Pocahontas and John Smith

My American lit class engaged in an interesting activity today. We watched portions of some film versions of the John Smith-Pocahontas story to supplement the reading of Smith's journal, and then they had some group discussion on the significance of the enduring Pocahontas legend. I have some thoughts of my own.

The most interesting angle to me is that latter versions of the story (not Smith's own version) introduce the idea of a romantic relationship between Smith and Pocahontas. This fanciful, Hollywood spin on the legend in part simply makes for a better story, as it extends and complicates their entanglement, and it makes the story more enjoyable as a romantic encounter across language and cultural barriers. People love a good love story, and sex sells.

Still, it seems to me that it serves a larger, more metaphorical purpose. The idea that Smith's own story of Pocahontas saving him serves colonial ends in suggesting a peaceful coexistence between Natives and English is well established, but why eroticize the story? In oversimplified terms, the love story symbolizes the romance between England and the New World. Just as many English poets and early travel writers speak of the New World continents in terms that suggest the female body, so Pocahontas becomes a living, breathing representation of this female continent, willingly taken by the English male explorer. (In latter-day, postcolonial literature, this relationship would be likened more to rape.) It deepens and complicates the connections between England and the New World, just as John Smith and other early colonialists hoped to extend and deepend England's commitment to settling the New World.

Bring Back Faculty Parking

Yesterday, I had to park about a quarter-mile from my office. I teach afternoons and evenings on Mondays, so by the time I arrived, the campus parking lot was full to the perimeters. Like many community colleges, in some kind of vague notion of the idealization of egalitarian values, we have no designated faculty parking where I work.

"What's wrong with that?," I suppose you're asking. Why shouldn't faculty have to walk like everyone else? They're not special.

I beg to differ for the following reasons. For one thing, faculty members have to tote multiple bags to work every day, including but not limited to laptop computers, books and other reading materials, graded papers and exams, and other teaching props and tools. Many also must carry their lunch, since they don't make enough money or have enough time to eat out every day. Students generally have one knapsack with a couple of books and a notebook. When you work somewhere for 20 years, it's a nice perk to not have to walk the length of two football fields to get to your office from your parking space.

I also dispute the notion that faculty are not worthy of special treatment when it comes to parking. The hierarchal structure that esteems faculty and others is a system that has worked for hundreds of years; it helps to instill respect in younger people as well as a sense of envy. This envy, with any luck, is part of what drives to succeed. Parking is a symbolic benefit, really, but it's symbolic of what you achieve when you put in the hard work and time required to receive an education. If all the benefits are yours to start with, what's the point?

Good parking is also a no-cost and easy-to-facilitate benefit for employees. It's a way of bestowing reward on your employees and faculty members just for being loyal and hard workers. At Google and other young Internet companies, employees receive such perks as free massages, nap time, cook-to-order meals, and in-office gym facilities. Surely a decent parking space is not so much to ask.

Granted, when I was a student at UT in Austin, I got pretty irked seeing all the empty faculty spaces when student parking was for all practical purposes non-existent. But then, I was 18, so what did I know? Not much.

Disclaimer: It occurs to me that people get in trouble for posting about work. I want to state for the record that the above post is not meant to reflect poorly on my employer. This is a general trend with colleges everywhere.

Watching TV on the Internet

Technology is amazing. Just 10 years ago, if I had wanted to watch television, I would have had to drag myself into the living room, find the remote control, find a place to sit on the couch, turn the TV on, and find something to watch on only 36 channels of cable television. The picture was great, but the sound quality was mediocre at best.

Now, with the advent of the Internet, I can, with the aid of my $1,000 laptop computer and $50 Internet access, enjoy television from the comfort of my $79 Office Depot secretarial chair. True, the picture's a lot smaller and the quality's a bit granier (or as we say in the technology biz, more pixelated) than my old television, and sometimes the video just stops because the connection isn't fast enough. But the main point is that I'm watching TV on the Internet! How cool is that? It's the magic of the World Wide Web. Technology has made all sort of incredible things possible, and watching TV at my desk is just one of them.

Programming has improved substantially as well, at least in terms of quantity. First of all, I don't have to read any news, because now most of the news links or headlines lead to video feeds of news stories from cable TV. I can get the same high-quality, in-depth news coverage on my computer as I used to get on the best television cable channels. I'm no longer limited to network entertainment, and I'm no longer chained to the button-down primetime TV schedule. At any time of day, hell, even in the middle of the night, I can just bring up YouTube and watch thousands upon thousands of low-cost entertainment without all the pretensions of network TV.

The other day, someone also told me that you could listen to the radio on the Internet. Wow. I'm going to have to check that out. That would really save me a lot of time and money!

What is Comedy?

Comedy is saying that which is not meant to be said, or saying what everybody's thinking but is afraid to say.

Comedy ends happily, but may take tragic turns along the way.

Comedy is about incongruity.

Comedy may bring about laughter from surprise or from fulfilling wicked expectations.

Low-brow comedy is smart in the same way that rock music is smart: it doesn't pretend to be anything beyond what it is.

In general, funny people do not proclaim themselves to be funny. They may know they are funny, in fact they probably do, but they don't say it. Saying it kills the comedy.

Comedy defensive driving is a contradiction in terms, but still not as bad as regular defensive driving.

Comedy is laughing at the absurdity and tragedy of life. It's laughing in order to avoid crying.