What Did Your Second Grade Teacher Do to You?

THINGS YOUR 2ND GRADE TEACHER WAS WRONG ABOUT

I swear this is what my 7th grade math teacher looked like.

For years now, I've heard people espouse the teachings of their 2nd grade pedants as if they were indisputable facts. They use these poor women like Republicans use Ayn Rand and Jesus Christ, picking out things they heard years ago to make a point that puts all arguments to rest.

For example: "When I was in 2nd grade, my teacher taught us about life cycles and global warming and cooling cycles; therefore, humans don't cause global warming/climate change."

Yes, the planet has gone through periods of climactic change and even polar change(!), but the rate at which the planet is heating  coincides with the rise of the industrial age, the population of human beings, and the decline of other species and forests.

Another example: "My 2nd grade teacher pointed at her incisors and told us that our canine teeth are for ripping and tearing flesh."

Yes, we can rip a lot with those teeth of ours, but most predators have a whole face of conical teeth, and we only have these little guys. They're mostly for defense like gorilla's teeth. A gorilla can do a lot of damage with their teeth, and so can we, but try biting into a live cow and see how far you get.

He's pretty much vegan.

Here's one I like: "My 2nd grade teacher taught us we were all unique, special, and that our opinions matter."

Yes, we're unique. But you can look around and tell we're not special, there are billions of us. And we're getting to the point where we aren't that unique. There's probably someone out there with your identical DNA, and in an infinite universe, there's definitely someone who has experienced your identical life and is reading this right now. It's a mathematical certainty. Your opinion matters on election day, and that's about it. If your opinion isn't based on fact, experience, and logic, it's invalid.

2nd-grade teachers are not the ones to blame here; they're doing the best they can. My teacher taught me that the brontosaurus was a real dinosaur, that Pluto was a real planet, and Jesus was a real guy watching my every move. She taught me Christopher Columbus was a real hero, that cow's milk was really good for me, and that my artistic talent was really a burden. She didn't know what to do with me; she probably just hoped she wouldn't screw me up too much and I'd figure it out as I got older—that I might evolve.

When you quote something from your 2nd grade teacher, you're saying "I'm tired of evolving. I stopped evolving a long time ago."

I've known people who said they hate other races because it was the way they were raised. You might as well be saying "I will neither learn new things nor grow as a human being."

I say EVOLVE! Take the time to learn about someone and end up loving them. 

And if you want to say something about your 2nd grade teacher, say "she was a nice lady who tried her best with a young mind."

American Books One Might Want to Get to Before Others

I have a new friend from England, C. C admits to being woefully underread when it comes to "American Classics."

C wanted a list of American books I thought were worth reading, so I made one. I stuck to ten novels. Here's my list:

• To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee wrote one of those books you can never unread. It's simply the truest American story ever told.
• The crying of Lot 49: Thomas Pynchon's shortest novel isn't his best, but it's the best to get to know this writer and see if you want to try out heftier tomes like Gravity's Rainbow and V., which is my personal favorite.
• On the Road: Kerouac beats Thompson when it comes to writing about the American Dream. I think I've read everything by Kerouac, and I like Lonesome Traveler more than On the Road, but you have to start at the beginning.
• Lolita: Nabokov wrote possibly the best novel of the 20th century, called himself an American novelist, and the book takes place in the US, so don't try to tell me this doesn't count. If you can read, you have to read this.
• The Sun Also Rises: Fucking Hemingway had to write this one first. I think it's his best book, and I think the way the Lost Generation felt might be the way this one does in a lot of ways. Anyway, I think it's timeless.
• Sea Wolf: Jack London wrote the greatest sea adventure ever written, according to Carl Sandburg. How he's more famous for his dog books, I'll never understand. Anyway, this book is about a poet trapped on a ship with Nietzsche, and supposedly the captain is based on a real guy who used to go to one of my favorite bars on the planet: Heinhold's First and Last Chance Saloon.
• Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer: You have to read one or both. It's mandatory. Race, youth, class, yeah, Mark Twain had it all.
• The Catcher in the Rye: They make people read this one too young. Then they bury you with criticism about it. I think I've read this book four times. Each time, I get something different and hate my teachers more. 
• Moby Dick: Melville's better book might be White Jacket, some people say, but I never read White Jacket more than once. Moby Dick is possibly the greatest novel ever written and is experimental by even today's standards. If you say it's slow, watch a YouTube video instead. Yes, when I read this the first time as a young man, I struggled through some of it, but argh, thank god I did. 
• A Movable Feast: I feel a little guilty putting Papa on here twice. I'm not really a Hemingway freak, but this book has so much going for it. Wonder what it was like in Paris after the war? Read this. Gertrude Stein is in it. I love this book.

On a personal note:

• Legend of Greystoke: When it comes to prolific sci-fi writers, Edgar Rice Burroughs is, in my opinion, the best. I know, Lovecraft. Yeah, Lovecraft is wonderful, and everyone should read at least the Mountains of Madness, but I had to cut him because Edgar Rice Burroughs is just a better writer in the end.

Canadian Honorable Mentions:

• Yann Martel: Life of Pi and Virgil and Beatrice.
• Douglas Coupland: Microserfs, Girlfriend in a Coma, Life after God, Generation X
• Margaret Attwood: Handmaid's Tale

White guys I wanted to put on this list but didn't make it:

• Truman Capote
• Cormac McCarthy
• William Faulkner
• Thomas Wolfe
• Henry Miller
• Others already mentioned and even more I don't want to.

Women I should have put on this list:

• Zora Neal Hurston
• Toni Morrison
• Kate Chopin

Black guys I should have put on this list:

• Chester Himes
• Ralph Ellison
• Richard Wright
• Ishmael Reed
• Amiri Baraka

Anyway, that's my list. The last thing is, I think Howl should be mandatory American reading. It's a book of poetry, but I didn't want to leave this post without explicitly mentioning HOWL by Alan Ginsberg. I'll have to find C. a copy somewhere.

Poetry as Religion, Masturbation, and Science

The Oakland Fuel Dock is more important than any poem ever written, and it demands more respect. The container cranes stand with more majesty and pride over the gulls cracking mussels on the cement sides of slips because poetry, like all art, has no dignity.

It's easy to think of poetry as a religion. We experience poetry alone with a book or with a reverend-like reader in a group. and the more sinister boors of us will always try to make poetry a religion. Boors see a place where they can impose their own beliefs on others who love the art, and they will strive to turn those beliefs into dogma. Every religion has the arrogance to think that their set of rules are the right ones for anyone who loves God; of such stuff are proselytizers made. People who call poetry a religion are arrogant in the same way. When you refuse their dogma, they shake their heads and call you uninformed, like Martin Luther did when he said the Jews of Germany only refused Christ because Catholics had gotten all the rules wrong.

Rules assume that getting to heaven is a contest. They have holy men and saints, whose names act as place markers for ideas that reinforce those rules. These names have the mystical power of convincing people to believe what they know to be untrue.

The zealots of poetry as religion find saints in old critics. They chant their names in a mantra designed to feign an understanding of the ideas behind them. But reading criticism is analogous to watching the muscles of a very intelligent orangutan as he masturbates. Interesting? Yes. Fun? Maybe. But certainly not important or dignified. Poetry zealots watch to find new techniques so that they too can join the circle jerk of criticism, but they will never admit to having fun with it, and they expect you to stay quiet and reverent. Soon they will learn how to tell other would-be masturbators how it "should" done.

The only way to make criticism important is to change its purpose to that of science. Science's only goal is merely to know. Critics have spent so much time telling us things, eared seals barking orders at pelicans, that the pelicans have swallowed too much sea water and have started to believe that poetry and all other art is a religion. Only in religion do people subject themselves to being told so much. But poetry is not a burning bush and will not tell you anything. Moses was a liar, and so are most critics. They cannot ever tell you what poetry is really saying because it isn't saying anything. When art tries to say something, it fails because it has nothing to offer as a reward for your listening to Metatron. In religion, there's, you know, eternal salvation.

If you think that poetry and all other art is more than a form of entertainment, you suffer from arrogance. Art does not mean more than football. It seems like the more people know, the more they enjoy "fine arts," but who knows why that is? And that why is what's important. Why do we value the arts? Why do we enjoy ink on paper and paint on canvas or the sound wet breath makes through pounded brass? If you allow the educated and educators to stop you from laughing and having fun with the arts, you have been duped in the cathedral into thinking masturbation is evil and unhealthy.

But Art, Entertainment, Criticism, they all are very fun and healthy. The only question is how and why we enjoy the sticky mess they get us in.

Scientists are almost always more fun to be around than priests.

Staunton, Virginia is Nice and Smart

I am in Virginia. Please do not sneak into my house and kill Dropsy. He's an innocent in this. Just leave him alone.

There's a college here called Mary Baldwin College. The people who go to Mary Baldwin are very smart. I like them very much. They know about things like William Shakespeare. Last night, they invited me to a party, and someone there spoke German, and someone there knew who Chelsey Minnis is, and someone there knew about ancient religions. They all knew about William Shakespeare and William Shakespeare critics.

They all promised that, if I invited them to stay at my house and go to Cal Shakes or OSF, they would also go to poetry readings and read Sorry for Snake. They also promised to treat Dropsy with the dignity and respect that he deserves.

Fancy!

Two of our founding members got into Brown. Getting into Brown's poetry program is kind of a big deal, but that's not all of it. Three of our founding members will be attending fancy schools come next term, and we should be very proud of them and congratulate them every time we see them. They've got very big decisions to make because they were accepted to several schools each, all fancy ones, too! Isn't it exciting? Some day we will be able to say, "I knew them when we were in the Trainwreck Union together," and people will be impressed and want to be your friend because you once knew these shooting stars of poetry.

Pablo Lopez says it's between Brown and Iowa for him. Wow!
Sara Mumolo says she's considering St. Mary's, Pitt, and New School. Zowie!
I don't know where Sarah Stone wants to go, but she's a genius and got in everywhere she wanted! Woo-hoo!

Right now, in fact, Sara is in Pittsburgh, being courted by their fancy staff and faculty. She sent me this today. It's an interesting piece on Gertrude Stein by Lynn Emanuel. Miraculously, I liked it very much and have nothing negative to say about it at all.

Last night several trainwrecks occurred on College Avenue. Someone had the bright idea to leave Ralleigh's, raid Nabolom, and hit every bar on College. Chad even came out!!! Pablo and I (Jack) got into a huge argument about poetry, and Connie Coady was like, "you guys always talk like this about poetry?" In stereo, we turned to her and said "OF COURSE!" Connie got into it a bit when Gertrude Stein came up, as she invariably does. No one will escape Gertrude Stein. No one!

One more thing. Pablo, instead of cherishing his acceptance letters to places like Columbia, which I think many people do for a little while before tossing them, he wrote poetry on the back of all of them. For some reason I think this is rather cool. Good for you, Pablo.