Over the weekend I made a jaunt down to Atlanta for the AQLF. It was super fun!
I got in Friday night and had a nice dinner with friends, then went back to my hotel and hit the hay. Saturday I had breakfast with Jim Elledge, which is one of the nicest ways to start a day, and then spent the rest of the afternoon reading my poems to people, listening to other people's works, and chatting with other writers.
The festival was small, but it was nice. There was a very collegial and intimate feel to the day. It's the most fun I've had at a literary event that I didn't plan myself. LOL.
Other highlights were running into Michael Montlack, who edited My Diva, hearing Andrew Bierle read the opening of First Person Plural, hearing Collin Kelley, Dustin Brookshire, and Megan Volpert read their work, then spending various amounts of time hanging out. Jim's new chapbook is amazing, by the way. H, the full length version, is going to be fantastic when it comes out.
Odd story: I rode MARTA (their metro) to and from the airport and around town. On my way in, suitcase in tow, a woman struck up a conversation on the platform with me. (Mostly, she wanted to talk.) It turned out she was born in Milwaukee and had lived in Tempe for some time, and also loved DC. Then she went on and on about all the awful things that have happened to her--losing jobs, losing savings, etc, and I was totally sure I was in for the long-form panhandle like I got last time I was in Atlanta (guy talked to me for 15 minutes about how he was a Katrina refugee...then, did I have $5?). But when we got off in Decatur, she very kindly asked me where I was staying, then gave me clear directions to get there. And she said, "Enjoy your visit." And was gone. I have a theory on stuff like this that I'll share another time.
Even weirder, as I walked out the MARTA exit, another woman asked me if I understood the directions or needed more help. I looked around and was like, "Um, me?" And she was like, "Yeah, you." I thanked her but said I knew where I was going. I couldn't believe people were so friendly. It was a nice change of pace. In DC, when strangers talk to you, they just want to know what kind of shaving cream to buy, or if they can skip you in the line at Target because they're so much busier than you are.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun, and I needed the mini break from DC!
11.09.2009
10.30.2009
10.28.2009
LOCUSPOINT needs a little help from its friends
Please pass along and share.
LOCUSPOINT seeks 1-2 co-managing editor volunteers.
LOCUSPOINT, an online poetry journal that explores creative work on a city-by-city basis, seeks 1-2 volunteers to join the team of managing editors who support the magazine's production and forward momentum.
The perfect teammates will have an interest and investment in contemporary American poetry; be knowledgeable of its practitioners, both established and emerging; have an interest in developing skills in literary magazine production and publication or marketing/promotion.
Based on interest, the position would be broken up into production tasks and promotional tasks.
The new managing editor(s) will assist me with:
> communication and follow-up with guest editors in various cities (production)
> follow up with authors on edits to galleys (production)
> long term: assessment of past cities' links sections (production)
> oversight and management of LOCUSPOINT blog (promotion)
> assistance to editors in arranging local LOCUSPOINT readings (promotion)
> entrepreneurial efforts to widen the readership of LOCUSPOINT (promotion)
These are unpaid, for-the-love-of-it positions as LOCUSPOINT has no annual budget.
To apply, please send a resume and brief cover letter that describes your interest in working with LOCUSPOINT to charlesDOTjensenATgmail.com by December 1, 2009.
LOCUSPOINT seeks 1-2 co-managing editor volunteers.
LOCUSPOINT, an online poetry journal that explores creative work on a city-by-city basis, seeks 1-2 volunteers to join the team of managing editors who support the magazine's production and forward momentum.
The perfect teammates will have an interest and investment in contemporary American poetry; be knowledgeable of its practitioners, both established and emerging; have an interest in developing skills in literary magazine production and publication or marketing/promotion.
Based on interest, the position would be broken up into production tasks and promotional tasks.
The new managing editor(s) will assist me with:
> communication and follow-up with guest editors in various cities (production)
> follow up with authors on edits to galleys (production)
> long term: assessment of past cities' links sections (production)
> oversight and management of LOCUSPOINT blog (promotion)
> assistance to editors in arranging local LOCUSPOINT readings (promotion)
> entrepreneurial efforts to widen the readership of LOCUSPOINT (promotion)
These are unpaid, for-the-love-of-it positions as LOCUSPOINT has no annual budget.
To apply, please send a resume and brief cover letter that describes your interest in working with LOCUSPOINT to charlesDOTjensenATgmail.com by December 1, 2009.
10.23.2009
O Academe!
Working in academia has its pluses and minuses. All summer long I enjoyed what amounted to a private city, with restaurants empty at lunch time, wide sidewalks and quads free of pushing and shoving and skateboarders, and on-campus services like the gym and library that seemed to be waiting for me to command them into activity. It’s a stark contrast from the other nine months of the year. Throughout the academic year, students swarm the campus like picnic ants. Waiting for Starbucks was more excruciating than waiting for Godot. And food in the union, when it was even available, was like revenge—always cold and never what you were expecting.
The rest of my "mini-moir" is up at the Americans for the Arts blog as part of their Emerging Leaders Forum.
10.17.2009
Death, Poorly Reheated
This week I was clobbered by the flu.
I thought it was a mild flu, so I slept for a day and then went back to work.
And then I lost my voice, so I stopped going to work again.
I hope today is my last day of being poopy sick because I am tired of being tired.
I thought it was a mild flu, so I slept for a day and then went back to work.
And then I lost my voice, so I stopped going to work again.
I hope today is my last day of being poopy sick because I am tired of being tired.
10.14.2009
What I Have Never Told You
On Monday night I was one of "tens of thousands" of people in an audience to experience a staged reading of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, an "epilogue" to the original play created by the Tectonic Theatre Project in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard's murder at the hands of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson.
For the play, members of Tectonic went back to Laramie in 2008, much as they did in 1998, to interview the residents of Laramie and absorb and process their responses to the event to understand both why and how an event of this both--both horrifying simple and inexplicably complex--could come to pass anywhere, much less in a small Western city like Wyoming.
Unlike the first version, the epilogue featured illuminating interviews with McKinney and Henderson, both imprisoned in Virginia and serving consecutive life sentences.
It also repeatedly addressed a 20/20 segment that poo-pooed the hate crime angle of the murder and focused more on drug and theft motivations, both of which had been disproven in court when the defendents tried to put forward their "gay panic" defense (that Matthew had made sexual overtures to them and they, in their outrage and panic, killed him in response).
It was an amazing production. Annette O'Toole was one of the cast members. Amazing job. To be in that audience, for me, was an honor I almost cannot express. That the play was performed concurrently (at 115 or 150 theatres, I couldn't quite make it out) made it the largest simultaneous theatre production in history.
I live in a world where my personal rights are debated every day by people who are unlike me.
I live in a world where the decision to get married is not mine to make.
Where my partner does not automatically share my health insurance.
Where--to make it personal--nurses could keep me out of the room in which Beau is dying.
I live in a world where, in some states, my employment is not protected and I can be terminated for loving Beau.
Where Beau and I can be on the same car insurance policy but cannot file our taxes jointly.
Where every day people around me and on television are asking each other, "Should Charlie Jensen have the same rights and privileges as me?"
Where they are really asking, "Is Charlie Jensen worth as much as me?"
Where they are asking, "Does Charlie Jensen love Beau in the same way I love my spouse?" Where they wonder if their love matters more.
What I have never told you is a small thing.
It's a small thing that for many people would be forgotten, or laughed off, or disregarded.
That's called "privilege." It means you have some choice over what affects you at your core. To be without that choice, to be oppressed, is to lack privilige. Because I am white, and because I am, on the surface, many other things, I can access many kinds of privilege other people cannot.
I never told you about the phone call.
It was 2002. Matthew Shepard was dead for four years. People had flown planes into the World Trade Center and there was a lot of grief and sadness in America, and a lot of fear.
It was 2002 and all of this was going on and people were forgetting things and they were distracted by new things and then a man called me on the phone. I wasn't home. He left a message.
The message said: Hi faggot. You're a fucking faggot, I know you are. I'm gonna come over and rape you, you stupid faggot. How would you like that? It went on. The rest I don't remember. The rest I don't want to remember.
Picture me where I lived alone, hearing this. Hearing it be a thing that I wondered if it was a threat or a promise. Then, uncertainly, calling the police.
Picture me standing in my living room with the male police officer as I played him this message. Imagine my shame and embarrassment, my anger and confusion. Imagine me wondering if he thought I was overreacting. Wondering if I really was a faggot. Then, me wondering if he thought I deserved it, or if he pitied me, or if he felt nothing at all.
Place these pictures into a world in which a boy like me was kidnapped, beaten, and killed. Place them into a world where significantly larger things were happening.
The worst part wasn't what he said to me. That was not much new. I have been called it to my face virtually my whole life. I have been shamed for it virtually my whole life. I have been pushed aside and ridiculed for it virtually my whole life.
The worst wasn't what he said.
It was that I hesitated. I hesitated and I thought, "What if?"
And then the fear set in.
For the play, members of Tectonic went back to Laramie in 2008, much as they did in 1998, to interview the residents of Laramie and absorb and process their responses to the event to understand both why and how an event of this both--both horrifying simple and inexplicably complex--could come to pass anywhere, much less in a small Western city like Wyoming.
Unlike the first version, the epilogue featured illuminating interviews with McKinney and Henderson, both imprisoned in Virginia and serving consecutive life sentences.
It also repeatedly addressed a 20/20 segment that poo-pooed the hate crime angle of the murder and focused more on drug and theft motivations, both of which had been disproven in court when the defendents tried to put forward their "gay panic" defense (that Matthew had made sexual overtures to them and they, in their outrage and panic, killed him in response).
It was an amazing production. Annette O'Toole was one of the cast members. Amazing job. To be in that audience, for me, was an honor I almost cannot express. That the play was performed concurrently (at 115 or 150 theatres, I couldn't quite make it out) made it the largest simultaneous theatre production in history.
I live in a world where my personal rights are debated every day by people who are unlike me.
I live in a world where the decision to get married is not mine to make.
Where my partner does not automatically share my health insurance.
Where--to make it personal--nurses could keep me out of the room in which Beau is dying.
I live in a world where, in some states, my employment is not protected and I can be terminated for loving Beau.
Where Beau and I can be on the same car insurance policy but cannot file our taxes jointly.
Where every day people around me and on television are asking each other, "Should Charlie Jensen have the same rights and privileges as me?"
Where they are really asking, "Is Charlie Jensen worth as much as me?"
Where they are asking, "Does Charlie Jensen love Beau in the same way I love my spouse?" Where they wonder if their love matters more.
What I have never told you is a small thing.
It's a small thing that for many people would be forgotten, or laughed off, or disregarded.
That's called "privilege." It means you have some choice over what affects you at your core. To be without that choice, to be oppressed, is to lack privilige. Because I am white, and because I am, on the surface, many other things, I can access many kinds of privilege other people cannot.
I never told you about the phone call.
It was 2002. Matthew Shepard was dead for four years. People had flown planes into the World Trade Center and there was a lot of grief and sadness in America, and a lot of fear.
It was 2002 and all of this was going on and people were forgetting things and they were distracted by new things and then a man called me on the phone. I wasn't home. He left a message.
The message said: Hi faggot. You're a fucking faggot, I know you are. I'm gonna come over and rape you, you stupid faggot. How would you like that? It went on. The rest I don't remember. The rest I don't want to remember.
Picture me where I lived alone, hearing this. Hearing it be a thing that I wondered if it was a threat or a promise. Then, uncertainly, calling the police.
Picture me standing in my living room with the male police officer as I played him this message. Imagine my shame and embarrassment, my anger and confusion. Imagine me wondering if he thought I was overreacting. Wondering if I really was a faggot. Then, me wondering if he thought I deserved it, or if he pitied me, or if he felt nothing at all.
Place these pictures into a world in which a boy like me was kidnapped, beaten, and killed. Place them into a world where significantly larger things were happening.
The worst part wasn't what he said to me. That was not much new. I have been called it to my face virtually my whole life. I have been shamed for it virtually my whole life. I have been pushed aside and ridiculed for it virtually my whole life.
The worst wasn't what he said.
It was that I hesitated. I hesitated and I thought, "What if?"
And then the fear set in.
10.09.2009
The Hills Are Alive. But Just Barely.
I can't believe I haven't yet had time to talk to you about the return of The Hills.
I'm sure you've been concerned about what's happening on the show now that Lauren Conrad has gone off to pick trash up off the beach, write YA novels, and design clothes for Kohl's.
I have been too. Friends, I've been worried.
When I first got in touch with my love for The Hills, I went back and got caught up on the show that spawned it: Laguna Beach. That's when I first met Kristen Cavallari. In that show, Lauren quickly became one of the moral and narrative centers of the show. When she left, Kristen took over and pretty much killed it.
I fear the same fate for The Hills now.
The producers have tried to swap out Lauren for Kristen, but it's a bad swap. Lauren played the show like an everywoman who experienced great privilege but never seemed to rely on it or need it. She was like us, only rich, and she still (seemed to?) worked her ass off in kinda crappy jobs (hello, intern at Teen Vogue much?). She was surrounded by craziness in the forms of trainwreck Heidi, vaguely-autistic Audrina, cracked-out Stephanie, megaloSpencer, feisty manbitch Brody, and coldtongued Lo. Lauren was always the nice person, trying to do the right thing, without putting up with needless lies or bullshit. Which mean that she was pretty busy.
Kristen is a whirlpool of the crudest form of selfishness. She's like a Lauren Conrad knock-off: she looks a lot like her, but carrying her around on your arm would just make you look cheap and stupid. She's mean, spiteful, quick to anger, vile, "a maneater" (thank god we resurrected that term), and an all-around horrible person.
When you put a truly horrible person into a sea of pretty unfortunate people, what do you get? Suddenly, a lot of tepid co-stars. Even the crazy people are sort of getting together over coffee to say, "Wow. That girl is actually crazy." When crazy points a finger, you walk in the other direction, okay? That's a life lesson.
So now we will spend 24 episodes watching Kristen Cavallari slowly tear down The Hills stone by stone, street by street, testicle by testicle. It's really unfortunate. Just after two episodes, I was already wishing that, instead of bringing Kristen in, they'd given a starring slot to Lo Bosworth.
Lo, also of Laguna provenance, seems to have taken up the mantle of Lauren's normalcy. She's nice to everyone--even Kristen sometimes--and she's gained a comparable level of grace under fire that Lauren always had (tear-soaked raccoon mascara incident notwithstanding). I like Lo now. I like that she's gotten her shit together. I like that she doesn't have stupid boy drama.
I'm also liking Stephanie. Yes! I'm serious. She can be crazy, but she's a crazy who means well. She just often fails at it.
And that's one to grow on.
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