structure, substructure, restructure

I’ve always been fascinated how structure, of all things, becomes the rallying cry for divisions in extemp . I guess I’ve caused one of them, by pushing and shoving new approaches and ideas along. However, I didn’t really do that and commit to layering so much because I wanted to create a new extemp orthodoxy, but because orthodoxies in general are silly, and the current one was especially so.

Unified analysis is this notion that you should take a question, answer it in a vague way, and then give three independent answers to the question. That way, if one of your answers fails to convince, the other two still stand. You’ll notice that it’s anything but unified, but that’s a digression. It was also The Way to do extemp not too long ago.

I find it dissatisfying for a lot of reasons. The actual answers given tend to be weak and vague, things like “The United States should deal with human rights abuses in China by taking decisive action” or “Hillary Clinton can be elected president by appealing to key groups.” That doesn’t make much sense to me; the central notion of argument is a thesis, and with such a vague, wishy-washy thesis, the answers always seemed to fall short of what they could be. There’s no hope of evaluating whether you’ve answered the question completely or correctly this way; you’ve given me three reasons why you’re right but without weighing them against reasons why you might be wrong, I’m left fundamentally dissatisfied. And unimpressed.

So. Where’d this come from?

I tend to believe part of the structure wars come from camps. Camps are hard in extemp; you don’t get to deliver the student a finished product at the end. In interp they wind up with pieces, in debate they have cases and cards; in extemp there’s not much you can leave them with besides skills. And skills are much harder to teach in two weeks than producing a cutting. So camps, needing to show something to be viable, have had to come up with a Product, and I believe that UA is driven by this. UA is a good way to make a bad, or mediocre speaker appear to be better. They aren’t actually analyzing the question better, but they’re a lot clearer, and clarity helps a great deal. So it helps the kids reach another step, and that helps the camps.

The nefarious part comes when camps teach their doctrine as holy gospel and the only truth and reality. That, of course, is bull, though it does help the camps along; if a given camp is the only purveyor of the One True Way, then surely you need to attend it. So it enforces rigidity and bad dynamics in extemp. Students tend to fear breaking out and trying something different, since they’ve been told in no uncertain terms that faulty substructure in extemp will lead to the downfall of our civilization. Or at least that judges will tune them out and fail to consider whether they’re, you know, smart or correct or such. It doesn’t happen because of vile conspiracy, just aimlessness that finds a formula that works, I think.

What’s funny about it all is that judges could care less. The purpose of structure is clarity; if you have clarity without distinct structure, all will be well. If you have structure, but your thoughts are unclear, UA will not save you. But students care a great deal, since if there’s anything that a high school student wants it’s to be part of a club. And if there’s anything a high schooler fears, it’s to be singular in a way that opens you to criticism from the circle of peers they admire. For extemp dorks, that’s other extemp dorks; they know the quarterback isn’t going to like them, but they’ll be damned if they lose face before the other prep room denizens.

So we teach them how to analyze at my camp, sure, and we do teach a specific structure. But we’re careful not to make it gospel, and we’re careful to listen to other styles. I suppose that means we don’t sell the snake oil well. That’s fine by me.

The last nice day

So it’s days like today that sometimes fill me with somewhat morbid thoughts; it’s a beautiful, blustery day, the kind of warm day that punctuates October and gives us those quiet moments of respite.   I love sitting as I am now, in the sunroom with the windows wide open.   I like staring out on the world, and wondering where my friends are right now, what they’re doing, whether they’re happy or not.

I wonder too, because I’m a morbid sort sometimes, if this is the last nice day of 2007.   It could well be; all from here forward might descend into drizzle, cold, sleet and snow.   And because my mind is harmfully expansive sometimes, sooner or later it strikes me that someday, maybe not today (but maybe so!) we’ll have the very last nice day, the day after which the world turns dark and cold, a cinder in the empty swim of space.

Well, bummer.

It’s amazing how a beautiful day in October can make me need a hug, but it can sometimes. I’m finding as I age that I’m less content and less stable alone that I used to be.   I was a really self sufficient little antisocial bastard in high school, possibly because high school social interactions are always painful, and some of us have low thresholds.   Now, I’m not.   The consequences of that are probably dire.

But for now the wind is warm and the crickets are singing.

The limiting factor

So on Saturday we had the annual Hall of Fame tournament, a lovely time when we can pat one of ourselves on the back. That’s rare enough in our activity except when done for the wrong reasons. It’s easy enough for coach recognition to spin out of hand and before you know it, you’re running the Emory tournament. However, we recognized two people who served and coached well. Joyce in particular is a singularly quiet and non self promoting individual. So I don’t feel bad for that.

What is interesting about this weekend’s tournament is that we tried a new format. Instead of the usual 3 rounds plus a final and leave by 6 that we aim for, we did 4 rounds, no final, and left by 4. It was a blessedly short day, we arrived home when the sunlight still shone, and I didn’t have that feeling of raw discomfort that comes of spending too much time in a high school.

Of course, the kids hated it. They didn’t have terribly good justifications for hating it, besides “I want finals!!!!” but hate it they did, so it’s unlikely to survive this brief experiment of two tournaments. That’s a shame. I’ve come to realize, through the context of late league discussions, that we’re really running on a tripod here. The essential goal of the activity is student’s education. But two essential ingredients, money and adult time, are sometimes overlooked.

When we have a league discussion about various issues, inevitably it turns into a contest of whose position benefits the students best. I don’t agree with that calculus; for the activity to survive the burden of fund raising cannot be crushing, nor can the time spent on the part of coaches and tournament staff (who are virtually always volunteers) cannot be overwhelming.

In the MFL, that threshold is being reached. Our tournaments are within striking distance of being as quick as we can run them; we can save probably another 45 minutes, but for the most part they’re as efficient as they can be. However, they still run very long, meaning I cannot feasibly do much else from Friday night when I go to bed early, until Saturday noontime when I wake in recovery. They’re also at the edge of viability, with a whopping 120 trophies required at minimum to even hold an event. Some would suggest we determine the educational merit first and then do whatever it takes in the realms of money and time to make the educationally optimal path happen. I don’t agree; I think if you wait to talk about reality, you’re going to shove yourself out of business rather quickly.

What’s ironic was someone suggested we raise tournament fees in order to hold events that accommodate working class students.

At any rate, I may be reaching an endpoint. I cannot continue to put this level of dedication into a single activity; my friendships out of forensics are suffering, I haven’t had a prospect of a relationship in a year, and so on: and this tale of a personal life in tatters is not terribly unusual in the world of forensics coaches. With such a significant personal tax, and without the kind of expected support of speech programs in Massachusetts that say, Texas enjoys, all this extra effort comes out of the coaches. Little surprise then, that despite interest among kids and interest among parents, willing coaches are the limiting factor of growth of the MFL.

So we’ll keep having tournaments, and we’ll have finals, and we’ll leave at 6 instead of 4. And a few more people will be unwilling to coach, unwilling to enter this activity, unwilling or unable to run for the state Board. It will remain an activity among the few obsessed, who are willing to pull out all stops if it will help an extra ten or twenty students compete and learn. I understand the impulse, but it more than anything has lead me to search for a better balance. If I can’t find a way to jigsaw personal life with league life, league life will go.

Is this all there is?

So yeah, I started a site here. I’m not really intending it to be a blog, because I know I am not reliable enough to post new original things here every day. I’ll forget and be sporadic, or I’ll fall into a pattern where I post unoriginal things here every day. I’m going to aim for the former pattern. In the age of RSS feeds, that’s useful enough.

I’ve managed to dump all the random poetry that I had up on the old drupal powered site. I have to say, I rather like WordPress; hacking it around was pleasantly simple, everything codewise is laid out in a very sensible manner. The best programs and systems don’t need documentation; you simply start using them and find you understand them already. Bad systems rebuff efforts to easily understand them; in good systems you’re encouraged to learn and tinker more.

As for the point of this whole thing, I don’t truly know. I’m going to naturally talk some about forensics, though I cannot hope to take Jim Menick’s august mantle of Dean of the Coach Bloggers. All two of them. Or us, I suppose.

But I also do other things, and need to find time for them more. I will probably talk LOPSA some here and there, the family certain is always worth a trip, and then the wide world of politics never lacks for bloggers, but one more can’t really harm anything?

I suppose one more can, with a loon like me behind it.

But more than anything, I don’t truly believe anything until I write it down. Putting it out here like this, makes it more real for me. It brings clarity, just as debate should. It hopefully will force me to organize the stupid ideas that come to me at odd moments, usually when I’m driving and can’t write anything down. Sometimes you write ideas down and they fall together clear; other times you take a look and say “eeugh. No.”

Expect that last one a lot.

Valediction

One last day, and I am tired. I reflect on dinners with Chris, who alternates between being completely outraged by the things that are bothering me as well, and completely fed up. I admire his passion for it; I can’t really get that worked up about especially since I know I’m of limited means to do anything. I like a lot of things, and am having a great time even though I see troubles. Chris is a bit of a perfectionist, which both gives him the inability to enjoy things for what they are, but also much stronger ambition to change them.

Today is the game show, one of the highlights of LISA. I’m not of a mind to laugh at the moment, so I skip it, go back and pack my clothes for return on Saturday. The day is beautiful and the rest is welcome. I have a chance to re-charge, read a book a little while, play a game on the computer, watch the NBA preview for the weekend. The Patriots are playing Denver on Monday Night Football the next week.

I went to one last dinner with Chris, who had been somewhat abruptly ditched by people who probably didn’t notice what they were doing to him — and should have — and Skaar, who I hadn’t met until now. Skaar proved to be externally a gruff reserved Scandinavian and below that a man of sparking intelligence and humor with the most devastating one-liners of the conference, such as “Unfortunately, I don’t think he’s on drugs.”

The rack of lamb was marvelous, and we returned and hesitantly ended up in the party suite again. The crowd was subdued; everyone is over-LISAd. People drifted around and finished some alcohol; what is left could have still half filled the hottub. Whenever people started talking computers Patrick and I waved down the world. We piled on the couches, and I felt more secure and warm than I have all week. Patrick threatened to educate me using Beyoncé. I forgave him his Motown inclinations. Michigan does that to people.

It was a marvelous finish. I realized I was on vacation even though I did everything I set out to for Harvard’s sake and my job. I had a fantastic time, but only because I met LISA on my own terms, and not its own. It has problems, and I am more sad at them than angry; the sadness of personal helplessness — I don’t have time to run for the exec, nor would I be likely to win election if I did. But where I am helpless others may not be so.

I got to know Chris in particular a good deal better, and met and got to know new people in JD, Mark, Patrick, and others. I saw Peg, and had more fun with Lois than I have in months. I got to have a great conversation at the booth with Toni and then failed to recognize her with her fake teeth and Halloween costume the next night. There were many people I knew going in that I didn’t talk to much, and that was all right, because there were many I did.

Perhaps I’m used to dealing with much more stressful travel and much more intense interpersonal dances — when people are aware of issues they tend to get talked about more. Perhaps suffering through years of badly run tournaments meant that I could approach LISA and not have to worry about the vortex of towering self-made significance that many others are overwhelmed by. I knew when to take a break and when I should give things up, like staying up late Thursday or the Game Show.

The last night, Friday, I didn’t sleep. We stayed up the night, and then Chris suggested as we were drifting off that we clean up the room a little, which I found admirable. I hope Geoff woke up pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t a disaster; he suffered much to provide us that space. Chris and Patrick and I wandered to an all night restaurant and ate a vague meal at 5 AM until we had to go back and prepare for our respective flights.

As we left the parking lot of the other motel with the family restaurant, a line of fire trucks six football fields long were lining up and leaving the parking lot in a sort of formation. The flag at the motels and hotels were flying at half mast, and all the lit signs were thanking the firefighters and police officers, more than 5,000 last I heard, who had fought the fire’s spread. They hadn’t quite won, but they had outlasted.

And as the dawn broke and we began to split our ways for our flights home, I saw a parade of names on the doors of the fire trucks. Las Vegas Fire Department. Flagstaff Fire Department. Grand Canyon National Park Service. Los Angeles Fire Department, despite having fires of their own. Phoenix Fire Department. Mesa, AZ. Bullhead Creek, NV. Many others I didn’t recognize.

A parade of names, little banners of pride in cities and states that had answered the call of a desperate city burning. They merged onto the interstate as a smoke-seeded rain at last pelted down, the first light of dawn bleeding through the clouds, and went home.