Broken English

For any literary lover in Oxford who has never attended Broken English, you need to change that status. The first Wednesday of each month that school is in session, 2 MFA students, usually one poet and one fiction writer, reads aloud from their work at the Jubilee.

They advertise that they start at 8:30 pm, but rarely do. Except this past Wednesday night when I actually had a babysitter but didn't arrive until about 8:45. So, I missed the first reader, Wendy, who I was curious to hear because I'd met her a few months ago and you always wanna hear the work of people you know.

But, luckily, I did get to hear Tim Earley. I had no idea he was even reading, so it was a surprise and delight to hear his poetry. Tim was my T.A. for Shakespeare last year, and I knew he had an MFA, but never read any of his work.

There were no books for sale, of course, but after hearing his poetry and learning he had an out-of-print collection of poetry, I decided I definitely wanted to buy a copy of Boondoggle someday. I even managed to find two copies on Alibris.com for $12 each.

My favorite was one of the country poems in which he used the line, “ a chandelier over our garden tub, makes me believe in me and you”. I love the subject matter because I can definitely relate to people who have formaldehyde smell in their home because their trailer is new and “we were rich”.

That one Wednesday a month is always a treat, and Tim did not disappoint.

PICK SOMETHING YOU LOVE...

When I was a planner's wife, I used to tell other city planners who we networked with that I wanted to be a PR person for the Mississippi Planning Association. I was 20 years old at the time; doe-eyed, eternally optimistic, and infatuated with preserving Mississippi's history and culture.

I saw community planning, historic preservation, and economic development as the keys to making that happen.

As time went by, I began to see journalism as a more practical way to achieve some of my goals. Or at least a more practical way to get a paid-for diploma.

Yet, through the study of jouranlism, I've discovered ways to tighten my writing (my first love) and gained the confidence that I really could do anything that I wanted in life.

Along the way, I discovered yet another way to marry my love for journalism and teaching and promoting Mississippi history and culture: Hitchhike, the Mississippi travel magazine for armchair anthropologists, that I conceived in Dr. Husni's Magazine class.


So when Roger Stolle of Cat Head record shop in Clarksdale, Miss., visited last week to share with journalism students how he used his 13 year marketing experience to revitalize the Mississippi blues industry, using his music shop as a base for his two-fold mission of promoting from within, I was ecstatic.

Besides the store, Stolle has also produced a documentary: M for Mississippi, that features

days with 12 obscure Mississippi blues artists in their element.

The Cat Head mission has two parts: promote from within by exporting a product, like the documentary and import something at the same time (bringing people in) with the product.

To justify his risky endeavor, coming to one of the poorest regions in the country to try to build a business from the ground up, Stolle offers this to the next generation of journalists or potential PR representatives:

"I thought I was young enough that if I failed, I could still do something else," Stolle said. Granted, sometimes it's hard to "follow your dreams, at all costs". But sometimes, you can't afford not to.

Lil Wayne's music teaches teacher to relate to students

ODavid Ramsey writes in the current issue of Oxford American about how the rapper Lil Wayne helped him survive his first year teaching in New Orleans in the article, "I Will Forever Remain Faithful".

We get the typical white guy comes into the inner-city malaise, such as trying to relate to his students, working to keep them in school, and understanding their world of negligence, violence and illiteracy.

But Ramsey not only gets the dialect right, but he infuses the language and the culture, without the least bit awkwardness.

Ramsey tells about the student who always got in trouble for leaving class to go to the bathroom without permission until the day he revealed his colostomy bag as a result of a gang-shooting.

There's one section that just quotes Wayne the rapper: "Wayne on making it: 'When your rich, then asparagus is yummy.'"

The most powerful writing in Ramsey's piece is how he mixes the innocence of these kids with the very adult situations they face daily.

When he went to visit a student he was trying to keep from dropping out of school, who was the biggest drug dealer in his neighborhood, but also Ramsey best student. Ramsey gave him a New Yorker article about Lil Wayne, to which Michael responded, "Actually, that was good. You teach me to right like that?"

The real power of the writing is that Ramsey gets at this complex topic without cliche's or over-wrought sentiment.

Turning a Pebble into a Pearl

See my other blog for this posting that appeared here originally about dealing with chronic pain.

iwantmylifebacknow.blogspot.com/

VP Debate, viewer responses

Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate certainly deviated from the traditional attack dog format the voting public is used to witnessing. Some of this role reversal can be attributed to the self-proclaimed bulldog with lipstick, Republican VP candidate, Governor Sarah Palin.

Palin played up her strengths by using her training as a broadcast journalist to look into the camera and therefore beyond the moderator and Washington University audience into the living rooms of the American people. It balanced her weakness of not being able to elaborate on foreign policy or answer a question directly or spout out voting records like Senator Joe Biden and like most running mates do in VP debates.

The Overby Center hosted the viewing and a panel discussion to follow, moderated by political science chairman, Richard Forgette.

Student reactions included those who thought Palin lived up to the SNL parodied image not answering any questions, but making the opportunity to turn it around to the only thing she was prepped on, energy policy. It was either that or the same old rhetoric: “I’m the Governor of Alaska”, “Raegan was the Messiah” (wink, wink), “I’m a hockey mom”, “I can kill large animals with my bare hands reminiscent of Greek dramatist, Euripides', "The Bacchae.”

Dr. Samir Husni, chair of the journalism department, asked whether or not we thought Biden’s tearing up will work against him, making him seem weak or too emotional to be a good leader. Husni brought to the student’s attention that 1968 vice-presidential candidate Edward S. Muskie and his drop in approval ratings after tearing up. To me, that was an interesting turn on the gender stereotypes. Palin is more aggressive, Biden is more emotional and that’s far more acceptable to the public than in years past. The fact that a man can be passionate as Biden now and not be thought of as an ineffective leader is encouraging in a presidential race that has been characterized by racsist, sexist and elitist claims.

Forgette made the point that anyone who says they are undecided at this point is either lying or uninformed of the candidates’ policy proposals. No disrespect, but I have read both candidates posted policies on their websites. I have read their policy books, personal memoirs, and have tried my best to sort through the media’s spin.

To me, my views in this election can best be summed up this way. As I said in last week’s editorial, I like Obama for many reasons. I even like some of his policy ideas, but I’m not sure how I feel about his economic proposals, growing the economy from the ground up. For me, as for many voters, that’s the issue that takes precedence this year.

Brock Clarke fan for life

Brock Clarke may very well have become one of my favorite fiction writers. I tried to be disciplined and not buy any new books lately because I need to buckle down with my dollars, but I had to splurge on “An Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England”.

His reading was magnificent, which usually hooks me on buying the book even when I go with the intentions of not spending any money.

He reminded me of a poet giving a reading rather than most fiction writers. But upon reading the words for myself, I realize the lyrical quality is there, it wasn’t all just in his delivery. But all in all, I enjoyed it. Comparable to a Rick Bragg reading. That’s the best compliment I can give.

I only compare his reading to Bragg’s though because it was just so damn pleasurable to be in the audience. I don’t think there was a person there he left dissatisfied. I know of few writers who could say the same. I actually looked forward to writing this homework assignment because It'd fee; like I’m revisiting the memory of Wednesday.

When I left, I took my son for a treat for being so well-behaved during the reading. I sat right down and devoured Clarke’s book while Jefferson indulged in a scoop of chocolate chip. Then, when I got home, I forsook all my other homework and crawled into bed with my treat and read myself to sleep.

Sadly enough, I couldn’t do the same tonite. Well, I might sneak in another chapter if I finish studying for my tests, but I couldn’t blow everything off and spend two hours with his novel. Unfortunately. But like I said, I can write about Wednesday and get my best reading buddies also on the Brock Clarke fan wagon, which enables me to keep gushing.

But I will always be energized by writers like Clarke who encourage you, with his superior work, to better yourself at your chosen craft.

What Makes "Good Writing"

There is currently some kind of battle in my brain to sort through the concrete and abstract ideas of good writing. Does minding your p’s and q’s, such as interrupting three lines of dialogue with details or exposition, make a story “good”. Or is a story with a well-conceived plot with good character development that is limping along structurally, needing the help of a good editor, the better writing?

Jack Pendarvis recently said that you can’t have one without the other. He said that you won’t have a well-written story that’s boring. I can understand what he means to some extent. But, maybe I don’t have the verbiage right when I am trying to describe my dilemma, because, as much as I respect the opinion of writers who actually make a living at this craft, I cannot fully accept this concept yet.

In journalism, I can write a great hard news story that is structurally sound. But it isn’t until I learned how to “sniff out a good story idea” that I became a better non-fiction writer.

I have heard some writers say, “A good story writes itself”. So, which should come first for new writers: learning to come up with fresh ideas, a new way of looking at the same old story, or should they concentrate more on learning structural elements?

Of course, I think it takes both to advance you forward as a good writer. I am certainly trying to learn to incorporate the rules as I go or else I will never reach that next plateau in my work. But, I don’t think I would have made it this far to start with if I wasn’t interested in good storytelling. Dr. Husni constantly emphasizes that as long as you are a good storyteller, you will always be able to work as a journalist. This is encouraging to me because I devote more time to that part of being a writer, both fiction and non-fiction, than I do on networking, learning proper grammar or writing rules, and, in the case of journalism, the techie stuff like learning html code for the internet, editing video, etc.

I said all that to say this, when I was at Broken English last Wednesday, I heard Chris Kammerud, a graduate student in the MFA program at Ole Miss, read one of his short stories, "Some Things about Love, Magic and Hair”.

It was definitely what I would call “good writing”, but it left me unsatisfied at the end. So, I thought analyzing his work might help me solidify my ideas on what constitutes as “good”. Essentially, it was a boy meets girl story. Boy meets Allison working in the porn section of a movie rental shop. They date, he dies, and comes back to life, climbs out of the grave to reclaim his girl. Although, she loved him, she says she can’t be with him. “If only you hadn’t died,” she told him.

So, as far as the plot goes, I don’t really understand the story. It was wonderfully entertaining with clear, crisp sentences; a great example of writing for the ear.

Kammerud’s story was full of good descriptive sentences and surprising turn of phrases like comparing her hair to the Jersey shore: "brown and wavy and full of broken bits of glass, the occasional condom or lost child."

But, like I said, I didn’t really understand where the story was going. Maybe Allison rejected her love because he had abandoned her. That’s believable because she and her mother were abandoned by her father immediately after conception. Her mother told her that he turned into a bluebird and flew out the window, and when boyfriend asked her if she believed that, she said it was as believable as anything else. Okay, so I get the connection of his abandonment of her and her father’s abandonment. But after he comes back to her and she rejects him, I got a bit lost in the story. Maybe I quit paying attention, or maybe his writing at that point didn’t hold my ear as strongly as it did prior to that plot point. Either way, it was here that I wanted the two concepts of “good writing” that I was struggling with to come together: the idea of good storytelling and well-crafted words. I would have to read it with my own eyes to make a better assessment but as it stood, it had an anti-climatic ending. Well-crafted words,of which I'm jealous, but somehow an unsatisfactory story.

The Debate

The moment Senators Barack Obama and John McCain took the stage at the Ford Center, my jaw and ears began to hurt because my smile was stretched so widely across my face.

I was one of the fortunate few who had a ticket. I was one of the proud 150 Ole Miss students who saw live and in-person the most historic debate since Kennedy and Nixon.

Cliches such as "my heart swelled with pride", "my face was beaming", and (literally), "tears sprung to my eyes", they don't do justice to the emotions that I felt.

But they are the closest I can accurately describe that one moment.

Moments before their appearance, I was making giggly, nervous small talk with other winners. There was definitely a sense of camaraderie amongst the winners. We were asking the usual questions, "What is your major, where are you from, how did you win a ticket?", etc., etc.

Then we began to take notice of the broadcasters below us, (Katie Couric was directly below me), and everyone began leaning over the balcony like completely unsophisticated tourists, leering and pointing. "There's Katie Couric. Look, it's Bob Schieffer. There's Shepard Smith. Ooh, and there's Tom Brokaw."

Katie caught my eye as we were gawking down at her, and instinctively I waved, immediately feeling foolish but grinning like a dope when she waved back. It was great, silly fun. We didn't care how lame we looked. Then, Dr. Robert Khayat asked the winners to stand and be recognized. John Kerry turned and waved at us. That was quite a moment. But it was soon eclipsed. The Senators took the stage and our silliness completely evaporated and was replaced by ear-splitting grins and more than a few watery eyes.

Economic Review/ Debate Response

I like Obama. I find him scholarly, charming, handsome, and well-spoken.

I like his website. It’s prettier and more navigable than McCain’s. As my friend Noah said, “Obama definitely has the branding down in this election.” There are few things we agree on, but that is most certainly one of them. If I were going to vote based on who has the cuter graphic tees and hotter wife, I’d certainly be pulling the lever (if we still voted that way) for the “half-honky, all donkey.” Not politically correct, but you gotta admit, that's funny.

Other friends described the site johnmccain. com as “stodgy and old-mannish much like his moratorium of a campaign headquarters.”

But I loved McCain in 2000, though. You know, when he really was a Maverick. No matter how sexier Obama is, I don’t think those are necessarily the right reasons to vote for him. (BTW, the military pic of McCain circa 196…hot)

But we’re not facing a potential economic recession or depression because Bush is ineloquent and unattractive.

It really is about the issues, despite the media hype of underlying racism, sexism, and elitism that has dominated the news prior to the current crises.

Obama wants to build the economy from the ground-up. McCain wants to continue the Raegan- style trickle-down economics that Bush has used for two administrations. Of course my economic professors, who tend to be predominantly Republican, have assured me over the years that it takes a decade or more to see the effects of economic stimuli. That’s how they explain the wealth and prosperity of the Clinton era and the slow and steady decline since Bush’s first inauguration. Granted it was a lifetime ago, but I seem to remember the economy slipping even before 9/11.

There are a few points that I culled last night from the toddler-esque quibbling that I witnessed live from the tip-top of the Ford Center balcony. (Not that I’m complaining despite what News Channel 3 edited me as saying). All right actually, I wasn’t on the last row or anything. More like front-row balcony, right above Katie Couric, who btw waved at me when I was peering over the edge like a star-struck goober. (You would’ve done it, too, don’t lie.)

Anyway, this is what I got: Obama says McCain wants to give tax breaks to corporations.

McCain says, no, he wants to give tax incentives to the corps, who are currently paying the second highest tax in the world, in order to prevent them from outsourcing to country’s with lower regulations. Sensible.

Obama’s rebuttal: They’d [big companies] would find loopholes anyway, so tax breaks for the top three percent is pointless. Alright-y.

Obama said that giving money back to 95% of Americans, so they can “buy computers for their kids homework and gas for their cars” is the better way to stimulate the economy. Not so sure.

McCain wants to increase the rebates and child credits because he thinks Americans could use the money to fund their own health care plans and cover the cost of daycare. Is it surprising that a man who does not know how many houses he owns or who has a ceiling fan installed in his trees would think that Americans could seriously pay health care premiums and day-care rates for an entire year with tax rebates. It wouldn’t cover one month, which is why I, as a single-parent in school have neither health insurance nor daycare and can be found frequently schlepping my kid to class with me as needed, much to some of my classmates dissatisfaction I’m sure.

McCain said that keeping taxes low and cutting spending for government programs is the way to pull us out of this financial crisis, which is direct opposition to Obama’s plan to increase spending.
But some of Obama’s spending is meant to create more jobs. Can’t argue there.

So, who wins? You’d think after I had the honor to sit in the same room as both candidates, I’d be able to make that call.

Yet, I’m chronically indecisive anyway and throw in brain-wrinklers like this economic catastrophe and it’s hard to judge whose policies would work and which are “pie in the sky” rhetoric.

All I know for certain is that I don’t want to be as shallow of a voter as I was at age 7. I voted for Dukakis in our Weekly Reader mock election because he was more attractive than Bush, Sr. (Of course, I don’t know which is worse, the fact that I changed the vote after I peeked at my boyfriend’s choice or that I voted for a Bush.

But maybe this time the prettier candidate is the better choice. There again, I’m torn. Young McCain or current Obama. Hopefully, I can make that crucial decision by November 4.

Tom Rose, managing editor of the Palm Beach Post, fell in love with journalism, as we all usually do, when he was a golf major in college.

His enthusiasm for the craft was apparent when he visited our journalism department Monday morning to lecture on how newspapers can continue to compete even as print is dying (supposedly). If you ask Dr. Husni, that's not an accurate perception.

Rose compared journalism to "The art of the tease".

"Think of feature stories as strip teases," he said. "Hard news stories are different, though.

You gotta give it all up at the front."

I was especially interested when he answered my question regarding the role of creative non-fiction in newspapers.

"Fiction writers know how to grab your attention," he said. "It's the same with creative non-fiction. I think it has a place in newspapers as long as it's real."

He had lots of good advice for young journalists:

"Use s and sh sounds to speed up your sentences. T and th sounds slow the reader down."

"Read good writers. Learn how the sentences click and purr when juxtaposed together. Throw off the shackles and write. Trying is how you learn."

Sometimes you get so caught up in just churning out stories that you lose sight, if only momentarily, of the power of words and the thrill of certain stories.

Rose's account of covering the Bear Bryant funeral in Tuscaloosa reminded me of the thrill of just finding the story sometimes.

When he first began recounting the day he arrived in Tuscaloosa, after having car trouble and hitchhiking to campus in a chicken farmer's truck loaded top to bottom with squawking poultry, I thought that would be the story he was looking for. He told about how that brusque, hardened man dissolved in tears at the mention of the legendary coach.

"He was the only damn thing we had to be proud of," the man repeated over and over.

But that wasn't his story. It wasn't until after the funeral, on the way from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham that he found his story. People were lined up on the freeway overpasses all the way there, just hoping for a glimpse of the funeral procession. Truckers were pulled off the road, holding their hats over their hearts in respect or cb'ing ahead to other truckers to report the processions' location.

That was his story he had to write.

"If you can write and you can report, there will always be a job in journalism for you," he encouraged us before he left.

I believe him.

Blues' Music as Protest

The University of Mississippi honored the seventh anniversary of September 11 with a variety of special lectures and events on campus. One unusual event mixed blues and politics at noon yesterday with a brown bag lecture at the John D. Williams Libary "Tell Every President to Listen to the Blues: Presidents, Politics, and the Blues. Greg Johnson, Ole Miss blues archivist, and Scott Barretta, producer and host of "Highway 61", a blues show broadcast on Mississippi Public Radio every Saturday night, played blues clips and discussed their relevance to the political scene.

"In a culture where blacks were ignored, blues said 'I am somebody'," Johnson said.

Prior to the civil rights movement, there were only four presidents that were explicitly referenced in blues recordings, Johnson said. According to Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, J. Edgar Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were the only presidents referenced in recorded blues prior to the Civil Rights Movement.

Many of the clips Johnson and Barretta played mentioned FDR because, as Johnson said, FDR was the president with the predominant number of tributes.

According to Barretta, there were not as many blues protest recordings before the Civil Rights movement not necessarily out of fear, but also because of economics.

"It wasn't the government going out and censoring the music, but the music being censored by distributors based on what would sell," Barretta said.

"Even during the 60's, protests music did not receive a lot of airplay," Johnson said. "After the civil rights movement, there were more explicit...

Johnson and Baretta arranged all the soundbites they played into 4 basic categories:

direct pleas to the President, tributes, complaints and if-I-was-president type songs.

The audience favorite became apparent with laughs and increased top-tapping when Johnson and Barretta played a recording by contemporary artist Bobby Rush's "Leave Mr. Clinton Alone".

The lecture brought not only students and community members to the third floor of the John D. Williams Library, but one visiting scholar who listens to Scott Baretta "even in Germany".

"I became a fan of Scott Baretta's when I first came to Mississippi doing research years ago. Since first coming to Ole Miss, every sabbatical and semester break I have spent in Mississippi. When I heard about this, I decided to come over," Olaf Hansen said.

Local resident, Anne Percy, says it was a wonderful presentation. "They told me they had several laments about President George W. Bush, but they didn't have time to play them," she said.

"Most of the blues seem pro-Democrat, thinking FDR and Truman, Kennedy too, were trying to save them. If you look at [they're] actual career, that's a false hope," says Bob Hodges, a first year southern studies graduate student who was also in attendance at the lecture.

Are we Jaded to Evil?

It’s commonly known that the gap between Expectations and Reality is Depression because it is inevitable to feel really low if expectations are not met that were really high.

That’s why one must beware of hype, whether it’s surrounding a musician, artist, writer, filmmaker, etc. One exception that I have found to this recently is “The Dark Knight”. I waited awhile after the film opened (mostly because of monetary reasons) before I saw it and I was not disappointed in the least. Heath Ledger’s performance still turns my stomach a bit if I think about it because he embodied evil in his performance as the Joker.

Normally I’m not that affected by films, much to my chagrin. Usually I feel jaded about many artists attempts at expressing misery, degradation, or inherent evil, but “The Dark Knight” got in my head and crawled around and wouldn’t let me alone, much like my first exposures to M. Night Shyalaman’s work.

William Christenberry’s work did not.

I appreciated the statement he was trying to make. I appreciated the macabre beauty of the sketching, paintings, sculptures, etc. I appreciated the educational value of the exhibit. I even saw great value in having such an exhibit at our University at such a pivotal time in Ole Miss’s history, right before the 2008 presidential debate turns the eyes of the nation onto our campus.

It sets a great example to the student body that the University isn’t just giving lip service to freedom of speech, but instead allows such a controversial exhibit at the University Museum at a time when Ole Miss would likely rather focus only on positive press.

Yet, for all that, the exhibit still did not “creep me out” as many of my classmates commented. Maybe it was the hype that ruined the experience. Maybe it was the curator/babysitter that chattered all through the tour so that I felt incapable of silently taking in the images and the enormity of the imagery. I hate to think that because of my white, rural, and relatively prosperous background that I am jaded to the suffering of others.

Obviously I have known pain and misery, albeit of a different sort. I try to find comfort in the fact that other artistic media has affected my psyche, just not the Site/Possession exhibition.

Editor's Creedo

My idea of objectivity in journalism is depicting differing viewpoints and seeking out a variety of sources. Yet, I know that each writer, reporter, and member of the media inevitably brings their own experiences, ideas, values and beliefs to a story. Therefore, without some subjectivity in the story, there is little chance for engagement between the writer and the reader as the reader often looks for shared passions in the media.