Manifesto

For those of you who were at Swarthmore's Baccalaureate last week, this is old news: They read the Wendell Berry poem that inspired this blog's title.

A few months before Baccalaureate, on March 31, I had gone out to chalk the Manifesto on the sidewalk. I took my sidewalk chalk, a bottle of water, and my Selected Poems of Wendell Berry (selected, it should be noted, by the poet himself). I had forty-five minutes before a screening for class. I chalked right out in front of the building where the screening was, and when my classmates began streaming past me, I was only halfway done. So I was about forty-five minutes late for the screening. It was worth it.

As I wrote, everyone who passed by had something to say about the poem, or my endeavor to chalk it. Many of them picked up Selected Poems and read the Manifesto in its entirety. Myles put up a line from it on his Facebook. My film professor, in a final paper conference a week or so later said "Did you chalk that long poem outside of the cinema?"

I'm not sure what kind of blog this is going to be. Some blogs like to give advice-- "life hacking" and all that (one of my favorite advice-giving blogs: The Happiness Project). As I have said many times, I don't like to give advice, mostly because I don't like to take advice. To assume other people will take my advice is disingenuous when I usually have no intention of taking theirs. But here's some advice for you: If you live in any sort of populated area, buy some sidewalk chalk and chalk something long. Long enough that you run out of the chalk colors you like and you have to progress to the ones you don't like, in order to prevent your fingers from bleeding. Pin yourself down to a place for a little while and let people pass you by as you do something that does not compute.

As I was finishing my chalking, a student passed by. He read the last line. "Resurrection," he said "doesn't seem like something you can practice. You get it right once or you're screwed." I didn't feel like arguing, but if I had, I would've pointed out that "practice" has more meanings than "attempt repeatedly."

LIFE UPDATE
I have a banjo now.

New Blog

I feel kind of silly starting a blog. It seems like a thing that, unless for some unexpected reason it becomes significantly popular and lucrative, is doomed to fail quickly.

Nonetheless, I'm off facebook, and I plan on getting into some interesting stuff that you may or may not want to read about, and (perhaps most importantly) since I won't be making (m)any films in the upcoming months, I need a new medium to work in.

The title (and the url) come from my favorite poem, Wendell Berry's "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front." I know that in some circles (my own), it is in bad form to declare a favorite. The appropriate thing to say is "oh, there are so many I love, I could never pick a favorite." Perhaps this vogue is a symptom of over-mediation in our culture. Perhaps it indicates indecisiveness, or a reticence, a fear of vulnerability to the judges of Taste and Culture. I am guilty of this evasion sometimes with novels, often with music, and almost always with movies. With poetry, however, I have a favorite. "Mad Farmer" is not a particularly elegant poem. It does not make me feel deep inexplicable feelings like some poems do. But it makes me want to DO things, and it makes me feel invincible. So that's why I picked it for this blog's title.

I'm sure what I'm going to post here, except, for now, my email (written in text form to thwart spammers) so that you can contact me in lieu of facebook: g [dot] s [dot] albright [at] gmail [dot] com

-Greg