LBJs

*Weight check: I'm a couple of days late, but I must be honest: this past week, I hit a plateau. No weight loss. I'm irked. On the plus side, I've found some old pictures of myself and the weight I've already lost is quite clearly visible. I've just got to get on track this week and quit sabotaging myself. (Last week, Kel made a pound cake for her book group and I was unable to resist; hey, it's only my favorite dessert...)

*I was noticing recently that a segment of the pop music population enjoys deliberately misspelling words. First there are the artists themselves: Led Zeppelin (and their copycats, Def Leppard), the Beatles, the Byrds, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Split Enz. Then there are the titles: Big Star's "September Gurls" and "What's Going Ahn," Slade's "Cum On Feel the Noize" (later covered by Quiet Riot), Spearhead's Chocolate Supa Highway, and probably over half of Prince's titles, such as "I Would Die 4 U. There's also the subset that enjoys creating portmanteau words, cramming several short ones together: Everclear's "Heartspark Dollarsign," Stone Temple Pilots' "Silvergun Superman," Prince's Julian Cope's "Safesurfer" and "Spacehopper," and Prince again, with Lovesexy. I tend to think they're all deliberately playing with convention, rather than trying to spell correctly and failing, but I must admit I'm curious about where this tradition began and why it continues. As for its peak, I feel the ultimate wordplay title is probably still Sly and the Family Stone's "Thank You (Fa Lettin Me Be Mice Elf Again)."

*Flane and John are visiting (Hi, Flane and John!) and the former has been sucked into the GameCube again--"Animal Crossing" has her by the throat...

*I'm reading Richard Matheson's SF/horror classic I Am Legend just now; actually, I'm done with the short novel itself and am finishing up the short stories in the back of the book. It's the novel on which The Omega Man was based, a story of a plague that infects every human being on earth except one, and his struggles to survive. The reason he's struggling is that everyone else has been transformed by this plague into a vampire. I was discussing the book with Kelly yesterday and she asked, "If everyone else in the world is a vampire, why would you want to be the only human being?" An interesting question... of course, the short answer is that if there aren't any human beings left, who will the vampires feed on? Yep, each other. So you don't really gain much by letting one of them fang you to put you out of your misery.

*I checked out a copy of Superman in the Sixties from our library and lost myself in the Superman mythos for a few hours the other day. It's odd; I grew up with comics, but didn't really start getting into them until the early 70s, when they'd already become "relevant" and Neal Adams' artistic style had made a huge splash. Coming in when I did, I should have missed the 60s comics. At the same time, though, both Marvel and DC (especially the latter) made a habit of reprinting older stories, often in the back of giant-size comics like the 100-pages-for-25-cents books that I picked up on trips to the 7-11 at every opportunity. The older stories were often from the early-to-mid-60s, back when Mort Weisinger was editing all the Superman books (Superman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Superboy, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, etc.) and putting his distinctive stamp on them. Thus, for me, picking up the 60s collection was like getting lost in one's first-grade primer again; everything was clear and simple and bold, in primary colors, with Curt Swan's smooth, clean, FBI-sharp linework defining the universe.

Superman's universe was billions of miles across and about a millimeter deep. Supes (and everyone else) knew perfectly the rules under which this universe operated--there was no ambiguity--but the ways in which the universe could be folded and refolded were just about infinite. Thus, Superman could fly through time (usually in a panel filled with diaphonous calendar-like sheets bearing dates like "1492" and "1776" upon them) to meet his own parents, fall in love with a beautiful Kryptonese actress, or even attempt to save Abe Lincoln, but History Could Not Be Changed. Superman was invulnerable to all save magic and kryptonite, but when a plot twist demanded it, a whole new variety of kryptonite could appear to make his life difficult. (Green K was lethal to Supes, but an entire rainbow of the stuff soon appeared: Gold K, which would take his powers away permanently, White K, which was lethal to plant life, Blue K, which was harmless to Supes but lethal to Bizarros, and of course Red K, which had a variety of unrepeatable effects that lasted exactly 48 hours--except once when Supes encountered a specialvariety of Red K that reproduced earlier effects and lasted for weeks so that he could lose his memory and his powers and fall in love with a beautiful rancher.) Supes and his friends were prone to say things like "How ironic!" and then summarize the plot up to that point. Everyone wore a tie. And Jimmy Olsen would clumsily put himself in harm's way every issue, getting himself thrown back in time to start a Beatles craze in ancient Palestine, or accidentally turning on a ray gun that turned him into a "Giant Turtle Man." No, really.

These are supremely goofy comics, no question, but my affection for them is genuine, and I'm not alone. In the late 80s, writer Alan Moore was brought in write a capstone for the original Superman mythos; DC was bringing in new creative teams to clear out the goofier deadwood and renew the character, going so far as ending the Superman series and restarting it with issue Number One. In his finale, "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?", Moore took up all the Weisinger staples: the bottled city of Kandor, Krypto the Super-Dog, time travel, the Fortress of Solitude. He treated them not with smugness, not with pretentiousness, but with a becoming dignity, and in so doing, he made Weisinger's era live again, made that bright, clean, red-yellow-and-blue universe seem reachable one last time.

In a way, Moore's story was like the rocket that brought Supes from Krypton, a single powerful survivor of a long-lost world. And when I pick those childhood stories up now, I feel as if I'm flying through the time barrier myself, puncturing huge sheets of diaphonous paper--1991, 1985, 1974, 1969. Up, up and away.
7:27 AM

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I'm a Tar Heel born
And a Tar Heel bred
And when I die
I'm a Tar Heel dead...

And for the second year in a row, my beloved alma mater is getting grief because it has the audacity to require its students to read a book.

Yes, strange as it seems, that's the entire controversy. For the last three years, UNC freshmen have been required to read a book over the summer prior to entering school. When they arrive in the fall, they must discuss the book. With a group of other freshmen. And a faculty member. Man, this crazed, radical approach to education has me in a cold sweat just thinking about it.

But perhaps it's not the idea of required reading per se that has people in an uproar. I must admit, many of the courses I took at UNC had required reading, and many required me to discuss what I'd read. No, what seems to be causing the uproar in this case is the book itself: Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.

(I haven't read the book. Of course, I suspect that many of those objecting to its being required reading haven't cracked it open, either, so if they feel qualified to judge it, they'd better extend me the same courtesy.)

The primary opponents of the reading assignment are a group known as "The Committee for a Better Carolina." According to the UNC General Alumni Association's website (Full story here), "The group claims that the story presented by the author, Barbara Ehrenreich, does not contribute to the fair and balanced climate of intellectual discussion that the University said it is seeking to promote with the summer reading program."

Now here's what I don't get: how can one book throw off the fairness and balance of a discussion that hasn't happened yet? (I'll leave aside the question of how one book can throw off an entire university's intellectual climate.) Sure, the book itself can be unfair, inaccurate, badly written, you name it, but if that's the case, won't the discussion of the book redress the balance? I mean, if the readers were to sit down in September and say, "My god, this is the most unfair, inaccurate, and badly written thing I've ever seen," would the CBC object? If not, why deny them the opportunity to do so? This is like claiming the World Series is rigged before we even know which teams are playing.

Of course, I suspect the CBC may have an ulterior motive in criticizing the book, and that motive appears to be political. According to the GAA, the Committee claims Ehrenreich is a "radical socialist." She is apparently an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and sits on the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws' board of directors; whether that makes her a "radical" socialist or merely a middle-of-the-road socialist I couldn't say, not knowing that many socialists, but she is a journalist, author, and contributor to the radical left-wing publication Time magazine.

In short, I think the CBC objects to the idea that freshmen have to read a book written by someone with whom they disagree (or at least assume they disagree).

I hate to break the news, gang, but that's college. A university education requires one to read the works of a variety of writers and decide which ones make sense. UNC forced me--on pain of failure!--to read a variety of writers during my time there, and I disagreed with dozens. Some were avowed Marxists (e.g. Marx), others strict Freudians (such as Freud), and some were drones who, all evidence to the contrary, thought they could write (like Henry James). Not once did my professors listen to my objections. When I pointed out that Jonathan Edwards was a crazed Puritan maniac who would condemn me to Hell as soon as look at me, did Dr. Emerson rescind the reading assignment? He did no such thing! I was forced to read "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God!" And what did I learn from it? Um... well, actually, that was where I learned that Edwards was a crazed Puritan etc., etc.

In short, Committee members, if you think your education should consist of having your prejudices reinforced, you are not seeking an education. You are certainly not seeking the sort of education the University of North Carolina hopes to give you. Its motto is "Lux Libertas," after all; if you don't wish to open your mind and let the light in, or to use your liberty to think, I'm sure there are thousands of other applicants who'd be happy to take your place on the Hill.
5:46 PM

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