The Game is Seven-Card Stud

My younger sister, Wendy Freedman, is a professional poker player.  I say this not to brag but as an introduction to my blog topic, but I mostly mention it as a way to boost my page views via Google searches, since she is the closest thing we have to a famous person in the family.  This is what she looks like:

She is one of the few female professional poker players, as far as I know. Poker has traditionally been a male-dominated game, even within amateur ranks, where it is typically viewed as a male-bonding activity, an alternative to the all-male Tuesday-night bowling league or barfly softball game. Compared to those games, it is a more sedentary game and tends to attract a slightly rougher crowd, those inclined to drink beer, smoke cigars, and tell dirty jokes in the dark. Poker also rewards slightly menacing, duplicitous, and mysterious behavior, as your goal (to put it crudely, since I'm not a poker player) is to fool your opponent and take his money, regardless of whether your hand is better or not.

My sister and I have had a few conversations about whether poker constitutes gambling or not, and I won't rehash those friendly debates here, but suffice it to say that while poker, like all card games, involves the luck of the draw, it is mostly about psychological domination and strategy, or how you play those cards. This is why poker is such a natural symbol for the aggressive nature of modern life and a specifically American view of individualist success.  You are dealt a certain hand, but what matters most is how you play those cards. Poker is a modern game, and it aptly represents the "winner-take-all" strategy for success in a cut-throat American capitalist society.  In that way, poker is a perfect symbol for a naturalistic view of life. This is one reason poker figures so prominently in a number of Jack London stories and novels, including Burning Daylight.

Poker also emerges as an important symbol in Tennessee Williams's masterpiece, Streetcar Named Desire.  During the play's famous poker night scene, to which the women are pointedly not invited, Stanley erupts in a display of violence and physically abuses his wife.  The poker game serves as a display of masculine male power, and this patriarchal power structure remains closed to women, although they receive the brunt of its ugliness.  The play ends on the line, "The game is seven-card stud," suggesting that, as Blanche is carted off to the asylum and Stella submits to Stanley's power, the structure remains firmly intact. The game continues and women remain oblivious to its rules, even as they are subject to its power. This is one reason my sister is cool, because she has infiltrated this game, questioned its traditional male power, and benefited from the outcome. 

Excuse Me

I'm a big champion of manners and politeness, as I think these are the oils that keep the engines of society running smoothly. Still, even though I've been in Houston forty years, I'm a little uncomfortable when students and others say, "Yes, sir" to me.  This is a very Southern custom, and while I appreciate the gentility of it, and I'm not offended at the idea that I'm old enough to be called "sir," I am always secretly worried that they might being slightly sarcastic, as in "Yes, sir!"  Since this is the South (or Texas's version of the South), however, I am mostly sure they are just being polite in the way they were brought up to be.

It's an interesting problem or paradox, this perception of politeness as rudeness or aloofness. I've noticed something similar when I say "excuse me" as I'm trying to get around someone in a crowded situation.  Sometimes, people will take the "excuse me" as a euphemism for "you're in the damn way."  It's annoying that people would take my attempt to be polite as code for "get out of the way," since of course I'm trying to avoid being rude, but maybe polite language often disguises something less polite, a less noble motivation or a hidden, nasty thought. After all, what Northerners sometimes dislike about Southern politeness is its lack of directness or perceived lack of honesty. Similarly, while I tend to be overly polite with people I don't know well (my being introverted and hard of hearing compounds this effect), some people take this as a sign of aloofness or unwillingness to be social. 

This paradox is also a great source of tension and conflict in Streetcar Named Desire, as the working-class and very direct Stanley confronts Blanche about her secrets and lies, which she conveniently covers up with her upper-class veneer of propriety.  She says Belle Reeve, the family plantation, was "lost" -- a romantic and mystical way of obfuscating the fact that the plantation was foreclosed upon.  She refers to her indiscretions (another polite word) as "meetings with strangers."  When she is forced to be honest, the result is ugly and violent.

So yes, it's a human balancing act, this ongoing struggle between honesty and politeness. Being honest (or direct, as its sometimes referred to by people who are probably too blunt and impolite in their communication) is not always the best policy, in spite of the common saying. Yet being polite when the situation calls for more directness should also be avoided. Perhaps when I want to get around people, I should simply say hello and ask them if I can't get around them, instead of using a curt, standard expression.  But I'll probably keep on saying, "Excuse me."