Go West, young man, Go West...

The search is over. I made an offer on a place and they were dumb enough to take it.

The address is 123 Noneofyourbusiness Street, but it's not far from my present neighborhood. It's spacious, clean, quiet, with a balcony, domestic applicances, room for a minibar, and two lovely working toilets. So what more could a guy want?

Maybe someone to come once a week and clean the working toilets, I don't know. Screw it, who cares. By the end of the month, I'll be out of this hellhole and into a new one where the only complaints raised will be the ones I create.

On a lighter note, one week left of school. Done teaching. Just giving finals, looking stern, policing graduation. No sweat. You could prop up a dummy made of cardboard and latex, put it in my desk and the kids would be none the wiser. Shit, you probably could have done that six months ago.

Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996)

A half an hour a day for the past two weeks or so and I finally made it through the only complete version of Hamlet on screen. It now occurs to me, after umpteen years, that I've seen three or four film versions of the masterpiece, and of course read it a dozen times or so, but I've never actually seen a dramatical performance. I can hear chants of "Philistine!" "Wannabe!" and "Go back to Stephen King, you hack!" filling cyberspace as I make my confession. "Make thy insults bloody, or nothing worth."

No matter. I'll just wait until the Hanover Park community theater breaks out the performance. Or, barring that, I'm sure the YMCA will have a stunning adaptation in their summer youth group theater performance.

(Sarcasm, people. You ever hear of it? "How absolute the knave is...")

In the meantime, I've got Branagh's adaptation to chew over. What can I say? It's got as many pluses as minuses, and when you're dealing with both a Shakespearian actor (I hate to be snotty, but when you tour with the RSC, your experience is self evident) and Shakespeare himself, not to mention an all-star cast, the finished product is bound to be worth the four hours of your life you spend watching it. Besides, I'm just enough of a DWM worshipper to believe that any minus you come across in a Hamlet production is minimal, compared to the crap you find in contemporary film. ("Speak the speech, I pray you.")

Branagh plays the Olivier Hamlet: brooding, slight in frame, not a little bit whiny. But it works. Not all the lines are as how I would envision them: when Branagh confronts Gertrude (Julie Christie) over her dalliance with his uncle, he looks more like he's going to stomp on the floor and hold his breath than attack her. But then he does attack her, and, bereft of all the psychological luggage Ziffereli dumped on Mel Gibson in the corresponding scene in his 1990 production, we are free to experience Hamlet's justified rage instead of wondering whether he's working out an Oedipal fixation.

Kate Winslet (Ophelia) works well, too. When she needs to be smitten, she's smitten. When she needs to be sexy, she's sexy. And when she needs to be crazy, she looks crazy, demented, physically ill and even conniving. In short, she's great. Ditto Jacobi (Claudius), Michael Maloney (Laertes), Nicholas Farrell(Horatio), and Brian Blessed (the ghost). The bit parts are hard for me to appreciate, mostly because I'm getting too much of a kick out of American actors putting in their two cents on the Bard (Jack Lemmon, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal, especially), but overall I sucked up their performances like a Danish prince sucks up self-pity.

I can't necessarily say I was overawed with the filmic representations, but then, they were original. Branagh delivers his "to be or not to be" in front of a series of mirrors, casting infinite reflections as he ruminates on the death he wishes for. The swordfight at the end is more believable than any other I've seen--you almost expect them to break out lightsabers and jump ten feet in the air. And the tensions between the characters work as smooth as an oil slick. Gertrude looks like she wants to wash her eyes when she sees Claudius in the last two acts, and Polonius, so often played as a doddering do-gooder, comes off as the crafty manipulator many critics have defined him as.

So, while I'm no Shakespeare critic (just a humble Shakespeare teacher and reader), I know what I hate in a Shakespeare film. I hate it when what I see jars with what I've read. This version does anything but. Mr. Branagh, a divinity has indeed shaped your end: genius.

---

--Some Misc. Links

Hamlet to come out on DVD in 2006. Now I have to watch it again. This likes me well.

A Hamlet cheat sheet. I have no other reason to link this page except the fact that I stole their picture above. But if thou ever held literature in thy heart, absent thee from assholery a while and write thine own term paper, thou rump-fed runyon.

Here's what happens when you're home on a Saturday night: I found my old elementary school notebook. I've culled a typical week's worth of writing, the kind of pre-blogger fourth grade nothings that make you wince even as you grin. Textual scholars need not read any further:

The Flannel Diaries 1984

September, 1984

Monday, September 2

Today was the first day of school. My teacher is Mrs. Strand. She kept looking at me when she called all our names. I don’t know why. The book I read during class was A Wrinkle in Time. I liked it. Mrs. Strand said not to read during class, so I got in trouble. At lunch, Dave dared me to snort milk up my nose. I dared him back and he did it, but then he choked and almost died. It was funny. Then Mr. Kelley came over and said something mean that we didn’t hear, so we all got in trouble. Then Dave said I was a pussy because I didn’t snort the milk, and he was crying a little, so I left to go read my book.

Tuesday, September 3
Today Mrs. Strand took my book away and said I was supposed to be working on math. I didn’t get the math, so I started to write weird sentences because I was bored. I came up with “My very educated mother just served us nine pimples,” and I showed it to Matt and he started laughing really loud. Then Mrs. Strand yelled at us and we both got in trouble for not doing our math. When I got home, I told my mom what happened, and she said I needed to do math better if I wanted to get full bright, whatever that means.

Wednesday, September 4
Today was my brother’s birthday. He got a bunch of cool GI Joes. He let me play with them while the cheerleaders for his football team came over. They went into his room and played while I got to play with the GI Joes. I can’t believe he just let me keep them like that. What a loser. Matt came over later and we went exploring out in the woods. Mom said not to get our shoes muddy, but we did, so she got mad. Matt swears a lot.

Thursday, September 5
Mrs. Strand got mad at me again today because I was reading another book during Social Studies. She sent me to the back corner of the room for me to cool off, but I said I wasn’t angry and she said, No, not you. I don’t get it. She came back and said, Are you going to start paying attention? I said, Okay. She said, are you even listening to me right now? and I said okay. Then she said, have you been sniffing glue from the art supplies when you were back here, and I said Okay. Mrs. Strand looks red when she gets mad.

Friday, September 6
Fridays are fun because you don’t have to go to bed on time. My brother and I stayed up late watching World Wrestling Federation. My brother said all the wrestling was fake, but it’s cool anyway because all the wrestlers are all buff and can throw eachother around a lot and that’s cool. My brother says he’s going to start lifting weights so he can look as big as a wrestler. I said I wasn’t going to do that because I want to be a ninja and ninjas aren’t that big or they can’t sneak into fortresses and stuff like that. My brother said girls like it when guys are big like that, and I said, but then I couldn’t be a ninja. Then my brother rolled his eyes. I’ve seen him doing that a lot lately.

Sunday, September 8
My mom and my dad made me do homework today. My brother started at ten in the morning and finished before noon, and then he went to go watch the football game. I started at noon and finished at twelve fifteen. I told them I was really smart and that was why I finished it so quick, and then they wanted to see it. My dad said, what’s a fifth of twelve, and I got confused because I thought a fifth was a bottle of bourbon. I said so, and my dad said, don’t get smart with me, mister, I pay the bills around here. Then I said I thought the Bills were a football team, and everyone rolled their eyes like my brother does. Mom made me finish my math homework, and then we all watched King Kong on TV. I don’t think they made any more King Kong movies after that, and I think I want to write one of my own. I want to make King Kong come to our town and trash my school. That would be cool.

Monday, September 9
Mrs. Strand said we were going to be making an insect collection for science class. We have to find twenty different insects, kill them and mount them on a piece of cardboard. Mom made me start when I got home from school, so I went out in the field with a butterfly net and caught insects. Then I killed them. Then I left them on the kitchen table and forgot to put them on the cardboard, so I got in trouble. Matt said he’s going to get his insects from the windowsill. Today, Andy Richter said if I gave him my milk money he wouldn’t punch me in the face. Matt said for me to punch him first, but I gave him the money. I don’t like milk anyway. Mrs. Strand took my glue away from me.

Tuesday, September 10
I got four more dead bugs today and put them in an envelope because I forgot my cardboard. It was gross. Andy told me to give him my money again today, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t hit me, so I didn’t. Then he hit me. Mrs. Strand yelled at him and pulled his ear and made him apologize to me. Then Chris Freeman said Mrs. Strand beat him up and I didn’t, and everybody laughed. So I took my dead bugs and threw them in Chris’s lunch and he cried. That made me feel better. But then I didn’t have any more dead bugs after school so I had to go out and get more.

Thursday, September 12
I got my last dead bugs today. I put them on the cardboard and wrote names underneath them all. My dad saw the project and asked me if I was supposed to put their scientific names under them. I said I thought I was supposed to name them, and that I named them all after the dumb kids at school like Dave, Andy and Chris. My dad said he liked that better. My mom said, don’t encourage him. My brother did seventy pushups today, and I drank three Cokes.

Friday, September 13
Mrs. Strand gave me a D on my insect project. She said I didn’t label them according to kingdom, phylum and class, and I wasn’t supposed to give them people names. I said I didn’t use people names, I used Chris Freeman’s and Andy Richter’s names, and she smiled a little and changed my grade to a C. My mom said it was a dumb project anyway, and that John Steinbeck probably never had to do one either but he turned out okay. We went out to dinner at Port Barrington and my brother and I got a bunch of quarters to play Donkey Kong Junior with while Mom and Dad stayed at the table with the neighbors. I went to go eat the chips on the table, but they turned out to be cigarette butts. It was gross. My brother laughed and I hit him, but I didn’t get in trouble because he didn’t notice.

Except for Matt, who is shameless anyway, all proper names have been changed. Weird how I never refer to my brother by name, isn't it?

Fare thee well, Arthur Miller. You were a voice we (or I, if you prefer) took for granted as immortal. All too late, I regret it.

New York Times' obituary

From Cisco:

A Year of Lies. The chronicles of a PI with three slugs in him. One is lead and the rest are bourbon. Hysterical. Makes me jealous. Get off this pathetic excuse for a blog and go read his instead.

More Marriage Mayhem

Todd called me up out of the blue to ask if I would stand at his wedding. Open bar? I asked. Bachelor party? Reception? Good looking tuxedo? Open bar? Sure, I'll show up. Open bar, right?

It's my third standing thus far; I thought about compiling some kind of Groomsman Resume, only I'm somewhat reluctant. It doesn't look good:

1993: My cousin's wedding. Face broke out. Hid in the bathroom all afternoon, too embarassed to come out and dance with her friends. Grey tuxedo made me look like a parking lot attendee. Lost the room key. Brother sarcastic.

1997: Stood at Dale's wedding. Late to ceremony. Got lost on the way to the reception. Hated the bride. Sunday night, and no open bar.

2002: Dale's second wedding. On time, but hung over. Holes in socks. Ate two pounds of deep fried calamari; lousy stomach ache.

2003: Brother's wedding. Stood and made a kickass toast. Too pale compared to everyone else. Open bar. Good food. Good ceremony.

2005: Todd's wedding. Will get lost. Will rip tuxedo. Will forget to buy a gift. Will enjoy open bar. Will make a speech whether or not anyone wants to hear it.

A memorable moment:

I'm out for drinks with a couple friends (no, I'm not naming them by name, but careful readers will be able to discern any likely candidates), and we're going over past New Year's Eve nights:

Me: One year we went drinking in DeKalb. Another night we were in Florida.
Tso: Hey, didn't we go ballroom dancing one year?
(pause)
Tso: Wait...I meant...
Me: I remember that night. You didn't hold my hand.

Okay, I blew the anonymity. God, it was funny.

Don't fuck with a right wing dental assistant

It had only been about four months since my last visit, but my resident gum-scraper wanted me in to take a look at a few things. So while he's out taking care of whatever, I'm strapped in the chair like Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man, having my teeth worked over by Wendy the Republican Dental Hygenist.

Like all hygenists, Wendy wants to talk to you about all kinds of pathetic things while you've got nothing less than Fort Knox in your mouth. First she tells me about her new neighbors: "I'm not racist or anything, but I can't stand that spic music." Then she moves on to raising children: "My new neighbors let their kids run around all over the place, so I called the cops on them. They had the nerve to tell me to mind their own business!"

And finally, the election:

Wendy: So who you voting for?
Me: Awww...ak gah baghd.
Wendy: I know, I don't know what people believe they're going to get if that East coast phony takes the White House. We need a president who's going to stand behind his people. Spit, please.
Me: (spitting) Well, a lot of people say a change is--
Wendy: Back in the chair. (scraping furiously) Ooh, those damn Democrats make me so angry! All their talk about peace and multilateralism...where would we be if Bush hadn't stuck his big boot up Hussein's ass? I'll tell you where--the smallest fucking province of the Iraqi Empire! That's where. You know?
Me: Gah bagh awd...gah bagh.
Wendy: You're damned right. When I hear that kind of whining, I could kill someone, or at the very least cause them some serious pain. Spit.
Me: You know, you have beautiful eyes. I bet you can sight like a marksman with your nine millimeter.
Wendy: Oh, you. Look, I'm blushing.

So You Wanna Fix a Dangling Modifier and Save the World...

I started this post in an effort to write a serious reflection. Look what happens when I try to get serious. Learned my lesson.

It was one thirty in the afternoon, and my fifth hour composition class was belligerent. In fact, they were downright bewildered, looking at each other in irritation, as if wondering what they were thinking when they signed up for the course last spring.

Yours truly was up at the front (as usual), tie pulled down (not as usual--I don't normally wear ties) and with an irritated look of his own (very much as usual). "I don't see what the problem is with this. It's a dangling modifier. It dangles. It doesn't properly modify. What's the freaking deal?"

In the back of the room, one Edna P. (name changed), from UIC, is observing me. Edna decided a while ago she wanted to be an English teacher, and was urged by her sister to choose me to shadow for a day, as per the university's certification process. Every five minutes, she scribbled like mad in a little steno notebook she brought along. Every time I saw her scribbling, I started to get even more irritated. I didn't know what she was writing, but in my heightened paranoia, I was making some interesting guesses:

Students belligerent...don't comprehend significance of dangling modifier...teacher belligerent...doesn't comprehend students' inability to grasp said modifier...teacher smells like beer...

Teacher needs to slow down...students need to wise up...why the hell am I wanting to do this anyway?

Earlier that day, she'd told me about her own history in education. "I went to school in several cities, and they were terrible. I went to a couple of suburban schools, and decided I really wanted to do that. I've spent the past several years relearning everything I was supposed to know already from high school: Hemingway, Salinger, Shakespeare. I decided it would really be something to make a difference in these kids' lives. If I could reach even one student, I'd be making a difference."

Where did she learn to talk like that? Boston Public?

"Well, you're welcome to join in in any way you see fit," I said, smiling broadly and trying to remind myself that, while I'd never been that idealistic myself, I'd certainly been naive, and had had the good fortune to be ushered towards a more realistic perception of the job. What had I told Rich once upon a time? "I'm going to teach literature. If they don't like it, that's their problem. If they do, then they can take the test, graduate, and leave me alone."

Anyway, despite my welcome, and despite my invitation to take part in the lesson, Edna remained in the back of the room, scribbling like mad and drawing crude caricatures of me with a badly-knotted tie. (Probably.)

"Okay, let's take it from the top," I said to the class, deciding the ABC approach might work better. "What is a modifier?"

"It modifies," one of my better students spoke up. (That's right--I said "better.")

"Okay. And when you modify, it helps to know what you're modifying, right?"

Sullen, reluctant agreement ensued. "Like, 'This class is a total waste of time?" spoke up my right-row wit.

I bit down a sharp retort. "Absolutely. 'Total' goes next to the noun phrase, 'waste of time.' But if you put the modifier too far from what it augments, you've lost your audience like Sam gets lost in the McDonald's Playland when his mommy goes out to smoke a cigarette and use the cell phone."

Damn. Blew that one.

"So what's dangling about that sentence?" ejaculated my front row cheerleader. There were a few other cheerleaders in the back row, nodding their solidarity. "It looks, like, fine to me."

The sentence, on which we all fixed our undying attention, glared at us on the overhead like a rebuke. As if to say, If you haven't figured this out already, you never will. Maybe it was even right. It read: Travelling acrost the U.S., it's vastness effected her.

To their credit, the class had already deciphered the spelling errors (although I started to sweat a little when I realized I'd misspelled "traveling" completely by accident), abbreviation problem and wrong word choice. But they were struggling with the idea that, all mechanics aside, the sentence didn't make a lot of sense.

"I mean, it's not like we expect the U.S. to travel anywhere," the cheerleader continued, working on her eyeliner with a compact mirror. "It's, like, a place, you know?"

I assurred her that I did indeed know. "You see, Shannon, if you have to waste time figuring out what is doing the traveling, you've lost your reader. Remember what we said about readers?"

Like the chorus in a Greek play, the class started their solemn intonation: "The Reader keeps us employed. The Reader is dumb. The Reader has absolutely no attention span and would rather be watching Fox News. As a result, we must cater to the lowest denomination of our Reader without compromising our constant struggle for Truth, Objectivity and Value in our Journalistic Correspondence."

"Yeah, but." My front row cheerleader was nonplused. "Like, I don't understand the newspaper half the time. They're not catering to me."

"That's because you're a dimbulb, sweetheart."

(I had to check carefully to make sure I didn't actually say that.)

(OK--I was clear. But she must have read it on my face.)

"You'll get there, Shannon." I smiled reassuringly. "You can start right now. Isn't there any way to rephrase that sentence so it's a little less confusing?"

Edna, scribbling: Teacher suggests direct student involvement. About fucking time.

My right row super-Sophomore roused his head from his notebook (where he'd left a cast good enough for genealogical work, complete with drool for DNA) and squinted at the overhead as if it were the Rosetta Stone. "Let's just say he's traveling," he suggested. "In the U.S."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Does it matter? If you cross our town, you're traveling across the country, technically. Aren't you? Didn't you say that?"

The Greek chorus spoke up again: "Semantic ambiguity depends on a willfull obstruction of shared knowledge between speaker and listener, but does not necessarily negate any of the main truths. There are two levels of truth--"

"Oh shut up. Why is it you brats only pay attention when you can prove something I said is wrong?"

(Did I say "brats"? Oh God, please tell me I didn't. Well, please tell me I did. They deserve it. No they don't. Oh shit, someone's talking. I guess I better pay attention.)

Edna: Teacher lapses for a moment. There's no glue left in his bottle on the desk, and he's breathing heavily. Coincidence?

"What?" I rasped.

"I said why don't we just switch the subject and the verb."

Third row, fourth seat. My Aspiring Future Journalist. One of about four or five in the class of twenty-one. My shining young angel. I beamed at her while trying to remain outwardly neutral and scrawled "Traveling across the United States, she was affected by its vastness" in a nearly illegible hand. "See the problem? See the solution? Now we know who was traveling, and now we know the given context of the situation. The reader is no longer confused."

"The Reader keeps us employed. The Reader is dumb. The Reader has absolutely no attention..."

"Yeah, yeah. Now, that's how you fix a dangling modifier."

I waited. The class looked at me expectantly, as if to suggest, That's it? You think that changes my life? I'm still a pimple-encrusted, suburban youth trapped in a smothering environment and you don't even have a window for me to look out of. Who the hell you think you are, anyway?

I breathed deeply, for the kill: "And now, your homework. Fix all the dangling modifiers in the article on page 35 of your packet. Go do it now. Work quietly. Don't bother me."

I slouched over to my desk and busied myself with some paperwork. Most of the class went to the assignment willfully enough, but Super Sophomore made himself comfortable on his notebook again, the cheerleader finished with her eyes and went to work on her nose, and my right-row wit started rewriting sentences to include both my name and speculations about my ancestry. I sighed and looked at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes to the bell.

Edna came over. "I got a lot out of that," she said in a chipper tone of voice.

"Yeah? Good. Hopefully you won't split the modifier "billious blowhard" with my name."

She laughed politely, and for a minute I wondered why. Then I realized I hadn't said that at all. More something like, "They're good kids. They just need work on the basics."

"My professor says it's always important to connect with your class interpersonally. Get comfortable with them one-on-one."

"Do tell. What else does she tell you?"

"That it's wrong to belittle students, or tax them for not knowing something when it's your job to teach them."

(Oh crap. I was talking out loud all that time.)

"Yeah, well, you tell your professor that in the Ivory Towers she undoubtedly lives in, that's all fine and dandy. But out here, we have to hold them accountable for what they already know. If we don't, they can ride No Child Left Behind all the way to the unemployment office in their mid-forties."

Now that time I actually spoke. She frowned at me, not sure if I was kidding or not.

"I don't want to tell you 'This is the way it is,' because it's different for different people, places, classes. Who you are is half your day right there. Just be aware that it's a continuous process. You know when they learn what a dangling modifier is? Eighth grade. Maybe earlier. Just like they learn what nouns and verbs are. Half of them mix all that up."

I was rambling. I was tired. Edna wasn't writing in her book.

"What I'm saying: Each kid is a situation. So are you. Connections are fine and dandy, but sooner or later, you have to realize you've got to do it the way you think works, and stand by it until it doesn't work for you any more. That's how you stay sane, pumpkin."

Later on in the day, Edna would tell me she still wanted to be a teacher (interesting comment), and that I "made it look a whole lot easier than it actually was." I suppose I do, actually. Lots of people do, at lots of jobs. The decisions you make are not going to be agreable, or even acceptable, to about half the free world, but, like our sterling president, you stand by them because you believe in them. (If you're proved wrong, that would be a good time to stop thinking like our president and start thinking like someone with functional neurons, but that's another story.)

I have no way to conclude this little vignette, except to point out that Edna is writing a paper about me as we speak. Were her account compared with mine, I don't doubt for a second they would be widely disparate.

Were her professor to compare this account with the textbooks, she'd probably have a few things to say. Ditto my professors' take on it and hers. Ditto my co-workers. Ditto my boss.

There's a lesson in there somewhere. Too bad I didn't think of it in time to teach it to her. But it's nice knowing it myself.

Lessons learned after a crappy Monday:

1) I'm not in grad school any more. As a result, there's only so much time I can devote to higher education, especially considering the fact that this is a 3-hour class for recertification, and I'm not going to see another dime in pay increase unless I do this four more times over the course of a year or two. That means the two or three hours I spent on this Black Plague paper is time well spent...but also robs me of time spent elsewhere.

2) Assigning work for the kiddies is a piece of cake, and fun. "What's that, Joey? You planned on going to the Homecoming Dance? Ha ha, not any more! Get that project together or I'm calling Mommy again!" Then flash forward two weeks, or four, or six, or whatever, and see your Friendly Neighborhood English Teacher sitting at a desk, a stack of essays in front of him, his hair falling out in sheepdog-like clumps, while the students prance along on their merry way, laughing at his shortsightedness...

3) Senioritis is a bullshit term. These kids are just lazy.

4) Skipping coffee in the morning and having a few granola bars on hand saves you five or ten minutes. But if all you're going to do with that time is huddle in the bed, wondering if the alarm going off is just a dream, you wasted that time anyway.

5) Einstein wore the same clothes all the time, this is true. But if you don't know how to shop for clothes, and as a result, have a more or less consistent pattern of colors, the rest of the world picks up on it toot sweet. And nobody's mistaking yours truly for Einstein. More like a cheap bastard who spends most of his money on restaurants and movies.

6) Everyone else is calling in sick because of husbands in town for the weekend, or children who need to be hospitalized. Wussies. And just because I don't have a kid in Little League doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to take time out for him anyway.

7) How dare I waste time pleasure reading? I need to finish the Pitti diaries for class (which I didn't finish for sake of a cold bottle of Bud).

Who says Batman only hangs out in Gotham City?

via Cnn: Dad-Man scales Buckingham, stays on wall for five hours.

I'm putting this picture on my weekly news quiz. I'm only afraid most of the students will think it's Adam West.

Damn it, it's August.

Time to start gearing up. Time to start dusting off lesson plans (ha ha), polishing up on essay assignments (ho ho) and ironing out the wrinkles in the shirt and tie in the back of my closet (ah ha ha ha!).

Still, the summer isn't over yet. My aunt and uncle were in town the weekend before last--see there? They made the "name list." Kudos. Even though I was coming off of a hellacious cold/flu, I made it out to my dad's two or three times, and we all went to dinner at the Millrose once. So you could say it was a weekend of sickness well spent.

After that, things died down considerably, though--I went into overdrive trying to find an apartment, found one, decided to take it, then decided to wait a while. I talked to my landlord about this damned neighbor of mine, and we agreed I could go on a month-to-month lease this year. That way, if I can't stand it anymore, and if all attempts to contact him amicably have failed, I can hit the high road. I was looking at a place in Schaumburg, a high rise of sorts, and it sounded good, but something in me, my Spider-Sense perhaps, warned me against making a move right out of the blue like that.

Perhaps it was the fact that I've got Kim's parents' dog. Perhaps it was the fact that I don't want to spend my last free week of summer packing and moving. Perhaps it was just laziness. I don't know. But it's good to have options. Always.

Tonight: Styx, the concert. Need I say more?

From the New York Times: Fewer Americans Reading. Big shocker, right? But the article points out that, in an era where the population has risen to 40 million, a seven to ten percentage difference in the reading public from 1992 is more than a little eyebrow-raising. I don't know why this riles me so much, but apparently religious book sales are up, while classic and contemporary literature are in the toilet. More of the "I'm right and those unlike me are wrong" philosophy, I suspect. If Michael Moore preaches to the choir, the likes of the "Left Behind" series fucking shout to it.

My Two Cents

A book review that really isn't a book review but is a long, jangling piece of writing I cooked up in order to get all twelve of my steady readers reading again and don't you just hate long subtitles like this? well tough, it's my forum

Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections is one of those novels I've been meaning to read for years (ever since the book came out, in fact) but was always reluctant to set aside the time for. You've got a 568-page novel sitting on your shelf, perhaps a novel you spent $26.50 for, and it quickly beomes a venial sin not to pick it up and get to work. However, given the day-to-day of an English teacher, if you want to keep up with your paperload, the best you can hope for is a couple hours at a stretch, two or three times a week. It takes me about a month to finish a novel at that pace, and from what I'd heard about Franzen's other two books, it would be a tough month at that. As one of Franzen's characters says, regarding a nursing home he's been put into, "Better not to leave at all than to have to come back."

That kind of mindset is appalling yet agreeable logic for an invalid, but it sucks ass for someone independent, financially stable, and with free time that, even though he can't always enjoy it, still has it, dammit. And yet I waited.

Then last week, while waiting for new glasses at the local mall, Kim shows me the discount shelves at Waldenbooks (you remember them, don't you? they used to be the conglomerate Satan of booksellers before Barnes and Noble and Borders took over that title), where The Corrections was going for a mere $7.50 (including tax). Seven dollars and fifty fucking cents! That's the price of my movie ticket to go see The Chronicles of Riddick, a true piece of shit, or a pint and a half of Guiness (always worth it, but still, you know?). You can't argue with such logic. I bought it immediately.

Of course, it was a couple of days before I got to it--I was finishing Lew Wallace's Ben-Hur, enjoying the story yet getting incredibly tired of Wallace's fondness for descriptive detail (I'm betraying my professors here, I'm sure, but "The grass was fresh and clean...The trees did not crowd each other; and they were of every kind native to the East, blended well with strangers adopted from far quarters; here grouped in exclusive companionship palm trees plumed like queens; there sycamores, overtopping blah blah blah" when you could just write "There was a grove of trees" occurred to me more than once) and religious idolatry. It probably took me, all told, ten or fifteen hours of my life to read that book, and while it was time well spent, I decided to be more picky about the next amount of time I would dedicate. On my shelf, as yet unread, are several books I know would be well worth it: Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (which I always start, always love, and always have to put away), Lewis' The Middle East, and Friedman's Free to Choose (the New Yorker commented that even Governor Schwarzenegger knew of Friedman's book, though he'd taken the time to watch the television series). And yet, Franzen was sitting right there. And so I picked it up last Wednesday night, and just put it down after an afternoon of doing laundry at the laundromat, R. Kelley blaring through the loudspeakers and little kids playing tag/bumper cars with the laundry baskets.

The first thought out of my head at that point was: "I wonder if there's a story in this laundromat."

That's the kind of effect Franzen had on me. He wants me to go out and do it.

"Okay, fine. What's the damned book about, anyway?
The Corrections is almost a "sprawling" novel but not quite. It covers the travails of the Lambert family, based in the midwest: There's Alfred and Enid, Al a retired railroad worker in the throes of Parkinsons and dementia, Enid a homemaker, and their three children: Gary (in Pittsburgh with a wife and three kids), Chip (a recently fired professor) and Denise (a famous chef). The book skips around chronologically, but in a completely coherent fashion, and Franzen's social critiques are in plain sight for even the most casual of readers to ferret out, even as he couches them in a deeper philosophical meaning.

Whatever that means.

Basically, Enid is trying to put together "one last Christmas" at the old homestead where everyone grew up, in St. Jude, Ohio (St. Jude, by the way, is the patron saint of hopeless causes. I learned that in The Atlantic Monthly writeup on the book). Before embarking on a "pleasure cruise" which Enid is determined to enjoy, come hell or high water, she and Alfred stop to visit Chip in New York, where he's been writing a screenplay. Chip, unfortunately, has to run out the door to rescue his screenplay from the agency because of flaws he's aware of only too late. Denise shows up and winds up cooking lunch for everyone, but unbeknownst to her family, she's preoccupied with a sexual/romantic trist of a complexity even the Victorians couldn't have cooked up. Enid suspects she's involved with a married man. Gary, meanwhile, is back in Pittsburgh, fighting a losing battle with depression and another losing battle with his family over a) whether or not they can return to St. Jude (a place his wife Caroline and 2/3 kids rank slightly below the Seventh Circle of Hell) and b) whether or not he (Gary) is chronically depressed.

"Okay, fine. Why the hell should I read this damned book?"
I'm not exactly a professional book reviewer, and even if I were, this is hardly the place to write up what I got out of the text in the way of symbolism, thematism and historicisim (there's a ton there, though--the book would have been composed during the dot-com explosion of 2000, despite the eight year interval between its publication and Franzen's last novel). I will say, though, that while it definitely qualifies as a "deep read," it's still a relaxed read. They're characters you can know and understand. They're settings you know, even if you've never set foot in New York, Lithuania, or the Midwest in your life. They're issues that, while you may not have gone through them yourself literally, you still know. And the novel has a conclusion that is not without ambiguity, which is something I absolutely love about fiction. It causes you to think. It may cause you to debate. And you can form your own opinion (something Michael Moore critics, for example, seem to think the American public has forgotten how to do--hint hint? I'm talking to you, Tso) about the merits of that ending.

In short, it qualifies as literary fiction with a broad market appeal. Probably just what Franzen had in mind (see his essay "Mr. Difficult" in How to be alone for clarification).

Go read the book. You won't be disappointed. And your TV and stereo will never be quieter while you do.

From today's Tribune:

Ulysses is... and Bloomsday festival in Dublin. James Joyce's Ulysses is that book that probably every English teacher should read. I taught Portrait of the Artist last semester, and it was brutal, but the story of Bloom, Molly and an older Stephen Daedelus is something I just never found time for. Maybe this summer. That novel and probably Moby Dick are the guilty confessionals of my profession. I have read Moby, and I stand by its literary merit, even though I had some snot nosed classmates who voiced off about it: "I wanted to read it, but life's too short." "Oh, it's overrated...I guess. I haven't read it either."

You gonna talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk. Get your culture, dammit.

Now please excuse me. Real Sex IV is on.

The Passion of the Christ. There's been a lot of hoop-de-doo about it: Is it too violent? Is the violence justified? Is it an accurate portrayal of Christ's crucifixion?

Or is it overkill, just more fuel for anti-Semitism and good old Christian guilt?

To me, it's really neither. Mel Gibson earned accolades for Braveheart in 1995, and rightfully so. But anyone using that film to rest their knowledge of Scottish history and independence would do well to look to Norman Davies' The Isles and any other halfway decent scholarly text on William Wallace's history, rise and fall, and not to a Hollywoodized version of the facts. Moreover, the book upon which the film is based (Braveheart, by Randall Wallace, who has since made a career for hismelf whoring out scripting talents on such classics as Pearl Harbor and "Dark Angel") touts itself as a dramatization, nothing more.

Ditto for The Passion. Gibson based the film off the Apostles' in the Bible, and even a cursory flipping through the pages (which I did last night, not having the benefit of Sunday school) finds all the film's key lines. But if you want to split hairs about historical accuracy--and I sure can't blame anyone, being somewhat anal in this department myself--don't look to the Bible in the first place. Nothing in there about how the Romans crucified people. Nothing in there about where they used nails on Christ's hands. Nothing in there about how much of the cross Christ hauled through the streets towards Golgotha. If you want details like that, look to the basics (A History of the Roman Empire) or even J.M. Roberts.

The Passion is all about artistic depiction, couched in religious meaning. Whatever the hell that means.

Is the film violent? Absolutely. The scourging is probably the worst of the lot (arguably)--once Jesus is nailed to the cross and hoisted into the air with a bad joke above his head, I was sufficiently desensitized to the entire ordeal. I mean, I've seen the statues in churches and museums. I never saw chunks of flesh being ripped out of anyone's side before, in real life or in a movie. In case the trailers don't drop the hint, here it is: This is not a popcorn and soda movie.

Is the film too violent? Depends. I hear plenty of devout Christians are up on their soapboxes, both in church and on the net, arguing that that violence is essential for understanding the depth of their devotion and the extent of Christ's sacrifice. Makes sense to me, although still, it is movie violence. There's lots of blood flying all over the place, but my knowledge that it was makeup and special effects (despite the extraordinary efforts of James Cavaziel during filming, being struck by lightning, whipped and all) protected me from any such instruction.

Is the film anti-Semitic? Only to the typical horse's ass that labels the actions of the whole by those of the few. The Jewish priests are suitably slimy and despicable, but then, so are the Romans, and so are the apostles who betray their Messiah. And the fact that Satan lurks in the midst of a crowd of Jews during several key scenes doesn't say much to me, except that maybe he would have been more noticeable behind Pontius Pilate. Duh.

Is the film a masterpiece? Unquestionably. I have to separate my agnosticism from appreciating Cavaziel's performance, in addition to Monica Belluci's as Mary Magdalene, Maia Morgenstern's as Mother Mary, and Hristo Shopov's as Pontius Pilate. There are special effects, true, but they take an almost unprecedented back seat to human pathos and deliverance. Besides that, there are some genuinely creepy segments (one involving a tormented Judas Iscariot--Luca Lionello--being chased by demon children; another towards the end, with Satan--Rosalinda Salentano--raging in Hell because Christ didn't deny his God) that play out well, computer effects or not.

On a personal note, having little to no formal religious schooling, the whole ordeal got cinematically (cinematically, mind you) exhausting. Christ hauls the cross; he falls down; he gets whipped; he gets back up. Down he goes; he gets whipped; he picks himself back up, his allies crying, the Romans and Jews throwing stones and curses all the while. That had to be a good forty minutes of the end sequence, and it does get repetitive (okay, so I'm going to Hell now if I wasn't before). Still, to give credit where credit is due, Gibson handles these scenes masterfully. They're anything but boring.

That's my one-and-a-half cents on the film, for what it's worth, Which is about half a cent less than I shot for. Any religious film that makes such waves has got to be good, but again, if it's used as gospel, that's when I start to get a little miffed. Why not check out Kundun then? Go read the Torah. Go read about Muhammad.

"Truth" is a slippery word. All bullshit aside, this film is art, not history. Watch it accordingly.

Journal of the Week in the Life of a Teacher in the South Bronx. I should get down on my knees and thank Whoever that I'm teaching where I don't have to worry about fights and threats. I really should.

My Triumphant PT Conference

Another round of parent teacher conferences tonight. Those are always a hoot. This year, the powers that be gave us a half day, and absolutely nothing to do until the 4:30 meetings began. I took distinct advantage of my time by slinking off to my apartment, downing two pints of Guiness and a ham and cheese sandwich and sacking out on the couch for fifty minutes or so, after which I got up, scrubbed the alcohol off, put on a badly-knotted tie, and slunk back to the office, a big shiteating grin for the parents bared in almost desperate fanaticism.

Usually, the high-achievers are the ones to show up, and all I can really say is, "Yeah, your kid is great, just great, tell them to keep staying awake and using Sparknotes." This time, a few deadbeat kids' parents showed up, and I got to set the record straight: "Yeah, your kid isn't doing so well, tell them to open the fucking book now and again and start using Sparknotes. It's all Sparknotes, you know."

By seven p.m. I was starving, not having had any dinner, and I'd already rescued a colleague from a bulling parent who wanted to know why kids had to take a class in government instead of just taking the stupid Constitution test. I kid you not. Her exact words.

But one of my high-achievers' parents showed up, and I found myself in a position to actually do some good for once in my sterling six-year career.

The parent is Russian, sixty years old, heavy accent, nice as can be. I've met her once before, but I never did learn how to pronounce her name correctly. Since you only meet with these people for ten minutes tops, it never becomes much of an issue, but with a woman as nice as her, it pays to be considerate.

Her kid is doing well in my, and all classes, except he gets himself tied in knots fairly easily. I showed Mom the grade and she asked me if I saw any weaknesses. "Well, actually," I said, phrasing my words as carefully as I could, "he seems to take himself to task way too much. If we could find a way for him to push himself without giving himself stomach ulcers along the way, that would be very much to his benefit."

(I can sound so damned classy when I want, yeah? It would have helped if I could have punctuated this with her name, though.)

She was nodding in agreement. "He wants to be a doctor," she said (although, to capture the spirit, with her accent, it sounded like, "He vant too be a dochtur"). "I'm sure he will be. He can be whatever he wants to be. I'm just worried I won't be able to see it." ("Vunt be apple too see." Oh my bleeding piles.)

"Now what do you think you're saying?" I asked in mock belligerence. "You'll see it. Don't give me that."

She chuckled. "It's fifteen years later he'll be a doctor. I am not a young woman any more, Mr. L."

"You'll see it. You have to." I paused, feeling myself on very thin ice. I mean, it's not often I discuss women's ages, least of all the mother of a student. But what the hell. Maybe this will get me into heaven some day. "You know the story of Schezerdade?"

She shook her head, and I could see (at least, I think I saw) the wheels turn: This man is a teacher and he's going to teach me something and I respect teachers but I'm not that interested but I should be because he's a teacher and...

"A woman is captured by a king, or an emperor. Or something--I forget which. Anyway, she's sentenced to death if she can't tell a good story. So she spins out a yarn, but leaves it at a cliffhanger right before her time is up. The king or emperor is beside himself--he wants to hear more. So he keeps her alive another day to hear the story. The next day she tells more of the story, but leaves it at another cliffhanger, and saves her life for another day. And so on. And so on. The king is so interested, he can't bear to not have the story completed.

She immediately started cracking up, probably sensing the next part of the "lesson."

"That's what your son is doing. He's your Schezerdade."

It was a full minute before she stopped laughing. Other teachers were looking over in my direction, probably wondering what the hell I was doing, chatting her up or something? "I love a good sense of humor," she told me.

I only smiled and shrugged, not sure whether I'd been telling a joke or not.

She thanked me for my time, got up to go, and then embraced me in the first, last and only bear hug a parent has ever given me in my life. Then she released me, stepped back and bowed. "Thank you."

I only smiled and nodded idiotically. It's a mark of my times that I immediately wondered if I had a potential sexual harassment suit on my hands, but after a while the caution wore off and I thought the whole thing was incredibly cool. I'll probably never see the old woman again--her son is acing my class and he'll graduate in June--and that's a shame.

I really would have liked to learn how to pronounce her name.

I never thought the day would come, but I've had loyal readers e-mailing me and asking if I've been out to sea or something, what with no posts in about three weeks. Scarce occurrence, to be sure. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I'd gone out and found a life when the truth is far more depressing. I sat in front of this damned computer at 7:00, and it's already pushing 8 p.m. Just realized some of my doc. application materials were either MIA or never A in the first place (I know, I know, the acronym humor only goes so far), so I'm trying to cobble all that together right now. If I weren't such a cheap bastard, I would have paid for my new printer toner a year ago, printed out all the on-line stuff, signed it, sealed it, and would be ready to drop it in the mail on my way east tomorrow.

But I am a cheap bastard. So some of this will probably be done on the school's dime.

Went on a reading spree last night and finished Treasure Island. It's all I can do these days to stay awake past eight o'clock. I'm turning into an old fart. I was planning with a colleague today, and she remarked that Sydney Carton of Tale of Two Cities was the first romantic hero. "Not Jarvis Lorry?" I asked in mock surprise (you know, playing my straightfaced dumbass routine--it never fails to drive them crazy).

"Hell no," she responded smartly. "That's who you're going to turn into when you're middleaged. That's who you are now."

For those of you unfamiliar with the novel (you sad sacks of illiterate shit, you), this might help out:

"Pooh!" rejoined Miss Pross; "you were a bachelor in your cradle."

"Well!" observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, "that seems probable, too."

"And you were cut out for a bachelor," pursued Miss Pross, "before you were put in your cradle."

It is a rare joy when a brief acquaintance makes such a shrewd observation. (Not that I wear wigs or anything.)

See? See? Now it's past eight, all because I had to go look that damned quote up. I can't wait until I have time to kill once again.

Finally--a story that doesn't involve work

I was meeting Tso at the diner last night. It was late, I was tired, and I wanted to drink. In the midst of all this, one of the waitresses walks over (a mid-twenties hefty-looking girl) and asked me what my name was. I'm very blase about giving my name to women, so I told her...and slapped myself on the forehead about ten seconds later. Turns out this broad is Hacker's daughter.

Hacker was a guy (and still is, come to think of it) who lived above me in my old building. I call him Hacker because every morning, he'd go out on to the balcony to clear the snuff and crap from his lungs. The guy probably has ten months to live or something. I asked him once to give my house key to whoever was watching the cat for me that weekend, and he even managed to fuck that up. He's a retired air conditioner repairman. I guess you can figure what sort of pension these guys have if he's living his retirement large in good ole Hangover Park.

I remember he used to bitch and moan about his daughter shacking up with some loser. Well, this daughter spent about ten minutes telling me the joys of dumping the loser and moving back home with Daddy. Then she asked me how old I thought she was.

Then Tso arrived. I immediately made out like I was grateful to see him (a tough job, under any circumstances), and she eventually left. Later on, she came by and told us she remembered us always hanging out there. "Time to find a new restaurant," I muttered to him.

Five minutes after that (I was on my third beer of the evening by then, and it was probably pushing ten o'clock), our waitress comes over (our real waitress, that is, the one who was actually serving us food) and told us Hacker's daughter wanted to know if we were gay "because she thinks you're cute." Oh dear God, I think, immediately reaching for my wallet to pay the bill and get the fuck out of there. No need to worry, as it turned out--she'd already left for the evening. Probably to go back to Hacker's apartment and regale him with tales of the gay guy she had a crush on at the diner. I'm not worried about Hacker remembering who I am. I doubt the guy even knows enough to pull his pants up after taking a crap.

(Tso told me not to blog about that. Tough.)

Then, this afternoon, I managed to get out the door at 3:15. My original plan was to have a few more beers (what better way to wake yourself up?) when I noticed I was sitting on a flat tire. I spent a good thirty minutes cursing the tire, my car, the suburbs in general and anyone and everyone I could think of. Windows started to open. Babies started to cry. So I calmed myself down and set about getting the spare tire from my trunk, only to find that it was buried underneath a year and a half of old clothes, magazines, books, boxes and other assorted crap. Once I cleared all that away, I found that the tire's central nut (or whatever the hell you call it) had rusted enough to weld it to the trunk floor. I cursed some more, got my Motor Club card and got them to send over this neo-hippie looking guy over to tow me to the nearest Good Year.

It's about three miles from school to this place, and this guy managed to make the trip last thirty minutes. First he yakked on his cell phone. Then his boss called to ask him where the hell he was. Then he went back to the cell phone. All the while, he was giving me a look of contempt I am only too accustomed to from anyone remotely qualified to tinker with an automobile. Dumb bastard can't even get a spare tire on, he was probably thinking. No wonder he works in an office. I myself felt no particular urge to defend my behavior--hell, it's all too true. If Dad were to see the shape that car is in, he'd remind me of all the neglected advice he's given me over the years: Get a haircut. Get up earlier. Be responsible. Don't eat lead paint. And always make sure you've got a spare tire, a jack, and road flares. Because once you need them, you won't have time to check.

My response? "Yeah, sure, I'll do it tomorrow."

Dad, one; me, nothing.

After mile one and a half had passed, however, Tow Truck Guy clued me in on how lucky I really am:

Guy: So how long you been teaching?
Me: About six years, I guess. Hold the applause.
Guy: You ever get a high school girl to sit on your face?
Me: You must be fucking joking...(guy just looks expectantly at me) I mean, uh, sure lots of times. I just, you know, had to make sure you weren't wearing a wire.
Guy: They drug test teachers?
Me: Only when we come to pick up our paycheck.
Guy: Just curious. I never did like school much.
Me: I never could have told. (I hide my copy of NEA Today) So what's your story?
Guy: I'm living with a bitchy-ass girlfriend. I can't stand it any more and I'm getting the fuck out of there.
Me: How long you been living with her? (Note my clever vernacular form of the verb "to be")
Guy: About three years.
Me: You must have some clever plan in mind. You must be biding your time.
Guy: No, we have a ten-month-old daughter.
Me: Oh.
Guy: I got her pregnant, and we moved in together. Whaddya gonna do?
Me: Obviously move in with her, become a tow truck operator, and work on a three-year plan to move away and ditch your daughter.

I know, I know. I shouldn't be poking fun. As a matter of fact, all the times I do poke fun, I really shouldn't. If those idiots ever drop that bomb, they sure as hell won't be needing any English teachers to jump start society. They'll need guys like this guy, who can fix things, work with things, and still have enough energy to drink all night.

Still, I look at a life like that, and I have to wonder...exactly how lucky have I had it all these years, while being too stupid to even notice it?

Okay, great pep talk. Now I have to grade sonnet analyses. My first one is a deft piece of analysis that begins: "The sonnet I'm writing about was written by a poet."

Beer. I need beer.