ebooks? eskeptical

you might know by now that i love books.  i teach english, i'm into poetry and ideas, yadda yadda, i love books.  but i also love books as physical objects.  please don't misunderstand me: i'm not one of those sicko aesthetes who selects reads based on their shelf-ability and barely opens the pages so as not to crease the binding.  no, sir, i'm not shy about ripping open each page, as wide as it will go, or taking a pencil to the page and stamping it with my own graffiti, exploring it with a little graphite, making it ugly with ownership.

i love the smell of books, too--old ones especially, and the stories they tell of where they've been.  the old ones smell musty, sometimes of smoke, of cherry, the new ones of clean possiblity.  i love the inky residue left after a long day, like a book is my own version of a coal mine. i also love the papery thinness of a page from a book, even though sylvia plath wrote about taking "a pill to kill / The thin papery feeling" (in "Cut"--a marvelous close study of a poem). 

i have a huge pile of new books--i have essays, i have poetry, i have freud, i have foucault, but last night i found that i have no unread novels.  i found instead this.  it took me a while to make a selection: Lawrence's Lady Chatterly's Lover.  after my new ebook finished downloading, i just stared at it for a few seconds.  then i scrolled down and up. i  checked out the number of pages, read the first sentence a couple of times, then looked at the cover again.  this is a process not unlike the one i use for "real" books, but it halted after this tentative perusing. it was late, time for bed, and a harrowing new venture like reading a big book on a computer screen was just too much.  will it hurt my eyes?  will it betray my more corporeal friends?  will it make me a skimmer?  i do not approve of skimming.

and my biggest fear persists: how do you make an ebook ugly with ownership?

there are ways, i know.  i'm not exactly a luddite so much as a procrastinator; saying i'm "on the fence" about technology's role in reading is almost like saying i still don't know about this VCR thing.  so fine: i promise to give ereading a try.  tomorrow.

"have you tried merry?"

  

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Quelqu'un M'a Dit - Carla Brun...

 i had serious plans for today's post, but then i watched (500) Days of Summer... AGAIN.  i tossed it in, thinking a movie i've seen FOUR TIMES might be good "background noise" for other tasks--stupid.  i watched the whole thing without blinking.

what i most recently noticed about this engaging film is that it caused me to obsess about the color blue--without my recognizing it--since the first time i watched it with susie q; there's so much blue in the film, which could easily signify sadness (and i suppose in a meek way it does, given the plot), but instead it reads as a very whimsical color, most obviously when cartoon bluebirds land on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character's shoulder in the mode of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. in fact, it may have been one of the little nudges i needed to begin this blog and its search for happiness. 

my reaction to this movie--my watching it over and over solely because it makes me stupid-happy--is exactly what people mean when they talk about "feel-good" movies.  an innocuous phrase? no!  it sounds like drug-pushing.  i often feel the need to defend my distaste for certain romantic comedies and other blockbusters by claiming that films are too good for such baseness.  if they are not smart or artful or provocative, and if they only make us "feel" in the most generic way, mindlessly and without challenge, it is a most dangerous thing. it is to be, to steal T.S. Eliot's phrase, "like a patient etherized upon a table."  brainwashers all! disgusting slobs!  

what, then, makes my utter  indulgence in this not-a-love-story any different?  i could mention the ingenious tennis ball-bouncing scene that symbolizes one character's catching up with the beat of his dreams, the clever jokes, the far-from-pretentious allusions/homages to film, or any other appropriately critical response, but it's more base and obvious than all that: it's (horror of horrors!) Identification.  it's that, as my student writers often proclaim, i can relate to it: i know the world where lovers begin by recognizing the smiths.  i know playing house in ikea, i know the drunk friend who gives you away, and i know talking over pancakes.  

i suppose what i'm getting at is that it's time to try merry. 

the possibility of being moved

as both consumer (of books, music, movies, etc.) and creator (of blog posts, poetry, etc.), i sometimes forget the joy that draws us to consuming and creating in the first place: those spiritual moments when we exist most fully, lodged squarely in a moment, when we are humbly on earth, hopelessly in heaven and hysterically in hell all at once.  Dana Stevens wisely notes, when recalling a scene from It Might Get Loud in which Jimmy Page is really getting into a song (only listening, not playing), that "It's a lifelong task for an artist, and for us critics as well, to stay open to the possibility of being moved."

it gets harder and harder to have these transcendent experiences, though, the more one approaches consuming and creating with diligence and practice.  (i recoil, too, at the thought of what the former can do to the latter, a la Amy and Laurie of Little Women being put off of painting and music, respectively, because they cannot compete with the genius of the masters.)  the transcendent experiences seemed to happen with more frequency--or perhaps only with more miracle and surprise--when we didn't know how much work was involved, or when we didn't realize that joy could be one's purpose in life.  it was magical when consuming and creating was a diversion, something naughty, like flirting or passing notes in class, to distract us from the "real" work of life, whether it be chemistry homework or college applications or clerical tasks.

it was better when it made us truant.

but now that i sometimes entertain a devotion to the poetic, and now that it seems like it's my job to inspire and be inspired, it takes much more to budge this heavy philosophical soul, this critical mind that now has roots in theory and experience.  though i search my memories, i cannot recall the last encounter i had with Rapture.  when was the last time you were moved?

a pimp rose

so i want to tell you all about my birthday weekend, but i woke up this morning with a nasty cough and some aches and pains. the holiday means that i didn't have to teach class today, but i did some computer work and cleaning this morning anyway (dork!) and now here i am, exhausted, nursing myself with a favorite pastime: the viewing of violent films. Today it's Public Enemies and Inglorious Basterds, and I can't help but be grateful that my complaint is a petty one as it is not set against the depression-era 30s nor the war-plagued 40s but against the fabulous backdrop of 2010 (fabulous for me at least; I certainly don't think the Haitians would agree. Have you donated yet?).

my other consolation has been tea and honey,which is amusing to relate because of this post. in the meantime, i leave you with two more meanings to add to the title of this blog:

1. "Up in Prose" could mean that these posts (and perhaps words in general) are places, and i am all up in them.
2. if you say it really fast, it sounds like "a pimp rose." hence the gorgeous pic you see above.

The Fall

I finally saw this movie the other night and I can't get it out of my head. It says so much about the power and purpose of storytelling. It's, ahem, poetic.

i gave up coffee (but it's still all rushes and crashes)

tuesday morning. it was the second day of the semester and i was feeling stretched already. i needed time alone to plod through a bazillion mundane tasks, but it couldn't be. by the afternoon, i noticed that the day's fast pace had left me grumbling: i had already succumbed to The Semester (more on the phenomenon in a moment). i was becoming a machine, bent on using my superpowers to Accomplish, to Finish.

 but then i drove home. my commute to work is, one way, about 55 minutes, and during this drive, even though it was coming two hours later than i anticipated, and probably only because the year and the semester are still young, i checked myself; i easily remembered that i gave up coffee because i gave up anxiety, that i've practiced yoga for the last three weeks because it is supposed to keep me physically and mentally calm and flexible, and that i even started a blog intended to keep my spirits "up."

a rush of gratitude: everything is ok. in fact, the past two days have been down days, predictably quiet following tuesday's climb to near-madness. what goes up... you know the saying.

of course, it's silly to think that this minor victory will last. a single afternoon in the first week is no true test of The Semester's vicious grasp, which tightens with time. No, for a better metaphor: The Semester is toast. Each day, you slather a new glob of honey on soft warm toast until it's a heavy, sticky, cold hard mess. at the end, you throw it all away, wash your hands during the break, and get out a new slice of bread. the honey flows, syrupy sweet and unrelenting, but then stops, cold turkey, to pause for the christmas break, the spring break, and the massive ebbing of summer vacation.

ah, summer and the dreams i weave. time to reflect, to really live in the present; coffee or no, i can take life's stresses with a wink and a nod. but now, in january, as the honey starts to drip, i'm wondering if yoga and hot tea and the power of positive thinking will be enough to keep me from losing perspective and failing to notice the poetry of life between now and may.

how do you manage the daily rush of a semester/quarter/project?  does coffee make you more anxious or does it give you the energy you need to survive?  

tomorrow is my birthday: humble beginnings

What better way to begin this blog than to attempt to explain its title. It comes from a poem by Emily Dickinson:

They shut me up in Prose--
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet--
Because they liked me "still"--

Still! Could themself have peeped--
And seen my Brain--go round--
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason--in the Pound--

Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Abolish his Captivity--
And laugh--No more have I--

Lovely, yes?

So then, I intend the title of my blog to be, on the one hand, willful, playfully defiant: "You CAN'T shut me up in prose!" This meaning suits me especially well, because, to begin with, my perhaps uncommonly childlike 28-year-old identity is often a major source of crisis (Am I an irresponsible, immature, pathetic thing, or only "forever young"?) and so will serve as a proper introduction to the resulting brainstorming, griping, recording, and general navel-gazing you're sure to find here. Spun into this meaning is the idea that prose can be a particularly stifling medium for a writer; I've always found myself more comfortable in poetry, hence the blog's promise to explore "the poetic"--whatever that means. Furthermore, another important intention of this blog is to practice and experiment in a decidedly non-restrictive form. (I am especially taken with the description of the "digital Wild West" over at Bkish.

Also, and perhaps contrarily, I intend the title to imply "PLEASE shut me up in prose." Although this entry is perhaps already too mired in the academic tone that has dominated my life for the greater part of my 20s, my hope is that brief, natural, unabashed musings will satisfy my need for both a creative outlet and an exercise in self-discipline.

Speaking of discipline, I'd like to acknowledge, as we get off the ground here, why I'm starting this thing in the first place. I've told myself for a time that beginning a blog might be a good thing for me--a freeing, exciting, terrifying, worthwhile, even virtuous (!) thing. And, certainly, the New Year seems a great time, as does my 28th birthday, as does the first year of my first full-time job. As you can imagine, or perhaps already know, one's first full-time job and the end of one's 20s can be an anxiety-inducing period in life, but I am determined to stave off unnecessary pressure by relishing what I'll call "true living"--again, whatever that means. To make matters simpler, I've tricked myself into making this a hopeful place by including the delightful word "up" in the title. (Let's just hope it doesn't go up in flames.)

Before I sign off, lest you think I had the courage to start this blog for the above reasons alone, let me introduce you to the instigator of this venture, my wonderful kick in the pants: my worldly, beautiful, generally awesome friend Susan over at Let There Be Chaos. Both Susan and I are English instructors at community colleges in Kentucky, and Susan had the brilliant idea to stir together our teaching struggles and our personal/intellectual/social lives as educated, cultured, unmarried Kentucky women to make a batter for blogging.

This is the humble beginning, and into the oven it goes.