Wednesday, December 31, 2008

easy to be mean


I just finished reading Anne Lamott's book about grace. I've resisted reading her  books because everyone I know says they are great and I will love them, and I hate people telling me what I will love. I finished it last night and went to Good Reads to write a little review, now that I am such a big Anne Lamott fan and want to be her best friend, and I was stunned by the shitty reviews people gave her book. Shitty and mean spirited. Yes, it is much easier to be clever and funny when you are being mean. This is not fair, but it is true. It's something we need to understand and to resist.
I was tempted to begin a new blog which would consist only of the most ignorant online book reviews I can find— but I already have one website and THREE blogs (this blog, a library lesson plan blog, and a pit bull blog.) I'm like the character in The Golden Notebook who keeps many notebooks, one for each aspect of herself, until finally she combines all the notebooks into one, the golden notebook, and that means she's integrated. I'm not going to combine my library and dog blogs with this one, but I will include this Good Reads review (by Robin) of Catcher in the Rye
"Is there a theme to this book at all? Is there any point to the story?" 
For crying out loud! (My editorial comment.)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Jane Eyre


I just finished reading Jane Eyre. The version illustrated by Dame Darcy. Yes, I have lived all my life and somehow never read Jane Eyre before now. This is what I thought: What a modern character! What contemporary concerns! (except for the part about not being able to divorce the wife, which was hard to fathom) What complex and intelligent writing! My next thought: Are we becoming dumber?
Also, regarding Dame Darcy's occasional illustrations—just a few days ago, Chuck was telling me that books will be replaced by Kindles before we know it. I showed him this book to prove, if he needed proof, that, aside from their function, books are wonderful in their physicality. If that's a word. 

Sunday, December 07, 2008

Blanca


Blanca has come to the library almost every morning this week asking for me to give her tag board from the supply room. She is in 3rd grade. Her teacher is new and she must not realize we aren't supposed to give a child tag board every day, but I don't care. Blanca is a girl who always knows what she is doing. One day she needed it for picture she wanted to draw. The second day it was Saul's birthday and she wanted to make a birthday card. On the third day, she asked me if I had heard about the woman at Winco who got arrested because she didn't have her papers. Blanca needed tag board to make a sign. I asked what she was going to write on her sign, and she said, Stop discrimination, or something like that.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

close but not quite



Today in the library, a 3rd grade boy named Brock Green was having an argument with some of the other boys. He was saying that Barrack Obama's name is Brock Obama, but the other boys were saying, No.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

drown them in a bathtub


We are happy, happy, happy about Obama. We can hardly believe it's true. We are not used to an election that allows our side to win. Are those neo-cons small enough yet to be drowned in a bathtub? 

Monday, November 10, 2008

my swarthy ethnic niece


My niece showed me a blog in which someone accuses her of being a "Swarthy Ethnic." She is pretending to be white, the blogger says. He includes the photograph above,  my niece in an ad for Powell's Books, saying,  "Note above, at first you see the long blond tresses and think Swedish Girl! Nope! look closer, she is olive skinned, brown-eyed and belongs to the new group of Fake Blonds. It is not an accident Powell's has a hispanic or polynesian with fake blond hair on the front page. I find it interesting that as White people are shut out by the Media and Corporate American, the Swarthy Ethnics have co-opted our exclusive hair color of blond." 
Brother! My niece is a blue-eyed pale-skinned German/Irish and, yes, Swedish girl. Although, really: so what?

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

perfect: the enemy of the good


I got this in my email today, from the "no war" listserv, "Granted, Obama has far more charisma- but so did Ted Bundy! Oregon is a true-blue state, therefore safe to vote your ideals. Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader are both on the ballot."
As if my ideals are ego-mania and self-defeating political correctness.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

why do we know more than those guys?


Greenspan said he is shocked by the current financial crisis. Hey, Chuck predicted it a few years ago. What's up with that?
PS We also knew there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Monday, October 20, 2008

humanizing evil


We went to see W. Okay, so I don't buy all the Oedipal stuff and, yes, Thom Hartmann, they left out the stolen election part, but a great movie anyway, in my humble opinion. Thank you again, Oliver Stone. 

Saturday, October 11, 2008

literary merit


I’m reading the five Oregon Book Award nominees before the winner is announced next month. The books are judged according to “literary merit.” That is the sole criteria. But what does it mean? Which has more literary merit: a book with finely crafted sentences, rich sensual detail, carefully drawn characters---or a more simply told story with a strong narrative thrust, a compelling voice, characters, who despite being sparsely drawn, are complete and full?  I don't see how anyone can tell. 

Friday, October 10, 2008

do a google search

I've been watching newscasts of McCain rallies. People are saying that Obama is a terrorist. Whatever that means. He is Muslim. He is an Arab. Who are these people? Don't they know how to find information? Don't they know how to do a Google search?

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Britney Spears of politics



My daughter says that Palin is the Britney Spears of politics, the train wreck that people can't stop watching.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

might as well be a Moonie


Last week I ate lunch in the staff room with the teachers, and one of them said she just loved the way Sarah Palin’s eyes sparkled. They are torturing people. They are holding innocent people in solitary confinement for years at a time, driving them mad. Tell me you are a Republican and you might as well say you are Pinochet. You might as well be a Moonie, as far as I’m concerned.

not the Mormon girls' fault



I could hardly look at the Mormon girls, when they came to my door on their Mission. I know they will vote for John McCain because, even if he ditched his wife for a younger model, had an affair with a beer heiress, and another affair with a lobbyist, he is the Christian vote, the moral, family values vote, and that’s what they want, these earnest girls at my door with the Book of Mormon in their hands. I know it’s not right to blame them for 100,000 Iraqis dead, for water boarding, for the end of our democracy, the destruction of our natural world, the extinction of polar bears, wolves being shot from helicopters, people abandoned and dead in New Orleans, thousands of dead American soldiers, the wedding party massacres in Afghanistan and all the rest of it. My daughter says it’s not their fault.

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Sunday, August 31, 2008

McCain during Katrina


don't let him fool you now.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

hand wringing at CNN



FOX is in charge of filming the Democratic Convention, and so you can understand why there are an inordinate number of shots of people yawning, not paying attention, or looking just plain silly. That's what we expect from FOX. But what's the deal wtih CNN? It seems to be an endless stream of criticism, whining and hand wringing. Every time I turn it on, I hear that someone hasn't hit it out of the park, Hillary's people aren't happy, the Democrats seem too liberal, the Democrats have missed an opportunity, yes the governor of VA balanced his budget but he raised taxes, yes Hillary gave a great speech about unity but maybe that means she should have been the candidate, etc. For this I got cable? Geesh.

If you want to complain write to http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form6a.html?3
It's the CNN address to use for reporting errors. I guess that includes judgement errors.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

counting on the unconscious

I'm working on a new novel and struggling to get everyone where I want them by the time I get to the end of the book. I'm hoping that if I just set everything in motion some unconscious part of my brain will take care of the rest.

Monday, July 28, 2008

obscene


Why did Janet Jackson's breast create an uproar, while at the same time she was surrounded by dancers simulating sex and nobody mentioned that?

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

a respectable job

When I get credit cards offers in the mail, I return the application form in its prepaid return envelope with a note to the employee who opens the mail: Watch the movie, Maxed Out, and get yourself a respectable job.
Chuck calls credit cards "time bombs, waiting for us to screw up."

Thursday, June 19, 2008

apologists for torture


While I wait for the last season of The Wire to make it to dvd, I've been watching The Shield. Yesterday I told Chuck that I can't figure out if it's a reactionary program, designed to illustrate the efficacy of torture--- show after show, the cops get to the big bad guys by torturing the little bad guys until they tell what they know (and we are glad they're doing it)--- or if the theme is anti-torture, because, when you think about it, the cops who torture (Vic, mostly) lose everything. They lose their families, their jobs are in danger, they lose their friendships and their self respect. So which is it? A rationalization for forture or anti-torture?
Chuck said that the guys who design programs understand how to appeal to both sides of the spectrum. We watch the show and read into it whatever we already believe. And he said anyway any program that works from the perspective of authority, particularly police authority, especially when applied to oppressed people, cities or landscapes is reactionary. So there you go.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Bill gives a speech at our school


Clinton was late. We stood waiting for him in the school gym for over two hours, and then he showed up and decided to give his speech outside instead. We had been in the front, adults and kids, hot and crowded, waiting all that time. The custodian had spent the day scrubbing the gym. It was decorated with signs the kids made and, of course, set up with a podium and flag draped curtains and the whole nine yards. Clinton decided to be spontaneous and ditched it. Meanwhile the disabled people who had been seated carefully, close to the stage, were thrown in with the rest of the crowd, hobbling, some of them confused and frightened. It was very chaotic. It was just like everything that happens at my school, which seriously calls into question the feng shui of the place, if you ask me. I was too annoyed to be charmed by Bill. When I found myself joining the teenage heckler shouting OBAMA, I knew it was time for me to leave.

buried treasure part worked

One of my library volunteers told me today that she read my blog about the library walls. Did I really write about such a stupid thing? I thought. I do have a rule, which I follow carefully: never blog when drinking. Should I also have a rule about blogging when I'm mad at my boss? I do like the part about buried treasure though.

Monday, May 05, 2008

x marks the spot


My boss is building walls in the library. I will only say this: many things need doing right now at our school and building a windowless room in our beautiful, open library is not one of them. We're having a fight. A fight that I, because of my subordinate position, am doomed to lose.
The builders have come and put xs on the floor to show where the walls will be built. Look, a 6 year old named Carlos said to his friend, touching an x with the tip of his shoe, this is where the treasure is.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

obliterate them


I got an email from Gloria Steinham telling me that, as a feminist, I should vote for Clinton. The other day Clinton said that if Iran harmed Israel, and she was president, she'd obliterate them. What's feminist about that?

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

library helpers


Alberto and Juanita were my helpers today which means they stamp the due date in the book. One hands the other the book and the other stamps. They seemed to be playing store. Thank you for shopping at Lincoln Library, they said each time they handed a book to a child. They took all the bookmarks and created a display on the counter so each kid could choose the one they wanted: the dog one, the cat one, the Garfield- in Spanish- telling- you -to read one.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

a school librarian thinks about Earth Day


How can the kids figure out how to take care of the world we're leaving them if they can't take care of their dang library books? This is one of the philosophical questions I wrestle with. Eventually I work my way into a big guilt trip for kids who lose or destroy books, but when they are little, when they are five years old, I go easy.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

internalizing repression


Today I posted the first page of my new manuscript, Watching Rhonda Honey, on my website. The first page is about being raised Catholic. I'm glad I was raised Catholic, let me say that right now. It did three things that I like. It made me psychologically complicated, which is useful for a writer. It gave me a sense of shame, which is not a bad thing, I realize now as I've gotten older. And, best of all, the Catholic church taught me that, when you strip everything else away, at heart it's all a big mystery.
Along with the first page of the novel, I posted a photograph I took in a Catholic Church in Mexico. It's a picture of Jesus' bloody, nailed feet. I think it's a sign of the repressive times we live in, and the way in which we've internalized that repression, that I hesitated: would someone be offended? Was it in bad taste? Was I being disrespectful? ---I hesitated, even though I knew that it it was right image, that if I could take a picture of what it felt like to be a little Catholic girl, it would be that picture.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Trying Not to Preach



April is Poetry Month so yesterday I read poems to the third graders: Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams. I read the Red Wheel Barrow poem and I read the beginning of Sharon Creech's novel, Love That Dog, about a boy who is forced to read the wheel barrow poem. Sometimes I look at the kids, sitting on the floor around me, and I think of the world we are giving them-- how can it not break your heart? So much depends on a red wheel barrow and so much depends on them. I shut the book and talked about poetry and the importance of words. I told them that maybe, because we have so many books, it's easy to forget that they are important. I talked about the fact that it used to be illegal to teach slaves to read, and that's because reading makes us powerful. I talked about a country (the old Soviet Union) where, when a new book of poetry came out, people stood in lines that reached down the block to get a copy. I told them that there a country where, when a poet published a new book of poems, the government had an emergency meeting, in order to decide what to do about it. That poet was Marmoud Darwish. Usually I try not to preach to the kids. Much of the time, I read them funny books—they especially like Dav Pilkey and Jon Scieszka— but sometimes I can't help myself.
I was glad to see that when it was time to check out books, some of them chose poetry.

Saturday, April 05, 2008

Three Cups of Tea


When it was first published a couple years ago, I heard David Oliver Relin talk about his book, Three Cups of Tea. Three Cups of Tea, if somehow you haven't heard, is the true story of David and his friend, Greg Mortenson, building schools for girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I thought it was the kind of important book that gets overlooked, that falls to the wayside, that publishers don't think to promote, that reviewers ignore, that stores don't stock. I thought I'd never hear another word about it. Was I ever wrong. Yesterday it hit #1 on the NY Times Best Seller list. Congratulations, David Oliver Relin.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

willing to feel sad


I've noticed that people who are giving their private online reviews of books (everybody is a reviewer now) will often give a bad review because the book made them feel sad. The book was a bummer. So it's a bad book. geesh.

Friday, February 29, 2008

eavesdropping on 5th graders


We never get to read. We only get to talk about reading.

~Kristi, age 10

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Coetzee and being American


"A few days ago I heard a performance of the Sibelius fifth symphony. As the closing bars approached, I experienced exactly the large, swelling emotion that the music was written to elicit. What would it have been like, I wondered, to be a Finn in the audience at the first performance of the symphony in Helsinki nearly a century ago, and feel that swell overtake one? The answer: one would have felt proud, proud that one of us could put together such sounds, proud that out of nothing we human beings can make such stuff. Contrast with that one´s feelings of shame that we, our people, have made Guantanamo. Musical creation on the one hand, a machine for inflicting pain and humiliation on the other: the best and the worst that human beings are capable of."
J.M. Coetzee: Diary of a Bad Year (2007).

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

touring in N.Bend




Last week I gave readings, along with other Oregon Book Award winner/nominees, in N Bend and Eugene. The picture above was taken in N. Bend: Ben Saunders, Paul Merchant, myself and Shannon Riggs. The tour was fun. (As fun as something like that can be for an agorophobic like me.) The best part was the other authors and their wives and Susan Denning, who arranged everything.
ps support the arts: buy their books

Thursday, January 17, 2008


Today a woman told me that she had borrowed my second novel, Twenty Questions, from the library. She decided to read it on the recommendation of a friend who said it was a "good, light read." Yikes. Oh, thank you, I said.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

concerned 4th grader



Feb. 24, 2001
Louise McDonald left a Jehovah Witness pamphlet on my desk today. "For Alison," it said.

ps Of course her name is not really Louise McDonald, don't worry.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Yes, it was sad all right.


I was reading the preschoolers a book called My Dog, Toby when 4 year old Brennan interrupted to say that he had a dog one time but his father threw it out the back door and it died. He said, "That was sad, huh."


ps I don't write about kids who are in my school now. The stories I use when I write about my school are from journals I've kept over the years.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

no witches, but food


We went to a town near the volcano called Fuego, which means fire. People say that there are witches in the town. We didn't find any, but we did find a good restaurant.