by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Today in The Poetry Section: two new poems by Jennifer Michael Hecht.

Men Wept

Socrates sent the women away so he could die
without the sound of weeping. The men wept.

In the painting by Jacques Louis David,
Socrates sits up, points a finger skyward,
and reaches for the hemlock cup. His wife,

Xanthippe (I think of them as Zan and Soc)
is in the David picture too, doing her thing
for the scene: Being sent away.

She is far down the hallway and last. The rest
have turned left, headed up steps and out.

She looks back, like a lot of wives,
she’d been a pillar, and also a salt tart.
She holds up a hand goodbye.

He’s preparing to assault himself. She’s younger
than him. They have little children.

They are likely still fucking, if we allow the phrase
to undergo a deep devaluation while still
meaning something. That’s philosophy.

Recall Soc’s parable of us all four-legged,
two-headed, and self-in-love? Such tenderness.

Then think of Zan, once enrapt in great-robed
arms, now divested. Soc told Xenophon
he didn’t fight at his trial to avoid getting old.

From the vantage of love it seems
wrong to be so full of exit wisdom.

Down the hall, her palm is a twin of his hand,
his a tweaked fist, one finger up.
Posed like a habit but hard like a rock.

He points to indicate a rise up to the Good,
her hand is a presentation, like a message. Stop.

Don’t drink the hemlock. What if, instead,
after his leg braces are off, and he has rubbed
his leg and observed the congruence of pain

and pleasure, but before he is offered the cup,
what if the prison is infested with a hundred bees?

The guard darts for the door, the menaced
guests gasp, yelp, and flee the scene.
Socrates is stung on the leg and when he bends

to see it, a buzz invades his ear, he swats, runs
out the door and home. Quiet now, he minds

the orchards and is soon locally known for his
figs. Back from the trees every night he finds her
filling their glasses, squinting into the setting
sun at the door, she raises a hand to greet him.

No Hemlock Rock

Don’t kill yourself. Don’t kill yourself.
Don’t. Eat a donut, be a blown nut.
That is, if you’re going to kill yourself,
stand on a street corner rhyming
seizure with Indonesia, and wreck it with
racket. Allow medical terms.
Rave and fail. Be an absurd living ghost,
if necessary, but don’t kill yourself.

Let your friends know that something has
passed, or be glad they’ve guessed.
But don’t kill yourself. If you stay, but are
bat crazy you will batter their hearts
in blooming scores of anguish; but kill
yourself, and hundreds of other people die.

Poison yourself, it poisons the well;
shoot yourself, it cracks the bio-dome.
I will give badges to everyone who’s figured
this out about suicide, and hence
refused it. I am grateful. Stay. Thank
you for staying. Please stay. You
are my hero for staying. I know
about it, and am grateful you stay.

Eat a donut. Rhyme opus with lotus.
Rope is bogus, psychosis. Stay.
Hocus Pocus. Hocus Pocus.
Work to not kill yourself. I won’t either.

Jennifer Michael Hecht has published five books of poetry, philosophy, and history, including Doubt: A History and Funny. Her essays and poetry appear in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Washington Post. She teaches poetry in the Graduate Writing Program of The New School in New York City.

You may contact the editors at poems@theawl.com.

On the radio: Classical music is dying, smooth jazz is dying, talk radio is less popular than previously thought, and more dudes listen to soft rock than had previously been admitted. Pussies.

Here’s how not to cook a latke: Buy them from Russ & Daughters where the “homemade potato latkes” are $2.99 each, or 10 for $25. TEN LATKES FOR $25? Are you high? Do you know what is in a latke? Also, a reheated latke is a bad latke. Fact! So here, have a seat-no, over there, by the menorah. Have a piece of gelt. Make yourself comfortable.

On Hanukkah, Jews are supposed to cook food fried in oil to commemorate the eight days that the Maccabees’ lamp stayed lit with very little oil, as Sarah Palin has so helpfully reminded us. The latke is the most widespread of the fried foods that Jews tend to cook, though doughnuts are also popular. (FYI, Dunkin’ Donuts are not all kosher! Check with your rabbi.) Other options: fried Snickers bars, fried dough, tempura broccoli.

But we’re not here to make tempura broccoli! (Though if we were, I would tell you that you can get Panko crumbs at the Red Hook Fairway on this random shelf near the olive bar. You’re welcome!) We’re here to make LATKES! So first, it helps if your mom, like mine, made you a cookbook a few years ago featuring all of the time-worn Shafrir family recipes, handed down lovingly through the generations. Such as my grandmother’s famous flank steak recipe: Marinate one flank steak overnight/all day in half a bottle of Wishbone Italian dressing in a nonmetallic container, broil/barbecue on each side for approximately 5–10 minutes, and slice thinly against the grain. Now that’s home cooking.

For latkes, you’ll need the following: 4 Idaho potatoes, 1/2 small onion, 3 large eggs, 1 teaspoon salt, 2–3 tablespoons flour, and 1/4 teaspoon baking powder. This should make at least 20 smallish latkes. Now let’s do some math. A 5-pound bag of potatoes (so, like, 15 potatoes probably) at FreshDirect is $2.49, so that’s approximately 17 cents per potato, so that’s 68 cents worth of potatoes. A two-pound bag of onions, which is approximately 7 onions, is 99 cents, so 14 cents per onion, and since you’re only using half, that’s 7 cents. A dozen large eggs costs $1.99, so we’re looking at approximately 17 cents per egg, so that’s 51 cents’ worth of eggs. I’m just going to ASSUME that you have salt, flour, and baking powder around. If you don’t, okay, let’s add another 50 cents on there. Oh and then of course you need oil, which my mom doesn’t have in her list of ingredients. I would not use peanut oil because it gets too hot. I like vegetable oil. You can also use canola oil. Don’t use olive oil, even though I suppose that’s the most technically historically accurate thing to use, because then your latkes will taste gross. So a 24-ounce bottle of Wesson vegetable oil is $3.99, and you’ll probably use-let’s be generous here-maybe half the bottle (no one said these were healthy!), so we’re talking like 2 bucks worth of oil. That is, if you don’t already have oil around, which you might.

So your 20 latkes will cost $3.76 if you don’t have oil or flour or baking powder or salt. That’s the MAXIMUM they will cost. That’s 19 cents a latke.

And you’re still going to order them from Russ & Daughters? You must not be Jewish.

(Ba-dum-dum!)

So now, the fun part! Well, actually, this part kind of sucks, because I am a purist and I believe that you should grate the potatoes and onions by hand. This is by no means required. Some people like to use the shredding blade for their food processor. I personally believe that latkes require some sweat equity, and so I hand-grate. You’ll want a box grater. Grate the potatoes and squeeze out the water. This is very important, or your latkes will be too soggy. If you have cheesecloth for this step, use it. Then grate the onions. You can mix them together now.

You should be wearing an apron, by the way. Shit’s about to get messy.

Separate the eggs. Put the whites into a large mixing bowl and beat them until they’re stiff. I use a hand mixer. If you use a whisk you’ll be there for days. Once you’ve done that, you can start heating the oil. Not too much oil-you’re not deep-frying-but not, like, that little soupçon of oil that you sprinkle onto the pan when you’re sauteing a piece of fish. You know? You want those latkes nice and crispy.

So the oil is heating. You want that oil HOT. Now, mix together the potatoes, onion, and egg yolks. Then you fold in the egg whites and add the salt, flour, and baking powder. It WILL look gloopy. Don’t be scared! However, if the mixture is really soupy you can add a LITTLE bit more flour, but not too much. You know how crabcakes sometimes have way too much filler and not enough crab? Same idea.

Once your oil is hot hot hot, drop the mixture by tablespoons into the hot oil.

OMG I can’t believe I almost forgot something really important-you want to use a CAST-IRON pan. If you use a nonstick pan I will fucking kill you. Cast-iron is the only way to go. I mean, you really shouldn’t be using nonstick pans anyway, because they give you cancer, but here, especially, you want to be using a cast-iron pan. Very, very important.

Okay. Whew. So you’re dropping the mixture into the pan (the CAST-IRON one) and you want to be really careful about not crowding the pan. Just fry a few at a time. We’re not in a rush here! It’s Hanukkah. If people are getting antsy, throw a dreidel at them and tell them to shut the fuck up. Or just give them another glass of wine-I guess that would be the quote-unquote “nice” thing to do.

Remember how I said drop the mixture by tablespoons? You’re not making monstrous oversized American IHOP-style pancakes here. These are supposed to be small. You are supposed to eat several of them, and they are more delicious if they are small.

Cook them for a minute or so on each side. You’ll know when they’re done. While they’re cooking you should also set up a plate with a couple paper towels on it and have some extra paper towels hanging around, to drain them. When they’re done, put them on the plate and pat them lightly with the paper towels. Call over your impatient guests and serve them. They can help themselves to applesauce and sour cream from the fridge.

Happy Hanukkah!

Previous recipes from The Awl Cookbook

I was extremely intemperate yesterday on the matter of Michael Schudson, current Columbia J-School prof, and his contention that this age is a wonderful world of opportunity for journalists. So, a disclaimer: I’m sure that he is a wonderful sociologist and historian, I’m sure his books are fantastic, and I’m sure some students love him. (Though the ones I’ve talked to, who’ve taken his classes at Columbia, did not love him at all.) I have no reason to think he is not a great person, and a fantastic wealth of information. So I do regret going a little postal. But! And! Also! A couple of things!

I was flagrantly enraged by his bizarre take on the current age for a couple of reasons.

First was that I’d just talked to a mid-00’s Columbia J-school grad who was eating, for his meal that day, hot water with crushed-up vitamins in it.

Schudson, Nick Lemann and pretty much everyone else up at Columbia are perpetuating an obviously-failing scheme, in which they send young people into tens of thousands of dollars of debt while teaching them some basic skills that those students could and should learn by doing. That some of these professors discourage their students from actually working, for money, in the field while in school is outrageous.

There is a huge confusion about the use of j-schools as a place of academic inquiry (which is a good thing! Learning is good!) and as a trade school. As places that prepare people for a trade, they are a complete waste.

Since Schudson threw himself right into the gaping pit between his strength-academic inquiry-and investigation of the actual practice of journalism in these times… well, he’s going to be falling down that hole for a long time.

That there is nowhere at all for the last few graduating classes to work speaks very badly of the way a trade school is preparing their graduates. Nicholas Lemann and his pals up at Columbia J-School should produce a list of the class of 2008 and exactly where they are employed. I can do it for them, using the methods of “reporting,” if they give me a few weeks.

But, ah, the Internet. What a tricky place!

That another j-school prof, C. W. Anderson, who is an assistant professor of Media Culture at CUNY (and God bless CUNY, of course), and whose work is both fascinating and useful, referred to what I wrote as “poorly written linkbait

, well:

1. Please hyphenate “poorly-written.” (OR NOT!)

2. That a discussion of media business models and j-schools could ever constitute “linkbait” is laughable. If I was working on linkbait, I’d be writing a post about that golfer who we have yet to ever name on this site.

3. If you’re interested in the intersection of media culture, journalism and capitalism, well, come aboard! Welcome to one of the few places on the Internet that cares about that.

That being said: I was mean to his friend, so I didn’t deserve a very nice response. I’m sorry I was so mean!

Finally, I’d love to know more about what j-school professors are actually doing to make the new version of the industry a place in which people can actually work, and any communication is quite welcome.

The excellent Regret The Error’s corrections of the year is up! If you’ve been paying attention to the Internet for the last couple of weeks you will have a pretty good idea of what takes top honors, but there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Today’s Times op-ed on menhaden and the insane Omega-3 fish oil industry is pretty amazing. The practitioner of mass overfishing of the algae-chugging fish called menhaden is Omega Protein, a 40-boat company out of Houston that fishes in North Carolina and Virginia and further ashore, and that processes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia. Their board of directors is fascinating as well, including as it does an all-male cast of oil industry execs, insurance brokers, the former VP of Equus Capital Management and the “professor of Swine Nutrition at the University of Missouri.” Also, you are probably spreading menhaden on your lips, ladies.

Blabby Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) referred to a female flight attendant as a “B-word” after she ordered him to turn off his cell phone prior to takeoff. Thank God she didn’t try to get in the middle of Chuck and a TV camera; she would have been upgraded to a “C.”

Response and social desirability biases have actually made this BBC discussion poll interesting! It seems that if you start with the proposition that maybe homosexuals should be slaughtered, you’ll get a lot of people saying, “Um, NO?” and also some people saying, “Well, not slaughtered, but….” In this way, we can find out what people actually do think of the gays.

There’s a poet who lives in Canada, named Bob Ezergailis, who thinks that “The death sentence for repeated transmission of HIV to others has been a long time coming, and is a necessity not an option.” Awesome job on becoming a health policy expert, Bob.

There’s Mohammed Begum, who lives in Birmingham, who thinks that “Homosexuality is already punishable by death in several successful countries including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan so why are we picking on Uganda?” Which… okay.

But if you want to get a better sense of what some people are thinking, you should actually read the comments on The Monitor, the independent (not state-owned) Ugandan newspaper, attached to an article headlined “Obama, Clinton reject Uganda’s gay Bill.”

In another example of the sterling work done by the Italian security services, a “young Italian with a history of mental problems has been arrested after he tried to enter the hospital room of Silvio Berlusconi during the night.” (This is a different Italian with mental problems from the one who smashed Berlusconi in the face with a souvenir statuette on Sunday.) Meanwhile, amid threats by the Italian government to crack down on anti-Berlusconi pages on various social networking sites, Facebook has announced that it would carefully monitor its pages and “take quick action to respond to reports, and remove any content reported to us that makes direct threats against an individual.”

Today’s Post reports that “An officer conducting an inspection at a Bronx narcotics unit last week found a soft-core porn movie playing on one of the TVs in the facility, police sources said. The skin flick was playing on a satellite-TV premium channel. That violates an NYPD policy banning such channels at work.” Okay, so! The newspaper has done its job, by playing straight man. (Although this is a terrible headline.) Still, they have set up, by my back-of-the-envelope calculations, at least 45⁰³ possible jokes. Heaven! And yet, the lone commenter on this story at the Post is doing it wrong. Let’s explain!

So you see what happened. Someone came in and made a MESS of the opportunities presented. They went, you see, too far.

It’s a perfectly fine, if sort of expected joke, to say there will be a “deep probing investigation,” or some such. I mean, definitely expected. There’s so many better places to go?

But, most of all, you cannot say there will be a “deep anal probing” investigation, because, that doesn’t actually make much sense except in the literal sense! And how would the NYPD find out who left soft-core porn on at work by means of cavity searches? That just doesn’t work. I realize this commenter was working hurriedly, before 9 a.m., but there’s no excuse for such laziness. I’m feeling very dispirited by this.