A Gem from Today

In the class I was in today, the students were working on computer-based grammar drills. One flagged me down for help, pointed at her screen, and asked, "Is 'whom' even a word?"

It was a high school class.

The Very Clear Hatred of Someone I've Never Met

I was in a first grade classroom today, and the teacher's lesson plans called for cutting and gluing all day. Needless to say, paper scraps everywhere, and sticky hands for all.

Shortly before lunch, we even made "Groundhog Day" puppets. They were cute, but it also meant I spent most of the afternoon having to yell at kids to stop playing with aforementioned puppets. It seemed pretty obvious to me even before we made them that this would be the natural outcome, so the only thing I'm left to assume is that, for some reason, the teacher must really, really hate me. (Even though I've never met her.)

Book Review: The Postmortal by Drew Magary

There needs to be a new term for novels with a science fiction-y premise that are nonetheless written in a literary fashion. You probably know the type I'm talking about -- novels like Cloud Atlas , various Atwood novels, lots of Vonnegut, etc. Into this group I would lump The Postmortal , by Drew Magary. The novel contains a fascinating premise and is an enjoyable read, but is probably too existential for exclusive fans of genre fiction and way too fanciful for fans of strict realistic fiction, making it a bit awkward for it to find a comfortable niche, kind of like me at a party.

Here's the premise: in the great tradition of Fleming, a geneticist accidentally discovers a cure for aging. People can still die of accidents, starvation, cancer, etc. -- but they will never grow old, and in theory they could live for hundreds of years.

As thought experiments go, it's a great one, in that it challenges one's assumptions: to what extent are we motivated by mortality? To what extent is longevity desirable on an individual level? On a societal level?

In his end-of-the-novel acknowledgements, Magary thanks someone for helping him to "make this book into a real novel, instead of a masturbatory idea dump." This is a fairly good summary of the book and the shortcomings it mostly avoids: the novel presents a very detailed and reasonable view of the future (giving us snapshots across almost eighty years of time), while still grounding the narrative in the experiences and perspective of one central character. (One clever device Magary uses is to exploit the conceit that the novel is supposed to be a compilation of blog posts by occasionally giving us "link round-ups," which show international developments and hint at events outside the scope of the main character.)

You may have noticed that I keep referring to the main character without a name -- I honestly don't remember his name. This is partly because the story is told in the first person, so it doesn't come up that often, but also partly because -- going alone with the above-mentioned issue of occasionally struggling to be a story in addition to a thought experiment -- the main character is a bit of an everyman, and while his "voice" is eminently readable and moves along at a nice clip (an accomplishment I'm not deriding), it is also not exactly unique or arresting. In the end, the novel may still fall more toward being about ideas than characters, but the main character's arc has still left me contemplating him and his decisions, which is a good sign.

This novel has very humorous parts, but one would also (spoiler alert) not be remiss to apply the term "dystopian" to it. Overall: recommended, but not for any of you struggling to find a reason to believe in humanity again.

(And for those of you wondering how this fits into the theme of the blog, I say that reading off-the-map fiction and then reviewing it for nobody but themselves is really the quintessential activity of/for aimless millennials.)

The Most Messed Up Thing I've Heard in a While

I was in a fourth grade classroom today. While working on a worksheet about the life of MLK, a girl raised her hand and said, "I know how he died. He was shot in the head."

A boy in the front row responded, "Boom! Headshot."

I'm starting to rethink whether maybe violent video games may have a negative effect on children, after all.

Today's Link

Here's a link for all the unemployed addicts forced to live on cat food out there, this time from the New York Times:

Generation OMG

Interesting takeaways: for those who like labels, this article calls millennials the "homelander" generation (as in security) and also calls us the next "Silent Generation." The basic thrust of the article is that the generation that lives through the Great Recession may/may not be branded by it, and that we older members of the cohort may prioritize either security/creativity in our jobs/unjobs.

I remember when people were talking about how millennials were going to be the "organization kid" generation and how we were going to do try and do everything before we had mental breakdowns. Now we're going to be like the children who came of age during the Depression? I suspect this is a combination of Great Recession Alarmism and the modern (post-modern?) desire to analyze and categorize in media res.

P.S. Millennials and Homelanders sound like rival factions in a sci-fi novel, no?

It's the Small Joys That Make Irregular Employment Worth It

It's the small joys that make irregular employment worth it. For example, while tutoring tonight I had a student who tried to make up a great word: multaplicitus. While I told him I was pretty sure that no such word existed (multitudinous was the word I suggested he was probably looking for), I nonetheless liked the word he invented. Here's my suggested definition for it:

multaplicitus: adjective, derived from combining "multiple" and "duplicitous," describes anything which employs a high number of examples in support of something which is nonetheless false

Perhaps the spelling should be regularized to multiplicitous? What do you think? Any takers for making this an actual neologism? If you can come up with a better definition, too, leave it in the comments section. (Something involving Tacitus maybe was my only other thought, but I'm sure you can do better.)

Isn't this messed up? Leave me a comment about how messed up this is.

First, the context: I recently volunteered for an organization which sends inmates educational and recreational reading material. The image below is of a postcard that an inmate had used to write to the organization in order to request books.



In case it's blurry, the front of the postcard reads: "Rescued Dogs & Cats enjoy Sheriff Joe Arpaio in an Air Conditioned Jail."

In smaller print, the back of the postcard continues (unpictured): "Front: While inmates live in the hot desert's Tent City, rescued dogs and cats enjoy the air conditioned comfort of a converted jail. Phoenix, Arizona."

How messed up is that? Here's my beginning effort at cataloging how messed up this is:

1) So they had enough prison space, but decided to make a Tent City anyway? Did they have a brainstorming session about how to make prison worse? (I love cats and dogs as much as the next guy -- well, dogs anyway -- but I'd rather see them have their own shelter than a converted jail. I suspect finding the converted use for the jail was a secondary happening anyway.)
2) They are so proud of their Tent City that they made postcards to promote it? (I mean, seriously, a postcard? Hmmm, let's look at the gift shop rack: Ooh, sunset on the Potomac, that's nice. Oh, "wish you were her" with a picture of a woman in a bikini, that's cute in a tacky way. Hmm, what's this? WE ARE AS CRUEL AS POSSIBLE TO OUR PRISONERS. Oh god, why is this here!?)
3) They then made those postcards available for inmates to use? I can't even imagine the theory of mind going on there.
4) They must be the only postcards available, or perhaps cheaper than others, because why else would an inmate want to "brag" about the fact that he/she was forced to live in a tent city? That adds an additional layer of messed-up-ness to the people who made the postcards and then made them available to the inmates.
5) Not just jails, but both times: "air-conditioned jail."
6) How creepy is that photo? And how creepy is the choice of the word "enjoy" ? (The dogs are not enjoying the air-conditioned jail -- they're specifically enjoying Sheriff Joe Arpaio.)

Isn't this messed up? Leave me a comment about how messed up this is.

Things I Enjoy

I was at the grocery store at 11 pm. The woman in front of me in line was buying six cans of cat food and a handle of vodka. When she got to the front, the checker looked up at her and said, "You're early."

Today's Links

Here's another link for my fellow unemployed drug addicts out there (coincidentally, again from Newsweek, which is apparently the newsletter of unemployed drug addicts forced to live on cat food everywhere):

Laid-Off Men Don't Do Dishes

The crux of the article is that unemployment affects more men than women, and that while women who are laid off spend a lot more time doing domestic tasks, unemployed men seem to do less, instead dedicating their time to "snacking, sleeping, and channel surfing." Here's the money quote, and the reason I'm posting this link on the blog: "We men today may be taking care of our kids, our skin and our feelings more than Grandpa Ralph ever did, but we still grapple with the same core problem: proving that we weren't just born male—we've become Men. And during economic crises, men humiliated by their loss of work often compensate by reasserting their worst hypermasculine impulses."

Two things:

1) Does the connection between work and self-esteem still apply for millennials? I think of the large number of us who either a)have trouble finding work or b) have trouble deciding what work we want to do or c) just generally prefer to engage in some floating. Are male millennials therefore emasculated, or we just not that focused on it, and (if true at all) this article would only apply to older people?

2) I'd say that the author of the article has diagnosed a general problem with human history not particular to the Great Recession. If men weren't so concerned with proving they were Men, I suspect human history would have a lot less violence and mayhem. Too bad we don't have little LED lights that click on to let us know when we're men, or get a certificate in the mail or something. But again I would ask: Is concern with being Men something else that millennial culture is leaving behind? I feel like the closest I've ever been to anyone worrying about his manhood is a Hemingway story (but maybe that just says something about the circles in which I run.)

On String Beans and Moral Authority

Last year I was pretty faithful about volunteering at a local food bank, but I stopped going when the bank cut its Friday hours. Today, I decide to give Thursday afternoon afternoons a try.

There’s a new director, and when I get there, he’s about to start lunch. While under the previous director I had done both intake and pantry work, I don’t want to presume on the new one, so I wait to be assigned. As a result, I spend a few minutes loitering. I always find it a little sad when a place has changed from my memories of it, but despite six months, things are not too different. The waiting room has been rearranged, and now has more chairs. There are now fans placed everywhere. The pantry has a new sign admonishing volunteers not to take any food. All small things, though the sign is a little disconcerting.

I don’t recognize any of the other volunteers, either because it’s been six months or because it’s Thursday. I start to introduce myself to two in the pantry, but their conversation looks pretty animated, so I slink back out to the waiting room. I can still hear them, though I don’t think they realize that. One says, “Is that guy waiting for his food, all creeping up over your shoulder and shit?” No, the other one responds, he’s a volunteer.

The new director comes out and asks me if I’d be willing to work in the pantry. Sure, I say. We head back there and he gives me a quick review -- nothing seems to have changed policy-wise.

It’s a new shift, so the two other volunteers leave. “Matthew” comes back and says he’s going to be working in the pantry with me. Good deal.

He shows me around, and I generally defer to his authority. I don’t bother telling him that today is not my first day, although I do question him when he tells me to give out two cans of both the Lucky Time green beans and the Golden Harvest green beans. Aren’t those the same thing? I ask. “They’re both green beans, but you should give out both,” he says. But won’t that mean going through the stock twice as fast? They’re different brands, but are you sure they’re not meant to be replacements for each other? “I’m sure,” he says.

As recently as last summer, running out of food was a serious concern. Maybe things have changed -- the shelves do look fuller. It doesn’t seem worth an argument, so I agree to do it his way.

A new volunteer comes through, led by the director. She is an older woman wearing a large scarf, a black dress, big earrings, and numerous rings. Her hair is short and blonde-white and severe in an older-woman-of-means-not-letting-herself-go sort of way. She looks out of place, a faded socialite wandered in from a Fitzgerald story.

She is uniformly impressed by everything. Here are the refrigerators, the director says. “Oh really!” she says. And here is the USDA food, he says. “Oh yes!” she says. Her oh reallys and oh yeses are still audible as they move into the warehouse.

Matthew and I begin to fill orders. He pulls out a psp and uses it play hip-hop music. I can’t describe exactly why, but it feels incongruous with the situation. I'm not happy about it, but decide not to say anything about it.

The socialite comes back through. I hear her being introduced to the woman working intake today. The woman says that she’s a single mother. “Oh really!” the socialite responds. She continues that the welfare office told her that if she was having trouble finding work, then she should find a place to volunteer. “Oh yes!” the socialite responds.

Another volunteer comes out of the warehouse into the pantry. He gives me his name and says, “I bring the Mormon boys.” He’s wearing a white t-shirt with a picture of Jesus that says “my boss.” I introduce myself. My eyes are drawn to his hair, which is flat and oddly pushed back, almost like there is some sort of singularity in the back of his head which is forcing light and gravity to converge on it. I notice that sweat on his forehead seems to be coming from under the hair, and I wonder if he’s wearing a toupee.

He asks me where I’m from, and I tell him the name of the university where I work. “Oh!” he says. “I’m headed there tonight to hear the speaker on Mormons!” Our conversation has lasted thirty seconds and it already has a theme. Yes, I tell him, I heard about that. He tells me the time and location of the speaker, but stops short of asking me if he’ll see me there. He looks like he’s considering it, though.

“Do you know who’s back there?” he asks, and gestures to the warehouse. “See that guy? He’s the 1983 heavyweight champion of the world.” He’s here? I say. Though I have no idea who that is, nor have I ever seen a fight, it seems like the sort of response the toupee man was looking for. He nods grimly.

The man in the warehouse is well-muscled, but otherwise nothing particularly sticks out about him. I wonder why the heavyweight champion is volunteering at our food pantry, or why that seems odd to me. I imagine faded glory; I picture all the boxer characters from “Million Dollar Baby” and their broken dreams; I hear “Eye of the Tiger.” All of that happening here, in the warehouse of our local food pantry. It’s uncomfortable, like seeing someone who was cool in high school now working a menial job in your hometown.

Maybe it’s not like that at all; maybe it’s good and fine that the heavyweight champion is here. I still decide not to introduce myself.

I ponder Matthew and his bagging. He puts a paper bag inside a plastic bag and then stacks all the way to the top, building careful pyramids of food security. Or he uses empty boxes and builds precarious and heavy sculptures, small cans supporting big ones, ungainly cans ready to topple out, etc., like some sort of unstable chemical arrangement whose atomic bonds are ready to break at the slightest moment. Nothing seems to predict when he will make the careful stacks or when he will opt for the Tasmanian Devil swirl approach.

After a few orders I work up the courage to talk to him about his bagging and how heavy and inconvenient it probably is for the clients. “It doesn’t matter,” he says, “we help load the food anyway.” That’s true, I tell him. But the people also have to get the food into their homes. “I never thought of that,” he says, but I notice he doesn’t change his ways. I decide if he’s willing to open the pandora’s box of passive aggression, then I’m going to stop giving four cans of green beans and only give two.

A client comes back into the pantry despite the numerous signs posted everywhere admonishing that only volunteers are allowed. He’s come through the warehouse entrance, too. The heavy-weight champ has let him by.

“Can I get some of those sausages?” the client asks. Sorry, I tell him. Those are for the homeless packs. “I usually get some of those sausages and soups and shit” -- I appreciate his alliteration, even at the time -- “but this time they gave me a whole bunch of cans and rice and beans and shit I can’t cook.”

Do you not have a means to cook? I ask. This is a question that is supposed to covered during intake. “No, I’m living in my car,” he says. “I’m sorry, sir -- I’d be happy to give you a homeless pack instead of the regular order. Just bring me back what we gave you, and I’ll swap you.” Had intake gone correctly, I would have given him a homeless pack in the first place and wouldn’t be in the difficult situation of asking for food back. Still, most of the food is stuff he can’t use anyway.

He brings the bags back, but since every order gets the same food, when I start to reshelf, it’s clear that some items are missing. I go back outside and ask him if he brought back all the bags. He admits that he did not, but tells me that the bag he kept had cereal and other things he could eat. He is upset that I’m asking for it back. I tell him that I need the full order back, so that I can give him a full homeless pack. He grudgingly leaves to get it.

While waiting outside, I hear one client talking to another about Obama, and how he is going to help turn things around. She is nodding and saying, “Oh really?” and “Yes?” to his every comment, but I’m pretty sure from our encounter earlier (when I asked her what kind of milk she preferred, another question that should have been covered during intake) that she does not speak English.

Mr. Alliteration returns with a bag which has cereal, peanut butter, and a bag of rice. I go back inside to fill the homeless pack. I reshelf his peanut butter, and put a larger one into the new pack. Although technically cereal boxes are not supposed to be part of homeless packs, I go ahead and throw it in, anyway, plus all the other stuff that is supposed to be there.

I head back outside to give it to him. “Can I have one of those pizzas?” he asks. Pizzas? Sometime in the last few minutes someone from Pizza Hut has dropped off some over-cooked pizzas. This happens every so often, and even though it’s only a few pizzas, they’re appreciated.

“Sorry,” I tell him. “We save the pizzas for families.” This is true.

“Come on, man, why do you gotta be like that?” he tells me. His face is wrinkled up, though he’s more angry than cajoling. “Just let me have a pizza.” Matthew is next to me, finishing up another order. He grabs a pizza and gives it to him.

Although the odds of me ever seeing this client again are low, and it is doubtful there will be any long-term harm, I’m nonetheless irked. Hasn’t Matthew ever heard about not undercutting your partner’s authority? I realize that is normally given as parenting advice, and suddenly feel a little guilty. I am not this client’s parent, nor is this client a child.

Still, I tell Matthew that I thought pizzas were just for families. “They are, “ he says, “but I usually will give out whatever just to make them shut up.” Oh. Wow.

The client has heard all this, but somehow I am still the one who is the enemy. He is smug. “See, man? What did I ever do to you?” he scoffs as he ambles away. I don’t tell him about the big peanut butter, or the cereal that I wasn’t supposed to give him but did anyway.

I suppose my moral authority on the string beans has evaporated. It’s hard not to want to give extra food; hard to visualize and remember that extra food for any particular client is taking food away from a future client.

So as I walk away, I recant. I should have given him a pizza, even if he was mean and it was against policy. I decide that for the rest of the day I’ll give out the pizzas to every client until we run out, whether they’re families or singles. Not only will it feel like atonement, it will also make me feel like I didn't just give one to Mr. Alliteration because, like Matthew, I didn't want to deal with him. These thoughts seem like they should be contradictory, but they don’t feel that way.