no grove / no dance / no sound

Eat Records

2009-07-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Our favorite local place was just covered by the nytimes. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

"Just Drawn That Way

2009-07-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

I like this:

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/just-drawn-that-way/

Small update

2009-06-18T19:04:00.000-07:00

I can now say that I've taught English to a Japanese speaker. And it was fun, but hard. I teach my next class this Saturday.

I'm still working in the Bronx, but it looks like the work I'll be doing there might change.

Hawaii on Tuesday. Hell, yeah.

Summer in the City

2009-05-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

Last night I had the awesome opportunity to read my story at the Puffin Room as part of a CUNY MFA art and writing collaborative. I read my story Rival Chicken about a woman who is terrorized by a ceramic chicken. I'm trying to get over my very nervous speaker habits.

The reading was in a beautiful arts space in SOHO surrounded by the final projects of the art MFA students. I wandered around the neighborhood before going in and found a store that only sells coffee table books. This store was the size of a closet and filled with two french workers. One was actively speaking french, the other was talking with an elaborate french accent. There were actually two people shopping for books in there. I think I heard them discussing with an employee which book would look best.

I also encountered a store with this window:

Anyone see anything wrong with this?

After the reading we went to Vanessa's Dumpling House in the LES and had dinner, for the two of us, for $5.50. Yes. Then Star Trek in Union Square.

As always, I've done too much research and left the writing to the very end

2009-05-28T20:06:00.000-07:00

I'm back to my old thesis with a touch of "myth" thrown in as evidence.

Chocolate covered pretzels really help for academic stimulation.

J: "I got those chocolate-covered pretzels for my paper."

C: "Does your paper like them?"

J: "A lot. "

renegade!

2009-05-27T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of stuff I want to write about, but there is a 20 page paper with my name on it. For now, the renegade craft fair is coming to Greenpoint. June 6 + 7

I only write in my blog when I'm in a good mood. Trust me, it's better that way.

2009-05-16T22:00:00.000-07:00

Greenpoint is a convenient place to live because the G is two steps away and the L is a 7 minute walk away. The only thing about walking to the L is that summer makes the hipsters come out in throngs. I have no problem with hipsters, but the sidewalks are very narrow and as narrow as many of the hipsters are, they tend to walk in groups of three and teeter in their pointy shoes. I almost feel guilty throwing my elbow occasionally.

On the other hand, the walk home is always entertaining. The other day there was an four piece jazz band playing on the sidewalk. When they finished a song, the large crowd gathered around erupted into thunderous applause. There was hollering and hooting happily and it was wonderful.

In other news, Raptor has almost finished her kitten antibiotics. Only a few more days of squeezing medicine down her throat as she looks offended at my audacity in opening her mouth.

Today was my last day of the semester at SNR. Two weeks until my creative writing class begins. I keep cornering creative writing teachers for advice. I finally finished grading those exams that were haunting my dreams.

To Summer!

2009-05-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

I officially finished my last class of my first year of my MFA program. I'm learning how to edit my own work and finding what kinds of things I like to write about. It's been a rewarding, but stressful year. I still have one 20-page paper left (ouch), but my professor gave me a great idea for a topic. I wanted bridge a link between evolution, Marx, and Trotsky with the story "A Letter to the Academy" by Kafka. He suggested to also look into Marx's work about myths. Way cooler than evolution.

To quote the great Mel B. (who I will miss greatly after she moves, but will pester often), "this summer is going to rock!" The last two weeks have involved Chris sick, the cat sick and a few other monkey wrenches thrown into my spokes, which make the calm after the storm feel really nice.

My boss pushed through my creative writing workshop idea for the SNR campus. I'll be teaching a creative writing class on Wednesdays! The great thing for me is that the class is free for students, but also noncredit. We're all volunteering to be there and talk about writing. The students I work with in the writing center have such beautiful stories to tell, it's going to be so much fun exploring them. I plan to have a reading in the fall, so get prepared now to hear some wonderful writing.

Other news, I'm going on a trip to Hawaii! Chris' parents were so kind to invite me along on their family trip. We booked tickets last night. I'm stoked and already planning what books to bring along.

Also, I joined a kickball team. I miss the camaraderie of organized sports, and what way to relive high school than through kickball?

The only thing I need to figure out is what I'll be doing job wise this summer. A few options have been trickling in the last few days, so hopefully those work out.

I'm taking a giant gulp of the sweet air after finishing two final projects.

Actually, I cut my hand in a knife fight.

2009-04-14T10:06:00.001-07:00

Today I'm drinking french press coffee, a fancy treat, because I broke the coffee pot carafe thing while doing the dishes yesterday. I very carefully took all the pieces out of the sink with my dishwashing gloved hands. I placed those piece in the garbage in a brown paper bag in the garbage. Then I finished the dishes, dancing to Sublime and went grocery shopping.

I transferred the rice I bought to a glass container and then put the old rice bag in the garbage, pushing down the garbage underneath it.

That's when I cut my hand on the stupid coffee pot. 2 stitches, an x-ray and a tetanus shot later, I'm good as new (well in 10 days).

I wore my new wishbone necklace my mother bought me and I'm wondering if it actually did protect me, at least a little. Apparently while the inner hand is sensitive, it has a small layer of fat that cushions the important stuff (ligaments, muscle, nerves, etc); if I were to have cut the outside hand the doctor said I would have cut a ligamen.

And to continue my last post, the best part of the translation conference was learning about writing traditions from other cultures. As I push through my MFA I'm realizing how white and American/British all the authors I've been to exposed to are. I just finished a book by Etgar Keret, an Israeli short story writer who takes off in a Kafka-esque vein. I love his book "The Nimrod Flipout."

In the translation conference, we learned about two types of literary traditions: Ghazal and Zuihitsu. In his workshop, Roger Sedarat highlighted the ghazal, a classical style of poetry writing from south east asia. From what I understand, it is comprised of couplets that should both stand on their own and contribute to the greater poem. There can be no enjambement between lines and the last word of the the second line of the couplet must be the same. There is a similiar rhyme before each repeated word. Lastly, the last couplet evokes the narrator's (or someone's) name. We each made a couplet and combined these as a group, without seeing the other couplets first. Our repeated word is "farewell" and our ryhme is "said" (notice we ignored the enjambement rule):

I cannot count the desperate bodies that scream through decay, farewell.
To the hospitals and churches containing hopefuls that pray, farewell.

You alone are a blessed annoyance
although I would love to see you, okay farewell.

"Doctor, make sure you put that down on my chart
Down to less than a pack a day--farewell."

A cup of coffee is on the table.
To the cup I say, "Okay, farewell."

All her icy severing words came to me
A cold frost in my spring--a May farewell.

It's been said "no one can shave your head in your absence."
So, John Weir, keeps those raving barbers at bay. Farewell.

Zuihitsu next post.

The Fun of Translating without Fluency

2009-03-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Should I really expect sympathy when I tell someone I am about to do my homework and it involves reading an anthology, writing two flash fiction short shorts, and writing responses to fellow students' short stories? Should I really feel bad when I realize that my hobbies have turned into what I'm study and where I work? I may not be writing as much as I want, but I have ideas coming out my eyeballs, which to me is a very very good thing.

The conference went pretty well. The projector wasn't working, so I was happy Yoshi and I brought photocopies of our pdf presentation. You can always count on technology failing. We presented on a poem by Misuzu Kaneko called "I" and showed a few textual and creative ways of presenting the gender of the narrator into the poem (my fellow presenter is a native Japanese speaker). In Japanese the word "I" can imply feminine, masculine, or neutral qualities. My favorite translation that we did involved actually putting putting English words into the Japanese character, "watashi" which means a female "I":

We also did one with "I" and "she" inside the symbol. Then we inserted the symbol into the English poem:

I never would have volunteered to present, but I'm glad I did. Now if I ever had to watch the video of me presenting, I'd probably rather stick rusty safety pins in my eyes, but that's another story.

The workshop portion of the conference made me realize how narrow my reading scope is. Next post is on Ghazal and Zuihitsu poems!

NY, Conferences, Cat Puke, in that order

2009-03-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

I sometimes forget how much is going on in this city. When a friend visited I realized how much could be done in three days (central park, chinatown, brooklyn restaurant, MOMA, Brooklyn Bridge, etc).

Besides the happening Queens College Translation Conference, there's a big ol' conference by PEN. I'm a big fan of PEN and their International Conference has some big names and many many free events. I believe the theme this year is Evolution and Revolution, which incidentally was the main theme of my presentation on Trotsky last week.

Here are a few panels that look fun:

Monday, April 27
Neil Gaiman in Conversation with Joshua Wolf Shenk
7:30 p.m.: The Prince Theater, Maryland

Wednesday, April 29
Prison Deform
6 p.m.: CUNY Segal Theater

Thursday, April 30
Quiet Revolutions in Storytelling
6 p.m.: Instituto Cervantes New York

Kafka in America
6:30 p.m.: Austrian Cultural Forum

The Moth ®evolution: Stories of Change
7 p.m.: Galapagos Art Space ($30: Smarttix)

(I listen to The Moth podcast all the time. Truly hilarious. Enough that I might even dole out $30.)

There are a lot of panels. Here's the whole darn list: http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/1820

Besides that, I realized I was a true adult when my cat, Raptor, puked in the bed and there was no one to deal with it but me. Chris sleeps like the dead and she puked on my side. What makes you realize that you're an adult?

Translation Rocks

2009-03-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

Since I have a ton to do, I decided my time would be wisely spent updating my blog. Logic always prevails.

I'm doing a presentation on translating gender in Japanese poetry on Saturday. The MFA program at Queens College is running this. Everyone should check it out. The conference promises to be full of creative writing and translation in ways you haven't seen before. I'm taking a translation craft class without knowing a second language well. It's been blowing my mind how creative the translation process is how and translation can be used in other kinds of projects (art, writing).

Here's the conference page: http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/Creative_Writing/conference.html

Make me run faster...

2009-02-24T22:20:00.001-08:00

Not sure if I'm going to get anything on this, but as I mentioned, I joined the Y, and thus have been listening to my ipod more. I realized I have very few new bands on there.

I need peppy, kick ass music.

Any suggestions?

Right now I'm stuck with punk and ska from 2002. And that's just sad. All my modern mellow indie music isn't the best to run to.

(This incidentally ties into Deonne's post about music and exercise.)

Lacking authority is my life

2009-02-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

I’m glad I go the self deprecating route most of the time because the other day as I was coming in to work I realized I was stuck on my coat. My coat is a perfectly nice coat, but the lining is a bit frayed these days and I don’t see any reason why to go buy another one when this one works fine thank you. Also, I get attached to inanimate objects (which could be why I'm writing so many stories based about crazy people and their stuff).

Anyway. As I was coming in to the writing center at work, with a student trailing me, I realized I couldn’t get my coat off. It was stuck to the button on the back of my pants. The student was chatting to me about her project until she saw I was in a predicament. I was going to try and bolt to the bathroom where I could gnaw it off with my teeth and get a better look, but the student mercifully came over to try and unwind the tiny piece of string. After a few minutes of yanking, she ran off to get scissors claiming explaining “someone needs some help.” She freed me and then we worked on her paper. She even listened to me despite my proving I couldn't even escape from a piece of string.

Fancy Food: But Martha Stewart I Aint

2009-02-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

I've been playing major catchup since AWP. But I'm going to talk about food instead. Chris and I had faux-valentine's on Sunday, which involved a fancy brunch at Five Leaves and a really fantastic homemade dinner of filet mignon (rubbed with homegrown rosemary, salt and pepper), with rice and beats, carrots, shallots, and garlic.

For brunch the next day, I cooked up some bacon. Then, leaving some of the bacon grease in the pan, I took the leftover beets/rice concotion and gently fried it with some pinenuts. I added the small pieces of bacon to the beets concoction with some chunks of soft-boiled eggs and you have a culinary masterpiece! Some strawberries and blueberries on the side and so delicious!

Besides my foray into beets, I've also been experimenting with polenta. Chicken sausage is our meat of choice (pre-cooked, easy), so anything that works with it is good for me. We're trying to make dinners that can easily be translated into breakfast or lunch the next day with only a couple changes.

As far as school is concerned, I'm still buried in work. But. I finished my short story for class on Monday, which even if it isn't the best story in the world, at least it was cathartic. So there's that.

Not always Zen Jen

2009-02-10T16:30:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of homework this semester and I’m getting ready to go to Chicago for the AWP conference. Last week though, I decided to sign up for a hair appointment with the woman I normally do hair modeling for her class. It was for 6 pm today. I didn’t really want to go, but thought it would be bitchy to cancel last minute. I haul my ass to the Upper East Side from Brooklyn during rush hour and when I arrived, the salon was quiet as a bone.* On hair modeling days, the salon is usually full of women waiting for the appointments. Generally there are tons of would-be hair stylists, clomping in and out of the waiting room with fashionable hair cuts and dresses that look like shirts. But no, not today.

Today there was nothing. There was nothing because my hair lady didn’t see fit and tell me that they had cancelled the class a few days ago. I’m not an angry person, but I just lost two hours when I needed them. Via text she claims she emailed me “a few days ago” about the cancellation. Bull shit. Really. (I checked my spam and everything.)

So I do get angry, I guess.

Other than that, I’m starting back up with the tutoring next week. Unfortunately, I lost three of my hours due to scheduling conflicts, so I’m looking for some freelance work to bridge the income gap. If any of y’all know anyone that needs five or so hours of work done a week, be sure to send them my way.

I learned today that a grad students that lives, works, and studies in three different boroughs should be able to eat and walk at the same time. I've thankfully mastered this task.

It’s been warm. Life is good. I’m now a proud member of the YMCA, located about 1.5 blocks from my apartment. It’s open 24/7, which I tested by staying until past midnight last night. During the day, the place is a flurry of activity; the place is mixed with little old women in swim caps, moms and babies, children, and hip twenty somethings. It’s definitely not a place with ‘tude, which is fabulous.

*Stolen from Anne Carson

Negligent Blogger

2009-01-24T23:46:00.001-08:00

I've been a bad blogger. I know this. Since I last posted I have cleaned the apartment and unpacked, had a party, turned 25, finished my first semester in grad school and went to Dublin. I have no excuses for my lack of posting, but I will offer photos of Dublin:

The River Liffey

The jail where the British held political prisoners during the Easter uprising and the poor during the potato famine.

Dublin

Outer Dublin

Temple Bar Area

Castle from the 12th century

Where only the politicians are windy

2008-12-10T18:35:00.000-08:00

I’ve decided to go to the AWP Conference in Chicago and all of a sudden I'm filled with this nostalgia for it. I’m really happy in Brooklyn and I don’t want to go back (except perhaps for the rent), but I am starting to fill with this utter joy that I’m going back to Chicago, even for four days. I’m getting excited thinking about jumping in a cab from Midway. Thinking about it, although I only lived in Chicago for five years, that time is a significant portion of my adult life so far. Five years of 24 is significant. I love Brooklyn because it’s lively, it's new, it has my family and old friends, it has great public transportation, it has cafes and bookstores up the wazoo, and I can get served a tasty dinner until Midnight by walking a few blocks. I loved Chicago for the people I was surrounded by. I miss the feelings from the place. When I went to Chicago I knew no one, and when I left, I had made deep friendships and fallen in love with a new city. I miss the character in the buildings that people can actually afford to live in. Chicago isn’t a mean city. I say this with all the love and admiration for New York, but it’s a hard city. It’s a hamster wheel with daggers. I might be projecting the challenges of post college life on New York, but New York can take it.

Anyway, if you're in Chicago Feb 11-15th, let's get a drink, or go stand in line at the Pancake House on 53rd. I really could use those pancakes.

All the News That's Fit to Print!

2008-12-08T18:26:00.001-08:00

Look, Chris is in this photo:

Hurray!

Well, At Least They Didn't Set Me on Fire

2008-12-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

So through this last semester tutoring, I’ve learned an incredible amount about approach. I know when students come into the access center that I’ll be able to guide them in some way. So, when I went in to teach the review class on Friday, I was a little nervous but confident. I’ve taught creative writing third through sixth graders in the South Side of Chicago, but never adults before. Let’s just say a group of fifty-year old women can be just as rowdy as a group of sugared-up eight-year-olds.

I learned what works in tutoring does not work in the classroom. In a class where each man and woman has a lot to say, the Socratic “What do you think about this?” method can turn into utter chaos. The class segments and starts answering each other’s questions. The discussion becomes many discussions, which isn’t focused or helpful. It didn’t help that the students had a ton of anxiety about their test (it will determine if they will repeat their class next year). They wanted “the answer,” a thesis, and didn’t think my discussion of structure was relevant (where as it doesn’t really matter what your thesis is, as long as you can defend it).

I’m growing (like a dandelion!). I’m going to do some research on facilitation and talk with my mom, who does a lot of group training. Next time I won’t make the same mistakes.

In other news, I’ve started yoga again. Although I’ve been happy that I’m writing and teaching writing in a community setting, I’ve been stressed because I don’t want to fuck it up. I want to take advantage of these opportunities that I’ve been given, dammit. Add in some unrelated stress, and I haven’t been the nicest person to live with. Not only Chris has had to deal with this, but I was mean to Raptor, my cat, the other day. I was mean to my cat. I didn’t kick her or anything, but still, too grumpy. As my mother would say, I had lost my Snoopy. I reevaluated my situation and went through the three things that leave me unbalanced 1) Lack of sleep, 2) Not eating right, 3) lack of exercise. (It's sad, but academic stimulation aside, our happiness is dictated by such small things.) I’ve been eating okay, sleeping fine, and walking a lot, but it’s been frenzied walks to the L station in Williamsburg. I determined that yoga was in order. The yoga class stretched me out and calmed me. The room doesn’t seem big enough to hold outside worries, so I just focused on not falling down. I hope I can make it a habit.

I took up Professor Weir’s suggestion to my fiction class and headed to the St. Mark’s Bookshop on Friday after my class to look at literary journals. Chris met me there and we sat for a few hours. This bookshop is incredible. The journal selection made me miss our dear old Otium. Based on my time looking at journals, I have three recommendations. The first is the Minnesota Review—contrary to its name is based out of Carnegie Mellon University. The issue I picked up has a special section on prison writing, which I am very interested in (since I’ve been corresponding as a PEN Prison Mentor). The coolest thing that issue is that the writing is by prisoners, but not necessarily about prison. The next recommendation is Fence, which is featuring a lovely poem by my first creative writing teaching Srikanth (Chicu) Reddy. What’s great about this journal is that it features writing that might not fit into traditional genres. The writing is quirky and moving. Lastly, I dug the Massachusetts Review, which has a special Grace Paley issue out right now. I don’t know about the journal normally, but for Grace Paley fans, this thing is packed with Grace Paley goodness: her writing, her students' writing about her, tribute writing, and interviews.

Hope everyone is having a beautiful day and staying warm.

Sumus Nautae. Here's to box living.

2008-12-02T18:55:00.001-08:00

This week is just not happening. I need to find footing. I hope I shake this off because I have work to do. Damn.

I started teaching myself Latin today instead of going to class. I learned how to say "I am a poet," "You are a poet," "We are poets," "I am both a farmer and a poet," "I am a farmer and you are a sailor," "You are a sailor and not a poet."

Ego sum poeta.
I am a poet.

Although I could say:
Sum poeta.
or
Poeta sum.

And it would mean the same thing!

Or if I wanted to be inclusive, I could say:
Sumus poetae!
We are poets!

Actually, I'm lying, about this week not happening. Chris and I went out for a lovely dinner last night at Annisa in celebration of our anniversary (6 years!). To me, the West Village is all New York posh and culture. With the older crowd and the expensive shops, I'm glad I don't live there, but I like to poke in every now and again (or once a year). We had the tasting menu, which is the second time in my life I've had the pleasure. This is how it goes: the waiter asks if you have any allergies or distastes and I say "Yes, please no fish," and Chris goes "I eat everything" and then they bring him everything and me everything minus fish. The everything is a blend of different tiny dishes that rock your world. Like a foie gras soup dumplings, pistachio creations, and braised short ribs. It's a circus of delicious and amazement. By contrast, tonight I ate out of a can. My mother isn't bothered by my everyday eating habits, but my great aunt Dorothy was troubled when she asked me if I wanted anything special and I told her I was just happy to eat anything that wasn't out of a box. She asked me what kinds of things could I eat out of a box and I stopped listing things when she started to look horrified. Apparently she went around to everyone concerned and repeating "Jenna eats out of boxes."

Work, Rats, the Usual

2008-12-02T10:11:00.000-08:00

First off, here's a video that shows the dangers of too aggressive steering wheel drumming. This would happen to me.

Things have been crazy, with school and work. I made a giant post on my love of my new job (writing tutor at a South Bronx continuing ed school) and keep posting and unposting it. I'm enjoying talking about books with adult students who just need a little help on structure. They have the ideas, I usually just write them down as they say them and then help them pull all their ideas in one neat tidy thesis statement by asking tons of questions. This Friday, I am running an exam workshop for a core class that's called "Modes of Analysis." If they pass this test, they pass the class. Else, they have to take the class over again next year. I'm nervous because I've never run a two hour class before, but I think I'm more excited. I have to pretty much just hammer home the main parts of an essay because I'm told that the students are pretty familiar with the content of the stories they will be writing about.

This weekend I'm brainstorming about what I want to cover during the two hours...any pointers out there on important things to remember in essay writing? I'm looking at all of you scholarly or writerly folk (especially YOU Deanna).

Latest news of my rat watch: Chubby, large, and "clean looking" rat was seen walking at 3 a.m. around Penn Station. He seemed entitled and far from daunted by human interaction. Each person that passed him either shrieked or said some derivative of "only in New York."

An Open Letter

2008-11-20T06:36:00.000-08:00

Dear Douche Bag in Cafe Grumpy,

You wear a striped black turtleneck. You work with banks. You are apologizing to your boss about a missed deadline. I do not care. I cannot edit my shitty story with your horrible voice interrupting the weezer album in the background.

Get off the fucking phone and stop your douche bag, financial times toting, laugh.

Thank you.

Hair Matters, The Anti Commute

2008-11-20T05:04:00.000-08:00

I have been getting my hair cut at a snooty salon in the Upper East Side as hair model for only $20. The only catch is that I have to come in at weird hours no person with actual money would ever want. Last week, in a fit of ridiculousness, I made an 8 am appointment for today. As in, I had to be there at 8 am IN the salon. And to my credit, I was actually on my way to the L at 7:15 a.m. this morning, when I got a call from my hair person saying she was incredibly sorry, but she had slept through her alarm. Living in a "late" household, slightly as a child, and now much more so (is arriving after the event has occurred, still late?) I told her that it could have been me and not to worry. Anyway. This left me dressed and awake at 7:30 am, standing in the middle of Williamsburg. I knew I had to get out of there, so I did what I always used to dream about when I worked full time in the city and walked back past all the people walking to the train. Along the way I thought That's right hipster bitches, I'm walking my ass to a cafe in Greenpoint to "write." (One day I won't use quotation marks.) I was able to watch everyone marching in their morning routines, sipping coffee steaming white from this ungodly cold. I like to pretend that I could become a morning person. At least today I am, however accidental. Now, I'm happily sipping tea that has a fancy name for English Breakfast and scarfing a delicious biscuit with equally fancy cheese and chives. What a nice morning. Time to revise.

reposted

2008-11-13T19:36:00.000-08:00

I realize I haven't spoken about my job much. People have been asking me how I like it. My MFA director asked me how my work is affecting my writing. So far, I've been mostly soaking in the feeling of the place.

The hearts of my students plop right onto my lap for each writing session. These moms, aunts, grandmothers and dads, sit and give me their writing and ideas to make sense of. They look to me for guidance. Some of them haven't been to school for 20 years; some of them dropped out of high school and are climbing slick walls, getting their GED and taking college classes. They do this while raising their families and working full-time jobs.

They seem ashamed they don't know every rule; I try to tell them it's a process, and there's time to learn the rules, like right now. I want to tattoo the Hemingway quote on them "It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way."

Every day, I learn how to better convey how to write sentences clearly and how to formulate arguments. I'm learning to define things I hadn't thought of in many years, and in some cases, never thought of. "What is a paragraph? How long should it be?" "What do you mean by 'introducing' your topic?" "Why isn't that a sentence?" These are good questions that deserve thoughtful answers.

Urban Wildlife, revisted

2008-11-06T19:52:00.001-08:00

This time I saw a rat scuttling along the Bedford Ave L stop tracks. "What's so special about that?" you ask. I watched him scuttle up to an entire half of a bagel. Not being a rat, I can't be sure of his excitement, or the preciseness of his language, but I could have sworn I heard "holy motherfucker!" in rat squeaks. He dragged that bagel, which was larger than him, to his secret rat hiding spot.

I love watching people, or um rats, having good days.

In other news, the woman that I babbled about in my first post is having a reading:

Experiments & Disorders: New Poetic Forms
featuring Anne Carson and Robert Currie, and Legends
Saturday, 15 November, 7 pm, $10

Dixon Place
161 Chrystie Street
New Yawk, NY

Come with, buy a ticket here.

A lot of things have happened since I last posted: Obama kicked ass and took names; we had several visitors; I made an amazing shark and bunny costume; I biked the Tour de Bronx with Chris and my mother (photos forthcoming, but my legs pedaled 31 long miles); and the marathon ran right in front of our apartment. I bet other things happened too, but they were probably less interesting. I can't believe Hyde Park's own won. I really can't. I can't believe I had the opportunity to vote him into the Senate and into the White House. From the South Side (alright, and from a lot of other places, too) to Washington D.C.!

As I was leaving work today, I saw a poster with Obama sitting in the oval office. If it is still there on Saturday, I'm buying it.

Term Limits, what?

2008-10-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

I'm not super political but Mr. Bloomberg is pissing me off. Mayor Bloomberg's new bill to extend his (and the council members' who are voting on the bill's) terms is against everything that a democracy stands for.

He claims he is uniquely qualified to deal with the financial troubles of the city. Is anyone uniquely qualified for such a job in a democracy? What is to stop him from extending term limits again through this method?

The New York public has voted on this issues TWICE and voted DOWN the term extensions. Bloomberg himself vetoed council members' term limit extension from six to eight years stating:

''In any event,'' the mayor wrote, ''I believe it is simply inappropriate for those members elected in 1997, who were aware of the rules under which they were elected, to seek to change those rules in a manner that may work to their own advantage.''
(nytimes article)

Now he wants to allow those SAME council members 12 years in office!

Mayor Bloomberg knew the rules when he came in. Here are all the council members in New York and their email addresses and positions on the bill. Please shoot them an email to let these people know where you stand.

Where do you write?

2008-10-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

You trade in your office for the rumble of the subway a half block away. You trade it in for the cafes, restaurants, stationary stores, meat markets, and fruit markets all within a block. You don’t have a washing machine, but if you drop off your bag of laundry with the woman with a round face; she’ll have it done by the next day, clean and folded, for cheap.

You desk is the table where you work in the Bronx, waiting for your students, older than your own mother, to wander in for thesis and grammar help. Your desk is the folding kitchen table in Brooklyn, covered with crumbs, where you sit next to green leafy herbs from the farmers’ market on the windowsill. The basil is frail and often threatens a yellow death, but it always returns, triumphant as a phoenix. The mint, like Medusa, tries to tempt other plants for destruction, but is limited by its plastic cage. When you sit at your desk, you overlook someone else’s garden. It’s enough for you. You watch as their baby cries and their twenty pound cat soaks in the sun;
you smell the sweet stink of salmon and chicken on their grill. Your window is intersected by a heavy fire escape and spiderwebs of clothes’ lines. These lines never tangle. As you write, your own cat twitches on the windowsill at the birds she will never catch.

Really though, your desk is in the corner, next to the couch and a pile of wires. You stack your books for class there. It’s a good desk, but when the kitchen table grows boring you'd rather move your desk to the café with the giant table and strong coffee or the café where you can sit under a maple tree and watch the music pulse from the windows of the neighboring buildings.

Urban Wildlife

2008-10-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

I saw the most spectacular thing yesterday. While waiting for the train home from the South Bronx, I was standing over by the tracks leaning against one of those great big metal painted pillars. It's a good spot because I can look at the sunlight coming in from the end of the tunnel and watch for the train. When I’m close enough to the train tracks, I get the full impact of the giant gust of wind. I like the feeling of happiness about the train’s arrival mixed with the breeze of the actual train. It’s like I’m a kite the train is lifting.

Anyway. I was standing there I saw a rat scuttle along the tracks. Normal enough. But maybe a foot away from the first rat, I saw two rats fighting. They were a ball of rat, bouncing around the metal tracks. The fight was all squeaks and tails. Squeeak sqeaaaak! Rumph rumph rumph! Laughing, I motioned to the woman next to me, “Do you SEE this!” She looked less impressed, but amused with me, and said “Yeah—they’re fighting.”

I’ve never seen a rat fight before.

The Art of a Day

2008-09-17T16:04:00.000-07:00

Going to grad school is making me realize how much stuff I can fit into a day if I have to. Last Thursday I did reading for class, posted a response, went to work, went to class until 10, came home and worked on my story, went to bed, woke up at 4 a.m., finished my story, went to work, went to a friend's wedding! Woo! 24 hours of awesome.

Yesterday my story was work shopped and the world didn't cave into itself. The sky didn't blacken, cats didn't shriek, and I didn't cry. They called me on my shit, but that was okay. I knew they weren't going to like some stuff. I'm trying new things and that's okay. After the anticipation of the soul crushing, I feel much much better. I can now finish the other story I've been obsessing about without worrying I'll be heaved out of the classroom for triteness.

Right now I'm trying to make my way through Henry James' The Art of Fiction, which in a Jamesian fashion, is a 14+ page response to the Besant's 7 page story by the same title. Of course he'd make his response DOUBLE the length and harder to understand. Hopefully I can pull something out of this that will make for an interesting prompt. He states that "the novel is history," as in the history of humanity. What do you make of that?

Quiet as a bone

2008-09-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

I've had some big changes, so I'm thinking about making the transition to a real blog. One people can read. I'm stopping my written silence.

Currently I am working in the Flatiron building in Manhattan, living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and going to school in Flushing, Queens.

As of two weeks from now I will be working in the South Bronx, and still living in Greenpoint and going to school in Flushing. Can't get more New York than my past year, huh? It's good to have a home in this mean city of ours.

In the new Bronx job I'll be tutoring in an "access center" at the College of New Rochelle School of New Resources, a continuing education college that caters to the South Bronx community. When I was interviewing, the assistant director of the program told me he liked some quality of mine that I can't remember and that he liked that I wore that watch (my big green and pink Andy Warhol watch) to the interview. When I asked him why he did his job, he said "social justice" and went on a beautiful rant about all the wrongs in the world that the college is fighting against. I'm excited to start.

I started my MFA a week ago and I've been surprised with the immense amount of work that the teachers assign. Every class wants hours and hours of reading, tons of responses via google groups, and oh yeah, I need to bleed my heart out onto the page daily for the workshop to judge. The deadlines are so tight that I can't over analyze each word, which has been a very good thing for me. This is Jenna, shooting from the hip.

I just reread Anne Carson's Glass Essay from her book Glass, Irony, God and had an utterly different reaction than I did the first time. It is a beautiful poem. Was I such a self-conscious snotty brat before that I couldn't enjoy it?

"Kitchen is quiet as a bone when I come in "

Quiet as a BONE. Who would think about the amount of noise a bone makes? I can't think of anything more quiet though.

Besides that, I've been reading Sappho's fragments for class. I'm enamored. I want to paste the sparse fortune cookie length lines that are left of her poems around my apartment like paper mache

"Greener than grass/I am and dead--or almost/I seem to me"

"and I on a soft pillow/will lay down my limbs"

"no grove, no dance/no sound."