number of direct hits during debates, or the number of times the word "change" was uttered during stump speeches. No such luck.

The truth is, the Topps corporation should market these as the Obama inaction cards. Sure, they feature heart-stopping images of the president waving, explaining a complicated point, and pretending to listen to John McCain, but a man can only take so much.

Sadly, these cards would feel more edgy, more active if they were candidate Obama cards rather than President Obama cards. It's sort of like capturing Manny Ramirez eating at Cheesecake Factory in November--the good stuff has already passed.

My suggestion to Topps is that they start working on the Supreme Court Judge Confirmation Hearings cards and the Republicans Who Switch Party cards. Throw in some stickers of recently outed and divorced politicians, and you've got something I'd actually trade for.

My Favorite Recent Books of Poems: Two by Brian Clements

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:00:00 +0000

I CHEAT.

FOR THE final National Poetry Month post about my favorite recent books of poems, I'm going to exercise editorial control.

I'm going to live on the edge.

I will write about one author but two books:
Disappointed Psalms & And How to End It, both published in 2008 by Brian Clements.

Though the books are distinct collections, a number of correspondences and cross references makes them feel like poetic patches cut from the same quilt. Small but provocative, both books pose provocative questions about the relationship between belief, the cosmos, and current American social and political crises.

What makes these collections particularly useful, though, is that the poems are wonderfully short and diverse. Clements tricks out And How to End It with prose poems, questions and answers, aphorisms, Whitmanesque catalogs, and short intense lyrics. Sometimes, a combination of each of these:

I have heard that the signs say one thing and the stars say another.

Who are you going to believe?

I have heard that a shotgun blast at point blank range you cannot survive.

That, on the wall behind you, your shadow-form imprints in droplets as numerous as stars in the galaxy.

That the shadow-form, too, cannot survive. (from And How to End It)

Of course, these poems ask more questions than they answer. Part of their effectiveness lies in their refusal to close, to sum up. At times, they feel like American versions of Roberto Juarroz pieces--short, philosophical, open-ended.

This is especially the case for Disappointed Psalms, whose poems confront "god" and the idea of god on nearly every page. This beautifully executed volume by Meritage Press actually reads like a postmodern book of psalms, a manual for the disaffected and disenfranchised, the questioner and the doubter, the believer and the believed.

When taken together, these books show a poetic range that is impressive as well as a vision of language's ability to understand its own limits. The universe may be infinite; words not so much. How the latter makes sense of the former, though, is for Clements, the space where poetry happens.

Ask A Poet

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:24:00 +0000

TWR TEAMS UP WITH Kristen Hoggatt, whose advice column, "Ask A Poet," is both smart and funny. In the spirit of National Poetry Month, we asked her why a poet makes a good advice columnist.

Her response:

In his essay “The Poet and the Audience,” poet Michael Ryan asserts that the poet was traditionally the central figure of a tribe, the “shaman-healer.” Because she was much closer to the gods, her “divine madness” kept the tribe together through her songs and chants. I don’t assume all readers are in the same metaphorical “tribe,” that all look to the same poet for guidance, which is why I use multiple poetic voices to give advice. The other poets have already done all the work, and being a devoted poet myself, I have studied them and continue to study them every day. I know where to look.

But before this gets too dry, let me take Ryan’s essay one step further: The poet, being much closer to the gods, is most likely always right, meaning, of course, that one should always listen to her — and “the poet” is a flexible term, a transcendent state that could also be called the speaker of a poem. Frank O’Hara was a poet, but he also drank too much, so one likely should not have listened to everything he said. But one should listen to what his speaker says in “Ave Maria”:

Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!

Please enjoy the rest of Poetry Month responsibly. • 27 April 2009

To visit Hoggat's site or to ask the poet a question, just go to The Smart Set

My Favorite Recent Books of Poems: D. A. Powell's Cocktails

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:02:00 +0000

when he comes he is neither sun nor shade: a china doll
a perfect orb. when he comes he speaks upon the sea

when he speaks his voice is an island to rest upon. he sings
[he sings like france joli: come to me, and I will comfort you. when he
comes]

when he comes I receive him in my apartment: messy, yes
but he blinds himself for my sake [no he wouldn't trip, would he?]

AND SO BEGINS "[when he comes he is neither sun nor shade: a china doll]," my favorite poem from my favorite book of poems of 2004--D. A. Powell's Cocktails.

Powell's poetry pulls from so many genres, it's impossible to classify, and this book is a perfect example of that proficiency, though the Graywolf blurb on the back does a pretty good job: "These poems, both harrowing and beautiful, strive toward redemption and light within the transformative and often conflicting worlds of the cocktail lounge, the cinema, and the Gospels." If the book sounds like a poetic version of a Matthew Barney exhibit, that may not be totally off base.

Divided into three parts, the book explores the three topics mentioned above. The most poignant interplay happens between the first and third branches of this trinity--the cocktail and gospel poems. The former deploys the denotative power of both standard cocktails and the less fizzy but still powerful AIDS cocktail to make a statement about love, bodies, medication, and intoxication. Interestingly enough, the last section from which the opening poem comes, navigates in the same frothy confluence.

Nowhere in contemporary poetry--not Billy Collins, not Charles Wright, not Bob Hickok--is there a poet who merges popular culture, humor, and the contemplative tradition better than Powell:

you'd want to go to the reunion: see
who got heavy. who got bald. see

who has KS lesions on the face and listen
to the same old tunes: there'll be a dj sure as anything

you'd want to show off your boyfriend who's spare
as a girlscout cookie.

The lightness of these poems, their wit, doesn't really bring levity. Like Donne, wit means weirdness, discordance, and inappropriate juxtapositions. In all good poetry, such wit isn't about levity but gravity. We may think we're being served a light spritzer, but we're imbibing heavier stuff.

And oh how we love the strong stuff on our tongues. Powell knows this, and so mouths and swallowing and digesting and drinking and consuming consume the poems.

But, cocktails are also about mixing. Powell's many tastes blend deliciously in this book. As fun and as oddly juxtaposed as these pieces might be, they are almost always also about sustenance and rejuvenation, as in the astonishing closing couplets of "[when he comes . . ."

I am not special: have stolen fought. have been unkind
when I await him in the dark I'm not without lascivious thoughts

and yet he comes to me in dreams: "I would not let you marry."
He says: "for I did love you so and kept you for my own."

his breath is a little sour. his clothes a bit dingy
he is not golden and robed in light and he smells a bit

but he comes. and the furnace grows dim the devil and his neighbors
and traffic along market street: all go silent. the disease

and all he has given me he takes back. laying his sturdy bones
on top of me: a cloak an ache a thief in the night. he comes.

My Favorite Recent Books of Poems: Human Dark with Sugar

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:17:00 +0000

NEXT TIME THE WAITRESS asks you if you want sugar with your Human Dark, say yes. You won't be disappointed.

That would probably be a better last line for this review than a first line. It has a kind of salutary ring to it; it signs off more than it turns on.

But, then again, I'm writing about Brenda Shaughnessy's smart collection of poems, Human Dark with Sugar, one of my favorite books of poems from last year. One reason I like this collection so much is because she turns everything around, yet it all makes sense.

For example, she begins her poem "Drift" with a line that could have come straight out of a TWR post: "I’ll go anywhere to leave you but come with me."

Wow. I say that to myself every day.

And yet, nothing happens.

The difference between Shaugnessy saying that to the reader and me saying that to me, is that in her world things do happen. The world's messiness a) opens up; b) feels less messy; and c) seems funny rather than threatening. That's pretty much a poetry trifecta.

See, for example, "First Date and Still Very, Very Lonely:"

Today

is a sacred day. A date day.
An exception to the usual
poor me, poor me!

I'm not poor and I'm not me.
I remember both
states as soon ago as last week.

The poetic persona has both fallen out of fashion and had a falling out with falling out of fashion. We are taught--or many assume we are taught--to read the "I" in contemporary American poetry as "the writer." We presume the confessions are not those of an invented persona but of the actual person. Troy Jollimore plays with this distinction, but Shaughnessy blurs it. She wants the reader to feel uneasy, to wonder if the laments and desperations of the speaker are "Brenda Shaughnessy's" or the hip construction that witty female poet named Brenda Shaughnessy invented.

The question is: do we care? And, who is this we anyway?

Around 4:30 am, when my 5-month old son woke up hungry, a very funny final line for this review came to me as I was stumbling to the bathroom. I was so pleased with myself because it worked as a closing sentiment, but it would also feel like an opening gambit. This morning though, when I awoke, it was gone--an experience Shaughnessy writes about in "Magician." Her final line in that poem speaks, I guess, to my 4:30 epiphany and, perhaps, to the question of persona vs. person: "Nothing ever really happens."

Or is it that everything always happens?

National Poetry Month: My Favorite Recent Books of Poems

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 03:01:00 +0000

NOW THAT APRIL IS National Poetry Month, April Fools Day
takes on an entirely new significance. In honor of this month and its poemtryness, TWR will devote all of its April posts to favorite recent books of poems.

"Recent" doesn't mean this year, but it does mean this millennium. Books could mean chapbooks; poems could mean prose poems. It will not mean song lyrics, nor will it mean quotes from Donald Rumsfeld.

It will include Tom Thomson in Purgatory, the beguiling book by 50's film star Troy Jollimore. Okay, he's not really a 50's film star, but he sure has the name of one. Between that moniker and the fact that the cover plugs an intro by Billy Collins, it seems impossible not to like the book.

In fact, it is impossible not to like this book.

Simply saying the poems in it are funny does the author a disservice, but the poems in this book are funny. Or, put more directly, the character of Tom Thomson is funny. Jollimore's project is a strange one in that his book is really two books. The first part, entitled "From the Boy Scout Manual," has great fun with the earnest manuals of the eras of 50's film stars, while the second, called "Tom Thomson in Purgatory," features series of sonnets written in what I will describe as "high slang." Take the opening two stanzas, for example, from "Tom Thomson in Vogue"

With Pyramids behind, and with a glass
of some bright liquid sharp with fissioning sheen
in hand, he small talk make with shiny babe
as Photo Man for Hot New Magazine

the shutter clicks, and captures cover shot.
His stock is rising. What's he saying though?
Ain't no one listening to a word -- and him,
he listening least of all. But cares he? No.

The off-rhyme and near-dialect remind, of course, of John Berryman and his Dream Songs, but Jollimore's persona is less dark than Berryman's, not as severely developed and more overtly playful. But, like The Dream Songs, the Thomson sonnets are, despite their humor, profoundly sad. It's that veiled sadness, squeezed into sublimated humor, that keeps the poems from being self-indulgent or self-mocking. What's fun about these pieces is how the poems become less about Thomson and more about the nameless speaker. Thomson is just a prop; the speaker is the real protagonist.

Jollimore is not as funny as Collins, but he's also not as silly, which should make these poems both accessible and rewarding for casual reader and the poetry devotee. Their engagement with popular culture will also please reader skeptical about poetry's "relevance."

Tom Thomson may be in purgatory, but readers of this book certainly won't be in hell.

Friday Night Lights: The New "The Wire?"

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:58:00 +0000

WORK WITH ME ON this analogy for a moment: the United States as a microcosm of the entire globe. In this scenario, New York, with its major city, its British connections, and its chilly Atlantic climate would be England. California, with its long coastline, its wacky culture, and its obsession with technology, is Japan. So, which state is America? The ostentatiousness of Texas, its brashness, its bigness, its sense of self-regard, is the United States.

Even without this silly comparison, Texas is, perhaps the most American of states, and the last eight years of the Bush presidency have essentially made Texas America's state. The problems of Texas are the problems of our country; the obsessions of Texas are the obsessions of our country. To understand Texas, then, is in large part to understand America.

You can't understand Texas without understanding two interdependent pillars of Texas culture--the small town and football, and no contemporary text explores these two concepts better than Friday Night Lights.

Now that The Wire is no more, Friday Night Lights has emerged as the best hour-long drama on television.

Like The Wire, FNL concerns itself with a setting at the forefront of America's consciousness. For whatever reason--maybe Sarah Palin--this country's attention has migrated, gradually, from "the inner city" to "rural America." The "ghetto" used to be white culture's dramatic scapegoat, the scene against which America's problems got played out. Now, though, the small town has supplanted the ghetto as the most interesting pop culture setting.

For liberals, small towns are places where lynchings still exist, where polygamy happens, where males who go on shooting sprees are bred, and where evolution is kept out of schools. For conservatives, small towns are where America's family values are not just enacted but protected. Friday Night Lights takes an agnostic view of the small town; the fictional Dillon is neither romanticized nor lampooned.

It is, however, presented as a round place, full of complex social norms, stratifications, racial boundaries, and religious expectations. Unlike many independent films, who look at small towns the way an anthropologist might, FNL opens up the small town experience, making easy interpretations and facile paraphrasings pointless.

Less about football than about the role rituals like football, church, and family gatherings play in small town cultural life, FNL does an amazing job of making the everyday, the quotidian, the mundane, riveting.

If you haven't seen the show--and even if you don't like football--try an episode, then try a second. You'll be hooked.

Conservatism: So Simplistic, A Child Can Master It

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:51:00 +0000

ON MORE THAN ONE occasion, William Buckley performed the miraculous. He made conservatism both palatable and charming. Smart and snarky (in a buttoned-up New England sort of way), he married intellectualism with common sense rationality. In his nasally, skeptical voice, conservatism could actually sound adult.

This is less the case with Jonathan Krohn, the 14-year old child actor from Atlanta, whose recent book Define Conservatism has landed him on talk shows across the country. His study, whose title sounds like a command a teacher might give student or a challenge a game-show host might hurl at a contestant, tells us less about this ambitious teenager and more about the vacuousness of conservative ideas. It's an accidental expose--it reveals just how simplistic the basic tenets of conservatism actually are.

In his tract, Mr. Krohn defines a conservative as someone who believes in

1. Respect for the Constitution
2. Respect for Life
3. Less Government
4. Personal Responsibility

These are great notions. I would probably agree with all of them. In fact, most of us would. I mean really, who wants a government thinking it's big enough to tell us what marriage is?

The ease with which Mr. Krohn enumerates, defines, and distills conservatism remains both that movement's strength and weakness. On one hand, the ability to circumscribe a comprehensive belief system in four concepts and twelve words lends conservatism a certain ease. It's comfortable like soft slippers. It is reassuring. Black and white. Seemingly concrete. It is this aspect of conservatism that allows a 14-year old to articulate the concepts of an entire political party with confidence and ackknowledgement. It is also why conservatives have an easier time talking about their ideas than progressives. It's why Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity move from real issues to righteous indignation all in the span of a single commercial break.

But as America matures, conservatism's simplicity starts to look more and more like naivete. If conservatives actually stuck to the denotative meanings of the four ideas enumerated above, it could be a viable system. But, instead of being about denotation, conservatism is about connotation. Mr. Krohn's list is simply a litany of cliches, buzz words that mean something quite different from what they say. For example, "less government" really means "less taxes on the wealthy." "Respect for life" doesn't mean "we respect all living people," it means "no abortion."

America, like the world, is complex. It is full of gray areas. There are situations, evolutions, struggles, resentments, eventualities, and misunderstandings that require nimbleness, agility, open-mindedness, compromise, and nuance. As the world gets more complicated, simplistic political ideologies become less pertinent. It's like trying to repair a computer with a rock and a stick. Advanced issues need advanced ideas. Real-world problems need solutions commensurate with their difficulty. Hard conundrums can't be solved with easy platitudes. Complexity often requires complexity. Conservatism has been a lot of things, but complex has never been one of them.

And complexity and nuance are almost always hard to get worked up about. They engender emotions of patience, thought, and consideration. Black and white ideas, on the other hand, lead to emotions of anger, outrage, and offense. Hence the talk shows, hence Rush Limbaugh's inability to be anything but a disc jockey, hence Sean Hannity's bulging neck veins.

Conservatism is nostalgic. It's one dimensional. It's the poster of the Van Gogh. Not the Van Gogh.

Jonathan Krohn is a good kid with a big heart and a devotion to civic duty that is admirable. Pretty soon, I suspect he'll realize that if he really wants to ensure his four concepts find full and actual implementation into public policy, he's hitched his wagon to the wrong elephant.

The Bachelor Ethics: Molly, Memoirs, and Machinations

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 14:36:00 +0000

THE AFTER THE FINAL ROSE Ceremony on ABC's The Bachelor made for great, if inexplicable, TV.

As most know by now, the bachelor--the earnest and self-satisfied Jason Mesnick--breaks things off with Melissa Rycroft on national television just six weeks after an emotion-laden marriage proposal amidst ferns. That proposal came on the heels of a teary-breakup when Jason ended things with Molly Malaney. How teary? I've never seen a dude cry so much.

But, who said Reality TV has ever been about subtlety?

Breaking up with Melissa on national TV is, on its own, high camp. But, on the same program, within minutes of putting the former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader up for free agency, he admits he's been wanting to be starting quarterback for Molly's team all along.

Ah, the old switcharoo. Most of us can't get away with that. Can ABC? Maybe, maybe not.

"Reality Steve," a blogger who claims to have an in with the network, has been writing for some time not simply that the scenario outlined above would happen but that it has been entirely scripted by ABC and the show's producers--from the beginning. According to him, it was clear a few days into taping this season's episodes that Jason and Molly were The Bachelor's Brad and Angelina. Faced with a dull, predictable series of shows (and no twins), they made Jason a deal--you can eventually choose Molly, but you have to propose first to Melissa.

Conspiratorial? Sure. Great TV? You bet? Moral? Less clear.

My interest here is not necessarily judging the ethical decisions of Molly, Melissa, and Jason but rather, if Steve the prose-impaired blogger is correct what this says about the ethics of ABC and the reality of reality TV. In the past, I have written about fake memoirs in these virtual pages and elsewhere, and my wife, who is smarter than I am about most things, challenged me last night post-bachelor to distinguish between fake memoirs and fake reality TV.

Why, she queried, do I get all worked up by invented memoirs but not un-real reality TV?

It's a good question, for which I have no good answer.

But, let me start here. For one, we're not sure just how scripted this season or the past few episodes of The Bachelor actually were. We do know, on the other hand, the many things James Frey or Margaret P. Jones made up to make their memoirs more fabulous. That said, I do believe a great deal of what Reality Steve proposes, and a reporter for the newspaper in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Molly is from, has also agreed that this scenario makes sense.

So, going from there, I would say that the distinction is that we expect an authored book that markets itself as "autobiography" or "memoir" to adhere to "reality" more than reality TV. Perhaps because books have no actors, no producers, no advertisers, no need for weekly Nielsen ratings, and no sense of the episodic, we grant television liberties we don't grant authors; perhaps because we know a week of hanging out on an island with a bunch of other people cannot--under any reasonable circumstance--be edited down to 42 minutes with any real degree of accuracy.

I also think that we still expect something of books. This might be old-fashioned, but I believe we hold reality books to a higher standard of verisimilitude than reality television, which has become a kind of oxymoron.

We have--for better or worse--a different moral compass for high and popular culture.

This is good for books but maybe not so good for us, since far more people make television part of their identity than literary texts. But, both share the public push for narrative drama and emotional tension, and who among us has not been tempted to skew reality, transpire events to make our stories more readable?

ABC absolutely was involved on some level in determining the course of events with the show. The question is, with willing participants and an eager audience, did they do anything wrong?

Totally Looks LIke

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 00:54:00 +0000

I'VE BEEN A FAN of Totally Looks Like for some time now, but the Whitman/Gandalf pairing has officially nudged out Brown/Jackson as my favorite brotherhood.

A-Rod, Banned Substances, and the Nobility of Sports

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 03:42:00 +0000

SPORT IS NOT A virtue.

It may be embodied by virtuous people and have as some of its goals the betterment of humanity, the goodness of human potential, and a team ethic over individual excellence, but sport as a practice or an endeavor is not itself a good. Of the many annoying aspects foregrounded in the doping case of Alex Rodriguez, the most annoying has got to be the ongoing discourse of sport nobility.

Lovers of sport tend to invoke words like "pure," "ideal," and "natural" when describing what they think sports should be. Fans feel "wounded," "disappointed," even "heartbroken" when they hear their favorite athlete cheated--as though it were their wife or girlfriend who broke the faith.

These aficionados make the great mistake of seeing sports as a democracy. They think sports should be "fair," and that athletes should be on a "level playing field," and no one should get an advantage. They think sports should be about the game, and integrity. They believe that sport, through its nobility, rewards those with a true heart, those who work the hardest.

But, sports are not democratic. Sports are capitalistic.

Sports are about acquisition, accumulation, and defeat. They are about getting the most land, points, runs, yardage. They are about triumph. They are about victory. They are not, nor have they ever been about equality. They have always been about winning and doing pretty much whatever is necessary to win--building better training equipment, hiring the best coaches, amassing the stronger team, developing the most impressive work-out regimen, creating the best diet, constructing the best strategy.

Sports have been about one-upmanship since they began. And, even in college, sports has become primarily about money, making its philosophical and structural links to capitalism hard to ignore.

There seems to be a myth that in the good ol' days, men were men and fought fair, played honest, and upheld the rules. Nothing could be further from the truth. Evidence abounds that players threw games, clawed for unfair advantages, and played fast and loose with rules. Early pitchers used to drink cocktails of goat semen thinking it made them throw harder.

There are no level playing fields. There is no parity in sports. There are only humans competing. And no two humans arrive in the ring or on the course equal. They only arrive as humans who want to win.

And, winning, at least in the capitalist arena, has never been fair, nor noble.

If we want sports to be honest, then we need to change the discourse of sports. We need to start talking about it for what it is--not what we wish it should be. As long as we expect different behavior from baseball players than stock brokers, sports will always disappoint, and they will always be fake.

Inaugural Poem Re-Mix

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 06:42:00 +0000

BACK IN 2004, NEW JERSEY'S WFMU did a fabulous re-mix of the Republican National Convention. Republicans had never been so funny.

This year, WFMU is back with an inaugural poem re-mix contest. Posted on the site are 51 different versions of Elizabeth Alexander's inaugural poem sent in by listeners who were encouraged to make Alexander's poem their own. Sped up, set to music, funked up . . .it doesn't matter.

David Lynch fans will thrill to incantatory rhythms of the Log Lady from Twin Peaks version, while Beavis and Butthead loyalists will appreciate this locker room version.

Though the contest is a bit of a stunt, it also raises fun questions about the degree to which art is democratic. Is the poem Alexander's or ours? Is it disrespectful to turn the most watched poetry reading in the history of the world into a log lady chant? Is Alexander being mocked, or is this an homage?

From our perspective, any time people interact with a poem with this much attention to detail, it's a good thing for poetry--and a great thing for listener-supported radio.

Interview with Elizabeth Alexander

rader@usfca.edu (Dean Rader) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:03:00 +0000

OVER THE WEEKEND, I received an email from Dave Rosenthal, who writes for the Baltimore Sun's book blog, alerting me to a recent interview he did with Elizabeth Alexander. He asks her a series of questions about the experience of writing and reading the inaugural poem, and he also talks with her about the reaction to the poem.

You can read excerpts from and listen to the interview here.