"Creating People On Whom Nothing is Lost" - An educator and writer in Colorado offers insight and perspective on education, parenting, politics, pop culture, and contemporary American life.
Disclaimer - The views expressed on this site are my own and do not represent the views of my employer.
This blog post is a reprint of one from several years ago that was first published in The Villager, where I wrote a weekly column for several years. As October comes to an end, and we begin November, the month of Thanksgiving -- and hopefully more than just a day of feeling grateful -- I wanted to repost this piece.
Each year in November, I introduce my classes to the practice of keeping a gratitude journal. Research suggests that people, who take a few minutes each day to reflect and write down good things in their lives, and who do so consistently for at least twenty-one straight days, will feel and exhibit improved mental health and well-being. Thinking good thoughts and being grateful for positive aspects of our lives, no matter how small, actually makes us feel better. It improves our attitudes toward ourselves, our communities, and the world at large.
A few years ago, Cherry Creek High School implemented a student-led program called Sources of Strength, which focuses on building and sustaining positive school culture. In the first year, students were encouraged to identify positive influences in their life, from mentors and friends to healthy activities and mental health. Through advisory classes, each student was given the opportunity to keep a gratitude journal. It’s a mindfulness practice, and for three weeks each November, my students get settled and prepared for class by reflecting quietly and writing down three positives in their lives – as a class we take a few moments to voluntarily share out loud.
I am grateful for so many things in my life, and first and foremost are the many people who mean so much to me. My wife of thirty years and my wonderful children who are wise beyond their years are sources of joy and strength in my life. I also value my colleagues at Cherry Creek High School. The daily sense of collegiality and professionalism that I encounter is truly a source of good fortune. From engaging professional conversations to thoughtful and supportive discussions to silly chats about the most random of things, the people of Creek fill my day with positivity.
I’m also honestly thankful for my students, all of them over a thirty-year career. The young people I have the pleasure of working with continually improve me. When I think about the greatest accomplishment in my life, it’s undoubtedly my teaching career and the kids who make it a fulfilling vocation. As much as I try to educate them, these hardworking, fun-loving citizens of Generation Z teach me a great deal as well. And at a place like Creek, I regularly encounter ordinary kids doing extraordinary things. From top-ranked academic achievements to inspiring athletics to stunning fine arts performances to dedicated participation in a vast collection of clubs and activities, the kids these days amaze me. One particularly gratifying aspect of Cherry Creek High School is the Unified programs, which pair special needs students and their mainstream peers in theater productions, sports leagues, activities, and adaptive classes. I am truly grateful to work in such an inclusive environment.
I am also grateful for the simple unsung conveniences of contemporary life. I appreciate all the technologies that make life so much more efficient. From digital music platforms like Pandora and YouTube to simple web applications and software like GoogleDocs and even wireless projectors in the classroom, tech just makes life nicer. I also value my home, my short walk to school each day, and the community of Greenwood Village. From the city workers who maintain our parks and guarantee well-plowed streets to the Parks & Rec department that offers regular enrichment activities, my village is a wonderful place to live.
Finally, I am thankful for the arts in all their beautiful forms. Music is an indispensable form of joy in my daily life. From the cool jazz I listen to each morning to the pop, rock, and country I hear throughout the day to the lo-fi chill hop in the background as I write to the punk rock that energizes my workouts, music brings a rhythm to my life. I also appreciate simple culinary pleasures like pumpkin pancakes, St. Louis specialties like toasted ravioli and thin crust pizza, and of course, coffee because, well, … coffee.
The practice of journaling is a positive act and practice which has thousands of years of evidence to validate its benefits. From the meditations of Marcus Aurelius to the reflections of Michel Montaigne and St. Thomas Aquinas to the journals of Henry Thoreau, taking time to write and reflect everyday, or at least regularly, is a valuable contributor to overall mental health and well being. And a good place to start is writing a gratitude journal for the next twenty-one days.
“There are only three things that America will be remembered for 2000 years from now when they study this civilization: The Constitution, Jazz music, and Baseball. These are the 3 most beautiful things this culture ever created.”
Washington University professor and cultural critic Gerald Early delivers that assessment in Ken Burns fabulous baseball documentary, and it seems like a pretty reasonable conclusion. Even in a sport-crazy country where football and basketball seem to garner more attention, fans, and money, baseball remains the hallowed national past time, and this year's incredible World Series is testament to the significance and staying power of our game.
And no sport has produced as much beautiful writing as baseball, the American pastoral game. That sentiment is perfectly summed up in Edward Hersch's recent New York Times guest essay "With Baseball, I don't Even Care Who Wins Anymore." It could easily have been titled "The Sounds of the Game," for there is nothing so resounding in sports as the crack of the bat. And that's particularly significant for Hirsch who is writing from the unique position of no longer being able to watch baseball, as his eyesight is failing.
For the past 10 years I have been gradually losing my sight, not totally, but steadily, irreversibly. These days I can’t see much in the dark, but I can still make out things in the light, especially if they are right in front of me, and a baseball outing to a day game seemed like a good challenge, an overdue pleasure.
So, on a sparkling afternoon last month I took a field trip with my office mates to watch the Mets battle the Padres for a playoff spot. At the stadium in Queens, I was reassured by my first glimpse of the field. There is something timeless about a baseball diamond bathed in sunlight. Sure, there’s a pitch clock now and enlarged bases, but the basic pastoral feeling is the one I had as a kid. When you watch a ballgame, the outside world disappears.
For someone who grew up listening to Cardinals baseball games on KMOX radio, I can truly appreciate having a love of the game simply through the sounds of the game. Each spring, as I walked home from school across campus I would listen for the crack of the bat. I loved that in our community wooden bats are still part of the game. For there is nothing like the sound of the ball hitting that sweet spot. The chatter of baseball is also like birds chirping in springtime.
"Come on, kid." "Hey, there, let's turn two." "Good eye, get your pitch."
Baseball is pure poetry. And honestly, this year's World Series is one for the ages. I didn't watch the incredible 18-inning marathon the other night, but I truly appreciated this description I read online:
That Dodgers win right there is why I love baseball. 18 innings. Ohtani on base, going 9 for 9 at bat. Freddie Freeman the first player in MLB history to hit two walk-off homers in the World Series. Clayton Kershaw coming in as a reliever at 37 years old in extra innings and saving the Dodgers from bases loaded. Will Klein throwing twice as many pitches as he's ever thrown in a single game. That game was layers and layers of history being made.
Baseball is also "poetry in motion," which is the primary focus of Hirsch's commentary. As he can no longer follow the ball clearly, he took notice of the choreographed movements of the players in what is so perfectly called "The Show":
The performance begins with the pitcher. He winds up, cocks the ball, strides forward and whips it to the plate, and the hitter instantly responds — he swings or doesn’t swing; he connects or doesn’t. Say, he slams a hard grounder to the left side of the infield. The third baseman dives to his left and misses, the shortstop goes deep into the hole, stabs the ball, pivots and throws while the runner races up the baseline and the first baseman reaches for the ball. I have seen first basemen who can practically do the splits. The umpire hovers nearby to make the call: an infield hit.
Now the runner dances off first. The right-handed pitcher looks over his shoulder; he turns quickly and tosses to first. Safe. The runner glides off the base again, only this time he takes off when the pitcher throws to the plate. The batter steps forward but doesn’t swing, the catcher gloves the ball and throws all in one motion, the second baseman darts to cover second, the runner slides headfirst into the bag. The fielder tags his hand, and the umpire raises a clenched right fist — it always seems to be his right fist. The runner is out. The third-base coach runs onto the field to protest — it’s almost required — but the call stands. The runner jogs back to the dugout, the infielders toss the pill around and the dance begins again.
You may not have read his first novel Lapham Risingor his stirring memoirMaking Toast. You may not recall any of the pieces he did as a writer and editor for the Washington Post or New Republic. You likely never read or don't remember his incredible Time Magazine cover essay "A Letter to the Year 2086" -- a piece put in the time capsule sealed in the Statue of Liberty at its centennial celebration.
But beyond any specific piece you've read or haven't, you somehow know the work, the writing, the style, the insight, the wisdom, the influence of Roger Rosenblatt. And if you don't believe me, then just give a quick perusal to this simple, tight, charming little column in the New York Times -- "I'd Like to Stay 85 Forever"
Now that I’m deep in my 80s, I’d like to stay here forever, and I’ll certainly try. I enjoy being here. The decade is the October of aging. And October is a lovely month, don’t you think?
I recite lots of poetry, sometimes to Ginny, often to the window. Poetry that has hibernated in my head since my 20s when I used to teach English and American literature at a university. I memorized great swaths of poetry then because it allowed me to talk directly to the students, eye to eye, as if the poetry existed not in a book, but in the air. Right now, if you turned me upside down and shook me (it really isn’t necessary), I could give you several Shakespeare sonnets, a Dylan Thomas villanelle, “The Mind is an Enchanting Thing” by Marianne Moore, the last lines of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” and all of the introductory stanza to Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey.”
In Rosenblatt's writing, we can all find ourselves.
And, while it didn't take him eighty-plus years to figure out the secret of life, we benefit from his wisdom and reflections at that age. Prior to his recent piece about being an octogenarian, Rosenblatt shared his "10 Tips for Being Happily 85 Years Old (Like Me)". And his first bit of advice is basically all you need to know about living in this world:
1. Nobody’s thinking about you. It was true 25 years ago, and it’s true today. Nobody is thinking about you. Nobody ever will. Not your teacher, not your minister, not your colleagues, not your shrink, not a soul. It can be a bummer of a thought. But it’s also liberating. That time you fell on your butt in public? That dumb comment you made at dinner last week? That brilliant book you wrote? No one is thinking about it. Others are thinking about themselves. Just like you.
As an op-ed commentary writer and self-described policy geek, the idea of working for a Washington, DC, think tank always appealed to me. Researching policy, cranking out white papers, immersing myself in the newspapers and media websites looking for insight, ... the "Think Tank" is where the intellectual geeks go to geek out. From Brookings to RAND, the think tank landscape of the nation's capital is an appealing spot for the perpetual graduate student who likes research and debate.
So, I have always kept an eye out for those positions, though I never really pursued that life with any serious intent. My teaching and administrative career with writing gigs mostly as a hobby worked quite well for me, especially during the last couple decades raising a family. However, LinkedIn currently has two postings for assistant editors at a couple of premier DC think tanks, one of the right and the other on the left.
American Progress has an immediate opening for an Assistant Editor to join its Digital Communications team. The Assistant Editor serves primarily as a copyeditor for American Progress, helping assure the quality of publications ranging from research reports to daily columns. Working in a fast-paced, journalistic environment, the Assistant Editor also helps with the daily production of the website. The successful candidate will be driven by American Progress’ mission to improve the lives of all Americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action, with the aim of not only changing the conversation, but changing the country.
Copyedit American Progress’ products, including reports, issue briefs, columns, and other content for both print and web.
Copyedit, post content on, and update AmericanProgress.org and other American Progress websites.
Maintain the house style guide and its grammatical and style standards.
Maintain accuracy and overall quality of publications.
Write headlines, blurbs, and photo captions, and select photos.
Work on the conception and execution of special websites and projects.
Provide operational support to the Digital Communications team, including scheduling meetings; processing and filing forms; managing pipelines; tracking invoices and payments; and providing other administrative support when necessary.
Perform other duties as assigned.
And, secondly on the other side of the aisle at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute is a posting for Editorial Assistant/Associate in the Editing Services Department.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is seeking a full-time, in-person editorial assistant or editorial associate in the Editing Services department.
AEI’s Editing Services department works with scholars, authors, and staff to help communicate their ideas with maximum clarity and impact. The department is responsible for editing and coordinating the production of books, reports, and other research projects. In addition, the department edits shorter materials, including website copy, email newsletters, event materials, scholar biographies, and press releases. The editorial assistant/associate will edit materials of varying lengths, styles, and research areas, ranging from short, informal promotional materials to extensive academic reports.
This position requires exceptional editing and writing skills, including mastery of English grammar, familiarity with the Chicago Manual of Style, excellent attention to detail, and strong organizational and communication skills. It also requires the ability to maintain quality in a fast-paced, high-volume environment. Editing experience in a professional or academic environment is required, and an interest in public policy is strongly preferred.
Now, both of the positions appear to be entry-level as editors rather than writers and researchers. But, of course, that is how you start out. And editing is truly one of the best practices for becoming a better writer.
As a new resident of Fort Collins last August, I was thrilled with my new home in northern Colorado, ... and then a train rolled past my apartment in the wonderfully vibrant Old Town neighborhood, and I felt like my head was going to explode.
In case you are unaware, train horns blast at a rate of 100-110 decibels, which is far beyond any safe level for human ears. In downtown Fort Collins, the railroad crosses a 1.7 stretch with a dozen intersections, and the DOT mandates repeated horn blasts as the train passes numerous residential units. Thus, a train engineer blasts the horn 40-50 times in under two miles. When the horn can be heard for miles, those blasts are absurdly excessive. My own residence was less than forty feet from the tracks -- a situation that is nothing short of clueless and more likely negligent for city leaders and zoning officials. On my second night in Fort Collins, my wife and I were jarred from sleep by 100+decibel train horns at 11:20PM, 12:20AM, and 4:20AM. When we began testing the noise, we had decibel meters that were showing levels at 110 db inside our apartment and nearly 140 db on the balcony outside.
By the time we moved to a new apartment a month later, I had become well-versed in the policies and politics of trains and the federal train horn rule. And the whole thing still mystifies me. Specifically because residential areas can seek relief from the rules, but it's up to the whim of the Federal Railway Administration. And, I have to say, it's rather absurd that the entire city of Chicago has a train horn waiver, but a small town in Colorado can't get one. Additionally, when a city requests a waiver but requires construction mandates to meet requirements, the cost falls on the town. If it's a federal mandate, it should be federally funded.
In 2015 the City of Fort Collins applied to the Department of Transportation for a waiver from the train horn rules to establish a quiet zone in a residential area. The city presented a well-researched and supported proposal, asserting the requirement for train horns was unnecessary. The DOT bluntly and summarily dismissed and rejected the waiver, stating the request and conditions were "not consistent with railroad safety." But what about the safety of the hearing and health of residents forced to endure dangerous decibel levels, with no knowledge of when a train will pass?
While the city of Fort Collins submitted a rebuttal in 2016, there has clearly been no progress or resolution of this issue. Just for perspective on "decibel levels," I've learned that a released 2005 government memo on the CIA interrogation program at Guantanamo Bay established that in detention, the use of "loud sounds" would not exceed 79 decibels. So, as you can imagine, I am quite astounded that the DOT would mandate train horn blasts of 100+ decibels within feet of American citizens' residences.
As a freelance writer, I am always on the look-out for intriguing writing gigs, and the role of op-ed commentary writer is in many ways a dream job -- albeit one I've never actually pursued or practiced full time. Still, a recent posting on LinkedIn for a write job caught my eye:
Vox is seeking a creative, flexible journalist to lead the Today, Explained newsletter, our flagship daily email product.
This job will include both editing and writing: you should see yourself as the host of the newsletter, with the responsibility of helping the audience understand the biggest news stories and conversations affecting our world. This might mean finding an angle to write your own original news analysis, doing a quick Q&A with a Vox journalist, or assigning a short piece to someone else in the newsroom, then editing it for publication. You’ll be responsible for the newsletter as a whole, and for ensuring that it’s consistently engaging with the news and the zeitgeist, and that the reading experience feels creative, fresh, and surprising.
We’re looking for a sharp, nimble editorial thinker — a strong writer and a sharp, creative editor — who can work with us to set a strategy and direction for the newsletter, then carry it out from day to day. Flexibility and creativity with formats is a must. You should be eager to try new approaches to bring clarity and understanding to our audience: curious people outside of the media bubble who want to be informed, not overwhelmed..
In all honesty, this sounds like a great gig, remote freelance writing with benefits. Op-ed commentary is definitely my jam, and it's where I found my voice as a writer. While I struggled for many years mistakenly thinking I was a novelist -- a common aspiration for many high school English teachers -- it was a piece for the Denver Post and a subsequent role as a regular writer in their Colorado Voices program that led me to the writing that had always most appealed to me, the newspaper column.
It waxes and wanes, and there are charmingly simple and formulaic ones, was well as delightfully innovative and complex versions. And Netflix's latest blockbuster series Nobody Wants This is a beautiful synthesis of both those descriptions. Season two of the series featuring the "hot rabbi," played poetically by Adam Brody, and the "sappy shiksah," played by a charming Kristen Bell, returned last night, and the show made a strong case for dismissing the sophomore slump and picking up where the energy left off while also daringly subverting the momentum from the season one finale.
Lili Loofbourow of the Washington Post weighed in on the season premiere with a thoughtful and nuanced look at the show that viewers just can't get enough of:
The rom-com has been overdue for a resurrection. Many have tried. Few have succeeded. There’s something about the format, which whimsically (and paradoxically) elevates one particular love story as both exceptional and representative, that feels anachronistic. Tropes that used to work fall flat in the modern era. Maybe the issue is that we’re so steeped in relationship discourse that patterns have become wearily, rather than charmingly, recognizable.
Still, sometimes you want something frothy. Something that brings back a little of that cosmic love stuff. Enter “Nobody Wants This,” Netflix’s ratings-busting extended rom-com. Now in its second season, the Los Angeles-based comedy stars Adam Brody as Noah, a soulful, open-minded rabbi who falls for Kristen Bell’s Joanne, an agnostic, Instagram-savvy, stylish sex-and-relationships podcaster. No one in Noah’s family — or synagogue — wants them together (hence the name), and much of the series deals with his agonized desire for Joanne to convert to Judaism so they can have a future that doesn’t cost him his calling or his career.
The first season ended with one of those epiphanic, nonsensical endings rom-coms so often deliver, with one character delivering a wholly uncharacteristic speech and suddenly — in what we have been taught to regard as a romantic gesture — waving away everything that was previously important to them. There’s even a chase after leaving a party. The feel-goodery is insubstantial and unpersuasive; it’s a badly executed capitulation to older rom-com conventions.
To its credit, the second season starts by highlighting, italicizing and bolding exactly how unsustainable that resolution was. The first episode, “Dinner Party,” is an obvious wink to the legendary episode of “The Office.” And while it’s not quite as disastrous (or funny), it’s close: Noah and Joanne discover that they interpreted the terms of their reconciliation in the finale quite differently. The misunderstanding isn’t an especially logical one, but it does reflect how people tend to hear what they want to — and perhaps forget exactly what they said in the heat of the moment.
Is High Point University the new "It School" for the offspring of the nation's wealthy elite? According to a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, the small North Carolina liberal arts school is where "half of Wall Street sends their kids." And just check out this lead:
On a typical weeknight, students at High Point University might sit down to filet mignon at “1924 PRIME,” the on-campus steakhouse. This isn’t a mere perk. Servers are told to coach the young diners on body language, professional attire, which fork to use and when to salt their food.
It is one of the striking amenities at High Point, which prides itself on preparing students for the rigors of a career—and has also become a favorite of affluent families. “Half of Wall Street sends their kids to this school,” President Nido Qubein says in an interview.
Now, we all know college life is not what it used to be ... at least for those of us Gen X or older. In the past couple decades as university enrollment (and costs) have soared, colleges have amped up amenities in all sorts of ways, from condo-style dorms to high quality, even posh, fitness facilities, and dining halls that more closely resemble the ever-popular food hall culture in America. And, I won't deign to criticize these changes as a waste of time or money. ... or take the pedantic angle that "they're supposed to be there for an education."
But, what has happened at High Point in the past twenty years is a truly fascinating story. The college was facing declining enrollment and fading significance, and the new president Nido Qubein made a conscious decision to rebrand the campus and aim for the small number of wealthy families who could pay full price tuition. Clearly, his gambit paid off.
The Princeton Review has ranked it the best-run college and the campus has garnered praise for being the most beautiful campus with the best dorms in the country. As the Wall Street Journal article explains,
Dozens of carefully manicured gardens adorn the lush grounds. Students are almost always within earshot of a fountain; Qubein says the water has an energizing effect. Classical music plays around campus, and there are six outdoor heated swimming pools, each accompanied by a hot tub. “Most high-paying jobs and everything are in nice environments,” says freshman Alexander Kirchner. “Just being used to it, walking around in it, helps the psyche a little bit.”
Granted, there are caveats to choosing this apparent oasis, not the least of which is location. Access to an engaging area off-campus is highly appealing to many students, so the thought of attending school in mostly rural North Carolina (High Point is located southwest of Greensboro) might be a turn off. That said, I went to school at the University of Illinois, which is a thriving area with a twin cities of Champaign and Urbana just a couple hours south of Chicago. But it is basically surrounded by two hundred miles of corn and soybean fields in every direction.
My own kids attend school in Washington, DC and New York City, so I know the appeal of a more connected campus. But outside of that issue, and the fact that High Point-U is not exactly a national or international name brand in terms of diploma recognition, the little school in Carolina is starting to build a name for itself.
A sitcom featuring a young, female Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering who becomes the lead guitarist for an all women fem-core Muslim punk band in London -- that is the pitch, and I absolutely loved it from the opening three-chord downstroke.
We Are Lady Parts (wow, what a title), a British TV show from creator Nida Manzoor, is an incredibly unique and innovative piece of television with clever writing, smart social commentary, witty quips, tight filming, and some truly kick-ass music. Having finished up its second season, and only available for streaming on Peacock, Lady Parts was so intriguing to me, I was willing to sign up for the channel just to check it out.
Amina Hussain. 26. Capricorn. Finishing a PhD in microbiology. Prone to excessive sweating, secret American folk-guitar-playing in her wardrobe, and husband-finding. Desperately seeking a nice Muslim boy with eyebrows you can hang on to. No, strike that! What she wants is to join an all-female, Muslim, post-punk band called Lady Parts. Truly, this is the British-Asian comedy series you’ve been waiting for your whole representation-starved life. And yes, I am addressing my own young self here.
We Are Lady Parts is a rowdy, spoofy, extremely silly and surprisingly sweet Channel 4 sitcom written, directed and produced by Nida Manzoor (Doctor Who, Enterprice). Her first series deserves to secure her reputation as a rising star. To put it as bluntly as one of Lady Parts’ songs (such as Nobody’s Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me), we have not seen anything like this on mainstream British TV: a comedy in which Muslim women are permitted to be funny, sexual, ridiculous, religious, angry, conflicted. Themselves, basically.
When I sat down to watch the first season a little over two years ago, I was expecting to be amused, perhaps charmed. And there is certainly a whole lot of subversive humor in the series, which was created by the British Pakistani writer-director Nida Manzoor. Two of the first songs we hear Lady Parts perform are “Ain’t No One Gonna Honour Kill My Sister but Me” and “Voldemort Under My Headscarf”; a rival Muslim punk band introduced in Season 2 is called Second Wife. But We Are Lady Parts is so much more than a collection of jokes about the absurdities that young Muslim women often encounter. By turns raucous and earnest, the series is unlike anything else on TV right now—in part because it doesn’t consider representation to be a worthy end goal of its own. Instead, the show allows its characters to riff on their identities in ways that reflect how young people actually talk to one another, without becoming didactic or self-serious.
It never really happens like it does in the movies ... until it does.
The daring robbery at The Louvre in Paris on Sunday seemed like a plot taken straight from an action film. In just under seven minutes, thieves parked a truck with a cherry picker bucket lift outside the museum, using a construction site as cover, raised themselves up to a window, which they quickly broke through, and in a coldly professional manner lifted priceless jewels including nine pieces from France's legendary Crown Jewels. And it took place in daylight hours, just moments after one of the world's most famous museums opened, an incredibly popular tourist destination already filling with visitors.
The thieves allegedly fled on mopeds through the busy streets of Paris, if that's not a poetic and cinematic ending. I mean seriously. Can't you see it? You've seen it countless times before.
In classic pop culture fashion, it didn't take long for writers to begin listing favorite heist films, like this piece from the New York Times: "Watch These Six Heist Movies". And that got me thinking about some of my personal favorites. Of course the Oceans Trilogyimmediately springs to mind, and I have always been a fan of the updated Thomas Crowne Affairwith Pierce Brosnan and Renee Russo. In fact, the TCA remake of the original Steve McQueen-Faye Dunaway film was so good that studios are remaking the film again, this time starring Michael B Jordan.
When I think about what we find so appealing with the heist movie, I think about the thrill of a roller coaster and the classic line from Bender in The Breakfast Club: "Being bad feels kind of good." And, of course, there must be an element of the anti-hero - a character who is outside of standard conventions but has some redeemable qualities with which the audience empathizes. It's a cool conceit -- we want the bad guy to get away with it.
No, seriously. Have you heard the news? Longtime podcaster, comedian, and all around interesting dude Marc Maron has wrapped up his well-known and widely respected podcast "WTF with Marc Maron."
The New York Times recently sat down with Maron to discuss the decision to end the influential podcast that has informed and enlightened, engaged and entertained, amused and even annoyed, millions of Americans for the past sixteen years.
On a drive to lunch one sunny recent afternoon in Glendale, Calif., the comedian and actor Marc Maron was contemplating the term “burnout,” trying it on and inspecting it from different angles, like a new pair of pants he wasn’t sure were to his taste.
Maron had used the word a few times in a June episode of his podcast, “WTF With Marc Maron,” in which he announced that he and his founding producer, Brendan McDonald, would be ending the influential show after 16 years. Many responses to the news had echoed the term (including Howard Stern’s “I was burned out in 1996”) and now Maron seemed to worry that he’d sounded weak, or self-aggrandizing.
“The fact is, we’ve been doing this a long time,” he said, turning the wheel of his tan Toyota Avalon, a graveyard of empty seltzer cans, coffee cups, and Zyn packets. “And now we kind of want to live our lives. That may be burnout, or it may just be the natural course of things.”
This cycle of conjecture and revision — Maron grasping for, and occasionally reaching, some kind of emotional truth — was the essence of “WTF.” Over more than 1,600 episodes, he engaged in raw and personal dialogues with a staggering array of comedians, artists and public figures. Among them were Robin Williams, Lorne Michaels, Louis C.K. and Barack Obama, who became the first sitting president to appear on a podcast when he was a guest in 2015.
I have to be honest about this post -- I've never listened to Marc Maron's podcast. In fact, I've never really listened to any podcasts. For someone who loves talking and engaging in discussions and debates, I am surprisingly uninterested in podcasts. That said, if I were to listen to one, Marc Maron's likely would have been a top choice. Maron seems like the kind of guy that I would generally agree with and even when I didn't would respect his criticisms and counterarguments. And I have enjoyed Maron's stand-up, which I see more as spoken word monologues.
I guess what's also interesting is that numerous people over the years have suggested or observed that I should have a podcast. As an English teacher who basically organized his instruction around Henry James' description of being "a person on whom nothing is lost," my Socratic approach the English classroom certainly would lend itself to the podcast model. Of course, many students and colleagues might also observe that my class was not so Socratic as it was "listen to Mazenko and then respond." And I have several text threads with various friend groups whose banter certainly reads like many podcasts.
That said, there's a part of me that considers the whole podcast idea a bit of a mindless time wasting. I know I feel that way about the talking heads on television news, an issue I wrote about for The Villagera couple years ago. Seriously, do we really learn anything from listening to a few other people just ramble around in casual conversation. Or, is it all just "infotainment"? Listening to loose conversation is certainly not enlightening in the way a lecture or presentation or even a TED Talk can be. The Lyceum Movement in American history -- a key venue for the lectures of Henry Thoreau -- was arguably an enlightening and educational experience for its audience.
So, I don't know. I don't think adding podcasts to my daily life is ever in the cards. But I won't discount the impact of Maron's podcast run, and I don't doubt it's leaving a bit of a hole in American culture.
Well, in an era -- perhaps the tail end of one -- where Marvel Comics dominated everything, DC Comics was sort of an afterthought in terms of big blockbusters, and the Man of Steel had become probably the least cool of the superhero genre, it seems like a reboot and makeover is just what Superman and movie audiences needed.
I'll be honest, I did not see the latest rendition of Superman that hit movie theaters this summer, and I didn't really have any interest in it. But, then I ran across this cool piece of commentary on NPR from Ann Powers - "Why the World Needs a Pop-Punk Superman" - and I am definitely intrigued. The film is now on my to-watch list. And the inclusion of the Teddybear's song "Punk Rocker (ft Iggy Pop)" on the soundtrack as the closing credits song is an added bonus.
Like so many hope-seeking people sweating out this summer, I plunked down my dollars last week to see director James Gunn's Superman. I showed up for the superpup Krypto, but found the old-fashioned Earth-saving shebang to be a balm — a sweet shot of moral clarity at a time when that can seem to be in short supply. And I joined the chorus of surprised chuckles when the scene destined to go viral arrived. In it, reporter Lois Lane and her metahuman lover are sharing a moment of vulnerability that turns into a low-stakes but highly revelatory argument. Wondering what he sees in her, she calls herself "just some punk rock kid from Bakerline," to which he indignantly responds, "I'm punk rock!" Then they're off, thrown into one of rock and roll's classic showdowns, between a "real" punk who found her tribe in the underground and a former clueless kid who probably bought his first Ramones t-shirt and Green Day CD at Target. It's a great early-in-the-relationship values check, as two people still feeling each other out voice their anxieties in the form of a tussle over definitions.
And Powers at NPR is not the only one weighing in with some interesting thoughts about the pop-punk angle of the new Superman. Author, music critic, academic, and lifelong punk Gina Arnold also noted the merging of what would seem to be arguably disparate and contradictory traditions with the inclusion of punk references in one of the nation's oldest superhero comics - the archetypal hero of "truth, justice, and the American Way." In her substack post "Man & Superman: 'Superman' and the Politics of Punk," Arnold explores the inspiration and effect of James Gunn infusing the Superman story with the punk ethos.
I don’t feel qualified to write about movies, especially “Superman,” but I do feel qualified to muse at length about the brief but apparently important reference to punk rock that is threaded throughout “Superman,” because I am the (co) editor of the Oxford Handbook of Punk! If the movie had confined itself to the brief exchange between Lois and Clark/Superman, where she says she’s a punk rocker and he says he likes punk rock too, and then she mocks the bands he names that he likes, saying, “that’s not punk, that’s corporate pop sell out stuff!” (or something like that), then I might just have passed on by. The exchange seems to be shorthand for character-building: Lois is supposed to be edgy, and Clark is supposed to be square. And maybe that is the purpose of the exchange, although if so, I still think it’s kind of interesting that the term ‘punk’ has taken on that shading. But later the theme continues when Clark announces to a skeptical Lois that exuding kindness is being punk rock.
I feel like that’s a lot of air-time for the idea of punk, at least in a movie that has nothing to do with punk, and who’s original texts predate the genre by many years. My friend Marie, who is associated with DC Comics, tells me that the director James Gunn used to be in a punk band, which may explain his interest in inserting this concept here, and I appreciate that impulse. I have all these great ideas (and scripts) for movies about those days, and I know, and James Gunn knows, there’s no actual market for them. Punk has to be inserted like a virus into other texts for it to have resonance.
But what is being punk, or rather, what does it mean NOW, as opposed to then? People have always accused punks of being phony in some way, because of the way they dress - and the subsequent revelation that it is actually more “punk” to not be punk is another oft-bandied about interpretation of the genre. In some ways Superman’s defensive words are just a gloss on that, but it also touches on what I have always thought was a major a part of punk philosophy: in the world of punk, all the outsiders (and let’s face it, being an alien from outer space makes Clark Kent the ultimate outsider) are now on the inside, and here on the inside, love will prevail.
