Dad’s car was always ordered, seldom neat.  It comes with the burden of having four kids to shuttle to school, practice, and home each day that a spot of mud would be next to the armrest in the middle of the second seat from when Catie had hopped over the cloth headrests as the three older kids all dashed to slop out of our soaked, muddied clothing.  Stray games, balls, cups, books, and bits of trash laid throughout the car in an intricate order only we understood.  As kids, there were no such things as the driver’s or passenger’s seat, instead we would use the things we had left inside his forest green Durango as a legend to uncover the treasures that we had nearly forgotten under the sand dragged in from everyday life.

For instance, I was always the dreamer in my family.  Everyday seemed to bring another embarrassing scenario where I had forgotten the red pencilcase (Go Terps!) I always carried, the belt I needed as part of my uniform, or the clothes I needed for gym class as I absent-mindedly left Dad’s car.  One day, the first day of school which was also my tenth birthday, the carpool ran a bit late.  I was born on August 29 and this was the first year I would be in school on my big day.  In my excitement, I forgot the cupcakes that Mom and I had spent the previous night preparing.  My friends had already gathered around the basketball hoop next to the church that we claimed was “our house” but I couldn’t join them as I would have liked.  I nervously walked straight to the principal’s office to ask if I could phone my Mom and convince her to drive to Dad’s office across town and bring me the cake so I could be spared from the sadness of a birthday at school with no cupcakes and no party.

The principal’s office at Saint Mary’s was situated in seemingly the exact center of the building.  The building was divided into three sections.  The three sections were heaven, purgatory, and hell.  Heaven was the elementary school which housed the cafeteria and grades K-4.  The best moments of my school career all happened there.  There was purgatory, this was the wing for middle schoolers grades 5-8.  In purgatory everything work became more difficult and often one needed the intervention of his parents on earth to save him from the fires of hell and help him on his journey to high school.  Hell was the principal’s office.  Located directly across from the faculty lounge, the principal’s office housed the unsightly Sister Maria Goretti.  By all accounts, Sister Maria had grown up with the Virgin Mary and was destined for sainthood some day.  Of course, these questionable facts made her scarier to approach than any demon, and she controlled scores of teachers who could do more damage to a student’s permanent record than the vast armies of Satan ever could.

“Come in.” She squawked as I tentatively approached the glass door that encased her office.  The glass on all sides contributed to the aura of omniscience she projected to students.

In a voice hardly more than a whisper, I mustered, “Sister Maria,- cupcakes.  See it’s my birthday… and I need cupcakes.”

Looking back I think fear was a key component of my education process.  Students were always so totally terrified of the nuns that our powers of speech became useless in confrontations with them.  This, in turn, reinforced the collective belief of the sisters that their pupils had poor grammar and public speaking abilities and must be schooled heavily in the development of these faculties.

She used this moment as a teaching tool, “slow down young man, you must always speak in full sentences.”

At some point, I finally explained the problem.  My Dad had an important meeting at work, so I needed to phone my Mom.  I was granted permission to use the telephone, but Mom did not answer.  Near tears, unable to speak and probably visibly shaken, I appealed to Sister Maria.  In that moment of non-verbal communication I had triumphed over the most frightening figure in my life.  Sister Maria volunteered to travel the three blocks down W. Washington Street to my father’s office to recover the missing cupcakes.

Before I could let her leave, I thought I should show my gratitude to her by explaining exactly where the cupcakes would be found inside the car.  As I started to navigate the deep recesses of the backseat of my Dad’s car, taking care to point out the precise locations of the navigational tools my siblings and I used, I realized she wasn’t listening.  As always, I cut my sentence short out of fear and stared mutely.  Even when she was doing favors, it was impossible to speak to Sister Maria.

Gerard

A boy and his father attempt to understand each other in some strange ways.  The awkwardness of this relationship often stems from the fact that they were never formally introduced.  Consider; everything you have ever said or done to your father has been presaged by thousands of other events.  The relationship is too linear.  The father thinks, this is my son, the boy I introduced to the world.  A son knows too many of his father’s flaws while the father knows too few of his sons. The knowledge both parties have of each other becomes problematic.  In a way, they learn so much about each other that they have become ignorant of each other’s wills.  There is no way to interpret how an event has affected a person unless the feeling is communicated.  How do you express a feeling to some one who has always taken care of your needs?  How do you talk to some one who is a part of you?  And communication is not the strength of fathers and sons.  By the time the son reaches adulthood, he has more memories of moments of silence with his father than remembrances of joy or any other feeling shared by the two strangers.  A father is a name for the silent shadow that you once walked in.

Breslin, Or How Music by The Rolling Stones Makes Me Want to Pour Sulfuric Acid on Mike Krzyzewski’s Face:

The one thing Dad always kept very clean and organized (aka out of reach of children) was his car’s cd collection.  He reached for the black leather case only when certain moods hit him.   Normally, Dad listened to talk radio, scanning through the stations until he found a sports or political talk show host with a program he enjoyed.  I have many memories of long car rides spent wondering what exactly Rush Limbaugh was talking about and why it was making him so angry.  Because of this, music became a treat for me.

He reached for the black leather case kept inside the glove compartment only when certain moods hit him.   Music revealed parts of Dad’s character that never appeared outside of the car.  Anthems by Bruce Springsteen like “Rosalita” caused him to bob his head forwards and backwards in a manner reminiscent of Merton Hanks’s, a safety for the San Francisco 49ers, “Funky Chicken Dance.”  Dance moves and other fits of passion, however were not Dad’s modus operandi.  Instead, he used the music itself to express himself.  Springsteen and Marvin Gaye played for the good times, The Beatles and country music would pick him up from the sad days, and mixtapes made by my brother would get him through the longer drives when boredom sank in.

The whole spectrum of my father’s emotions seemed to be contained in these three moods represented by his musical tastes.  One night, one of the most disappointing nights of my young life, Dad brought out a new cd.

I had been anticipating January 27^th, 2001 more than any holiday that year.  I can remember carving out a page of my assignment planner as space to conduct a countdown until that year’s Duke versus Maryland basketball game in December of 2000.  This night was a big opportunity for our University of Maryland Terrapins.  A young team still fighting for national respect, Maryland met with college basketball’s juggernaut with a chance to claim first place in the Atlantic Coast Conference.  My father is an alumnus of Maryland, and has had two season tickets for each home game since before I was born in 1989.   The Duke game would be the first time I attended a game on a school night, as my parents had finally decided that I was ready to handle the responsibility of balancing school work with other activities.

The event, huge in anticipation, did not go as planned.  The highlights are unforgettable.  I heard the sound of over 14,000 people collectively sigh and remain silent.  Silence is a sound reserved for calamity, and I can honestly say that the psychological damage the Duke Blue Devils inflicted on all Maryland fans present was catastrophic.  Dad and I now faced the prospect of dealing with the painful vision of Duke celebrating another victory over our beloved Terps.

We dealt with the emotion the only way we knew how.  Dad reached in his glove compartment, pulled out The Rolling Stones’ “Hot Rocks 1964-1971” compilation album and we silently soaked in our anger.   For me, I had the consolation of at least seeing and sharing an emotion with my father that I had never seen before.  He was left disappointed as the beast of burden for another of our silent trips on a lonesome highway.

Sometime in late April, the Lit House hosted Argentinean novelist Rodrigo Fresan.   When I entered the porch I was under the impression I would be attending a reading of Fresan’s latest book, Kensington Gardens.  Somehow, I had mixed up the dates and attended the conversation between Mark Nowak and the author.   At first I was disappointed, as I had been anticipating hearing Fresan’s fiction.  The bits of research I had done online had piqued my interest and I was curious to hear him read.  After attending the conversation, however, I am glad that I was able to glimpse the personal side of the novelist which may not have come through in a typical reading.

The topics Fresan discussed with Professor Nowak were very broad subjects about the life of an author, his personal influences, and the state of fiction.  I was impressed at the way that Fresan always managed to relate these larger topics with funny anecdotes which brought his personality through while showing his gift for storytelling.  Upon reflecting, two things stand out in my mind the most.  When asked about what it is like to be a writer, Fresan described the scene of his friend’s funeral.  The friend he described was the now-famous Chilean author Roberto Bolano.  Fresan explained that he approaches each moment of his life from as many perspectives as possible.  He said that novelist’s must take this “schizophrenic” approach to thinking about life if they are truly to represent life.  He mentioned that he felt like a bad friend at Bolano’s wedding because the while he was attending the funeral service, only part of himself was mourning.  The rest of himself was searching for different angles from which he might be able to interpret the scene in front of him.  I found these to be very valuable insights.

The other moment that remains with me from Fresan’s conversation was a moment where he passionately talked about how much the works of J.D. Salinger continue to inspire him.  Salinger’s death earlier this year made him re-read some of the reclusive author’s work.  Fresan continues to be influenced by Salinger on his fourth or fifth readings of his books.  It always inspires me to see the sense of awe that authors can feel toward the writers who came before them.  Fresan’s passion and light-hearted humor entertained and informed me as I learned about an author’s approach to the craft of writing.

Sunday night was bingo night in the Breslin household.  My Catholic high school, Saint Maria Goretti High School, capitalized on a vice they would preach against the next morning in morning religion classes by hosting bingo in the school gym.  This meant that some one would have to set-up and tear down the bingo table every weekend.  My basketball coach quickly volunteered his players, thinking that this was the perfect opportunity to get his young stars in the gym as much as possible.

His strategy worked, and bingo became a vehicle for our team’s successes over the years.  Legends were made through bingo night.  The locally famous Rodney Gibson would clean the gym twice a month on Sunday nights all by himself, taking nearly two hours to do a job that my family would complete in 40 minutes as a team.  Another Goretti legend was rumored to have slept in the gym after his intense Sunday night workouts.  These were the stories I was supposed to follow.  Each of them contained a lesson that if I followed, I would succeed as a basketball player.  Looking back, I realize that I learned a lesson that is far more important than how to shoot a jump shot, I learned about my father’s dedication to his children.

A boy and his father attempt to understand each other in some strange ways.  The awkwardness of this relationship often stems from the fact that they were never formally introduced.  Consider; everything you have ever said or done to your father has been presaged by thousands of other events.  The relationship is too linear.  The father thinks, this is my son, the boy I introduced to the world.  A son knows… The knowledge both parties have of each other becomes problematic.  In a way, they learn so much about each other that they have become ignorant of each other’s wills.  There is no way to interpret how an event has affected a person unless the feeling is communicated.  How do you express a feeling to some one who has always taken care of your needs?  How do you talk to some one who is a part of you.  And communication is not the strength of fathers and sons.  By the time one reaches adulthood, he knows only that he has no idea just who this man is.  He is the shadow that you once walked in.

I never worshipped my Dad.  He always held up others as examples of heroism.  Usually, the heroes he introduced me to were famous athletes who donated to charity and played selflessly and members of the Republican Party.  Once we were fortunate enough to run into a writer.

Sunday night was bingo night in the Breslin household.  My Catholic high school, Saint Maria Goretti High School, capitalized on a vice they would preach against the next morning in morning religion classes by hosting bingo in the school gym.  This meant that some one would have to set-up and tear down the bingo table every weekend.  My basketball coach quickly volunteered his players, thinking that this was the perfect opportunity to get his young stars in the gym as much as possible.  His strategy worked, and bingo became a vehicle for our team’s successes over the years.  Legends were made through bingo night.  The locally famous Rodney Gibson would clean the gym twice a month on Sunday nights all by himself, taking nearly two hours to do a job that my family would complete in 40 minutes as a team.  Another Goretti legend was rumored to have slept in the gym after his intense Sunday night workouts.  These were the stories I was supposed to follow.  Each of them contained a lesson that if I followed, I would succeed as a basketball player. Looking back, I realize that I learned a lesson that is far more important than how to shoot a jump shot, I learned about my father’s dedication to his children.

Each winter, my brother and I would argue over who would travel to which game with our Dad.  The most coveted tickets were always the ones that featured Maryland hosting its hated rival from Durham, North Carolina, the Duke Blue Devils.  When I reached the fifth grade, I was finally allowed to go to Maryland games on weeknights as well as weekends as my parents thought it would be a good way to develop my responsibility if I could go to a game and show the responsibility to both finish my work and awake on time the next morning for another school day.  My parents were always structuring tests like this for all my siblings.  As they would tell it, “the world is a classroom where you will learn life’s greatest lessons.”  I took this maxim to heart, learning at a very early age to keep my eyes open to all the events surrounding me and the knowledge I may be able to gain from them.  Of course, it becomes easier to find life lessons in every event when one has actually gained life experience.  At the time in question, I was only eleven years old and I had very little knowledge of the world, but what I did know I attempted to know completely.  Thus, I can still recall the events of January 27, 2001 better than I remember what I discussed at dinner with friends yesterday.  I remember it so well because when the kids in my class at Saint Mary’s Elementary School were learning to spell catechism, I was spelling Krzyzewski.

What actually happened that night?

Maryland developed a 10 point lead with 53.6 seconds left in a hard-fought game between two great teams. Both teams would go to that year’s final four.

My dad and I would watch as his alma mater squandered that lead and went on to lose 98-96 in overtime.

My dad and I did not speak a single word to each other on the ride home as we were both so devastated. I think I learned what it was like to love some one that night. My dad and I shared a moment that I will never forget as we were so crushed by the defeat, but I was so uplifted to be sharing the moment with my father in the way that would defined my adolescence.

I think my focus will be on “This Boy’s Life.”  Wolfe and his mother share experiences in a car that are similar to the ones I wish to relate with my father.

I came to this understanding through my examination of two of Kaysen’s devices.  Her insistence on providing only glimpses of incidents and the amount of stories that people in the hospital tell each other.  The short sections that Kaysen has divided the book into function as glimpses into various episodes.  She tends to avoid longwinded explanations of events, concise witticisms when possible and allowing the reader to interpret the events related on the page.   Life at McLean seems to function similarly to the experience of reading Girl, Interrupted.  There is very little for the residents to do but examine the people around them and process their glimpse into the other’s personality.  Artists, especially writers like Kaysen, experience the world in this same manner.  One takes the experience he or she has accumulated and transforms it into a work of art.  Essentially, the main hobby of mental patients seems to be thinking, and creative minds with that much time on their hands will eventually use those hands to make something special.

The other pastime of the patients is storytelling.  Whether it’s Lisa recounting her three day glimpse of freedom or Wade creating an alternate story for his father’s life, each patient loves to tell stories.  This is true for all people, but the stories of mental health patients tend to be a bit more compelling than others.  The best stories open our eyes to a different way of viewing the world.  I believe that mental patients, who already possess a view of things decidedly different from that of sane society, can be viewed as inherently adept at storytelling.  The two things that are absolutely required for great writing are a good story and the time to write it well.  Kaysen has shown me that mental hospitals provide both.

Often, location is ignored in autobiographical writings.  If we are to regard The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin classic model of autobiography we discover that place has little to do with personhood.  Franklin makes no effort to explain how the places where he was born and raised may have shaped his character and attributes the person he has become to a relentless work ethic and commitment to moral virtue.  To be fair, at the time Franklin was composing the story of his life before the advent of the study of sociology, but Franklin never even considers how external forces shape a person’s life.  The Names and My Body understand themselves in a radically different way that accounts for a dynamic relationship between the internal and external forces that shape our selves.

One way that each text provokes thoughts of location is through the authors’ uses of multimedia.  Momaday uses pictures of his family as part of his narrative.  The pictures help the reader understand exactly who, what, and sometimes where that are part of Momaday’s story.  The pictures work with the writing to compose a unique whole.  Momaday’s combines photographs and text to render his life on a page just as his actual self is a combination of the many people presented in the pictures.  The use of multimedia in The Names affords Momaday the opportunity to say beautiful and insightful things without using any words.  He can focus the text on his own story and allow the pictures to tell the rest.   It is impossible to separate the story Momaday tells from the story of his pictures.  They are the same, just as Momaday is inseparable from his ancestors.

In a similar fashion, Momaday is also inseparable from his location.  He makes the setting of his life a key part of his memoir.  He writes, “I existed in that landscape, and then my existence was indivisible with it.  I placed my shadow there in the hills, my voice in the wind that ran there, in those old mornings and afternoons and evenings” (142).  He writes these sentences with the idea in mind that the events of human life take place.  People often use this phrase interchangeably with the words “happen” or “occur” but Momaday reminds readers that the phrase means more than that.  Quite literally, the events of human life require a setting.  There must be a place for people to act inside of, through, around, etc.  But the relationship between person and place becomes very complicated in time and Momaday sees himself as part of Jemez and Jemez as part of himself.

Whereas Momaday directly addresses the idea of place in The Names Shelley Jackson presents a very ambiguous location for her text.  I argue that dislocation is the key theme for Jackson’s work.  Both the text and the form in which it is presented serve to express the idea that the body is separate from any particular place.  By utilizing the internet as her means of expression, Jackson is making a significant statement about the role of place in the life of a person.  Her book is titled My Body and goes into very specific detail about the stories she associates with different parts of her body.  Removing the physical experience of reading a book from autobiography has the dislocating effect of taking the specific place out of a text.  Jackson presents a body, not on the physical, tangible medium of a page, but on the dynamic and boundless internet.  Unlike Momaday who argues that lives must take place, Jackson seems more interested in what life is like without a place and she attempts to avoid all discussion of location in order to focus purely on her body.  As her title implies, Jackson wants the central focus of her text to be her body and she achieves this by removing the “body” most people are accustomed to finding their literature contained inside, a book.

The multimedia approaches to autobiography displayed in The Names and My Body has shown me that words do not always tell the full story of literature.  Advancements in technology can and should be explored for their expressive possibilities.  Neither of these works would be as polished, informative, and truthful in their visions of themselves were it not for the devices they use to tell their stories.  Multimedia in autobiography has taught me that a human life is worth more than just words on a page.

Since I purchased this book at the beginning of the semester I have been very curious to read what promised to be an innovative work.  The elongated cover decorated with a picture of what appeared to be a sparse field somewhere in the American heartland made me think of reading My Antonia in high school.  The words lyric essay promised to me a meditation on life set against the backdrop of small town USA.  Instead, I read a deeply personal work that touched on death and depression in heavy doses.  It certainly was not the moving tribute to American life that I originally thought I had purchased.  While reading the book I felt that I was in the throes of a stylized memoir which sought to challenge conventional notions of how one could write his or her own story.  I observed that the narrator seemed to derive much of her personal happiness from external events that she herself had no control over and thought Rankine showed the important role that larger events and others can play in our lives (hence the title Don’t Let Me Be Lonely).

After reading a book unlike anything I had ever encountered, a work that was so radical in its narrative techniques that I struggle to accurately describe it, I was obviously stunned to hear her explain her thoughts on the line between fiction and nonfiction.

THE BOOK WAS ABOUT BUSH AND HOW HE TOOK AWAY OUR EMOTIONS AND SHE MODELED HER MULTIMEDIA TEXT ON THE FORM OF A NEWSPAPER NOT A NEW TECHNOLOGY LIKE HYPERTEXT OR BLOG OR ANYTHING INTERNET RELATED.