Monday, June 30, 2008:  Some More Thoughts on Condiments

As you will know if you have been reading West of Bathurst this week, I have just completed an utterly pointless survey on mayonnaise.  It turns out that approximately equal numbers of men and women like mayonnaise; it also turns out that the number of people who like mayo is just about equal to the number of people who don't like it.  Mayo is, it seems, the perfect neutral condiment.  A few people like or dislike it only mildly, but generally, it provokes quite strong feelings of either love or hatred, and it divides the population* in half.  The fact that it really doesn't taste of anything much doesn't seem to be a huge consideration here.

I suspect that other condiments provoke equally impassioned responses, though admittedly, few of them are as bland as mayo; their flavours tend to be overpowering rather than complementary.  I know that I am not very fond of most condiments; mayo is, for me, the exception that proves the rule.  I have developed a taste for extremely mild mustard, but I steer clear of most everything else.  Of course, I may be a super-taster (I can't bear spices of any kind, I despise tomatoes, and though I love strawberries, a particularly flavourful one can make my entire face go numb), so I may not count.  I'm still going to tell you my feelings about the more common condiments, mostly just because I can.

Ketchup:  My idea of Food Hell is a condiment made of mashed-up tomatoes, vinegar, and bloody corn syrup that is then gooped so liberally all over perfectly good food that the food's flavour is lost beneath the hideous taste of the tomato mush.  I've never understood why tomatoes are so popular,**  and I have especially never understood the appeal of ketchup.  When I was little, my parents used to imply that I would really be missing out if I didn't dip every bite of my grilled-cheese sandwiches in ketchup (probably I would have really been missing out if I hadn't been the kind of person whose head exploded every time she tried to eat a samosa).  Because I consequently believed it was the Sanctioned Method for Eating Grilled Cheese, I would dab a tiny bit of ketchup on the edge of my plate and poke bits of my sandwich into it every once in a once, then swallow those morsels as quickly as I could.  I have now got over this early fear of grilled-cheese nonconformity, and I avoid ketchup with fanatical enthusiasm.  In fact, I will only ever willingly consume cooked tomato paste on pizza, and that is because I like the other flavours enough that I am able to choke down the repulsive tomatoes.

Relish:  Another brilliant idea:  chopped-up bits of some unspecified vegetables and/or fruit pickled in a jar.  Let's obliterate all taste from our food, shall we?  I know normal people probably appreciate the explosion of flavours created by this highly variable condiment, but it always makes my mouth feel as if it has been soaked in sugary vinegar for hours.  I think I have some sort of problem.

Mustard:  As I mentioned above, I can handle and even enjoy mild mustard, albeit generally just in combination with strong-tasting meat such as ham.  I can't handle hot mustard, probably because even the wimpiest spices make me feel short of breath and upset of stomach.  I prefer mayo, but mustard will do in a pinch.

HP Sauce:  Yet again, someone thought it was a good idea to mash up a bunch of fruit and add vinegar.  Why?  What's wrong with the taste of, you know, food?  I can recognise that in the past, spices and condiments and so on were useful in hiding the taste of meat that was beginning to spoil, but refrigeration has been invented since those days.  Oh, for a world without unnecessary condiments!

Horseradish:  Where do I start?  Some people love this stuff.  The same people tend to pile wasabi onto their sushi and consume it with relish (pun not really intended very much at all).  Personally, I find that eating even a tiny amount of horseradish is akin to blowing one's brains out through one's nostrils.  I think I'll pass.***

There are more condiments out there, but these will do to go on with.  If you like them, you are a lucky person; if you don't, I empathise.  I do wonder what the results of a General Condiment Survey would be, but as I'm supposed to be marking right now, I should probably just let this one go.

*"The population," in this case, equals "everyone who responded to my survey, voluntarily or otherwise."  If you are a student of mine, please do not imitate my evidence-gathering methods here.  Quite frankly, they suck.
**I am a freak of nature.  Say it.  Say it!
***Yes, I know that horseradish is related to mustard.  It is also related to cabbage.  At least cabbage doesn't obliterate the lining of one's nasal cavity forever.


Monday, June 23, 2008:  A Tenth Excerpt from Grad School!  The Musical

People who think that all these characters are me should note that Annette really isn't.

"Why Shouldn't I?"

ANNETTE:

My classmates seem a bit upset with me.
I think they think I'm not behaving well.
I've got to say that I can't really see
Why that should be;
Or why I shouldn't tell
Them what I think of them when we're in class
And they say truly stupid stuff out loud.
I've tried the whole politeness thing; I'll pass.
You call me crass.
Why shouldn't I be proud
Of knowing more than you?
It helps my average, too.

Why shouldn't I
Get ahead by putting you behind?
Why shouldn't I
Make you feel like shit when you deserve it?
Oh, you mind?
Well, sorry, but we're in a race,
And I'm not coming in in second place.
If I must, I will disgrace you;
I will make you cry.
Why shouldn't I?

The prof thought I was right and she was wrong.
He backed me up and told her to back down.
Besides, her presentation wasn't strong,
Plus way too long.
I could have gone to town
On her, but I was kind; I didn't say
She'd stolen her whole thesis from Lacan.
Perhaps I'll tell the prof another day.
She needs to pay
For what is going on.
I stole mine from Foucault,
But come on; who's to know?

Why shouldn't I
Get ahead by putting you behind?
Why shouldn't I
Make you feel like shit when you deserve it?
Oh, you mind?
Well, sorry, but we're in a race,
And I'm not coming in in second place.
If I must, I will disgrace you;
I will make you cry.
Why shouldn't I?

Grad school's not hard to survive;
You've got to go with the flow,
Make sure that you stay alive,
Even if friends have to go.
Profs like you if you are bright,
But ruthless; shy people lose.
Just act like you're always right;
Don't hesitate when you choose.

If you sense weakness, attack.
It's what the others would do,
And someone stabbed in the back
Can't turn around and stab you.
I'm going to rise to the top;
I'll happily pay the price.
There's nothing out there to stop
Me; I don't miss being nice.

Why shouldn't I
Get ahead by putting you behind?
Why shouldn't I
Make you feel like shit when you deserve it?
Oh, you mind?
Well, sorry, but we're in a race,
And I'm not coming in in second place.
If I must, I will disgrace you;
I will make you cry.
Why shouldn't I?

The other students say they hate me now.
I know they're just upset I got there first.
They would have taken down that little cow
Had they known how;
She is the very worst
In class, and she deserves to fail and fall.
Perhaps she will drop out; I hope she does.
I can't believe my comments made her bawl
In front of all
Our classmates.  Well, that was
A pretty ugly scene.
It's heady, being mean.

I wonder if they'll ever turn on me?
They claim they hate me; will they ever try
To go on the offensive so they'll see
How mad I'll be
If they can make me cry?
The question makes me feel a little odd.
What if they've gone and left me on my own?
They said they thought that I was playing God.
How can I plod
Through grad school all alone?
Oh, damn, I sound like Bob.
At least I'll have a job!

Why shouldn't I
Get ahead by putting you behind?
Why shouldn't I
Make you feel like shit when you deserve it?
Oh, you mind?
Well, sorry, but we're in a race,
And I'm not coming in in second place.
If I must, I will disgrace you;
I will make you cry.
Why shouldn't I?

Why shouldn't I
Get ahead by putting you behind?
Why shouldn't I
Make you feel like shit when you deserve it?
Oh, you mind?
Well, sorry, but we're in a race,
And I'm not coming in in second place.
If I must, I will disgrace you;
I will make you cry.
Why shouldn't I?


Monday, June 16, 2008:  I Am Not a Woman's Garment

On Friday, at my convocation, I discovered what happens when one tries to get creative with phonetic pronunciation.

I sometimes think that my name has never been pronounced correctly in public.  Whenever I need to stand up to accept a prize or a degree or prescription drugs or anything else, I find myself addressed as Carrie Maren or Carl Masren or Kari Moron.*  No one ever manages to get both names right.  Admittedly, my name is not hugely easy to say, but I've noticed that even people who have never seen it written down and are simply repeating after me can't manage the damned thing.  At one point, a friend who had known me for four or five years came up to me and said, "Hey, Carrie...I'm about to watch Kari!"  I mocked him mercilessly for months.**

I have now graduated and/or convocated four times.  At the last three ceremonies--the university ones--I have had the opportunity to write the phonetic pronunciation of my name on a little flash card so that the announcer can have the related opportunity to get it only marginally wrong.  I have never had much success with these flash cards.  "Maaren" is not difficult to represent phonetically, but "Kari" is.  As someone mentioned yesterday, I should probably go with "Kah-ree" in future, but I can see even that one creating problems.  People with the misfortune to have to read hundreds of names off flash cards tend to panic when faced with unfamiliar sounds.  "Kah-ree" would probably end up sounding like "Chach-ree."

I think I remember drawing a little car above my name on my UBC M.A. flash card.  It didn't work.  This time, I tried another tack.  In clear, careful letters, I wrote, "Rhymes with sari" next to my name.

I graduated as Sari Elizabeth Maaren.

Though I guess it was my fault for introducing a whole new letter into the situation, I don't actually think that it takes many extra brain cells to realise that "Rhymes with" and "Sounds exactly like" are different phrases, or to compute the difference between an "S" and a "K."  I actually thought, apparently without justification, that I was clarifying matters.  I have now decided that I'm pretty obviously under some sort of curse and will never hear my name pronounced correctly by anyone who is not a close friend or family member speaking very quietly in a private room.

Oh well...it could be worse.  I could have written, "Rhymes with tarry"...or "starry"...or "safari"...or "charivari."

I suppose "Sari" isn't that bad a name.  It does, after all, rhyme with "Kari."

Fancy that.

*By Master Fraser.  Yes, really.  I was there.
**Albeit without the alliteration.


Monday, June 9, 2008:  My Last Four Days Before Reality Sets In

This Friday, I am finally going to be forced to graduate.  Technically, of course, I have been a "doctor" since November, but after my convocation on Friday the thirteenth, I'll have the ugly U of T diploma to prove it.*

That's the problem with spending fifteen years hiding from the real world:  sooner or later, someone figures out what you are doing and pushes you until, in spite of yourself, you go and succeed at something.  Then you find yourself in a completely untenable position, poised to grasp the Ph.D. diploma in greedy little fingers while still secretly wanting to drop out of high school and play the accordion in a roving polka band.  The fact that you are a decade and a half too late to do so does not stop your imagination from working overtime.

I didn't particularly love being a student at U of T, but I expect I liked it better than I'm going to like the whole Trying to Get a Job deal.  Trying to Get a Job involves filling in forms and praising oneself in letters and interacting with strangers whom one is pretty sure are judging one.  I have a small job at the moment, and I quite like having it, since I am teaching a class on a subject I actually understand and enjoy; it's getting jobs that bothers me.  The student situation may have been miserable, but at least it was familiar.  By the end of my degree, I was so used to being a teaching assistant that my profs started writing, "It's nice to have an experienced TA who so clearly knows what she's doing," on my evaluations.  I so clearly knew what I was doing because I had done it about a hundred and fifty times before.  I was a career TA.  I should have worn a little "10 Years!" button to class.

Maybe it really is time for me to move on.  I wish I knew how, though.  I wish I had the courage to do something completely bizarre and find a way to earn a living from the bizarreness.**  Holy crow...I sound like a song from a Disney film.  IIIIIIIII waaaaaaaaaant mooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrre...

Well...we'll see.  This Friday, I shall have a mysterious thing with a hood done to me;*** then I shall shake someone's hand and be congratulated by my parents.  Perhaps all the excitement will galvanise me in some way, though I expect that what I'm actually going to be thinking as I walk across the stage is:  "I should be marking.  I should be marking.  I should be marking..."

*The U of T diplomas were designed by someone who was actually trying to make the damned things look boring.  They aren't even in Gothic font, for crying out loud.
**Though I already do several bizarre things, I do them for free.
***Why do half the sentences I write on this page sound vaguely filthy?


Monday, June 2, 2008:  Here We Go With the Freaking Air Conditioning Again

Last September 24, I wrote a Rant about the air conditioning in Massey's Lower Library, which was completely out of control, blasting out freezing cold air into a room that was already freezing cold because outside it was, like, autumn.  I should probably hold off on a reprise until next September 24, but I can't.  The damn Massey air conditioning is on again, and it is out for blood.

Toronto has not been having a warm spring.  Last year at this time, I had to send one of my periodic letters to Mr. Summer, who had turned up a month early and blasted the city with completely uncalled-for heat; this year, days on which the temperature creeps over 20 C are rare.  I actually quite like this weather, which does not make me feel as if I want to die; however, I don't like having to put on two extra layers every time I go inside.

I'm not sure why Massey's air conditioner has only two levels, "off" and "Arctic blast."  I'm also not sure why whoever sets it going every year invariably does so when it's about fifteen degrees outside.  I am currently huddled beneath a sweater and a fleece, contemplating trying to type in gloves and wishing I could find the College air conditioning unit and do to it what I have, lately, been imagining doing to my computer.*  I have always understood that air conditioning is meant to relieve the heat when temperatures outside are unbearable, not leach every molecule of warmth from an already frigid room when temperatures outside are kind of nice.

Across from me at the moment is a portrait of a dour-looking woman in a black dress and a frilly pink-and-white bonnet.  I do not know who she is or why she is glowering so, but I'm suspecting part of her obvious bad mood may be predicated on the fact that she is freezing to death.  There she sits, unprotected by her frills, trying to generate body heat by frowning strenuously.  It doesn't seem to be working for her.  It isn't working for me either.  I can feel the ice crystals forming on my eyelashes.  Any minute now, it is going to begin to snow.

In July, when it is thirty-five degrees outside and the humidity has fallen over the city like a particularly grimy blanket, I shall praise Massey's air conditioning with great praise.  At the moment, however, the fact that my fingers are so stiff with cold that I keep having to go back and correct my typing errors is causing me to take much less joy in the wonders of modern technology.

*That sounds slightly dirty until you realise that what I have been imagining doing to my computer is dropping it off my balcony.


Monday, May 26, 2008:  A Ninth Excerpt from Grad School!  The Musical

Stephen Schwartz, past master of the art of the Formulaic Mega-Musical, says that every musical has to have its "I want" song.  Well...here's mine.

Heh.  Heh.  Heh.

"Big Scary World Out There"

MORDECAI:

I wish
I never had to make decisions.
I want...
Well, mostly, just to hide.
I need
More time to spend on my revisions.
I hope
I can do them inside.

I know
That people think I'm kind of lazy
Because
I take so long to do
My work,
But go ahead and call me crazy
If that's
What is convincing you

To let me lurk, avoiding trouble,
In the middle of my bubble.
Academe has been my dream
A long time.  Sure, it's fair
To say I've hated every minute
Of it, but I'm glad I'm in it.
Leaving's not an option; I don't dare.
It's a big scary world out there.

It's clear
That school is meant as a vacation
From life.
Eventually, it ends.
But I
Still see it as a destination,
And so
Do almost all my friends.

It's not
As if it's fun or stimulating.
I'm not
Sure what my work is for.
It's just
That I am absolutely hating
The thought
Of not doing it any more.

On nights I somehow end up dreaming
Of real life, I wake up screaming.
There is nowhere I can go
That isn't going to scare
The life out of me.  My opinion
Is that I am a born minion
Of some prof based underground somewhere:
It's a big scary world out there.

Don't take me far away
Where no one tells me what to say.
There's no freedom here,
But sometimes I still get to play.
Yes, I'm thirty-three,
And in an endless Ph.D.
My world's defined by fear,
And that is quite all right with me.

I think
That when my graduation is just
Around
The corner, I will stall.
I'm sure
I'll have some time to find there is just
A way
Not to graduate at all.

I hope
That I can crouch in here forever.
I need
To never act my age.
I want
No grand adventure.  That's right:  never.
I wish
To stay inside my cage.

I'd rather freak about the pieces
Of my stupid, pointless thesis
Than about a real-life doubt.
You really can't compare
The two:  invented conflict versus
Real.  And, damn it, even worse is
That I am so painfully aware
It's a big scary world out there.

It's true that sometimes I get queasy
At the feeling it's too easy,
And one day I'll have to pay
For reluctance to share
In real-life burdens.  I can't beat them.
But, since no one can defeat them,
I've convinced myself that I don't care
It's a big scary world out there.


Monday, May 19, 2008:  Technology and How It Mocks Me

The other day, a few of my friends observed that while they were sure the lyrics I kept posting on this page were more or less clever, they found my whole musical experiment frustrating because they were, for obvious reasons, unable to hear the relevant tunes.  Contrary to the poetic musings of Mr. Keats,* unheard melodies are not always sweeter than heard.  Tuneless lyrics generally just read as bad poetry.

All the songs I have posted here now have tunes and accompaniment; I simply can't demonstrate this fact because as I have already observed, technology is my nemesis.  It hates me.  Though I can usually operate computers fairly well when I know exactly what I'm doing, the minute something goes wrong or deviates from what I see as the norm, I go to pieces and must frantically MSN my friends for help.***  I balk at learning new stuff, too.  Yes, I can design simple websites, use Photoshop, operate a Wacom tablet and a scanner, and install many applications all by myself, but I have made heavy weather of learning even these relatively simple tasks.

I do really wish I could record music.  I own not one but two keyboards with MIDI capabilities;**** I've even got musical-notation software.  I don't have a MIDI cable, and I wouldn't know what to do with one if I did.  I don't have a microphone.  I don't believe I have recording software, though I actually don't know half of what I've got on my computer because technology makes me want to cry.  I would like to be able to make demo CDs, if only for fun, but I wouldn't know how to start setting up my equipment in the complex and incomprehensible pattern that would allow me to replicate what I used to be able to do with a cheap recorder and a cassette tape.

I miss those days.  I miss my little recorder, which I got for one of my birthdays.  My sister and I used to make rude noises into the microphone.  I liked that machine, which was relatively low-tech and entirely easy to operate.  Every once in a while, the batteries would run out.  I would replace them.  There was nothing to it, and it lasted for years.  In fact, though it is currently in storage back in BC, I would be surprised to find--over twenty years later--that it had stopped working even now.

Now, we buy computers that are obsolete before we take them out of their boxes.  They operate badly for a year, then die the day after their warranties run out.  We gift these skittish machines with more and more complicated doohickeys that we don't understand and can't fix if they happen to stop working.  A few years ago, a friend of mine lent me a set of cassettes he himself couldn't listen to because he didn't own a tape deck and didn't know where to get one.*****  Technology can do wondrous things, but we are so enamoured of these wonders that we have forgotten about the simple but useful little bits of technology we used to have.  Granted, digital recording is much better than the cassette-based kind, but I don't understand how it frickin' works.  That worries me.

Perhaps I'll eventually get my act together and acquire the numerous...things...I need to start recording music.  Until then, I shall continue to shrink in horror from the marvels of modern technology.  If you want to hear the songs, come find me in person; I'll play them on the piano for you.

*In "Ode on a Grecian Urn."  I tend to agree with Keats here, but only if the lyrics are unheard as well and don't contain lines such as, "They'll torture me until I'm dead."**
**"Comps" (see entry below).
***Assuming, that is, that MSN is not itself the problem.
****I do not know what MIDI stands for.  I think of it as "that thing that lets you connect keyboards to computers if you are psychic enough to understand how."
*****My cheap little boom box has a tape deck in it.  I bought it in 1999, probably shortly before people began manufacturing tape-deck-less boom boxes.


Monday, May 11, 2008:  An Eighth Excerpt from Grad School!  The Musical

I have now whittled down my cast to six:  Paula, Bob, Jess, Annette, Stephen, and Mordecai.

This song is dedicated to my friends Ben, Janna, and Kevin.  They know why.

"Comps."

STEPHEN:

I always knew this day would be coming.
I counted on it coming,
And now it's come.

ANNETTE:

I try to forget that that day is coming.
I'm running out of time, but
I've still got some.

MORDECAI:

I bet if I hum really loudly,
I'll be distracted
And still feel good.

STEPHEN, ANNETTE, MORDECAI:

Just please don't destroy our denial.
We're not going to study,
Though we should.

STEPHEN:

They want to reach inside my head
And rearrange my brain.

ANNETTE:

They'll torture me until I'm dead
Or crying or insane.

MORDECAI:

I'd rather lose an eye instead.
I think one thing is plain:

STEPHEN, ANNETTE, MORDECAI:

We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take our comps.

PAULA:

I remember comps; I remember how they made me mad.
Seemed a little pointless that I had to memorise
Everything ever written in English.

JESS:

I failed the first time,
Nearly failed the second time.

BOB:

I went to the wrong room
On the wrong campus.

STEPHEN:

My supervisor says I
Am ready for the test.
She doesn't know how often
I lie, and with what zest,
About how much I study.
Why does she buy my tale?
I think she'll be surprised when
I quietly fail.

ANNETTE, MORDECAI:

It's really pretty stupid that
We go through all this pain
For a bunch of pointless info that
We'll never use again.

MORDECAI:

And I eat too much and get fat!
Perhaps I'll try cocaine.

STEPHEN, ANNETTE, MORDECAI:,

We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take our comps.

PAULA, JESS:

Stuck in a rut,
Stuck in a tangle of dumb expectations,
Of bloody hoop-jumping that doesn't make sense,
Of bloody hoop-jumping that wastes too much time.
Boxed in some more,
'Cause everyone else has been boxed in before.
It evens the score...and you're stuck,
Stuck in a rut.

BOB:

I don't feel sorry for them at all,
But that's just me.

ANNETTE:

People scare me, talking about how
Scary comps are.
People laugh.  When I ask why,
They jeer.

MORDECAI:

If I put a bag on my head,
My committee will never know I'm here.
I was supposed to take my field exam
Last year.

ANNETTE:

Does anybody know you've lost your mind?

MORDECAI:

Anybody who has not gone blind.

STEPHEN:

Stop and think a bit; I think you'll find
That we're all mad here.

STEPHEN, ANNETTE, MORDECAI:

They fill our heads with broken glass
And scoff when we complain.
Just face it:  whether or not we pass,
These comps will be our bane.
We're broken, beaten, out of gas,
And this is our refrain:

We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take our comps.

PAULA, JESS:

They don't want to take their comps.

BOB:

I'd like to see them take their comps.

PAULA, JESS:

Wish they didn't make them take their comps.

BOB:

Take them!

PAULA, JESS:

Stuck in a rut.

BOB:

But it's a rut that we're already stuck in,
So welcome!

PAULA, JESS:
No, anything but.
Damn the damn rut.

STEPHEN, ANNETTE, MORDECAI:

We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take them,
We don't want to take our comps.

PAULA, JESS, BOB (simultaneously):

Stuck in it, caught in it, smashed in it, squashed in it,
Knowing the rut is the end of the line,
Knowing that Alps are arising on Alps,
Always aware of how pointless it is:
You're bloody well stuck in a rut.

STEPHEN, ANNETTE, MORDECAI, PAULA, JESS, BOB:

We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take our/their comps.

We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take them,
We/they don't want to take our/their comps.

MORDECAI:

Maybe I won't take them.  I'll be free!
Happy and alive and thin.  You'll see!
Sure, I'll have no money, so I'll be
Living on a sidewalk.

MORDECAI, ANNETTE, STEPHEN:

Fine with me.


Monday, May 5, 2008:  Okay...I Did It

I've written a two-part Rant today because while I do want to review Beowulf, I realise that a lot of people really wish I would drop the subject.  I promise I will after this.  I just need to get the vitriol out of my system.  I also promise, by the way, that the review is a full and relatively balanced one.

Before I get to Beowulf, however, I would like to say a few words about Greyhound.  I'm currently teaching at Trent, but since my course runs only two days a week, I've decided to commute rather than move to Peterborough.  The only way of getting from Toronto to Peterborough, short of driving, walking, or teleporting, is taking the Greyhound.  Depending on how many stops the bus makes, the trip lasts (technically) from an hour and forty-five minutes to two and a half hours.

I say "technically" because of the four buses I boarded last week, two were late and the other two broke down.  I was not surprised by the late buses (delays happen); I was surprised on Tuesday when my bus coasted to a halt at the side of the freeway and I heard my driver say loudly into his radio:

"Hi...yeah.  My bus stopped.  It just stopped.  I need a new one.  It's okay; we're not far from the garage.  That's right:  I need a new bus."

Almost exactly the same thing happened on Thursday as well.  I am becoming slightly worried about the condition of the Greyhound fleet.

I would also like to beg Greyhound to run the damn 8:00 a.m. bus on Tuesdays, please.  I teach at 1:00 p.m., and the 10:30 a.m. bus arrives in Peterborough too late for me to make the class on time (I have to take another bus once I get to the city).  On Thursdays, there is an 8:00 bus.  On Tuesdays, there isn't, and I have to take the 6:45 Greyhound.  I do not like rising at 4:00 a.m.  In fact, I think I can safely say that I hate rising at 4:00 a.m.  Spending a whole day feeling desperately tired is not my idea of fun and games.

However, the course has so far been quite fun to teach (I'm only two classes in).  There's something satisfying about being able to stand in front of a group of undergrads and spend an hour talking about your very own original thesis research, which is completely relevant to the course.  My thesis research is completely relevant to a course!  I am kind of happy about this.

Now for the bit you have all been dreading:

Beowulf
Dir. Robert Zemeckis
** (out of *****)

In the first scene of Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf, Danish warriors are partying it up in the mead hall Heorot,* swilling mead, flirting shamelessly with the serving wenches, and generally being chaotic barbarians who are clearly setting themselves up for a fall.  Their king, Hrothgar, lurches into the hall, screams for mead, tears off his clothing, and attempts to assault his own wife.  I think it was at this point, two minutes in, that I started dying a little inside.

I'll readily admit that I'm biased about Beowulf.  I have read most of the poem, which is 3,000-odd lines long, in the original Old English; I enjoy the epic take on one of my favourite folk tales and go into spasms of shivery delight every time I read the beautiful description of Grendel's approach to the mead hall.  I do understand that my love of the poem has led most of my friends to dismiss my opinion of the film outright.  One friend informed me a few days ago that I simply wasn't the director's ideal audience.  He also, however, accused me of not liking the movie because it wasn't true to the poem.  I am forever having to refute this particular argument--as relates not only to Beowulf but also to Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Golden Compass, and so on--and I'm getting kind of tired of it.  As I have said twenty or thirty billion times before, my favourite film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma is Clueless.  I dislike the first two Harry Potter films because they are too true to the novels; I like the third and fifth films because their creative fabrications make the films into actual films and not simply Coles Notes on screen.  The Two Towers bothers me not because it deviates from Tolkien's book but because its structure is fundamentally flawed.  I could go on ad nauseam.

My main problem with Zemeckis' Beowulf is not that it changes the poem (though it certainly does) but that it doesn't change it enough to count as courageous.  Zemeckis, in fact, tries to have his cake and eat it too.  He seems to be aiming for an authentic Anglo-Saxon or perhaps Scandinavian feel to the setting and society portrayed, but while he pays microscopic attention to certain atmospheric details, he ignores or blatantly misinterprets others; he thus seems both meticulous and sloppy at the same time.  Conversely, he takes several liberties with the story.  Some, such as the transformation of Hrothgar into an obnoxious buffoon, are maddeningly unnecessary; others are intriguing but ultimately unjustified by the small effort he expends on them.  The direction in which he took the film could have been challenging and meaningful.  Instead, by choosing the safe over the innovative, he ensures that in the end, he will churn out just another forgettable action flick set in some warrior society somewhere.

To be fair, most people (the "real" audience my friend was mentioning) won't notice the sloppiness.  Only crazy medievalists who have spent far too much time in grad school are going to harp on the fact that "scop" is pronounced "shop," not "skop," or the further fact that the Danes and the Geats would not have been singing drinking songs in rhyming verse (their songs would have been alliterative).  Yet  the latter of these details actually leads to a major inconsistency when a scop (that is, a singer or reciter of tales in verse) does, in fact, recite a portion of Beowulf itself...in alliterative Old English, a language that, up until that point, only Grendel and his mother have spoken.  Before the scop sings, Old English seems to denote Grendel and his mother as throwbacks, speaking what is in the world of the film an obsolete form of the language.  The scop's Old English renders Grendel's Old English pretty meaningless and inexplicable.  Sure, it's "just" an adventure film, but if it introduces a thematic conceit, it should stick to it and not undermine it halfway through.

The innovation I really like--and that has prompted me to grant the film two whole stars--is the one I truly thought I was going to hate.  Unlike in the poem, Grendel is Hrothgar's son**...and the dragon is Beowulf's son.  The hero-as-monster's-father trope is a clever reversal of the more usual folkloric monster-as-hero's-father trope, and it suggests that heroes create their own nemeses simply through the act of being heroes.  The fact that both Hrothgar and Beowulf cover up the fact that they have slept with a monster instead of trying to kill her leads to a further interesting comment on the nature of story.  The scop's song of Beowulf's heroism creates that heroism itself; the truth of the matter, that Beowulf and Hrothgar are both essentially frauds, doesn't make it into the poem and therefore doesn't become part of remembered reality.

However, Zemeckis chickens out.  If he had pushed this theme, he could have done for Beowulf what Shakespeare in Love did for William Shakespeare, crafting a film that appealed to a wide variety of people without downright insulting those who cared about its subject the most.  Shakespeare in Love plays havoc with Shakespeare's life story, but it does so in such a clever way that the majority of Shakespeare scholars cheer it on.  Zemeckis's Beowulf  tears into the poem without offering sufficient compensation in the form of meaningful comment on Beowulf's themes; it mauls the story about but shrinks from taking the necessary step from the Realm of Screwing Around to the Kingdom of Intelligent Adaptation.  Yes, one can point out again and again that it is "just" an action flick, but frankly, the best action flicks are not mindless bits of fluff but works that pay at least minimal attention to theme.

Hrothgar is Grendel's father; Beowulf is the dragon's.  All right...but like Mr. Tolkien,*** Zemeckis is rather neglecting a character.  Grendel's mother is severely underused in the film.  Though it still kind of upsets me that she is played by Angelina Jolie, I can accept it and move on.  She needs to be more prominent, with or without the tentacles that we occasionally glimpse snaking about her half-seen monstrous form.  How did Hrothgar happen to sleep with her in the first place?  Was he too out monster-slaying?  Did he, perhaps, slay another son of the sea-witch?  If so, we begin to see a pattern:  a succession of heroes who father monsters, settle down into kingship, and must send younger heroes out to slay the monsters they themselves have created.  These heroes then repeat the cycle.

I would give Zemeckis the benefit of the doubt and posit that this theme was implied if he hadn't screwed right the hell up and let Beowulf slay the dragon all by himself.  Sticking to the poem actually would have helped Zemeckis (or, all right, his writers) here.  In the epic, Beowulf fails to kill the dragon and has to be bailed out by his young retainer Wiglaf (the film version of Wiglaf is at least Beowulf's age and mostly just runs around helplessly).  If Zemeckis had followed the poem, he would have been able to hint at the aforementioned cycle of heroism/monstrosity...but no, he has to let Beowulf have his last little spurt of monster-slaying.  In the process, he destroys most of his film's thematic potential.  The final scene, in which Wiglaf wades out into the ocean towards Grendel's mother, loses its significance, as Wiglaf has been cut out of the heroic loop.

Perhaps I'm thinking about all this too much.  Again, however, I feel it's a little unfair to assume that medievalists--the people who really know and love this poem--should have no stake in the film and should, in fact, shut up about it because it "isn't meant for them."  Yes, my affection for the poem biases me against the movie, but I'm pretty sure that even if I had never read the poem, I would have been frustrated by Zemeckis's half-hearted thematic fiddling and his eventual weak-kneed retreat.  He could have satisfied the Anglo-Saxonists without turning off the rest of the movie-going world, and he could have done so fairly easily.  The fact that he nevertheless doesn't sums up my frustration with the film.

*Spelled "Herot" on the DVD "Special Features" menu, but damn it, I have my pride.
**Note of Interest:  This plot point is more or less stolen from Parke Godwin's novel The Tower of Beowulf, in which Grendel is the son of Scyld (an earlier Danish king) and considers himself the true heir to the Danish throne.
***In his much-read article, "Beowulf:  The Monsters and the Critics," J. R. R. Tolkien writes that he is going to discuss the monsters of Beowulf:  "Grendel and the dragon."  He barely mentions Grendel's mother.


Monday, April 28, 2008:  Okay...I'm Going to Do It

Last November 19, I wrote a passionate and deliberately uninformed Rant about how much I hated the new Beowulf movie, which I hadn't seen.  I still haven't seen it, and I still hate it...but I'm afraid I'm going to have to watch it.  You see, I'm teaching Beowulf (in translation) to a bunch of undergrads this week.  I'm pretty sure that many of them will have seen the film.  I desire to insult it in front of the class, but I fear that doing so from a position of ignorance will not be particularly effective.  In order to despise the movie properly, I am going to have to view it.

I have rented it.  It is sitting in my backpack, sneering at me.  I just know that it is getting ready to make a mockery of my beloved epic poem, and there is nothing I can do about it.  Damn you, Robert Zemeckis.  Damn your eyes.

Some of my friends have pointed out to me that the film is actually not all that bad...as a film.  It is exciting.  It contains explosions.  Angelina Jolie pouts her way seductively through her wildly inappropriate role.  There are apparently some interesting and even creative twists on the story, probably thanks to Neil Gaiman, whom I have still not forgiven for being involved in this project.  I may even enjoy watching it.  Yet I shall not enjoy seeing poor Beowulf turned into a Hollywood action flick.  Damn it all:  Beowulf is one of the greatest works in the English language (yes, I count Old English as part of the English language).  It deserves to be adapted and played with and worked thematically into various books and movies; it deserves to be part of our collective mythology and, like any story, to grow and evolve.  It does not deserve to be turned into Die Hard 5:  Back to the Middle Ages.

Yes, I'm being unfair again.  I like being unfair about Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf.  It makes me happy, okay?

Tonight or tomorrow morning, I shall force myself to sit through 114 minutes of torture (I notice that I've got the director's cut.  Why do I need the bloody director's cut?  I want the theatrical version, which is probably shorter).  I'm a little afraid that I'm going to like it enough to deprive myself of a target for my unmitigated rage, but I guess we'll see.


Monday, April 21, 2008:  I Greet My Allergies with Joy and Delight

Last September, I wrote an extended Rant on how much I hated people who didn't get allergies.  This spring, I shall get the allergy Rant over with early, long before the advent of ragweed season, and I shall not, in the process, admit to hating anyone.*

Over the past few weeks, my allergies have been creeping up on me.  Today, they well and truly arrived and settled in for the summer.  I am soon going to have to hie me to the grocery store and buy sixteen boxes of Kleenex so that I'll be well supplied for three or four full days.

O Allergies:  why do you torment me?  What have I ever done to most of the plant-life on earth?  I really do like plants.  I like the way they look...the way they smell...the way they produce oxygen via photosynthesis.  I like photosynthesis, damn it.  Why must my face swell up every time I get near vegetation?  At least people who are allergic to dogs, cats, peanut butter, and shellfish can generally avoid their particular poisons.  Plants are everywhere.  Pollen is always flying around, poking its deadly little microscopic bits up unsuspecting people's noses.  Even my apartment, sixteen floors up, is full of pollen.**  It's frustrating.

I claimed last year that I would rather just be allergic to liverwurst.  However, I've changed my mind.  There are surely more useful allergies out there:  allergies that would give one various perfect excuses to get out of various hideous tasks.  With this supposition in mind, I have compiled a list of five relatively desirable allergies that I wouldn't at all mind having:

1)  Tomatoes.  Almost everyone I know thinks it's hilarious that I can't stand tomatoes; I'm pretty sure many people regard me as a spoiled brat who is far too picky an eater.  The truth is that I find tomatoes absolutely repulsive.  I'll eat them if I have to, and I'll choke down tomato sauce for the sake of pizza, but the taste and texture of tomatoes has always struck me as little short of toxic.  If I were allergic to the foul things, I would no longer have to explain to the world that I wasn't going to have any lasagna because it was orange and smelled like Evil.

2)  Romantic comedies.  On occasion, I have been known to view romantic comedies at gunpoint, but generally, I run away screaming as my peers shake their heads at me and settle down to watch Sandra Bullock get herself into an improbable and apparently hilarious situation involving a foolish lie, a heart-wrenching understanding, and at least two cute guys with husky voices.  I do believe, deep in my heart, that it is possible to make a good, clever, funny, intelligent romantic comedy.  I do not believe that anyone is likely to do so any time soon.  I am willing to sacrifice the possibility of future romantic-comedy gold for the certainty that I shall never have to watch Julia Roberts attempt physical humour again.

3)  Sales clerks.  The day no one expects me to march alone into a store and ask a condescending stranger whose job is to get me to spend an appalling amount of money for help is the day I stop taking Reactine forever.

4)  Weddings.  Real-life romantic comedies are just as horrifying as Hollywood romantic comedies, albeit for different reasons.  I have nothing against the institution of marriage.  I do have something against the concept that it is a good idea to spend thirty thousand dollars on a poofy dress one will only wear once, an enormous dinner party for three hundred distant relatives, flowers, transportation, and a cake.  I am also against bridesmaids, mostly because I have been one.  If anyone ever again forces me to wear my hair in a tight, curly bun for eighteen hours, blood will be spilled.

5)  Marking.  I don't actually think I really have to explain this one at all.

*Except dentists, but that's par for the course.
**I mean, clearly, as my nose is running constantly and my eyes are on the verge of swelling shut.


Monday, April 14, 2008:  Marking is Already So Fun that We've Decided to Add Another Element to It

I don't like to Rant about my students' essays on this page.  However, I have absolutely no problem with doing a number on Turnitin here.  My students do occasionally hand in essays good enough that reading them makes my life a tiny bit happier.*  Marking an essay submitted through Turnitin does not ever make my life a tiny bit happier.  If Turnitin were a human being, it would be wearing a smug smile all the freaking time, and I would want badly to kick it.

Turnitin is a popular service that allows markers to compare the content of electronically submitted essays with other electronically submitted essays, plus a large portion of what is currently on the Internet.  Some people love it, claiming that the simple fear of Turnitin deters students from cheating.  Some people loathe it, claiming that it merely forces students into being slightly sneakier than usual and tends to turn up both false positives and false negatives.  I remained indifferent to it until a few months ago, when one of the profs for whom I worked had her students submit their papers through Turnitin.  I am still fairly indifferent to the plagiarism-nabbing features of the service.  They sometimes work; they sometimes don't.

Unfortunately, Turnitin now has this hideous feature called Grademark that allows you to mark papers online.  You can insert your own comments or draw from a master list of pre-written ones.  Every time you insert a standard Grademark comment, the program provides the student with a long definition of the error you have flagged.  For instance, if a student makes twelve comma-splice errors and you mark each one, the student ends up with twelve huge blurbs on the comma splice.  You can also write a final comment and assign a grade.

Grademark is full of bugs.  It is choked with bugs.  Some of the pre-written comments contain typos that you cannot fix because they are, well, pre-written; these typos constitute one of the less annoying aspects of this Satanic program, which also has an insane habit of erasing your final comments if you don't save them every ten seconds.  It will sometimes even revert to older versions of these comments.  Last month, one of my students received the following final remark:  "All in all, this revision is well done.  A-."  It's very much too bad that I had written her an enormous, detailed comment that somehow mysteriously vanished into thin air.  Yesterday, Grademark ate one of my students' grades; I had to scramble to remember what I had given her, and I have a sneaking feeling I may now have inadvertently lowered her mark.  Some students can't access their comments at all.

I never thought I'd say this...but I miss marking by hand.  I miss being able to scribble madly all over a paper in pencil and not have the prof shake her head at me because I make more than ten marginal comments.  I miss knowing that if I make a mark on a paper, that mark will stay there and not disappear or transform inexplicably into something else.  I miss not having to mark somewhere with a fast bloody Internet connection.  I miss not having to miss an entire day's worth of marking** because damn Turnitin has damn well decided to shut down its damn site for nine hours on a weekend in early April.***  I miss complaining exclusively about plagiarism, misplaced modifiers, and the odd undergraduate perception that Shakespeare was writing in Old English during the Victorian period.  I miss not having to waste precious griping moments on technology instead.

Turnitin:  Grademark does not work.  It is a piece of garbage.  Please fix it or scrap it.  Either way, it needs to stop tormenting markers.

I am terribly, terribly pleased to be finished this term's marking.  Yes, I am.

*See, I really like it when people I have been terrorising for a term show signs of having learned something.
**Which, yes, I still hate.
***Gosh...let's do maintenance during the busiest marking week of the year!  Yes, let's!


Monday, April 7, 2008:  A Seventh Excerpt from Grad School!  The Musical

Yeah...I keep doing this.  I think maybe I need to write a script...with, you know, a plot and stuff.

"Procrastination"

JESS:

It's getting close to midnight.
I should go to bed.
But I just sit here wishing
I could turn back time instead

So I could have more room to
Give my work a run.
I guess it's problematic that
I haven't yet begun.

The hours seem so short, though
My committee claims they're long.
And yet they pass so quickly!
My committee must be wrong.

I need more time to do this.
I'm really drowning here.
The chapter's due tomorrow;
I have only had a year.

Procrastination:
I'm not sure what it's for.
Procrastination
Is why I'm always poor.
I go to bed at two a.m. and rise up with the sun.
I haven't got a social life; I'm still on chapter one.
I feel I'm always working, but I never get things done.
I think I'll try some more
Procrastination.

I turn on my computer
And claim I'm working, yet
I just glance at my thesis,
Then surf the Internet.

I have a list of sites that
I like to check.  But when
They take an hour to get through,
I check them all again.

I spend a while on Facebook.
I have to walk my dog.
I think I'll teach myself to draw,
And then update my blog.

And so before I know it,
The day's completely through.
I'd write my thesis chapter,
But I have too much to do.

Procrastination:
My brain is in high gear.
Procrastination:
And I don't need to steer.
Yes, I've learned how to knit and how to imitate a bird.
I've watched the whole of Star Trek, though I think the plot's absurd.
But I can go entire months and never write a word.
And I'll admit it's mere
Procrastination.

I wonder why I'd rather
Read facts about Jack Bauer
Than close up all my windows
And do real work for an hour.

At least now I know Klingon,
Plus how to make a sword
And catapults.  I'm terribly
Productive when I'm bored.

Just thinking of my thesis
Can cause me to lose heart.
I know I need to finish;
I know I need to start.

"I'll do it all tomorrow,"
Is what I always say.
And now it is tomorrow, and
The chapter's due today.

Procrastination
Come naturally to me.
Procrastination:
Too bad that there's a fee.
I have a hundred thousand ways to painfully prolong
The process of my Ph.D.; I've even mastered Pong.
And now, instead of working, I have gone and made this song.
I never shall be free
Of procrastination.


Monday, March 30, 2008:  Some Thoughts on Potholes

I have a sneaking feeling I may have touched on this issue in an earlier Rant.  If so, bear with me, for I need to jump up and down on its head again.

As the large drifts that have been gracing the curbs of Toronto since the middle of November finally begin to shrink, bits of street that have been invisible for months are finally coming into view again.  Unfortunately, these bits are generally dilapidated; the snow has wrought a magical change on them, filling them full of holes.  Most of these holes are near the side of the road; none of them are likely to be fixed any time soon.

Imagine you are a driver.  You are tooling along at 50 km per hour when you suddenly happen upon a pothole.  Your car goes *bump*.  "Damn," you think, "I have hurt my suspension a tiny bit."  Then you go on your way.

Imagine you are a cyclist.  You are tooling along at considerably less than 50 km per hour when you suddenly happen upon a po--

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!"  *Thud*

Why does the stupid city rush to fix potholes in the middle of the road but leave the ones at the side so long that I have, in the past, been tempted to name them?  Yes, I know the obvious answer:  drivers are vocal and frequently rich, whereas cyclists are a despised minority who need to wake up and smell the exhaust fumes.  But...come on.  Fix the stupid centre-of-the-road potholes, but spare a thought for the cyclists, O Toronto.  When a driver encounters a pothole, she bounces her car a little.  When a cyclist encounters a pothole, she either brakes really suddenly and falls off her bike, swerves into traffic and gets hit by a car, or goes over the pothole and either flies over her handlebars or bites off her own tongue.  It doesn't seem particularly fair.

I would like to direct the attention of the people who go around fixing potholes all day to the fact that Bloor Street is currently saturated with the things.  I need to bike with my eyes on the ground.  One of these days, I'm going to hit a hole, lose control of my bike, and end up sprawling.  This disturbs me, as the place I'll end up sprawling will probably be in front of a truck.  People Who Go Around Fixing Potholes All Day, please fix my potholes.

Let the cars go bump...as long as the bikes don't go sproing.


Monday, March 24, 2008:  A Sixth Excerpt from Grad School!  the Musical

"Dear Advisor"

BOB:

Dear Advisor:
How I hate you!
I can't stand you;
You should know.
You're not even
Second-rate.  You
Are the worst advisor
I've ever seen, and so

I despise you
Very deeply,
And I do it
The whole year through.
You're an asshole,
And I wish that
I had never
Chosen you.

Dear Advisor:
Where's my thesis?
You have had it
For a year.
You are nearly
As rich as Croesus,
While I'm barely making
A decent living here.

I shall never
Meet my deadlines.
I am drowning
In my debt.
Meanwhile, you claim
You will read my
Thesis really soon!
Yeah, I bet.

You ignore me and abuse me
And pretend I don't exist,
And you tell me that my work
Is very weak.
I would like to see you privately
And pound you with my fist;
If I did, my future couldn't
Be more bleak
Than
It
Is
Now...

Dear Advisor:
I abhor you,
And I know you
Can't stand me.
I would not do
A favour for you,
And I can't wait till I'm
Away from you and free.

Call me sullen
And ungrateful.
Claim I'll never
Get a job.
But I'll tell the
Whole world you're evil.
How I hate you!
Sincerely, Bob.


Monday, March 17, 2008:  The Naming of Kids is a Difficult Matter

As I have informed almost everyone of my acquaintance over the course of the last two days, my sister gave birth to her first child on the morning of Saturday, March 15, 2008.  As I also keep mentioning, I don't yet know the child's name.  Yesterday, my dad told me that no name had been settled on; today, it may have been, but I have received no word on the matter.  I have therefore been musing on the difficulty of naming children in general and this child in particular.

Okay, sure, the parents have had nine months to come up with something.  However, they also know that whatever name they give this kid will be with her for the rest of her life.*  If they choke at this point, the little bundle of joy may eventually end up in therapy.  They need to take a number of factors into account, and if they miss one and name the girl too quickly, they'll probably be screwed.

Keep in mind, as we work through the possibilities, that the child's last name will be "Pan."

First of all, "Julia" is out.  Though "Julia" is a very pretty name, it is also the feminine version of "Julius"...and Julius Caesar was killed on the Ides of March, the day on which my sister's daughter was born.  This is a shame, as "Julia Pan" is actually not a bad name.  The problem with "Pan" is that it 1) is short, 2) is a real word, and 3) rhymes with far too many other real words, plus, of course, many other names.  "Anne," "Jan," "Lianne," "Suzanne," or "Roxanne" would leave the poor kid open to a hell of a lot of teasing, as, probably, would "Hannah" and "Fanny."  Of course, "Fanny" would leave any kid open to a hell of a lot of teasing, but that's beside the point.

You might think that longer, non-rhyming-on-the-last-or-penultimate-syllable names would be safer...but not necessarily.  "Marcella" is a pretty name and has better Ides-of-March connotations than "Julia," but shorten it and you get "Marcie Pan."  Eventually, one of her classmates would find out about marzipan, and then it would be all over for the kid.  Though many people are fond of the nice, normal name "Samantha," if you shorten that one, you're going to end up with "Sam Pan."  "Penelope"?  Pen Pan.  "Tamara"?  Tam Pan.  "Pippa"?  Pip Pan.  "Tina"?  Tin Pan.  Want to be daring and challenge mythological stereotyping by choosing "Pandora"?  Pan Pan.

Try old-fashioned names.  "Petunia" yields the a-bit-too-evocative "Pet Pan" and "Catherine" the even-more-too-evocative "Cat Pan."  "Candida" creates "Candy Pan."  "Patricia" leaves us with "Patty Pan."

My niece's last name is a veritable etymological minefield.  Almost nothing is safe.

I'm actually on the edge of my seat here.  Are my sister and brother-in-law going to be able to avoid all the deceptively pretty names that could, in combination with that "Pan," make their daughter's life into a living Hades?  Any name that starts with "p" or ends with "n" or even "m"...any rhyming name...any name with a funny diminutive...any name that is itself a real word...any name that combines with "Pan" in an unintentionally hilarious way:  all must be detected and avoided.  As far as I can figure, this leaves several flower names and maybe "Claudia."  Otherwise, elementary-school torture is going to be pretty much unavoidable.

I wish my sister, brother-in-law, and niece well.  The baby is extraordinarily cute for a newborn; the parents are doing that glowing thing parents do so well.  Let us hope that a Pan by any name at all will stay as sweet.

And...please, guys...don't choose "Tina."

Addendum:  The name has been chosen.  It is "Lindsay Elizabeth."  Whew...several bullets dodged there.  And Elizabeth is my middle name as well.  Hurrah!  With luck, however, the baby will go by "Lindsay" and not "Beth."  Beth Pan...

*Unless she rebels when she is sixteen and changes it to River.


Monday, March 10, 2008:  An Open E-mail to Winter, Plus a Follow-Up Letter

yo dude:

what the frug is up with u this year?  i know my parents r like always on at u about ur performance review n stuff but COME ON MAN--its totaly freezin in MARCH!!!11!  its like we just had this GIANT SNOWSTORM YO n it totaly made me forget about the time change and so i waz like an hour late for band practice with my buds!!1  dude!  ur like the coolest (literelly) of my parents peeps so why dont you chill a little, k??? i want 2 see the ground again dude i mean SERIUSLY!!!!  its SPRING BREAK!

keep it real
u of t


Dear Sir:

It was with some dismay that we discovered our son's electronic message to you.  We apologise for the informality of the communique and urge you not to take offence at its tone.  Our son is often hasty in his actions.  As well, quite frankly, he thinks that he is brighter than he is.  We hope that you will regard his e-mail as one of his numerous youthful indiscretions and let the matter drop.

That said, we cannot find it in ourselves to disagree with the specifics of the message.  Mr. Winter, you may be the "coolest" of our employees, but you are also by far the most problematic.  Last year, you barely performed your function at all until far too late in your term, at which point you settled in and refused to give way to Mr. Spring.  This year, you have buried the workplace in unwanted and unneeded snow.  You have been entirely reckless in your choice of weather systems, and you are altogether too fond of the sleet-thaw-freeze model.  Your insistence on introducing a major snowstorm on March 7 and 8 has us questioning your fitness for the job.  Please calm down, Mr. Winter.  We know you are capable of creating snowstorms; you can stop trying to prove yourself.

As Mr. Spring is planning to resume his post on 20 March, you should currently be preparing to step down until late 2008.  We trust that you will comply with company policy in this matter.

Sincerely yours,


Toronto


Monday, March 3, 2008:  Watching the Psychopaths Come Out of the Woodwork Again

All hail to the Murder Game!  Watch it unfold
As adults go mad and put whole lives on hold!
We started with forty; now we're down to four
Who probably don't want to play any more.

All hail to the players who live for the thrill
Of losing perspective, plus also free will.
Why are they so into it?  I doubt they know,
Since in this game, logic's the first thing to go.

All hail to the bloodlust, the screaming, the fears,
The lies and betrayals, the mind-games, the tears,
The trolling for juicy inducements to fail:
If this were the real world, we'd all be in jail.

Join in on the Murder Game!  Wave to your friend;
She's going to hate you a lot by the end.
Though each year's results are, in essence, the same,
Succumb to the madness.  All hail to the Game!


Monday, February 25, 2008:  Nine Reasons This Weekend Has Put Me Into a Towering Rage

1)  It is Sunday afternoon.  I am supposed to be marking.  However, because it is online marking (through Turnitin), I am running into certain problems.  Namely:

2)  Online bloody marking takes three bloody times as long as non-online bloody marking.  I am getting paid for twenty minutes per paper.  If I finish an essay in an hour, I am ecstatic.

3)  My mouse has died.  Marking online without a mouse is my idea of an extended visit to Hell.

4)  I would like to buy a new mouse, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to make it to Grand and Toy before it closes, mostly because

5)  I can't look up the store's hours on my home computer, seeing as it has decided to go into Extreme Meltdown Mode today.  I can turn it on.  Sometimes, it will let me get past the start-up garbage without confronting me with the Blue Screen of Death, but once I'm on the Internet, it often won't let me type anything or click on anything, and half the time, either the pages won't load or they're missing essential bits.  The Grand and Toy page, for instance, does not include the list of individual stores that it says it does.  Instead, there is a vast white space.  This vast white space is not soothing me.

6)  I actually can't mark at home at all, then, since my computer won't let me type (except on Pine and MSN).  This is not a huge problem today, but it will be tomorrow.

7)  I do have a laptop.  Unfortunately, this laptop will not accept my Internet-connection password.  I do not know why.  There is no freaking earthly reason it shouldn't.  It just won't.

8)  Am I going to get myself to the university and mark tonight?  No!  Of course not!  I'm going to watch the stupid Oscars!  I shall never finish this marking, and I shall be fired from my job at Ryerson!  I'm also going to arrive at Grand and Toy fifteen minutes after it closes!  I'll bet you anything!*  I should go frustrate myself with that now!  My drawing tablet doesn't work properly either!  It dies every time I breathe on it!  I hate technology!  Yes, I am including wheels and levers in that sweeping generalisation!

9)  Also, I don't like your tie.

*Miraculously, I arrived ten minutes before it closed and found a mouse in the clearance bin.


Monday, February 18, 2008:  A Fifth Excerpt from Grad School!  The Musical

"Super-TA"

JESS:

She looks like anybody else.
She has two eyes, two arms, and
Always lots of time.
She is quite earnest and quite nice;
She gives advice.  Her course
Assignments are sublime.

She smiles a lot, and all the kids
Will want to be in her
Tutorial this year.
I'm here for them as well,
But what the hell:  they know
I'm really only here

To back her up...so she is free
To be the best that she can be.
She's read the textbook three times through.
She does the best that she can do.
She's got a halo 'round her head;
She knocks the competition dead.
There's way too much to say
Of Super-TA.

Her exercises are involved
And make the students understand
Most of the stuff
They have to know; mine aren't as good.
I feel I should keep up,
But nothing is enough.

The prof adores her; who can blame
The guy?  She's set to overcome
The world she's in.
She makes me feel like slime,
And all the time I like
Her, like to watch her win.

If I do research, she does more.
If I show three clips, she shows four.
She has a glimmer in her eye.
I'm pretty sure that she can fly.
She'll never falter, never stop;
She'll always need to be on top
Just so that she can stay
A Super-TA.

Approachable and helpful,
Lovable and good,
Her students never hate her,
Even when they should.
She marks as fast as lightning
And never makes mistakes.
She'll sacrifice her holidays
For her students' sakes.

Magical, insightful,
Never making leaps
Of logic in the classroom.
I wonder when she sleeps?
Never less than certain.
Never less than right.
If we applied for the same job,
It wouldn't be a fight.

Professor on her side,
Students on her side,
Everyone's on her side,
How does she
Do it?  She can do no wrong;
I can do no right.
Every night, I wonder
How she manages:
Super-TA, Super-TA...

Her students count her as a friend;
Her virtues really never end.
And she can improvise a speech;
She'll gladly learn and gladly teach.
Her marking does not hurt her brain,
And she is only slightly vain.
She's got the world at bay,
Does Super-TA.

The end of term is drawing near;
Evaluations are at hand,
And I'll do fine.
I guess I'm just about okay
As a TA, but genius
Isn't really mine.

I can't keep up with her, but see,
I think the fact that I don't try
Drives her insane.
She wants me to compete,
But she can eat my shorts:
I like avoiding pain.

Let her believe she's won the race;
I'm kind of laughing in her face,
For though she's perfect and adored,
I bet she's also really bored,
And though that's a great class she's made,
The truth is that we'll both get paid,
And no, you couldn't pay
Me to be Super-TA.

And no, you couldn't pay
Me to be Super-TA.

Hell, no, you'll never pay
Me to be Super-TA.


Monday, February 11, 2008:  A Fourth Excerpt from Grad School!  The Musical

This one has nothing overt to do with grad school, but its ironic, cynical, and overly analytical nature marks it as the product of a grad student's mind.  If I ever do write this musical--at the moment, all I have is a collection of bitter songs, most of which now have tunes--this piece (which I composed quite a while ago and could play and sing for you today if I had to) is going to make it in.  That I promise.

I was going to do an entirely different song called "Super-TA" (I still will, possibly next week), but then I remembered that Valentine's Day was looming.  The following is thus much more appropriate:

"This Is Not Another Love Song"

JESS:

At this point, anybody else
Would know just what to sing:
A ballad full of shaky rhymes
And birds, and love, and spring.
Instead, I stand with you here on the stage...
Don't quite want to sigh,
Don't know what to try.

A love song would be easy to
Construct; yes, that I know,
But something in me's longing to
Resist the status quo.
For music can become a sort of cage,
And I do love you,
But I know this too:

There's no joy in my heart, and I can't see the stars in your eyes,
Didn't know from the start this was passion in disguise,
Must admit when we part I won't follow you with spies:
This is not another love song.

I am not like a flower and don't care if I don't see you soon,
Am not lying in a bower, am not gazing at the moon,
Do not feel every hour I must cuddle you and spoon:
This is not another love song.

Now, someone else who was in love
Might think my words unkind.
She would be acting, even now,
As if she'd lost her mind,
And I suspect she'd know just what to sing:
Something slow and trite
That would last all night.

It's true, perhaps, I should be crooning,
"Baby, baby, ooh,"
Plus claiming I adore your hair
And rhyming "how" with "too."
I would like to avoid that sort of thing.
If I rhyme "too" with "how,"
You may as well kill me now.

I would not die without you, and I cannot feel you deep inside,
Am not riddled with doubt, don't have something to hide,
Am not worried about whether one of us has lied:
This is not another love song.

We won't kiss in the street, and we will not lie down in the hay,
Snatch our triumph from defeat, feel regret for yesterday,
Pine in silence till we meet, make our lives one big cliché:
This is not another love song.

Roses and beauty and passion and wine,
Heartbreak, desire, and lust,
Sacrifice, envy, and bliss:  get in line,
And sing a love song if you must,
But I can't...

I'm walking by the ocean, and
I'm losing track of time.
The thing about the ocean is:
It's full of rotting slime.
I'm good at leaching romance out of life.
You may think I'm wrong,
But I do have a song.

It doesn't praise your looks; it doesn't
Gush of stars above.
It isn't very pretty, and
It hardly mentions love.
It does not moan:  "I want to be your wife!"
It just lets you see
That you can take or leave me.

Though a sunrise is nice, I like noon pretty much just as well,
And a world without ice would be something out of hell.
Life's a toss of the dice, and we all have things to sell:
This is not another love song.

I don't hate those who do not regard our amazing love with awe;
We are not one but two; we are not above the law.
I know sometimes you stew; sometimes I am hard to thaw:
This is not another love song.

Any poet who found us would likely pretend we weren't there.
Both my feet are on the ground; your head isn't in the air.
Buy me flowers by the mound; I don't particularly care:
This is not another love song.

I will not claim I'm chained, and I won't say that you are not free,
Lost a lot through what you've gained, or that we were meant to be.
I do not belong to you; you do not belong to me:
This is not another love song.
This is not another love song.

[Slower]

Writing songs about love will not bring me glory or you fame,
Call down praise from above, teach the world to know your name.
For when push comes to shove, love songs are all the same...
And this is just another love song.
This is just another love song.
This is just another love song.


Monday, February 4, 2008:  Prepping for V-Day (Sandbags Needed)

Today, as I was walking through a mall on the way to the university, I came across a store selling a bright red plush monster with big white teeth.  It was apparently part of some sort of love-themed set of three; I believe the companion plushies were a pink dinosaur and a brown puppy.  There seemed to be absolutely no reason that these three creatures made a set, though admittedly, I didn't stick around long enough to find out if there was one.  The colours were making my eyeballs bleed.

In principle, there is nothing at all wrong with Valentine's Day.  Couples want a special time to snuggle and give each other useless gifts?  Fine.  There are three hundred and sixty-four (or, in this particular case, three hundred and sixty-five) other potentially-snuggle-worthy days in the year, but hey, I could say more or less the same thing about Christmas...or Easter...or my birthday...or National Accordion Awareness Month.*  Go ahead, couples.  Nuzzle and be smug.  The rest of us will slink quietly out of the way and wait for Half-Price Chocolate Day, then consume all the leftover heart-shaped candy in a cathartic and metaphorically cannibalistic orgy of food.  If you pity us, we shall pelt you with rotten cinnamon hearts.  That's really only fair.

But please, retailers:  stop trying to sell us bright red monsters, heart-shaped boxes of raisins, frilly pink cards that cost $10.99 and look as if they were constructed by third-graders, teddy bears holding little tins of chocolate, fuzzy stuffed chickens with ingratiating smiles on their beaks, shirts with pink hearts on them, underpants with pink hearts on them, pink hearts with pink hearts on them, heart-shaped lamps, heart-shaped candles, heart-shaped Chinese finger cuffs, sweet little plastic figurines with "Love!!!" written on their bosoms, ugly pink jewelry, and, in fact, ugly pink anything at all.  What the bleeding heck is wrong with you people?  I'm not just talking to the retailers here; I'm addressing anyone who actually buys this stuff.  It's not cute!  It's not endearing!  It's horrible, horrible kitsch, and it isn't even imbued with irony!  I am slightly less angered by the red monster than I am by the rest of the merchandise because, well, I like monsters,** but I'm still baffled by it.  Is it marketed towards people who might be tempted to go:  "Hey, a Valentine's Day monster!  That's different!  I shall buy one for my honey!", or is it meant to ensnare those who will buy anything red or pink in the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day?  Have we all completely lost our minds?

Couples:  If you must do Valentine's Day, could you please regale your precious darlings with tasteful gifts that are not pink or shaped like hearts?  Please?  Be creative and thoughtful.  Ignore the bloody retailers, and shun the stupid kitsch.  It doesn't mean anything except that you have just shelled out good money for garbage.

Singles:   If you're sad because you're not going to receive any kitsch this year, look on the bright side:  you're not going to receive any kitsch this year.

It really doesn't get any better than that.

*Really exists.  June is National Accordion Awareness Month.  No, really.  No, I swear.
**Plus it looks a bit like one of the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are, and that's just cool.


Monday, January 28, 2008:  I Call This Pattern the Crazy Freaking Spaz-Out

I can juggle...not well, but adequately.  I can juggle little bean-bag ball-like thingies.  What I am discovering that I can't juggle are six bloody first-year essay-writing tutorials for five different profs at two different institutions.  The whole situation is driving me right up the bleeding wall.  Help.  I mean, really:  help?

This term, I am working at the Ontario College of Art and Design, as well, for the first time, as Ryerson University.  The OCAD gig involves me leading four writing workshops, each of which includes about fifteen students and is for a different prof who sets different readings, essay topics, and due dates.  Two of these profs send me their own exercises every week so that my workshops can parallel their own; two of them almost never contact me, and I really have no idea what, if anything, they want me to do.  For the Ryerson job, I have two twenty-student classes attached to a single main lecture.  While the prof teaches the students about close reading and analysis, I and another TA are responsible for--you guessed it--leading essay-writing workshops.

I have a hundred students in six different classes.  So far, I have learned maybe four names.  I am continually forgetting which material I have covered with which group; I'll refer back to something I said last week, only to discover that I said it to some other class, possibly at an entirely different university.  I do write stuff down, but I also have to answer students' questions, and I can't always remember which set of students brought up which issue at which point in time.  To make things even more fun, the other TA for the Ryerson course is super-competent and eminently organised, and she always describes her tutorials as "fantastic."  I feel that I have led a "fantastic" tutorial if I manage to get through the hour without once uttering the words, "I've talked about this already, right?......No?......It must have been in one of my other five classes..."

I know this is mostly my own fault.  Other people don't have problems with this sort of thing; they are always slightly ahead of events, whereas I seem to spend most of my time running to catch up.  I do think I should be allowed to place at least some of the blame on the whole six-nearly-identical-classes thing.  How did I get into this mess?  Did I wake up one morning and say, "Perhaps it would be a good idea to confuse the hell out of myself this term"?  Deep in my subconscious, is there a part of me that enjoys adapting old handouts in six subtly different ways so that I can distribute them at various times over the course of three and a half weeks while trying to remember what information was on which handout and why?  Will I ever manage to force myself to adopt a better method of organisation than the good old shove-everything-into-a-single-blue-folder-through-which-one-will-have-to-scrabble-desperately-at-the-beginning-of-each-class chestnut?

For this week, I should read As You Like It and about twelve short pieces of prose non-fiction that can be found in a book I have, in a book I don't have and am not, in fact, supposed to have, and on the Internet.  I should also mark fifteen short responses.  On Thursday and Friday, my Ryerson students will write in-class essays, forty of which I will then have a week to mark.  My head is going to explode.  Oh, yes:  and I'm supposed to be applying for jobs and trying to write some sort of article for publication.  Ha ha ha ha ha!

All things considered, I should have stuck to juggling balls.


Monday, January 21, 2008:  A Third Excerpt from Grad School!  the Musical

"Grad School"

ANNE:

When I graduated from high school,
My parents were proud.  "On!" they cried.
"Go seize the day and obtain your B.A.!"
It made me feel fuzzy inside.

In four years, I had the degree, so
I figured I had seized the day,
But damn it:  what should I--and better, what could I--
Do with my stupid B.A.?

Not ready to teach.
Not ready to train.
Barely qualified
To sing in the rain.
Four years of dreary and
Limitless pain,
And now they expect I'll
Start over again...

On to grad school,
On to year after year still in grad school.
Though I've heard that this here's not a bad school,
That's a mad rule
Of professors who've never set foot in it, ever.
On to trying,
On to worrying and onto trying
To obtain funding without much lying.
I'll be crying
From this point to the end, so how brilliant to send
Me to grad school!

CHORUS OF NEWBIES:

So what are you saying, you cynic from hell?
Do you want to keep us from doing as well
As we know we're going to do, since we're top
Of our classes, and we don't see why we should stop

CHORUS 1:

Before grad school.

CHORUS 2:

    On to grad school!

CHORUS 1:

We all belong in grad school.

CHORUS 2:

    On to grad school!

CHORUS 1:

We sing the song of grad school.

CHORUS 2:

    Don't insult

CHORUS 1:

Grad school.

CHORUS 2:

    We all exalt

CHORUS 1:

Grad school.

CHORUS 2:

    No one can halt

CHORUS:

Us in our quest to hang out with the best
Here in grad school.

ANNE:

The bookstore is open at eight o'clock, so
I stand in the line until three.
The girl at the register seems kind of slow,
Though she quickly takes six hundred dollars from me.

My stipend is dwindling; my future is bleak;
I feel like a fraud; I've been here for a week.
Who knows what a month will do to my physique?
I just got my B.A.  Now I have to T.A.?

CHORUS:

Stop complaining.
Stop your whining, and stop your complaining.
Oh, we daresay this life can be draining,
But it's training
For the real world.  You're cut up?  We think you should shut up
And don't fight it.
You should just be like us and not fight it.
Heck, it's great when you simply invite it.
Face it:  might it
Not be working to slow up your sick need to grow up?
Come to grad school!

ANNE:

Why do I
Fight?
Why not give
In?
It's not
Right.
I can't
Win.

[Repeat twice more]

CHORUS 1:

[Simultaneously with Anne from her second repetition onward]

You're lucky to be with us; you should agree with us.
Here you can see with us how academe
Is just the place for us, picks up the pace for us.
What a disgrace for us not to dream

Of living and loving and pushing and shoving
And thissing and thosing and sometimes brownnosing
And frequently sticking our anal, nitpicking
Brownnoses in your life in grad school!

CHORUS 2:

[Simultaneously with Anne on her third repetition]

Stop complaining.
Stop your whining, and stop your complaining.
Oh, we daresay this life can be draining,
But it's training
For the real world.  You're cut up?  We think you should shut up
And don't fight it.
You should just be like us and not fight it.
Heck, it's great when you simply invite it.
Face it:  might it
Not be working to slow up your sick need to grow up?
Come to grad school!

ANNE:

Stuck in grad school!

CHORUS:

Here in grad school!

ANNE:

Lost in grad school!

CHORUS:

I expect you could wait, but you've taken the bait,
So don't go; it's too late:  you'll be here till year eight.

ANNE:

So I know I shall hate it in grad school!


Monday, January 14, 2008:  If Music Be the Food of Whatever, Shut Up


My birth-mother gave me a small generic MP3 player for my birthday this year.  While I'm grateful for the gift, it did kind of make me think about why I didn't yet have a small, generic MP3 player or even a less small, non-generic MP3 player with a trendy name.  Everyone and his dog has an MP3 player now.  People walk around with their own personal soundtracks playing constantly in their ears and exchange tunes as if they are candy.  I don't.

The fact is that I have never wanted an MP3 player.  Before there were MP3 players, I didn't want a Discman, and before there were Discmen, I didn't want a Walkman.  Before there were Walkmen, I did want a little tape recorder, but mostly so that I could record myself making silly noises with my sister.  I am a musician who doesn't listen to music.

I'm not bragging about this.  I've always been sort of ashamed of the fact that everyone else seems to be able to find pleasure in being surrounded by music all the time, whereas I would rather inflict music of my own on others than be forced to listen to even my favourite songs--and yes, I do have favourite songs--while I'm walking, working, reading, or sitting around in a car or bus.  I don't want music in the background of my world; I find it a chore to listen to.

Yet I love playing music on various instruments.  I love going to musicals.  I get really excited when I watch a movie with an excellent soundtrack.  I like attending the occasional concert.  And every once in a while, I'll decide that I want to hear a certain song...and I'll play it.

Though none of this really makes any sense, I may be beginning to figure it out.  The fact of the matter is that when I'm listening to music, I can't concentrate on anything else, with the exception of visuals or sounds that are related to the music in some way.  I like movie soundtracks because the music complements the action; I like musicals because the music is the action.  Otherwise, music will take up all my attention and render me unable to think.  I can't read or imagine stuff while music is blaring in my ears, and I really do like to read and imagine stuff.  If someone offered me a choice between an hour of thinking and an hour of listening to the radio, I would take the thinking.  Yeah, I'm kind of weird.

I expect there's something wrong with my head...but as there's nothing I can do about that, I'll have to pretend there isn't.  The new MP3 player will come in handy when I need to transfer music from one place to another for whatever reason, and if I ever decide I want to spend an afternoon listening to a musical or opera all the way through, I'll always have it...but I won't be able to use it as almost anybody else would.

Sometimes, I really do wonder about my stupid brain.


Monday, January 7, 2008:  And Lo, the Journey Ended on a Relatively Happy Note

1.  And it came to pass that a damsel from the Centre of the Universe decided to travel a vast distance across the empty lands.

2.  And she paid nine hundred and fifty-seven gold pieces to Air Canada, Conveyor of Souls, Keeper of the Chariots of the Skies, Creator of Much Paperwork.

3.  And the damsel was much poorer, but also content, as she knew that soon she would be winging her way to the Land of the Lotus.

4.  And she boarded the Chariot in good time after having handed her possessions over to smiling attendants, and she settled down for a good journey.

5.  But lo, the Chariot's pilot spoke with a voice from the heavens, and he said:

6.  Good people, though I welcome you to my vessel, I must apologise for the lack of in-flight entertainment, as our magical system of light and sound is on the fritz, as usual.

7.  But to apologize for the inconvenience, we shall be serving you a non-alcoholic beverage.

8.  And after the distribution of the sandwiches, which cost six gold pieces each, and the witty comments of the attendants, which were free, each passenger was presented with a small glass of orange juice.

9.  And it was good.

10.  And the damsel had to change Chariots halfway through the voyage, though her first Chariot was, alas, behind schedule.

11.  And after much running and cursing and pleading for a boarding pass that no one had thought to issue her earlier, she boarded the second Chariot.

12.  And her flight was uneventful, and she rejoiced.

13.  And the damsel visited with her family in the Land of the Lotus, though she could not see her sister, lest her sister catch a loathsome disease from a child from across the sea.

14.  Don't ask.

15.  And when the visit was done, the damsel boarded the first of her Chariots to return to the Centre of the Universe.

16.  And it actually left early, for a change.

17.  And she arrived at the Place of Numerous Chariots with two hours to spare.

18.  And she read many words and drew many pictures, then boarded the second Chariot.

19.  But behold! her seatmate was a maiden who could not seem to keep herself to herself.

20.  And throughout the long journey, she peered avidly over the damsel's shoulder at the pictures the damsel was creating, and she said not a word to the damsel, but smiled, and tortured the attendants for free pizza.

21.  And the Chariot reached the Centre of the Universe only ten minutes late.

22.  And the damsel rejoiced.

23.  And the people descended from the Chariot to reclaim their possessions.

24.  But lo, there was a great confusion of luggage, and none of it belonged to the weary travellers, who waited for over an hour in the echoing hall.

25.  And the damsel lost her temper before most of the other travellers and removed herself to the Desk of Lost Possessions, and she stood in line for twenty minutes.

26.  And when she arrived at the desk, the attendant there said:

27.  Alas for your luggage, which is lost.

28.  Alas indeed, for we have lost your luggage.

29.  We have also lost his luggage.

30.  And hers.

31.  And theirs.

32.  In fact, there is no luggage for anyone.

33.  And you shall tell me what colour your luggage is, and I shall tell someone to tell someone else to find a third person to locate it for you.

34.  Eventually.

35.  And the damsel described her luggage, and then she went home.

36.  And she waited.

37.  And she waited.

38.  And she waited some more.

39.  And she ran out of clean undergarments, and also socks.

40.  And she cursed the name of Air Canada, which had lost her luggage and then apparently decided to keep it forever.

41.  But lo, on the fourth day, as the damsel sat around her apartment in rags and stuck pins in a small image of a Chariot, a voice issued forth from the telephone, though unfortunately it did so when the damsel was in the shower, of course.

42.  And it cried:

43.  We have found your luggage!

44.  And they had.

45.  And there were clean undergarments, and also socks.

46.  And the damsel rejoiced.


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