October 2011
8 posts
1 tag
That's Just Like, Your Opinion, Man
One of the most popular units I teach is a pairing of A Confederacy of Dunces and the film The Big Lebowski, for my Literature and Film course (the unit is on cult classics). It follows on the heels of reading and watching The Big Sleep (which Lebowski is loosely based on) alongside other noir classics.
Most teachers do a double-take when they hear that I show The Big Lebowski in class. I am...
1 tag
Tell them there are no holes for your fingers in the masks of men. Tell them how could you ever even hope to love what you can’t grab onto.
—David Foster Wallace
I dreamed she married the only man I’ve ever truly loved. I’m sorry, she apologized with flashing green eyes, behind which something sinister swivels on a certain pivot we only sometimes glimpse and whisper...
2 tags
On Touch
It’s a basic inside/outside problem. I don’t know where I end and the world begins. My best guess? Skin. It’s the only actual boundary between the body and the world, between a body and any other body. Crush, at its core, is about rupture. The desire to touch, the gesture of touching, becomes dangerous, damaging, after the hand, withheld for so long, finally makes an attempt at contact....
1 tag
3 tags
Afternoon Scenes
At approximately 4:52pm, the following took place in the front office of a private high school:
Me: How was your meeting with the head of the Education PhD program at [redacted prestigious university down the road]?
A: [motions me over, in hushed tones] Well….it was unnerving?
Me: Because it was [redacted prestigious university down the road]?
A: Well….actually…I walked into...
