"My Life Is Good. Really Good."

I feel pretty good right now. For the last week or two, I've had two things hanging over my head: the school newsletter (which I am now in charge of thanks to Indira bailing on me) and this new group of wild, loud, untamed, unmannered students.

As of this morning, the newsletter is finished and just needs to be sent off to the printer. So, on that front, even though it's only Thursday, it feels like Friday to me. The weight is lifted.

As for the students, well, they're coming along. It's slow progress - many of them have never learned either in school or in their homes to wait their turn, to share, to stand in line, to watch their mouths, to stay on task. So when you get twenty people like that in one small, hot room, it can be chaotic to say the least. However, they are making progress. A large part of getting them to behave is earning their trust. I've found that once my students see that I really am interested in teaching them and that I'm going to hold them to certain standards, they begin to work a little harder and respond a little quicker. I don't have standing-on-the-desk, "O Captain, my captain" moments by any stretch but when one student starts texting on his phone in the middle of class and another student says, "Put your phone away, fool. This is Mr. Brown's class," it's almost as good.

Additionally, I met with the new Director of Graduate Studies in WSU's English department yesterday and came away very encouraged. I'd been worried that I may still have classes yet to take. I have to fill out a form and get my credits transferred from Boise State before I'm absolutely certain but more likely than not, I won't have to take anything else and I'll be able to proceed on to the Qualifying Exam. That's its own hurdle, but it's one I'm happy to face as opposed to taking more classes.

I finished reading Potok's Zebra and Other Stories as well as Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides and both were very good. Eugenides' book is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan in the 70's and is vivid and descriptive and does a nice job of evoking the confusion, intoxication, and obsession of being a teenager. There are moments when it's a little too languid and dreamy but never for long. His second book, the Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex, is far superior but The Virgin Suicides was still worth my time.

Eugenides is a good writer but I'm pretty sure Potok is a great one. With one exception (the last story, "Max"), every bit of Zebra rocked my world. The thing is, I can't explain exactly what it is about his style or his characters or any of it that I find so compelling. I think that inexplicability is related to why I think his work is great.

To me, great art (books, music, theater, painting, etc.) is like falling in love - it's powerful and complicated and mysterious and almost narcotic. In both love and art, there are positive elements that you're able to identify if asked ("She's really funny" or "I really like the colors in this painting") but if required to put your finger on exactly why a given person or a given work gets you all fired up and gushy-headed, you probably can't do it. And if you can, it's probably not great art or great love. I think there's something mysterious and chemical to why certain things work for us and trying too hard to explain or define it is probably counter productive.

Anyway, bookwise, I've already moved on. Last night, Suzanne bought me an early Father's Day gift - The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont. It's got a great premise: set in the 1930's, it takes the creators of two of the great pulp fiction characters of all time (Walter Gibson who created The Shadow and Lester Dent who created Doc Savage) and makes them the protagonists of a their own pulpy adventure story. I love pastiche stories and this is an interesting meta-pastiche that doesn't just appropriate literary characters but the creators of those characters. I read the first chapter while Suzanne was looking for birthday presents for her friends and, by the time she was done, I came to her, book in hand, and suggested it would make a great present . . . for me. (I'm such a good helper.) So she's got it hidden downstairs somewhere but I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it shortly.