Happy Exelauno Day!
by V.E. on March 4th, 2011
More about Exelauno Day below.
(In ancient Greek, I’m told, exelauno means “to march forth”… Oh, puns; you amuse me.)
First Things
The Roxbury Latin School
TV Barn, which includes:
…Exelauno Day, a holiday drummed up by some clever classics prof who realized that the verb exelauno means “to march forth.” It’s most prominently featured in the military text Anabasis, a popular first-year text thanks to its sentence structure, which is more repetitive than a George Bush press conference.
Hippocampus
by V.E. on February 25th, 2011
I encourage all my readers who write to consider submitting to Hippocampus Magazine, an online publication featuring creative non-fiction that will be debuting in May. It was dreamed up by a friend of mine, Donna Talarico, while we were still in school getting our M.F.A.s in Creative Writing. I’m really excited about the first issue (and the ones after that, too!)—and not just because I’m on the reading panel to choose what is accepted!
The magazine is named after a part of the brain that controls long-term memory and spatial reasoning, which in turn was given the Latin name for “seahorse” because that’s definitely what it looks like!
To learn more about Hippocampus, please read the mission statement. I’ve included abbreviated submission guidelines below. (“Abbreviated” means I’m only including the short version; for the full submission guidelines, please check the website.)
Submissions
Hippocampus Magazine enthusiastically accepts unsolicited submissions in the following categories: memoir, personal essay, reviews, interviews, & craft articles.
Memoir excerpts and personal essays – up to 2,000 words.
Memoir and nonfiction craft articles – up to 1,000 words.
Review of memoirs or nonfiction craft books – up to 800 words.
Interviews – send us a pitch first; tell us which notable writer or literary industry individual you would like to profile and why.
Have another memoir-related idea? Send us a query.
Hippocampus Magazine is a non-paying market; however, every published contributor gets a bio and link to his website or blog from the published article and a contributor page. One contributor from each issue can win bragging rights AND a prize if his piece is deemed “Most Memorable.”
Today, I drove
by V.E. on September 7th, 2010
filed under personal, school, work
Sometimes, it’s not worth it to chew through the restraints in the morning.
Today, I had an appointment to meet with my writing professor at the community college I attend (mostly for fun) to go over the new part-time position I’ll be holding for the college’s literary journal, Eclipse. The intern who is leaving was also coming to this meeting to show me the ropes and basically transfer all the paperwork, etc., to me. And, the department secretary (or chair, I’m not sure which) was going to be there to meet me and file all the paperwork and make it official and whatnot. Three people coming together to teach me something. It’d be in my best interest to show up, wouldn’t it?
The appointment was at 9:30 am. I had been planning on taking the bus, but I woke up later than I meant to; still, I wasn’t late yet. If I drove, I wouldn’t be late at all. I had time. For those of you who don’t know me, I don’t drive. I have a disorder called OCD that, in shorthand, prevents me from driving. It’s not that I can’t drive—I do have a license—but, well, I can’t. It’s somewhat complicated, but trust me when I say that getting behind the wheel is a big deal for me.
My sister was still asleep and, though I’m sure I could’ve woken her up and asked her to take me, I thought to myself, This is a good time to test my skills. I have to jump in sometime, right?
I grabbed the extra key from the wall (where we hang our extra keys) and headed out. I knew if I thought about it too much, I’d freak out, so I tried to do what my father says he and my brother do when they drive: be angry. Be angry at other drivers, poor parking jobs, traffic, whatever… so as to distract myself from the monumental task (at least for me) I was about to undertake.
I got in the car and turned the key; the engine sputtered to life, a good sign. I decided to take it slow (ie: avoid the freeway) since I hadn’t driven in, well, a while. I rolled down the hill and to the first stop sign. So far, so good. Turned right, then left at the next stop sign. When I got to the light, I turned on the radio to distract myself.
I thought, This could end up having been a Very Good or Very Bad Idea.
I turned left at the light and eased into a stop at the corner of H— and V—. When the light turned green, I slid through the intersection and headed down toward the college. After Verdugo, it’s basically a straight shot down to campus, so I relaxed a little and took a look around me. I started thinking about the position I was about to inherit (a paying job in my field of work!… even it was only a student job).
Right before I got to the part of the street where V— and L— meet (in front of the Magic Wok, if you know where that is), I glanced to my right. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a car roll out of a parking lot—right into the side of my car. There was a huge jolt, like I was playing bumper cars, and then nothing.
My first thought was, Blue sky and spidered windshields.
(That probably doesn’t make sense to anyone, so let me explain briefly. On 31 December 1999, my cousin and I were driving on a hilly gravel road in Texas outside of Austin in a Suburban SUV-type vehicle. The road was really only wide enough for one car, so when another truck came hurtling over the hill in front of us, my cousin (who was driving) swerved to avoid hitting it. He swerved back the other direction to avoid hitting some trees, and we flipped the SUV and landed upside down in a ditch on the other side of the road. I remember looking at the beautiful blue sky through the front windshield, which had cracked to look like a spider’s web.)
When my brain thinks there’s danger, I usually work well until the (immediate) threat has passed, at which time I completely fall apart. That instinct kicked in. I pulled over, put the car in neutral, and got out to wait for the other guy. He immediately pulled to the side (he’d just been pulling out of the parking lot, anyway) and got out with profuse apologies. I looked over my car where he’d hit it—there wasn’t even a dent. Not a scratch. It was practically a miracle. His car wasn’t that much worse off for the wear, either—just a dented bumper, which is exactly what bumpers are for, after all. He was an older man in a fishing hat and coke-bottle glasses; it’s possible he miscalculated the distance between my car the space his car was taking up—I have no idea. We exchanged information and I headed back home; no way was I going to have a break down in my professor’s office in front of people I didn’t even know.
As soon as I got home, I called my professor and tearfully explained the situation. He was sympathetic and, amid my repeated apologies, rescheduled all of us for another time. I sat down immediately to begin writing what happened (just in case something comes of it, which—admittedly—I doubt) when I remembered I’d left something in the car. I headed back out to get it and, for some unknown reason, decided to start the car again. I mean, I guess I was amazed everything was okay and it looked like nothing happened at all, especially because I felt like I was falling apart inside. My reaction was completely disproportionate to the occurrence, it seemed to me, but that didn’t stop me from reacting so.
The car didn’t start. The engine didn’t turn over—not even a sound. Turning the key to the ‘start’ position did… nothing. I started to panic; I’d just killed the car.
Why did I even do that? I thought to myself angrily. It’s not like I want something to be wrong with the car. Maybe it really was too good to be true.
I went back inside, debating what to do. I looked at the clock; it was after 11 am by this time. Shortly, my sister came down dressed for work. Oh no, I remembered, today is her first day of training.
I explained the situation as briefly as I could manage. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Physically, I’m fine,” I said. Then, everything started to rip at the seams in my mind. “It was scary.” I started to cry.
She came over to me and hugged me tight around the shoulders. “We’ll figure it out. As long as you’re okay, we’ll manage.” We headed out to inspect the damage together. She couldn’t see any scratches or dents—as I’d told her. We got in and she turned the key in the ignition; no response.
We went back inside. I called my dad. He was angry. Or rather, he was frustrated with the whole thing. (We’d just had the clutch replaced for almost more than the car was worth, for example, among other things.) This was just another worry on his plate.
“When you tried to turn on the car, did you hold down the clutch pedal?” he asked my sister. She couldn’t remember. “Check the lights,” he said. So, we went out and tried again.
“Are the lights on?” I asked.
“Oh.” She turned them to the ‘off’ position and said, “That might be it, actually. Did you have the lights on when you went down to school?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t mess with the lights,” I said.
My sister headed off to her training with more assurances that we’d figure it out when she (or Mom, or Dad) got home. Since she drove another car, obviously, I was left alone with the dead one.
Well, the day’s not over yet.
Fall 2010 and Yard Sale
by V.E. on August 31st, 2010
filed under lost/found, school
More lost and found! I found this class schedule at Glendale College on Monday afternoon.
It reads in purple ink:
[Fall 2010 @ gcc]
ethnic studies 132 (1314)
M & W (140 pm – 305 pm)
Administration 223Health 106 (3251)
M & W (1045 am – 1210 pm)
Sierra Nevada Gym 101Math 100 (2020)
M & W (910 am – 1015 am)
T & Th (910 am – 1000 am)
San Fernando 107Sociology 104 (1788)
T & Th (1045 am – 1210 pm)
San Rafael 115
On my way home from classes that afternoon, I found this sign stapled to a telephone pole. It had no date (as you’ll see), but it was after 1 PM when I found it, so I decided to rip it down. When I noticed the back of the page, however, I was intrigued.
The front is written in faded marker and reads:
YARD SALE
8a – 1pm
corner of Hilldale
+ Waltonia
From the back, it’s clear that the page used to be (bright?) pink and has since mostly faded. The typeface looks like Times or Times New Roman to me. It says:
THE GIFT TO
KNOW
Anyone know what “the gift to know” means?
Saturday Afternoon Poetry
by V.E. on June 27th, 2010
filed under recap/review, school, words, writing
L.A. Times Festival of Books
by V.E. on April 27th, 2010
filed under recap/review, school, words, writing
On Sunday, I attended an afternoon of the L.A. Times Festival of Books with my mother. We listened to two poets read their work on the Poetry Stage near the inverted fountain on UCLA‘s South Campus and then had a look around at the many booths.
The Poetry Stage was the smallest of the many reading stages at the Festival, but it was just as well because it made for a more intimate atmosphere. The stage itself was set up on the grass to one side of the walkway. It was simple enough: a podium and microphone. Behind the poet was a banner that read “POETRY STAGE”—as if we couldn’t figure that out for ourselves. The audience was seated in plastic folding chairs with a few umbrellas around to shade against the sun. Behind the audience was a small table with information about poetry, including free bookmarks and copies of Poetry Flash. (I picked up a copy on my way to visit other parts of the Festival after I’d heard two poets read.) Across the walkway was the Small World Books booth, which was selling the readers’ works, as well as other books like The History of White People and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
The first poet (that I heard) was Cathy Colman (click photo at right for larger). She read a total of eleven poems during her half hour time slot and briefly prefaced most of her poems with some background information about the poem’s subject or form. Her first piece was an acrostic poem called “Acrostic at Dinner”. It was helpful to me that she explained what acrostic meant (“a poem in which the first letter of each line in the text spells out a word or a message”) because I’d have been lost if she hadn’t. Her second piece was an instructional poem called “How To”, which I really liked, about how to write a poem. She said she wrote it for her students who seemed to be perpetually afraid of the blank page. Her seventh poem, titled “Night Swim, 1974″, was based on a party she went to as a young student. Also in attendance at the party were many famous poets, who she mentioned in the poem, though she didn’t name any names, and I’m not familiar enough with many poets to figure out who she was talking about. I wrote down this line: “…his throat pulsing like mud does during rain…” because it included some interesting imagery which I haven’t seen elsewhere. Another poem, “Duplicate Letter” had a preface (correct word?) from Rilke. Colman tended to use a lot of allusion and alliteration in her work, something I mentioned numerous times in my notes. My favorite poem of hers was “Jacobson’s Organ: A Memo”, which was written from the point of view of a snake. (In snakes, the Jacobson’s organ is an olfactory sense in their tongues which helps them smell despite not having noses.) Cathy Colman’s most recent collection is Beauty’s Tattoo, published in late 2009 by Tebot Bach Publications.
The second poet of the afternoon, Annie Finch, had actually missed her flight to Los Angeles and was unable to read. Instead, an actress named Margaret Emery read some of Annie Finch’s poems in her place from two of her books, Eve (forthcoming in June) and Calendars. It was unfortunate that Finch didn’t get to read her own work, but Emery did a decent job in her place (click photo for larger), especially since it seemed like she’d been called in on short notice. Emery read a total of sixteen poems of varying lengths during the allotted half hour. The first poem, “Running in Church” (dedicated “for Marie”), had a lot of internal and end rhyme. The fourth, “Walk With Me”, had a lot of repetition, which had a soothing quality. I was expecting the repetition to be irritating, but it actually helped me get into the flow of the poem better. Another poem, “Letter to Emily Dickinson”, was a good example of apostrophe and included a line which I wrote down: “I take from you as you take me apart”. Finch’s poems had beach or sea imagery (“The Woman on the Beach”) and images of motherhood/childhood (“Being a Constellation”)—and some had both (“The Last Mermother”). “Two Bodies” included the beautiful line: “…they reach through the ceilings of the night…”; the speaker in “Blue Willow” stated, “It’s morning; day rises above me…”
Overall, I would have liked to have the poems in front of me while they were being read aloud so that I could follow along and notice the line breaks and other notations that don’t translate well into speech. My mother, sitting next to me the entire time, would periodically lean over and say either “I got that one” or “I didn’t understand that; could you explain it?” I don’t have a good enough short-term memory to be able to reproduce and explain something so recently introduced (it’s why I write things down in the first place), so I’d have to say, “Maybe we should buy the book” instead of actually being helpful. I like listening to poets read their own work (they know the work best, after all), but it helps to have read the poems for myself ahead of time.
Thanks to my mother for the photos.
Day of Silence 2010
by V.E. on April 16th, 2010
filed under lgbt, politics, school
Today is the National Day of Silence. Though other blogs have written about it, too, I wanted to note something that’s bugged me for the past couple of years about the Day. Not the Day itself, I guess, but the way—in my experience—it’s been handled by members of the community supporting it. I don’t know if this is even appropriate, but I just have to write it to stop it from continuing to annoy me. And that is…
It really bothers me when someone says, “I’ll be participating in the Day of Silence, but I’ll be speaking in classes, of course, because I have to…” etc. The whole damn point of the Day of Silence is for people to realize how much they’re missing out on by not hearing other people’s voices (specifically, LGBT people’s voices).
The first year that my high school participated in the Day of Silence (in 2001), I was (supposed to be) the main coordinator. I was working with the GSA president (I was a sophomore and vice president at the time) to bring the Day to fruition. Unfortunately, after we went to the Associated Student Body (ASB, the students’ elected representatives) for support from them and from other groups on campus, ASB basically ran us both over and took over the project with a fervor I’ve never seen before or since from that group. Although everything still went through the president and me, in theory, we were leaders in name only. We were given sheets of paper to sign and told what was going to happen and that was about it for our involvement.
The first change ASB implemented was to make the Day of Silence about more than just LGBT people. On the Day, we were given different color ribbons depending on what group we supported (ie: people who are silenced because of racism, ableism, sexism, heterosexism, and so on.) The GSA president and I went along with this (even enthusiastically!) because we were warned that the school might not approve a Day of Silence “that’s only for the gays”…
The second—and, I think, more detrimental—change the ASB made was to “allow” for speaking in class “when required” because they couldn’t make the teachers change their curriculum for one day “on such short notice”. What if a teacher called on you to answer a question for the class? the ASB asked us. I’ve never been a teacher of high school students, so I don’t know how difficult it is to change one day’s worth of the curriculum to allow for students standing up for something in which they believe, but that’s beside the point because it seems half-assed to say (as a student, not a teacher) that you’ll participate in the Day and then talk when called upon anyway. Isn’t the whole point of the Day to show how bad for everyone silencing just one person can be? If participants are “allowed” to speak when called upon, they’re not really silent, now are they?
Honestly, though, my high school’s first Day of Silence was better than I expected it to be. I’m not saying it was all bad (as this journal entry may imply), and in subsequent years, after we showed the administration that we weren’t going to blow up a building or something, we were able to focus the Day more on LGBT people.
And I’m not saying that Day of Silence participants should be shunned or something for speaking in class, I just think they should really think about what they’re committing to and why… and truly commit to it, if they want to. Be silent, or don’t. You can still support the Day without being silent, as other bloggers have mentioned. But if you decide to be silent—be silent! Trust me, it makes for a more seriously-taken statement.
