Accidental Southern Belle

Boxers and Lady Vice Presidents (not that different, apparently)

I was listening to Fresh Air on the way to class yesterday and I caught an excerpt of F.X. Toole reading from his story "The Monkey Look" which is the inspiration for Million Dollar Baby. The first few lines of this story are incredible: "I stop blood. I stop it between rounds for fighters so they can stay in the fight. Blood ruins some boys. It was that way with Sonny Liston, God rest his soul. Bad as he was, he'd see his own blood and fall apart." You can read the whole story here. Or listen to F.X. Toole read from it  on Fresh Air.

After class, we watched the AMAZING show Gossip Girl (watch last night's episode online) and then we accidentally saw Lynn Cheney on The Daily Show which was one of the more uncomfortable things I've ever seen....even Jon Stewart was uncomfortable. And, for real, Lynne Cheney GAVE JON STEWART A DARTH VADER DOLL. It was crazy.

Classical Music Stresses Me Out

So every morning when I am eating breakfast, I listen to NPR. I like to hear other voices in the morning, it kind of creates the illusion that I am not going to be by my bad self for the next six hours. At around 8:30, I tend to mosey into my office and log onto my work stuff and kind of get engrossed.

The thing is that NPR stops talking at 9AM and transitions to classical music. Usually, I don't notice until around 9:45 when I find that I am clenching my jaw. Why am I doing this? My work is not generally that stressful. I mean, I write email and search the internet for fashion blogs, for goodness sake (this is work-related, I SWEAR). And then I realize, it's the classical music. It totally stresses me out. I literally can't listen to it when I am on my way to school because it makes me jittery.

I think most people listen to classical music to relax, but I swear, it's giving me agita. I must stop.

Oh, but speaking of music, you must check out Pandora.com. It rocks. I should switch over to that now, in fact.

Me and NPR Together at Last

Tonight's MFA reading is at the local NPR studio in their gallery. And they've listed it on their website. How cool!

This is not to say that I haven't been freaking out about the whole thing. Last minute story revisions, plans to hand out the New Yorker cartoon I mention in the story, etc.

My horoscope says, "Things should generally go quite well for you today." Thank goodness because in addition to having a reading I am also cooking a brisket. Let's try not to think about the fact that I have never cooked meat before, no less a brisket. But it should all be ok...

Fried Nutter Butters ARE Indeed Brilliant

Whoever thought to put peanut butter sandwich cookies in a milkwash and then submerging them in oil was a brilliant, brilliant person.

The only odd thing about last night (I mean other than the hilariously odd poet who had a bag of wine (extracted from a box of wine) in her purse and kept pouring out of it, I swear I saw that girl on campus the other day walking like Samuel Beckett's Watt (which is a nice way of saying that she was walking like a totally insane person)) was that when I got home, my hair smelled like fried things. Not necessarily fried food. But just an odor of the oil and grease. Probably not a good sign. So far, my skin is holding up well though.

In other news, Matt informed me of this: Lynn Samuels, my favorite, favorite talk show host of all time is back on the air! She's on Sirius Satellite radio. I am going to try to listen to her online. I once called into her show to talk about school uniforms, but I was so, so, so nervous I literally couldn't speak. She is probably the reason that I love radio so much. She is truly brilliant at the form. I know she's insane and has probably the most grating voice in the history of the world. But she is smart and she has got a mouth on her that is seriously impressive.

Finally, since it seems to be reading books about Jews month, I am reading Dara Horn's The World To Come and it is SO GOOD. Mom and Dad, you would like it a lot too. I even BOUGHT it. Retail. I'm obsessed. She is a DAMN good writer. She's able to bring together Jewish present day with Jewish history and art in a way that's pretty interesting. I keep writing in my writing journal, "write a story about Jews." As if THAT'S getting me anywhere. I also often write "write a story about gossip." Also. Useless. Regardless, maybe Dara Horn can give me some pointers, not on the gossip but on the Jews. This is what I am hoping.

Ok. Back to work then off to school.

Odd NPR Experiences

Sometimes, when I'm working writing email for the job I carried over from New York and listening to NPR, two things which often go together because I like to have talking in the background when I'm working (well, pretty much always, maybe that's why I like to write in coffee shops?), I forget that I'm in North Carolina. And then there'll be information about a day sponsor or something that is located on Military Cutoff Road and I literally have to remind myself that I live here.

When this happens, I remember how I am kind of between two worlds. In so many ways, I've carried my New York life over to here: I have portions of my old job, I still have my old therapist, I still have lots of my New York friends, I'm still super busy and of course, I am still me. And yet, then, there is this crazy thing that is life here is so different: there's the school and the car and the writing and the Wal-mart and the giant, carpeted apartment.

Last night, one of the girls who was at trivia asked me to compare my life here to my life in New York. In some ways, it's incomparable and in others, it is so similar the only difference is that it is 70 degrees out today and it is November 28th. I said that it was so hard to compare, I really couldn't. She pointed out that maybe things here were less driven by chaos and that could make them more palatable.

I don't know, I think that this is an ongoing conversation. I'm sure that as I live here longer, I will become less like my New York self. In a lot of ways, I'm afraid to go back in December. What will I find there? Will it be too overwhelming for me? Or will I slip right back into the routine and miss the chaos? I have a feeling that I will be glad to leave when it is all done. But who knows, I could be like an addict falling off the wagon. Do other people feel about places like I feel about New York? Like they are a drug that maybe is something to be avoided? Like the place is an addiction?

And yet, life here is strangely lovely, easier in some ways, harder in others. I don't know what this all means, it's just because of the NPR day sponsors after all.

The Public Radio Chain

One thing that has been quite comforting to me in the past few weeks has been NPR. First, it's lovely to hear the same voices on Morning Edition and All Things Considered and the hourly news update that I used to hear in New York. Secondly, since I haven't been hearing a lot of voices here since I've been alone so much, it's lovely to have some talking in the background, especially since it is a soothing, informative tone. While it has struck me that my love of NPR is equivalent to another American's love of McDonald's or Arby's since it is the same everywhere and you always know what you are going to get (excluding the fact that on Sunday mornings here they have Christian music on NPR where in New York we have a Prarie Home Companion on Sunday mornings), I've put that idea of NPR as chain to the back of my mind because it is indeed a comfort.

As I was surfing my local station's website to find out what was going to come on after Studio 360 this evening, I found parts one and two of a four part critique of NPR that the brilliant Rick Moody (preorder his new book The Diviners right now...it's incredible) has written.  He brings up just this issue of hegemony in NPR and brings it even further than what I had been thinking about:

Even the locutions of these voices is similar, with cadences that rise and fall in familiar ways, tailing up at the ends of sentences. The NPR voice is not unlike the "poetry voice" that has come to dominate all readings by American poets under forty.

I think that all of his criticisms are valid. There is a definite hegemony and status quo in public radio.  On the other hand, I've heard a few really interesting things lately that I think answer some of his criticisms, there was a kind of hilarious post-modern report on naked dining on yesterday's Weekend Edition Saturday and last week there was a really honest commentary on the transition from being half of an interractial couple to being a black single father. It's almost like they bury the nuggets of gold within the endless minutiae on the Space Shuttle and this report on Fountains of Wayne that I've heard THREE times (twice in New York and once here).

And, at the end of the day, I love NPR. I wish that the station here played more talking and less classical music so that I could listen to the NPR voice all day long. I guess that makes me a boring "middle American audience member" (Rick Moody's words, not mine). Oh well, so be it. I live in a mid-sized city 10 minute from the beach, I drive and buy gas, Today, I pushed my cart at the supermarket all the way to my car even though I could have totally carried the bags from the sidewalk, I never walk up stairs, I like my NPR the way it is, I am officially middle American. Where's my badge?