June 12, 2020

Radiant cool morning, my house like a crystal slowing turning, so the eastern light comes in here, and then comes in there.

Visiting the university to move my little bits of life from one place to another allows moments of contemplation, especially of topics unprofitable to be thought upon while I was still employed. What I thought about the last trip was how much energy Academia wastes on enterprises we know to be misguided, but deep into which we plunge nevertheless. From the day I was hired the department presented– with vigor, with sweaty determination– the dogma that instructing Freshman Writing was a special skill equal to Literature and Creative Writing in intellectual status and necessary achievement on the part of its faculty. Pretending to believe that “rhetoric” was a special skill only other “rhetoricians” could recognize caused us to hire and endure our weakest faculty. EVERY department meeting for years involved a session when the Composition people (those who later changed their name to “Rhetoric” or “Comp/Rhet) would cry out their suspicions of inferiority and suggest some new way for us to prove that we honored and appreciated them. Being a writer made me an automatic rhetorician. The fact is that most of us could teach Freshman Comp just as well as the Rhetoricians when we were grad students. The only virtue rhet/comp requires more of than academic pursuits is patience, and I do honor that. Most of us were hired to teach some rhet/comp, and most of us were eventually “rewarded” with Lit classes. Our actual values were hard to disguise. I stopped teaching rhet/comp thirty years ago, not because I asked to, but because, I suppose, my skills were needed elsewhere. But I taught enough to know that rhet/comp is not a special skill, though it is tedious, and it is true that “anybody can do that.” Someone actually was bold to say “anybody can do that” (remarkably, it wasn’t me) and the aftershocks seemed like never to end. Wouldn’t matter except so much energy went into supporting a kindly fiction, when clinging to kindly truth and proportion would have made us a better department.

Six or more visits to the bathroom before finally arising, not little dribbling prostate flows, but gushing bowl-fillers. The reason was that my legs were draining. This morning they are the same size, and except for ravages from the infections, look almost normal. Right now I could slip my shoes on in six seconds. I could wear shorts. I should just sit and look at them to relish the moment. I should also try to determine the cause– what did I eat? Potato salad? What did I drink? A considerable intake of cola and cherry vodka? To discover the secret would be well indeed. My health-history makes me a believer in simply waiting it out. An evening would scarcely pass that I did not end up vomiting into the hydrangeas. In foreign cities– Dublin, London, Istanbul– I would have to look for dark places to throw up in private on the streets. Over and gone. Vicious acid reflux for years– I did address when and what a ate, but the reflux, one day, was simply gone. Haven’t bought a bottle of TUMS in five years. After that came the Era of the Muscle Spasm, when I would have savage, agonizing cramps in the muscles of legs, thighs, stomach, daily, nightly, if I sat down wrong or got up wrong or coughed or bent to pull a weed. The only remedy was an ungodly and constant intake of liquids. That too seems to be gone, though recent enough that I am not yet going to ring the bells. My current breathlessness, if I put it to the test, can be muscled through, which is to say it seems to improve with exertion, or at least gets no worse, and I am able to forget about it. Time heals much.

Long-running police TV shows are getting cancelled because of the Floyd  demonstrations. This is well, because I watch them, and see they present an image of police work that’s good for a TV entertainment program but bad for civilization. One, I think Chicago PD, features a commanding officer who is literally a criminal, murdering with impunity, brutalizing witnesses, lying, cutting corners, behaviors which the viewer is meant to excuse because “he gets the job done.” Also because we perceive those he brutalizes are scum and “have it coming.” That is a trope which does not transfer into real life. Every cop show presents and valorizes “cop culture.” The cops go to the same bar and contemplate their sacrifices to an un-appreciating community. Woe betide you if, among the dozens you’ve murdered, there is a cop. That alone cannot be tolerated. That allows all humanity and discretion to be left in the dust.