51.
You're welcome.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Learning from James
Last week, I posted a list of things I learned from my mom. Today, in honor of fathers everywhere, and Daddy in particular, I am posting some pearls of wisdom gleaned from James, the patriarch of Team Wright.
1) College football is worth the heartache.
2) Poetry and science are more closely related than you think.
3) Impermanence makes everything possible.
4) Always dress for dinner.
5) Pray.
6) The people that you love should be certain of your love for them, so never go to sleep or leave the house angry.
7) Good shorts can last a lifetime. Literally.
8) Not all the rides at Disney World are Small World. Space Mountain is for serious.
9) Good books are worth reading again and again.
10) Southern women are the bomb.
11) Dancing is good for the soul.
12) Three tasks any self-respecting human being should be able to accomplish are these: cook a superb steak, make a solid cup of coffee, and mix a powerful martini. If you can do these things well, Goodness will Follow.
Thanks, Daddy.
1) College football is worth the heartache.
2) Poetry and science are more closely related than you think.
3) Impermanence makes everything possible.
4) Always dress for dinner.
5) Pray.
6) The people that you love should be certain of your love for them, so never go to sleep or leave the house angry.
7) Good shorts can last a lifetime. Literally.
8) Not all the rides at Disney World are Small World. Space Mountain is for serious.
9) Good books are worth reading again and again.
10) Southern women are the bomb.
11) Dancing is good for the soul.
12) Three tasks any self-respecting human being should be able to accomplish are these: cook a superb steak, make a solid cup of coffee, and mix a powerful martini. If you can do these things well, Goodness will Follow.
Thanks, Daddy.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Learning from Warrene
I haven't posted a list in a while, and I was thinking about my mom and how much I am looking forward to seeing her in July. So. Below I compiled a few lessons she imparted to me over the years. She knows some things about some things.
Twelve Things Warrene Wants You To Know:
1) The Gulf of Mexico is one of the most beautiful places in the world.
2) Be as kind to the lunch lady as you are to the president of your school.
3) Eyelash curlers may look very scary, but they do good work.
4) Cuddling, back scratches, and arm tickles aren’t just for the dog.
5) Reading makes the time pass quickly on road trips, but sometimes you need to put the book down and look out the window.
6) Brie is for breakfast.
7) Those heels look really, really yummy on you.
8) Movies and sermons make for productive, spicy brunch discussions.
9) Coconut cream pie makes every holiday better.
10) If you read a good book, don’t hog it—share it with someone you love.
11) The teacher isn’t always right.
12) Call your mother. She loves you.
Twelve Things Warrene Wants You To Know:
1) The Gulf of Mexico is one of the most beautiful places in the world.
2) Be as kind to the lunch lady as you are to the president of your school.
3) Eyelash curlers may look very scary, but they do good work.
4) Cuddling, back scratches, and arm tickles aren’t just for the dog.
5) Reading makes the time pass quickly on road trips, but sometimes you need to put the book down and look out the window.
6) Brie is for breakfast.
7) Those heels look really, really yummy on you.
8) Movies and sermons make for productive, spicy brunch discussions.
9) Coconut cream pie makes every holiday better.
10) If you read a good book, don’t hog it—share it with someone you love.
11) The teacher isn’t always right.
12) Call your mother. She loves you.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Charming Snakes
You will see him at parties, occasionally.
He will be standing in the middle of a crowd,
Men and women,
Friends and family,
Strangers and lovers,
Grasping
For a sliver of his wit.
You will notice that he makes them each feel special,
A casual one-liner
And a room-brightening smile
Bestowed like rain on each admirer,
One at a time.
You will not watch him closely
Because you will be mesmerized, as well,
Lured in by the shiny story-telling
And the speed of his attentions.
He is a snake charmer,
And you are charmed by his song.
But if you were really watching,
If you were watching closely,
You would see him alone.
Surrounded by colleagues and coquettes,
Nonetheless
He is always alone.
He keeps himself locked tight.
Nothing slips,
No hint of fear,
No slice of doubt,
No hesitation.
This constant planning exhausts him,
But it is necessary.
How else will he manage the costs of desire?
He ties up the ends of his hunger
With a recipe for cool detachment and passionate retorts…
He cannot allow you to think that he is not
listening
to you.
You will see him at parties, occasionally.
Flirting with the quiet girls
(He will quietly leave with one),
Smiling at the jokes of the obvious and the awkward
(And he will make them subtle, if only for a moment).
He is benevolent and isolated,
A lonely, lusty king of a lonely, lusty island.
He has decided it will be that way
Because the pleasure of momentary release far outweighs
The pain of all that time served,
Waiting at the feet of love
For dust.
He will be standing in the middle of a crowd,
Men and women,
Friends and family,
Strangers and lovers,
Grasping
For a sliver of his wit.
You will notice that he makes them each feel special,
A casual one-liner
And a room-brightening smile
Bestowed like rain on each admirer,
One at a time.
You will not watch him closely
Because you will be mesmerized, as well,
Lured in by the shiny story-telling
And the speed of his attentions.
He is a snake charmer,
And you are charmed by his song.
But if you were really watching,
If you were watching closely,
You would see him alone.
Surrounded by colleagues and coquettes,
Nonetheless
He is always alone.
He keeps himself locked tight.
Nothing slips,
No hint of fear,
No slice of doubt,
No hesitation.
This constant planning exhausts him,
But it is necessary.
How else will he manage the costs of desire?
He ties up the ends of his hunger
With a recipe for cool detachment and passionate retorts…
He cannot allow you to think that he is not
listening
to you.
You will see him at parties, occasionally.
Flirting with the quiet girls
(He will quietly leave with one),
Smiling at the jokes of the obvious and the awkward
(And he will make them subtle, if only for a moment).
He is benevolent and isolated,
A lonely, lusty king of a lonely, lusty island.
He has decided it will be that way
Because the pleasure of momentary release far outweighs
The pain of all that time served,
Waiting at the feet of love
For dust.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Where are you, Steve Anderson? Part Two
After a two-year hiatus from academe, I went back to school. At Texas. It was a trial by fire. At Texas, I was not in any way associated with the debate team—well, mostly. Because debate imagines itself to be a domain of rhetoric, I was surrounded with former debaters and debate coaches. Three (no, wait, four—see, it all gets ephemeral after undergrad) of my best friends at school did debate in both their undergrad and MA programs. One of these friends was an assistant coach for UT. He did not stay in debate—in fact, when we were all looking for jobs that last year (Harried! Frightened! Doubtful! Considering positions as a Wal-Mart greeter!), they (my best friends were married) made a conscious decision to avoid any debate-related post PhD jobs. It sucks your life away. It takes all of you that you are willing to give and more, and I think they were done with it.
I can honestly say that my years at Texas were the years in which I was most far removed from debate. The insular community of it, the permeability of its boundaries, the lawyers. We were too busy at Texas—too busy keeping our heads above the water and our hands inside the vehicle—to concern ourselves with debate drama and searches for Steve Anderson.
The year of my job search was a bumpy one—so was the year leading up to it. Grad school, as much as it reminded me of myself again, took my ability to lavish attention on others away. So. My marriage dissolved. Old friends were put aside. Even my family was placed at arm’s length for a while. I had always been the golden child, you see. The intelligent and charming winner—the thing is, at Texas, we all were. I stopped effortlessly achieving things, and I had to work. Like, really hard. Because of all the hard work, and the number of excellent colleagues, and the busyness of my professors, I learned some important things:
1) You have to own your scholarship (Thanks, E! and Jenn and Kevin and Jay for helping me with this one). Nobody else will notice how awesome you are just accidentally.
2) Along the same lines as #1: Demand the necessary attention from your advisor(s). (Thanks to Angie for this one.)
3) Require that your friends/colleagues work on the communal environment as hard as you do. (Here's to the New Old Boys' Network.)
4) Take a fucking break once in a while. Caps Tuesdays aren’t just for fun anymore—they’re for sanity. (Jonah, you are dear.)
5) Hobbit Day makes everything better. (Mmmm, Californians.)
6) Teaching is a craft that can be taught and learned.
While the first one was the hardest lesson for me to learn, the final one was the lesson that lead to the most change in my life. I have always been a good writer, and in all of my schooling, my writing gets better. It was (WAS!) a fluid, divine thing. Teaching, on the other hand, was not. I got some terrible reviews. I was not so good to my poor students. I thought that excellent teachers, like dear Steve Anderson, were born that way—that teaching was like a gift, an aura, a cosmic “turn.” But at Texas, I learned that I could be—I had to be—a better teacher.
As much as the world of the academy frowns on teaching (and it does, believe me), it is the corner of that world. I will not get tenure because I am a superb teacher. But I do still get emails from former students telling me how they realize now the importance of structure in a speech, or how they notice the significance of imagery in a movie, or how they miss the silly mysteries we used to chat about during the semester. And they still send me examples—of metaphors and similes, of prosopopoeia and litotes—which make me smile.
And so it goes. My long, tangential, and teeth-jarring romance with debate goes on. After the Fire and Ice of Texas, I got a job. And here, I am an Assistant Director of Debate. This last year, we traveled quite a bit. The debaters, like all the debaters I’ve known before, are fast and funny. Serious and competitive. But, now that I am in the middle of things, I am beginning to formulate some reasons why I always remained on the sidelines before. I used to think that it was timing. Or distraction. Or coincidence. Recently, however, at the US Worlds Nationals in Denver, I judged a round that bothered me (out loud) in a way that had always been sort of quietly annoying… like a nibbling at the corners of the page had finally started chewing out some words I really needed to see. Endings and Forms. Again.
The round went well, mostly. The opening table of Opposition kind of screwed the pooch, but the Second Table rocked it. Or, so I thought. The resolution was about professional jurors: This House would replace citizen jurors with professional jurors. And the two government tables did exactly what they should have done. They followed the Form exquisitely. And we, the five judges, ended up voting for a Government win. I do not think we chose incorrectly. I think the Form was followed. But I wondered then, and I wonder now: If all I do is Follow the Form, then what, exactly, am I doing? What am I teaching these people? In a debate about expertise and discipline, it nauseates me to think that we voted for the impossibility of inclusion. We, literally, performed exactly what the Second Table presented as a problem. The Whip Speaker (who speaks last) asked the room to look at itself—this room full of debaters from similar backgrounds and with similar outlooks on the world—and consider the possibility that maybe a more varied room, a more varied audience, would provide a different verdict. And we did look at ourselves. And then we voted for the Form. Goddammit.
Where are you, Steve Anderson? I miss you. And I could use a little help right now.
I can honestly say that my years at Texas were the years in which I was most far removed from debate. The insular community of it, the permeability of its boundaries, the lawyers. We were too busy at Texas—too busy keeping our heads above the water and our hands inside the vehicle—to concern ourselves with debate drama and searches for Steve Anderson.
The year of my job search was a bumpy one—so was the year leading up to it. Grad school, as much as it reminded me of myself again, took my ability to lavish attention on others away. So. My marriage dissolved. Old friends were put aside. Even my family was placed at arm’s length for a while. I had always been the golden child, you see. The intelligent and charming winner—the thing is, at Texas, we all were. I stopped effortlessly achieving things, and I had to work. Like, really hard. Because of all the hard work, and the number of excellent colleagues, and the busyness of my professors, I learned some important things:
1) You have to own your scholarship (Thanks, E! and Jenn and Kevin and Jay for helping me with this one). Nobody else will notice how awesome you are just accidentally.
2) Along the same lines as #1: Demand the necessary attention from your advisor(s). (Thanks to Angie for this one.)
3) Require that your friends/colleagues work on the communal environment as hard as you do. (Here's to the New Old Boys' Network.)
4) Take a fucking break once in a while. Caps Tuesdays aren’t just for fun anymore—they’re for sanity. (Jonah, you are dear.)
5) Hobbit Day makes everything better. (Mmmm, Californians.)
6) Teaching is a craft that can be taught and learned.
While the first one was the hardest lesson for me to learn, the final one was the lesson that lead to the most change in my life. I have always been a good writer, and in all of my schooling, my writing gets better. It was (WAS!) a fluid, divine thing. Teaching, on the other hand, was not. I got some terrible reviews. I was not so good to my poor students. I thought that excellent teachers, like dear Steve Anderson, were born that way—that teaching was like a gift, an aura, a cosmic “turn.” But at Texas, I learned that I could be—I had to be—a better teacher.
As much as the world of the academy frowns on teaching (and it does, believe me), it is the corner of that world. I will not get tenure because I am a superb teacher. But I do still get emails from former students telling me how they realize now the importance of structure in a speech, or how they notice the significance of imagery in a movie, or how they miss the silly mysteries we used to chat about during the semester. And they still send me examples—of metaphors and similes, of prosopopoeia and litotes—which make me smile.
And so it goes. My long, tangential, and teeth-jarring romance with debate goes on. After the Fire and Ice of Texas, I got a job. And here, I am an Assistant Director of Debate. This last year, we traveled quite a bit. The debaters, like all the debaters I’ve known before, are fast and funny. Serious and competitive. But, now that I am in the middle of things, I am beginning to formulate some reasons why I always remained on the sidelines before. I used to think that it was timing. Or distraction. Or coincidence. Recently, however, at the US Worlds Nationals in Denver, I judged a round that bothered me (out loud) in a way that had always been sort of quietly annoying… like a nibbling at the corners of the page had finally started chewing out some words I really needed to see. Endings and Forms. Again.
The round went well, mostly. The opening table of Opposition kind of screwed the pooch, but the Second Table rocked it. Or, so I thought. The resolution was about professional jurors: This House would replace citizen jurors with professional jurors. And the two government tables did exactly what they should have done. They followed the Form exquisitely. And we, the five judges, ended up voting for a Government win. I do not think we chose incorrectly. I think the Form was followed. But I wondered then, and I wonder now: If all I do is Follow the Form, then what, exactly, am I doing? What am I teaching these people? In a debate about expertise and discipline, it nauseates me to think that we voted for the impossibility of inclusion. We, literally, performed exactly what the Second Table presented as a problem. The Whip Speaker (who speaks last) asked the room to look at itself—this room full of debaters from similar backgrounds and with similar outlooks on the world—and consider the possibility that maybe a more varied room, a more varied audience, would provide a different verdict. And we did look at ourselves. And then we voted for the Form. Goddammit.
Where are you, Steve Anderson? I miss you. And I could use a little help right now.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Where are you, Steve Anderson? Part One
Forms and endings are problematic. Endings and forms. Unlike Frank Lloyd Wright, to whom I am not related—just btw—, I only recently realized that I have been drunk on forms since I was little, and that it has not been as pleasant as, say, white-wine-summer-beaches-after-sun drunk. My theory, as some of you may know, is that people study what puzzles them—it makes, I think, for a life of interest and intrigue. If we studied things that were already familiar to us, or clear, or close, then we would lose the thread. Not because it’s so hard to see, but because that shit is super hard to keep hold of. Like a psychotic horse running into a burning barn.
Lately, that’s what writing feels like. Writing and reading and thinking are hard. I know, to many of you, they may look like nothing at all—as Rebecca Solnit writes in her gorgeous history of walking, thinking (unlike many other sorts of vocations) looks a whole lot like doing nothing much at all. Writing and reading, of course, can be seen as productive activities—and, in the last few months, I’ve realized that writing is less pleasurable and divine than I remember it. Still, that is not the subject of this essay. This essay is about endings, forms, and the words of the debater’s world.
There was not a debate team in my high school, but
I have always been tangentially linked to debate. If there had been, I have the feeling my life would look similar to the life I lead now; I just might have gotten here a bit faster. Everything is faster in debate. I was always meant to be a professor of rhetoric, though. And if not, then who cares? I tell myself the story of inevitability and that makes it so. So, anyway, there was no debate team at my high school, but there was one at my alma mater, the University of Alabama. I discovered them, as I came to discover rhetoric, in a roundabout, social sort of way. I met the professor of my dreams (Steven K. Anderson) and through him, met several of the debaters and coaches/assistant coaches. They talked fast and earnestly. They seemed to feel the words in the way that I did (emphasis on the word “seemed.” More on that later). So they seemed to feel words—seeing them floating through the air, picking the ones that felt right in the mouth, recognizing the dangers of incorrectness as well as the hazards of absolute certainty. I loved them, wanted to be like them, the words and the debaters.
I did not join the debate team, but I work to stay near them. Helped with judging, smoked on the veranda, hung out in bars, adopted stray kitties they found. Eventually, I even took a class (with Steve) dedicated to debate. We competed in one or two competitions outside of class—where we got our asses handed to us. In class, however, we did a round robin tournament, and Steve referred to me and my teammate as the Juggernaut. We could Not be defeated.
So, there was public debate—the two top teams from the class matched in front of some local media, a few classmates, some family members, and the judges. The audience is important to this story—as it always is—pay attention to the audience. You know, I cannot remember what the topic was—but I do remember that we lost because I dropped a turn. For those of you unfamiliar with policy debate terms, just know that a “turn” involves the opposing team using your own information against you. You must address it directly, in accordance with the form of the debate, or you lose automatically. Here is an ending and a form. The public audience, untrained in the rules of debate, awarded the win to my Juggernaut. The judges, however, familiar with form (and endings), declared the opposing team victorious. I was upset, but not devastated—because I like audiences, dear reader, and I can always get them to sit beside me. It is my thing that I do. I am not, however, so comfortable with form.
The next tangential relation to debate happens in my MA program. Our grad offices were right next to the debate offices. The debate coach, Ross Smith (RIP) and the debate director, Allan Louden (yummy yummy man) were so kind and inviting. The debate team became a home for many of the displaced first year grad students. My best friend was a recovering debater—as were two of my grad school crushes. Wait, three. I am a sucker for a fast talker. I was not officially associated with the debate team, per se—but I drove the vans to and from the airport, helped judge some high school tournaments, sat up late with debaters who were always already cutting cards, went to parties, drank gin out of coffee mugs with coaches from near and far. My MA program was an exercise in endurance. The debate team, in its inimitable fashion, helped me and harmed me equally.
I tell my students to be wary of moral philosophers—because, if my theory holds true, and we study that which puzzles us, then what should we do with someone who is intrigued by the mystery of moral philosophies? I have begun to think, though, that we should be wary of gifted speakers, as well. Much like the mystery of thinking, the magic of spoken conviction—when it works—is just as scary. These debaters, lawyers and advocates in training, changed the way I saw the academic world. I had assumed that ethics and teaching go hand in hand. But that is not the case. Don’t laugh. I know it sounds ridiculous now. Still, I came to this profession with misty, romantic eyes. The debaters at my MA program (as well as in undergrad) removed those scaly covers from my eyes. With the assistance of some well-timed professorial strangenesses—and some truths-of-life-in-close-quarters-with-people-who-think-they-are-very-smart—the endings and forms of collegia in general became distasteful.
So. I quit. I worked at a bookstore. I got married. I worked at a crappy insurance cubicle farm. But... the words were calling. The form, seductive and inevitable, was creeping round the edges. I was lured back. In the next installment, you’ll hear about the non-debateness (almost) of my PhD years—and the total immersion after graduation. Endings, forms, debate—we write these rules, you see, to make it seem like we can play them well. Seeming is big. It always was.
Lately, that’s what writing feels like. Writing and reading and thinking are hard. I know, to many of you, they may look like nothing at all—as Rebecca Solnit writes in her gorgeous history of walking, thinking (unlike many other sorts of vocations) looks a whole lot like doing nothing much at all. Writing and reading, of course, can be seen as productive activities—and, in the last few months, I’ve realized that writing is less pleasurable and divine than I remember it. Still, that is not the subject of this essay. This essay is about endings, forms, and the words of the debater’s world.
There was not a debate team in my high school, but
I have always been tangentially linked to debate. If there had been, I have the feeling my life would look similar to the life I lead now; I just might have gotten here a bit faster. Everything is faster in debate. I was always meant to be a professor of rhetoric, though. And if not, then who cares? I tell myself the story of inevitability and that makes it so. So, anyway, there was no debate team at my high school, but there was one at my alma mater, the University of Alabama. I discovered them, as I came to discover rhetoric, in a roundabout, social sort of way. I met the professor of my dreams (Steven K. Anderson) and through him, met several of the debaters and coaches/assistant coaches. They talked fast and earnestly. They seemed to feel the words in the way that I did (emphasis on the word “seemed.” More on that later). So they seemed to feel words—seeing them floating through the air, picking the ones that felt right in the mouth, recognizing the dangers of incorrectness as well as the hazards of absolute certainty. I loved them, wanted to be like them, the words and the debaters.
I did not join the debate team, but I work to stay near them. Helped with judging, smoked on the veranda, hung out in bars, adopted stray kitties they found. Eventually, I even took a class (with Steve) dedicated to debate. We competed in one or two competitions outside of class—where we got our asses handed to us. In class, however, we did a round robin tournament, and Steve referred to me and my teammate as the Juggernaut. We could Not be defeated.
So, there was public debate—the two top teams from the class matched in front of some local media, a few classmates, some family members, and the judges. The audience is important to this story—as it always is—pay attention to the audience. You know, I cannot remember what the topic was—but I do remember that we lost because I dropped a turn. For those of you unfamiliar with policy debate terms, just know that a “turn” involves the opposing team using your own information against you. You must address it directly, in accordance with the form of the debate, or you lose automatically. Here is an ending and a form. The public audience, untrained in the rules of debate, awarded the win to my Juggernaut. The judges, however, familiar with form (and endings), declared the opposing team victorious. I was upset, but not devastated—because I like audiences, dear reader, and I can always get them to sit beside me. It is my thing that I do. I am not, however, so comfortable with form.
The next tangential relation to debate happens in my MA program. Our grad offices were right next to the debate offices. The debate coach, Ross Smith (RIP) and the debate director, Allan Louden (yummy yummy man) were so kind and inviting. The debate team became a home for many of the displaced first year grad students. My best friend was a recovering debater—as were two of my grad school crushes. Wait, three. I am a sucker for a fast talker. I was not officially associated with the debate team, per se—but I drove the vans to and from the airport, helped judge some high school tournaments, sat up late with debaters who were always already cutting cards, went to parties, drank gin out of coffee mugs with coaches from near and far. My MA program was an exercise in endurance. The debate team, in its inimitable fashion, helped me and harmed me equally.
I tell my students to be wary of moral philosophers—because, if my theory holds true, and we study that which puzzles us, then what should we do with someone who is intrigued by the mystery of moral philosophies? I have begun to think, though, that we should be wary of gifted speakers, as well. Much like the mystery of thinking, the magic of spoken conviction—when it works—is just as scary. These debaters, lawyers and advocates in training, changed the way I saw the academic world. I had assumed that ethics and teaching go hand in hand. But that is not the case. Don’t laugh. I know it sounds ridiculous now. Still, I came to this profession with misty, romantic eyes. The debaters at my MA program (as well as in undergrad) removed those scaly covers from my eyes. With the assistance of some well-timed professorial strangenesses—and some truths-of-life-in-close-quarters-with-people-who-think-they-are-very-smart—the endings and forms of collegia in general became distasteful.
So. I quit. I worked at a bookstore. I got married. I worked at a crappy insurance cubicle farm. But... the words were calling. The form, seductive and inevitable, was creeping round the edges. I was lured back. In the next installment, you’ll hear about the non-debateness (almost) of my PhD years—and the total immersion after graduation. Endings, forms, debate—we write these rules, you see, to make it seem like we can play them well. Seeming is big. It always was.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Prayers for Representation
Colorado is neat. I just want to start this out with a positive because it gets a bit dark in the middle part. If you are not interested in that part, cease and desist, dear reader. Instead, go outside. Hug your girl/boy. Visit Denver. Drink lots of water. Sit, lusciously, in the sun.
Before we begin, let us pray:
I offer my obeisances unto the Goddess who is the abode of lotuses, who holds the lotus, whose eyes resemble the petals of a lotus, whose face is a lotus, and who is dear to the Lord who has a lotus navel. You are the knowledge of sacrifice, the worship of the universal form, and occult learning, O beauteous one. You are the knowledge of Brahman, O goddess, and the bestower of the fruit of liberation. You are the science of dialectics, the three Vedas, Varta, the knowledge of chastisement. O goddess, this universe is filled with your gentle and terrifying forms.
Debate is Good
First Subpoint = The People Rock
a. The debate tournament from which we just returned was marvelous because of the people. I love hanging out with these clever, insanely dedicated folks.
b. My fellow coach is one of my favorite human beings in the world, and the debaters teach me new things every. single. day.
Second Subpoint = Learning Stuff is my Favorite
a. Judging the sorts of rounds and motions we saw at Nationals was a pleasure. I enjoy hearing smart arguments posed thoughtfully, and, as I mentioned previously, many of these teams come to play.
b. I like seeing the intersections of argument and imagination that get brought to bear in these moments. The fact that these students know where and when current events are occurring--as well as the material consequences of those events, always makes me a bit tingly. It is delicious to converse with and give feedback to such technically proficient interlocutors.
Third Subpoint: Legitimacy
a. Being the person that I am--rhetorician, Southern, woman, anti-Platonic-and-yet-seduced-by-Platonic-claims, always already tangentially linked to debate--it is satisfying, academically and intellectually, to be associated formally with a debate team for the first time ever. Much like the department in which I teach (which is the first department I've ever worked in to contain the word "Rhetoric"), this team makes me proud.
b. And my friend/fellow coach seems to agree. We make a good team.
Debate is Evil
First Subpoint = Games will be Games
a. The last adjudication in which I took part, a quarter final, hurt my heart. We ended up voting on technical proficiency over materially consequential argument.
b. The rules, arbitrary and enclavish, are strict. Poetry is difficult to find at a debate tournament, and when it does occur, it gets punished.
c. The outside is always dirty, made for exposure and erasure. I get the value of rules, I do. But I worry about the costs of these rules--these performative consequences on the world-shaping in which we are actively engaged... which leads me into my second and
Final Subpoint = Performing the (W)Hole Story, or Cunt Power, Fool
a. The debate tournament was really draining. I am a fan of performance. For real. I know how powerful and significant and potentially world-shaking it is to be a token representative, the voice of the vagina, the bootylicious appeal to Pathos, but I am tired.
b. In the middle of this sea of suits and ties, limp dicks and jealously guarded erections, we stand. The wearers of red peep toe shoes and sparkly earrings and tight bell bottoms and sassy cowboy boots and othered imagery and girlish hand gestures and leaners toward the dirty and defiers of expectation and negaters of the True.
c. We, the Other, add to the conversation of "reasonable" costs and "acceptable" losses," gauging the mechanism of rules writ large by people who may or may not ever have seen the shanty-style construction of an Alabama public school or spoken to a woman seeking reproductive rights or smelled the fear and rage at death penalty protest in central Texas.
d. Don't get me wrong. I am a rhetorician. Through and through. Situational reasoning is the name of my game--which is why I'm playing this other one. I get the significance of starting at the ground floor. I wear this burden of performative legitimacy and hot-ass high heels with pride.
d. Those burdens are weighty--for many, many reasons. Some of those reasons rhyme with "professorial responsibility." Some rhyme with "modeling good behavior." And some of those burdens rhyme with "Fuck you, Plato, and the Fascist, Formalist Horse You Rode In On. I Will See Your Philosopher King and Raise You Responsibility to the Other." The intensity and closeness of these things is something to see--debaters with good, smart, real questions are always everywhere, Goddess bless them.
e."O goddess, this universe is filled with your gentle and terrifying forms." Indeed.
Before we begin, let us pray:
I offer my obeisances unto the Goddess who is the abode of lotuses, who holds the lotus, whose eyes resemble the petals of a lotus, whose face is a lotus, and who is dear to the Lord who has a lotus navel. You are the knowledge of sacrifice, the worship of the universal form, and occult learning, O beauteous one. You are the knowledge of Brahman, O goddess, and the bestower of the fruit of liberation. You are the science of dialectics, the three Vedas, Varta, the knowledge of chastisement. O goddess, this universe is filled with your gentle and terrifying forms.
Debate is Good
First Subpoint = The People Rock
a. The debate tournament from which we just returned was marvelous because of the people. I love hanging out with these clever, insanely dedicated folks.
b. My fellow coach is one of my favorite human beings in the world, and the debaters teach me new things every. single. day.
Second Subpoint = Learning Stuff is my Favorite
a. Judging the sorts of rounds and motions we saw at Nationals was a pleasure. I enjoy hearing smart arguments posed thoughtfully, and, as I mentioned previously, many of these teams come to play.
b. I like seeing the intersections of argument and imagination that get brought to bear in these moments. The fact that these students know where and when current events are occurring--as well as the material consequences of those events, always makes me a bit tingly. It is delicious to converse with and give feedback to such technically proficient interlocutors.
Third Subpoint: Legitimacy
a. Being the person that I am--rhetorician, Southern, woman, anti-Platonic-and-yet-seduced-by-Platonic-claims, always already tangentially linked to debate--it is satisfying, academically and intellectually, to be associated formally with a debate team for the first time ever. Much like the department in which I teach (which is the first department I've ever worked in to contain the word "Rhetoric"), this team makes me proud.
b. And my friend/fellow coach seems to agree. We make a good team.
Debate is Evil
First Subpoint = Games will be Games
a. The last adjudication in which I took part, a quarter final, hurt my heart. We ended up voting on technical proficiency over materially consequential argument.
b. The rules, arbitrary and enclavish, are strict. Poetry is difficult to find at a debate tournament, and when it does occur, it gets punished.
c. The outside is always dirty, made for exposure and erasure. I get the value of rules, I do. But I worry about the costs of these rules--these performative consequences on the world-shaping in which we are actively engaged... which leads me into my second and
Final Subpoint = Performing the (W)Hole Story, or Cunt Power, Fool
a. The debate tournament was really draining. I am a fan of performance. For real. I know how powerful and significant and potentially world-shaking it is to be a token representative, the voice of the vagina, the bootylicious appeal to Pathos, but I am tired.
b. In the middle of this sea of suits and ties, limp dicks and jealously guarded erections, we stand. The wearers of red peep toe shoes and sparkly earrings and tight bell bottoms and sassy cowboy boots and othered imagery and girlish hand gestures and leaners toward the dirty and defiers of expectation and negaters of the True.
c. We, the Other, add to the conversation of "reasonable" costs and "acceptable" losses," gauging the mechanism of rules writ large by people who may or may not ever have seen the shanty-style construction of an Alabama public school or spoken to a woman seeking reproductive rights or smelled the fear and rage at death penalty protest in central Texas.
d. Don't get me wrong. I am a rhetorician. Through and through. Situational reasoning is the name of my game--which is why I'm playing this other one. I get the significance of starting at the ground floor. I wear this burden of performative legitimacy and hot-ass high heels with pride.
d. Those burdens are weighty--for many, many reasons. Some of those reasons rhyme with "professorial responsibility." Some rhyme with "modeling good behavior." And some of those burdens rhyme with "Fuck you, Plato, and the Fascist, Formalist Horse You Rode In On. I Will See Your Philosopher King and Raise You Responsibility to the Other." The intensity and closeness of these things is something to see--debaters with good, smart, real questions are always everywhere, Goddess bless them.
e."O goddess, this universe is filled with your gentle and terrifying forms." Indeed.
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