Hilarious Justice

I cannot take authorship credit for this one. It appeared in my e-mail, sent by Marianne. I have no idea where it originated but it is just perfect.


This letter was sent to the Lions Bay School Principal's office after the school had sponsored a luncheon for seniors. An elderly lady received a new radio at the lunch as a door prize and was writing to say thank you.


Dear Lions Bay School,

God bless you for the beautiful radio I won at your recent Senior Citizens luncheon. I am 84 years old and live at the West Vancouver Home for the Aged. All of my family has passed away. I am alone and I want to thank you for the kindness shown to a forgotten old lady. My roommate is 95 and has always had her own radio; but before I received one, she would never let me listen to hers, even when she was napping.

The other day her radio fell off the nightstand and broke into a lot of pieces. It was awful and she was in tears. She asked if she could listen to mine, and I told her to fuck off.

Thank you for that opportunity.

Sincerely,

Edna

Feminism, Mysogeny and a Day in the Life of a Man named Dave

Every day I wake up and face the same battle. I am beset on all sides by those who would take advantage of me at the first sign of weakness, or do me malice at the first opportunity. Furthermore, I live in the midst of a population of children who simultaneously brighten my day and drive me insane. Their exhausting presence is only bested by the estrogenic labyrinth that I must daily navigate. Amongst my ex-wife and mother, who will be left free of adjectives for political reasons, and my recently pregnant gf, whose horrible all-day 'morning' sickness seems to have given her occasion to visit upon me the most imaginative verbal descriptions of my shortcomings, it is a miracle that I survive. Immodestly perhaps, and to my credit, a lesser man would not. Fortunately, I have aged (just) enough to have acquired the wisdom to merely laugh (but if you hear any of them tell it, my greatest wisdom should be the knowledge that I really have none). You see, one must laugh, if they are to save themselves from crying - one's own crying or that of the children, or worse, that of the estrogen.

One thing I have observed is that women operate and communicate largely in the figurative whereas men operate almost exclusively in the literal. If a man says he wants a hammer for his birthday, he means that he wants a hammer for his birthday. If a woman says that she really doesn't like diamonds and that she doesn't want anything for her birthday, it is a code that means you damnwell better get her something for her birthday and if it is a diamond (which it had better be) it had better be large enough that she can justify liking it even though she 'really doesn't like diamonds'. This might sound like a mysogenistic tirade against women, but to the contrary, it is an admission that their contention about my so-called wisdom is true. Indeed to the credit of all women, they are operating at a metaphoric and symbolic level of linguistics so complex and variable that even the greatest wisdom of man could never hope to crack the code. Men are baffled and intimidated by this puzzle of communication with no possibility of ever understanding. And what's worse is how perfectly all women seem to understand each other, further emasculating the inadequate male and relegating him to a position of stupidity and inferiority in his inabilty to comprehend the meanings of a language so simple and obvious to women, and that is, on some technical level of syntax, but certainly not of semantics, his own.

See you in estrogenic hell,
Shakes.

re your blog. Yes, I do read it!

My mother, Carolyn, sent me the following e-mail in response to my blog commentaries on the changing world of teens and text. It was eloquently written with some unspoken insights that I thought worthy of publication. The world of fallen technology that she envisions is, I suspect, a long way off and not what teens of the immediate future would find relevant, but her points are surely worth adding to the debate. I think everybody should watch the movie Wall-E after reading this.

Your latest entry, What is the Meaning of Life/Text? was interesting. The main problem I have with all the technology is that kids, and people in general, are getting so removed from nature and face-to-face dialogue that they are not learning the nuances of the world outside their other forms of communication. Nature has its own language, and pacing, and by not keeping connected to it we lose our sense that we are part of a greater whole (ie the earth and natural forces) and forget that we are part of that life-web. We are as much influenced by the pull of the moon, by vagaries of weather, by changes of hormones, by seasons, etc. We also communicate without words, but like the whales whose language is drowned out by the sounds of boat motors, and so is not being passed on to their offspring, we lose the skill of reading facial expressions if we spend our time looking at screens. I rather suspect that parts of our brains which have evolved to recognize and interpret these signals from other people and nature are becoming shrunken, and no longer function as well as they used to. Those societies which still survive by living off the land retain these skills, and in the end, when we are no longer an oil-dependent world but have to go back to living off the land, growing our own food for our survival instead of importing it from somewhere else, those people who have practiced these survival skills will be better off than the ones who are highly skilled at using technology. The horse-whisperers will have the right instincts, and the practised patience to achieve what needs to be done, while those whose expectations for "instant-everything" will have a harder struggle.

To get back to the subject of books - there is still nothing more satisfying to me than to curl up in bed with a good book. I don't know if a laptop would be as satisfying, or one of those Kindle books, even if it allows the sensation of page-turning. There is just something about the feel (and even the smell) of a paper book that is hard to duplicate. For me it has the potential of having my favourite pages marked in some way so I can go back to them (or, horrors, photocopied, even if that goes against the rules) so I can apply something pertinent to another context.

Anyway, interesting commentary. I don't know how to make a comment on your blog because when I tried, it wants me to be a member or fellow blogger or something - none of my comments show up.

Love, Mom

Light at the End of the Tunnel . . . and the Beginning of the Next One!

A lifetime of effort, soul-searching, waiting, naysayers, and hope was answered today. I recieved the following in my e-mail:

M.A. Program in Theatre History
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 2:23 PM
From: "Jennifer Wise"
To: "David Christopher"

Dear David;

It is with great pleasure that I'm writing to offer you admission into the M.A. program in Theatre History at UVic. The committee likes your proposal, and thinks that you will thrive within a graduate program. Congratulations!

You'll receive official notification from Graduate Studies shortly, once all the papers have been processed. In the meantime, I extend my congratulations, and encourage you to feel free to write whenever you have any questions.

Best regards, Jennifer.
************************
Dr. Jennifer Wise
Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator
Department of Theatre
University of Victoria
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada V8W 2Y2

See you in 'the stacks',
Shakes.

What is the Meaning of Life/Text?

You've gotta be kidding me. L'il Wayne? Text messages? At some point we have to draw the line between pedagogy and pop culture. But the lines are not as clear as they used to be. Moving through the literature provided in James' course and some of the presentations by students it is evident that the definition of 'text' is in dire need of expansion, and is so doing - with or without the endorsement of public education. One of the most interesting examinations of the idea of text that I have ever read comes from an acting theorist. David Cole in his book Acting as Reading makes the following observation in his introductory chapter:

"Assuming, that is, that reading even is a single
activity - for we call a bewildering variety of situations
by that name. Psychics and poets both "give readings."
Significance may be "read into" a book, and members "read
out of" a club. My "early reading" is a collection of books;
my "best reading" an informed guess. Someone who chooses
to "read economics" at a university has chosen more than a
reading list, while someone who "reads me like a book" may
never read books at all. Hunters "read sign" (animal tracks)
in the absence of a text; lasers "read" video disks in the
absence of a text and reader alike; and "do you read me?"
asks the pilot of a tower, meaning "can you hear my voice?"
"Curiously unreadable metaphor of reading," muses Paul de Man,
"which one never seems to want to read." But perhaps the
universality of the trope is traceable back to the ancient
view of the universe itself as a Book: Dante's "single
volume" in which substances and accidents and their relations"
are "ingathered"; Sir Thomas Browne's "universal and publick
Manuscript, that lies expans'd unto the Eyes of all." If
all the world's a text, then every experience you can have
of the world is reading".

But we cannot assume that all reading is of the same value academically, nor that it should all be allowed into the classroom as part of a relevant or valuable learning curriculum. To extend our examination of acting theorists and reading into this contention, let us look to such greats as Brecht, who said that "[t]he actor should [. . .] go on functioning as long as possible as a reader" (137). And Stanislavski champions extensive reading as part of a good actor's necessary schema. However, it is arguable that they are both referring to texts from within the current canon that represent the highest and finest literary achievements in theatre and beyond. But I digress.

James' course was full of revelations regarding everything from the nature and drawbacks of 'toggling' to the alarming rate of change of textual platforms that increasingly allow young people to become creators of text, while simultaneously degrading the current standards of prescriptive literacy. Huge questions that seem pedagogically intuitive to answer proved much less simple than anticipated. The use of text message short forms, for example, is more problematic than it might seem. It actually has practical pedagogical application. Students who are using text messages are engaged in more text production than ever before. Add to text messaging the entire "Read/Write Web". In the first chapter of Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, he notes that "in 2005, another Pew study showed 57 percent of all teens who use the Internet could be considered "content creators". Although it is using a standard of spelling and grammar that is currently considered sub-standard, that consideration is a qualitative one against a language that is constantly changing and evolving. Certainly current spelling standards would be considered incorrect by Chaucerian-era English standards and descriptive grammar proponents in the modern field of linguistics have taught us that language will change, regardless of efforts to control or regulate it, and that it rarely acts in practice as proposed in theory.

However, even though there are viable and intelligent defenses provided for virtually every new platform or text that might come available, like any argument, there is a point at which it becomes academic, and someone needs to stand up and say, "Coooooome oooooon!" Recently, I was discussing with my teenage step-daughter how the Odyssey may have been written by a different Homer than the one who wrote the Iliad, perhaps an apprentice or a son, as the styles are similar but markedly different in certain ways, including fantastical content and the treatment of the gods. Her expression was incredulous and she said, "I don't think you know who Homer is." WHAT!? How dare she! I have been studying literature for the better part of my entire life and I certainly . . . "Dave, Homer couldn't teach Bart to shave, much less how to write a story!" D'oh! Of course, she was thinking about the Simpsons character. We live in an age where an entire generation knows 'Homer' as only a fat, balding slapstick cartoon icon. When I tried to explain the stories and their history, her incredulous expression returned and she asked, "Do you mean that movie with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom? Orlando Bloom was also in Lord of the Rings." Her entire exposure to literature, aside from Twilight which she re-reads daily, has been via motion picture. But aren't the printed Homeric epics still relevant? Aren't they still fundamental elements of our entire cultural canon? Or are they? Are movies the new media of choice for literature?

In the article studied in class entitled The Last Page, the author suggests that the tactile and intimate nature of a book is still fundamentally different than other kinds of reading and when I see either of my teenage kids lost in a book, even if it is Twilight, I see no risk of books becoming obsolete. For them, with a house full of siblings, the solitude and escapism may be very valuable. “Reading gave me an excuse for privacy” (10). “Each book was a world unto itself, and in it I took refuge” (11). As is the case with my step-daughter's copy of Twilight, the author tells us that “[s]ometimes the books themselves were talismans” (14) and he lists the few of his collection that were “kept for special moments” (15). Also, “[i]mplicit in the possession of a book is the history of the book’s previous readings - that is to say , every new reader is affected by what he or she imagines the book to have been in previous hands” (16). Perhaps most importantly, is the author's memory of when he “was twelve or thirteen: I was curled up in one of the big armchairs, engrossed” (12). As discussed during week six of the class (From Page to Screen), a good book (of the traditional kind) often disappears in a reader’s hands as they are swept away with the story. Is such the case with electronic books? The new e-book platform Kindle, from Amazon, is making every effort to fuse the tactile nature of a book with the technology of the internet, but I daresay that the feel of pages in your hand is irreplaceable. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4kdLKV7LwI) New platforms do not require old ones to disappear as so many pedagogical experts seem to fear. And they may well encourage further reading that is traditional, as suggested in Elaine O'Quinn's article. I have parlayed my step-daughter's interest in Twilight into the reading of Bram Stoker's Dracula. She even commented that the writing by Stoker is much better. Maybe I'll watch the movie with her!

In his 2006 TED lecture, Sir Ken Robinson makes some moving points about the nature of creativity and an academic system that inherently stifles it. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga2CYYCrtNE) Although motivating, his lecture was as much alarmist as informative. He provided a very poignant example of the young girl whose hyper-active behaviour in class was fostered rather than remediated (which would have been done using drugs in his alarmist rhetoric) and she became an award-winning choreographer for world-renowned and syndicated Broadway musicals. He further claims that public education systems “came into being to meet the needs of industrialism”. “The whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance” (Robinson). Not only has the economy evolved far beyond the industrial revolution era, but university has nearly become the antithesis of employment. College educations represent the majority of high paying employment opportunities while educational inflation at the university level has resulted in only the very elite few achieving relevant or sustained employment in their field. “Suddenly, degrees aren’t worth anything” (Robinson). But is it really practical to redesign our entire academic system away from university preparation in favour of a system that equally respects all of the multiple intelligences? Following that logic, virtually anything qualifies as academic and that can be a dangerous and slippery slope towards a universally illiterate and attention-deficit society. Check out the following videos.



Both of my sons are motivated to read the screens and continue to engage the energy that this game (called 'Dance Dance Mario Mix') generates, and they certainly get more exercise than from the traditional video games they play, which promote largely sedentary behaviour. But wait a minute, WAIT A MINUTE! This is a Wii (Nintendo) game and is characterized by all the shortcomings that video games entail. “[B]rain scientists are speculating that too much technology may get in the way of normal frontal lobe development and stunt the maturation process” (George). “[T]he more time teens spend playing video games, the more they suppress key areas of the frontal lobe associated with learning, memory, emotion and impulse control” (George). Furthermore, allowing educational systems to qualify such material as academic text is a terrifying slippery slope towards corporate controlled schooling systems. That level of brain-washing is an old trope of corporate power gone mad - Pokemon anyone?

The following is as succinct as I could make an examination of several articles, some from within our course material and some not, that take a good look at electronic platforms in the real lives of young people and their academic relevance, as well as alternative texts of a more traditional genre, such as the hyper-popular Twilight and others containing supernatural or science-fiction subject matter.

ARTICLES:

Carr, Nicholas. Is Google Making Us Stupid?. The Atlantic. July/August 2008.

George, Lianne (2008). Dumbed Down. Macleans.ca. November 2008. Retrieved 10-03-2009.

Johnston, Stephen. (2006). Don't Fear the Digital. Time.com. July 2006. Retrieved 10-03-2009.

O’Quinn, Elaine J. (2004). Vampires, Changelings, and Radical Mutant Teens. The Alan Review, Volume 31. Retrieved 18-02-2009.


Robinson, Ken. 2006 Ted Lectures Monterey California. Accessed 18-02-2009.


Wallis, Claudia. The Multitasking Generation. Time/CNN. Retrieved 19-03-2006.


THE QUESTIONS:

“Are we developing a generation with underdeveloped frontal lobes – unable to learn, remember, feel , control impulses [. . .] or will they develop new advanced skills that poise them for extraordinary experiences?” (from the article Dumbed Down by Lianne George, quoting Dr. Gary Small)

“What are the cognitive tasks we’re ignoring?” [. . .] “And what are the consequences of not doing those things?” (from the article Dumbed Down by Lianne George quoting Dr. Michael Merzenich)

“In the offices of the future, which skill set will to-day’s kids draw upon in their day-to-day tasks?” (from the article Don’t Fear the Digital by Steven Johnson)

CON:

“a great many young people [are] having difficulty with executive function, which involves thinking, problem solving and task-completion” (George)

“media or other technologies we use in learning the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains” (Carr 62)

“”It looks like attention deficit disorder”, she says. “The person has a job or task and they start doing it but they can’t stay oriented to it”” (George) “more frequent trouble with non-verbal thinking skills” (George) “Both of these skill sets relate to areas of the prefrontal cortex, or what Young calls “mental initiative.” It’s the area of the brain that drives us to go out and investigate the world” (George)

“When paying partial continuous attention, people may place their brains in a heightened state of stress” “Over time” he says, “[it can] actually impair cognition, lead to depression, and alter the neural circuitry in the hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex – regions in the brain that control mood and thought” (George)

“students’ discomfort with single-focus learning has created a generation of bibliophobes” “Reading is something you need to practise doing, and Bauerlein says Digital Natives simply don’t get enough” “Students just can’t do it” (George)

“Studies tell us multi-tasking itself is a myth. We expend valuable time and energy transitioning from one interface to another” (George)

“[T]here’s substantial literature on how the brain handles multitasking. And basically, it doesn’t” (Wallis). “[W]hat’s really going on is rapid toggling among tasks rather than simultaneous processing” (Wallis). “[T]he ability to multiprocess has its limits, even among young adults. When people try to perform two or more related tasks either at the same time or alternating rapidly between them, errors go way up, and it takes far longer – often double the time or more – to get the jobs done than if they were done sequentially”(Wallis).

Wallis concludes that “today’s students are [therefore] less tolerant of ambiguity. [. . .] “They demand clarity,” says Koonz. They want good guys and bad guys, which she finds problematic in teaching complex topics like Hutu-Tutsi history in Rwanda. She also thinks there are political implications: “their belief in the simple answer, put together in a visual way, is, I think, dangerous.” Koonz thinks this aversion to complexity is directly related to multitasking” (Wallis).

PRO:

“will they develop new advanced skills that poise them for extraordinary experiences?” (George)

“young people [are] using technology to develop hyper–efficient ways of finding, synthesizing and communicating information” (George)

“New technologies present Digital Natives with “a giant opportunity”, Tapscott writes, “an opportunity to fulfill their intellectual potential and be the smartest generation ever”” (George)

“Technophiles say what we’re losing in memory we’re gaining in productivity” (George)

“They’re not using the technology to replace their real-world social life; they’re using technology to augment it” (Johnson)


“Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes” (Carr 57)

“the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through [. . .] eyes and ears and into [the] mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many” (Carr 57)


“Twenty or 30 years ago, we sat in submissive wonder soaking up the magic of TV [. . .] Today’s kids see the screen as an environment to be explored, inhabited, shared and shaped” (Johnson)

But arguments against these texts claim that they are void of literary merit and “[i]nstead of allowing readers to use such texts as touchstones for the sometimes tragic nature of their lives, or even as sites of inevitable loss that may never be reconciled, we condescendingly refer to them as “dumbed down” versions of “real” literature” (O’Quinn 51).

FACTS and REALITIES:

“Digital Natives. The first to be born into and come of age in the digital age, they use their brains differently than any generation in history” (George)

“By the age of 20, the average teen has probably spent more than 20,000 hours on the Web, and over 10,000 hours playing video games” (George)

“in the process of navigating so much frenetic brain activity, kids are rewiring their brains, customizing them for speed and multi-tasking” (George)

“not since early man discovered how to use a tool [. . .] has the human brain been affected so quickly and dramatically” (George) / “Five hours on the internet and the naive subjects had already rewired their brains” (George)

The gap between student and teacher value systems and technology literacy is becoming so large that more and more students are becoming disenchanted or disenfranchised by a public academic system that seems irrelevant to them.

THE ANSWER:

“Kids should have a balanced media diet: surfing and gaming alongside old-fashioned reading” (Johnson)

Don’t treat teens like radical mutants – discuss pros and cons with them so that they can see the value in both – activities that bridge the gap and are relevant to their professional futures. Eg. Teaching them how to write formal e-mails in a professional environment.


'AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT'. Here are some 'facts' that I retrieved from various websites on the internet. I leave it to the 'deep-divers' in our class to discover their verity.

-'hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' is the fear of long words
-children laugh an average of 100 - 200 times per day, adults only 10 - 15
-triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13
-it is impossible to lick your elbow
-Hitler had only one testicle
-didaskaleinophobia is the fear of going to school
-the word 'listen' is an anagram of the word 'silent'
-any month that begins with a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th
-Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, everytime you breathe!
-The increased electricity used by modern appliance parts is causing a shift in the Earth's magnetic field. By the year 2327, the North Pole will be located in mid-Kansas, while the South Pole will be just off the coast of East Africa.
-The only golf course on the island of Tonga has 15 holes, and there's no penalty if a monkey steals your golf ball.
-Replying more than 100 times to the same piece of spam e-mail will overwhelm the sender's system and interfere with their ability to send any more spam.
-The skin needed for elbow transplants must be taken from the scrotum of a cadaver (which makes me glad I can't lick it - not that I've had a skin transplant to my elbow! Why would anyone need one?)
-Because printed materials are being replaced by CD-ROM, microfiche and the Internet, libraries that previously sank into their foundations under the weight of their books are now in danger of collapsing in extremely high winds.



btw - I am aware of the irony of examining the course information, as above, by attempting to reduce each major article or presentation to their most salient points. The reduction of 'deep dive' research material to mere info-bytes is one of the very problems that the course examines in the changing field of young adult texts, but if you need a culprit for that shortcoming, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. James Nahachewsky who seems to think that a virtual plethora of conflicting research texts and studies can be reduced in scope to a single multi-page blog entry. Alas, what is higher education coming to?

In that spirit, let's conclude by offering a summary description of who young people are today as based on these materials. The reason for so doing is twofold: it is as relevant as any conclusion in a course that really leads to more questions than offers any viable answers to such questions as 'What is text?' and 'What is acceptable text/platform for the modern classroom?'; and it is necessarily included as required by ol' Dr. N. Here's the list that I came up with:

-"Young people will always push the envelope of whatever freedom they're given" - Sarah Riddell
-video games tend to be more popular with the male gender
-fan fiction tends to be more popular with the female gender - Twilight was/is a crescendo of female internet use
-young people are better multi-taskers as they are "digital natives" but the side-effects may be devastating and the skill of multi-tasking only truly applies to mundane or repetitive skills that require little thinking
-they have a depleted atention span, but an increased input rate
-they embody an anti-cool paradox: traditional marketing has failed in the wake of the new social sensibility of teens and the rising cost of avant-garde (see Dave Christopher's brilliant presentation on PBF Comics (link on the sidebar of this blog) as to what teens are exposed to and how socially savvy they have become) - marketers are required to enter the teen world and convince teens that they are not part of the corporate establishment
-"students are less tolerant of ambiguity" (Wallis) - require clear good guys / bad guys - difficult to teach them about multiple perspectives in history or text
-different/new/faster research skills complemented by new e-synthesis skills
-highly emotionally self-aware (O'Quinn)
-aware of ther own education, goals, future, environment
-internet literate - ie. natives, not immigrants or aliens
-newly powerful as text creators, online information manipulators
-increased vulnerability - ie. internet bullying, illusion of privacy on-line
-multi-culturally textual, literate, and much more tolerant than previous generations
-disillusioned by a pedantic education system that they often feel doesn't speak to their reality or needs
-“They’re not using the technology to replace their real-world social life; they’re using technology to augment it” (Johnson)

I hope my teenage son reads this entry - lol.

C U n hell,
Shakes.

As if you don't know!

As much as Milo, Blair has been a perpetual source of amusing childhood innocence. He is often so quiet and demure that he gets overlooked in the wake of Milo's earthquake. Alas, the plight of the middle child remains unchanged, but Blair can be just as . . . precocious.
A long time ago, when I had only just begun my teaching career, Blair at the delicate age of four accompanied me to the college where I was working. We had occasion to enter the staff room during the lunch hour, which was, of course, filled with a gaggle of geese in full cluck. The paradigmatic cuteness of Blair acted like nothing shy of an estrogen explosion in the room and the maternal instincts caused him to suffer the pinched-cheek ritual more than once. One of the inquisitive ladies decided to engage him in conversation. She asked the usual banal plethora of questions and finally came to the requisite inquiry about age. After determining that he was four-years-old, she then proceeded to ask when he was turning five. He looked at me with the most incredulous expression. He couldn't believe the stupidity of what he was being asked and his expression clearly asked me if she was serious. Of course, I too was confused as to his reaction and could offer him no support so he was left to resolve the question himself. He looked directly at her and in the most expressively condescending way ever, provided her with the obvious answer. "On my birthday, of course!" Ha-ha! Attaboy! Give'em hell, Blair!

See you in hell,
Shakes.

Fat Kid Extension

Novel Response Extension Assignment

I have chosen a flashback sequence that might readily be inserted into the text of Going's Fat Kid Rules the World. The insertion point for the flashback text that follows would be on page 155 in Chapter 78. In fact, this sequence may substitute completely for the second full paragraph in the chapter, and I have borrowed from the dialogue already in the text to tie the flashback cohesively to the story as it is.

In the text, Troy always uses a highly vernacular and conversational style. It is entirely first person narrated, and paints a picture of highly introverted self-talk that is painfully self-conscious to the point of paranoid delusion about the way those around him are thinking. Although Troy has good reasons for such paranoid introversion, suggested in his anecdotes of horrible abuse by school bullies and an insensitive society, it takes Curt's 'wisdom' to help Troy step outside of his paranoid introversion and allow him to see a world populated by people just as scared and lonely as he is. In this flashback, I have tried to capture the tenor and language used by Troy throughout the text, at the point in the plot where he has just begun to recognize his own paranoid introversion, and in so doing, seeing broader significance in the actions of others from his memory. For example, it is just past this point in the novel that Troy realizes how much his brother is trying to be like his father. "I think he's trying so hard to be Dad, he might choke. I've never noticed this before" (Going 173).

The minimal flashback already in the text suggests a mental connection for Troy in his current hospital visit and the memory of the death of his mother. The moment is pivotal to Troy's own recognition of the former hospital trauma being a turning point for his personality and it is contrasted against the same thing happening again, with potentially positive outcomes for both patient and protagonist.

The text is replete with examples of Troy suggesting that his mother's death was a turning point in his life. He is at least very clear that "the day Mom died [. . .] I was a skinny kid" (Going 155). His weight gain seems to be textually related to that point in history. In the family and social trauma that falls out, Troy relegates himself to the role of loser, let-down and laughing-stock, perhaps as some sort of penance for having disappointed his brother, impotent to save his mother, and becoming a burden to his father.


"Sorry, kids, but you'll have to wait outside."
The friendliness in the doctor's voice was still present but it had become contrived, rehearsed. Dayle looked at me bewildered. I couldn't pretend I was any wiser and gave the doctor the same bewildered look. He formulaically explained that we would just be in the way while they tried to help our mother and ushered us towards the door. Damn, I was mad. This may be just the next dying woman on his daily roster, but it was my mom! The last minutes of my mother's life, and we didn't meet the age requirement! In my anger I was shaking my head back and forth when Dayle's eyes caught mine. He wasn't moving. He wasn't angry. He was scared and holding his head perfectly still, staring at me. I could tell that he was waiting for me to stop, to calm down and to explain to him what was happening. He held my hand so tight the circulation stopped. My hand was almost white. I tried to gently pry it free, not because of the discomfort, but to try and create the illusion that such fear was unnecessary. His face went as white as my hand and he began to shake. Dad in the hospital room, and Mom dying, I was the only familiar face he could turn to. He didn't understand enough to be angry and was left only with fear. My stomach started to ache. It was in that moment that I became 'Big Brother'. It was a proving ground for my strength of character, my ability to relieve him from his pain, to be that worthy sibling that makes everything right. I wasn't ready for the challenge and I failed him. I wrapped my skinny arms around him and held him close. The quiver in my voice betrayed dishonesty as I told him that he was being silly. There was no reason to be so scared. The Doctor's had helped Mom before and they would surely do it again. I kept saying, "Everything will be all right. She'll be fine. I promise."
Mom died later that day. Dad emerged from the hospital room in silent serenity. He was cold and distant but trying to be comforting. He shook his head at me with a finally sad expression to let me know that Mom was gone. Dayle looked up at me as if to ask what Dad meant by his wordless communication. All Dad said was, "You boys can go in now. Your mother is already gone, but I thought you might need to say goodbye. We start life in a new world today and we'll need all of our strength to do it. Go say goodbye to your mother." I can't imagine how difficult it must be to tell the children you love that the woman you love, their mother, is dead. I think, in retrospect, Dayle came to admire Dad's stoic strength in getting through such a difficult time. I think I became afraid of it because I had not been so stoic. I had broken down emotionally for months and added to Dad's parental burden, and the grocery bill.
The morning after Mom died, we all woke up early. The moment of interrupted slumber that often happens so early in the morning was immediately seized upon by memory and grief. Any hope of snoozing a bit longer was not available. By the time I stumbled into the kitchen, Dad and Dayle were already there. Dayle stuck close to Dad like a shadow, perhaps trying to draw strength from Dad's expressionless and stoic mourning. Dad said little if anything and every action was intentional and controlled. I sensed a feeling of disgust towards me for being the one who had been able to sleep the longest considering Mom had just died. I wasn't sure if Dad had slept at all.
I looked at my father and brother, but didn't make eye contact. I couldn't. I could tell Dayle felt I had lied to him, and I had. I had not saved Mom. I had done nothing. I had promised him that everything would be all right. I had promised him that Mom would be fine. I had promised.
But she wasn't.
And I wasn't. And he wasn't.
And Dad was living a shattered dream: the burden of maternal responsibility added to the loss of his beloved wife and life without even a moment to mourn. Mom's absence filled every corner of the apartment. My stomach hurt. I wasn't hungry, but instinctively I opened the fridge and pulled out the plate of leftover pork chops. I heated them in the microwave and their delicious scent took me away from the pain for a moment. The scent was the memory of my mother. She had made them. She was a great cook and this was the last thing she ever did for us, the last thing she would ever do for us, her last motherly act. I was about to eat the last remnants of my mother's love and yet I didn't feel guilty. It was like some sort of weird maternal communion, like being hugged by an absent mother through her cooking. If you can't love her, then love her food. FAT KID WAITING TO HAPPEN.



I have intentionally finished the flashback sequence with a "FAT KID . . ." statement that is consistent with the style of the text as Troy summarily views himself, self-defined only as 'fat kid', in different situations. The statement I have made in this style and tenor points to this memory as his perceived beginning of his career as 'fat kid'. The fact that this flashback is already minimally begun in the text and that it is a clearly climactic point of anagnorisis for Troy, allows my emotional expansion of the moment to meld seamlessly with the text. Furthermore, the use of tenor and style that I have noted above I think is fairly consistent. On a thematic level, the criticism of my insert might suggest that my interpretation comes at the expense of the idea that Troy's weight is not a mere function of an emotional turning point, and that some people are overweight naturally and experience the type of life that Troy describes. Conversely, the idea of natural obesity might be championed further by the notion that part of the emotional milieu of an obese person often seeks historical moments upon which to blame the disability. In this sense, the passage I have added would suggest that Troy is not experiencing anagnorisis, but rather further deluding himself that his 'failure' at his mother's death was the reason for his obesity, when his weight was merely a natural side-effect of his physical development. Either way, the insert works well within the text proper and lends itself to at least the aforementioned two interpretations of its importance to the text thematically.

Works Cited
Going, K. L. Fat Kid Rules the World. Toronto: Penguin Group, 2003.

Racism and Colonialism

I keep getting e-mails from various people which champion the cause of white people being the only racial group accused of racism. Of particular interest to many is the defense that Michael Richards (Kramer from Seinfeld) offered in a court case defending himself against accusations of racist comments. I am a mixed-ethnicity predominantly white male, between the ages of 18 and 45 with a university degree. Try getting a job in Canada with those credentials. Good luck! As such, I can sympathize with the sentiments in these e-mails, as I too have felt marginalized and increasingly disenfranchised by my own culture. However, until the balance of social and economic power in the world is more egalitarian we will continue to be the white racists in what feels like an inequitable system. While modern ethnic groups in G8 countries continue to take advantage of that station in society long after it has become irrelevant, white culture (in relevant history) has not yet really earned its suffering merit badge. However, the suffering of the 'falsely accused' is rapidly emerging as the white man's plight. What minority ethnic groups fail to see is that by continuing to identify the whites as the 'discriminator', not only are they giving voice to the innocently martyred white 'non-racist' (a voice Michael Richards was all too eager to try and embody), they are taking part in proliferating their own identity as the 'discriminated against'. And truly, they may have no other identity to claim. Trapped between their ethnic culture and a predominantly white, discriminatory setting, there is no other place set aside for them in society. The following is an essay I wrote on a related topic after studying some of the new Post-Colonial Critical Literature entering the Western Canon. Before reading it, however, it is imperative that you visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYeFcSq7Mxg&feature=related.

Colonial Congeal, Post-Colonial Shatter

The post-colonial moment, far from being a simple advent of liberation, has created a subjectivity for the formerly colonized subject, that comprises the subject of an unlived history, shatters the individual, and leaves no post-colonial place for him to occupy and become one. In the colonized world, the colonized subject was relegated to the position of inferior, servant, or slave. The post-colonial world tries to eliminate that identity. However, colonization and time have ravaged original culture too far to recapture it as an identity for the colonized, yet its ramifications remain attached to the subject. So too, does the inferiority and servitude of colonization remain attached historically to the subject. The post-colonial world does not offer the privileged position of the former colonizer to the liberated. The formerly colonized subject is a composite of history, that is not solely his own, and shattered in a present that does not provide a place to occupy. Both Frantz Fanon in chapter five of his work Black Skin, White Masks, and Salman Rushdie in the first book of his work Midnight's Children reflect this subjective reality in their otherwise disparate forms of literature.
In chapter five of Black Skin, White Masks, Frantz Fanon writes a non-fiction tirade exploring post-colonial racism against black people and the effect it continues to have on the subject in terms of identity, desire for the other, and cultural subjectivity. Most specifically, he provides a first person perspective on the fragmentation of his subjectivity as he realizes himself through the eyes of the other.
Early in the chapter, having noticed himself being noticed as a black man by a third party outsider, he expresses the emotion that he felt. "I burst apart. Now the fragments have been put together by another self" (Fanon 109). The other self is the one he has reconstructed for himself with his new subjectivity. In trying to reason the subjectivity forced upon him, he traces a historical emergence of a racist identity comprised of a view of black people from the perspective of the other. "I had sketched a historico-racial schema [. . .] but by the other, the white man, who had woven me out of a thousand details, anecdotes, stories" (Fanon 111). When the history of historico-racial schema that identifies him reaches the explosive moment of post-colonialism, the point of so-called liberation, Fanon finds a splitting of the self into two parts. "Overnight the negro has been given two frames of reference within which he has to place himself" (Fanon 110). Fanon then traces an emotional self-identity that is ripped into thirds before disappearing into the realization that the world holds no viable subjective place for him as a post-colonial black man. "I existed triply: I occupied space. I moved toward the other . . . and the evanescent other, hostile but not opaque, transparent, not there, disappeared" (Fanon 112). He moves away from the colonial identity as slave towards the liberated privilege of the colonizer but arrives in an exile of non-existence, not one nor the other, which feeds his shattered identity.
In order to reach this realization, however, Fanon reveals how he attempted to escape his 'black' status in a post-colonial world through education. "Reason was confident of a victory on every level. I put all the parts back together" (Fanon 119). However, he finds that, even accepted as a rational intellectual equal, it was always qualified against his blackness. He also notices that the ascribed identity stems from an inability to escape a colonial past. "You come too late [. . .] There will always be a world - a white world - between you and us. . . . The other's total inability to liquidate the past" (Fanon 122). Fanon leaves the identity of 'the other' ambiguous and, therefore, includes both black and white culture in the exacerbation of the social inequity through a mutual inability to escape history. He precedes the retracing of this discovery with the conclusion that it yields. "The white world [. . .] barred me from participation" (Fanon 114). Fanon accepts that, even the rational sophistry of the intellectual white community, will not separate him from his historical identity as black on an interpersonal level.
In his shattered subjectivity, Fanon attempts to return to his ethnic roots. In contrast to the rational sophistry of white culture, he accepts the definition by that culture of black culture's inherent lack of education and rationality. He states that "here I am at home; I am made of the irrational" (Fanon 123). Unfortunately, his education, and cultural foray into the world formerly reserved for the white man, finds him barred from making that association as well. "I attach myself to my brothers, Negroes like myself. To my horror, they reject me too" (Fanon 116). Fanon finds his subjectivity unwelcome on all cultural fronts.
Ultimately, his subjectivity shattered and with no cultural place to occupy, Fanon accepts his non-identity in his closing observations. "Not yet white, no longer wholly black, I was damned" (Fanon 138). He realizes that colonial history is inescapable by both black and white culture, and that both will continue to identify the self in contrast to the other. "The Negro is a toy in the white man's hands; so in order to shatter the hellish cycle, he explodes" (Fanon 140). His conclusive explosion is his view of the inevitable subjective identity crisis that reserves neither the place of enslaved black, nor liberated colonialist to the post-colonial black man.
By contrast, Salman Rushdie's Midnight Children is a fictitious account of the historical family elements during the late stages of the colonial era that congealed into the self of the narrator. The fictitious narrator offers a third person perspective of the subject of his grandfather before Indian independence trying to seek identity within a culture that is on the verge of socio-political post-colonialism. Like the true life account of Frantz Fanon after the colonial era, Saleem Sinai's non-biological grandfather, Aadam Aziz, is a man trapped between his westernized education as a doctor and his ethnic Indian roots. "To reveal the secret of my grandfather's altered vision: he had spent five years [. . .] away from home" (Rushdie 5). Eventually, due to his educated disillusionment with ancient superstitious custom, and a well-timed bump to the nose, Aziz rejects his ethnic roots which begins the metaphor introduced by Rushdie of the shattered individual. "This decision, however, made a hole in him" (Rushdie 4). Aziz's alienation to his ethnicity is further demonstrated by the report of his mother's verbal assaults and the rejection of his friendship by the boatman Tai, who clearly represents a metaphor for the history of the culture. "Nobody could remember when Tai had been young" (Rushdie 9). Thus Rushdie introduces the notion of a shattered self resulting from dissociation from one's ethnic history.
Rushdie extends the metaphor of the shattered self to suggest the notion of composite pieces giving the illusion of desirability that come together in an undesirable whole. Aziz, while medically examining his future wife through a hole in a sheet, becomes enamored with her feminine pieces. The narrator reports that "on each occasion he was vouchsafed a glimpse, through the mutilated sheet, of a different seven-inch circle of the young woman's body" (Rushdie 21). In his romantic imagination, her parts were "[g]lued together by his imagination" (Rushdie 22). Unfortunately, shortly (in the text) following his falsely enamored marriage to his wife, she comes together as a less than appealing whole. "Naseem Aziz, whom he had made the mistake of loving in fragments, [. . .] was now unified and transmuted into the formidable figure she would always remain" (Rushdie 39/40). Her description continues to escape the demure figure behind the sheet into a dominating family matriarch.
Rushdie revisits the metaphoric theme of seemingly appealing parts congealing into an unappealing whole in the character of Saleem's non-biological father. Unlike the pieces coming together for Aadam Aziz to form an indomitable wife, the pieces of an undesirable whole must come apart. Saleem's non-biological mother's second husband, whom she finds less appealing than her first, shatters him in this fashion. Saleem states that "bringing her gift of assiduity to bear, she began to train herself to love him. To do this, she divided him, mentally, into every single one of his component parts" (Rushdie 73). The history of individuals that peopled Saleem's inevitable existence, variously exemplifies the notion of people viewed in shattered pieces.
These microcosmic examples are surrounded by the larger theme of the text which points out the narrator's historical composition, and post-colonial shattering. Saleem is clear that he strongly believes his existence was preconceived by a history that predated his birth. In the last chapter of the first book, entitled Tick Tock, in which Rushdie counts down to the moment of the narrator's birth, simultaneous with Indian independence, the narrator retraces all of the characters in the colonial world that he feels played a role in the creation of his self. He lists the stories of his grandfather, the boatman Tai, the perforated sheet of the blind landowner, the family that resulted, their business dealings, and the departing colonialist Methwold as all relevant to his own existence. He concludes that "[t]o understand just one life, you have to swallow the world" (Rushdie 121). Early in the first book of the novel, Rushdie introduces the theme when Saleem states his belief that "I had been mysteriously handcuffed to history" (Rushdie 3). The history of Saleem's family in the first book is severally interjected with apostrophes to the reader in a post-colonial present tense, in which his own body is undergoing fatal disintegration. "I will soon be thirty-one years old. Perhaps. If my crumbling, overused body permits" (Rushdie 3). Having come to be aware in hindsight of his ambiguous subjectivity in the post-colonial world, like Fanon, he is literally "falling apart". "Please believe that I am falling apart [. . .] buffeted too much by history" (Rushdie 36). Saleem has unambiguously tied the history that he feels relevant to his existence to his current dissolution.
Both works, although hugely disparate in form and style, similarly posit the idea that the lingering socio-political effects of colonialism on the post-colonial subject causes a catastrophic fragmentation of the self that leaves the colonialized subject without identity or culture. In this way, both Fanon and Rushdie's narrator have represented their present existence as the composite of a colonial history which ultimately failed to congeal into a subjective self.


Works Cited

Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin White Masks. Trans. Charles Lam Markmann. New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1967.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnight's Children. New York: Bantam - Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2006.

The Winds of Textual Change

Balancing Literary Texts for Young Adult Pedagogy

Expanding notions of the term ‘text’ pose two major pedagogical problems for young adult educators. The first problem that teachers and curriculum designers face is determining what platforms of text are suitable for the classroom and will be deemed so by the larger political environment to which they must answer, including parents and educational board members. Once these texts are determined, the secondary question arises as to what material is deemed to have textual merit in a new world of possible materials. That is to say that textual platforms as broad as the internet, for example, allow for material such as rap music lyrics or explicit graphic novels to be deemed as text. Obviously there is controversy surrounding what materials should be permitted in the classroom. In this paper I will begin to explore the vast debate surrounding the introduction of new texts into the classroom in an expanding world of text and technology.
Sir Ken Robinson makes the point in his 2006 TED lecture in Monterey California that historically schools have been geared towards preparing students for University with an ultimate goal of higher employment based on an industrial revolution model. Public education systems “came into being to meet the needs of industrialism”. “The whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance” (Robinson). Not only has the economy evolved far beyond the industrial revolution era, but university has nearly become the antithesis of employment. College educations represent the majority of high paying employment opportunities while educational inflation at the university level has resulted in only the very elite few achieving relevant or sustained employment in their field. “Suddenly, degrees aren’t worth anything” (Robinson). As such, it would be reasonable to suggest a twofold change. Firstly, secondary education should not be geared towards university as a goal but towards the real needs of a larger majority of students. Secondly, the materials, and specifically the texts examined, should not be limited to a Western canon of high literature that has dogmatically sustained itself from the originating British colonial industrial revolution model. Certainly it is not to be suggested that abandoning these texts is advisable as they represent both fundamental lessons and themes that remain relevant, as well as underscore the very foundation of our culture which seeps into every imaginable social entity. An understanding of Shakespeare is actually relevant to some of the humour on television shows like the Simpsons, for example. Nevertheless, texts which reach out to a broader range of literacy abilities and interests must be implemented to include a broader range of students, many of whom are being lost to the currently pedantic system. A re-evaluation of curricular material is necessary which includes a balance of texts from the traditional canon and from more diverse genres and platforms that speak to modern students’ needs and interests.
Elaine J. O’Quinn, in her article on the Alan Review website entitled Vampires, Changelings, and Radical Mutant Teens champions the popularity of these newer texts. “Teen readers are drawn to figures such as [. . .] winged changelings [and] vampires [. . .] not only because they are resolute in their desire to be themselves, but because they stand as representative of the “lust for life” and the yearning for freedom that youth also feel” (O’Quinn 53). In terms of Supernatural Literature, the popularity of such series as Harry Potter or Twilight is inarguable. Surely a progressive academic system can use this popularity to their advantage in generating a higher level of student interest and participation. But arguments against these texts claim that they are void of literary merit and “[i]nstead of allowing readers to use such texts as touchstones for the sometimes tragic nature of their lives, or even as sites of inevitable loss that may never be reconciled, we condescendingly refer to them as “dumbed down” versions of “real” literature” (O’Quinn 51). However, O’Quinn points out that for young adults, “[b]ooks with elements of the “unreal” which draw only fine lines between reality and fiction help in their reflection of these understandings as much as any other text they encounter.” (O’Quinn 51) And not only supernatural literature, O’Quinn intimates that the entire field of Young Adult literature remains controversial due to its frequent use of vernacular or sexual content. It must be explored and evaluated, and from it we must harvest a new ‘canon’ of acceptable classroom texts. Once students have become motivated and involved, they might be introduced to the ‘higher’ canon texts more easily.
Of even greater controversy is text generated exclusively from electronic platforms. In Nicholas Carr’s article Is Google Making Us Stupid?, he posits that the “media or other technologies we use in learning the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains” (Carr 62). “Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes” (Carr 57). Carr ascribes a reduction in his own attention span to these media technologies. When reading a book, his “concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (Carr 57). In her article The Multitasking Generation, Claudia Wallis further argues that ‘toggling’ is not the apparent teen miracle that it seems. “[T]here’s substantial literature on how the brain handles multitasking. And basically, it doesn’t” (Wallis). “[W]hat’s really going on is rapid toggling among tasks rather than simultaneous processing” (Wallis). “[T]he ability to multiprocess has its limits, even among young adults. When people try to perform two or more related tasks either at the same time or alternating rapidly between them, errors go way up, and it takes far longer – often double the time or more – to get the jobs done than if they were done sequentially”(Wallis). Wallis concludes that “today’s students are [therefore] less tolerant of ambiguity. [. . .] “They demand clarity,” says Koonz. They want good guys and bad guys, which she finds problematic in teaching complex topics like Hutu-Tutsi history in Rwanda. She also thinks there are political implications: “their belief in the simple answer, put together in a visual way, is, I think, dangerous.” Koonz thinks this aversion to complexity is directly related to multitasking” (Wallis). However, failing to negotiate this information with young adults echoes dogmatic ideology observed in O’Quinn’s article. Why are we treating these teens like “Radical Mutants” who can’t evaluate this information themselves? It is a disservice to underestimate their understanding of the value of education. By simply informing teen students of these studies and shortcomings, it would be possible to realize a balance in their willingness to detach from their electronics and engage deeper texts.
If these electronic platforms are abandoned entirely in the classroom, educators run the risk of losing the immediacy required to compete with these platforms in a world of rapidly changing communication technology and text. Carr admits that “the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through [. . .] eyes and ears and into [the] mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many” (Carr 57). Inherent to Carr’s argument against these platforms, therefore, is both an admission of their value and recognition of their universal presence. They are here and they are a real part of students’ lives. It is a disservice to students to ignore reading platforms that represent the reality of their daily, and ultimately their economic lives, or worse, provide an education that will be irrelevant to a student who will likely continue to depend on and evolve into an ever expanding e-environment. If we choose to ignore them we will create a rift between students and their academics, losing them entirely to the leviathan technology we are trying to force them to avoid. By striking a balance between classical and modern texts, we can foster both classical reading skills and modern reading techniques that are more immediately relevant to the students’ interests and reality.
The argument is far from resolved, and research is ongoing. Problematic is the fact that technology and definitions of text seem to be changing more rapidly than research is completed. Even slower to change is academic curricula subject to political pressures and red-tape. As Ken Robinson notes, “[w]e have no idea what’s going to happen in terms of the future. No idea how this may play out” (Robinson). The only thing that is certain is that change is occurring rapidly. Whether or not secondary education rises to or resists textual changes remains to be seen, and if changes are implemented, will they be the right ones and in the students best interests? But again, Robinson puts a positive spin on uncertainty. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original” (Robinson). There are no easy answers, but at the very least the current canon of literature and texts must be expanded immediately and technologically before the entire secondary schooling system becomes obsolete to info-bytes on wikipedia.

See you in school (a.k.a. hell),

Shakes.



Works Cited

Carr, Nicholas. Is Google Making Us Stupid?. The Atlantic. July/August 2008.

O’Quinn, Elaine J. (2004). Vampires, Changelings, and Radical Mutant Teens. The
Alan Review, Volume 31. Retrieved 18-02-2009.

Robinson, Ken. 2006 Ted Lectures Monterey California. Accessed 18-02-2009.


Wallis, Claudia. The Multitasking Generation. Time/CNN. Retrieved 19-03-2006.

Mexican Shortcut

Rules! Rules, rules, rules. Canadian culture is predicated on rules. That works for me. A high-strung, anal-retentive guy like myself is quite comfortable in a society where everybody knows what's right and everybody knows what's wrong - no forgiveness and no apologies. And the rules are enforced in Canada - especially the rules of the road.
Not so much in Mexico. You don't have to drive down a highway in Mexico for long to achieve a healthy dose of sheer terror, and to realize that the 'rules' are clearly open to interpretation. As a passenger in Oscar's truck, I have watched the movie of my life pass before my eyes several times, but miraculously managed to survive. Mexican driving skills are to be equally feared and revered.
We decided to go out for dinner tonight, just him and I - boys night! Oscar's demeanour was clearly 'boy' by comparison to when Clau accompanies us. We decided to go to a restaurant called Vips (pronounced 'beeps' in Spanish). It required a drive almost all the way around the town before arriving near to where we began but across a field. We had gone there before and I remembered the route. Suddenly, Oscar took an abrupt turn into what looked like a farmer's field to me. Oscar's truck has the appearance of a 4X4 but is clearly designed solely for street driving. As we bounced through someone's crops and onto a makeshift dirt 'road', I exclaimed, "What are you doing? This isn't a road!"
"Shortcut!" he said. I could only laugh as the truck struggled against dirt potholes and corn crops, while Oscar steered like a redneck lovin' his off-road. More importantly, I realized that this 'rule' was broken often enough by people, that a makeshift dirt road had actually come into existence!
As soon as the bouncing began, it ceased as he careened back on to a paved road, cut hard left in front of several honking and angry drivers and continued nonchalantly down the road and into the Vips parking lot. We had certainly gotten there much more quickly than before. Oscar turned off the truck engine, looked at me with a grin and reiterated, "See? Shortcut!"
The steak was great, and I wasn't disappointed by the 'shortcut' back.

See you in hell,
Shakes.

He Said, She Said

He wasn't exactly looking for love. He wasn't exactly not. He was just doing his job as a sleazy strip-club DJ, announcing some semi-erotic competition which required people to show the DJ a tattoo in order to get free tickets to a big-screen UFC event. She nonchalantly strolled up to the front of the line, dropped her pants to show the word "Bitch" in scroll tattooed across one of her ass-cheeks. She was cute as a button. She won tickets. But she didn't go away. She said, "You know, I know you." Suuuuure she did. Everyone knows the DJ. He was cocky and arrogant in his comfortable DJ role and responded with his usual comic line. "Yeah, we used to date a couple of years ago." She was not amused, but she was also not deterred. "No. We didn't." He thought her tattoo was all too accurate, but she continued. "But we're gonna." Now she had his attention and she softened her defensive posture. "Actually, I do know you. We met a couple of years ago at Peter Pan Water Park. I was with my kids and you were with yours and your girlfriend."
A flood of memory hit his mind and he remembered the petite bikini clad lovely who had struck up a conversation with him. She was cute, sexy, and obviously very articulate and intelligent. The electricity between them had been apparent, even noticed uncomfortably by her chaperoning mother, but as they were both in relationships, they had gone their separate ways and fallen out of memory - or so he thought.
He was stunned and flattered that she remembered him. He was amazed that a 'real' woman was approaching him in the club and he couldn't resist. It was his habit to offer his number instead of asking for hers so that girls didn't feel like he was coming on too strong. "Can I give you my number so we can go out for coffee or something sometime?" She was coy and confident and responded through a sensual grin. "I'll never call you. You're the boy. You call me," and she scrolled a number on a piece of paper. She paused and looked at him. "Do you still have a girlfriend?" There was a moment of knowing laughter in the DJ booth as he looked around at his smug posse of groupies. The conversation in the booth immediately prior had been about how his latest girlfriend had abruptly and emotionally violently left him. He was definitively single, and through an equally coy grin, told her so. At that knowledge she smiled even bigger, scratched out the number and wrote a different one beneath it. "In that case, you can have my private cell number." She thrust the paper into his astonished and enamoured face, flipped her long hair as she spun around and wiggled confidently away in that way a girl does when she knows she is being watched but pretending she doesn't. At the end of the night, she was not so composed. She stumbled across him, half-drunk and surprised as he closed up the club. She was embarrassed and rambled on pathetically about not usually being a drinker, and how she hoped he would not judge her, and she was adamant that he must still call. He was bemused. He grinned. He assured her - several times - that he would call. She stumbled away. He couldn't wait to call.

They met at the public pool. His kids weren't with him, but hers were. It was a strange 'first date' but as mutual parents, not that strange. He was happy to be able to see her in her bikini again. It wasn't awkward. A week of flirting via text-message had broken the ice nicely. But she was distant, reserved, cautious. He played with her kids and they had fun. She softened again. He attempted affection. She rejected it and pushed him away. He became wary. He didn't try to kiss her good-bye when he left, but was very careful to remember to kiss her hand. They decided to meet again, for a real date.

He picked her up in his family-sized mini-van. She was forgiving. She had kids too, and drove more or less the same thing. He had the evening planned. A semi-classy sushi restaurant with aristocratic ambience would be just the thing. They parked and walked to the front door. 'Closed'! for the annual staff party - the only day all year it was closed. Typical. She was forgiving again, and they decided to stroll about downtown to see what they could find. She suggested another sushi restaurant of which she knew and instructed him to follow her. She was also enamoured and lost in thought - moreover, lost. She had no idea where she was going but he followed blindly. It began to dawn on him that every corner, of which she was sure it was just up ahead, was going to go on ad infinitum. Luck! - an intimate little Asian restaurant that was a local favourite of his was right there. It was not exactly upscale, but he figured he had better come up with something before he blew the whole night. She agreed. They walked in and the counter attendant apologized, but they were just closing. He smiled and said that's okay. He grabbed her hand and they departed together. The owner of the restaurant was on the street loading boxes into a car. "Where you going?"
"It's just closing up", he said. The owner spied them holding hands and a grin came across her face. "No, no. You go back in. We stay open for you."
They had the restaurant to themselves - a delicious meal and red wine. He was nervous, but charming. She was demure, but the wine flushed her. It was truly romantic. She became wary. "I have to go home after this. I promised my friend that I wouldn't do anything foolish and I have to meet her in an hour." He laughed, "No you don't. You're coming back to my place with me for more wine - and you won't do anything foolish. I'll make sure you get to your friend's house later." She wanted to resist but she couldn't. She gave in to him fully and willingly and they left together. At his house they listened to music and danced. He spilled red wine on her - and she was forgiving. She showed him a domestic trick to get it out. He joked about his bedroom, but they never went there. He drove her back to her house, then drove her van to her friend's house with her - she was not in a condition to drive. They kissed good-night. They kissed good-night again - longer, deeper. He took a cab back to her house for his van and drove home alone. He wanted to see her again. He was her Prince Charming and Knight in shining armour. She couldn't sleep and texted him several times throughout the night. They both fell asleep smiling.

She cancelled their lunch-date. That was understandable. They both had professional careers. He tried to re-schedule. She declined. He began to get the message and began to let go. She suggested they meet for coffee after work. He was relieved. He agreed.
They met at the coffee shop. He was excited. She was 'carrying baggage'. He made some comment about falling for someone quickly. She said he sounded like a stalker. He was dumbfounded. She was cold. She told him that it would be a good idea if they stopped seeing each other. He was stunned. He asked if he could walk her back to her van. She agreed. She softened while they walked and told him that she didn't want him completely out of her life, but things were moving too quickly. She suggested they keep in touch. He didn't buy it. As he walked back to his van alone, he thought, "That's too bad. I kind of liked her." He tried to put it out of his mind.

Two nights later, she showed up at the night club again. He was working. She was dressed to kill. He thought that either the games are not over, or she's just cruel. She stayed the whole night in the club. She stayed the whole night very close to him. The club upstairs closed later and he suggested they go dancing. She had been drinking and was uninhibited. She wanted to go dancing with him.
They lit up the dance floor. Amazingly, they could both dance, and well, and even better together. They were stunning. They were electric. They were the envy. She was confident again. She smiled at him and did the same spin away from him she had done that first night in the club, but this time it was contrived, right in the middle of dancing and as she spun she reached up to her hair elastic and let it all down, bouncing, flowing, one fluid motion. She was beautiful! His knees buckled. But he followed.
She strode up to the dance floor stage with him in tow. It was empty except for them. They made a spectacle. She spun back towards him and began pointing and lecturing on what love means, and how he didn't understand, and how he was just another guy who didn't get it. He was confused but not deterred. He grinned at her alcohol-induced 'girlfriend-lecture' behaviour. He just kept smiling and telling her that he did understand. He became more confident and kept moving towards her. She became frustrated and kept pushing him away. The crowd on the dance floor became attentive and amused at this sweet little lady lecturing this grinning, cocky guy. She finally screamed at him, "No you don't get it!" The music lulled and everybody heard her last emphatic shout. "I'M ALREADY IN LOVE WITH YOU!" There was a silent pause. Even the listening crowd was stunned. She realized her spectacle and turned red with embarrassment. She spun around to flee him and the stage but she had misjudged how far across the stage they had travelled. She immediately collided with a stage television. With the crowd still staring, he reached out with one arm and caught the falling TV, then quickly reached out with the other and caught his falling girl. He smoothly put the TV back in its place while she ran from his uninvited chivalry, and the glaring eyes of the crowd. She dispappeared into the back. The crowd grinned at him. He followed her.
Almost in tears she told him the truth. She had carried a flame for him for two years - since they had met at the water park, but never had the courage to approach him. Besides, they were both involved. But when she became single, and he unwittingly provided her with the opportunity to approach him at the club, she had decided her waiting was over. "Then why did you break up with me?", he asked. She admitted that she was afraid - her own feelings of love had come too quickly and too strongly - and she had been hurt before. So had he. He knew he was damaged goods. She never left his side again for the rest of their lives.

See you in hell,
Shakes.

Mexican BBQ

It is the end of February 2009 and my fourth visit to the tri-colour country. Normally I wait until I return home to blog about my travels but the hilarity of the evening followed by the lonely boredom back at the college has made for some good writing motivation. My hosts here in Mexico are truly big-hearted people. So much so that in their ingenuous generosity I think they are often naive about how awkward certain multi-cultural social situations might be. Good for them! I hope they never stop being the beautiful people they are.
The first time I came here, I wasn't 1 hour off the plane when they scooped me out of the comforting hands of my agent, and whisked me off to a full-fledged, all-go, no-holds-barred, Mexican family birthday party at one of Oscar's siblings at which NO-ONE spoke a word of English. I remember thinking, "Are these people fucking crazy!? They hardly know me and they drop me into the middle of some crazy Mexican family fiesta? I am a college instructor for god's sake! I wasn't hired for this!!!" Of course, the humility and communication strategies it taught me have become of inestimable value, and it has become one of my fondest memories. Nevertheless, I wouldn't want to do it again!
Today when we got into their truck to head out for dinner, I noticed that we were not going to the same restaurant to which they aaaaaaaaalways go, so I was inquisitive. "Where are we going?" Wouldn't ya know it, unannounced once again we were off to Uncle ???'s place for the evening. He was a doctor but had once been in training to become a priest at which time he maintained three wives, none of whom knew about the other. Upon entering Uncle Doctor-Priest's house I was floored by the wall-sized mural in the living room of a very large-breasted naked woman being ravaged by a man. Keep in mind this man was still married and living with his wife, and obviously quite comfortable entertaining guests in his home. We sat down for an evening of board games at a table situated right next to this wall. It was surreal. It was like sitting with a bunch of people you hardly know with a wall of porn staring down at you. I was the only one who seemed to think it was awkward, but Oscar did eventually look at me with a coy grin and say, "Which picture did you notice first - ja ja ja!" Apparently painting giant boobs on your wall is acceptable household art in Mexico.
While driving back to the college/residence, I announced that I was quite hungry and asked if we could stop somewhere for food. Unfortunately it was quite late and Ojo de Agua is not exactly the most modern urban setting. There was not much open and we were forced to stop at a late night street-side vendor whose only fare was grilled 'hamburguesa'. The hut was an obviously temporary shanty comprised of not much more than a wood box, a table, and a tarp. The two 'chefs' looked more like a couple of gang members than line-cooks. I eyed the elderly grill suspiciously and it seemed evident that it had not been in any sort of working condition for some time. Nonetheless, the attendant slapped two thin beef patties onto the grill and promptly pulled out a blow-dryer (yes, I mean for your hair) and started "grilling" them. I looked at Oscar in astonsihment, but again, this was obviously perfectly normal to him and he didn't bat an eye. Later he and I had a good laugh about the whole blow-dryer scenario as we sat at his kitchen table and ate mostly raw hamburgers. They weren't bad, actually - kind of like gourmet steak tar-tar burgers - kind of. Next time the kids are hungry for burgers I think I will announce that they should get me some ground beef and the blow-dryer and meet me in the backyard. We're havin' Mexican BBQ tonight!

See you in hell,
Shakes.

Cooped Up Outside

The weather in Victoria has been uncharacteristically moody lately. Fortunately, on the weekend we were blessed with a winter day that was both sunny and balmy. That fact, combined with brand new bicycles motivated my otherwise shut-in younger boys to spend some time outside. After an exhausting (for me) session of rider training for them both, Milo came and seated himself next to me on the outdoor park bench.
"Can we go inside, Daddy?"
"Of course not!"
"Why?"
"Because we've been cooped up inside the house for weeks now and today is a great day to be outdoors and enjoy the beautiful weather."
Silence. Milo was in a state of deep contemplation. Suddenly he announced, "I feel cooped up outside." I laughed and responded, "You can't be cooped up outside."
"Well, what does cooped up mean?", he asked. I explained that it meant you were surrounded by four walls and feeling trapped and stuffy.
"Oh", he said in a pensive and almost disappointed tone of voice. Then off he bounded and escaped my attention for a few moments. Not for long. Having run into our neighbour's front yard, and leaning on the beam post in the centre, he called me over to witness his evidence. "Look, Daddy!", he exclaimed. "I'm cooped up outside!" He then immediately rotated his body around as he counted and pointed at each of the three yard walls and the wall of the house in turn. "One, two, three, four! I'm cooped up outside!" He looked up at me and beamed with pride and satisfaction. I laughed at his very literal interpretation of my words, but couldn't argue with his reasoning. I let him go inside.

See you in Milo's world,
Shakes

Censorship

In ancient Greece, it appears that playwrights had a wide berth in their political editorial in drama and theatre. Although source documents are minimally extant, it seems that censorship was virtually non-existent in the field of theatre. Following through history, Roman playwrights were clearly deterred in their overt political satire or editorial as violent forms of death were practiced upon playwrights who even incidentally offended powerful political figures. The christian appropriation of the Roman empire under Constantine effectively villainized theatre practices as blasphemous and pagan going so far as to supplant the image of the beloved Greek satyr with the christian devil. Religious attacks on theatre caused various levels of censorship from complete debarment to politically controlled content. The neo-classical rules proscribed strict guidelines - misappropriated from the writings of Aristotle - as to what was acceptable in terms of form and content with specific bars to violence or lewdness on stage. Moving forward in time, the establishment of a Lord Chamberlain in London gave a specific political office to the role of theatre censorship. Today, the debate over censorship roars on as loudly as ever. Modern theatre practices are arguably the most diverse they have ever been in history with the lines of international uni-cultural art being blurred further and further. This new liberality, however, has spawned a backlash of puritanism supporting various levels of censorship. Genuine artists who wish to explore broader limits of artistry are interrogated by a world fearing the argument against censorship as a license to such advents as child pornography or gratuitous violence.
In the 2007/8 academic year, the University of Victoria theatre department attempted to stage an international play (from Mexico) entitled "Senor Morton". The play included a particularly graphic retelling of the violent rape of a woman in which humour was artistically juxtaposed against the horror of the words. The controversy resulted in political mayhem within the department as students and staff sided variously for or against its staging based on their sensibilities towards content and censorship. Ultimately, the department abandoned its production claiming illness on the part of the foreign director. In the following year (dust having settled), the play was re-introduced by the department under a blatantly anglicized version of the title - one can only assume this international linguistic license included the (quiet) removal of controversially offensive excerpts of the play's text. So much for international sensibilities.
Not since the inception of the art form of theatre in Greece has it been exempt from the forces of censorship and even to this day. Arguments on both sides of the debate are strong and logical, with no hard rules ever being universally acceptable. Of particular interest is the sub-genre to melodrama of Gothic theatre. Taking Matthew Gregory Lewis as a paradigm author of both Gothic plays and prose fiction, there is a huge disparity in the levels of violence and sexuality depicted in his prose fiction, The Monk (for example) and his play The Castle Spectre (for example). These two pieces, however, otherwise carry distinctively similar Gothic characteristics. As earlier theatre (e.g. The Country Wife) tended towards depictions or intimations of sexuality, and later melodramatic and Gothic literature incorporated romance, superstition, supernatural, and horror conventions into a sexualized context, what was motivating their censorship? What social or political forces, or personal sensibilities caused the disparate levels of graphic violence and sexuality in Lewis' work, and how have these affected the debate over censorship, and its manifestation in film, television, and stage today?

See you in hell,
Shakes.

N.I.S.M.? Fore

N.I.S.M.? 3