The Seven Chairs

Written for VCU ENGL 307: Teaching Writing Skills
Spring 2011

This piece was written for an assignment in which we were given several images from The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and asked to write a story based on one of the images and using the caption for that image.

The fifth one ended up in France.

Click the title to get to the full text.

e e cummings

i have just found this draft from several years back entitled e e cummings it was entirely blank except for that title so i have written this post to go with it and am posting it

Sittin' on the shitter

Sittin' on the shitter
And I wish you could'a' been 'ere
Cause its only now that you can see the glitter
That I had last night for dinner.

I wrote this a while back on a slip of paper that consequently became lost.  This post in turn became lost as a draft that I forgot was here for an even longer period of time, but I'm looking through all my drafts now and found it so it will now become an official post.  I think it was a draft because I felt that at some point I would use it as a starting point for a longer poem, but I don't see that happening anytime in the near future so here it is.

Poem for my body

Last night I was thinking about death and it occurred to me that I have a very specific wish for what will be done with my body after I die, but I have not really told many people what it is. So I decided to compose a poem that I think I will have tattooed somewhere on my body (possibly my back) which explicates my wishes. This way no matter when or where I die and no matter who finds my body (as long as they can read english) it will be known what to do with my body.

Dear Sir or Madame should you find
My body cold and dead,
I hope that you will be so kind
To do as I have said.
Aboard some stout wood barge or boat,
I wish to be sent forth.
A flaming arrow as I float
Shall be my life's resort.

(What I think is) A feminist argument for not using the he/she or she/he gender nonspecific pronoun

This sort of came to me while I was working today. That will happen when you spend long hours pushing a lawn mower around. It gives you lots of time to think about all sorts of random shit.

Before I get into my argument I suppose I should point out that I am doing this merely as a thought exercise. I think the debate is actually completely irrelevant because I happen to buy into Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar, which is a commonly accepted explanation of how languages work and evolve. The way I understand Universal Grammar it defines pronouns as part of the determiner functional category of free morphemes and therefore part of the closed class. This means that pronoun usage cannot be changed by conscious means over a short period of time. Their usage can only change evolutionarily over generational time periods. Therefore making a debate over whether we should try to change pronoun usage a moot point, if it happens it will happen evolutionarily as a reflection of changes in the culture rather than consciously as a means of bringing about that change.

So first I suppose I will outline what I think is the argument for using a gender nonspecific pronoun rather than the more traditional "he" in indeterminate instances. Our culture is male dominant. I suppose some would argue against this, but I think that if you really look at the reality of the situation that is what you will find. I think that's shameful, but true nonetheless. There is an element of the politically correct movement that wants to change pronoun usage in the English language. The way I understand it is that they feel that in order to move towards gender equality it is necessary to remove the various aspects of our culture that enable and reflect gender inequality. This would seem to make sense, and I would argue that for many truly harmful aspects of our culture that is the right course of action.

But compared to something like say wage inequality pronoun usage would seem to me to be relatively benign. However this aspect of our culture serves as a constant reminder of the male dominant history of English speaking cultures. Here I'm somewhat embarrassed to use a cliche but it really does sum up a good bit of my argument: Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. So in our language we have a built in constant reminder of the shameful heritage and current state of our culture. Is it not better to keep the relatively benign aspects of our culture that remind us of much more harmful aspects as well as elements of our history that we wish not to repeat? Seems that way to me, but than again what the hell do I know.

Get Drunk!

Baudelaire may have felt that this worked best in prose form, and maybe it does in the French, but I think at least my translation is better this way.

Get Drunk!

One should always be drunk.
That's all that matters:
it is the only question.
So as not to feel the horrid burden of Time
which breaks your back and
bows you down to the ground,
you must get drunk without ceasing.

But with what?
With wine,
with poetry,
or with virtue
as you please.

But get drunk.

And if at times,
on the steps of a palace,
or in the green grass of a ditch,
or in the dismal solitude of your room,
you are waking up,
with drunkenness diminished and disappeared, ask

of the wind,
of the wave,
of the star,
of the bird,
of the clock,
of all that which flees,
of all that which groans,
of all that which rolls,
of all that which sings,
of all that which speaks,

ask what time it is;
and the wind, the wave, the star,
the bird, the clock will reply:

"It is time to get drunk!
So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time,
get drunk;
get drunk without ceasing!
With wine, with poetry, or with virtue as you please."

from the French: Get Drunk!

Get Drunk!

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters: it is the only question. So as not to feel the horrid burden of Time which breaks your back and bows you down to the ground, you must get drunk without ceasing.
But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue as you please. But get drunk.
And if at times, on the steps of a palace, or in the green grass of a ditch, or in the dismal solitude of your room, you are waking up, with drunkenness diminished and disappeared, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that which flees, of all that which groans, of all that which rolls, of all that which sings, of all that which speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will reply: "It is time to get drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk; get drunk without ceasing! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue as you please."

original:

Enivrez-vous

Il faut etre toujours ivre. Tout est la: c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du Temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans treve.
Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, a votre guise. Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, dans la solitude morne de votre chambre, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déja diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, a la vague, a l'étoile, a l'oiseau, a l'horloge, a tout ce qui fuit, a tout ce qui gémit, a tout ce qui roule, a tout ce qui chante, a tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est; et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront: "Il est l'heure de s'enivrer! Pour n'etre pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps, enivrez-vous; enivrez-vous sans cesse! De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, a votre guise."

-- Charles Baudelaire Petits poemes en prose

Favorite bands

Damn! I completely forgot I had a blog. Well, I've decided to make a list of what I consider to be the best bands in the country. You must understand that I make no assumptions about bands that I have not seen. I haven't seen them so I can't rate them. So that being said, this list can more be seen as the bands that I would consider among the best no matter how good any other band I may see is. If that makes sense. So here goes.

Old Crow Medicine Show (how could I not include these guys?)
Belleville Outfit (based out of Austin)
No BS! Brass Band (how can anyone from Richmond leave them off a list of best bands?)
The Hot Seats (another Richmond band)
Carolina Chocolate Drops (I've only seen these guys in videos but the first time they're in Richmond I'm there)
Umphrey's McGee (no explanation necessary)
Popebear (I'll admit that I'm biased on this one, but that's not gonna change my opinion. They're the best.)
Meshiya Lake (she performs with the Loose Marbles and the Little Big Horns)

That's all I can think of right now. I'll possibly (though not likely) update the list at some point or other. But if you are reading this and see any bands mentioned that you haven't heard of you should check them out.

Changing History

If you could change one historical event, which event would you choose, and how would you change it? Why would that change be for the best?

Changing history is not something to be undertaken lightly. There is no real way to know what might result from even the most seemingly insignificant change. Consider if merely the wall color had been different during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What if the walls of the White House had been an aggressive color such as yellow, orange, or red. Would the outcome have been the same, or would we all be bits of radioactive waste right now. If even such a small change has the potential to make such a drastic effect on the course of history, then how can we even consider large changes?
But of course it is always possible that even the most glaring changes could result in very little noticeable effects. If Columbus had never found the Americas, for instance, what would the world be like now. I would be inclined to think that it would be very much the same. Some European was bound to find America around that point in history. That time period was one of great exploration by European powers, and it is highly unlikely that Columbus, even if he failed, would have been the only one to venture far enough west to find the continents that we now call America. With that being said there seems little point in trying to make a change in order to create a specific course of events.
Take for instance the Holocaust. How would one go about trying to prevent the Holocaust? Is there a single event that could possibly prevent such a horrible tragedy? Perhaps if Hitler had never existed things would have been different. But there are no guarantees. Much of Europe was extremely anti-semitic at the time. It is entirely possible that even without Hitler some other ruler would have implemented much the same policy. Another question that is raised by eliminating Hitler is World War II. Would it have even happened. Would it have been worse, better, much the same? Without German participation in the war, it is quite possible that it would have been a showdown between the United States and Russia. If so would there have been a Cold War afterwards? And without a Cold War would there have been a space race, or the development of the atom bomb?
Since there is no real way to know what the outcome would be, the only real purpose in changing an historical event can be for experimental purposes: to find out what would happen. For this reason I would choose to eliminate Hitler's existence. This would be a very interesting change for many of the reasons listed above. It also brings up the question of individual impact on the world. Hitler could be considered one of the most influential men of the twentieth century, but would his non-existence really change anything significantly? It is possible that all of the major events that we are familiar with would have occurred with some other maniacal dictator leading Germany. But it is also possible that the scenario described above in which the Cold War never happens could be the outcome.
These are only two of the infinite possible outcomes of changing this one aspect of history. Each on is equally as likely as the other despite how drastically different modern life would be based on the different paths. So the real lesson here is that there is no real point in changing an historical event. There is no way to ensure that the desired outcome will result, and even if it does there is no way to know how that might change the rest of history up until this point. That is why I would chose not to change history even in the most minor way, but if I had to make a choice I would make one that I thought would have the most experimentally interesting possible outcomes.

boring

I have decided to save all of my college essays to this blog. Since it was originally intended as a way for me to keep a portfolio of my work, I might as well keep my more directed work as well. So if you don't want to read college essays you should probably ignore the posts labeled VCU.