25 random things about me
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things. I’m finally allowing myself to get sucked in…
- I specifically trim the corners of my beard because orthodox Jews are not supposed to. I somehow arrived at the understanding that that means that we goyim are supposed to.
- In an online debate, when I quote the text of someone’s post in a response, I correct typos and grammatical errors, to make them look more intelligent.
- Once, I went an entire year praying nothing except the Lord’s Prayer.
- My taste in beer has become less refined over time. I started out drinking nothing but microbrews and imports; now I get pretty excited about Old Milwaukee.
- I think “it is as if” is one of the most music phrases in our language.
- “Precisialmente” was my favorite word in Spanish, until I was told that it’s not a word, and I must have made it up.
- I think basketball is like ballet for guys.
- I can’t stand watching NBA games for the sole reason that the organ gets on my nerves.
- I have Michael Jordan’s 1991 Upper Deck baseball card.
- My mom used to work as a legal secretary for Phillies pitcher Mike Mussina’s father.
- I was at Mike Schmidt’s last baseball game. (EDIT: I lied. It turns out it was a night in his honor the season after he retired.)
- My favorite animal in the world is the blue shark.
- The one thing in the world that most hurts my soul is loss of habitat for wild animals.
- I read my horoscope most days and think about taking its advice. I’m a Cancer.
- About 30% of the time I am thinking about myself in the context of the cosmos.
- When I was eight, I used tire white-wall cleaner on my sneakers to try to impress a girl.
- I am utterly unimpressed by bruises. The skin has to break.
- I admire pompous asses but am afraid of being one.
- My favorite magazine is The Atlantic. My favorite food is ice cream.
- A sight I love more than anything is looking up through the leaves of a pin oak on a sunny day when the sky is deep blue.
- The two parts of my family heritage that I’m most proud of are Swedish ancestry and workers for the Pennsylvania Railroad.
- I do not have a favorite color or season. I like them all, in balance.
- My fingernails grow freakishly fast and strong. Women are jealous. I also have long eyelashes.
- I used to be a horrible speller. I had to work very hard at it. I still do. I use dictionary.com all the time.
- I used to live my life as if one day a biography would be written about me.
TRIBUTE: John Updike and America
John Updike died today at the age of 75.* That’s a good statistical age. It sounds like an average lifespan; like a neat round American age. He was in many ways a penultimate American, a writer in love with the American idea.
*-OK, news reports are now correcting themselves; his age was 76. An even more American number. (P.S., Years ago I adopted the use of “OK” rather than “okay” from Updike’s novels.)
The New York Times has an old page (from 1997) that includes links to two NPR Fresh Air interviews with John Updike, as well as articles including reviews of his books.
Updike was an incredibly prolific writer. In his later years he focused on serving as an art critic and essayist. He wrote poetry, too. His most famous poem is “Player Piano,” which the New Yorker published in 1954. It was in 2000, upon reading “Rainbow” in The Atlantic, that I first observed, however, that it seemed like he was writing poetry to stay in shape for writing novels.
Taken together, his Rabbit series may well be considered an epic prose poem on the later half of the twentieth century in America. That is the place to begin if you’ve never read much (or any) Updike. Grab Rabbit, Run and go.
CLOSE READING: Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem
The poem that Elizabeth Alexander offered at Barack Obama’s inauguration, “Praise Song for the Day,” is a poem whose meaning has to be teased out. It works like many contemporary American poems in this way—the first time through, all that happens is you fall for the sound and cadence and are moved by some of the images.
‘Someone is trying to make music somewhere, | with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum.’ Photo by Flickr user Bitpicture.
The experience is similar to listening to a new song on the radio—on the first listening, what you hear is the tune and the basic gist of the song. In both cases (hearing/reading a poem and hearing a new single), there is a lot you miss. It’s not until you go back and hear it again (and again) that you begin to peel apart the layers and see what is really going on.
This post is my offer to walk with you through another reading of the inauguration poem and share how I am experiencing it and some of the interesting things I notice, including what I think the poem means. I don’t expect to get in the habit of explicating poems on this blog, but this is a special occasion, right?
The Meaning of Elizabeth Alexander’s Inaugural Poem in Simple Terms
Elizabeth Alexander’s poem is at its heart a celebration of the moment. The poet gently places a hand on our shoulders and politely turns us so that we can see the glorious sight that she sees.
Here is the moment in history as the poet sees it: “Someone is trying to make music somewhere,” and today, with the inauguration of President Obama and all it signifies, that someone stands (with the rest of us who hope and struggle) “on the brink” of success in that endeavor. That someone struggling to “make music… with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum” (which is really all of us) can now launch into a rich and melodious praise song.
That, in a poetic nutshell, is what this moment in time is. That is the central “message” and theme of this poem.