Hiakus in tribute to Private Eye: Farewell then…(update August 13, 2009)

One of my favourite rags in College was Private Eye. It was a quirky, brilliant satirical but serious expose of local and national government incompetence, and contained wonderful sections on faux pas in sports, known fondly as Colemanballs, named after David Coleman who constantly put requisite foot in mouth during football commentaries. It also contained postmodernist sections of “news” that were ludicrous and never ended (to be continued on another page they said although of course they never did). Above all, I looked forward to the poems of E.J. Thribb (age 17.5), a satirical poetic persona of a young man who submitted poems on those recently deceased. They were brief, hilarious poems whose skills lay in the inanities of theircontent but which were actually pithy and accurate details of the deceased’s life.

So here is the beginning of my own “Thribbisms”. They are not particularly good, but given the rash of the recently slew of recently deceased, I thought, perversely, I’d start with the lesser known Karl Malden.

So. Farewell then,

Karl Malden

Age 97

The bible toting Father Barry on the Waterfront

The star of The Streets of San Francisco

You told us not to leave home without it

Does God take American Express?

So. Farewell then,

Michael Jackson

Age 50

You gave us so much to think about:

Parent beatings

Paedophilia

Kid ranches

Face masks

Skin pigmentation horrors

Too much medication

Does God dance to Thriller?

The circularity of ideas: pedagogy, academia and pop culture

One of the central tenets of my teaching and research is the circularity of knowledge: the way it is mediated between myself and my students but also the way in which knowledge is intrinsically and instinctively hyperlinked in our daily conversations. I have a reputation for my digressive and associative thinking, moving seamlessly from a discussion of a You Tube video of The Streets and ecstacy club culture to the “dear John” poems of the sixteenth century poet, Isabella Whitney. Undoubtedly, this occurs because of my obsessive mental vacuuming of everything I see and read which is then stored and then emerges in unexpected contexts in conversations in and out of the classroom. In nearly all of my recent classes, I have found that students not only enjoy the connections and can relate to them, but “piggy back” on them with their own cultural references. Grandly, this is called inter-textuality and is a very postmodernist experience, i.e. that everything refers back to and forward to everything else. I have used the theories of James Burke, particularly his books Circles and The Knowledge Web for their unique way of explaining the circularity of ideas and his idea that we are evolutionally wired to read in a hyperlinked way. So this site contains pages that reflect my pedagogy, my own ideas of hyperlinkage as I make observations about books, movies and culture.

“our body” exhibit: Whitaker museum, Harrisburg, PA

This traveling exhibit has caused considerable controversy. The ethics of displaying actual bodies and whether consent justifies their use has attracted local, national and international attention. It was a popular talking point in the local media when I went to see it at the Whitaker center in Harrisburg.

I went there with an open mind. I was prepared to be outraged and expected to be squeamish. I was neither. Instead I came away with wonder at the function and beauty of our bodies.

The portions of the exhibit are relatively few, divided as they are into sections that deal with digestion, cardiology, reproduction, and so forth. There is respect for the viewer. We are not overexposed to a curator’s zealous desire to over-educate us with anatomical information, we are not subject to auditory overkill. There are monitor screens at the entrance and exit and a historical overview about the body guides us as we look at the bodies on display and the parts of the body in showcases. We are left in quiet to respectfully meditate on what we see and it is a reassuringly private occurrence. When I went at lunchtime on a Monday, two days after the exhibit had opened, there were few visitors who made their way to the basement.

I understand the controversy but there is due respect. The section on foetuses is carefully curated. There is a curtained off area and a warning sign is posted. But as I looked at each display, it is obvious that they do not look like body parts at all. Muscles are not even close in appearance to the displayed organs. Those are our familar companions. We have seen our insides as arrangement and appearance in textbooks, we have seen their violent rearrangement on the outside in movies like Braveheart . We know their size, their function, their relation to each other. We use them as metaphoric expressions in our language. Have a heart. In contrast, while we know much about the muscles they are rendered strange in this exhibit. They look like a comic book rendition instead, the muscles turned inside out and sculpted to resemble hair that has been subject to much too much gel. They become mythologies, the leg muscles reminding us of Pegasus or Mercury in flight, or Nike, an ideal advertiser for this display. Arm muscles on the outside look like wings, Dore’s illustrations of angels in Paradise Lost. In fact, the overall impression is that the body sculptors have tussauded Madame Tussaud’s wax creations. They have been rendered curiosities, outward manifestations of human form and function rather than flesh and blood, no longer reminders of what made them human in the first place. Dessication replaces the heartbeat that gave character. But what we are left with is wonder. Whether you believe in a mechanistic view of the world or divine intelligence, there is no escaping the sheer pleasure in contemplating the hammer, anvil and stapes, those tiniest of body parts, millimeters in length, that only together in perfect harmony give us our ability to hear. And when we contemplate the life of the foetuses, our sadness and pity is juxtaposed with the perfection of the stages of life, the incredible delicacy of tiny fingers, the beauty of an eyelash. It is human clockwork, it is an aesthetic marvel, and no controversy can eradicate the wonder that is our body.

English words I had forgotten (updated 2/19/09)

In my current desire to read as many books simultaneously without finishing any, I have started to read David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green (2006). There is a nostalgic motive for doing so. Mitchell’s protagonist grows up in Britain in the 1980s as I did. As I read it, I was reminded just how much I had forgotten about phrases and words I used or were used in my presence when that age. So as I read I am going to create a list of those words and I encourage any other English readers or lovers of English words to contribute.

Parky: cold out as in nippy, as in needing to don a parka to keep warm although these were regarded as naff, but not quite as awful as duffle coats with toggles, as in Paddington Bear who was from Peru and who was created by Michael Bond who I assume was not related to James, fictionally or otherwise.

Pongs: really smells like the cabbage and/or fish smell that permeates the kitchens of great-aunts in the days when that was British fare and when you gave cats real fish and not this substitute kibbles (sic) and bits rubbish.

Spaz: short for spastic, a derogatory term for someone who is mentally deficient. I knew someone who was called Barry and his name was shortened to Baz and so he became Baz the Spaz. The key to success in English schools was to avoid nicknames or at least acquire ones only based on a mild deficiency. So I was all right with “four eyes” given I was ocularly challenged at age 5. Unfortunately one kid was called the Manatee. I think no explanation needs to be given for this aquatic name. Another was called Petal because he did not like to be outside and participate in “manly” sports. Life is fragile and cruel when you are 13.

slagging off: criticizing, talking behind someone’s back. Not to be confused with slag, a derogatory term applied to the 13 year old girl in your class who allowed every guy in the classroom to fumble their way through experiencing her budding development. And it was always the girl more developed than any other. So, how are you doing, Linda?

yonks: when something takes forever or is a distant event.

go ape: to go beserk when you are upset with something. While I may surmise that it has something to do with nature shows, I rather think that it was inspired by the PG Tips tea ads featuring those rambunctious chimpanzees dressed up in Uncle Bob’s suit and Aunt Fiona’s chiffon dress. It did not make me buy more tea but it make me want to buy a monkey as a pet. Instead, I had to settle on a fish called Wellington, a radical departure in our house where all our budgies (parakeets here) were called Joey, a ruse concocted by my father who was interested in insisting on the continuity of life than its nasty, brutishly short side. This illusion was maintained despite the fact that there was a bird grave underneath the apple tree in the back garden that mysteriously expanded every few years. Decades later, in the heart of the Pennsylvania countryside I was reintroduced to this concept of “the king is dead, long live the king” with Punxytawney Phil. Bless him. He just turned three hundred years old and he, or a nepotistic relative, advertises lottery tickets for a living.

skive (v): a philosophical commitment to expose the tyrannical nature of social institutions such as school and the workplace. Also known as non-attendance. Also known as getting up too late in the morning to go to said school or work and providing the requisite, lame excuses. What my dad used to do when he was a nipper (kid) and decided that his future lay not with his education at school but with giving donkey rides down on the Bournemouth beachfront on the South coast of England.

Flid (n): derogatory term for someone mentally deficient (see spaz). “He’s a real flid.” An unfortunate abbreviation of Thalidomide, a German drug used in the 1950s and 1960s to lessen side effects of pregnancy. It led to many birth defects, particularly of the arms and legs. It had widespread application in England.

sarky: short for saracastic. “Mum, he’s being sarky again! Mum!!?” Used ad nauseum by brothers and sisters who engaged in constant verbal repartee at the dinner table while mum continued to drink numerous glasses of sherry trying to forget that she actually had spawned these whinging ninnies.

git: a very annoying person, usually your sibling. Frequently used by my brother in addressing me such as in “you cheeky git.” Occasionally an affectionate term but obviously not used in that manner in my family.

Cacking myself: pooping your pants. often when nervous.

Snog: kiss of the deeply passionate kind that usually requires the kind of deep breath practiced by deep sea divers who do not use breathing apparatuses. Nearly always occurs at the end of discos with a slow dance or outside the disco up against a brick wall surrounded by the smell of stale urine, stale beer and always accompanied by matted hair.

It’s a piece of piss: something that can be achieved without much of an effort but usually said about objects that would defy all human abilities if sober.

Bonusgate, PA politics and cigars

As I sat mesmerized by the PA attorney general Tom Corbett’s remarkable resemblance to Leslie Nielson and half-expected O.J. Simpson or an Elizabeth II lookalike to make a cameo appearance, I was taken aback by several things. First, the cojones of the AG. As he astutely put it to one reporter, he does not care what people might say about political prejudice. This was not an operation aimed at Democrats and he cited several prosecutions against Republican office holders to prove it. This was instead, as he rightly suggested, a sad day for Pennsylvanians. Second, I always find it fascinating to play the numbers game. If you added up the indictment counts and the number of years each dumb fool could potentially serve, it comes to more years than points I have ever racked up in Space Invaders, my arcade game of choice when a wee bairn playing on English seaside piers (with English weather, you do not expect me to sit on shingled beaches, do you?). Third, I marvel at the brazen stupidity of our legislators, particularly vacuous Veon. I know, why don’t we construct a list of volunteers, cross-reference, update it and track, probably as an Excel spreadsheet, how much each is getting. That way we can assist the prosecutors. Fourth, I wouldn’t want to be Webb the squealer. He gets immunity and witness protection for the rest of his life, probably as W.Ebb or some other highly inventive name. But above all, I was definitely drawn to the anecdotes: the volunteers who are told to attend a campaign only to ditch the campaign leaflets in the garbage and go fishing, commenting later that they guess, having received $250.00 each, that they must now be “professional fisherman”. Better watch your flies in prison, boys, cause there will be plenty of fishers of men in there who have hooks aplenty for little minnows such as yourselves; then, there is the woman who kinda got fed up with her $78,000 job with the tourist board so thought she would wander off to Beaver County to campaign as a volunteer for five weeks. There will be no Cancun in her horizon although I understand that is a limited view of our fair state between the prison bars. But I am saving my favorite for the end. That would be the affair with the legislative intern, the 21 year old who suddenly fulfiled her lifetime dream of earning the princely sum of 21G’s, rising to 29G’s, by working over a cigar shop. Now, first of all, she wasn’t exactly ambitious in only trying out a PA legislative member; she is no ambitious Monica for sure. But then she did understand the value of a cigar, well, at least a shop that fronted as one in my neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Yet, I ask you, dear reader. Is it just me, or do we see a nefarious connection here with the smoking ban story? This affaire de coeur or in dem pants/ies takes place in Allegheny County whose attempt to control its own indoor air quality has been struck down by the Commonwealth court in May of this year when it was argued that only the state legislature had the authority over this matter. This has been a contentious issue in the state this summer as numerous newspapers have reported. The ban was eventually passed on June 11 2008 and smoking in public places including restaurants is now verboten. But there is pride still at stake. Philadephia, after all, has been allowed to keep it more restrictive policies in place. But now Allegheny County can be proud because it has its own special place in smoking lore, providing fronts for y-fronts and proving that a cigar shop really isn’t a cigar shop. The irony is that one dirty secret, as smoking has now become, was hiding another dirty secret, an idea as old as Virginny tobacca, the inevitable coupling of sex and politics. It reminds me of a story I covered in my surveillance class this semester, Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent. The novel opens in the dingy streets in London. Mr. Verloc, a double agent, lives in a house that doubles as a business. It’s a front, but its trade? Low level porn sold out of brown paper bags. Peddling porn, peddling taxpayer’s money for a fumble above a cigar shop. Equally tawdry, equally sad. The difference? It only costs a few dollars to buy the novel, whereas it has cost us no end of hard earned money to fund indiscretion. You draw the conclusions.

Grandmaster Flash and Electrocution

anonymous white gangsta

As an extremely white British male, the image of me enjoying rap is risible, I know. These days I rock to Weird Al’s parody of Chamillionaire’s Ridin’ Dirty and found myself in the amusing position in class on Friday playing the role of Flavor Flav, complete with clock, pimp coat (a female student’s fetching white bath robe) and fluffy black slippers (complete with fake inset jewels).The students were constructing their presentation around the literary texts we had covered this week as part of answering the core question of how can we tell the good from the bad. Unexpectedly, for me, they decided that an episode featuring Flavor Flav and his two “honeys,” New York and Primose, could best parallel “Dr. Jeckll and Mr. Hyde”. To be fair, this was masterful. We had been using Rene Girard’s theory of the triangulation of desire in which the initial competition over a desired object is replaced by the competition between the rivals in which the object is forgotten. Hence, Flavor Flav is forgotten in favor of a bitch slapping contest. So, instead of trying an awful rap dialect, I said “den, bounce out of my crib, son” in an imitation of the guy from the Grey Poupon commercials. It went down well, although I just felt like a performing chimp. Yo.

However, back in the day, when I was experimenting with musical styles ranging from Ska to disco to Rap, I added to my 45 singles collection Grandmaster Flash’s White Lines. I loved the video directed by the then relatively unknown Spike Lee and starring Laurence Fishburne. This was my introduction to the great rhythm and narrative of old rap and I was smitten. Imagine my consternation then when I read Melena Ryzik’s piece in today’s New York Times that GF was a) 50 and b) had frequently risked electrocution in playing his turntable by illegally connecting it up to light posts. While this is stupid, I couldn’t believe how GF qualified himself for the Darwin Awards by saying: “Sometimes I got electrocuted, and it felt good.” Hey, GF, next time, maybe throw the hairdryer in the bathwater or just tie yourself to the railroad tracks for kicks. Or perhaps lay off the white lines. I think you have snorted just a few too many.

Fall 2008 syllabus courses

So that I do not have to apologize to trees, so that I do not have to scramble around my office looking for a spare copy for additional students, so that I do not have to scramble around my office looking for a spare copy for myself when I lose my original, I am providing links to my syllabi. As the semester progresses, I will post assignments, facetious remarks, pictures of my classes, reluctant pics of myself trying to teach, and witty, perceptive and downright strange remarks made by all those who represent the very “best” of IUP English majors! To find each syllabus and links to things that happen in that class, look on the pages listed on the right side of the blog. Enjoy!