MrHeartlands official business

The Tale of Sysifeline

2010-06-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

The Warthogs slept away their full lunchbellies in the glass sunlight, neither knowing or caring that the afternoon warmth was artificial, that it was November outside, that the people who passed by weren't there to see them but mainly to get out of the Northern wind, though they did take the time to look up from the warthogs to stare at the pacing cougar above their heads and mummers. Rumors of mountain Lions in the outer suburbs had returned, tales of strange footprints near Papillion , dogs missing and presumed eaten.

While Sysifeline paced he tried to remember just how many years it had been since any of the warthogs had feared him, and that's what tortured him now. Sysifeline was no fool he. He was a student of Sun Tzu, Wagner, Nietzsche, Hemingway. He knew perfectly well that he would never again taste living flesh, the futile nervous recoil of tissue trying to keep from being separated from its master. Sysifeline paced and stared at the hogs not out of hope of snatching them but out of rage; these stupid pigs, wholly lacking in a warrior's self-awareness, who slept ate and shat without having a clue that they were in a fraudulent environment for the amusement of man, these filthy piles of fat who were so stupid, yet had somehow learned not to fear him, and Sysifeline wondered why, in the name of any god ever imagined, could they not at least fear him? "Let me be a slave to the humans and their effete technology but let me just have this one delusion of my rightful power. Let them fear me GOD DAMN THEM TO HELL HOW DARE THEY NOT FEAR ME!"

He remembered Colorado, making his way from to mountains into Denver every winter, working enforcement for the Eastside Crips, devouring enough indebted junkies to actually grow full on their emaciated bodies. He remembered Frogeye, the Eastside leader, how he could smell his weakness, his infantile attachment to women. He had Frogeye figured for a Rat for years before the police finally caught up to him, so that when they did, and Frogeye predictably started naming everyone involved in the operation, Sysifeline was already miles ahead of the chase. Omaha was different in those days, none of the hipster poncies running around midtown like you see today; and Sysifeline had heard that the food was good, and it was as good a place to run to as any.

It wasn't the first time in his life he had to run, though it always made him sick inside to do so. Guatemala; the prissy humanitarians who wanted to charge him with war crimes, 'war crimes' what an vomitous concept. Defeat is the only crime in war, and to be killed before being devoured and shat out was the only mercy owed to Marxist parasites or their women.

The wife, Terri, still there in the Rockies for all he knew, spreading her god to their children, what choice did he have but to run from her? She could never accept that she was just a wife, recoiled at the phrase "just a wife" the pain on her face when he refused to explain his night terrors filled him with a pity that made him lose his strength, so that he had no choice but to slash her face to ribbons until he gained it back. It was better for both of them that he ran; "The boy, he was always going to be a weakling and your God was only making things worse. I did what I had to do. Death is my love and my mistress. You're nothing but a bitch in the way. You disgust me." It was mercy when he said that, really. "She can live with the void of me as long as she hates me, she'll find the strength to live alone as long as she hates someone."

Yes he knew how to run, convincing himself that there was less disgrace in running from whatever whatever chain or cage or grave than there was in being judged by whoever wanted to kill or cage him, but the core of him never believed this. How he longed to simply let himself be cornered and embrace his lover, to be cornered and kill, kill with abandon until someone finally killed him, to penetrate the blood and death that he worshiped and lived for.

In Omaha he became the biggest player in guns-and-meth racket. The Yellow-eyed-Jackyl they called him, (he hated being named after those fancy-feast faggots) He worked out of the back end of the Mas Felicitas bar on F street near the rail yard. He drank the cheapest show-polish excuse for rum he could get because he loved the feeling of death it gave him in the morning. There were those who didn't know how much he love, same as everywhere else, they were the ones who would try to short them, but they learned; the white man from fifty miles out on West Center Road, the one who had an American flag for a rear-window, Haskell he was. The one who didn't even try to hide, just sat on the porch of his filthy trailer with that gun of his he bragged about so much, while those stinking children ate macaroni and ketchup inside. Well no man sees a thing behind his back Haskell, doesn't matter how long you stay awake, " I spared your throat for a few seconds because I wanted to hear you scream for your Jesus, I ached for it you degenerate bastard."

Velia came into his life in the wsummer of 98. She was a Haitian Philipina who skoked Shields Menthols and cleaned rooms at the 72nd street Ramada Inn. She said that she hated a clean man far more than a poor man though she preferred neither, so maybe the solution was to find someone who wasn't a man at all.

Are you the solution? Are you just going to wither when you got it all and get clean? She said that she loved him for his power and asked if he loved her too. He never answered, with all the rest of them he could simply say no and perhaps be honest about it. he could feel her seeing into every pore of himself and felt a sense of real defeat for the first time in his life. The cocaine helped take that away, that and her body, made him the soldier of will he had been before. She said that she loved him for his power but hated the way he slept through the afternoons, " I thought you were a real Leo Macho! How can a gangster like you try to sleep when you got me? You know how many of your people would think your crazy for sleeping when you got this body?" So he upped his coca intake to stay up through the hot days, and she seemed to be satisfied.

By this point Sysifeline could afford as much medication as he wanted. He controlled the entire coke and meth trade of Nebraska, with a claw or two dipped into virtually every sort of dirty business going down in the upper Midwest. Sysifeline would go days without sleep, and trusted the local foot soldiers less and less; a self-fullfilling prophecy where only the most arrogant back-biting fools of Omaha thought they could get into his inner-circle (or presume he had one). One would-be usurper after another ended up in Sysifelines belly. Sometimes the betrayals were real, other times not quite so. More and more he was calling on old lieutenants, cats he knew from back in Guatemala, Salvador, Cambodia, war comrades he felt he could count on.

And through it all the police had no clue of who he was or what he was doing, (The local ones anyway, there were certain operatives in Washington who had always known of Sysifelines whereabouts and knew that the disappearances of certain gang leaders in both the north and south sides of Omaha, Ne was no mystery.) The rumors of mountain lions appearing in the suburbs were dismissed as urban legends. The reduction in petty street-crime, snovelling punks blooding each other for dime-bag money, was seen as a blessing and left unquestioned.

"You don't hate clean men Velia. You just hate men who don't know what clean really is."

She wanted a big house in Miami or Elkhorn but he knew the importance of acting quiet. She wanted a new car, something named after a wild beast, like a Mustang or something; fine, she could have that. She wanted him to lend bail money for a brother or a cousin or an old male 'friend.' Fine, just don't tell them where the cash came from, ever.

By this time he was injecting his coke, two hours without would give him blinding headaches from the softest light and a constant need to retch.

I'm sure you remember the story in the news. The confirmed cougar sighting in deer park, the homeless man mauled to death in broad daylight, police following bloody footprints creeks and alleys of town until they lost the trail, nearly having him, firing shots and nearly hitting him, stay tuned to Channel 6 for all the details.

It was the first time he had killed without a purpose, a purpose or something like it. Certainly the first time he had killed without a plan, if nothing else. It was the day he knew he would have to kill Velia one day. It was the day she had slapped him, the day a woman had touched him without permission and he had done nothing. She called him junkie shit and all he could do was incoherently scream and he knew it was done. Velia didn't fear him anymore and soon the day would come, and he would have to, but not yet, let her make her move first. Let her give him his purpose.

He figured that it would be a betrayal of the business sort; that she had deluded herself into thinking that she had seen enough of his work to know the deal, to know how to score. It never occurred to Sysifeline that she would fuck around with another male, a mere man after having him. He heard rumors, more and more lately. At first he would give a good clawing to whoever spoke them but anymore he just pretended not to hear. Yet still he knew, no, of course not.

He remembered little of that day beyond walking into his house and seeing her with that man in their room, the neighbor from Columbus and worked at the Crossroads Applebees, he remembered of having a notion of tearing them apart by the minutist pieces, starting with the sex organs and than moving on to the fingers; but no, it was worthless. The boy he let go. With Velia he simply tore her throat out, stared at her briefly as she futiilly tried to scream, and than turned and left when she swore he could see a laughing smile on her face as she expired.

I'm sure you remember the story in the news. The mountain lion suspected in the death of a transient standing at the edge of the Martha Street bridge over I-480. How he mauling the negotiator they sent in talk him out of jumpingh off and how it took eight cops and twelve tranquilisers to finally take him down.

For weeks the letters came in to the World-Herald demanding to know why he wasn't shot dead right there. He was just a damned cat after all, and now that negotiator, a family man, breathing through his throat and shitting into a bag. Should have done to that cougar what we would do to all of them it it wasn't for the fucking liberals.

The truth is that the Omaha police wanted to kill Sysifeline, begged and lusted for it, but they had their orders. Someone in Homeland Security made it clear that the cat would be spared if anyone on the force wanted to keep their jobs. Who it was that this strung-out, blood-stained cat knew on high was anyone's guess.

Sysifeline knew the man who walked into the interrogation room. Fitzsimmons, NSA. They met at a whorehouse in Botswana. "We know that you're very good at killing Cecil. You've done a hell of a lot of it, especially for us, and we figured that a kiler of your quality would have already made himself dead, if that's what he really wanted. But no, you're alive and here because this is what you really want. You just wanted to be in a legally-induced coma, to get out whatever shit you happened to get yourself into here. Now the cops, the DA, the governor, they all want you dead, but we're not going to let that happen, because you are a really good killer, and you might be useful to us even yet someday.

So here's the deal. We're putting you in the zoo here. We're putting you in that new Desert Dome they got going up, and you're gonna start being real family friendly, a real delight to the kids, until if and when we ever need you. The story we're feeding the press is that you hung yourself with jailhouse pajamas. Can't let the people know it's actually your hellcat ass over at Henry-Doorly. That would be a scandal, you get off easy that way. And you are getting off easy Cecil, you don't even want to think about what happens to Cougars in the pen, after the Aryans get their hands on them."

That was eight years ago now, and Sysifeline had never heard from Fitzsimmins since. But he would, he knew it. Or maybe some old war buddy would come and spring him. The staff let him sift through the morning paper and he knew about the mountain lion sightings in Sarpy County. "Is that you Harry? Nails? Big Cinci?" Fitzsimmiins was right. The reason he hadn't jumped off that bridge was because he knew he was going to get the glory back, one way or the other, better than before. This cage couldn't hold him, and this world would never stop him. Someday soon he was going to have this world so far down his throat that it would be begging him to shit it out. Hell yeah, smoking patte cigars wrapped wrapped with fucking diamond-barbed wire, and everyone that ever even thought of fucking with him dying real slow and hard. Starting with those fat stupid Goddamn hogs.

Ten years later Sysifeline had been dead for five. He'd been stuffed and displayed outside of the Henry-Doorly front gate. A plauraity vote of local schoolchildren had named him Jimmy the friendly mountainlion. And a there was a plaque in front of his preserved corpse telling Timmy's lifestory, how he was orphaned by a cub and raised by a doe antelope whose fawn had been shot. So that he grew up too peaceful and innocent to know that he needed to kill other creatures in order to eat, and surely would have starved if not for the kind philantripers who captured and brought him to Omaha's zoo.

2008-05-04T22:11:00.001-07:00

be movin pictures in everybody’s house and electric boxes full of dirty pictures and ain’t nobody ever gonna see or read anything that don’t make them feel good.”

2008-04-30T20:07:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
English 462A
04/29/2008
The chronicles of William of Rubruck, Gerald of Wales, and “Sir John Mandeville” reveal a Europe that was both discovering and inventing the outside world. At a time of political weakness and division within and dire military threats from without, we see a psychosocial climate that was ripe for the invention of the modern other. Whether a travelogue was pure fiction, such as Mandeville’s and Gerald’s, or a more or less accurate report of the truth, as with Rubruck, all three chronicles reveal a growing insecurity that came with a growing awareness of larger human society, and all three reveal varying degrees of self-deception that serve to both help the European come to grips with his newfound smallness and yet still allow himself to believe that he is the center of the world.
The day would come would Europe would gain strength and use the attitudes formed in the Middle ages to invite itself to all corners of the globe, yet Gerald of Wales’ often ludicrous account of Ireland shows how the modern concept of the exotic other can be traced just as much to conflicts among European nations as much as conflicts and contacts with cultures completely outside of Christendom.
Gerald’s hallucinary orgy of a report truly is the first piece of colonial literature, as his ideas of exactly what made a barbarian a barbarian would be mirrored in future accounts of Africans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and other groups that would later fall to European conquest. Gerald’s account of Irish kings in the “wild west” being instilled by killing a horse, bathing in its broth, and then sharing the meat bare-handed
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with his fellows reveals a fixation with filthiness and savagery. His account of the soup-bath coronation leads logically to his accounts of massive naked armies armed with nothing but axes and Irish men willing to slaughter each other with their ever present axes without good cause. Gerald’s fascination with ultra-violent nude men further expounds his idea of the savage Irishman, and perhaps reveals some homoerotic yearning within Gerald himself, which brings us to the sexual disorder of the other. Gerald’s imaginary Ireland is a land where male nudity is not only tolerated but seemingly universal, a world where a bearded woman represents the insecurities that come from confused gender roles, and bestiality seems to be a rather typical weekend pastime. (Gerald’s repeated accounts of bestiality and the offspring they produce are even more curious than his armies of the naked and phallic) We see then, how ideas of filthiness and unacceptable violence are closely related to ideals of sexual purity. The link between sex and violence is well known, and most everyone in every culture would agree that sex between a human and a goat, lion, oxen, etc. is extremely “dirty.”
Yet Gerald’s armies of the naked also reveal the Irish to be a fearsome foe, a worthy opponent in whom there would be honor in defeating, and the land of Ireland itself is a mystical place, in which poisonous creatures cannot survive, fish have gold teeth, and islands forbid the presence of females of any species. The Ireland that Gerald of Wales has invented is virginal, mysterious, ignorant of the “true way”, and just waiting for whoever can bring it to yield.
So on the one hand, the Irish other serves as old-fashioned scapegoat. All that is cruel or decadent about human nature belongs solely to the exotic outsider, so that one’s
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native culture consists only of what is noble about humanity. The savagery of the Irishman becomes the glorious triumph of King Henry. Of course Gerald does reference Nero in his praise of King Henry, which can be taken as both a sly dig at the monarch and a reminder of Nero’s proclivities. The other serves to purify oneself and one’s culture of desires that are perceived as unacceptable. Everything that a person hates about himself can be cast out and thrown upon the outsider; the ignorant, filthy, yet strong and virile outsider, so that one becomes justified in seeking and enjoying dominance over the other, and should not feel ashamed of enjoying his sense of dominance. It is, after all, only a moral fight to expand the realm or righteousness.
This sense of righteousness could be a source of purpose and strength in European culture, but it must have also have often seemed rather hollow with the failure of the crusades and the dire threat of the Mongol Empire. The thirteenth century was a time when it appeared that “they” were going to win, and that the idea of a world centered on Europe and Europe’s God would be not only be made to be absurd but completely destroyed.
While there were attempts to demonize the Mongolians; such as the cannibalism libel that seems to be attached to all of Western culture’s enemies, whether chosen or thrust upon, here was also the realization that the Mongol threat had to be faced with a detachment and objectivity that seemingly went against the tendencies of the medieval mind. After all, this was nothing like the situation between England and Ireland, where a stronger nation sought to justify the conquest of a smaller, fellow Christian nation as something good and noble. William of Rubruck’s account of the Mongol Empire lacks
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bestiality, cannibalism, incest, and the frankly inexplicable accounts posited by Gerald of Wales and Mandeville. It would seem to be the work of a man who accepts the Mongol superstate as easily the physical superior of any of the European kingdoms, and yet not quite. He also seems to accept the Mongols themselves as creatures of equal intelligence to himself, but not quite, and the fundamental belief that Europe, with it’s internal conflicts and prejudices, is of great importance to the whole world never completely disappears in spite of what he sees with his own eyes.
On the one hand, Rubruck is perfectly smart enough to know his place. He is respectful to Mangu Khan and his officials, and dutifully records the incidents where his hosts treated him kindly. He has a clear fascination with Cosmos that grows into an obvious fondness for it, and carries shades of “going native”. “The wine was new and special, but cosmos is a more satisfying drink for a hungry man.”(rubruck, 212 )
He also asked us if we were willing to drink cosmos, that is mare’s milk, for the Christians-Ruthenians, Greeks, and Alans who live among them, if they wish strictly to observe their law, do not drink it; they even no longer consider themselves Christians after they have drunk it. (109)
Rubruck even finds some fellowship with the hated Muslims in their common
monotheism as they debate the “Tuin’s”, and certainly has a far better grasp of Islam than of the East Asian religions; as is made clear by his disjointed, misinterpreted and usually woefully inaccurate third-hand accounts of these.
All in all, Rubruck is a basically fair-minded man who went about his mission with something like modern professionalism, but not quite.
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His constant harping over his poor interpreter ultimately has great symbolic significance, because his brain never truly enters “another world” but remains in one in which Catholic Europe is the center.
For one, there is his constant attacks on Nestorian Christians, often on theologically trifling issues,
“ Why do you not have Cross and the figure of Jesus Christ here?” He
Replied, “It is not our custom.” From this I thought that they must be
` Christians but did not have them owing to a doctrinal error. (137)
We see here the unquestioned assumption that Western European customs are the correct ones. Rubruck clearly considers the Nestorians, these total strangers from wholly different language and ethnic groups, to be traitors. These people who are certainly “Oriental” in comparison to himself are nonetheless guilty of being Orientalized, especially in regards to their casual relations to the Saracens. He holds the domestic mundaneties of Mongol culture in scorn throughout. (Note how he continues to refer to them as “Tarters, even after he learns what they call themselves.) Rubruck never comes close to giving up his hatred for the Muslim other; indeed, the scene in which Muslim debaters suddenly surrender and declare Christianity to be the truth recalls the most bizarre propaganda of Gerald, Mandeville, and other Medieval writers working on the assumption that the Saracens secretly knew that they were wrong, and were merely reacting out of envy of God’s chosen Europeans. Wheather Rubruck accepts the tales of fillialcannibalism at face value or is simply trying to liven up his story, the exotic cannibal still appears yet again, and his total misinterpretations of Buddhism and Animism are laughable.
Finally, Rubruck confuses the Khan’s tolerance and pragmatism towards religion with suggestibility, and his assertion that “If the Tarters heard that the great priest, that is the Pope, was preparing a crusade against them they would all take flight into their wilderness” (113) is beyond absurd. While blatant and deliberate propaganda in “The Journey of William of Rubruck” is somewhat rare, we still see something of a proto-other here. Rubruck uses his prejudices as a tool to hold on to the affirming thought that the Catholic religion and Caucasian ethnic groups are of central importance to all. His attitudes protect him from “going native” in every aspect except for one; he admires how the simplicity of Mongol culture, its nomadic “barbarity” facilitates its conquests, and suggests that Europe could take the Asian empire for herself if only she were willing to surrender the comforts of stationary homes and planted crops. The day would come, of course, when Europe would indeed take much of the world through unquestionably barbaric means, justifying it’s cruelty on the grounds that they simply must give to the Savage as good as they get.

2008-04-29T20:46:00.001-07:00

Valantine's Day.

2008-02-14T08:22:00.000-08:00

My last girlfriend got angry when she told me not to buy her anything for Valentine's day and I did anyway.

The one before that got angry when she told me not to buy her anything for Valentine's Day and I took her at her word.

It's a terribly strange pretense for a holiday. Romantic relationships are not inherently good, nor are they necessarily of any benefit to society at large. The idea that "having somebody" is more likely to lead to happiness than remaining single is Puritanism, nothing more. At any rate, couples do have their own personal anniversary's. It's very much like having a personal birthday for one self and than having a big public "Life Day" or some such nonsense.

To sum things up as politely as possible; a woman who takes Valentine's Day seriously is a bigger turnoff than AIDS.

In Lieu of Disk; Here's a minor response paper availible for public consumption

2008-02-12T11:58:00.001-08:00

Joshua Beran
02/12/2008
Response Paper 3
Anyone character of “The Gilded Age” who carries a sincere belief in something, especially the American Dream, is destroyed for it. Silas Hawkins, and after him his son Washington, suffer pointlessly for the belief that their Tennessee land can make them fabulously rich. It’s telling that either of them never consider that it would be anything short of immoral to settle for something less than fabulous wealth. They are perfectly good Americans, taking the cultural mythology at face value, and it is a pathetic thing to see. Laura Hawkins is nearly cynical enough to make it but ultimately cannot stop herself from falling in love. More importantly than that, she cannot stop herself from the dreams of celebrity, power, and of course wealth, that formed during her influence-gathering time in Washington. Phillip’s sincere belief in Victorian mores leaves him an impotent nonentity until a conventional happy ending is arranged for him at the end.
The only belief in “The Gilded Age” that doesn’t destroy the bearer of it is belief in one’s own nonsense. Senator Dillworthy and Colonel Sellers are not hypocrites. They truly believe that they have a shamanistic ability to invent moral righteousness through speech, and that this speech can justify whatever they do. The shameless persecution of Noble is a tragically accurate display of human nature. It is quite incredible how prone a person is to pomposity, how willing he is to consider himself essential to all other people, and how pathetically thin the thread of logic need be to achieve this belief. There are several examples of scandalized Congressmembers today who, from all outward

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appearances truly believe that the things they do cannot possibly be wrong as long as they are the ones doing them.
It would be comforting to believe that people like Col. Sellers or Henry couldn’t operate in the modern world; but the 1870’s are the modern world, and there are in fact many like him, and no wonder. Wealth is still considered evidence of virtue. , Poverty is still considered proof of moral depravity. Optimism is declared a moral obligation. Pessimism is considered an evil unto itself. Social mores practically demand that we make ourselves vulnerable to frauds and hucksters. At least, in the nineteenth century, they were more inclined to give you a pat on the back after they ruined you.
The chapters written by Warner can be discerned by their tedium and preciousness. Those written by Twain are much better. “The Gilded Age’s” take on sex roles is rather impressive, particularly in the character of Ruth; the obvious exception being Laura Hawkins deathby strong emotion; a strange malady which seems only to affect fictional Victorian ladies. In the main, though, the novel shows a sincere appreciation for independent women, and as it goes with so many other social mores in the novel, those who actually take the sex roles of the day seriously suffer for it. Considering the plodding, purple nature of Twain’s letters to his own wife, this may be one area where Warner’s influence was positive.

adasasa

2008-01-30T10:41:00.001-08:00

Joshua Beran
1/30/08
English 462A
What we see in both the “Martyrs of Trois” texts and the account of the Crusader massacres in Worms, Mainz, etc.is an angry defiance, lionization of martyrs and martyrdom, poetic repetition of certain phrases, tit-for-tat insults towards Christianity, and a desire to show the oppressors of the Jews that they were still here and would not forget. There is also the journalistic desire to put their own "spin" on the events in question and not leave the narrative solely to the victors.

The most important difference is a small but noticeable one in tone. The "Martyrs of Blois" writings are mainly poetry, and written in a different environment than that of the general martial zeitgeist surrounding the First Crusade. They are more consciously artistic, more emotionally vulnerable, more mournful and despairing. The "Slaughter" writings are angrier, more hard edged, more gleeful in the way it describes the victims insulting Mary's virtue to a gang of armed Catholics.

The repeated formulas accentuates the intended effect in both assignments. "May his bones be ground into dust" captures the tone of the "Slaughter" writings perfectly. The way in which bible versus are worked into the rhyme schemes of the "Trois" poetry is very impressive even after being filtered through translation. Ephraim of Bonn's reference to Leviticus 6:1 "This is the law of the burnt offering" and Hilliel of Bonn's description of the victims as "savory offerings" are chilling allusions to the modern Holocaust.

Damn I'm Good

2007-12-17T16:13:00.002-08:00

Joshua Beran
Engl. 474
12/17/2007
“This simulation is possibly that of death, in the sense that for sexual beings, death is possibly not nothingness, but simply the mode of reproduction anterior to the sexual.” (Baudrullard, 425)
The idea of death as being anterior to, but not necessarily in opposition to, sex and reproduction, is of course much older than Baudrullard. He is correct though, in his assertion that “simulations”, in particular, the mimicking of real life in the visual media of film and television, the aura and mystery that lies in the link between sex and death has vanished, has lost its “transcendence”.
Like many great artists, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has a deep understanding of the polar (though again, not oppositional) link between sex and death. The link to Baudrullard’s aesthetic ideal lies in Kubrick’s ability to present the absurd, surrealistic, and otherworldly in a matter-of-fact, undignified way. Kubrick’s gift in this area is most apparent when he explores the polarity between sex and death. (Alex of “A Clockwork Orange murders a woman with phallus sculpture.) But the Kubrick film that best adheres to Baudrillard’s aesthetic is clearly “Barry Lyndon”.
The story of “Lyndon”, in which a young Irishman hustles his way into continental aristocracy and is quickly hustled back out, reflects the fact that the film is set in the late eighteenth century, a transitionary era between Baudrullard’s “counterfeit” and “production” eras. The conditions that made the industrial revolution possible were

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coming to pass, and a new social competition was possible as the old castes began to weaken and wear before history. Lyndon, who can be politely described as an idiot, is able to take advantage of the new ambiguity lying in cultural signs, and than is brought down by his own inability to interpret them correctly. We see the tension of this transitory period in the costuming and cinematography of the film. John Alcott’s cinematography is almost universally hailed; recalling the most gorgeous paintings of the Renaissance; (Baudrillard’s Counterfeit order) a time when artists were mostly in the employee of a safely ensconced aristocracy; commissioned to recreate the otherworldly deeds of gods and saints. Equally lavish, though, is the costuming of Lyndon. A look at one of Lady Lyndon’s dresses or the pantyhose and pancake makeup of man and woman alike tells us that the film is set during the height of Bourbon cultural frillery. The ostentatious dress of the era supports Baudrillard’s assertion that “There is no such thing as fashion in a society of cast and rank.”(411) The very existence of such fine clothing reveals the growth of a skilled labor class, neither prince nor peasant, that was exceedingly small in medieval times, and history has shown the pomp of the late eighteenth century to be so much desperate pruning by an embattled ruling class.
It is the trademark jaundice of Kubrick’s sensibility that brings us to the modern order of simulation and the polarity between sex/reproduction and death/reproduction. Lyndon’s adventure through Europe begins with a supposed dual with a rich man fought over a woman. Though the dual turns out to be staged, the fact remains that the “death” of John Quin, the rich suitor, leads to the birth of the Barry Lyndon that polite European society would come to know. The true death in this dual is that of Irish peasant boy
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Redmond Berry, now forced to reproduce himself as Lyndon and make his own way in the world. An old family friend, Captain Grogan, is fatally wounded in a battle he and Barry fight together and, in a casually homoerotic scene, tells Barry to “kiss me, for we shall never meet again” an obvious example of death’s place in the reproduction system, one generation making way for the next. Finally, Barry’s marriage to Lady Lyndon is made possible by the death of her previous husband.
The modern order of Simulation comes into play in the manner in which the story is presented. If signs lose their meaning through duplication, as Baudrullard asserts, than an era built so much on artifice need only be depicted matter-of-factly to lose whatever “transcendence” it may have had. Kubrick’s unaffected portrayal of the Seven Years’ War and its aftermath; the murderously outdated battle tactics, the decadent nihilism of an aristocracy that had stopped pretending to have a holy mandate for their rule, and always the transparent, impotent euphemisms, certainly achieves this demystifying, transcendence-destroying effect. Baudrullard’s “end of history” idea is also supported here, as the idea that the late eighteenth century was an “Age of Enlightenment” marked by great social and intellectual progress through the Middle Ages, is rendered laughably absurd through Kubrick’s simulation. The “code” of an era that in many ways laid the groundwork for our own is rendered meaningless. So just as the beautiful cinematography of “Barry Lyndon” serves only to illuminate the rot being depicted, so does Kubrick’s overall storytelling serve to destroy the meaning of the era’s signs, so that they end up only further damning the arbitrary power structure and meaningless, non-“progressive” societies they are meant to justify.

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Works Cited
Cocks, Geoffrey, Diedrick, James, and Perusek, Glenn, eds. Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History. Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.

Kearney, Richard, and Rasmussen, David, eds. Continental Aesthetics: Romanticism to Postmodernism. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2001

Damn

2007-12-17T16:13:00.001-08:00

pig eater

2007-10-06T14:41:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
English 471
10/6/2007
Edmund Burke’s views on the beautiful and the sublime were based on his belief that an objective standard for these concepts existed. He opens his Introduction on Taste with “It is probable that the standard for reason and Taste is the same in all cultures.” Burke, a godfather for modern Anglo conservatism, followed a strain of humanism that emphasized order and empiricism more than humanity itself. His argument that abstract concepts of beauty and sublimity could be empirically was in line with his general mode of thinking.
William Hodges’ land and seascape paintings are the embodiment of Burke’s idea of the sublime, yet Hodges would also travel to colonial India, where he would paint many well-designed cities and buildings that met the Burkian criteria for beauty. These buildings from the “exotic East” were novel.

electroman.

2007-08-13T10:49:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
English 373
8/10/2007
The Red Badge of Courage
It’s been said that it is impossible to make an anti-war movie, since battle scenes are inherently exciting. “Red Badge of Courage” does not try to be an anti-war film, it simply tries to present war as objectively as possible. As such, it can not be a completely pro-war film either. An uninspiring general parroting the same empty words of comfort to every soldier is much more likely than Henry V. Maintaining real order in an environment of death and destruction is impossible. Soldiers are ultimately brought to risk their lives out of fear of being thought cowardly, not the ideals that war is ostensibly being fought for.
Still, the battle scenes are exciting. Audie Murphy, once moved to prove himself, propels the camera forward into the haze. (How strange all of these war-movie roles must have been for him.) The wide camera shots show the enemy coming closer but never quite emerging from it, never seeming to be more than a silhouette. The opening shot, by comparison, with its swaying field of drilling solders, is the look of drudgery itself. The solders become willing to kill not through emotional hardening or discipline but simple boredom.
The shot through the tree branches, which look barren and menacing before the battle and life-affirming afterwards, was very effective. (Even though it is the same shot.)
The Killing
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Is the film overrated or underrated because Kubrick is the director? The first rule of critical analysis is that we are to judge a work solely on its artistic merits, without regard for who or the what of it; but we are human, and “The Killing” was made by the man who could make us mourn a homicidal machine. “The Killing” is a good film but is no more than that. It is not stunningly great. It is not magnificent. Those who know Kubrick and what he was capable of can respond to “The Killing” with either disappointment or by trying to find brilliance where it isn’t there.
It is easier to ignore the glut of violent, non-linear films that have been made since Tarantino came to prominence and see “The Killing” as the innovation it was in 1956. The film’s structure is great for building tension and showing how the scheme ultimately failed. It was interesting to hear of the controversy over the script after watching the movie. Much of the dialogue follows a typical noir staccato, but some of it clearly bears Kubrick’s stamp; tension is built through euphemism and painfully obvious fibbing. This is especially notable in the scenes with the Peatty’s. The left-field homoeroticism is reminiscent of “Spartacus.”
An affinity for dogs seems to be a harbinger of doom. Nikki’s puppy is left without anyone to take care of it. (His assassination does not seem to have had the desired effect, as the announcer calmly reports on the other horse’s progress.) Clay, of course, is ultimately brought down by a frightened poodle. (As well as hasty thinking; he surely could have afforded a better suitcase, and the scene where he haphazardly stuffs bills into the suitcase while thousands are left to float in the breeze is disgusting.)

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Another sign of Kubrick’s hand behind the camera is that we sincerely care for the poodle and are happy to see it scamper safely back to its vapid owner’s arms.
Marie Windsor is a perfect femme-fatale, with heavy eyelids hiding her emotions and words dripping with contempt. Her husband is the perfect loser, and the scene where he delivers her “just desserts” seems his most pathetic act of all. (A bullet to the uterus seems to be a popular way of dispatching femme-fatales) Stephen Hayden oozes confidence and authority. makes a perfect plan and executes it perfectly. When things go wrong and he is forced to improvise, he fails miserably. Johnny Clay is a commanding figure who thrives on precision and cannot bare the slightest deviance. In this way he is very much like General Jack D. Ripper.

50

2007-08-03T10:15:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
8/3/2007
English 373
Winchester 73
The silence presaging violent scenes is very effective. The silence, combined with long shots of dry, rocky, and empty terrain, really shows the appeal of Western films. It is not Man vs. nature so much as men against each other in a wholly indifferent natural environment. Men fire round after round at each other, desperately trying to stay alive. The rocks and the wind don’t care. Perhaps that is why good and evil characters are made so broad and obvious in many westerns; if the natural landscape cares nothing about human mortality, than surely there must be some supernatural force that sees us as important.
The Winchester itself is an obvious metaphor for human greed, and also emphasizes his role as the hero. He is, after all, the only one who doesn’t lie or cheat to get the rifle. He does kill for it, but he was going to kill Dutch Henry. The story of the Winchester is in many ways a gimmick wrapped around a much more typical hero-vs-villian story, but it does have its entertaining moments. The “Indian Trader” and card hustler High Spade adds just the right amount of grit and grease to the film where it is needed.
Casting the very white Rock Hudson as a generic Indian was surely easier to get away with in the black-and-white era. His complete English vocabulary with broken grammar recalls the assistant from “Ramar of The Jungle”. The sudden eruption of “tribal

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war music” whenever “The Indians” are on screen is very distasteful and downright strange coming from a director who otherwise shows such skill and restraint.

48

2007-08-01T10:34:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
July 27, 2007
English 373
Revenge of The Creature
The 3-D effect was very nice in certain scenes. The underwater scenes were almost always enhanced by the gimmick, as were the land scenes whenever there was something like a fishing net or a dramatic gesture towards the front of the camera to bring the effect out. Mostly though, the glasses were distracting. They are simply annoying in the “normal” scenes of exposition, or when the Gillman is wrecking havoc. There seems to be nothing particularly distinctive about the lighting or camera work.
As for the film itself, what is there to say? The sexism is horrifying. Helen Dobson is a “pretty young girl” of twenty five or so, and it seems that pretty is part of her legal name. It’s only natural that the Gillman became enamored with her, who, after all, hasn’t seen “King Kong”. It’s very hard to take Prof. Ferguson’s “I’m a man, I don’t have to choose” line seriously. It’s simply impossible for the young to imagine a time when that line would have seemed anything but ridiculous.
The Gillman himself doesn’t seem at all evil. He kidnaps the innocent girl, of course, but all movie monsters do that. Beyond that, he is simply a creature trying to escape terrible abuse. He is dynamited into a coma, chained to the bottom of a tank, shocked with a cattle prod for no discernible reason, and drugged against his will. His actions could be easily construed as justified. At the very least, the mass panic that occurs when he escapes is rather silly. The shot where he overturns a car might be the least frightening thing I have ever seen.
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Jailhouse Rock
As far as camera work goes, the most obvious thing about “Jailhouse Rock” is that Elvis is in every shot. It’s normal for a film to focus on the hero, of course, but it is unusual for the hero to be the focus of every frame. Elvis can be a perfectly fine actor in films that take themselves at least half-seriously. He certainly plays the bad-boy with a heart of gold part very well. The other characters, be they bosom buddy or love interest, are on the periphery of both the frame and the story. They don’t seem terribly concerned about their lives outside of Elvis. Their emotions are limited to feeling neglected by Elvis and a desire to make Elvis happy.
In the prison scenes, there are a few of the claustrophobia-inducing shots seen in “Death Row”. Mostly though, there is a lot of Elvis. Elvis (His character name is unimportant) is perfectly happy to take the hot, dirty, shirt-shedding job in the coal pit even when Hunk offers him a way out of it. I was impressed by the film’s whispered suggestions of corrupt prison officials and inhumane conditions, even if they were little more than an excuse for another shirtless-Elvis scene, this time an Elvis as sex-messiah flogging scene. Perhaps the most surprising thing to a first-time viewer of “Jailhouse Rock” is how little of the film is actually set in jail. There is the formal conceit of putting Elvis in jail and giving him a father figure, but this is only to justify the film’s existence. The longer the film lingers in prison, the less time we have to be overawed by Elvis’ skill at wooing Women.
In many rags-to-riches films, the hero is horribly punished for his or her arrogance. In the real world, of course, Elvis was one of many superstars who rode a
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train of yes men to an early grave. In “Jailhouse Rock” though, “Vincent” is chided rather lightly and suffers nothing permanent. Even Hunk, the man who doled out the punishment, seems to accept that Elvis’ ego is perfectly justified in the end. Peggy accepts that he cares about her almost as much as money, even if he is too bad to say so.
The musical sequences are justifiably famous, and not terribly contrived as far as musicals go. There is the “Jailhouse Rock” scene itself, which is more homoerotic than the actual prison sequence with its writing male dancers. Other than that, the other musical scenes are restrained and even realistic. Hunk is singing to calm his fellow prisoners down. Elvis is singing because he is recording. Elvis is singing because he is hosting a party. Elvis is singing because he is trying to make money. Those who watch Elvis films for the camp value have to look for one of his later works.
A Bucket of Blood
The film is similar in some ways to “Little Shop of Horrors” where the protagonist gets in the habit of killing to solve his problems, and hilarity ensues. The sets, which consist almost chiefly of “The Yellow Door” and Walter’s apartment, could be used for anything, and were clearly meant to. Julian Burton does a fine job delivering poetry from the “stage.” While the script makes surprisingly effective use of repetition.
By fifties standards, this is very much a dirty film; a low-down, underground, scandalous movie. A woman reveals her underwear and bare back. Potheads go unpunished. Undercover police seem rather ineffective. The film’s treatment of beatniks is quite sympathetic. The poets, painters, and even the potheads are portrayed as humans and not as monsters or warnings to lead a straight life. There is the occasional joke about
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pretension or deliberately vague jargon, but on the whole it’s clear that Roger Corman likes this class of people. These are the beatniks from an insider’s perspective. We see how they laid the groundwork not only for the hippies but for all of modern bohemianism. We also see how they themselves were influenced by earlier movements, particularly the modernist movements of the 1920’s. How is “Dead Cat” after all, really all that different from Duchamps’ “Fountain”? If Walter had been smart, he would have been honest about how he ‘created’ “Dead Cat” and claimed that it was a work of art because he said so.
But Walter is the perfect loser. His obsessive behavior towards Carla, the belief that gaining the hand of this one woman will make up for all of his previous social failures, is all-too-common among lonely men in the real world. (He even ignores a woman who throws herself at him without having any real idea of just what he was refusing. She wasn’t Carla after all.) Walter is fundamentally immature, still trying to fit in with the cool kids as a nominal adult. On the other hand, we see how cliques and elitist attitudes seem to form in all subcultures, at all points of life. Even the rebels need an outcast.

boom

2007-07-31T10:05:00.001-07:00

Episode 3

2007-07-27T18:39:00.000-07:00

Josh in... Nothing In Particular.

Scene 1: JOSH and JENNY approach the Octagon in the darkness.

Jenny: So, you come here often?

Josh: About once every weekend or two.

Jenny: What do you do here?

Josh: Well, drink

Jenny: I mean besides that.

Josh: Ummm.....

Jenny: Are any of these guys good friends of yours?

Josh: They're pretty cool.

Jenny: That's not what I asked.

Josh: Well, Matt, I've known him for a while, but no, I'm not really, intimate with anybody here.

Jenny: So you're just using these people as a source of amusement.

Josh: Yes

Jenny: Just as I use you

Josh:..... Yes

Jenny: Hmmm, I must say Josh, I'm quite proud of you. I really didn't think you had it in you. What would be even better, of course, would be if you had a job and could buy your own house, so that you yourself could be a puppet master of debauchery.

Josh: I disagree, Jenny. I think that living in my studio apartment is the ultimate expression of individuality.

Jenny: Maybe it would be if you didn't rent you leach.

(enter Matt)

Matt: Josh Bear-ann! What's up dude?

Josh: Nothing mush Matt, how have you been doing?

Matt: Oh, you know.... there's nothing really special going on here tonight man. I just drank a liter of vodka but I think I'm gonna take it easy tonight.

Josh: Right on, I just thought I'd stop by, introduce Jenny here.

Matt: Ahh, right on, is she your girlfriend?

Jenny: NO!

Josh: Ummm

Jenny: NO!

Josh: No.

Matt: Oh, right on, you guys are just fooling around than?

Jenny: He serves me when I demand his presence.

Matt: (pause) hah-hah! That's awesome! You're alright Jenny!

Jenny: don't address me by my familiar name, I find you disgusting.

(Awkward stares all around)

Scene 2: DAN and MYLES in a hospital room, Myles lies in a bed, surrounded by flowers.

Dan: Aw man, would you cut this almost dying shit out already? It's really getting on my nerves.

Myles: Don't patronize me Dan.

Dan: Uh, yeah. Glad to see you to Myles.

Myles: My mother brought my laptop here. I saw what you and Josh are doing for the show.

Dan: Oh yeah, we're not just laughing at cartoon porn like usual. We're actually getting something done. I'm really excited for it actually, it's definitely going to be the best thing that's ever been on public access.

Myles: Yeah, well, I don't know. I'm glad that you two are having fun with your project.

Dan: Us two?

Myles: Yeah, you two with your, I don't know.

Dan: Well, uhh, what do you mean?

Myles: Well, I was hoping fo something, I don't know, more serious, funny but poignant, like Annie Hall you know? I thought that's what we talked about when I came up with this idea, but it's not my show anymore. You guys took it and made it all about hobos and alcoholism, and if you want to do that it's cool, but...

Dan: so, what are you saying

Myles: I don't know, it's just not my vision anymore, I wanted this to be.... great, like Hemingway great.

Dan: Uh, right, are you, well, Hemingway, he's cool and all, but, well, what do you want to do? Do you want to write in more Jew jokes.

Myles: It's too late for that Dan. We could spend half an hour telling Auschwitz jokes and it would never stop being funny. But that's not it. It's not the kind of jokes, it's what the jokes are. I thought you guys were scholars. Where's the truth, where's the philosophy?

Dan: Well, uh, we could throw that in somewhere, I mean you could, you just need to start writing your own episodes and, than we could all work on it together and add the hobos in.

Myles: Yeah... I guess... I want out, that's what I'm saying.

Dan: Out? Are you sure?

Myles: I'm sure of that like I'm sure of the boil on my ass. I want out Dan, just write me out of the script, poison me to death, throw me in jail, I don't care. Nothing personal, but you stole me baby, and now you got her dressed up like a cheap whore that doesn't even recognize her own father when he pulls up to the curb with cheap wine and handcuffs.

Dan: Well, okay, if that's what you want than I guess, like you said nothing personal, and if you want to keep on acting in the show we'd be glad to have you.

Myles: Yeah, well, I don't know. we're still cool and we always will be, it's just that, I'm tired Dan, so damned tired. she was my baby, and than she just walked away.

Dan: I understand. Josh and I will keep the show going if you don't mind.

Myles: Oh, absolutely, do whatever you want. Just cut me out, cause I'm done. Now get out.

Dan: Myles, are you really sure you want to

Myles: GET OUT DAMN YOU!!!

Scene 3, back at the Octagon

Hovaneck: Hey Josh! How you doing?

Josh: Oh, I'm

Jenny: Excuse us

Josh: Oh Jenny, I was just talking to...

Jenny: We're leaving.

Josh: Yes dear:

Jenny: Yes what?

Josh: Yes mistress,

Matt: Oh hey Josh!

Josh: What's up man? We uhhh, gotta go.

Jenny: Good evening to you

Matt: Ahhh, that's too bad

Josh: Yes it is, but, you know, duty calls. (winks)

Matt: Ahhh yeah! right on!

Jenny: Hmmmph, what he means by that, sir, is that I am going to take him to my superior apartment and make him scrub down my entire kitchen and bathroom, after which I will reward him with a cheese sandwich and perhaps something extra if if it amuses me. do not allow his veiled claims of desirability fool you. I am repulsed by this urchin, I am aroused only by his desperation and servitude, not by the man himself. Now if you excuse me, I'm going home to punish this pathetic little welfare case for his arrogance.

(Silence around house)

Josh: Yeah, I'll, see you all later I guess.

Scene 4: JENNY'S Apartment

(Off camera whipping noises)

Jenny: You slave! You pig! My bathtub looks worse than it ever did before!

44

2007-07-27T15:46:00.001-07:00

ytryryryy

2007-07-25T09:57:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
7/20/07
English 374
War of the Worlds
The social context of this film is obvious. From the Depression to the Cold War, the Western World had faced constant threats, internal and external, for twenty five years. In place of Wells’ anti-colonialism satire we instead get more religiosity, supremely confident armies, and alpha-male heroes. I did catch the reference to the novel about the “strategic importance” of the British Isles, but we get no explanation why these isles would be more strategic than New York or Washington, unless the filmmakers thought that would just be too much for American audiences.
Yet again, scientists are capable of figuring out any problem almost instantly and atomic technology is capable of anything. Once again, we have a helpless woman who serves no purpose whatsoever. Still, the film is not totally blinkered towards American society and its ruling classes. The military is completely helpless. A policeman abandons his comrades to save himself. White middle-class workers turn into animals when faced with death.
The ending is quite abrupt, and seems just as anti-human in its way as “Red Planet Mars.” The people are wholly unable to defend themselves and are reduced to begging for miracles. So they get one in the form of germs. In the novel, this was a wonderful metaphor for the consequences of invading places we don’t know much about. In the movie it is simply a deus ex mechina. The special effects were simply great for their time. The heat-ray looked exactly as a heat-ray is supposed to. (the fact that it was the
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prototypical heat-ray certainly helped. The attackers looked truly alien, taking forms that can’t really be compared to any earthly animal form.
Ramar of The Jungle/I led three Lives
The threat of communism was very useful in justifying the status quo. It was communist “subversives”, after all, that Herbert Philbrick was looking for. So any kind of subversion, questioning, or social rebellion could be reasonably suspected to be communist.
It is clear that the “Hard as Nails” woman in “Ramar in The Jungle” is up to no good. She challenges the myth of colonial benevolence when she asks Ramar about how many native tribes are left unvaccinated. (Alas, witch doctors stand in the way of ‘civilized medicine.’) She is also a foreigner of some indeterminate origin. Mostly though, she is an assertive woman. She refuses to flirt with Ramar and has a cold, “unladylike” personality. The message is clear. A woman who doesn’t stay at home and have babies is a communist at the very least and quite possibly a lesbian as well. It is not surprising, than, that any group that teaches girls they shouldn’t have to be ‘chained in the kitchen’ when they grow up is a communist front. As if this isn’t enough proof, the “Pickapoo” girls dare to teach Norma Ray about poverty and racial oppression. The girl, incidentally, is described as being eight years old in “I Led Three Lives” but acts more like a five or six-year old.
The music of “Ramar” is overbearing, suggesting constant menace and superhuman dread. Little needs to be said about Willy, that strange television creature with a complete English vocabulary but no grasp of grammar. The native languages are
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clearly improvised, which hardly matters in the minds of the producers, since English is the only real language. Take both shows together, and the message is clear, only white men can are capable of saving a dangerous world from itself.
Scandal Sheet
The camerawork in this movie is very good. Facial close-ups are used very effectively, and all of the actors have great facial expressions. We can see McCleary’s determination, and Grant/Chapman’s face shows the anguish of a man trying to hide his anguish. The tracking shots are also good, particularly the Bowery bar scene, where McCleary and Bidle walk through the line up of “stewbums” with utter disgust. (A completely unjustified disgust, as they are right down in the muck with these men, just for different reasons.)
As McCleary flirts with Allison, so too does “Scandal Sheet” flirt with nihilism. At times, the message of the movie seems to be that, since everyone is a “stupid slob” anyway, there’s no reason to let morality restrain you in seeking status and power over them. The redeeming feature of a murder lies not in catching in punishing the killer, but in the entertainment value and increased sales. Ultimately though, justice prevails. McCleary is chagrined by the death of Charlie and is genuinely altruistic in the search for his killer. He and Alison never share a room, Chapman is brought to justice. It is quite likely that censorship codes of the time had something to do with this, and it’s easy to wonder how the movie might have been different if it were made twenty or thirty years later.

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Julie Allison is quite liberated by the standards of her time, lightly brushing off the mild harassment of McCleary. While it is hard to imagine an educated white-collar professional living with her mother today, real estate in New York is quite expensive.
Cell 2455 Death Row
There are plenty of shots in this film that are simple and easy to understand yet effective. There are the prison shots, with the bars and the low light suggesting claustrophobia. There is Whit leading his gang towards the next misadventure guns drawn, the low somber light of the funeral parlor. Judging from this film, the textbook chapter describing Fred Sears as a businesslike director seems accurate. This is a competent movie, but nothing about it suggests aspirations towards high art. It is in this subtle, unpretentious matter that Sears and William Campbell portray Whit as the perfect sociopath. Whit does not descend, he is no more and no less amoral on death row than he was as a child. Whit loves his parents, this is his only source of conscience. He can understand the immorality of his actions only through the pain his actions cause them. (Shades of White Heat?) Otherwise, everyone else is there to serve him. Gang mates and girlfriends are just as expendable as his crime victims.
It’s interesting that the film focuses more on Whit’s criminal career than his legal maneuverings to stay out of the gas chamber. Sears seems to be more comfortable with fast-paced action and narrative. The courtroom scenes did drag noticeably compared to the rest of the film. The moral condemnations towards Whit from his lawyer and himself seem a bit forced, not really in the spirit of the rest of the film.
The House of Tomorrow
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Anyone who thinks “South Park” is some unprecedented horror from the depths should watch the old Tex Avery cartoons and see that Parker and Stone do indeed have influences. This cartoon is clearly a satire on materialism, but it’s a little too straightforward to be truly biting. The sexism is strangely innocent, even, dare I say, cute. Avery is not a Misogynist, this is an artist who has simply been brought up to believe that this is a man’s world, women should be judged on their looks, and mothers-in-law are bitter scolds. People are not generally skeptical, and it is an incredibly easy thing to bring decent people to accept the social inequities around them as “natural.”

2007-07-23T09:57:00.001-07:00

God

2007-07-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

airplane

2007-07-18T09:56:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
English 373
7/16/2007
The most obvious thing about “Shrinking Man” is that it’s serious, not only serious but sincere. This has already been pointed out by the professor but it’s just so unnerving, that nothing in a movie about a shrinking man is played for camp value. But then, what would be funny about it? Scott Carey’s condition cause him to lose his job, his sense of adulthood, his sexuality, and finally his very humanity.
The two predators that Carey deals with are crucial. He is already in a very low place when he is attacked by the cat. It was bad enough, being treated as an amusement by society and as a child by his wife, now he is attacked by his own pet. The cat has no respect for the food, shelter, and pampering Carey has given him before, he is smaller than the cat now, and that is that. Carey is scratched, toyed with, and made to run like any other small mammal. His family assumes he is dead. Carey is dehumanized, he is gone. And he does not regain his humanity until he fights the spider. This man innovates, improvises, he invents shelter and tools, and than he does the uniquely human thing of actively seeking his enemy out instead of only fighting when cornered. Carey defeats a physically superior creature with tools and intelligence and creates himself anew.
There are several signs that the movie was made in the fifties. Carey is poisoned by radiation, and the implications of that our obvious. Louise Carey is nurturing and not much else. The doctors are noble supermen who quickly discern the reason for Carey’s problem, and of course there is the non-love love scene. It is quite clear that Carey has
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lost his sense of sexual dominion over his wife and finds it again, (or, better, yet, sexual equality) with the circus woman.
The details of the film are just fantastic. The screaming of the cat, the vibrations of the spider web, the match blazing brighter and hotter than any torch. It’s clear that the filmmakers spent a lot of time wondering what it would be like.
Tarantula
Anything involving the “atomic” “nuclear” or the “isotope is apparently capable of doing anything. Once again science and the scientists behind it, are the rulers of this mortal realm. Professor Deemer isn’t quite the archetypical mad scientist. His intentions (at least his stated ones) are good, if only he and his colleagues hadn’t been working outside the boundries of normal society; childless, apparently sexless men doing secret research while hidden in the wilderness. The day is saved of course by another scientist, Dr. Hastings. The local MD hasn’t taken on any of the rough edges of rural culture and instead exudes a general fifties swellness. He also has the authority to bark orders to local and state police and call in air strikes.
The sexist attitudes of the film are painfully obvious. Stephanie Clayton comes to town in a vaguely flapperesque outfit and prefers to be called “Steve.” Her nickname is a blatant metaphor for how she has abandoned her sexuality in order to take up the man’s work of, thinking. She regains her womanhood through being in mortal danger. It is not until she is threatened by the beast’s giant penetrating fangs that she becomes properly feminine and weak.

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The film’s ending is also very interesting. The remaining townspeople cheer wildly at the planes as they have no doubt that the military will solve the problem. The planes are also incredibly accurate, never hitting anything but they’re target though it was only yards away from a town. Unrestrained academics create a problem, disciplined military men solve it.
The setting of the movie is perfect. The desert suggests predator vs. prey, isolation, nobody to help you if you run into danger. Another nice bit is the tiny smattering of fact about the tarantula mixed in with, everything else. The special effects weren’t bad for their time, and the p.o.v. shot of a fang bearing down on a human victim is mildly intimidating.
Captain Midnight/Dragnet
Captain Midnight is incredibly grim for a children’s show. The Danger is extreme. The hero is dead-serious. None of the adults, in fact, ever crack a smile. (Except for Icky Mudd, the swarthy, Italianesque servant to the WASP Midnight, but he doesn’t really count as an adult.) Once again, scientists are supermen whose powers have no limit. Indestructible metal can be created without too much trouble. Frozen men can be kept alive “with drugs.” The villains are not specifically Russian but rather generically European. Their accents are indeterminate, and their faces are, foreign, just, foreign. Even our allies in Western Europe flirted with Socialism, after all. They really weren’t all that different from each other. So it was wise not to completely trust any of them. Finally, the sight of Captain Midnight commanding his young viewers to purchase Ovaltine was truly intimidating. (What is a “food element?”)
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“Dragnet” is also very grim of course, but more appropriately so. The noir elements are obvious. We see the silhouettes of Friday and his partners smoking under a single source of light, the flat voice-over, the fedoras, and the world-weariness. The understated acting makes the emotional moments more effective. The mother of Stanley only needs to curl her face to show she is heartbroken. The soft weeping of the dead boy’s father is deeply moving. Wild hysterics would have been unnecessary and in fact would have seemed untoward compared to stateliness of the rest of the show.
Sexism is again quite easy to find. One mother is blonde, one is brunette, other than that it’s impossible to tell the difference between them. They are quiet, weak, paralyzed without their husbands, and not particularly helpful to the investigation. The way Stanley is treated says much about the difference between than and now. A child in his situation today would be treated like a suspect, nothing less. Pundits would decry the corruption of our children, the NRA and gun control groups would battle to put their spin in the public consciousness. So perhaps things haven’t really changed that much.

My mother was a saint you scum

2007-07-17T15:21:00.001-07:00

2007-07-16T18:15:00.001-07:00

f3

2007-07-11T20:35:00.000-07:00

Beran 4
The Presley of the seventies was also used to reinforce stereotypes against blue-collar whites. Presley spent lavishly on his home, clothing, and cars. He grew overweight and drug addicted, and died exactly how one would expect an overweight, drug-addicted man to die. Presley had also fallen out of style. He represented his generation of rock stars, and they could hardly be called rebels compared to the artists of the sixties and seventies.
The counterculture that produced these artists was deeply suspicious of Presley himself. There was a feeling that white southerners had stolen rock music from African-Americans, and Presley was the biggest offender and beneficiary. Presley has long been accused of racism. “The only thing Negroes can do for me is shine my shoes and buy my records" an alleged quote by Presley that has been thoroughly debunked, is still believed by many. “Some said that Elvis said statement before a show in Boston, where he had not yet been, others said he made the statement on Edward R. Murrow’s ‘Person to Person’ a program on which he never appeared.” (Bertrand, 242) And then there was the White House visitation; Presley’s bizarre worries about the Beatles and the Smothers brothers being communist and his even weirder request to be a Narcotics agent. Growing conservative with age is the greatest of all rock blasphemies. So the image of Presley presented in the middle-class mainstream is that of a new-rich, bigoted, naive hypocrite, Elvis the hick, the aberration, a pretender to the pantheon of baby-boomer enlightenment.
Lower-class whites often take the blame for the racism in American society. It is the poor, uneducated white who is associated with lynch mobs, the Ku Klux Klan, Confederate flags, and mobs outside of the schools. The redneck stereotype allows the

Beran 5
white middle-class to exonerate itself from the national sin of racism. Institutional racism, the problems that minorities face in entering the power structure and attaining social mobility, can be conveniently forgotten. The middle-class mainstream, according to itself, cured itself of racism at Woodstock. No, the only problem with racism these days is the right-wing militia manned by poor whites or the scattered hate crime perpetuated by poor whites. Racism would have disappeared long ago, if not for the reticent hick.
So the old conflict between young Elvis and young Elvis really comes down to two convenient stereotypes. There is the white-trash young Presley, the poor rural boy who dared to integrate popular music and the crowds that came to see it.
White Trash is identified as such though being perceived as “acting like
Blacks” which in the language of racism is worse than actually being
black because it constitutes a degradation of ‘racially superior’ whites.
(Sweeney, 252)
Then there is the old Elvis of the post-civil rights era, a time when the middle-class imagined that it had cured itself of racism. The redneck stereotype allowed the mainstream to imagine that the movement was a simple matter of heading south and marching behind middle-class African-Americans. They were the innocent ones who faced down the ignorant rural rubes and prevailed. The northern, suburban, middle-class had shown their moral superiority over the rural southern underclass. Now all the white southern underclass had to hold onto was their hero, Presley, who had literally choked on

Beran 6
his own ignorance and excess. There is Presley as the savage white trash devil, and Presley as the redneck scapegoat.
Thirty years have passed since Presley’s death. In that time, the gap between the rich and poor has widened, and race relations show signs of regression. Popular music has become more fragmented and varied to suit different tastes. The biggest change to happen to pop music in this time is unquestionably the rise of hip-hop. Hip-hop began as an urban, lower-class, African American art form. From there, it quickly spread throughout the economic classes among African Americans, (Will Smith), to other minority groups, (Cypress Hill), and finally to the disadvantaged group that isn’t supposed to be, the poor white.
Eminem, (a.k.a. Marshall Mathers) like most rap artists, is popular mainly among rebellious teenagers. Yet he also has an older demographic of fans. Many blue-collar whites find comfort and catharsis in his music. Columnist Frank Rich of the New York Times and others have called him the “New Elvis” for this reason. Both Mathers and Presley rose from poor backgrounds to become icons, and both scandalized the public when they first broke into public view. Of course, as people, the two men have little in common. Mathers comes from inner Detroit while Presley was a “hillbilly” in rural Mississippi. What they do have in common is that both, however inadvertently, have helped to perpetuate stereotypes towards poor whites.
Rappers are often accused of catering to stereotypes, of portraying a world where young (usually African-American) men care about nothing but gaining money through

Beran 7
illegal means, sexually humiliating women, and slaughtering their enemies. While the antics of gangster rappers are over reported, there is more than a little truth in this charge. So how did Eminem fit into this world? by taking the stereotype of the crazy white boy to a new extreme. Eminems “Slim shady” persona heedlessly spreads S.T.D, commits an endless stream of violent felonies, rapes his mother, and kills his wife only to resurrect her and kill her again in some other song. In short, Eminem embraces the “White Trash” stereotype with as much gusto as his mentor, Dr. Dre, embraces the “nigger” stereotype. “If already transgressively white, in that he is marked and heterogenized by his fallen state of whiteness, now becoming a white other, he can more readily identify with the black Others who share the same socio-economical plight as he.” (White, 31) Once again we see poor whites being stereotyped through popular music in much the same way as minorities. Hardcore hip-hop artists claim to embrace these stereotypes as a means of mocking or subverting them. Weather or not they succeed is a source of intense debate.
The most obvious difference between Presley and Mathers rises to fame is how far one has to go to be considered rebellious. Presley was by all accounts a shy, respectful young man, who never sang about committing violence and only alluded to sex in a very, very indirect way. (His shaking was another matter, of course.) Eminem’s subject matter has already been covered. He has had to go to very great lengths to be considered unusually offensive in the modern society. Yet both men caused similar amounts of controversy. If the working class has lost ground in other areas, the realm of pop music is one where they have certainly gained ground if not taken over. In the

Beran 8
fifties, the middle class was still encouraged to seek entertainment in high culture; live theatre, classical music, etc. The myth of the classless society was the myth of a high-class one. Today everyone is a commoner. Nobody has too much, nobody is too good for vulgarity. A 1952 copy issue of Reader’s Digest claimed that the “average American” was improving his standard of living through “regularly attending the opera, symphony concerts, and ‘legitimate theatre.’” (Reader’s Digest, quoted in Bertrand, 135.) Presley was one of the key figures in breaking the high-culture mainstream. Today the strategy for maintaining the myth of classlessness is populism. “ It is fashionable among suburbanites to claim that they are two generations removed from the farm or the factory. Studies showing social stagnation suggest some straining of the truth.” (Mills, 78)

f2

2007-07-11T11:07:00.001-07:00

Gerald goes to Lincoln

2007-06-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

A man wearing a shabby yet still pretentious suit is enamored by the SaltnPeppa songs playing on his Laptop. An attendant walks up and talks to him

Attendant: Excuse me sir, would you mind turning the volume down?

Gerald: Oh, certainly dear, sorry to disturb the passengers.

Attendant: I'm afraid not sir.
Gerald: Oh, that's too bad. I'm Gerald Steinhorse. I'm actually a visiting professor from UC Boulder. You might have read my book on subconscious gender indoctrination in regional discount furniture chains.

Attendant: Oh, well, no Dr.

Gerald: Call me G.

Attendent: Oh, well, okay, heh, G. Well, no, I haven't read your book Dr. G. I'm sure it's very good.

Gerald: Well it is I assure you. I make almost sixty grand a year you know.

Attendant: Oh, very nice, very nice. I dropped out of community college myself,I really shouldn't have you know, but I got this job here and Northwest is paying me abut eighty grand a year now so I guess things worked out.

Gerald:........ Yes, so it would seem. But anyway, I won't be needing anything so you can go on and, service the other passengers.

Attendant: Very well Dr. G. Enjoy your time in Nebraska.

Gerald: Oh, yes, I'm sure I will

(Attendant walks away)

Gerald: (mutters) Fucking overpaid whore...

Next Scene:

Gerald gets off plane, looks about and is mot unimpressed. Enters airport, goes straight to bathroom, enters stall and does large amount of coke. Next shot i Gerald walking up to car rental desk.

Gerald: Gerald Steinhorse, I had a 07 Geo Metro on reserve.

Clerk: Okay, Mr. Steinhorse

Gerald: Dr. Stienhorse

Clerk: Right sorry, sir, just let me check all your personal info on the computer and make sure it's still up to date. You do want insurance for the car right?

Gerald: Yah, yah, where's my coffee?

Clerk: Excuse me sir?

Gerald: The coffee machine, where's the coffee machine where I can get coffee and drink it while I rent my car?

Clerk: Sir?

Gerald: You do serve coffee t your customers here don't you?

Clerk: Um, no sir, I'm afraid not.

Gerald: Where's the fucking coffee

Clerk: Sir...

Gerald: Where's my fucking coffee

Clerk: Dr. Steinhorse

Gerald: Where's my fucking coffee?

Clerk: I'm getting the manager

Gerald: Yeah, go ahead and do that, go find your manager and tell him that you need ome more job training and get me my God Damn coffee.

Clerk walks off, comes back with manager.

Manager: Is there a problem sir?

Gerald: The problem is where's my coffee. What kind of podunk sanded-crabass excus for an airport doesn't give coffee t people who are trying to rent a car.

Manager. Sir' there's a Starbucks on the other side of the terminal where you can get yourself some coffee. Why don't you go there and serve yourself...

Gerald. Serve myself?

Manager: Go there an serve yourself and maybe come back when you've cooled down. If you continue to act in a threatening manner here I'm going to have to...

Gerald: Threatening manner? Where's my coffee? I'm threatened by my lack of coffee. Give me coffee or I'll go to a desk that will.

Manager: We are the only car rental service at this airport sir, now if you don't calm down I'm going to have to call th police?

Gerald: The police, your going to call the police on me?

Manager: Why don't you go to Starbucks and get yourself something to drink.

Gerald: Is that the first thing you do when someone points out that your non-service? Call the police? Isn't that just the backwoods Nazi thing to do?

Manager: Sir, I'm... I'm going to give you one more chance to walk away.

Gerald: (Takes breath) Okay, okay, look. I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry.

Manager: It's perfectly alright sir.

Gerald: No no, it's not alright. I was being a bore. Okay, I was foolish and I apologize.

Manager: Well, apology accepted sir.

Gerald: And I want to apologize to this young man/woman over here as well.

Clerk: Oh thank you sir. I'm sorry we don't have any coffee for you sir.

Gerald: Oh, no, no, it's alright. It's alright. Now, let's get to the business at hand shall we?

Clerk: Certainly sir, you reserved the yellow 2007 Geo Metro.

Gerald: Yes, that's correct.

Clerk: With insurance?

Gerald: Yes, that's correct.

Clerk: Okay Mr... Dr. Stienhorse that will be 544.36 with the insurance and you can pay by cash, check, debit, or credit.

Gerald: Very well, I'm going to pay on the university debit card, I think.

clerk: Very well sir

Gerald: Yes yes, very well, you fucking kike.

Gerald: Oh, nothing, I was just, adding figures in my head. heh, Personal question. Do you allow smoking in your vehicles?

Clerk: No sir, I'm afraid not sir.

Gerald: No trouble, I'll wait until I'm driving than.

Next shot is Gerald driving down the road at high speed, paying no attention to his driving and dipping a lit ciggarette into a shaker of cocaine while singing David Bowie loudly

Gerald: Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Marssssss?!!!

Damn it's hot out here. I bet I could put this shit on my face and let it soak through my pores!

(He does this, face covered in sweat and powder. Picks up phone and dials number.)

Gerald: Hello, Greg? Yes, how you doing man? I'm fine, I'm on this street called Cornhusker, which must be some kind of joke, I mean I see all of the Harley Davidson hats out here and I just have to wonder if this is the part of town where you shack up the Okies. Oh yes, yes that was funny. So, anyways, where is your campus at? South on tenth? Very good than sir? Uh huh, uh huh, I see... So nobody took the time to reserve a parking spot for me? Oh, no, no, that's fine. I have change, we're not strangers to this sort of the thing in the front range? Dinner? Oh, no thank you, I'm not hungry. No, we actually have Valentino's in Colorado. Oh yes, my ex-wife caught Salmonella there once but, you that's neither here nor there is it?
Yes, I know people from this area, I did hear that it's very conservative. Yes, so I suppose that no one thinks twice when they see an eighteen year-old girl with a thirty-year-old man. It was a joke, man. Alrighty, I'll see you there.

(Next Scene, Class in Andrews Hall. Gerald walks in with nose still red and face still sweaty)

Gerald: Good morning class, this is English 346, Simpsons porn and contemporary society. Now, I always get five or six people who get this class confused with Facts of Life porn which is actually English 358; You'll find that upstairs. So, why doesn't everybody just recheck their schedules and make sure you're in the right place, o.k.

(Shuffling sounds, seven or eight people get up and leave. first two, than three, then another one or two after a slight delay.)

O.k., well, I'm professor Steinhorse. You'll find some personal information about me in your syllibi. I've spent my entire academic career at UC Boulder after three years in a drug and alcohol rehab facility. and I'm glad to be in Lincoln. Now what I'd like to do is to go around the room and have everybody say a word or two about themselves.

(Awkward pause)

(Man in flannel shirt reluctantly raises hand)

Joe: Yes, you.

Tom: My name is Tom and I'm forty-three years old. I'm a recovering methamphetimine addict. I once beat a man into a coma from which he has not recovered over a debt of thirteen dollars. I recently bought Big Kirk's bar and grill in Waverly and I'm here to get a degree in business administration so that I can take better care of my grandson and his little girl. I believe in discipline, the bible, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers and it's a God Damn honor to be here. Hoo-ra.

Gerald: O.K. o.k. this was a bad idea, let's just get to business here then. As I said before this is Simpsons 346, Simpsons Porn and contemporary culture, and the first image I wanted to show you today, if any of you browsed through your textbooks you might have noticed this picture on page 23, is an image of Homer performing Cunnilingus on Marge. (small giggles in crowd) Now, this is rather tame compared to what we'll be analyzing before the midterm but I just wanted to get your general impressions of this picture before we really started cutting through the fat. So, just take a good look at this picture and tell me if you notice anything strange.

(Long pause, woman reluctantly raises her hand)
Gerald: Yes you, go ahead, what's your name?

Amber: I'm Amber

Gerald: O.K. Amber, so can you give us any insight into this photo of Homer and Marge here?

Amber: Well, Homer, is like, really buff, like he even has like this six-pack, when he's actually really fat, and Marge looks really skinny.

Gerald: Very good, very good, and why do you think this is Amber?

Amber: I don't know.

{Patricia (business suit, expensive shoes) raises hand}

Patricia: Professor Malovits?

Gerald: G will do

Patricia: I really don't think I can be comfortable with that actually sir.

(Pause, Joe and Patricia look at each other with something like rage)

Gerald: (Slowly) well, o.k. professor will have to do then. So, madame,

Patricia: It's Patricia

Gerald: So m'lady, what can you tell me about the image?

Patricia: Well, it seems that both Homer and Marge have been morphed into these physical cultural ideals and it seems that...

Gerald: Well, why don't you just step up here and start teaching this class for me than you uppity bitch?

(Very long Pause)

Gerald: I'm kidding!

(Laughter slowly spreads around room, Patricia reluctantly joins in)

Gerald: Seriously though, Patricia is absolutely right. Here we see Homer magically cured of his trademark beer gut and endowed with an absolutely magnificent six-pack in its place. I'm sure you all also noticed how well endowed he is in other places as well. (groans, slight laughs.)
Marge, meanwhile, is just impossibly thin. I mean it's fucking ridiculous is what it is am I right(more mild laughter) A woman this thin simply wouldn't be able to walk with breasts of that size. It would be like trying to watch a dippy-duck carry a piano down the street. I've seen photos of women who starved to death in Pol-Pots camp, and, let me tell ya, none of them had tits this good. (Joe gives slight guffaw, joined by no one)

O.K. so what we have here is Homer as Adonis, the white, alpha-male, paterfamilias as superman. Real men can eat as much as they like and drink as much as they like and still look good because that's what they're entitled to. Marge, on the other hand, old skin and bones and tits Marge is clearly to fragile to take care of herself. She exists solely to pleasure her husband and in return he might be there to protect her from a stiff breeze. Her servile position to the "man of the house" is blatantly obvious, even if she is technically being cunged in this particular image. Anyway, that's just what I think, does anybody else have a different interpretation?

Guy in back in backwards U. of. South Carolina "Cocks" hat: Well, I don't know, it seems like you're just looking to justify your preconceived ideas, I mean she looks pretty happy...

Gerald: Heh, Get the fuck out of here seriously.

(Guy stares for awhile)

Gerald: No, really, get the fuck out of here or I'll slap you up with your own notebook in front of everybody here.

(Guy sits for another few seconds, gathers stuff, gets up, leaves.)

Gerald: O.K. sorry about that everybody. So, moving on then, this next image shows Lisa being sodomized by Milhaus as Nelson, Moe, and Barney stand masturbating waiting their turns. Now, what are your impressions of this image?

(Patricia raises hand)

Gerald: Yes, m'lady

Patricia: Well, it's really disgusting.

Gerald: Right, why don't you go play jump-rope and let the adults do their work here o.k.? Anybody else actually have something to say?

(Some guy raises his hand)

Gerald: O.k. you, what's your name.

Pat: Pat

Gerald: O.k. Pat, what do you think of this one?

Pat: I think it's hot.

Gerald: Good. Good. Interesting.

O.k. then, moving on to the next image Here we see Lisa fellating Santa's Little Helper while simultaneously being sodomized by Bart while Homer stands in a corner and masturbates. Can anybody give me their thoughts on this one?

Pat: Oh man, I love this!!

Gerald: Nice, anybody else?

Amber: Why are you showing us all of these pictures of Lisa being

Gerald: Being what?

Amber: Being, like, abused.

Gerald: Why am I showing you this? Why am I showing you this? Well, tell me Amber, what's the name of this class?

Amber: It's Simpsons Porn?

Joe: Simpsons porn and what Amber?

Amber: Simpsons porn and modern society?

Joe: Simpsons porn and modern society! That's right! So then, what do all of these pictures of little Lisa getting beaten, little Lisa getting raped, little Lisa getting sodomized, whipped, forced to suck dog dick, forced to toss Daddy's salads, what does all of this say about our modern society?

Patricia: That we're sick?

Gerald: How nice m'lady, that will get you a gold star in the third grade I'm sure. Somebody tell me something here.

Some Guy: Well, there's a lot of hostility directed towards Lisa.

Joe: Bingo! Finally we're starting to march towards the vortex. Why? Why does the world hate poor little Lisa so much? What has Lisa ever done to anybody?

(Patricia raises hand)

Joe: What now little girl?

Patricia: Well, if you excuse me, it seems to me that the hostility towards Lisa is based on the fact that she is an independent and unabashedly progressive young woman, and that we as a patriarchal society, still can't handle the threat that such a woman poses. But I guess you wouldn't know anything about hostility towards women now would you G?

Gerald: Are you insinuating something? I wrote the book on post-feminist literary critique. Are you suggesting that I'm a sexist you filthy, burning-acid sterile cunt? But, all...joking... aside, you're absolutely right. America, ladies and gentlemen, is still ruled by "the man". In fact, I don't think it's to much to say that America is "the man." And the man can't handle an independent young woman who doesn't "know her place." So what do we do to women who don't know their place? We tell them to shut up and get back to the kitchen before or else we're going to let Barney have their way with them. Take a good look at Milhaus pounding away here, look at the agony on Lisa's face. This is the vortex here people. This is the center of everything. I want you to keep right on staring for as long as it takes until you realize that this is it. This is the sort of violence that every woman in America has to deal with, every day.

So. O.k., I think I'll let you go a little early since it's the first day and all. For Wednesday please read chapter two, "Patty, Selma, and Freud," and review the online material listed in your syllabus. Let me just warn you that if you are caught reviewing the material on campus I really don't give a damn and I will do nothing to protect you from the consequences. Failure to review the material will result in a failing grade. Enjoy the rest of the day and I'll see you Wednesday.

(Class walks out.) Oh Patricia?

Patricia: Yes G.

How are you liking the class so far?

Patricia: Well, a lot of it is quite fascinating, but the instructor leaves a little something to be desired

Gerald: Well, funny, this professor desires you.

Patricia. Go to hell (Walks out, pokes head through the door) If you harass me again I'm reporting you to the department.

Gerald: Bitch I'm a guest professor, I do what I want? Movie tonight?

Patricia: Fuck off.

Peter Milbrought, Catholic Psychologist

2007-06-18T14:38:00.000-07:00

Brought to you by Mistres, Mother Lisa's house of Pain. Selling all of the latest whips, clamps, candles, and battery cables to the Lincoln community. Mistress Lisa, the first name in "Penitence."

Patient 1. Dr. Milbrought, I've been having the stangest feelings towards my wife.

Dr. Yes...

Patient, Well you see, well, I don't know.

Dr. Go on, you should feel free to tell me anything brother, especially if your feelings are of a , sexual nature.

Patient: Well, we've been having out troubles regarding that, you know.

Dr. Yes...

Patient. We only have five children, and lately, my wife has been rejecting my, advances.

Dr. Your orders you mean. Your wife has been rejecting your orders.

Patient: Yes, of course.

Dr. And why do you feel she does this?

Patient: Well, we had an argument last week, I had just got back from the fish bratwurst dinner at the church tavern and I was a little tipsy.

Dr. Yes

Patient. Well, Theresa copped a little attitude when I got back, she said this was the fifth time I'd come home drunk this week and I could just sleep on the couch if
I was going to keep being that sort of example to the children.

Dr. Hm, did you discipline her?

Patient. Well, no. I woul never,

Dr. Hm....... Good.......Good. You're a merciful man, our holy mother graces your softness towards women.

Patient. Oh, thank you Dr.

Dr. Oh, don't mention it! Now as for the drinking, I think we should discuss this.

Patient. Well, do you think we should?

Dr. I'm afraid we must. You see, it's normal for a woman to not understand why a Godly man requires a healthy share of the Lord's ale. Some even feel that saving money for a new car, or indoor plumbing, is more important than giving a man his just reward after a hard day of work.

Patient. I see, because I was actually thinking about quiting drinking.

Dr. That's absurd! You should drink more my boy! I bet you don't even drink on Sunday afternoons do you?

Patient: Just a twelve pack of Shlitz during the football season.

Dr. You see, the woman is just being silly! You know how they get!

Patient. Wow, Dr. Talking to you is just so easy! I used to think I was a bad person! The priest at St. Fredericks used to make me bury all of the illigitimate children that he had by nuns before he granted me indulgence, but it was never so, fullfilling as this.

Dr. Oh, let's not get so full of ourselves now. I may be able to clear your head. But only service to the mother church can clear your soul. Now, tell me about the argument.

Patient. Well, I don't know, she gets to jabbering about my drinking and our money troubles and how our little girl Suzie keeps throwing herself at those little Lutheran boys, and I just couldn't take it anymore.

Dr. Yes, so...

Patient. So I just started wondering out loud. I asked her why she had to be so hard on me, why couldn't she be more like my mother.

Dr. And what did she say?

Patient. Well, she just hit the roof! She called me a pathetic little mama's boy and that I could just stay on the couch until I learned to be a man. She she could get the Kapowski or the Riverez boys to "take care of business" so I could just go and crawl under mama'a skirt like I wanted to.

Dr. Oh, my. And what did you do then?

Patient. Well, what could I do? She clearly wasn't having me. So I went back to the church pub got really loaded and slept on my buddies couch until she cooled down a bit.

Dr. Mmmmmmm. I think a belt would have handled the situation better, don't you.

Patient. Jesus Christ Dr!

Dr. Hold your tongue boy, before I lash you Thyself!.......... Your regresssing, you obviously have troubles controlling your wife, and she clearly has submission issues. I'd like to see her too, if you can arrange it.

Patient. Uh, yeah, sure thing doc. So, what would you suggest I do?

Dr. Nothing! Your fine, except maybe grow a pair.

Patient. So... the fact that I want my wife to be like my mother...

Dr............. What about it?

Patient: There's nothing wrong with that?

Dr. Wrong with that! Don't be rediculous! It's quite the oppasite boy! In fact, I think I might have a solution! I want you to take the wife and kids and move back in with your mother for a few weeks!

Patient. That, really doesn't sound like a good idea doc..

Dr. Now now, do you want to save your marriage?

Patient. Of course.

Dr. Good. Then you need to trust me like we both trust the sulpherous whore of Babylon.

Patient: Well...

Dr. So this is what you do, pull your kids out of the academy and take the whole family to your folks place. Make sure the wife stays off her feet, just let your mother do al of the cooking, cleaning, and nurturing and make sure your wife pays attention. Just follow my prescription and you'll make a real lady of her yet.

Patient: Well, your the Dr. and you seem so sure..

Dr. I sure! A true son of Rome submits to the Holy Father and feels no doubt.

Patient: Well, I guess your right. Thank you Dr! I'm calling Theressa right now and telling her to start packing our bags.

Dr. Atta boy! And make sure you TELL her now! Just take my advice and befofre you know it you'll have twelve kids, enough to provide you with ample grandchildren and still donate some sons to the priesthood!

Patient: Oh, that's always been my dream.

Dr. Of course it is, it's all of our dreams! Now, did you have anything to add before the hour is up!

Patient: Well, is there anyway I can get to beat me with a ruler the way Sr. John the Baptist used to?

yayayayayasy

2007-06-13T13:24:00.001-07:00

Joshua Beran
6/12/2007
English 254
I believe that we all have a chance at upward mobility, but not an equal chance.
A person’s finances, education, family history, location, attitude, race, and any number of things factor into one’s chance to “get ahead”.
North Platte Nebraska is a solidly blue-collar town. The leading employer there has always been the Union Pacific railroad, which has a large diesel shop just past the western city limits. My uncle Tim was a train engineer for twenty years. He married my aunt straight out of high school, had three children by the age of twenty two, and gradually ruined his asthmatic lungs by breathing in the diesel fumes. He eventually reached the point where he became a liability to the corporation, and was relieved of his job through mutual agreement about twelve years ago. After several years of suits and countersuits, the railroad eventually agreed to pay the majority of his medical bills for he rest of his life. He and his family moved to Arizona where the corn pollen wouldn’t bother his lungs. He got a college degree and currently teaches at a junior college in Lake Havisu City. My aunt and uncle are now better off financially than they’ve ever been.
Unfortunately, it’s a rare thing for a North Platte native to improve his or herself in his or her forties. The average income in my hometown is seven thousand dollars lower than the national average. ( http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-
bin/incomeOverview.php?locIndex=27507) The number of college graduates is four percent lower. ( http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/educLevel.php?locIndex=27507 )
Beran 2
These are not signs of shocking poverty by any means, of course. Most people have a steady job, enough to eat, decent housing, and transportation. As I’ve said before, it’s a
“blue-collar” town, a “lower-middle-class” town, what have you, and I was very much an average resident growing up there. My father is a truck driver. My mother is a store clerk. They have two years of college between them.
Even though I come from a lower middle-class family, I attended the local Catholic school. St. Patrick’s High School bills itself as a “college preparatory” school and is attended by many upper-middle class kids regardless of religion. (Few in North Platte are truly rich, just as few are truly poor.) I noticed as early as the fifth grade that kids from well-to-do families were expected to go to college and expected themselves to go to college. Tears were shed over bad elementary math grades.
I was encouraged to go to college, at least a couple of years at the local J.C. I was told to think positive. I was encouraged to believe I could make it, and if not, than I had better get a good job straight out of high school. Bad grades were a disappointment but not as serious as being out of work or missing a car insurance payment. A classmate of mine was the daughter of a race car driver who lived on the rougher end of town. She was smart and had a real gift for writing and speechmaking. She got pregnant at sixteen, miscarried the baby and didn’t come back. One of her neighbors switched to the public school and works at he mother’s gas station now. College was always a dream for us, a glorious ideal, not expected.
It wasn’t just a matter of self-esteem or work ethic. I had classmates who absolutely loathed themselves; a girl who suffered anorexia in junior high, another who
Beran 3
had severe depression all through high school, but they went straight to college and graduated with honors. These were the sons and daughters of lawyers teachers, businessmen. Their families had gone to college for at least three of four generations back. Higher education was a tangible, real thing, as much a part of life as puberty or death.
I tried to go to college straight out of high school, but I was very young and foolish, and it just seemed so, optional, a four-year burden that I didn’t have to do if I didn’t want to. My peers were “getting by” and seemed to be fine. So I stayed in North Platte and took a series of blue-collar jobs that I was woefully unqualified for. I’ve always been flighty, cerebral. I still have trouble calling myself “cerebral.” It has negative connotations in my hometown, among my class. A cerebral person doesn’t live in the “real world.” Cerebral people, lawyers, professors, avant-garde artists are highly suspected. They don’t make their livings handling physical things with obvious benefit.
What really brought me back to college, though, was seeing the defeatism of my friends, people who accepted that they were stuck in place at nineteen, twenty, twenty one years old. They got jobs in restaurants or construction crews, had kids early, maybe got married or maybe not. I go home today and they are much the same at twenty four or twenty five as they were at sixteen. They’re fascinated by me, but we’re not close. I’m an outsider now.
The last time I was home, over Memorial Day weekend, I told my family about my plans to attend grad school. I told my father that I was going to pursue a master’s

Beran 4
degree at Colorado State. He said that there are several Wal-Marts in the area and that they are always hiring. (He is currently employed by the Wal-Mart distribution center in North Platte.) “That’s great Dad” I said, “But do you know what people go to college for….” My sister told me to get a job in the “real world” before I become a professor and not act like “one of those professors who think they know everything.” “That’s sort of what we do” I said. (We?) “We try to form different theories in our areas of study and assert them in class. Good professors dare their students to disagree with them but of course undergrads aren’t likely to change their minds. Is it really any worse than being dressed down by your boss? Learn to be disagreed with like an adult and stop being insecure.” She said I was turning into an asshole. We’ve never been very close.
This taboo against putting on airs is crippling those of us in the working class. We Americans see nothing wrong with competition, we value it in fact. Working-class people will compete with each other for good looks, respect, sexual conquest, and money. (As long as it’s earned in the real world, of course.) Sports are placed on a golden pedestal. The Cornhuskers are spoken of with sincere reverence. The football team is there to “inspire” us, to “motivate” us, to “make us believe in ourselves.” But intellectual competition is not allowed. We are expected to be “simple men.” Custom and tradition will show us the way through life. Don’t be a smart-ass. The construction worker who spends twelve hours in the summer sun, the waitress who smiles at leering businessmen, the hotel maids who clean toilets on their knees, all hate the fact that society puts more value on sitting at a desk and writing than it does on them, and I don’t blame them a bit. But we are living in the world where esoteric knowledge, knowledge
Beran 5
outside of the “real world” is becoming more and more valuable. Those who build things, cook things, clean things, and serve things will still be there, but they will become even more invisible to the upper classes than they were before. So what we have is a situation where the working class is being frozen into place. The refusal to take pride in or celebrate intellectual gifts leads to a dependence on social institutions that are controlled by the upper classes. The value placed in being simple and “keeping it real” is ultimately servile.
Another problem is that members of the lower-middle class want to believe that we are members of the true middle class, the standard Americans. As standard Americans, we are leery of those who complain about the social order or who want to change it. American society is basically good. People will end up in the positions that they deserve, for better or worse. People who are higher on the ladder than we are are there because they deserve to be. They are harder working, better looking, smarter, they simply must be. Our problems, then, are the fault of those beneath us. (Immigrants, welfare mothers, white trash, etc…) We would surely be able to afford better houses and cars if only are taxes weren’t paying for their debauchery. We must put more power and trust in our government leaders and “business leaders” to protect us from the dangerous riff-raff below. (Most members of the lower-middle class are much more afraid of street crime than they are of accident or disease, although the later two put far more in the graveyard.)

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So I’m afraid that I’m not optimistic for the future of upward mobility in the United States. Social custom, myth, prejudice, and plain human emotion are destroying whatever truth the ideal may have once had.

2007-06-12T13:42:00.000-07:00

Joshua Beran
6/12/2007
English 254
North Platte Nebraska is a solidly blue-collar town. The leading employer there has always been the Union Pacific railroad, which has a large diesel shop just past the western city limits. My uncle Tim was a train engineer for twenty years. He married my aunt straight out of high school, had three children by the age of twenty two, and gradually ruined his asthmatic lungs by breathing in the diesel fumes. He eventually reached the point where he became a liability to the corporation, and was relieved of his job through mutual agreement about twelve years ago. After several years of suits and countersuits, the railroad eventually agreed to pay the majority of his medical bills for he rest of his life. He and his family moved to Arizona where the corn pollen wouldn’t bother his lungs. He got a college degree and currently teaches at a junior college in Lake Havasu City. My aunt and uncle are now better off financially than they’ve ever been.
Unfortunately, it’s a rare thing for a North Platte native to improve his or herself in his or her forties. The average income in my hometown is seven thousand dollars lower than the national average. ( http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/incomeOverview.php?locIndex=27507) The number of college graduates is four percent lower. ( http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/educLevel.php?locIndex=27507 ) These are not signs of shocking poverty by any means, of course. Most people have a steady job, enough to eat, decent housing, and transportation. As I’ve said before, it’s a

Beran 2
“blue-collar” town, a “lower-middle-class” town, what have you, and I was very much an average resident growing up there. My father is a truck driver. My mother is a store clerk. They have two years of college between them.
I think what’s affected me the most,

pamphlet 2

2007-06-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

Our beloved Lincoln is a quaint, quiet, virginal Christian community. The sight of so many jagged-toothed hobo beasts ravishing the pristine womb of our cornhuskers is rightfully a source of confoundment as well as terror to our law-abiding citizins. How many upstanding Lincolnites look down upon the putrid bog of blood, vodka, and urine that out downtown has become and ask themselves, "Why here? Why my darling Lincoln? Why now?" "What can I do to eliminate the problem?" ask many of our braver men, while some of the more introspective, self-loathing types wonder if they themselves are part of the problem.

Although this line of thinking is dangerous, leading as it does to such filthy, enabling, bitch-in-heat acts of "charity" such as the mission or the soup kitchen, there is one class of Lincoln resident for whom this question is all to appropriate; the college student. If you are a student who has ever given money, food, or a respectful greeting to any hobo for any reason, YOU ARE WITH THE HOBO.

More than anything, it is the alluring teets of the idle, decadent, dreadlocked, and debauched student blinded by Socialist education that brings the hobo-slime to a downtown district that rightfully belongs to real Americans.

Since our fair city and beautiful state will need business leaders, strong political fathers, and church ministers in the future, the naive young student must unfortunately be tolerated. But that does not mean that we should look the other way while they provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Like children and dogs, the student can be melded into shape with the twin hammers of fear and experience. Careful observation of the college student through his "career" reveals a hard-earned wisdom brought about by years of endless verbal and visual conscience violation. The sight of an incoming freshman's soft, sheep-like eyes transform into the black diamonds of hard justice by the time reach graduation is one of the most inspiring sights that one will ever have the pleasure to experience.

So yes, friends, even the student can learn. But there are still those whimpering nancies within the student population who, encouraged by their Godless professors, still abet the further corruption of our ravished core by throwing their spare change at any savage street urchin coherent enough to slobber out the word "brother."

"What's the harm?" they say. "I was only going to spend the money on liquor for myself, and who knows? Maybe he really will buy food with it this time. It's not like they're subhuman."

Well no. It's not "like" they are subhuman. A toad, after all, is a toad, not like a toad. As for the harm they supposilly don't cause, try telling that to "Debbie."
Debbie is a twenty three year old girl raised in a proper Christian household. She came to UNL in 2002 with dreams of being a lawyer's wife. Her small-town parents knew little of Lincoln and didn't know to warn her against the festoring cancer that sleeps off its hangover in our streets. So this pretty, innocent little freshman lass interacted with the hobos with all of the fearlessness of a wild puppy running out into traffic. Little did she know that seeking friendship among the fiends can only lead to destruction. Be advised, reader, her story is not for the faint of heart. If you are a woman or a child, you are commanded to stop reading immediately. Here now is Debbie's horrifying tale in her own words.

"I was the fifth of eight children born into a Methodist family in Laural Nebraska. My parents raised me to always trust Jesus and to always trust the good in people. Little did I know that trusting people was going to get me, was going to get me, you know, int trouble. (Weeps lightly into hankerchief.)

I came to UNL to pursue a degree in avant-garde commerative plate making and find a husband. It was fun, making friends, being in the big city for the first time. I mean, it was kind of, you know, exciting.

I had seen a few homeless people in Norfolk, when we would go to the Wal-Mart there. Daddy always brought his gun to town and told me to watch out for the Mexicans and I said yes Daddy. But when I came down to Lincoln it turned out that a lot of the homeless people were white. Nobody told me that they wern't really white, you know, on the inside. I had to find that out the hard way.

all of my sirority friends warned me not to give change to the hobos. But Daddy owns the tavern there in Laural and he sent me money whenever I wanted it. Money just wasn't anything to me, you know. I gave it away because I thought that's what Jesus would want me to do. It wasn't long before I became a "mark" among thes greasy devils. Oh, but if only I had known then what I know now... I would be 'hit up' for change at least six or seven times a day. I was beginning to feel a little leery. Some of these guys were starting to look at me a little, you know, a little, a little weird. But I kept right on giving them my change, I was just so young and naive, you know.

Well, one day, early November, Lord give me the strength, I had this really big dinner at Noodles and company where I spent all the money I had which was, like, twenty five dollars. and it got dark early like it does you know and it was kind of cold. I just wanted to go home, have a cup of hot lemon water, call Daddy for more money and read my Joyce Meyer book. But of course, I was a mark, a silly country girl who just gave it up to whoever asked for it, so I wasn't going to get back to campus without getting 'hit up'. Excuse me, (takes hanckerchief, blows nose and sobs into it discreetly."

This one had scraggly hair and a mustache. I had given him maybe six dollars over the course of the fall. His name was..., I forget, those trash peole don't deserve names anyway. He had been drinking and I could smell the furniture cleaner on his breath. He tried to look me in the eye but he couldn't lift his head any higher than my chest. "Got any change sister" he said with that scratchy tumor-voice of his. "thirty cents, anything?"

And, well, I apologized my heart out. I had never said no to one of these people before, but that's what I did. I said that I was sorry but I had spent all my money feeding myself and I didn't have anything left to give him.

Well, what he did next was, he, oh (sniff) he , he just stared at my chest for awhile and than he said "Yeah, well, maybe there's something else you can give me." And then he reached out that filthy withered hand of his and touched the shoulder of my blouse.

I had the chicken pox as a little girl and it would give me the most awful chills and I never thought that I would feel so chilly and awful like that again. But Lord, when that "man" touched me it was like my blood turned into muddy road slush. I just felt so cold and sick, and just so, just so helpless, excuse me. (Takes hankerchief and sobs into it for some time.) God knows what that beast was going to do to me because I was just so, paralyzed, he had total control over me, for that filthy thing to touch me was enough to ruin me forever and I just knew that I might as well let him... oh Lord.

Just then the strongest, most reassuring voice I have ever heard barked out "stand aside miss" and whatever sick demonic hold that vermain had over me was instantly cleared. I stood aside like I had been told to and that's when the shots started coming.

Oh lord, ummmm, I tell you, that pig, he got it, he got it right and hard . Ten shots straight to that maggot-infested face of his. You should have been there, just to see the flash of that gun, the sound of the bullets. It reminded me of the times Daddy would take me with him on one of his hunting trips. Oh, Daddy. I felt so safe, watching that hobos fiendish brains getting tangled in his filthy hair. It was just so, invigorating. I just felt this glow, this, warmth flow all through me.

After the last shot had been fired into the fiends' accursed skull, I turned around to find a tall, broad-shouldered, steel-eyed law officer walking towards me.

'You okay miss?' he said.

'Oh officer, I've never felt better in my life, thank you, oh God thank you.'

'You don't know how lucky you are miss. If a hobo gets his hands on a proper young lady like you, and there aren't any witnesses, then he's just certain to, well, decency won't allow me to say what he would do, but it would be terrible beyond description I assure you.'

'I can imagine." I said.

'No you can't. It's nearly seven PM, what's a fragile young thing like yourself doing out at this time of night anyway?'

'I was just walking back to my dorm room after dinner.'

'Oh? Well that's just asking for trouble. Don't you have... well, certaibnlya fine young lady like you has a boyfriend or at least just a properly armed escort to lead you through these filthy downtown streets at night.'

'Well, actually, no, officer?'

'Patton. Sgt. Troy Patton'

'Well, Sgt. Patton, I'm new here, you know. Just a freshman college student, and I've just been forced to take care of myself as best as I could.'

'That's never a good idea for a little girl like you. Here, let me give you this hobo whistle, it's a brand new product from guttersnipe productions."

'Hobowhistle?'

'Yes, hobowhistle. It's part of a new program we are starting for students and weaklings who frequent downtown. If a hobo ever threatens you again, or if you see one that looks like he's thinking about threatening you, or if you simply chance upon a group of three or four hobos sleeping in the alley; they can wake up at any time and then what? You just blow on this whistle and the nearest availible law enforcement agent will be there within minutes to diffuse the situation with all physical force he deems neccesary.'

'Well, thank you, officer. I'll be sure to use this whistle anytime some blood-eyed street scum so much as looks at me from now on.'

'Well,that's good, that's real good.'

'Oh, Sgt. Patton, you saved me! How could I ever repay you? I'll do anything you ask, anything. My father has money and I have, assets.'

'Well, if you don't mind miss, how about giving me your number?'

'You got it daddy.'

I certaianly learned my lesson that day. No more giving change, friendly looks, or conversation to those stuttering lamprays of the back alley, or they were bound to take a lot more, if you know what I mean. Now, whenever I see one of those walking trashpiles so much as looking at me the wrong way I just break out my trusty Guttersnipe hobo whistle and here come those strapping boys in blue with their guns and their big black clubs and Goddamn you should see what they do to those mother.., excuse me.

At any rate, I at least know that, these days, I've got my own personal lawman to protect me. Yes, I've been Sgt. Mrs. Patton for three years now. We started dating, you know, which daddy didn't approve of at all until I told him he was a cop. We just found that we were getting along better and better and after three weeks we were married. So I dropped out of school and started having babies, (six at last count) while he brings home the bacon.

You know, it's funny. I thought that that night, that 'man' was going to ruin my life, and, um, everything else about me too. But it turns out that it made my life, not ruined it. The knowledge that I was the instrument of that savages' annihilation really fulfills me as a person. And I did find my man, didn't I? He may not be a lawyer, but he will do." (laughs)

We all love stories that end with a happy ending. But not all college girls are so lucky. Our studies show that hobos are responsible for 98% of all unjustified rapes in North America. Do not listen to your communist friends and professors, listen to Debbie. She can tell you what happens when you give your change to this street scum.

If because of either sex r disability, you are unable to defend yourself with a legal firearm, your only safe option is to BUY A HOBO WHISTLE AND LEARN HOW TO USE IT PROPERLY!!!!!!! If you ARE NOT ABLE to physically smite the hobo yourself then the guttersnipe productions hobowhistle is the only thing standing between you and destruction. The hobo whistle is availible for $19.95 at all local pawn shops, gun dealerships, and gentleman's clubs in the Lincoln area.

If you, reader, take nothing else from this work of literature, at leeast remember this undeniable lesson from Debbie's story; COMPASSION = RAPE!!!!
Kindness and openheartedness can only lead to the slow corruption of Lincoln, America, and our children. But with a hardened soul, and the masculine strength to ignore the pathetic street parasite's pleas for mercy, we can exterminate the hobo menace toghether. Thank you, and may God protect your virgin daughters.

"Suicide bomber for the US government

2007-05-14T12:42:00.000-07:00

Joseph walks into the periodical room of the library and starts reading the Sunday edition of the New York Times." A hobo sitting at the back of the room slowly makes his way from the background to the foreground and starts speaking to Joseph...

Vag: How you doing man?

Joseph: I'm fine, thank you

Vag: Right on man, say you live here.

Joseph: Yeah man

Vag: Hey that's cool. I just got here from Denver. Did you just have a fire here

Joe: Well, yeah, as a matter of fact there was an apartment house that burned down toward the south side.

Vag: Yeah, little kids homelesss, little puppies burning to death and shit.

Joe: Well, yeah.

Vag: Yeah, I read about that at the Denver library. This seemed like a good town, so I decided to come here.

Joe: Really?

Vag: Yeah, man. hey what's your name man?

Joe: I'm Joseph, nice to meet you.

Vag: Nice to see you Joe I'm Mitch.

(They shake hands.)

Vag: Yeah, is this a cop town or something?

Joe: What do you mean?

Vag: Well I mean I see all kinds of cops around here and shit.

Joe: Well, we're downtown, the jail's just a couple of blocks away.

Vag: Ah, right on man, I try to stay away from that shit these days you know? HAhahhhahahh

Joe: heh, yeah.

Vag: Yeah, hey Joe, you reading about the war in that paper.

Joe: Umm, no, not at the moment.

Vag: Ahh, o.k. It's bullshit, ain't it?

Joe: Oh, well, um, yed, yeah I'd say it is. (Vag: heh, heh,)

Vag: Yeah, blowing up women and kids and animals and shit, it really breaks my heart, you know.

Joe: Oh, yeah, yeah it's terrible.

Vag: You ever think about joining the army?

Joe: Umm, well, I was considering the military for a short time in High school, but, no, I decided it really wouldn't suit me.

Vag: Ahhh, so, you never think about goingdown there and getting some fukin payback, you know, I mean, they need people so bad that they send pregnantkids down there to get blown up you know.

Joe:(Long pause) O.k. look, I really don't know where you're going with this.

Vag: Yeah, I mean I'm a man I'm still healthy, I mean, not that healthy but shit, why can't they send me instead of pregnant women and shit?

Joe: Well, I think I have to,

Vag: Yeah, I've gone down to the recruting station a few times but they tell me to come back in six months when I got my papers or something, I don't know what that means you know.

Joe: Right...I

Vag: Yeah, I got a couple violent felonies on my record you know, heh, heh,

Joe: yeah, hmmm, right?

Vag: Yeah, but I went there last week and they told me to come back in a couple months.

Joe: Yeah?

Vag: Yeah, I'm going to be a suicide bomber for the U.S. government.

Joe: Oh................ really?

Vag: Yeah, that's what I got this jacket for, I'ts going to be my uniform. You think I could blend in with those Arabs and shit with this jacket.

Joe: I, I......... yeah, you could probably get around.

Vag: Yeah, maybe put some words on there in that Russian, or whatever they speak, saying I'm a pizza man and shit.

Joe: Arabic?....

Vag: Yeah, that's what I menat man.

Joe: Right

Vag: Shit, I don't know you know? heh, heh, heh

Joe: Oh, heh, heh, yeah.

Vag: But know, man, I figure if they want to blow up our babies and shit why can't we do it to them you know?

Joe: Yeah, well, look, ummm. Mitch?

Vag: Yeah, you're Josh right.

Joe: Joe, it's Joe Mitch.

Vag: Right on man, sorry man.

Joe: Look, I have to go to work in, about ten minutes, so I really have to get going.

Vag: Hey, right on man, hey I'll see you around all right, don't let anybody fuck with you man.

Joe: Hey, right on man, I'll see you around.

(Joe turns and walks away quickly.)

Simpsons porn and modern society (English 346)

2007-05-14T00:41:00.000-07:00

Gerald: Good morning class, this is English 346, Simpsons porn and contemporary society. Now, I always get five or six people who get this class confused with Facts of Life porn which is actually English 358; You'll find that upstairs. So, why doesn't everybody just recheck their schedules and make sure you're in the right place, o.k.

(Shuffling sounds, seven or eight people get up and leave. first two, than three, then another one or two after a slight delay.)

O.k., well, I'm professor Steinhorse. You'll find some personal information about me in your syllibi. I've spent my entire academic career at UC Boulder after three years in a drug and alcohol rehab facility. and I'm glad to be in Lincoln. Now what I'd like to do is to go around the room and have everybody say a word or two about themselves.

(Awkward pause)

(Man in flannel shirt reluctantly raises hand)

Joe: Yes, you.

Tom: My name is Tom and I'm forty-three years old. I'm a recovering methamphetimine addict. I once beat a man into a coma from which he has not recovered over a debt of thirteen dollars. I recently bought Big Kirk's bar and grill in Waverly and I'm here to get a degree in business administration so that I can take better care of my grandson and his little girl. I believe in discipline, the bible, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers and it's a God Damn honor to be here. Hoo-ra.

Gerald: O.K. o.k. this was a bad idea, let's just get to business here then. As I said before this is Simpsons 346, Simpsons Porn and contemporary culture, and the first image I wanted to show you today, if any of you browsed through your textbooks you might have noticed this picture on page 23, is an image of Homer performing Cunnilingus on Marge. (small giggles in crowd) Now, this is rather tame compared to what we'll be analyzing before the midterm but I just wanted to get your general impressions of this picture before we really started cutting through the fat. So, just take a good look at this picture and tell me if you notice anything strange.

(Long pause, woman reluctantly raises her hand)
Gerald: Yes you, go ahead, what's your name?

Amber: I'm Amber

Gerald: O.K. Amber, so can you give us any insight into this photo of Homer and Marge here?

Amber: Well, Homer, is like, really buff, like he even has like this six-pack, when he's actually really fat, and Marge looks really skinny.

Gerald: Very good, very good, and why do you think this is Amber?

Amber: I don't know.

{Patricia (business suit, expensive shoes) raises hand}

Patricia: Professor Malovits?

Gerald: G will do

Patricia: I really don't think I can be comfortable with that actually sir.

(Pause, Joe and Patricia look at each other with something like rage)

Gerald: (Slowly) well, o.k. professor will have to do then. So, madame,

Patricia: It's Patricia

Gerald: So m'lady, what can you tell me about the image?

Patricia: Well, it seems that both Homer and Marge have been morphed into these physical cultural ideals and it seems that...

Gerald: Well, why don't you just step up here and start teaching this class for me than you uppity bitch?

(Very long Pause)

Gerald: I'm kidding!

(Laughter slowly spreads around room, Patricia reluctantly joins in)

Gerald: Seriously though, Patricia is absolutely right. Here we see Homer magically cured of his trademark beer gut and endowed with an absolutely magnificent six-pack in its place. I'm sure you all also noticed how well endowed he is in other places as well. (groans, slight laughs.)
Marge, meanwhile, is just impossibly thin. I mean it's fucking ridiculous is what it is am I right(more mild laughter) A woman this thin simply wouldn't be able to walk with breasts of that size. It would be like trying to watch a dippy-duck carry a piano down the street. I've seen photos of women who starved to death in Pol-Pots camp, and, let me tell ya, none of them had tits this good. (Joe gives slight guffaw, joined by no one)

O.K. so what we have here is Homer as Adonis, the white, alpha-male, paterfamilias as superman. Real men can eat as much as they like and drink as much as they like and still look good because that's what they're entitled to. Marge, on the other hand, old skin and bones and tits Marge is clearly to fragile to take care of herself. She exists solely to pleasure her husband and in return he might be there to protect her from a stiff breeze. Her servile position to the "man of the house" is blatantly obvious, even if she is technically being cunged in this particular image. Anyway, that's just what I think, does anybody else have a different interpretation?

Guy in back in backwards U. of. South Carolina "Cocks" hat: Well, I don't know, it seems like you're just looking to justify your preconceived ideas, I mean she looks pretty happy...

Gerald: Heh, Get the fuck out of here seriously.

(Guy stares for awhile)

Gerald: No, really, get the fuck out of here or I'll slap you up with your own notebook in front of everybody here.

(Guy sits for another few seconds, gathers stuff, gets up, leaves.)

Gerald: O.K. sorry about that everybody. So, moving on then, this next image shows Lisa being sodomized by Milhaus as Nelson, Moe, and Barney stand masturbating waiting their turns. Now, what are your impressions of this image?

(Patricia raises hand)

Gerald: Yes, m'lady

Patricia: Well, it's really disgusting.

Gerald: Right, why don't you go play jump-rope and let the adults do their work here o.k.? Anybody else actually have something to say?

(Some guy raises his hand)

Gerald: O.k. you, what's your name.

Pat: Pat

Gerald: O.k. Pat, what do you think of this one?

Pat: I think it's hot.

Gerald: Good. Good. Interesting.

O.k. then, moving on to the next image Here we see Lisa fellating Santa's Little Helper while simultaneously being sodomized by Bart while Homer stands in a corner and masturbates. Can anybody give me their thoughts on this one?

Pat: Oh man, I love this!!

Gerald: Nice, anybody else?

Amber: Why are you showing us all of these pictures of Lisa being

Gerald: Being what?

Amber: Being, like, abused.

Gerald: Why am I showing you this? Why am I showing you this? Well, tell me Amber, what's the name of this class?

Amber: It's Simpsons Porn?

Joe: Simpsons porn and what Amber?

Amber: Simpsons porn and modern society?

Joe: Simpsons porn and modern society! That's right! So then, what do all of these pictures of little Lisa getting beaten, little Lisa getting raped, little Lisa getting sodomized, whipped, forced to suck dog dick, forced to toss Daddy's salads, what does all of this say about our modern society?

Patricia: That we're sick?

Gerald: How nice m'lady, that will get you a gold star in the third grade I'm sure. Somebody tell me something here.

Some Guy: Well, there's a lot of hostility directed towards Lisa.

Joe: Bingo! Finally we're starting to march towards the vortex. Why? Why does the world hate poor little Lisa so much? What has Lisa ever done to anybody?

(Patricia raises hand)

Joe: What now little girl?

Patricia: Well, if you excuse me, it seems to me that the hostility towards Lisa is based on the fact that she is an independent and unabashedly progressive young woman, and that we as a patriarchal society, still can't handle the threat that such a woman poses. But I guess you wouldn't know anything about hostility towards women now would you G?

Gerald: Are you insinuating something? I wrote the book on post-feminist literary critique. Are you suggesting that I'm a sexist you filthy, burning-acid sterile cunt? But, all...joking... aside, you're absolutely right. America, ladies and gentlemen, is still ruled by "the man". In fact, I don't think it's to much to say that America is "the man." And the man can't handle an independent young woman who doesn't "know her place." So what do we do to women who don't know their place? We tell them to shut up and get back to the kitchen before or else we're going to let Barney have their way with them. Take a good look at Milhaus pounding away here, look at the agony on Lisa's face. This is the vortex here people. This is the center of everything. I want you to keep right on staring for as long as it takes until you realize that this is it. This is the sort of violence that every woman in America has to deal with, every day.

So. O.k., I think I'll let you go a little early since it's the first day and all. For Wednesday please read chapter two, "Patty, Selma, and Freud," and review the online material listed in your syllabus. Let me just warn you that if you are caught reviewing the material on campus I really don't give a damn and I will do nothing to protect you from the consequences. Failure to review the material will result in a failing grade. Enjoy the rest of the day and I'll see you Wednesday.

Opening speech

2007-05-11T13:43:00.000-07:00

The heat is savage today.

You're sitting at your desk, about three in the afternoon. It's a Friday in July. You haven't done any work for at least two hours and, neither have any of your colleagues. You've thought about maybe asking the boss to leave early but, no, you're not going to do that. He knows that you're not doing anything but he appreciates the symbolic loyalty you show by staying here. At any rate it's the hottest part of the day, you don't wanna go outside. The radio is playing the songs it's always been playing and there is no time.

You're still in college. You're still planning on going to South America and becomming a coke mule for the romantic experience. "More than a Feeling" comes on and it reminds you of the time you and your buddies travelled to Mexico for the summer and paid two hundred dollars a piece for the chance to beat a twelve-year-old-girl within an inch of her life and you realized that this was the gleam you saw in the eye of every cute little Nordic child. with a perfect smile and a tight little ass.

And hat's where it happens, isn't it? The dead time, the times when you seemingly arn't accomplishing anything. That's what makes us who we are. At least when we're young enough, perceptive enough, to realize the importance of the blank spots.

But those days are gone forever now. You've got a wife and kids who need to be taken care of, fed, molded, made into sutible reflections of your own importance. Nowadays dead time like this just makes you feel guilty. To compensate your mind drifts to the mundane chores you'll take care of when you get home.

The daughter, she's eating too much. You'll have to keep her inside tonight, and it won't be pleasent, let's not kid ourselves. Or Maybe you should let her have her fun, take the easy way out, leave her one of your little hints. Like the last time she put on some weight, and you woke her up on a fine summer's morning by pouring hot bacon grease all over her face, screaming "Want some pork for breakfast bitch?"

She didn't eat for six days after that. Strange how little hints can be so effective.

It's four thirty in the afternoon now, most of your coworkers have already snuck out, but not you, you know how to get ahead. You will not tolerate the weakness of others.

But it is late, and hot, you're mind can't help but drift away from your work. You start thinking about all of your wife's little weaknesses, what with her chocolates and her menthal ultra lights and her indulgent sleeping habits, and you realize that you are in the business of propping up the unworthy.

Well, it's about time to change that don't you think? You've got a shovel and a sawed-off sitting in the closet? Wouldn't it be satisfying to make her dig her own hole?

Yes, no need to punish your daughter just yet. Let her go out tonight, hell let her go to Mc'Donalds. Mom and dad need some "together" time. You would have understood when you got older.

And you can work off some of that weight tomarrow night, digging your own hole.

"Stranger scene"

2007-05-11T10:17:00.000-07:00

Me (Joseph Malovits) am invited to a base ball game.

I wake up in my apartment, naked, disheveled, and hungover, answer phone

Mike: Hey man what's up

Joseph: uhmh fuck, nothing man, what's up with you?

Mike: Same shit, hey, what are you doing today?

Joseph: Well, I don't know, I was out really late last night.

Mike: Oh yeah? (Laughingly) I know how that is. No for real though, are you not doing anything today.

Joseph: Well I could do something. What did you have in mind?

Mike: Oh, me and the people were going to smoke a bowl and go to the baseball game.

Joseph: Baseball, for real?

Mike: Yeah man, you know the huskers?

Joseph: Yeah......I know the Huskers. I haven't seen them play this season, they're no good this year I heard.

Mike: Yeah? Well, you're going to see them today. It don't matter if they win or not, it's fucking gorgeous out there, eighty degrees at ten in the morning. Just think of it man, we get to go out into nature without having to walk or anything.

Joseph: Yeah, that could alright.

Mike: Yeah, now you should get dressed real quick because we're outside your door.

(Next shot is us walking out of Haymarket Park, Me, Mike, and, let's call him Tom)

Tom: Wow, baseball is weird, why was the coach all up on the field and shit

Joe: It was a pitching change, it's only the fifth inning.

Tom: Oh right, what was the score?

Joe: 2-2

Mike: Ahhh, that's fucking close man.

Joe: Yeah. Yes it's close

Tom: Will they let us back in?

Mike: Ahh, fuck that, it's too hot and this game takes forever. Let's go to O'Rourke's.

Joe: Are you mad? It's one o'clock. I haven't eaten, I haven't showered. I slept on a kitchen floor last night.

Mike: well don't come than your highness. I'm paying anyway so it will just be more beer for Tom and me.

Joe: I'm coming.

(Multiple shots of us drinking. I finally manage to excuse myself at some point in the late afternoon and excuse myself.)

Joe: I've got to go guys, I think, ummm, I think I'm going to lay down for awhile and than I might do my laundry later.

Tom: Yeah we might be there, we're going home for awhile ourselves. We might barbeque or something if you wanna come to that.

Joe: Yeah, maybe

Mike: Hey, you're not walking home are you?

Joe: Yeah... you're not driving home are you?

Mike: Fuck yeah man it's hot out. I'm not going to hit anybody, and who cares if I get a DUI?

Joe: Right than.

(I walk out. Downtown Lincoln is eerily quiet. No people, no traffic, nothing. Shot of sun, close-up of me sweating, another shot of me walking down deserted street.
A vagrant emerges half a block ahead and slowly walks towards me.)

Vagrant: Hey, how you doing man?

Joe: I'm okay

Vagrant: (Wraps arm around me.) Yeah, you fucking look okay man hehh-hehh-hehh-hehh, hey let me be honest with you man, I'm trying to get okay myself you know? hehh-hehh-hehh, so hey mang, could you help a brother out and maybe give me some change man.

Joe: Oh, fine. (I pull a couple quarters from my pocket) here you go.

Vagrant: (Puts arm on me again) Hey, thanks man!

Joe: Yeah.

(Joe feels thirsty and walks into a corner shop. 101.5 "The Blaze" is playing" Clerk has shaved head and huskers t-shirt)

Clerk: Hey, I'm not going to sell you any more man.

Joe: Man, I don't want anymore. I came here for a bottled watter.

Clerk: Oh, sorry man. It's just that most of you homeless guys.... welll, you don't drink a lot of water you know, heh, heh.

Joe: I'm not homeless you fucking chav. I'm a student.

Clerk: (Long pause) I'm sorry sir. If you continue to act hostile than company policy authorizes me to contact the local police.
(I glare at him)

It will be ninety nine cents for the water sir.

(I hand him the money)

Thank you sir have a nice day.

(I walk out silently)

(Another shot of the sun, another shot of me suffering in it. The streets are still empty. Suddenly the same vagrant approaches me from the same spot he was at before.)

Vagrant: Hey, how you doing man?

(I stare at him, saying nothing.)

Vagrant: You alright man?

(I still say nothing, we look at each other for a minute or so. Then I pull out a small revolver that I had kept hidden this entire time)

Vagrant: Hey brother!

(I shoot him four times.)

Last shot is me standing over the body, making no attempt to run as the sound of sirens gets nearer and nearer. Scene ends unresolved.

Menstrating vagina of the damned

2007-03-19T21:43:00.001-07:00

Beran 6
Section 3:10
It’s commonly assumed that society naturally progresses, that people somehow become smarter and better educated over time. After reading “Sleepy Hollow” and watching the movie that came out a hundred and seventy five years later, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could believe this.
Irving’s original story is not a gothic story so much as it is an anti-gothic story. Irving’s Crane is a superstitious twit who loses his chance to get the girl and maybe his life because of his superstitions, and also because of his cowardice and urban elitism. Brom Bones, the gruff alpha-male who could never be accused of being too smart for his own good (but is certainly not dumb) gets Katrina. A tough and practical Knickerbocker village is rescued from Crane’s flowery nonsense. Everybody lives happily ever after.
And of course, Irving’s horseman isn’t real, at least, probably not. Brom Bones knows more than he’s letting on, or maybe not.
Contrast this cheeky little parody? of a horror story with Tim Burton’s ever so gothic, ever so supernatural, movie. a movie where a grown woman claims that she sold her soul to Satan, a movie where the Horseman is not only very real, but lives in a giant menstruating vagina of the damned.

There are shades of Irving's Crane in the movie. Johnny Depp will occasionally jump on a chair at the sight of a spider or show cowardice in the woods. But this Crane has more in common with the ultra-rational, lone-wolf detective that could be found in any modern mystery story, or a Poe story. (It's significant that the movie Crane is a detective out to solve the town's problems for it, not a teacher trying to infect it with his ideas.) The biggest difference between the Crane's, of course, is that the movie version gets the girl, while Brom Bones gets split in half. Instead of a morally upstanding village being rescued by an uppity outsider, it is Crane who rescues himself and his lady from the creepy countryside.

There is also a big technical difference between Irving's story and the movie. This is a rare case where the movie is longer and more detailed than the source material. One improvement that the movie makes is to give Katrina an actual personality beyond that of "the girl." It would be even better if she were not the same gothic heroine that could be found in any Burton movie. The fleshed-out townspeople and the backstories of Crane and the Horseman are all quite silly.

Overall, the main difference between Irving's story and Burton's movie is one of restraint vs. flash and loudness. The story is a pleasure for the same reason that all well-written stories are pleasures; the smart use of language, the subtle hints, the multiple meanings, etc. the movie is enjoyable for the same reason that a drive-in movie that cost millions less to make is enjoyable, because it gives us the chance to watch people make fools of themselves.

porn

2007-03-19T14:48:00.000-07:00

Joshua Beran
English 361A
3/17/2007
Section 1.1
The European “understanding” of Native Americans was, quite simply, nonexistent. For the most part, Native Americans were considered “Red Devils” living in the Satanic void of the American wilderness. As far as Europeans were concerned, the Natives sought nothing more than to slaughter white children and violate white women. A few Europeans were sympathetic towards the natives, but even they tended to be horribly condescending towards the “children of the forest.”
One thing that prevented British understanding of the natives was their general view of the world, namely, that they were the center of it. Everything that happened was directly caused by God. If it was good, than it was a divine reward, it was bad, than it was a divine test or Satanic curse. It didn’t matter if events were obviously caused by human beings, humans were only tools of the divine will. The Natives, of course, were “red devils” agents of Satan, who existed to obstruct the progress of God’s chosen people.
It is from this perspective that Mary Rowlandson writes her captivity narrative. Her story is presented as a tale of keeping one’s faith through great difficulty. Rowlandson has a biblical quote for nearly every event in the narrative, some of mortal importance, some rather mundane. The bible references are part of a writing style that is hilariously overdramatic to the modern reader.
Rowlandson’s most dramatic statement turns out to be demonstrably false. She writes that she had said that she would rather be killed than be carried off by “ravenous beasts”
Beran 2
clearly out of fear of being “violated”. When the Indian attack comes, she chooses to let herself be captured (Oh thee of little faith.)
Rowlandson was deeply prejudiced against Natives before, of course, and it’s easy to see how seeing family members killed and being taken captive by the Natives would fail to improve her opinion. Still, one would think that she would gain a better understanding of Native society after spending two months with them. But know, the Natives remain beasts the whole time. Their food is inedible, their religious ceremonies Satanic (whether they know it or not) and their manners are brutish. Rowlandson is treated a good deal better than the whites treated their slaves or captives, but she clearly feels entitled to such treatment. In the end, her captivity serves no purpose other than to give Rowlandson a chance to contribute to the red devil dogma.
Thomas Morton’s attitude toward the Natives is noticeably better. He expresses admiration for several aspects of Native culture and trades and socializes with them without fear. Yet Morton is only a more benign racist than Rowlandson. “It is a thing to be admired, and indeede made a president, that a nation yet uncivilized should respect age then some nations civilized” The natives are still “Salvages” with some endearing qualities, like worshipping a god that’s sort of like the Christian one.
The main difference between Rowlandson and Morton is that Morton is a fellow outsider in New England; a royalist shunned by the Puritan settlers on the coast and forced to live in the ‘wilderness” among the natives. Morton, the indulgent would-be
aristocrat, has nothing but contempt for the Puritans and feels a more personal connection to the Indians that are his fellow outsiders. But his brain is still subject to European
Beran 3
prejudice. The Natives may not be demonic enemies that must be exterminated, but they still need to be “civilized.” Converted to Christianity, (preferably the Church of England) and made to think and act like Europeans.
Unfortunately, this is about as good as colonial European views of Native Americans would get. It seems that even people of good will, who weren’t as obviously repressed as Rowlandson, never questioned the assumption that Europeans were better. This was, after all, a “scientific fact” at the time. The “pagan’ natives provided rapidly diverging Christian groups with a common out-group to rally against; and of course, European settlement of the Americas never could have happened in the first place without the assumption that white Christians were entitled to do so.
European attitudes can best be expressed by the Jan van der Straet drawing on page 110 of the Heath Anthology, which shows an explorer “planting his flag” in the “virgin soil” of America while a naked Indian woman welcomes him. As far as the Europeans were concerned, the only question was whether or not to be a gentle lover.
Section 2:8
“Nature” can mean any number of things. In the eighteenth century, it was fashionable to equate nature with logic and justice, “Whatever is, is right.” But this is not necessarily the case. In revolutionary America, writers like Paine, Jefferson, Brown, and others would invoke “natural rights” to argue for representative government and, eventually, to justify armed rebellion. There are serious problems with this, especially since “nature” was used by others to justify absolute monarchy and oppression of non-

Beran 4
whites and non-males. Writers who argued for the existence of human rights, than, would often appeal to emotion and “fancy” in order to persuade their audience.
Thomas Paine will veer wildly between cold reasoning and fierce demands to agree with him, depending on the message and the emotion he is trying to bring about. “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense” he claims in “Common Sense.” But what he does is to continually make rational, pseudo-rational, and “natural” arguments from an emotional assertion.
“But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct.” Here we see an appeal to nature that Paine turns on its head, saying that “not even savages make war on their families.” Then he turns to emotion, calling the king and his supporters “parasites.” and making no attempt to back this assertion up with anything that even pretends to be a logical argument. “Tis repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from former ages, to suppose that this Continent can long remain subject to any external power.” But repugnance is an emotional reaction, nothing is repugnant to reason, and just what is the logical argument that independence was inevitable? Not even those of us who live in the future and know that it happened can prove that it was inevitable or “natural”.
In “The American Crisis” Paine discards with any pretense to reason. The rebels were in retreat, and Paine knew full well that only fire, not reason, could persuade men to join or stay with the cause. “Every Tory is a coward.” Paine is so obviously right that anyone who dares to disagree with him is either a coward or a fool. There are still

Beran 5
appeals to nature, more specifically, nature’s God. “God almighty” supports those who fight for their natural rights, and will not allow them to fail, so never mind the odds.
Paine’s most intellectually honest work is “The Age of Reason” in which he makes his case for the deistic God of nature. It is no coincidence that his most reasonable work was also the worst received.

your mothers suicide note

2007-03-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

Joshua Beran
English 361A
3/17/2007
Section 1.1
The European “understanding” of Native Americans was, quite simply, nonexistent. For the most part, Native Americans were considered “Red Devils” living in the Satanic void of the American wilderness. As far as Europeans were concerned, the Natives sought nothing more than to slaughter white children and violate white women. A few Europeans were sympathetic towards the natives, but even they tended to be horribly condescending towards the “children of the forest.”
One thing that prevented British understanding of the natives was their general view of the world, namely, that they were the center of it. Everything that happened was directly caused by God. If it was good, than it was a divine reward, it was bad, than it was a divine test or Satanic curse. It didn’t matter if events were obviously caused by human beings, humans were only tools of the divine will. The Natives, of course, were “red devils” agents of Satan, who existed to obstruct the progress of God’s chosen people.
It is from this perspective that Mary Rowlandson writes her captivity narrative. Her story is presented as a tale of keeping one’s faith through great difficulty. Rowlandson has a biblical quote for nearly every event in the narrative, some of mortal importance, some rather mundane. The bible references are part of a writing style that is hilariously overdramatic to the modern reader.
Rowlandson’s most dramatic statement turns out to be demonstrably false. She writes that she had said that she would rather be killed than be carried off by “ravenous beasts”
Beran 2
clearly out of fear of being “violated”. When the Indian attack comes, she chooses to let herself be captured (Oh thee of little faith.)
Rowlandson was deeply prejudiced against Natives before, of course, and it’s easy to see how seeing family members killed and being taken captive by the Natives would fail to improve her opinion. Still, one would think that she would gain a better understanding of Native society after spending two months with them. But know, the Natives remain beasts the whole time. Their food is inedible, their religious ceremonies Satanic (whether they know it or not) and their manners are brutish. Rowlandson is treated a good deal better than the whites treated their slaves or captives, but she clearly feels entitled to such treatment. In the end, her captivity serves no purpose other than to give Rowlandson a chance to contribute to the red devil dogma.
Thomas Morton’s attitude toward the Natives is noticeably better. He expresses admiration for several aspects of Native culture and trades and socializes with them without fear. Yet Morton is only a more benign racist than Rowlandson. “It is a thing to be admired, and indeede made a president, that a nation yet uncivilized should respect age then some nations civilized” The natives are still “Salvages” with some endearing qualities, like worshipping a god that’s sort of like the Christian one.
The main difference between Rowlandson and Morton is that Morton is a fellow outsider in New England, a royalist shunned by the Puritan settlers on the coast and forced to live in the ‘wilderness” among the natives. Morton, the indulgent would-be
aristocrat, has nothing but contempt for the Puritans and feels a more personal connection to the Indians that are his fellow outsiders. But his brain is still subject to European
Beran 3
prejudice. The Natives may not be demonic enemies that must be exterminated, but they still need to be “civilized.” Converted to Christianity, (preferably the Church of England) and made to think and act like Europeans.
Unfortunately, this is about as good as colonial European views of Native Americans would get. It seems that even people of good will, who weren’t as obviously repressed as Rowlandson, never questioned the assumption that Europeans were better. This was, after all, a “scientific fact” at the time. The “pagan’ natives provided rapidly diverging Christian groups with a common out-group to rally against; and of course, European settlement of the Americas never could have happened in the first place without the assumption that white Christians were entitled to do so.
European attitudes can best be expressed by the Jan van der Straet drawing on page 110 of the Heath Anthology, which shows an explorer “planting his flag” in the “virgin soil” of America while a naked Indian woman welcomes him. As far as the Europeans were concerned, the only question was whether or not to be a gentle lover.
Section 2:8
“Nature” can mean any number of things. In the eighteenth century, it was fashionable to equate nature with logic and justice, “Whatever is, is right.” But this is not necessarily the case. In revolutionary America, writers like Paine, Jefferson, Brown, and others would invoke “natural rights” to argue for representative government and, eventually, to justify armed rebellion. There are a serious problems with this, especially since “nature” was used by others to justify absolute monarchy and oppression of non-

Beran 4
whites and non-males. Writers who argued for the existence of human rights, than, would often appeal to emotion and “fancy” in order to persuade their audience.
Thomas Paine will veer wildly between cold reasoning and fierce demands to agree with him, depending on the message and the emotion he is trying to bring about. “I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense” he claims in “Common Sense.” But what he does is to continually make rational, pseudo-rational, and “natural” arguments from an emotional assertion.
“But Britain is the parent country, say some. Then the more shame upon her conduct.” Here we see an appeal to nature that Paine turns on its head, saying that “not even savages make war on their families.” Then he turns to emotion, calling the king and his supporters “parasites.” And making no attempt to back this assertion up.

Gormanization

2007-03-17T14:44:00.000-07:00

A Trainwreck for trainwreck.

2007-03-03T13:30:00.001-08:00

There comes a point where all music fans reach a moment of realization.

For me, that moment came two nights ago. I was talking with, or rather being talked to, by a rather short-haired fellow, who told me, with total sincerity, that Incubus are the Beatles of this generation.

Incubus, you may recall, had a nice run of modern rock hits during the first half of this decade. Who can forget the watered down, sorta hippyish sounds of "Drive" "Wish you Were Here" and those other ones?

Incubus, five guys with hair that is neither too long or too short, power chords that don't rock too hard, ballads that vaguely suggested the use of soft drugs to those whose experience of such was limited to the occasional Friday night pinner, the D.J who contributes nothing to their sound but does demonstrate their firm belief in mushy non-committal tolerance.

But I guess my friend wasn't totally out of line. Incubus is, more than any other band, the sound of the early 00's. The ultimate band for those stuck in North Platte of some other spot in the great American black hole who listen to Incubus because they don't know better. The band of choice for people who, you know, like to drink and shit bro.

The band of 2002, the year when dictatorship and banality seized control of the cultural zeitgeist. The year when anti-intellectualism dropped all of his code words and pretenses and showed his naked, snarling hatred for anyone who dared to think for it's own sake. No longer would those who enjoyed Adam Sandler and Totally Not Gay wrestling pretend to respect those that did not. This was their time. You are with us or against us. Reagan won the Cold War. Tim Allan is a comedic genius. Love it or leave it.

And there were Incubus, sorta hippyish, vaguely hinting at a liberal attitude, but never once, of course, daring to protest anything specific. This was left to the flaming radicals like John Mellencamp. One cannot expect a band that's kind of metal to handle that sort of responsibility.

But back to my short-haired friend and how he led me to the realization that we all must face.

I laughed out loud when he praised Incubus. My knowledge of pop culture is infallible, and I only associate myself with people who, though their taste can never be as good as mine, at least won't embarrass themselves when they dare to discuss music or movies with me. There are psudo-intellectual college elitists, and then there is me. I am the musical ubermensch. Good taste is whatever my will decides it is.

So I laughed, and my friend, slightly offended, asked mw what my favorite band was, if I was so smart.

So, with some reluctance, I stuttered out my answer; Radiohead. Yeah, that's right, fucking Radiohead, you got a problem with that? I spent my first legal paycheck on a bag of weed and "The Bends" and was permanently enraptured. Yes, I was fifteen and Radiohead changed my life, and, sweet Jesus, this isn't really gonna get published is it?

So yeah, Radiohead, the popular ones. the band that everyone was supposed to like in the nineties. that was me, Radiohead and Pink Floyd. What more is there to say? I was but a child. You have to learn to crawl before you learn to levitate, etc.

Before Radiohead, my musical tastes leaned towards the classic rock; Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, CCR, The Beatles, Sabbath, The Doors, Dylan, Hendrix, Joplin, the canon, the establishment.

No Monks, no Fugs, no Stooges, no Replacements, not for me, not yet. You've got to learn to crawl before you learn to levitate.

I smoked low-grade pot, grew my hair long, stole pornography, took up tobacco. A typical Nebraska childhood, nothing distinctive nothing preternaturally cool.

And that's my realization. Since those days, my musical tastes have expanded to include classic metal, black metal, thrash metal, aggro, proto-punk, folk-punk, crust punk, dub reggae, roots reggae neo-roots reggae, alt country, classic country, electroindiedanceindieindie pop, neoelectricpsychedelia, trance, house, drums n bass, old school hip-hop, native tongues, old school west coast gansta, old school east coast, gansta, neo-indie-hip-hop, bluegrass, soul, motown, neoindiebluegrassmotown, Brill building pop, Webber and Rice, Memphis blues, Chicago blues, blues rock, blues country, bebop jazz, swing jazz, Texas swing, folk, neo-folk, (Did I already say folk-punk?) and the electric humming of my own brain that one hears in deep quiet.

It makes no difference. It was all a waste of time. I'm still the kid with the cheap hemp? necklace insisting that my shady middle-aged co-worker buy me a box of Marlboro Reds and nothing else. Everyone knew they were the best.

This is my realization. We music fans are fucking dorks, just like everyone else. With the exception of a lot more alcohol, slightly more sex, and an infinitely smaller income, we are no different from any given Obi Wan/Dr. Who slash porn writer.

So I would like to close this article by telling my short-haired friend to go ahead and keep rocking out to Incubus. Understand sir, I am better than you, as I am better than the society which you are surely better connected to than I. But it's damned hard. All of the energy I expended in gaining musical knowledge that could have been used to learn social or business skills. It's a demanding game, and it's not for everybody. Just do yourself a favor and keep your love for Incubus to your self when you're talking to me, because I'm not the one for that. You are a puppy barking at a grizzly bear, pray I'm not hungry.

Thank You Governor Heineman!

2007-01-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

Thank you sir, for submitting a budget that is guaranteed to raise the price of tuition at Nebraska colleges, continue to chase away the state's educated class and accelerate the the rate of ignorance and decay in rural America.

It's hard work, I know, cutting income taxes for the rich and estate taxes on the rich and vacant when it's property taxes that most people worry about. Of course you can't do very much for about property taxes can you? After all, the money from the property tax goes mostly to schools, and the cost of education in this state is astronomically high because of the ridiculous numbers of school districts. But you oppose moves to consolidate and combine school districts. There are, after all, a whole lot of Republicans in the country, and a whole lot of Republicans in West Omaha.

People in the country don't want to close their one-room shanty schoolhouses and be forced to face the fact that they have no identity or culture. Folks out west have been rather open about their belief that they are morally superior than us folks in the city and so deserve to be lavished in state funds. When we pay taxes to support them we're protecting a way of life and investing in the future. When they pay taxes to us they are being victimized by eastern bias to support welfare queens. It's a very simple equation.

Meanwhile the Omaha suburbs and their anachronistic school districts are desperate to avoid being annexed by the nigg...., inefficient bureaucrats at Omaha public schools.

So as long as their are school districts with more board members than students and four school districts within the city of Omaha than there will won't be much that can be done about the property tax rate, meaning that there won't be much to be done about the tax burden, meaning that cutting income and estate taxes won't accomplish anything beyond squeezing the state budget and satisfying the anti-tax cultists within the GOP. You're a smart man governor, I'm sure you already knew this.

And in your brilliance, you managed to find more important things to spend money on instead of than the university, which, after all, is full of people who will be disinclined to return to their small towns and take minumum wage jobs for a state-subsidized corporation that generously supported your campaign. Things like more treatment centers to cure the overhyped "meth epidemic" and more money to law enforcement to spend on nifty toys that make cool noises.

And of course there's those ethanol subsidies. Fifteen million in state money promised by you and your predecessors, state money given away to private corperations to provide jobs and keep the people off welfare.

This provides jobs for the moment, of course, but you do realize that the ethanol industry is a dead end? Ethanol makes no real dent in pollution, and can really do nothing but supplement an oil industry that even conservatives are starting to recognize as obsolete and dangerous. So, Auburn, Henderson, and any other small town that has banked its future on ethanol doesn't have a future. Having been to both of these places, I can't say that's a bad thing.

It's not that corn farmers are suffering for lack of markets. Practically everything we eat and drink has some corn in it (look it up kids) Farmers are suffering because of drought and the need to pay more and more money for a smaller and smaller supply of irrigation water. This is no secret. Oh, that and property taxes, but they seem perfectly willing to pay for their one-room schoolhouses so what the hell, let em.

So all that leaves five million for the university next year, this will barely cover the cost of inflation, leading to increased tuition and restricting access to higher education to the children of CEO's of state-subsidized agribusiness.

Thank you, Mr. Governor, for turning Nebraska into a feudal state as soon as possible instead of cock-teasing us with slow decay. You know, once you step back and watch the machine at work, it really is a thing of beauty. Cut off access to education, chase off the educated, leave no one behind except those who can be easily goaded into blindly obeying tradition and authority so the power-elite can circle-jerk each other right there in the open, without even having to blush. Malcontents who feel a vague urge to rebel but don know enough about the world to know what to rebel against turn to drugs instead. than they are apprehended by the special task force of infinite justice whatever and thrown in prison where they won't be any trouble.

And why not? The smart people, the people who matter, have always known that modern civilization was unsustainable on this wind-swept desert, it's just the grunts getting covered in blood at the slaughterhouse or dowsed in pesticides in the fields who thought they could make a permanent life here. So why not? Time to cash out and let it rot, don't you think?

Damnit man, finish the story!

2007-01-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

his own kind? Why did he never think of such things?

Art was still standing in front of him. It had been five minutes since either of them

had moved. The buck made the noise again, "urrrrefffa, herefverrr, furaaaver" and

then, still looking Art straight through his lazy eye with the gleam of recognition,

the buck took a shit, a large yet solid and healthy shit, and bleated again,"burraaauh"

And Art's residual excitement and newfound sense of wonder hit the ground with the

buck's steaming pile. He might of seen the humor of it, and maybe even something a

bit wondrous, had he been a less conventional man, but he wasn't of course.

Art walked forward a few feet and looked back. It was just as he expected, the buck

was still standing there, and still staring straight at where Art had been with the

same gleam in it's eye, and Art realized that the Buck was never looking at him at

all. It was just intently staring at the same spot Art happened to walk by for

whatever it's own goddamn child of the forest reasons were.

And Art realized that there was no reason why it should pay attention to him.

And nobody outside of Arthur County would ever pay attention to him, and his own

friends and neighbors didn't pay much attention to him, and come to think of it he

didn't really have any friends, and nobody in his family liked him much either.

And why shouldn't this be the case?

Because he wasn't much at all, never been anything but the same expectations he had

when he was a kid.

Art thought that is he heard someone else say that, he would have gotten mad, not

like he did at Max, poor old guy, but enraged, unleashed, enough juice to keep him

going for another six months, something to warm him right up. But no, he didn't want

that, he didn't want to feel mad at anyone anymore, what a goddamn fool, a goddamn

brat, he had been. He would find some other way to get along, he had never really

looked for one before, wasn't it long past time for that?

Kylie would be fine, Conner would be fine, they were smart, they understood how

things worked instead of how they were supposed to pretend they worked. How insulted

they must have been by his high and mighty oaths to protect them.

And that was the last thing he thought. He wasn't done walking, not quite yet. He

had wondered off of Johnson's drive some time ago. He had walked through some snow

banks, broke through the ice in some large puddles, walked through the water, covered

himself in the wet up to the middle of his thighs, never noticed a thing, never felt better, the numbness was just a man at rest, a man without a mission, without marching orders,

And you already know how the story ends.

Malone

2006-12-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.komposer.net/

Elsie's business

2006-12-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

Ambiguous and anti-climactic, those are the two most obvious things to say about "Elsie's business." Considering all that happens to the lead character, there is very little "action."

In place of action, Washburn gives us relationships, internal dialogue, and atmosphere. Though the book streches over several years, most of it is set in the ruthless South Dakota winter. Prairie winters are deadly, unchanging, and unwelcoming. Long winters can close minds, leaving those that live through them locked up with the same people they have always known. There is stasis; nothing moves, nobody moves. Even the dead stay above ground, waiting for the land to thaw.

The book can also be seen as a parable. We see the helplessness of Elsie, a traumatized young native woman. We also see the struggles of other natives and the white outcasts of her community. We also how powerful people; sheriff's, religious leaders, and land barons, are also rendered helpless by circumstance, social custom, their politically loaded interactions with each other, and the all-consuming winter. "Elsie's Business" shows us the futility of forming social pyramids, especially in a land that has so little to give to begin with.

satan is lord- of low prices!

2006-12-04T11:01:00.000-08:00

Joshua Beran
Tyrell Profile
9/06/2006
An employee leaves a cooler door open, and Sean Tyrell motions for him to shut it, his voice cool and flat.
“You left the door open man,” he said.
The 38-year old Tyrell is the co-owner of Knickerbockers bar and grill, along with college friend Chris Kelly. The pair founded the bar after graduation in 1993 and it quickly became one of the most well-known music venues in Lincoln.
“We both loved music and had always talked about starting a club somewhere in town,” Tyrell said.
“I’ve always loved music, and the late eighties and early nineties were a big time for rock music and just music.”
Tyrell grew up listening to bands like the Talking Heads and the Jesus Lizard. He is also a Lincoln native and said he thought that local music acts needed another venue.
Tyrell said there haven’t been too many show that have gotten too “crazy”. There was the time in 1999 when shock-rap group “Twizted” and fans caused a few hundred dollars worth of damage, but the group graciously paid it back. There have been a few citations for noise violations by the Lincoln police over the years, and there was last years cancellation by German metal band KMFDM, who were apparently expecting a large arena.

Only drunks And Children tell the truth

2006-10-28T16:52:00.000-07:00

Joshua Beran
Notebook 6
10/29/2006

Taylor's play deals with the aftermath of a state-sanctioned kidnapping, the death of a heartbroken mother after her long lost daughter is unabale to accept her ancestry, and drunken sisters coming to blows in a drunken rage. In other words, light as a feather compared to the last couple of books in this class.
The tone of the play is often breezy, even sitcomesque. It's easy to imagine the actors playing Tonto and Rodney mugging it up on stage. I must admit that it takes some getting used to for a cynic like myself. It's actually easier for me to anaylize a drug-addled cousin chef than it is for me to make an emotional connection to characters that are, by comparision at least, so much more well rounded. I realize that this play is a trilogy, and I would very much like to read the other two works. Perhaps I just got the easy middle.
It should also be noted that this is a play, after all. I'm sure that a good cast of actors would bring the emotional impact that Taylor intends. The final scene, where Janice/Grace finally accepts her birth mother as her own, is deeply moving, and would be even more so when acted out live.
In his introduction, Taylor says that he wanted to make Grace/Janice more sympathetic than she was in "Someday". I would have to read Someday to compare, but I thought he did an excellent job at that. I felt that Barb, randy, and Tonto were too harsh with Janice/Grace at the beginning of the story. She can hardly be expected to instantly embrace her indianness as if the first half of her life never happened. The fact is that our true heratage, the one we internalize to the soul, is the heratage of whoever happened to raise us, birth mother or otherwise.
Which only makes the "scoop up" even more of an outrage. Janice/Grace was stolen from her mother. She has been taught her whole life that the vaccine of superior culture was saving her from inferior genes. She has been led to believe that she has been saved from a life of drunkenness and debachery.
I don't mean to sound like a white materialist, but Janice/Grace should be commended for striving and acheiving despite her broken identity. Some are happy with the simple life, good for them. Some are happy with the pleasures of the countryside, family, and dime-store philosophy. Others want prestige and artifice. Let them have it, It's a free world.
As a proud psudo-intellectual, I must also take exception with Tonto's philosophy. He can't seriously believe that saying why is a bad thing. We need to ask ourselves both why and why not in order to see the truth of things. I would like to see if the "boys" play more significant roles in the other two works.

Finally, any work in which Amelia Erhart plays a minor off-stage role can't be all bad, but "Drunks an Children" still feels like an incomplete part of a whole. I need to read the other two plays.

Ward Churchill is After Your Girlfriend

2006-10-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

It was hell, convincing people to come to Ft. Morgan, but that was where my parents and their money were. They had a cabin along the railroad tracks about two miles west of town. My father bought it in the seventies from a destitute wheat farmer. Dad goes there whenever he needed to listen to talk radio and contemplate suicide. This was usually toward the end of spring, so my folks didn't mind that I brought some friends to town for fall break, so long as we didn't trash the place.

I am a grad assistant at the UC-Boulder English departmant. I teach Shakespere and Gender on Tuesdays and Thursdays. this is where I met Crystal Logan. She is why I arrainged the weekend in Ft. Morgan.

Crystal was still just seventeen; she graduated from Highlands Ranch High a year early. She had red dyed hair and a tatoo of a raven on her right shoulder. she would often claim that historical women, like Queen Isabela or Lots' wife, or Anne Boleyn, were lesbians. She always seemed disapointed when no one disputed her.

She found reasons to come to my office three or four times a week. She liked lady Mc'Beth. She told me she liked to be social, and that she loved the female form. I would often catch her fixating on me in class. there's a reason I still have a goatee and an eyebrow ring at twenty eight.

I have known many Crystals. She would have been intimidated if I asked her to spend some time alone with me. she had come from an upstanding family. Her father was a cell-phone executive in Littleton , so her dating experience consisted of trading fondling rights for sips of Mad Dog.

I told her that there would be a gathering at my cabin in Ft. Morgan. English and Art grads, Pearl Street shop owners, cool people with an intrest in promising young students. Ward Churchill would be there. My friends stood in solidarity with him. he wasn't getting booted out of the university if we had anything to do with it. Have you ever heard him speak, Crystal? He's really quite mesmorizing.

Crystal was cool. She said that she would have to make time on her schedule. She was a tutor for troubled minority students in East Denver. She spent two hours each Saturday teaching them how to become their dreams. She said that she couldn't skip a weekend for just anything, but that the program director might let her take a weekend off., She would tell him she was going to observe social decay on the eastern plains.

Two of my students drank themselves to death on the Thursday night before fall break started.
They were assholes, so nobody changed their plans.

Ward Churchill agreed to come to the cabin since he owed me a favor from a year or two back. My other friends signed on as soon as he did, and Crystal got the weekend off.

We met at my apartment on Iris avenue after everyone had finished their business for the week. Their would be seven of us, travellinfg in two cars. Driving one car would be Caitlyn McCarthy. She was an ex of mine, now she was the wife of Mr. McCarthy, who rode shotgun in their Taurus. They ran a juice shop downtown. They bought the place a few years ago from a head shop owner who wanted to open a coffee house. Riding with the McCarthy's were my best friend Spencer James, unemployed, and his fiancee Nicole Luchowski, former drug counselor turned cashier.

I wanted Crystal to sit next to me in my Accord for the trip, but Churchill called me a psuedo-progressive posuer and said I would probably piss my pants if we ran into police harrasment, so I had better let him sit shotgun in case he needed to handle such a situation. Crystal sat directly behind me, clearly high. Next to her in the back seat were Mia and Eugene Frayton; buddies from the rave scene back in my undergrad days. He's a tort lawyer in Denver, she's a housewife in a six-hundred-thousand dollar house with twice-weekly maid service. Sometimes when Mia gets drunk she'll still say that their 6-year-old daughter is really mine. The drive was uneventful. we drove out of the metro area on I-76. we passed the last tract houses at mile marker twnty five, the first pro-life billboard at mile marker thirty. Crystal and Churchill were both huge Carol King fans.

We reached the cabin at about 8 p.m. I told my parents that I would visit their town house on Sunday morning. It's not a lie when everyone knows it is. By the way mom, I need some cash, just until my novel breaks out. We had a very large stockpile of liquor and narcotics. I had to convince Spencer and Churchill not to bring any coke. It would do us no good to run out and start jonesing in the sticks.

It got to be around eleven. we were all drunk, high, and otherwise. Crystal had started to fondle the women after two glasses of wine. Mia indulged her for a few minutes but Eugene told her to cut it out. Professor Churchill pulled out an old guitar and started playing some songs that he climed to have written. He clearly had simply pasted radical poetry onto Dionne Warwick songs. He was halfway through "Do you Know How to Slay the BLA" when Crystal led me upstairs.

It was midnight. I always need to know the time, even during sex and serious illness. Crystal took off her shirt and started weeping about "my asshole parents" "fucking religion" and "everybody" being so full of shit. It was clear that she would start vomiting at some point in the night, so I led her to the bathroom and gave her a blanket. Than I went back to my room. It was a good three hours before she shut up. God damn freshmen.

I woke up the next morning around ten. I went downstairs and noticed that Crystal and Churchill were already up. They were both chain smoking out of her pack of Pall Malls and it looked like she would want me to go to town for more before the hour was out. She listened intently while Ward described Ginsberg as an empty bourgeois hedonist, concerned only with the material gain of "oppressed" urban homosexuals while ignoring the land claims of first nations. "All of the so-called rebellious writers, from Twain to Sontag, have been nothing but pale satirists and naive reformers who were too cowardly to point out the elephant in the room, the illigitimacy of the United States."

I noticed that most of the coffee was gone. I told Churchill that unless he wanted Folgers, he was going to have to come up with the gas money to drive to Denver and get the good shit.

The crash sounded like a bomb going off in a trash can, preceeded by the whine of a metallic fuse.

. It was an Amtrack train, the March of Freedom Express. lying in a tangled mess, some cars stacked three or four on top of each other. It was headed from Boston to L.A. The engineer had pulled the emergency brake after a bear had wondered on to the track. They always go too fast through the plains. People don't think there's any wildlife down here. Than they get surprised when something wonders onto the track or the highway.

I called the police. they said that it was against their policy to provide aid and comfort to socialists. So I went around the cabin and woke everybody up. we agreed to form a rescue party after everyone had a shower and a cigarette, and maybe a bite to eat and a drink or two.

It was noon. We agreed that the men would go to the wreckage, since we were more likely to have the strength to move twisted metal around and carry survivors back to the house. The women would stay behind and administer splints, bandages, and black market vicodin to the wounded. Spencer, Eugene, Mc'carthy, and myself made our way through the backdoor and toward the railroad.

Churchill did not come with us. We wern't that offended, he was pretty scrawny. We figured that he was probably coking with the women back at the house. If he was fixing that mac-n-cheese with tabascco sauce he made, that wold be contribution enough.

The victims were lying in all manner of twisted, unnatural positions. Some worked on their labtops, while others munched on Gordetos. "Is everybody okay?" I yelled. "Oh yeah, everybody's fine" said a blonde woman about my age, too old. "We could just use some help getting out of here, if you guys don't mind. I have to meet a client in Pasadena tommarow."

Sure enough, everybody was fine. Nobody dead, nobody seriously hurt. It was a miracle. There was an old man from Maine who wouldn't stop screaming for his heart pills, but he was a jerk that he really didn't count as somebody. None of the others were quite so babyish, though they did all just lay there, waiting for us to do all of the work for them. Spencer said that we would damn well try to dig himself out if he was ever in a trainwreck.

After freeing four men and six women, we decided to take a break. It had been about an hour since we reached the wreck. Keep in mind, we wern't leaving anybody to bleed to death, all of the victims were perfectly fine, just stuck is all. And if they wern't going to help us help them, they could damn well wait to be rescued until we decided to get to them.

Mia and Churchill were in the kitchen talking about how silly most of the professors in Boulder were. She talked about a chemestry Professor who never graded testsand gave students Bs and C's at random. Mia had a glow in her eyes, the kind of glow I hadn't seen since the last time she was drunk.

"My God, but you like like a pig dear" she said to Eugene. He was covered in grease. He mumbled something and said he was going to the basement tocheck Myspace. Eugene has always been a bit of an idiot.

Band-aids were administered to the wounded who had gathered in the living room. There was a fisherman from Cape Cod who wanted to know my life story. I told him I was put on this earth to mind my own business.

I returned to the kitchen and told Churchill to make us some lunch, if he wasn't going to do anything else. He told me to fuck myself and Mia giggled. I noticed two freshly dirty wine glasses in the kitchen.

I poured the last of the good coffee and grabbed the pack of Camels that I had left lying on th table. There were eight in the pack when I had went out to the wreck, now there were six. I asked Mia and Ward if they had taken any. "You really should quit Gerald" she said. "That's not what what I asked" They both started laughing. I asked Ward to please cook some Mac'n Cheese or something.

That's how the day went, an hour at the wreck, an hour at the wreck, an hour back at the house. The people we freed were starting to turn the cabin into a real party. Somebody was playing Rufus Wainwright on a Casio, while others played Twister or Madden 92. I met a girl named Betty. She was a waitress from some small town in Arizona. She told me that all the guys from back home were all the same, and she had always wanted to have a real Bohemian man. She asked if there was a place to sleep in the cabin. Her teeth were meth-rotten and her right hand shook every time she tried to lift it. I told her she could sleep in my room and that I would keep her warm.

I noticed that Churchill and the women wern't interacting with anyboy else. They quranteened themselves into a dark corner of the kitchen. Churchill spoke of his days with the resistence in South Dakota while Caitlyn and Mia listened intently. I was concerned for my friends, but Churchill was a close, aquatiance of mine. I don't associate myself with amoral rakes.

I returned from my fourth trip with eight other people at about five in the afternoon. There were about seventy five people left in the wreckege. I told them that I was getting tired and that it would be getting dark soon. So they should all call ahead to work and let them know that they would be a day late. Maybe they could get at least half-pay.

I came back to the house and noticed that Churchill, Caitlyn, and Mia were nowhere to be found. I knew. Eugene, McCarthy, and Crystal were passed out on the porch, they had been drinking popping hydrocodine with some of the victims since first break. At the foot of the stairs was a woman named Jessie. She was a corporate lawyer who had recently moved back to LA from Las Vegas. She had the most gorgeous red hair. Earlier, I had introduced her to Betty and asked if she liked country girls, she said nothing and walked away. Now she was looking up the stairs with a look that was both disgusted and amused.

"Did you see a long-haired man in sunglasses take two women upstairs?" I asked her. "Oh you better believe it honey," she said. "I think one of them is named Nola." "That's Mia" I said. "Oh, whatever," she said. "I just wish I was up there. White Indians are hot. It would be like spending a night with David Carradine." I asked if he wanted to have a drink with me but he never showed any intrest. What a shame. He's definatly more fascinating than your hippy ass. get away from me."

I was the only one who could deal with the situation in a civilized manner. Eugene and Mc'Carthy had beliefs regarding marriage. They would just give everybody a terrible headache if they found out what their wives were doing.

I went upstairs and heard them in my bedroom. Wasn't that just the least they could do? I was going to have a very hard time being civil now. Churchill was going to clean the seats; and he was going to Denver to pick up good coffee, and he was fixing some fucking mac'n cheese since he hadn't done anything else all day except fuck my friends wives.

I walked to the door. this room hadsacred memories for me. Dad gave me my first childhood puppy here, old Lawrence. This is the room where I told my high school girlfriend that she could use the money for an abortion or raise the kid with her damn money. The room held sacred memories for me. Now it was being defiled by an aging failed revolutionary. Why should I not be mad? The acid stench of crystal meth overpowered the normal smells of sex. Don's Henley's baritone mourned through my stereo. This was the end of the innocence. I opened my door.

You can imagine the scene inside for yourself. I am a professor at a respected university. I don't write erotic fiction.

The women let out little shrieks of surprise and ducked under the covers. Churchill looked me dead in the eye, smiling broadly. I wanted choke him like I never wanted anything. But something in his gleaming eyes told me this was exactly what he wanted me to do.

I waited until I could speak calmly, very calmly. "Mia, Caitlyn" I said. "Go take a shower and then go downstairs. Don't talk to anybody about anything. Just have a drink and calm down. We will not have a divisive incident at my cabin.

Mia glared at me. "You don't have a cabin you overgrown hippy moron. Just tell your dad that you'll pay him back for the broken shit downstairs as soon as your work gets discovered." Than she started to laugh. "Just do what I tell you, trust me." I said

"Oh, sure thing Gerald. I guess I had better trust you, otherwise me and Eugene will get divorced, and what would you do then Gerald? It would just be you and him getting high and defiling freshman girls until you're fifty, while I run away to God knows where with your daughter. "She's not my daughter."
"She has your eyes."
"Lots of people have blue eyes."
"The girls in Ft. Morgan tell me you're quite fertile."
"The girls in Ft. Morgan are morons"
"Why not let a paternity test see who's the moron?"
"Just get the fuck out of here.

Mia followed Catilyn to the bathroom, letting out a small shriek on the way. I was worried that somebody might hear her. If somebody did than they didn't care.

It was just me and Churchill now. I stared into his soul, nothing, blackness. I waited until I could speak calmly. "Damn you Ward Churchill! Damn your heart of disputed origin! Why do you betray my hospitality?
"Gerald, you woundn't even talk to me if knowing me didn't impress the freshman girls, and I know you well enough to know you don't believe in anything, so don't act like I've commited some deep betrayal, okay? "Just give me a reason." I said. "Something I can tell my friends if they ever ask."

"My people must replenish our numbers if we are to survive.
"Give me a break Ward"
"It's very amusing seeing you feign rightous anger Gerald."
"Just give me a straight answer"

"Because fuck you, that's why. I can't remember the last time I felt pleasure without bringing pain to some one else. I was planning to go tell your buddies what I've been doing to their wives just so I can see the agony on their faces. When I see a naked woman, I close my eyes and imagine her husband weeping. I only wish I was still in grad school so I could be like you and pretend to have a future. "

I must admit that I took much satisfaction in his answer. This was a man who did the right things for the right reasons.

By the way Gerald, that Crystal girl is very nice. But I'm afraid she told me she was molested by her father and now she can't touch a man unless she's drunk."

"I know, I heard her in the bathroom last night, I guess someone likes them even younger than I do." Look, you've got to get out of here the tension will be to obvious to everyone else. Just get in the shower after the girls are done, or join them, I don't care anymore. I'll wash the sheets. Just tell everyone the FBI is after you or something. I'll keep my mouth shut if everyone else does. Take my car, i'll get a ride back to Boulder from my parents. Just pay me back for the coffee and cigarettes when you get the chance.
"I didn't take your cigarettes Gerald."
"Bullshit."

The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully. Sunday was mostly a recovery day. I told Spencer and Mc'Carthy that they could resue more train wreck victims if they wanted to. I was tired of doing all of the work. Eugene and Mc'Carthy didn't wake up until noon. They suspected nothing. though Eugene did ask Mia why she kept glaring at me. She said that she had a lot of thinking to do. I think Spencer freed five or six more victims. A few more managed to get themselves out. There were at least sixty left by the time we went home Sunday night. I'm sure they're fine.
Crystal spent the last day in the basement, listening to Ani DiFranco. I asked Caitlyn to return the favor by taking Crystal back in her car, and say nothing about my girl to my father. Caitlyn said that I was scum and that she would do it. IBetty asked if she could come back with me and my dad and I said fine.

All this happened two years ago. all of my married cabin friends stayed together, had a couple extra kids, and divorced. Fourty five out of the sixty remaining train wreck victims died of exposure and bear attacks. we wern't held responsible. Crystal overdosed on Valium this last summer. She left three messages on the phone the night she died, very amusing, better than any of her poetry.

I'm a professor now, full tenure. You might have read my deconstruction of Spillane. I'm married to Betty. She works part-time at a bok store on Pearl Street. we get along great.

I don't talk to Churchill much anymore. I still tell undergrad girls that I know him, and it still gets me laid more than ever. (Well, me and bety.) So I suppose I can forgive the fact that he still hasn't paid me back for the coffee and cigarettes, but I won't. Every now and again, someone will ask me what Ward Churchill is really like, and they'll have a gleam in thier eye that lets me know they want an honest answer, so I give them one.

Ward Churchill is a total bastard who will steal your woman and your cigarettes.

Monkey Beach

2006-10-15T15:15:00.000-07:00

Joshua Beran
Notebook 3
10/15/2006

Growing up in a small town can be very hard for a child with a very active brain. Having grown up in North Platte, I know this from personal experience. Personal relationships are unchanging and increasingly awkward as children grow into adults. Triumphs, failures, and tragedies are always fresh; just as untouched by time as the relationships. The only real culture is what we pilfer from others: Hip-hop culture for the youth and lower classes, a generic "western" or "heartland" culture for everyone else.

Of course, the town where I was raised might as well be Manhatten compared to the Canadian North. I can't imagine what the static environment of Kitamaat B.C. must be like for poor Lisa Hill. She is curious, skeptical, and thoughtful; but nobody in her practical blue-collar town has much appreciation for that. She violates social boundries without understanding what they mean, but is outcast by her peers anyway. The boundries should just be obvious for her. Lisa's parents are loving. They provide the stable center for an otherwise disintigrating family. but their advise to finish school and get married to.... somebody doesn't satisfy her deep curiosity. Than she is raped by a trusted friend as a matter of course. Boys need to be boys, after all.
Lisa's most important life teachers are Uncle Mick and Ma-ma-oo, but she loses them. It would be bad enough if they simply died of illness or old age, but no. They die horribly, and they die just when Lisa is entering her most difficult years. Of course she does have her gift, so she can still talk to Mick and Grandma from time to time. But this may do more harm than good for such a young person. I know that I would rather not have my familily's darkest secrets revealed to me, and the knowledge that "something" bad will happen to a family member can hardly do anything but ruin a fellow.

It is hardly surprising that Lisa breaks down and runs away. Everyone in the book seems on the verge of falling apart. Everyone is dying under the weight of pain, eternal tragedy, and broken dreams. Some are dying one cigarette or drink at a time, others meet quicker and bloodier ends. Robinson does a wonderful job of making us feal the oppresion of the characters. Not the pain they feel neccessarily, but the oppression of carrying on, of burying the dead and than fitting into a narrow definition of "normal". Get the same job that killed your uncle, father, mother or brother, get married, buy a big truck.

But Lisa is too smart and perceptive to wear a stiff upper lip and grind away, so she cracks. She goes to Vancouver in to escape. But she doesn't do anything she couldn't have done back in Kitamaat. She drinks, drugs, and runs into her fellow walking-dead friends and relatives from back home. There is no escaping the pain and death of Kitamaat, Lisa must return and face it.

The book isn't clear about whether or not she will be able to. Jimmy's death, and the sordid story that lead to it, will either break Lisa or save her. She has her gift, but the spirits are unimpressed with the unstable, hopelessly modern young woman. She has her ancestors, but there is nothing stereotypically mystical about them. Mick, Ma-ma-oo, and the rest are just as flawed in life as they were in death.

This leaves Lisa to save herself. In the past she has either ignored or misunderstood her gift. She has never been able to control it for her own porposes. She must now either learn to do so or contribute to the slow death of her family and her culture.

Gardens in the dunes

2006-10-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

Josh Beran

10/2/2006

Journal 3

The biggest problem in writing this journal is not to go on for too long. "Gardens" took a while to really get going; but once it did, the endless descriptions of European gardens and the ever-so-open-minded relatives behind them started to make sense. By the time she does get to the end, Silko makes a well-crafted feminist and anti-materialist lesson.
There's no sense in pretending the Hattie and Edward arn't the most identifiible chracters to me. I'm a white man in the Midwest, where we pretend to still have the values of the 19th century. " It's funny how a couple who pride themselves on open-mindedness will still obey social custom to the point of suicide.
It would be too harsh to say that Edward is a criminal. His inability to change his mind once he has made it up is a deep character flaw (fatal in fact) but he was simply being the decisive Victorian man he was taught to be. At any rate, suggestions to reconsider usually came from Hattie or some other woman, so of course they must have been irrational.
On the expedition where he was origionally "cursed", Edward sincerly believed he was doing the right thing. He was brining the orchids to "civilization" for the sake of "progress". At the least, he was certainly the best man in the group of thugs and vandals he travelled with.
But the trip left him with nothing but a bad leg and money troubles. troubles that were unacceptible for a man of the gentleman class. Dependence on his wife or sister were not options. Selling his father's house and living as a working-class stiff wasn't even in the realm of possibility. In Edward's mind, he had little choice but to make the dangerous trip to Italy. His only real criminal act was to drag Hattie and Indigo along just to provide a dubious allibi.
His relationship with Dr. Gates is, of course, insanly self-destructive. I could break out the old English paper cliche and claim that Edward was a repressed homosexual. (Indeed, his refusal to believe his own wife's claims of abuse suggest that he was even more gynophobic than society expected him to be.) But I think there is a simpler explanation then that. Gates was an Anglo-Saxon "man of science" and therefore worthy of complete trust. He also had good dope.
Hatie is a woman who is nowhere near as skeptical as she thinks she is. She shares Edwards assumptions that little girls shouldn't see stone breasts and phalli and is reluctant to break with a church that is clearly to ridgid for a mind like hers. Still, she does end up as one of the heroines of the story. Crippling sexophobia is her biggest flaw, but that seems perfectly understandible since the men around her tend to be morons, hipocrites, or worse.
I am bothered by Hattie's happy ending. She seemed to be doomed to a life of "spinsterhood" in her parents' house or in an insane asylum. Silko doesn't explain how she avoided this fate. She ran from the train station and burned Needles to the ground. Good for her, than what? How did she escape the authorities? Where did she get money?
Edward's "curse" seemed like a cliche at first, but raised very interesting questions at the end. It seems that the curse was transfered to his meteors after his death. The stones led to Hatie's rape and near murder, than they led Hatie to her attacker. (Or an amoral client of his)
I assume that the meteor crater that Edward and Gates were mining is the Arizona crater that is today making far more money as a tourist attraction than it ever would as a mine. The Grand Canyon was also considered a giant mine shaft when whites first began to settle the area. The madness of this may seem obvious today. But mining provided a reason to drag big industrial machinery to the desert, therefore it was progress. Tourism seemed weak and dainty by comparision.
Finally, I should point out that my aunt and uncle live in Lake Havisu City, Arizona. There's a good chance I've ridden a boat over Road's End, and maybe the old gardens too. I'm afraid that restoring the river to its natural state is quite impossible. The area is growing quickly. we can't expect decent americans to tolerate winters in this day and age.