American Studies 100: Cover Image Version 2.0

Since today is the last day of my second run-through of my class American Studies 100: A History of American Culture in 21 Examples, I thought I'd post the (slightly) revised cover image.  The syllabus (pdf) is pretty much what it was when I taught it in the fall -- the order switched a little bit (often for practical rather than pedagogical considerations), tweaked a few of the readings, but mostly it was the same.  (I didn't change any of my examples.)  But here's the cover image (without accompanying text):

And, just to correlate with the picture, here are the 21 examples which I used to outline the history of American culture:

1. Minstrel Shows
2. Central Park
3. A Sears & Roebuck Catalog, 1898
4. Hull House
5. Coney Island
6. The Five Foot Shelf (a.k.a. The Harvard Classics)
7. D. W. Griffith, The Birth of a Nation (1915)
8. Billy Sunday Sermons
9. Louis vs. Schmeling (New York City, June 22, 1938)
10. The Lone Ranger (radio and TV show)
11. Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit" (words & music by Abel Meeropol)
12. Jackson Pollock, Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) 
13. Drive-in Movie Theaters
14. Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, 1965
15. Charles Schultz, Peanuts
16. The Moon Landing, 1969
17. Roman Polanski, Chinatown (1974)
18. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (Maya Lin, 1982)
19. Fast Food 
20. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Joss Whedon, 1997 - 2003)
21. Steroids in Baseball

For more details on the ideas & reasoning behind the class, see this post, or the whole syllabus (pdf).

It was a fun class to teach.  Next year I'm teaching in the history department, rather than American studies, again; but I'd like to teach it again sometime, if I ever get the chance.

Poem of the Day: Merwin's For the Anniversary of My Death

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

-- W. S. Merwin

Poem of the Day: Hopkins's Carrion Comfort

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist -- slack they may be -- these last strands of man
In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruised bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, cheer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O which one? is it each one? That night, that year
Of now done darkness I wretch lay wrestling with (my God!) my God.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins

Poem of the Day: Yeats's The Second Coming

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- W. B. Yeats

Quote of the Day

Of course it should not be too surprising to find out that your life story has included an event, something important, that you have known nothing about -- your life story is in and of itself something that you know very little about.

-- Philip Roth, I Married a Communist, p. 15

I'm rereading this to teach next week.  Quite, quite fabulous.  (Then again, I assigned it: of course I'd think that...)

Poem of the Day: Ryan's A Certain Kind of Eden

A Certain Kind of Eden

It seems like you could, but
you can’t go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It’s all too deep for that.
You’ve overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you’re given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.
You even thought you abandoned
one or two gardens. But those things
keep growing where we put them—
if we put them at all.
A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.
Even the one vine that tendrils out alone
in time turns on its own impulse,
twisting back down its upward course
a strong and then a stronger rope,
the greenest saddest strongest
kind of hope.

-- Kay Ryan

I went on a binge of posting Kay Ryan poems a bit over a year ago; you can read them all here if you'd like to read more of this fabulous poet. And, although it's not accurate -- the week being long over -- I've tagged this post too with the Kay Ryan Week tag, to group it with the others.

David Graeber Link Round-Up

David Graeber has a new book out, and as a consequence, we get some interesting articles and interviews both by and about him.

• Interview with David Graeber about democracy in America
• Essay by Graeber about democracy in America (hey, I sense a theme...)
• Review of Graeber's new book about... wait for it... democracy in America
• Review of Graber's excellent book about... debt.  Wait, huh?  That was his last book.  How'd that get in here?  Never mind, it's a very worthwhile essay (and book, for that matter)

I'll probably add more links if and when I see 'em.

Poem of the Day: Frost's Acquainted with the Night

Acquainted With the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain --and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

-- Robert Frost

Quote of the Day: A Real-Life Lord of the Flies

For there actually has been a real-life Lord of the Flies incident, and the result was the opposite of what is portrayed in the novel. One day, in 1977, six boys set out from Tonga on a fishing trip. They left safe harbor, and fate befell them. Badly. Caught in a huge storm, the boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island. What do they do, this little tribe?

They made a pact never to quarrel, because they could see that arguing could lead to mutually assured destruction. They promised each other that wherever they went on the island, they would go in twos, in case they got lost or had an accident. They agreed to have a rotation of being on guard, night and day, to watch out for anything that might harm them or anything that might help. And they kept their promises—for a day that became a week, a month, a year. After fifteen months, two boys, on watch as they had agreed, saw a speck of a boat on the horizon. The boys were found and rescued, all of them, grace intact and promises held.

-- Jay Griffiths

Sadly, he doesn't cite a source.  Wish I knew where he got the information.

Poem of the Day: cummings's i thank You God for this most amazing

i thank You God for this most amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-- e e cummings

Stray Thought

In some (presumably hypothetical but perfectly realizable) language, the sentence You have to be a good speller to write a palindrome is, itself, a perfect palindrome.  It's funny.

But in a different (presumably hypothetical but perfectly realizable) language, it's one letter off from a perfect palindrome -- and is much, much funnier.

Poem of the Day: Hughes's Let America Be America Again

Let America Be America Again

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plain

Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--

Let it be that great strong land of love

Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme

That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty

Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,

But opportunity is real, and life is free,

Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,

Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?

And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.

I am the red man driven from the land,

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--

And finding only the same old stupid plan

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,

Tangled in that ancient endless chain

Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!

Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!

Of work the men! Of take the pay!

Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.

I am the worker sold to the machine.

I am the Negro, servant to you all.

I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--

Hungry yet today despite the dream.

Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!

I am the man who never got ahead,

The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream

In the Old World while still a serf of kings,

Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,

That even yet its mighty daring sings

In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned

That's made America the land it has become.

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas

In search of what I meant to be my home--

For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,

And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,

And torn from Black Africa's strand I came

To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free?  Not me?

Surely not me?  The millions on relief today?

The millions shot down when we strike?

The millions who have nothing for our pay?

For all the dreams we've dreamed

And all the songs we've sung

And all the hopes we've held

And all the flags we've hung,

The millions who have nothing for our pay--

Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,

America!

O, yes,

I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,

The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,

We, the people, must redeem

The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.

The mountains and the endless plain--

All, all the stretch of these great green states--

And make America again!

-- Langston Hughes

Stray Thought

Jorge Luis Borges's Library of Babel would contain a Vast number of volumes of ASCII art.

Poem of the Day: Auden's As I Walked Out One Evening

I just noticed I haven't posted any poetry since January.  This will not do.  So I'll post a poem every day this week -- to make up for lost time, as it were.  Plus get up on this blog some favorites I've never put up here.

So without further ado...

As I Walked Out One Evening

As I walked out one evening,

  Walking down Bristol Street,

The crowds upon the pavement

  Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river

  I heard a lover sing

Under an arch of the railway:

  “Love has no ending.

“I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you

  Till China and Africa meet,

And the river jumps over the mountain

  And the salmon sing in the street,

“I’ll love you till the ocean

  Is folded and hung up to dry

And the seven stars go squawking

  Like geese about the sky.

“The years shall run like rabbits,

  For in my arms I hold

The Flower of the Ages,

  And the first love of the world.”

But all the clocks in the city

  Began to whirr and chime:

“O let not Time deceive you,

  You cannot conquer Time.

“In the burrows of the Nightmare

  Where Justice naked is,

Time watches from the shadow

  And coughs when you would kiss.

“In headaches and in worry

  Vaguely life leaks away,

And Time will have his fancy

  To-morrow or to-day.

“Into many a green valley

  Drifts the appalling snow;

Time breaks the threaded dances

  And the diver’s brilliant bow.

“O plunge your hands in water,

  Plunge them in up to the wrist;

Stare, stare in the basin

  And wonder what you’ve missed.

“The glacier knocks in the cupboard,

  The desert sighs in the bed,

And the crack in the tea-cup opens

  A lane to the land of the dead.

“Where the beggars raffle the banknotes

  And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,

And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer,

  And Jill goes down on her back.

“O look, look in the mirror?

  O look in your distress:

Life remains a blessing

  Although you cannot bless.

“O stand, stand at the window

  As the tears scald and start;

You shall love your crooked neighbour

  With your crooked heart.”

It was late, late in the evening,

  The lovers they were gone;

The clocks had ceased their chiming,

  And the deep river ran on.

-- W. H. Auden

Facelift

So if you're reading this on a computer, not an iThingie or rss-gorge or what have you, you'll notice that the place just got a new look.  I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with it, but I like the idea behind it, if you know what I mean.  The rendering remains a work in progress.

(One thing it now does -- in one of the silliest wastes of time in the History of Man -- is match the main page of my twitter feed.  (Branding!) But the twitter machine lets you have a separate picture for the header; blogger only allows a color.  I like the twitter look better.  Any advice on how to more closely replicate it here would be accepted gratefully.)

The other change I made was to delete my blogroll.  No offense to any of the fine blogs on it.  But the damn things was years out of date, with a great many blogs now moved, retired, renamed or dead,* many new blogs unlisted, etc, and I didn't have the time or energy to update it, so amputation seemed the doctor-recommended option.  If I get time I'll do a new one... except that the entire things speaks to a particular time, when the World & Blogosphere was Young, that has passed.  I liked those halcyon days of yore, and the virtual coffeehouse within them -- they were what made me start blogging -- but liking won't bring them back, and maybe it's no use pretending that they're still around. (cf this)  So since I was getting a new look anyway, I decided to do the amputation and the cosmetic surgery at the same time, and save on the anesthesiologist's fee.

Oh, and is there any particular meaning to the whole The Wind in the Willows, and specifically the E. H. Shepard illustrations thereof, theme?  Nah.  I've used Toad as my twitter & blog icon for a while.  It just seemed like some nice images to play with and give a thematically consistent yet visually interesting look.  (Again, more successfully here than, er, here.)

_______________________
* Not a metaphor, sadly.  RIP Leila Abu-Saba, Steve Gilliard and Andrew Olmsted.  I couldn't bear to delete them from the list, but it's wrong to keep them on too; one more reason for the whole list to just go.