{"id":118975,"date":"2017-12-06T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T14:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=118975"},"modified":"2017-12-06T16:01:52","modified_gmt":"2017-12-06T21:01:52","slug":"eight-public-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/06\/eight-public-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight Public Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Norman Rockwell, Russian Schoolroom<\/em>,\u00a0<\/em>1967.<\/p><\/div>\n

1.<\/p>\n

Our teacher (young, malevolent, witty) was holding forth about the \u201ccurlicues and inefficiency\u201d of Derek Walcott\u2019s poetic style. Our teacher said, \u201cIt\u2019s like he wants to go to the kitchen to get a banana. So, he dresses up like Henry James, striped pants, fresh pressed\u2014tails, top hat\u2014and stands with supreme dignity on the curb next to his bed. A Rolls-Royce pulls up silently. It is dazzling,\u00a0five hundred pounds of chrome front and back, and a chauffeur jumps out\u2014white gloves\u2014opens the passenger door for Walcott. Walcott glides into the seat, frowning deeply and nodding toward the kitchen. He is now sitting bolt upright. The chauffeur closes the door, takes his own place, and drives six feet to the kitchen. He hops out, assists Walcott toward the kitchen counter, where the bananas\u2014somber yellow with coffee-colored freckles\u2014are situated in an animated rhombus of light, rain seeded, coming from the kitchen window. At which point we are doomed. Those bananas will turn to baby food<\/i> before Walcott is finished describing them \u2026 \u201d We all laughed, but one of the students said, \u201cYes, but doesn\u2019t that description apply to the first three quarters of the Norton Anthology<\/i>\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. It does if you think Shakespeare and all those people were just describing bananas. The real question isn\u2019t whether the description applies to the Norton<\/i>; it\u2019s whether it applies to Walcott. And here is an aphorism: Every laugh\u2014deflects.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2.<\/p>\n

\u2014I understand you insist on a difference between an academic drudge and an academic drone. Explain.<\/p>\n

\u2014The drone<\/i> takes every teaspoon\u2019s worth of information she wishes to impart and beats it up into a mousse that fills four cubic yards of space. The drudge<\/i> busies herself establishing the existence of irrelevant relationships between ideas. Other than these things, they have everything in common.<\/p>\n

\u2014So according to you, the poseur is in danger of becoming a drone, and the crank is in danger of becoming a drudge.<\/p>\n

\u2014No. There is no \u201cbecoming\u201d in this picture. One is a drone or a drudge from birth.<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. Long time ago, during the equivalent of \u201corientation week,\u201d one of the professors emeriti told us a joke. He said, \u201cJust remember, when you get the Ph.D., don\u2019t let anybody put Dr.<\/i> in front of your name. It doesn\u2019t stand for d<\/em>octor<\/i>; it stands for drudge<\/i>.\u201d Somebody muttered, \u201cPretty sure it stands for drip<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

3.<\/p>\n

One of the students (spastic, romantic, doofy looking) was complaining about the packet of translations we had been assigned: \u201cThis stuff is utterly void of color or pungency. It\u2019s like those No Fear Shakespeare<\/i> books. The left-hand column is Shakespeare; the right-hand column is what Shakespeare would be like if he had no poetic skill.\u201d Our teacher (crinkly eyed, unflappable) responded, \u201cYou\u2019re acting like the right-hand column has no right to exist unless it approaches the value of the left-hand column.\u201d Somebody else cut in: \u201cNo, she\u2019s saying there\u2019s no point in looking at the Mona Lisa<\/i> if your glasses have just been dipped in orange juice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. Every laugh\u2014deflects.<\/p>\n

4.<\/p>\n

On Fridays, the teaching assistants were allowed to hold court. One of them (tattooed, stressed out, moralistic) was on a roll, near the end of the first semester: \u201cThe problem with Rousseau was he had some kind of brain defect that prevented him from understanding why people hated him. The second half of the Confessions<\/i>, <\/i>it\u2019s like a little kid wrote it [w<\/em>hinging like a tragic toddler<\/i>]: But I didn\u2019t do<\/i> anything! And it\u2019s true he never attacked anyone with his fists. Instead, he just walked around like a supremely stuck-up snit his whole life. Hated everybody, exposed everybody to passionate gusts of self-pity, longed for applause, applauded himself \u2026 Hmm, why should anybody hate him?\u201d<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. That TA did understand something about hate, but I want to ask you: How is it that Rousseau was able to supply readers of the Confessions<\/i> with all the information necessary to the above analysis\u2014without coming to the same conclusion as the TA? Surely most of us escape understanding by means of denial, which is to say, it is we<\/i> who have the \u201cbrain defect,\u201d and yet \u2026<\/p>\n

5.<\/p>\n

\u201cH.D. did it to people, innocently, helplessly, all her life. She made them think she was the answer to their deep needs, but then it would turn out her brains were mainly occupied, giddily, with things that don\u2019t exist: God, gods, ghosts, healing energy, the Cosmic Oneness, and so on. But, see, according to my philosophy it\u2019s very bad to hate on people for not being what you need, so I have to think about this. I must either acknowledge that it\u2019s too late for me to actually be<\/i> a good person on this point (and so I must resolve to at least behave better), or<\/i> (more excitingly) figure out some way to be a good person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. Once upon a time, there was a block of bubble gum, and the block of bubble gum said to himself: \u201cAll my life they have told me my fate is to die, beaten to a pulp, in the mouth of a child. But I shall escape this.\u201d So the block of bubble gum hid himself in the space between the bucket seats of a 2001 Volkswagen Jetta. And it is true that he never wound up in the mouth of a child or of anyone else. Instead, he dry-rotted into a disgusting square of pink crud. Moral: there is no escape from death, so would it not be better to go out in a splash of glory, with some living being blowing bubbles through you?<\/p>\n

6.<\/p>\n

Our professor had just read, approvingly, some passages from a famous belletristic poetry critic. One of the students got antsy: \u201cI hate it when commentators whip up a vast froth of associations and curlicues from a couple lines in their favorite poet\u2014as much as to say,\u00a0Look at all the stuff contained in those two lines!\u00a0<\/i>It\u2019s not contained there. Austin and San Antonio are not contained<\/i> in Houston; they\u2019re just nearby. If we\u2019re talking about Houston, and you start going on about San Antonio and Austin, you\u2019re just bragging about how well you know east Texas.\u201d Our professor responded, smiling: \u201cI, personally, am obsessed with getting credit for how well I know East Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. This is what we like to see. Fearless student, quick with a metaphor; good-humored teacher, master of double-edged irony. Yet one has to wonder at the wisdom of the captain who insists on going down with his ship when there\u2019s plenty of room in the life boat. There\u2019s even a good-looking midshipman offering a hand.<\/p>\n

7.<\/p>\n

\u2014I\u2019m fed up with you and your poetry quotations.<\/p>\n

\u2014What do you mean?<\/p>\n

\u2014The way you quote poetry left and right in conversation.<\/p>\n

\u2014Why is that so annoying to you?<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2019Cuz you do it to hint that you think<\/i> in poetry quotations. You want me to believe you\u2019d never just say, \u201cOkay, well, where do you guys wanna eat?\u201d\u2014if there were a line in Yeats that meant that. You would think, and you would say, the line in Yeats.<\/p>\n

\u2014How do you know the impression I\u2019m trying to give you is false?<\/p>\n

\u2014From your eyebrows.<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. When high-level literati go mano a mano (or better say cejas a cejas<\/i>) there\u2019s just no telling who will win. Better arguments, superior wit, more germane evidence\u2014none of these things necessarily prevails. Therefore, at least with regard to their outcomes, one might as well watch the flipping of a coin. Is it possible to think in poetry quotations all the time? And supposing it is possible, is it ignoble to want credit for doing so? Heads; tails. Tails; heads.<\/p>\n

8.<\/p>\n

Mr. Neglected Sad Sack, who was supposed to give a poetry reading in Los Angeles the following week, was complaining elegantly to a student: \u201cNobody\u2019s gonna show up to my thing. They\u2019re all gonna think,\u00a0Why go when nobody\u2019s gonna be there?<\/i> See, they only wanna go when everybody\u2019s<\/i> gonna be there.\u201d He paused and added: \u201cThey\u2019re not looking for food for thought; they\u2019re looking for food for talk<\/i>.\u201d Mr. Neglected Sad Sack\u2019s student tried to cheer him up: \u201cWell, but that\u2019s how you\u2019ll know when you\u2019ve become important! You\u2019ll give a reading in a big city and all the other celebs will show up!\u201d<\/p>\n

Comment<\/b>. Once upon a time, a poet named Mr. Neglected Sad Sack had a student named Little Lord Sadly Lacking in Tact. Sad Sack had a great deal of experience coining epigrams; Lord Lacking had a haiku-poet\u2019s mastery of saying things without saying them. Both had bright futures ahead of them, and when Sad Sack eventually died, Lord Lacking, now white haired, spoke memorably over the urn of his old teacher\u2019s ashes. The only people present were two close friends of Lord Lacking and the janitorial people associated with the venue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anthony Madrid\u00a0lives in Victoria, Texas.\u00a0His second book is\u00a0<\/em>Try Never<\/a>.\u00a0He is a correspondent for the\u00a0<\/em>Daily.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Our teacher (young, malevolent, witty) was holding forth about the \u201ccurlicues and inefficiency\u201d of Derek Walcott\u2019s poetic style. Our teacher said, \u201cIt\u2019s like he wants to go to the kitchen to get a banana. So, he dresses up like Henry James, striped pants, fresh pressed\u2014tails, top hat\u2014and stands with supreme dignity on the curb […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1005,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22700],"tags":[32022,6044,153,32021,7499,32023],"class_list":["post-118975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-correspondents","tag-confessions","tag-derek-walcott","tag-henry-james","tag-no-fear-shakespeare","tag-rousseau","tag-volkswagen-jetta"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEight Public Cases<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Song Dynasty k\u014dans from the modern classroom.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/06\/eight-public-cases\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eight Public Cases by Anthony Madrid\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 6, 2017 \u2013 1. 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