"I'm a Snake," I said. "You're a Very Poor Snake," He Said.

In the next to last of one of my masters' classes, Performance and Ethics, taught by Amy R, she asked us to stand up, push desks to the wall, form a circle in the middle, then said, Surround the person, besides me, that intimidates you most, and I was surrounded. I was embarrassed, offended, aghast.

It's fun watching the intramural bleggarrggles after National Obamapostasy Week as bleggers scuffle to maintain if not improve their respective pegs in bleg's hierarchy. The squabbles needn't necessarily pertain directly to quality and purity of obamapostasy - though there's plenty of that - but the paradigm shift from stoopid hope to desolate disillusionment creates tensions - and imagined opportunities - in the blegosphere. I've two blegfriends, both blegrelled in Reads, both of whom have been Kind to me, who are spatting over credentials as only B-Listers can spat.

Amy could see I was upset. The day before I had gone to her for advice on whether to pursue the PhD - she had written recommendation letters for me, I had been accepted to three schools. She thought I shouldn't - I had a family, I needed to work full-time, etc. After class she said she'd done the experiment to teach me a lesson: you're competitive but not ambitious, and by ambitious I mean ruthless. You should be delighted and proud you intimidate the other students. Do you realize there are thousands of PhDs all competing for the dozens of jobs opening each year? No one gets one by being nice. You need to be ruthless.

As I type this, there are 6,802,242,472 people on the planet. If I'm smarter than 98% of them, that leaves 68,022,424 people smarter than me and 68,022,424 I'm competing against for the top of Tier B. Sheeyit, I'm not going to worry about my arc-to-distance pissing ratio in that shitty bleggal - or any other - game.

UPDATE!

 

• The hidden costs of the Afghan escalation.
• When blood is their argument.
• You can have peace or you can have free money.
• Israeli Litmus Test.
• A frothy mix of lube and fecal matter may be just what America deserves.
• A frothy mix of lube and fecal matter may be just what America deserves.
• Gutter politics and tomatoes.
• Your daily duh.
• Capitalism.
• UPDATE! Fucking Democrats.
• Bobo continues The Villager consolidation behind Obama.
• Guess which grifter's ghostwriter got a column in Your Fucking Washington Post?
• UPDATE! The symbiosis between Palin and YFWP.
• Your Fucking Washington Post's weekly sanctimonious wetfart.
• Breakfast Crock of Shit.
• I make fun of Babs for her NSA-whoring, but credit where due.
• Is that a root in your hand or are you just happy to see me?
• Wrasling.

 

• Holy hell.
• Downtown Silver Spring, 1927.
• ICC!
• MCPS holyfuck!
• My future hell.

• Poets are lazy and stupid!
• Delmore Schwartz was born 96 years ago yesterday.
• Unbeatific.
• Atwood's Ten Gifts to Give Beginning Novelists.
• Best Best of Year List of the Year!
• Gardner and Gass.
• Gass' year in reading.
• Coetzee's Countervoices. I'm going to make a good faith effort next year. If nothing else, I need to have faith in my meh.
• L.A. Times Top 25 Fiction/Poetry.
  
• Another one of dozens of my five favorite songs.
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• Zappadan, Day 5.
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• Today's Listening Assignment.

UPDATE! ODB needs a Journey song knocked out of his head:

• Today's Listening Assignment.
• What Would I Want? Sky.
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• Today's Listening Assignment.
• Today's Listening Assignment.

HOW TO BE A MEMBER

James Tate

    I didn't understand what was expected of me. Maxwell told
me to walk around with an orchid in my hand and then I would be
counted. I did this and then this woman came out and said, "Where's
your teddy bear?" "I was told to bring an orchid," I said. "Orchids
come much later. Right now it is only a teddy bear that counts,"
she said. I started to leave, feeling slightly annoyed. Maxwell
spotted me and came running up. "What are you doing with an
    orchid?"
he said. "You told me," I said. "Not now, for god's sake. This is
the teddy bear stroll," he said. "I know, I know. I don't know
if I'm up to this thing," I said. "You don't have any choice. It's
required," he said. When I came back clutching my teddy bear,
people were standing around in pairs taking turns slapping one
another. There were no teddy bears in sight. The couples didn't
speak. There were significant pauses between slaps. A man walked
up to me and said, "Where's your partner? Why aren't you
    slapping?"
I said, "I don't have a partner." "Of course you have a partner.
Everybody has a partner," he said. "I was out getting my teddy
bear," I said. "Teddy bears have got nothing to do with it. This
is the slapping time," he said. I looked around everywhere. There
was one small little girl crawling around in the grass, but I didn't
want to slap her. I drifted away and walked around the block. When
I came back they were sitting on the ground in a straight line. The
first one would start to howl, then the second one, and so on down
the line, each taking their turn. I went and started to sit at
the end of the line, but the man said, "No, no, I'm the last. So
you can't sit here. This is my place." I looked down the line and
realized that everybody was attached to their exact position. I
looked around for Maxwell. I was so confused. Why was I required
to be here when I didn't fit into anything. I saw the little girl
still crawling in the grass. I went over and sat down beside her.
"What are you?" I said. "I'm a snake and I'm going to bite you,"
she said. "Bite me and get it over with," I said. So she crawled
up to me and bit me on the leg. It hurt. "You're going to die
now," she said. "I figured as much," I said. The howling had
stopped. I turned around. They were taking turns diving through
hoops of fire. I decided I didn't want to belong to the human race
so I started making snake-like movements in the grass. Suddenly
Maxwell was standing there. "You've failed this whole thing. I
tried to tell you what to expect and look at you," he said. "I'm
a snake," I said. "You're a very poor snake," he said.

 

Born fifty-nine years ago today: