“We live in
a culture of under-reaction to abuse and overreaction to conflict.” Sarah
Schulman, “Conflict Is Not Abuse”
Lesbian
activist Sarah Schulman, whose “Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm,
Community Responsibility, and the Duty to Repair” is this year’s “One Book … One Campus … One Community”
selection, spoke at IUN’s Bergland Auditorium.
One reviewer labeled the book “a searing rejection
of the cultural phenomenon of blame, cruelty, and scapegoating, and how those
in positions of power exacerbate and manipulate fear of the ‘other’ to achieve
their goals.”
Schulman regards power struggles between individuals and groups as a
normal part of life, whereas what constitutes abuse is a lopsided power
relationship where a person or group attempts to dominate another. Literary
Hub critic Adam Fitzgerald wrote this assessment of “Conflict Is Not Abuse":
The many coordinates of the writer’s life
as academic student and teacher, domestic abuse counselor, and AIDS activist
come powerfully together in a truly eccentric work of nonfiction and analysis.
The book sets out to trace how individuals have internalized the reliance
on the police state, both knowingly and unknowingly, to settle their disputes.
Conflict and disputation are natural, if uncomfortable occurrences in intimate
life, and Schulman argues that we should resist the assumption that
violence is inherent to disagreement. The supremacy structures of American
society, of which relying on the police is a part, have been shown time and
time again to be structurally opposed to the interests of queer, black, and
feminist interests.
Schulman has written 10 novels about
gay and lesbian life, including “After Delores” (1988) and “The Cosmopolitans”
(2016), as well as such serious works of nonfiction as “Ties That Bind:
Familial Homophobia and Its Consequences” (2009) and “The Gentrification of the
Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination” (2012), about the vanishing of rebellious
queer culture in New York City during the AIDS years of the 1980s.
Schulman was particularly insightful
answering questions fielded by moderator Gabrielle Jaimes, a Student Government
representative, although, to my disappointment, none dealt with dating or
student-teacher relationships. Students,
I’ve found, tend to shy away from talking about sex in class or a public forum. As I left the Bergland Auditorium, I learned
that I had won a copy of next year’s “One Book … One Campus … One Community”
selection, Mary beard’s “Women and Power: A Manifesato” (2017). Running less than 100 pages, it begins: “Women in the West have a lot to celebrate:
let’s not forget.” The
reception buffet was so good, in particular the stuffed mushrooms and
mini-chocolate eclairs, I skipped dinner.
At the Oscars, Eddie
Vedder sang Tom Petty’s “Room at the Top” during the “In Memoriam” tribute to
such late, great Hollywood notables as Harry Dean Stanton, Martin Landau, Roger
Moore, Jeanne Moreau, and Jerry Lewis. Many celebrities shunned Ryan Seacrist,
host of “Live from the Red Carpet,” because a dismissed stylist complained that
he had poked her with an erect penis while in his underwear and slapped her
ass. Casey Affleck, the previous year’s
winner of Best Actor for his role in
“Manchester by the Sea,” withdrew from handing out the Best Actress award due
to having been accused of sexual harassment in 2010, charges which he
denied. At the Governors Ball, a gate
crasher grabbed Frances McDormand’s Best Actress award, posted a selfie holding
it aloft, and then got arrested trying to abscond with it.
According to Sridhar Pappu’s “The Year of the
Pitcher,” in 1960 Bob Gibson believed that Cardinals skipper Solly Joe Hemus
was a racist and partly responsible for him pitching so poorly during his
rookie season: he issued more than 5 walks every nine innings and
finishing the season with an inflated 5.61 ERA.
A scrappy former infielder, Hemus, like many “old-school” managers, was
demanding and overbearing, especially toward rookies. He excluded Gibson from meetings with St.
Louis starting pitchers and in the heat of battle called Pirate pitcher Bennie
Daniels a black bastard. Hemus supposedly told Gibson and teammate Curt Flood
(whose batting average slumped to .237 in 1960) that they were not good enough
to succeed in the Majors. During the
three years (1956-1958) that I followed Hemus’ playing career with the Phillies, he was
a fiery competitor frequently ejected from games, who’d stand close to the
plate daring pitchers to hit him and often foul off good pitches until he had
worked a base on balls. Solly Joe’s
successor Johnny Keane got dramatically better results from Gibson by using
positive reinforcement.
In an episode of “Divorce” titled “Alone
Again, Naturally,” gallery owner Frances (Sarah Jessica Parker) angers her
dingbat best friend and learns that ex-husband Robert is planning to remarry
and wants to take the kids to Italy for two months. Finally reconciled with these developments
and prepared to go on with her life, she bounces up and down on a trampoline as
season two comes to an end, a vast improvement over season one. In another HBO series, “Crashing,” nerdy
comedian Pete Holmes reluctantly enters a Roast contest and ends up pitted
against his girlfriend Allie. Although
he gives as good as he gets, when he tells Allie he is hurt by what she said,
she leaves him in disgust. The season
ends pretty much as it began, with Pete sleeping on comedian Artie Lange’s
couch.
In bridge Dee Van Bebber and I finished
a half-point behind co-first place winners Chuck and Marcy Tomes and Rich and
Sally Wills. The difference came on the
very first hand of the evening when Chuck opened a Diamond and Bee bid 1 No
Trump. Because we normally play a
transfer convention, I bid two Hearts because I had 6 Spades, not realizing
that the transfer rule is not applicable if an opponent bid. Dee raised to 3 Hearts and I got set. Lesson learned.
"Favorite Games" by Rine Boyer, acrylic on aluminum
NWI Times photo by Tony Martin
John Cain’s twenty-fourth annual Holiday
Reading at Munster Center for the Performing and Visual Arts, delayed four
months due to eye surgery, was well worth the wait. Beforehand, a gallery reception featured
sculptures by Eric Tucker (an IUN grad and instructor at South Suburban
College) and hand-made, mixed media figures by artist Rine Boyer that reminded
me of woodcuts Toni has done of family members, including her grandparents,
proud Polish-American immigrants. She
agreed. Boyer’s portraitures
contained tiny symbolic images such as unicorns, wine bottles, puppies, and
puzzles all over their bodies.
IUN Dean Mark Sperling
At the IUN table was Mark Sperling, Dean
of Education, previously principal and then school superintendent in
Merrillville. I told him about once
being asked by acting Education Dean Bill May, whom he had known, to teach a
Social Studies methods course two weeks before the start of the semester when a
professor suddenly quit. He was
desperate, so I offered to do it if he allocated an extra $3,000 so I
could invite a dozen high school teachers as guest lectures. He agreed and the students loved it. Some were friends whom I knew to be
outstanding classroom teachers, such as Jim Spicer. Others, including Bruce Sawochka, had been
students of mine. Sitting to my right
was Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Alexis Montevirgen, who I’d often seen
at events but never talked with other than to say hello. Having attended Sarah Schulman’s talk the
previous day, he expressed surprise that it was so political. For one thing, she really slammed Vice
President Mike Pence. I told Montevirgen I thought it could have been more
geared to students’ lives.
Before a full house, Cain spoke about his
favorite subject, writer Truman Capote, whom he resembles in looks, speech, and
demeanor. He and an old college friend, Jim
West, read a segment from Melanie Benjamin’s “The Swans of Fifth Avenue”
(2016), dealing with “Answered Prayers,” Capote’s unfinished “nonfiction novel”
about New York City socialites who had included him in their inner circle and
whom he dubbed as his swans. When an
installment titled “La Cote Basque” appeared in Esquire in November 1975, his former friends, including Babe Paley
and Slim Keith, ostracized him, outraged that he portrayed them as malicious
gossips and aired their foibles and dirty laundry. Surprised by their unrelenting
hostility, Capote turned increasingly to drink and drugs and never again
completed a book, including “Answered Prayers.”
Though a somber tale, Cain managed to inject both humor and pathos into
the presentation.
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