quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

speaking of which -- next message on regional alumni list -- some guy advertising his 7 million dollar custom home for sale.

nabisco, i was *cough* a creative writing major with *cough* a music composition minor at Oberlin...

and it was hard to get into the upper levels of Creative Writing-- as in, one had to apply to every class, and there was no guarantee of admission. though i knew a bunch of people who got fucked this way, it also really separated the wheat from the chaff in a very efficient way.

it is also important to recognize, too, that Oberlin has a load of writers who are considered hot fucking shit in their particular genres, which isn't as true for a lot of other schools. (not to put other schools down).

Meanwhile recipients of federal and state financial aid adjust to life sucking.

Um-hmmm, that's me after one more year.

Though admittedly, I am already doing the job search thing.

well I gotta say the caps on federal loan repayment will be the opposite of life sucking, as far as my accounts are concerned. (especially since, umm, if you took out a few year-by-year loans recently, even small ones, that happened to shift into repayment during recent Troubles, umm, yeah, not the best time to find credit to consolidate them into one manageable bundle, as opposed to paying minimums on several different loans at once, lemme tell you.)

it still sucks if you have private loans.

(I say that in parentheses out of deference to people I knew in grad school who were taking out like a combined $70k a year in federal and private loans, and would probably roll their eyes at my small amounts, although now that I think about it, those were the people who were out drinking and sleeping with one another while I was eating hot dogs off the street outside of work, so we're probably even)

"Oberlin has a load of writers who are considered hot fucking shit in their particular genres, which isn't as true for a lot of other schools. (not to put other schools down)."

I enjoy reading non sports-related smack talk of schools. Please dish!

princeton kids are just not up to snuff on their restoration lit

yale classics is so bad most yalies cant tell the difference between heraclitus and hercules!!

xp nabisco - a lot of my friends went to expensive grad schools and have these huge amounts of debt, and struggle to get by on an annual income that if I was making that much, I could conceivably buy a house.

I can't imagine paying for an MFA/taking out loans for an MFA, isn't that kind of insane?

(big, 70K loans i mean)

You'd be surprised. (Sez the guy at UCI.)

i think UCI is fully funded, though?

(i'm talking strictly the creative writing program here)

After the state budget travails currently hitting us I have *NO* idea what would be funded now, frankly.

xp Que: almost everyone I know who has gotten an MFA (in creative writing, visual art, etc.) or a Master's in Music in the past 5-10 years took out huge loans. Partially because the most prominent schools around here are all private and tuition is something like $30k/year.

that is total insanity

yeah, Que, I gotta admit, I wouldn't have done that and marveled a bit at those who did. just to be clear, though, the people borrowing like $70k were usually putting about half of that just toward living in Manhattan without jobs.

xpost - keeping in the mind the caveat about loans for living (cause a $10k stipend or whatever sounds great but isn't exactly a year's cost-of-living), you can very much get an MFA in a lot of places without having to take out ridiculous loans

nabisco did you have a job while you were in the mfa program?

cause a $10k stipend or whatever sounds great but isn't exactly a year's cost-of-living)

it's pretty okay if your tuition is waved and you're not living in a big city

not asking for financial reasons, just wondering if its possible to both work a (part-time, i assume) job and get the work done for a program like that

but yeah nabisco, i always wondered if you took out loans because i know Columbia doesn't fund as much as other places do, but it seemed impolite to ask. sounds like you didn't have to take out an insane amount, which is cool

xp nabisco: I went to State school for my Master's which at the time ran about $1000/semester, and I worked part-time and went to school part-time for most of it. I took out loans the semester I did my final project, after several years of trying to do both final project and working and failing. The amount they gave me for living expenses was pretty generous ... far more than I "made" by working, though I'd guess it would've been "barely enough" for someone paying market rent in San Francisco.

Ahem, yes it is. BUT WRITERS ARE ALL INSANE.

smackdown? Oberlin has:

Dan Chaon:
His first novel was You Remind Me of Me (2004). His short-story collections Fitting Ends (1996) and Among the Missing (2001) were both well-received; the latter was a finalist for a National Book Award[1], and was also named one of the year's ten best books by the American Library Association[2] and as a notable book of the year by The New York Times.[3]. Chaon's short stories have also won the Pushcart Prize[4] and the O. Henry Award,[5] and have been included in the Best American Short Stories of 1996 and 2003.[6] He was awarded the 2006 Academy Award in Literature from The American Academy of Arts and Letters.[7]

we used to have Martha Collins:
Martha Collins is the author of Blue Front, a book-length poem based on a lynching her father witnessed when he was five years old. Blue Front won an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and was chosen as one of "25 Books to Remember from 2006" by the New York Public Library.
Collins' chapbook Sheer (Barnwood, 2008) is her most recent publication.
She has also published four collections of poems, two books of co-translations from the Vietnamese, and an earlier chapbook of poems.
Her other awards include fellowships from the NEA, the Bunting Institute, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Witter Bynner Foundation, as well as three Pushcart Prizes, the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award, and a Lannan residency grant.
(FYI, Collins was the first American caucasian to ever win the Anisfield-Wolf award. past winners? Notable past winners include Zora Neale Hurston (1943), Langston Hughes (1954), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1959), Maxine Hong Kingston (1978), Wole Soyinka (1983), Nadine Gordimer (1988), Toni Morrison (1988), Ralph Ellison (1992), Edward Said (2000), and Derek Walcott (2004).)

Kazim Ali:
Kazim Ali (born 1971)[1] is an American poet, novelist, essayist and professor. His most recent books are The Disapperance of Seth (Etruscan Press, 2009) and Bright Felon: Autobiography and Cities (Wesleyan University Press, 2009). His honors include an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. His poetry and essays have been featured in many literary journals and magazines including The American Poetry Review,[2] Boston Review, Barrow Street, Jubilat, The Iowa Review, and Massachusetts Review, and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2007.
In 2003 he co-founded the independent press Nightboat Books, and served as its publisher from 2004-2007, and currently serves as a founding editor.[3]

and really, that is just the beginning. Ali and Chaon are considered top of their field, and Collins is too, though she no longer teaches.

real, non trolly question here:

do good/great writers make good/great teachers?

Depends on whether they are teaching to make ends meet or teaching because they see the profession as part of what writers do-- nurture other writers.

yale classics is so bad most yalies cant tell the difference between heraclitus and hercules!!

― rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget (max), Monday, July 20, 2009 5:16 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

I can definitely tell you where the clit is!

Not that one has to be within an institutional setting to do so. Many people I know, including one of the best professors I've ever had, have pretty much disavowed the academy at this point in favor of giving lectures and teaching classes outside of such an environment. Some good examples of this phenomenon are found on the west coast, with the Kootenay School of Writing up in Vancouver, BC, and with David Buuck's BARGE group, which does work around the Bay Area relating to environmental aesthetics and writing.

Max, I actually worked full-time one year -- class til noon, work til eight, read/write til two -- and I certainly wasn't the only one; obviously that's not ideal in terms of really concentrating on your work, but yeah, it's absolutely no-question possible to work and still focus. (Possibly even good practice for being able to write when you're done.) Que, I hear Columbia's swung back up with their funding, which is a good thing -- I got funded okay, which I was thankful for, definitely, and took a few federal loans to make up the difference; worked for what passed as rent and what passed for food.

and with David Buuck's BARGE group, which does work around the Bay Area relating to environmental aesthetics and writing.

He's the guy that runs Small Press Traffic, right?

^^ if you have stumbled across this and you are someone I know and actually in addition to "working" for rent/food I also "borrowed money from you," I'm sorry

class til noon, work til eight, read/write til two

did you have a social life??

umm it wasn't necessarily the most fun year of my life, but I do remember going out a decent amount! also getting annoyed that people would (very politely) call me every other night to tell me they were headed to the bar, as if they hadn't figured out that I was invariably in QUEENS, at WORK. I dunno, weekends and the odd night off -- I was more bothered by the 1.5-hour commute and always eating the $2.50 turkey plate at the convenience store.

although I guess one time around 3 in the morning I realized I was having a conversation with my TV

for the past year i've lived off of:
- tacos from the cheapest places
- chinese pressed tofu that lasts for four meals and is delicious and costs one dollar
- deals on chicken legs and thighs at Safeway

thank god i take supplements.

also yes sarahel, David Buuck runs SPT...which is associated with my MFA program at CCA...where they've paid for about 1/2 of my time? can't remember my most recent financial award, but they definitely have taken some certain amount of pity on me b/c i am poor.

also yes sarahel, David Buuck runs SPT...which is associated with my MFA program at CCA.

I see J0seph Le4se several times a week at the Whole Foods.

I'm not sure yet about the best way to market the Grad School Diet, but I assume it would just involve people sending me all their money and then having to walk around all day searching for the cheapest bag of lentils

sarahel, i have much to say about the man, but i cannot right here. if you want to know, message me.

Do students really subsist on lentils?
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40127000/gif/_40127544_students_203152.gif

Like Que, I'm aghast at taking out loans in careers in which the possibility of landing a job that will repay the loans is almost non-existent. I know it happens -- I see this at the university all the time -- but we're still a commuter campus (most students live at home).

The thing is, a lot of people get the MFA thinking that if they don't make it as a writer, artist, musician, etc. they can get a teaching position to pay the bills. However, there are lot more people thinking this than there are full time teaching positions, or even part time ones that pay well.

the possibility of landing a job that will repay the loans is almost non-existent

I assume you have MFA programs at least partly in mind here(?), and just to be fair, this isn't always necessarily true -- it's not a huge stretch to strive to, e.g., sell a good general-audience non-fiction book for $50k and pay off your loans. I suppose it just depends on accurately judging your own skills and plans and chances, with whatever it is you happen to be doing.

xpost - haha everyone I know is under the impression that they need to make it as a writer/artist/etc. before getting a teaching position to pay the bills

okay I mean that is definitely a betting-on-success kind of plan, but it's not like a pipedream situation

compare/contrast prospects for MFA grads versus NBA hopefuls.

master of fart ass

key grad school money savers in my experience: stop drinking in bars/clubs and make lunch at home.

However, there are lot more people thinking this than there are full time teaching positions, or even part time ones that pay well.

This. With enrollment down, the number of lower division undergrad courses have dropped, therefore I haven't taught all summer (and likely won't in the fall either). I can't imagine paying for loans too.

Lentil and sausage stew or lentil and pancetta stew (over rice if you're feeling poor and need to bulk up) is my go-to option when I want to make a whole bunch of cucina povera OTOH puy lentils are probably tons more expensive in the US amirite? Things that are NOT expensive anywhere are eggs and potatoes so another go-to for Americans could be the Spanish omelette.

^^^here concludes this episode of Recipe Corner...