Over the past week I've been reading a lot of poems. I just felt like I was getting a bit sick of, well, the kind of numbing, academic, descriptive sentences which I am confronted with constantly in my readings. Even a fictional novel, no matter how avant-garde, seemed insufficient. I wanted poetry - a world that I had dabbled in for a bit in middle school, and have since more or less abandoned.
For me, Poetry is, when you come down to it, the most precise and elegant form the english language can take. With nothing more than words and paper, writers can manipulate spacing, lines, even font for dramatic effect, but it really all comes down to words - everything hinges on the ability of these jumbles of letters to convey feelings that, suprisingly, large analytical paragraphs and sentances simply cannot. It is a high-wire act that must be flawless from beginning to and, where a single slip-up in word choice or placement can take away from the message.
You can read a poem once and get something out of it, but today I tried to memorize a few of my favorite works from Lawrence Ferlingetthi's 1959 work Coney Island of the Mind. It has a bit of the gritty, no-nonsense flavor of Charles Bukowski, but marries it with the beatific stylings of Allen Ginsburg.
Memorizing a poem is almost a dangerous act - by ingraining each stanza into your mind, you start to turn over each word, uncover all the possible meanings in your quest to find the "angle" that will stick the poem in your head. A line that seemed innocuous at first can, when this process becomes underway, reveal itself as rather disturbing. Nonetheless, the benefits outway (of course) some of the more psychological drawbacks. By memorizing something line by line, then stanza by stanza, and finally in its entirety, you percieve the hidden, internal relationships (whether by theme, rhyme, or some other connection) between words and phrases. If you've done it right, by the time you are done the poem has become a story, a complete and complex world unto itself. Secondly, because you have memorized the poem in the way best suited for YOU, once you deliver the poem it becomes your own - the cadences, what you stress and de-stress - it becomes a kind of Verbal Jazz in your hands where you have a set body of notes (words), but what you do with them is up to you. In about 10 or 15 minutes you have gone from suffering under a poem to becoming its master, taking it to places only you have envisioned.
I'll come back to this subject later, but here is a clip of Lawrence himself reading from a large swath of his poetry. The goodness begins at 5:30

Time travel through sound

I was not expecting this.

Last night I was watching online a truly fascinating film, "Grey Gardens" by the Maysles brothers. It is the story of two aristocratic ladies, a mother and a daughter, who have fallen into poverty, are living together in the east Hampton in a completely dilapidated old house inhabited by raccoons, and who both are some of the most singularly unique and interesting people you can ever hope to meet.

Did I mention its a documentary? As in, their singular lives will now be known, in amazing intimacy, to anyone who watches it?

Anyway, over the course of it the movie the mother, 78 year-old "Big" Edie, sings a song from her youth, "Tea for Two". Now, I've seen movies that try to convey nostalgia for a previous period - see Woody Allen's "Radio Days". But this one sequence, of her singing in an ineffably beautiful and cheerful voice along a faded record,literally took my breath away. It seems to capture the melancholy of remembrance, and of remembering the "golden" 1920s in particular amongst her class - of modernity co-opted by a culture still sentimental, still attempting to behave with decorum. One particular section, from about 2:15 to 2:28, has an orchestration that evokes a very particular image to me - a sunny day on riverside drive, the skyscrapers of mid-town in the distance, and young, well-off couples in beautiful couture promenading along the woods as delicate, brightly colored automobiles stream by. Watching her sing, I feel like I am seeing a woman from the 1920s (her daughter seems more of a 1940s gal) who is stuck in a mental time bubble, physically aging, and AWARE she is aging, but retaining all the sensibilities and conceits of her youth. To listen to the orchestration alone, follow this link to the trailer.

As a historian I should be disseminating this music, and her actions, for hard, empirical insights into life in the past, the effect of senility on memory, etc. But right now I am content just to bask in this movie and let these two individuals wash over me - and this one sequence seems to affect me in ways that are inadequate to put to pixels. I hope you get something out of it as well, and I encourage you to watch the whole movie.

Musings on Glendale Graveyard

Tired of staying at home this afternoon, I decided to take my bicycle out for a little spin through Glendale. It was freezing outside, but at first I didn't feel it - I just winded my way down Myrtle Avenue, the setting sun casting an orange hue on the shuttered businesses lining the streets. Scattered black-clad pedestrians filtered past as I slowly pedaled my way to my destination - the Cypress Hills cemetery.
Past an old catholic church and through a rickety iron gate, I saw before me an expanse of graves, covering the ground like fresh snow. Only the wind, graves, and the trees kept me company as journeyed past the rows of tombs. Looking to my right and left I could see entire streets of the dead, segregated into ethnic neighborhoods in death as they very well might have been in life - Chinese, Italian, Jewish, Irish. You don't need to be a sensitive soul to get a bit chokey as you see name after name, date of birth and date of death, each one having contained such vitality at one point, each one now inert (and in many cases, it seems, forgotten).
Finally, I wound my way up a hill to a copse of trees and laid my read bike against an elm. Before me, past the graves, past the trees, past the rickety fence, lay the skyline of Manhattan aglow with the fire of a setting sun. And here, strewn about me, were all those who had come here - to find freedom, to make a name for themselves, to discover themselves. And yet, these graves were not those of conquering heroes, but the nameless thousands who had lived and died in obscurity, and some in poverty. This contrast, between the vibrant, vertical spires of achievment and the horizontal expanses of the inert humble, is what struck me so.
For a long time cities killed more of their population than their citizens could replace: disease, malnutrition, crime, and all the others were to blame. To make up for this net loss, cities had to draw people in from the countryside, the pure, innocent townsfolk lured into the metropolitan furnace to, through their sacrifice, power the engine of modernity and progress. Today cities are rather more stable than in this period - birth rates have equaled or exceeded death rates. And yet, there is still something enormously powerful, and still relevant, in the idea that the city at once elevates and destroys, pulls up and pushes down, brings life and brings death to its citizenry. And yet, people still keep coming to the city - for only here can their dreams for a better life possibly come true. The graves surrounding me attest to how few of those dreams were ever, in the end, fully realized.
It is almost a psychological need for graveyards such as this to be relegated to the outskirts of the city. Just like the outcasts of the past, the homeless, the insane, the criminal, were banished from the center of the city into remote facilities to spare the "civilized" townsfolk knowledge of their existence, so the abodes of the nameless, humble dead must be kept out of sight, out of mind. In a metropolis so concerned with getting ahead, with the quick buck, with the hustle, the mere presence of these graves would, possibly, temper their spirits and bring them the kind of deep, profound thoughts which do not necessarily facilitate global capitalism. Ironically, the sight of the dead would make people too human.
And so the young, brilliant young things work at the office, celebrate their accomplishments, pursue their little goals and ambitions. And later, their bodies will be lowered into the ground in places like Cypress Hills Cemetery, next to people much like them from generations past. Their spirit, of course, will live on in the hearts of those that remember them. But to the distant metropolis, as vibrant as fire and yet cold as ice, it is as if they never existed.

Observations on Kwanzaa

I have never experienced the mixture of uncomfortableness and absolute pleasure I had this past Sunday, when I crashed a Kwanzaa celebration in the basement of the Maysles theater in Harlem. To be the unexpected white observer of an exclusively black ceremony provided me with enough insights to fill an undergraduate anthropology paper, but I'll go for the basics here.
I had come up to Harlem with my roommate Joe to see Pressure, the first film to detail the lives of Caribbean immigrants in England. It was playing at a wonderful theater located in an old brownstone, with a small screening room and fold-up chairs emphasizing its ad-hoc, "grassroots" nature. This provided a wonderful contrast with the kind of glossy, overpriced, big-budget theaters most Americans are used to seeing movies in.
The movie itself was mostly good - better on its "slice of life" insights into the experiences of blacks in England than when it attempted to lecture us. Afterward we went downstairs to the basement of the theater, where we heard there was to be a Kwanzaa party.
Crowded with people, the dim lights revealing stacks of books, artwork, and dvd cases, we strolled through people dancing to reggae to set up a position near a bar. Everywhere were women and children, all black and all having a good time. Even though we stood out, I certainly did not feel that we weren't welcome. Me and Joe commenced to discuss the movie we had just seen. Just then a middle-aged lady came up to us and thanked us for coming - the party, she explained, was partly for Kwanzaa and partly a benefit for her son, who had been beaten by the police four months ago. As usual, social and cultural issues are never far apart. We were considering leaving at this point (we didnt' want to get home too late) but she urged us to stay for the Kwanzaa celebration proper. Of course, we opted to remain where we were to see what happened.
I was already somewhat giddy, a privileged "outside" observer to a ritual most white folk have only read about (if that). Then the music stopped, and the ceremony began. An old man intoned words in Swahili (I assume) while invoking the names of Karenga, Marcus Garvey, and other legends of African-American activism. Following this a lady, reading from a printed-out sheet, discussed the history and meaning of kwanzaa. Invented in 1966 by a university professor, Kwanzaa derived its name from a Kenyan harvest celebration, and is meant to serve as a unifying ritual common to all-African Americans, facilitating black culture, community, and activism. Religion plays a very small part here (reflective, I feel, in the secular-oriented context of its birth).
As I read this I felt myself tensing up, looking straight at her as she looked (it seems) straight at me. I wanted her to understand that I agreed with the premise of this ritual, that I had the utmost sympathy for her peoples' struggle - but there was no way for her to know this. I nodded my head furiously as she explained Kwanzaa's detailed set of rituals and relics, trying to signify that I both understood and approved. Above all, I did not want my presence to affect her descriptions and analysis of the holiday in any way. At the same time, though, I did feel particularly out of place and almost selfish - here I was, a white man, intruding into a professed "black" religion purely for my own curiosity and pleasure. Surrounding me were those for whom racism and discrimination were truly truly defining features of their world-view, and who bestowed upon Kwanzaa an importance I could never truly comprehend.
Nonetheless, as the candles were extinguished (by hand) and the spirits of African-American history were invoked, such as MLK and Touissant L'Overture, I felt more than ever that I had done the right thing by staying. I had become sensitized to a "religion" most of my friends and family had little knowledge of, and I had even more respect for a people who, in the face of such adversity, had carved out a space where they can maintain their own identities and agency. Finally, as the head of the service invoked Barack Obama and the strains of "its a long time coming" came out of the speakers, I sang along and felt, for the first time, a part of the ceremony. In the end, we are all inseparably one - while it is important to take pride in one or another groups' unique identity, what signifies "progress" to my mind is a world where people emphasize what unites them as opposes to what divides them. At its heart, Kwanzaa is about celebrating social justice in the face of adversity - a message everyone can identify with and share.

what I learned in Grad school pt. 1 of many

Things I learned in Grad school
I am writing this after my last "official" day in grad school. Without accessing notes, just off the top of my head, here are some of my impressions on what I have learned about history, graduate school, and quite possibly myself (throws up).
First of all, I was te youngest person in my cohort. nobody else went straight from undergrad to graduate school - they had experience in the"Real world", getting full time jobs and marrying before coming here. This both intimidated and inspired me - intimidated, because i was surrounded by such mature, articulate scholars, and I was just a novice whose every word sounded, compared to theirs so much less informed (as it seemed to me). Inspired, because I realized just how much I actually knew while being 20 or even 30 years younger then these people, and how much potential for growth I still had. The experience of working and talking with them was easily the highlight of my semester.
While I didn't' get to know a lot of my cohort that well outside of class (shamefully I still don't' know much of their names), I managed to become good friends with three of them - Josh Martino, John Blanton, and Peter Alguer. All of them are blazingly intelligent, funny, mature individuals, and I can't wait to see them over the winter break. I might not have had time to see my G-school friends as much as I was able to see my Rampo friends back in undergrad, but since I should be seeing them for the next 8 years, I have plenty more time to get to know them.
My teachers are - quite a range of thoughts on this one, actually. I was expecting wise sages, and I got that in spades for sure. But they didn't seem as personable as the folks at Ramapo. Perhaps it is because they are so pressed for time, torn between different campuses, teaching responsibilites, research work, book signings, etc. It is flattering that I am simply in the same room as some of these peopel, but it also hurts when I am brushed off, again and again, because the professor has other priorites. For example, I tried to keep showing one professor my paper after each draft, and by the third draft he was visibly annoyed. Perhas I shouldn't have kept coming to him, but my insecurities drove me to it - and I never had the experience of a teaher directly begrudging the possibility of heling a student. A the same time, this same professor (who shall remain namless) truly is brilliant, and the discussions we've had in class I will always remember. Our other professors are equally intimidiatng/brilinat. I remember getting in a conversation with one about Slumdog Millionaire and being blown away by her analysis - and this from a polish sociologist! Hopefully as I keep taking courses with them in the future I willo begin to see them as partners as opposed to gatekeepers, whon whose every word my fate is determined.
What did I learn? Well, it depends on the class (of course). IN my seminar each o fus basically worked on our own individual papers, with little time for in-class "lessons". Still, it was wonderful delving into my topic for this seminar, bicycling in New York. Our literature of American history course was quite useful in getting me up to speed in terms of my pre-1865 history, and a few of the texts I took out I hope to buy over the winter (I didn't buy a SINGLE BOOK for ANY of my courses this semester, relying on New York's amazing library system to get me everything I needed. w00t. ) Comparative history opened my eyes to an enormous range of critical theories which I want to incorporate into my future work, including transfer hsitory, histoire crossee, entangled histories, and various other methodologies. Out of all my classes, however, it was definitely Philosophy of History that shaped the way I think the most. The free-wheeling discussions we had about life, fat,e, the value of capitalism and democracy, man's responsibility to man, etc were quite stirring, and will form the basis of many a future blog post. I was particularly struck by the philosophies of Reinhold Niebuhr, a brilliant and compassionate theologian of the mid-20th century who urged mankind to refrain from the kind of idealistic, yet ultimately futile attempts to bend history to their will, whether through fascism, communism, or the spread of so-called "universal" values such as Liberalism. While I don't see myself becoming an intellectual philosopher, what I learned in this class has undoubtedly made me a more perceptive, more compassionate human being. That has to count for something.

Volunteering for Obama: October 25th

I knew I had to volunteer for Obama when I realized that I was having difficulty sleeping. Just imagining him delivering his state of the union address, visiting foreign leaders, signing legislation made me so happy, so improbably giddy, that it was obvious that simply signing one measly vote for him was not going to be enough. So that’s the first reason – sheer enthusiasm and restlessness. I didn’t want to stand on the sidelines for this one. I wanted to participate more fully in the unlikely story of Barack Obama’s rise to the Whitehouse.
Had Obama been assured of victory, this desire could have been seen as an easy way to relieve myself of some guilt. But volunteering for the campaign wasn’t only important to me – it seemed necessary for victory as a whole. McCain and Obama were (and still are) neck and neck, and to lose a single Kerry state to McCain would probably doom his chances. Right across my border was Pennsylvania, swinging wildly, undecided. The possibility of it falling to McCain seemed very likely to my paranoid mind, and I had a horrible flash-foward of him being inagurated while I, consumed with guilt for not doing my part, commenced to hang myself (or at least flee to Canada).
So I decided to devote a day to travelling out to Pennsylvania to help the campaign register voters and make it that much tougher for McCain to win the state. This didn’t mean hunting down undecided voters on the street or tearing down McCain-Palin signs. It meant taking lists of voters who had pre-registered with the Obama campaign, knocking on their doors, and finding out who there were voting for November 4th. If for Obama, great – want to volunteer? If undecided, here’s some campaign literature, along with a personal pitch. If voting for McCain – that’s your decision, as long as you are voting. This isn’t about alienating people, it’s about getting them aware your side of the story. This campaign is a battle, and whoever can mobilize the most voters, wins. That was what I was going to do.
The Obama campaign made this process ridiculously easy. Going on their website I was able to arrange with a coordinator dates, times, and travel logistics. I wound up being assigned to Easton Pennsylvania, a medium-size town on the Jersey border. Riding shotgun with my dad, seeing suburbs turn to corn fields and SUVs morph into pickup trucks, I really did get a sense of adventure and challenge. I was a stranger here, with nothing but ideas and glossy brochures to sell a candidate. Needless to say, we worked on our pitches straight through the drive.
We arrived in the city at around 10:15, and drove down to the church basement that served as the campaigns outreach HQ (lack of space in the official HQ necessitated this move). I was expecting a well-run, crowded and good-natured operation, and I was not surprised. As soon as I was in I was registered, assigned a route and campaign literature, and met our partner John, and pharmacist from India who had been volunteering since Primary season. After some breakfast and a brief motivating spiel “don’t’ listen to polls. As far as I am concerned, we are down 5 points. Every vote counts!”, we headed out.
We got assigned about 80 doors to knock on, most of which were located in two retirement communities. About half of the apartments we visited were empty – no response to buzzers or knocks (and before you assume, yes we heard for footsteps. They didn’t avoid us because of our Obama buttons). Those that emerged, mostly women in their 70s and 80s, were greeted with the following introudtion: “Hello ____, my name is Danny, and I’m a volunteer for the Obama campaign. We were just checking up to see what your voting plans were!”
There were four basic responses to our inquiry. I am happy to say, most people smiled and said they were planing giving their vote to Obama. Even previously undecided folks had made up their minds by this time. One lady showed us into her room and revealed a trove of Obama-themed paraphernalia (magazine covers, buttons, posters) that she was hoping to save and give to her granddaughter. All of them stated why they were voting for the candidate in matter of fact, common-sense ways. He’s reliable. He’s going to help the economy. It was so heartening to see that Obama’s message has hit a nerve amongst Americans of every age, and not just a bunch of entitled twenty-something celebrities (and Barbra Streisand). Obama's message is one of substance as well as style. McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as running mate certainly didn't hurt Barack's chances out here (One lady, who hadn’t voted for anyone since Eisenhower, was motivated to vote just out of fear of a Palin presidency).
There were about five folks who remained undecideds. It seemed wrong to argue with them about the merits of either candidates, so we just gave them some campaign brochures and moved on. Only one lady outright said that she was voting for McCain, and before we had a chance to say anything she had shut the door in our face. Finally, a few people had assumed that it was too late for them to vote, since they hadn’t registered for this year. We had to explain that if they had already voted in a previous election they were already eligible to vote for this year, and that with absentee ballots they didn’t even need to leave the home. This was by far the most satisfying work we did, informing and helping worried voters that they were going to be able to vote for the campaign they supported.
Most of the drama that took place yesterday was from reactions of non-registered folks to our Obama regalia. Two old folks we passed by on the street, one of whom wearing a Sanitation Workers shirt, got in a heated argument with my dad over whether Obama was a socialist or not. Though McCain was a snake, the man insisted that Obama was going to destroy our economy. His friend stated that democrats were going to write in Hillary Clinton on their ballots as their choice, invalidating all the polls and deep-sixing Obama’s chances to win. When I stated that Obama was only 8 when Ayer’s attacks on the pentagon were begin planned (yes, this came up), he exclaimed “Obama wanted to blow up the pentagon when he was 8? He can’t run for president!” After about 10 minutes of slightly heated dialogue, we eventually moved on.
A few bystanders in the retirement home proudly stated that they were voting for McCain without instigation by us – one man in a wheelchair even tried to stop me from entering an apartment block, claiming I wasn’t allowed to solicit votes (after immediately responding that we weren’t soliciting, just checking up on likely voters, he sheepishly let me in).
Overall – we knocked on 67 doors, with 20 folks saying they supported obama (only 8 of which had said to previously), 4 people who were undecideds, and 1 lady who supported McCain. We left campaign literature at the rest of the doors. I can now rest a bit easier , knowing I did more than the bare minimum in helping out Obama. There’s still more to be down though – I am probably going to work phone-banks before the fourth. I encourage all of you to do what you can now, or forever hold your peace. Just voting in a "safe" state for Obama doesn't count. As special and wonderful as you are, he's going to win New York and New Jersey with or without your vote. Pennslyvania, however, is a close run thing, and our actions can make all the difference in the world. Don't sit this one out. Take a few hours, make some phonecalls, and change America for the better.

polls, today and yesterday

If you have any interest in today's world whatsoever, you will be aware of the constantly fluctuating set of polls presented to us concerning the presidential election. Every week we are given a new set of information showing how popular, or unpopular, our candidates are. We are so captivated by this data that we analyze it like the talmud, with each uptick or downtick containing enormous ramifications. Surely, some perspective is needed.

An invaluable, and suprisingly overlooked relief is offered by comparing this year's polling data with 2004's data. It seems so long ago, but even I am suprised by how the dynamic of today's race differs (in a good way) from that campaign. Here are too graphics, side by side, of the data on a national basis. Red's bush, Blue's kerry, Yellow is Nader.











Now, I couldn't find a linegraph for this year's polling. But here's the gist - Obama's been ahead since Jan, with his greatest lead around July. In September the gap narrowed considerably until Mccain overtook him on the second week for one brief shining moment. Today, as of September 25, Obama has regained the lead by about 3 points.

Compare this trajectory to four years ago. There Bush was ahead the vast majority of the time by a rather large percentage compared to today's candidates. The only time Kerry broke even was after his convention and during the debates. If the Kerry camp had Obama's numbers today, they would be quite happy.

How do you feel about this kind of comparision? Is it valuable, or does it deceive more than it reveals?