Things more people should do: historical battle re-enactments

The American Government class I'm TAing this semester was cancelled for Patriot's Day this Monday, which is an extremely  important national holiday, FYI, although it is aggressively celebrated only in New England. So, given this reprieve from work, I convinced a friend with a car that we cannot rightfully leave New England before seeing a Revolutionary War re-enactment. So we set out at 4 AM for the re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, held annually at the crack of dawn on Patriot's Day. I had also encouraged all my students to attend this event the previous week since Lexington is not far from Cambridge--biking distance, really--and the American Revolution is obviously relevant to the subject of American Government, but none of them seemed to be interested when I mentioned the start time. I do not understand this. I mean, it's the shot heard 'round the world, only not really! And it's not like they have anything better to do at dawn! Well, they were unpersuaded.

But the re-enactment was actually pretty great, although we were evidently not the target audience for the event. We waited for two hours in the dark as a growing horde of seven year-olds surrounded us with various height-enhancing equipment like milk crates and step-ladders to elevate their midget selves above me. Then the battle was re-enacted, and that was actually a surprisingly good production. The re-enactors claim that they do this as an annual memorial to the Lexington dead, but this seems like a strange motivation, or at least one that would lead them to memorialize--and so re-enact--more recent battle deaths than those from the Revolutionary War. (Well, I guess who knows if these people aren't also re-enacting Iwo Jima in their free time?) Why not just because re-enacting is a strange but in some sense very detail-oriented way of vicariously living the past, a desire with which I can fully sympathize. Incidentally, how can I become a re-enactor? It looks like the women just have to stand around in bonnets and pretty dresses looking concerned, which I think I am highly qualified to do.

I offer this extremely amateurish video to tempt you into future support for your local historical battle re-enactment circuit. In it, you will see the puzzling sight of kids in period costume standing behind a tree five feet from supposed gunfire, as well as a soldier being "bayoneted":

Department of Bad Ideas: Old-New Spelling

Following up on a long-ago post about Noah Webster's orthographical reform efforts, here is something to be filed under "good ideas that never took off":

The principal alterations, necessary to render our orthography sufficiently regular and easy, are these:
1. The omission of all superfluous or silent letters; as a in bread. Thus bread, head, give, breast, built, meant, realm, friend, would be spelt, bred, hed, giv, brest, bilt, ment, relm, frend. Would this alteration produce any inconvenience, any embarrassment or expense? By no means. On the other hand, it would lessen the trouble of writing, and much more, of learning the language; it would reduce the true pronunciation to a certainty; and while it would assist foreigners and our own children in acquiring the language, it would render the pronunciation uniform, in different parts of the country, and almost prevent the possibility of changes.
2. A substitution of a character that has a certain definite sound, for one that is more vague and indeterminate. Thus by putting ee instead of ea or ie, the words mean, near, speak grieve, zeal, would become meen, neer, speek, greev, zeel. This alteration could not occasion a moments trouble; at the same time it would prevent a doubt respecting the pronunciation; whereas the ea and ie having different sounds, may give a learner much difficulty. Thus greef should be substituted for grief; kee for key; beleev for believe; laf for laugh; dawter for daughter; plow for plough; tuf for tough; proov for prove; blud for blood; and draft for draught. In this manner ch in Greek derivatives, should be changed into k; for the English ch has a soft sound, as in cherish; but k always a hard sound. Therefore character, chorus, cholic, architecture, should be written karacter, korus, kolic, arkitecture; and were they thus written, no person could mistake their true pronunciation.
3. Thus ch in French derivatives should be changed into sh; machine, chaise, chevalier, should be written masheen, shaze, shevaleer; and pique, tour, oblique, should be written peek, toor, obleek.
4. A trifling alteration in a character, or the addition of a point would distinguish different sounds, without the substitution of a new character. Thus a very small stroke across th would distinguish its two sounds. A point over a vowel, in this manner, a, or û, or i might answer all the purposes of different letters. And for the dipthong ow, let the two letters be united by a small stroke, or both engraven on the same piece of metal, with the left hand line of the w united to the o.

Peepl! Just imajin hou [imagine the proposed "ow" dipthong letter here] much eezier skool wud bee nou if wee had onlee folloued Webster's adviz. Wee cud rit lik this all the tim and never hav to lern fonix or probablee even hol langwaj. I am at leest convinced that this wud produs soshul yunitee and level class distinkshuns much mor quicklee than our obnoxushlee hibridized Breetish spelling did, aren't yu?

The regressive effects of evolving standards of scholarship

Is it possible that one day in the near future, someone will write a vast study showing that mid-century American historiography (except Perry Miller's) was wrong about everything? This book will consist of two parts: one detailing outright errors obscured by a wholesale failure to cite sources, and the second mocking the tendency towards ungrounded generalization for the sake of moral condemnation. (Among the victims of the latter volume will necessarily be Hofstadter's "The Paranoid Style," which will subsequently drop off of all the dozens of college syllabi which it currently graces.) I'm not saying I will write this thing, but perhaps you will.

I'm reading this second-rate but mainstream history of American education, and have found some difficulties. In his "survey" of 17th century thought, the author attributes (without citation) a claim that children are "young vipers" to Cotton Mather that was actually made in the 18th century by Jonathan Edwards, helpfully instructs us that, "the fruits of [the Puritans'] labors in government are more to be avoided than imitated," and offers the following incisive analyses of the main elements in the socio/cultural/intellectual shift from the 17th to the 18th centuries: "Man's concept of himself also changes" and "Man also adds to his stature." And then he informs us that Locke "denied the existence of inborn tendencies to think, feel, and act in ways predetermined and unrelated to the experiences of individuals." John Locke: surprisingly indistinguishable from B.F. Skinner. And now I am putting this book back on the shelf.

Allowances can be made for the fact that, writing in 1964, Professor Thayer didn't have access to the great modern conveniences like central air conditioning and the online-searchable text of the Works of Jonathan Edwards, but he could at least have tried to read the things he thought he was citing in order to make sure they existed. Anyway, the point is not to pile on Thayer, whom no one has ever heard of, although they have heard of Vernon Parrington, from whom Thayer has cribbed the entire structure and argument of his own book (The inevitable result of a unified intellectual culture, you might say, is that you get 20 books a year pointing out that the Puritans had like a theocracy, which is like antithetical to our open, progressive, cold-warring democratic society of 1964 so we are obliged to continuously remind you to oppose it.)

The point is to wonder what I, in 2012, am supposed to do when I receive reviewer comments that all say entirely contradictory things about an article, and all demand that I deal more extensively with the secondary literature in the field and also that I espouse their own general conclusions about things (Locke was not important for American educational thought; William Godwin was)? What if the established secondary lit is wrong and it's the primary sources that require reconsideration (or even a reading in the first place)? What if the reviewers' conclusions are not espousable because the purpose of my article is to argue against them?

Also, why is my entire life plagued by the one person in a group who always pipes up to say, "But what about the women? You're not sufficiently accounting for the women." Maybe I will create a permanent headnote to all my files that will read, "Pre-emption: The women will be discussed in a separate, forthcoming study" and this study will simply never come forth.

Five-buck Chucks

Got tired of heels for teaching, regressed to high school footwear. Thanks to Ebay moreover, they're even cheaper now than they were in 2001.

PS: Brooch update! My mother sent an old brooch of hers. Waiting for spring break to end to wear it to class.
PPS: When spring break does end though, I may actually have died of a paper grading overdose. I offer you this sample of my ordeal:
"Committees play a crucial role in what bills are addressed by the Senate and the House of Common."

Divine vengeance

This is how I will be spending my spring break next week: 

- grading 40 10-pg papers on Congressional redistricting

- grading 40 midterm exams

- grading a 100-pg senior thesis

Oh yes, they say, spring break is such a good time to get your own work done, they say, you can focus on your research for an entire week untroubled by teaching demands and course distractions, they say. 

In Houyhnhnm terms, they say the thing that is not.

Run-ins with the moderately famous

First world problem: grossly famous people are constantly coming to campus and causing a ruckus, and this never benefits me. I'm not interested in them, I can't get into their events, and I am saddled with all the inconveniences of their presence. Last week, for example, I granted a student a paper extension due to "Lady Gaga-related stress." Really.

So I was extremely pleased when Whit Stillman, a person of moderate fame and little spectacle, came to campus to screen his new movie, Damsels in Distress, last weekend. This also featured a retrospective of all his other films, which I love (although I unfortunately had to miss Metropolitan due to student-caused gastrointestinal illness), after which he answers audience questions in a way that both slighted the pretentious film people who put on his event and failed to explain his films. I think this is basically a good strategy, since one doesn't want to become some modern version of Plato's Ion, like David Mamet or David Simon, who make a good work of art and then, when asked to explain it, bloviate sententiously about their half-formed political ideas. Listening to these speeches only clarifies why these people are making their living from activities not connected to political journalism. Stillman wisely sidestepped provocations to expound on his politics, and instead misdirected us with two very important points, both of which I was wholly in sympathy with: first, 1960s Motown, soul, and R&B is "immortal and classic," and second, "Amazing Grace" is a very beautiful hymn. I had asked about the latter, why it and "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" were included in The Last Days of Disco, and he evaded me, and then as we were leaving the theater, stopped me and said that this was a good question, but he wasn't about to preach a sermon, confirming my suspicion that the film was about a Christian kind of redemption. I then immediately lamented not seizing the moment to talk to him further and ask him to have a drink with me and my husband.

Damsels in Distress is a pretty great movie, by the way. My prediction: If it gets attention from the UHB standbys like Slate and the Atlantic, it will generate the same kind of coverage as Juno, inspiring conservative pleasure and liberal attempts to show that this thing that they just palpably enjoyed was not actually that conservative. Second prediction: I may, upon further consideration, be inspired by it to take up the wearing of perfume and brooches, the latter of which I've actually been contemplating for some time, since I started reading Emily Hale's blog.

No taxation without...transparency!

Meanwhile, back in Lincolnwood (sub-Skokie):

A March 20 referendum has become the focus of community agitation. If passed, the measure would replace Lincoln Hall middle school with a new, $25-million school. Many in the audience last night questioned the need for a new school, and doubted the board’s ability to be responsible with such an expense. 

“You don’t know the meaning of transparency in government,” Lincolnwood resident Paul Eisterhold told the board before displaying a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, which he donned as a cape to conclude his public statement.

Take that, King Superintendent!

Little delightful things

Either I previously failed to notice this or it's new, but the plastic bags the libraries give out to protect your books from rain feature this quote:
Thy fate is the common fate of all

Into each life some rain must fall.

I looked up the poem from whence this line comes and wasn't convinced that it could support the weight of its subject, but it's just right for supporting the weight of my library books.

"The most comely of miniature mammals"

Mice, per contra, except to a few hysterical women,
rank among the most comely of all the miniature mammals
who impinge on our lives

Once, when I was living in a very old dorm in college with two oblivious, unhygienic roommates and one ultra-hygienic one, a family of mice installed themselves in our room. Their arrival was the unhygienic roommates' fault, but the hygienic roommate's burden, and she was intent on destroying them. But I put in a plea on their behalf--they are fragile and needy mammals like us (true, in a way...), they are unobtrusive and primarily go about their business quietly at night (not strictly true; my roommate woke up one night from their scuttlings and threw stuffed animals at me until I was awake enough to be informed that WE HAVE MICE), and, as long as they keep to their side of the contract I had outlined (cute, nocturnal, nondestructive) for them, we could harmoniously cohabit with them. My hygienic roommate reluctantly agreed, and we struck up a temporary truce with the mice, agreeing to provide them with a warm domicile in our walls for the winter if they agreed to stay out of our hair.

You never have managed, as all successful parasites must, to
break the code of your host, wise up on what habits can travel.
Ah!, if only You had, with what patience we would have trained You
how to obtemper your greeds, recalling the way that our Nannies
molded our nursery moeurs...

Good Little Mice never gnaw through
woodwork or nibble at packages. Good Little Mice never scatter
droppings that have to be swept up. Good Little Mice get a tidbit,
Bad Little Mice die young. Then, adapting an adage of lovers,
Two Little Mice are a company, Three Little Mice are a rabble.

One day soon after, I discovered strange holes in my laundry hamper, and more holes in the laundry within. The mice, it seemed, had dined on my t-shirts and underwear. Well, let's just say the mice lost their lawyer by this act of war, and, with the cohabitation treaty voided, they soon saw their doom.

What occurred now confirmed that ancient political axiom:
When Words fail to persuade, then Physical Force gives the orders.
Knowing You trusted in us and would never believe an unusual
object belonging to Men could be there for a sinister purpose,
traps were baited and one by one you were fatally humbugged:
all fourteen of You perished...

We had felt no talent to murder:
it was against our pluck. Why, why then? For raisons d’état. As
householders we had behaved exactly as every State does,
when there is something It wants, and a minor one gets in the way.

I was, needless to say, very pleased to come across this poem today, which though clearly not intended to recall my nearly identical encounter with representatives of the mouse race, did. Raison d'etat, cute rodents, raison d'etat. The sovereign resignedly does what it must to protect its underwear.

Occupy Harvard is liberated

The "weather-proof geodesic dome" blew away in the wind and, while the occupiers recessed to conduct an emergency meeting about whether they should try to affix the dome more firmly to the ground (no affixing without consensus!), the administration "seized" it. Weather-proofing fail, democracy fail. Satire win.