One thing I never realized I missed about school is that it exposes you to all kinds of interesting people you would never meet otherwise.
Just now as I waited to go into a class I saw a girl in a shirt that said "Fashion is not a luxury" explaining casually to a friend that over the weekend she got angry at her boyfriend and sprayed him in the face with a can of air freshener. How does one witness such a thing and then go focus on economics?
Monday, September 22, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
David Foster Wallace Knew Why I Was Angry
On Sunday I found out that David Foster Wallace had killed himself while I was eating stuffed peppers and watching professional football at Jon’s house. I was upset by this, but I tried not to let it bother me. I was in a social setting after all, and the aforementioned peppers were really good, and it was easy to focus on the brighter side of things, though I will say I think I was noticeably grumpier for the rest of the afternoon. To say someone's death made me "grumpy" sounds horrible, but there it is. It's not like I knew the man.
A couple of hours and several beers later we were watching the post-game show on CBS, and I was re-expressing my oft-expressed wish that the cast of CBS’s NFL Sunday would get sucked into a black hole. They were all slapping each other on their backs, and smirking, and pretending to have just the best time anyone ever had, and I hated them for it. I always hate them for it. And I expressed that angry wish, and I guess I’d been expressing a lot of angry wishes that afternoon, because Jon said something along the lines of “I wish you wouldn’t get so angry all the time about what is really nothing at all.” And I didn’t know what to say, because I knew that on a level he was right, but I also knew that on another level I was right. I just didn’t know how to express why it is that the CBS NFL Sunday cast makes me so angry. So I conceded the point and tried to cheer up.
Today I was looking at Slate.com, as is my wont, and reading their obituary of Mr. Wallace, and I came across a quote from the first book I ever read by him, on an airplane to LA in 2003, and it perfectly expressed what I should have said about Boomer Esiason, Shannon Sharpe, et al. I went home and looked it up-- in the essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again,”-- a passage about what Mr. Wallace referred to as “the Professional Smile,” which I think most football fans would have to agree runs rampant most Sunday afternoons on CBS and Fox.
“An ad that pretends to be art is—at absolute best—like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what’s sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill’s real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.”
I wish I could write something that good.
A couple of hours and several beers later we were watching the post-game show on CBS, and I was re-expressing my oft-expressed wish that the cast of CBS’s NFL Sunday would get sucked into a black hole. They were all slapping each other on their backs, and smirking, and pretending to have just the best time anyone ever had, and I hated them for it. I always hate them for it. And I expressed that angry wish, and I guess I’d been expressing a lot of angry wishes that afternoon, because Jon said something along the lines of “I wish you wouldn’t get so angry all the time about what is really nothing at all.” And I didn’t know what to say, because I knew that on a level he was right, but I also knew that on another level I was right. I just didn’t know how to express why it is that the CBS NFL Sunday cast makes me so angry. So I conceded the point and tried to cheer up.
Today I was looking at Slate.com, as is my wont, and reading their obituary of Mr. Wallace, and I came across a quote from the first book I ever read by him, on an airplane to LA in 2003, and it perfectly expressed what I should have said about Boomer Esiason, Shannon Sharpe, et al. I went home and looked it up-- in the essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again,”-- a passage about what Mr. Wallace referred to as “the Professional Smile,” which I think most football fans would have to agree runs rampant most Sunday afternoons on CBS and Fox.
“An ad that pretends to be art is—at absolute best—like somebody who smiles warmly at you only because he wants something from you. This is dishonest, but what’s sinister is the cumulative effect that such dishonesty has on us: since it offers a perfect facsimile or simulacrum of goodwill without goodwill’s real spirit, it messes with our heads and eventually starts upping our defenses even in cases of genuine smiles and real art and true goodwill. It makes us feel confused and lonely and impotent and angry and scared. It causes despair.”
I wish I could write something that good.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Crazy Andrew
Recently I talk to myself-- the by-product of living alone. Perhaps I am slicing onions, and I think of something a co-worker did that irritated me, and perhaps I say "What a stupid asshole" to no one in particular.
Or maybe I am watching football, and I think of something embarrassing I did in the seventh grade. And maybe I voice this embarrassment with a loud, "What a fucking stupid little kid I was."
This happens with alarming frequency, and has become enough of a habit that I forget when I am doing it. More than once I've taken a walk and emerged from a reverie to realize I'd been muttering to myself as the passing homeless eye me with suspicion. I don't know if this means I am crazy, but I do wonder about the future. Maybe when I'm seventy the neighborhood kids will be too afraid to trick-or-treat at my house.
I remember an old schizophrenic man who lived in my neighborhood when I was a boy, who the kids all called "Crazy George." He lived in a ramshackle old house with peeling paint and once when my father parked a car near him he exploded at us, then muttered something barely intelligible about "Motherfuckers and their cars. Shit-- cars. Horses. Fuck." This could be me, in perhaps as little as twenty years.
The other day I was dining at Carytown Burger and saw one of my sister's friends. Friendly guy that he is, he came over to my table to say hello. We spoke for a few minutes, and I said it was good to see him, and he said the same and went on his way.
Awhile later I had finished my meal, and stopped by his table on the way out.
"Hey, it was good seeing you man," I said to him and stuck my hand out.
I guess he's not much for handshaking because he stuck his hand up in the air in a sort of awkward half-wave and grinned.
Taken aback by this unusual gesture, I gave him a high five. Nobody knew what to say after that, so I turned to leave. As I did so, I heard myself say aloud, "I feel weird." The table erupted with laughter as I walked away. Motherfuckers and their handshakes. Shit-- high-fives. Fuck.
Or maybe I am watching football, and I think of something embarrassing I did in the seventh grade. And maybe I voice this embarrassment with a loud, "What a fucking stupid little kid I was."
This happens with alarming frequency, and has become enough of a habit that I forget when I am doing it. More than once I've taken a walk and emerged from a reverie to realize I'd been muttering to myself as the passing homeless eye me with suspicion. I don't know if this means I am crazy, but I do wonder about the future. Maybe when I'm seventy the neighborhood kids will be too afraid to trick-or-treat at my house.
I remember an old schizophrenic man who lived in my neighborhood when I was a boy, who the kids all called "Crazy George." He lived in a ramshackle old house with peeling paint and once when my father parked a car near him he exploded at us, then muttered something barely intelligible about "Motherfuckers and their cars. Shit-- cars. Horses. Fuck." This could be me, in perhaps as little as twenty years.
The other day I was dining at Carytown Burger and saw one of my sister's friends. Friendly guy that he is, he came over to my table to say hello. We spoke for a few minutes, and I said it was good to see him, and he said the same and went on his way.
Awhile later I had finished my meal, and stopped by his table on the way out.
"Hey, it was good seeing you man," I said to him and stuck my hand out.
I guess he's not much for handshaking because he stuck his hand up in the air in a sort of awkward half-wave and grinned.
Taken aback by this unusual gesture, I gave him a high five. Nobody knew what to say after that, so I turned to leave. As I did so, I heard myself say aloud, "I feel weird." The table erupted with laughter as I walked away. Motherfuckers and their handshakes. Shit-- high-fives. Fuck.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Bias
I was in the midst of a class discussion, but I had yet to speak. We were talking about a legend from West Africa that has been passed down orally for hundreds of years, and the question being put to us concerned it's reliability as an historical document. Having sworn an oath to participate in class discussions, I raised my hand and was called on.
"I had serious problems thinking of this as an historical record," I said, trying my best to sound like I wasn't an idiot. "How can you believe something that is passed down orally like this? Even if people are trying to be as honest as they can, everyone has a bias that's going to creep in. And over generations, don't biases just build on top of each other? How can we know that any of this is true at all? And all that stuff about shooting someone with an arrow tipped in a white rooster's comb. Am I supposed to take that to be historical fact?"
Someone else raised her hand and pointed out to me that I was missing the symbolism of the story, which I'll grant her even though I noticed she didn't seem to know what the rooster's comb symbolized anymore than I do.
But now discussion was picking up, and people were starting to rebut what I had said, and I stopped raising my hand before responding.
"There are lots of instances of this sort of legend being used as historical evidence. The Odyssey for example. Archaeologists have found Troy."
"Yes," I said, "but nobody believes that Odysseus actually fought a Cyclops."
"A lot of people take the Bible literally," someone else said.
"Yes, and those people are crazy," I said without thinking.
"You really said that?" my friend Cara asked me later when I told her the story. "What happened? What did people say?"
"There was some nervous laughter, and the Professor kind of smiled uncomfortably, and then class was sort of over anyway, so we all left."
"Weren't you afraid of offending anyone?"
The truth is that I didn't think before I spoke and the moment after I called fundamentalists crazy I did get very nervous that I had offended someone. But I didn't say that to my friends.
"I guess I assumed that nobody who would be offended would be in the room. I guess I figured fundamentalists don't take classes. It's not like they have any interest in learning or rational thought."
And another friend abruptly changed the subject, without looking at me. I realized that she was offended that I was being a bigot, and I further realized that I had been perfectly aware that I was being one. It occurred to me that being aware of it didn't make it okay.
"I had serious problems thinking of this as an historical record," I said, trying my best to sound like I wasn't an idiot. "How can you believe something that is passed down orally like this? Even if people are trying to be as honest as they can, everyone has a bias that's going to creep in. And over generations, don't biases just build on top of each other? How can we know that any of this is true at all? And all that stuff about shooting someone with an arrow tipped in a white rooster's comb. Am I supposed to take that to be historical fact?"
Someone else raised her hand and pointed out to me that I was missing the symbolism of the story, which I'll grant her even though I noticed she didn't seem to know what the rooster's comb symbolized anymore than I do.
But now discussion was picking up, and people were starting to rebut what I had said, and I stopped raising my hand before responding.
"There are lots of instances of this sort of legend being used as historical evidence. The Odyssey for example. Archaeologists have found Troy."
"Yes," I said, "but nobody believes that Odysseus actually fought a Cyclops."
"A lot of people take the Bible literally," someone else said.
"Yes, and those people are crazy," I said without thinking.
"You really said that?" my friend Cara asked me later when I told her the story. "What happened? What did people say?"
"There was some nervous laughter, and the Professor kind of smiled uncomfortably, and then class was sort of over anyway, so we all left."
"Weren't you afraid of offending anyone?"
The truth is that I didn't think before I spoke and the moment after I called fundamentalists crazy I did get very nervous that I had offended someone. But I didn't say that to my friends.
"I guess I assumed that nobody who would be offended would be in the room. I guess I figured fundamentalists don't take classes. It's not like they have any interest in learning or rational thought."
And another friend abruptly changed the subject, without looking at me. I realized that she was offended that I was being a bigot, and I further realized that I had been perfectly aware that I was being one. It occurred to me that being aware of it didn't make it okay.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
New Weekly Series: The Simple Homespun Wisdom of Professor Johnson
Tonight I had another in a series of exceptional political science classes with a Professor Johnson. After last week's class in which he uttered several memorable lines including, "It's easy to romanticize the Indians now that they aren't scalping people," I decided that his many insights were worth sharing with the general public. I am, after all, paying tens of thousands of dollars for this education. The least I can do is share.
Notes from September 4, 2008
7:35 pm
Professor Johnson highly recommends the book Hardball by Chris Matthews. It is full of “funny anecdotes.”
7:56 pm
Professor Johnson thinks we should abandon New Orleans because “Mother Nature is taking it back."
Nobody wants to blame Mother Nature, because “you can’t vote her out of office.”
8:03 pm
Professor Johnson wants to know “what kind of freak doesn’t have health insurance?”
8:12 pm
“New York has 17 million people. If a few get shot, hey, what’s the big deal?”
8:50 pm
“In rural areas you shoot somebody cause they slept with your wife.”
8:52 pm
“It’s 2 am, you’re in the house, you weren’t invited. What are you doing here? Oh, you must be here to get shot.”
9:02 pm
As a small boy, Professor Johnson had a dog named Tiny.
More next week!
PS- In the interest of not failing this particular class, I'm giving the man an alias. Professors love Google I'm told.
Notes from September 4, 2008
7:35 pm
Professor Johnson highly recommends the book Hardball by Chris Matthews. It is full of “funny anecdotes.”
7:56 pm
Professor Johnson thinks we should abandon New Orleans because “Mother Nature is taking it back."
Nobody wants to blame Mother Nature, because “you can’t vote her out of office.”
8:03 pm
Professor Johnson wants to know “what kind of freak doesn’t have health insurance?”
8:12 pm
“New York has 17 million people. If a few get shot, hey, what’s the big deal?”
8:50 pm
“In rural areas you shoot somebody cause they slept with your wife.”
8:52 pm
“It’s 2 am, you’re in the house, you weren’t invited. What are you doing here? Oh, you must be here to get shot.”
9:02 pm
As a small boy, Professor Johnson had a dog named Tiny.
More next week!
PS- In the interest of not failing this particular class, I'm giving the man an alias. Professors love Google I'm told.
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