Letters of a Voyage

A Roost For Words: Rewrite take 3

2010-09-08T22:18:09Z

Seriously, I need to get over this poem. It wasn't one that I intended to put ANY time into, and we are now on the third re-write. But I like it better now, please don't look at the old ones. I am not deleting them only because I promised myself I wouldn't delete the ones I thought were crap (we would be left with very little material here, and they are all apart of the process, right? RIGHT? thank you.)

( A Roost for Words )

This involved a fair amount of poetic license. This poem (in it's earliest, most humiliating iteration) was begun on a napkin, but has been finished and edited in a notebook I try to avoid sneezing in. Also, I don't drink lattes (I needed the extra syllable and black tea doesn't have the same ring of cowardice). But I am too cheap to buy a moleskin and the sentiment is there.

There is one mistake. 10 points to the person who can spot it, but no smugness because I did it on purpose.

I remain,
Georgie

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Across the Beach

2010-08-30T23:08:49Z

I don't want to jinx myself, but I think this may be the best sonnet I have written all summer. Big Tent Poetry asked for a poem about something you do with your hands, essentially to write about the motion or action. I didn't quite do that, but it did get me thinking about holding hands. We do with with some many different people and it means so many different thing, but is essentially the thing that grounds us. The inspiration for the first octave was the image of a child running along the beach. It's such a happy image, but carries so many dangers- drowning, pecked to death by gulls, getting lost or kidnapped, attacked by rabid gulls, etc. The original inspirations for the sextet were a) The Coldplay song "Til Kingdom Comes" (Hold my head inside your hands,/I need someone who understands./I need someone, someone who hears,/For you, I've waited all these years.) and an surprisingly beautiful, meandering X-files fan fic I once read in which Scully says to Mulder "I don't want to be alone, who will hold my hand." (I don't know why I have to write tons and tons of backround for fourteen measly lines)

( Across the Beach )
The last lines are either about a meteor shower, or the end of the world. If I am lucky, there will one day be graduate students using their master theses to take a stand on the ever important meteor or apocalypse debate in the work of G. Sand.

(Confidential to merrycaepa : Most of this was written pre-Van Gogh, I swear I only stole the last. )

I remain,
Georgie

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A Rewrite: Word Roost

2010-08-27T03:45:51Z

While NOT writing my sonnet for this week (note to self: Petrarch only gives you five rhyming sounds, DO NOT sacrifice one of them to a neat repetition thing, no matter how neat it is), I re-read a bunch of work from the summer. Also not inspiring. Why didn't someone tell me I have been writing crap all summer? Oh, you are the silent judgmental types? Cool, we can work with this.

But I really liked the images/concept behind my poems-on-a-napkin sonnet. Always With You, I believe I called it. The writing was awful, though. So I rewrote it.

Voila

( Word Roost )

I like this one much better.

I remain,
Georgie

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On Impermanence: Home is Where the Bus Stops

2010-08-25T04:32:21Z

This was written on a greyhound bus returning to my home town after a weekend visiting my nine-months-home, while wishing I was back in London. I'd kill for a tardis, but then again, maybe that's not what I am looking for.

( On Impermanence: Home is Where the Bus Stops )
I remain,

Georgie

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Midterm Change of Plans (and a Sonnet)

2010-08-18T02:02:03Z

So...something isn't working: it's not you, writing project, it's me. Or it's both of us. Clearly an essay and a poem is too much, because I am writing crap, and just getting stressed about the whole thing. And if I am stressed now, then keeping up during the school year is NEVER going to happen. So change of plans: a poem (which has now become sonnets--I can't do the free form thing) or an essay a week. Ideally I will alternate, the essays are harder but good for me. However, I will be writing a lot of essays once school starts and I think in general I need to be less serious about this whole thing.

And now on to last week's (see I'm behind again) sonnet. Big Tent Poetry asked for a poem about a possession. I was going to write about my "Keep Calm and Carry On Mug" from the British Imperial War Museum (having just watch the Churchill Dr. Who) but when I realized I had left my notebook at home (I write at a coffee shop between taking my mother to work and going to work myself) and that I was consigned to writing on napkins--I realized that the one thing I always have is a blank page, I can't even escape by forgetting my notebook. And Thus:

( Always With You )

I remain,
Georgie

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To Kai-i-Nefri: A Museum Mummy

2010-08-11T20:54:46Z

A catch-up sonnet from last week. I decided to bag the Big Tent prompt for this week and instead wrote about the mummy in the Egyptian gallery of the museum I work it. I may or may not have written this sonnet surreptitiously while on post--I didn't get caught, which is what counts. The idea came to me when I heard a grown man (wearing a "Pirate for Hire" t-shirt) say of the Egyptian collection, that the magical value that the objects had for ancient Egyptians is largely disregarded. While mulling that fact over, I became increasingly frustrated with the visitors response to our mummy, Kai-i-Nefri. First of all, yes, folks it's a real mummy; if the label says human remains, it's human remains. Secondly, everyone seemed to react with either horror (ew, gross, dead body) or awe (look at the really old thing from an exotic culture), which it is. But it's also the body of a human being. We know he died unnaturally young, probably late 20s, and I wished someone would look at that mummy and see a son, or brother, or at the very least a human being. And rather than strangle the next 13 year-old girl who said "Ew, gross," I wrote a sonnet.

( To Kai-i-Nefri: A Museum Mummy )
And if anyone tells my boss, I'm writing sonnets on the job...

I remain,
Georgie

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Jellical Cats Want A Corner

2010-08-04T00:18:25Z

I am slowly catching up after my super-busy-week-from-hell, so this essay is not even from last week, but the week before. It was written on 5 hours of sleep, in a coffee shop, the last day of super-busy-week-from-hell, so it's both goofier and more ranty than I might have hoped.

( Jellical Cats Want a Corner )

I remain,
Georgie

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Motivation

2010-07-20T03:12:49Z

So I am posting an unfinished poem this week, fate conspired against me I guess. Big Tent's prompt for last week was about steganography--"security through obscurity." I got quickly discourage because, like last week, I felt like I was spending too much energy being clever to fulfill the prompt, than really writing poetry. So in the future, I am going to be more judicous about whether I use the prompt, or just write from another prompt source.

But I am proud of my idea, so I'll post what I do have

( Motivation )

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Of Use

2010-07-20T02:54:07Z

This was written fast that I wanted, which is partially the point of the exercise--I am used to being able to sit over these things for months. But no more! It's also a little more angsty-teenager than I hoped, I but I came up with some less personal prompts for the future, so I promise it will get better.

Also: Ten points if you can spot the clump of sentences stolen wholesale from a earlier post.

( Of Use )

I remain,
Georgie

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Fair and Fun and Skipping Free: On Friendship

2010-07-12T21:13:57Z

Here's the first weekly essay. It is a reaction to an article in the New York Times about educators discouraging best friendships from forming in their classrooms. It doesn't deal as closely with the article as I would like. I learned a valuable lesson about writing in response to another piece without the piece in front of you. Mostly that you shouldn't do it. As a result my essay is not as tight as I would like it to be. I felt myself torn between wanting to make my point and wanting to tell a story, and it also feels a little preachy at points. But I figure it's better to just post it and move on--that's part of the one essay a week deadline, I need to learn to move on.

Also, and this goes for everything, there will be typos. If my writing was going anywhere near anyone or anything that might consider it for publication, you can bet there wouldn't be a typo in the surrounding 25 square miles, but for now, c'est la vie. That being said, if there is something garish and humiliating, feel free to let me know.

( Fair and Fun and Skipping Free: On Friendship )

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Sugar and Mice: Anti-Extermination Nursery Rhymes

2010-07-11T00:33:29Z

This week's Big Tent prompt involved taking a common pair of words (their example was love and hate) and letting one side "wander" (say, to love and hat). They cited a poem about the dangers of Love/Hat relationships (when the basis of your affection is the other persons headgear) and invited us to create our own.

My initial list of word pairs included: War and Peace, Crime and Punishment, and Rhythm and Blues, but when searching for a recipe in my mother's battered Joy of Cooking, I came upon a winner: Sugar and Spice. Although the perversion to Sugar and Mice was clear, it resisted being turned into a poem. My last resort was unabashed goofiness, which morphed into three short poems extolling the virtues of vermin.

( Sugar and Mice: Anti-Extermination Nursery Rhymes )

Be sure to head over to Big Tent to read the Love/Hat poem and the other submissions. Thanks for indulging my much needed goofiness.

I remain,
Georgie

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To Adam, From a Would-Be Eve

2010-07-05T18:11:41Z

So to start out on a completely juvenile note, I wrote a love poem. I said I wasn't going to, ever, but Big Tent Poetry asked for a conversation poem. They even went so far as to ask "Is there a question you are burning to ask someone? Is there a person (living or dead) you would love to have a conversation with?" And when you put it like that.

I am not named Eve (I am not named Georgie) but the nonspeaking (and for now oblivious) audience member is in fact named Adam. There are a lot of Paradise Lost jokes in our circle.

The full lines are iambic pentameter, mimicking the conversational Lyrical Ballads of Longfellow and Coleridge. But because I don't know a single real person who could get out an entire conversation (particularly of this nature) in iambic pentameter, there are short lines too. The parenthesis are to play around with subtext. I figure even in a fantasy-truth-telling there are still things I wouldn't say out loud.

( To Adam, From a Would-Be Eve )
You can read other great responses at Big Tent's Come One/Come All post for last week, or find this week's new prompt at the same site.

I remain,
Georgie

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And Now For Something Completely Different

2010-07-05T17:07:52Z

Hi, remember me. My name is Georgie, I had this Dreamwidth journal once. And then I stopped writing in November and completely dropped off the face of the internet-planet. Yep, that's me.

It's becoming painfully obvious that online journalling isn't really for me. I over-think the things I write, I write infrequently, and I don't really have the time and energy to invest in an online community. (I never comment, I know, I'm sorry. It's not personal I promise.) Which sucks, because despite my limited experience with online communities, it seems like Dreamwidth has got something really special.

Since I am having a significantly less busy summer than I had hoped for, I am trying to develop a writing discipline: to write longer more developed versions of the essay-type work I put up here, more frequently. Also, I have started writing poetry. This may be a dangerous thing. At the moment, I have no aspirations of publication, but have found myself trapped in academic-style writing, which is good and valuable for his purposes. But I think it would be all around beneficial (not to mention enjoyable) to hone my skills of articulation in other forms.

Also, since my degrees (to come in two years) will be in almost totally useless subjects (or mostly I intend to do largely unemployable things with them), having a larger body of writing work to use as samples and maybe send to the odd magazine or so, can't be a bad thing. Yes, that translates as: the backup plan for my theater career is writing poetry.

So the goal for summer is a poem and an essay once a week. (This will change during the school year, but hopefully I will develop a somewhat maintainable habit.) This week, since I was still working out the kinks, there is just a poem (there may be two essays this week to compensate). I am using the Big Tent Poetry weekly prompts for my poems. My essay prompts will probably come from me. I am hoping that it will encourage me to listen more closely to , and think more deeply about, the world around me. I have ideas, I just need a discipline to get them written.

That being said, I completely understand if watching the train wreck that is a college student trying to turn herself into a writer is not your cup of tea. Please feel free to unsubscribe at will, there will be no hard feelings. I will keep my reading list, because although we seem to have precious little interaction, I find the things that you all write fascinating and I have learned so much from all of you. Seriously, you have no idea. But I completely understand access/subscription changes.

But, I would love it if you choose to stick around, comment as you wish. I completely welcome criticisms and pointers, I know I have some brilliant writers out there on my reading list and am not so attached to my words that I can't learn from what you have to say. (I may whimper a little, but it's good for me.)

Thanks for bearing with me.

I remain,
Georgie

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An Old Rant

2010-03-06T17:41:00Z

"Because it is beautiful, it is truly useful" ~ Antoine de St. Exupery The Little Prince

Story's are like...actually, no they aren't. They aren't like anything and more importantly they don't do anything. They just are. They are stories and we tell them because it is in our nature to do so. Because we need them. But they don't fight crime, they don't solve injustice, and they can't jump over tall buildings in a single bound. And they don't need to.

It drives me bonkers that we seem impelled, as an intellectual society, to justify our stories. That we can't just put them into the world and let them be. That we have to interrogate them: what does this story do for us? Why is significant? Why is it significant now? Here?

The story doesn't need to function as anything besides a story. Something that people, for a moment, can simply share. Like communion. People don't analyze communion (Well, okay, religion majors do.) But in the moment of ~~communionizing~~ communing, it just is. Bread, wine, bada-boom, bada-bing, and you have something to share.

Stories function, not as microcosms or as metaphors or a symbols, but as little pieces of beauty that can be shared among people. A sort of communion, between people who know each other well, people who have thousands of years of history together but still tell the stories because that is what reminds them of what holds them together. A megillah. And orange on a Seder plate. Or between people who have never met but in passing, who sit together in a dark theater--don't sit together, sit six rows apart and never so much as make eye contact--but because now they know the same story, have something to share.

I remain,
Georgie

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While You Were Out

2010-01-13T19:51:11Z

“I had a stick of CareFree gum, but it didn't work. I felt pretty good while I was blowing that bubble, but as soon as the gum lost its flavor, I was back to pondering my mortality.”~Mitch Hedberg

There was a catacylismic earthquake in Haiti, and were it not for my Dreamwidth Reading List, I wouldn't know about it. How sad is that. The Christian Science Monitor is my homepage, and I still didn't notice.

I love this place, I do. I love being in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but students and books and academia. I love the focus, I love the community. I love the bubble. But not once, in the three hours I was out of my room (including in an Atlantic History class) did the fact that there was massive earthquake practically next door, come up. Not once.

And even if it did, what can I do about it. I am trapped in in the middle of Minnesota by geography and by the fact that I have a paper due this week and reading for tomorrow. I see funds popping up on the internet (again, thanks Dreamwidth) but despite the fact that I work fifteen hours a week, I have no money to give because it's all going to paying the exorbiant tuition for this bubble. I am barred from participating in the world by the institution that is training me to live in it.

I remain,
Georgie

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Loose in the Joints and Very Shabby*

2009-12-29T04:16:44Z

The proof that the little prince existed is that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists. ~ Antoine de St. Exupery.

I have yet to write a real "I am twenty and therefore a real person" post (something about being in the middle of exams at the time) so here goes.

A continual joke among the people in my world is the prerequisites for being "a real person": the having of a retaining wall (or any sort of landscaping), or kitchen appliances (especially a toaster oven or blender), having your own space, having control over your own soul.

Twenty has always seemed to be "that year" in my mind. Part of it is because in Christian Science, that's the year you graduate from Sunday school. So even before twenty was synonymous with freedom, it sounded a lot like adulthood. The other part is that nothing exciting happened at any of the other "grown up" ages. At twelve and a half I fasted for Yom Kippur for the first time, but that had more to do with it being my first Yom Kippur than it did with being twelve and a half. At sixteen I wouldn't even get my learner's permit for another six months. At eighteen I registered to vote and stepped quietly into my civic duty, but wouldn't actually vote or gain anything resembling real independence until just before my nineteenth birthday. I might have signed a field trip permission slip. At twenty one I doubt I will drink any more than I do presently, which is almost not at all anyway. My excuse used to be that I wouldn't drink until it was legal, but it turns out I don't really like how alcohol tastes and I feel no regret for having had exactly one illegal fruity drink in my life. At twenty five I am sure I will rent a car, but in terms of coming of age rituals, it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi.

At nineteen I couldn't be the person who accompanied my camper to the hospital when she broke her leg, because "what would it look to the parents if they should up to find that she had been left with a nineteen year old." But at twenty, things seem really different. Even in the last month I have been accepted as an adult both by people who knew my when I was very small and those who hadn't met me pre-realness. At past Thanksgivings I had been "a kid" both to my younger aunt and my much older cousins wives, but this year I found myself sitting in the same corner as them, bouncing the newest baby in the family on my lap, and laughing and chatting as if I weren't actually fifteen years younger then them. Because those fifteen years suddenly didn't matter like when I was ten and they were twenty five.

So I am pretty sure I am not imagining this real personhood thing. But I'm also fairly certain that becoming a real person wasn't instantaneous. They say that even in the child of seven you can see the man of seventy (who, exactly, they are, I don't know), but I can tell that even in the last ten years I have changed so much to become the "real" person I am. Ten years ago I'd never worked in a theater, was barely interested in history. I didn’t know I was smart. I was also in fourth grade, had just gotten glasses and was just figuring out that I had asthma. I wouldn't go to summer camp for the first time until the next June. Harry Potter had just been written. September 11th and wars were still two years off. The Red Sox hadn't won the World Series and I didn't even know what International Baccalaureate. I didn't think about the things I think about. I can say with a fair amount of confidence, I wasn't a real person yet. Because those are the things that made me real. Real and Loved (like the velveteen rabbit*).

I am now, bogeret l'rehut nafsha--an adult with control over my own soul. And I laugh.

But I still remain,
Georgie

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Becoming Anne Edwards

2009-12-11T04:55:13Z

" We'll all grow up someday, Meg. We may as well know as know what we want"~Amy in Little Women

I listen.
I listen over tea, or dinner, or homework, or the invariable ten minute walk to class, or Meeting, or rehearsal.
I listen and I proofread papers, run lines, and take up sleeves. I give hugs and some advice. I am proud and "disappointed" (never,of course, angry. Just disappointed).
I laugh, and I laugh, and I "knock, breathe,shine, and seek to mend,"
and I listen.

As Anne Edwards says in The Sparrow "I've turned into the semi-mom of an odd bunch of children." And I love it.

When i imagine anything about my life in ten years it involves a kitchen table

This ability to listen is, I know, a talent and a gift for which I am very grateful. I don't think there is a production or a grade in my entire life that I am more proud of then the listening that I have done and the ways I have been able to help my friends.

But there (as there always is) a catch. I know more about most of my friends than I think a lot of people do. And as a result I know more about their friends (some of whom I am also friends with) than they know I do. When a close friend starting dating The Boy Scout, he joked that I must be on some sort of committee created to analyze his behavior. And I can take confidence keeping to Olympic championship levels.

But I don't give confidence. I rarely talk about myself and when I do I regret it. I either regret it during and waste a lot of breathe apologizing profusely. Or I regret it after and end up feeling like I have shared too much about myself.

Same goes for helping. I will read papers, take up sleeves, fix jackets, listen for hours at all hours of the day or night, make and keep promise with joy. I love it; it genuinely makes me happy. But I get plagued with guilt if I ask the same of anyone else. Like clearly The Roommate, with whom I am very close (would trust with my live, soul, and light designs) is going to think I am lazy if I ask to borrow her bike when she isn't using it because she is slaving away in that chem lab of hers.

So what gives.

I don't want to end up bitter because I give so much of what I want but can't (for what ever silly reason) receive. And I love, more than even I have words to express, this aspect of my life. It is, without a doubt, the most salient aspect of my life, the part that makes me feel real, regardless of whatever else I am doing. I assures me that I am real and good and loved. But this thing, this catch, it nags.

So what gives.

I remain,
Georgie

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georginasand @ 2009-12-06T23:12:00

2009-12-07T05:12:40Z

~ "I intended an Ode, And it turned to a Sonnet." ~Austin Dobson

Sonnet written for extra-credit in a Shakespeare class. I'm rather proud of it, so here it goes. It's about waiting, complete with gratutious nod to Samuel Becket

A solitary sailboat stuck in unswayed

Water, a wandering warbler waits for

Dusk, and a daring day dreamer delayed

Far from fortune, all paused outside the door

That opens on to an unknown which lies

Ahead. Brighter, broader, more beautiful

Than the present. From hope deferred time flies

To the sick-somethings of the dutiful

Who wait for the tree of life, but do not

Climb it[1]. For a wish is not so secure

But, like a fruit, can with neglect rot;

Steadfast patience cannot it ensure.

But if good things come to those who wait[2],

then that which never comes may just be late.

[1] From hope…of the tree of life: In Waiting for Godot Vladimir says “hope deferred makes the something sick” trying to quote Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”

[2] Final syllable intentionally missing.

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Open Letters to Persons or Entities Unlikely to Respond

2009-11-14T19:47:24Z

“The most annoying thing about the saying "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is that it is usually true” ~ Anon Y. Mous

shamelessly stolen from McSweeney's:

Dear Herr. Velociraptor,
Thanks for ruining my ability to take reading quizzes or objective English tests without serious psychological trauma. Seriously, the words "you could have gotten an A instead of an A- on that test, but you were thinking too hard" escaped the lips of my current English professor (who has a soul, by the way).

Also, it turns out that I'm competent, borderline smart. Thanks for holding out on me.

Sincerely,
Georgie

Dear 18 years of Christian Science Sunday School,
I. thought. we. were. over. It would be nice if I could take simple precautions for my health without the crushing guilt. I'm not trying to cheat; I'm trying to be careful. I know it; you know it, now leave me alone.

I turn twenty on Saturday. Goodbye.

Sincerely,
Georgie

Dear Ed. Psych Professor,
I know this may come as a shock to you, but I am a mature, independent adult. I don't want you to like me; I want you to respect me. If I am wrong, tell me. And please, please, do it without all this "I value your contribution" nonsense. If I'm wrong, how valuable was my contribution, really? Also, you may not have a personal space bubble but I do.

Sincerely,
Georgie

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Speak Truth To Power and Fear No Evil

2009-11-13T22:31:19Z

“We are most true to ourselves when we are inconsistent" ~Oscar Wilde

Shockingly, enough people are weird. And more than that they are human, fallible, and fragile, I just think the world ought to know that. Or know that I know that.

I am mediating by nature. I really hate to see people upset with each other, especially when it is clearly a misunderstanding. I have been striking friendly peace-treaties between friends since about third grade. Apparently, I also listen well. It's weird, and I don't know where it comes from, but there it is. As a result, I've been put in the middle of what would be, were it not for my knowledge of the statement I opened my post with, incredibly awkward. But they weren't and it made me realize things about human nature that I feel are worth writing about (also, did I mention that I haven't posted since august? I don't know how it got to be November, really).

I have a very interesting relationship with Christianity; think theology is very interesting so I have been attending a discussion group one of my friends runs called "Christian Faith and Doubt." More often the Token-Catholic (who is the co-leader of the group) and I (The Funky-Protestant-Turned Jew-Turned Quaker-Turned who really knows anymore) are diversity among six or seven main-line Protestant, Youth Group raised, but also very perceptive, very intelligent girls. This week's topic was about what it means to be a Christian.

Let's just say this is a divisive topic, way more than I expected. I came to the discussion hoping for answers, rather than with something to contribute. I am revisiting Christianity (it went out the window with my childhood church and my belief in a simple theology in about sixth grade) more than I ever expected, and I am trying to figure out if Christian is something I want to call myself or can reasonably call myself.

(I am in the awkward position of really liking a lot about liberal Christianity, except that divinity of Christ part, which is a whole other post. In some ways I am a messianic Jew in reverse: they want Christ without the Christianity, and I want Christianity without Christ. This is a problem. I can't ask the Christians that I have been hanging out with (and by hanging out with I mean going to Taize services with) to be anything less than they are, which is fully Christian. But I also can't ask myself to be any more than I am which is not Christian.)

So the discussion moved towards the difference between someone who IS Christian and someone who IS NOT Christian, and there was, as could be expected differences about what is the tipping point between what is and what is not: The Trinity? So much for the Mormons, Rest on Sundays: So much for the Seventh-Day Adventists, The Golden Rule: Well, that's pretty universal. The particulars of the discussion are unimportant, but things were said and they heard as exclusionary, even if they weren't meant that way.

So at about 8:30 my mediating "C'mon guys this isn't worth killing each other over" instinct sent in and no one really intended to hurt anyone's feelings, so we got through it. But more than anything, the leaders of the group felt like they had behaved badly, and they had put me in a funny place by having to mediate (they don't know much of the theological stuff) and made it clear that they were apologetic.

Maybe the leaders did behave badly, I don't think they did, but maybe they did. And maybe I should have been uncomfortable with the fact that I had to mediate a little, but I wasn't. And I really didn't mind being in the position I was, it was natural and normal and instinctual. The discussion is clearly a fraught one, but I don't think we should shy away from it because of that, or even more so for fear of making people uncomfortable. That's how we learn and grow, by being uncomfortable, by getting upset, by letting each other know that we are upset and dealing with it. By accidentally upsetting people, taking it with good graces, and dealing with that. And by letting ourselves be the fallible, fragile, weird people we are.

I remain,
Georgie

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IF Seeing is Believing

2009-08-12T20:32:45Z

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" ~Dumbledore Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

This was meant to be posted ages ago, but wasn't. Such is the life of a summer camp counselor.

I will willingly admit to seeing the 6th Harry Potter Movie twice in twenty-four hours and it was the best movie I ever hated.

It would be both untrue and unnecessarily harsh to say that the movie wasn't good. Or even that it was bad. It was bad, but it was also really good. Confused? Awesome, me too!

( Movie Review: Arrogence, Insolence, and SPOILERS to follow )

I remain,
Georgie

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Is It the Fourth?

2009-07-20T20:32:43Z

"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation. ~Woodrow Wilson

No, incidentally, it's not the fourth. But I am working at a summer camp in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains and haven't had time to write as much as I would like. And it's still July, so I don't consider myself obscenely tardy.

I have probably already mentioned this, but I am working as a sailing counselor at a summer camp for two months. I went to this camp for seven years, and my mother was a camper for many many years, so campfire smoke and rhododendron are in my blood. This camp, as evidenced by out song book, must have been little-hippie central in the sixties and seventies. If there is an anti-war protest song it is in our song book. And after an only slightly painful rendition of”The Star-Spangled Banner," we sang every one of them on the Fourth of July.

And on that note, I'd like to point something out: The signing of the Declaration of Independence was the beginning of a war, not the end of one. It was the beginning, in fact, of a very long, very bloody, and at time both very cold and very hot. It was an awful, albeit arguably necessary, war that was incredibly expensive in both lives and funds for, not two, but four countries. There is not a song by Peter, Paul and Mary that can begin to describe it. And if we wanted a holiday that celebrated peace, love and unending happiness, there are a lot to choose from: October 19 the day Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown or even September 3 the day the Treaty of Paris was signed. January 14, November 25 are all dates associated with the end of the war, the beginning of the United States of American with the added bonus of being events Simon and Garfunkle would be willing to celebrate?

But they aren't the days we celebrate, and I think that is very significant.

It means that Independence was real for us (or for the US) before it was real abroad. We had convinced and united ourselves and that's what made independence real. There is no doubt that there was a war to fight; that we had to prove our Independence, but it also means that this "United We Stand/Divided We Fall" jazz has more gravity that just bumper sticker fodder. We celebrate Washington and Hancock and Jefferson on the 4th because they are obvious heroes. But without John Dickinson's (delegate from Pennsylvania, Quaker and wouldn't vote for action that would cause a war) absence or New York’s (had not yet received orders from the colonial legislature to vote aye) abstention there is nothing in the wide world Hancock, Adams, and Jefferson could have done towards a unanimous vote short of homicide (we may see murder, yet.) And by celebrating our Independence on the 4th of July rather than the 19th of October or the 3rd of September, we celebrate their actions to Independence, if not for it. (Note: John Dickinson will fight in the Continental Army and then write the Pennsylvania plan for the Constitutional Convention).

I think was our ability of ours to recognize Independence within ourselves, whether we supported it or not, that saved us much of the trouble that Latin America and Africa are seeing as they fight ongoing wars of independence. Although the war was bloody, costly, and one we were largely not prepared for, we were united, had a hierarchy and government in place. We "hung together" and were prepared for a victory. Independence already existed and that independence we celebrate on the Fourth.

However, it ought to be noted in the midst of the pomp and parade of the 4tht of July, that a war, several depending on who you asked, were fought to prove that Independence. And the plethora of dates I listed earlier indicates that Independence is not instantaneous. Benjamin Rush, who is consistently one of my favorite Founding Fathers in the history of fathers founding things, wrote of independence as "The Republican experiment". Declaring Independence did not equate with Independence existing, which did not guarantee the survival of the union (as Jefferson Davis was so kind to demonstrate). And the survival of the nation thus far (233 years) does not guarantee our existence tomorrow or for eternity. (What have we got that the Mayans and the Romans didn't?)

The experiment is still playing out; every decade is a new trial with new variables and we are continually declaring our Independence.

I remain,
Georgie

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Gone to Carolina

2009-06-29T01:08:49Z

"A lot of parents pack up their troubles and send them to summer camp " ~Raymond Duncan

My feet are dirty, there is sand in my bed (neither will be clean for the next 7 weeks) and I have drunk three classes of ice tea sweet enough to make your fingernails curl (Oh, how I love the south). It's official. I'm at camp. And I'm a counselor so I am both in charge (ack! we won't discuss that I haven't been in a sailboat in two years) and being paid (hooray! this is far better than paying exorbitant amounts of money to have dirty feet and beds and scary sweet sweet tea).

I have internet and my laptop so I'll be in and out. Not that I'm ever really in. But I am trying to write more regularly this summer. I have thoughts to think and things to say, but never seem to get around to writing them. Expect things written in the next few weeks (read: next few months) to be about eleven year olds, sail boats, and the wonderful North Carolina Blue Ridge mountains.

There will be a forthcoming post about why this means the world to me,because dirty feet and sweet tea aside, it does.
I remain,
Georgie

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Explaination

2009-06-01T15:09:43Z

"'Tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings...to which supply admit me Chorus to this history, who Prologue-like your humble patience prays..." ~Shakespeare, Henry V

It wasn't a perfect dress rehearsal, but they were the imperfections one hopes for in final dress, the ones that will ensure a smooth opening: droped lines, droped entrances, dropped scenes (I'm not sure if we ever found 1.11, but I think it turned up in the second act somewhere). None the less, I'd like to think the Bard would have been proud of us. It rained today, so the final dress rehearsal of our outdoor production of As You Like It happened on a bare stage, under fluorescent lights in a round theater. So much was it like the Globe, I was half expecting the ghost of Richard Burbage to appear and give us the Prologue to Henry V. I could have done a lot with a Muse of Fire that night. Granted I am a Shakespeare dork, but it was so cool to see the play as it was supposed to be: just people and words, words, words.

This week I have had approximately twenty pages to write and that show that I am stage managing. As a result I have been tired and grumpy and cynical and short. (I am, not usually like this. I am usually optimistic, have had at least 7 hours of sleep, and am 5'8", or at the very least can pretend) Living in the close sort of community I do, people are bound to notice this, and living in the wonderfully close sort of community I do, people are bound to comment on it with concern. So I am trying to figure out how to explain why I put myself through this, and by this I mean theater show weeks.

But people get bewildered when you say "yes, I am stressed and miserable but it is worth it." i am perfectly willing to own that this week has been more or less miserable. I've been tired, and frustrated, and borderline sick. The theatrical process is so unbelievably screwed up. It involves late nights last minute changes and being 85% sure the show is good and 15% in a state of sheer panic. Even the best director or stage manager who plans like crazy can't avoid the disasters that are bound to occur. It's inherent in the process. And what is a bit hard to explain in casual conversation is how much I love this process, and "love alters not when alterations finds." I have tried, believe me, to fight the process. I make checklists, I color code, and triple check pre-set lists and props plots. But I am still in the costume shop at 11pm hemming pants or up at 8am running lines with a panicky actor.

The finished product of a theatrical performance is a fragile, beautiful, and miraculous thing and I love that. I love it, "when the story is good, and the audience is listening." But really I am in it for the panic attacks at 5 minutes to places, and the hours of rehearsals in this case in wind and Minnesota afternoon sun. I like watching the play form and take place and even more than that, I love getting to shape it. And yes, it is worth a week on five hours of sleep and a B- in sociology, and it will always be worth it.

I remain,
Georgie

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A Communist Manifesto on the Protestant Ethic

2009-04-27T01:29:11Z

"Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning." ~Bill Gates

It's amazing how, in strange small ways, the world just seems to make sense. I think things like these are the last thread letting me believe in an ordered universe.

In Intro to Sociology we were discussing Max Weber and his work on religion and economics. The short story is that he studied five major religions and discover that only one could have given rise to the efficient bureaucratic capitalism we know today. He published his results under the title "The Protestant Ethic," you can imagine what the result was. But if you think about it, Protestantism is the most efficient way to get to heaven. No confession, no mitvot, no "Patience, my blue friend." Who knew that, among other things, the Grace of Gd, was so efficient.

Note (for people who don't know me in real life, because "woah, there are people I don't know reading my journal!!!"): This is by no means an endorsement of Protestantism, or a degradation of any other religion, including the force. My personal theology looks a bit like what Jesus, George Fox, Peter Abelard, and Hillel in a smoothie maker might look like, so I'll poke fun at anybody, because I'm probably poking at myself.

I remain,
Georgie

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