After finishing the Best Short Stories of 2012, I thought I'd continue the sampling theme with the Best Essays of 2012, perhaps a collection that will not only be interesting and enjoyable in itself but help me out as I begin my 139th mini-essay on the blog.  The general editor, Robert Atwan, teaches creative non-fiction writing and begins his introduction with the observation that his students now seem to think that essays are purely autobiographical:  "When they start writing, they seem to have only one template in mind: a straightforward personal narrative heavily interspersed with 'realistic' dialogue and told in a sincere, casual voice intended to be wholly congruous with their own."  What Atwan wants from his students (and from the essays in this collection) is something different--textured and original description and ideas--reflection, contemplation.  In the long tradition of essays, the central feature used to be the trying out of ideas.  Essays used to be on topics.  "The innner dynamics of the genre," Atwan writes, "often depended on the essayist's persona leisurely and often unsystematically grappling with or dancing around a topic." 

In the introduction to the 2007 volume in this series, David Foster Wallace attacked what he called "abreactive or confessional memoirs"--not only as "a symptom of something especially sick and narcissistic/voyeuristic about U.S. culture," but because he doesn't trust them, or at least their agenda, "which is to make the memoirists seem as endlessly fascinating and important to the reader as they are to themselves.  I find most of them sad in a way I don't think their authors intended."

I'd sometimes been feeling guilty because these posts had so quickly wandered away from a memoir of living with cancer to an "unsystematic grappling" with topics that came to mind on any given day.  Now, with the imprimatur of Atwan and Wallace, I feel better.  I haven't actually started reading the essays in the collection, so I'll see whether the professional authors live up to the editor's promise.

On the political/judicial front, while the Supreme Court is preparing to tackle the two important marriage equality cases later this month, it was discouraging to see that the arguments on voiding the renewal of the Voting Rights Act seem to indicate that the Court will strike down the law passed 98-0 by the Senate.  Scalia clearly relished his role as provocateur in his remarks about "racial entitlements." 

In Kansas, Governor Brownback is trying to re-invent Supply Side economics by doing away with the Kansas income tax, assuring Kansans that increased jobs and sales will make up for lost revenue.  The first "big cut" was supposed to have taken effect, but when I got my tax returns back from the accountant this week, I discovered that I not only owed federal taxes (though less than I had feared), but actually paid more in Kansas taxes than the year before, increasing my suspicion that Brownback's tax cuts are going to the wealthy rather than the middle class.  Meanwhile, the attack on education continues.  Kansas has mercifully few charter schools, but the legislature is trying to change that, encouraging private charter schools that can deny admission to special needs students, that are exempt from state curriculum and graduation standards, and that prohibit collective bargaining by teachers. 

Friday I go back to the KU Cancer Center for the every-six-week tests, this time only for bloodwork and a consultation.  The schedule--after Mohamed's one Friday class with the bloodwork at 2, means that we can meet some KC friends for lunch.  That should be an upper.  I think we're both suffering a bit from cabin fever, so with warmer temps in the forecast, the beginning of daylight saving time this weekend, and a nice lunch with friends, the end of winter seems much closer.