As an undergrad art minor, I was an indifferent sculptor to say the least. I tend to think in verbal rather than visual metaphor, so most of my projects were adaptations of wordplay clumsily rendered in garbage: scrap wood picked from behind the campus athletic center; broken glass reglued together; homeware detritus salvaged from a nearby thrift shop. My grades were indifferent too, but a B or two didn’t damage my GPA. I kept taking the classes because they were fun.
We were mostly on our own, working under the benign negligence of a professor who had made performance art in California with Chris Burden and the like, but we met once every few weeks to present and critique our projects. As my turn approached, I found myself at a loss: I’d started and abandoned four or five different projects, and had nothing to show but the pieces: one wing of a bird of prey I’d meant to solder together out of kitchen knives; a coffee cup and hot plate I’d intended to wire up in some edgy postmodern way; a face I’d been carving laboriously out of some brown wax I’d found in the studio; and I can’t remember what else. I lined them all up on a board and called it Failure Landscape. I’d carved myself up pretty badly while chipping away at that wax, and my hands started bleeding while I presented my “work.” I got an A.
This is one of my canonical tales that I tell when I want to explain my approach to scholarship, writing, and anything else: the moral of this story is that flailing around with a few half-formed ideas will be rewarded. Or so I believe.
I am thinking of this now because every time I log in to check on replies to comments I’ve posted, WordPress presents me with a reproachful list of all the posts I’ve started and never finished. Usually, I get inspired by something on the internet and start drafting a post on my lunch break, and then flit off to chase the next shiny idea. Thus, most of the drafted posts are terribly out of date, so rather than finishing them, I thought I’d line them up for my amusement and possibly yours. In reverse chronological order, they are:
- A response to a recent blog kerfluffle about sexual harassment in the workplace, after a NY Times op-ed that argued weirdly that the workplace would be a lot more fun if we could all settle down and permit a little well-meant flirting, and that smart and capable women aren’t railroaded by such playfulness. I started to write about my experience with sexual harassment during my stint with Red Cross disaster relief; I am a smart and capable woman, and I was utterly derailed by the daily onslaught of unwanted verbal attention from a man who laughed at my refusals. Sadly, I’m sure I’ll have another opportunity to tell that story, as “feminists are trying to kill flirtation” op-eds come out every couple of months or so.
- An observation about the silent social rules about space on the trolleys to West Philly.
- A reflection, partly in response to annual hand-wringing about sexy Halloween costumes, about what costumes are for and how I personally choose to perform sexiness through them. Plus, a retrospective of past costumes of mine and a call for costume brainstorming as a resource to friends who’d like to dress up but don’t know what to be. I’m sure I’ll finish this in time for Halloween next year!
- A most likely dull explication of the weird rules about selling American books in Canada.
- A list of the hilariously descriptive “genres” Netflix has made up to describe my taste in movies. Formula: [Classic/Emotional/Visually-striking][cerebral/period/foreign] movies + [based on classic literature/featuring a strong female lead].
- A fretful post started more than a year ago about using a troublesome essay collection in my dissertation. The collection features several essays with what I consider to be really sharp insight about fast food and junk food – all the sharper because the essay writer enjoys food of these types, and thus is critical without being condemning. On the other hand, he also uses the word “retarded” like we’re in high school and has some completely baseless and faux-thoughtful throwaway lines about women who have gone missing. I want to use the book, but I don’t want to endorse it.
I feel that I have exceeded the appropriate number of elements for an A-grade failure landscape. Better negligence next time.
your blog failure landscape is so much yours, as my collection of UFO knits is uniquely mine. (for those who need help, that’s un finished object)
ps also my costume for whatever next costume-worthy occasion arises must be excellent. that will require help!
post ps relaxed and comfortable (ie flirty, apparently) is all well and good until one person exceeds another person’s boundaries and it then becomes harder to manage than it would have, which you know and i know and lots of other people need to understand.