Author: David Jacobsen

Secret writing

art, writing

Here’s the inimitable Leslie Leyland Fields on writing even when we’re not writing—what my friend Katie Boone calls “secret writing”:

I was alone, my boots sliding on the gravel trail. But it was not long before I thought of the book I was working on, on forgiving our fathers and mothers. I thought of the article I was trying to end, the final sentence telling the truth about keeping faith with the world. I thought of this space here and the words I would write.
And they are with me, words, ideas, the ones I try to herd into meaning find me even here, in the forest. I write them down on paper in my pocket. I record them on my voice memo. I speak the words I am writing now. They find me no matter where I go. This is the burden of writing. (read more)

Do you feel that burden? Do you write when you’re not writing?

…you come with empty hands…

art, Christianity, music, writing

Here’s singer-songwriter Bill Mallonee on the artistic process:

now look if you’re gonna come around here
and say those sort of things
you gotta take a few on the chin
yeah you’re talking about sin and redemption
well you better wear your thickest skin
sometimes you can’t please everyone
sometimes you can’t please anyone at all
sew your heart onto your sleeve

If you’re an artist you know what comes next:

and you wait for the ax to fall

Watch him perform the song at the link below. And then go make art.

Bill Mallonee – Skin

Go into the past young man

Christianity, music, writing

Chad Thomas Johnston has a nice post up at the Image blog about 1990’s Christian pop music. I was the kid listening to Deliverance.

As a seventh grader, when I wasn’t testing the tensile strength of my eardrums with Christian speed metal—music by Deliverance, for example, whose slogan was “Faster for the Master”—I was listening to Go West Young Man seven or eight times a day.

If you like this sort of thing, check out Joel Heng Hartse’s Sects, Love, and Rock & Roll: My Life on Record. Now if only I had something in my house that could actually play cassette tapes…

Evaluations

teaching, writing

[This post will appear concurrently at Magical Teaching.]

A manilla envelope in my box: evaluations. I opened it and thumbed through the pages, noticing (and skipping) those which stayed inside predictable boxes: the perfect column of “exceeds expectations,” the zig-zag alternation between 3’s and 4’s intended to suggest real thought, and of course the completely blank. Two evaluations caught my eye, however. Both had single sentences below the same question: Does the instructor exhibit enthusiasm for his subject?

One response—looped cursive, probably a Bic: He is always super excited about poetry and the way he joked, wandered around, and even cried helped me learn.

The second—block capitals, probably a green Pilot V5: I found it hard to pay attention and stay awake sometimes because he didn’t really have much energy or excitement.

I slid the evaluations back into the envelope and returned the envelope to my box. Walking to my car, I wondered if I ought to cry, or think of a joke, but I had trouble paying attention to what the evaluations said. New snow was slanting from the sky and tumbling across my windshield, flake by flake, and it reminded me of the beach sand I used to blow from between the spread pages of my textbooks in college.