OK, maybe it's more like the Junieth, but still, it's not July yet. And how have I spent the first month of the summer? 

Fairly productively. I worked with three of my colleagues to devise a community orientation program for the fall--one designed to promote civil behavior in our students, faculty, and administrators--and presented our proposal to the administration.

I've driven Ian & Dixon all over the frakkin' state.

I've read a whole kaboodle of Fabian Nicieza's Cable & Deadpool comics, which (at least for the first four collections) were surprisingly enjoyable.  Perhaps because both characters were created at the height of the Nineties' attempts to out-Miller Frank Miller, and because both were co-created by one of comics' most successful and least fundamentally sound artists, Rob "I Can't Draw Feet!" Liefeld (who also has trouble drawing... um... other things), I was afraid, very afraid, to read the book.  But our friend Carrie kept pushing it on us, and since she's an entirely wise and reasonable comics critic (aside from her inexplicable fondness for Dazzler), I gave it a shot. And thanks to Nicieza's ability to keep Deadpool's "The Fourth Wall Is Only a Guideline" schtick working, it's largely hilarious... for about 27 issues.  And then the Continuity Cops come along and try to cram the book into the ongoing cross-universe Civil War saga and the whole thing starts to sag, and then eventually collapse.  But worth it, if only for Deadpool's ongoing fascination with a) Bea Arthur, and b) Marvel Girl's classic green mini-dress costume.

Oh, and I've rewritten my novel.

A slight exaggeration at this point, I suppose.  There are some scenes that still have to be written in the first place, and some that have to be cut, and a few that still have to be altered to match the additions/subtractions, and then I have to put them all together. ("It's not just a matter of the number of words. Getting them in the right order is just as important." --John Cleese, "A Great Actor")

But the point is, the ones that had to be rewritten HAVE been rewritten, and I'm pretty sure I already know what needs to be written.  It's coming.  It really is.

"Any day now. Any day now now." --XTC, "It's Nearly Africa"


4:36 PM

*I'm celebrating Father's Day with two new presents, Elvis Costello's new Nashville/acoustic album Secret, Profane and Sugarcane and Robyn Hitchcock's rarities collection Shadow Cat, as well as a pot of wife-brewed coffee, bagels from Panera (sesame seed w/cream cheese as the entree, with Cinnamon Crunch for dessert), and a pair of offspring who are more or less awake and responsive.

*I like Robert Kirkman's work on Invincible quite a bit; I'd say it's arguably the best original super-hero series of the last decade.  (Brian K. Vaughan's Runaways would be my other candidate.)  It's bright and interesting and full of intriguing characters whose motivations are different from one another, but whose interactions never seem forced. Even when he's working with concepts that are pretty well-examined, Kirkman never seems to just be going through the motions.

So why is his work on Ultimate X-Men so dull?

Is it just that the characters aren't his, so he doesn't feel he can examine them as deeply or change them as much? Is it that he keeps trying to work in new versions of old characters, rather than exploring the possibilities of the characters already in the book?  Is it just that Salvador Larroca's art is dull enough to rub off on him?  I don't know the answer, but after reading the most recent UXM collection, Apocalypse, I'm really, really glad that I checked it out of the library instead of buying it.

*I took a trip around the WFS campus yesterday with a couple of visitors from the Audubon Society of Northern Virginia. Alas, the weather was against us--very grey, which spoiled the visibility, very humid, which spoiled the comfort, and often rainy, which spoiled the use of optics.  Still, Carol, Jay and I had a good stroll through the woods near the school entrance, hearing (but never seeing) both a Yellow-billed Cuckoo and an Ovenbird, neither of whom I'd ever heard there.  The former I've logged only down by the Rapidan River, while I've never come across an Ovenbird on campus at all. Carol also heard what turned out to be the year's first Great Crested Flycatcher. After 45 minutes or so we pulled up stakes and drove down to the river valley, where the mist was thick and the humidity even worse, but we were able to hear a few more interesting species calling, including a Northern Parula Warbler and an Acadian Flycatcher, and we were able to lay eyes on on Orchard Oriole, a family of Eastern Wood Pee-wees, and a lone Purple Martin winging over the river. Not an ideal outing, but a pleasant one.

*After a long delay, I finally decided that my guarded attitude toward Will Ferrell might be preventing me from enjoying a good comedy, so I picked up the library's copy of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. The boys had both seen it already, but Kelly and I hadn't seen it at all, and we were completely delighted. One surprise was that Ron was actually a somewhat sympathetic character, which made his idiocy more tolerable. The other surprise, however, and the one which consistently laid us out in hysterics, was Steve Carrell.  As Brick Tamland, he manages to steal nearly every scene he's in, whether it's by yelling "Loud noises!" to contribute to an argument, brandishing a hand grenade during a melee, or confessing "I ate a big red candle" during a recap of a boys' night.  We rewound the disc and watched almost every Carrell line over again before going on to the next scene.  "I'm riding a big furry tractor!"

*Thing One has gone back to work on the WFS grounds crew, a job he had last summer and greatly enjoyed.  Unfortunately, he has not yet gotten his driver's license, meaning someone has to get him to campus for work by 6:00 a.m. every day. So far, that someone is me. I've been using the mornings to write, which is a good thing, but unfortunately, I haven't yet adjusted to the need for going to bed earlier. I'll be working on that this week.

*I've also been hitting the gym regularly--four times last week--and am hoping to keep that a regular part of the routine for the next few months, but it hasn't made me any more alert during those days when I've gotten up at 5:40 and got only five hours of sleep the night before.

*All that aside, I've been hitting the book pretty hard--the novel, that is, currently going by the working title A Raven for Doves.  I finished a first draft of it several years back, but I knew it wasn't quite there yet, so I deliberately set it aside to let it ferment and did a little reading--a trick I've found helpful in the past.  When I first hit a barrier on this book, it was reading John Gardner's The Art of Fiction that spurred me to clamber over it and head for the finish line. This time, however, it wasn't so much a how-to book as one that simply showed me a way out of a problem I'd created for myself: Margaret Atwood's wonderful science-fiction novel Oryx and Crake.  (And if there's anyone out there who's even attempting to argue that O&C is not SF, kindly pick up your "Genre Bigot" badge from the concierge on your way out.)  The first 100 pages of Raven have now been adjusted to their necessary new form, though there are still a few bits that will need to be added.  Now I'm into the second section of the book, though, and that will require a more comprehensive rewrite--but I know what I've got to do.  It won't be a quick hike, but I feel like I've got a map now.


10:53 AM

Though I try to update this thing every three or four days, longtime readers will recognize that I haven't been posting at anything close to that rate of late.  Apologies are of course due, but the press of real life has been nothing short of astonishing this spring, and now that we're officially into my summer break, I thought you'd enjoy a chance to see a little bit of what's been going on.  Yes, there are pictures.  Let's begin with a few nature photos, shall we?


Here are some of the local redbud trees going full tilt.  For some reason, Kelly objects to their name, claiming they're purple.



THESE are purple.


Red-bellied Woodpecker posing helpfully for me.


Thing Two (L) as Thurston Wheelis, along with castmate Dennis W. (R, behind mustache) as Arles Struvie in Woodberry's production of Greater Tuna.


Meanwhile, Thing One was busy with his Blue Ridge Virtual Governor's School project, which focused on the creation of Shenandoah National Park involved his doing community service and interning in the park.  Here, he was assisting a ranger with a bird of prey presentation, helping him get a Barred Owl (above) and Eastern Screech Owl from the raptor center to a public showing.  As you can tell, it was a bit foggy that morning.


Out in our carport, a pair of Eastern Phoebes (whom Kelly, hearing the birds were insect eaters, promptly dubbed the Renfields) set up homemaking atop the overhead light fixture, producing three nestlings who have all apparently fledged and started hanging around the yard.


And of course, the big event: on June 6th, Orange County High School sent the class of 2009 off into the world.


A big hug from Mom for the graduate.


...and a big hug from Thing Two as well.


So.  What's up with you?










1:47 PM

Whew.  The missing brontosaurus head has been located:


Investigators from the Durham Police Department stated they found the fixture in the woods near Preston Andrews Road sometime around noon today. According to Durham Police, it is believed to be a high school prank.

"Prank"?  Cutting off an innocent statue's head and dumping it in the woods is a "prank"?

I'll tell you about a prank.

On Monday, the Orange County (Va.) High School Class of 2009 executed Operation: Land Whale, in which the seniors transformed the small grassy area at the center of the school's traffic circle--a space that might be about 30 feet in diameter--into a beach.

After blue tarps were laid over the grass, a large quantity of sand was dumped on top of the tarps, thus rendering the area beachlike.  Artificial palm trees were set up on the sand, while coolers full of soft drinks, a small volleyball net, and a pickup bed full of water were placed on or near the "beach" to add to the effect.  To cap the effect, a grill was brought out for cooking hot dogs.

Nothing was damaged, nothing was taken, everyone had fun, and the school is now in possession of several useful tarps and a large quantity of sand for construction or other projects.

That, dear readers, is a prank.


11:06 AM

Oh, sure I could tell you about the arrival of summer (Indigo Buntings and Eastern Kingbirds are back! Also, I'm done with school.) or the rush of events leading up to Thing One's graduation this Saturday (I believe we're receiving all the grandparents, one uncle, one great-aunt, a small knot of cousins, and several family friends), but all of that pales before this morning's horrific news:


The brontosaurus at the Museum of Life and Science has been decapitated.




Yes, Durham NC's finest example of late-Sixties paleontological reconstruction has been assaulted by perpetrators unknown, its neck stripped bare and its head removed for god knows what purposes.

This is not mere vandalism, people.  This is an assault on childhood itself--namely that of every kid in central North Carolina born in the last 40 years.  I spent many an afternoon wandering the Dinosaur Trail of what was then referred to as the Children's Museum.  After I started dating Kelly, I took her to the museum for an outing.  When the facility expanded across the road to include new exhibits on NC wildlife, a miniature train, and even outdoor zoo exhibits containing bears and birds of prey, I still thought of it as "the place with the dinosaurs."  And after my own kids were born in the early 90s, I made sure they got to see the museum AND the various saurians standing in the 20th-century trees.

In a world where wars are being fought and people are being shot in church for political reasons, I recognize that this is a minor incident, a mere property crime.  But when that property means so much to you, and when it has done so for so long, it's hard not to feel the urge to scream, take up a cudgel, and venture out into the streets in search of vigilante justice.  In fact, I feel a good bit like Tim Kreider did when the two-headed turtle got stolen... (click on "Archives" and scroll to August 27, 2008.)

So vandals, I say unto you:  watch the skies.  Gamera is out there somewhere, and he's pissed.




7:49 AM

One of the perks of teaching is that occasionally you get presents.  Over my (yow!) eighteen years in the classroom, I've been the recipient of books, gift certificates, foodstuffs, knicknacks, and a number of neckties.  Since I have to wear a tie to work every day (though I sometimes cheat and don't wear one to Saturday morning classes), the latter is a highly useful present, and since I don't go tie-shopping for myself all that often, the ones I've received have become a significant part of my work wardrobe.

All of this is a way of prefacing the fact that I wasn't entirely shocked when I got a tie at yesterday's graduation. But it wasn't all I got.

The student who gave me the tie is not the typical Woodberry student.  If I were to engage in blatant stereotyping, I'd draw that typical Woodberry student as a WASP from a private middle school in a southern city where his wealthy Republican father works in banking, law, medicine, or management; "William Beauregard Pickett Hill IV" is the name you expect.  But of course I can quickly think of scores of boys here whose background is nothing like that.  One of them is this tie-giver--"Joe," I'll call him--who hails from up north, went to public school, and may or may not have family members who attended college, but they're definitely not WASPs. 

I taught Joe speech when he was a newcomer here, and I was worried about him.  This school's academic requirements are demanding enough, but its culture puts demands on its students that even those from the "typical" background can find restrictive, frustrating, or isolating.  We don't get dumb kids here, but just being smart isn't enough to get you through. You've got to have an unusual degree of self-motivation, focus, and persistence, and if you don't have those (or develop them soon after arriving), you won't be getting our diploma. In addition, if you become too wrapped up in negotiating the cultural issues, you can find yourself so mired in frustration that maintaining what motivation/focus/persistence you have can become almost impossible.

Joe was obviously bright, but when I first taught him, he was a long way from being able to apply his intelligence effectively. He was often angry, often for good reason, and he seemed to be struggling to find a niche for himself. Having just a wee bit of class awareness lurking in my own makeup, I always try hard to keep kids like Joe on track, offering encouragement to them and doing my best to ensure that my classroom is a place where they can feel like full members of the community. (Note: this doesn't mean I put up with crap from them or let them get away with not doing the work; it means I expect them to give me their best work and I expect their peers to treat them fairly.)  Joe didn't do a bad job for me, but at the end of the year, I wouldn't have bet on his graduating.

By his junior year, though, Joe had found a good friend (ironically enough, a classic "William Beauregard Pickett Hill IV"), a longer temper, and several areas where he could strive for excellence.  I had him in one of my English courses, and though he wasn't a world-beater, he was a solid B student who stayed on top of his assignments and never failed to smile when I made a joke in class.  (This isn't itself a guarantee of a good grade, but it does suggest that you're at least paying attention.)  When he asked me to write him a recommendation for college, I agreed without hesitation.

It's still uncertain exactly what college he'll be attending; he's hoping to get off the waiting list at one school relatively close to home, but the real issue will be financial aid.  He's gotten a good offer at another school further away, though, so he'll be okay wherever he ends up.

Yesterday, following a rather warm ceremony, the newly-graduated Joe walked up to me with a small bag brimming over with red tissue paper, shook my hand, and thanked me for teaching him and recommending him. I told him the gift was completely unnecessary, and that I was proud of how far he'd come--and of how far I expect him to go.  I wished him good luck and sent him off, and when I got home later, I looked into the bag and discovered a very nice Kenneth Cole tie--a generous gift, to be sure, especially from a family that had made considerable sacrifices just to get Joe to Woodberry, let alone get him through college.

But underneath the tie, down amongst the tissue paper's folds, there was more:  three pairs of light brown socks, their TJ Maxx price tag only incompletely peeled off the little plastic display holder.  As Kelly commented when I showed them to her, that shows me something about Joe and his family: that they weren't just offering me something ceremonial, but something real.  Something that didn't just help me look like a Woodberry professor, but that would help me get through the job of BEING a Woodberry professor.  Feet that spend many hours standing in front of a class, or wandering the halls on dorm duty, are feet that need a good pair of socks.  Or three.

So I gratefully accept this gift, and note that I'll think of Joe and his days at Woodberry as long as I'm wearing those socks, and that I'll forever associate him with the wise words of Pablo Neruda:

beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

Thanks, Joe.  A posse ad esse.


11:44 AM

This morning I had an idea about the manuscript.

No, not the children's book.  That's still on an editor's desk.

Not the maybe-it's-YA-maybe-it's-just-fantasy book.  That's still on a friend's desk awaiting review before I send it to a slush pile.

Not the nonfiction fifty-birds-in-fifty-states book, which is still a couple of dozen states and birds away from completion (namely AK, WA, OR, ID, MT, WY, NM, ND, SD, NE, KA, OK, TX, AR, MN, WI, MI, KY, TN, MS, ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, WV, and GA).

No, it's the novel. The big one, the one I finally finished a draft of about three years back and have been letting ferment ever since because I knew that this draft wasn't the final one.  It was important that I finish it--it's important to know you can finish a novel if you intend to publish one, after all--but I knew it was just a placeholder, so to speak.  The engine runs, the wheels are all attached, and you can steer it, but it's a long way from ready for the Grand Prix just yet.

And this morning, pop, up through the murk there came a yeasty bubble of thought about how I might go back and restructure it.  And here comes a three-month window of relatively free time...

I can't decide if I should be happy or very afraid.


1:54 PM

I'm trying something new with my juniors this spring: having each one read a different graphic novel (or two collections of longer series) and do a PowerPoint presentation on an aspect or aspects of it.

Whether this will work I don't know yet, but I tried to get our library to set out a reserve shelf of the most interesting comics in our collection.  While some gems were left on the shelf (Gene Yang's American Born Chinese, Howard Cruse's Stuck Rubber Baby, Kyle Baker's Why I Hate Saturn, etc.) and at least one (Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell's From Hell) never even got picked up (due to its immense size, I suspect), the guys ended up selecting what I think will be a good set of books to discuss next week:

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
Death: The Time of Your Life by Neil Gaiman & Chris Bachalo and At Death's Door by Jill Thompson
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman & Andy Kubert
Sandman (Books 1 & 2) by Neil Gaiman et al.
Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer & Rags Morales
Daredevil: Born Again by Frank Miller & David Mazzuchelli
The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill
Swamp Thing (Books 1 & 2) by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette & John Totleben
V for Vendetta by Moore & David Lloyd
Watchmen by Moore & Dave Gibbons
Bone (Books 1 & 2) by Jeff Smith
Fables (Books 1 & 2) by Bill Willingham et al.

I'm not surprised that the books chosen tended to be from the super-hero, science fiction, or fantasy genres, or that those featuring characters or stories that have been made into movies were generally favored (with the notable exceptions of From Hell and Persepolis).  Still, I have to feel happy that so many kids were interested in exploring the work of Alan Moore & Neil Gaiman, I'm pleased someone went for Bone, and I'm thrilled to death that a junior at an all-boys school thought Fun Home would be his best option.

I've spent a lot of time this year helping our new librarian find good graphic novels for our collection; I think all of the above were purchased on my recommendation, though in the case of Watchmen the recommendation came several years ago.  I'm sort of viewing this unit as a chance to see how the boys respond to all our hard work, as well as to expose some of them to the opportunities provided by the medium of comics.  (I've had to explain to several of them how to read a comics page, which I was prepared for, but still find a bit astonishing.)

After I get a look at their presentations next week, I'll let you know just how they responded and whether they're likely to take advantage of their opportunities.




8:00 AM

*As Andre Codrescu once observed, it's been raining since the dawn of time.  I'm not sure if he meant that it's been doing so without interruption, but that's how it's starting to feel here.  The string of rainy days is producing the kind of oppressively grey and green landscape that I thought one had to read about, probably in The Children of Green Knowe or something that takes place on a moor.  If it weren't for the quartet of azaleas exploding into bloom beside our driveway, it would be downright oppressive.

*Speaking of the quartet of azaleas, I should note that the house we now live in has a variety of features that were obviously put in by well-meaning individuals, but not necessarily individuals who thought the way Kelly and I think.  The azaleas are a case in point.  Closest to the house is the bush with white flowers. Beside it, so close that the color is the only thing suggesting it's a separate plant, is the bush with heliotrope flowers. Beyond that one, in the same configuration, is the one with magenta flowers. And last, closest to the road, is the bush with scarlet flowers.  I think the previous residents were going for a nice gradual-spectrum effect, but it comes off as less a rainbow and more a striped Merimekko print from about 1973.

*The other strange/irritating features of the house include a remarkably uneven set of stairs to the basement; they're shallow, generally speaking, with the lifters varying in height from 6.5" to over 7", while they vary in depth from 9.25" to 10", with a solid 12-incher at the very top.  Let's just say we go up and down rather carefully.  Finally, there's the placement of light switches. There isn't a single light in the house with more than one switch, and it's inevitably placed at the wrong end of the room or hallway. When I wake up in the morning, I must walk through the darkness to the other end of the hall, and then the other end of the dining room, and then the other end of the kitchen, to turn on the lights; needless to say, when I go to bed at night, I must turn off the kitchen lights, then the dining room lights, and then the hall lights, after which I can walk through the darkness to my bedroom.

*After a long period without professional theater, I got to accompany my English students to the Kennedy Center's production of Ragtime, which was a rousing experience all the way.  I'll advise you all to keep an eye out for Quentin Earl Darrington, who commanded the stage as Coalhouse Walker, Jr., with a mighty voice and palpable charisma; he was matched by Jennlee Shallow as Sarah, whose emotional voice was a perfect complement.  Manoel Felciano did a great job as Tateh, and Christiane Noll was a wonderful Mother. All in all, a highly successful production, brought off largely through a great cast and a bold bit of set design by Derek McLane: a five-level set of steel causeways was the home to most of the action. Beautifully done.

*With Maine's legislative/gubernatorial move yesterday, same-sex marriage is now legal in one-tenth of the country (and most of New England). If you'd asked me in 2005 when the U.S. would reach this point, I'd have said 2015 at the earliest. It's nice to know that, even at this late date, America retains the ability to pleasantly surprise me.

*After discovering a link to a bunch of Amazon.com's free music downloads (behold!  I reproduce it thus!), I've been happily building up a list of tunes by unfamiliar and semi-familiar artists and new tunes by familiar artists.  Among the former group, my favorites (all of which you can find on the other side of that link) are the relentlessly cheery "Sleepy Tigers" by Her Space Holiday, "Dead Sounds" by the Raveonettes, and the melodic, wistful "Don't Be Afraid of the Light That Shines Within You" by Luka Bloom (whom I know only from his competent but not stellar cover of "Earn Enough for Us" on the XTC tribute album A Testimonial Dinner).  Among the semi-familiar names were Iron & Wine, whose "Belated Promise Ring" shares the rich melodic sense and low-fi sound of their version of "Such Great Heights," but which is decidedly less mournful.  There's also "La Luz del Ritmo," a stomping good Latin/ska workout from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs.  The most familiar names included John Doe, whose "The Golden State" sounds like a happy medium between X and the Knitters, right down to the addition of a plaintive female voice; Loudon Wainwright III, who reworks his own "Motel Blues" into a slightly desperate-sounding lament, rather than the goofy come-on it used to be; and New Zealand's fourth-most-popular folk-parody duo, Flight of the Conchords, whose autobiographical rap "Hurt Feelings" is yet another hilariously bathetic look into the world of pop music.  My favorite song of the bunch, however, may be the David Byrne/Brian Eno collaboration "Strange Overtones."  It's a danceable polyrhythmic delight very much in the vein of Talking Heads' Naked or Eno's superb 1990 album with John Cale, Wrong Way Up, and I'm delighted to see both Eno and Byrne willingly exploring pop with their usual intelligence and creativity.  Check 'em all out, along with tunes by Coldplay, My Morning Jacket, Bob Mould, and Death Cab for Cutie.

*After downloading all those freebies, however, be aware that you may find yourself in the same straits I did, yearning for yet more new music.  As a result, I chose to actually break out the credit card and do some purchasing of songs new and old:
- Jonathan Coulton/ "First of May"
- Joan Baez/ "Diamonds and Rust"
- Stewart Copeland & Stan Ridgway/ "Don't Box Me In"
- Katrina & the Waves/ "Going Down to Liverpool"
- Joe Henry/ "Time Is a Lion"
- Bruce Springsteen/ "Pink Cadillac"
If you're wondering, I heard the Joe Henry tune on WNRN while driving to work the other day and was immediately intrigued; the Coulton came into my view earlier this week thanks to a link at John Scalzi's Whatever; the Baez, Springsteen, and Katrina tunes are old favorites I just never obtained; and the Copeland/Ridgway jumped back into my brain after I began a long and rather meandering search of YouTube.com that began with this rather inexplicable video by the legendary DasWaff.

*No, it's no easier to wait on the word from an editor than it used to be.

*Dixon wrapped up a triumphant performance as (deep breath) Thurston Wheelis, Elmer Watkins, Bertha Bumiller, Yippy the Rat-Terrier/Chihuahua Mix, Leonard Childers, Pearl Burras, R.R. Snavely, Reverend Spikes, Sheriff Givens, and Hank Bumiller in last week's WFS production of Greater Tuna.  It's a demanding series of roles, equalled only by the ten roles played by his castmate Dennis, and requiring a series of furious costume changes, but he emerged from the experience a more savvy and experienced actor, and one who will, I hope, go on to even greater triumphs.

*Ian, meanwhile, is wrapping up his high-school career with a bunch of AP exams (whee.) and an internship in the Shenandoah National Park.  So far he's been involved in a day-long attempt to get rid of invasive Mile-a-minute weeds and a morning session with a ranger showing the public birds of prey (in this case, a barred owl and an eastern screech owl).  His fascination with the history of the park and the mountain folk's displacement has been the main thrust behind this project, and we're hoping he continues his historical education at college next year. He's decided on Virginia Commonwealth University, in part because he thinks the urban environment will be as different from Woodberry's rural setting as possible.

*Yes, it is entirely possible that next year Kelly and I will have one kid in college and another at boarding school.  What exactly are we going to do at home?


6:10 AM

As I was playing Can't Buy a Thrill, the debut by one of my long-time favorite bands, Steely Dan, the conversation at the breakfast table this morning turned to the confusing profusion of lead singers on the album. Keyboardist/ songwriter Donald Fagen, who would go on to take exclusive singing duties on subsequent albums, takes lead vocals on most of the album's cuts, but drummer Jim Hodder sings one tune ("Midnight Cruiser"), and two songs ("Dirty Work," one of Kelly's favorites, and "Brooklyn") are handled by vocalist David Palmer. Obviously, this gives the album a slightly less unified feel than one might expect, but I explained that the band's perfectionism demanded a particular kind of vocalist for particular songs.  When I mentioned Palmer's status as a "blue-eyed soul singer," Kel looked amused.

"Interesting euphemism there," she said.  "Like the eye color is the important thing."

"Well, that's an old one," I noted.  "I mean, 'Brown-Eyed Handsome Man' isn't really about eye color, either."

That apparently hadn't occurred to her before, nor had the sexual implications of "rounding third, he was heading for home" made themselves clear, but I tend to follow the Aerosmith Rule ("If a line CAN be about sex, it's about sex.") with Berry songs as well.

But the issue of euphemism for race is ancient.  The term "cover song," after all, originates from the idea of having white performers sing songs originally made popular by black artists, covering up the presumed blackness of the music.  Elvis's success as a "white boy with the black sound," as Col. Tom Parker put it, was the most obvious case of coverage, but later examples range from Eric Clapton doing Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" to Tom Jones singing Prince's "Kiss." (The most painful was without question Pat Boone whitewashing Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame.")

All of these issues are cropping up in my thinking as I've become involved in our school's continuing attempt to improve the environment on campus. Last fall the Caucus (formerly known as the Minority Caucus) put together a showcase of sketches and presentations to explain the difficulties faced by students of different races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, etc., and this fall I'll be helping out.  Student organizations other than the Caucus will be helping set up the program this year, and it's hoped that we'll be able to demonstrate to the community that there are certain standards of civility that we expect everyone to support.  (These standards, I should note, are still evolving.  The school's official display of the Confederate Battle Flag ended only about a decade ago, and we didn't have a student come out of the closet on campus until 2005.)

I've been brought into this discussion largely to demonstrate that yes, straight white males consider the issue of civility in the community important, but in some ways, I feel as though I'm a bit of a cover-up myself.  I am certainly straight, white, and male (and brown-eyed, for that matter), but in at least a couple of significant ways, I'm not part of the majority at all; I'm just passing.

The most obvious is the fact that, according to the laws of Moses and Israel, I'd be considered Jewish.  My mother was a Jew, though she's been a practicing Episcopalian all my life.  Given my oh-so-Christian first name and WASPish surname, however, I've never yet been taken for Jewish by a stranger, so I've been personally subjected to anti-Semitism only once, at summer camp in about 1973, when a kid who knew my background decided to tease me about it. I was so surprised that it took me a while to realize how upset I was, whereupon I burst into tears and ran back to the cabin. Other than that, however, I've never had problems, unless you consider the internal debates about the nature of God that have raged back and forth in my head for the last forty-odd years to be a problem. I suspect that my nature would have led me to my current non-churchgoing semi-agnostic/Taoist perspective in the long run anyway, but I can see how my internal Jewishness might have been at least partly responsible for my voluntary departure from the Episcopal church soon after my confirmation in 1975.

That's not the only passing I do, though.  A much more widespread form of passing exists for all of us with external genitalia, and it's so subtle that I'm not even sure it's passing.

I speak, naturally, of sports.

Look, by any reasonable standard, I am a nerd.  A nerd and a half. You know this. I've been reading comic books since I was four, and I can not only use the word "Excelsior!" non-ironically, but even provide you a reasonably accurate list of every member of the Legion of Super-Heroes over the past fifty years.  I know what a General Products hull is and why you shouldn't get near a major gravity well in one.  I know where the Fords of Bruinen and the Wobbish River are.  I have a Roger Dean album cover on my classroom wall (along with my Bros. Hildebrand Star Wars poster and my map of Middle-Earth). I know what "fnord" and "slash" and "OTP" mean, and I can sing "Reviewing the Situation," "Marian the Librarian," and a variety of other show tunes from memory. I even have a 21st-level paladin who's been through three separate Holy Avenger longswords. (I don't want to talk about it.)

But I can pass for a jock.  Okay, I'm way the heck out of shape, but I can still hit a free throw or hit a penalty kick with some degree of skill; I can walk the walk.  And while I will never attain the degree of fan interest necessary to follow an entire baseball season, I can definitely talk the talk; I know the significance of numbers such as 714, .400, and 61*.  I may have little interest in the NBA as it's currently set up, but I'm a longtime follower of college hoops and can give you a lengthy argument as to who UNC's best-ever point guard was.  (Phil Ford, but I'm prepared to listen to supporters of Raymond Felton and Ty Lawson.)  And I have no football experience beyond the Pee-Wee level, but I've been a fan of the NFL since second grade and will cheerfully debate with you about who you should take in the first round of your fantasy league draft this fall.  (Be wary of Steven Jackson; I don't trust the Rams' offensive line.) 

Maybe this last doesn't really lessen my innate nerditude, since, as D&D Greg says, "Fantasy football is still fantasy."  Still, all this means that even in the company of people who coach sports for a living, I can make conversation.  I'm not held at arm's length by people who fear I'll suddenly start reciting digits of pi (of which I know relatively few anyway: 3.14159) or singing Tom Bombadil songs. This is often a comfort to me, particularly on long bus rides with my colleagues, but I do sometimes feel as though I'm being less than honest.  Is my fondness for sports really part of my makeup, or have I deliberately adopted it as a form of protective coloration?  Is passing a sin, particularly if I'm not deliberately trying to pass?  If I'm not walking around proclaiming my nerdhood to the world, does that automatically mean I'm in the closet?

Perhaps I'll figure some of this out while I'm working on this fall's presentation.  And who knows, at the end, maybe the world will be a little more comfortable for everyone at Woodberry.  Even the brown-eyed.


8:35 AM