-Stretching Social Fabric-

A conversation on Friday with the youth leader of the Christian group I advise has left me feeling like the ideological version of Seymour, from Little Shop of Horrors. I’m helping an alien creature find *people food* even though I disagree with it and it seems to be growing out of its pot.

The other faculty members and I debated whether or not someone should represent a group like mine, a Christian group with members who fall all over the fervency scale when it comes to expressing their faith. We all agreed they deserved some representation, even if it comes from little ol’ lapsed me.

Maybe, we believed, I could moderate some of the excesses. Proselytizing is off the table, but I sense that the youth leader and some of the more active members are looking for the opportunity to circumvent the ban. They enjoy controversy as much as anyone, and it is unnerving to see their eyes glitter when someone (the school administration, the media, me) appears to be infringing on their first amendment rights.

It’s particularly unnerving, since Leaderboy used his first amendment argument to suppress someone else’s first amendment rights.

Maybe you heard, he said, that 'Book of Daniel' was taken off the air. I had, but his eyes had the constitutional glitter, so I didn’t say anything back. The plant in Little Shop of Horrors didn’t have eyes, just a killer whale maw.

So many Christians called in and complained, he continued with unmistakable glee. The networks knew better than to keep it on.

My fingers twitched at my side, out of sight. I hoped my own teeth weren’t showing. “Maybe the show just wasn’t that good.” I said. “That’s what I’ve been hearing.”

He shakes his head. “It was the Christian boycott. They wouldn’t let something so insulting stay on, if so many viewers objected.”

“Your source?” I asked incredulously. Say 700 club, I thought. I dare you.

He frowns. “A bunch of different websites I visit regularly.”

It is only years of library training that keep from scoffing.

Anyway, if “they” have the clout to determine what is or is not played on television – and there is some truth to his exaggerations (remember Sinclair Broadcasting?) – why can’t they use that power to smite some of the programming that deserves to be smote?

I could give them a list, even though I don’t have cable.

However, I tell the student leader that I’ve often become irritated by what I’ve seen on television or in movies. I tell him that every time I feel incensed enough to write in and complain, I always stop myself when I ask myself if it is worth the trouble when there are so many more important issues on which I should expending my energy.

He is undeterred. Yes, yes, he nods impatiently, but these things eat away the social fabric..

I feel like such a patsy for agreeing to advise this group. I’m not an NAACP lawyer representing a Klansman to insure due process. I’m just another foolish unsaved soul to be used while they gather to celebrate their elitist group. Worse yet, my support, slight as it is, seems to have enabled them to work against the things I cherish.

Or maybe I’m being overly dramatic.

-Two down-

Two of the writers referenced in this earlier post quit the group.

Who are the first casualties?

1. the creative writing professor (and moderator)
2. the environmental cleanup expert
3. the retired environmental cleanup expert
4. poetry-spewing brace of merlot-drinking sisters
5. very loquacious high school teacher
6. landscaping English major
7. me

If you choose the poetry-spewing brace of merlot-drinking sisters, you're right.

-By now I should know better-

I always get excited when I get my hands on a controversial new book with 50+ holds in the public library queue; most recently, Lynn Picknett’s the Secret History of Lucifer. The blurb on the jacket identifies Picknett as a writer and speaker on Christian heresies, but the author's accompanying photo suggests Clara Bow.



Picknett makes many bold statements about biblical inconsistencies, which are spot on, if fairly obvious. But before you invite her to your salon, be warned – she will probably overturn the pasta salad bowl and accuse the macaroni spirals of trying to impregnate her.

In short, she is one of those rare birds so obsessed with phalluses (and at the same time, terrified of the very concept) that this read feels uncomfortably like bobbing for apples in a bucket ballpark franks.

-Whenever eight writers meet-

Whenever two writers meet and acknowledge one another, some unmistakably primitive contest for superiority has to occur. Like a pair of tomcats on neutral territory, they must freeze and match wills momentarily, even under friendly circumstances like a peer-review group meeting.

I joined one this week. We are a creative writing professor (the moderator), an environmental cleanup expert, a poetry-spewing brace of merlot-drinking sisters, a very loquacious high school teacher, who showed up late after programming her VCR to record "Lost," a retired environmental cleanup expert (weird, huh?) a landscaping English major (there but for the grace of god go I), and me.

I've joined several other such groups in the past. All of them imploded in less than six months, but I was generally pleased with all of the sessions, at least in the beginning. Even when I disagreed with the critics, or felt they missed the point entirely, that too, was a signal that I needed to get out of my own head and clarify. TOO ABSTRACT, one of my greatest professors regularly sliced into my essays in red ink. I think he still would - the fault is in my own mind, and is not easily dispelled.

Blame it on the Victorian literature I consumed like almond m&m's as a student. My mind's voice sounds like an anemic fop visiting the moors in unfashionable breeches. (Rest assured, in real life I get plenty of exercise, even if it took me an embarrassingly long time to saw apart firewood at my parent's place. And the axe might as well be a baseball bat that hasn't been sharpened since the Phillies won the World Series.)

I mention it now to demonstrate the gulf between my antiquated inner voice, and that of the moderator/creative writing professor, whose primary influence is Dave Eggers.

Jesus.

In another writing group, many years ago, I received great acclaim after several weeks of awkward silence. The reason? Someone misread my lyric tribute to tea as a homage to recreational drug use.

Most unseemly, but it gave me some mad respect from my bitchass classmates, for the rest of the term.

-Flayed and Plasticized-

Combining elements of art and science, the Body Worlds exhibit currently touring the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia delivers slabs of human flesh infused with plastic. Some are sliced thinner than prosciutto, and are pressed under glass. Others are arrayed in their human form - sans skin - and posed for action.

It is part art, and part science, but anyone looking for a deeper understanding of either will be disappointed. Science text books peel back layers, as do many computer programs. Seeing this in 3D without attending gross anatomy may be of value, but if you remove the mess - not to mention the skin that puts a personal face on the deceased - the crowds are free to be as clinical as they were yesterday. No one became queasy there, not even the small children.

Which isn't to say the exhibit didn't confuse them. One figure, entitled "Teacher" gripped a piece of chalk. I heard the young child next to me call for his mother and say: "Why did they make this one a teacher if he's a man?"

Really, if we've learned anything here, it's that people are shallow enough to ignore the body donors when their beauty is more than skin deep. Although more than a few people seemed to enjoy smirking over the plasticized penises. Others complained that there were too many dudes among the dead.

Note: nearly all of the body donors had the blackened lungs of chronic smokers. Sexy, no?

Ultimately, I was glad I saw it, although I would like to have posted some of my own photos. Sadly, they've got crap to sell you and won't allow competition. The high point of this project? Probably the plastination process, which is incredibly advanced preservation craft.

The low point? Gunther Van Hagens also had the temerity to put a hat on one of the corpses in order to "further blur the line between life and death."

That was just stupid.

-Denial-

It's so cute when someone tells you that their life ought to be filmed for television. It's even better when they play casting director.

She believed she could be played by Amy Poehler, but more it's far more likely to be Chris Parnell in drag.

-The Death’s head cane-

What do you do when you are the witness to street bullying? What did you do on the playground as a kid?

Sociologists tell us that most witnesses just watch, and the odds of an individual witness helping the victim of public violence only decreases when the number of witnesses increases. It's what John Darley and Bibb Latane identified as the "diffusion of responsibility" When a mentally deranged and naked man attacked an English church with a sword, parishioners fought back immediately and were congratulated for bucking the trend.

And what do you do when the bullying is subtle, and the threat is implied, or depends on the witness's own prejudgment of the aggressor?

Say you've got a Chinese takeout window and no one in the vicinity to watch over two children - neither of them over the age of ten - except a skinny librarian ordering Pork Chow Mein. Who's got their back when a large bald man with prison tattoos and a shaved head, a man carrying a cane capped with a skull, bends down and tells two suddenly still children how much they've grown, then asks about their families, even though neither child says anything, and the one the librarian can see past his bulk seems to have gone pale.

Am I overreacting, being too judgmental? Come on, a cane! Not the kind anyone leans on. It's just under three feet in length, and he carries it like a club. It looks solid enough to do some damage.

Just listen, I told myself. This could be nothing.

But my mind jumped ahead. All the best scenarios ended with the cook whipping carbon-steel knives through the takeout window. The worst ended (and began, really) with me getting too close to the death's head cane. That thing was a mace, really, and I bet it was even bigger than it looked.

And then he was gone.

-Eleven-

No one thought to pick up any cake or candles for our mildly autistic coworker's birthday, so I dashed out into the street at eleven A.M. in a desperate attempt to find some. It would really be a coup, I decided, if I could avoid putting the purchase on a card. But I only had two fives and a one in my wallet, so it wasn't looking good.

The first stop was Beverly’s pastries. Beverly hasn’t operated the Bakery in some time; she turned the reins over to the Kwan family in the early nineties. Luke Kwan was at the counter that day, his arm in a sling. Marjory Kwan was nowhere to be found.

My boss had suggested cupcakes. I thought that might be a good idea, too, since we’d have to use plastic cutlery on any dessert large enough for division. I’d also talked my boss down to eight cupcakes, since the college runs on a skeleton crew during the January intermission.

The only problem was that Luke didn’t have eight cupcakes. There were only four cupcakes under the glass, two chocolate, two vanilla, a jumble of danishes, and six brownies, half with crushed walnuts on top, and half without. Minus the danishes, I took two of everything.

For a total of $6.26.

But I wasn’t finished. I passed the pleading vagrants outside the free health clinic and picked up the sodas I wouldn’t be drinking. It was three liters in all, two of them Pepsi, one diet.

For a total of $4.74.

Odd, I thought, as I made the trip back to the office. Eleven dollars even.

Which is odd.

-Address Known-

Kyria Abrahams has defected to Blogger, and we couldn't be happier. Hopefully she will save her Sateen Dura-Luxe past for the education of future generations.

-Christ's own coffeepot-

It may be in between semesters at most colleges, but I had the urge to do some reconnaissance on a new job site.

It's another college, another academic library. Slightly better than the one I'm currently with, which isn't saying much. Climb the ladder, and all that.

Otherwise, this library is only set apart from the others I've seen by its commingled stacks and aquariums. One could research red-eyed Amazon tree frogs, and then move four feet to the left to study a live one.

I didn't marvel at this for long. An elderly woman stumped out of an antechamber, turned, and warbled back into technical service land that a student was here. Not really, but I decided not to reveal my true purpose unless she asked.

Are you a student? She asked.

I admitted my real reason for coming, which sounded less rational than it had in my head.

The woman nodded with such a lack of concern that I feared she would nod off. She was closing soon, she told me, but was willing to let me take a peek. The only other noteworthy part of this conversation was introductions. "I'm Benedict." I said. "Mrs. Roth" she replied with distaste.

Of course! The greatest generation doesn't cotton to exchanging Christian names with young strangers. I had to get out of there.

On the way back home, I pulled the car over when I saw a sign advertising two of my favorite things - coffee and books. But when I walk inside, my eyes adjust to the gloom to find a well-furnished, but empty establishment. It's dark, and cold, and the decor is pure Starbucks. Plush couches, Ansel Adams prints, and too-small-to-spread-a-newspaper two-foot circular tables.

Only $0.75 for a 12 oz cup of coffee? Magnificent!

The barista who comes out of the lattechamber is prim, in her fifties. She blinks at me as I make a move toward the connected bookstore. "Bibles are marked down." she says. Clearly, this is not Starbucks, nor Barnes and Noble.

The music.. I can't decipher the lyrics, but something about the sound pulls at me, begs to be classified.

Oh.. Christian rock. Now I get it.

Turns out the Church is in the innoculous looking storefront next door. The barista is a volunteer, and this shop is a non-profit enterprise. Hence the $0.75 cup of coffee.

My original plan was to find a quiet booth and jot down my impressions of the library I'd just cased. But I wasn't comfortable here, so I chatted her up about the area that might become my new town. She didn't talk faith or redemption, so everything was fine.

As I left I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. Gave her my first name.
She responded with her first and last.

Now, that's faith.

-Reading Coetzee-

Reading J. M. Coetzee's latest felt like standing stiff as a board before an audibly yawning abyss, letting the weight of my head lead all the way down.

I mean that in the best possible way. It was fantastic.