At some point, I start feeling self-congratulatory. this is a mistake.

Drawing by the amazing Allie Brosh

I have an ever-expanding list of people I'd love to be besties with if I ever met. I mention a lot of them here... Jonathan Harris, Liz Gilbert, etc.


The funny thing is, especially with this one particular element, I actually have an odd knack for putting it out there and then it coming true! Someone will say to me...or I'll say to myself, "Ryann, you should be friends with So & So." And then somehow, so many of people I admire or people I'd like to be friends with get jumbled into some kind of social mix with me (because, as Morgan said, and thus Danielle's mom made a line of merch for, I'm the nexus of the universe ;) and then we're friends! 


I love stuff like that.


I also love Allie Brosh, of Hyberbole and a Half, who is cool for so many reasons. And for quite some time now, even though she lives in Montana, I've wished that the two of us were friends.  I bet we'd get into a lot of trouble riding around Montana with the windows rolled down (I'm visualizing this-- we're in like a Bronco or something-- something with good tires) and just messing with people-- saying funny things to them on the street (in my visualization, there are lots of people on the street, but actually now that I think about it, I bet there probably aren't in Montana...who knows). 


I like her warped sense of humor & logic and I like that she says "you can't trick people into liking your blog." Word. (Also, I like that her blog name is alliterative.)


And this week (this whole time in general, actually) when I am totally overwhelmed by my adult obligations and things I've promised to myself to get done before I leave the country, it's nice to have Allie Brosh and this post to remind me that sometimes I'm good at being and adult, but sometimes, I feel like I'll never be a good adult.

It gets to the point where I don't email someone for fear of reminding them that they emailed me and thus giving them a reason to be disappointed in me.

Then the guilt from my ignored responsibilities grows so large that merely carrying it around with me feels like a huge responsibility.  It takes up a sizable portion of my capacity, leaving me almost completely useless for anything other than consuming nachos and surfing the internet like an attention-deficient squirrel on PCP. 

 For your weekend enjoyment, just read her whole website. It's a gas. 


Also check out her store. I could spend about one million dollars in this store at about 4AM in the right insomniac mood, so....yeah. 

some thoughts about favorites, using my friend Peter as an example

I could say a lot about Peter-- he could be the example I picked to discuss any number of topics. Like being a smart-ass or guys who wear short shorts. Or political astuteness. Or propensity to use the word Champion. Or intensity (I love intense people.) Or how I think some people, you're actually destined to be friends with. 


But this post is about the nature of a favorite (this is especially after yesterday, a truly great last day in NYC). 
I've been kind of obsessed with the idea of "favorite" for a long time. I talk about in Paddington. Favorite as… like, an ontological idea. (Epistemological?)(Maybe I need to start new terminology—favorology? The study of favorites?)

He's easily my favorite photographer. His pictures make my heart hurt for non-specific reasons. And... He's probably even my favorite all-time writer. Yeah, I said that. 


Peter's writing is one of those things (this the destiny part) that's kind of floating around your inner cosmos for who knows how long. Things you know of by way of by way of by way of. When he actually first entered my orbit as himself, rather than just someone his family and other acquaintances mentioned that I should know, was the night Spring Awakening opened. Due to a long, annoying set of circumstances, I thought I had been dis-invited to the opening (not true- I could have gone-- curses!) so instead, I found myself reading a (what?) live-blog of the happenings on Duncan's website written by his brother. Who was this guy? Oh, right, everyone said I'd be friends with guy! Wait a minute, that's hilarious. "Tavern on the Green looks like Christmas threw up all over Easter?!" I LOVE THAT.  (Sadly, this masterpiece no longer exists on the internet) But let's just say, that I never doubted anyone again when they told me that one day, I should be friends with Peter.

And then, several years later, after a concert, suddenly we were. From the first minute, even, when he totally totally called me out. He questions my taste in almost everything (I’m obviously more of a populist than him—in addition to just having more, ya know, feminine tastes). He busts my balls about Buddhism, music, everything. But he always gives me a chance to explain why I think the way I do.

And by the end of each discussion, he normally sees my point of view. Or at least he humors me and pretends to. In either case, I appreciate that he respects my opinion, even if he disagrees. It’s pretty much all you could ask for in great conversationalist. 


He's one of the few people I can think of that I would not change one single thing about. Okay, maybe one thing... I wish he'd take himself off the leash... less commenting and more writing. Just run with it. 


Because this guy.... and this guy... this guy...and definitely this guy... the guy who wrote those things is my favorite writer. I'd take more of that any damn day. He’s a fuckin poet of prose (as I believe I one time drunkenly said to him.)  Talent. Crush. 


And there's something really special about what it means to be favorite. It's a totally different category than good, or excellent or even genius or well-crafted, etc. Of course, if something is your favorite, it generally implies that you think it is all those things, in addition to/the reason for being your favorite. But favorite is something extra because it's personal and undefinable. I suppose you could try to articulate why something is your favorite, but that’s not really the point. One of the best things about the idea of favorites is that it’s so subjective, you're under absolutely no obligation to justify it to anyone.

All this is extra extra special wink-wink interesting because not only is my favorite lyric of all time ABOUT favorites, it was written by another favorite… and another Sheik!  “It’s an infinite world and I want you.”

Does that line like explode the universe for anyone else but me?? I mean, I hope it does... But I doubt it. Because it’s my favorite…and you probably have your own.

But I bring it up in particular because that, my friends, that lyric, to me, is the definition of 1. What it means to be alive in the universe. It’s an infinite world…and I. want. You. (choice!) and 2. The definition of love. It’s an infinite world and I want you (out of alllll the things, all the people.)

…!!!.... 


it’s the most magical thing I can think of.

(Then you start researching the origins of the word and suddenly you’re going down a linguistic and etymological worm hole full of crazy and fascinating (and probably overcomplicating, especially when you consider how we use the word today) innuendo. Wow, maybe I’ll save all that for another post!)

..Because back to Peter.

Largely, I tend to set my compass by the things that make me obliterate (or maybe…transcend…) my own sense of self or ambition or whatever... When I forget to even consider myself, or when, if faced with a choice, I’d choose the not-me option.

So this is how I know I’m serious when I say this about how Peter writes.

For example, If given the choice, “Ryann, would you rather Dan Brown get to be a widely disseminated author that the masses have the opportunity to read or… YOU, who would you pick?”

I’d pick me!

…Or obviously he’s not the best example, since I don’t care for him at all. That’s an easy choice.  Let’s pick someone I do like (this is about favorites, now, not quality) I’ll make this one hard—Tom Rachman. That one hurts.

But I’d still pick me!

There are probably only a few people I’d throw myself under the bus for, as far as favorites and writing go (Cronin being one of them, probably the only living one, the rest are dead, so probably a moot point).

But what I’m saying is, if I had to choose, I think I’d rather see a book by Peter Sheik displayed in the  front windows of Barnes & Noble and on bus vestibules and billboards, etc. I wish for him the ability and self-assurity (I made that word up) to quit his job, travel around the world taking photos (or not-- just lock himself away) and write a book of pure Peter champion-ness. 

I don't even know that/if he wants this for himself, but...man. I would buy that book. It's not even an idea except in my brain, and the idea of what kind of book that could be already has me at the edge of my seat.  With a literally unstoppable smile. Sometimes my cheeks hurt from smiling when I read the good stuff. And that’s a nice feeling. The kind of amorphous, shapeless, yet remarkably concentrated-to-the-center, all's-right-with-the-world feeling that can only live in the midst of a favorite. 

American Soul Links - And Some on Losing it

There was a lot of goodbye-ing this week. From all my friends in Scotland to some opportunities, to-- this very morning-- when I awoke to hear of a tragic shooting in Colorado and the death of one of my childhood inspirationals: the father of my very first friend. I've always really internalized the pain of others to a kind of a detrimental degree. I have a hard time with it. I suppose it's all part of my greater existential grapple. I stand by the point that its futile to compare suffering, or rank it. Suffering is suffering is suffering. But some loss, you can wrap your brain around. My friend Guy Mitchell fought the good fight. He lived a joyous life, watched his grandkids be born, inspired and advised those around him on matters of the soul. In short, his soul was smiling... and striving... for understanding all the time: a quality I admire in people to the utmost. 


But then there's the losses that make no sense. And there you have something I worry about--can't ignore-- in the world today... and especially in my country. I worry about the modern American soul. The way we're starving it and ignoring it and paying it off with money and tuning it out or crowding it out with more work. There's no room for it. There's no time for it. I left the US, in part, to take a step back and look at where I came from-- to get some distance from, and then hopefully clarity on, all that was troubling my American soul about the American soul. 


My academic (and fiction!) writing is frequently, and in my opinion, meanly accused of being too American, too conversational, and not argumentative enough. To the people who say this, I say, respectfully, suck it. 


Life is a conversation that we're not really having anymore. We espouse, assume, back up with facts, or versions of "facts," we beat people over the head, or stonewall, or shut out. Or post! We put up academic formalities for distance and we're lacking in real dialogue that asks for a response. We're all rhetorical questions, and very few honest or earnest ones. I don't know why James Holmes went into a movie theatre and shot over 50 people. Maybe there is no why. Maybe he's just a sociopath. But my instinct is to tally these types of violent acts as moments when starving souls snap. And the food of the soul is human connection; dialogue. 


I have been accused of starting too many sentences with "and." Guilty. And I won't give it up. Because there's always more. You don't "get to the bottom" of any soul situation. If  you show up at all, it should be with the understanding that you start with the fact that there's always more to talk about. I am brimming with these things that still need to be discussed; that we'll never get to the bottom of. So I start with and, and, and. And keep on fighting the good fight. And keep writing, yeah. 


Your links:
- More on why women are leaving academia
- This is some of the bureaucratic mess I'm thrilled to be leaving. Several of my friends suffering from this right now. Five months, no passport. 
- More Franzen hate. I think this chick is mean and misses the point. And doesn't understand self-deprecation?
- The Newsroom's woman problem, etc etc
- Barack, Mitt, & Adam Smith. Oh, economics.
- More on my fave band, Milo Greene, and where they got their name. I approve. 
- Ah, hearing color. One of my favorite topics. 
- The Olympic rings projected on the white cliffs of Dover. Gorgeous. 
- The new No Doubt track isn't my favorite, but it sure is nice to have them back. 

Watching The Wire with Brits

So. I have decided that, since almost every conversation I have, I reference The Wire, it's time I served as an ambassador of its greatness to my British friends and host watching nights at my new flat. They've all expressed interest, but many of them have been under the same impression: "didn't they broadcast it with subtitles in the UK?" Which isn't true. No doubt, it can be intimidating-- hundreds of characters, oceans of slang, measured pace at times. But I mean, it's not like I knew anything about that world when I started watching. 


The genius of The Wire is you don't have to know that world or its language when you start watching. The writing is so contextual, and one of the best examples of NOT just using exposition, but allowing the story to reveal the info, that as long as you're paying attention, you'll get it. 


Remember how I mentioned my run-in with Paul Rudd as one of only two celebrity encounters that actually enriched my life? Well the other one, the real one, and one of my all-time greatest NY moments was the night August: Osage County won the Tony Award. I was at their after party. I had just recently re-seen the show, obviously, because Jim True-Frost, aka, Prezbo (my fave) from The Wire, had gone into the show. At the party, we had a long conversation about the show, art, life. It was amazing. They always say Dickensian about The Wire. But it's just true. And not just because there's a million characters who will all cross over each other at some point. But because of the way it illuminates bureaucracy and social infrastructure. I'd say about 80% of everything I know about how the world actually works I learned from The Wire. 


So while I do anticipate a few good laughs from me having to translate some Baltimore-ese to my pals, I still think they'll see its utter brilliance. Fellow Wire fans out there, can you think of any potential areas that just won't make sense? I'm trying to head them off at the pass. In case you've forgotten, here is the amazing video, 100 Best Quotes from The Wire and it's follow up, 100 more best quotes. Oh, indeed. 

Also, this. And this. 

Hanging onto Autumn - Happy Thanksgiving

Maybe it's the onset of winter that has caused my life shake-up kind of frenzy. Or maybe it's the total lack of love I feel from a University I once cherished, but who now, has been the cause of my starvation for the last 26 days (What do I pay 12,200 pounds for again?) So maybe I'm just starving and not thinking rationally. But I've been in the kind of mood I get in when my friends say, "Uh oh, Ryann is about to move to another country." 


I don't know that I'm going to take it that far. But I'm feeling under-stimulated lately so that might be why I just applied to about 7 theatre jobs in London last night. I mean, I was awesome when I was slammed, right? I can do a phd long-distance from London and work full time and write musicals, right?


I think deep down, I always knew I'd want a faster-paced lifestyle back at some point. But I suppose I'd like to think the hope of balance is actually available to me in other places in a way that it simply wasn't in NYC. 


Who knows. I'm sure something interesting will happen. It always does. In the meantime, I'll be spending this Thanksgiving preparing for the Thanksgiving I'll be cooking (when my DAD! arrives) with 10 of my closest friendsfamily this Sunday. So far, St A still hasn't actually given me my loan money so that I can purchase the food, but whattheheck. I never died from starvation in NYC, so I don't plan to start now. 


I'm going to go clean, write (real writing & perhaps some more angry emails to the St Andrews proctor) and get the most out this last unseasonably warm Autumn weather. I'm hanging on to it. Just like this tree. 

photo by David Filipiak

My Care is Like My Shadow

Working a lot on rewriting the opening number for Nicholas & Alexandra. I love the music for it, but Steven wanted to give me more room to run with the lyrics and now that all the lyrics are from the children, who (if they don't know they are going to die) know that they will never rule themselves. A lot of what's interesting to me about this show, about writing anything about monarchs is that they're perhaps some of the only people who have a clear indication of their place in history, of the weight of their actions. 


Some of the most amazing freedom is the freedom to disappear as a spec of dust in the universe, to get lost in the wilderness, to know for a moment that you don't matter. That your actions don't have grave consequences for many. I think about their burden, especially as children. 

So I wanted each of them to briefly consider their place-- individually, as well collectively: Russia's/the Romanovs' place amongst the great rulers of history. And I was looking at writings and poems of some of the greats-- mostly Henry VIII & Elizabeth (they were really the best writers, or at least the best sense to surround themselves with good writers) (not to mention, the Romanovs had quite a bit of British ancestry happening, even if the Tudors and the Hanovers were not really related, and in fact were mostly German, but then if you start pulling at the genetic threads of European, you're gonna be pulling for a while.... My point is, they spoke English with each other and followed quite a few English customs. )


I keep going back to one of my favorite poems by Elizabeth I, "On Monsieur's Departure," which is in its own way about that burden. And I feel I may have Alexei quote her or echo her for the new opener. 

I grieve and dare not show my discontent,

I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,

I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,

I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.

I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,

Since from myself another self I turned.

My care is like my shadow in the sun,

Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,

Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.

His too familiar care doth make me rue it.

No means I find to rid him from my breast,

Till by the end of things it be supprest.

Some gentler passion slide into my mind,

For I am soft and made of melting snow;

Or be more cruel, love, and so be kind.

Let me or float or sink, be high or low.

Or let me live with some more sweet content,

Or die and so forget what love ere meant.

There is a wonderful song adaptation of the poem by Martin Phipps and the Mediaeval Baebes for the BBC "Elizabeth I: The Virgin Queen" about five years ago. 

On weekends, I love to get lost in costume dramas and royal family trees. If you're like me, check out one or all of the above mentioned. :)

Some Thoughts on Fathers and Daughters Today

Time again for my annual Father's Day Shout out. This year, it's a tale of three fathers. 


Twenty years ago my life changed forever when I worked up the courage to tell my own dad about how bad the situation had gotten with my mom. My dad was the first person to make me think that what I had to say was important-- even when it wasn't life or death. He never rushed me. He's never been bored or ever encouraged me to get to the point. He's talked me down from every ledge, through every problem of logic or of the heart. He's been so steadfastly on my team for whatever ridiculous goal I've ever had, even to this day, it scares me that in my life, I have at least one person I cannot lose. Because of this, he's the person I care most about making proud of me. 


Which is not say he's just a prop for my life. He's one of most talented, weird, cool people to ever live. In truth, I basically just hope he's as proud of me as I am of him. I  never used to think our personalities were the same, but the older I get, the more I'm seeing how similar at least our artistic temperaments are. 


Ten years ago, my life changed again when I lost another temperamental soul mate of mine, and a great glue of our family: my grandfather. I can't believe it's been ten years without him. The thought of it knocks the wind out me. I still recall so so vividly how far away, how lost at sea I felt when he died and I was in Japan. It still feels vert present, the memory of scribbling furiously my multi-multi page letter to him, when I knew the end was near. How the letter arrived just in time for Father's Day. How he was gone the next week. The traces of him are harder to find since I've moved to the UK, though I still run into him in thoughts that are not my own, but clearly the opinion of James A. Ferguson, just using me as a conduit. 


Seven years ago, I met another father who continues to blow me away. I know I focus a lot of my love on Aly, but I think it's important that I recognize the other half of one of my all-time favorite couples: Dion. In my own generation, he's the father I'm most inspired by. His daughter Hayley was born just in time for his 18th birthday. At at 18, this guy just went to it, putting his kid first in every way possible. I'm in awe of the way he talks to Hayley-- the way he strikes a balance between support and discipline-- (he allows no bargaining. It blew my mind) and what a wonderful young lady Hayley is turning out to be. It warms my heart that he was able to turn his devotion to supporting his daughter into amazing business skills, and then to get the eff out of Lehman Bros just in time, to start an amazing business with Aly, and (just like seeing my dad be able to realize his musical dreams makes me happy) finally make himself into the music artist he always wanted to be. You are truly, unequivocally, without a doubt one of the good guys, Dion. I feel blessed to know you. And comforted knowing you're gonna look after my friend Aly for the rest of your lives. I can't wait to celebrate with you both this August. And I'm celebrating with you and your song today. 


Keep being awesome out there fathers. And I will line up every year to gush. Shower. The. People. 

Monkey Sanctuary - Excerpt

Why hello. Nice to see you again. Nice to have something I wanted to put here. There is much to tell, actually, but now isn't the right time. Right now, I am thinking about the one year anniversary of my very interesting sojourn to Ghana. A year ago right now, I was just settling into my second full day. None of what I'm about to tell you had happened yet.

I've been working on this "short" story for a year. Even in the Accra airport, I began to write this down in notebooks, along with the almost overwhelming amount of emotional and physical information I had taken in over the two weeks.

I can't share everything with you here. But I did want to give you a little taste.

Just for context, here's the blurb:

Somewhere between rekindling a trans-atlantic romance and calling it quits for good, a couple tries a new locale on holiday in Ghana’s Cape Coast. At an isolated nature reserve, an eccentric Dutch couple reveals more than anyone bargained for about our biological evolution when we choose to stay together.

And here is the text! A nice non-emotional, yet meatier middle chunk of 

MONKEY SANCTUARY.

Forty-five minutes later, they were still in the car on the way to the monkey reserve that was “right up the road.”

Casey had underestimated how big Ghana was. Almost everything they said was "close" ended up being an hour drive at least. Maybe it was all the extra police stops you had to make. Every few miles, the police in navy and light blue camo (She couldn’t quite see the point in that particular camo) would pull over every car and inspect. Gordon would warn her each time to hide any electronics. (“They’ll take it. They’ll find a reason to take it.”)

Or maybe everything took so long because-- with the exception of the George W. Bush Expressway, ironically enough, both “The Best Road in All of Africa,” but also simply the best road in all of Africa--  the roads were all so bad.

In LA, the roads always failed at the edges. In Ghana, every road seemed to have huge, craggy chunks pulled up in the middle that had to be sharply swerved around—a kind of alien asphalt phlegm that Ghana kept trying to cough up. The center literally would not hold.

looting in lubbock-- an excerpt from Rise

Lubbock, Texas November 1999 

As the cuckoo clock announced six o’clock, they headed out the screen door, which slammed behind them.

            In Kate’s little red Honda, they arrived quickly at Jazz, where David’s sister Tanya ruled from behind the bar.

            All the walls were covered in deco-pauged sheet music from Jazz classics. Saxophones hung from the ceiling and all the seats were covered in purple vinyl. Meg had never been to New Orleans, but she imagined it was a lot like the restaurant David’s sister owned. Somewhere between old world manners and the schmaltz of Las Vegas.

I do not share david leebron's vision of what Rice should be

For quite some time, I have been unhappy with David Leebron's leadership at Rice, in the years since I've left. He never seemed to understand what we were all about-- the college system, why we were different from other universities of our caliber. From the firing of Camacho to the incessant building and eating away at greenspace to this final straw. I have not donated one cent to Rice since after the first year I left because of the way Leebron makes decisions about the future of the university. I was never all that obsessed with KTRU, but just because I (and apparently him) aren't huge fans, doesn't mean I think it should be taken away as a university resource. And I understand that by Leebron's logic, any number of the things that I think are crucial parts of the Rice experience could be sold off to fund new stadiums, etc. Rice has always produced a certain kind of person-- these kinds of people I love and think the world needs more of. I don't want Rice to become a cookie cutter private university. 


Originally, I was just going to excerpt this, but fellow Bakerite, Danny Mee's open letter to Leebron is so good, I'm posting the whole thing here. 

An Open Letter to Rice University President David Leebron

By Mee

Or, Danny Blows His Stack, Part 3

Dear Mr. Leebron;

My name is Daniel Mee. I graduated from Rice with a Bachelor of Arts in 2002. My parents, who met and married while they were both undergraduates at Rice, are also alumni. After I graduated, I was a Rice staff member for three and a half years, and I now work for a company founded by Rice graduates that has employed at least four other Rice alumni. I currently play in a band founded by two other Rice alumni and a child of a Rice professor.

All of this is to say, I have very strong ties to Rice University. Additionally, I have strong ties to regional music and media communities—I am currently a freelance music writer for one of the Houston Chronicle’s online outlets, and have been a regular contributor to the print editions of the Houston Press and Austin Chronicle.

My introduction to the music and media communities came through KTRU-FM, where I was a DJ for seven years. Many of the closest connections I’ve maintained from my undergraduate years were formed at KTRU with my fellow DJs. As someone who values the unique and vital contributions of this radio station to Rice and the surrounding community, and feels strongly invested in both, I am deeply ashamed of the manner in which the Board of Trustees and the administration of Rice University have treated KTRU.

I was horrified to learn on Monday evening from the Houston Chronicle that Rice University was one day away from finalizing an agreement to sell the license and transmitter that are currently in use for the Rice student radio station. Not only were the students, faculty and staff of Rice not consulted about this plan, but the staff of the radio station were not even informed of it—they had to find out about it from the Chronicle’s website.

Later that evening, Mr. Leebron, I received an e-mail from you in which you outlined the reasons the University had decided to liquidate the student radio station. Among other things, you claimed that KTRU is a “vastly underutilized resource that is not essential to providing our students the wide range of opportunities they need,” citing that “[a] recent Arbitron report showed that KTRU’s audience was so small that it did not even register in the ratings.” You note that “KTRU will continue to serve its campus and external audience with student-managed programming via www.ktru.org.”

The ability to stream student programming over the internet is not a replacement for a radio broadcast for the simple fact that it cannot be heard on a radio. If KTRU-FM is liquidated, many listeners will no longer have access to KTRU programming. But the Arbitron report that you cite deals with this point neatly, does it not? The terrestrial listening audience is “so small that it did not even register in the ratings.”

It’s true that KTRU does not show up in Arbitron data, at least not in the most recent Arbitron report that I was able to access, but here is a brief list of other stations that do not appear: KTSU, KACC, KPFT, and KUHF, the University of Houston NPR affiliate that claims to have 300,000 daily listeners. Based on this data, one might conclude either that KUHF is also “not essential,” or that Arbitron ratings provide no useful data by which to judge the value of a noncommercial radio station.

Even assuming that the terrestrial broadcast of KTRU has a small audience, it is not at all clear to me that it follows that the station ought to be terminated. Most Rice students, alumni, faculty and staff probably have not contemplated that “underutilized resources” on campus are eligible for liquidation. Surely there are other assets that are ripe for divestiture. How many people visit the Rice Art Gallery on an average day? What about the Rice Media Center— is that still around? How many of Fondren library’s 2.6 million print volumes are consulted on a regular basis, now that most of the information contained therein is now available on the internet?

Perhaps we should start by demolishing the proportionally least-utilized resource in Rice history, the football stadium, which according to legend could not be filled even if every Rice alum, living or dead, were occupying a seat simultaneously. Clearly, it seems that the best course of action would be to demolish the stadium and use the space to alleviate Rice’s perpetual parking shortage, and simultaneously generate income through parking permit sales. Or, if the University really is desperate for cash, perhaps that portion of the campus can be partitioned off and sold.

Of course, we all know this idea would be untenable to the Board of Trustees. In 2004, a Rice-commissioned study by McKinsey Consulting recommended that Rice drop its division 1A athletics program, which was losing $10 million dollars per year, in favor of any of four less costly programs. After seeing this report, the Rice Board of Trustees chose to ignore this recommendation, thereby rendering the report a boondoggle in its own right.

But let’s back up a bit to the Rice athletics program losing $10 million per year. TEN MILLION DOLLARS. PER YEAR. This is more than the entire proceeds of the proposed sale of KTRU-FM. If only we had more radio stations to sell, we could subsidize athletics for years to come.

How dare you insult our intelligence by informing us that, in the name of university advancement, we must liquidate an educational resource to which hundreds of students have devoted thousands upon thousands of hours of volunteer labor to build and maintain over the course of 40 years, when the sale price doesn’t even match a fifth of the fortune that the athletics program lost in the last decade?

According to your e-mail, the proceeds from the sale are to be put in large part toward the construction of a new East Servery near Will Rice. While I’m sure that this will benefit the 400 or so students who are members of those colleges, I’m having difficulty seeing the need for this building. Undergraduate enrollment at Rice University has increased only 7% since I matriculated in 1998, and yet, since that time, Rice has added three new residential colleges and two new serveries. As I recall, I had no problem getting enough to eat when I was a freshman living on campus. Why is the construction of another servery so urgent that educational assets must be sold off to pay for it?

After all, Mr. Leebron, as you note in your e-mail, “the economic downturn which began two years ago has forced Rice . . . to make hard choices to prioritize spending and maximize the use of our resources.” Why wasn’t one of these “hard choices” to not build another new building until you have the cash on hand to pay for it? For the last fifteen years, the university has been spending like a drunken sailor, adding building after building, and now that we’re in a recession, rather than regroup, your strategy is to sell things off to raise capital.

I’m sure you are aware that, due to the recession, many state governments have been reduced to selling state property, such as public parks, to private corporations in order to balance their budgets as tax revenues decline (perhaps you are even aware that the state of Arizona has taken the bizarre measure of selling and then leasing back its own state capitol!). This state of affairs is generally considered to be a disgraceful indication of governmental breakdown, in which an abject failure of political courage has necessitated drastic, unsustainable and irreversible steps merely to stave off disaster.

Is this an indication that Rice is experiencing a similar crisis of political courage? You told the Houston Chronicle only six months ago that Rice might “need” to build a new football stadium soon, even as negotiations for the liquidation of an irreplaceable university resource were carried out behind the backs of faculty and students. How are we to interpret this?

In short, it strikes me that this sale is so unnecessary as to be perverse, and the reasoning proffered to justify it is hogwash. At least when, ten years ago, Rice last attempted a hostile takeover of KTRU-FM, it did so because it valued the opportunities availed to students and the community by FM radio, even though it completely overlooked the value of a student organization and a community voice unlike any other. In 2000, President Malcolm Gillis even told the Rice Thresher that he would not consider selling KTRU-FM. Today, by contrast, you deem KTRU-FM to be “not essential.” If you had consulted any of the dozens of the students who are KTRU DJs, or any of the 500+ alumni who are former KTRU DJs, or any of KTRU’s audience, or indeed anyone at the University at all, I believe you would have come to a different conclusion.

The administration of Rice University has an obligation, as a trustee of its students, faculty and alumni, to value our contributions and opinions just as concretely as it does a new building. Not only have you and the Board of Trustees failed to do so, you have made crucial and irreversible decisions about an invaluable part of this university in secret, without consulting or informing the people for whose benefit the institution ostensibly exists. This is a breach of trust and a violation of the mores of liberal education.

It is unethical.

When I was merely a prospective student, my parents, and the university itself, portrayed the school as an idealistic institution that valued the individual and often idiosyncratic contributions of students more highly than the money they paid for tuition. KTRU-FM, a radio station founded in a dorm room, managed almost exclusively by students and grown to national renown as one of the most adventurous and unusual college radio stations in the country, is a shining example of those contributions, and an essential part of the institution that I decided to attend. If KTRU is liquidated in the manner you have proposed, for me and many others, that institution will be severely and permanently damaged.

I know I speak not only for those members of the Rice community who have been involved with the radio station, but for those like my mother (Jones ‘80), who was never involved with KTRU but who, upon hearing of its impending sale, described it as “sickening.”

I would like to think that, when I have college-age children, I could recommend Rice to them in the same way my parents recommended it to me. Despite my lifelong connection to Rice, if you proceed with the sale of KTRU-FM, I most certainly will not be able to do so, nor could I in good conscience donate a red cent to an institution that places so little value on the contributions of those it purports to serve. Not that I imagine it matters, since the appalling practice of selling off bits and pieces of Rice’s legacy should be more than sufficient to finance the University’s continued improvement.

Sincerely,

Daniel Mee

Baker ’02

Many thanks to Angela Lee, Esq. (UT-Austin ’99, UH Law ’06) for editorial assistance.

everything you want, I have- an excerpt from Rise

this is an older section-- written somewhere between 2002-2003. 

November, 1999

Lubbock, Texas 

On the way out Kate's front door, they saw David getting into his car in the next driveway. He said nothing, but winked, and while Kate and Meg drove away, he stayed to let his hunk of metal truck warm up. It was the first cold morning since she had been in Lubbock and it was dry like winter in the desert. It reminded her of a Christmas she and her dad had decided to spend in the Grand Canyon. The chill in the desert-- it seemed more final and more concrete than any other cold she had felt before. Lubbock wasn’t the desert, but this morning, it felt just like the way Christmas morning had felt in the Grand Canyon. And the whole merciless day seemed to span out before her, like the canyon.