This Kind Of Attention

“How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it’s just words.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King


I always feel inspired and good about the world after I see students kick ass at what they love. I’m a big fan of supporting, not only the students I teach, but also the ones I have taught in the past, when they share their art, music and acting in plays. I should be better about watching them in sports too, but that is another post.

This post is about the feeling of watching kids I’ve spent time with shine in a beautiful performance.

I just got back from the grade nine and ten rendition of Cyrano De Bergerac, and as per usual hats off to Bronwyn​ for another innovative and powerful production. She has a knack for taking theatre seriously and pulling the best out of each actor.

It left me thinking about how important it is to remind ourselves that, as teachers, we see kids at a certain stage of their growth, but those short one or two years we spend with them is just a window into their maturation. They keep growing after they leave us. I loved seeing kids I taught in grade eight grow into such sophisticated and talented people.

Teaching can’t be about the short term. We are working on a much larger scale. We are shaping human beings.

Hopefully the time we spend with kids has a lasting effect beyond the skills they might or might not learn. And if the friendships I have with former students here on Facebook is any indication, it is clear that even one year of English can have lasting effects on people.

Anyway, kids want to know that you are there for them and that you really care. And here is the secret: you have to actually care. You can’t bullshit this kind of attention.

After every performance, I use the names from the program to email every member of the cast that I have taught:

Hello Cast, 

Just a quick note to let you know how amazing you were tonight. I was in awe, not only of your performance, but the dedication, passion and commitment you have clearly shown for this show. 

It's so nice to see you grow up into such talented actors. We miss you in the middle school, but clearly you have matured and are becoming the people you are meant to be. 

I feel proud and privileged to have worked with you in some capacity during your time as a middle schooler.

Can't wait to see what you do next. 

…

That moment when there is a glitch in your tech and the app won’t work and it freezes and even crashes your phone, but you try it five more times, thinking, “This time it has to work.” But it doesn’t and so you give up and feel shitty and then you try one more time. Still nothing. You feel worse than before and the app still doesn’t work, but for some reason the next day it works fine.

…

Right before
I think, “This is the last thing in the world I want to do right now.”
In the beginning it feels better. Feels okay.
Fifteen minutes in, it feels terrible and I just want it to stop.

I persist
yelling at myself in my head.
I heap on the abuse.

I ignore that voice and focus on my breath and the low hanging dense clouds, the ships off the coast and the small child learning balance on his scooter.

I lose myself in thoughts of chapters and failures and half attempts and near misses, on the value of goals and data

A few more steps,
a few more minutes.
Just don’t stop yet.

Afterwards, hot, sweaty, tired,
I feel grateful.

…

Lessons Learned:

• Kids are awesome. When they are awesome, it’s important that you’re there to see it and when you do, it’s important you tell them. 
• There are glitchy gremlins in your tech and they need to find their way out. 
• Running will always suck before and during, but pays off in the after. 

1. How do you support the people you love? 
2. What drive you crazy about technology? 
3. What do you hate doing, but enjoy when it’s done? 

Literary Shenanigans

“There is something wrong with you!”

I can’t count the number of times my wife says that to me on any given week. Day? It's usually after one of my eccentric obsessions reveals itself, before burrowing back into the depths of my...Want to use the word soul, but realize that such a word is far too trite, but I am too lazy to think of a better one, so I will leave you to do it dear reader. Please humor me...
 
I am not here to argue with her. There are indeed more than several things wrong with me, most often at the same time. The older I get, the more I realize that I have borderline OCD tendencies. I'm definitely somewhere on the spectrum. And I am okay with that. This post is but one example. You tell me-- something wrong with me or am I on my way to becoming a cuddly old man?

I take my relationships with media (books, music and film) very personally. When I read an author, listen to a band, or watch films by a director or writer I respect,  I like to swim deep. If I experience something profound and life-changing, I will often consume everything the artist has ever done. I will research their life online, make connections to their influences and hopefully tangle myself in his/her web. Because let's face it, we are little more than nodes in complicated webs of meaning and beauty. I love my media. I am my media.

Recently, I was desperate for a book at the airport, and I found a collection of essays and speeches by Jonathan Franzen, who happens to be one of my favorite writers writing today. I have read everything he has ever published and can't state more clearly how much I love his worldview and mastery of language. Not withstanding the time he stuck his foot so far down his throat with the Wharton debacle, when Franzen speaks, I listen.

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Intrepid Flame 

In his latest collection Franzen writes on three topics: writing, birds, and David Foster Wallace. I was intrigued my the last one. Of course Infinite Jest has been a satellite in my orbit for years, but I knew (know) very little about it or Wallace. I didn't even know he was a suicide. Like most popular books, I let Infinite Jest spin ad infinitum until something or someone would shed a brighter light on it, forcing me to read it. Franzen was said beacon.

Here is where the weirdness begins-- I couldn't find Infinite Jest in Jakarta. And since I do not want to do any research or learn anything more about Wallace until I read his seminal work, I have been mired in a state of anticipation and excitement, like a racehorse all saddled up, raring to go, but trapped in the gate and forced to chew on the bit and watch the dust. I haven't read any wikipedia articles or watched any youtube clips on Wallace. I have chosen to leave him alone until I read Jest. That is not true. I saw and bought Pale King, his last novel, before leaving Jakarta. I also ordered Infinite Jest, which my in-laws will bring to me in July.

Problem is that after I bought Pale King, I discovered that it was never actually finished, furthermore after speaking with Ari, I found out that it was left in the room in which Wallace committed suicide. Can you see my dilemma?

I cannot start my Wallace experience with Pale King trumping Infinite Jest. There has to be an order right? Seminal work> research> bizarre final novel/suicide note> other works. Mairin thinks I am crazy.

"This is what you stress about?"
"Ari understands." I mumble.
"Of course he does."

To make matters worse, I was at the bookstore today, a massive Kinokuniya in Singapore, and obvisouly they had Jest, Pale King and everything else Wallace has ever written, but now I have to wait till July becuase the book has already been ordered and shipped. These events make me anxious.  I just want to get lost in Infinite Jest and Wallace and go for the ride, but alas I cannot

So what do I do? I've decided to start the work of another author, one that I've been terrified of since college. But first another short story! What? You're busy? Really? What else do you have to do?  Come on, finish this. It's not like you are reading a 15 page New Yorker essay. It is a blog post for goodness sake. Defy what they say about modern day attention spans. Back to my story...

Back in nineteen-ninety-something I was taking a Post-Modern lit class at San Fransisco State. A class in which the professor doused us in difficult, unapproachable texts and dared us to admit we were lost. I was young and often drunk and not really paying much attention. Despite my lack of attention,  I did discover Barth and Nabokov. True, I gave up on Pale Fire, but at least I was introduced to Lolita.

But Pynchon, oh Pynchon. What the hell was that? It was clear that I was not smart enough for Crying of Lot 49 at the tender age of twenty-something. Not while working and partying full time. Pynchon has haunted me for years. I am thirty-eight now. I was so much older then, I am younger than that now.  I decided today that it is time. I cavalierly scanned his shelf and randomly chose Vineland. Just like that, I will dive into Pynchon while waiting for Wallace. Bold move you say? Wildly irresponsible you say? I agree, but I am ready for some literary shenanigans. 

Sidenote: I also grabbed The Fight by Mailer, a book I have been wanting to read for years. I have been making my way through the Mailer catalog as well. Even reading his terrible Jesus book.

Do you think so much about books? Is there something wrong with me?