Clinton Street

Last year I worked in the very near West Loop, and walked every morning from the Clark/Lake Blue line to Washinton & Canal. Clinton Street runs north-south one block east of Canal, so I crossed it every day.

All of this was while my mental map of Chicago was growing and piecing itself together. I learned the names of the big north-south streets that run every 1/2 mile (in order from east to west: Halsted, Racine, Ashland, Damen, Western, California, Kedzie...) and which of those have the most reliable buses. (Never trust the Damen bus.) I learned also that the east-west streets at 0 and south are named after presidents ((Washington), Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson, Van Buren...).

About halfway through the year I began to wonder if Clinton Street was also named after a president, and if so, what had it been named before? Very brief internet research reveals that Clinton was not named after Bill Clinton, but...before him. It is named for DeWitt Clinton (who has a LOT of other things named after him), who was a US Senator and the Governor of New York in the early 1800's. He did run for president, in 1812, but was defeated by Madison (for whom the Chicago grid X-axis is named after...) .

He seems to have been and "authentic but largely forgotten hero of American democracy." So, on my lunch break today, I salute DeWitt Clinton and all the other forgotten heros. And maybe in a few hundred years, our space stations, space borders, boundaries, cities and counties (with "roads" for orderly space travel) will be named after BILL Clinton.

Dreams from my Father

"Billie [Holiday] had stopped singing. The silence felt oppressive, and I suddenly felt very sober. I rose from the couch, flipped the record, drank what was left in my glass and poured myself another. Upstairs, I could hear someone flushing a toilet, walking across a room. Another insomniac, probably, listening to his life tick away. That was the problem wiyh booze and drugs, wasn't it? At some point they couldn't stop that ticking sound, the sound of certain emptiness. And that, I suppose, is what I'd been trying to tell my mother that day: that her faith in justice and rationality was misplaced, that we couldn't overcome after all, that all the education and good intentions in the world couldn't help plug up the holes in the universe or give you the power to change its blind, mindless course." (Obama, Dreams from My Father, 1995)

It's passages like these that make me actually want to say that I feel safe, and close to our new President. Even when I say that I feel "close" to a President, I know that it's all in my mind, and I'm really not close to anything at all. I feel big, and very very small at the same time. But at least I know that he has felt (struggled with, come to accept) the same smallness, and is now touching the very very big.

It's passages like these that make me excited. To hear a guy who had to go through the motions of catering to all kinds of American subgroups in order to win votes (emphasizing (while gesturing with his thumbs) that he supports _______ while trying not to alienate ______, bla bla bla, trying to impress everyone) talk about smoking pot and wandering around his apartment at 3am, looking at the moon.

And, oh, yes. There's this, too:

"In our weekly meetings [my boss] would remind me of the choice I'd made, that there was no risk in my modest accomplishments, that the men in fancy suits downtown were still calling all the shots. 'Life is short, Barack,' he would say. 'If you're not trying to really change things out here, you might as well forget it.' Ah, yes, Real change. It had seemed like such an attainable goal back in college...only now, nothing seemed simple. "

This excerpt sounds a little more like the memoir of a president. This is more the standard story of a man who dreams big and works hard, andbeats the odds, succeeds, turns out to be a real role model for kids everywhere.

Kids my age, though, I think we appreciate hearing about how "[He] blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it...Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection."From these words, we can know that we have a few things in common with this guy. Insecurities, sadness, mistakes, half-assed self-destruction, these are all things that make a person real. Let's not (feebly) try to hide our faults from the rest of the world behind an old white guy who won the election by convincing everyone that he is perfect.

Let's be real.

Ok.

Bananaphone

I had a fling once, with a guy who liked all different kinds of music. One morning, we chose to make out while listening to Raffi (not just for Kindergarten anymore!).

Featured on this playlist:
Baby Beluga
Brush Your Teeth

and of course,
Bananaphone

the other day, when i was meeting with my Jumpstart Team Leaders, i thought about this fling and realized that the fact that i had it sort of justifies several things that i claim to value.

firstly, and least importantly:
the importance of play

in Jumpstart, i spend a lot of time trying to communicate to undergrads the importance of play in the lives of the preschool children they mentor. like, rather than sitting and doing a worksheet about the letter A, it's much more meaningful to a 4 year old to learn about the letter A withing a relevant context, while pursuing their own interests (like, noticing that the letter A is in the name of the friend who is sitting next to them as they do a fingerpainting activity together).

i don't remember the context, really, though i frequently refer to a recent Obama comment about education needs to be rethought if we don't want to "raise kids who only know how to fill in a bubble [on a test]".

when you play (fingerpainting, or humorous making out, etc), you grow into a unique, sentient human different from other unique, sentient humans.

secondly,
Not Taking Onesself Seriously

i find this so important that i don't have much to say about it, it should be intuitive and if it's not...then it might be too late already. suffice it to say that if you fail at not taking yourself too seriously, you are really setting yourself up for a shitty (or at least really boring) life.

thirdly,
have you heard Bananaphone? it's hilarious.

the only emperor

Back in November, I found this poem in a book which represented the (somewhat OCD) owner's attempt at validating a shelf full of crappy paperbacks and Complete Idiot's Guides Tos.
I opened it with no small amount of English Major hubris, but was quickly put back in my place by Wallace Stevens within:

"The Emperor of Ice Cream"

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal.
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

2 months later, I've worked it out as best I can independently work through anything W. Stevens. Don't Be Discouraged By Reality, for it is Reality that bites your face while you walk to the bus in the morning! and it is Reality that snuggles you into a sleeping bag beneath a starry, summer night. Carpe Diem! even if it seems to be little more than a lightly used paper towel and the finding of 2 dollars in your coat pocket.

2 months later, the result of my dwelling on this poem (and wanting to be the emperor of ice cream) is that I joined Blogger.