Smith mag's new Next Door Neighbor comic-essay

Back in the 90s, Josh and I collaborated on a few comics pieces, including the famous (or rather, infamous) “Gynecology on the Go”—an extended “travel tip” for ladies backpacking in the tropics—and the duet “Cave of Fear,” which I provided the journal entries for. Josh and I have teamed up again for the new Next Door Neighbor story. Next Door Neighbor, edited by Dean Haspiel, is the ongoing feature on Smith mag that features a rotating comics-essays, about, well, our next door neighbors, those we’d like to remember—and those we’d like to forget. Our story features a next door neighbor I had growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. A beekeeper, in fact. Josh took a break from A.D. to render it. I think he did a fine job. It’s been my first time working in the comics form in awhile and it was interesting to think visually again. I’m pleased that the initial reviews have been positive. Take a look and let us know what you think.

I can only hope “The Beekeeper” has as long a life as “Gynecolgy on the Go,” which may still be doing the middle school health class circuit.

The Comics Revolution in the Classroom

I have a piece in the summer issue of Teachers and Writers on using comics in the classroom as a reading source and the, ahem, challenges of getting comics into textbooks. (One of my pet projects while I was at Holt.) T & W magazine is put out by the Teachers and Writers Collaborative.

This issue of T & W is devoted entirely to comics and education. It contains an article by Michael Bitz, founder of the groundbreaking Comic Book Project; an interview with Françoise Mouly about Toon Books; a very cool five-page comic by Youme Landowne; a piece on poetry comics by Dave "Mr. Alphabet" Morice; an interview with Ben Katchor; and my piece "The Comics Revolution in the Language Arts Classroom: An Editor's Perspective." The article is an inside--and humorous--look at how comics are infiltrating the educational publishing industry. The wonderful cover is by Josh Neufeld (yes, the one who is related to me). At the back of the issue, is an excellent resource list for parents and teachers interested in using comics as education tools.

This special issue of Teachers & Writers magazine is available at the T&W website for $5.

the mother wars

In the firmament, the mother wars are raging. Not the old son-father thing, or lovers spatting on Mount Olympus, that sound is of mothers waring.

A friend turned me on to the piece about Rebecca Walker in the British Mail. Based on an interview with Walker about her new book Choosing Motherhood After A Lifetime of Ambivalence (I will be reading this), Walker excoriates her mother Alice (of The Color Purple fame)--and all second generation feminists--for teaching her that motherhood was a form of servitude. Phyllis Chesler tried get them to kiss and make up on Salon.

I have to say that I am sympathetic to Rebecca Walker’s complaint about the feminism she was reared on. It has been surprising to me how empowering many aspects of motherhood are—from delivering a child to caring successfully for her needs. It comes as a surprise because the feminism that politicized me in college (and to which I owe much) pretty much gave the message that motherhood could be great, sure, but it was essentially a defeat. It was something, that like all aspects of female biology one gave into.

Which goes back to the PC wars of the late 1980s. This was not girl-power feminism. Womyn. Herstory feminism. Take Back the Night marches. It was a puritanical kind of feminism. I remember talking to a friend who had been reading Andrea Dworkin crying over the realization that consensual sex with her boyfriend (which she previously enjoyed) now seemed like rape to her. I remember walking around assigning the “male gaze” to everything. Yes, no two ways about it--female biology decreed victimhood in a patriarchal society. We modern women were charged with gaining command over these primitive, biologically essentialist impulses. Motherhood? A desire for something like motherhood was weak, atavistic—it had to be squelched—it was a siren song from the past. (I’m thinking here of de Beauvoir especially.)


How screwed up this now seems. I know that many second generation feminists were themselves mothers—often too-young mothers—and that they struggled with the conflict between duty to family and to self. They wanted their daughters to be saved from that conflict. Understandable, yes. But at what cost?

So I find myself sympathetic to Rebecca Walker’s complaints as a later-life mother that it delayed her decision to become a mother. (I sometimes wonder whether it delayed mine.)

Does feminism matter still? With Gucci advertising its “hysteria collection” of handbags (what would Germaine Greer think?)? Yes, yes, yes! It matters even more than ever. But I agree with popfeminist that it needs to be more inclusive kind.

What do other mothers, women, feminists of my generation think? I really want to know. . .

Cures for Heartbreak

I just finished reading Margo Rabb’s novel Cures for Heartbreak. It is a novel about a girl named Mia whose mother dies of cancer when she is a fourteen. There are many things I love about this book. I love its sense of humor. I love that it is unapologetically a novel about a girl. I attended a reading of Margo’s recently and asked her about whether she wrote the book for an adult or a young adult audience. She said she wrote it for adults and when it sold as a young adult novel, she was surprised. I enjoyed it as much--if not more--than many other “adult” books. It has gotten me thinking about what makes a young adult versus and adult book.

Some of Alice Munro’s best short stories are about childhood. Why do we think that childhood or adolescence is not of interest to adults—or only if it is filtered through an adult frame or tone?

As some of you know, I am working on a novel. It is also about a girl—and as one friend who has read parts of it said, “girlhood.” A little while ago, I showed it to some agents, a number whom raised the adult versus the young adult question.

It seems to be, to a certain extent, a question of tone. A young adult editor I asked to take a look said she thought it was definitely adult. The theme and the prose level make it so. I have decided the same thing and am writing forward, thinking of it as an “adult” book.

Yet it is still a book about a girl—and about girlhood.

So, my question is: Must a book about girlhood necessarily marketed as young adult? After all, writing is about exploring human experience—all of it. The terms “childhood” and “adolescence” make us perceive those states as something other than adulthood but I wonder. I think it is more fluid than that. As Faulkner famously said, "The past is not dead. It is not even past.”

muttering #3

An illicit quality to the simplicity of this relationship. It is the illicitness of lovers—early lovers. Early lovers who can’t do anything but stare at each other amazed at each other’s presence. The rest of the world does not intrude. I’ve heard it called "being in a bubble with your baby." But the way women talk about it does not really tell the truth. Because if the truth were spoken, it might be taken from them. It might be shameful--misconstrued. An all-encompassing love. A jealous love. A myopic love. A competitive love. A love of that leaves you with a confusion of bodies—of whose is whose.

A woman whose mother was dying once said to me “Our mothers are our lovers.” I thought she was crazy.

to bear

She hugs a stuffed bear. She opens her mouth and a word—or something sounding like a word—comes out. Bear. . . It comes out like a half world. “Ba.” The B is solid, but the vowel sounds strange. Not quite an e—nor an a, nor an o. A floating vowel. She hides her face. Without the final consonant it is strangely naked, a half formed word.

This is the astonishing thing: she grows shy.

Yes. That’s it. I say, bear, and she avoids my eyes.

The whole world of meaning and symbol.

It is difficult to bear. The transition from—what?—to differentiation.

She pulls an object out of the undifferentiated mass of objects and she shrinks as if from the implications of this.

It is difficult to bear.

To hear language in formation.

For a few more days, she does not try to speak.

A part of me mourns the loss of the unnamed world,

In the beginning was the word. To name things. Then the symbol of the thing. The beginning of “as if” time—a time of metaphor.

object permanence

That’s what they call it. They. In this case, the smiling man on the cover of the well-thumbed tome in our bathroom. A good book, it is. Though large, doesn’t pretend to be all-inclusive. Though opinionated, doesn’t pretend omnipotence. Arranged according to “touchpoints,” the developmental milestones in baby’s life (no article needed, now I see why).

This is the stage when she learns that an object, when not visible, is still there. Peek-a-boo. Where’s Phoebe? There she is. She gives her rabbit-toothed grin. Where’s Phoebe? There she is! She gives her hiccup-laugh. Where’s Phoebe? There she is. She reaches out her hand and screws up her face.

So we have to learn this. A stage. We are not born knowing of object permanence.

But how real is object permanence? How much should we be taught to expect—to anticipate—the reliability of “objects”? How misleading is it? In the era of string theory, dark matter, spooky particles, who can say that an object is permanent? What does permanent even really mean? As I understand it, these theories say that what is invisible to us in the universe is as binding as what is visible. There also seems to be some question, at the subatomic level, of the permanence of particles: they appear, waver, disappear. This is Schrodinger's Cat territory.

My father worked for a good company for thirty-eight years. This company put us through high school, college. I watched as father/object left in the morning (peppermint smelling, with briefcase) and returned that night (hungry, piqued smile, tie loosened) return. Objects roll out of sight. Then they reappear. A good job. A good family. I learned the lesson well: The universe is dependable.

It often seems to me that I have spent my adulthood since unlearning this lesson.

So what? Jobs come and go. People come and go. Technology comes and goes. Even our various selves come and go. (I am cleaning out my desk and find old photos, old letters; is that me? Did I say that?)

We must learn again and again that we essentially groundless beings: all that seems permanent, will indeed change, will pass.

So: If an object goes in one end of the tube, does it always come out the other end?

Really?

What can I tell her?