mors Iohannis

a. d. viii Kal. Dec. ann. dom. MMIX

amico perdito, nunc est celebrandum. sic transiit ratio noster, cum unus de intimissimis nostris inventus est insensilis, more mortuorum....

In honor of my friend John's birthday, we're going back, way back, to Beloit College, 1986. In those days, kids, we hatched our nefarious plans face-to-face. Barring that, we phoned each other, which means something a little quainter than it does today: we used the telephones common to each floor of our dorms, a process that required (on the one end of the line) actually dialing phone numbers we had memorized, and (on the other end) answering the call, fetching whomever the caller wanted (if not you), and taking a message if he or she wasn't around (very often the case). We didn't have email, cell phones, SMS, IM, Facebook, Twitter or any of the myriad technological marvels that now circumscribe our social interactions. And we had wood-burning calculators and walked to class barefoot through the blinding snow.

I seem to digress, but I'm trying to make the point that our world was far less interconnected than it is now, and darker and more spacious. So nobody really blinked an eye when John went missing for three or so days in September. Then as now classes were cut, journeys of discovery undertaken, and navel-gazing entertained — all part of the semi-circadian rhythms of modern college life. It wasn't until a critical mass of friends happened to gather and to compare notes that John's absence was deemed strange enough to warrant action. Whereupon Residential Life was contacted, John's room unlocked, and John himself discovered unconscious but otherwise unharmed. It was frightening stuff nonetheless, and everyone kicked themselves for not acting sooner. In coming to terms, we did the only thing that made sense.

We threw a party.

With John's consent, we drew up a guest list and sent out invitations, announcing his death and inviting all comers to grieve and condole, formally-attired. We decorated the dorm basement in black and pushed two couches together to create a makeshift coffin. On the eve of the party John lay in state, his beloved stuffed cow tucked under his arm. Mourners gathered to pay their respects and to see if they could get a rise out of the deceased. Not a few threw themselves on the corpse and had to be restrained. We sang hymns, read poems, shared the good times, and testified how much we would miss our friend. Our pal Seth delivered an extremely alliterative eulogy ("Oh, what wondrous webs of words I would weave!" vel sim.), in which he exposed John's previously unknown necrophiliac, Satanic, vampiric, and cannibalistic ways and expressed hope beyond hope that his poor soul, though unquestionably damned for eternity, might yet know a modicum of peace.

The one thing we hadn't quite worked out was how to end the wake. Our original plan was that we'd cover the corpse, crank the mix tape, and get the real party started. John would slip away, change, and rejoin us, declaring himself much improved. Nice idea, but not nearly cathartic enough for the crowd, which refused to leave John's side. Finally, during the second, plodding verse of "Amazing Grace," the dead arose and hollered at everyone to knock it the fuck off. Cheers rang out, a miracle was proclaimed, and we danced the rest of the night.

de dulcibus

a. d. xiv Kal. Dec. ann. dom. MMIX

adhinc viginti duobus annis, scripsi litteras....

22 years ago today I wrote a letter that changed my life.

There was this girl, you see, with whom I was in love. Being of awkward disposition, I laid it all out in a letter, which I sent via campus mail. I was clever, or so I thought: I put the letter in an airmail envelope with a red and blue border, so I could peek into the little window of her mailbox and see whether she had picked up her mail. Until she did, I reasoned, I could enjoy not feeling even more awkward around her, searching her face for signs and fretting over what she was going to say in reply.

Oh, yes, I've always tied myself up in knots. If you didn't know that, are you new here?

Anyway, the girl knew me well enough to know that I'd be obsessing over the red and blue stripes, so she extracted the letter but left the envelope in her mailbox, where it sat mocking me.

For four days.

Four days of passing each other on campus and eating together, with me wondering when she was going to check her mail and whether I'd screwed everything up, and with her knowing that I was wondering all of this and thoroughly enjoying keeping me on the hook.

I remember lying on my bed in despair and staring at the ceiling, when I heard the shuffling of paper under my outer door: an envelope addressed to me in her inimitable hand, and a letter that told me everything I had hoped to hear.

And that's how it began. For 22 years I have loved this woman. We have traveled together, studied together, cooked, built, drunk, read, loved, conceived, cried, argued, worried, worked, relaxed, recuperated, and rejoiced together. She tethers me to reality yet enables me to dream. She helps me be the best version of myself. I can only hope that I don't give her too much grief. That I can still make her laugh, I take as a good sign.

Happy anniversary, Sweets. I love you, now and always.

sub Rosa

Last night activist Rosa Clemente spoke at Skidmore under the auspices of our Hip-Hop Alliance. Although attendance was low — typical of diversity-oriented events at this school — Ms. Clemente's energy and urgency could not be denied. She was outspoken and engaged, and held forth on a wealth of topics: health care, the environment, President Obama and the politics of the Democratic Party, imperialism, the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, and (of course) grass-roots activism. Not surprisingly, I learned that many of her issues are my issues, too.

On the other hand, Ms. Clemente showed up late for her own talk, promised to speak for only 40 minutes but went on for well over an hour, often going off-script and jumping from topic to topic almost incoherently at points. I had wanted most of all to learn about the intersection of hip-hop and activism, and why she believes that intersection is necessary for real change. I got a taste of it during my time in the room, though I'm not sure I learned anything new. Perhaps the Q&A that followed made sense of it all, but the clock struck 8:30 (after a promised 7:00 start) and I had to leave.

So, here's my conundrum. I deeply appreciate the HHA's bringing Ms. Clemente to campus, especially this campus. And those who know me know that I am commited to breaking down barriers, particularly those that might silence voices like the one I heard last night. Still, though I appreciate the message, I can't get past the medium. As an academic, even a rather self-made one, I cannot fathom being late for my own talk and using more than my allotted time to name-drop and extemporize randomly. (And don't even get me started on her grammar, the unorthodoxy of which rang stark in the confines of the lecture hall.)

But whose yardstick I am applying to Ms. Clemente? That of the academy, originally fashioned after white male aesthetics, and best at measuring what conforms to those aesthetics. Wielding this instrument literally and mercilessly means the occlusion of just about everything that Ms. Clemente is and proposes: This clever and compassionate person, this strong woman, this Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate, she simply disappears and nothing ever changes. And, yes, I realize that Ms. Clemente has her own yardstick, equally formidable and exacting, which I suspect might not even register the existence of my white, male, professorial, complacent ass.

What I'm left with are questions I cannot answer. Can Ms. Clemente's message even be vocalized within the standards of the academy? Can she be the powerful force for change, the Real Deal that she surely is, by conforming to academic norms of The Talk? As Audre Lord teaches us, the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.

Somebody help me, please.

latina servanda est

a. d. ix Kal. Jul. ann. dom. MMIX

schola est, cuius duces studium linguae Latinae abolere susciperunt....

A local girl's academy, arguably one of the best in the nation, is phasing out Latin. The motive is economic: in these hard times — and they are hard, make no mistake — underperforming programs must be cut.

Which school? Ah, well, that would be telling. In the interest of decorum and tact (yeah, yeah, I know) let's leave names out of it for now. Suffice it to say that you would know which school if you combined, rebus-style, the first name of a match-making Jane Austen heroine with the first name of a movie misfit who trains large rodents to do his bidding.

Ever the activist, one of my colleagues spearheaded a letter-writing campaign. Here's the salient text of his letter, which not only makes a good argument for the preservation of Latin in the most difficult of circumstances, but also quotes the school's Latin mottoes in the process. Impolitic? Perhaps. Delectable? certe.

We are saddened to learn that [name of school] has decided to phase out the teaching and learning of Latin. While we appreciate the challenges that your institution, indeed all of our institutions, face in these difficult times, we hope you will reconsider this decision. We see the loss of Latin at [name of school] as a loss for your students, your school, and all of us who value educational excellence.

As one of the nation’s leading college preparatory schools for young women, [name of school] has fashioned a reputation for unsurpassed excellence. Those graduates who matriculate at our nation’s colleges and universities rank among the finest students enrolled and bring with them the renown and the high aspirations of their alma mater. That reputation, and those aspirations, have been fostered by a diverse and exciting curriculum that offers young women the full spectrum of disciplines, perspectives, and ideas. In our judgment, the decision you have made to eliminate Latin from the curriculum runs contrary to [name of school]’s historic mission and will deprive current and future students linguistic and literary windows on a profound culture.

All of the data, both regional and national, demonstrate a continuing upsurge in interest in the study of Latin. In the Capital District, Saratoga Springs H.S. teaches 225 students in Latin, and Shenendehowa High enrolls 425 [editor's note: !!!]. And, at [names of baccalaureate institutions], Latin and Classics are thriving, and annually we witness exceptional achievement from our students as a result of studying Latin and ancient Greek. The intellectual discipline that these languages demand distinguishes our students, who routinely apply their studies in Classics to the challenges of contemporary society. Latin and Greek don’t just expose students to two ancient civilizations; they equip students with the requisite skills to meet the challenges of a global and complicated world.

...This is not the time to cut a program that has been at the heart of [name of school]’s academic program for nearly two hundred years. Indeed, your school’s mottoes strike us as particularly apt to this issue: gaudet patientia duris, “Patience rejoices in adversity,” and semper fidelis, “Always faithful.” How ironic it would be if a school with such a commitment to perseverance, to its traditions, and to the value of knowing Latin would discard that commitment.

Respectfully, etc.

domi

15 giugno 2008

Sto sedendomi qui nella cucina familiare a Milwaukee, preparando la cena di domani, bevendo un po', e pensando a molte cose -- sopratutto al passato. Come mai? Perche non ho habitato in questa città per molti anni ed ci ho viaggiato da solo per fornire assistenza ai miei genitori nella loro traslocazione.

Allora, naturalmente viene in mente il passato: curiosamente, è non solo il passato lontano, quando ero stato giovane, ma anche il passato recente, quando ho fatto il professore. La verità: ho passato tutta la settimana nel passato!

Quest'ossessione ho cominciato quando, arrivando in città, sono andato a casa nell'autobus in cui andavo sempre da scuola: il numero 57. L'ossessione è stata continuata quando mi sono abbonato a Facebook, poi ho ordinato le fotografie vecchie della famiglia, e poi sono uscito a bere qualcosa con un amico dall'università ed il giorno prossimo a mangiare qualcosa con i miei cugini. Tanta nostalgia! Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura!

Ma adesso ho la massima nostalgia di mia moglie e mia figlia, e vorrei molto ritornare in un posto dove la maggiorparte delle cure è del presente e del futuro.

certamen periculosum

a. d. iii Kal. Mai. ann. dom. MMIX

debeo narrare certamen periculosum, quod non optavi, sed in quo invitus implicatus sum....

Okay, so there's a win-a-new-car contest currently being hosted by my least favorite local radio station. The listener who correctly decodes the clues and finds the car can claim it for himself or herself. Someone gets a free car, the station and the dealership get to look munificent in a terrible economy — it's win-win all around, right?

Wrong.

The back-story invented for the contest is that one of the station interns has absconded with said car. Listeners, if they believe they have spotted the intern, must approach her and demand the car using the officially-mandated phrase.

Do you see the problem yet?

Well, did I mention that my wife, who works in the heart of the station's broadcast area, less than two months ago bought a car identical to the one being given away (exact make, model, and color) from the very same dealership?

How about now?

No? Last week someone tailed my wife all the way home from work (about 40 miles), pulled into our driveway, and demanded the car. (I guess she did say, "Please," which is technically not part of the magic phrase.) Luckily, she was sane and took "no" for an answer.

Another one. This past Monday two men driving in the opposite direction from my wife spotted her car at an intersection, got out of the right-turn lane and into the left-turn lane, and began to follow her home. She lost them on the way by taking some back roads, but got home really late after all that.

This is harassment. What else to call it? Before you tell me that I'm overreacting, let me make a few more points:

• As I noted, these are crazy economic times to begin with. A contest like this only threatens to make things a little crazier, not only because of the bounty, but also because the contest itself involves driving. Call me silly, but anything that combines car chases and desperate consumers is probably a bad idea.
  
• I don't understand how the radio station and the dealership can be so confident that everyone who wants the car is capable of exercising self-control. Never mind the potential for vehicular violence: let's think about the listeners who actually manage to confront an innocent driver and then refuse to take "no" for an answer.
  
• I wonder how many women drivers, particularly young women who might resemble the intern much more than my wife, have been endangered by this contest. Think about it: if you're a 20-something woman driving the same kind of car, would you want absolute strangers stopping you and demanding the keys? Imagine you didn't know about the contest at all. Might you mistake an encounter like that for an attempted robbery?
  
• Surely the car dealership knew how many identical vehicles it had recently sold when cooking up this fiasco. So how come they didn't give my wife a warning? Or a chance to opt out? When the dealer and the station established this contest and released the hounds, they opted her in against her will. How about a sign or a magnet that excludes her and her vehicle?
  
• The dealership prides itself on customer service and loyalty. Perhaps, but by enlisting my wife unwillingly, by causing both of us to fear for her safety, by tacking on time to her already long commute, by making her and me worry about all of this crap in the first place, and by not responding to our repeated calls in a timely fashion, they're doing us a disservice and fomenting a lot of disloyalty. I removed the dealer's frames from around the license plates: no more free advertising from us.
  
• The disc jockeys seem especially dismissive of other drivers' concerns. They took a call, I heard, from a woman who also complained of being followed: she said that she was going to put a sign in her window stating hers was not the giveaway car. The jocks then mused on air about whether or not to instruct the intern to do the same thing, just to throw people off the scent. In other words, innocent drivers can't exclude themselves. Only complete strangers can exclude them, and only then by confronting them directly. Nice!

My wife finally got the dealership's General Manager on the phone. After some back and forth, in which he made it clear that the contest would continue, he offered her a loaner car (different in every respect) to use for the duration. An acceptable solution for us, yes, and an example of their fabled good customer service — even though it has a whiff of humoring the crazy lady. When handing over the loaner today, the GM apparently told my wife that most of the comments they've received about the promotion have been positive — one notable exception, it seems. Naturally, nothing's wrong if no one says it's wrong. And one person is really no one.

So, good for us. At least I can stop staring out the window in the evenings, wondering if my wife's been car-jacked. Let's hope nothing happens to the other drivers out there who didn't bother to make a deal, or who didn't know that they could.

vale, Zoe!

21 marzo 2009

Due settimane fa abbiamo detto adio ad una buon'amica, Zoe. Lei fu una macchina molto brava, portante spesso mia moglie al lavoro e poi a casa.

Cara Zoe, spero che i nuovi guidatori ti trattino con l'amore e la dignità!