Which One Is You?

I went to The Muppets this weekend and it is clever, funny, creative, charming, and entertaining. But on the way to the film, my friends and I were trying to determine which Muppet each of us most resembled, and that is when I realized how few of them are female.

I’ve never been a Muppets fan, though I’ve sometimes wished I were. My favorite actresses and characters are generally women. I’m not proud of this fact. It seems a little superficial. I’ve noticed, however, that many men seem to suffer from a similar affliction, preferring male characters and actors. Books and movies in which women are prominent are often pegged as chic lit and chic flicks.

I suppose it’s a little late to revamp the Muppets characters. But what if you could, who might you add?

Or, what sex changes might you suggest? Would traits need to change along with sex? And what does sex for a Muppet mean, anyway? Is it determined by more than voice?

Jill Abramson

In March there was much debate about whether people would begin subscribing to the New York Times since the newspaper began charging for previously free online access. I decided that I would finally make good and subscribe. One of the reasons I hadn’t yet was because the massive amount of paper involved in a daily newspaper subscription horrifies me. But with the new subscriptions, online-only access was going to be an option—the perfect option for me.

The weird thing is that I continued to be able to click on what seemed like unlimited articles each month. This is where the first of two embarrassing parts of this post comes in. After telling people, with pride, that I read the New York Times online, I discovered I had never read more than the 20 free articles in a month. I don’t suppose reading less than one article a day really counts as being a legitimate “reader” of a newspaper. Read more »

Have You Considered Fish Spearing? Photo by Mitchell Kanashkevich

If you had to choose your career strictly on its name, which would appeal most to you and why?

Designer
Welder
Phlebotomist
Cobbler
Professor
Barista
Carpenter
Architect
President
CEO
Hygienist
Guitarist Read more »

Elise Richman and a Bird of Her Creation

I.

You may not associate daylight savings time with human arrogance, but Dr. Till Roenneberg, a chronobiology researcher at Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich does:

When you change clocks to daylight saving time, you don’t change anything related to sun time. This is one of those human arrogances, that we can do whatever we want as long as we are disciplined. We forget that there is a biological clock that is as old as living organisms, a clock that cannot be fooled. The pure social change of time cannot fool the clock.

II.

Self-discipline is a stronger determiner of success than IQ, as evidenced in a study done by Angela L. Duckworth and Martin E.P. Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania: Read more »

My Crush is on this Man's Advice

“When I do have free time, I don’t prioritize reading,” my friend, an English professor, recently told me.

To be honest, I don’t prioritize reading either—not in the way I think I should or want to. Mostly I read recreationally in snippets—a little bit while the water works up to a boil, a few pages before I fall asleep. Occasionally I binge, but this seems to become more and more rare as my obligations in life expand.

That’s why I’ve been elated since reading Bill Roorbach’s book, Writing Life Stories. His voice is endearing; his insights about memoir and writing are clear, encouraging, and inspiring. But there is one passage that has taken refuge in the ventricles of my mind and, in quiet moments, rushes the synapses in speedy exhilaration: Read more »

My New Fabulous Teacher, Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, with My Old (but Young) Fabulous Teacher, Andrea Dupree

I have stories to tell. Stories I haven’t known how to tell or what the point of telling them is. Last week I joined a memoir class at Lighthouse Writers Workshop, curious about a particular teacher and about what memoirists are up to. Curious about whether I should tell some stories that won’t stop pushing their ratty heads against my arms to get my attention, or just keep ignoring them.

Even though my most oddball stories might be good ones, that isn’t enough impetus for me to write them. It’s only when I think about layers of insight I’ve gained about them through the years and the various ways the layers can be conveyed in the telling—through structure, image, voice, etc, that I think these stories might deserve a life outside my head.

Isn’t it a relief when someone voices your concerns and then shows you why they need not be of concern? This is what happened last night as I read “Memory and the Imagination,” by Patricia Hampl. First Hampl voices my questions about memoir: Read more »

This Is What My Fall Break Looks Like

My living room floor is covered with the 64 pages of my poetry manuscript. It was yesterday and Friday and it probably will be again tomorrow. I pick them up each time my love-life-partner (aka hubster) wakes up or comes home from work (though this morning I forgot them there, and the first words I heard from him were “Cool,” followed by, “I like waking up to that”).

I got the idea for this poem assemblage from Jeffrey Levine, poet, lawyer, musician, and founder of Tupelo Press, who generously published a blog this week, “On Making the Poetry Manuscript.”

This is my favorite section of Levine’s post: Read more »

See How Annie Clark Shreds?

I’m at the tail end of a super scary project: between yesterday and today, I will have delivered a lecture to 600-700 applied science and engineering students on cognitive responses to controversy. Those of you who know that I have two degrees in creative writing may wonder why I am lecturing on a subject outside of my field, so to speak. That is one of the glories of my school. We don’t have a psychology department or any psychology professors, so if someone is going to talk about psychology it might as well be me. It also helps that the culture at my school is to trust all work will get done and get well done.

In the final weekend leading up to my performance—”performance” sounds  less scary than “lecture” to one with a background in acting—I drew inspiration from several outstanding individuals. These people are doing gutsy things with style, which is how I hope my gutsiness will translate.

Annie Clark of St. Vincent: I went to see her perform in Boulder Saturday night and she is a fricking genius. She puts on a thrilling show, full of energy, beauty, and guitar playing that doesn’t quit surprising with its unusual rhythms, effects, and sequences. She plays as if she doesn’t question herself for a moment. She plays unlike anyone I’ve ever seen before. The word most often used to describe her guitar playing is “shredding.” Read more »

Atul Gawande, a Top-Notch Surgeon Who Opted for Coaching

After eight years as a surgeon, Atul Gawande began to worry he’d peaked. He was a very good surgeon, but after five years of considerable improvements, his complications rates plateaued. He wasn’t ready to settle in the high plains.

His argument is that singers such as Renee Fleming and athletes such as Rafael Nadal continue to work with coaches through the heights of their professions. Many school districts are hiring coaches for teachers in an attempt to help improve teacher support, training, and performance. Gawande decided to get a coach himself. He asked a surgeon he greatly admired to watch him do surgery and give him feedback.

As I was reading Gawande’s essay, “Personal Best,” in the current issue of the New Yorker, I was riveted (and this article was supposed to help me relax enough to fall asleep!), but I couldn’t help thinking that America is a country over-loaded with feedback. When I checked my email, however, and had received comments on my poetry manuscript from one of my favorite poets of all time, my thoughts moved to an entirely different tune. Read more »

In Any Case, Google Owns Us All

Recently I had dinner with two Millenials. I mentioned some news story I had seen on Yahoo’s homepage when one of them said to the other,

“See, her generation is all about Yahoo.”

I hadn’t realized I was all about Yahoo, but I do have a Yahoo email account that I check several times a day and when I do, I imagine I become yahoo-ed.

An X-er recently told me I should switch to a gmail account so I wouldn’t be profiled as out. Do you profile people based on their email addresses?

I remember when all my peers switched to gmail. They sent messages such as this:

“I’m tired of receiving Viagra ads in my email so I’m switching to gmail. Please update your address book.” Read more »