Chasing your Tail Isn't as Fun as it Looks; or, An Emperor Sits in Church

Education...I have a really good friend, goes way, way back, told me once when I was getting my M.Ed., “don’t ever call yourself an educator.” He went on about the type of teacher who refers to himself as an educator. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He is more wizened than me. He’d been around the block, many more blocks than I had. He’d dealt with reputable folk….me not so much. I’ve spent most of my life carving no powerful connections.

Like I said, I didn’t know what he was talking about. What’s wrong with referring to yourself as an educator? Nonetheless, I decided, from his tone of voice and anecdotal evidence, I would always say I was a teacher. Since…I’ve come to find myself more as an instructor. I still call myself a teacher when people ask, but in my CV I say I’m an instructor.

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but it’s a fundamental problem—an inner conflict—something I’ve always thought—I don’t really like teachers. I’ve said from the beginning of my career as a teacher… “just promoting the fraud.” And I still believe this.

When I first started teaching I could never sustain the fraud. By the end of the second week, students had lost faith in me. As the years went by, I learned to stretch this space of faith longer and longer into the school year. I remember, my fourth year teaching was the first time I was able to sustain their faith in me until the end of the year.

I call my students by their last names. This tactic helps tremendously. Mr. So-and-so, can you tell me what part of speech this word is? How does this help understand context Miss Such-and such? I’m also brutally honest with them. I think of two instances in my life as to why I am truthful with my students. Mr. Barge, my 9^th and 10^th grade English teacher, who broke down in front of us one day, and more recently, Atticus Finch’s advice to his brother Jack… “Kids see through your bullshit.” Or something to that effect.

Most teachers are well intentioned. I shouldn’t need to remind people the road to hell was paved with good intentions. Most teachers went to high school and were successful, then straight to college, then back to high school to teach. They’ve never had jobs. This is a fundamentally flawed system. Teachers don’t know what the world is like. A friend of mine recently told me his daughter came home excited about having to learn cursive writing. He was befuddled at the notion that teaching hours would be wasted on such an archaic skill. It’s a beautiful truth. Why on earth are we still teaching kids to write in cursive. The only justifiable reason that even approached sensible I’ve heard is to sign your name. But, upon further reflection, teach them to sign their name and move on. Other reasons I’ve heard: They need it in high school. They need it to read other people’s cursive writing. They need to be able to read their teacher comments. All of these reasons are self-perpetuating. The only reasonable rationale is to be able to read other people’s writing, which is debunked as soon as you realize that all…and I can verify this…all, forms and documents of official nature, academic, business, government or otherwise are either in print form or word processed.

When is the last time you read a memo in cursive, let alone in paper form. It’s a preposterous skill to teach and a waste of time. But, ask a teacher, and they will stand on ceremonious hyperbole defending the silly skill. Teachers have no ability to see their positions objectively.

I have encountered more teachers of the variety who would kill themselves before admitting what they’re teaching is obsolete than I care to admit. We are teaching students to analyze literature in a world where nobody is reading books. The average time spent reading is 15 minutes as an adult. 20 years ago, I remember having to learn about art. Having to write about it. We used to laugh…who in the fuck is going to care about this? We’d ask each other. Care about why DaVinci’s Mona Lisa is smiling oddly…this is about as helpful as understanding Raskolnikov’s need to taunt the police chief.

Yes, these are interesting quandary to ponder. But essentially valueless. We are more interesting people because we’ve thought about these things, but there’s no value in it. This is the core of my problem with educators.

Every English teacher fancies himself or herself a writer. I do as well. This is important because you can’t teach writing or analysis of texts without understanding the writing process yourself. Trying to get an English teacher to share their writing is like trying to get a 7^th grader to share something they’ve written personally. I’ve come across more than a handful of students who want to share what they’ve written and I always enjoy reading what they’ve written. I’ve learned students just want to hear that I liked their story. I think English teachers are the same, with the added baggage of years of experience. The vast number of students whose writings will never see publication; ratio-wise the same is true of English teachers. So, in both cases, why should we read these writings with such a critical eye. We would do better to allow the authors’ stories to exist within the lives they’ve been created, and not “make suggestions.”

Of course I have a different approach for essay writing. I will have students write stories and then analyze each others’, and hopefully provide authentic critic/creator experiences. It’s difficult to persuade kids they have as much right as anyone in the world to make judgements on texts bound in published books. To a kid, the act of picking up a book carries too much weight.

For example: You give out the next book to your class. The Outsiders. Maybe 4 or 5 have already read it and love it. Another couple of students have friends who’ve read it and can’t wait to read it. Then there’s a handful who’ve heard about the other class that’s reading it now and have heard how cool it is. There is weight in these expectations. And then, as English teachers we tell the kids we are going to create an argumentative thesis that speculates on what message the author is trying to deliver. That’s a best case scenario, things start to spiral down fast once you start including things like…what’s the effect of literary devices on tone or atmosphere, or how does diction convey point of view. To a seventh grader, this must seem like a preposterous and utterly pointless endeavor. To a senior, you can take away the preposterous, but the pointless aspect of such an obscure task still resides inside the psyche.

So give a task like write a short passage wherein the student must convey an emotion about a gift they’ve received. The challenge is to convey an emotion that is “not cliché” but maybe for the younger kids, “not normal.” Then students share documents and analyze how their friend expressed the character’s emotion…i.e., what emotion is it and what language delivers the emotional connotations.

This will help students see how often these literary “tricks” often rely upon one or two phrases, and many times one or two words is all it takes. Examples can be made of subtle and exaggerated approaches. This can parlay into dialogue and sharing verbally and hopefully generate deeper understanding. Do enough of these and then slip in an excerpt from a famous story and have the students do the same thing. 

Mullin' on it!

I write a column, "Mr E's Mullings," for the student newspaper at my school. One of the editors of the paper has a granddad who's started a dialogue with me via the form of poetry. I've copied the poems below, and following that is my response.

 Stroke or Strike

Stroke or Strike
Please, Mr. E., lets mull again

about two words that can affect us suddenly

and unexpectedly they menace us alike:

it's stroke or strike,

can either paralyze one person or us all.

Is stroke an act of God

and strike the right of some

to paralyze all others,

schoolchildren, even teachers, innocents and mothers?

Is strike permissible and wise

to paralyze and penalize

us who are not responsible at all?

-HCJ

Untitled

Please, Mr. E., let’s mull again

about the thoughts, thousands of thoughts

that cross our  mind each day.

What is a thought, where does it spring from?

Is our brain the garden,

offering hundred different ways -

and who decides which one to follow?

Are thoughts the seeds or are they flowers,

are words their image or their tools?

What is the difference between wise men and fools?

-HCJ

Dear HCJ,

Where do thoughts spring from? Sometimes they spring, but they also slip from us, they suffocate us and badger us, they haunt or escape us, they pop—blast—explode—and disappear. If the brain’s the garden wherein all of this takes place, then we are like that loveable fool Candide, meant to work in it. Because of this then it is us who decides and this is the thing that separates us from our predecessors. We can decide.

Sure, Fate or Freewill is a really old idea. I have a hard time believing that in all of ancient Greek civilization there wasn’t at least one guy sitting in the woods, racking his brain over the choices he’s made. Can you imagine this freak…all of his neighbors and buddies are like, “Dude, don’t be a Dionysian Downer!” or “Why ask why? Try Bud Dry!” Now because of Quantum mechanics we can reconcile this age old conflict and say anything is possible. In a Scientific American article, George Musser states, “Quantum mechanics is indeterministic, in that the outcomes of measurements are chosen at random from the slate of possibilities.” The “slate of possibilities,” is our garden. This means we aren’t destined for anything, but at the same time, a person could make all the “right” choices that would lead him seemingly in the “right” direction, yet never reach his intended goal. But something is happening in our collective streams of consciousness that’s simultaneously being discovered by Quantum theory, “Quantum physics is time-symmetric, so we are as justified in saying that our choices set the cosmic initial conditions as much as the other way round” (Scientific American). In this idea, we are the masters of our fate. Imagine the guy who’s been making all those “right” choices to no avail. He’s relentless in his gardening. Forever nurturing the fruits and vegetables that will feed him. In our shifting idea of Fate and Freewill everything is happening, everything is possible. Maybe his intended goal isn’t where and how his fate will lead him; but the collection of his choices lead him somewhere nonetheless. This is the beauty of our choices, they are the collective culmination of what we’ve decided upon and they take us to our righteous destiny. The intention is a reflection of the spirit of our choices, and not an idealistic version of our goal…where we inevitably end up depends on the choices. Intent is irrelevant and critical simultaneously. It’s the paradox of Quantum physics. I have a hard time with this notion because I’m from the 20th century, but soon, this “everything theory,” will be seemingly innate and people’s thoughts will be their guides and take them wherever they wish. 

This isn’t new…the power of positive thinking has been around for a while. I remember in middle school, I was at a school assembly and this group of actors came and performed a little power-of-positive-thinking-skit. I remember two things iterated from their play. “Tomorrow you’ll wake up and be 35,” and “Wake up, clap your hands and say, ‘Today is going to be a great day!’.” But these were only hopeful ideas. Based on the unreliable science of psychology. Now, because of Quantum theory, exclaiming today is going to be a great day can be a real truth—a real destiny.

As for the difference between wise men and fools…I recognize this as the rhetorical device it’s masquerading as. We both know, HCJ, there isn’t any.

As I read your poem, “Stroke or Strike,” two thoughts occurred to me. The first was a professor I had in college…Professor Jacobs. This guy could recite poetry, prose, theory…anything at an astronomically prolific rate. He had this weird quirk. He constantly pushed up on his lip. He had a mustache and with the tips of the fingers on his right hand, he’d push up on the right side of his upper lip…it always seemed to me he was fidgeting with his mustache. A couple years later I was sitting in a bar having a beer with a friend of mine with whom I knew from a class we’d both taken with Professor Jacobs. She told me that he’d suffered a stroke and the lip/mustache tic was a resulting side effect of the stroke. The other thought that came to me was the recent strike in Berlin. I have a new son and he still lives with my soon to be wife/mother…that’s “baby mama” for all you South Central homies out there…down in Slany, a small town about forty klicks north of Prague. I go down every weekend to be with them. They will be living with me here in Berlin by the time this article is published, but the point is, I rely on the trains. When the strike hit was the same weekend that my week-long October break fell. I got stuck in Berlin, and when I saw these lines…

Is stroke an act of God

and strike the right of some

to paralyze all others, schoolchildren, even teachers, innocents and mothers?

I couldn’t help but attach my own personal experience to this. I’m a teacher, meine frau is a mother, and my boy is innocent. I considered this line and its exact relevance. I thought it was too unbelievable…but then it dawned on me, HCJ has had a long life and that it’s just a metaphor. Nonetheless, the thoughts blossomed—they rattled around for a while—then moved on.

the stroller

There's an old guy walking down the street in this city. He's tall and thin and he pushes around this baby stroller. Everyone steers clear of him on the street. Everyone knows there's no baby in the stroller. The stroller is old and the wheels spin around out of tune with one another, the awning drawn down nearly shut, and he keeps the rain cover on rain or shine. He's a quiet old man, keeps to himself and occasionally he straps a tow-rope to the rear axle and drags a four-wheeled wagon behind with his belongings.

He sleeps under an over-pass where a bike path is the only traffic he sees...or sees him. A passerby will stop on the rare occasion to see what he's built his dwelling from. Mostly pallets and cast-off boxes from the furniture warehouse department store a few blocks up from the over-pass. He's been forced to remove his place a few times. It will happen again, but he still re-builds. He's got a gas stove, but no gas. He's not deformed or hideous around the face like most homeless people you see. He's got all his teeth, his hair is full, and he wears a dark five-O'clock shadow somehow. It never gets to be a full beard, yet it retains it's full shadow over his face...he's handsome in this way. His hands are dirty and he never wears gloves and the first thing someone notices if they happen to walk up to him and talk to him, or walk along side him in conversation--his dark rimmed fingernails. The knuckles are battered, cut. He never wears gloves, which is why they're so noticeable. 

Everyone knows there no baby in the stroller--he knows it too. He's not sad--per se--but he's definitely not happy. He smiles to people as they pass by. He's learned to do this. He never used to have to smile or carry in his natural demeanor the kind of thing he does now. Now he recognizes that when people see him, he's got to put his best foot forward. People are scared now-a-days, and rightfully so. He's the first to agree...best foot forward. When he was younger he just walked down the street. He had a home to go to. He had a job, a good job working for the bureau of motor vehicles. 

His son, the one who would have occupied the stroller many years ago, is still alive--it's not so tragic a story as all that. In fact from his point of view, hardly tragic at all. He never hears the street kids laugh and make fun of him...they're all tatted up, pierced, young and full of acrid sarcasm because they're living life the way they want...not the way society says. They still think you have to look like a freak to be one. He lives across state--the son, who would have occupied the stroller many years ago. He's doing well--goes to college. The old man doesn't know what his son is doing, he vowed to have nothing to do with him. The kids on the street are falling over themselves joking about how pathetic the old man is, but they have no idea. They devise a whole back story that looks like a Hollywood movie because unfortunately that's all they've ever paid attention to. They were raised on television and youtube videos. 

One time when the old man was young--relatively young--33, he was pushing his stroller along the park down on the waterfront. He was just off work, it was a beautiful spring day. He unloaded the stroller from his van and put the diaper bag on the handles making sure he had everything he needed in any situation, it took him extra time of course, but he didn't mind. He grabbed a book in case he had the time to read a bit. He'd told his wife before their son was born, "I really can't wait to push him along in the stroller and find a quiet bench down on the water and read a book while he sleeps or drinks his bottle, or just looks around." That was before he'd gotten mad at her and swore he didn't want anything to do with the boy. Now he had no more wife, and the stroller he was pushing along the waterfront had no baby boy, hungry or otherwise inside of it. So, he had everything in his stroller and walked along on the beautiful day, nodding to passersby and smiling. He felt as if he belonged...he seemed happy and the people would smile and glance into the stroller to catch a glimpse of the baby boy...it figured to be a boy because the stroller was baby-blue with dark navy-blue trim. The old man, then a young man of 33, would never turn and see their expressions. Most people just figured they couldn't see the boy snuggled up inside the warm comfy blankets... "Oh, he's so adorable," they'd smile and nod. Some actually even stopped to look and he'd say, "Just got the little devil asleep." And a joke about how when they're sleeping they're all angels would pass between them and a soft laugh or a stifled snuffle before moving along. 

In reality the boy would have been only a couple months old at that time and the young 33 year-old man wouldn't have been able to have been long on a walk like this without having to tenderly pull him out of the stroller in efforts to comfort him because he was hungry, or cold, or needed a fresh diaper. He would have had to have been with his wife so she could feed him under her shawl as they sat on a bench enjoying the day. But the young 33 year-old tried not to think about this. He tried not to think about walking out on his wife and son because she made him angry. 

Now, the old man hardly thought about those days. Now he pushed his miserable stroller along, protected from the rain, with his four wheeled wagon carting his belongings behind him. 

He would be sitting in his pallet and cardboard dwelling reading a book and he'd hear a young child asking his father who lived there? Or, why does that man live under a bridge daddy? And he would twitch inside. He'd remember and he'd shut his eyes tight in order to squeeze away the tears and prevent any burning of his eyes that might occur. He told her to go to hell...and to take that fucking kid and toss him into a dumpster for all he cared...and he would cry again. He would remember her crying and the sound of her soft, broken voice telling him to go but at the same time begging him to stay and hold their beautiful baby boy. To not do this. To please, don't take it out on the boy. And he remembered how so long ago, how easy it would have been--to simply forgive her and take his boy into his hands and feel his soft warm head against his cheek--how easy it would have been. But he didn't. And every child he overhears asking about the man who lives under the bridge he has to relive these memories. 

When he still had his job and apartment, his wife would call him, leave messages, texts, and emails urging him to come back and he swelled up in this power he had and yet he wanted for all the world to stop this and all he had to do was go to her. When he was still young, people at work all knew how much he looked forward to the boy coming...how happy he was when he announced to the entire bureau his wife was pregnant. When the boy was born and soon thereafter he'd gotten mad at his wife and left them, he never told anyone at work. When people would ask him to see the boy, bring him into work, he'd make easy excuses..."ah, the boy's spending all his time eating, sleeping and pooping...the kid's living my dream." As the months passed, he became withdrawn and by the time the moment had passed wherein people stop asking about your newborn baby, he was no longer the same colleague they'd all been accustomed to. His boss, the director called him into the office. "Are you alright?" "The family?" "How's the wife?" All these questions he would make up answers that were skin deep because in reality he could only imagine what these answers might actually be. 

The director talked with his supervisor about him. They were both concerned. 

Occasionally the old man will be pushing his beat-up old stroller down some boardwalk or city park path and notice a new couple with a baby in their own new, top-of-the-line stroller and how the young beautiful wife's eyes dart from carriage to old man and back again and then whisper something so only her husband can make it out. The husband's look of pity would give away what she'd said and the old man would lean down and check on his boy; make sure he's sleeping ok and stroke his pudgy cheeks and then just as the couple passed by the old man would nod and smile apologetically. He remembered when his boy was still only a couple weeks old and his family was still together they'd gone for a walk in the park overlooking the city. It was still winter and the boy's cute little face peeped out from a bundle of warm soft blankets from deep inside the stroller. He hugged his wife and they both seemed to smile from within. He pushed his stroller and smiled at every passerby and watched as they walked by to see what kind of reaction they'd have...he doesn't do that anymore. When he first left his family and started taking the stroller out for walks he still imagined the boy was buried deep inside and he would look. He would watch as people walked by. He wanted to make sure they believed there was a baby inside. He stopped doing that once, when a middle-thirties couple was walking by with their little four year old girl. And little kids this age can be bold and forward with strangers, especially on a warm summer day, and the girl reached into the stroller before her mother could stop her and pulled back the fluffy blanket discovering nothing at all. The stroller was still new, the diaper bag full and half-unzipped revealing a bag full of diapers and other assorted baby stuffs, and underneath was his book and water bottle...all perfectly settled save for the baby wasn't there. The mother's look of concern, the father's pitying stare and the daughters oblique laughter as if the man were merely pretending. "Are you practicing for when your baby comes mister?" The girl asked and of course he had to play along but the parents understood what was going on. After that instance he learned to appear to be "minding his own business," and not pay too much attention to people as they either looked or didn't look to see the baby inside the stroller he was pushing. 

McMurphy's anti-literary business.com

Big Nurse’s most effective control tactic is to emasculate them; McMurphy’s fateful demise comes at the hands of Big Nurse but not without a fight. McMurphy resisted under a guise of machismo and bravado and by building a network of supporters based again on being a “man.” Big Nurse views the notion of “manhood” as a deviant behavior in need of reconstruction methods. Big Nurse is a manifestation. She is the gate keeper—seemingly to everything—at least through Chief’s eyes.

The first group meeting McMurphy watches while Big Nurse horsewhipped Harding about his questionable virility and masculinity, and then he interjects to gain Harding’s trust…show him men stick together. Nurse’s “McMurray” intentional mispronunciation is her attempt to shut him down and he’s already slipped a wink at Harding and the group is in on the gag before she recognizes the sex joke was at her expense. She’s completely befuddled at the notion that someone would view her “femininity” that it doesn’t even occur to her until the effect has taken its roots. The “effect” is that McMurphy has established his right to be a man.

Big Nurse resolves to persist. She continues to “mispronounce” his name before promptly announcing he’s in “—for Rape.” Now, Big Nurse is a seasoned pro at controlling all types. Even the doctor is not allowed to overtly appreciate McMurphy’s full “effect.” But McMurphy dispels her attempt effortlessly by characterizing the “relationship” with the fifteen year old as one in which he was the victim of her libido—…took to sewing my pants shut (40). Somehow Big Nurse believed that shaming McMurphy about his virility would be effective indicates she is outmatched initially. At least it indicates she is out of practice and these are only lessons for her on adjustment tactics which she’s re-assessing constantly… “looking out through her window, got a tape recorder hid out of sight somewhere, getting all this down—already planning how to work it into the schedule” (64).  

Her perseverance is flawless and without effort as she “dispenses” of him now. This reveals another slip in judgment. She’d been mispronouncing his name in attempts to belittle him many times. McMurphy never corrects her. Big Nurse reasoned initially that McMurphy would correct her sooner, explains the numerous times she so abuses this tactic. And by the time the doctor speaks to McMurphy directly, he mispronounces it as well. McMurphy swiftly corrects him and the doctor must recognize the Big Nurse’s subversive tactics...he knows, Mac knows and Big Nurse knows. McMurphy’s hilarious concession speaks volumes, “It’s okay, Doc. It was the lady there that started it, made the mistake” (41). This is pure, gold. Good old fashioned, down-homey rhetoric. 

McMurphy’s response exposes the wires Big Chief reminds us are there. The doctor is an unwitting casualty of the war between McMurphy and Big Nurse. He lacks the courage to act overtly in McMurphy’s favor, but he allows McMurphy to tell the story of Hallilhan and Hooligan. Of course the poor doctor cannot, “overlook the possibility that this man might be feigning psychosis to escape the drudgery of the work farm” (42). He’s revealed himself twice already, snickering into his collar, and he must rectify the appearance of complicity and swing the pendulum back into Big Nurse’s paradigm. McMurphy…seemingly satisfied with the turn of events, settles back to observe…as Chief suggests would be another aspect of being a man—a gambler—“is a smart move” (43). This may also be the one real victory for McMurphy and mark the beginning of his demise.

McMurphy successfully establishes with Harding the catalyst for the pecking party is Big Nurse. 

McMurphy uses a colloquial caricature as an interface persona to eventually inspire Harding’s break down as the entire ward watches and on their proverbial seat edges….Big Nurse presumably is witnessing this event from her box. This information is pivotal and McMurphy’s symbolic offering of a cigarette is a gesture of both offering and accepting. The nurse intentionally observed and vetted the information for future possibilities wherein which she could exploit. The comradery will continue to align McMurphy more and more alongside the Acutes. He will become one of them…either by his proactive intentional actions or leading by example…behave like a man. Big Nurse knows at this point, the invaluable key to successfully breaking McMurphy is time. McMurphy hasn’t figured this out yet, but speaking to Harding is enlightening for McMurphy.

McMurphy immediately recognizes the value of the doctor’s role. The variable is how much of a spine does Spivey have. McMurphy knows this.

“It’s like an old clock that won’t tell time but won’t stop neither, with the hands bent out of shape and the face bare of numbers and the alarm bell rusted silent, an old worthless clock that just keeps ticking and cuckooing without meaning nothing” (49). Kesey’s nod to the title’s meaning. It’s especially meaningful because he tells this story of ol’ Pete during the group therapy meeting, while McMurphy is “observing,” and in this same meeting is where McMurphy discovers virtually everything there is to know about the Ward, Big Nurse, the Doctor and all the patients. He’s even seemed to have figured out Big Chief is not what he seems.

Kesey’s set-up of the battle between McMurphy and Big Nurse is an old theme, but McMurphy is determined to reject the literary allusions that work to expose themselves. Harding plainly states the Ward is a matriarchy and he extends the “controlled” scenario out into the world telling the story of how she’s taken to volunteering and donating to poor young couples. Harding’s building a literary giant out of Big Nurse. He makes her the matriarch in and out of the Ward and by virtue of the same emasculating tactics. She promises, according to Harding’s imagination, to send money for scouring powder and on her way out, “[Pauses]…draws the timid young bride to one side and offers her twenty dollars of her own: ‘Go, you poor unfortunate underfed child, go, and buy yourself a decent dress. I realize your husband can’t afford it, but here, take this, and go,’ ” as a way of insuring “the couple is indebted to her benevolence [forever]” (55). Of course this is only Harding’s version, but it smacks of literary allusions.

Harding is trying to elevate McMurphy’s truth…which is real men don’t get controlled by a ball-cutter, by giving it a prescriptive language. He makes allusions to obvious institutionalized and academic metaphors. He says they’re all rabbits and he’s a wolf; compares the EST sessions using Christ-like imagery; and he alludes to the American dream—rather the “Vanishing American” dream in Chief. But McMurphy rejects these couched allusions and reduces them to his truth tit-for-tat.

To McMurphy he’s not literally saying, “stop making bad clichés and metaphors,” he’s saying, “no, that’s not why…I can flirt the pants off a Mormon deacon’s wife, that’s why!” The thing a writer has to contend with, I suppose are his critics. It’s possible that McMurphy’s acknowledging Helena…rather Marilyn Monroe, a contemporary offering at least, is evidence of Kesey’s awareness. He couldn’t let his story hinge on the moral ramblings of Harding…nor McMurphy, and hence the necessary component, Big Chief as narrator. Literally blind to everyone save for on a subconscious level…except for McMurphy. A better metaphor for the narrator of the story cannot be discovered. Telling the story, sweeping up on discrete conversations, the longest on the Ward gives him credibility and ability to tell stories any mostly omniscient third person narrator could, even getting invited into the panel discussion regarding McMurphy, to clean some random mess—Big Chief is the perfect narrator.

information infiltration; or to wiki or not to wiki...

“Google” something you want an answer to and what you’ll find at the top is either paid for or the person who wrote the website embedded language within the title and somewhere else in the coding that mirrored your search phrase. It means nothing...money, skills or luck, gets information its location. We are literally swimming in information—we are information—Planet Money said in a podcast recently that the world has turned into data and data-miners. People are writing code now to find out the best place to buy a slice of pizza. This kind of saturation makes it easy to find evidence that will support even the most outlandish claims…we live in a world where everyone is right…at least we can find credible sources that say so.

Let’s start small. Let’s say you want to know how many spaces should follow a period. Well some teachers will tell you two, others one. Go to any MLA website and they will say one or the other, sometimes both. Thanks to Slate Magazine via a shared posting on fb, I can proffer one possible solution to the quagmire. In the early 20th century typographers in Europe established the one space rule and it wasn’t until typewriters came along that the two space rule was devised because typewriting machines work on what’s called “monospaced type.” This was a new development. Typesetting was an artform and relied on “proportional type,” when the typewriter came, it was mass-produced and easier and more cost-efficient to create all the little letters the same size, thus allowing for easy repair and or production. According to Slate magazine who cites James Felici, author of The Complete Manual of Typography, “Monospaced type gives you text that looks "loose" and uneven; there's a lot of white space between characters and words, so it's more difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately. Hence the adoption of the two-space rule—on a typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to read” (Slate). An interesting note about the two space rule, once word processing programs entered the equation, “monospaced type,” disappeared, but because a generation of typists learned on manual typers, the two space rule remained.

The point is, information suitable to your needs, can be found anywhere—if you’re patient and read through it—carefully. When I do my own research here in Germany, I start with our library’s databases…Gale and Ebscohost. These are excellent starting points. If you are in 10th  thru 12th grade, consider the John F. Kennedy Institute’s library. With your parents’ permission you can get a library card there and are granted access to the known literary and historical world. JSTOR, Eric, US Library of Congress, Galileo, not to mention they have a massive collection of periodicals. For those of you who don’t know what periodicals are…they’re essays…millions of essays, and what any teacher over the age of 30 had to swim through in order to write a literary critique in high school and college.

If you’re a youngster, Gale from the library is perfect. Do your wiki and your google scholar searches to get to know your topic and then dive into the database offered right here. A little-known tip—and this is a keeper—often times when searching a database, it only provides an abstract (a brief synopsis) of the article. Cut-n-paste the title into your favorite search engine followed by dot pdf (.pdf) and 9 out of 10 times the article will pop up. Sometimes it’s only an image, but a usable source nonetheless.

Everyone can start using “educational search engines.” Refseek (my favorite) and google scholar, these will get you access to the abstracts and then you can—dot pdf—your way to a bevy of legitimate essays, journals and articles.

The older students should find Owl.english.purdue an invaluable resource. Anything you want, and free. I have found some rules to be outdated, but in those cases…don’t worry, your teacher is probably still doing it that way too.

The younger kids…partner-tongue especially…check out chompchomp.com for all your grammar questions. This place gives you easy to follow rules and practice exercises…I use this site in my own classes.

Frontline, Nova, PBS—these places give you legitimate and topical information in easy to digest formats, i.e., videos. Get a podcast downloader and listen to Fresh Air, Science Friday, Planet Money and This American Life…Prairie Home companion you should add just because it’s fun. These are all English options…but any public library will surprise you with its wealth. In the states, I went to libraries instead of going out. Nothing better than a late-night alone in a quiet library reading. I wish the JFK Institute was open on weekends. The world is become information kids—the number one tool you’ll need in deciphering it—reading. Read—read—read…that’s free of charge, and not available on wiki.

What's really going on; dgc...lmnop!

I’m getting paranoid. The other day I heard Sophocles echoing down the hall…he was accusing Coleridge of contributing to the exodus of faith. The Mariner’s not to blame, he’s only a sailor—reliant on wind. Not unlike Traveling through the dark, these mythic giants don’t waste time wondering what the other path would have resulted in, they contribute to the value of shadows and shades, and their only evidence exists is faint shadows. More like ashes, like what Pompeii left behind. I can’t differentiate between my life and fiction. I can’t figure out how to sculpt my own theories yet…not without support…but I’m fine with this.

I’m Big Chief, sweeping my broom around the ward. My family would go to these meetings with our pastor. Tuesday nights in the same hall where the Friday night fish-fry took place. Remember those old church halls in the part of the church that seemed invisible from the outside as you passed by on the street. The felt-covered accordion-style room dividers on tracks that crossed the great hall three or four times creating smaller rooms for classes. It was at one of these meetings my mom read a poem she’d written about masks. I couldn’t understand her obsession with pointing out the obvious. Of course people put on masks…I knew this innately as a 10 year old kid. It was her making such a row out of the notion that threw me off. This seemed the way everything operated.

I wasn’t aware of the consequences, nor was I really aware of the context wherein masks appear and disappear…I only knew to change my presentation under different particular situations. I wasn’t aware on a conscious level that people could be manipulated under these conditions…I simply believed that people behaved differently to suit a given context and the best I could hope for was friendly discourse. Of course discourse for a 10 year old boy, is playing a made up game, playing wiffle ball, or D and D. None the less, if I could behave in such a way that gave me an opportunity to win I did that, assuming everyone else was behaving likewise. My mom’s insistence that this behavior should be stopped was one that I adhered to for a long time. I realize now, my mom was in her early thirties, and she thought her experience was unique and because no one seemed as perturbed by the hypocrisy of such behavior she felt the need to “represent” so-to-speak and she rebelled. By thirty I knew this kind internalized rejection of what happens in socialized settings was how people interacted. People wear masks…it’s necessary. Occasionally people unveil what they think is a mask and this continues in a back and forth, ebb and flow that adds to the beauty of us. We are wonderfully imaginative.

Anyway, she read the poem and we all sat there silently. I liked it. Thought it was honest but it was my reaction to the pastor’s solemn and somber reaction that planted the seed…this is a tragic p.o.v. His entire body language emblazoned on my psyche—this is not the way to view human interactions. Like everyone has an ulterior motive is such a skewed perspective from reality that it’s shameful. Someone could have just asked one simple question…So?

…And your issue with this?

…Yes, this is how we know when it’s safe to take off the masks.

…or to put one back on.

I feel like Big Chief. The ward. If I am Big Chief, I’m liking my chances. Not so much for McMurphy, he’s doomed…he bit off mor’n he c’n chew with Big Nurse. Tom Wait’s says, “don’t believe a lawyer when he swears.” Shakespearian. These are the ashen figures I speak about. Big Chief is a dark shadow in the mind as you read and later think about in your daily life and the shadow darkens and stands like a Neanderthal silhouette hunching behind your peripheral spectrum. This mythic figure following you around…sweeping his broom. Ahh! It’s inescapable! This is nothing but beauty—confusion.

The kids are like a new earth—an earth in its infancy—being pummeled by information and experiences. Every new experience—and they are prolific in production—is a violent explosion of meteoric proportions. A weathering that can only take place in the violence of birth. The earth was violent in the shaping of it, and yet it’s beautifully round. A more apt metaphor cannot exist in terms of literature. The roundness of earth’s character suggests complexity and beauty as all round characters in literature seem to exhibit. This is the same for these kids…time for retrospect comes in brief flashes…clues and cues…too much is happening to stop and assess.

I couldn’t take the train to prague this weekend. The train workers are on strike. They had a successful strike I guess…’cept the way I see it, I don’t get to see my kid till tomorrow. I’m quite certain no…kein gmbh suffered under the weight of this strike as much as me. You see, I’m still somewhat ego centric. The difference is that now I know it’s not intentional. It’s not something happening wherein I am the central character. When you’re in seventh grade….absolutely everything is a reflection in which you are the center. You get to be in eleventh grade and kids have weathered some…not so easily amused. A bank has already started developing. This sort of fellow…we’ve seen this before…but still, nothing in comparison to 45 years. But the beauty is that new experiences are still as prevalent.

The earth is the earth. Beauty has an open-door policy. You can’t see beauty until you’ve weathered. Rather, versions of beauty change, and the most remarkable thing about life is that currently…always right now…is the most opportune time to witness the pinnacle of beauty. After it’s past it only becomes something you can try to explain…if it hasn’t happened yet it only becomes idealized versions of reality…the now…is only available when it’s happening.

When the earth was new it took a beating. The guys on the Ward, they're formed old earth but Big Nurse and the Combine doesn't like the shape of their landscape and like a meteor shower they work and weather 'em. "Work 'em woe," old Mariner said. The students in my classes are perfectly formed planets of their own...yea! but we weather 'em and work 'em, rain down a thousand years of storms and like a storm front works the fields so do we work their lives until one snaps, dries up, got no more to give. 

after i told her about it, she asked why i would do that

if it's happened to me,
   and to you
   it's not that significant

being able to recognize
     a good place to take a seat

forcing yourself
further;
even when you're screaming
at yourself to stop...
this is good

she told me
i stress when the plan
breaks down;
it was hard
to look at her in the face,
sex would have
been easier

outside my window
         the rain is coming down
in straight lines