Lang Leav is one of my poet heroes. Pronounced Lang “Leeyav,” I first discovered her on Twitter and never looked back. She is a success story we can only dream of becoming. Her story went like this, according to her blog and website: “I self-published my first book, Love & Misadventure. As soon as it was listed for sale, my book began to top best-seller charts and caught the attention of two literary agents in New York. I signed up with Writers House and was promptly offered a publishing deal by Andrews McMeel.” Not only that, she illustrates her own books. She, yup, is a talented artist as well. I am about to publish my first book of poems, and a little secret between us, I’ve written her to see if she might give it a read. A shot in the dark, I know, but a girl’s gotta try, right? Why the hell not? All she can do is say no or nothing…ahhhhh…but if she says, “yes.” She was born in Thailand and has won numerous awards as a best-selling author. She is the winner of a Qantas Spirit of Youth Award and coveted Churchill Fellowship. Her books continue to top bestseller charts in bookstores worldwide, and her collection Lullabies was the 2014 winner of the Goodreads Choice award for poetry. But what I love when I read some of her poetry is the way it resonates with me personally, and I love watching her love story unfold with Michael Faudet, another poet I’m madly in love with, with whom I’m sure you’re all familiar. I can relate. Again. 😉 It’s so easy to fall in love with poets we admire, isn’t it? But not everyone loves her. In an editorial written by Joshua Lee, he writes his disdain (or rather dislike) for her work. Why do I find it so amusing when people bash those who have succeeded? He writes about the dividing opinions about her work and how “more serious poets move her books to the self-help section in bookstores, while casual readers with more ‘literary’ friends treat her work like a vice to be savoured in secret.” What a snob! He continues: “What Lang Leav uses is a fluid mixture of conversational language and the traditional stanza form, which makes her text accessible to anyone who might find regular poetry intimidating. Some say it’s because of this that she doesn’t write real poetry. More disturbingly, something like ‘Soul Mates’ attempts to convince you that a mysterious ‘connection’ is all you need for love. It convinces you that your ‘connection’ has less to do with shared interests and mutual respect than it has to do with some strange look in each other’s eyes. It makes us think there are forces at work that are beyond control, that we do not need to take responsibility or be accountable for our own decisions. This is the kind of thinking that keeps us in meaningless and sometimes destructive relationships….” So I leave you today with a few of my favorite pieces of her work, and you can be the judge. Is she a trivial, toxic woman or a brilliant contemporary artist? I call her a goddess.
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Today I ponder attraction. Have you ever instantly been attracted to someone? It used to be believed that yes, we are attracted to people because of some substance called pheromones; in short, actual signals that serve as some kind of sexual attractant, even though we can’t see or smell them. Recently, some experts are calling that an absolute myth. But it does beg the question, doesn’t it? Why upon meeting someone do we have an immediate raised heartbeat or find our palms sweating or our breathing labored or our cheeks reddening with some inexplicable radiance? Why do some people just make us thrum and make us want to throw ourselves at them while at the same time making us so shy, saying hello is somehow an insurmountable task? We twirl our hair and struggle to make eye contact and bite our lips until they’re pink with worry. It’s impossible to answer and yet I shall try. You can be in a room full of people and different people are attracted to different people right then and there, without a word spoken. Am I right? Yes. Sometimes we are attracted to the same person and then it almost becomes some kind of animalistic competition. Comical even. I dare say no gender is exempt from the gene of competitive fierceness. We often answer it as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. We say: It’s looks at first but then I have to like his/her personality…but that’s far too simple. Isn’t it? Some of the aesthetically-agreed-upon good-looking people, do nothing for me. And yes, I can meet someone and grow to love him and his personality, but it still does not explain that immediate attraction, that glow, that desperate need upon a glance or first meeting. Throw in online relationships and everything goes to pot. Have you met someone and you felt all of those things? Without touch? Without sound? Hell, even without knowing what they look like? It’s happened to me. So I know it exists. Is it scientific? Nope. It would not hold up in any scientific study. It’s anecdotal, but it’s as real as this laptop I sit in front of and tap. My answer: It makes me believe in an unidentifiable spirit or soul. I don’t believe in religion or the god I was raised to believe in. But I will be the first to admit, there is Energy that just exists. We cannot fathom its presence or existence but can only FEEL its strength to know it’s real. And when that energy somehow unites with another energy that serves as a magnet, it’s called love. And perhaps that is the only answer worth knowing at all. I was going to talk about my traditions with the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but I’ve blogged about that before here: rbobrien.weebly.com/blog-posts/its-a-wonderful-life. This was tough to write. I dedicate this post to a special student, “D.” Sorry for its length and I thank you in advance if you make it through this whole post!
I know as a teacher we’re not supposed to have “favorites,” like parents aren’t supposed to have favorite children. But let’s face it, it’s real easy to develop closer bonds with certain students, and not only the “good” students, the ones who always dot their I’s and cross their t’s, but more, the ones who touch your heart in one way or another through ways that are just organic. Maybe it’s their growth; maybe it’s the underdog who has the world set against him from birth with poverty or abuse; or maybe it’s just someone you connect with somehow, and you see, for the first time for them what’s it’s like to be listened to, appreciated, or recognized for something they’ve never been recognized for before: their intelligence or writing or effort—that they DO matter. I lost a student this fall unexpectedly, and though I hadn’t seen “D” for a while, he was special to me. He was a large boy. Troubled by insecurities. Perhaps addiction plagued him a bit. But he was brilliant. An exceptional writer. We’d spend hours some weeks during my office hours just shooting the breeze, talking Shakespeare or Soundgarten or Star Wars or how he challenged me to reread Harry Potter to see how great it was! (Sorry. Still don’t like it.) I laugh thinking about that. I hope he can hear me. When I brought all my Christmas decorations out this year, I happened upon the ornament he had given me. As students get older, they think it “isn’t cool” to get their teachers presents. I’m here to tell you that’s a myth! I still get a few presents, and the brings a smile to my face. Ornaments are special in my family. When growing up, that was a tradition my parents started. I have saved almost all my ornaments. Each and every one holds a special place in my heart. I can remember the who, the when, the why. If I couldn’t, I wasn’t allowed to put it on the tree. I must have told that story to my students on occasion, but it was “D” who listened, and when he left the college to pursue other things, he left me with an ornament. It was something that he, himself, carved for me, the quote: “Words. Words. Words,” from Hamlet and an etching of Shakespeare’s bust. I remember thinking how ugly it was. Truly. But I loved it so much, knowing that he had taken the time to make it with his own hands, something my father might have done, the renaissance man he was. I pulled it out and mourned the loss of him and quietly cried. I realized I had touched him somehow. But he had touched me too. When he passed, and even as I write this, I feel the world lost a special person, a kind person, a person that left us far too young and leaves me with no answers to the whys of life and death, but to recognize that each person does come into our lives for a reason, as cliched as that is. For it makes me stop and remember that our actions and how we behave towards others affects them, even in small ways, but also in large ways, as large as “D” himself was. It can mean the difference between life and death even sometimes, our kindness, our words, our actions. When he won a writing award at the end-of-the-year award ceremony, he bought me flowers and brought them up to the stage to give them to me. Someone jokingly yelled out from the audience: “Dude, you already got the award. You don’t need to bring her flowers now.” But I knew. And he knew. That it had nothing to do with it. Because the lesson here is that the little things we do for others has meaning and resonance. It’s not the big things or the grand gestures. It’s the quiet ones. A kind word. An acknowledgement. The ones that ask for nothing in return. It’s the ones that are genuine. And “D” was one of the most genuine people I have ever met. And ironically, it wasn’t his “words” that I remember, but instead, his actions. And to me, that is what we should carry with us this holiday season. Not the, “What did you get?” But instead, the, “What did we give?” Be the reason someone smiles today. Have you ever woken up to find a friend has suddenly unfriended you? Or worse, “blocked” you? No word. No argument. Nothing leading up to it. A “break-up” that involves a gradual “letting-go” or growing apart, or one that involves disagreements that conflict with your moral compass or downright points of no return are easy to understand. Those types of “unfriendings” are simple equations. You’ve broken the bond of trust. Smell ya later.
But occasionally, someone you deemed a “close” friend decides it’s time to part ways for whatever reason. No notification or reason you can think of. You scratch your head and wonder: ‘Just what did I do or say? What could I have possibly done?’ And it begs the question: Can you have real friendships in a place that is virtual? Are we all floating around in delusional bubbles? Mixing reality with fantasy? Are we putting too much stock in a world that exists only in the ether of possibly our imaginations? Remember the days of middle school? You walk into your classroom, take a seat in your already-uncomfortable row of desks, and suddenly feel the air around you getting thinner? Jimmy sits in front of you and Margaret sits beside you and then begin to talk, while completing ignoring you, pretending you’re not there, using pronouns of ‘she’ and ‘her,’ instead of your name. You get glances not eye contact and you know, it’s your turn to be the odd man out, and you feel the ball in the pit of your stomach growing bigger as you know you’re about to be excluded and “unfriended” for a time, however long or short. Maybe you look at Margaret’s boyfriend too long or wore something she did the same day or got a better grade or had more compliments. Seems so trite, right? I thought those days were over. Sometimes, I get that same feeling right here as an adult, and I pinch myself to think it still happens. And it seems to happen a lot on social media. Some days, I think: It’s really time to get off this merry-go- round of middle school. I just want to write and grow and share it with people. It hurts when someone you looked at as a friend does something like that, shakes your belief in trust, especially when you’ve been nothing by a support to this person, a friend in the truest sense. Encouragement. Welcoming arms. Honesty. You know--that little word called friendship? Call me crazy, but I take the word seriously. Does it mean I’m perfect? No. Does it mean I don’t slip up and lose my temper and say things I shouldn’t? No. Of course not. Who on this Earth is? But when I really stop to think or write, as I’m doing now, I realize that I’m blessed here and in the flesh-n-blood life to have people who are real friends. I can count on them and trust them and know that if a problem arises between us, we’ll communicate, talk, work it out. If someone here wants to unfriend me with no discussion or doesn’t deem our friendship worth an unearthing of the problem or couldn’t care less about two sides to a story or taking the time to discuss something but instead clicks a magic button that says “Poof. You no longer exist,” I guess the old cliched adage fits. They weren’t friends to begin with. And I’m probably better off. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say it stings. Trust is a difficult thing, and sadly, it’s not likely to change any time soon. We can only be who we are and grow daily to be the best person we can be. So while I may press the pause button occasionally, I will not press stop, not yet, not over that. No. Way. I’m stronger than that, even if some days, I may feel like the 8th girl, alone in a cafeteria lunch room. I’ll never forget the episode in “Sex in the City” when Carrie and Berger break up because she calls him out for having his leading lady in his novel wear a scrunchie in her hair. And whenever fall hits here in New England, my mind goes to immediately to fashion. Or as EA Barker likes to call it: Look-Like-A-Jedi season. Yup. Boots! And over-sized sweaters. Scarves. Jackets. Turtlenecks. Corduroy. Belts. Tweed. Tights. Hats. Thigh-high socks. Oh my! It’s my favorite time of year for myriad reasons. But fashion is one of them. Working in academia, I often get flack from some of my colleagues. How can you wear those shoes? Where do you shop? There goes our little fashionista. I like fashion. And that’s never going to change. An article in the Guardian argues that fashion is history. It is art. Oscar Wilde had this to say about fashion: “Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.” What say you? What is your favorite bit of fashion? Is fashion another way to separate us, maybe even define classes, or is fashion a form of art that knows no class? This is what Zandra Rhodes had to say in her article: Is Fashion a True Art Form? (Full article here) www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/jul/13/art.artsfeatures1 “Quibbling over whether fashion is more or less important than art is just as pointless as questioning whether or not it is art. Of course it's not, it's fashion. That is not to say that fashion, at its best, is not a suitable subject for museums or that it cannot share some of the attributes of art. On the contrary, an exquisite haute couture dress - like the ones that Cristóbal Balenciaga created in his 1950s heyday - can look as perfect as a beautiful painting or sculpture. Yet only an old-fashioned aesthete would argue that the role of the artist is to create beauty. Sometimes artists do, but for most of them beauty tends to be a by-product of their quest to explore the complex, messy, ambiguities of modern life. Think of Wolfgang Tillmans's photographs of areroplane wings and window sills now on display at Tate Britain. Beautifully composed they may be, but with a forlorn beauty too subtle to be replicated in fashion. Similarly, fashion is adept at fulfilling another traditional function of art by reflecting changes in contemporary culture, but only up to a point. Think of how the Ossie Clark dresses in the V&A's exhibition evoke the desire for escapism at the turn of the 1970s. Yet, unlike art, fashion rarely expresses more than the headlines of history. And fashion has a practical purpose, whereas art does not. The result may be as gorgeous as a vintage Balenciaga ballgown or an eloquent political metaphor for its time, but it is still an item of clothing intended to be worn. Why pretend that it is anything else?” Today I look at some self-proclaimed avant garde "radical feminist" artists. In light of what I see a lot of around Facebook, I ask you a few simple questions. How can it be that in the year 2017, almost 2018, misogyny and mistreatment of women still seems to be prevalent, accepted, and propagated? I won't get into what provoked me last night surfing Facebook to post this, except to say it was a photo-shopped, 'ENHANCED' post that got the attention of both men and women alike. What worried me were the responses, both male and female, that were being made, derogatory comments, not admiration comments of the female body (and not-yet-women even), but an objectification and ridicule of it. Am I being too sensitive? I don't think so. Take a look at the current news right now and the scandals going on in the "civilized" country of the good ol' USA regarding the treatment of women. "What year is it?" I often ask myself. And why do posts like the one I saw last night get the most comments and interaction?
Beyond that, take a look at these artists and the running theme that they needed to change their names and sometimes even appearance in order, as Lynn Hershman Leeson stated, "to simply to become 'themselves'.” Not pretty enough to too pretty, it seems women still can't earn a break. Hannah Wilke, for example, was critiqued for being too pretty to be taken seriously. "Because the conventionally stunning artist incorporated her own body into her work, often nude, she was constantly accused of being narcissistic and flaunting her appearance" and "encountered throughout her life that she was too beautiful." And Valie Export said that in order for women to achieve a self-defined view of themselves and a different view of the place of women in society, that women must participate in "the construction of reality via the building blocks of media-communication." I'm sad to say that the post I saw last night and the commentary is not succeeding in building blocks but instead, knocking them down. What say you? Women should be able to be who they are, sexually, sensually, and intellectually. So why the constant sarcastic poking of the female body parts, as if they are nothing more, especially if they don't fit some stereotypical idea of beauty or poise? "8 Radical, Feminist Artists From The 1970s Who Shattered The Male Gaze" by Priscilla Frank “Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars My thoughts, as usual, are not singular. So, read on! The other day I was relaying a story to a friend about the first time I really knew I loved reading, like literally felt it in my bones, a visceral, bodily reaction. It happened during school, sophomore year, in the middle of class, and maybe it was the way the teacher read it aloud. I’m not sure. It wasn’t erotic in any sense (though it was romantic, having to do with nature, but was not a sexual poem or sensual words that are meant to titillate that way), and my body reacted much the way it reacts when I’m stimulated sensually or sexually. I went to my bookshelf to see if I had a copy of said text and was dismayed to see that I had given it away to a local book collection drive, and when moving a few times, didn’t feel like packing them. I became quite sad. And I started to think about all the books I had given away, thinking at the time: I have a Kindle now; or if I need the story or quote, I’ll just look it up online; or there is no need for paper books anymore, we must consider the environment! I’m really upset with myself. There is something organically beautiful about going back and reading a “hard” copy of a text, seeing your notes and scribbles, the weathered pages of love, your first reactions. I may still have the text at school in my office. I’m not sure. But my question to you is: Do you have that same reaction to reading? When you stumble across something that moves you, does your body viscerally react? And, do you still save your books? Or still prefer hard copies over electronic? Sigh… |
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I LOVE to write and read. I particularly enjoy reading erotic romance that has tons of emotion in it. I hope you will ask me questions and share your favorite authors and novels. I welcome all feedback.
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