Learning in protest-time

Whatever you think of the recent campus protests, now is a good time to read about old ones.

I used to hear about old protests at Cornell. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” But the way the old protests were talked about, it seemed the best of times, morally speaking. At least it was better than the late 2000s and early 2010s, a period characterized by routine alternations of study and debauchery.

Middle-aged, I now see the obvious rightness of the study-and-debauch routine inside a university. (Well, yes, the routine could do with less debauching.)

“A university is a society for the pursuit of learning,” C. S. Lewis says, echoing many, many other university people since the dawn of (at least) the modern university. This is an obvious truth … or was for a long time.

But, but, the present urgency!

Well, there’s always a present urgency; if nothing else, people need their souls saved. (It’s usually other people, isn’t it?) But that’s not what a university is for. “A university is a society for the pursuit of learning.” So, one (a) leaves the university and does whatever seems urgent, or else (b) stays in the university and pursues learning. No distractions, please.

(The old Cornell protests may actually have been justified since they were about how to pursue learning. This is an important point. Alas, it is not a neglected one. “How learning is moral to pursue” has been trotted out as the concern behind much gratuitous scholarship⁠/activism. The result has been the blending of two endeavors that university people, of all people, should take pains to distinguish.)

I do take issue with Lewis’s second sentence: “As students, you will be expected to make yourselves, or to start making yourselves, into what the Middle Ages called clerks: into philosophers, scientists, scholars, critics, or historians.” Fine, if being a clerk is (a) temporary or (b) lifelong but avocational; but a natural reading of the passage, for us if not for Lewis’s Oxford students, is that it’s a career. The truth is, students are not expected to make themselves into lifelong professional students. Well, some are, but very few.

Lewis (p. 49):

A mole must dig to the glory of God and a cock must crow. We are members of one body, but differentiated members, each with his own vocation. A man’s upbringing, his talents, his circumstances, are usually a tolerable index of his vocation. If our parents have sent us to Oxford, if our country allows us to remain there, this is prima facie evidence that the life which we, at any rate, can best lead to the glory of God at present is the learned life.

Good, good. And if one is so excited by the present urgency that one can’t devote oneself to learning or let others get on with it in peace, that is prima facie evidence that membership in the university isn’t one’s vocation – that one should leave. There is wiggle room, of course. Michael Dummett put aside his Frege for a while to decry racism. He kept on decrying racism the rest of his life. He also wrote about tarot cards. But he did get back to Frege, in a big way.

Body-text fonts, pt. 17: Robert Slimbach’s fonts: Adobe Garamond, Minion, and, especially, ITC Slimbach

We live during Robert Slimbach’s benevolent reign, or Adobe’s. It’s stale. Good as Slimbach’s Adobe Garamond and Minion have been, it’s tedious to see them still used so often.

Slimbach has created other fine typefaces for Adobe – Adobe Ten Oldstyle, Adobe Text (see Elizabeth Anderson’s Private Government), etc. – but, for whatever reason, book designers haven’t warmed to them. Arno and Warnock are good, too, but only on certain days of the week.

What I really like by Slimbach is his early, Zapf-inspired eponymous font for ITC. I first noticed it in NIV Study Bibles from the 1990s and early 2000s. It’s also in Bruce Cumings’s history, Korea’s Place in the Sun, and in the anthology Latin American Philosophy for the 21st Century; lately, it’s been shared all over the Internet in the body text of Ross McCammon’s book, Works Well with Others: An Outsider’s Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You.

(I seldom read self-help books. But I read all of this one. It’s painless, and it gives tips about how and when to write curt emails and use curse words and drink after the job and on the job, and how to tell your dining partner you’re not going to drink if you aren’t going to. And how to pronounce the names of alcoholic drinks from Scotland. It’s a very pro-drink book. The author’s dissimulations to the contrary, it’s the douchiest self-help book I’ve read. [I know, there are much worse ones.] After I finished the book, I looked up some of McCammon’s Esquire articles, and wow, that was like landing on a different planet. I shut the computer and fled the room. … By the way, I learned from At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig [Adobe Garamond] that the country that imports by far the most Scotch, or that used to, is tariff-free Paraguay; the booze is then smuggled into Argentina and Brazil.)

As for Minion itself, I like it – but not tiny, and not in lines of interminable length, which is how Oxford University Press uses it.

Wanna see Minion used well? Look at a Vintage paperback of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Spring cleaning; Mother’s Day; May’s poem

A desperate house-cleaning, this afternoon, to the detriment of my sinuses. We wished to make the house agreeable for Karin’s mom. We had invited her over for a Mother’s Day supper.

The event was a success.

After Karin’s mom left us, we let Samuel play with marbles in the living room, and I took Daniel to the basement so he wouldn’t put them into his mouth. When the time came to bring Daniel back upstairs, Samuel didn’t want to put his marbles away, and in the ensuing fracas they were spilled under various pieces of furniture. We put one howling child into one room and the other howling child into another room. We moved the dusty furniture around to hunt for the marbles – again, to the detriment of my sinuses.

I don’t recall having ever taken medicine for allergies. This might be a good year to start.

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The first paragraph of A Pocket Full of Rye:

It was Miss Somers’ turn to make the tea. Miss Somers was the newest and the most inefficient of the typists. She was no longer young and had a mild worried face like a sheep. The kettle was not quite boiling when Miss Somers poured the water onto the tea, but poor Miss Somers was never quite sure when a kettle was boiling. It was one of the many worries that afflicted her in life.

I see that in 2014 I gave this novel a “C” grade. Admittedly, I didn’t remember it well. When I previously read it, I was fourteen.

On the strength of this opening paragraph, the novel is shaping up to be worthy of at least a “B-plus.”

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For Mother’s Day, lines from the first half of Proverbs 31. Two versions.

I

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

These are the words of King Lemuel. This is the message his mother taught him:

“My son, I gave birth to you.

You are the son I prayed for.

Don’t waste your strength on women.

Don’t waste your time on those who ruin kings.

“Kings should not drink wine, Lemuel.

Rulers should not desire beer.

If they drink, they might forget the law.

They might keep the needy from getting their rights.

Give beer to people who are dying.

And give wine to those who are sad.

Let them drink and forget their need.

Then they won’t remember their misery anymore.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Defend the rights of all those who have nothing.

Speak up and judge fairly.

Defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(International Children’s Bible)

II

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The words of Lemuel, King of Massa, with which his mother reproved him:

No, my son. Oh, no, son of my womb,

Oh, no, son of my vows.

Do not give your vigor to women,

Nor your ways to destroyers of kings.

Not for kings, Lemuel, not for kings,

the drinking of wine, nor, for rulers, hard drink.

Lest he drink and forget inscribed law,

and reverse the judgment of all wretched men.

Give hard drink to the perishing man

and wine to those deeply embittered.

Let him drink and forget his privation,

and his misery let him no more recall.

Open your mouth for the dumb,

For the judgment of all fleeting folk.

Open your mouth, judge righteously,

grant justice to the poor and the wretched.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(Robert Alter)

February’s poem

William McGonagall, “The Demon Drink”:

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Oh, thou demon Drink, thou fell destroyer;

Thou curse of society, and its greatest annoyer.

What hast thou done to society, let me think?

I answer thou hast caused the most of ills, thou demon Drink.

Thou causeth the mother to neglect her child,

Also the father to act as he were wild,

So that he neglects his loving wife and family dear,

By spending his earnings foolishly on whisky, rum and beer.

And after spending his earnings foolishly he beats his wife –

The man that promised to protect her during life –

And so the man would if there was no drink in society,

For seldom a man beats his wife in a state of sobriety.

And if he does, perhaps he finds his wife fou’,

Then that causes, no doubt, a great hullaballo;

When he finds his wife drunk he begins to frown,

And in a fury of passion he knocks her down.

And in that knock down she fractures her head,

And perhaps the poor wife she is killed dead,

Whereas, if there was no strong drink to be got,

To be killed wouldn’t have been the poor wife’s lot.

Then the unfortunate husband is arrested and cast into jail,

And sadly his fate he does bewail;

And he curses the hour that ever was born,

And paces his cell up and down very forlorn.

And when the day of his trial draws near,

No doubt for the murdering of his wife he drops a tear,

And he exclaims, “Oh, thou demon Drink, through thee I must die,”

And on the scaffold he warns the people from drink to fly,

Because whenever a father or a mother takes to drink,

Step by step on in crime they do sink,

Until their children loses all affection for them,

And in justice we cannot their children condemn.

The man that gets drunk is little else than a fool,

And is in the habit, no doubt, of advocating for Home Rule;

But the best Home Rule for him, as far as I can understand,

Is the abolition of strong drink from the land.

And the men that get drunk in general wants Home Rule;

But such men, I rather think, should keep their heads cool,

And try and learn more sense, I most earnestly do pray,

And help to get strong drink abolished without delay.

If drink was abolished how many peaceful homes would there be,

Just, for instance in the beautiful town of Dundee;

then this world would be heaven, whereas it’s a hell,

An the people would have more peace in it to dwell.

Alas! strong drink makes men and women fanatics,

And helps to fill our prisons and lunatics;

And if there was no strong drink such cases wouldn’t be,

Which would be a very glad sight for all Christians to see.

O admit, a man may be a very good man,

But in my opinion he cannot be a true Christian

As long as he partakes of strong drink,

The more that he may differently think.

But no matter what he thinks, I say nay,

For by taking it he helps to lead his brother astray,

Whereas, if he didn’t drink, he would help to reform society,

And we would soon do away with all inebriety.

Then, for the sake of society and the Church of God,

Let each one try to abolish it at home and abroad;

Then poverty and crime would decrease and be at a stand,

And Christ’s Kingdom would soon be established throughout the land.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, pause and think,

And try to abolish the foul fiend, Drink.

Let such doctrine be taught in church and school,

That the abolition of strong drink is the only Home Rule.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

There is a lot of truth in this poem.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 37: Trees Lounge

Again I must defer to Roger Ebert, who says that this movie “is the most accurate portrait of the daily saloon drinker” that he has seen. (For Ebert’s description of his own alcoholism, see his book Life Itself, which is built from his blog entries; here is one of them.)

Steve Buscemi – who also used to drink too much – is the director and star of Trees Lounge. This is a quintessential Buscemi performance. His role in Ghost World, Ebert says, is

like the flip side of his alcoholic barfly in Trees Lounge, who also becomes entangled with a younger girl, not so fortunately.

In Ghost World, the Buscemi character is indrawn and timid; only the girl gets close to him. Tommy, his counterpart in Trees Lounge, is obnoxious, assertive, and gregarious. Everyone knows and sort of likes him.

This doesn’t make him any less sad. His drinking is inseparable from his compulsive manipulating of bartenders, friends, and women. In an especially touching scene, an ex-girlfriend watches a home video of what appears to be a Christmas gathering. Tommy is the life of the party: he exudes tenderness and fun: other revelers brim with affection for him. This is poignant because the viewer knows that Tommy has alienated most of these friends.

Despite this, the movie is a pleasure to watch because it is very funny. Tommy clowns his way through life, and a lot of the clowning is instinctively brilliant. You used to be funny, the teenaged girl (Chloë Sevigny) teases him. He’s still funny: he even knows how to ham it up when the girl’s father chases him with a baseball bat. (Come to think of it, Buscemi gets beaten up at the end of Ghost World, too.)

As one might expect, there are many closely observed supporting characters who drink in Trees Lounge. Ebert singles out Bill, an old man “whose world has grown smaller and smaller, until finally it has defined itself as the task of drinking”; he stares “blankly into space before rousing himself to use sign language to order another double shot.” Another drinker looks like a scuzzy loser but turns out to be relatively successful (he owns a delivery company). A theme is that even those who are crippled by alcoholism need not be totally dysfunctional. On the other hand, a measure of blindness seems to go with the disease. The bartender who scolds Tommy for drinking too much himself turns into a barfly when he’s not working a shift.

It’s also surprising how many women pass through the bar looking for one-night stands. The regulars who are steadiest on their feet are happy to oblige; even so, precious little consummation results from the wobbly mating dances performed in Trees Lounge. And then, afterward, the regulars are racked with guilt because they have girlfriends or wives from whom they’re only partly estranged. They idealize those girlfriends and wives, but not enough to quit drinking. The movie isn’t very interested in asking how hard it is for addicts to quit, whether it’s possible for a given person to quit (though it suggests that the prevailing attitude among the drinkers is that they could quit if they wanted to – if they had good enough reason to). The movie’s goal is simpler. It shows the costs of this sort of life – and some of the perks.

July’s poem

“Lines in Defence of the Stage”:

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Good people of high and low degree, / I pray ye all be advised by me, / And don’t believe what the clergy doth say, / That by going to the theatre you will be led astray.

No, in the theatre we see vice punished and virtue rewarded, / The villain either hanged or shot, and his career retarded; / Therefore the theatre is useful in every way, / And has no inducement to lead the people astray.

Because therein we see the end of the bad men, / Which must appall the audience – deny it who can / Which will help to retard them from going astray, / While witnessing in a theatre a moral play.

The theatre ought to be encouraged in every respect, / Because example is better than precept, / And is bound to have a greater effect / On the minds of theatre-goers in every respect.

Sometimes in theatres, guilty creatures there have been / Struck to the soul by the cunning of the scene; / By witnessing a play wherein murder is enacted, / They were proven to be murderers, they felt so distracted,

And left the theatre, they felt so much fear, / Such has been the case, so says Shakespeare. / And such is my opinion, I will venture to say, / That murderers will quake with fear on seeing murder in a play.

Hamlet discovered his father’s murderer by a play / That he composed for the purpose, without dismay, / And the king, his uncle, couldn’t endure to see that play, / And he withdrew from the scene without delay.

And by that play the murder was found out, / And clearly proven, without any doubt; / Therefore, stage representation has a greater effect / On the minds of the people than religious precept.

We see in Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello, which is sublime, / Cassio losing his lieutenancy through drinking wine; / And, in delirium and grief, he exclaims: / “Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”

A young man in London went to the theatre one night / To see the play of George Barnwell, and he got a great fright; / He saw George Barnwell murder his uncle in the play, / And he had resolved to murder his uncle, but was stricken with dismay.

But when he saw George Barnwell was to be hung / The dread of murdering his uncle tenaciously to him clung, / That he couldn’t murder and rob his uncle dear, / Because the play he saw enacted filled his heart with fear.

And, in conclusion, I will say without dismay, / Visit the theatre without delay, / Because the theatre is a school of morality, / And hasn’t the least tendency to lead to prodigality.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(William McGonagall)

Our church membership class, pt. 2

This’ll be my week of spring break – “do or die” time, as far as my dissertating is concerned. I’ve already had so many “do or die” weeks, I can’t count them, but this one really is the “do or die” week.

Don’t expect great things on the blogging front.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

We looked at the Missionary Church’s constitution in today’s membership class. We spent much of the time discussing whether it was constitutionally all right for members to drink alcohol. I thought Article of Practice 7 was pretty clear:

The Scriptures clearly command that believers are not to be conformed to the worldview and lifestyle of the world of which they are a part, but, on the contrary, are to function as salt to prevent the spread of moral corruption and as light to dispel spiritual darkness. It is therefore imperative that they set high standards for their personal and collective life including the following: …

[That] their bodies be treated as temples of the Holy Spirit thus making it inconsistent with both Christian testimony and sound principles of health to injure their influence or bodies by the use of tobacco, intoxicating beverages, narcotics and other harmful products.

[Pages 10–11]

But no. Apparently, various pastors in the denomination have decided that there’s some interpretive wiggle-room. They claim that as long as members stop short of drunkenness, they may drink away.

To which I reply: Article of Practice 7 condemns injury through the mere use of intoxicating beverages, whether or not intoxication is achieved. So the drinking had better not kill any brain cells.

I didn’t spell all of this out during the class itself, but I did go so far as to say that the constitution tells believers not to eat fried chicken (another “harmful product”).

The reaction to this was a collective Huh. Then the pastor said that our congregation was going to interpret the constitution so as to allow anything that the Bible permits. So drinking is allowed, but drunkenness is not.

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Tonight, Karin & I used Hulu to watch the very last episode of Detectorists. What a lovely show. I’ll leave it to you to find out whether the metal detectorists find their gold.

There’s nothing more satisfying to watch than when these detectorists put up their detectors after a long day of detecting and head off to the pub for a friendly pint of beer.

Austin, or, rather, the Texas Hill Country, pt. 3: LBJ’s ranch

I wished to view something more “Texan” than the hipster city of Austin. And so, on Friday, Ana & David took Karin & me out into the Texas Hill Country. Our destination was the LBJ Ranch.

We drove through Dripping Springs and Johnson City, where LBJ grew up (and which was named after his cousin). That city is now a tourist town. We also passed some wineries. Onward!, I insisted. No wineries! Onward, to the ranch!

Admission to the ranch was free, but each of us was charged $3 to tour the house. Driving through the property, we saw the Pedernales River and large fields with handsome Hereford cattle. We also stopped at LBJ’s airplane hangar and viewed a short movie about the importance of the ranch to the Johnson family and the nation. LBJ spent about a quarter of his presidency on the ranch. He hosted politicians and foreign dignitaries there. (His Secret Servicemen were disguised as ranch hands.) We also listened to an airman tell stories about how LBJ would fly into the ranch at the government’s expense.

The house itself was rather plain. It had eight bedrooms, a swimming pool, and many, many phones and televisions. It was decorated in the Sixties’ style, with vinyl armchairs, lemon-yellow countertops, and popular books from the period. (I was reminded of the Missionary Church Dorm, in Quito.) The best thing in the house, however, was LBJ’s desk chair, made of spotted cowhide. Oh, how I longed to sit in that chair! Alas, it wasn’t permitted.

The groomsman

And so Kenny & Lara were married. The previous night, the groom and his men slept in a fancy rented house; it made me happy because for the second time this year I was able to sleep in a bed. Around 2:00am I was awakened when the other groomsmen brought in Kenny and put him into bed with me. (But why did Kenny need to be helped into the bed?) … Anyway, for one last time, I was his roommate.

The thing about being a groomsman is, there’s a lot of waiting around. I read some Murakami (1Q84). The thing about being a single groomsman, I discovered, is that people subtly (or not subtly) put pressure on you to hit on the bridesmaids. So it must’ve been disappointing when I didn’t do that. Forgive me, bridesmaids.

Another who felt this pressure was one of the ushers, recently returned from Afghanistan. Near the end I found him outside, drinking beers. He poured out his heart to me: “I’m twenty-six years old and I can’t talk to a woman.” I felt sorry for him.

In a way, he was the hero of the wedding: earlier he’d been escorting guests, walking with them from the parking lot, holding an umbrella over them while he was getting soaked by the rain.

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The best dancers were Kenny’s little sisters & brothers, including the children. I mean that.

I posed for many silly photos. I expect to be embarrassed when they’re leaked out.

I caught Lara’s garter.