Mourning The Wire: I Love You, McNulty

The last time I can recall loving a show in the way that I loved The Wire was when I was a teenager watching My So-Called Life, with Claire Danes playing Angela -- the teenage girl we all felt we were. Angela was attractive in the way of most teenage girls, which is to say that if the camera caught her at just the right angle, and she wasn't in the process of actively trying to look good, and someone was actually paying attention, she was kind of pretty. My friends and I watched My So-Called Life with the fervent dedication normally reserved only for stealing vodka from our parents or searching out the perfect flannel from the local thift store. When the show was cancelled, we mourned our loss in huddled groups, exchanging bits about our favorite episodes and characters, discussing who, from our small, nondescript high school, was Rayanne, and why we didn't have a cool gay friend like Ricky to hang out with. I remember standing by our lockers, whispering in hushed tones that the only reason they cancelled My So-Called Life was because it was just "too real."

Looking back, of course, I have no idea who we though "they" were or why we thought these anonymous people would want to cancel a show based on its likeness to reality. In any case, I feel now, like I did then, that my life will never be the same if I can't ever see a new episode of this most wonderful of shows, another one that was "too real." To be fair, The Wire actually ended years ago, but I only discovered it after its final season and rented each season from the local library after it has already aired its final episode, so my sorrow at its end is really quite belated. This, of course, means that I have no one to speak to in conspiratorial tones about the injustice of its absence from my life, which means that facing the end of The Wire is even more painful than facing My So-Called Life's demise.

In each season of the show, the action of The Wire doesn't bust out of the gate; it requires a certain kind of viewer, the kind that many of its fans call "literary," but I just call capable of enduring delayed gratification (a trait I find sorely lacking in my co-millenials, as much as I hate to acknowledge it). The story builds slowly but certainly to a tragic collision of various Americas - the one selling the drugs on the street, the one playing at the politics in the downtown offices, the one running the schools in the neighborhoods, the one hauling the loads on the docks, the one writing the news at their dated computers, and, of course, the one enforcing the law all over town. In a way that I will call literary, the writers position each of these Americas as though they are a series of concentric circles; each one mirrors the others as it simultaneously looks down on those circles below it. Each America looks down its nose at "The Game" that the drug dealers run, at the same time that they each engage in some kind of "Game" of their own: the police falsify the crime stats to make the politicians look good, the politicians extract all manner of favors from all manner of citizens, the schools shift around their numbers to garner funding from the state, the news reporters manufacture fake stories and ignore the real ones, the dockworkers' union bribes the cops and the politicians to save their line of work, and so on and so on.

In the end, the show turns on its protagonist: Detective Jimmy NcNulty, a (sometimes) high-functioning alcoholic who actually cares about his work and about other people in a way that goes beyond self-promotion or self-interest. He breaks every rule on the job, he ruins his marriage and probably his kids' chance at a life without major issues, he sabotages every friendship that comes his way, and he never apologizes for any of it. But he's a great cop, and a person who understands other people, which is what makes him so charismatic. A truly tragic figure he is, but you just can't help rooting for him in the face of all his many, many flaws. He's one of the few television or film characters that I can really say I love, unequivocally, as a character.  

And, so, in honor of Jimmy McNulty and David Simon for creating him, here's a prose poem in their honor.

I love "The Wire."

I love the gritty realism of a West Baltimore corner: its dilapidated storefronts advertising pay day loans and girls girls girls, its bodegas that are really stash-houses guarded with "muscle" carrying nine millimeters with scratched off serial numbers. I love its seven-year old boys -- who already curse and posture like men three times their age -- running from the teenage Lieutenant on the corner to the hidden stash around back and then to the scratching, shaking addict who needs a fix (because you can't get life without parole in "baby booking").  I love its bustling housing projects, which show us the worst kinds of tragedy and the best displays of human strength, where older brothers and sisters usher younger siblings out the door for school, handing them Capri Suns and Doritos for lunch, acting as mom as best they can before heading off to the corner to be lookouts or runners to earn the money that puts food in their families' mouths. I even love the rectangular ply-wood blockades in door frames that announce neglected rent payments and hide bodies that are nobodies to the Somebody who runs the city. I love the honesty.

I love the lack of bad guys: that the cops are good, and bad, and sad, and brutal, and kind, and incompetent, and brilliant. I love that Detective Jimmy McNulty gives his own wife syphilis from yet another late-night hook up in a bar, but that he also befriends Bubbles, a 40-year-old crack addict living on the street. I love that the drug dealers are smart, and mean, and noble, and heartless, and vengeful, and honorable, and sensitive. I love that Omar Little kills people with a sawed off shotgun, but that he takes his grandma to church each Sunday, so she can wear her "crown." I love that Avon Barksdale kills his best friend over money, but that he also pays "disability" to the families of his "soldiers" in "lock-up" and that he donates large portions of his massive drug profits to local after-school programs. I love that the teachers are broken, and brilliant, and neglectful, and caring, and overworked, and lazy, and brave. I love that Mr. Presboluski lets eighth-grade Dukie into the boys locker room each morning so that Dukie can shower, and that "Mr. Prezbo" does Dukie's laundry and brings him lunch each day because Dukie's mother's "on the pipe," but that that same "Mr. Prezbo" kills a man because of the color of his skin -- skin the same color as Dukie's.

I love the social commentary: the indictment that the dockworkers' union smuggles people and embezzles money and that the politicians launder money for the drug dealers in exchange for campaign contributions. I love that we see how the police are forced to make "low level street rips" to "juke the stats" in order to create the appearance of a falling crime rate. I love that we see how the schools' truant officers only force kids to come to school one day each month, because that's all the attendance the state requires in exchange for ADA. I love the indictment that the drug dealers claims of loyalty and family fall apart as soon as money becomes involved.

I love "The Wire" because it depicts Baltimore, and the contemporary American city, as fundamentally broken and irrepressibly great -- which it always is, all at once, all the time. 

Being New: What's in the Balance

When I started my new teaching job this fall, I told myself that it wouldn't be like being a new teacher again. Those six years of experience would provide a kind of lifejacket to keep me safely afloat above the treacherous waters of Being New. As it turns out, Being New is Being New -- experienced or not. Once again, grading and lesson planning are eating up all of my personal time, and my job extends well beyond the 40 hours per week allotted for it. I rarely spend meaningful time with my husband, and I squeeze in a quick visit with my parents once a week if I'm lucky, in spite of the fact that that they live only a few short miles from my new school. I know that next year will be easier, and the year after that will be easier still, but this year is very, very hard.

This year, I am Scrooge, locked away in my office, hard at work while the world is out to rejoice in the splendor of the Christmas season and the three feet of snow that have effectively shut down our normally busy city. So, as it has been for the previous 4+ years, my New Year's resolution is to create more balance in my life, to make more time. But, just when I thought that I might actually be coming close to making strides toward that end in my old life in San Diego, we decided to uproot our lives and start all over again in a new life that feels very far away. In other words, back to the energy-sucking chaos of Square One.

Like most dedicated teachers, I battle feelings of guilt and inadequacy even on my best of days, so on the days (weeks, months, years...) when I feel overwhelmed, those feelings become amplified. On these occasions, I seriously long for a new line of work, one that I can actually master. Sometimes I envy the administrative assistants with the perfectly organized files and the mail carriers with their down-pat systems for distributing their letters and packages. I don't mean to suggest that either of these positions are in any way easier than my own; I'm certain that they come with their own sets of challenges and frustrations, but I envy the way in which they lend themselves to systematizing. I will never have teaching "down cold;" I will never master it or learn it or develop it to the point that it becomes routine, and, thus, I will always be striving. Inherent within striving is a feeling of failure, or, at the very least, a feeling of being incomplete or unfinished. I think, sometimes, that I am just too Type A to be able to live in this kind of work with any degree of comfort.

Of course, I know from experience that my teaching life will get easier as I become more familiar with the curriculum, the standards, the expectations. But, becoming familiar with these things requires patience, and patience is just what I feel short on these days. Starting over is hard, and starting over in every aspect of one's life, as moving necessitates, is draining. The holidays inspire talk of slowing down, appreciating life's small blessings, and I feel like a Scrooge for not being able to put on the brakes and just rest and enjoy, especially since so many of those Scrooge-esque tales are about those silly fools who don't realize that work is less important than family. But what if your work is about caring for and building up children, giving them the best of yourself? How to put it in perspective then?

Balance, I know for sure, is the key. But it's so much easier to tell tales exalting its virtue than it is to create balance in the real world of so many worthy ways to spend one's time. And so I will strive, for yet another year, to locate that place where things are in equilibrium, where life swings pleasantly from side to side, allowing us enough time in each place to find at least a small bit of that ever-elusive thing called fulfillment.

Beanies and Babies: Re-post from Christmas 2009

Below is a writing assignment I've given my students for the previous two years, and below is the model I shared with my students last year. I invite you to consider your own holiday wish list and its significance...

Task: "Identity is often shaped by the things we long for." -- Bich Minh Nguyen

Choose one item that is on your holiday wish list (or one item that is not on your list) and reflect on what this item's presence on (or absence from) your list reveals about where you are in your life right now.

Questions to consider for inspiration: How does this item's presence/absence reveal...
-- a facet of your personality?
-- an emotional need or desire?
-- a fear or anxiety?
-- a regret? -- an accomplishment?
-- a change in your ideological outlook?
-- an image that you have of yourself?
-- a trait/talent/goal/idea that you wish to cultivate?
-- a change that you wish to enact in yourself or in your life circumstances?

See example below...

My family doesn’t do a traditional gift exchange for Christmas; as our family has grown, shopping for everyone has become an unmanageable task, but we all like the idea of exchanging gifts for the holiday. So, we’ve opted for a “Secret Santa” gift exchange in which we each create a list of our favorite stores and suggestions for gifts and then choose one person’s list from a hat and purchase only for him/her. For the previous few years, my list has required little revision. I still wear basically the same sizes, and I still want basically the same things: clothes, handmade jewelry, books. However, this year, I had to change the stores that I listed as my favorites, and I was forced to acknowledge, in doing so, that I am at a different point in my life than I was at when I created the first version of this list three years ago.

At 25, when I made my list, my favorite store was listed as “Anthropologie,” and I still say this store when I am asked about my favorite place to shop. I realized, though, in revising my Christmas list last month, that I have not actually purchased an item of clothing from this store in almost four years. At 25, I could pull off funky-hippie-chic, but the closer I get to 30, the more ridiculous I feel in a mohair sweater with mismatched buttons, a ruffled lace peasant skirt, and a beanie. I feel like I used to look like a trendy fashionista, and now I just look like a half-drunk homeless woman in this sort of outfit.

I suppose what makes me most anxious in reviewing my 2009 Christmas list is that it is conspicuously bereft of all that redeems women from the trauma of turning 30, such as décor for one’s first house or baby paraphernalia for one’s first bundle of joy. (My only home is a too-small rental and my only bundle of joy has fur.) I realize that I am not where I thought I’d be at this age, and I am currently in the process of digesting what this means. It is not that I couldn’t buy a house if I wanted to, albeit in a less desirable neighborhood and without the stainless steel appliances and hardwood floors of my current apartment, but a house of my own nonetheless. It is also not as if I can’t have a baby, at least to the best of my knowledge. Up until now, I just haven’t wanted either of those things enough to make the necessary sacrifices to attain them (loss of sleep, loss of figure, restrictions on time and travel, depletion of savings account, etc.). Does this make me selfish? Stupid? Abnormal? I have always believed that it does not – it makes me self-aware, a person who strikes out on her own, who has A Life.

But now, I am no longer a fashionista – I shop, I admit, at Ann Taylor... and I like it! I wear cardigans in too-bright colors and button-down dress shirts….to bars. I refuse to wear “ultra low rise” jeans because I don’t like my lower back to show. (The other day, I almost purchased a pair of dangly Christmas earrings a la my mom circa1987. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that the earrings were $3.99, but I didn’t have cash and there was a $1.00 fee for credit card purchases under $10. Thank God for holiday price-gouging!)

So, here I am. I am in flux. A childless woman in what are dangerously close to mom-jeans who is, for the very first time, seriously contemplating the prospect of filling out that high rise waist with a baby belly. Does this mean that I must succumb to becoming old and hopelessly uncool? Must I carry a sensible purse and vow only to purchase shoes that are comfortable to walk in? Will I have to adopt the suburban mom bob haircut and start sporting seasonally appropriate holiday sweaters? Perhaps, but, for the first time, I think I’m willing to risk it.

And who knows, maybe I’ll break out that beanie on days when I’m too busy chasing kiddos to do my hair…

Imaginings: A "Book of Questions"-Inspired Poem

I'm currently teaching my students to use "mentor poems" to try out writing poetry. The idea is that you select a poem whose structure, style, and/ or approach you admire, and then you rewrite the content, mimicking the poet's style/structure/approach. It's an ideal approach to poetry for those of us who are a bit gun-shy about poetry-writing because it allows the writer the comfort of a tried and true form and just leaves the challenge of coming up with content. 

I chose Pablo Neruda's "The Book of Questions" for inspiration because I admire his ability to conjure completely unique images in his readers' minds with seemingly simple, yet really beautiful questions. One of my favorite lines from his poem is "Tell me, is the rose naked/or is that her only dress?"

Here's what I came up with...

When will apricots learn that it takes
                  more muscles to frown than it does to smile?

Do mopeds know that the world is
                 a wide and vast place?

If we forget to remember the clouds,
                 will they pout?

Is there anything more precious than tripping
                 on the uneven ground of a cobblestone street?

How often to bedbugs
                 bite off pieces of the moon?

Why are people always
                 unfaithful to daisies?

Why does the aspen tree wake up
                 so early in the morning?

Where should we store our broken hearts
                 if not from southern tree limbs?

Is there anything more tragic
                than a dancing catfish?

The Social Network: A Review and Some Thoughts

A friend and I took part of our Sunday to see the new film The Social Network, directed by David Fincher, written by Alan Sorkin and starring Jesse Eisenberg. It was two hours well-spent (partly because the film was entertaining and partly because we can now become part of the on-going conversations about the film, as it has become something of a social phenomenon itself). For anyone who has read anything about Facebook's contentious beginnings, the actual storyline doesn't contain any really new or shocking information, but the organization of the story--alternating between flashbacks at Harvard and a legal deposition in which the Zuckerberg character settles accounts with Harvard students who claim a stake in his company--allows the viewer to simultaneously get both the backstory and the contemporary controversy, which lends additional significance to both time periods.  I felt that the acting was all strong, but Jesse Eisenberg deserves commendation for his ability to present a character that is both entirely annoying and socially inept and yet also completely sympathetic and likeable. An impressive feat. (I knew he'd do great things when I saw him in Adventureland!). Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin (Zuckerberg's original business partner and his best friend), and he is pretty much the most adorable person ever. He just looks so perfectly and tragically heartbroken when Zuckerberg does him in that you just want to kiss him for his sweet naivete. Or at least I did.

For me, perhaps the most fascinating element of the film is the fact that Sorkin makes no claims of the screenplay's objective veracity in terms of his character depictions, but he does claim to have done extensive research to ensure that the story itself is as close to accurate as it could be. Interestingly, as I learned when I heard Justin Timberlake interviewed on NPR this week, Sorkin actually went so far as to forbid the actors from contacting their real-life counterparts to get additional information or perspective beyond what the screenplay offered them. Sorkin's decree sort of begs the question of whether or not one can get a story just right without getting the people just right, and it also asks whether a person is a reliable source of information on himself or whether he is, as Sorkin seems to think, the least reliable source of information on himself. Sorkin's approach certainly enters the film into the increasingly popular genre of "creative nonfiction" -- one of my absolute favorites right now due in large part to its use of narrative techniques to tell real-life stories. (I just read Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind, and he claims that the human brain is hardwired to remember information presented in story-form, which means that this type of writing has incredible potential for those of us who are educators.)

The other reason I loved the film may seem silly in comparison, but here goes: I loved that Zuckerberg wore hoodies and flip flops to meetings with high-powered attorneys and high-level executives. Recently I've been thinking a lot about the claim that we, as educators, make to our students about behaving in "professional" or "academic" ways; we tell them that they must dress a certain way to be taken seriously, that they must speak and write in a certain way to get ahead. We give this advice because we know that they have a better chance of finding success if they work within the established systems; we know that fighting the system is very hard work. While that advice is likely true 99% of the time, I love the idea that some people say, "Screw the system!" instead of "Work the system." Nothing brings me greater joy than small revolutions (even one-man revolutions will do), and so I loved Mark Zuckerberg for refusing to ditch that hoodie. The fact that he's a billionaire now gives each kid out there the hope that the way he speaks or the way he wears his jeans or the way he does his hair is actually just as ok as any other way, even if the world tries to convince him otherwise. Norms are only norms because we all agree on them--they aren't "natural" or "normal;" they're just pervasive, and Zuckerberg's attire implicitly points that out. I dig it.

I also love the fact that there's at least one CEO out there in the land of capitalism who believes in a higher standard than just making money. Art is not dead yet! The film doesn't completely explain Zuckerberg's reasons for rejecting advertisers as sources of income for Facebook (he just claims that Facebook will lose its "cool" factor if he allows advertising dollars to enter the picture), but in an interview I read with him, he states that he believes in Facebook as an idea, as an art, and he doesn't want to sell it to the highest bidder so that it can be destroyed or revised in ways that are beyond his control (also the reason he hasn't yet taken the company public). 

Below are links to Facebook-related articles and essays that I love, if you have an interest in checking them out...

The Boundaries of a Breakup

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

The Face of Facebook

Books I've Recently Loved: "What is the What" by Dave Eggers

I recently posted this piece to my new school's "book forum," so I thought I'd share...

Through a first-person narrative, Dave Eggers takes on the persona of Valentino Achak Deng, a “Lost Boy” from Sudan’s southern region who is forced to flee his village after an Arab militia’s violent attack during the Sudanese civil war in the 1980s.  Uncertain of his family’s fate, Achak, along with thousands of other “Lost Boys,” is forced to make the harrowing journey on foot to a refugee camp in Ethopia.  The boys face incomprehensible tragedies along the way, within the borders of the camp, and even in the US once they arrive as refugees, but their journey speaks to the human capacity to survive and to the strength of the human spirit.  Eggers and Deng both assert that the story is a “true life novel,” raising interesting questions about the nature of truth and fiction and about the future of the novel as a literary genre.  Alternating between present and past/Africa and the US, the narrative technique offers readers a sense of the disconnect that Deng must have felt as he made his way so far from his home.

As a young boy, Deng’s father tells him a story, cautioning him against choosing “the What” — or the mystery choice — and instead choosing the known.  Deng, however, does not always have the luxury of that choice.  For this reason, his story is an important one as we contemplate what it means to live in a globalized world, a world in which we are all connected in what are often far from mutually equitable ways.  The novel raises questions about the boundaries and benefits of nation-states, the impact of imperialism in Africa, and the roles and responsibilities of the developed world and of individual citizens in reaching out to our human family around the world.  I would have to say that I found some of the most engaging parts of the novel to be the ones in which Deng encounters life in a so-called “First World” country for the first time in his life.  His confusion, horror, and wonder in response to life in the US can teach us a great deal about our own society and its social issues.  I would recommend this novel to anyone who wants to be both entertained and educated or who is looking for a way to gain a better understanding of the myriad ways there are to experience both the best and the worst of our globalized world.

Labors of Love

In honor of Labor Day and "Back to School" workdays ahead, I'm posting this poem by Marge Piercy. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

To Be Of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

--Marge Piercy