aroundeuro2

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Praxis

I know, I know-- it's been awhile. Things get busy. Life speeds up, and before you have chance for pause, it's autumn. Pretty soon, snow'll be flying.

But you already knew that.

I've realized this blog can be a place for essays. I have another blog where I rant. Mostly about dreams and the love life, and mostly in fragmented "creative" language, whatever that means.

According to my seminar professor, the only way we can transform our private ramblings into some semblance of literature is if we provide context. And I'm not sure I'm ready to ground last night's dream about being made into a sandwich just yet. Must spend another year recording the surreal. And then, maybe, I'll be able to relate it to regular everyday life.

So I like this more controlled space. A place where sentences are ordered; thoughts, regulated to single, one-syllable points. Very tidy. I like tidy. Its parameters give me room to breathe.

On to the topic at hand: THE MEETING.

This semester, I'm working for two ---very--- different organizations. One is Bedlam Theatre, an avant-garde cooperative theater group made of anarchists and system haters. They triumph the new. Later, I will post more about them.

The other is working for "creative services" at University Relations.

Although lately I've been entering data to a computer (A process my computer geek roommate so kindly calls 'digitization'. Sounds professional, doesn't it?), I normally write stories about professors. About anyone connected to the U, really. If you're researching or philosophizing or following the Russian mob who stole your credit card, we'll cover it.

But we're undergoing a systems change.

"What is our voice?" asked Martha, the editor-in-chief, over eggs and coffee. "We need to be clear about what we want to say," she said. "Otherwise, they'll take over."

The U of M - a 2 billion dollar bureaucracy - wants to turn the web homepage - our main domain - over to the marketing department.

This means we won't be writing stories to provoke readers into thinking critically about the U. Thinking hard about, for example, its research. About which private corporations with private interests are funding what affects the public.

Often at their expense.

Corn oil companies funneling money into research supporting destructive high fructose corn syrup. Figure out how to make cheaper. Replace it with sugar. Call it natural. Pour it down the throats of we gluttonous America. Grow our waistlines wide. 'Til one day, we wake up, bloated, lumber to the Target and throw money at the Zone, South Beach, Luna. Pour more money into the industry because of the industry.

Instead, we'll write what Rick calls "Rah! Rah! U!" stories.

Pieces about Regents professors and College Bowl winners that tend to fall flat like soda; fizz-less cans of empty calories. Where we don't talk about lobbyists or why the strikers struck or...

But are we really much different from any other American university?

It is all that suprising that Bobby Brunuinks makes eight, ten, twenty times the janitor? I don't think so. I hate to say it, but I don't.

I. FEEL. DISCOURAGED. (sorry i'll finish it later, just want to post something--anything, to be rid of the 'everyone is a teacher' nonsense. ima cynic, yo. ;))