SuperWeed

My lengthy silence has had some people saying the title of one of my favorite mp3 blogs: Honey, Where You Been So Long?

I’ve been stuck at the intersection of Deadline and Nothing to Say on the writer’s block of a particularly bad neighborhood. I managed to slog through one overdue anthology chapter but then became immobilized in the middle of another. Like a fool, I stayed there, even though I ought to know by now that saying “no blog, no email, no writing anything else at all until this gets written” is a certain recipe for days and days of staring discontentedly at sentence fragments and jagged paragraphs as I fall further and further behind not only on the project in question but also on all of my other obligations other than teaching and animal care. Like Wiley sings in Treddin on Thin Ice, “it seems I don’t learn because I make the same mistake more than twice.”

Luckily, somebody called me and reminded me of something else I’ve been promising to write. The next morning I burst out of bed and began monomaniacally writing that other thing, the words pouring out like a cloudburst breaking a drought and the ideas flowing faster than I could get them down. Two days and twenty pages later, I’m ready to get back to that chapter and start making a dent in all of the things I’ve neglected while trying to write it.

We’ve just had a cloudburst at the sanctuary too, a lovely deluge that washed the pent-up pollen out of the air, which now carries the delicate scent of the rampaging wild roses just starting to bloom. The ducks were delirious during the downpour and continue to be thrilled by the swelled ponds. Now that the sun’s back out, the chickens are running around excitedly, catching up on the foraging they forwent while waiting out the rain.

I can’t spend long on this post because I’ve got literally thousands of spam messages to wade through in order to find my true email messages and heaven-knows-what-else to do to get back on track. But, before I go, let me tell you one thing that sometimes gets the words going and almost always keeps them flowing: The right music. If I can find the right music to match the mood of what I’m trying to write, then I’m halfway there, I guess because of the way it stimulates my brain. That means, sometimes, listening to the same song 25 times while writing one paragraph or, more often, listening to a cycle of songs that collectively capture the feel of what I’m trying to say.

Let me share with you three tools that help me to do that, also helping me to discover new music and make the most of the music I have:

1. MusicIP Mixer
I learned about this software in New Scientist magazine a few years ago and have happily used it ever since. Basically, the program constructs playlists based on the structural features of music. The version for individual use is free. After installation, it analyzes your mp3s (or AACs or whatever). Be patient. This takes a looooong time. Once it’s ready to go, you specify one or more tunes as the starting point of a playlist, choosing whether you want the list to have high or low variety in terms of kinds of music and whether or not the overall style of the artist(s) of the seed song(s) should be favored. The program then constructs a playlist of any length you choose, based on the structural features of the music. If you like, you can tinker with the the playlist before exporting it to your player of choice or listening directly from the mixer.

The very first time I used MusicIP Mixer I was amazed by the song it chose to follow the seed tune, which followed it perfectly although they were in two very different genres and I never would have thought to put them together. Besides regularly supplying surprises like that, this software helps me to make the most of my music by keeping me from slipping into ruts. Songs that I otherwise might have downloaded and forgotten pop up in playlists all the time. And it’s great at generating playlists that capture and reiterate the mood of an instrumental track, which is exactly what I need to keep the words flowing when I’m writing.

2. Pandora
Pandora is an online stream server associated with the Music Genome Project. Again, the emphasis is on the structural features of music but here these are used to create personalized “radio stations” based on one or more songs or artists. So, if you’ve got a song in your head and would like to hear music like that, you can start a station with it. Or, if you’d like to hear songs of a certain type, such as bebop in a minor key, you can seed the station with a few songs that fit the profile. Either way, once the music starts playing, you can give thumbs-up or thumbs-down to each song so that, over time, the station more and more closely matches what you want to hear. (I’ve got one station that plays nothing but Thelonious Monk or other artists playing Monk compositions, another that plays Parliament/Funkadelic-style funk, one that plays jazz-inflected hip hop, another that plays Delta blues, etc., etc.) You can choose to share your stations or keep them to yourself. Either way, you’re bound to discover new (to you) music along the way.

3. Last.FM
LastFM is a hybrid music discovery and social networking service. Unlike MusicIP Mixer and Pandora, both of which I’ve been happily using for years, LastFM is relatively new to me but I’m pretty pleased with it so far. Once you sign up, you can choose to “scrobble” the record of your listening to the LastFM server (obviously, not for you if you want to keep your listening habits private) which then maintains tallys of your top songs and artists. These are used to identify your musical “neighbors” (people with similar tastes) and generate personalized radio stations such as one that plays what your neighbors are listening to. Another great way to discover new music! Even if you don’t choose to scrobble your songs and get personalized stations, you can listen to stations of artists similar to your favorite artists and listen to tracks by individual artists.

I had to mention LastFM because there you will find the track that supplied the title for this post: Freddie Hubbard’s brilliant Up Jumped Spring. Since today’s another rainy day (I started this post yesterday) you might also want to check out his version of Here’s the Rainy Day.

Today is poetry day in my classes. Each student brings in and reads a poem of his or her choice. I teach speech and this is the time in the term when we are focusing on using language colorfully and concisely as well as aspects of delivery such as rhythm and vocal expressiveness.

In my first term teaching speech, I half-expected poetry day to be like pulling teeth (to use the kind of trite metaphor writers really ought to avoid) but it turned out to be a joyous day of creativity and self-expression. Some students brought poems they wrote themselves, bravely reading out anguished reflections that made their classmates wince in empathy or polished pieces that provoked whistles of admiration. Others brought in old favorites, like Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” (always chosen by at least one female student in every class). Even those who had clearly done the assignment at the last minute, scrambling to find a poem in an old textbook or on the internet, made some effort to choose a poem that expressed something about themselves or their view of the world. Now I know that poetry day will be one of the happiest days in class each term.

One year, a quite masculine young man brought in “Phenomenal Woman,” which he wanted to read because he liked what it said about Black women. I still remember women in the class echoing gleefully, “that’s me,” every time he read that phrase. (I teach at an HBC/U, so most of my students are African American or African.)

In another class, a young man read out a poem about your rifle being your best friend. This was a diffident young man whose previous speeches and class assignments all had something to do with explosives. His classmates called him “the boy who loves bombs” and viewed him with some trepidation, probably wondering (as I did) when it might be time to worry.

That day, after everyone read their poems, I invited comments on the exercise. After complimenting the love poems read by both male and female students, one bold young woman took a deep breath and went on to say that the poem about the rifle had scared her. “The boy who loves bombs” looked surprised and asked why, clearly really wanting to know. After hearing her explanation, he said that he didn’t really like that poem but it was the only one he knew, having been forced to learn it while in the Marine Corps. His answers to his classmates’ questions about basic training led us all into a discussion about what scholars call the social construction of masculinity.

Then we had to move on to the next scheduled exercise of the day, which just happened to be a fun little game in which the class decides how the phrase “Are you talking to me?” might be said by three different people (a hard-of-hearing old woman, a sarcastic young woman, and an angry young man) at a bus stop. For each of the people in turn, the class has to decide how the speaker stands and gestures as well as the emphasis and intonation of the words in the sentence and then, in unison, everybody has to stand up and say the sentence like that character. As they were impersonating the sarcastic young woman, I caught a glance at the theretofore stone-faced “boy who loves bombs,” laughing and laughing with his peers as they stood, each with arms akimbo and one hip jutting out, asking “Are you talking to me?” I’ll always remember that day because I wrote about it in my own journal, entitling the entry, “the boy who loves bombs gives us a smile.”

Instead of returning to his theme of munitions, that student gave his final speech on a wonderful trip he had taken to visit a relative in another country. He got a passing but not very good grade in the class, simply because of not turning in written work. The next year, I was surprised when he walked into my classroom again, having elected to re-take the class with me. Since he didn’t make any more of an effort to complete his written assignments, I can only conclude that getting a better grade was just the pretext for getting a little more time in a safe atmosphere where people try to use words truthfully to talk about things that are real, forging real relationships with each other in the process. (I did give him a better grade anyway.) And — oh — there were no speeches about guns, bombs, or fighting from him that second term.

Thus, the power of poetry day.

Often, after they’ve all read their poems, my students will ask what poem I’ve brought to read. I always have a few, just in case. Usually, I’ll read Audre Lorde’s “Litany for Survival,” which ends with this passage, which I find very appropriate for a speech class where many students come from dangerous neighborhoods here in the USA and some come from war zones in other countries:

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive

Sometimes, if I’m in a mood, I’ll blow their minds by reading Ntozake Shange’s “with no immediate cause,” which begins with this gripping passage…

every 3 minutes a woman is beaten

every five minutes a

woman is raped/every ten minutes

a lil girl is molested

yet i rode the subway today

i sat next to an old man who

may have beaten his old wife

3 minutes ago or 3 days/30 years ago

he might have sodomized his

daughter but i sat there

cuz the young men on the train

might beat some young women

later in the day or tomorrow

…and goes on to become even more intense.

But here today, in honor of poetry day and the melancholy side of springtime, let me take a page from Noemi’s book and share one of my own poems, which I wrote a couple of years ago when — no, first the poem, then the story.

Rural Free Delivery

Somebody planted daffodils.
When? Now naturalized,
they run among rusted cars.

Petals of a black metal fan
still shimmer
within the forsythia.

How long?

At the time, I was reading an anthology of essays and poems by the past poets who called themselves imagists. I really liked the idea of imagism — image-focused poems expressed in concise yet lively language — although I didn’t think the poems in the anthology at all reflected the guidelines for such poetry given in the essays. I guess I was drawn to the idea of finding ways for images to speak because I had myself been more or less struck mute by the aggregation of jarring juxtapositions like those I wrote about in my last post. I kept seeing things, like the headless torso of a deer rotting in a drainage ditch by the side of the road, that provoked in me a complex mix of thoughts emotions that I was finding it difficult to express in prose.

This particular poem was provoked by the images it describes, daffodils that had rewilded themselves in an abandoned yard filled with junked cars and the gleaming black blades of a fan in the same overgrown yard. The rampaging flowers and insurgent “weeds” gave me hope but the persistence of the unnaturally shiny metal made me wonder longingly how long it will be before nature can deliver herself from our toxicity.

• Seed starting set from the discount hardware store: $9
• Mini-greenhouse from the fancy garden catalog: $99
• Starting seeds you saved last year in cut-up salvaged soda bottles lined with pages from back issues of the EarthFirst! Journal: truly priceless

I’ve been offline for what I now realize — from the panicked calls from people wondering if I’m okay — has been something like two weeks rather than the couple of days I originally planned when I shut down the computer to concentrate on midterm grading and getting the garden started. (Thanks for those calls, by the way: It’s nice to know people are looking out for you.) I’m fine. I guess I needed more of a break from words, words, words than I realized. And once I got started on the springtime outdoor chores in the garden and around the sanctuary, I realized how very many such chores there are for me this year here by myself. So, I’ve been digging garden plots, breaking up compacted ground in preparation for reseeding the chicken yards, mending fences, hauling compost from place to place, etc., etc.

Speaking of such chores, Deb and Rich came by last weekend to pitch in at the sanctuary. Deb posted some lovely photos on her blog. Let’s hope she comes back to snap some more shots when it gets a bit greener, because heaven-only-knows when I’ll get around to replacing the worn-out battery in my camera.

I just stepped outside and, amazingly, the chicken yards are already discernibly greener than when Deb took those pictures 7 days ago. Spring really is something.

So, I’m surrounded by springtime cuteness in the form of chubby chicks and nodding daffodils that always look like they’re talking with each other. But not only.

Right now, the air outside smells like feet because they manured the nearby fields earlier this week. On the day they do it, the stench of of the excrement of captive animals is choking. Also earlier this week, the transport trucks were going back and forth all day long as I did my outdoor chores, coming up the road empty and then down the road loaded with young chickens seeing their only snatch of blue sky before being shackled upside down, electrocuted, and cut up into bits. I can’t… quite… describe the feeling of sitting on the front steps with the warm sun on your arms, resting for a moment after a bout of digging in your veganic garden bed, enjoying the company of the anarchistic band of chickens who’ve taken over the front yard… as one of those trucks comes rumbling down the road loaded with confused and terrified young birds who cannot imagine the horror that awaits them at the end of the ride.

I tried to write about that for one of my earliest posts, Beauty and Cruelty Are Having a Fist-Fight in My Front Yard. You might want to check it out if you missed it. And, since it’s garden time, you might want to check out my how-to posts on cruelty-free gardening here and here.

PS — I’m slowly, slowly working through the mountains of spam that accumulated in my inbox while I was outside. If you’re waiting for an answer from me and it doesn’t come quickly enough, please don’t hesitate to write again or give me a call.

I regret to inform you that the University of Michigan (at which I pursued my graduate studies) has yet again refused to grant tenure to a more-than-qualified woman of color. I remember struggles around this problem back in the 90s and I’m dismayed to find that the problem is ongoing. Luckily, the outrage over the decision has provoked the University to reconsider the decision and there’s something we can do to help.

The scholar in question this time is Andrea Smith, the director of Native American Studies at Michigan and the co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide and co-editor of the two INCITE! anthologies, The Color of Violence and The Revolution Will Not Be Funded (all of which I strongly recommend), Smith is a formidable intellect as well as an indefatigable activist. She has published 15 articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals and has been a Nobel Peace Prize nominee.

A scholar and activist who is always building and crossing bridges, Andrea Smith consented to speak at the 2007 Inadmissible Comparisons conference sponsored by United Poultry Concerns and Lantern Books. Her presentation entitled “Animal Exploitation, Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy” was probably the most thought-provoking and useful conference presentation I’ve ever heard. That’s right, both intellectual and practical. Mindful that she was speaking to an audience of animal activists, Smith included within her presentation a remarkably concise summary of the struggles around race, sex, and class that have led to useful changes in organizing strategies in other movements. She also allowed animal activists to view their attitudes and tactics through the eyes of potential allies. (Lucky you, if you missed the conference, you can get at DVD of that presentation using this form.)

I noticed during that presentation that Andrea Smith has the skill and artistry to talk about smart and often quite complex ideas in a matter-of-fact manner that everybody can understand. In her contributions to discussions, she raised sometimes quite challenging ideas in a way that proved thought rather than defensive reaction. That tells me that, in addition to meeting the scholarly obligations for tenure, Andrea Smith is also a great teacher.

For all of these reasons, I hope that some SuperWeed readers will join me in writing to the University of Michigan Provost, Vice-Provost, and President (email addresses and talking points here) to urge that Professor Andrea Smith be granted tenure, as recommended by the American Culture program. Your letter will be particularly useful if you are affiliated with a college or university or with a non-profit organization that has made use of Andrea Smith’s ideas. Certainly, if you’ve read Andrea Smith’s work (and you should) and found it to be useful to your scholarly or activist work, you should write to say so.

Since actual letters on paper often have more force than email messages, you might want to go the extra mile and actually print and mail your letter. If so,

President Mary Sue Coleman
Office of the President
2074 Fleming Administration Building
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1340

Teresa Sullivan
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
3075 Fleming Administration Building
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1340

Letters need to be in by 31 March. You can find all the information you need in this statement by supportive students and faculty and this action alert. You can find more tips for letter writing here. If you want to read more about Andrea Smith, check out this blog entry by feminist scholar and activist Suzanne Pharr, who writes:

In the progressive movement, Andy is often considered to be without intellectual peer. Not only does she have what we admiringly call “a BIG brain,” but she is an activist, always working with others to put political analysis into political action. It is an extraordinarily combination. The analysis Andy gives us is never based on her opinions or feelings but is always carefully researched, framed, and delivered in ways that can directly affect how we go about making social change. Andy is one of the major teachers in my 68 year old life.

Send copies of any letters you write to TenureForAndreaSmith (at) gmail.com