A Jeanne Site
Steve Schalchlin's 
California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Latest update: July 11, 2000
Faculty on the Site.
It is from the narratives of others that we come to understand our own alternatives and choices. Sometimes the world doesn't seem to listen, doesn't seem to care. Then someone breaks through those defenses, announces boldly the privileging of subjectivity, and leads the way for us to follow. The Web has been of tremendous service in creating a forum for narrative. The New York Times, on Thursday, July 9, 1998, spoke of Glenn Fleishman's use of a Web site to seek and share alternatives in dealing with cancer. The Well was known for the strength its Net community provided to those who needed to explore alternatives in the face of adversity, and that tradition goes on.
Steve Schalchlin's diary is poignant and moving. The diary is on his Geocities' Site, Living in the Bonus Round. Visit the site and the diary.
With the alternatives that Steve discovered he went on to do an off-Broadway production:
The Last Session And now, from Steve will be appearing at the Blue Sphere Alliance on July 23 and August 27, 2000. Scroll about a third of the way down to July 23. This means that someone who has been on our site for two years, and who has done so much in helping all of us to "get it," will be playing at a theatre in Hollywood.. I'm definitely going to go see him. E-mail if you want to come, too.
Positoid.com
Poistoid.com
Here, you will find Shawn Decker's story and music. I found him through Steve's site. Shawn tells his story as a youngster with AIDS: "And not only did he overcome what many considered to be life-ending illnesses (he was meeting his idols via Make-A-Wish Foundation), he took those experiences and somehow weaved them subconsiously into his musical scriptures...."In Hemo2Homo there is a review of American Beauty that helped me to understand the film a little. I saw it on the plane on the way to Albany, and thought it was the late and long flight that made it almost unintelligible to me. So that's what it was about! I'm not exactly clear enough to do a Pass? or Prepared? on it, but maybe one of you could. I knew it must have made sense to somebody.
And I'd like you to think here of John Portmann's Schadenfreude. How easy for us to laugh and poke fun at the "one who doesn't get it." But how easy it is to to help some of us "get it." Hemo2Homo is a dialog between people who get it, but overhearing that dialog is enough to give me a clue. I still find the movie depressing, but the context makes more sense to me now. No, I'm not quite ready to see it again, even when it's not all night. But maybe one day.
The willingness to help others "get it" is an important piece of peacemaking. Stories, and artistic creativity lend themselves to this. This involves a willingness not to categorize others as "excluded," assume that they do not "get it" because of their exclusion, and proceed not to attempt to explain it, on the grounds that they wouldn't "get it" even if they could. The hooker does this when she tells herself that every man is a "trick," and then waits until he does or says something typical of a "trick," and then says, "See, I told you so." Insiders often do this to outsiders. See John Hockenberry.