Jennifer Chang, "Ceremony"
Ceremonies ask you to commit.
Hi all --
A Daily Show segment recently revealed the strengths and weaknesses of liberal satire in this current moment. Jon Stewart asked how the economy is going and noted that Trump is not suffering in it. A montage of news headlines followed, showing the vast amount of gifts and bribes POTUS received. I can't replicate it exactly, but it focused on how immediate and sickening the corruption is. Melania Trump's $40 million payday for a documentary about her; Trump using the Presidency to sell his cryptocurrency; Musk paying POTUS $10 million directly; ABC giving Trump $15 million; the ridiculous $239 million companies and other interested parties contributed to his inauguration. I felt the rapid fire presentation of Trump unethically and illegally profiting was a must-see. While Democrats sort of talk about Trump's corruption, they don't quite hammer how much he's taking while the rest of us drown.
That part of the segment was the perfect blend of satire and outrage. Stewart indulged a sarcastic tone screaming "maybe this economy is working for Trump, but no one else." And then what happened next needed far more outrage and no satire whatsoever. The segment shifted to mass deportation and took Trump's claim that we are flooded with criminals seriously. Obviously, this is a mistake: the claim is being used to advance ethnic cleansing. But it is a mistake made in the name of satire. Can't we make fun of the fact someone doesn't follow through on their words? Maybe in other contexts, but not with regard to forcibly expelling U.S. citizen children with cancer. Atrocities cannot be satirized in the way you might typically use to call out a politician for lying.
I was wondering how to introduce you to a meditation by Tressie McMillan Cottom on conservative outrage dominating liberal snark. (From there, I got the distinction between satire and outrage and who is partial to what.) I had read it a little while ago after Cottom said liberal infotainment was increasingly "flaccid," but didn't know what to do with it at the time. The Daily Show segment, however, has made that much clear. Liberals often fashion themselves "smart alecks," thinking they know better. This can lead to some incredibly intelligent, hard-hitting media. I do believe that a montage of Trump's corruption should be viewed by all Americans. It is also leading to a communication problem when simple moral outrage is needed. If hurting children isn't wrong, nothing is wrong. We don't need satire as much as condemnation. The administration deserves no respect, and satire is ironically giving them a strange legitimacy, as if a day could come when their words match their actions and we would all benefit. As if justice wasn't imperative.
If you're helping with Marfa Public Radio, let me know
As I said in a previous newsletter, I'm giving to Marfa Public Radio each month. If you're helping out, do let me know! I'd like to form a group and get us to back various causes. There's so much need and I think we can start addressing it a bit at a time.
Need an explainer for those who don't know anything about ICE? Kat Abughazaleh's is fantastic
Yeah, it's partisan. Ms. Abughazaleh is running for Congress. It's also a great short explainer which sticks to the facts. We've got people in our lives who really can't put together what's happening right now. This will definitely help – I wish I could communicate a tenth as effectively.
Jennifer Chang, "Ceremony"
Jennifer Chang's "Ceremony" begins with a quiet act of violence. Or a delicate, gentle severing. I don't know: "I'm not sure which / cloud cut open / the hill." Is this the cutting of a wedding cake? The hill, in parts, accommodated by patches of white? Or is something more sinister happening? Are we to imagine clouds assaulting this hill, robbing it of form, not allowing anyone to see? Is someone lost in those clouds?
Ceremonies ask you to commit. I realized that recently when I gave each member of the English honor society a certificate of achievement with a distinct compliment. I wanted everyone to have something they could put on a resume; I didn't think anything binding resulted. But upon reflection, nothing is unconditional. If you want the compliment to mean something, you can't disown what you were a part of. You can't pretend people failed to see you. You must own the time you spent with those who speak about you. This sounds obvious, but think about how many people treat social situations like a video game. How some believe fleeting interactions increase a meter in some imaginary scheme allowing them to level up. (How, for decades, romance has worked.)
The commitment of Jennifer Chang's "Ceremony" is to a walk. A walk that is not particularly easy; a climb up a hill which will not touch the sky. For this reader, it recalls the wanderer figure of Japanese haiku or German literature. Someone who traverses the countryside, trying to distance themselves from what is familiar in order to explore the true nature of things. With insight into nature, the hope is one can find oneself.
But what exactly is the ceremony of this poem? Can a ceremony help us reconcile violence and parting, climbing and being lost? At stake is how we understand love and loss. It isn't clear we can have love if the possibility of loss isn't real.
Ceremony (from poetrysociety.org) Jennifer Chang I can't say which cloud cut open the hill. Or why, walking, I can't reach the sky. Virginia is not east. The hill gives no slack, no shade, so I rise to light. I am quiet and won't squander words to make what's false true. I had a love. A blue kite untwisting the sky.
A "cut open" hill, with all its ambiguities, becomes another problem. "I can't say.... / why, / walking, I can't / reach the sky." Confusion abounds. What exactly is in our field of vision? Where are we going? Why can't we reach a goal? If I touch a cloud, I haven't touched the sky? "Virginia / is not east:" Where am I?
Disorientation is the word I'm looking for. A severing from a guide. We can distinguish between violence and separation but some gentle separations have a hidden, silent violence. There's a bit of that here. I remember the times I had no idea what I was doing but tried to work extremely hard for... something. That's a small, toothless example, but if we're speaking of a lost love, there's a parallel but far more intense set of sensations. A pounding numbness, a desire for an end, a going so as to not collapse into grief. You don't know, you just want to try, you're not even sure you can do that.
"The hill / gives no slack, no / shade, so I rise / to light." For a moment, an achievement. Something has been conquered. Strength has prevailed. No, none of that is true. "I am quiet / and won't / squander words / to make what's / false true." There has been loss and a hill has been climbed. These are two separate phenomena concerning the same person. Trying to say something has been achieved is a lie. The reason loss stings is that you can't perfectly reconcile it to love. You've got feelings not unlike those cutting clouds, the ones blocking your vision. You don't know what those feelings are. Why sadness can collapse into grief, why one pronounced goal gets replaced with a whim.
The walk is a ceremony of remembrance. A commitment to one's own memory, no matter how many wounds it holds. "I had / a love." It's tough to admit how necessary this was, whether you admire the person you loved or whether you want nothing to do with them. The strength to make the walk is not the strength to accept what's at stake. "A blue / kite untwisting / the sky:" I think about people who loved me briefly and left my life. They don't feel like guides, though they were for a few moments. A line, like a kite, that allowed the sky to resolve into a plane of existence. In the face of those we deeply loved and who deeply loved us, all that remains is to repeat the ceremony.