River of Play

Soggy Fires

The residents of this city take great pleasure in setting off as many cubic tons of fireworks as they can during the lead-up, day of, and exit from the Fourth of July. Nature is cooperating--without intending to--with those of us who would rather leave the explosions to the professionals by laying down a lovely, gentle rain. A nice summer soaker. While there is still a bit of small arms fire going on, it's mellowed by the sound of falling water. 

Care to discuss the effect of fireworks on the environment? Try this article from Mother Nature Network (MNN) (and be sure to read the comments, some folk seriously don't like change), another piece from the rather hardcore Chemical and Engineering News, and you might want to see what the Journal of Pyrotechnics Archive has to offer. See what you think.

Teaching the Controversy

I dive in on a poetry controversy over on the Schooner blog. 

And Now, a Different Flock

A flock of words, that is. For the next, oh, ten days or so Oxford University Press is continuing its celebration of adding back issues of the journal Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (ISLE), the publication of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE, of which I am a member, though in an effort to conserve paper, we don't carry cards). Not only has Oxford UP taken over the distribution of ISLE, they've digitized the backlist, and the entire thing is available for download--for FREE. The journal publishes academic bits, yes, but also literary nonfiction and poetry. Well worth clicking through. I will admit to shamelessly downloading many, many articles. 

So go. I'll be here. Maybe we'll have a brief chat about the quiverfull movement when you get back. 

Last Word on Geese

As you can plainly see...no photos. Alas. But the photos below are huge. Click on one and find out (while they are of a size and quality that you could use them as your desktop, don't. I tried. A dense black and white pattern with a black and white cursor is not a good combination.). Thus, one of the moments of great poignancy was realizing that while there were many birds, they were snow geese, not, oh, passenger pigeons. Still, living near one of the great migration corridors offers a glimpse into the profound compulsions of nature. It's an awe-inspiring experience, and a chance to see cedar waxwings twice a year. 

The girl was unimpressed. A bit chilly and windy. But she bore the inconvenience like a trouper.

Time's Winged Chariot

I almost wrote "whinging chariot." Fun with fingers, eh? Though nothing compared to the daughter. Her fingers are simply the most amazing thing she sees. 

We've been busy around here in Lincoln. Houseguests and so on. We took our guests--Wendy's godparents--out to look at the last of the Sandhill cranes. Instead, we ran into snow geese. Tens of thousands of snow geese. I have pictures. And I will post them. But right now I have a narrow window for posting, so I wanted to set up a quick link to a fab/scary comic here (it's the 3/13/09 strip). If you're a PhD student, you must be reading this strip. If not...it'll give you some insight, I expect. Oh, but not this particular one. It's more of a theme link. 

Remind me to write about the new poetry project. And think loving thoughts toward Natural Bridge. 

Back in the Saddle--and Relaxing

AWP was last weekend, and it was...immense. I ran into Matt Buresci who told me that 8,500 people were there for the panels and the 700 tables and booths in the book fair. And this has been a goad for me to think about the Prairie Schooner brand, if you will. The good people at CLMP suggested a book to read, Buying In. So I'm reading the text. Very interesting stuff about the psychology of buying, and it raises intriguing questions about innovation v. novelty. 

The conference is a good place to meet old friends and to remind myself that there's a lot of light and smoke in literary publishing but very little that's all that interesting. I also noticed that our price point was a little steep for current economies. We'll see what the year brings. But the worst thing about the conference was my conveyance: a Jeep Compass. Nice enough on the inside, I suppose (though the cup holders were in terrible locations), but it maxed out at 20 mph on the highway. Oof. And don't get me started on the extensive blind spots. Cars around me would disappear entirely for miles at a time only to reappear when I needed to change lanes. 

Plus, did I mention the mileage? 

Which takes me off the AWP issue and onto the much more meaningful engagements of ecocriticism (oh, before we leave AWP: I did get a chance to meet up with some ASLE and Wofford folk). D handed me a rather appalling little board book when I got home. I Love You, Little One by Nancy Tafuri. In this book--firmly in the tradition of reassurance narratives--a variety of wild animals ask their mothers if their mothers in fact love them. We'll leave the talking animals aside and concentrate on their maternal responses. Yes, the mothers say, I love you like the pond/river/stars love you-- And there's the trouble. I finished each of those sentences while D was reading with "which is to say, not at all." I know for a fact that D loves Wendy more than the stars love her. The stars don't care. At all. Hell, the pond can drown you. And will, no matter how fond of it you are. I understand that we're talking about childhood treacle, but still. Not all the treacly books suggest dangerous attitudes. 

But the illustrations are nice.

The Great Windy Way

Tomorrow (2/11), I'm off to Chicago. This will be my second year as the logistics head of the Schooner contingent. I've dotted every "i" and crossed every "t" I could find. We'll see what happens when we get there. It's usually madness, though in a contained sort of way. 

In the world outside the hothouse of academic writing, it looks like we're in for an interesting struggle between nineteenth century technology and the twenty-first century. Certainly, we're having to consider coal v. alternatives, but I'm also thinking about "shovel ready" projects that simply patch up power grids, transportation infrastructure, and water systems that instead need to be overhauled. So while I'm very interested--thrilled and stunned, actually--in the green jobs and technology the new administration is putting in place, I'm concerned that the money might go to prop up the status quo for another generation instead of doing the difficult work that needs to be done.

Last random blog-jump: Since I've turned in the big drafts of the comps, I've been turning to research on place. Nebraska: It used to be an ocean. I learned yesterday, for example, that the watershed we're part of (Platte River and, more locally, Salt Creek) is shallow and complex. Something like eleven creeks drain 1000 square miles of land right around here. Lincoln, in the middle of this complex, has experienced one hundred floods in one hundred years, thirty-odd of them major. And, in fact, we have posted flood warnings today. We had some heavy downpours yesterday that washed ice into jams at bridges and culverts. So keep your galoshes handy.

A Week at a Time

Life is pretty compressed right now, as you might think. Wendy is sleeping four, five, or eight hour shifts at night, so we're doing pretty well. We are in the six week "fussiness" window, so daytime hours are trying. But, we persevere. Worse, I think, are the frequent trips to stores to pick up a this or a that. Diapers. Formula. More, different bottles. Means to warm the bottles (is it better to have a hyper-efficient electrical warmer or use natural gas?). I shudder to think of the cash passing through our wallets. Like shit through a goose. 

So much of the baby stuff is plastic, too. Dear gods, you have to work to find natural materials. Every toy and geegaw is bright, molded plastic hanging in a plastic bubble in an airless store. Still, we've managed to find rattles and toys of wood and cloth, and they just feel better.

Anybody care for a round up? Sure...

If, like me, you were a bit fretful about the "climate change is irreversible" report, fear not! Or, rather, continue to fear--or loathe powerful denialists like W for whom vocabulary is insufficient to describe their cravenness. As it says in the title, Irreversible is not Unstoppable. 

And shall we mourn for Michael Phelps? Dissenting opinions here and here. 

Trying for an Update

Not that there are readers stopping by, but I thought I'd mention that I'm done with the first draft of the entire field list. Getting close to the end of the focus list. A couple of good pubs, including an acceptance from Isotope. Lots of ecology and science news, too. We're getting close to DNA, another blow to creationism, I'm afraid. 

Speaking of evolution, we're watching our baby ape get used to being in the world. It's an amazing process, though not without a certain level of...loudness. 

And now, I need sleep. Think slow thoughts for me.

A New Year Full of Birthday Celebrations

So Wendy will turn one this year... And I don't know how to follow that up. 

I think that most of the people I know are interested in how the toxin flush we started in November will change how we feel in mid-January. I am delighted that we'll have a leader who listens to scientists--research and climate. Will we turn back to our own infrastructure? Will we address that infrastructure in ways that look to the future instead of recapitulating the 19th century's scorched earth, build big approach? And wouldn't it be nice to have a conversation about how to assess education that doesn't straight-jacket teachers (a topic very popular here in this house)?

And we have our own transition here with its attendant questions. So far, we're trying to limit the amount of cheap plastic doodads that Wendy gets, but so many of the baby tech items (eg, monitors) are just that. We keep sending people notes about wooden toys (PlanToys, Haba, etc), but these are expensive, as are the practices that would be better...maybe. Disposable or cloth diapers? Oh, it's an ugly question, and the answer is knotted and involves questions of money, labor, water... Ah, but I hear--over the monitor--the sounds of squirming. So. Must go. But you can see scads of pix here.