jay's museum of college writing

In English 102, we read Sharon Olds’ haunting  tribute to Marilyn Monroe’s mysterious death.  It’s a poem that focuses upon the immediate aftermath of the famous starlet’s suicide.  What if you were called upon to take the body away?  What would happen to the image you have of her in your head?  In English 008, students researched Marilyn’s life, and  they compared her tragedies with those of Rhianna and Linsey Lohan.   They defined and examined the term “sex symbol.”  50 years after her death, they explain why we still look to Marilyn with love and admiration.

We love Frida Kahlo’s paintings, but we are awed by the story behind them.  As a young teen, Frida was involved in a terrible accident  when the bus she was on collided with a tram.  Several people were killed right on the spot.   A piece of railing drove right through Frida’s spine and punctured her uterus.  Doctors didn’t know if she would ever walk again.  Frida was confined to bed for three months,  but that’s where Frida’s  artistic vision grew.  Her father built her an easel  and fixed it to the bed.  Frida learned how to paint lying on her back.  Her art reflects empty, cold and lonely rooms; her lonliness and despair.  Look here for cause and effect writing – students explore how her pain affected her art.  How her art affected her love.

At the end of each semester, students  combine their love for music with their appreciation for literature.   From their personal music vaults they create a soundtrack for their reading.  In English 110 we read The Tortilla Curtain, a story of desperate Mexican immigrants pursuing the American Dream. Many students like to write with a Nortena beat,  and  they draw upon the lyrics of Los Tigres del Norte.  More often than not, they choose” La Puerta Negra,”  a song about impossible love.   They break down the words and analyze the theme.  Everyone agrees.  This sad song  fits the novel like a glove.

David Bowie? He sings China Girl. Playwright  Henry Hwang  references the lyrics to this song in his introduction to M. Butterfly.  Edgar Allan Poe uses clown imagery in his Cask of Amontillado, but there is little to laugh at in this story . Patti Smith?  She wrote just maybe one of the most beautiful memoirs I have ever read.

Join Now! Come inside Jay’s Museum of College Writing and see what our students have to share.

 

Jay's NIGHT OF THE IGUANA Post - Tennessee Williams - Despair on the Beach

  Earlier this month I read a memoir about alcoholism that included the life and struggles of legendary playwright Tennessee Williams. The book, called “The Trip to Echo Spring,”  written by Olivia Lange, shed light on hardcore drunk writers that despite their addictions were somehow able to produce some of the most brilliant literature we know.  Maybe someone reading this will have read Tennessee’s play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, or seen the movie version featuring the great Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor.  The former protrayed a bitter alcoholic/anti-social character named Brick who felt the need to distance himself from the people closest to him.  His family.  Each time he would run off, they asked him where  was he going?   He said, “Echo Spring.”  That’s the name of his favorite bourbon.  Apparently, he was always on the verge of losing his “shit.”

From what I’ve read of Tennessee, much of his writing is based on his own personal traumas.   Just like Brick in his play,  Tennessee didn’t go by his birth name.  His parents named him Tom.  Apparently, this name didn’t suit his nature.  Neither did his family.   He left home at an early age to follow his poetic heart.  He dreamed of becoming a writer.  Along the way he grew anxious, depressed, and suicidal in his attempts to publish his work.  He turned to alcohol and seconal to calm himself down.  Drink became his method to hold everything together.   And it did for a while.  Maybe for a 10-15 year stretch where  at a certain point, literary critics began to include him in a the pantheon of greatest American authors.

By February, 1983, however, he had lost his touch. He was still writing plays, but not on the level he once did. Maybe, like twenty years before, after he wrote Night of the Iguana. In 1983, He was found dead in his New York City hotel room on East 54^th Street.  His friends would describe him as haggard and miserable.  He would be the first to admit it.  On numerous occasions, he has explained the relentless tension and depression that comes with his job.   He looked to drugs and alcohol to steady his nerves. According to the coroner’s report, he choked on a bottlecap for the eyedrops he needed to clear his vision.  He would hold the cap on his tongue or underneath it while applying the drops  to his eyes. Later, the chief medical officer changed the report from asphixia to possible suicide. His autopsy showed a high degree of seconal in his stomach.  Many people in the know believe that story of asphixia was created to protect his legend.

Why am I concentrated on SUICIDE today?  It’s because after I read Echo Spring, I immediately sought out one of Tennessee’s more famous plays.  I found one.  The Night of the Iguana.  It may be one of his last successful works. For the next twenty years he began his steady decline.  I’m glad I read Echo Spring first.  I see a lot of Tennessee’s most tragic qualities in his protagonist, the defrocked Reverend Shannon.  The play begins with Shannon climbing the steps of a rustic, seaside Mexican hotel.  This takes place in the early 1940s.  Here, Shannon doesn’t look like a priest;  rather he looks like a drunk.  His eyes are bulging and he is sweating right though his clothes.  Shannon claims he is ‘feverish.”  Soon thereafter, he admits he might be having a mental breakdown.

  In the playnotes included in my copy of Iguana, Tennesse was a frequent guest of these types of seaside resorts in Mexico.  Far off the beaten path.  When he wrote this particular play, he was unraveling himself.  His love relationship with his traveling partner was gradually disintegrating.   This was in the 1940s, and Williams was gay. Quite possibly, he may have felt the world closing in on him.  He had nowhere to turn. In this day and age, he risked prestige and success of his profession if he were to reveal his sexuality.  The “Iguana” in the title of his play, is a lizard hotel staff kept tied with a rope to a post underneath the hotel until it was big and fat enough to eat.   The symbol of the “Iguana” just may have captured Tennessee’s feelings of clausrophobia and paranoia. He, too, must have felt trapped.  If he couldn’t change his life soon, he may have been headed to the same fate. The clock was ticking. 

I chose to read Tennessee’s Iguana: One, for my interest in it’s Mexican setting off the coast of Puerto Vallarta; and Two, for the appearance of Richard Burton in the 1962  film version of the play. I’m not to sure that Tennesse had any influence in the selection of Burton for his play, but if he was looking for a out-of-control drinker, he could find no better. Before ever beginning his film career, Burton was already known to drain three bottles of vodka per day.  When he starred in Camelot with Julie Andrews, he boasted he could drink a bottle of vodka through the matinee performance of the play, and then consume a bottle of brandy during the evening performance.  Quite possibly, many of th scenes shot on location captured Burton in the midst of a full blown binge.  According to legend, Burton started his drinking on the set at 7:00 a.m with beer.  By the time his scenes were completed, he could polish off a case. Tennessee knew all of this.  He was on call near the film locations should there be need for re-writes.  Tennessee wrote the Shannon/Burton character with his own self in mind.  The torture of his characters was based on his own mental state. From the beginning of the story, Shannon/Burton becomes increasingly hysterical.

My favortie scene in the play comes in Act Three.   Shannon is clearly in the stages of a mental breakdown.  He is now a defrocked priest and an accused rapist. ( He appears to have a nasty obsession with teenage girls - For both a priest and a tour guide, this can become a career ender.)   He realizes the jig is up.  Soon he will have no job and nowhere to go.    He threatens to dive in the ocean and “swim” all the way to China.  The owner of the hotel – and his only friend it seems – recgonizes this behavior.  She has seen it before.  He Is not joking about a swim; he is contemplating suicide.  In the play, she calls for her staff to tie him up with rope  in his hammock.  In the movie, however, they add a scene where Burton escapes from his hammock, and sprints down a jungle trail to a cliff overlooking the ocean.  The man was determined to die.  You could see it in his eyes. The scene ends with Burton diving headfirst off the cliff towards the Eastern sun, the younger staff members in hot pursuit.

I’m not writing a book report here, but I’m glad to integreate serious drama into my reading. In a few of my English classes, I assign theater pieces instead of novels.  My students appear to enjoy William Inge’s Bus Stop.  I share film clips of the Marilyn Monroe version in class.  I say this because at the time of the film’s release, Marilyn apparently was suffering from the same scrutiny and pressures Tennessee experienced.  Sadly, they shared a similar fate.   When we read passages of Bus Stop  out loud in class, I believe my students experience a connection with the Marilyn character they are reading.  When I share the stories of Marilyn’s real-life battles with mental health issues and drug addiction, they delve deeper into the story.

At the end of The Night of the Iguana,  the defrocked priest and compulsive rapist, Shannon, descends into the darkness of the hotel to seek out the fat lizard.  For Shannon’s  entire stay at this hotel, the iguana has been kept tied up under the hotel’s veranda at the end of a rope. The metaphor may never had been clearly illuminated in the first 130 pages of my copy, but at the end of the play Shannon feels a spiratual bond with this reptile.  He says to Hanna, another desperate traveler at the hotel: “The iguana? At the end of its rope? Trying to go on past the end of its goddam rope? Like you Like me!”   The play ends with Shannon cutting the rope and setting the iguana free. We imagine the iguana scurrying back to the cover and safety of the jungle.   I’m led to believe that Shannon has somehow learned the importance of taking control of his own life.

Both Tennessee and Marilyn died with high concentrations of seconal in their bloodstreams. In the fifites, these pills they became addicted to were called “blue devils.” Of course they made things worse by mixing their consumption with alcohol. Tennesseee and Marilyn lived lives of high-anxiety and ever-increasing drug abuse.   This is why I enjoy seeing  their work on the stage and screen.  Their real-life struggles shine through in their characters.  When we discuss these types of dramas in our classroom workshops, we go well beyond a "retell" of the stories.   My students seem to perk up and identify complex elements of the characters they are asked to analyze.

I tell them, to read these works, it’s like watching a car accident.  You just can’t look away.

 

 

Jay's SUMMER MEANS FUN Post - English 110 Readers Trip to NYC - Students Create Big Apple Scrapbook

  I know about Actors Studio from reading biographies about Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Al Pacino. In the fifties, Marilyn’s greatest fame as an actor became her greatest disappointment. She was so beautiful that she couldn’t land serious roles. At a certain point, Marilyn left Hollywood to spend a year training with the world's leading experts in stage and screen at the Actors Studio in New York.  Her goal was to take her acting to the next level. Method actors dig down deep inside of themselves for a memory or an experience  that will help them recreate the true emotions of their character they are playing.  The Actors Studio has its origins in early 20th century Russia. A very serious student and lover of the theater named Konstantin Stanislavski came up with the system of Method Acting. It was about KEEPING IT REAL. Stanislavski was opposed to the study of traditional acting technique. Instead he encouraged his students to look inward – not only to UNDERSTAND the role, but to FEEL the part. Method Acting often requires complete immersion in a role. That means an actor does whatever he or she can to “wear” the part - to put him/herself into the shoes of the character. To prepare for his role as Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet learned how to play the guitar and harmonica. On the set, he wouldn.’t respond to anyone unless they addressed him as “Bob.”

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This Summer 2025, I plan to read a novel with my classes I recently plucked off my shelf here in Mexicali. It's called Paradise Travel, and it is written by Jorge Franco.  I'm not giving any spoiler alerts, but it focuses upon the American Dream - two teen-age lovers, Marlon and Reina from Medellín, Colombia, who successfully make the long, ardous journey to New York City but learn tough, life-changing lessons along the way.   I like this novel, for the CHANGE in characters that happens right before our eyes.  Both Marlon and Reina become Hard and Knowing.  They are entirely different people at the end of the novel.  Did their journey to the U.S. change the way they saw each other? How did their struggle to fit in, to find their place, to define their identities...Affect Their Love?

To make things interesting, I will ask my students to COMBINE their READING with their RESEARCH of novel's setting, NEW YORK CITY

• Our classes meet for three hours per day, four days per week, six weeks total -  We have a lot of standards to cover. 
  
• I plan to devote a portion of our Wenesdays for my students to collaborate on a New York City Classroom Scrapbook
• Each student will be required to research a NYC person, place, idea to share with the rest of us -  I just may go with the Actors Studio (see above.)
• This means SIX days, SIX different assignments. - I will expect that each assignment will be submitted on Canvas before the end of the day.
• I will emphasize, CREATIVITY, ORIGINALITY, and INTEGRITY in their work.
• Students will have the FREEDOM to choose their own NYC TOPICS - I shouldn't have to  PUSH them - They should take PRIDE in their own work.
• Our Final NYC Class Scrapbook will DEEPEN our understanding of the novel - The weekly assignments will BOOST student grades - EVERYONE WINS!

Jay's Tips - NYCStarter Set - GO FOR WHAT YOU KNOW - Choose what YOU want to WRITE about!

Jay's Practice Picks:

• Before you get started, I encourage to brainstorm a list of 3-4 ideas.  Like this:

White Castle is a restaurant chain known for its "sliders," small, square hamburgers, and its distinctive white castle-shaped buildings.  They are also known for offering a variety of menu items beyond burgers, including chicken, fish, and plant-based sliders.

We begin our first Wednesday with a NYC Breakout assignment.  I will ask my students to share their NYC ideas with the rest of us on Padlet.

My  rules are FEW.   Students' opportunities to express thensekves are MANY.   I've created a grid to brainstorm and classify their ideas from the beginning. 

Jay's Note:  

• I haven't been to New York City in like 40 years.  I know about as much about the City as my students do.
• But, here in Mexicali, I have a lot of BOOKS on my SHELVES.  I have a lot of ideas to choose from
• They may think they KNOW NOTHING about NYC, but THAT'S THE POINT - Each Wednesday, we will collaborate on our Padlet to RAISE our NYC KNOWLEDGE

Below, I practice my Actors Studio contribution to our Final NYC Scrapbook. Over the next six weeks, I plan to re-read our classroom novel Paradise Travel.  The MORE I know about NYC, the MOREI will get out of it. 

Jay's NEW YORK, NEW YORK Post - Postcards from the Edge Assignment - Summer Session 2025

  To introduce my SUMMER 2025 students to their assigned novel, Paradise Travel.  I ask them to use their research skills to familiarize themselves with the setting of New York City.  Of course, few of us will have little understanding for NYC, but  that's why we want to dig in before we start the serious reading.  There is point where one of the main characters, Marlon, refers to the city as "The Beast."  Many of my classes are online.  This makes it difficult to work in groups and/or share idea  From my personal expeience, talking about what I read, or for that matter writing about it, leads to greater personal understanding and enjoyment. 

I chose Paradise Travel off my shelves here in Mexicali.  It's about two young lovers, Marlon and Reina, from Colombia that journey to New York City in search of a better life.  I've read the novel now four times.  TWICE in English.  And, TWICE in Spanish.  I realize now the characters in the novel didn't do their research before they embarked on their trip.  They had no idea what they were getting into. My hope is for my students to avoid making the same mistake they did.  I've designed this assignment to give my students a better feeling for the novel. 

Each student will choose a famous New York City landmark, person, event, idea that will lead to a 2-3-page well-crafted informational essay.  The  essay must be TYPED in 12-point Times New Roman Font and follow MLA guidelines for a college paper.  Each essay must also include a properly formatted Works Cited Page. I will assist my classes step-by-step through this process, but to foster college readiness, much of this work will be done independently.  At the time I write this post, I've opened a book called New York Bucket List: Adventure Guide. From these pages, I'll provide a list of suggestions for my students to choose from: "Empire State Building"; "Strawberry Fields John Lennon Memorial"; "Harriet Tubman National Park"; "Alice in Wonderland Statue."  On Canvas, I  plan to provide a link to a slide show of famous New Yorkers.   

• 
  NOTE TO MY STUDENTS:  Choose a RESEARCHABLE topic that will provide you with enough  information to help you develop an INTERESTING essay to share with your classmates.
• To practice this assignment, I'm choosing the famed Chelsea Hotel.  This is where Sam Shepard and Patti Smith carried on a brief and torrid love relationship.  To me there is nobody more interesting than Sam and Patti.  (See Above.)  I proudly own several books written by them or written about them. 

Required Components of this Assignment:

• 2-3 Pages typed in MLA format
• Use of at least 3 legitimate sources (maximum is 5 sources)
• Use of specific evidence, properly cited to support your topic.
• A well-crafted essay that contains at least 6-8 paragraphs
• A properly formatted Work Cited page

Here is the FUN PART:   As a warm-up to the essay, students will address an old-school style postcard (300 words) to their classmates on Padlet and/or our classroom discussion board.

The "Back" of Jay's Practice Post Card:

Saludos from New York City: This picture is of two young lovers who are two of my literary heroes.  On the left, that’s playwright Sam Shepard dressed in a long-sleeved polo shirt with a strand of hair falling into his eyes.  On the right, that’s poet Patti Smith looping her arm around Sam’s shoulder.  I studied Sam’s works for my Masters thesis in English. Patti is famous for converting her poetry into song.  Very soon thereafter, she became the Godmother of Punk.  In 1971 they carried on a brief and torrid love affair at the Chelsea hotel.  For a few years, Smith rented a room with a balcony. That’s where this picture may have been taken. Neither of them are smiling, in the convential sense.  That doesn’t mean they are not happy.  But the photo clearly captures their attitude.  This is an exciting time for both of them.  The world is changing, and they are both making their contributions.  They don’t care what you think.  The Chelsea Hotel is where Sam and Patti wrote the play Cowboy Mouth.  It became 27 pages long and it  took them two days to finish.  This happens in Patti’s room  #1017, the smallest room in the hotel  One day, Sam comes up with the idea of writing the play together.  Patti tells him that she has never written anything like a play, but that doesn’t matter to Sam.  He pulls his portable typwriter onto the bed in between them and tells her it like this:  You start with a detailed description of the setting.  Pale blue walls.  A white metal bed.  A small sink and a mirror and chest of drawers.  That’s pretty much it.  Sam wanted his character to be called “Slim.”  A dude who looked and acted like a coyote.  He then pushed the typewriter towards Patti and told her it was now her turn to type.  Patti wanted to call her character Cavele, “a chick who looks like a crow.” In my English classes this semester, we are reading a novel called Paradise Travel.  It’s about two young lovers from Colombia who come to New York City to seek the same things Sam and Patti did. Their names are Marlon and Reina.  They are both dreamers.  They find themselves in the same type of beat-up room, but that’s OK.  All they want is the chance to be free. Paz, J. Lewenstein

I hope my students have as much fun as I did with this postcard idea.  Everyone should be able to come up with a great topic.  New York City is a BIG place.  That's the point. I can't wait to start the essay.

Jays TRIP TO ECHO SPRING Post - Olivia Laing's Drinking Memoir - Straight Look at Bent Authors - Alcoholism in the Land of the Giants

  I’m not sure WHEN or HOW it happened, but at  early age, I became drawn in, sucked in, to the books written by boozy, drug-addled authors.  For me, this may have been in high school, and I didn’t even drink or smoke.  At age 16-17, I probably got turned on by Stephen King’s strange,  nightmarish novel about a haunted hotel, The Shining, that transported me far, far away from my dull, monotonous teenage  life.  Maybe this was my introduction to serious literature.  The novel was huge – like 600 pages.  It felt like a telephone book in my hands, but once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down.   Later, from reading Stephen K’s  memoir On Writing, I found out he did so much blow when he was a young author starting out he couldn’t even remember writing a few of his first novels.  Hunter S. Thompson was a brilliant writer bent on self-destruction.  Here is what he wrote on the first few pages of his masterpiece Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: “We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.”  When I reached the last page of this book,  I immediately  sat down and began reading the book from Page One again.

Jim Carroll may have been the first writer I would call my own.   He was a New York City high-school basketball star who wrote his own memoir, The Basketball Diaries.  OMG.  He was playground legend who played on All-Star teams with Lew Alcindor (later to become Kareem Abdul Jabbar) and was recruited by Hall of Fame college basketball coarch Al McGuire.  He was cocky, fearless, and unstoppable on the court.  As a teenager, he published his own basketball memoir. The pages focused a lot LESS on basketball and a lot MORE on pills, codeine, heroin. I was too young and  inexperienced to understand the problems these writers endured away from their typewriters.  It didn’t matter.  Their personal lives were beyond me.  I was hooked on their writing. 

So this week, I read Olivia Lange’s alcoholic, drug-abuse memoir The Trip to Echo Springs - not so much for her use, but for her deep dive into the lives and writing of her most beloved and troubled authors:  Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver, Tenessee Williams.  As a young British scholar, she toured this country by herself  in trains, planes, and automobiles to explore the stories behind the stories. I read all of these authors in grad school, and I can still remember the passion and insight my professors brought to our classroom discussions.  They could recite literary passages from memory.  They shared their knowledge of the men behind the stories.  We all laughed when they spoke of each author’s alcoholic escapades.  Olivia L found the title of her book  book  from Tennessee Williams' play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."  Surprise! The protagonist of the play is a hardcore drinker much like the author himself.   His name is Brick. On stage when he says he’s "takin' a little short trip to Echo Spring," everyone in the theater knows he is headed to his liquor cabinet.  That’s where he keeps his best scotch:  Echo Spring.

I grew up with stoners and drinkers.  I can’t remember if they had their own euphemisms for getting high.  It was always funny to see them drink or smoke before school.  When I saw them, I was probably shooting hoops at a nearby park.   I say it was funny, because I couldn’t understand why or how it was so important to get high at 6:00 in the morning.  I mean, these guys were the coolest guys I knew.  Later in the day, the girls were going to smile at them.  The guys were going to look up to them.  I'm concentrating on my follow-through,  and  they're getting “wrecked.“  I could draw a straight line from them to Jim Carroll.  I would have traded my life for one day of his.  He is who I wanted to be.  A guy equally adept at driving the baseline and writing beat poetry.    I'm not sure what went on in his brain, but he must have turned heads wherever he went.  Can you imagine the life of a NYC basketball star -  thousands of people screaming your name, and all you are thinking of is getting high?

Fifty years later, I’m reading Olivia L, and I'm finding out things I didn't really know at the time I read these authors.  I mean this was before the internet. It wasn't so easy to find intimate details about writers lives.   I appreciate each of these guys for their obvious dedication to their craft and their fierce discipline to get their work published. In reading Echo Spring, some may say they worked themselves to death.  I think Olivia L would say 'drink themselves to death' was closer to the truth.  Olivia L expresses clearly and often, there is no common denominator between creative geniuses and hopeless drunks. Some of the addiction could be attributed to brain chemistry.  Other addictions may arise from childhood trauma.  I don't know.  My professors didn't either.  They said the distance between us and them is too great.  Any intelligent analysis of their trauma would be pure speculation.  So we didn't talk about it.  In Echo Spring, Olivia L leaves us with the haunting facts that four of the six Americans who have won the Nobel Prize for literature were alcoholic.  She says, "about half of our alcoholic writers eventually killed themselves." 

  Hemingway rose at sunrise and got down to writing by 7 a.m. or so.    This was if he had been drinking heavily or not.  Because of a back injury he suffered in an African plane crash, he was forced to write standing up.  He would position his typewriter chest-high on top of a bookshelf.   Every day he wrote,   Hemingway would record his daily output ranging from 500 to 1000 words per day.   Living hard, writing from within, he famously said,  then moving forward; this was the life of a writer.  I don't have to tell you that drinking dominated his personal life. His drinking exploits are well documented in his own writing.   At age 61, he angled a hunting rifle underneath is chin and pulled the trigger. 

Currently I'm reading Tenessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana. The primary character, the reverend Lawrence Shannon,  is at the end of his rope in Mexico. A defrocked priest,  he's clinically depressed or alcoholic, or both.  In this play, his journey takes him to a remote fishing village near Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. He is now reduced to working as a tour guide for a second-rate company.   The setting is beautiful, but the water haunts him.  Lawrence wants to make things right in his life, and the best option seems to be swimming to China - killing himself.  In Echo Spring,  Olivia L relates Tenessee's recurring fantasy to die at sea.  From his home in Key West, he asked that his dead body be sewn up in a cloth sack and thrown overboard north of Havana. He wants to go down like his favorite poet, Hart Crane, who committed suicide in the same location.  

My favorite part of this book comes when Olivia L links her favorite alcoholic authors with a “water” motif.  I’m not sure I understand the connection, but each night Hemingway returned home after a terrible drunk, he calmed himself down by vizualizing the fishing holes of his childhood.  He let his mind drop through the darkness of the cool, cool water.  Raymond Carver wrote poems about the streams that tumble out of the mountains near his Yakima, Washington childhood home:  “I love them the way some men love horses or glamorous women.  I have a thing for this cold swift water.  Just looking at it makes my blood run and my skin tingle.”  John Cheever’s most famous short story, "The Swimmer,” has a drunk protagonist trying to return to his suburban home by swimming across his neighbors’  backyard swimming pools.  Maybe all of these guys Olivia chose to write about saw water as a symbol to wash away their pain or dilute their sickness. I could have never recognized this metaphor way back when I was introduced to the genius of these authors.

I'm so happy to have found this book.  I know I must come from a completely different background and viewpoint, but I share in the Olivia's love for her favorite authors. She grew up in a family of alcoholics. Her writing displays an intimate knowledge for their struggles. While the bulk of my experience with these authors comes from the writing itself, Olivia L brings new life to the men behind their typewriters. She strips away the glamour; she humanizes our literary heroes.  When I first read Jim Carroll in high school, I would shoot baskets into the night at park near my house.  Dribble, dribble, dribble. To the left or to the right.  I could shoot it, from near or far.  I could go to hoop with either hand.  When I say 'into the night,' I mean in near total darkness.  Even through the cold. The wind.  I didn't stop when the rain came down.  I just didn't want to go home. I wanted to be like Jim. It mean't everything to me.   At a certain point in the last fifty years, my worship of basketball stars has gradually converted into a reverence for literary giants. Olivia L does us all a favor to share the personal struggles of our favorite authors.

This is what know now: for all the traits I idolized in these writers, these guys had to be more Sad and Lonely than I could ever imagine.

 

 

 

 

Jay's HEMINGWAY CURSE Post - Quote Sandwich

Recently, I read a novel based on Ernest Hemingway's final days, Adios Hemingway by Cuban writer Leonardo Padura.  Near the end, the famous writer suffered extreme bouts of depression. Back then, the doctors prescribed electroconvulsive therapy.  This is 1961. I'm not sure if these sessions gave him any relief, but I believe they severely hampered his ability to write.  Shortly after his release from a psychiatric hospital,  he took his own life with his gun in his own house.  This wasn't mentioned in the novel I read, but thirty-five years later - nearly to the day - his granddaughter Margaux Hemingway joined him in a family pattern of suicides.  Below I write a brief paragraph about "The Hemingway Curse."  In doing so, I attempt to show my students how to incorporate quotations into their essays.  I provide them with three basic steps. I highlight the quotation in yellow.  I hope this works!

(Introduce It!)  Mental illness ran in Ernest Hemingway’s family.  The famous author’s father – he was a successful doctor -  shot himself with his own handgun.  That was just the beginning of the family pattern of suicide.  Hemingway’s brother and sister also followed suit.  In 1961, Ernest himself followed a stay in a psychiatric hospital for severe depression by shooting himself dead with a shotgun.

(Quote It!)  The podcast You Must Remember This devotes an entire episode to the “The Hemingway Curse.” Narrator Michael Schulman explains, ”On one hand it [the family name] represents literary genius and international glamour…  On the other hand, the Hemingway legacy is steeped in mental illness, alcoholism, self-destruction, and suicide” (4:59).

(Explain It!)  Most of us in English class have read of the tragedy that befell Ernest Hemingway, but few know of the demons that terrorized his granddaughters,  Margaux and Mariel.  This podcast focuses upon the pressure they must have felt to follow in the footsteps  of their famous grandfather’s adventurous spirit.  They both seemed to have inherited his talent and attitude.  Margaux became a super model at the age of 18.  Little sister Mariel, the actress, was nominated for an Oscar in her second movie.  Apparently in the Hemingway family manic depressive illness was also passed down through the generations.  Margaux is known to have killed herself with an overdose of painkillers at age 41.  After her sister committed suicide, Mariel must have realized it was her “turn.”  Instead, she chose to dedicate her life to helping others combat mental illness and family pressures. Following seven family suicides, her story is one of survival.

Here is how my Hemingway Curse Quote Sandwich may look at the top of my research paper: 

Mental illness ran in Ernest Hemingway’s family.  The famous author’s father – he was a successful doctor -  shot himself with his own handgun.  That was just the beginning of the family pattern of suicide.  Hemingway’s brother and sister also followed suit.  In 1961, Ernest himself followed a stay in a psychiatric hospital for severe depression by shooting himself dead with a shotgun. The podcast You Must Remember This devotes an entire episode to the “The Hemingway Curse.” Narrator Michael Schulman explains, ”On one hand it [the family name] represents literary genius and international glamour…  On the other hand, the Hemingway legacy is steeped in mental illness, alcoholism, self-destruction, and suicide” (4:59). Most of us in English class have read of the tragedy that befell Ernest Hemingway, but few know of the demons that terrorized his granddaughters,  Margaux and Mariel.  This podcast focuses upon the pressure they must have felt to follow in the footsteps  of their famous grandfather’s adventurous spirit.  They both seemed to have inherited his talent and attitude.  Margaux became a super model at the age of 18.  Little sister Mariel, the actress, was nominated for an Oscar in her second movie.  Apparently in the Hemingway family manic depressive illness was also passed down through the generations.  Margaux is known to have killed herself with an overdose of painkillers at age 41.  After her sister committed suicide, Mariel must have realized it was her “turn.”  Instead, she chose to dedicate her life to helping others combat mental illness and family pressures. Following seven family suicides, her story is one of survival.

Jay's DID YOU KNOW Post - Doris Day Meets Charles Manson - English 110 Students Share Secret Knowledge

 I know Doris Day from my mother.  Doris Day began her career as a teen-age torch singer in front of a traveling orchestra.  Later, in the fifties and sixties,  she became a force on the big screen.  My mother used to sing her big hit "Que Sera, Sera" around the house.  When I was older, I saw Doris  sing this same song in a great Alfred Hitchcock movie called The Man Who Knew Too Much.  Doris is famous for starring in cute 1950s romance comedies.  Her appeal comes from her "The Girl Next Door" look. In this movie, however, Doris stepped out of her lane. She plays the grieving mother of her kidnapped son. Her performance is both emotional  and complex.  Right before our eyes, she goes from "The Girl Next Door" to "The Woman in the Next Cell."  She descends into a deep depression.  Madness.  Her face becomes truly haunted.  She loses faith in everything: the police, her husband, and herself.  She doesn't looks so cute anymore.  Oh Man, I feel goosebumps watching Doris in this role. If this helps  my students reading this, I compare Doris to Lady Gaga in A Star is Born. Lady Gaga and Doris are/were and will be Mega-Mega-Stars forever

Why am I writing about Doris Day when I should be focused on Charles Manson?  Currently, I'm reading a book called Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties.  In this book, the paths of Doris and Charles cross in a meaningful and tragic way.   DID YOU KNOW that Charles Manson learned how to play the guitar and write songs in prison?   Inside his prison cell, he began dreaming about being a Beatle.  He envisioned one day that people would look to him as a serious artist and inspiration. Upon  his release from jail, he immediately sought out Hollywood  producer Terry Melcher - the son of Doris Day - in pursuit of a record contract.  He was willing to do anything and everything to reach his dream,  and at first Terry was impressed with Charlie's relentless ambition, but, here is where Doris comes in.  Terry may have promised Manson a record deal on the "Day Label" - the record company owned by his mother.  I'm not sure Doris knew about this:  Charles captured and held Terry's attention by providing him free sex with his Manson women.  In the months preceding the Manson murders, friends and family remember seeing Charley and Terry frequently partying together.  Of course, Doris didn't recognize Charlie's talent the way her son did.  When she met Charley the first time at the company offices, she laughed him out of the building. She said, "You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to produce one fucking record for you."  She said it right to his FACE.  Terry got the message.  He followed his mother's lead and broke off all ties with Charlie.  We could all expect that Charlie didn't take the rejection too well.

On August, 8, 1969, four members of the Manson family arrived at 10050 Cielo Drive - the house owned by Terry Melcher. Terry didn't live there anymore; he rented out the house to actress Sharon Tate and filmmaker Roman Polanski.  Sadly, the Manson family members didn't know this. They carried guns and knives. To enter the house, they opened a slit in a window screen.  Of course, Terry wasn't there.  He was now living in Malibu with Doris.  Roman Polanski wasn't there either.  He was off in London on a film shoot. Sharon was there with three of her closest friends.  All three of them were rich, white; very successful and protected in their own way.  When they were confronted by their intruders, they asked "Who are You...What are You Doing here."  (Note to my students:  This was the SIXTIES. PEACE.  LOVE.  I'm surprised the doors were locked.) "I'm the devil," said the Manson leader, Tex Watson, "and I'm here to do the devil's business."

Sharon's close friend Jay Sebring was shot when he pleaded to the group to be gentle with Sharon.  She was eight months pregnant.  After pleading for her life and the life of her baby, Sharon was stabbed sixteen times in the stomach. Manson woman Susan Atkins dipped her fingers into Sharon's blood and wrote the word "Pig" on the front door of the house. The coroner report  shows that another of Sharon's friends was stabbed 51 times and took thirteen blows to the head with a blunt instrument - on top of this, the coroners found two bullet wounds. The very next night, Manson himself led a group of his followers into a different house for a repeat performance. They killed two more people they didn't even know: Leno La Bianca and his wife Rosemary. Before they left the house, they scrawled these words in blood on the refigerator door: "Healter Skelter"  They spelled it wrong, but everyone knows its a huge hit off the Beatles White Album.  Charley believed the Beatles were sending him secret hidden messages in their lyrics.  Like: Kill, Kill, Kill!

If I myself were writing a research paper on Charles Manson, I probably wouldn't be able to fit Doris into my discussion.  My focus would  be on these grisly murders that shocked the world.  It's true.  News of the violence and evil spread across California like wildfire. For fifty years, books have been written about darkness that descended on the decade. Famous writer Joan Didion famously said, "The sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969...The tension broke that day.  The Paranoia was fulfilled."  Hippies weren't so cool anymore. The sexual revolution was put on hold.  People lost trust in one another. The Big Question, of course, is WHY? HOW could something like  this happen? Charles Manson had lived half his life behind bars with rapists and murderers.  Beyond the psychosis and paranoia he may have developed in prison, he became a serious abuser of LSD and religious ritual. Less than one year after his release from prison, he found that his psychosis, drug use and cult-like leadership qualities appealed to a new wave of hippies and freaks. He was able to build his own Manson Family on the pretense of extreme violence.

The author of the book I'm reading, Chaos, believes the murders of Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and the two houseguests at at 10050 Cielo Drive were all about REVENGE.  But, revenge for WHAT?  The killers didn't even know their victims.  Fifty years after the murder, author Tom O'Neil argues that the murders bloodshed was a result of Doris Day getting in the face of  Charles Manson: "You're out of your mind if you think I'm going to produce one fucking record for you."

After I finish this post, I will create an assignment for my students to share interesting tidbits from their research on Facebook, Jamboard, or Padlet. My goal is to break up the monotony of their English class.   I'm writing this Charles Manson post as a response to some of the ideas they have already shared with me online.  But, the beauty of these new online tools is the freedom and flexibility to represent his/her ideas.  I started the discussion, but they will drive it. Hopefully this will keep our learning New and Fresh. 

Now I'm thinking what I'm going to read next.  I  just might be something about Doris Day!  DID YOU KNOW she traded in her Hollywood career for a significant role in Animal Activism?  Although I will always remember Doris for her singing, "Que Sera, Sera,"  many others may know her for her relentless dedication to animal welfare.  Maybe in the future I can convince a few of my students to write about that.  I look forward to reading what my students have to say.

 

Jay's STUDENT NEWS CONFERENCE Post - End-of-Semester Celebration of Student Writing

        This semester we read a sixties novel and developed sixties research papers.  I've asked my students to share their thoughts and  experiences for their researching  topics as diverse as the Women's Movement, the Black Panther Party, the Manson Murders, the Space Race,  JFK, MLK, Marilyn Monroe, Muhammed Ali.  

 

At our Student News Conference, we bring in a professional podium.  We have reserved a large screen for students to support their discussions with meaningful visuals.  In a brief three to five minutes, they highlight the most interesting aspects of their writing projects and writing experiences. At the end of their presentations,  they will take questions from the audience.  Here are the imporant details:

 

When:   Tuesday, June 3 @ 11:00 a.m – 12:00 p.m

Where:  Spencer Library Computer Classroom (room 1502)

 

Jay’s Origin of News Conference Idea:  This Student News Conference idea came to me at the beginning of the first Trump presidency; from watching news clips of Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Sara Saunders, Rod Rosenstein, presenting important information to a roomful of reporters.   And taking questions!   I thought what a great format to generate and perpetuate student engagement at semester's end.   The communication goes two ways.  Everyone wins!

Jay’s Note:  For many of my students, these projects have been both rigorous and challenging.  As we advanced deeper into the writing process, students seem more knowledgeable and engaged – sharing their new insight can become a rewarding experience.

Here are some questions you can expect to hear addressed at our News Conference:

• What is the  emphasis for your paper?  What question is driving your paper?  What did  you want to answer in your essay?
• Who is the central figure in your research paper?  What is his/her story?   What is the larger issue?
• What have you learned so far that has surprised you and why?
• What do people need to know most about your topic?
• What are some of the misconceptions people may have about your topic?
• What is your personal involvement in the topic?  How did you come to choose your topic?
• What may have been the greatest  challenge to put this project together?

For those of you reading this that can't make it to our Student News Conference, please check us out on our class Padlet.   This past week, we have prepared for the event with online interaction.  You can find us here: https://padlet.com/jaylewenstein/student-news-conference-prep-question-and-answer-owip4lnjal5n6j3g

 

  I envision our Student News Conference as an exciting, non-threatening collaborative atmosphere to reinforce our semester learning and motivate my future students to do the same.   I call it a “Celebration of Student Writing.”   Look for publication of our best writing  - later this summer - in our next classroom blog.  My students and I wish you all a successful and rewarding close to your Spring Semester 2025 and a Beautiful Summer.

 

Paz,

Jay Lewenstein

Adjunct English Instructor, Imperial Valley College

 

 

Jay's STUDENT NEWS CONFERENCE Post - End-of-Semester Celebration of Student Writing

 

        This semester we read a sixties novel and developed sixties research papers.  I've asked my students to share their thoughts and  experiences for their researching  topics as diverse as the Women's Movement, the Black Panther Party, the Manson Murders, the Space Race,  JFK, MLK, Marilyn Monroe, Muhammed Ali.  

 

At our Student News Conference, we bring in a professional podium.  We have reserved a large screen for students to support their discussions with meaningful visuals.  In a brief three to five minutes, they highlight the most interesting aspects of their writing projects and writing experiences. At the end of their presentations,  they will take questions from the audience.

 

Jay’s Origin of News Conference Idea:  This Student News Conference idea came to me at the beginning of the first Trump presidency; from watching news clips of Trump, Nancy Pelosi, Sara Saunders, Rod Rosenstein, presenting important information to a roomful of reporters.   And taking questions!   I thought what a great format to generate and perpetuate student engagement at semester's end.   The communication goes two ways.  Everyone wins!

 

Here are some questions you can expect to hear addressed at our News Conference:

• What is the  emphasis for your paper?  What question is driving your paper?  What did  you want to answer in your essay?
• Who is the central figure in your research paper?  What is his/her story?   What is the larger issue?
• What have you learned so far that has surprised you and why?
• What do people need to know most about your topic?
• What are some of the misconceptions people may have about your topic?
• What is your personal involvement in the topic?  How did you come to choose your topic?
• What may have been the greatest  challenge to put this project together?

If you can't make it to our Student News Conference, please check us out on our class Padlet.  

This past week, we have prepared for the event with online interaction.  You can find us here: https://padlet.com/jaylewenstein/student-news-conference-prep-question-and-answer-owip4lnjal5n6j3g/wish/E1P8aXkJAO2qWwA9

Post in Student News Conference Prep - Question and Answer padlet.com

I hope this works!  

I envision our Student News Conference as an exciting, non-threatening collaborative atmosphere to reinforce our semester learning and motivate my future students to do the same.   I call it a “Celebration of Student Writing.”

Look for publication of our best writing  - later this summer - in our next classroom blog:

Why the title? Well, you will just have to wait for my next campus email

My students and I wish you all a successful and rewarding close to your Spring Semester 2025 and a Beautiful Summer.

Paz,

Jay Lewenstein

Adjunct English Instructor, Imperial Valley College

 

 

Jay's CRACKED READER Post - Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith - David Bowie - More Reading Marathon

  Patricia Highsmith has always been one of my favorite novelists.  I count more than 12-15 of her books on my shelves:  novels, short-story collections, biographies.  I began with her novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, maybe forty years ago.  I can’t remember if I read it in college or after, but it just may be the novel that turned me over from a part-time, casual reader, to a full-time, serious literature lover.  The Talented Mr. (Tom) Ripley character who I’m talking about was pretty much the same age as my students are now.   He was a cute kid.  At age 19, he knew how to paint minature portraits – like the size of a postage stamp -  and play classical piano.  He considered himself an artist. He also knew how to forge checks and impersonate people with money; I suppose you could call him a con artist.

From the beginning of the story, we learn that his parents had drowned in the Boston Harbour when he was very young, and he was forced to grow up with an abusive aunt.  She treated him as a burden.  She had no interest in his dreams or ambitions; rather, she called him a “sissy.”  She saw nothing but failure in his future.  On several occasions, Tom ran away from home, but was always tracked down and brought back to his angry Aunt Dottie.   He grows up with a chip on his shoulder.  Great!  Patricia’s Highsmith’s writing drew me deep and quick into the novel.  I believe Tom felt cheated from an early age, and from his humble beginnings, he developed relentless ambition to be somebody.  What’s wrong with that?

The problem comes midway through the novel, when Tom bludgeoned two of his friends with heavy objects:  one with the bad end of a rowboat oar;  and the other with the base of a marble ashtray.  From these events, a sudden darkness rose out of his character.  For each friend he killed, he found he would have to kill another to cover his trail.  At the time I first read this novel, I was probably too naïve to recognize Tom for who he was.  I saw him as a “dreamer.”   If I said I was sorry that I feared or disliked this guy, I would be lying.  I actually found myself rooting for him.  Now forty years later, I recognize him as a psychopath.  Not only will he do anything to reach his dreams, he will kill anyone who gets in his way. 

How Dark and Violent is Tom Ripley?  I've read everything that Patricia H. has written with "Ripley" in the title.  I'm HOOKED.  What does that say about ME?

I bring up Tom Ripley, because reading him, has prepared me appreciate Strangers on a Train.  The novel starts  with a chance meeting between two strangers on a train. These two characters are in their twenties, like just out of college;  they both appear relatively handsome.   One might be a LITTLE GAY.  He’s reading Plato by himself in his compartment.  His name is Guy.  He is a budding architect. The other guy is VERY gay.   We can tell that by the green silk tie he wears.  It’s painted with bright orange palm trees.  OK, that doesn’t mean he’s gay,  but that’s gay enough.  His name is Charles Anthony Bruno.  When Guy accidentally touches Bruno’s foot with his own, Bruno's face lights up in  drunken stupor.  Instead of showing any sign of anxiety or embarassment, Bruno seems overly-attracted to Guy's presence in his compartment on the train.  Bruno wants to know more about Guy.  He asks him what he does and if he's married.  Guy doesn't seem too reluctant to reveal his past. He wants more than anything to divorce the slut he is married too.  He wants to move on.  Bruno's stepfather has ruined his life.  This is when Bruno tells Guy he hates women.  He recognizes the type of woman Guy is married, probably more than Guy does. Moreover,  Bruno hates his father. He wishes he were dead.  

 WAIT!  Bruno has an idea:  Why can't they do a Murder Swap.   You know, like a Wife Swap.  I’ll kill yours, and then you kill mine.  No one will suspect the murderer.  I mean they don’t have any prior connection. Ugh.  Bruno is a sleaze bag.  He’s the last guy you would want to get drunk with on a train.  It’s clear he obsesses with Guy from the moment their feet touch.  But what’s that say about Guy?  It says a lot.  Guy is a brilliant professional with the brightest of futures ahead of him.  How could someone like that get involved with a crazy-ass murder scheme. He has the chance to distance himself from Bruno.  But he doesn’t. That’s gay.

Here is the COOL PART about returning to my shelves after forty years for my reading selections. This year, I have made the goal to read FIFTY books.  That’s one a week.  I go back and forth from somehting old on my shelves to something new I purchase online. I feel I’m reading Patricia H with a new set of eyes.  It never occurred to me that Tom Ripley may have been homosexual, and if I knew that then, I certainly would never have raised by hand in class with anything to contribute.  I missed all the signs.  I LIKED and ADMIRED Tom for his AMBITION.  I didn’t recognize he may have killed another man for romantic reasons.  I followed Tom to the end, for his ability to go forward, no matter what the cost. The same thing goes for Guy and Bruno in Strangers on a Train.  Not for one moment did I think of Bruno in the pursuit of ROMANCE with the stranger he meets on a train. Rather, he was CAPTIVATED by Guy’s story.  He wanted to be PART of IT.  Murder was his best entry point.

Patricia H doesn't take long to put the plan in action.  I mean one of her books I have on my shelf is titled Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction.  She is very clear about the importance of outlining.  She emphasizes to think from the beginning of each chapter, "What will you do to MOVE THE STORY ALONG."  She first establishes that Bruno is a problem drinker.  He's always in the bag.  When we first meet him in the first chapter, he is half-way passed out in the seat across from Guy.  He had a lit cigar in one hand, and a flask of bourbon in the other.  On the day, he decides to kill Guy's wife, he wakes up in his own vomit in a back alley.  He's a young man of privilege and stature.  He must be smart; he went to Harvard for a year before being expelled, but his life has become one long, dreadful binge.  Apparentty, he's learned how to get things done.  HE'S ALWAYS DRUNK.  By the end of the night, he has hopped a train to Guy's hometown in Texas and stalked out his wife.  Around 9:30, he finds her in a deserted section of an amusement park and wraps his fingers around her throat: 

"He sunk his fingers deeper, enduring the distatesful pressuore of her body under his, so her writhing would not get them both up.  Her throat felt hotter and fatter.  Stop, stop, Stop! He willed it."  Man, I probably thought the same thing Guy did about this guy, like he was a DRUNK and a GASBAG.  Nothing to take seriously.  But what Guy and I missed is that alcohol is just part of the problem.  CLEARLY BRUNO HATES WOMEN.  More importantly, BRUNO LOVES MURDER. 

I’m not writing a book report here, but I will take a moment to appreciate Patricia H’s writing.  Not much of anything I’ve read combines a psychological tension with her biting sense of humor.  Jaja!   Patricia H was a closet lesbian.  This was during the fifties when homosexuality was outlawed in many states.  She was also a hardcore drinker.  Aparently she did little to hide that part of her personality.  Clearly she intimately knows her characters and their idiosyncrasies. When Guy first heard Bruno’s idea for a murder swap, he LAUGHED.  I mean, come on, this guy was WASTED.  He would never see him again.  As soon as he got off the train, that would be the end of it.  WRONG!  That was only the beginning of their very complex relationship.Do you know this word “doppelgänger”?  I picked up on it from my reading of other  Patricia Highsmith novels.  This author is always bringing together two men who appear to have genuine contempt for each other, but their animosity doesn’t drive them apart – it draws them closer together.  What they always hated about themselves, they recognize in each other. 

 I won’t spoil the story for you, but that’s the FUNNY PART.  Not FUNNY, HA-HA!  But funny, like in CRAZY-ASS.