This blog should be getting back to its usual chirpy self in another week. At this point I just have to get through N.C.'s primary on Tuesday (I'm precinct judge: Ack! Responsibility!) and all the distractions I've been dealing with for the past couple of months should be behind me.

I. can. not. wait.

How Privileged Are You?

(Via Dark Orpheus and Imani)

The original authors of this exercise are Will Barratt, Meagan Cahill, Angie Carlen, Minnette Huck, Drew Lurker, and Stacy Ploskonka at Illinois State University. If you participate, they ask that you PLEASE acknowledge their copyright.

Bold the true statements. You can explain further if you wish.

1. Father went to college
Valedictorian of his high school class, my dad won a scholarship to Wake Forest University. But since my grandmother had recently died (my grandfather had never returned from a trip into town to sell a load of logs when my dad was three), he wound up going into the machine shop business with two of his older brothers instead.
2. Father finished college
3. Mother went to college
My mother dropped out of high school at 17 to marry my dad
4. Mother finished college
5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
First, second, and third cousins
6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
I don't think so, but I never counted
9. Were read children’s books by a parent
10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
Guitar, art, ceramics were the ones I liked
12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Since when are people with hillbilly accents portrayed positively?
13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs
16. Went to a private high school
17. Went to summer camp
For one week one summer. Went to tons of vacation bible school, though.
18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18
19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels
Motels or relatives' homes.
20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18
21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them
Two, actually. A used Ford Pinto so that I could drive myself to band practice and then a Datsun 310 as a graduation/Christmas/wedding present
22. There was original art in your house when you were a child
23. You and your family lived in a single-family house
24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home
25. You had your own room as a child
From the age of 9.5 until high school, when I had to share with a cousin
26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18
27. Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course
28. Had your own TV in your room in high school
29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college
30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Flew back from Washington, D.C., with my grandfather one summer
31. Went on a cruise with your family
32. Went on more than one cruise with your family
33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
No, but I went to horse shows, cattle auctions, the Daniel Boone wagon train, and weekly bingo night at the fire station with my dad.
34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

Cat show!

A frou frou kitty



An Abyssinian



A Maine coon



And my own personal show favorite, a Tonkinese with the softest fur imaginable.

A poem for Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter—bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

--Stephen Crane

The best summary of last night's so-called debate that I can come up with this morning. Continue eating your hearts out, corporate media.

Latest dozen books

Dreaming in Cuban. Cristina Garcia. For Slaves of Golconda at the end of the month.

The Canon. Natalie Angier. I tried to find a review copy of this at ALA last summer. When I couldn't, I decided to wait until it came out in paper.

Great Writers Great Stories Regional writing from Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. edited by Edward Allan Faine. My friend W. from California (that's in Maryland) brought me this when she visited last month.

We are Now Beginning Our Descent. James Meek. I've heard it's not near as good as The People's Act of Love, but then, what could be?

Hunter's Run. George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham. A recent hit at Readerville.

No-Man's Lands. Scott Huler. Yay for review copies!

Child 44. Tom Rob Smith. Another yay for review copies.

A Quiet Storm. Rachel Howzell Hall. I mentioned this one last week.

The Solitary Vice. Mikita Brottman. I started this a few weeks back, but felt like arguing with everything she said. I've set it aside until my mood improves.

Dark Places of the Heart. Christina Stead. Took a trip to the used bookstore when W. was in town, came home with this and an MLA handbook for S. (for which he showed not one lick of gratitude).

Hearts and Minds. Rosy Thornton. An autographed review copy.

The Age of American Unreason. Susan Jacoby. To wait in the wings for reading after I finish Freethinkers. . .

Sunday Salon

Would the same thing happen to me? Maybe Johnnie was right; maybe once you stripped away the rationalizations, it always came down to a simple matter of escape. An escape from poverty or boredom or crime or the shackles of your skin. Maybe, by going to law school, I'd be repeating a pattern that had been set in motion centuries before, the moment white men, themselves spurred on by their own fears of inconsequence, had landed on Africa's shores, bringing with them their guns and blind hunger, to drag away the conquered in chains. That first encounter had redrawn the map of black life, recentered its universe, created the very idea of escape--an idea that lived on in Frank and those other old black men who had found refuge in Hawaii; in green-eyed Joyce back at Occidental, just wanting to be an individual; in Auma, torn between Germany and Kenya; in Roy, finding out that he couldn't start over. And here, in the South Side, among members of Reverend Philips's church, some of whom had probably marched alongside Dr. King, believing then that they marched for a higher purpose, for rights and for principles and for all God's children, but who at some point had realized that power was unyielding and principles unstable, and that even after laws were passed and lynchings ceased, the closest thing to freedom would still involve escape, emotional if not physical, away from ourselves, away from what we knew, flight into the outer reaches of the white man's empire--or closer into its bosom.


--Barack Obama, Dreams From My Father

I could happily spend the rest of the morning finishing Obama's memoir--I'm a little more than halfway through--but I think I need to devote some time to the other books in progress: I'm nearing the end of the third book in The Once and Future King and I haven't touched Les Miserables or Silas Marner in days.

Let's see what I can accomplish between frantic bursts of housework.

Happy reading, Sunday Salon participants.

In honor of Margaret, who very kindly elevated me to the level of hillbilly music the other day, I'm offering a link to Goin' Across the Mountain, which will provide you with eight hours of fine bluegrass music this overcast Saturday.

Enjoy. WNCW is the best radio station in the area. Too bad I can only pick up the signal online.