Although My Return Was Not Foretold

First off, I am alive, which I’m sure is a relief to all four of you that read this blog. And B is doing excellent as well. Unfortunately, we’ve simply been overwhelmed with school / work lately, and it’s been difficult to find the time / motivation to blog. And, a week before Spring Break, B told me that I couldn’t write any poetry for two weeks (b/c I was supposedly very foul about my writing), and given that time off, I just never got back into the habit. But with the urging of Daya, I hope to begin posting regularly again.

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Being just a few years removed from staying in a dorm and attending classes regularly, the VT events struck a chord with me. As I’m sure the case is at most schools, Concord would have been woefully under-prepared had such an event occurred. There would have been no escape from the dorms or from most classrooms because of the way they were constructed. Plus, both B and I know a few people from that area, and while we’re not sure if they’re still attending VT, it does make the issue a little more “real.”

But that’s bothering me more than anything at the moment – aside from the obvious fact that some nut-job decided to kill 32 people (he doesn’t count) – is the media coverage. The grieving isn’t and can’t possibly be authentic: I can’t imagine having to suffer through such a tragedy with cameras and Matt Lauer around every corner. While some details have come out about the shooter’s motives, the media acted earlier as if the event were all the more horrendous b/c the killer hadn’t left a note. Something about the killer’s silence made things more ominous according to our beloved media. If the shooter didn’t have a voice, how could these events have possibly happened? Of course they’re wrong, but that’s nothing new. What’s true is that the killings themselves were the only authentic / real event that occurred that day, and now with the arrival of the media, authentic / real grieving probably won’t be able to occur for vast amounts of the student / faculty populace. Yeah, I know this sound very Baudrillard, but his words seem apt at the moment. It's all a spectacle.

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I haven’t been able to do much, if any, pleasure reading thanks to class demands. B bought me Pynchon’s newest (and it will be my first of his), a book by Vonnegut, and a collection of Benjamin essays for my birthday. Plus a space empire video game for my dorky side. I’m looking forward to reading all, though most of all the Pynchon who I’ve read great things about.

Of course, I’ve bought a few poetry journals here and there: Lungfull, Denver Quarterly (congrats to LT for placing a poem in there), and Fence just recently. I received contributor copies for The Eleventh Muse and Forklift, OH as well. Both volumes are superbly done.

I’ve had a little good news on the poetry front: 42opus, Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression, Kulture Vulture, and The Sierra-Nevada College Review have all accepted some work in my absence. There have been some kind notes too, most notably from jubilat. Of course, there have probably been double / triple the rejections, but those are the odds I suppose. The good thing about not submitting anything for the past two or three months is that I’m getting everything back and can revise accordingly. I’m thinking about sending a few actual paper submissions once school ends (for good) this May. I’m looking forward to seeing where Palsy Aria actually stands stylistically and how significantly I’ll revise the poems that have been returned to me time after time. I do want to get started soon, though, as there are a few publications whose reading period ends mid-May.

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B and I are trying to decide where to take a little vacation. Right now, Charlottesville is holding our interest (no, not b/c of you Rach). There’s a goth club nearby as well as a Shakespeare theater over which B is drooling. It’s supposed to be a replicate of the Globe Theater in Britain. Hopefully Charlottesville, being a college town and all, would have something of interest other than Rorty.

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Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters was freakin’ awesome as Carl might say. The opening sequence where the members of Mastodon are animated as a pretzel, nachos, etc. was one of the funnier bits I can remember. The whole movie is fantastic if you’re an ATHF fan.

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Legal Environment final tonight. Better sneak in some studying while work is quiet. Have I mentioned that group work should be outlawed forever?

Love to all my peeps,

-j