Dillard on Writing and Revising: "It's Not Holy Writ!"

We began this semester in English 50 by reading two pieces by Annie Dillard, the first, an excerpt from her book, Holy the Firm, about a moth that flies into a candle's flame; the second, an essay called "How I Wrote the Moth Essay--and Why."

There's a lot to love about Dillard's approach to writing. I especially love that she has amassed and indexed over 30 of her own journals which she relies on for her writings, her personal Google database, if you will. I also love her remarks on writing and revising:

On getting started:

How do you go from nothing to something? How do you face the blank page without fainting dead away? To start a narrative, you need a batch of things. Not feelings, not opinions, not sentiments, not judgments, not arguments, but specific objects and events: a cat, a spider web, a mess of insect skeletons, a candle, a book about Rimbaud, a burning moth.

What do you do with these things? You juggle them. You toss them around  . . . you need bits of the world to toss around. You start anywhere, and join the bits into a pattern by your writing about them. Later you can throw out the ones that don't fit.

On revising: 

[Revising] requires . . . nerves of steel and lots of coffee.

It doesn't hurt much to babble in a first draft, so long as you have the sense to cut out irrelevancies later.

The most inept writing has an inadvertent element of suspense: the reader constantly asks himself, where on earth is this going?

Usually I end up throwing away the beginning: the first part of a poem, the first few pages of an essay, the first scene of a story, even the first few chapters of a book. It's not holy writ.

Revising is a breeze if you know what you're doing--if you can look at your text coldly, analytically, manipulatively.

On engaging her readers:

I try to give the reader a story, or at least a scene (the flimsiest narrative occasion will serve), and something to look at.

I try not to hang on to the reader's arm and bore him with my life story, my fancy self-indulgent writing, or my opinions. He is my guest; I try to entertain him. Or he'll throw my pages across the room and turn on the television.

My favorite: "It's not holy writ."

More important to me, working with students in a beginning composition class, is growth. Show me where you started, I tell them, show me the messy trail that began with those first scribbles in your writing journal culminating in that nicely formatted (MLA!) final draft. I'll read the final draft and give it a grade, yes. But if I don't see a finished product that's much different from the early drafts, the final grade suffers.

I tell my students this, but I'm not sure they hear, not sure they care.

First draft, narrative paragraph.

Some do, though. I was pleased to see a few students getting the idea in a fairly inconsequential early writing assignment, a narrative paragraph, describing a place they'd visited. They brought their paragraphs to class, but I didn't collect them. We talked about Dillard, on hands and knees in her bathroom, peering at the discarded remains of sow bugs ("those little armadillo creatures who live to travel flat out in houses, and die round"), earwigs, moths ("wingless and huge and empty"), that have collected behind her toilet, beneath a spider's web, and marvel (I did, anyway) at the writer's interest in things most of us would sweep up or vacuum away. There, in the detritus, a story, a narrative, a life lesson.

What do you see? What does it feel like? Smell like? Look like? Show me!

I allocated class time to experiment on their drafts, then sent them home to revise ("It's not holy writ!"). The next class session, I collected both drafts, and read them yesterday.

Revised draft, narrative paragraph.

Some got the idea. I saw scribbles and notes on the first drafts, incorporated into the second, and gave them 10 points for trying. A few students turned in two drafts, virtually identical. I deducted 5 points for not trying. The occasional student rose to the challenge and wowed me. Carina's, I show here. Students like this make it all pretty much worthwhile.

Two Reasons Why I Mislike President Obama

After nearly six years of watching this man in action, the first four of which I was fairly vocal (inasmuch as one can be vocal in a blog that no one reads), expressing a veritable alphabet of emotions: anger, bewilderment, bitterness, concern, disgust, dismay, exasperation, frustration. You get the idea. 

Now nearly six years in, emotion and agitation have been replaced. I'm less angry and more resigned. There's a dullness, a sinking feeling, even a sort of sadness. I, like so many, was right about this man. But the truth is, he's so much more than what I suspected. I don't think he's malicious, malevolent, conspiratorial. It's almost worse. He's a narcissist of the worst order. He's arrogant, intolerably so. Narcissism is bad enough, but it's not necessarily a deal breaker. Bill Clinton was (is) narcissistic. But his narcissism wasn't fatal. Combine narcissism with arrogance, put it in a place of power, surround it with fawning yes-men, prop it up with an acquiescent, uncritical media, and you really do have a problem, big time.

A new alphabet, this time of adjectives: arrogant, condescending, duplicitous, haughty, manipulative, narcissistic. 

At first, as I said, one gets all worked up and agitated and exercised. And early in this game, one genuinely believes that by pointing out these blindingly glaring character deficits, those who haven't seen them yet will suddenly see them, will have their ah ha! moment, agree, and, at the very least, be a bit more scrutinizing. But it doesn't happen. And after awhile, it dawns on one, that not only will those people not see the deficits that you so clearly see, they actually regard those deficits as qualities! 

About that time, one remembers pithy sayings, like, "There is none so blind as he who will not see," realizes one is fighting against a blindness, of sorts, and little by little, day by day, stops saying anything, and only sits back and gapes, open-mouthed, as the fundamentally transformed world that this man promised (the one promise he kept), continues to unfold. Deception runneth deep. 

Emotion mutates into resignation, with surreptitious glances at the calendar: two more years, two more years. Will this nation survive two more years with this foolish, arrogant man calling the shots? 

Fortunately there are a few who haven't stopped trying to explain. Today, for example, I'm reading Dan Henninger (Wall Street Journal) and Victor Davis Hanson (scholar, historian, author). Henninger illustrates Obama's arrogance, while Hanson focuses on his dishonesty. Two of the main reasons I mislike this president.

Who is listening? Surely not the members of my immediate family. But I'm resigned to this, as well. 


The Humbling of a President, by Dan Henninger

Brief excerpt (in case the article is only available to subscribers): 

There is a story about Mr. Obama relevant to the war, battle or whatever he declared Wednesday evening against the Islamic State, aka ISIS. It is found in his former campaign manager David Plouffe's account of the 2008 election, "The Audacity to Win." Mr. Plouffe writes that during an earlier election race, Mr. Obama had a "hard time allowing his campaign staff to take more responsibility." To which Barack Obama answered: "I think I could probably do every job on the campaign better than the people I'll hire to do it." 

Audacity indeed. In a 2008 New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza, Mr. Obama is quoted telling another aide: "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors." Also, "I think I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters." 

And here we are. 

In the days before Mr. Obama's ISIS address to the nation, news accounts cataloged his now-embarrassing statements about terrorism's decline on his watch—the terrorists are JV teams, the tide of war is receding and all that.

What we now know is that Mr. Obama is not even close to being his own best Secretary of State, his own best Secretary of Defense, his own best national security adviser or his own best CIA director.  The question is: Does he know it? Can a humbling experience of such startling proportions have sunk in? It had better. What the U.S. needs if it is to prevail in the battle Mr. Obama put forth Wednesday is the genuine article of presidential leadership. What the U.S. does not need in the Oval Office is a utility infielder playing everyone else's position. We are competing against global terrorism's heaviest hitters, who have established state seizure as a strategic goal. 

If Mr. Obama still thinks he's better than Susan Rice, John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and John Brennan, then he and the nation supporting his anti-ISIS effort are being poorly served. 

Obama's Untruth, Inc., by Victor Davis Hanson 

Brief excerpt:

Obama’s prevaricating has lost him any thought of a legacy, all the more so because for years as a candidate and as president he pontificated about his new transparency and the need for executive candor — itself an untruth at best, and at worst a cynical ploy to provide cover for a deliberate effort to enact policies that could not be honestly presented to the American people. 

The two fuels that run Untruth, Inc., are, first, a realization that most of the president’s policies, whether deliberately or as a result of indifference and laziness, run counter to what most Americans support, and, second, a media establishment so invested in his agenda that it will not call the administration to account. So the engine of lying keeps humming. 

On any given day the president of the United States can step up to the teleprompter amid the latest disaster and swear that he did not do what he just did, or insist that someone else, not he, did the dastardly deed, or simply skip over recent history and make things up. The press at first quibbles, then nods in agreement, and Obama is empowered to do it again and again. We have not seen such a disingenuous president since Richard Nixon — but he, at least, was countered rather than enabled by the media.

Recommended Reading: Books by Telushkin and Prager

Just finished reading two books on Jews and Judaism. The first, Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews, is written by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. Published in 1992, this is one of countless books on Jewish humor (a simple Google search, "books on Jewish humor," generated 2.4 million results), not to mention Telushkin's own annotated bibliography (63 items). 

As one would expect, the book is sprinkled with very funny stories, so if you wanted to skim the book for humor alone, you wouldn't be disappointed. But Telushkin obviously has a point to make, as he says in his introductory comments ("Jewish humor reveals a great many truths about the Jews, but no one great truth"), so he takes the reader through various characteristics that typify the Jewish experience, chapter by chapter, illustrating but also commenting upon, so that the humor is almost an afterthought. The characteristics he focuses on in this book are family, logic, business ethics, materialism, self-deprecation, sex, antisemitism, assimilation, intermarriage, religion. The book is engaging, interesting, informative, well-documented, insightful, and, at times, laugh out loud funny. 

The other book I read, co-authored by Joseph Telushkin and radio personality Dennis Prager, is called Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism. Originally published in 1983, it was recently updated (2003) to reflect the current political climate, not only in the United States, but in the Middle East, as well. The thesis of the book is clear: Unlike other forms of bigotry, Jew hatred is "an inevitable consequence" of Jewishness, specifically, God, Torah, Israel, and Chosenness. The authors' stated purpose in writing this book is to counter the attempt by modern historians to "dejudaize" Jew hatred by lumping anti-Semitism together with racism of other types. 

Part One of the book provides an explanation for Jew hatred, focusing particularly on the role the Jews played in introducing what the authors refer to as "ethical monotheism," i.e., one God, one higher set of morals. From the very beginning, the Hebrew religion ran counter to the religious, cultural, and sexual mores of other groups: "By affirming what they [the Jews] considered to be the one and only God of all humankind, thereby implying illegitimacy to everyone else's gods, the Jews entered history--and have often been since--at war with other people's most cherished beliefs" (page 8).

Part Two traces the history of anti-Semitism, beginning with the ancient world (Greece and Rome), continuing into the 4th century and through the Middle Ages, Christian persecution of Jews (painful to read) which, the authors claim, laid the foundation for the Holocaust; Islamic anti-Semitism which continues to this day; secular anti-Semitism, i.e., the Enlightenment, in France, Germany, and England; Leftist anti-Semitism, beginning with Karl Marx, who was himself a descendant of a long line of rabbis but was a virulent anti-Semite, and continuing with the French socialists, communist, Soviet and leftist anti-Semitism, which, ironically is espoused even by Jews; and finally, Nazi anti-Semitism, which, of them all, is the only form of anti-Semitism that is actually race-based. All the other manifestations allowed for the conversion and/or assimilation of Jews, which brought an end to the persecution; Hitler, by contrast, believed you could "never take the Jew out of the Jew." Hence, the "Final Solution." After the Holocaust, although anti-Semitism went underground thanks to the efforts of many in the west to organize (Anti Defamation League, for example), it manifests itself today not as anti-Jew but as anti-Israel: "To hide their anti-Semitism, enemies of the Jews nearly always use the word 'Zionist' when they mean Jew," write the authors (page 157).

Part Three, "What is to be Done?", offers five solutions for dealing with anti-Semitism, only one of which, the authors concede, is realistic, which is for the Jews to do what they were always expected to do: "resume their original task of spreading ethical monotheism" (page 190), the very thing that elicits such hatred. The irony is not lost on the authors. 

I read this book once, marked it up aplenty, and hope to read it again. There is much to be learned, unlearned, and relearned. I am ignorant of world and religious history, a slow, methodical learner. But I intend to keep at it, page by page. 

Next Stop for Barack and Michelle: Rancho Mirage

An article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times Business section says that the Obamas are in escrow on a compound (yes, a compound, not a house) in a gated community in Rancho Mirage, listed at $4.25 million. Here are a few features of the property: 

• the main house is 8,232 square feet
• the property is adjacent to a bighorn sheep preserve on a 3.29 acre hilltop with panoramic views
• the custom-built house is designed for entertaining, and includes a gym, four bedrooms, and 4.5 bathrooms
• There's also a 2,000 square foot "casita" (Spanish for "little house") on the property that has three bedrooms and three bathrooms. 
• The compound also includes a pool with a 20-foot waterfall, a rock lagoon, two spas, a misting system, and a putting green with a sand trap. 

A slide show with 15 more images can be found here. 

There are so many things of a sarcastic nature one wants to say. 

This story would be much less offensive to me if it weren't for the fact that Barack Obama owes his political fortunes to his countless diatribes against millionaires and billionaires. Indeed, the "defining challenge" of his generation (he says) is the "widening income disparity" between the rich and the poor.

Yes, class warfare is what got Mr. Obama re-elected in 2012. With no mention of the countless millionaires and a handful of billionaires who donated to his re-election campaign, Obama and the lapdog media demonized Mitt Romney and hamstrung conservative political organizations by means of a thoroughly corrupt IRS (Google "Lois Lerner" if you don't want to take my word for it). 

What's so despicable about him is the extent of his cynical manipulation of public opinion. There he sits, right up there among the 1%, lambasting the 1%, and the "little people," even people I know and am related to, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he's among the 1%, fawn over him. Are they really that obtuse?  

So, yes, I'm pretty disgusted by this story. 

Give it all away, Mr. and Mrs. Obama, or donate the property to a good cause, and maybe I'll take a second look at your character. For now, though, I have nothing but contempt for either of you.

Update (September 1, 2014): An item in yesterday's Business section of the LA Times says the Obamas did not purchase the Rancho Mirage property. My views, stated above, remain the same. 

Thinking a Second Time: Recommended Reading

Just finished this book by Dennis Prager, Think a Second Time, a collection of essays published in 1995. Though dated (wish he'd consider updating), it's still worth a look-see. I especially appreciated the selections in Part Three, dealing with questions related to good and evil, ethical monotheism, and belief in God after the Holocaust. 

A section in Part Two focuses on how idealists can be dangerous, and one chapter in particular was very good, "When Religion Makes People Cruel." Here he speaks to cruelty found in each of the major religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and summarizes by quoting the 18th century rabbi Elija ben Shlomo Zalman Kremer (the Gaon of Vilna), who said, "Religion is like rain: it brings forth both beautiful flowers and poisonous weeds."

The last section of the book is devoted in its entirety to the case of Baby Richard, the young boy who was adopted at birth by a loving family, but was later returned to his birth father at age four and a half when the Illinois Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 1 (the majority all men, the dissenter, a woman), overturned lower court decisions and decided that the adoption was illegal. 

The story is a tragedy on many levels, the most poignant being that the court did not order that the child be permitted to have continued interaction with his adoptive family. Prager is particularly incensed about the issue of blood (i.e., genetics) taking precedence over family bonds, the societal trend towards the rights of the birth father ("the inseminator") over the rights of the child. He reserves his strongest vitriol for the five judges whom he refers to as evil men,  justifying the use of the word "evil" by recalling Hannah Arendt's use of phrase, "the banality of evil," the sub-title of her book about Adolf Eichmann. As Prager sees it, the evil perpetrated by the Illinois justices was not a deliberate, malicious evil but rather a "combination of mediocrity, willful ignorance of the consequences of one's actions, and an overriding...belief, " in this case, the belief in the inviolability of blood.

Baby Richard, whose real name is Danny Warburton (Warburton is the name of his adoptive family), is now presumably in his early 20's. This would be another good reason to update Prager's book. At the time of writing, the story was big news, and though there was some attempt by the media to report that Danny was doing very well, was adjusting to his new family, was happy, etc., it's obvious (to me) that there's no way this could have been determined so soon. Bob Greene of the Chicago Tribune was the journalist who covered the story at the time, and I don't know if he's done a follow-up story on the case. I see here that he's had some personal and professional issues in the last decade. 

I guess my next non-fiction book will be the text I've adopted for my fall English 50 class, The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition, by Thomas Cooley. If Prager would update Think a Second Time, I'd seriously consider adopting that as a text. Thinking a second time could do these millennials a bit of good.