A life without irony is nothing if not a constant parade of occasions of wonderment.  Such as:

a.) going out Friday night to a not-tranny bar called Changes (apparently so named because the owner — a man by the name of “Momma” — was in the habit, before they opened the place, of saying “there’s gonna be changes around here!”).

b.) listening in befuddlement as an acquaintance told me, in all seriousness that night at Changes, how he and his partner are staying in their 70s-era 3000 s.f house out in the ‘burbs b/c his partner refuses to live in a house smaller than 2500 s.f.  Never mind that they could have a 2000 s.f. newly-renovated craftsman with a ready-to-rent mother-in-law unit. Never mind that they have one bedroom and one bathroom in their current house which they not only never use — they don’t even have any furniture in that bedroom.  This befuddlement turned slack-jawed when he then revealed that he had recently turned down a job in Seattle.  A job that would regularly involve travel to Alaska, Hawaii, and Idaho.

c.) Meeting the Hispanic Momma Rose while out precinct-walking.  So keep your eye out for her daughter, Socorro (presumably she’ll soon have to pick a new stage name, as there’s already at least one artist — here — with that name). 

d.) Attending a pizza party hosted by an early-in-the process MTF.  Who had recently broken up with his fiancee.  The owner of the house — for John/Vanessa is a renter — is a vet and member of the NRA.  The owner’s sister is a champion boxer.  We watched the second half of V for Vendetta, the second half of The Whole Ten Yards, all of The Mummy, and the first ten minutes of The Fifth Element.  Note, by the way, that the last three were on some channel, and as far as I could were grouped together because they each involved two of the following three elements: Bruce Willis, a cat, and the desert. My partner took me home when I started to pontificate on the Christology of the last flick. 

e.) Advising a friend of mine that, when he goes to the drive-through liquor store to (i) not bother with the funky flavors, just to go straight for the margarita, and (ii) make sure to get the extra shot.

f.) Sitting through a portion of services that started off with the pastor saying “I didn’t want to write a sermon while I was on vacation, so we’re going to watch this video instead” (exsqueeze me? What is this, junior high?) and then proceeded through 20 minutes of the kind of happy-clappy right-wing follow-your-bliss corporatese (think about what’s right with the world rather than what’s wrong it; do you have a vision for your organization?; can you imagine what a powerful force having a vision of possibilities can be for you individually?; here are seven key concepts; if you’re unhappy just focus on your vision and the possibilities will open up and let you soar) that drives me up the damn wall.  Note: I can’t quite figure out what’s more annoying in these statements; the philosophical individualism, the class bias, or the barely-disguised-and-yet-strangely-anemic evangelical taint.

No irony to see here.  Just move along. 

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Either my students are getting better at baiting me, or I’m finally starting to take my own advice to not confuse me with somebody that gives a shit.

Day 2 and I’ve already suggested that the war in Iraq was driven by greed for oil.  This in the context of a discussion of how, given OPEC’s effective monopoly on the world’s supply of oil, the US might react.  Option #3, after investing in biodiesel and opening up ANWR?  Taking out a member country and showing everyone in the world who’s the superpower and who’s the bitch.  The phrase I recall using was not precisely that, but pretty close.

In a different vein, I suspect that there are at least two libs in the class, as they made remarks about “pro-life crazies” (their words, not mine).

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Done.  And everything seems to be okay so far.  Only one error in each of my syllabi (this is what comes of not having a personal secretary, I guess). 

I seem to have more than the usual number of frat boys and football players in my class on politics.  I don’t know what this portends.  At worst it suggests that I might soon be a target for the young conservative club.  At best it might mean that there’s actually some interest percolating among the Jaspers in, you know, thinking critically about gubmint.

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What would you want to have happen?

I ask because my uni does this sort of “pre-seminar” thingie for the incoming frosh.  They’re all sent a slim volume of some (hopefully) thought-provoking readings.  Then we get together the day before classes start to discuss them. 

I’ve already done more than most profs in sending my group some questions ahead of time.  Which, given past exprience, I expect precisely three students to have both looked over and prepared answers for. One of these will be a woman, who will never take her answers out of her backpack (or speak up) once she sees the lay of the land.  The second will also be a woman, and she will make sure to hand in her answers, while claiming loudly that the only reason she did so is because she thought this was a graded assignment.  The third will be a foreign student (either a man or a woman), and they will sit dutifully in the front row and try desperately to engage the material. 

An additional two (or perhaps three) students will make sure to shoot off their mouths having (at best) skimmed the titles of the readings.  One of those will (I lay money on the table right now) at some point open up the gaping maw of their pie-hole and let fly with something so gloriously racist that it will be all I can do not to burst out laughing right then and there, and thank them for adding yet another anecdote for my usual cocktail-party tirade topic: what did Jasper say this week?

So, this leaves the question: if you were doing something like this (meaning if you were a student) what would you want to transpire?  I won’t, for reasons of discretion, reveal the precise nature of the reading list.  Though suffice it to say that three of them are standard pieces on the general theme of our collective identity.  One is a classic “epistle of a colonial husbandman.” The second is an extract of certain emendations (the first decim, if I may coin a phrase) to one of our founding documents.  The third is a poem by a certain mid-century black author (not the gay one) titled something like “essay for language arts 2.” The third is a poem by a less-well known Chicana local poet whom I had not heard of before this, and so would not expect my readers (both of you) to know. The theme of that piece is basically the problem of attempting to claim an “original” ethnic identity when one returns to the “ethnic homeland.”  This is a subject covered by other writers – especially certain African-American authors on the fraught tensions inherent in travel to Africa.

Given that range, anything you think I ought to cover?

UPDATE: This week’s contribution to the “what did Jasper say now?” contest is: When asked what amendment to the U.S. Constitution they would either propose, or repeal, one kid answered, “I’d repeal the eighth.” 

That would be the amendment barring the use of cruel and unusual punishments. 

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The partner and I were in IA for his sister’s wedding, a hugely successful event, about which I may post more later.

On the day we arrived, the sister-out-law drove us from the airport to the Amanas to kill some time while we waited for one of her bridesmaids to arrive. 

The Amanas are nice.  If you like fudge, fruit wine, tchotschkes (sp?), handmade furniture, and/or German food served family style. 

In one of the general stores there, I was leafing through their reproduction-old-style-tin-signs.  You know, the kind that usually advertise milk, or soap, or gas, or somesuch.  And I came across two items of interest:

a.) a Larry The Cable Guy special: a confederate flag over which was printed his personalized catchphrase, which I do not choose to repeat, and

b.) a sign for Uncle Remus syrup.  Complete with (i) big lips, (ii) kinky hair, (iii) big eyes, and (iv) the phrase “dis sho’ am good.”  Uncle Remus, as you may know, was “author” of certain stories serialized by a white columnist for the Atlanta paper, stories which contained a memorable folkloric image which has recently made the news for rather unfortunate reasons.

I might have forgiven the one as a sop to local market preferences for an admittedly popular show, even ignoring the fact that Iowa fought for the Union.  I might have forgiven the other as an ironic taste for historical memorials to a sad and ugly history.  I will not forgive both together. It betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of racism.

In the immortal words of the partner’s mother, “who are these people?” (fill in the blank with: “who pay full price at Dayton’s”, ” who live in suburbs,” “who have sex with their children,” “who advertise their own racism,” etc.)

Obviously, we did not spend any money in that store.

Correction: an eagle-eyed commentor has pointed out that I was mistaken in my characterization of the Uncle Remus sign. 

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