The Daily Show and John Hodgman's Recommdendations for Stopping Pedophilia in the Catholic Church

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-14-2010/you-re-welcome---church-scandal-prevention

The Daily Show and John Hodgman's Recommdendations for Stopping Pedophilia in the Catholic Church

Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook

I learned about The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing when I was nineteen after I read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying.  Jong is my favorite writer and poet, and her work and life have inspired me throughout the past nineteen years.  I aspire to be like her in my writing and life -- fearless!

So why did it take me this long to read The Golden Notebook?  I have started to read it all the way through and am blown away by Lessing's prose and the story's complexity.  However, I did pick it up months after I finished Fear of Flying but put it down.  I have picked it up at various times but for one reason or another I did not finish it.

But now I am reading it voraciously.  Why did it take me so long?  Perhaps I wasn't ready for Lessing's masterpiece at nineteen or in my early twenties, mid-twenties, or early thirties.  Perhaps I needed maturity and time to grow as a writer and a person.  Jong's life is different than mine as well as her childhood, adolescence, and college experience.  We come from different experiences.  I can't be too hard on myself.  Or should I be?  I have read and  heard interviews from people who say that sometimes they were not ready for a book at a certain age or periods in their lives.  Has anyone else ever had this experience or read The Golden Notebook?

Literacy Begins at Home and During Childhood

I never thought I would follow a web site by Gwenyth Paltrow (though I do respect her as an actress), but a friend of mine encouraged me to check out Goop.com .  I did and was impressed.  Now I receive updates from  her postings.  Today's was about reading to children.

While in my neighborhood I do see children playing in the park across from my condo, it seems most children these days do not play and prefer staying inside to watch television, play video games, and sit at the computer.  Bad enough they are not getting exercise, but they are not reading, which is a bigger tragedy.

Having taught college-level freshman composition for the past eleven years, I am sad to say that it is a minority of my students who are bookworms.  Yet in my Anne Sexton seminar this past winter quarter, I felt I was in paradise because the majority of my students were readers, writers, and/or English majors.  Instilling a love of reading is the greatest gift a parent can bestow on a child.  Even if a child does not become involved in the literary arts, reading has such power in our lives.  It stretches our critical-thinking skills as well as our imaginations and knowledge.

My fondest memories are of my grandmother reading to me and my father and godmother offering me books during my birthdays, holidays, and sometimes just because.  Even in childhood my room was filled with books.

Bill and I want our babe's room and childhood filled with books and music.  Our baby registries feature books and CDs.  We also know that babies and young children are ripe for learning a foreign language.  The first one I plan to share with the babe after she arrives in August is Italian.  I am by no means fluent, but it will expose her to a language outside of English and help her when she is exposed to other foreign languages later on.  Neurons are making connections in infancy and early childhood, these connections need constant stimulation.

Parents and society needs to encourage literacy before kindergarten and keep encouraging it throughout childhood and the teen years.  The foundation is invaluable.  But even I can admit that while I love to read, my spelling in English still remains terrible.

The Daily Show on the Catholic Church's Failure with Pedophilia Cases

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-april-7-2010/pope-opera

Sinead O'Connor on Child Abuse and on the Catholic Church Pedophilia Scandal

The woman can sing and is a genius.  She was given hell in the Nineties for calling the Catholic Church out on how she did and did not handle pedophila cases even though it seemed no one fully understood why she spoke out against the Church and later ripped up a picture of the pope.

A victim of child abuse herself, O'Connor is now a  Cathlolic priest herself in a schismatic offshoot the the traditional Church. 

Rereading Beloved

At Harold Washington Library a few weeks ago and looking for a new book to read.  The one I wanted was checked out.  As I headed to the desk to request for it to be transfered to my branch library once it arrived, I passed the fiction section housing Toni Morrison's novel Beloved caught my eye again.  I had read it twice before, but like baby ghost, it haunted me.  I checked it out while I waited for my latest book to arrive.

Each time I read Beloved, Morrison's prose style and narrative structure awes me.  The first novel of hers I read was The Bluest Eye, and the main term my classmates and I used to describe her writing was "poetic."  Beloved takes the poetry in her prose a step further.

Beloved is not a linear novel, and when one reads it, one has to carefully read it to keep track of all the shifts in time, yet Morrison does this so fluidly none of it is jarring.  Her dialogue and description are memorable:  thin love is not worth the same as thick love; the baby ghost hurling HereBoy with such force across 124 to the point where Sethe has to push his eye back into his head.  Good writing is loaded not just with good storytelling but solid and vivid imagery and insight.

Though I am of Western European descent and can never fully understand the African American experience, Morrison is such a remarkable writer that I feel Sethe's, Denver's, Paul D's, Baby Suggs, and Beloved's pain and want; I cry each time.  For a mother to choose killing her children over returning them to life of slavery is a choice not many want to understand but it is one ripe with truth.

A Question of Balance: Artists and Writers on Motherhood

Sorry I have not posted in a while.  Of course life is hectic right now, and I know it will become even more hectic after "la bimba" arrives in August.  Luckily, a number of years ago I learned of a book that I gave to my friend Eileen Favorite after she had her first baby.

A Question of Balanace:  Artists and Writers on Motherhood compiles interviews and features of various women artists and writers, such as Rita Dove, Mary Gordon, Sarah Charlesworth, Linda Vallejo, Rosellen Brown (one of my former SAIC advisors), and Dorothy Allison. 

In each feature, the artists, literary and visual, recount their creative life before having a baby and afterward.  Though they all talked about sleep deprivation and the demands of raising a child or children, they also encouraged female artists to have a baby if that is what they want.  Many of them remarked how having a baby pushed their art forward.  The key is balance and respecting your time for creation as well as your child's time for healthy development.  Bill and I have talked of teaching our daughter that when Mama is writing she is not to be disturbed unless it is an emergency.  We hope this will teach her to respect her own time for work as well.

This book is a must-read for any artist who had children or is thinking of having children.  The book was written by Judith Pierce Rosenberg.  While it is out of print, copies can be purchased through used book stores.

Erica Jong Wants to Post My Essays on Her Web Site!

I just received an e-mail from Erica Jong's assistant.  She wanted my permission to post the essays I wrote about Fear of Flying and Fanny from Facts on File's Companion to the American Novel to her web site (ericajong.com).

I have been a fan and admirer of Erica's work since I was nineteen.  This is beyond anything I ever imagined!  I am honored and humbled.  And ready to cry out of joy.

Updated my web page.

Started updating my web page: essays from Facts on File and Time magazine articles now available for your reading pleasure. Go to lauradurnell.com to read my work. More to come.