Archive for October, 2007
A Medievalist’s Life: Maccabean Martyrs
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics on October 31st, 2007
I’ve been scarce around here the past week. I know that. But, well, I’m in the homestretch of my work on The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament, and I’m trying hard to finish it up so I can move on to one of the other dozen projects begging for attention.
Just so you know exactly how I’ve been passing my time, it is now 11:44pm on a Wednesday night and I’m locked in my office, writing. And what have I been writing? Well, explanatory notes. Things like this:
The poet’s statement that the Maccabean martyrs were Jews “all way,” though easily passed over, is nonetheless loaded with implications. Their story had captivated Christians from an early date (see note to line 17750), causing the martyrs to shift, as Joslyn-Siemiatkoski puts it, “from being liminal figures in late antiquity, whose Christian authenticity had to be proven, to being standard elements of the medieval Christian narrative of biblical and salvation history” (“Maccabean Martyrs,” p. 10). Indeed, they became central enough to the life of the Church that they were eventually included in the calendar of the saints, with a feast day alongside the Christian martyrs. The fact of their Jewish faith, however, was a lingering concern. Bernard of Clairvaux, for instance, dwells at some length on why, “alone of all the righteous men of the old Law,” these particular Jewish martyrs are so honored, especially given that, as Jews, Christian doctrine dictated that they were denied heavenly reward upon the instant of their martyrdom (Evans, Bernard, p. 73). Bernard, among others, ultimately argues that they were “Christian in spirit from a carnal Israel,” a typological, supersessionist understanding of their tale that ultimately led Christian exegetes, Comestor among them, to argue “that the fullest meaning of their martyrdom is found by the light of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Thus the value of dying for the Law of Moses is superseded by the value of dying for the Gospel. In this way, Christian historical exegesis of II Maccabees 7 presents the Church as the true Israel in contrast to contemporary Judaism” (Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, “Maccabean Martyrs,” pp. 10–11). For more on the Christian cult of the Maccabean martyrs, see also Rouwhorst, “Cult.”
So that’s several hours of my life I’ll never get back.
May posterity thank me.
New Story in Paradox
Posted by Michael Livingston in Fiction on October 23rd, 2007
Fresh on the heels of the Paradox preview a few weeks ago, a thick manila envelope showed up in the mail today: four (4) complimentary copies of the newest issue, featuring my Civil War tale “The Angel of Marye’s Heights” (and payment for same).
Until I held it in my hands, I had a hard time believing my name would actually be on the cover — preview be damned. But there it was, in big, bold, juicy letters. Very nice. If I can get a scan of the cover I’ll post it. Meanwhile, you can check it out here.
This Doesn’t Happen Out West
Posted by Michael Livingston in Homelife on October 20th, 2007
I like living in Charleston. I really do. Except, well, sometimes things happen here that are un-friggin-natural. Case in point:
Yesterday was a long day teaching after a long week of same. So I spent much of my late afternoon plopped on the couch in my teachin’ uniform, playing Madden to unwind. Inspired at last to rouse from rest (I wanted to go buy the new Brandi Carlile album), I headed upstairs, tossed my Army garb on the bed, and retrieved some clothes wrapped unceremoniously around a bedpost. Included (’cause you shouldn’t leave home without ‘em) was a pair of pants. I slipped it all on, headed out to the car, and started driving to the Big Box store.
A couple miles from the house, I felt a sort of itch. Um… down there. Groin area. Well, us fellas sometimes get these sorts of things (watch a baseball game), so I reached down to give a wee scratch to the inside of my thigh. As I pushed through the cloth, though, I realized that the reason I was feeling an itch there was because it wasn’t just pant and leg. There was something else there, too. I prodded around at it with my fingers — is it one of those dryer sheets? a hobbit sock? — and that’s when it twitched.
Oh dear.
My fingers quickly enwrapped the offending and now earnestly wiggling object, and instinctively squeezed. For some reason the first thing that came to my mind was that I had a massive bug — lord knows why — in my pants. But, no, it was more solid than a bug would be. And squishy before crunchy rather than the buggy vice-versa. I stopped squeezing, at last recognizing that it was not a bug in my pants. It was a lizard.
I looked down, saw small circles of red blossoming through my pant leg.
Oh hell.
I pulled over in the empty parking lot of a State Farm office. I wasn’t in a panic, mind you. Indeed, I think I was remarkably calm and controlled for a fellow with one hand in his lap gripping a no-longer twitching lizard about three inches from his Vital Bits (thank goodness I wasn’t going commando). Still, I wanted it out of there.
I got out of the car carefully, spread my stance to give the most direct path to ground I could, and then let go of the creature and shook my leg.
Plop.
The lizard was a few inches long. I’ve no idea how it went undetected for so long. And it wasn’t dead, though I’m sure it wasn’t happy: the blood on my pants — not much, but still — wasn’t mine, and being manhandled near a fellow’s manhood must by definition be traumatic. But when I nudged it with my foot it ran off across the asphalt seemingly no worse for wear.
As I watched it go, I had but one thought in my mind: This doesn’t happen out West.
In subsequent news: Brenda Carlile’s album is terrific. I can give it no better review than to say that it’s totally worth the trauma of having a lizard down your pants en route to the store — though you might want to buy it online just the same.
Did You Know?
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics, Teaching on October 16th, 2007
My parents put me on to this little movie, originally put together by Karl Fisch, the director of technology for a Colorado high school. It’s a simple presentation, providing a few basic facts about what our world is and what it will soon be. It isn’t political. It’s practical.
Watch it. Encourage others to do so.
Some of you are science fiction writers, and while I think this information is universally applicable, it is doubly appropriate for those of us who have an eye toward the future. Because if there’s one thing that Fisch’s facts make clear, it is that the future, in a way none of us can truly comprehend — because no one, no one in the history of history has faced anything like it — is hurtling towards the present with all the implacably frantic rush of a runaway train.
It’s frightening, and it’s exhilerating.
It’s the reality of life in exponential times.
And I hope we’re ready for it.
Grading to the Rockies
Posted by Michael Livingston in Homelife on October 14th, 2007
I’m trying to grade papers this evening, but the need to look at the unfolding NLCS game 3 on MLB.com every few seconds is seriously slowing me down. Or perhaps it is comically doing so. Or ironically. I don’t know.
Go Rockies!
I’m wondering if I could abandon the Frenchie beret I’m required to wear as part of my uniform and instead wear my favorite old fitted Rox ballcap. It’s black, so nobody will notice, right?
Fiction Submission Games
Posted by Michael Livingston in Fiction on October 10th, 2007
Every now and then it occurs to me how utterly ineffective I am at keeping my fiction “out there” (by which I mean on the market, not “in left field,” since there’s little doubt I do well at the latter).
I have, at the moment, over a dozen short stories just sitting on my hard drive. They’re completed, and I very much suspect that they’re good enough to be published. Some of them have been to two or three markets, some have been to none, but not one of them is currently making the rounds. And this is not something new to me.
I’ve mentioned this sort of thing to many fellow writers, and more often than not they are rather condemnatory of it. They seem to be of the opinion that if one is not plugging away and plugging away — publishing whatever, whenever, and wherever one can — then one is not a writer.
For whatever reason I thought once more on my lack of submissiveness (ha!) this morning, and it struck me, all at once, that perhaps some of my fellows look unkindly on my write-and-neglect habits because they see it as a fundamental betrayal of our shared craft.
I started trying to articulate a response to this a few minutes ago, and this is what I wrote:
Being a writer, you understand, is theoretically egotistical and practically masochistic. Writing is egotistical at its core, of course: composing a story posits a reader to read it, an audience that by definition cares what you, the composer, have to say. It’s the same with any creative act: to commit it, you must at some level be placing yourself in an authoritative position relative to the world around you. Writing, too, is masochistic: not only does it inherently open the writer to criticism, it invites it. (Indeed, some writers revel so deep in the pool of rejection — perhaps as a defensive reaction against the looming reality of failure — that one might term them self-flagellants.) Writing thus becomes a kind of martyrdom of heroic suffering “for the art.” I imagine, then, that my fellow writers view me as not being serious about my writing, because I don’t do all I can to see my work in print. …
I wrote this only to find myself cornered by my own thought process.
I want to argue that seriousness and desire for publication are not causal companions. One need only look at Kafka or Tolkien for a rebuttal. But even so I cannot say why some writers aren’t desperate to see their work in print. Is it a lack of egotism? Is it a lack of masochism? Or is it a lack of desire? By the terms of the argument that I’ve set-up there’s not much excuse beyond those options, and I’m not comfortable labeling myself with any of them.
Perhaps, when all is said and done, I’m just lazy.
Back from SEMA
Posted by Michael Livingston in Academics, Student Successes on October 6th, 2007
I just returned from a long, internet-free weekend spent in Spartanburg, SC at the SEMA Conference. Met many old friends, made several new ones, and heard some great papers. My own presentation was well received, as were those of the two undergraduates I dragged along. I’m very proud that they more than stood their own among the professionals. Now begins the task of convincing them to accept my help in pushing their work to the next level: publication.
On the drive up we were listening to a rather eclectic mix of music (my fault, naturally), a bit of which was the work of Tom Lehrer. I was shocked to find they’d never heard of him. If you, too, dear reader, have been similarly kept in the dark, I give you the man, the myth, and indeed the legend, singing “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park”:
For those so inclined, a more modern and far more vulgar version of this kind of thing is the work of Stephen Lynch. My, um, favorite song of his is “Lullabye” (video for mature audiences).
Paradox Preview
Posted by Michael Livingston in Fiction on October 2nd, 2007
I just received an email from Christopher M. Cevasco, Editor/Publisher of Paradox Magazine, announcing that he just launched a new look website for the magazine. You can check it out here:
The website is quite striking, and I was glad to see the improvements he made. Even more, I was glad to see that my name is on the front page — at least for the moment. I have a story in the upcoming issue 11, and I’m the first author listed for that issue, which is particularly odd for me in that the fellow who follows my name is the amazing Darrell Schweitzer.
But even that isn’t the coolest thing I saw on the new Paradox website.
Following the “Issues” tab takes you to a preview of the forthcoming issue (which is a very nice feature). Once there, you get to see my name twice. The first is a link to a preview of my story and its artwork (very cool); the second is … no, this can’t be right … my name on the cover of the issue!
I’m flabbergasted. I mean, I’ve made the cover of a magazine before, but never quite so prominently. It even has my title: “The Angel of Marye’s Heights.”
I’m stunned.
