Jack Haven

Welcome to the Jack Haven. I'm Jack, known in some places by my nom de plume Jonathan Francis, and still in some others (mostly online) as JoVo. I'm a 23-year-old senior at Tulane University, majoring in English with a Creative Writing concentration, Philosophy, and Political Science with an International Relations concentration. I was born on July 11, 1983, and raised in Miami, Florida.

I moved to New Orleans for college in 2001 and took a year off of school to make the move more permanent in 2003. I spent my twentieth year of life roughing it up in the Big Easy, learning a lot about myself and the city in the process. I returned to school the following year while working full time as a security officer. I was returning to Tulane for my senior year when Hurricane Katrina hit the city and destroyed everything that physically symbolized what it took me two years and a great deal of sacrifice to build. I moved in with Connor (Poet), to whom I later became intimately attached. I expect to graduate from Tulane with a Bachelor of Arts in May of 2007.

The following two sections should be self-explanatory, but as anyone who knows me knows well, I love to hear myself talk, and even more do I enjoy watching myself write. The first section is about JoNe and myself. They revolve around my life, pictures and quotes therefrom, and about the long and sordid history of this website. The second section has to do with my writing. I write both Fury Afterglow and Navigator, but I also take on individual projects both in and out of school. They are posted here for your perusal. Since I'm always looking to improve, I heartily welcome criticism, so do leave me a comment.

JoNe and Me

• Ephemeris Occulta
• Photo Album
• The Darndest Things
• History of JoNe
• Jack's Full Résumé
• Jack's Forum

Library

Prose

• "Dear Heart" (2006)
• "Everclear" (2005)
• "The Relevance of Science Fiction" (2005)
• "Maria's Gift" (2004)

Poetry

• "My Childlike Dream" (2006)
• "Early Morning Prayer" (2005)
• "Rainfall in Winter" (2005)
• "To Consummate an Elegant Heartbreak" (2005)
• "By Candlelight" (2004)
• "Elegy for Innocence" (2004)
• "Gratitude" (2004)
• "My Cobalt Blue Dancer" (2004)
• "Windgiver" (2004)

Essays

• "Aristophanes on Love" (2005)
• "The Battle of the Giants" (2005)
• "The Beginning of an Ice Age" (2005)
• "Ethical Virtue and the Mean" (2005)
• "The Forgotten Victim of Patriarchy" (2005)
• "God's Will Misused" (2005)
• "How Costa Rica Lost Its Military" (2005)
• "On Human Beginnings" (2005)
• "On Our Duty as to False Opinion" (2005)
• "The Jade Straitjacket" (2004)

Jack's Journal

NaNoWriMo!
11.7.2007:2250

Like jinxedpoet, I've decided to do NaNoWriMo too!

If you want to check out what I've been working on, look me up. I'm posting the chapters of my novel on the LJ account nanojovo. Friend me if you want to see. :P

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That Way to Life
1.13.2007:2149

Being in Tulsa with Connor is like walking in a dream. Soon I'll have him in real life too. Graduation is in May. I'm still not sure how things will go, but I'll be in New York. It doesn't matter how it happens, or what I have to do, but we're going to do it.

I've never been with someone who I felt was really forever. We're the sort of people that don't open up to others easily. We don't open up easily because we've been hurt too much. We've opened up to each other, and it's been utterly peaceful and safe. So, even if we're not boyfriends, we're the best of friends. If I'm not with him, I don't think I really want to be with anyone else. And that's all right, because if I'm not his boyfriend, I'm still in his life. I'll still live with him, and we'll still sleep in the same bed.

Things that are solid are solid no matter what you call them. A change of name is not a change of substance.

I return to school on Tuesday. One more semester, and I'm done. I'm excited about being done. I want to live for a little bit with school behind me. I need a few years of peace, wanting nothing and enjoying only what I have.

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The Meaning of Christmas
12.21.2006:1202

It's Thursday! I haven't finished the paper I've been trying to write for several days. But I am done with finals.

I'll never be able to understand why my friends hate Christmas so much. I don't care what the reasons are. Holidays are holidays. You can either make them your own, or you can be cynical and aggravated by it. If you choose to be angry on a holiday, that's your own fault. Christmas is no more responsible for your feelings than cats are responsible for making my nose runny.

Granted, Christmas doesn't mean the same thing to me that it does to most people, but choosing what things mean to you is part of what makes us human. We survive because we're capable of adaptation. If you choose not to adapt, that's your own fault.

When I had a long streak of being single, Valentine's Day was never a day that brought me misery. Love isn't romantic. Love is universal. You can enjoy love for friends, love for yourself, love for your hobbies. Anything that you love, you should be able to enjoy, and if you choose, Valentine's Day can be a day when you celebrate all the things and people that you love.

Christmas is a time where you give up all the stupid little things that make you upset with people. You can forgive all the bullshit, forgive yourself, let things go, and be a whole person without regrets or baggage. You can do that, or you can focus on the commercialism, the banalities, and even all the people who are too stressed out to enjoy the holiday for what it really is. Whether or not you believe in Christ, the idea can be universal. This is a holiday when everything is okay: everything is lifted from you. Relax, enjoy the eggnog and the holiday treats, give presents to those who you love, and enjoy being with them. Celebrate your friendships for the good things they offer you. Stop being a dick about Christmas. You fucking ruin it for the rest of us.

As for Happy Holidays... whatever. Merry Christmas to all of you. You may wish me a Merry Yule, or a Happy Hanukkah, or a Happy Kwanza, and I won't be offended. "I don't celebrate Christmas." Well, good for you. Do you want a cookie? Oh, I guess you don't celebrate cookies either. Good wishes are good wishes. If you get one, accept it for what it is. I repeat, stop being a dick about Christmas.

Was Christ born around Christmas? Probably not. More than likely not. No one gives a damn. This is when we celebrate it: on the festival of the Winter Solstice. Yeah, I know that. I still call it Christmas, and I still celebrate the idea of Christ's birth. If we celebrated it during September, then it wouldn't have the same meaning. Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year. We celebrate Christmas now because this is the time when the days get longer. It is significant now.

And again, stop being a dick about Christmas. Either enjoy it, or let me enjoy it. Have yourself whatever Christmas you want to have. I hope it's merry, but I can't control how you celebrate the holiday. So even if you sit at home pouting about the stupidity of people and how inane the whole idea of Christmas is, I hope you'll at least be merry while you whine.

Merry Christmas to us all. And to all, a good night.

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Navigator: Statement of Intent
12.13.2006:2209

The immrama, or "rowings about," are a genre of early Irish literature. Central to the immrama is the structural motif of the sea voyage, which frames the narrative and forms a central part of the genre. There are few surviving immrama: four of them in Irish, and one of them in Latin. These are Immram curaig Máele Dúin ("Voyage of Máel Dúin's Boat"), Immram curaig Ua Corra ("Voyage of the Uí Corra"), Immram Brain mac Febuil ("Voyage of Bran son of Febul"), Immram Snédgusa ocus Maic Riagla ("Voyage of Snédgus and Mac Riagla"), and Nauigatio sancti Brendani abbatis ("Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot"). The framing structure of the sea voyage is distinctive in that each immram describes episodic voyages to more than one island, and usually the abandonment of a number of the original voyagers. Furthermore, they are the usually the voyages of monks, and those that are not are the voyages of secular individuals who go enter into what may be either a satire or an allegory of the monastic pilgrimage.

The latter point is significant because, although the main character of an immram may be a secular individual, the sea voyage itself is not. The journey is a spiritual one, in which every island brings the main character closer to a sort of psychopneumatic awakening. In the Immram Máele Dúin, for instance, Máel Dúin, the child of a warrior and a nun, pursues his father's murderers over the sea. Over the course of his wanderings, he experiences a spiritual conversion so that, when he finally encounters his father's murderers, he forgives them.

This thesis hopes to investigate the common themes that run through all five of the surviving immrama listed above. This thesis will examine the various reasons for which the sea voyage became a tool of atonement. In the immrama, being lost at sea is seen as a sort of exile, which serves as a form of punishment. The main character must then travel from island to island, in search of repentance and the conversion experience that must follow. This "conversion experience," which I have called a psychopneumatic awakening, is essential to the main character, and without it, the character cannot return home. In order to focus the discussion of the immrama, this thesis will pay specific attention to the Immram Máele Dúin, the structure of which will color the creative component of this thesis.

The creative component will be a manuscript that hopes to use those structural elements studied in the analytic component within a contemporary setting. The main character, Jason Medina, will be lost at sea with a group of his fellow classmates. As they find themselves traveling from island to island, they will discover many reasons to love the place whence they came, despite their cynical opinions about home and family. The psychopneumatic awakening involves both the realization that their home has value and that they have a place in it: a theme which I hope to elucidate over the course of the manuscript. The creative component will include minor elements of science fiction, although one of the primary goals of this project is to recreate the creativity of form that mythology was so successful in accomplishing.

In the future, I hope to reproduce "Navigator" in novel form. The goal of this thesis is not merely to produce a work of analytic and creative value, but also to prepare a foundation for my future writing.

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Yay! Nuu! Meh... Rargh!
12.13.2006:2036

I'm everywhere today. I should have done a million things, but instead of doing them, I'm sort of lounging about. At least I'm not playing WoW.

I could be working on that thesis of mine right now, but I'm not. I'm typing this. And doing tons and tons of programming. Now I've got to get started on studying for my two finals tomorrow, but I haven't really gotten to that either.

I don't think I'm screwed—I can probably bullshit my way through those parts that I'm not well-acquainted with. I don't expect to get an A in either class, so my threshold of caring is dropping very quickly. I feel like I can do well at anything while doing minimal effort. It takes a lot of work to be a full A student. I've got plenty of As this semester, though.

And I've got a 3.3 GPA. It shouldn't be so hard (I hope) to get up to a 3.4, which is what I need to graduate with to get cum laude.

Cookies! I tried to buy some earlier, but there weren't any Oreos at the store. I might hit the Boot (our little local shopping venue) later tonight and get some. Yay for cookies!

I bit my pinky nail too much and now it hurts. And I can't seem to stop. :(

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