Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Ever Rising Cost of Education


This is trouble.
In an article in The New Yorker, James Surowiecki explains the college debt crisis in soberingly clear terms.  It brings a few other problems into focus; including rising medical costs and really, why it costs so much to keep any school running.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

To write.

I've been filling wee notebooks and dropping them in different places lately.
A version of what I do here on the 'puck', I don't know if they'll be thrown in the garbage or enjoyed by someone for the sheer curiosity of the find. The subjects and manners of writing have been varied like the colors of the leaves on the ground and still on trees here in the high desert, from still green to vibrant yellows and deep browns.
I've written straight for twenty minutes at a time, noticing the variations in my own mood and writing as I press onward across the tiny pages. The moods I experience change as much as my hand, and that change is reflected, too, on the prose and poetry.
Other times I write until I get sick of it, then go on a walk around the building, house, yard, or wherever I find myself, returning to the page renewed and wishing that I could erase what I'd already written.  Often the writing is interrupted by what I need to get done; grading, interviews, teaching, or just lapsing into a planning session for a class looming on the horizon.  I don't often get much more than ten minutes at a time to spill ink onto the paper, but when I do, it interests me beyond what I can express that sometimes it really stinks, but if I am patient and persistent, it comes around to something I can reflect upon as beautiful.
Has anyone read anything I left on a desk, a square of concrete, or a tree? Maybe not. Sometime I think it's more likely 'probably not'. I'm afraid that some of the folios have been almost illegible to anyone besides me, and I like that part, too. I'm coming to peace with my own impermanence and intractable imperfection these days as the sun wanes in his northern sphere. The death of light reflects my mind and spirit in some ways, even as my attitudes and energy retain some relation to youth's energy and verve, the night comes on quickly in my joints and bones. It's as if the marrow and brain's core are where undoing start.
The paper doesn't matter; nor does the ink or much the thoughts to anyone who might come upon them. To someone, someday, it might provoke a smile or an exasperated eye roll, but I feel that's good on both points. Maybe they're being cleaned up and thrown in the garbage by people energized by the opportunity to dispose of odd ephemera left about in places they don't belong. That's good, too.
Not sure how much longer this might last. I'm trying to choose a place to end; a place where I don't just get bored and slack off like I do so terribly often, a time where I can do it and make a good end of the process for now. I'm glad I always have the blog to practice a little of the same process, though, and for the opportunity to understand the process a little more though a slightly different project.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

The Wolf Debates

Credit: Rich Addicks for The New York Times


An update on the anti/pro wolf conundrum in and around Montana, from the NYTimes.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011