CW101

I created this blog hoping to encourage my students to do the same. It was kind of bewildering at first, but I'm sure we'll get the hang of it. It is not as invasive, of privacy that is, as I thought it would be. It also will show you, my students, how keeping a log of your writing may go. Hopefully your log will be much more creative than mine. If you take a look at some of the blogs created, you'll realize that almost anything goes in a BLOG. I would rather that for now you kept it as a notebook in which you make regular entries about the things that can help you become more prolific..that is the things that will help you write more and better. If you start thinking that you have nothing to write about, write about that. I once wrote an essay--I can share later--on how I could'nt come up for anything to write about and the professor (that was in New York some moons ago) loved the piece. SO you see, I 've already written this much without really having any thing major to write about.

Now to something more substantial. Susan Sontag passed away last week. She was a really interesting character. She had been living with another outstanding character for many years, Annie Leibovitz. As I saw a picture of Sontag on the insert of Claridad, I figured that the photograph, a striking picture of Sontag in her later years must have been taken by Leibovitz. Leibovitz was the photographer of the artists. You can check out the picture at http://chueca.com/fotos/200501/0411442901.htm So one of the big issues after Sontag's death was the gay community's criticism of her obituary because the major newspapers who covered her death failed to mention that she was a lesbian. I wonder whether that should be stressed and how would she feel about being outed after death. It wasn't like she kept her relationship with Leibovitz a secret. But then I'm not a lesbian, maybe people need to know that this controversial woman so many people admired, so many people hated, was a lesbian. That perhaps adds some degree of normalcy to their lives. Perhaps in that way people will understand that lesbianism is not synonymous with perversity that gays, lesbians et al are human too.