Noticias del Imperio

I hope this exposition is still on when I get to México, D.F. The Museo del Estanquillo is one I have never been to, in any case; I have also never been to the Casa de Francia and its reading room. There are now many expositions from the private collection of Carlos Monsiváis, who died while I was last in Mexico. I missed the funeral because I was out gallivanting and did not realize he had died until the next day; oddly, as he lay dying, I was watching him on video at the Tlatelolco exposition.

Axé.

Take Two

Note to readers: please remember the asynchronous and melded nature of all my posts. No positions are currently open in my current department.

If the job I have to offer is so good that well qualified candidates should be beating upon my door to get it, then why are they not doing so? Especially since they are not, I regret the decision (not mine) to shut the last person to hold said post out.

Why do faculty and graduate students feel they have to either idealize or demonize academic work, to the tune of either «It is the best, and anyone who does not think so is ungrateful», or «It is the worst, I have so much work and my soul is suffering so»?

I hypothesize that these attitudes are two sides of the same coin. We have already established that the suffering persona so many in good positions take on is a form of boasting and also gatekeeping. I think the attitude that everything is wonderful, is a form of boasting and gatekeeping, too, particularly as it interdicts nuanced discussion of the actual situation.

If you make a living wage and work at an institution whose library has acquired books in the present century, and you get to give interesting courses in field, and you have colleagues in field or related fields sur place that you actually see, then I certainly understand any rose-colored view you may have.

I do not appreciate it, however, when those of us who do not enjoy such advantages, are called turncoats for considering alternative avenues which do pay a living wage, do offer resources for research, do offer viable retirement programs, or do pay into Social Security.

I also do not appreciate it when the torn ambivalence of those of us wounded from being lodged in nests of vipers, is condemned. If you do not know what it is to be asked to work with a hand tied behind your back and your feet in quicksand, and told that if you were more virtuous you would see that you are in a bed of roses, then you are not qualified to speak on these matters.

What is behind the need for idealization? Why is it not all right to say that this is what you have done, of the four or five interesting things you could have done? Why is it so necessary to suggest that dissatisfication merely indicates lack of interest or commitment? Why the demand for such extreme loyalty, for the belief that this is the only worthwhile thing in the world?

Axé.

H. I. R. E.

School yell for the all too well initiated:

Give me an H! Give me an I. Give me an R! Give me an E.

H. I. R. E. and let´s hire! Hire! H. I. R. E. to the President! Hire! Hire! H. I. R. E.

We´re going to sit. Sit. Sit till you sign so let´s hire. Hire! H. I. R. E.

You may say this is an immature response but my main colleague was turned down for tenure. I have gone immediately to a defense of the position and the subfield itself. So in fact I am totally cutthroat, completely corporate, utterly unsentimental, entirely sold-out and more than restrained in my clamor for a hire. Hire! H. I. R. E. and let´s hire!

Axé.

River

I am from the ocean but now I cross rivers. Such a good sunset over the Mississippi coming from campus to Maringouin tonight, and I still do not know nearly enough about rivers.

Axé.

In which I am foiled, again.

The Faculty Club once had white linen but now has napkins in the school colors. Their gumbo remains good and fueled by it, I went over to the library for a designated afternoon of reading little magazines so I could decide where to send my rejected stories.

My stories are in poetic prose and my influences are not American. This means most little magazines published in the United States, in English, are not the right kind of venue for my stories. The only people who write somewhat encouraging rejections are editors of little magazines which also publish a lot of translations, international and experimental work.

My stories are about being American, but they look like immigrants.

I was hoping to choose magazines which would not be unrealistically competitive but this afternoon the only ones I read which publish any work at all like mine were the Black Warrior Review and worse, Granta.

I am thus in the paradoxical position of feeling that the only realistic places to send my things are wildly unrealistic.

Axé.

More on my experiences of sexism

ON SAYING NO

The reason I like the Eastern and Central time zones less than the Mountain and Pacific ones is not just that the landscape improves west of the Mississippi and then again west of the Rockies; it is that in daily life I feel these time zones to be less sexist.

There in my experience, women are allowed to simply say yes or no to all sorts of things; in the East and South — Eastern and Central time — we are not allowed to just say no, but get policed: “it wasn’t that you said it, it was how you said it.” You have to worm your way out of things, sweet talk, learn to be passively aggressive, or something like this and I do not like it.

The other place, in my experience, where people will take no for an answer and not expect that women, because they are women, should be kicked, invaded and then walked upon, is Brazil.

All of this is very subjective and I wonder: is it merely my experience, or is there something broader to it? My Black colleague says that the reason I feel as I do is in part that the sexism is even worse than I realize, but also because in South I am not necessarily taken for white.

ON WHAT ONE IS ALLOWED TO DO, AND ON HOW PEOPLE FEEL ONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED

That last remark is a whole other topic — I know I am often taken for «mixed» in Louisiana; I was already considered Latina off and on in college (by people who didn’t actually know me). I never thought much about this, although one could comment on it in a number of directions.

Right now I wonder: does the fact that people take me for “brown,” mean that I do not really have as much “white privilege” as I would think?

Axé.

Global Peace Index 2012

Within the United States, Louisiana is the least peaceful state by a fairly wide margin. We have the most small arms, police employees, incarceration, violent crime, and homicide. Some other states are tied with us in some of these categories, but we are the absolute winner in most categories. This makes us the greatest loser, in terms of peacefulness, overall.

This year´s Global Peace Index ranks the United States 82d out of 153 countries, putting us below median although still in the second quartile by other measures. These are our neighbors on the list:

78	Macedonia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of	2.048
79	Trinidad and Tobago	2.051
80	China	2.054
81	Gabon	2.059
82	United States	2.063
83	Bangladesh	2.070
84	Serbia, Republic of	2.071
85	Peru	2.077
86	Cameroon	2.104
87	Angola	2.109
88	Guyana	2.112

Axé.

An interesting perspective.

One of the main reasons wealth makes people unhappy is that it gives them too much control over what they experience. They try to translate their own fantasies into reality . . . an enervating and disappointing pastime . . . learning and growing are very difficult with wealth because they depend on experiences in real life, and wealth enables one to buy out of life. It provides the wherewithal to cling to every outworn fantasy, pathway, or goal—to grasp every outgrown security blanket more tightly—to control your input in such a way that you never need to change or develop.

–Philip Slater 1980

Axé.

Katrina, that is the word, and Tantalus

Now we have perfected our reconstruction plan but my friend had the right analysis — the perfect storm came up. I am glad I still have a job, I really am, but we are half the size we were a month ago and the landscape looks quite bare.

One is glad to have work and that it is not worse work but the mythological character with whom I identify is Tantalus. One is to be grateful for the ostensible chance to follow one´s passions, but the objects of these and the tools to work on them are locked behind glass.

Work hard, work hard, it is said, and you will get to them.

When at last you do, you are hit with a heavy club and fall away.

When you come to, the case is locked again; the objects and tools are hidden.

Tantalus, what was your crime?

Axé.

On research skills

«I am an appropriate hire because my degree granting institution is not far away. I know where the books I need are, and I have access to them. People from further away will be cut off from the books whose locations their professors showed them, and will thus be unable to do research.»

A Ph.D. said that. I am still not over it.

Axé.