Stagecoach Class & Ninjas

If asked to compare traveling in a 17th or 18th-century stagecoach with flying in modern airplanes, the advantage would surely lean heavily in favor of the former. True, it might be a bit bumpier, and you might be courteously asked to “stand and deliver” by a gentleman of the road, but this had a slightly romantic frisson. The only person in real peril was the highwayman himself. True, it might cost you a wallet or some pricey bauble, but you could boast for the rest of your life about your encounter with the legendary Claude Du Vall or James MacLaine. Sadly, these gentlemen were able to do very little boasting after developing extremely sore throats at Tyburn Tree.

As for the other passengers, if they proved uncongenial or even malodorous, you could either have the coachman eject them or take a brief sojourn at a tavern and wait for the next stagecoach.

With modern air travel, there is no room for escape, and conditions are even more cramped than in the London-to-Exeter coach. Take my present highly uncomfortable position. After enduring all the indignities of modern travel—the security check, the full-body scans, and so on—I am squeezed into a seat aboard a plane heading to Washington. It is the early hours, and all the other passengers are asleep, except for myself and a rather odd, hooded individual who is staring at me balefully through dark sunglasses. I blame myself for this ... slightly.

The Manga/Ninja warrior appeared just before the plane's doors closed and took the empty seat across the aisle from me. With a histrionic swirl of robes that might have put one in mind of Dick Turpin, were it not for the fact that the robes were covered in Chinese ideograms. Something distinctly comical about him made the whole effect less than sinister. I suspect it was his obvious yearning for dramatic effect—the sheer silliness of the look, especially the dramatically swirling robes. I am on the plump side myself, and this I know: we don't do “sinister” particularly well, and we definitely should never consider posing as Ninjas. Well, the most excellent Sydney Greenstreet did exude dark malevolence brilliantly, but no director in his right mind would have cast him as, say, a kung fu hero.

I have been meandering a bit, as I feel guilty and not a little tired, having been up for the best part of 24 hours. You’ll be wondering what I did to incur the wrath of my new acquaintance. I am ashamed to say it, but I might have grinned—just possibly—although I immediately afterward adopted a neutral expression, as though it were the most natural thing in the world to meet a ninja on the “red-eye” flight to Washington. I then began frantically scribbling these notes to pass the long hours (I can never sleep on planes) and to distract myself from the glare.

“Mocking the afflicted,” the more moralistic of you might gasp. I’d counter that the chap was merely an extreme example of what most of us do, and he might even be seen as satirizing us. All but the least self-conscious among us prepare faces to meet the faces that we meet. We want to impress and, for example, casually place hugely intellectual tomes on our coffee tables or pretend that the cordon bleu dish we’ve spent all day working on was thrown together in minutes.

[Later] You may be pleased to hear that I made amends for my faux pas. As we disembarked, without a hint of a smirk, I told the ninja warrior that he looked absolutely amazing and that I had never seen anything quite like it. He seemed pleased.

---

I am afraid this was dashed off rather quickly, but I am utterly jet lagged.

March for Quokkas Now!

Here’s wishing you the happiest World Quokka Day ever.  I hope you and your loved ones enjoy a load of quokka-related activities, but don’t overdo it with all those delicious but deceptively strong quokka cocktails!  

Before you check your calendars, I can assure you that partly due to an unfounded prejudice against the delightful grinning marsupials, printers almost always omit this festive occasion.  There is a World Jellyfish Day (November 3), but as a result of what can only be construed as shameful speciesism, the quokka has been neglected.  Can you imagine that not a single Ivy League has courses devoted to quokka studies and there are LITERALLY no literature departments teaching the works of Shakespeare or Dante through a quokkaist marxist lens!  What on earth are universities for?

The erasure of the quokka from history is a matter of shame, most evident in the visual arts. There is, of course, the 25,000-year-old legendary "Quokka of Willendorf," known only from drawings in Josef Szombathy's archaeological notebooks. Then there is the famous Cerne Abbas Quokka, dating from the late iron age and the putative quokka in the Book of Kells (c. AD 800).  However, one scours the works of the trecento and quattrocento in vain for images of the creature. It is only when one comes to Raphael’s celebrated Lady with Quokka that there is a belated depiction of one. The Byzantine icon featuring the noble beast, "discovered" in early 17th-century Lithuania, is commonly regarded as an  amateurish forgery.

I personally see this as institutional or - just possibly - insidious structural quokkaism and we should fight to remedy this outrageous injustice. The fact that I only invented the thing a few minutes ago is absolutely no excuse.

Note:
Educate yourself! A must-read is surely Grins Turned to Anguish: A Longitudinal Marxist-Leninist/Deconstructionist Analysis of the Dis(Mis)placement of the Quokka in Western Narratives available from all good bookstores.

A Club for Chatty Insomniacs

For those of us with recherché interests, insomnia, and an irresistible urge to impart knowledge in the wee small hours, life can be difficult. Of course, it is even more difficult for those unfortunate enough to be around us—our neighbours, our families, taxi drivers, and the local clergy.

Take, for instance, that time when it seemed a good idea to dip into The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius in an attempt to ward off sleeplessness.   This turned out to be a mistake.  Although more of an agnostic than lapsed Catholic, the saint’s vivid description of the flames of hell got me into a bit of a state.  I decided that a call to the local priest would be in order as surely it was his job to deal with spiritual crises whatever the hour.  In this I was mistaken; a tired, Hibernian voice gave me advice straight out of Genesis: I should go forth and multiply forthwith.   

This very morning. I was mulling over the word “up” as used in expressions like “eat it up” or “she beat him up.” Clearly, the word functions as an intensifier, emphasising the completeness of an action, but how recently did it start performing this role? It feels modern, but then it dawned on me: it is Middle English! Just think of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: “And Gawayn gef hit up, with a goud wille.”

I decided that my wife needed to know this at once, so I poked her in the ribs. Her response was perfectly apt and somewhat sacerdotal: “Shut the **** up!”

Undeterred, I headed to my study. I must tell the good folk of Half Moon Bay! They are bound to be awake! Perhaps those of us similarly afflicted could set up a club. Unfortunately, the server seemed to be down.

Philosophical Reflections on Dogs

Some of you have questioned the reality of Jasper Montgomery and have even suggested  he might be a cartoon.  

Concerning Jasper’s reality or ontological status, I often question this myself.  Certainly, there appears to be a hairy creature basking in the sun and nibbling plums at my feet.  While he does usually answer to that name, can I say with any degree of certainty that he is really Jasper?  Can I be quite sure?

When we got him as a small puppy, we thought that was probably his name - he had a Jasperish look - and have called him that ever since … but we might be entirely wrong. He has never expressed any objection in our hearing although that might be due to natural diffidence. Whatever the creature might be, it is extraordinarily well-mannered.

I guess this uncertainty goes for humans as well.  Many decades ago, my late parents decided I was ‘Mark’ and called me that throughout their lives with, perhaps, unwarranted confidence. As a teen, I did suspect that I might actually be Caratacus or even Wolfgang, but all my family insisted this was a profound mistake and that if I persisted in the matter I should be disinherited forthwith.

Is Jasper Montgomery a ‘cartoon’?  Well, to the extent that we  anthropomorphize the unfortunate creature,  ascribing feelings, thoughts  and profound sensibilities to him, then I guess he is.  But then, we do that to people too so perhaps everyone aside from myself is a cartoon?  This is probably better than being described as a philosophical zombie.

I would write more but I must take the creature formally known as Jasper for a walk.

Cordon Bleu - British Style

It is a lamentable affectation, but Eastern Europeans seem to look to France for matters cultural than to far, far more civilised England.  Think, for example, of Tolstoy’s aristocrats in War and Peace.  Prince Vassily doesn’t say “that absolute stinker, Napoleon, has bloody gone and nicked Genoa and Lucca” or something to that effect in Russian.  No, he twirls his doubtless heavily pomaded and perfumed moustache and announces “Eh bien, mon prince, Gênes et Lucques ne sont plus que des apanages, des pomestias, de la famille Buonaparte”.  Infuriating, isn’t it?

I thought of this when my good wife, who hails from Transylvania, glanced at the breakfast I had so beautifully prepared with a look of withering disdain.    What, on earth, is wrong with baked beans on Marmite toast accompanied by a mug of PG Tips?  Doubtless a couple of warm croissants would have gone down better especially if served with café au lait, but she is not getting it.   Nor, for that matter will there be anything resembling pain au chocolat or brioche.  

War has been declared on all things Gallic and my first move will take the form of tripe and onions served with steaming mushy peas.  Next there will be liver and bacon and that gustatory glory, a kind of mini haggis, but with a name that cannot be used in America.  This to be served with neeps & tatties.

Come Crispin Crispian (St. Crispen’s Day), we happy few will be drinking warm best bitter and munching roast beef, Yorkshire pudding with all the trimmings.  The grande finale will, of course, be steamed Spotted Dick.

Water, water, everywhere

It  puzzles the life out of me and it is something I see everyday as a teacher.  Almost all the children I encounter seem absolutely obsessed with their huge and surprisingly expensive water bottles, which they carry religiously from class to class and regularly refill at the plentiful water fountains on the campus. In fact, they remind me of a bunch of diminutive Ancient Mariners.

I am pretty sure this is an American thing … and I just don’t get it.  In England we occasionally carry a thermos filled with tea.  If I were wandering in Scotland, I might have a wee flask filled with a dram of the good stuff, but water! I suppose if you were some kind of Sassenach, you might add a few drops from one of the Highland streams, but you would risk Hibernian ire and that is about it.

I assume that this obsession with water is a recent fad  and evidence for this comes from the words of the late, great W.C. Fields, which I sadly cannot repeat here for reasons of obscenity, but which involves piscatorial copulation in the dank element. 

I don’t dare forbid the use of the distracting things in my class lest the poor dehydrated dears expire before my very eyes, turning into small puffs of dust rather like Count Dracula when exposed to sunlight. 

I should be grateful for enlightenment.

Small Dog and a Plum Tree by the Light of the Moon

After some 10 years, our elderly Chocolate  Labrador, Jasper Montgomery Esquire,  still puzzles us.  Over the last month he has taken to lying at the edge of our terrace gazing upwards.  My hypothesis was that it was an age thing and that was his favourite spot.  Of a similar vintage myself, relatively speaking, I tend to gravitate to a particular leather chair at the slightest opportunity.  “He just likes it there”, I opined.

My much smarter wife had already solved the mystery: he is waiting for the plums to ripen.

Great Waves and Ripples: Thoughts on ‘Japanese Prints in Transition’

There are a few very pretty things and a couple of absolute wonders in the current exhibition of Japanese prints at The Legion of Honor in San Francisco.  There are works by artists like Utamaro, Hokusai and Yoshitoshi that embody the courtly elegance of ‘the floating world’ and that are well worth seeing.  You should most definitely go, but be warned: there is also a lot of mediocre stuff.  After the courtly and hugely elegant Edo period, there is an abrupt falling off rather than a transition and the exhibition ends with what the gallery describes as Ukiyo Pop. The thing is to discriminate, but sadly discrimination is in short supply these days.

The problem lies in the homogenisation that is endemic in all areas of the art world.  Take the bureaucrats who run galleries and museums.  “OK, so we don’t have a Leonardo, a Piero della Francesca or a Raphael, but we have other works and they are all ART and, thus, priceless.  We have experts who tell us so.”  The academics  are biased though.  If you have spent five to seven years on a PhD, you are hardly likely to admit that the subject of your dissertation was an artistic nonentity.  No, he or - of you are lucky enough - she may have been an incredibly minor follower of some mediocrity who was vaguely connected to a relatively unimportant workshop or studio, but the artist was the producer of enormously insightful works that capture the very essence of the zeitgeist or that prematurely deconstruct the incipient dawn of the patriarchy.  Whatever the case, it is not tosh, but something deeply profound that demands a hell of a lot of verbiage.  

Then there are the trinket shops attached to the galleries and their themed merchandise.  The public will buy the coffee mugs and t-shirts whether they show works by Vermeer, Georgia O'Keeffe or - heaven forfend - Gilbert and George.  It is all the same; it is all art. The coffee-table catalogues are equally resplendent and equally costly whatever the artist.  It doesn’t really matter as no one reads the wretched things. The important thing is that when the worshippers emerge, they clutch some mark of culture that separates them from the philistine hoi polloi and it matters not a jot whether Hokusai’s ubiquitous wave graces a scarf, book, mug or tea cosy.  The object is a conspicuous sign of sanctity much like the smudged cross on the forehead of a believer leaving a  church on Ash Wednesday.

Is a lack of discrimination important if, as Oscar Wilde said, “All art is quite useless”? Well, I rather suspect that in an age like ours, where extremists flourish and hysteria reigns, where the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity (to borrow the words of another Irishman), it is important to make nuanced distinctions and to have confidence in one's own judgement. In politics, as in art, the ability to distinguish quality and substance from mediocrity and superficiality is crucial. Without such discernment, we risk elevating the trivial and ignoring the profound, thus impoverishing our cultural and political life.

Two and a half cheers for Harvard

Ah, Harvard—the hallowed halls where the brightest American minds congregate to garner the fruits of “the best that has been thought and said in the world” (Matthew Arnold if you were wondering) and to push the limits of human knowledge. And now, after five long and fatuous years, they’ve finally decided that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements are no longer required for hiring. Hip, hip, hooray! Meanwhile, in the land of local schools and community colleges, we are still confronted with the task of penning entirely ersatz but seemingly heartfelt DEI statements, lest we be deemed unfit to mould the minds of tomorrow. Yes, even for the humble position of part-time janitor.

Picture this: A tweed-clad Harvard professor sits in his office, finally free from the mind-forged chains of DEI declarations. His only concern? How to help the next generation get to grips with Kantian metaphysics. Not an easy task, but at least he can do this without concern for modish inanities or factitious guilt over daring to teach the works of an undeniably dead, European male.   Contrast this with the plight of the community college hopeful. Imagine me, your humble servant, furiously typing away, trying to convince a panel that I have a genuine, burning passion for creating a culturally responsive, hugely inclusive and exceedingly diverse syllabus for a survey course in philosophy or Western literature. Why, you might ask? Because it’s apparently the key to securing that coveted adjunct position with a salary that barely covers an evening at the pub.

And it’s not just the academics. The custodial staff, too, must share their visions of an inclusive, equitable mop and bucket strategy. ‘What’s your DEI approach to cleaning the cafeteria?’—a question that could stump even the most seasoned of janitors.

In the grand scheme of things, one must wonder whether we are truly advancing education, or merely adding layers of bureaucracy that would make Franz Kafka proud? As Harvard returns to its primary responsibilities, perhaps it’s time for us, in the trenches of local education, to follow suit. Until then, I’ll be here, drafting my next DEI statement, ensuring it’s as inclusive as the campus recycling program.