Oh Faulkner, My Faulkner

Here's a secret. I don't like reading William Faulkner. I like the idea of Faulkner. I like his little postage stamp. I love Oxford. I love to lay my head on his shoulder on the square, but I do NOT like reading Faulkner.

Unless it is the 1950 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. And REALLY unless it's the speech to my new class of juniors (first year with juniors at this school.) I enjoyed it. They enjoyed it. Some related it to the older music artists passing on wisdom to a younger generation of artists. Well YEAH. It's about being a writer...an artist.

"I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/faulkner/faulkner.html

Good day for some acceptance speech. My spirit was down a little last night, and it is a slight bit again tonight. Feeling very Mama Bear regarding my child, but declining to accept the end of man ;)

Speaking of mankind.....

I "chaperoned" a middle school dance Friday night. It was the most fun I've had on a Friday night in a long time. Yes, I know I should get a life; however, if you've never seen a bunch of sixth graders Soldier Boy in a suburban gym, you should also get out more. Who knew that my son's generation has a brand new Electric Slide? There really is not a new thing under the sun.