Take the wheel and drive by

[sovay]

I would strongly prefer to have started the year without respiratory crud. I travel tomorrow nonetheless. Have some things from the internet.

1. I love the idea of a ship's biscuit love token.

2. I had never heard the story of Lee Sallows and the self-enumerating pangram.

3. This poem sticks with me: Martín Espada, "Vivas to Those Who Have Failed: The Paterson Silk Strike, 1913."

4. Worth reading in full, especially the parentheses: Matthew Cheney, "The Narrative of Dead Narrative."

5. I can't remember which recent news item provoked me to leave myself the note "FUCK THE GHOST OF JOSEPH BREEN AND ALL HIS NECROMANCERS," but I'm sure it's still relevant.

I understand the concept of statistical outliers, but I still have a very hard time believing in the Boomer-Millennial culture wars when my father calls me up to discuss in detail the fourth-season finale of Lucifer (2016–).

Comments

[kaffy_r]

I read this to my husband. I am in tears.

Is it alright if I post the link to this?

[sovay]

Is it alright if I post the link to this?

You can link to anything of mine that is posted publicly, but I think this comment may have been intended for another post.

[kaffy_r]

Hi, thanks - I should have specified that the poem to which you linked, "Vivas To Those Who Have Failed; The Paterson Silk Strike, 2013", was what affected me so much. I was still wiping tears from my eyes when I commented. I should have calmed down before hitting the keyboard.

Also, I should have asked how your crud is doing. I hope you've recovered.

[sovay]

I was still wiping tears from my eyes when I commented. I should have calmed down before hitting the keyboard.

No worries. *hugs* Please link! It is a powerful poem.

Also, I should have asked how your crud is doing. I hope you've recovered.

The crud is persistent, but I am traveling anyway, or at least I will once this train decides it actually wants to go somewhere.

[kaffy_r]

It is a powerful poem.

It goes directly through my brain - leaving important messages there - to my heart, which it sticks pins into.

I've spent much of my adult life (say, since 1976-77) involved in the union movement, and sure that it was right before I even read or experienced it. That means, by extension, that I've spent much of my life explaining what I thought about the union movement to people, usually younger ones but not always, most of who were afraid to be in unions, or talk about them, or even think about them, even when they were in jobs protected, at least to some extent by a union.

"But they could fire me!" "But they're the boss - they have the right to [treat us like shit]!" "What could happen to me?"

And sometimes I tell them that unions gained the tiny foothold they have in the U.S. because people braved Pinkerton and his bullet-spraying thugs, because people lost their jobs, because people were killed by the bullets, and that what they are facing is not all that frightening by comparison. Mostly I don't, because I know everyone's fear is big to them. Worse, I sometimes find myself that afraid, and not taking my own advice.

So yes, reading about this brought tears.

(Also, on a completely superficial note, I couldn't help thinking about Adam Driver when I first saw the title, before I remembered the events.)

[sovay]

And sometimes I tell them that unions gained the tiny foothold they have in the U.S. because people braved Pinkerton and his bullet-spraying thugs, because people lost their jobs, because people were killed by the bullets, and that what they are facing is not all that frightening by comparison.

I have not spent my life in the union movement, but I grew up knowing that history and it frightens me that it is forgotten. I am glad that you tell people the stories when they can hear them and even when they can't, tell them the importance of unions and believe it yourself.

*hugs*

[kaffy_r]

It's so easily forgotten ... humans are strange creatures; we live in the present when it comes to planning for the future, and live in the past when it comes to holding grudges. But I digress ....

I read the Cheney and was reminded that I am not an academic. Why on earth would anyone argue against narrative? We are narrative and all that we touch becomes part of that, and why should we not both celebrate narrative as, you know, a thing, and make use of it as a tool?

Middlebrow me does not understand.

Many, many thanks for the hugs. Please have one right back if and when you need it.