Charlotte, North Carolina 21-23.3.03: Souls for Sale, Grits and Tomatoes

The text of Ecclesiastes I read today says that, of course, it’s better to have light than dark, to be wise than a fool. Then it undercuts that proclamation by saying both the wise man and the fool end in the grave. How to dispose oneself meanwhile?

As I fly to Charlotte, where I keep hoping to see justice shine—one day!—like noonday sun, why am I taking this trip now? The Observer just printed one of their fluff pieces yet again re: the Catholic church in Charlotte, almost exactly a week after the one announcing Doherty’s firing. This spoke of how Catholic schools are booming. This certainly conduces to making me feel defeated. Same old Charlotte: souls for sale, to anyone with money to buy.

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I watched a woman eat this morning, with great relish, a platter of grits with tomato slices and a fried egg. She carefully cut the egg and tomatoes into bits, mixed them into the grits, and ate. It looked delicious. She was a small gamin blond woman with a pixie haircut, mischievous shy smile, dancing eyes, and very wrinkled face and arms, like a smoker’s skin.

New Orleans 28.6.1995: Vistas to the Past, Seeing the Future Amidst Ruins

Driving on Esplanade a few days ago, I saw someone sitting on his screened side-porch, having breakfast. Something about this scene was like a glimpse into the past: so, here, people still do this.

When the artifacts of our past are not eradicated, it’s easier to see through the window between past and present.

(Later in the day): I’m not quite sure why I wrote these things this morning, what I was getting at. It’s that recurring fascination with vistas onto the past. But it’s also what I’ve been teaching about postmodernism. To me, postmodernism is about re-engaging the past amidst the ruins of modernity. That’s easier—the project is more poignant and pressing—amidst those ruins, and not in some glittering nowhere place such as Charlotte.

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I’m wondering why my teaching seems to touch and inspirit students. I don’t think of myself as a good teacher; but I’m told that I have that effect. I see glimpses of it in my students.

And this time at LIM more than ever . . . . Why? I suppose it has something to do with a new (but always precarious) sense of peace about myself—my gay self. It also has something to do with all we’ve gone through at Belmont Abbey. I’m—despite my kicks and screams to the contrary—a kind of symbol to a few people.

Does this mean all the pain’s worth it? Have to think about that. (One reason I write so sparingly in this journal is that I don’t want to write trite crap about things like pain and suffering. I want to speak truth even when it costs.)

Charlotte, North Carolina 29.3.1996: Much Ado about Nudity and Self-Conscious Sophistication

A day of inverted syntax, after a late night at “Angels in America.” Ludicrous, the way the Charlotte crowd sat through the play in reverent silence (at the wrong points) and self-conscious twitters (at the wrong lines). The brief nude scene, which has been the ostensible reason for fierce controversy here, was like the consecration at Mass: we held our breath—see how nonplussed we Charlotteans are! This is art, for godsake, and we durned well know how to appreciate it . . . .