it's like you took the giant christmas tree
at rockefeller center and
you spread it out paper thin
but you were careful not to break a bulb
and then you mirrored it a million fold
to shine and shine and shine alone
and there's a tap on my knee
"bring up your seat back, please" she says
but I know she means
"if you feel like dancing, dance with me"
some of the lights below
shine directly on people I know
their lives take such strange shapes
but how together they appear from above
i guess that could be love, my friends,
my friends, i'm coming home
and then the captain speaks
"it's clear and forty four degrees"
but i know he means
"if you feel like dancing, dance with me"
and i've been out past the lights
to where the jagged black begins,
i let my heels sink in the sand
and the oceans sucked its teeth
And the cold cut through my feet
And stretched out on and on and on
How disconnected I can feel on the ground
It's like I'm shining all alone
and I don't wanna be
so,
before I go to bed tonight,
I'll signal up to the passing flights
It delights, delights, delights, delights.
And now the man in the middle seat
recites his timetables audibly
but i know he means
"if you feel like dancing, dance with me."
--bishop allen, "flight 180," april ep.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
institutions and mediocrity
Working within large institutions can undermine ambition. true? if so, why?
I'm considering this because I sat in my 200 person lecture class this afternoon wondering about my professor, who isn't at all mediocre. He constructs detailed powerpoint presentations for each class session. Today, he had a series about Mattel's litigiousness over the Barbie trademark and copyright, which included a dozen examples of the subject: Presidential candidate Barbie, Baby Doctor Barbie, Paleontologist Barbie, etc. He is so well-read and passionate that every question leads to a disgression from his material and now we are woefully behind on the syllabus. He even showed us regression charts today, charting the statistical probabilities of case outcomes based on various fact patterns. I may have been marveling at his unflagging enthusiasm for his subject. And marveling that he can do it in an institutional setting like a university.
I've been writing a paper about legal pedagogy. I argue that the way classes are taught in law school--the case method--is misleading and somewhat dishonest. It's a confidence game: the institution tricks students into thinking they need to know something they're completely in the dark about, kind of how the legal profession tricks everyone else into thinking that lawyers' monopoly over legal knowledge is somehow a function of special secret knowledge. It's a problem that I don't think will go away for a long while, because legal professsionals have an interest in making their studies as mystical as possible. It makes their services more in demand. To be interpreters of the state, via its laws. Sounds neat, doesn't it? It's an excellent racket.
This professor doesn't fit this description. He takes a more agnostic approach, that is, he'll show us the strings behind the magic trick: he actually will tell us what the law is. He probably still thinks that he's teaching us stuff that will make us excellent practitioners of intellectual property law. I think this is the better way.
Back to this question of institutional settings stunting initiative. Cubicle life. Lunch breaks. Office parties. It's a community, but one that demands your constant improvement. (what?) It would be more honest if we all sat in our pjs at home.
I'm considering this because I sat in my 200 person lecture class this afternoon wondering about my professor, who isn't at all mediocre. He constructs detailed powerpoint presentations for each class session. Today, he had a series about Mattel's litigiousness over the Barbie trademark and copyright, which included a dozen examples of the subject: Presidential candidate Barbie, Baby Doctor Barbie, Paleontologist Barbie, etc. He is so well-read and passionate that every question leads to a disgression from his material and now we are woefully behind on the syllabus. He even showed us regression charts today, charting the statistical probabilities of case outcomes based on various fact patterns. I may have been marveling at his unflagging enthusiasm for his subject. And marveling that he can do it in an institutional setting like a university.
I've been writing a paper about legal pedagogy. I argue that the way classes are taught in law school--the case method--is misleading and somewhat dishonest. It's a confidence game: the institution tricks students into thinking they need to know something they're completely in the dark about, kind of how the legal profession tricks everyone else into thinking that lawyers' monopoly over legal knowledge is somehow a function of special secret knowledge. It's a problem that I don't think will go away for a long while, because legal professsionals have an interest in making their studies as mystical as possible. It makes their services more in demand. To be interpreters of the state, via its laws. Sounds neat, doesn't it? It's an excellent racket.
This professor doesn't fit this description. He takes a more agnostic approach, that is, he'll show us the strings behind the magic trick: he actually will tell us what the law is. He probably still thinks that he's teaching us stuff that will make us excellent practitioners of intellectual property law. I think this is the better way.
Back to this question of institutional settings stunting initiative. Cubicle life. Lunch breaks. Office parties. It's a community, but one that demands your constant improvement. (what?) It would be more honest if we all sat in our pjs at home.
williamsburg in march
It's amazing how much Williamsburg is demarcated block by block, between the original neighborhood and the gentrified new areas. I'm always reminded of it every time I walk down my street, South 2nd, towards the BQE. My apartment is on a piece of South 2nd close to the water, and it's a mixed spot. Reggaeton music blasts late at night, and clumps of teenagers in hip hop clothing or pushing baby carriages roam it. But you're more likely to hear troupes of drunken NYU art students carousing down my block on a Saturday night. Lots of Volvos and Minis line the streets, and bear stickers of small liberal arts colleges.
Once you walk away from the river from my house and go west of Bedford though, you quickly pass into less heterogenous territory. Spanish asserts itself as the dominant language. Car doors are perenially open onto the sidewalk, and people lean out or in. The age demographic spreads out in both directions. Old and wiry latin men donning baseball jackets sit in folding chairs outside the "Collado" Deli. Little round grandmas in headwraps push grocery carts. Children chase each other and shriek on the streets, and are watched over by mothers or sisters sitting in cars or on stoops. Yesterday I saw three girls in front of an apartment building, one sitting on the stoop and two standing; I could tell that one of the girls standing was much younger, and had long hair. As I passed by, I overheard her say, "I had to fuck up that little girl!! She was only seven!" An older girl asked, "how old are you?" And the girl replied, "I'm like nine. Or eight."
A common denominator between old guard and new gentrifiers is little dogs. Everyone loves their scrappy little dogs on leashes. There's one outside my window right now. I think it's a puppy: a baby basenji. I can tell by the point ears and the curved tail.
Now a Hisasidic many in a skull cap and blue jacket and pants is talking on his cell phone. He looks like a construction guy.
Once you walk away from the river from my house and go west of Bedford though, you quickly pass into less heterogenous territory. Spanish asserts itself as the dominant language. Car doors are perenially open onto the sidewalk, and people lean out or in. The age demographic spreads out in both directions. Old and wiry latin men donning baseball jackets sit in folding chairs outside the "Collado" Deli. Little round grandmas in headwraps push grocery carts. Children chase each other and shriek on the streets, and are watched over by mothers or sisters sitting in cars or on stoops. Yesterday I saw three girls in front of an apartment building, one sitting on the stoop and two standing; I could tell that one of the girls standing was much younger, and had long hair. As I passed by, I overheard her say, "I had to fuck up that little girl!! She was only seven!" An older girl asked, "how old are you?" And the girl replied, "I'm like nine. Or eight."
A common denominator between old guard and new gentrifiers is little dogs. Everyone loves their scrappy little dogs on leashes. There's one outside my window right now. I think it's a puppy: a baby basenji. I can tell by the point ears and the curved tail.
Now a Hisasidic many in a skull cap and blue jacket and pants is talking on his cell phone. He looks like a construction guy.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
dreams, dresses
this afternoon, I passed by a store window where several long white girls' dresses hung. embroidered with flowers and trim, made out of shiny polyester blend, they might have had some religious purpose like communion or confirmation. The frocks reminded me of dresses that I used to dream of wearing when I was little, when my ambition was to lead a princess' life. If only I could wear a dress like that every day, and eat little white cakes and prance around dancing ballet, then my life would be complete.
I couldn't help but be reminded of this feeling when I saw "Lost In Translation" yesterday, for the second time. The film was an ode to dreams: during the course of the film, the main character, Charlotte, slowly gains more confidence about pursuing her dreams. She mopes through a lot of the film, unsure about who she was and what she would do with her life, but she still had a strong personality. It became clearer in my second viewing that her character was a stand in for a nascent Sofia Coppola. In a sense, the whole film's plot foreshadowed the creation of the film itself. Charlotte was a strongminded person hadn't decided on her point of view yet. I can empathize with her ambivalence about, on the one hand, wanting to face the world with open arms and share with it all her gifts and confidence, but on the other wondering if it all might be futile.
I couldn't help but be reminded of this feeling when I saw "Lost In Translation" yesterday, for the second time. The film was an ode to dreams: during the course of the film, the main character, Charlotte, slowly gains more confidence about pursuing her dreams. She mopes through a lot of the film, unsure about who she was and what she would do with her life, but she still had a strong personality. It became clearer in my second viewing that her character was a stand in for a nascent Sofia Coppola. In a sense, the whole film's plot foreshadowed the creation of the film itself. Charlotte was a strongminded person hadn't decided on her point of view yet. I can empathize with her ambivalence about, on the one hand, wanting to face the world with open arms and share with it all her gifts and confidence, but on the other wondering if it all might be futile.
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