Michele Foucault looks like Michael Stipe.

CONCEPT

You see?
You see?

So the vacation and weddings were great, but so far today is awful. It has everything to do with a 300-page thesis absolutely due by six, and Kinkos having changed their mind on the question of whether or not they have acid-free paper. In fact, if I didn't have the quietude of the Giving Tree to listen to all morning, I'd probably be flipping out more visibly than I am.

You may be able to help me here. Does anyone know where I can print two copies of a 300 page document (which I'll have to access via email attachment) on acid free paper, and get velo binding?

If you do, please email me or contact me ASAP. I'll be so grateful, I'll bake you cookies or something.

END OF POST.

Oculine 1, 29.

DIARY

Hey. So Jess and I are going away on vacation/wedding-excursions to Chicago and Ohio. Then, when I get back, my thesis is pretty much immediately due. Obviously, I won't be posting here. Blue Skies Falling will be back, with all its typical vigor, on Tuesday, May 1st.

I'll leave you with yesterday's Question of the Day, which blogger did not allow people to answer. You've got a week, so you can come up with something particularly wonderful:

- QUESTION OF THE DAY WEEK -
Compose a song/poem/lyrical what-have-you from found lyrics--to be at least 10 lines in length, and with an apparent rhyme scheme.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 29, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
The temperature soared to 90 degrees F in New York City, 1896.

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Moss.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
One of you requested this one by email:
Compose a song/poem/lyrical what-have-you from found lyrics--to be at least 10 lines in length, and with an apparent rhyme scheme.

END OF POST.

Macewoudd.

EVENT

1. The big ones, the ones involving people in our demographic (generally speaking), have seemed to happened in March or April. Columbine happened in April, the Kayla Rolland shooting happened in March, the Oklahoma City Bombing happened in April. Jonesboro was late March. Ditto for the Red Lake High School Massacre. What is it about early spring that nudges on explosions/self-destructions among the median group of Americans? Is it the pheromones? Is it something in the air? There are numerous exceptions. Maybe there's no correlation. Maybe it's a statistical bulge, not even a coincidental relationship.

2. For me, hearing about these events always inspires a feeling of deja vu: they seem fundamentally the same. Almost to the point of feeling identical. I'm sure that this is partly the luxury of bearing witness from a distance (which itself might be contradiction or oxymoronic). Still, the observation feels like it carries factual weight: differences are incidental and superficial. Similarities are immediately apparent and profound.

3. In 2000, speaking of the Kayla Rolland shooting, I said that this is my particular generation's ghost to wrestle with. It is our closest approximation to Jim Crow laws, to Great Depression privations, to gilded age nativism. That is, while mass-murder is a feature of every time and every place, it has experienced a meaningful proliferation since the 1990s. It is the self-destructive impulse that, at this point in time, makes itself into our zeitgeist, and gains significance as such. In thirty years, it will be one of the most significant yardsticks of how our children evaluate us socially. This observation is borne out as my generation ages.

4. This is interesting.

5. Jess and I are both fortunate not to have known anyone hurt in the events at Virginia Tech. But it is just as worth remembering that the less sensational terrors in the world are much more fatal: disease, starvation, pollution, and attrition. Even in the U.S., automobile fatalities (~40,000/year) and preventable deaths (like lung cancer from smoking - ~150,000/year) far outweigh "conventional" homicide (~30,000/year), which itself is annually one thousand times the death toll of this particular event. Not to trivialize anything. If we are shocked into appalled silence, it should be an expansive horror, and a correspondingly expansive silence.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 27, 29.

DIARY

- Approximately two weeks until Blue Skies falling is "back to normal."

- It's amazing how big a week can seem. I took the day off work today, on account of feeling sick and exhausted, and needing to not feel sick and exhausted as I attend weddings/fly to Chicago/fly to Ohio/finish my thesis.

- During the Octave of Easter I always try to attend a different church each day, but churches change their schedules a lot at this time of year, and so there's inevitably some doubling up. I also had this week to meet with my peer group to discuss some seven hundred pages of text (of which I am responsible for more than a third), and to finish attending colloquium events to make the eight-event minimum. I'm just building the case for it being a big and crazy week.

On Sunday night I only got four hours of sleep.

On Monday, I went to work, tried to go to St. Francis of Assisi which is across the street, but they had canceled their evening mass. I went down to New School for a colloquium event, and almost everyone was there: Marco, Meredith, Hosanna and Stephen, Daniel and Bernie, and so on. I went home and did reading for my peer group, but I only got four hours of sleep.

On Tuesday, I went to work, successfully went to St. Francis, and went to the New School for another colloquium event - poetry this time, and got to talk to Amy and Liesel. Then I went home. More reading. We watched American Idol, and voted for LaKisha. Again, I only got four hours of sleep.

By Wednesday, I was seriously exhausted, but I had finished almost all of my peer group readings. I went to work, then took the B to the 7 and crossed a big bridge and met with the others at Hosanna's. We had good, solid discussion, at Thai food, and took the bus home and went almost immediately to bed. But not until learning that Haley was voted off - yes!

On Thursday, I went to St. Patrick's cathedral and St. Francis Xavier church in the Village. I let myself relax enough to take a walk along Bleeker. There are also some last minutes texts I needed for my Literature Project, and I spent two hours at Bobst and the New School's library, but only managed to track down two. I finally managed to get three more, but only after dropping sixty bucks at a Barnes and Noble. It's all lit. crit. stuff I'm not thrilled about, but I am struck at how much Foucault really looks like Michael Stipe. Finally, I went to my final colloquium event to make my requirement, and I, quite by accident, made an excellent choice. It's from a series called "The Constitution in Crisis" and while it only seemed to be writing-specific by the barest thread, I didn't really care. Bryan Stevenson, chair of the Equal Justice Initiative, was the speaker, and he gave some of the most persuasive arguments against the death penalty I've heard to date. (I'll write about them when I have only a little more time). I went home, hung out with Jess, blah blah, goodnight.

On Friday, I went to St. James cathedral - lovely, but definitely the most dressed-down cathedral I've ever gone to - in the morning. In the afternoon I tried to go to St. Edwards, but it was all locked up, the gates padlocked, and no posting for when they'd be holding mass. These are both churches in my neighborhood, approximately. Between, I did work on a lot of small projects associated with my thesis. I might have spent too much time on them, but they needed to get done, so no regrets.

On Saturday, it was more of the same. A very cloistered weekend. I tried to go to Sacred Heart in the morning - just down the block past the BQE - but same story: dark and padlocked. This is the fate of many parishes in this neck of Brooklyn. A lot of reading and writing. Jess went out with friends, and I stayed home and did some cleaning. (But this was all stuff I'd meant to do a month ago.)

On Sunday, I went to St. Boniface again, was just about destroyed by the wind and the rain that's been turning over New York for the last day. I came home, went to Tillie's, read, cleaned, did the taxes. It took me until five in the morning.

Which is why I'm off work today. I have a headache and the beginning of a head cold, and I'm going to be very annoyed if it's still around this weekend when Jess and I fly to Chicago.

Incidentally, in focusing my schedule and making it as tight and practical as possible, I've broken up the next half-year into ten segments. Half are "action" (or acting on plans) and half are "calibration" (or making plans). Actually, I think most of life is like this, and it isn't neat - there are epicycles, so to speak. But by having a clear picture of what needs to be done by when and what cannot be done when, it's possible to have more realistic expectation. (This is, for example, why I'm scaling back on my blogging this month). Anyway, the current "action" lasts through Saturday, May 19th, when I graduated, and there are five parts. This past week represented the first part, the Octave of Easter, and while I didn't do everything I needed to do, I came more close than I usually do. Names: I went to church each day (or tried to), did the taxes and a lot of spring cleaning, and all without compromising my peer group or thesis. This week will be "Power Week" meaning basically that I have to plug into the very end of my thesis and reading for and writing up my literature project. Which means I should finally finish this post and get to it.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Take calculated risks.
- George S. Patton Jr.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Charlie Chaplin

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
New York Times: Kurt Vonnegut, Novelist Who Caught the Imagination of His Age, is Dead at 84.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Are you in a time of "action" or "calibration," and when do you think that will change, and why?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 24, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Form a single word from: no more stars.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Thomas Jefferson. Also, FDR's birthday was yesterday.

- NATION OF THE WEEK -
Bermuda.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Do you have (a) favorite painter(s)? Share.

END OF POST.

Poo-tee-weet.

BODY

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., you will be missed.

Perhaps the University of Chicago will finally give you your degree now.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 23, 29.

DIARY

- I am seriously starting to question whether Wikipedia is as fun as it used to be.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Bustle in the anthills and noisy chickens foretell rain.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
Yale Alumni Society: How the Secret Societies got that Way.

- Actually, no question there. I know that it's not.

- QUESITON OF THE DAY -
Would you consider the scavhunt judges to be a secret society? What about teams?

END OF POST.

Entropy.

BODY

The darkest, emptiest, possibly saddest thing ever.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 22, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Forty-eight tornadoes hit the midwest, 1965.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY - Dad!

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day: Dark Matter Map. Gorgeous.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What would you like to be your last drink before you die?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 21, 29.

DIARY

Yes, you're old. Haley Joel Osment turned 19 today.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Plant a "drive-by" garden to enhance your roadside.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"A scientist worthy of his name, about all a mathematician, experiences in his work the same impression as an artist; his pleasure is as great and of the same nature."
-Henri Poincaré

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
If you could have majored and thrived in any field at your college (other than what you did choose, if you did) what would it be?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 20, 29.

DIARY

The last week was lovely, and almost entirely dominated by Holy Week. On Tuesday, Amy and I met for drinks after work to discuss our Poetry v. Fiction capture-the-flag game next May. (It won't ever replace Scavhunt, but it might give May its irrevocable Mayness). We watched Idol, ate Indian food, and generally hoped that Sanjaya would be voted off. On Thursday, I went for a walk in the Village and got some reading and writing done at News Bar. I met Jess for the Holy Thursday service, and on Friday I went to the Stations of the Cross and the Veneration of the Cross. I also slept a lot. In the evening we went to Scott and Marco's to play Risk (also with Hannah and Leila), and home from there. On Saturday, we went to the Easter Vigil and then a late late housewarming party for Peter and Matt. It was freezing on the walk back, but we were starving and stopped at McDonalds for Bic Macs and fries. We got home at after three... it was a weird, very social week in that regard. But I always love the services at St. Boniface - warm, poetic - and I went back that morning. Sunday was too cold to go out, and was a very lazy day for Jess and me. We had a very greasy bacon and eggs breakfast-at-lunch, napped, and watched YouTube and the Twilight Zone. We went to sleep well after one. This week, the hard, hard work resumes.

- ROUGH SAILING -
So far I've been able to work on my blog in spare minutes here and there in such a way that my thesis work hasn't interfered. However, things are really coming to the wire, and I've decided to largely cut several activities from my day to free up valuable minutes. I will probably revert to normal around the 3rd of May. With the exception of the week of the 23th to the 27th, when I will be in Chicago and Ohio, I will continue to write the daily posts, but there probably won't be much else. When I start up again, however, I'm going to try to write more robustly on the theological and artistic fronts. This is a goodtime, therefore, to offer any suggestions or constructive criticism.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, ending U.S. Civil War, 1865.

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
You already know about the Greek cruise ship and the British sailors released by Iran.
Here's one of potentially greater long-term importance:
International Herald Tribune: Ukraine president dissolves Parliament and calls for elections.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What is the least frustrating source of news for you?

END OF POST.

Republican hypocrisy a la Syria.

EVENT

I wasn't planning on disrupting what's meant to be a quiet and meditative day with political invective, but this to me seems to be a big deal. I think that with the gathering Democratic momentum the G.O.P. is playing for higher and higher stakes, hoping that one single rhetorical victory will sway public opinion back to their court. That is, after all, their specialty: they did it with the opposing candidates in the last two presidential elections, and managed for several years to parley the objectives of the Iraq war from one (WMDs) to another (terrorist support) to another (humanitarian) to another (regional stability).

Here is their current tack, and if the popular media is any indication, it would seem to be working: one of CNN's top stories today was Cheney: Pelosi shows 'bad behavior' in Syria. As a friend of mine wrote in an email yesterday: "What I DID see was on CNN, of all places, a picture of Pelosi in a
headscarf with the caption 'TERRORIST?'"

This is a hypocrisy.

It turns out that the Republicans sent their own delegation (three congressmen) to Syria just days before Pelosi's trip. You can read about it here. If the Daily Kos is too left for your tastes, the New York Times has finally covered this as well. It should also be noted that Pelosi has not refuted Bush's foreign policy beyond establishing contact with the Syrians. This is, doubtless, recognized, in the fact that the White House hasn't spoken out their own delegation, which was formulated along very similar lines. It should finally be noted that some Republicans have shown indignation in Pelosi wearing a headscarf in deference to Islamic custom, yet Laura Bush and Condoleeza Rice have done the same.

I think that this issue is so transparently moot that there is great damage in letting accusations slide by. If any friends or coworkers make derogatory comments about Ms. Pelosi in Syria, please set them straight. And please drop at least a quick line to your local news agency asking to show circumspection in their coverage of politics.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 17, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
My first and second designate abbreviations of two states. My whole these states would be before the Revolution, see?

- I SAY -
Happy Good Friday.

- COUNTRY OF THE WEEK -
Belize.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
How do you celebrate the coming of spring?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 16, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
To avoid tears, put onions in the freezer for a few minutes before slicing.

- LINK OF THE WEEK -
Fergie vs. Alanis. Sad Kermit comments. Yeah, I know you've probably already seen these.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Which is your favorite muppet?

END OF POST.

Call for Gothic Funk Epistles #3, #4, and #5.

CONCEPT

Routed via the Gothic Funk Listhost.

---

Epistle #3. Submit an anonymous letter to me by email or at http://www.hereisnowhy.com/contact.html.
Write a letter about an experience you have had, are having, or anticipate having in the rain. These experiences are not bound to fact or fiction, or subject matter in any other particular way.

Epistle #4. Submit an anonymous letter to me by email or at http://www.hereisnowhy.com/contact.html.
Write a letter whose subject is an argument and/or supplication. The more passionate, articulate, and logically rigorous, the better.

Epistle #5. Submit to me by email or at http://www.hereisnowhy.com/contact.html.
Send a note that you wrote to a friend/family member/romantic partner that displays vulnerability. The more passionate, unedited, and unvarnished, the better.

These Epistles are not to be related or integrated in any way.
Submissions can be of any length up to 1,000 words, and the order of letters will be randomized.
Submissions will be edited for grammar and spelling.
Submissions are due by midnight going into Friday, April 13th 2007.
The epistles will be posted to the listhost and on www.hereisnowhy.com/gothicfunk on Sunday, April, 15th 2007.

These epistles aim for an epic execution, so please distribute this invitation widely.

There are two lies in this invitation.

END OF POST.

April, 2002.

DIARY

In April 2002, I was living in East Humboldt Park with Ben. While we had successfully chased the roaches into the wall with threats of a rent strike, we weren't able to do a think about the precariously tilting floor or that fact the the bust season had just started for the gangbangers on the corner.

In other news, I'd run out of Harry Potter books to read, and I had absolutely no prospects to do theater. I'd started on the three-year long (and still incomplete) second revision of Urbantasm, and I was working at NMFF in the Oncology department. I liked the people I was working with, but I was overworked, and not exceptionally well-paid.

There were a few highlights of the day each day. For example, when I took my lunch break and went downstairs and crunched up saltines to put in the cafeteria soup. That was fun. Or lifting nation descriptions off archived records of the ICE MERP websites. As you can see, it was a pretty less-than-mediocre year.

I might have enjoyed, as I usually do, watching leaves bud and break on the tree across the street, but when a car had been set on fire there the summer before, and it had spread to the tree, and then the tree was dead.

I did have scavhunt meetings.

Those were fun.

Where were you in April, 2002?

END OF POST.

Oneidine 15, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
To get rid of garlic breath, eat an apple.

- HAPPY BIRTHDAY -
Sky!

- PICTURE OF THE WEEK -
Monastery at Green Mountain.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
What animals do you most enjoy seeing at the zoo?

END OF POST.

Setting the Bar High.

EVENT

As I've written about on past occasions, Walter Milton, Jr. became superintendant of the Flint School District short of two years ago. He is currently one of two candidates for that position with the Springfield School District in Illinois. If he leaves, the FBOE will have lost three superintendants in as many years.

Here, then, is the news as reported (pretty comprehensively) by the Flint Journal. Be forewarned, there's a lot, and it's all pretty depressing. First, on Monday, Milton announced his job search. The Journal analyzes what is not exclusively a "Flint Problem," yet one which, in light of the radical reforms Milton has initiated and which are currently in progress, must be particularly damaging to Flint. In the middle of these reforms, a likely consequence of Milton's resignation would be the appointment of an interim chief from within, which implies at best a practical disconnect from Milton's policies, and an awful lack of continuity. Oh, and to top it off, there is no consensus on this year's budget, but Milton, the board, and the Teacher's union all estimate a ten million dollar deficit if they're lucky. An lastly, the school district probably will lose less than eight hundred students, if they're lucky.

I haven't posted on Flint politics much this month (and let's be honest, in a city like Flint, school board superintendant is a political position), but I have written a lot about Lyndon Johnson. Now I'm actually struck by a number of similarities between LBJ and Milton.

It's not farfetched.

Both are / were visionaries who, put in a position of power, initiated a sweeping array of reforms to put a heavily compromised constituency in a position of prosperity and success. Both won a degree of unqualified support from their legislative partners (congress / the Board of Education), to push through their ambitious policies... as circumstances determined, that support may or may not have been warrented (or, to be fair, was warranted, but not without a more deliberate and well-researched execution). Both had / will probably have brief tenures that came to unexpectedly short ends. Both contended with controversy resulting from both their polities (the Great Society / the Academy system), and from personal indescretions (the Gulf of Tonkin / the hiring of Julius B. Anthony).

Like Johnson, Milton may leave his position in the midst of public controversy.

"It's like I've been made to be a character I don't even know," the Journal quoted him as saying.

---

I'm not suggesting that this particular comparison is profound. Many others might have been made, and I can make this one simply because I've been reading a lot about LBJ lately. Still, where there is a persistent pattern of similarity, and where the similarities are relevant, and in this case they are, that, I believe, is where history is at its most persuasive.

As with the most successful of the Great Society programs, many of Milton's reforms may bear fruit if they are allowed some time to develop. I'm often skeptical about breaking up schools and communities, and I have general objections to gender-based academies. Still, the Flint schools needed a dramatic shake-up, and since Milton's reforms are researched and grounded enough, I believe it is necessary to give them the chance to bear fruit. That is one part of the lesson.

The other, however, is directed to Milton himself, and if not, to his successor, and speaks to the situation on the ground: why, in the end, Johnson did not succeed as he hoped to. Flint cannot adequately compensate the superintendant it needs right now, and that's someone that anyone applying for this position ought to consider. There will be many years of a thankless job before it becomes remotely worthwhile. It has always seemed a fitting irony to me that Flint's greatest leaders and administrators seem to be pulled from municipal ranks into interim positions. First, they are intimately acquanted with the nastiest of the system's flaws, and second, they know they only have to deal with it for a finite period of time. What is needed is someone with the first quality, but not the second. What is needed is a visionary with accounting skills. What is needed is a reformer who is willing to negotiate. What is needed is a former teacher with enough talent to run for mayor. What is needed is continuity. That is what is needed. It is needed. It is all necessary in any formulation of success.

In short, Milton or his successor need nothing less than to be the most versatile, talented, and committed individual working for the City of Flint.

END OF POST.

This week is Holy Week.

BODY

I hope it is a good one.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 14, 29.

DIARY

- ALMANAC SAYS -
Sniff lavender oil to reduce anxiety.

- QUOTE OF THE WEEK -
"Never eat broccoli when there are cameras around."
- Michael Stipe

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Make up a gross flavor for cream cheese.

END OF POST.

Oneidine 13, 29.

DIARY

Last week was so busy that it basically dissolved in a haze. The first part of the week, of course, was more of what we're all used to: New School colloquium events and readings, assignments on the Holocaust and Smashing Pumpkins and serial killers and lumberjacks, voting for LaKisha for American Idol, and all of these other matters of grave and personal importance.
This weekend, though, the chaos factor was Reinhardt's visit. I went out to dinner and karaoke with Jess, Scott, Marco, Barb, Reinhadt, and Leila on Saturday, and we didn't get back until 2 AM. Friday was playing Twilight 2000 and Sunday was playing Risk (which I lost, by the way. I always lose. Even though I almost always own Australia).
This week would be more relaxed, except it's Holy Week. When that's over, I'll have Taxes and Spring Cleaning. Then the Chicago trip. Then my thesis is due. Then I have graduation.
Things will finally settle down around mid-May. I hope.

- ALMANAC SAYS -
It is bad luck to step in a cloud reflected in a puddle.

- NEWS OF THE WEEK -
New York Times: Court Rebukes Administration in Global Warming Case.

- QUESTION OF THE DAY -
Did you fool anyone yesterday? What did you do?
were you fooled?

END OF POST.

You are Bloodthirsty and Cruel.

CONCEPT

I have to say I'm shocked and a little appalled about what I've learned about some of you in the last week:

Here and
here and
here and
here and
here.

Who would have thought I associated with such a group of violent tyrants?

END OF POST.