Word Blur

Voices from the Farm

As communes go, The Farm is interesting. It’s interesting because it’s still around; interesting because of the incredible influence it’s had in fields such as midwifery, agriculture, and philanthropy; interesting because of some of its more controversial aspects—the quasi-religion espoused by erstwhile leader Stephen Gaskin, the standing offer for women considering abortion to have (and leave) babies at the Farm, and the decision to move from commune to collective in the 1980’s (members no longer take a vow of poverty and live off of shared assets; they earn they own way, own their own stuff, and pay monthly dues), which resulted in a significant dwindling of member numbers. Voices from the Farm is very much a product of the Farm, but the voices really are plural. Thoughtful questions are posed—about what it was like to raise the children that were left behind by ‘sanctuary’ cases and about whether or not the social work being done by members caring for the runaways, drug addicts, and individuals struggling with mental illness who showed up at the Farm’s gate detracted from the commune’s real mission. And there are incredible stories, from Farm members working with earthquake victims in Guatemala to the satellite group who operated an ambulance service in the South Bronx. It’s impossible to read this book and not feel like The Farm, through both its successes and its failures, has learned something most of us at the beginning of the 21st century need to know. Thanks to Robert Dean Arnold for the tip!

The Welcome Table

I’ll be the first to admit it; I’m flailing around with this middle-aged stuff (I’m 39). There's not much new in that.  I’ve been flailing around for so long that it should feel like second nature, but the constant state of uncertainty is beginning to wear thin; its frenetic charms seems less and less honorable. I’ve lost the tenuous swagger and confidence of my youth, but the ambition lingers, a little like gasoline fumes (not that I can afford to buy gasoline!).

So here I am trying to learn how to write fiction, trying to make performance work that splits your heart in two and puts it back together again, trying to figure out how to raise two girls in a way that will save them from eating disorders and self-loathing, trying to move from assistant library professor to associate library professor, trying to feed my family real food grown and raised by real people on a very real budget, trying to keep my possibly splurging disc (I’m talking about you, L5-S1) from re-impinging on nerve endings so that I can remain upright, and I have to tell you, I’m not having fun, I’m not having much luck cheering myself on to leap these inconsequential hurdles in these splintered races towards distant finish lines, when any progress I make can only be measured with the smaller increments of the metric system.

And I realize, most of the time, what a great life I have, and that I probably sound like a whiner or an ingrate, and I’m sorry, but, you know, if the brain worked like that so many, many things would be different (e.g. David Foster Wallace would probably be alive).

Perhaps you’ve had days like this, where the bigness of everything you are trying to accomplish gets laid out against the reality of whatever it is you’ve actually accomplished and it makes your stomach hurt. I think I have the reading material for you.

Spend a few hours with Margaret Hollenbach’s Lost and Found: My Life in a Group Marriage Commune and your perspective will be restored. You’ll be so glad you didn’t join a commune in New Mexico that called itself The Family. You’ll be so relieved you weren’t forced to call your fellow communards Lord and Lady, or Mistress and Sir, depending on their length of stay. You’ll be ready to jump for joy that you weren’t expected to sleep with the barely charismatic, clearly messianic ‘Lord Byron’ more or less on command. You’ll be downright enthusiastic that the people you live with don’t have the authority to call a group gestalt session to critique and process your behavior at any time, day or night. You’ll be grateful that you aren’t constantly expected to bow to plans that are clearly misogynistic.  You'll be over the moon when no one greets you with the observation that it would be nice to get you pregnant. In short, you’ll feel a lot better.

 If I sound exceptionally hard on this particular iteration of family, who were probably just trying to find a way to make a better life, just as we all are, I’m taking my tone in part from Hollenbach, whose story fails to conform to the standard arc of communard memoir. She never seems to have experienced the elation and devotion that fueled the golden years of so many commune dwellers; she describes a deep and constant uneasiness with the events and practices she witnessed. It’s fascinating stuff and it’s interesting to note that she, like Laffan, was trained as an anthropologist and wrote a thesis (or dissertation?) about her experience with The Family, but because I’ve become so well versed on the aforementioned narrative, it feels as if the heart of the work is missing. I’m a sucker for dew-eyed optimism and it’s a little harder to swallow the story of someone who willingly admits she was just lost.  Because therefore before the grace of...

Rains, pours

As an inveterate gossip whore and lover of all things medieval, I went all gooey when I saw Transforming Talk: The Problem with Gossip in Late Medieval England, a mash-up (okay, actually it's historical scholarship) of a book that looks at the way “gossip functions primarily as transformative discourse.” In a week that has seen Lindsay Lohan’s latest derailment, Mischa Barton’s fainting spell, and Nicole Richie’s birthday invite fiasco, it’s nice to feel that historical precedents suggest our collective analysis of these events might do some good toward “influencing…literary and religious discourse.”

Findings

I recommend, for the hard-core crafters and intellectuals, the beautifully designed book that was on the new arrivals shelves at work (already checked out!): Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing.  It documents sewing implements found at archeological sites and it's full of beautiful, glossary-style picturs of old scissors.

Here's a quote:
"In Findings, Beaudry offers for the first time a scholarly, theoretically enriched and historically situated guide to the needlework and sewing tools of the British isles and North America. She employs these ‘small finds’ to write 'large histories.'"—Lu Ann De Cunzo, Professor of Anthropology and Early American Culture, University of Delaware

My Expertise (Libraries, lazing)

What I've actually been reading is College Students' Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources -- and I'm aware enough, proud even, of the depths of my dorkitude that I don't mind telling you it's surprisingly good stuff, but something tells me that's not quite what the three people reading this are looking for.  I was so tired last night that I was seeing little movies (squat reindeers and big trippy globs of snow) on the back of my eyelids when I lay down to help my two-year old go to bed, but somehow I only managed to get about four hours of sleep all night.  So you'll have to forgive me if today's recommendation lacks a certain vigor.  Anyway, now that I'm back at work more or less full-time, Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America looks appealing.  From the Boldtype review:

"If the American Dream is to do what we want, when we want, how we want, it is also, should we choose, to reject even that. And do nothing at all."

Stiff Upper Lip

Now that I'm (temporarily, I swear!) reduced to living with my mother, whilst deep on the other side of my mid-thirties, I find myself drawn to books of the It Could Be Worse variety.  Serious drive-by stuff, because it's hard to wallow when you're comparing your own problems to, oh, say, the outbreak of cholera in nineteenth century London.  After reading and enjoying Steven Johnson's Everything Bad is Good for You, I'm seriously looking forward to The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World, Johnson's already best-selling book, tracing both the origin of cholera in 1854 and the work of the doctor who evolved our understanding of the spread and treatment of disease.  Johnson could write about nearly anything and keep me interested, because he views his subjects through the fascinating theory and science of complex systems.  Mind you, what I'm actually reading is Henry Green, but just thinking about cholera makes me feel better.

Oleo

My husband is reading The Story of Margarine, a book published by the Margarine Association of America (OK, I made that up, but something like that) in the 1970’s.  He decided to switch his thesis topic (he’s getting a second master’s in history) to Senator George Aiken’s role in oleo margarine legislation.  It turns out that this really is a lot more interesting than it sounds – a lot of people were against margarine in ways that echo contemporary concerns about local food sources and farm sustainability.  Still, bottom line: I’m married to the man who is destined to become Vermont’s foremost margarine scholar.

Island of Lost Maps

I love the story in this book -- of one of the most prolific map thieves ever to grace the reading rooms of special collections libraries interwoven with the history of cartography -- but in the end the prose was too purple and the meatphors too wrenched over needless expanse.  I'm sorry to have to say it, but there it is.  Still, another book down and only about 10 other half-read books to go.  I'm a finisher.