May 19.

May 19 is Malcolm X's birthday. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz would be turning 86 were he alive today. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be 82. Medgar Evers would be 85. Fred Hampton: 63. Bunchy Carter: 69.

All (and many others) were killed within a five year span at the peak of COINTELPRO's efforts to prevent the emergence of a "black messiah." That's not even conspiracy theory--that shit's in the file.

Their truncated efforts fomented the rumblings that Nixon used at the end of the 1960s to seize on fears of integration and black urban migration with the euphemism "Law and Order." That became Reagan's "Morning in America," with its wars on vague concepts and its rancid downward trickles.

But unless you grew up in a disenfranchised community with some sort of minority political agitation, making those connections is just not a valid part of the study of history. If it comes at all, most Americans will only ever get that part in college--and now the motherfuckers want to take that away. Intersections like these are not simple coincidences, folks: UC tuition might jump 32% if tax proposal fails, official says.  

Just because we can't point to some back room where one group of scary men in suits pulls all the world's strings doesn't mean the game's not rigged to work in the favor of a de facto aristocracy. 

How many investment bankers have you seen in handcuffs?

Maybe Ahab was right when he observed that "This whole act's immutably decreed." 

Maybe.

Wheezy 'n' Breezy

Are we there yet?

No, and we'll never get there. Wherever we are is here, and there will always be somewhere else. We're just chasing the horizon. There will never be here and here will never be there. We'll never get there, and that's the most important thing to remember. The joy's in the voyage, in the constant chasing and the knowing that it's never to be caught.

Shit, we wouldn't know what to do if we did catch it.

Enjoy Coca-Cola.

OK, so let's grant that geometry teacher Gregory Harrison is not actually a threat to national security and that he doesn't really condone assassination (no matter how perfect an angle one is presented with). Might we not assume that his job description implicitly requires him to not be an idiot? I think this violates that rule. But then, what do I know?

Notes on the State of Arizona.

Surprising no one by openly expanding its crusade to attack legal as well as illegal immigrants, Arizona will apparently be giving the boot to teachers with heavy accents and bad grammar. I look forward to seeing how Arizona decides which accents are heavy enough to qualify for job termination, which colloquialisms are "ungrammatical" enough, and how to enforce this without making it too obvious that they're just rounding up brown people.

On the other hand, the Phoenix Suns, or Los Suns de Phoenix, get an enthusiastic "hell yes" from this inconsequential peanut gallery inhabitant. Thank you, Robert Sarver. As much as I hate the use of Cinco de Mayo as an excuse for anything, any time your team wears these jerseys, I'm rooting for "Los Suns" against the bigotry of their own home state.

My favorite literary genre.

One of my student evaluations for this past quarter complains that I'm too politically conservative. That's a first. It's sort of ambiguously worded, but I think the complaint is actually that I avoided stressing my own liberal biases and this student (presumably of my own political stripe) would have liked me to be a little more forceful with my leftist interpretations. So take that, Michael Savage.

I also had a student directly address the administration (as "you guys"), requesting that they order me to relax my attendance policy and give students a "five minute cushion." The funny thing is that I did give them (at least) a five minute cushion, I just never announced it. Now I'm tempted to announce a five minute grace period next quarter and then not honor it, just to see if I get an evaluation commending me for my generous attendance policy.

An excerpt from "A Conversation with My Younger Brother, High School Counselor"

B. What are you up to?
K. Just left a trustee's luncheon. Basically listening to rich white people talk about educating poor brown people. What are you doing?
B. Reading about rich white people converting poor brown people to Christianity.
K. Same shit.
B. Yup.

"And love he loves..."

I'm currently teaching John Dryden's Marriage a la Mode as part of a literary drama survey course, and it's been about as much fun as I've ever had teaching anything. This stems largely from the play's incessant bawdiness, but it's also due to a really handy fusion of genres and forms that practically constitutes a survey on its own. It's rare that any work makes it easy to get students excited about the ways in which form and content complement one another, but Marriage a la Mode seems to pull it off.

Then there's the context of the play, which is just as entertaining. If work always consisted of teaching students about libertinism in King Charles II's court, my job satisfaction would be off the charts. Not only does it loosen things up a bit, but it allows for those intensely satisfying lessons in which you actually explode the myths to which your students want to remain loyal. Marriage a la Mode is about marriage. It was written in the seventeenth century. Given those two facts alone, some students try their damnedest to just sit on their hands and repeat platitudes about how things have changed, how marriage was "before" versus how it is "now," but Dryden doesn't let them.

But the greatest joy of all may be that the play is dedicated to John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, which gave me an excuse to have them read some of his poetry. If Dryden forces them to realize that society's views on marriage haven't deteriorated since the Restoration, then Rochester makes it clear that no 21st century rapper, reality star, or myspace celebrity can do filth like a libertine. We read the "Satyr on Charles II" and then discussed censorship, sex, and the evolution of swearing. It was a good day.

I' th' isle of Britain, long since famous grown For breeding the best cunts in Christendom, There reigns, and oh! long may he reign and thrive, The easiest King and best-bred man alive. Him no ambition moves to get renown	5
Like the French fool, that wanders up and down Starving his people, hazarding his crown. Peace is his aim, his gentleness is such, And love he loves, for he loves fucking much. ---Nor are his high desires above his strength:	10
His scepter and his prick are of a length; And she may sway the one who plays with th' other, And make him little wiser than his brother. Poor prince! thy prick, like thy buffoons at Court, Will govern thee because it makes thee sport.	15
'Tis sure the sauciest prick that e'er did swive, The proudest, peremptoriest prick alive. Though safety, law, religion, life lay on 't, 'Twould break through all to make its way to cunt. Restless he rolls about from whore to whore,	20
A merry monarch, scandalous and poor. ---To Carwell, the most dear of all his dears, The best relief of his declining years, Oft he bewails his fortune, and her fate: To love so well, and be beloved so late.	25
For though in her he settles well his tarse, Yet his dull, graceless ballocks hang an arse. This you'd believe, had I but time to tell ye The pains it costs to poor, laborious Nelly, Whilst she employs hands, fingers, mouth, and thighs,	30
Ere she can raise the member she enjoys. ---All monarchs I hate, and the thrones they sit on, ---From the hector of France to the cully of Britain.

This is not an academic blog.

This morning I held the first session of the class I'll be teaching this quarter: Writing 39B, Critical Reading and Rhetoric--Class, Poverty, and the American Dream. Contrary to the barrage of horror stories we were fed in training, I found it a rather pleasant experience. These wide-eyed freshmen were sweet, polite, organized, receptive. They gave thoughtful answers to my questions and listened attentively when I explained to them why critical reading and rhetorical analysis matter.

By the end of the hour I had, on one hand, the sense that everything would be alright; the quarter was off to a good start. On the other hand, I was a bit irked by our preparation: why hadn't we been prepped more about logistics, policy and procedure, rather than spending so much time in teaching workshops training ourselves to think of our students as a herd of fundamentalist sheep out to destroy their leftist instructors? Sure, UCI's undergradute population is rather conservative, but why spend so much time talking about it--actually preparing for it with no little trepidation--prior to entering the classroom?

I was giving voice to these thoughts with my roommate this evening at the In-N-Out near campus when we were distracted by the following exchange taking place between two UCI undergrads just to my left:

Young Lady #1: Yeah, I thought about that, because it's like, Sarah Palin has a whole bunch of kids. And she just had a baby with Down Syndrome, so I just don't think she should be trying to take on that job right now. I mean, she can't really do that job, right?

Young lady #2: Well yeah, but that's not even why Democrats don't like her. They don't like her because, like, they're liberals. And, like, liberals don't believe in God.

I would like to thank these two for making me look like an idiot. For the record, I still have some faith in my students. More faith, apparently, than I do in God.

Call me, Ishmael. (Hey! Ishmael! Call me, bro.)

This weekend I went to a bar in Long Beach with a few friends from the English program. On our way into the Auld Dubliner, I spotted my second cousin (also named Brian) in another bar and text-messaged him to come and meet us at the Dubliner. About an hour later he and some of his friends--nearly all people with whom I'm acquainted--joined us. One of these, a guy that I have not seen in about a year, had two very different reactions to seeing me. The first was expected: he pulled my hair. I had a shaved head the last time we met, so he was not prepared for my disheveled locks. The second reaction came as a bit of a surprise, as he happily slapped me on the back and yelled, "Hey! Call me Ishmael!"

"Call me Ishmael." Is there is a more recognizable opening line in the English language? The occasional literary scholar for whom Moby Dick has slipped through the cracks (yes, they exist) can still identify those three words as the opening salvo of Melville's opus. I'd like to say that anyone who reads--period--is familiar with it. I imagine that this assumed recognition of what we consider to be common knowledge abounds with the potential for disappointment when confronted with those folks that, despite apparent intelligence in other areas, just don't know it.

I have never experienced this profound disappointment, but it is not due to any shortage of folks who haven't read Moby Dick. It has more to do with low expectations, stemming from the fact that I have never actually been surrounded by readers. In fact, sadly, I can't think of one lifelong friend or family member with whom I've ever been able to discuss literature. For me, reading has always been either solitary or pedagogical--if I was not reading on my own, I was learning, teaching, or even evangelizing to a non-reader.

This particularly loud Melville reference at the Auld Dubliner was the result of one of the more interesting "pedagogical" moments, one that I had long forgotten. In April of 2007 I attended the Long Beach Grand Prix with some friends. After a long day of drinking we all piled into a car (with a designated driver, of course) and headed to a restaurant managed by an old friend of mine. He and the owner had opened the place up privately for a party, and once the word got out we continued to drink late into the night. Around 2 am, with the place now empty except for the people we'd come in with (and some women we'd managed to keep interested), I got into a conversation with three or four guys about my plans for graduate school. I had just accepted admission to UCI and was explaining my interest in Hawthorne and Melville when somebody interjected, "Melville! I know that name! What did he write?"
"Moby Dick," I answered, and waited for the inevitable snickers.
"That's right! That was my dad's favorite book. I always wanted to read it, but I don't have the patience."
"You should read it," I told him. "It's a great book."

Somehow this exchange led to me quite drunkenly retelling the entire narrative of Moby Dick to four or five other well-oiled individuals on the patio of a bar. I remember stopping occasionally to tell them that if they were bored or if they wanted me to shut up I wouldn't be offended, but they wanted me to go on. Unaccustomed to people at bars having any interest whatsoever in literature, I delighted in the attention and giddily continued. Whether they were enraptured by the story itself, by my occasional self-interruptions for personal interpretation and historical context, or by my unusual enthusiasm I can't say, but when I was done they seemed to have gained a certain degree of appreciation for a novel whose value to most of them was simply that of providing a slightly dirty pun. Of course, simply telling the story (especially when drunk) is not by any means what we do, but I was just happy that someone seemed interested for once.

Still, I never expected any of those gentlemen to go out and read the book. Yet a few months later I ran into one of my captive audience members who, lo and behold, had read--and thoroughly enjoyed--the story of the white whale. I have no shame in sentimentally admitting that this filled me with pride. Furthermore, I was absolutely tickled to hear this same guy yell out that iconic opening line in a crowded bar over a year later.

Maybe this seems quaint, this thrill at having inspired someone to remember the most famous line from the most famous book of one of America's most famous writers; but to me that's something, and I think that approach will come in handy in my chosen profession. In a way we're guardians of a threatened form, one which will only survive if we can convince society at large (and that includes a world of literate illiterates) that it matters. We're literary evangelists.

So sure, it's just one book. One guy reading one book once a year. That's a start. I suppose that if we're doing anything worthwhile in this business, we're going to have to do it one book at a time anyway.