RUMINATE Blog

Dangerous Margins

A relatively new show on cable called Portlandia is a sketch comedy series on the Independent Film Channel about “life in hipster enclaves and the self-consciousness that make hipsters desperately disavow the label” (Margaret Talbot, “Stumptown Girl,” The New Yorker, 2/2/2012).

Dancing Near the Edges of Apostasy?

In one of my recent Google searches I came across an object relevant to my research on ritualized habitual consumption. My first reaction was gratitude, and maybe a giggle or two. But then I noticed with disappointment the site on which I found the object: The Museum of Idolatry, Artifacts of Apostasy.

Now, I must give props where props are due;

The Mother, the Poem, and Sentiment(ality)

I was sitting in a crowd of poets at a summer writing conference. In front of us sat a panel of editors discussing the submission process from the editor’s view. The most singular comment of that afternoon came from an editor of a prestigious review. He told the crowd of writers

Naming

I’ve made a tremendous mistake.

I wrote a poem. This, certainly, was not the mistake.

I published the poem. Also not the mistake.

Within this poem, I told a (“based on a true story”) story and aimed, however feebly, at an aching truth, which was not altogether reliant on the facts of the original story

Saboteur by Lifeboat Etiquette

These stories…they are everywhere. Around us in analog. Drowned out by too many channels of static and sound. Images and moving pictures. Digitized.

Lifeboat Etiquette (Ryan Hollen) is the checkout man at your local grocer. These stories–they are in front of him everyday. They are in the eyes of the folk buying the eggs.