Author: Diane Griffin

Diane is a writer of Fantasy, an intermittent blogger, and a generator of nonsense.

Arrogant

In a recent thread on a social media site, I posted a link to an article on The Intercept which includes a recording of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer trying to brow-beat progressive Democratic primary candidate Levi Tillemann into getting out of the of the race for the Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in favor of the DCCC’s preferred candidate, high-powered corporate lawyer Jason Crow. I offered it as evidence that the Democratic Party is anything but democratic.

Anyone who has noted the behavior of the DCCC and the DNC for the last few years knows of any number of instances where the party leadership has quashed (or attempted to quash) progressive and leftist voices from prominence within the party, all the while demanding that all progressives fall in line with their centrist views and preferred candidates. For many, including myself, this pattern of behavior has been disturbing as well as alienating. Some of us have begun organizing within the party under the banner “Justice Democrats,” others have left the part altogether, some for the Green Party, others for the Democratic Socialists and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, publicly questioning the motives and actions of the Democratic party leadership inspires many rank-and-file Democrats to shout down any criticism of the party and/or its methods. Two years out from the 2016 election, woe be to anyone who has the temerity to mention that they supported Jill Stein, as I did and still do, or, in some circles, brings up Bernie Sanders.

I have been told that I am personally responsible for the Trompe presidency. I’ve been called a self-centered child. No matter that my gender is female, I have been called a “Bernie Bro” more than a few times. I’ve been told repeatedly, as I continue to stand up for myself, that I am arrogant. I have recently been told that the country is “in flames” because of my support of, and vote for, the Green Party’s presidential candidate.

At the point where any discussion of non-support for the Democratic Party and/or its leadership reaches this level of rhetoric, the possibility of further reasonable discourse would appear to have been trashed. You will almost certainly be told, as Steny Hoyer helpfully explained to Levi Tillemann, that you don’t understand “how the world works.”

I created this post in response to such a discussion. The first draft of it was filled with the hurt and anger I felt, mixed with amusement when the person I was having an exchange with concluded their final post in the thread with “Up yours!” My assumption, based on prior experience, was that I would be unfollowed and/or blocked. I also assumed that it then wouldn’t matter what I said or did, there would be no way to reach yet another centrist Democrat, and that political discussions of any sort are no longer worthwhile: everyone is so wrapped up in narrative that an actual discussion of the merits of any particular point of view aren’t productive: either we already agree or I won’t be listened to because there is no incentive to go beyond one’s tribal viewpoint.

But the person I had had the argument surprised me: they reached out via private message, explaining their point of view, and when I sent a thoughtful response, they thanked me for it. I found that hopeful.

We are still very far from being on the same page in our opinions, but I think that at the end of this minor crisis in our long-distance friendship, we found that the friendship is still intact, and we are also more likely to hear each other’s views without perceiving them as an attack or threat. The risk turned out, in this case, to be worth taking, and neither of us has had to back down from our positions in order to move forward.

What this means for situations like the Hoyer/Tillemann exchange above is less clear. My hope is that Levi Tillemann stays in the race for the Colorado 6th. I believe that he will, but I say that from clear across the country and from outside the Democratic Party. I’d be more willing to support Democratic candidates if I knew that the DCCC and DNC were allowing the voters to choose their candidates rather than the party leadership dictating to those voters who their candidates should be.

In truth, I believe that the party would be stronger, the country would be stronger, the candidates the party picks will be stronger for having earned the voters’ support through cultivating a more direct and authentic connection with the voters, rather than fishing for advertising $$$ via the DCCC and the DNC.

 

Three Month Mark

CHALLENGE: Answer these questions by the time this post goes live: Do I go on hiatus or do I keep doing this? If I keep going, when do I stop? If I stop, how long until I start again?

I have found it difficult lately to meet my self-imposed deadlines here. I think that I may need to keep trying to challenge myself to do these posts for the simple reason that it is difficult.

I mean, that makes sense, right? Oh, good. Another question.

Well, really it’s all the same question: Keep doing this? I think I need to. Pushing through anything that might seem like writer’s block would be a great reason to keep plugging away. The challenge of finding subjects and following whatever research and/or soul-mining paths that are necessary to keep producing blog entries could be seen as an end in and of itself.

What’s been happening lately is that I will start working on an entry and then realize that I’ve taken on a bigger subject than can be handled in a blog entry. I also need to place work elsewhere than here. The fine line I have not found yet is the one around what is appropriate for this blog, and what fits better elsewhere.

Not finding a way to quickly identify the proper place for each new writing impulse means that I have more work to do here.

RESOLVED: Keep going! There will be a new entry here on Tuesday of next week, and for the next several weeks.

C/older

There aren’t so many rowan trees
In our neighborhood
As there were a few years ago.

The one in our yard
Was cut down
Because the berries made a mess.

I didn’t even know
It was a Rowan
Until it was gone.

I didn’t love it,
Didn’t miss it,
Until I found out its name
Too late

And its orange berries
No longer
Popped color
Against the snow.

Sitting Up With The Dead by Pamela Petro

I bought Pam’s book off of the author table in the Marran Gallery at Lesley University the week I graduated. She had been my thesis advisor and the semester had gone well, so I was excited to read some of her work. This was the only book of hers they had, so I picked it up.

It’s a travel book about southern storytellers. In each chapter, Pam talks about a particular storyteller and frames them geographically, temporally, and in the course of her journey, including a story by them. Its outermost framing is four road trips that took place over the course of the summer of 1999, so the book has the feeling of a road journal. Each chapter is different, some having a formal story set in a different typeface intermingled with or slighty set off from Pam’s text in a separate font. This allows her the ability to interject observations or comments in the flow of the story, and have them easily identified. There’s one fascinating chapter where she juxtaposes three different versions of the same story against each other, two in identifying fonts, one described in Pam’s text. It’s a fascinating exploration of the folk process.

That’s only one chapter in the book: every experience with a storyteller is different, and every chapter of this book takes its own shape. There’s gorgeous writing — both in Pam’s descriptions and in the stories she collects. David Holt’s story “Ross and Anna” is horrific, heartbreaking, and gorgeously told. There are several trickster stories, including a faithful telling of The Tar Baby from the Brer Rabbit stories, and a Jack story (of Jack & the Beanstalk fame) as told by Orville Hicks. Orville’s Uncle Ray gets an entire section of the book, deservedly. Another favorite of mine is Annie McDaniel’s “My First Encounter With a Flush Commode”, a recalling of a childhood memory which tells us about the south’s journey into modernity, and how recently things we now take for granted and consider necessities were new and alien. There’s history in these stories that goes back hundreds of years (at least two stories are about Kings) and there are ghosts lurking around almost every corner, both within the stories and around them.

The book pairs up nicely in my mind with Harry Smith’s “Anthology of American Folk Music”, mining the same territory, though the time frame is different. Instead of inhabiting what Greil Marcus describes as the “Old, Weird America” of the pre-electrification south, Pam collected these stories in the penumbral pre-shadow of 9/11. As such, the book has historical value as a journey through a part of the world that has undergone changes since. For instance, the Pre-Katrina levee at the south end of the Mississippi River stands as a backdrop in one chapter. I think Sitting Up With the Dead is a great book. I don’t feel qualified to capitalize those words, but in my mind, they ought to be. It drips cultural significance, and I can’t think of another like it.

It’s also a wondrously good read.

Goth quotient: 72

Rating: 11 stars.

What Happened at Program 1

Trans program 1 happened today at the Alford Auditorium at MFA Boston.

I had an amazing time. The program went over well: every film hit the mark, though I was surprised at the reactions to some of the individual movies.

People loved Calamity. It was funny, deeply awkward, and pithy. I love that movie, but I was worried no one else would. Beyond the representation issues (see original post with my comments here) it’s an edgy comedy. I didn’t know how my audience would react to it. I needn’t have worried.

The biggest surprise to me was The Real Thing. There were very few dry eyes in that house at the end of that movie.

I put my favorite movie at the end of the program, and that one didn’t impact the audience nearly as much as I had thought it would. The last couple of minutes of that film are just amazing. Alex Trahan’s wordless performance in that two minutes are the whole film for me, and they make it the best one. But it may have been too delicate a moment for a show-ender.

I will acknowledge that I was freaking out quietly in the front row about something unrelated, so some of the subdued audience reaction may have been my fault. I’ve learned my lesson; I’ll sit in the back from now on.

If I had needed to shorten this program for some reason, the two films I would have taken out got the best reactions. How about that? I can’t tell you what a rush it is to be in an audience full of people sniffling while the next film spools up.