My elation and inspiration at yesterday's election results have no words. So I will post the words of Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison:

In honor of "Toot"--

Mother to Son
by Langston Hughes

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Excerpt from Sula by Toni Morrison:

"they called to the people standing in doors and leaning out of the windows to join them; to help them open further this slit in the veil, this respite from anxiety . . . from the weight of that very adult pain that had undergirded them all those years before. Called to them to come out and play in the sunshine--as though the sunshine would last, as though there really was hope. The same hope that kept them picking beans for other farmers; kept them from finally leaving as they talked of doing; kept them knee-deep in other people's dirt; kept them excited about other people's wars; kept them solicitous of white people's children; kept them convinced that some magic 'government' was going to lift them up, out and away from that dirt, those beans, those wars."

I am so glad that the idea of a government that speaks for all Americans no longer has to appear within quotation marks and laced with sarcasm. I am so glad that today there really is hope.

Congratulations, President-Elect Barack Obama! Congratulations, America! Yes, we can.

Sigh

Click here for the latest Sarah Palin stupidity. The esteemed republican candidate for Vice President of the United States is now on record as saying that she is afraid that a robust media that asks questions and challenges the veracity of her insane claims is a threat to the First Amendment. Yup. A free press is a threat to the amendment that...guarantees a free press.

Saved by iPod

I was feeling cranky this morning, and after I started my elliptical run off on "Rehab" (my ritual because I like singing "No, no, no" aloud; it's my daily denial instead of a daily affirmation), I didn't know what to listen to. My iPod chose two songs that made me feel so much better this morning through my melodramatic karaoke stylings, I had to share them in case you too are feeling the cranky Mondays. First, classic Madonna:



Second, classic Buffy. And she's feeling sorry for herself in this ballad, which fit my grumpy mood this morning. Plus, this YouTube video of it even has the lyrics light up underneath it (just in case you forget):



Hope you have some sing-a-long Monday fun.

Feeling seasonal

With Halloween coming up this week, I thought I would post two Halloween related pictures from recent adventures in our homestead. First, Nelle as Bat Dog (her Halloween costume):


and second, my angry Jack-o'-lantern. (He was supposed to be surprised but turned out a little enraged.)

Who Knew?

Apparently, my beautiful, happy, and staunchly feminist wife only hates Sarah Palin because Palin is attractive and happy. Phew! I thought it might have something to do with Palin's stunning incompetence, frightening hardcore conservatism, and proud ignorance. I'm glad Bill Bennett and McCain's campaign manager could clear up my confusion.

Sigh.

David Sedaris on undecided voters

Paul and I went to see a David Sedaris reading a couple of weekends ago in Charlotte, and we loved his show. I was tempted to post then but realized quickly that I would have to spoil this new New Yorker article in order to do so. So I will let Sedaris speak for himself now that the essay is available online. Plus, I will post a picture of him with a monkey. I have no idea what or when this photo is from, but it made me smile when I found it after running a Google Image search. (Sorry, Nadine! I know you are creeped out by monkeys.)

I like Michelle Obama

I was just sorting through my mail and the half a dozen appeals from the Democrats and Obama's campaigns that my small donations have prompted. (I may sound cranky about this, but it's only thanks to the business of sorting, not the business of soliciting. I'm glad that my party is going to the mattresses over this election and hope we will be doing so until the 11th hour! Into the 12th hour even.)

I read the Michelle Obama letter, and I will here shamefacedly admit that I did not watch the speeches during the Democratic National Convention this year. So I was not aware until reading this letter (or potentially had forgotten) that her father had Multiple Sclerosis. This letter talks about Election Day and canvassing:

"When I was a kid, my dad volunteered as a precinct captain for the Democratic Party in our neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Some of my earliest memories are of tagging along as he went door to door during the campaign season. He registered people to vote. if our neighbors needed absentee ballows, he arranged it. He helped them figure out how they'd get to the voting booth on Election Day. It wasn't always easy. Dad was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in his early thirties. But even as it got harder for him to walk, he never let up because he believed in the value of each person's voice in the political process. In you, I see the same commitment and determination that my father showed me on those fall afternoons on the South Side of Chicago."

I'm a soft touch and was very affected by that personal appeal even though
A) I'm part of the base for them; they've appealed to me long ago
B) I'm so frustrated by the insistence in contemporary American politics on sentimentalism and "personal" anecdotes. (See Joan Didion's scathing article "Election by Sound Bite" and her discussion of the misleading and reductive emphasis on candidates' "stories.") It's all politics, deliberately presented as theatre, and the need for pseudo emotional transparency bugs me.

That being said, emotional appeals can be tremendously effective. Which is why they are so central in this election year--appealing to base emotions or to noble ones.

And my empathy for Michelle Obama reminded me of my admiration for her, especially in this cool, calm, and collected interview on the Daily Show. I improvise in the classroom all the time, attempting to make jokes, sometimes blurting things I regret (or at least doubt the wisdom of) later. I would definitely not have been able to sit there with Jon Stewart and resist the desire to try to seem funny, no matter how flat my punchlines might fall. (McCain fails to resist this impulse all the time, much to his detriment.) After the shitstorm she faced about her truthful and even moving words that this is the first time she's been proud of her country, Michelle Obama has learned even further restraint and verbal judiciousness the hard way. But this has not diminished her eloquence, poise, and erudition.

That is one thing I am so proud of in the Obama campaign: that all the accusations of professorial rhetoric (perish the thought!) and "eloquence" as a crime (McCain's sneers throughout Tuesday's debate) have fallen at the feet of Barack and Michelle's determination to run this campaign with dignity, intelligence, and complex thought.

Anyway, this whole post is just to praise Michelle Obama and also to link to this New York Times profile of her from back in June.