Also

The college administration wrote their own response to the article long before I finished mine. Here is theirs:

To: The Bennington College community and the wider Bennington community

From: Elizabeth Coleman, President, Bennington College

Date: March 23, 2009

Re: The facts about conversations between Bennington College and North Bennington Trustees

A recent article (Friday, March 20, 2009) in the Bennington Banner regarding Bennington College’s discussions with trustees from the Village of North Bennington demands a response from the College because of the importance of the issues involved and the extent to which the statements in the article misrepresent the facts. The discussions focused on a voluntary contribution of funds by Bennington College to the Village of North Bennington beyond the taxes and fees the College already pays.

The College has been in conversation with North Bennington trustees for several months about the College making a voluntary financial contribution to the community because of the acute fiscal pressures they are facing. Although we are under no legal obligation to do so, we entered those conversations in good faith while working within the context of several critical constraints: A significant increase in financial aid over the last decade (currently 75% of Bennington students receive financial aid) has meant that tuition revenues account for less and less of the College’s operating budget. This puts ever-increasing pressure on annual fundraising to fill the gap. In addition, during a time of tremendous national economic contraction, the College is grappling with a much more challenging fundraising environment; helping families of its students who are under greater financial strain; and, as a major employer in the community, maintaining its commitment to its employees.

We appreciate that the North Bennington trustees are also facing difficult economic times. In our most recent meeting, we offered a contribution to the village of $20,000 annually (with consideration of a cost of living increase) for the next five years. To put that in the context of comparably sized institutions in the state of Vermont that are making any such contributions, Vermont Law School contributes $16,000 annually to its local town and Landmark College contributes $25,000.

What follows is a response to a series of assertions by members of the North Bennington trustees in the article that are singly or together untrue, misleading, or inflammatory.

At the end of our last meeting, the North Bennington committee said that they would get back to us after further consideration of the College’s offer. The first we heard of their rejection was when we read about it in the Bennington Banner. Moreover, we did not fail to respond to an invitation to attend the Town Meeting at which the offer was apparently discussed, as a statement in the article alleges. The fact is we were not invited to the meeting.

In the article, the trustees’ selected Tufts University in Boston as an example—Tufts contributes $135,000 as a voluntary contribution. Not only does Tufts have a billion dollar–plus endowment, it has nearly 10,000 students. Prorated by enrollment income or by number of students, an equivalent annual contribution from Bennington College to the Village of North Bennington would be $10,500. Prorated by endowment, the equivalent Bennington College contribution would be $1,350.

Throughout the article, the trustees suggest that the relationship between the College and the wider community has been one-sided. In referring to the allocation of funds to Bennington College through the Vermont Economic Development Authority Tax-Exempt Revenue Bond Program, for example, they fail to mention that the purpose of that program is to help enable institutions to fund building and renovation projects, thereby providing jobs and fortifying the local economy. What they did mention—that making use of this program “saved” the College $3 million—is hypothetical and, under any hypothesis, wildly exaggerated. Would that it were so.

In discussing the upgrading of a water system some years ago to accommodate the College—the trustees’ statements are, in every respect, at odds with the truth. The village had nothing to do with that transaction. The College worked directly with the Water Board and assumed responsibility for all of the ensuing expenses. This has been the case in all of our transactions with the Water Board. The North Bennington trustees have no authority over the Water Board nor have they played any role in the working relationship between that board and the College, which, by all measures, has been noteworthy for its cooperation.

In addition, the charge that the College is fostering a “culture of elitism” and student isolation by directing students away from their desire “to do things in the community” is both untrue and unhelpful. I cannot speak for what has happened to attendance at Kevin’s Sports Pub by Bennington College students (an example used as evidence in the article) but I do know that Bennington students, faculty, and staff are deeply proud to be part of this community. Last year nearly 20% of Bennington students volunteered at community schools—including the North Bennington Graded School— and other local not-for-profit organizations, in addition to faculty and staff who volunteer regularly in the community. Moreover, far from fostering greater isolation, this coming winter 30–35 first year students will remain on campus during Field Work Term—a term where students are normally required to work off campus—in order to work with organizations in this community.

And, as is common knowledge, performances in dance, music, theatre, lectures, readings, and art exhibitions take place non-stop at the College and are open to the community free of charge.

Finally, the claim that the community would be much stronger financially if there were no Bennington College is manifestly thoughtless as well as extremely provocative. In addition to the number of people the College employs, there is the substantial economic contribution of the students and non-residential faculty to the local economy.

This would be a difficult matter to resolve under the best of circumstances—the current economic pressures make it all the more so. We deeply regret the decision by the North Bennington trustees to reject our offer and to do so in a way that undermines the good faith that is essential to the success of our shared enterprise.

The latest controversy

I tend to get swept up in controversy. Maybe it's because I care about a lot of things. Maybe it's because I have invested a lot of myself into institutions and systems that tend to get attacked. Maybe it's because I love to fight. Regardless, this is a recent article that was published in a local paper:

Friday, March 20
NORTH BENNINGTON — A committee formed by the village trustees has gone public with a request for Bennington College to pay the village a voluntary yearly stipend.

Committee members believe the college owes it to the community for being such a large tax-exempt property, much like state sites that are required to give towns Payment in Lieu of Taxes by law.

'A difficult thing'

"They've been here 76 years," said Robert Howe, a committee member who serves on the village's Planning Commission, on Thursday, "and, as far as we can tell, they've never really paid anything to the village. ... That's why our taxes are so high."

The committee, made up of Howe, trustees Matt Patterson and David Monks and Alisa Del Tufo, has been meeting in private with representatives from the college, namely William Morgan and Joan Goodrich, both vice presidents at the college. "We're trying to keep things civil," Patterson said Thursday. "It's a difficult thing to approach."

However, at their last meeting, committee members said they would go public at the village's Town Meeting, which they did this past Tuesday. College officials were invited to the meeting but did not respond to the invitation.

Officials remained quiet on Thursday, declining to be interviewed.

"The college is in ongoing discussions with representatives from the village," the college said in a statement. "Our discussions have been very cordial
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and we have nothing more to say at this time."

The college's board of trustees authorized officials to pay the village $20,000 per year for five years, according to the committee.

The committee declined the offer. "What sticks in my craw is they've offered us a little tiny bit," Howe said, "and when you look at the dimension of what goes through the college all the time, we're talking about millions of dollars."

Committee members have proposed $100,000 per year as an initial payment for three years. "We have discussed larger numbers," Del Tufo said, "but we thought this was a good first level of commitment."

Members have also proposed establishing an ongoing "town/gown" committee, comprised of college and village officials, that would look to strengthen ties between the two. Patterson said the college has shown "no interest" in forming such a body.

Del Tufo said the college's actions have contradicted its overall message.

"What frustrates me is that the college's (public relations) is all about community building," Del Tufo said, " ... and we're a community that has a lot of vitality and we're also a community that has a lot of needs and problems. And it's a typical 'Ivory Tower' approach to problem solving when you look in Darfur (Sudan), but you don't look in your own backyard."

She added that the genocide in Darfur is a huge problem that deserves attention.

The committee's main argument is that the college makes up 14.7 percent of North Bennington land, or 212 of 1,441 acres, 36 percent of its population, 760 out of 2,094 people (including students) and equals the rest of the village's property value, yet contributes nothing financially. "We'd be a much stronger community financially if it weren't a college," Patterson said.

He added that the college has contributed to the community by providing jobs and hosting cultural events.

Patterson said the relationship between the village and college has been "one-sided" in recent years. The village changed zoning for the college and expanded and upgraded its water system to accommodate the college's new dormitory and signed off on a $10 million Vermont Economic Development Authority (VEDA) low-interest loan, reserved for municipalities, unless they defer it to a local not-for-profit organization, he said.

The loan saved the college $3 million, according to Patterson, a number he says the college is now contesting. He said if the college wants another VEDA loan, "(it) would be an interesting discussion."

In return, the college reneged on promises to improve Prospect Street, a road leading to the college, and removed a historical stone wall without consulting the village. He said students have become more isolated in general, which he believes has come from the college.

"I think it's the culture of elitism that has gotten much stronger at the college over time," Patterson said. "Students used to hang out at The Villager (now Kevin's at Mike's Place). It used to be a college bar."

Del Tufo agreed. "I know students on campus who want to do things in the community," she said, "but they're guided in certain directions, not others."

Del Tufo said she was kicked off campus by college security when she was cross-country skiing there over winter break.

Although not a given, some colleges do voluntarily pay their home communities yearly stipends.

Tufts University, for instance, pays $135,582, according to the committee. Williams College does not pay Williamstown, Mass., a set amount per year but helps to fund certain municipal projects, like a new elementary school in 2004.

Committee members said they realize Bennington College is smaller and receives less funding than these schools.

Members also said that, if an agreement cannot be reached, they believe the village could tax the college's for-profit ventures — faculty housing, the bookstore, snack shop — after going to court.

"(If) they don't want to make a contribution to the community," Del Tufo said. " ... then we end up getting into this position where we start looking at taxing property on campus."

She said the village faces a critical time, with public school costs rising and property taxes getting higher each year.

The committee plans to meet next week to discuss additional strategies, including contacting college trustees and reaching out to students, and with the college in the near future.

Patterson said any funds could help offset taxes or might be put in a dedicated fund. He said it is not a new issue; it has just never gotten to this level.

"It's been an issue of contention, off-and-on, for many, many years," he said.

Bennington College's campus is divided between the village of North Bennington and the town of Bennington.

So I wrote a letter to the editor (my first):

In response to the Friday, March 20th article in the Bennington Banner entitled, “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’,” as a student here at Bennington College and as an involved community member, I take issue with the pervasive ‘us versus them’ tone of the article. This tone has lowered the bar for public discourse in our community.

In times of crisis we look for someone to blame for the situation in which we find ourselves. The situation, however, is almost always more complicated than a simple story of good guys standing up against bad guys. This article is written as such a narrative, uniting ‘us’ and ‘good’ under the village and ‘them’ and ‘bad’ under the college. The product of this narrative is the story of an elitist, “Ivory Tower” institution that parasitically feeds off a community to which it doesn’t belong.

The point of the formerly private meetings taking place between the committee and the college was to find a way to work together as one community to overcome this latest national crisis. The article subverts this goal and insists instead on pointing fingers and inventing scapegoats.

I do not assume that with every story there is an equal balance of opinion. I do contend, however, that the news can be presented in a mature and responsible way that contributes to the public discourse. “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’” adds to the polarization of, rather than to the informing of, our community. We – the village of North Bennington and Bennington College – deserve better.

But I wanted to write more. My first draft was much longer:

The Friday, March 20th article in the Bennington Banner entitled, “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’” lowered the bar for public discourse in our community. The degree of factual accuracy is a qualm that has been taken up by the Bennington College administration and will be further contested. What is much more important to me, as a student here at Bennington College and as an involved community member in both my local community (Rensselaer County, New York) and my adopted one here, is the pervasive ‘Us versus Them’ tone of the article.

In times of crisis we turn inwards and shun those apparently unlike ourselves. Allow me a geek moment here. In the old Twilight Zone episode; “The Monsters are due on Maple Street (and here’s your spoiler alert) what appears to be a UFO lands somewhere near Maple Street. In the ensuing chaos the residents of Maple Street turn against one another for arbitrary reasons that would have been overlooked or faced as a community in another context. The moral of the story is that the monsters of Maple Street are not the alien invaders, but rather the residents who turned on their neighbors out of fear.

I’d like to be clear here that I am not accusing the committee members of the village trustees or the Bennington Banner of being the monsters on Maple Street. I wish, however, to make explicit the adversarial tone of the March 20th article so that we can avoid it in the future. Instead of talking in terms of ‘We’ the village want ‘Them’ the college to pay up, we together can work towards common solutions to our common problems.

The structure of this piece begins as a news article and rapidly descends into a narrative of the ‘We’ against the ‘Them’. John Waller, the author of this piece and a person just doing his job, portrays the committee primarily through their own words, giving them a sympathetic human face and letting them define the ‘them’. The committee is Robert Howe, Matt Patterson, David Monks, and Alisa Del Tufo. The product of this narrative is the story of an elitist, “Ivory Tower” institution that parasitically feeds off the community. With the quotations from the committee members Waller creates an ‘other’, a scapegoat, an object of collective hate that we can blame for our financial woes.

The ‘We’ of the article is the committee made up of village trustees, whose voices are liberally quoted in the body of the article. However, the ‘We’ of the committee and the ‘We’ of the village of North Bennington are treated as the same when Robert Howe is quoted as having said, “They’ve [Bennington College] been here 76 years, and, as far as we can tell, they’ve never really paid anything to the village.” The ‘We’ of the committee is therefore speaking for, or in the interests of, the ‘We’ of the village. ‘We’ are best defined against ‘Them’. And who are ‘they’? ‘They’ are defined through the words of the committee members. ‘Their’ actions are described by the committee members.

This so called article is in fact more of a summary of an interview with four individuals than a news story. I do not assume that with every story there is an equal balance of opinion. I do contend, however, that the news can be presented in a mature and responsible way that contributes to the public discourse. “Village to Bennington College: ‘Pay up’” adds to the polarization of, rather than to the informing of, our community. We – the village of North Bennington and Bennington College – deserve better.

And now I want to write a book. But I won't. Yet. Because I have two theses and an advanced project to finish, then a bookstore to open first.

Schizophrenia continued

I’m sick again. I hate being sick. My mind gets all fuzzy and I can never think as accurately as I need to. I already have issues with being as on top of things as I should be, and now I’m stuck moving in slow motion and seeing through a thick film. Nothing feels as real as it should feel. And this is the second time in as many weeks that I am like this.

This will be a short post because I need to go to sleep. I spent half of the night last night trying to sleep and the other half being kept awake by evil cats. These cats wanted nothing to do with my sleep. They hated the idea of me sleeping. They wanted my sleep dead. Thank god I’m back in my dorm room. Glaring white walls, rubber-plastic blended mattress, somewhat soundproofed walls… that’s what I call home. Or at least it is what I call one of my many homes. I seem to collect them as I go.

I fervently hope, with all of my heart, that we do not have a fire drill tonight. However, because I am sick and in no position to be tramping outside at two in the morning, I imagine that tonight will be the night. So I will leave my coat within reach when I go to sleep. I would prefer the cats to a fire alarm.

Lately I’ve wanted to spend an entire day doing nothing. Just lie in bed and watch movies. Friends optional and preferred. I think that the next time I will get to do that will be on June 8th. Two days after graduation. I think I’ll need a few weeks of detox before I throw myself into the bookstore. I shouldn’t be this sick.

I’ve had a phrase going through my head all weekend. “Sobre Ebriedad.” It’s the title of an essay in Spanish by a fellow that has some very progressive ideas about the relationship of the state and drugs. It means “On Sobriety” or something like that. There’s a double entendre in there that I can’t quite make out in my semi-conscious state (because the word for sobriety is sobriedad). If you’re interested and can speak Spanish: http://www.escohotado.com/articles/sobreebriedad.htm. If not, so be it. I tend to be interested in things. I feel like a dog chasing every car that passes sometimes. Sure! I’ll do two theses! And another advanced project in educational policy? Why the fuck not?!

Anyway, I’m going to sleep. When I wake, I won’t need to take any more Sudafed. Or Asprin.

What's my age again?

I care about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, I really do. I enjoyed learning about her. I love her poem Hombres Necios (Foolish Men). However, I cannot stand to read another line of her poem Primero Sueño.

Look, I know that it is important. I know that it was groundbreaking. I know what it is about. But what person can in good conscious ask me to read nineteen pages of late XVII century poetry when it has nothing to do with what I’m working on.

I get that the poem is all about the soul trying to reach enlightenment through learning. I get that it is filled with classical symbolism, in part to contrast the primal nature of the soul with the more refined scientific methodology Juana uses. I get that she was a virtuoso. I with her on that, and if she was in any way related to my project I would be arguing for the necessity of everyone in the world to be reading Sor Juana.

But not today. Instead I’m complaining here about poor me and my overwhelming workload. Can I get a collective groan of sympathy from the audience please? Fuck applause, I just want everyone to feel sorry for me.

I went to the doctor today for fatigue and then fell asleep immediately after. I’m still at four (FOUR) pages in my Social Science thesis. The one I was supposed to have ten (TEN) done for last Friday.

Dun dun dun…

And thus continues my Tuesday.

My Obama '08 sign is falling off my wall

I feel like most good writers were drunks.

Or at least they abused something. Drugs, alcohol, women, men, life, whatever.

I’m finding it exceedingly difficult to type without errors at the moment. This is my first somewhat drunk post. I feel like this is on par with drunk dials or the slightly newer drunk texts.

I recently watched Deconstructing Harry – my favorite Woody Allen film for all of its faults. It seems to me the one with the least pretense. My friend told me that his parents told him that it was not something he’d like. Usually that means that I too would dislike it. Instead, this time, it just means that I have a tougher time getting other people to watch it with me. His folks usually have pretty good judgment at least as far as movies are concerned.

Regardless, I love this movie. It’s both a good story and an excellent way to tell one. Way to go Woody Allen. It’s about an author who has pretty much wasted his life fucking his way around the alphabet and drinking – primarily whisky which is how I connect to this character. I tend not to sleep around. I, however, love whisky like someone stuck in the midst of a sandstorm in the Sahara loves water. I don’t know why. I didn’t even see a Bogart movie until after I found I had this affinity.

Bottom line, Harry, the protagonist in this flick, played by Woody Allen (of course), is awful. The entire movie culminates (in my opinion) when he (spoiler alert) has a discussion with the devil about who has fucked who while trying to re-kidnap his lover.

Way to go, says I.

I don’t mess around much, but I can understand those who do. It’s all about context in my opinion. I tend to care about my own opinion more after most of my flask is gone. Point is: In this, as in most things, context is king. So what if a fellow or lady has been to bed with more folk than they can easily count on their appendages – so long as there is context for all. Sex takes place in the moment. So why does criticism about sex take place outside of that moment? If no regrets are in play, by all means, enjoy.

And so on.

One of my favorite episodes of The West Wing – my all-time favorite TV show – is called, “dead Irish writers”. The episode involved a fight between the Communications Director (Toby) and the British Ambassador (Lord John Marbury) about a spokesman for the IRA (Brendan McGann). What follows is one of my favorite pieces of dialogue written for television:

MARBURY
Toby, you were the author, were you not, of the President's speech at the General Assembly?

TOBY
There were many authors.

MARBURY
Of which you were one. Two days ago, the IRA formally backed out of its promise to put its weapons beyond use...

TOBY
I--

MARBURY
...as agreed to in the Good Friday Peace Accord. True/False: Until it disarms the IRA and its political representatives in Sinn Fein are a terrorist group.

TOBY
True.

MARBURY
When did it become policy of the United States to negotiate with terrorists?

TOBY
We've had Arafat here, John.

MARBURY
And, my heaven, isn't that paying bloody dividends.

TOBY
It wasn't worth trying?

MARBURY
You're making the mistake of youth.

TOBY
The President's not a kid.

MARBURY
Your country is. You're involving yourself in a centuries-old conflict without sufficient regard for history. Listen to the warning of old friends. It was Kipling who warned to expect "the blame of those ye better, and the hate of those ye guard."

TOBY
And wasn't it James Joyce who said, "History is a nightmare from which I'm trying to awake."

MARBURY
Yes, but it was your own great Irish master, Eugene O'Neill who said, "There is no present or future, only the past happening over and over again -- now."

TOBY
You're saying we should butt out of Ireland until we know what we're doing?

MARBURY
I'm saying Brendan McGann cannot come to the White House.

TOBY
[pause] Say, speaking of dead Irish writers...

MARBURY
Yes. Another drink.

(http://communicationsoffice.tripod.com/3-15.txt)

See what I mean?

I feel like it is somewhat necessary at the moment to add a disclaimer - in case my family or some of my less close friends end up finding this blog. I am not a drunk. My grandmother was once a drunk, from what I hear, as was my grandfather for a time. I am not in the habit of getting drunk often or regularly. I do, however, enjoy the occasional recreational half a bottle of whisky or so.

The point of this post, if one can be ferreted from among the muck and drivel of my various trains of thought that seem to have crashed and spilled their contents all over this blog, is that there seems to be a correlation between those who are prone to addiction and early greatness (usually followed by a period gently referred to as "crash and fucking burn"). So, well done Woody Allen!

I loved that movie.

God who'd want to be such an asshole?

There was a time. You follow? Regardless, there usually is a time. Sometimes, and I nearly missed the irony in using that word, that time can’t be a was. Sometimes it is a will be. Sometimes it’s an is.

Take, for example, because I guess it is what I purport to know, and you should at least write what you know if you can’t think of anything more clever, me. There was a time. There was a time I was full of potential. Really then, what I guess I’m saying is that there was a time when there would be a time. See how the conditional slipped in there? There was a time when I thought there will be a time. A time to, excuse the rhyme, shine. To move mountains, I guess, if that’s what I decided to do with that time.

I’m not a creative guy. There was a time, I guess. I used to invent whole stories from whatever cloth stories are made of. What I mean though, more specifically, is that I’m not creative in the sense that an atheist thinks God isn't creative. It's not that the duck-billed platypus isn't quite a curious fellow, it's that some deity didn't fucking create it. I occasionally produce things or fabricate things, but only rarely and only after the tepid and halting attempts that pass for great effort on my part.

Up until last month I was convinced there would be a time. There would be a time when I would be creative – as well as productive and so on. There’s a big difference in verb tense there. Last month I (would) have said there will be a time when I will be creative. Such certainty! There was a time. There was a time I was filled with certainty.

I feel old. I’m barely making headway into my twenties and I feel old.

There was a time that I thought I’d never live to see twenty. I was certain of it. For no real reason, I had convinced myself that I would probably not live to see my twentieth birthday. Maybe I’d get hit by a bus, maybe shot on accident, maybe die heroically and tragically rescuing a loved one from a fire. I didn’t tell anyone until recently. I knew it would seem morbid to some. I never thought of it as morbid. I saw it as motivation.

Perhaps my deepest regret is that, regardless of how convinced I was that I’d die before twenty, I still did nothing great before then. Perhaps there will be a day that I regret reaching forty in the same way. After my twentieth birthday I arbitrarily moved the date I’d never see to forty, understand?

The date was always arbitrary, and that I knew from the moment I picked it. Maybe it was some learned Obsessive Compulsive behavior that made me pick such a perfect age – exactly two decades old. Perhaps it was a similar behavior that made me pick the exact double of that age for the next date. There is a time, and I guess it is better to just say now, now I am less convinced. I mean, I made it to twenty. Teenagers are the ones who die tragically because they think they’re invincible, according to bloodless fucking magazines. Or maybe we are all convinced we’re going to die and that’s why we act with such apparent unconcern for our lives.

In Nicaragua I used to have fantasies about dying. Yes, these were morbid. I would nearly get choked up about the fantasies I would invent from that selfsame story cloth. I should have seen then that my ability to create was quickly being extinguished. When your powers of invention become tragic tales of your own heroism, you’re doing it wrong. Like Wile E. Coyote using an Acme product or Elmer Fudd looking down the barrel of his own gun to see why it won’t fire, you are doing it wrong. There was a time when I was doing it wrong.

There was a time that I had this particularly vivid fantasy, while on a bus ride across the country, of the bus being pulled over by a band of thugs armed with Cold War era Soviet and US automatic rifles. Everyone was freaking out, but I knew I’d be dead before twenty anyway so I was relatively fearless. I was pretty concerned about my atrocious Spanish, so my palms were sweaty. This fantasy devolved into eighty or so thousand different fantasies. I’d convince them to leave us alone (“these aren’t the droids you’re looking for”). I’d punch the leader in the face and steal his gun, shooting most of them as bullets made Swiss cheese of my torso. Our academic director would be attempting to negotiate and they’d go to shoot her or one of my classmates and I’d heroically and tragically dive in front of the bullet. My mind spun out of control. You know the feeling, I’m sure.

Now (there is a time), however, I’m less convinced I’ll be dead by forty. Though, now that I say that, I’ll probably die tomorrow. I would be so fucking angry if that happened. I can’t die until I finish something. I need to complete one project. I need to leave some kind of mark on this world that says: Chris did this and the world is better for it. Fuck the rest.

Look, I know. I know that every single interaction I have with another person is of great import. I know I should be focusing on those more because I’m not very good at making the world a more bearable place one on one. But I can’t help but want to be indelible. I would simply prefer to be written about than to be known only to my friends and family.

Maybe it’s because I don’t have much of a connection with my past. I don’t remember much of it, I don’t think of it much, and much of it doesn’t haunt me. For good or ill. Can’t be sure which. I tend to be in the midst of things, you see. I think many people do. Some of the folk I’ve encountered in my life are of a different kind of stuff. They cannot but think of their past constantly. If I was such a person I may be able to focus on how I’ve improved (or not) the world through my interpersonal relationships.

Unfortunately though, I aspire to be a scholar. I want to be a good person, but I don’t feel like that’s a high enough goal to aim for. I feel like if you aren’t being a good person, again, you’re doing it wrong. To aspire to be a good person then is to aspire to be something you should be already. To aspire to be a scholar is to work for something. Something more than transient.

There was a time, earlier today, when I argued that life is messy because people are messy. There is a time, and that time is now, when I think that life would find a way to be messy without people, probably just for the fuck of it. I don’t know if there will be a time, at least for me. I might die tomorrow and never see my fortieth birthday.

What a wonderful world

As of yet I don’t believe I’ve really mentioned the world outside of my roaming thoughts and tentative plans for the ill-conceived future. One of the reasons for this is that I live on a small campus with one access point to the outside physical world. That access point is currently buried in carefully layered snow and ice that looks like a god-sized Mick Jagger sneezed all the coke and phlegm in the world onto southern Vermont. We have two televisions with cable on campus.

Therefore my primary contact with the outside world, beyond the occasional text message from my mom, is virtual. I get the New York Times via email every morning and I usually just scan the headlines before sending it to my trash folder. The occasional story will catch my eye, and I was a relatively avid reader during the campaign. Beyond that, I tend to approach the outside world in much the same way that a young child walking in on his parents having sex for the first time does. First you think, “Are they fighting?” Then you try your best to forget that it ever happened.

Fuck off, real world. I’m happy here in my beautiful bubble.

I used to love this song by Incubus off the album A Crow Left of the Murder called Sick Sad Little World. The chorus, as one may imagine, went something like; “leave me here in my stark raving sick sad little world.” Though, as I recall, it sounded more like; “Leave me here in my(etc…) starkravingsicksad little worrrrld….” It fucking rocked. Whenever the folks were out I would turn it up really loud and sing along at the top of my lungs. I loved that feeling of exhilaration I got from the guitar solo. To be perfectly honest though, at a live show it’s the drums that make me swoon.

There was this one time, at my dad’s house, when I had the music cranked up to eleven and was belting out some emo rock constructed primarily of teenaged heartbreak and sappy power chords that my father and my brother came home. I stopped mid-line and hurried to turn down the music and casually ask how their bowling (or whatever the hell it was) went. They never mentioned my shameless (until they had arrived at least) warbling.

What I’m getting at with all of this is that I want to someday be someone who not only is well aware of current events, but who helps shape them. In a way that helps as many people as possible. Which is what all of this talk about art and study and Orson Wells really means. I want to be an intellectual. I want to be recognized as such and, based on my merits in a certain area (education or international relations), integral to the shaping of policy in that or those area/s.

Ego trip? Maybe. I knew a girl once who wanted to be the president. It was part of the reason that I loved her. She was unambiguous about that desire and why she wanted it. She felt she could do a good job, or at least a much better job than then-president Bush was doing. I don’t know what she did with that dream – I don’t know her in the least anymore – but it inspired me to really think hard about what I wanted out of this life.

The bottom line ended up being that I wanted to help people. And that I was sick of how things seemed to be run. I no longer want to help people. Is that cold? I read a really good article on it by Ivan Illich called “To Hell with Good Intentions” (http://www.altruists.org/static/files/To%20Hell%20with%20Good%20Intentions%20(Ivan%20Illich).pdf). His argument is much more complicated than many that I’ve offered, but mine come from experience on both sides of charity. To boil it down to its bare bones, charity begets charity. Sure it is necessary as a stop gap, but honestly it tends to hurt more than it helps, feeding a culture of poverty that insists on having ‘needy’ (objects) and ‘generous’ (subjects). Instead of helping people – which seems to me to be a very patronizing (I know best and have the resources you don’t) and colonial (let me teach you what it means to be civilized) act – I’d like to improve society so that more people have every opportunity to live their lives as they’d like to live them.

These are the things I think about at 1:30am when I have class at 8 in the morning.

Shine on you crazy diamond

So I’m sitting here at my desk staring at the work I started last term and trying to figure out where the fuck to start again. Sometimes a blank page is the most frightening thing in the world, I used to think.

The truth of the matter, should there be one, is that a blank page is freedom incarnate. You can go anywhere, do anything with it. Now, when I think about it, I don’t recall the last time I approached or even saw a blank page. This is one of the reasons I want to take off from schooling after this term. Every apparently blank page I’ve stared at for the past four (maybe eight, maybe twelve, maybe sixteen) years has had some predetermining factor behind it. This will be between 750 and 1,000 words. This will be nonfiction. This will be poetry. This will respond to the statement, “The Iranian Revolution of 1979 has disappointed most Iranians, including many of its original supporters, but it has created an Islamic regime that, ironically, both inspires and threatens the Arabs of the Middle East region.” Those pages are in no sense (beyond the visible) blank.

Usually, that’s fine. It’s great to have prompts when you are trying to construct an understanding of a subject area. I’m just saying that blank paper is frightening in the same way a beautiful, stable, and intelligent person loving you is. Sure it comes with a lot of difficult questions and negotiations, but in the end it is what you want. Usually.

So, I’m sitting here and I’m staring at pages full not only of prompts and potential, but of my own useless and ineffectual scribblings from last term. Where to I take them? Where do I start? What the fuck did I write? Do I still agree with it? Should I start over and use those pages merely as notes to go by?

Screw it, says I. Putting pen to paper is a cheap bar fight compared to the long campaign the words that follow tend to be.

I watched the movie RKO 281 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120801/) last night. It was a bio-ish pic about Orson Wells and the creation of Citizen Kane. Wells was 26 when Kane had its day in the theaters. I guess my question here is; what the fuck am I doing?