Things I Learned This Week

Tanizaki, Townes, Panahi, Forde, and Professor Me

Another Friday. How many more Fridays will I get? Nobody knows. Regardless, we persevere! Had a much better week, probably due to a number of things, but that’s learning for ya. Whenever I get down and feel like I have to drag my ass to class, as soon as I get there, I remember why school is awesome and feel thankful all over again. Here are some things this week that made me feel great. Hope it’s contagious.

The number one reason this week was fantastic was the fact that I was up at 5:30 most mornings to do laps at the gym. The first 20 seconds sucks with the splash and the cold and the shock, but the following 45 minutes are heaven. This morning, I didn’t get my usual lane, which is the farthest away from the clock, so that with my glasses off, it doesn’t distract me. However, this morning I was in the lane closest, so the minutes ticked away one by one in slow-mo until I was able to distract myself with thoughts of my TA class next semester. That’s right, your girl will be teaching two sections of College Writing I all by herself in the fall. I know it seems silly, but I am really proud of myself for being here in this moment of my life. I was so jacked this morning that while I swam, I wrote my entire syllabus in my head. Wish me luck!

In Form and Theory, we read The Key, a 1956 erotic novel by Japanese author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. The story is told through the alternating diary entries of a middle-aged professor and his wife as they navigate their suffering sex life by arousing each other through manipulation, voyeurism, and scandalous secrets, all while pretending to be unaware of the other’s antics. In tantum, we read a few essays on the epistolary style of writing—that which tells a story through documents like letters, diaries, emails, etc. This book has it all. Lewd polaroids. Women getting drugged and sexually assaulted (sort of). Trigger warnings abound, but it was a fabulous read regardless.

My son’s been cajoling me to watch It Was Just an Accident, the 2025 farcical thriller written and directed by Jafar Panahi, who is one of Iran’s best-known directors. The guy is in and out of prison all the time for criticizing the policies of the Iranian regime in his art, and this one is no exception. It’s a heartbreaking riot of a film about a body shop owner who comes upon a one-legged man he believes to be his former torturer. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year and is up for a few Oscars.

Two thumbs up.

Speaking of my son, he’s recently discovered Townes Van Zandt. A broken genius of a songwriter, he’s one of my husband’s favorites. I highly recommend the 2004 documentary Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt, as well as Heartworn Highways, a documentary by James Szalapski who captured footage of some of the founders of the Outlaw Country movement in Texas and Tennessee in the last weeks of 1975 and the first weeks of 1976. This one scene right here tells you all you need to know about Townes. The best four minutes you’ll spend this week.

Lastly, I did a review for Texas State’s lit mag the Porter House Review, on Diamond Forde’s new collection, The Book of Alice. This book is a knockout elegy. Poet and NC State professor Diamond retells the story of her grandmother’s life through poems, the words of her grandmother, and The King James Bible. If you are looking to get into some lyrical love this weekend, check it out. Bring the tissues.

Quote of the week?

Someday, when I am not afraid
to think of myself as a god large enough
that every heart-shaped leaf dicing light
to dust could beat in my own chest,
& I’ve never made a life, but I’ve reached
into the refuse they make of us,
found hearts hardy as crocus bulbs,
& in this poem I will plant a world for women
where kudzu climbs & is wanted.

— Diamond Forde from The Book of Alice

‘Til Tuesday, friends.

Burgin

(An MFA grad student at 50+… follow along and read my story here.)