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March 12, 2008 - Image 10

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 2008-03-12

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

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Letter from
the editor

HANGING LIMBS
By Beenish Ahmed

Wedn sdyMrh12- -
THE NATURE OF NEWSByKarlStampfI

rnest Hemingway in a letter
to friend Maxwell Perkins
in 1928: "This bull market in
letters isn't going to last forever and
I don't want to always be the one
who is supposed to have made large
sums and hasn't and doesn't."
A less than inspiring confession-
al. If this grand poobah of 20th-cen-
tury literature fretted over the value
of his work and the future of the
trade, what does it say for aspiring
writers almost a century later?
But despite Hemingway's fore-
boding, the bull market in letters
lives on. It has crept by less noticed
in past years as TV and interactive
websites have swirled around it,
but nevertheless the novel has not
been eradicated, nor the play made
arcane, nor the poet barred from
grand auditoriums.
After Hemingway's time, Arthur
Miller ascended as the champion of
American drama after penning his
first play "No Villain" during his
sophomore at the University. The
Hopwood Creative Writing Awards,
founded by another famous play-
wright alum Avery Hopwood, con-
tinues to grant tens of thousands of
dollars each year to University stu-
dent writers, such as Miller, Frank
O'Hara and Mary Gaitskill. While

next fall, Creative Writing Prof.
Laura Kasischke will see her
novel "The Life Before Her Eyes"
made into a major film starring
Uma Thurman.
It's not just a menagerie of
famous pen-wielding alumni and
the largest undergraduate writ-
ing award program in the nation
that speak to the University's lit-
erary tradition. It's amateur poet-
ry readings inthe basement of the
Residential College and the 35
creative writingsections available
to undergraduates this semester.
Ask any English lecturer with
an unpublished manuscript: Fic-
tion and poetry writingcan seem
thankless. But it's a task that still
draws art-grant aspirants and
closet dabblers alike.
In this issue of The Statement
we've collected fiction and poet-
ry submissions from students
and recent alumni. There's a
poem accounting the harrowing
experiences of being deloused
and loving an all-too-human
mother, a vignette from the eyes
of a Vietnam vet and a twisted
narrator's take on the burning of
Los Angeles. Enjoy.
-JESSICA VOSGERCHIAN,
MAGAZINEEDITOR
MagazineEditor:JessicaVosgerchian
Editor in Chief: Andrew Grossman
Managing Editor:Gabe Nelson
Photo Editor:ShaySpaniola
Coverandillustrations: John Oquist
Center spread design: Hillary Ruf fe

One thing I don't like about
people is how they assume things
they have no way of knowing.
It's a little like being trapped in
the dark and just a little afraid I
guess, just so that you're unable
to know the perimeter of a room,
with shadows shrouding the
peripheries of your small frame in
a larger one. Uncertainty is scary
and to cope with this, you begin
to think you know what's where.
Reach outa hand as you convince
yourself you know the lamp is
just there-there-there feeling
its presence before finger tips fall
on the pilling, gauze lampshade
which is by now more dust than
fabric, but of course,you tellyour-
self, you knew even that in your
mind, expected it before encoun-
tering it; the weight of wear on all

the things around you, as if that
too can be felt, as if you too feel the
eclipses pressed into glossed wood
tables by ceramic cups of hot tea,
as if you know the warm glow of
a bulb shining inside you, through
iridescent, incandescent white
skin like it shines through that
worn out lampshade when your
finger finally falls on the switch.
I'm not about to blame people
for making those assumptions. I'm
not trying to blame anyone. After
all, there are all these facts: I was
in Vietnam, I did leave due to inju-
ry, I didn't ever talk much about
what happened, but despite all
this, it still gets me when people
think they can stitch these facts
together and end up with a story
that isn't even worth asking about
since the constellation of explana-
tory details they just created
shines so bright in their minds. I
can't, after all, refute those facts
and I can't expect and maybe
wouldn't want all these people
who've been milling around the
edge of acquaintanceship to have
to ask me how and when I lost my
arm before crossing some border
into friendship, understanding.
But most people never address
my arm or rather its absence
- because if there's one thing I
know with any certainty, it's that
absence is a thing too.
I was only confronted about this
whole thing once, and maybe even
I wasn't equipped to deal with it

when it happened. It was after
mass on Easter Sundaya few years
ago at St. Joseph's, which is this
mini-cathedral across the street
from where I went to elementary
school. Right as I started to get
up to go, this girl comes up to me,
she must've noticed me during
the service and made up her mind
about talking to me, because she
came right up to me when I was
still scooching myself out of the
pew, and said sort of abruptly
if not kind of awkwardly, "That
must've really hurt."
I looked at her for a second,
brows furrowedtocloseinonwhat
she meant, "Being crucified?"
"No, not being crucified. Well
that too. I bet that hurt too, like
hell." A nervous little laugh sput-
ters out of her, then, "But I meant
about your arm. Did it hurt a lot?
Did it feel funny after?"
Of course I didn't know what to
say except just yeah. It did hurt.
I pierced my ear one night before
I had to go and register for the
draft. I was young and stupid and
I think I thought this would pin
me as some rebel they wouldn't
want to serve their cause, but
of course that wasn't true. They
took just about any body that was
offered up, and they liked us young
and stupid, if not a bit wild. This
wasn't like-old wars of discipline
and lines, but rather a wandering,
bleeding, sweltering kind of thing.
They took me, and I soon found
that I was better at killing than I
was at most other things. I real-
ized how easy it was, how very
simple after all.
"Yeah, it hurt."
"Well, that's an easy answer."
"It's the truth, what did you
expect me to say? Of course it
hurt."
"I don't know. I've just never
met anyone who's lost a limb. I
think about ita lot though. I don't
know why. I just think it would
be so strange to lose something
that's a part of you in that way. I
broke my leg once and I felt like
I was born again with a new one
when the doctors cut apart the
cast. It'd been right there the
whole time, but I felt like my
leg was a stranger after that. An
imposter, all pale and shriveled
and unused and I hated it like I
didn't want it back after all that.
Anyway, I don't know what I'm
getting at." She became flustered
then all of a sudden, as if her own
See LIMBS, PAGE 3B

The newspaper reporter's wife boss asked if I could work Saturday
first found the smears of news- this week, is that OK with you?"
print on his white Oxford shirts He'd just grunt and keep read-
during his second year on the job. ing from his BlackBerry, where he
The blots were in odd places: on his could access all the major news
lower back, on the inside of his col- sites. Then a few minutes later he
lar, on the part of his torso hidden would say something like, "You
by his arm. They weren't the full hear about the bus plunge that
black spots a pen might have left; killed three American tourists and
rather, they looked like the news- about 33 others in Naipul yester-
man had taken a small portion of day?"
a newspaper - say, a three-deck Soon the blots spread from his
headline, or a sidebar - and rubbed shirts to his pants. They also got
it into his shirt. bigger and darker, 6-inch explo-
When asked what he had done sions of stark black newsprint
to produce the blots, he would behind the knee or just above the
shrug and make some joke about ankle. Some of the stains he could
Rorschach tests: Doesn't the one not get out in the laundry, and
inside the breast pocket look like because he refused to go to work in
a humpback whale? or he'd shrug, clothes with even the faint remain-
just like he did when she wanted ders of stains on them ("What
to know why he hadn't come home will my sources think?" he'd say.
from work on time for dinner like "I gotta get them to trust me, and
he'd promised to. no one trusts a man with stained
Other times, he'd say, "I guess pants"), they found themselves at
that's just the nature of news." J.C. Penny's almost monthly, buy-
It was around this time that they ing the cheapest khaki slacks they
stopped talking about anything could find.
but news, and even then he carried After one particularly late night
most of the conversation. in the newsroom, she woke up when
"Did you hear what Giuliani said he came into the bedroom. He took
today about putting the Confeder- off his shirt before climbing into
ate flag above the South Carolina bed, and in the glow of city light
State House?" he'd say while they through the fifth-floor window she
were in a cab to a restaurant in saw that there were splotches of
Brooklyn or to the movie theater, newsprint on his chest. She closed
the kind of things they eventually her eyes and waited until he fell
stopped doing altogether. asleep before she examined the
"No, I didn't," she'd respond. "My blot. She pulled up his undershirt.

It was not a blot of ink this time but
a few smeared words: rveillance
tech ology nd th. That was it.
"Why is there newsprint on your
chest?" she asked him after she'd
finished buttering her toast at the
breakfast table the next morning.
He didn't even lower the metro
section he was hiding behind.
"Nature of news, honey," he said.
"Did you hear about the mayor's
son DUI?"
Increasingly often, snippets of
sentences appeared on his body:
AP photo via the Roanoke Times
in incredibly small print or For
U.S-Nigeria go-between, ties
yield in larger type. Sometimes
there were even parts of pictures,
but these were still too blurry and
small for her to make out the sub-
ject. Everything came off in the
shower.
one unseasonably warm day
in March, she planned a roman-
tic dinner for him, complete with
champagne and fondue and can-
dles and strawberries. He didn't
get home until 11 p.m., an hour
past deadline, but when he did he
appeared grateful, maybe even
happy.
"This is wonderful. It seems
like we never eat together any-
more," he said. "Did you have a
good day at work?"
"We're training a new associ-
ate, but other than that, nothing
exciting," she said. "You? Any big

stories?" his mouth, he spotted the radio.
"The usual," he said. He frowned and leaned over and
The windows were open, and changed the dial on the radio to the
a warm urban wind flapped the 24-hour news station.
curtains. Romantic classical music "You don't mind, do you?" he,
played on the radio. The report- said.
er sat down at the table, and she Food obviously wasn't going to
brought him a plate of steamed do it. Without a word, she pulled
vegetables. him out of his chair, pushed him
"First course," she said. against the counter and began to
He smiled and picked up his fork. unbutton his shirt. He responded
Before he brought even a carrot to See NEWS, PAGE 8B

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