Last Year #5: In praise of the surface

After a few thousand years of teaching interpersonal communication I finally learned that "depth" is no more important than "breadth" and "likability."  I have been part of a "crew" that I consider my "peeps."  I don't know their deepest, darkest moments nor do they know mine but there is a way in which that's not important.  Here is a poem I wrote (part of the collection Sentenced to Venice) in praise of the beauty and viability of superficial, "collegial" relationships.

IN PRAISE OF THE SURFACE

for the Winestyles group

Those who know me only here

like this, wine glass or whiskey in

one hand, cicchetti in the other,

may think another self somewhere

abides, heavy hulled and riding deep

in ancient waters, soul of a poet or

philosopher, but I know better that

such depth can run aground, get

stuck, get cracked beyond repair

among these islands, these lives

thrown down together not by

design but fortune, while

craft that glide across experience --

flat bottomed gondolas, curved prow,

enamel shiny, a single oar both power

and direction -- can skim and turn

and slide above life’s muck unhampered

by uncertain measure of the water

waiting black beneath our feet.

Last Year #4: The Bus Ride Remembered

I was wondering today whether or not this year's crop of new hires got the bus ride around the outlying campi.  I forgot to ask the new Art History hire about that. 

In the "Bendnotes" I wrote back in 1988 (letters to my friends back in graduate school) I mention the trip our group of eleven took around the district.  We went south through Sunriver to La Pine, then north to Madras and Prineville and back through Redmond to the Bend campus.

"We rode through the high desert on a bus that used to belong to the Rajneeshies (it was purchased by COCC at the auction which followed the abandonment of Rajneesh Puram).  It was very comfortable.  It had a microphone set up, heat, and pretty comfortable seats."

"As we rolled past the various volcanic formations, Bruce [this was geologist Bruce Nolf] talked to us about the geology of the region . . . He speaks of time with a geologist's sense, speaking of anything within the past 10 thousand years as 'recent.' . . . At three of our stops we met board members.. . .  Except for the building in La Pine, each of the COCC ports were converted store fronts.  The off campus activities emphasize the teaching of basic math, computer and literacy skills, and traditional community education activities like oil painting and pine needle basket weaving.  They each also have a lunch time lecture series which emphasizes visual aids, slides.  I volunteered to do some work next quarter on visual persuasion (yes, I do plan to drag along some John Berger into these conservative communities.)"

So, back now in 2013, I didn't ask my newest colleagues whether they'd made the tour.  But I did find out something I wouldn't have known if I hadn't attended the retreat.  I found out from new guy Steve in science that the "cadaver cart" in the new science building  has a squeaky wheel so he knows when it's passing his classroom while he's lecturing.  "Cadaver cart" you ask?  Well, the new building (which blocks my office view of the Three Sisters) has a corpse room where they keep dismemberable bodies so that future nurses and doctors can get some hands-on experience.

I'm thinking about leaving my own corpus delectable to my confreres here . . . . should retirony be in force.

Last Year #3: Last All College Retreat

F'n'A

Will I ever get over being a fan girl?  Today I had one of my wishes come true when a rawk 'n' roll hero, our math teacher and Plow United's  drummer, Sean Rule, dedicated a set of tunes to me.   At lunch time, on the back deck of the Student Center, our own rock group F 'n' A (Faculty and Administrators -- not what you were thinking) performed a bunch of tunes and ended with their hit single, "Bobcat Radio." (Please support the COCC Foundation by purchasing a copy here.  Like several others, I got to sing a chorus with Sean:  "Are you ready for Bobcat Radio!"  After the set, Sean said it was dedicated to me.  I looked calm, I'm sure, but in my heart I was jumping up and down and squealing like a little fan girl (something I actually did when I saw the Rolling Stones at the San Jose Civic Auditorium in 1968.)


Why?  Why did this rawk gawd dedicate the noon-time song set to me? Because earlier in the day I'd told him that this was my last all college retreat.

I've always enjoyed the all-college retreats, even the "State of the School" speech by the president du jour.  This year the "theme" was "Lassoing Student Success" and the College Community Development Committee members wore cowboy hats, chaps and various other country-western accoutrements.  I've always enjoyed the retreat -- even those ones with terrible keynoters, like the woman who gave a classroom lecture on teamwork and leadership.  Fortunately, this year our speaker was quite enjoyable if a little long-winded -- Dr.  Rod Ray of Bend Research.  He was funny and had good advice for going through hard times, which our college may be facing as our enrollments drop.  He also had strong connections to the college since both his mother and step-dad had been important college community members in the mid-sixties.

I myself actually gave the keynote at this event in 2003 when the college welcomed its new president, Jim Middleton.  I was terrified all summer thinking about giving the speech.  I wanted to incorporate science fiction, because he'd said at his interview that he enjoyed sci-fi when he had time to read.  I also wanted to get across one of my core personal beliefs -- humans are born but to die so we need to cut each other some slack, grant each other some grace.  I also decided to fall back on one of my favorite schtick -- changing clothes on stage.

I used to perform this schtick as part of a speech about how I became a woman through community college teaching.  In that presentation I reviewed Deborah Tannen's ideas about the differences in masculine and feminine communication styles and then talked about how being masculine (interrupting, challenging, linear, independent) had helped me through graduate school but wasn't helpful with a student population that needed the more feminine style of support, relationship, equality and interdependent.   As I described my change, I took off the square-shouldered gray suit I'd started in and got down to shape-showing silk top and pants.

For my college retreat speech, I got rid of the suit (jacket, shirt, skirt) to reveal pair of hiking shorts and t-shirt, my strip-change symbolizing my transformation from an uptight urban character to a Central Oregonian. 

Sean Rule of Plow United

But of course, there was something deeper going on -- as there always is.  But more about that anon -- for right now, I think I'll go back to jumping up and down and screaming.

Last Year #2: My Last Faculty Retreat

Today the faculty met at Aspen Hall from 8:30 to 1:30 to eat and talk about such concerns as assessment, promotions and tenure, and negotiations.  No one planned team-building games for this year, which was probably just as well, considering the chill and sprinkles.  (Last year's retreat had some awesome games run by Tim Peterson, our fearless director of the Outdoor Leadership program.)  We are starting very late this year!  (Gruntlement has been dissed among some parties who feel they had no part in the  decision to piggy-back on the September 30 class start of our "partner," OSU.  [It's interesting how we use the word "partner" to describe a soon-to-be competitor.]) 

We also welcomed newcomers, including Charles Abasa-Nyarko, our new Vice-president of Instruction. He in from Ghana and said that in Europe and Africa there are no part-time university teachers and that he thought everyone should be full time.  A very interesting idea.

I talked with two colleagues, Art Benefiel and Margaret Petersen, who arrived at COCC the same year I did.  We chatted a bit about "the old days" of the first retreat we attended.  I also spoke with 32 year veteran Peter Casey about those retreats.  He said that they were special and I agreed.  They were overnight, in the woods, and involved beer and wine.  Some folks played poker and got somewhat cockeyed by the early morning. We roasted corn over fire and sang camp songs.  We rowed on the small Dark Lake or jumped into it at night, with or without the proper attire.  Administrators and faculty got close.  It was a very different time, for both good and ill.

The positive outcomes of this kind of ritual was that it produced a quality of almost filial connection.  The openness of that connection was, of course, problematic in a contemporary professional organization.  It was also very difficult for single parents to be part of this kind of bonding.  Even the gender mix was a bit challenging as there was at least one and perhaps more senior faculty who didn't quite get the customary social rules about not propositioning newcomers even if everyone is a bit squiffy.

When the college presidency shifted in 1990, the new president, Robert Barber, with advice from a variety of folks and facing the impact of successful anti-tax measures, decided that the retreats should no longer be off campus and limited to faculty and administration.  So the retreat became an "all college" event and wound up on campus.  Shortly thereafter, the faculty forum decided that faculty still needed their own event so we went to a half-day get together somewhere off campus.

A few days ago I ran across some ethnographic letters I wrote to friends in my graduate program about my first quarter in my new job.  Here are some notes from the letter sent September 13, 1988, a few days after the retreat.

I went on a hike featuring the "Geology of the Region" and then went running back to camp with Art and his new boss R. (a character long gone from the college).  I quote:  "When we hit the brush at the bottom of the hill, R. warned Art and I not to get too wild at the retreat, even though everyone seemed to be so comfortable because someone had gotten too drunk and it had not gone well for them at promotion time. . . . Later that evening, I met a fellow, X., who admitted to being the character who had had trouble at promotion time because of his staff retreat behavior. . . . "  He made a suggestion about "going into the lake together" in a somewhat suggestive way.  "The next mornng I learned that the behavior he had gotten into trouble for was propositioning 'every female staff member in the place' (that's another female staff member -- and by staff I mean workers who would be at the retreat -- administrative and teaching personnel.)"
 
And, critically conscious as I was in those days, I ended my long analysis of events at that first retreat with this paragraph.

"Sure I see the power relations.  I also interpret, through my own frame, the deep hunger that drives them.  I can look at X. through the socially conscious awareness of his maleness, whiteness, Americanness -- and see him as corrupt in his innocence of his own corruption.  Or I can see in him myself.  Or I can do both.  Which I do."

Last Year #1: Retirony

Today is auspicious.  It marks the first day of my last contracted teaching "year."  Not that I've signed my last contract yet.  I called H.R. on Friday and found out that contracts won't be ready until tomorrow.  So, I have no contract though I'm back on contract.

I have a bit of paranoia about this final year as I count down the days till July 1, 2014.  I am a life long movie and television watcher with a strong attachment to detective plots and police procedurals.  There is a tradition in these genres that subsidiary characters who are looking forward to leaving their difficult jobs will face death shortly before they get their reward.  Richard Roeper's written review of "After Earth" mentions this plot device:  "It's the last mission before the general retires to a desk life.  Cop movies, heist films, and futuristic sci-fi thrillers all have that in common:  You say you're going to retire after one last job, and that job is going to go BOOM."

This is a  media "trope" called "retirony."  According to the occasionally excellent and occasionally awful but always interesting website, TVTRopes,  Retirony  "is a way to make the audience feel sorry for a character's death without having to actually give him more than ten minutes of screen time. Anybody in a dangerous job who's only a few days away from retirement . . . is absolutely doomed to death by Retirony."   I first became conscious of this plot device as a "trope" when I saw the movie Last Action Hero.  I've captured a scene from it that you can view here:  http://www.screencast.com/t/RuyTvOvm.

Of course, a community college professor imagining that her life is as exciting as that of a screen cop is redonkulous.   Nevertheless, it's true that "no one knows the day or the hour" of her own death.  (Yes, I know that quote is originally about an event not quite so personal, but I figure that one's own death is the end of some world, if not the world.)  It might be an interesting experiment to live this year as though it's my last.

Walter Benjamin was wrong about the "Work of Art . . ."

This week Laurie Taylor talked about Walter Benjamin on his BBC program Thinking Allowed.

A few years ago I read a complaint from a recent graduate in the U. of Chicago in the alumni magazine that he was assigned "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in three different classes.  I too had to read that work for at least two classes, once in my PhD program at the University of Utah and the other while attempting to get an MFA in creative writing.

Even at the time of my first reading back in 1986, I questioned some of Benjamin's claims, especially this one:  "that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art." By "aura" Benjamin meant a work's authenticity, the traditions and energy of its creation (which may have a religious or in some way worshipful source).  "By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence."    Thus, a work's aura, its authenticity, becomes less important once the work itself can be reproduced.

I questioned this claim the first time I read it and then came to believe that Benjamin was clearly wrong when the when the Portland Art Museum brought Titian's La Bella to Stumptown in November, 2011.  A short commercial produced for the museum uses language that treats the painting like a touring celebrity:  "straight from Florence, Italy for her only West Coast appearance."  Titian himself is called "the most celebrated artist of Renaissance Venice."  Going to visit this painting is considered a far more exciting experience than just looking at the perfect online reproduction.   As The Art Newspaper reports, art museums around the world still experience significant attendance each year of people wanting to see the originals.

I believe that reproductions have actually increased the aura (and appeal) of original works of art.   A further example of the celebrity of the Old Masters is this wonderful "flashmob" video from the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam.  The painting "The Company of captain Frans Banning Cocq and lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch preparing to march out"  by Rembrandt may be seen at the Rijksmuseum's website.

Displaying My Anglomania

Bumper Stickers - Rectangle by Vistaprint

I just made this bumper sticker at Vistaprint because I podcast a variety of BBC 4 shows including Saturday Review, Start the Week, In Our Time, Thinking Allowed, and Friday Night Comedy, both the News Quiz and the Now Show.  For a long time I've fantasized about Sandy Toksvig of The News Quiz playing "Not My Job" as a guest on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

By the way, all you lawyers and others who are concerned with copyright violation, let me tell you that I have no intention of selling this bumper sticker to further my own ends.  I just want to slap it on my car in hope that some other Radio 4 listeners will see it and wave.