Everyone seems to have gotten into a snit about Jonathan Franzen (author of The Corrections) snubbing Oprah. Some fairly respectable authors are criticising Franzen, clamoring that there is no distinction between high art and low art, and Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's Magazine, earnestly claimed that "a good writer is a rich writer, and a rich writer is a good writer."

Now, I don't believe for a moment most of these people really think these things. Can you imagine being a writer, and not believing that most of what is published these days is formulaic crap? Even the stuff that proposes to be a bit more intellectual, rarely rises above middlebrow--what Virginia Woolf called, "a mixture of geniality and sentiment stuck together with a sticky slime of calf's-foot jelly." And that's about the highest level the Oprah book club ever gets. A middlebrow bookclub on a lowbrow TV show, as the Boston Globe article linked above puts it.

But let's not criticise too harshly. The point for much of Oprah's audience, remember, is not to actually read a book. God forbid. The point is to be seen publicly carrying it around. And local book clubs don't help readers explore the themes presented by a book anyway; the whole idea is to pass out a few good phrases so members can convince others they actually know how to read. "Oh, yes, I thought the rape scene near the end was particularly ... um ... sad."

On the other hand, there are people who are really in earnest. They really want to imporve their exposure to literature, and see Oprah as giving them a way to do that. She's rich, they say, and seems intelligent--she must be choosing the good books. And for them, the tragedy is greater. Instead of offering them challenging, worthwhile novels, she hands out her Gold Stars to the finest examples of Woolf's slimy middlebrow pap.

People, in general, have practiced being stupid for so long that it would take years of training to break the habit. Like turning off Oprah, and actually reading a goddamn real book.

Thanks to boingboing for pointing out this recent speech by Bill Clinton at Yale. Unlike our resident cowboy, the former philanderer can string a sensible sentence together.

The essay on medical metaphor in Emily Martin's The Woman in the Body is one of those analyses that make you think: have people really not given this some thought before? Literature--supposedly objective, rational, scientific literature--on women's bodies is disturbing in its explicit value judgements. Menopause is described as a "failure", a "breakdown". Birth is a machine-like process, with doctors acting as supervisors and mechanics to ensure the efficiency of the procedure. (The "labor" process is subdivided into multiple stages, and if the stages don't progress according to the chart, chemical or physical intervention is employed to bring them up to standard.) And menstruation results from a failure of production whose object is a baby (even when the woman in question had no desire to become pregnant). This is an account of menstruation from a recent college text:

If fertilization and pregnancy do not occur, the corpus luteum degenerates and the levels of estrogens and progesterone decline. ... [Lack of blood flow] causes the tissues of the affected region to degenerate. ... [The blood from weakened capillaries] and the deteriorating endometrial tissue are discharged from the uterus as the menstrual flow. As a new ovarian cycle begins ... the functional layer of the endometrium undergoes repair and once again begins to proliferate.

Read "degenerates", "decline", "deteriorating", "discharge", "functional" (for what?), "repair"... Compare this to the language used when talking about the stomach lining, which is also sloughed off and lost in a cyclical process. This is a "regeneration", and a process of "self-preservation".

And compare it also with Martin's description of menstruation, equally scientific:

A drop in the formerly high levels of progesterone and estrogen creates the appropriate environment for reducing the excess layers of endometrial tissue. Constriction of capillary blood vessels ... paves the way for a vigorous production of menstrual fluids. As part of the renewal of the remaining endometrium, the capillaries begin to reopen, contributing some blood and serous fluid to the vlume of endometrial material already beginning to flow.

The extent to which social prejudices underlie "objective" science worries me, but what worries me more is the fact that most scientists don't seem to realise it. They're carried along, secure in their own paradigm of impartiality and ever-advancing human knowledge. But knowledge is always already someone's knowledge--and we damn well have a responsibility to think about whose.

If you haven't read the book, pick it up sometime. It's an easy read, and well worth the time spent on it.

Sring forward...fall back. Spring forward...fall back.
Eventually I'll remember these things.

Wicked cool day yesterday. Got up early and helped M. paint an elementary school as a community service project. (I did the doors.) Then, on the way home, stopped in at a thrift shop to see about assembling a halloween costume. What did we find hanging in the back? Two boiler suits, just the size to fit M. and me. And verily, inspiration struck. With a bit of craftyness, some wings, and a couple of glittery plungers we became... [drumroll] ...FAIRY PLUMBERS. What? It was funny, really. Especially the antenna.

On the way back from the party, we ended up in a bar just before closing time. There was much costumed tomfoolery going on in there. I think my favorite was the jumpsuited Elvis and Glenda the Good Witch swing dancing to ABBA's "Dancing Queen". Only on Halloween, baby. Only on Halloween.

Rosalyn Diprose offers this quote:

...ethics can be defined as the study and practice of that which constitutes one's habitat, or as the constitution of one's embodied place in the world.

As ethical beings, we locate our place in the world by relating ourselves to others. But the act of relating is inseparable from our own position (our bodies, our culture). This position is formed in part by others, by those who see us and judge us from the outside. Identity, and difference.

What makes "us", us? Who is defining us, and why? Who will benefit because the world is constructed a certain way, and what are the possibilities for resisting that construction?

These are important questions.

Later:
I've just started re-reading A Tale of Two Cities, inspired by Caterina's enthusiasm. I tried to read it once, ages ago, and I don't think I ever finished. I wasn't much for the Great Books in high school. But now, older, thinking about writing and reading in different terms, it's time to start catching up.

I dreamed this last night. It's not good fiction, sure, but it was so strange to dream in words that I had to write it down:

I'm standing in the doorway, one shoulder hunched up against the frame, watching you. You are asleep, curled up beneath a thick blanket, breathing easily (I can see the blanket rise and fall in time with your slow breaths). This is where I want to be; here, where you are, where I can keep you safe and keep myself sane. This time, this moment, is forever. And you don't even know, because I can't tell you, how much I feel for you. How the curve of an arm, a breast, the curl of hair across your forehead can be an infinity for me. How I can lose myself in one square inch of your body, escaping only with the greatest effort of will, and feeling like a man saved from drowning who wanted most of all to die under the waves.

I've been dreaming strange things lately. When I wake up, all I can remember is a vague feeling of unease--and occasionally the covers are damp with sweat. I don't usually dream, so it's even more upsetting. Like someone's taken over my brain, gone walking around inside my skull while I'm asleep and vulnerable. Creepy.

I'm listening to NPR, and they've only done one story about anthrax so far. Things must be improving. Incidentally, do you think you could identify the faces of NPR? I failed on them all. *sigh*

Autumn is my favorite time of the year. When the air smells of future snows... when the wind makes the dry leaves dance and swirl. Samhain, Rosh Hashana, Dia de los Muertes. Endings, and beginnings. This is a time to tie up loose ends, and to make new plans for the spring. I need to sit down and think about what needs to be resolved, and what can be set in motion.

And I need to find a Halloween costume. I was just invited to a party on the weekend, and two days is not enough time to throw something together. It's time to hit the thrift stores; or maybe I can just go as a Poor Graduate Student...

Rain today. Gloomy, gray, drizzling rain. Rain that isn't hard enough to make things clean, but still gets under your umbrella and soaks your jeans and shoes on the way to class. Classical music was playing over the public address system in the El this morning. It was something I didn't recognize--vaguely sacred, like something you'd hear in church before the sermon. The station guard was standing next to his office listening, so I assumed he was the one guilty of co-opting city resources. Hearing that music lifted my spirits as I drank my morning cup of coffee, despite the rain dripping down my neck. I was ready to have a great day. I was all set to be productive.

Ha.

Crews were working on the tracks, so I got to campus too late to make the photocopies I wanted. Then I had to sit through two and a half hours of that ex-minister, family-values, new-liberal professor. It's like Sunday school, except about Hannah Arendt instead of the Bible. And I feel just as much like bolting for the door as I always did when my parents would drag me to church on Sunday. I just don't deal well with being preached at--whatever the subject. I'd rather make up my own mind, thank you.

On a happier note, my mother gave me a hundred dollars to help pay my bills this month. Yay!

Tomorrow I'm presenting the reading in my Ethics seminar. Maybe there will be music again on the train...