Interesting New Ways I Might Die.

The below pictures are for my WR 507 class. It is a “research for writers” class which focuses primarily on putting me in situations where I might get dead, and thereby boost the potential sales of my posthumously published books.The below hike into Washington Park in Portland, OR was part of a “method research” exercise I’m working on for my D. B. Cooper story (that’s why I went hiking through the wilds of the Pacific Northwest in a 3-piece suit).

The hike starts in the subway.

 The Vietnam Memorial spirals.

D. B. Cooper was originally called "Dan Cooper", just like this person might have been. 

The forest gets dense enough to suck up all the city sounds nearby.

These bushes are as tall as me.

 If you're ever lost in the woods, old tracks let you know you're somewhere.

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Bad Bots.

Yes, I know. I have fallen behind on my daily Vignette City posts and all of the Russian hacking bots that read my blog are very upset. I know this because they keep sending me emails about checking my credit score, refinancing my mortgage, or wanting to meet for coffee and viruses.

So listen Russian Hacking Bots, I am in GRAD SCHOOL and so obviously very busy and simultaneously completely unimportant.

But I will get caught up this weekend. I totally swear.

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Machu Picchu.

So in one of my classes there is a guy who seems to either not understand - or just outright disavows - the notion of white privilege. He is also a straight, white, cisgender, American male in the 21st century. Well the other night before class I heard him in conversation with someone else and he said (and I quote, because I wrote it down): “When I was hiking up Machu Picchu I met a person that I took a class with in Rome.”

And that was when my head exploded.

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Creative Engagement.

One of the classes I am in requires that we write responses of some sort to everything that we are reading in class. This week we read a book called The Activist by Renee Gladman. Full disclosure: the class is seminar in prose fiction and the title is “This Is Not A Novel: Exploring the Boundaries of 21st Century Fiction.” So this is not a 19th Century lit class. We are going to be reading books that are primarily “experimental” or “avant-garde” in nature, subject matter, and/or construction. So it is the kind of stuff that I enjoy, though it is also the stuff I tend to be most critical of because often this is the kind of writing that I think is most self-indulgent.

Anyway, below is a “Creative Engagement” response I wrote to Gladman’s rather “avant-garde”. Note how I do not even mention the book. That is because I am a grad student and all FAF.

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The Spasmodic.

Right now I am reading a book for class. The book is called “The Necropastoral” and it is written by a poet names Joyelle McSweeney, but it is not poetry, it is about poetry. Right? I’m annoyed too. She has the verbal verve of a poet, but let me share with you a pretty typical section from the book:

This spasmodic, ampersanding, defective interpenetration, with its sticky goo-, moan-, and pity-effects, is of course a model of politics and temporality that completely denatures liberal models of the body and the state, of points and events, of agency, hierarchy, power, linearity, and historical time. (8)

So yeah, that is one sentence and this book seems to have a whole lot of sentences like that one. I think that I am going to read this book but I am simply going to switch my brain off and enjoy all of the fun words because - oh did I mention - I have to finish reading it tonight. Because sometimes I am bad at studenting.

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Throwback.

Below is a throwback re-post that is somehow relevant again. I wrote it back in 2010 when I was getting my BA and I’m reposting it now because it is 2015 and I am getting my MA and because people are still dumb. 

Can you believe that?!

STILL.

There is a Generalissimo Francisco Franco joke in this somewhere.

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Fluke.

Due to a weird fluke of the schedule, I have about thirty minutes right now with nothing to do. On Tuesday mornings there is certain stuff I do before I go in to work. Well I am done with that stuff already.

I don’t technically have nothing to do. I actually have a whole page-long list of stuff to do. One of the things I did this morning was make that list, but I don’t have any of the stuff with me that I would need to do the stuff on the list.

So I’m just sitting here. With nothing to do. It’s weird and I don’t like it. I’m going to go write a poem about it, or something.

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