Hiatus

A New Yorker in Exile is on temporary hiatus - stay tuned!

Glory Glory Man. United!

I am sure I will feel ecstatic later, but right now, I am mostly just relieved that Manchester United won the Champions League today against Chelsea 1-1, 6-5 on penalties. Chelsea deserved to win after weathering United's offensive storm in the first half, playing better in the second, and having an opportunity to clinch the championship in the fifth round of penalties (John Terry, my sympathies are with you). But the same good fortune that helped United score two second half injury-time goals in the 1999 final to beat Bayern Munich showed its face again today in Moscow, and it was too much for Chelsea to overcome. Manchester United thereby complete the Premiership-European Cup double, edging Chelsea in both competitions. Well done, lads, well done.


__________________

PS I will be writing much more frequently now than I have been recently. Stay tuned!

Books Acquired Recently/update

Books Acquired Recently (in the order I got them)

Robert Herrick. The Works of Robert Herrick. amazon.com

National SCRABBLE Association Official Tournament and Club Word List. wordgear.com

Joe Edley and John Williams, Jr. Everything SCRABBLE. Borders

As the last two titles indicate, I've been spending lots of time playing Scrabulous on facebook. The semester ends next week, and then I will begin writing more frequently again.

Update/Books Acquired Recently

Well, it's been half a month since I last wrote. Part of this delay has been because I've been spending oodles of time on facebook, but mostly my lack of blogging activity is due to an increase in end-of-semester schoolwork. I will begin writing more frequently again once the school year ends after the first week of May.

In the interim, the most exciting thing that has happened is that I got an OED! I'm using it to write a paper on the high number (189) of first usages in Robert Herrick's poetry.

Books Acquired Recently

Frank O'Hara. Selected Poems. amazon.com

The Compact Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. amazon.com

An encouraging poetry reading/Books Acquired Recently

This past Friday (4 April 2008) I attended a poetry reading at Northern Illinois University featuring John Bradley, Lucien Stryk, and the current Illinois Poet Laureate, Kevin Stein. The reading was packed, probably close to two hundred people were there, enough that some people had to stand in the back the entire time.

I have heard Bradley read before, and I enjoy listening to him talk about his poems because they often include uncommon-yet-fascinating subject matter, e.g., he has a poem about footnotes.

I have heard a lot about Stryk and about how his poetry is life-changingly influential in many people's lives, but had never read any of his poetry or heard him read before. Sadly, he is old enough now that he could only get his words out at a very slow pace, which hurt the ability of his poems to make much of an impact on the audience if they were not already familiar with his work. I was at a reading three years ago in which W.S. Merwin had the same problem; it just comes with the territory of getting old. But if you are that old and people still want to hear you read your poetry, I guess that is not such a bad way to go.

Quite frankly, I had never heard of Stein before, and I almost laughed when I found out that he is Gwendolyn Brooks' successor. It seems that there would be another poet in Illinois who is more deserving of the honor (Li-Young Lee, anyone?). But once Stein got through his annoyingly self-serving spiel about all he does as poet laureate and began reading his poems, I was rather impressed, enough so that I bought a copy of his latest collection, American Ghost Roses. My favorite Stein poem was "An American Tale of Sex and Death," which includes a description of "Olivia Hussey's / olive chest splashed on screen, each breast maybe / four feet across and deeply cleaved" in Romeo and Juliet. In fifth grade my teacher had us watch Romeo and Juliet because it was the class play for that year (I was Lord Capulet), and I remember when Hussey's breasts flashed on the screen it was breathtaking.

Book Acquired Recently

Kevin Stein, American Ghost Roses.

Saturday Night Live last night

Last night's Saturday Night Live episode was sadly disappointing. Christopher Walken is usually a great host (probably the third-best SNL host ever behind Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin), but this time he seemed like he was trying too hard to be himself (killingly deadpan), so he ended up coming off as someone doing a bad Christopher Walken impression. Walken's acting was also terrible - he made no effort to hide that he was reading from a teleprompter the entire episode. And in his introduction to Panic at the Disco's second song, he almost forgot their name (which was actually pretty funny, though it wasn't supposed to be).

There were a few high points to the episode: the "Laser Cats" digital short, the opening Clintons sketch, and the Walken family reunion sketch. Otherwise, it was an unsatisfactory show, certainly not one worth looking forward to all week long as I did.

facebook, I give you the best minutes of my life

I haven't been blogging much lately, mostly because I am spending most of my leisure computer time on facebook. I wrote recently about how Scrabulous is a major obsession, but, since the Major League Baseball season started last week, updating my Mets cheers and brawling via facebook's fan application is also taking a lot of my time. I reached "Regular" status in less than a week, which I think is quite respectable, especially considering that the majority of Mets fans on facebook are still at the "Bat Boy" or "Rookie" level. The administrators of the application need to update the jerseys, though, since John Maine is the "Rookie" level jersey, and Carlos Delgado is the "Regular" level jersey. Aside from the fact that Maine is no longer a rookie, I'm sure many Mets fans would place Maine ahead of Delgado in terms of their importance for the Mets' success this season. Also, Pedro Martinez is the "Ace" level jersey, and, with no disrespect meant to Pedro, Johan Santana clearly belongs in that category now.

Mets back on track

The Mets' 13-0 win against the Marlins tonight was quite encouraging. The pitching was good, everyone was hitting, and the Mets finally hit a few homers. David Wright's homer was most significant because last season he went over a month before he hit his first one, but now he already has the first one out of the way. Now Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado need to hit their first, and we'll be set.

It is discouraging that Pedro Martinez will be out for 4-6 weeks, but one silver lining is that now Mike Pelfrey has a guaranteed spot in the rotation for now, so he doesn't have to put extra pressure on himself thinking that he'll only have one or two starts to prove himself. Now he can just go out there and focus on each game as it comes.

As I am writing (9.18 p.m. Central Time), Alex Rodriguez just struck out in a clutch situation for the Yankees. It's nice to know that some things never change.

Also, the Phillies lost again tonight.

Thoughts on Opening Day

I am quite pleased by the Mets' 7-2 win against the Marlins today. The Great Santana had one of the best Opening Day starts in Mets history (only Tom Seaver had more strikeouts on Opening Day - 9-8 - than Santana), the bullpen didn't allow any runs, David Wright had two hits and three RBI, Jose Reyes also had a good game, and no one got injured. The only disturbing aspects were that Wright and Reyes each got caught stealing, both rarities. But overall it was a great start to the season, especially since the Phillies also lost.

I was not pleased by MLB.tv's technical problems. Apparently the site crashed because so many people were trying to watch it this afternoon. You would think that they would have extra bandwidth available in anticipation of Opening Day, but no. So I had to follow the game on ESPN.com instead of watching it live. Arggh.

Addendum to the facebook update

I forgot to mention two things about Scrabulous in my last post:

1. I started out getting TERRIBLE tiles; in my first game I kept getting vowels, and in my second game consonants. I felt like the computer hated me. But now things are evening out a bit.

2. Every time I check my games and I don't have any moves to make, I start another game with someone. I'm currently playing eight games even though I've only been playing for three days. Most of my partners need to check their games more often, only a few are as dedicated as me (and weirdly, two of the most dedicated have names beginning with "K").

I am happy that Scrabulous uses the Tournament Word List (TWL) rather than just the Official SCRABBLE Players' Dictionary (OSPD). The TWL is better because it contains all of the legal words, including words that are deemed "objectionable," i.e., nearly every word related to sex, whereas the OSPD is a censored list because it tries to be "family-friendly." I am glad that the Scrabulous creators realize that to go along with the OSPD's censorship would be antithetical to the spirit of the game, which is to explore and enjoy the English language in all its beauty.

facebook update

I have become a facebook addict. I check it even more than I check my e-mail now - three or more times a day. Yesterday my friend Kara convinced me to add the Scrabulous application, so now there is even more reason for me to check my account because I have to make my SCRABBLE moves.

It's also been interesting to see who I've become friends with. Here is the breakdown so far:

4 childhood friends
4 high school friends
4 college friends/profs
4 graduate school friends
8 New York friends (from the two years I spent in Manhattan between college and grad school)
2 spouses of friends

I have at least semi-regular (once or more every fortnight) facebook interactions with about half of them.

Thoughts on Robert Herrick's poetry

I possess a general dislike for literature written before 1816 (Frankenstein), but I've been reading some of Robert Herrick's poetry (1591-1674), and it's pretty cool (yes, even the over-anthologized "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"). I am especially drawn to his treatment of the erotic in poems such as "Upon the Loss of His Mistresses," "Cherry-Ripe," "Corinna's Going A Maying," and the unforgettable "Fresh Cheese and Cream." (Would ye have fresh Cheese and Cream? / Julia's Breast can give you them: / And if more; each Nipple cries, / To your Cream, here's Strawberries.) These poems are humorous, almost light verse, yet they are also respectful and profound.

I am especially drawn to "Delight in Disorder," which describes the alluring nature of a woman undoing her clothing before sex. What intrigues me about this poem is that Herrick writes it as an employee of the Church of England, an institution which would certainly not delight in the disordering of things, especially when that disordering involved illicit sex. So Herrick places the erotic in conflict with the religious. The two combatants are closely tied together - the Church is obsessed with sex (what other natural activity has so many rules governing it?), and part of the allure of sex is that it is a traditionally taboo activity - but Herrick's poem forces the reader to choose a side. Do you prefer chaste order, or do you prefer the disorder of "An erring lace" and "tempestuous petticoats?" I know what my choice is.

On the watching of baseball

I've been slowly reading through Roger Angell's Season Ticket over the past few weeks. Today I came across an intriguing statement in it from Roy Eisenhardt, former president of the Oakland A's. He says, "The delivery systems of baseball are a great concern now [...] televised baseball is is almost an auto-immune disease [...] Baseball can't really be taken in on television, because of our ingrained habits of TV-watching [which teach us to expect instant gratification ...] Baseball is a terrific radio sport by contrast, because radio feeds our imagination" (92-93).

My baseball-watching experiences jive with this statement. Although I now do a large majority of my baseball-watching via television, I would never have developed a love for baseball without first seeing it live. I became a baseball fan when my dad took me to a Mets game in 1985 when I was five years old. The Mets destroyed the Braves that day something like 13-3 or 14-4, and the two most mythical Mets of the era, Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry (whose names along with those of Keith Hernandez and Gary Carter I knew even then, even though at that point in my life I knew basically nothing about the outside world), played important roles in the outcome - Strawberry hit a homerun and Doc got the win. I was hooked. It wasn't just the fact that the Mets had shown that they were an entity to be worshipped with awe and devotion which converted me, but also the communal aspect of watching the game with thousands of other excited fans. The woman sitting next to us kept yelling "Yay Darryl Strawberry!," and gave me some wafer cookies, my favorite at the time. Once I was initiated into the community, I was able to take my appreciation of baseball and apply it to my watching of it on television, but this appreciation probably never would have been developed if I had just experienced televised baseball.

Once I became a fan, I did grow to love watching the Mets on WWOR-TV Channel 9 with Ralph Kiner and Tim McCarver announcing. This was back when McCarver was still a serviceable analyst, in large part because he respected Kiner as former player and therefore didn't feel like the burden of offering inside scoops to the viewers about the game rested solely on his shoulders. Now, when he is teamed up with Joe Buck (who is the most insufferable play-by-play announcer of this era) on Fox's baseball telecasts, McCarver tries too hard, he sounds like he thinks he must be brilliant every time he opens his mouth, and as a result is just shrill and annoying.

I also loved listening to the Mets on the radio on WFAN 660 with Bob Murphy, and later Gary Cohen. Aside from the food and the people, the thing I miss most about New York City is WFAN. In junior high I would come home from school and spend the afternoon listening to "Mike and the Mad Dog," and during the winter I would listen to Rangers hockey games at night with Marv Albert or Howie Rose doing play-by-play alongside Sal "Red Light" Messina. During the 1993-94 season when the Rangers won the Stanley Cup, I listened to so many of their games that I learned the Canadian national anthem by heart, something I've still been unable to do with "The Star-Spangled Banner," which is the worst national anthem ever - "America the Beautiful" would be a much better choice.

Thoughts on Song of Solomon

I read Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon this past week for a class, and have come out of it feeling very depressed. The book is excellent in both its craft and its page-turning nature. What depressed me about it is that left me thinking there is no full solution to the problem of racial strife. The only character in the book that tries to fight against racism rather than trying to assimilate to the point of becoming white (Macon) or simply ignoring the issue (Pilate, Milkman) is Guitar, but he uses violent means to do so by attempting to avenge the killing of blacks with the killing of whites. This of course is not a helpful response to racism. But it raises the question, what is? In the fifty or so years since the modern Civil Rights movement began, legislation has improved the situation somewhat, but has still come nowhere near close to fixing the problem. Maybe it will take a full 300 years to completely heal the wounds of 300 years of slavery.

Books Acquired Recently

Books Acquired Recently (again!)

South Street. David Bradley. Used from amazon.com. I recently read Bradley's other novel, The Chaneysville Incident, and it was so good I felt the need to acquire South Street as well.

The Norton Reader. 12th ed. Ed. Linda H. Peterson and John C. Brereton. Free examination copy from the publisher. I might use this for the English 104: Rhetoric and Composition II class I am teaching this summer.

Books Acquired Recently

Books Acquired Recently

All of these were given to me for my birthday yesterday. All but the last two are fiction. I list them in no particular order.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Sherman Alexie.

The Time In Between. David Bergen.

Drown. Junot Diaz.

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton. Jane Smiley.

Dangerous Laughter: 13 Stories. Steven Millhauser.

The Literature of Modern Arabia: An Anthology. Ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi.

Uncontained: Urban Fiction in Postwar America. Elizabeth A. Wheeler.

Pandolfini's Chess Challenges: 111 Winning Endgames. Bruce Pandolfini.

Thinking about poetry

I haven't been reading much poetry lately, and I haven't written any in over two years, but lately it's been popping up here and there in my life, as though the universe is telling me to revisit it. For instance, last night I was at a party when someone asked me what I thought of Yusef Komunyakaa. I replied that I think his poetry is only so-so, and immediately a third person responded with a gasp of horror and a verbal rejoinder to my opinion. I haven't been involved in a stimulating poetry-related occurence like this in ages, and it felt really good.

I stopped interacting with poetry (and by poetry I mean written, not oral poetry) because I am frustrated with academic poetry (i.e., poetry stemming from MFA programs, and the university millieu in general, which with rare exceptions is the only kind of poetry being written in the U.S. today). Its level of discourse is so exclusive, the reader must be a part of the academic world (subculture may be a better word here, but I don't even want to give this world the validation that calling it a "subculture" would give it) from which it comes in order to access the poems, which is not how poetry (or literature in general) should be. It should be from the gut, a visceral experience for both writer and reader that only requires an open, critical mind for the possibility of a revelation or sublime episode to be there. Instead, academic poetry too often requires a knowledge of the various philosophies behind it to become profitable to the reader, e.g., L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, which is really literary theory written without paragraphs.

This inherent elitism saddens me because it automatically takes poetry outside of the realm of cultural relevance. That is why I prefer poets like Frank O'Hara, Tim Dlugos, Sherman Alexie, Julia Alvarez, and Amiri Baraka whose poems are rooted in everyday life, but also transcend it, whereas poets like those who publish in "important" magazines such as Poetry seem to be writing about life in some nonexistent head-world.

2008 Topps baseball cards

6.09 p.m.

On 2 March 2008 I wrote about how baseball cards have changed since I was a kid, and how it is now very hard to find stores that carry them. This afternoon I was at a Walgreens and there was a box of 2008 Topps wax packs by the register, and I was so happy to see them that I bought a couple (yes, I fell victim to impulse-buy product placement). I was very surprised at some of the changes that have been made, many of which contradict my aforementioned post on the subject. Here's the rundown:

- There are only seven cards per pack (seven!), instead of 15 when I was a kid. So two 2008 packs = less than one 1987 pack, but there's an extra stick of gum in the 2008 half of the equation, so I suppose that helps if you are a kid that is excited by the gum (which always used to be terrible).

- The cards seem slightly smaller than they used to be, but maybe this is just an optical illusion stemming from either a) I'm (obviously) bigger physically now than when I last collected seriously, or/and b) the smaller pack size makes the individual cards seem smaller as well.

- As mentioned above, there is now a piece of gum in each pack! This excites me even though the gum will still probably be horrible. I don't know if this practice is just returning this year, or if it came back a year or few ago, but I do know that for at least ten years there was no gum. My assumption is that the gum is new again this year because there is a bright pink circle on the bottom right of the front of each pack which proclaims that they "Contains Gum!"

- The wrapping is transparent, which aside from the number of cards per pack is the biggest shock to me. When I started collecting in 1987, Topps rack packs (rack-packs? rak-paks?) were still transparent, but by 1990 they were wrapped in opaque cellophane so that buyers couldn't sift through the packs to find the ones with better cards showing and buy those first. I have never seen wax packs with clear wrapping before. I took advantage of this new feature to sift through the packs at the top of the box, and picked out a pack with a Miguel Cabrera on top, (which will be valuable if he keeps his weight under control and keeps hitting the way he has the first few seasons of his career), and one with Shawn Green on top, because even though he's retired now it's still a Mets card.

- The packs were 99 cents each, which is less than Topps wax packs have been the past few years, but is still a lot, considering that you only get seven cards.

- The design is pretty cool - sort of retro '70s. Topps' designs were best in the mid-1960s through the early 1980s (1988-89 were decent as well), so I am glad they are going back to this era of design.

Okay, now I am going to open them. Full report in just a moment.

6.33 p.m.

Immediately there is a problem - unlike '80s wax packs, which opened quite easily, the 2008 wrapping cannot be opened by hand without bending the cards inside. So you better have some scissors handy, and hope you're steady-handed enough (good luck eight-year-olds!) to cut the wrapping without cutting the cards.

6.36 p.m.

The gum is twice as big now as it was in the '80s, and is in its own wrapper! This means that there won't be gum stains on the cards, and that the gum might actually be fresh. Awesome! Also, it means that if you buy more than one pack at once, you can chew once piece and save the rest for later.

The gum tastes pretty good, but is very tough even though it is elastic enough to no longer bursts into razor-sharp shards when you bite into it. I fear for my fillings' safety.

6.39 p.m.

Pack 1 includes:

Miguel Cabrera #10 (in his photo he is already Photoshopped into a Tigers uniform, it looks like the photo was taken at Shea Stadium. From what I hear, Johan Santana's card has him Photoshopped into a Mets uniform.)
Red Sox Postseason Highlights World Series Game 4 #234 (I always thought the concept of postseason cards was cool, and was sad that Topps no longer made them in the '80s, so I'm glad they're back)
Johnny Estrada #139
Jake Peavy (sweet!) #50
Jim Thome (also not bad) #240
Mark Loretta #292
Mark Reynolds (with Diamondbacks just spelled "D-Backs" - this abbreviation is bad because my mind goes immediately to "D-Bags," and I know I am not alone) #83

6.45 p.m.

The gum is already nearly tasteless and is still almost impossible to chew, so I'm spitting it out.

Pack two includes:

Shawn Green #107 (Let's Go Mets!)
Mickey Mantle #7 (with his complete career statistics on the back and no other explanation. Odd.)
Brandon Phillips #255
Carlos Zambrano #155 (also not bad)
Vladimir Guerrero #90 (very good)
Kameron Loe #313
Esteban German #189

This must be a small series since the highest card I got was #313 and I also got five All-Star-type players (a very high concentration) not counting the Mantle card. But there isn't any indication on the wrapper about what series number it is (i.e., I assume there will be another, higher-numbered series released at some point this year), or how many cards are in the series. That's rather annoying. Back in the '80s when the Topps sets always had 792 cards, "792" became a mythical number like "755." It makes me feel old that this has changed.

Books Acquired Recently

Today begins a new periodic feature in which I list for your viewing pleasure books that I have recently acquired. This is mostly so I can show off my love for book acquisition, but also because I don't feel like writing about anything else right now. Also, please note that this practice is shamelessly stolen from Nick Hornby's Believer column.

Books Acquired Recently (and where from)

Contemporary Fiction: 50 Short Stories Since 1970. Ed. Lex Williford and Michael Martone. Borders. (Quite good so far; I may actually assign it to one of my classes.)

The Naked and the Dead. Norman Mailer. Borders.

In Cold Blood. Truman Capote. Borders.

Incidentally, two topics I considered writing about were:

1. the writer Janet Kauffman (because she has a story in the above-mentioned anthology, "Patriotic"), who is one of my favorites, but more for her beautifully-crafted work than its thought-provoking-ness;

2. Christopher Hitchens' recent Slate column about why the British military should not have withdrawn Prince Harry from Afghanistan (http://www.slate.com/id/2186186?GT1=3800). Hitchens is either brilliant or a complete idiot, depending on what he's writing about. When he writes about politics, he's usually an idiot (e.g., he loves the Iraq war), but in this column he is spot on.

Kunzru's "Raj, Bohemian" and thoughts on lifestyle and the self

There is an excellent story in this week's New Yorker (10 March 2008), "Raj, Bohemian" by Hari Kunzru, about an urban hipster who realizes that his "taste had been central to my identity" (114). As a result, he has no self other than the objects he acquires and the carefully considered acts (where to eat, what parties to go to, how to dress, etc.) he executes, which unwittingly become performance art pieces rather than natural maneuvers. So he is only living synthetically. He laments that "what I thought had been an expression of my innermost humanity was nothing but a cloud of life-style signals, available to anyone at the click of a mouse" (114).

This conclusion struck me because 1. the speaker realizes that he has no humanity left, he is just a pawn (chess metaphor!) in the capitalist system, but more importantly 2. it made me question the role of "the click[s] of a mouse" in my life and whether they fulfill some sort of genuine self-defining role (which I view positively; this positive view of one's essential self as somehow pure and good and something to be preserved and fostered may be problematic, but for my purposes here I will accept this view as a given), or whether they are merely "life-style signals" (which is a negative in this model). Let's examine three internet activities I frequently engage in to try and answer this question.

1. amazon.com - My frequent amazoning is an essential part of my book-buying addiction. So the question is, is this addiction an integral part of myself, or is it just a "life-style signal"? While the search for knowledge, which I still prefer to gain from books rather than via electronic means, is certainly an essential part of who I am, I love emitting the persona of a well-read intellectual. I would like to think that I can actually claim this description of myself, but I have to admit that aside from engaging in activities (e.g., getting my doctorate) that help me fit in to this description, I like to also have my chock-full, sagging, meticulously organized bookshelves visible to everyone to help enforce this claim. Books are valuable to me as decor, not just as sources of knowledge. This is why I never use libraries except for professional research, preferring to buy my books rather than rent them. So I have to say that my online book-buying is more of a "life-style signal" than a necessary expression of myself.

2. blogging - I think my reasons for blogging are fairly honorable - I do it to improve my writing, I'm not worried about whether or not I have a big (or any) audience (note my willingness to write often about sports, which nearly all of my friends disdain), and I do it to become a better writing teacher, since to be a good teacher you must also be a frequent practitioner in your field. So even though it may be fashionable to have a web presence, it is fair to say that I don't blog just to be hip or current.

3. facebook - While my initial ardor for facebook has cooled a bit in the past few days - I no longer feel a compulsion to check it every five minutes - I am still very much enthralled with it. I have to say that it was peer pressure which finally caused me to set up an account, not my own volition. So even though I genuinely enjoy facebook now, I can't escape that being a member is solidly in the "life-style signal" category.

Ergo, the majority of my internet activity is not motivated by an interest in self-definition and -improvement, but by attempts to appear cool. I will not deal with the question of what should be done about this state of affairs here, but it is interesting to note that the protagonist of Kunzru's story goes back to a "life-style signal" driven existence at the story's end because he cannot figure out how to escape this paradigm.

Facebook and the question of religion

I've been thinking over the past few days about what I should put in the "religion" field of my facebook profile, if anything. When I signed up, my initial impulse was to put "fuck religion," but I decided against that since I still have a few friends who are religious. Then I thought about "organized religion=terrorist philosophy," which I am currently leaning towards, but which again may offend some friends who I would like to keep. So I am not sure. I suppose that just leaving it blank would suffice, but there's a part of me that dislikes this option because it isn't interesting enough. So any suggestions would be appreciated.

The Times Square bombing

I was shocked when I heard on NPR this morning that the military recruiting station in Times Square was bombed last night, I thought I must have heard wrong or was still dreaming. I'm still flabbergasted - I can't believe someone rose above the apathy and decided to make that kind of '60s-esque political statement. I do not condone the violence of it, but at the same time it makes me wonder if real change could be on the horizon, if Americans will start caring enough again that this country has gotten ridiculously far away from its idealistic roots to begin to take (preferably nonviolent) action. Maybe if Obama is elected we will begin to head in the right direction.

Free books

Today and tomorrow is the Northern Illinois University English Department's book fair, which means that instructors such as myself get to persuade publisher reps to give us free books that we will supposedly consider using in the courses we teach. Of course at least two-thirds of the books we (instructors) request copies of are really for our personal use, we have no intention of considering them for course usage. But this common-knowledge fact is part of the dance - they throw books at us, and if we think they are quick enough to do so we seriously consider using one of their books (of the half-dozen or so they've given us).

Most of the publisher reps know their role in the dance and play it well, but the guy from W.W. Norton is a notorious miser. This is especially vexing because Norton has the best books - I would actually consider teaching with some of them, but he often won't give out examination copies even if they are legitimate requests. One must be at one's persuasive best to score off of him.

But aside from the evil Norton guy, the book fair is wonderful. It is always in early March, so it feels like a harbinger of spring.

More thoughts on facebook

I am completely in love with facebook so far. I am now at the point where I feel angry at my friends who aren't on it. Come on people, get with the program! This may not be an especially helpful attitude. We'll see whether this enamored state will last, or whether I am simply in a honeymoon phase. Stay tuned ...

Creating a digital self

Well, I finally broke down and joined facebook last night. I feel very ambivalent about this - on the one hand, I want to cling to my love of all things analog (especially books, which it is obvious that no one under the age of 25 reads anymore if my students are any indication, they wouldn't recognize a book if I smacked them in the head with it), but on the other hand, I realize I should probably get further education in the digital realm if I want to be marketable - C.R.E.A.M. So I went ahead and joined. (This blog is also a part of this new digitizing campaign.)

So far it is really cool to see the kind of connections I've been able to make - I could very easily get addicted, it has been a huge time-suck already. But I'm also feeling cyber-shy now, like these connections are too much intimacy with too many people all at once, even though because it's electronic intimacy it's not really intimacy at all. Lo, I am like a sheep without a shepherd in the world of facebook. Whither shall I go?

Mets by the Numbers and baseball cards

I began reading Jon Springer and Matthew Silverman's Mets by the Numbers yesterday, which is a print version of the excellent website http://www.mbtn.net. The book is also quite good. My favorite feature of it so far, however (I've read through #17), is not the writing, but the reproductions of Topps baseball cards from throughout Mets history. All of the cards have photos with visible uniform numbers. Tom Seaver, David Wright, Keith Hernandez, and Darryl Strawberry have cards on the cover, but lesser lights are also represented, e.g., Bobby Valentine (as a player, p. 3), Tim Teufel (p. 56), Felix Millan (my favorite '70s Met aside from Seaver and Lee Mazzilli, p. 89), Kevin McReynolds (p. 115), Hank Webb (p. 150), and so on. My only complaint about this feature is that the 1990 set - by far the ugliest Topps set ever - is represented seven times: Gary Carter (p. 39), Todd Hundley (p. 46), Bob Ojeda (p. 99), Howard Johnson (p. 104), Kevin Elster (p. 110), Frank Viola (p. 139), and Jeff Innis (p. 200). All of these players were with the Mets for multiple seasons, you would think that their uniform numbers would be visible on at least one of each of their cards from other years. But maybe not. Anyway, thank God the card reproductions are in black-and-white, because if they were in color the hellacious color combos of the 1990 set would give some readers seizures.

The book's card reproductions make me nostalgic for my childhood, when I spent virtually all of my allowance during the summer on baseball cards, much to the chagrin of my parents, who thought I should save money instead. I began collecting in 1987 because I wanted cards of the Mets' 1986 championship team. Back then a wax pack of 15 Topps cards and a stick of gum cost 45 cents (I never liked Fleer or Donruss; in 1991 I bought Score instead of Topps, probably because my eyes were still traumatized from the aforementioned 1990 Topps set). One time (1989) I bought an entire box of wax packs, and it only cost $14. Now, you're lucky to find a pack on sale for less than $2, and you get fewer cards (12? I'm not even sure anymore) and no gum. Also, you used to be able to buy baseball cards everywhere, and now they are very hard to find. Not even Wal-Mart sells them. This saddens me - baseball cards were my introduction to baseball literature, they were how I grew to love the game itself (not just the Mets), but now a generation of children are growing up without this resource.

Intellectuals' attitudes toward sports

Following up on a point from the Bacon essay I just posted, yesterday (28 February 2008) on his excellent Uni Watch blog (http://www.uniwatchblog.com) Paul Lukas wrote a bit about how his artsy intellectual friends don't understand his obsession with sports. I also share this problem. All of of my intellectual/artist friends, including my wife, who is a sculptor, think following sports is a waste of time, and don't understand why I am so passionate about them, especially baseball, which they view as the most boring sport ever (a puzzling viewpoint, since baseball is widely regarded as the most "intellectual" of the four major North American sports [yes, I still count hockey as a major sport]).

I think this anti-sports attitude (which is not simply a lack of interest, but an active dislike of sports) among intellectuals is simply a form of snobbery. Because the less-educated often like sports, sports are viewed as being somehow "beneath" those of us with advanced degrees. This view may stem from a patriarchal privileging of activities of the mind over activities of the body (though sports are, of course, activities of both).

Francis Bacon and blogging

Here's an essay I just finished for my Seventeenth Century Prose and Poetry class on Francis Bacon's Essays. During my last two years of college, I attempted to relevantly cite H.S. Bender's The Anabaptist Vision in every paper I wrote as a joke. This practice makes a rare cameo here.

On Bacon’s Blogging

The 1625 edition of Francis Bacon’s Essays reminds me of blog entries. Of course the biggest difference between the Essays and blog entries is that Bacon’s pieces were revised and expanded over a period of twenty-eight years, whereas blog entries are often not revisited by their authors once they are posted. But if we set aside this dissimilarity, reading the Essays is like entering the early seventeenth century blogosphere.

The first characteristic of the Essays which reminds me of a blog is their seemingly random order. When writing a personal blog (as opposed to a thematic blog that just treats one topic), it is common for the author to discuss a variety of subjects, to write about whatever happens to be on her or his mind that day. Sometimes succeeding entries will treat related matters, and other times two consecutive posts will be on completely different issues. I see this same pattern in the Essays. For example, essays seven and eight, “Of Parents and Children,” and “Of Marriage and Single Life,” respectively, each deal with topics in the domestic sphere, so it makes sense that one follows the other. One day, Bacon was thinking about parenthood and wrote number seven, and soon afterward, he thought to himself, “Well, but before you can talk about parenthood, don’t you have to first think about whether or not to have a partner with whom you can have the children?,” or something along those lines, so he sat down and wrote about it. But on the other hand, essays such as number ten, “Of Love,” and number fifty-seven, “Of Anger,” which are related in that they treat opposites, are forty-seven entries apart. And further, the essays that follow these two, “Of Great Place,” and “Of Vicissitude of Things,” respectively, seem unrelated to their predecessors. So Bacon lets his thoughts give his pen direction like today’s bloggers do rather than receiving direction from a formal structure – the Essays are an episodic narrative, not a five-paragraph essay.

On a related note, it is common for blog readers to only read the entries on topics that interest them. An example of this is found in the case of my blog. I love sports, and often blog about them, but many of my friends who read my blog are not interested in sports at all, and constantly complain to me that I should write about topics that interest them all the time instead of just here and there. Likewise, I find some of Bacon’s essays to be quite fascinating or memorable – I will remember the phrase “But enough of these toys” (176) from essay thirty-seven for as long as I live – and find others to be utterly unremarkable.

The second characteristic of the Essays which reminds me of a blog is that Bacon is writing to an audience of acquaintances and friends. When someone begins a blog, he or she will send text-messages or e-mails to friends saying something like “Hey! Check out my new blog! Here’s the link, put it on your MySpace page.” Similarly, just like authors today when they publish a book, Bacon must not have been shy about letting his friends at Court know that a new edition of the Essays was coming out, and telling them to pass the news around. Although the Essays do not appear to discuss Bacon’s personal life, Bacon’s first readers would have read the Essays while thinking about what events in Bacon’s life might have inspired or influenced them. Therefore the Essays contain both a public and a personal element, just like personal blogs are very public in that they can be accessed by anyone on the internet, but have special meaning for those who know the author.

I am going to take time now to respond to three of Bacon’s essays that especially caught my eye, just as though I were a blog reader posting comments about an entry.

Essay three, “Of Unity in Religion,” struck me when I first read it because towards the end Bacon asserts that it is dangerous for commoners to wield the sword for religious causes, and says that this “monstrous” practice should “be left unto the Anabaptists” (70). In his gloss of this passage, John Pitcher claims that the Anabaptists were “Protestant sectarians [...] whose history had been violent” (70 n. 32). As someone who was raised in one of the three main Anabaptist-descended groups who are still in existence as a Mennonite (the other two being Amish and Hutterites), I am saddened by Bacon’s misconception of the Anabaptist movement (not to mention Pitcher’s misleading note – historians have accepted that the sixteenth-century Anabaptists were overwhelmingly nonviolent since at least 1944 when Harold S. Bender published The Anabaptist Vision; Pitcher could fix his problematic phrase by writing something like “whose history included some violent episodes” instead).

The large majority of Anabaptists during the sixteenth century were non-violent, and by the time of Bacon’s writing all of the surviving Anabaptists groups were peaceful. But Bacon is only thinking of the Münsterite strain of Anabaptism when he worries about commoners participating in religious violence. Historian Cornelius J. Dyck writes that the Münsterites were led by the Anabaptist prophets Jan Matthijs and Jan van Leiden, who claimed in 1534 that Jesus was going to return very soon to set up the new Jerusalem in the German city of Münster. The Jans said it was necessary for their followers to violently seize the city in order to prepare it for Jesus’s return. The authorities recaptured the city in 1535 and executed the remaining Anabaptists there (99-101). While it is understandable that the Münsterite episode would have been troubling to Bacon as someone who was very interested in keeping the commoners docile to preserve his titled position, I wish that he would have used a more precise word choice, substituting “Münsterites” for Anabaptists. Being too lazy to properly research your subject is never an acceptable excuse for inaccurate writing, even in 1625.

Essay twelve, “Of Boldness,” is interesting to me as an avid chess player because Bacon uses a chess metaphor to explain himself. In describing how the bold react when they are “out of countenance,” Bacon writes that “they stand at a stay, like a stale at chess, where it is no mate but yet the game cannot stir” (95). Stalemate occurs when it is a player’s turn and he or she cannot make any legal moves. According to modern rules, a game is drawn if stalemate occurs. However, according to David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, the rule in England until 1807 was that the player who stalemated her or his opponent lost the game, because giving stalemate was viewed as a “dishonourable,” unsporting act (388). So Bacon’s use of stalemate as a metaphor includes the notion of there being a winner and a loser.

To give stalemate today is a terrible blunder because the player who gives it is usually winning, but makes a mistake and allows his or her opponent to escape with a draw instead of a loss. Chess books constantly warn their readers to make sure they do not stalemate their opponents in won positions. For instance, Jeremy Silman’s Complete Endgame Course alerts readers about stalemate dangers at least six times (6, 115, 117, 166, 180, 191). With these warnings in mind, think of how much more of a blunder it was to give stalemate in Bacon’s day, when the giver of stalemate lost the game instead of settling for a frustrating draw. This knowledge gives Bacon’s twenty-first century reader further insight into how forceful Bacon’s condemnation of the bold is. Just prior to the stalemate passage, Bacon opines that the bold “are a sport to behold,” and contain elements “of the ridiculous” when their bold boasts have “failed most shamefully” (95). Although Bacon uses the stalemate metaphor to describe the faces of the bold when they fail, the reader can infer that Bacon chooses this metaphor rather than something like “their faces are like statues showing no expression” to reinforce his position that the bold are foolish. They are like those who give stalemate, blunderers who turn their presumed victory into defeat.

Essay thirty-seven, “Of Masques and Triumphs,” also fascinates me, mostly because of Bacon’s downplaying of the importance of his topic at either end of the essay. He starts out by apologizing that “These things are but toys” (175), and finishes sneeringly with the abrupt “But enough of these toys” (176). It is commonly taught that the worse action to take when beginning a speech is to apologize to the audience about something. Likewise, when I teach writing, I always tell my students that it is necessary to use assertive language throughout their papers to make a convincing argument. With this advice in mind, it appears on the surface that essay thirty-seven is badly written because Bacon apologizes to the reader for the argument he is about to make, and then ends the essay in a way that makes the reader feel that Bacon thinks he wasted his time by writing it, and therefore the reader wasted her or his time by reading it.
But Bacon’s dismissive declamations of his topic actually have the opposite rhetorical effect. His dismissal of the essay’s topics is so forceful that the reader cannot forget it, and therefore the essay sticks in the reader’s mind even though it is about seemingly trivial subjects. The reader cannot get “Of Masques and Triumphs” out of their head, and thus cannot help but considering Bacon’s ideas expressed therein. I remember virtually nothing about some of the essays with more serious topics such as number two, “Of Death,” or number thirty-six, “Of Ambition,” but “Of Masques and Triumphs” keeps coming into my mind.

Works Cited

Bacon, Francis. The Essays. 1625. Ed. John Pitcher. London: Penguin, 1985.

Bender, Harold S. The Anabaptist Vision. Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1944.

Dyck, Cornelius J. An Introduction to Mennonite History: A Popular History of the Anabaptists and the Mennonites. 3rd ed. Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1993.

Hooper, David, and Kenneth Whyld. The Oxford Companion to Chess. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1992.

Silman, Jeremy. Silman’s Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master. Los Angeles: Siles, 2007.

Detritus in old books

This afternoon a used copy of Roger Angell's Season Ticket (1988) that I ordered came in the mail. In it was an old bookmark from "Books Inc. Since 1851" located in the Stanford Shopping Center, no city or state listed. Also, there was a postcard with a picture of a ballgame at Fenway Park and the words "Red Sox" at the bottom left along with their sock logo. The message field of the card is blank, but it is addressed to a Brian Harwell in Bogota, Colombia. No return address.

I always used to throw away whatever leavings were in old books that I acquired, but lately have been keeping them. I find them to be interesting pieces of the books' histories. A few months ago I found an Eastern Airlines ticket stub from 1983 or '84 in a chess book I purchased, and about a year ago there was a Book-of-the-Month-Club invoice in a Doris Lessing novel. I've also found old, sometimes almost disintegrated, store receipts in a number of used books (the only one I remember specifically from recent times was in Ludek Pachmann's autobiography; it was bought at Brentano's, I forget which branch). It's always interesting to see where the original owner purchased a book, and for how much.

Can't wait for baseball

I am so excited for baseball season! Over the past few days I've been getting so excited thinking about the Mets that I've felt light-headed. This afternoon I purchased tickets for their game on May 27 against Florida. I'll be visiting New York for a few days, so it will be my last visit to Shea Stadium. Depending on whether there are any rainouts before that game, Johan Santana or (more likely) Pedro Martinez should start for the Mets, either of which would be awesome to see.

When I lived in the city as a kid my dad would take me to 3-5 games a season, and sometimes my entire family would go. My first game was as a five-year-old in 1985 against the Braves. Dwight Gooden pitched and the Mets won something like 14-4, and I was hooked. My second game was Hat Day in 1986, the Mets lost 2-1 to the Astros, but that was okay because they got revenge in the NLCS. I think Mike Scott pitched the game I was at, but I'm not sure.

Nader again

I just read that Ralph Nader is again running for president. This makes me sad. Nader is needlessly tarnishing his important legacy as a consumer advocate. He has no chance of playing a significant role in the race, and as a result is simply reinforcing his current image as a grumpy old man.

Strawberry vs. Piazza

I mentioned in a post yesterday that I thought Mike Piazza was the best Met ever offensively. In thinking about this statement, I realized that one could also make a strong claim for Darryl Strawberry to receive this honor. So let's compare the two and see what we come up with.

Strawberry played for the Mets from 1983-1990. In 1109 games he had 3903 at-bats, from which he produced 252 homers, 733 RBIs (both the most in Mets history), 1025 hits, and a .263 batting average.

Piazza played for the Mets from 1998-2005. In 972 games he had 3478 at-bats, from which he produced 220 homers, 655 RBIs (both second-most in Mets history), 1028 hits, and a .296 batting average.

Looking at these numbers, the two played for the team for approximately the same length of time, though Piazza played in fewer games because he was injured for much of his last three years as a Met (he never played more than 129 games in those seasons). Piazza's only deficits when compared to Strawberry are 32 homers and 78 RBIs. So if Piazza had been healthy those last three years, he would have come very close to Strawberry's numbers if he didn't pass them.

Therefore, because the numbers are so close, it is also necessary to think about the size of the role each player played in their teams' offense. In this category, Piazza clearly has the advantage. While Strawberry played in line-ups including Keith Hernandez, Gary Carter, and Howard Johnson (whose 192 homers are third in Mets history), Piazza had very little offensive help during his Mets tenure - John Olerud and Robin Ventura were it. So while opposing pitchers couldn't pitch around Strawberry much because of the other guys in the line-up, in many cases they could pitch around Piazza. This factor causes me to give my vote for the best Met ever offensively to Piazza. Of course, if defense were brought into the equation, Strawberry would have a large advantage there, but since we're just talking about offense, Piazza gets the nod.

Saturday Night Live's return

Saturday Night Live's first new episode after the writer's strike last night was decent, a low B. The opening sketch about journalists fawning over Obama was hilarious, though Fred Armisen's Obama impersonation needs some serious work - he seemed to have so much trouble merely speaking in a deeper voice that he had no energy left to make this deeper voice sound like Obama's. The opening monologue with a cameo by Steve Martin was also good, though I am biased here because I am a total sucker for Steve Martin cameos. Once he comes on camera my ability to think critically vanishes quicker than Hillary Clinton's chances for the Democratic nomination. (thank you! I'll be here all week.)

Speaking of Hillary, "Weekend Update" was mind-blowing, and not in a good way. Tina Fey's pro-Hillary rant was funny, but politically irresponsible. I understand that it would be great to have a female president, and I felt guilty voting against Hillary in the Illinois primary for this reason, but Obama has a much better chance of beating McCain in the general election, and it is absolutely necessary for the US's welfare that a Republican not be elected. Not to mention that Obama is the most exciting US politician since Bobby Kennedy. (Stepping off of my soapbox)

Mike Huckabee's cameo, though again somewhat funny, was extremely confusing to me - politicians go on SNL to try to convince people that they are cool (e.g., Obama's appearance this past fall, or Al Gore's appearances in the past few years), and the time for this convincing re: Huckabee has long since passed. Also, I'm sure the number of people who watch SNL and would be interested in voting for Huckabee is around three. Was he intending it as a sort of concession speech? I don't know. Anyway, the baffling nature of his appearance overwhelmed whatever humor it contained.

The rest of the show was so-so, the only skit that really stood out to me was Jason Sudeikis's drunken best man speech. Simple and well done. Samberg and Hader's digital short was a respectable try, but not as good as the shorts usually are.

The Mets should retire more numbers

The Mets currently have three of their own numbers retired: 37 (Casey Stengel), 14 (Gil Hodges), and 41 (Tom Seaver), plus 42 for Jackie Robinson. This to me is ridiculous - only one player in 46 years has been good enough to have his number retired? Really? I hope the team decides to retire a few more once Citi Field opens in 2009. I think Keith Hernandez (17), Mike Piazza (31), and John Franco (45) all would be appropriate.
Hernandez was the core of the great Mets teams in the mid-late 1980s, especially the 1986 championship team, was team captain for a while, and is one of the greatest defensive first basemen ever. Piazza is probably the greatest Met ever offensively, was the star of the 2000 pennant-winning team, and is a lock for the Hall of Fame (he will probably be the second HOFer [after Seaver] to be wearing a Mets cap on his plaque). Franco was also team captain for many years (I think he and Hernandez are the only two in team history, but I may be wrong on that), and is the best Mets reliever ever, and one of the best southpaw closers ever as well.
Gary Carter (8) wouldn't be a bad choice either - he loved being a Met, played a crucial role in the 1986 season (e.g., his two-out single started the improbable game-winning rally in game 6 of the World Series), and wanted to be inducted into the Hall of Fame as a Met (the HOF insisted on inducting him as an Expo). However, the fact that he only played five seasons for the Mets (1985-89) hurts his cause.
The overall point is that, despite many terrible seasons, the Mets have a lot about their history to be proud of, not least their two World Series championships, which are more than many teams have (Nationals, Astros, Brewers, Rockies, D-Backs, Rays, Royals, Rangers, Angels, Mariners, to name a few) including the evil Phillies, who have only won one in over 100 years. Part of showing this pride should be retiring some more players' numbers.