Negative Spaces
Also, good news, commuter documentations, scary shorts, and Grenadian gratitude
Hola mi gente,
Halloween is right around the corner — a great time for watching scary movies, listening to tortured music, and associating in general with all things macabre. I love this time of year! But more meaningful to me is Día de los Muertos, celebrated just after Halloween in several Latino cultures, including Mexico. Remembering that death comes for us all and honoring loved ones who have already passed on, seems to me a healthy way of valuing the life we have and making the most of the moments we get to share with those we love. In the bilingual lyric video for her song Muerte (Death), Mexican-artist Natalia Lafourcade repeats in the chorus, “I give thanks to death for teaching me how to live.” And speaking of giving thanks, today is Thanksgiving Day in Grenada. More on that below.
Here are 5 things I thought were worth sharing:
I wrote about negative spaces this week on the blog. This included thoughts on a term I recently learned — negative capability, which the English poet John Keats coined in a letter dating back to 1817. Keats wrote:
I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
In my mind, this paired brilliantly with a Bertrand Russell quote I learned of years ago. Somewhere I still have it — the small gift of a former colleague — Russell’s words printed out on a single, dated page of the tear-away daily demotivators calendar she kept on her desktop:
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
These words ring as true today as ever.
Election day is almost here! If political ads and world news have got you down, here are some good news resources to help balance it all out — maybe even tip the scales towards something more positive. This past week I read about how to snap yourself out of a funk in less than 15 minutes. One of the suggestions was looking at cute pictures of animals. Check out the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards and you’ll see it works magic. David Byrne, lead singer of The Talking Heads, founded a website called Reasons to be cheerful. Its mission is to be a “tonic for tumultuous times.” Julian Shapiro-Barnum’s Recess Therapy (links to Halloween episode), beyond cracking you up, will convince you that we should listen to kids more and assure you that our future is in good hands. A visually stunning book that my brother-in-law introduced me to is Beautiful News: Positive Trends, Uplifting Stats, Creative Solutions, by David McCandless (see here for a glimpse inside). And remember, what better way to feel some positive vibes than to get out there and vote on November 5th. Let’s get it done! 🌊 🌊 🌊
We’ve been commuting to campus on the left side of the road since getting a little Suzuki Ignis. I’ll often say to Angie, “Better let me drive. You’ve had too much to study.” I’ve enjoyed following people who document commuters, or spaces that commuters regularly move through. One of these is ridersnyc (via kottke.org), which features bike commuters of all shapes and sizes (and bike styles) as they exit the NYC’s Williamsburg Bridge bike path on the Manhattan side. Another is SubwayCreatures, which is essentially a collection of all the unique characters and crazy activities you can find on subways. I recently learned about Bop Spotter (via Austin Kleon), a sound experiment that uses Shazam to capture songs played by passersby on a high-traffic street corner in San Francisco. This reminded me of an audio story that The Pudding put out a few years ago about the street sounds of Mexico City. The Pudding itself, is a pretty incredible digital publication that explains ideas debated in culture with engaging visual essays. They have a lot of other cool stories to check out on their site.
One of my favorite times to be a teacher is during Halloween. I love incorporating eery music and stories into my classroom. I’ve played the music video for the song, “Drácula, Calígula, Tarántula,” by the Chilean sitcom, 31 Minutos (similar in content and esthetic to The Muppets). It’s a total vibe that you’ll pick up on even if you don’t speak Spanish. I will also use movies without any narration or dialogue in class, like “Alma” and “Úlfur,” and then work with students to build language around the story. “Alma” is a creepy animated short involving children and dolls, neither of which is creepy, right? “Úlfur” is another animated short that confuses the line between dream and reality in a circular fashion, reminiscent of two of my favorite short stories from Argentinian author, Julio Cortázar. “Continuidad de los parques” (English version) and “La noche boca arriba” (English version) were both introduced to me during my college days as a Spanish student. Both are well worth the read. Cortázar was a master of confusing what’s real and what’s fiction — perfect for Halloween! If you’re looking for a spooky, non-traditional Halloween mix, I put a great one together back in 2019.
Thanksgiving is a U.S. holiday that you might be surprised to learn is observed similarly in several other countries around the world. In Grenada, however, Thanksgiving Day is observed each year on October 25th, but for different reasons. It…
marks the anniversary of a joint Caribbean and U.S. military invasion of Grenada in 1983. The troops’ arrival restored order after an army coup ousted and executed Maurice Bishop, Grenada’s socialist leader, and put the island under martial law. While stationed on the West Indian island that fall, U.S. soldiers told local citizens about the upcoming American holiday and some of its traditions. To show their own gratitude, many people in towns and villages hosting the soldiers invited them to dine and celebrate with them, even surprising them with such non-native island foods as turkey, cranberry and potatoes. Today, the Grenadian Thanksgiving features formal ceremonies of remembrance in the cities, but largely goes unmarked in more rural areas. (via History.com)
The First Thanksgiving story that many of us learned about in elementary school is problematic — in its oversimplifications, historical inaccuracies, and absence of native perspectives (see National Archives). The National Museum of the American Indian has great resources for telling a more nuanced and accurate story. The U.S. invasion of Grenada remains controversial and I’m wary of stories that seem to oversimplify Grenada’s response to the intervention. Yet I’ve struggled to find information from a Grenadian perspective. This article suggests that the small Caribbean country, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence, still struggles in how to navigate diplomatic relationships between itself, the U.S., and Cuba. One of my goals during my time here is to learn more about the forces at play that led to this event, and what happened in its aftermath. If anyone has good reading recommendations on the topic, I’d take them!
Thank you all for reading! I hope you found some inspiration for today’s moments, whatever they might be. If you enjoyed reading, go ahead and click subscribe to receive future newsletters.
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Be well and I hope to see you down the road sometime soon!
Eric
