Light the Path and Let Them Lead the Way

I had the following email conversation with a student this week:

Me: [to all students] Please remember to bring your first graded rough draft into class next week in order to receive credit for it.

Student: [several days later] I can't find my rough draft anywhere!

Me: You did not turn in a rough draft.

Student: [several days later] Does that mean that I won't get credit for it?

I teach writing. I like to think of my purpose more broadly than that, however, extending my job from teaching prepositions to instructing young minds in how to think critically. I assign readings inspired by current news items (celebrity voyeurism, the ethics of torture in the war on terror, polygamy, you get the idea), and maintain high expectations while being patient and nurturing with their mistakes. I really love my job. There are times when the communal discourse is so passionate and thoughtful, ideas flying around and myself in the middle, sharing pithy bits of theoretical knowledge and telling jokes, writing down interesting ideas on the board. And then there are the times when my students sit, stone-faced like statues of really dull gods; when they forget to turn in work, and to finish the readings, when they skip paper conferences (for which I do not get paid), and when they skip class.

We've had a lot of those times this term.

Somehow my 20-year old students have made it through two decades of life, apparently without thinking much the entire time. I know, this is incredibly hard to imagine. If you're like me, your brain is constantly awake with thought. Not all of it brilliant or even interesting to anyone else, but it is nevertheless active, questioning, engaging the world in an ever-changing dialogue. Maybe you hold fake conversations in your head, like I do. Devise fantastical scenes of drama and happiness; repeatedly compose your wedding vows and future Oscar acceptance speech. Imagine an alter-ego who is a UN human rights lawyer or a diplomat, because reading about politics gets you excited.

You probably READ.

Not so my students. I don't know what they do. And I wish I could just dismiss them as stupid, but the fact is that most of them are pretty smart. Not all--I've definitely had the wrestler with the thick folds of skin at the nape of his neck and across his brow, connecting his eyes and giving him a look of permanent idiocy; the pretty dumb blonde; the illiterate football player; the plain dumb kid with no extracurricular talents in evidence; all of whom happened to be studying primary education (oh mama and we come full circle!)--but most students are intelligent. They just don't care, or they expect to coast through class without trying. Maybe they assess my youth and casual teaching style and think, what does she know?

Here's what I know:

The world is composed of arguments and conversations. Most of the information in these arguments and conversations is highly subjective, laden with unseen biases and smooth-sounding logical fallacies. You either learn to read these dialogues for what they are, or you thoughtlessly vote to invade Iraq.

My students invade Iraq every time, because they don't appreciate the power of language and they don't want to do the hard work of thinking. It is very, very disheartening.

The Devolution of the Written Word

We run across the most ludicrous book titles at work. For example, Why Paint Cats: The Ethics of the Feline Aesthetic (really, why paint cats?). Or, What Your Poo is Telling You and The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts about the World's Greatest Human. The latter book is actually fairly informational. For instance, did you know that the movie Anaconda was filmed in Chuck Norris' pants?

At any rate, considering that apparently anyone can publish a book nowadays, I've decided to start my own list of preposterous future book titles. Right now I'm partial to The Ties that Bind: Bondage for the Entire Family, inspired by a slew of awful romance novels like Nauti Nights and What's a Ghoul to Do? There's an entire genre dedicated to horror and supernatural romance! Vampiresses are really in right now, as are demon slayers with man problems.

I don't know about you, but vampires just don't do it for me. Sure, Angel was sexy in a Neanderthal way--low brow ridge shading brooding eyes and sharp canines--but I prefer men who don't collude with the dark forces. I also have no desire to be a vampire myself. Blood is gross, and drinking blood is grosser. As I've said before, I'd rather eat a cooked raisin.

It is interesting how many people fantasize about having paranormal power, and how much of that fantasy is sexually charged. I think it must be an expression of an existential desire to understand the metaphysics of the world, and the world's political and spiritual super-structure. It's kind of awesome, if not totally reassuring, to think that earth's evil is embodied in some creepy looking physical beings, rather than "evil" being a psychological concept or drive generated by the human mind. You punch, stake, or roundhouse kick the bad zombie, and voila, peace on earth is reestablished.

It would be trite to now go on a rant about how life isn't that easy. Besides, I have to get dressed for another really exciting day at the bookstore!

So in the interim between this and my next blog, ponder this:

Why Paint Cats?

Who Knew Vegans Could be so Delicious?

Okay, not vegans per se, but vegan cuisine.

After letting a container of silken firm tofu languish in our fridge for several days, I decided to find an alternative to the stir fry I make once a week. Stir fry is well and good--especially when you caramelize the tofu in some soy sauce and sugar--but it's boring. My taste buds want to dance for joy, leap with new gustatory sensations! My tongue is a culinary coup d'etat waiting to happen.

So, rather than resort to the old and tired, I combed the web for delicious soy alternatives. Did I want tofu burgers? (Negatory.) Tofu scramble? (Once was enough, thank you.) Tofu quiche?

Ewwww.

Or is it?

After looking at a few recipes I found a vegan blog with a gorgeous picture of mini crustless tofu quiches. The blog is well-written and the reviews were good. I went to the store and purchased red bell peppers, scallions, garlic and mushrooms, and added the sauteed veggies to a whipped mixture of tofu, milk (yes, I cheated!), tahini, spices, herbs, and cornstarch. I poured the batter into muffin tins and 30 minutes later had beautifully golden, puffed, fragrant "quiches." And you know what? They are delicious.

They're also light, low in fat, high in protein, and excellent with a green salad.

So while I generally turn my omnivorous nose up at vegans' anti-dairy stance (why live in a world without cheese?), I feel encouraged to explore more soy-portunities. Organic tofu is cheap and locally made, and I'm trying, feebly, to do the whole organic local food thing. It's hard on a grocery budget of $50-$60/week, especially when you factor meat into mealtime, so vegan alternatives are welcome. We're also sharing a CSA box with friends this summer, which should help out with food costs and support community agriculture.

I'm beginning to think that the only way humans are going to survive for much longer is by dramatically changing the way we acquire resources. I don't mean driving a Prius, though I do drive one, or buying products made in America. I mean reverting to a village system where everything you need--food, medical attention, clothing, school--is available, at least on a primary level, within walking or biking distance. I know this is radical. I know it sounds silly. But it makes sense. Living in relatively self-sustaining hamlets would reduce carbon emissions, reduce reliance on international oil, increase the interpersonal communication we're losing due to email and text messages, support local farmers and artisans (and drive down prices for these ostensibly "elite" services), and reduce industrially and culturally-induced illnesses like obesity and asthma.

It wouldn't be perfect. After all, we've all seen M. Night Shyamalan's The Village--the local idiot could ruin life for the rest of us. We'd also still be reliant on outside emergency services and we'd have to go without a lot of the things we take for granted, like avocados in the winter and cheap clothing. There's also the possibility of greater racial and religious segregation, and an increase in the isolationism that is fracturing our current sociopolitical system. Plus, it might be hard to find employment opportunities, with certain hamlets becoming more and more populated, turning into cities.

So it's a dream. A dream born of tofu quiche, no less, which may be a dubious place to begin a revolution. Nevertheless, I'll share my recipe with you, dear readers, in the hopes that this flavorful experience inspires cultural revolt in you, as well.

(Mock)Vegans of the world unite! One quiche today, one socio-politico-agrarian overthrow of corporate hegemony tomorrow!

Mini Crustless Tofu Quiches

olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 cup bell pepper
1 cup chopped mushrooms
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives (or one green onion)
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp. dried, crushed)
black pepper to taste

1 12.3-ounce package lite firm silken tofu, drained of water
1/4 cup plain (soy)milk
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (I omitted this)
1 tablespoon cornstarch (may sub another thickener such as arrowroot or potato starch)
1 teaspoon tahini (preferred) or cashew butter (I accidentally added 1 TB tahini, still tasty)
1/4 teaspoon onion powder (I also omitted this. Used an extra scallion.)
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2-3/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Spray 12 regular-sized muffin cups well with non-stick spray. (I used silicone cups like these.)

Lightly coat a pan with olive oil and sauté the garlic, bell peppers, and mushrooms over medium heat until the mushrooms just begin to exude their juices. Stir in the chives, rosemary, and freshly ground black pepper, and remove from the heat.

Place the remaining ingredients into a food processor or blender. Process until completely smooth and silky. Add the tofu mixture to the vegetables and stir to combine. Spoon equally into the 12 muffin cups: it will fill regular muffin cups about halfway.

Put the muffin pan into the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 350 F. Bake until the tops are golden and a knife inserted into the middle of a quiche comes out clean--about 25-35 minutes depending on your oven and muffin cups (silicone will take longer than metal, so if you're using a metal pan, check it at 20 minutes). Remove from the oven and allow them to cool for about 10 minutes. Enjoy! They're light, so plan on making more of these—or serve hearty side dishes—if you're serving more than 3 people.

Rocky Mountain Oysters for all Americans!

T-money thinks that my blog is veering too far away from the jocular and that I risk losing my readership (ha ha) talking about politics and gods, but I just can't help myself right now. As much as I like writing about my dismal adventures in breastland and geeky love of Battlestar Gallactica, I've been really consumed lately with the elections and ongoing humanitarian crises in the world. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with performing Rachel Corrie, and feeling chastened and inspired by her activism. It also has to do with teaching, as I excoriate my classes to vote and think and am always pushing responses to the question of how we move from reaction to action in what seems like a paradoxically fast-paced and static global community. I can't keep asking the question if I'm not willing to make the move myself.

I also just finished reading The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell by John Crawford, which gives an insider account of the war in Iraq from an American infantryman's perspective. It's addictive and sad, and a little gross, too. You start to understand how basically okay guys commit violent acts against the Iraqi people; Crawford and his peers were (are) scared most of the time. Their armor is heavy and decrepit, they're underfed and hot and always at risk of being shot at by snipers or blown up by a roadside bomb. Their wives and girlfriends leave them, their children are born without them, they come back--when they come back, and their leaves are often extended--to a flawed veterans system that does not guarantee education or good healthcare. If you felt like you were in life-threatening danger all of the time, and (let's be honest here) for no practical purpose, don't you think you would eventually get angry and paranoid, shooting blindly at every perceived threat? Crawford's account has increased my empathy for American soldiers, even though I still abhor the civilian casualties, looting, torture, ignorance, and rapes (of Iraqi women and female soldiers) that many of them are guilty of.

Reading and talking about the war, listening to heartbreaking reports about Chinese earthquakes victims on NPR, being in the play, and discussing issues of torture, race, food, slavery and media voyeurism with my classes is making it hard to keep ignoring the inequities and nuances of life in 21st century America.

One of the issues that has been most troubling to me in the last couple of days is Hillary Clinton's recent pandering to the racist inclinations of some blue-collar Democrats, for example, in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Rather than saying, "Thank you for your support, but don't vote for me based on race, because doing so perpetuates harmful stereotypes," she's actually using Obama's blackness as leverage. I understand that politics is a dirty game and you take what you can get in order to win, but this is terribly disappointing. Clinton is benefiting from and reinforcing an embarrassing aspect of the American sociopolitical landscape, instead of advocating for equality. This is especially ironic given her position as a minority candidate, and the (I assume) intended consequences of her domestic policies being an equalizing of opportunities and well being for all Americans of all backgrounds. I don't think Clinton is a bad person, and I'm impressed by her audacity (has Obama trademarked that word yet?) and ambition to be the first really serious female contender for the presidency. I wish I could vote for her. But I can't; not only is her foreign policy agenda far too militaristic for my liking, but she wants to win more than she wants to be a voice for what is good. It's scary to face down a state full of bigots and say, "Your votes, if they are racially determined, hurt me, and they hurt America." It takes bravery and balls.

It's time to grow some cahones, America.

The Gods Must be Crazy

I'm taking a break from grading--only three more papers to go!--and musing about the recent spate of natural disasters. The cyclone in Myanmar, the earthquake in China, the tornadoes in the USA: what is going on in the world? If I was superstitiously inclined I'd say that this is some very serious divine retribution for military dictatorships, Western apathy, Chinese human rights violations, etcetera. But why target innocents? In China scores of school children were crushed by their classroom ceilings, and in Myanmar scores more will die of malnutrition and water- and waste-born diseases because the junta won't grant access to foreign aid groups. If this was some sort of message from above--"Hey, humans, quit exercising your right to be vile"--the divine source of humanity would be a mirror image of our collective disdain for others. I can't allow for that possibility. What's the point of a god human enough to commit our errors? That's not a deity. That's a really incompetent universal CEO.

This is not an original viewpoint. For centuries--millenia?--people have been pondering the existence of a god that allows for undeserved catastrophe. In Judaism we think of it as God hiding his face, maybe in grief and dismay at human grossness. Such a god allows for free will by passively letting us make mistakes, even grievous ones. The problem with this shame-faced god is that it provides no solace to the suffering, no one to supplicate to in one's efforts for salvation. If god is absent in times of need, what is left to fill the void? Without god there, do the holes created by need become filled with hatred, anger, frustration, loss, and despair?

On the other hand, there is supreme danger in the belief that god is listening and will nurse your grievances. The gods who sanction suicide bombings and the denigration of women and outsiders, who encourage evangelism and moral superiority..these are not compassionate gods. A god that listens to one at the expense of others, that saves one and slaughters millions, that prioritizes among creation, that is a bad god. The shame-faced and the confidante gods both incite desperation and violence. So what are we left with, with our cupboards and altars bare?

I want, not to believe, but to live in a place where belief is possible and beneficial. Contrary to my liberal arts peers, I don't think religion is an unmitigated evil or a stupidity. I don't like the idea of god per se, but I do appreciate prayer and faith and thankfulness. These things jolt us outside of the everyday focus on ourselves, and at their best encourage us to grow outwards and embrace the world in both its totality and its specificity: to love individuals (people, trees, animals!) and know that we are all the sum of the world's parts.

In the end natural disasters simply occur. Global warming aside, cyclones and tornadoes are random acts of environmental violence that don't differentiate between good and bad people. But would our responses to tragedy be better, more productive, if we remembered that calling out to god is just another way of calling out to each other? Love and hopefulness have long been eroded by cynicism and merited disappointment in organized religion, but that's no reason to give up on the idea of god as love. Really, when it comes down to it, fuck those punks who drag on their clove cigarettes and drolly observe that religion is the opiate of the people. Their disdain allows them to maintain a critical distance between themselves and those others crying for assistance. If the gods we have are crazy--and they are, no question--maybe it's time to deify humanity. With all of deification's attendant, humanitarian responsibilities. And none of its bullshit.

In Which I Quell My Urges

We bend over a lot at the bookstore, putting away books and leaning towards the computer keyboard to do data entry. Every once in a while I get the urge to swat one of my coworkers on the backside. I don't do this, of course. That would be really perverted and uncalled for. But the urge is strong; where on earth does it come from? Is it a biological impulse: spot potential competition in a vulnerable position and push them over to eliminate the threat? Is it a latent sexual impulse (in which case, ew); is it a sign that I'm feeling unfulfilled and so desirous to create mischief; am I channeling a previous life in which I was an English headmistress? There is something innately satisfying about the thwack of book on bum. I wonder if I could just do it once, would the desire dissipate; or would I crave more? Escalating in a mad ass smacking rampage that not only destroys company morale, but lands me in the clinker, and thus with even worse career prospects than my overabundance of liberal arts degrees already affords me?

Post Script

Another good show tonight. It feels so good to do this kind of theatre. It's the theatre I've always wanted to do: important, engaging, affecting, critical. I tried to do this with my thesis show, but the market for Greek tragedy is poor and I am a horrible producer. It's a miracle anyone came to my show given the dismal publicity campaign and dangerous production title (Disastrous Paris-- like throwing critics a really juicy bone! How lucky I am that it was not indeed a travesty.)

Anyway, I should wash up and go to bed. Tomorrow I have to break two difficult things to my emotionally unstable coke-head boss. One, I need to take an early out on May 31st for a wedding. Two, I have an interview at another location on Wednesday afternoon. S-nap!

Post Haste

As usual no real time to write a thoughtful or provocative blog piece. Instead, I'm cramming cyberspace with a few, small impressions before leaping up to face another day.

My Name is Rachel Corrie opened last night, to what seemed like a very warm reception. We received a lot of compliments, as well as thoughtful comments during the talk-back. One girl appeared offended by the one-sidedness of the play. My response to that is: it's an autobiography. Of course it's one-sided! The audience's task is to use its critical thinking skills to contextualize the one-sided play within the far more nuanced topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What Rachel Corrie does is ask us to think about Palestinians for a moment. Not as suicide bombers or Islamo-fascists, but as people. Individuals. The only reason this becomes a controversial request in the eyes of the media or certain sectors of society is because it's far easier to justify America's support for Israel if we pretend that all Palestinians deserve to live is demolished hovels with zero access to clean water or food sources. Nevermind that conflating all Palestinians with Hamas is like equating all Americans with President Bush's foeign policy fiascos; did we deserve 9/11 because the American financial, cultural and political machines are dependent on a global hegemony that discounts and displaces other countries?

And I will say one more thing (so much for not being provocative): The other reason people are offended by this play--Jewish people, and I am one, with a seminary graduate degree in Modern Jewish Studies, so you can stuff it--is that it is shameful for us to augment our general collective support for Israel and Israelis with the knowledge of Israeli policy towards Palestinians. How can a people that prides itself on the overcoming of perpetual genocide admit to breaking, and justifying this breaking, the 4th Geneva Convention? Here's the harsh truth: Israel has taken an occupying people and placed the population in confined areas. Destroyed wells; destroyed greenhouses; destroyed houses. Denied them access to Israel, to Egypt, to the ocean. Denied Israeli peace acitivists a media voice, and in doing so, implied that Israel the state does not want peace. Instead, Israel the state's desires align uncomfortably with that of Hamas and other violent organizations: the annihilation of an opposing people, because they represent a problem too difficult to fix.

It may be naive in an age where we are all culpable in the dissolution of someone's life, somewhere, but I have to believe that there is a common moral denominator that we all share, which tells us deep inside that we are responsible for the welfare of each other's children; homes; land. This isn't to say that all men are good, but that we know the difference between good and evil, and can choose to act on this difference when we try.