Hell House

Finally I'd gotten around to updating the many podcasts (TAL, Fresh, TBK, TOF) I have not been listening to over the last two months and amazingly enough I was actually listening to a recent episode of This American Life (TAL) when I heard this:

It's fun to make hell on earth...

A Columbine reenactment with real guns....

At the tryout: "I want to play the abortion girl." (turns out everyone wants to play the "bad" guys)...

In one scene:

"Do you believe in God?"

"Yes."

"Do you believe in God?"

"Yes," she says screaming for her life as he points a gun at her head.

"Why?" and then he shoots her...

At the awards ceremony for Hell House actors: "I want to thank my rapists."

***

As the documentary film makers ask, who are the good church going adults who sponsor this event?

To steal a phrase from HighTouch's recent blog post and put it in a much darker context, a little piece of me died hearing this story. I was stunned at the inanity of it all, stunned that people would create such "theater" for young teenagers in order to convert them, stunned they didn't see how they were inviting the very things they say they are against, stunned that humanity could stoop so very low.

Even now, writing/reflecting/re-listening to the episode, I'm incredulous--surely well-meaning adults did not subject their teens to this in the name of a God? Unfortunately it seems to they did.

Old man

Finally my oldest son and I met toe to toe in the only arena open to such a meeting: The unofficial Adam's Canyon sprint to the waterfall.

We warmed up, we stretched, we checked out the competition (that would be each other), and we were off. After the long stretch of steep switchbacks I had a slight lead because said son was too proud to speed walk the steepest hills instead of running them, "Efficiency the old man cried."

About half way up (it's about 2.5 miles) I remembered I hadn't stretch my back so I stopped briefly, son passed me a got a lead. When I caught back up to him, after much suffering given the stretching caused my back to seize up, he said:

"Old man you're killing me."

And that made all the pain worth it, even pleasurable.

Cyclist on freeway: This really happened

As we were driving on I-15 into SLC last night to see Jim Gaffigan, we saw a cyclist riding on the side of the freeway. In of itself this is strange and crazy and, actually, illegal but not worthy of a CI blog post.

Thankfully there were other details which made this experience post-worthy: he was only riding on his back tire (doing a wheelie) AND, holy shit I still can't believe this, adjusting something on his front wheel while riding down said freeway, while riding a continuous wheelie, while riding about a foot away from cars passing at 85mph.

I did a triple take as we passed him. I'm still stunned, still wondering if we didn't enter some sort of carnavalesque imaginary world for a few seconds. Now I have a small inkling of what it must have felt like to look up in 1974 and see Phillipe Petit crossing that thin wire between the Twin Towers. Must have been magical, hilarious, incredible.

The written language

Attempting to help my son switch his new watch from military to regular time, I found these very clear and concise instructions concerning the 12/24 hour reversal option:

"You have the possibility to change from 12 to 24 hour system, when adjusting the hours of the normal time one after the other the hours are displayed in the 12 hour system, then in the 24 hour system and then again the 12 hour system, i.e., please push S2 so many times, that the hour is displayed in the required system."

Well, it is now absolutely crystal clear what I need to do.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I have this Thing and this other Thing—Thing 1 and Thing 2. Thing 1 is absolutely necessary but Thing 2 merely costs lots of money.

What should I feel toward Thing 3? I’ve had it since I was 14; it was my grandfather’s but I never knew my grandfather and would gladly give up Thing 3 to speak with him for a few minutes. Thing 4 has passed from one office move to the other since my very first teaching job—that’s six moves—yet I’m unsure I’ve ever used Thing 4.

Fuck Thing 2; I don’t care how much it cost—to the garbage it goes.

All my Things are just Things. They don’t breathe or think but it seems I hope many of them will remind me of my own breathing and living. Thing 5 I got during our family trip to San Francisco; what a lousy reminder of that amazing trip.

Why so many goddamn Things? I can’t keep track of my Things. When I want to use Thing 6, it’s never around; instead I make do with Thing 23 but it’s not really my size. I start to fill suffocated by Things, things over here, in there, on the cabinet, in the garage—too too many Things!

But I do like Things; in fact I like my neighbors’ Things and Things in stores much more than my Things; unfortunately even when I adore a Thing someone else owns, its glimmer wanes as soon as it nestles amongst my Things.

I just got a new office and decided to fill it with a few Things as a commemoration of my window and my commitment to this office. I saw the Things colleagues had in their offices; many smart things. Andrea had pretty, rich matching Things but I’d never figure out such a complex layout of Things; another had intellectual old Things but he also has a degree from Yale. I want those Things, I said, so when I happened to be in Walmart (a very rare thing indeed) I decided to hunt for some Things. But before I made it through the front door I was tired and hot; I pushed on but once inside the King of Things, I was overwhelmed by Things. Why would people by such stupid freakin’ Things? I look at lamp Things but I think I want a lamp Thing from Ikea—not the king of Things but much better to say I bought an office Thing from Ikea than Walmart. But soon the new Things I buy will seem old a wary, Things I no longer want.

What is left when we have no Things? We are alone in a thing, yet alone without our things. Are we a thing or something more? I want Things to mean.

A Thing goes up, a Thing goes down. I pick a Thing up and save it; I throw another Thing away, yet that other Thing I caress and save never to revisit the Thing again. Things will haunt me till death and then my children will fight and scream over my Things. Sometimes I wish I owned no Things at all.

Guess who finally got into Cs?

That'd be ME with my two wonderful colleagues: Antistrophe and Signifying nothing. I have been part of a proposal for 4Cs (a major composition conference) every year for the last 6 years.

I tried many combinations: submitted with two new SLCC colleagues, Middlebrow and The cold cold north; submitted again with Middlebrow but brought in the experieinced 4C's ringer, Hightoughmegastore; submitted alone with little collegial feedback; several times had experienced colleagues read over and help rewrite proposal.

Finally this one stuck. And amazingly a fellow greeny (Antistrophe), as they say in the Mormon mission field, and I planned it out and I headed up the actual writing. Also thanks goes to Signifying nothing who, very last minute, allowed us to use his star-studded writing center presence to round out our panel and hooked me up with solid writing center research.

Somehow I feel like I've arrived. I know it's silly but indulge me. So many revisions of the proposal and it was our (Antistrophe's and mine) writing, not writing majorily tweaked by my more experienced, mentoring colleagues. Of course without said mentoring, I would never have arrived at such great heights. After the presentation I will be ready to die and go to heaven; my work will be done on earth.

p.s. if you have inside information that the committee accepted the proposal because they somehow found out Signifying nothing, the world leader of student writing centers, was on the proposal OR because our issue--student retention and writing--is a hot issue this year, keep it to yourself. I want to believe I've arrived.

Summer Vacations

We spent this week in Colorado Springs. Certainly satisfying to pull off this trip as the idea came to us in 2004 while in CS when I ran the Pikes Peak Ascent, a gruelling 13 mile jaunt up to 14k elevation. The surrounding area seemed a perfect spot for a family vacation.

Here are the highlights:

• Thrilling drive on the highest highway in the US up over the Rockies and across the continental divide
• Amazing rock formations at Garden of the Gods (and it's free!)
• Amusement park-like experience of a waterfall at 7 Falls
• Great variety of eating experiences: local mexican place in Craig where the whole family ate fajitas for 25 bucks; old-style Italian in CS where the decour had certainly not changed in 50 yrs; grass-fed beef at Conway's Redtop burger joint--a step back into the 70s; and finally a little Hunan Chinese place in Evanston.
• A hike to Barr Camp--actually a mile past it--on the famous Barr Trail up Pike's Peak with oldest son: 16 miles round trip. The only negative is that running several miles downhill has totally trashed my legs.
• Lots of talk time with the kids--I love how trips create close-quarter situations which switch up the normal family relationships. We laughed at all kinds of things and enjoyed each of child's unique personality, something that seems to come out more on a trip like this.

Near catastrophes:

• Lost brakes just outside of Craig, CO but it worked out--no crash and a local guy in a tiny station fixed it the next morning (note: Craig is a rather ugly town, almost impossible to walk anywhere)

Vacations with older kids have several advantages (and some disadvantages I won't mention): less fighting, more willingness to try new foods, easier to do difficult hikes, and when tired of them you can send them to the pool for some alone time.

Next year's trip: Grand Canyon or Highway 101 to see coastal redwoods