O Neti Pot
with your gleaming ceramic spout
you cleanse my sinuses of snot
and flush them out.
but for you, I could not breathe.
every morning, ever faithful
and every eve
you relieve my painful
stuffy head.
and so I go to work
or to bed
slightly sniffly, but still
it beats the hell outta being ill.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
I ♥ the misfits.
I originally posted this back in December of 2005. I'm still proud of it. I love the gay elf with the revealing name of Hermey (which was later redacted to Herbie, hm, wonder why) and the black, I mean red-nosed, reindeer. And, of course, the Island of Misfit toys, which as Jen Bayne points out, actually sound like a lot more fun than normal toys, I mean, who wouldn't want a cowboy who rides an ostrich?
I'm less satisfied than I was a few years back about the repentance theme at the end; sure, there's some personal repentance, but there's no systemic or structural change in the stratified society of the North Pole. And Hermey dances with a girl elf at the end (a girl elf? where were they, anyway, till the end scene where apparently they exist only to dance and ex-gay-ify Hermey?). Sigh. Well, maybe Hermey is bi. That would be all right. But Santa's still a dope; and the acceptance of Hermey and Rudolph at the end has the feel of a grand exception made in their individual cases on the basis of personal merit that symbolically covers over their misfitness.
And my reflections below don't even comment on the role of the "Bumble," whose very name is short for "abominable," the adjectival form of abomination--that which by definition must be obliterated and exiled from community in the name of purity--the Bumble's rehabilitation comes at the expense of a dramatic transformation of his nature, the removal of his teeth, the symbolic repository of his anger and violence and hatred; he is, in short, tamed. And by whom? The White Man, standing in as the paradigmatic civilized human, who in his own estimation, has colonized and owns the North and is determined to reap riches from it. ("Gold! Siiiiiiiilver!") I mean, wow. Awesome. [I think they must have cut the scene where Santa and Yukon Cornelius duke it out for the property rights to the North Pole...]
without further ado:
My favorite character in this thing is Hermey, the Elf who wants to be a dentist. Herbie reveals this sick unnatural ambition in a conversation with the Elf Boss, who lectures him threateningly:
Hermey, miserably: Not happy in my work, I guess.
Head Elf: WHAT??!
Hermey: I just don't like to make toys.
Head Elf: Oh well if that's all...WHAT??!! You don't like to make toys?!
Hermey: No.
Head Elf, to others: Hermey doen't like to make toys!
Others: (repeat it down down the line) and in chorus: Shame on you!
Head Elf: Do you mind telling me what you DO wanna do?
Hermey: Well sir, someday, I'd like to be...a dentist.
Head Elf: A DENTIST? Good grief!
Hermey: We need one up here...I've been studying it, it's fascinating, you've no idea, molars and bicuspids and incisors--
Head Elf: Now, listen, you. You're an elf, and elves make toys. Now get to work!
The ontology undergirding the Head Elf's reprimand of Hermey leaves no room for consideration of an elf who deviates from his "nature" by not liking to make toys. It's simply inconceivable. Hermey's attempt to "fit in" is stymied when, engrossed in the task of providing teeth for some dolls, he misses elf practice and suffers another confrontation with the Head Elf, which concludes with the Head Elf's vicious assertion, "You'll NEVER fit in!" Miserable, Hermey jumps out the window in self-imposed exile, his only option to be true to himself.
Rudolph's situation is parallel. Born with the disgusting congenital deformity of a red glowing nose, his parents are horrified (even his own mother can only weakly offer, "we'll have to overlook it," while his father goes so far as to actually hide it by daubing mud on his son's face.) Later, at the "reindeer games," Rudolph outshines the other reindeer in skill, but when his prosthesis falls off, everyone gasps and his erstwhile playmates mock and shun. The authority figures echo this attitude: the Coach gathers everyone up and leads them away, saying loudly, "From now on, we won't let Rudolph join in any of our reindeer games!"
Santa's role throughout most of the cartoon is to legitimize the prejudices against the misfits already evident in lesser members of the Christmastown community. When Santa visits the newly birthed Rudolph, his unthinking prejudice becomes plain when he comments that Rudoplh had better grow out of it if he ever wants to be on his team of flying reindeer. Santa's behavior at the scene of the reindeer games is even more disturbing; like his pronouncement at Rudolph's birth, he says, "What a pity; he had a nice takeoff, too." For Santa, Rudolph's skill is less important than his nose, an arbitrary physical attribute. A distant and authoritarian figure, Santa is unaware of Hermey's plight (apparently the welfare of elves is beneath his notice) and condemning of Rudolph's gall in considering himself a reindeer of the same worth and dignity as the others.
Rudolph and Hermey get together, and a few lines of their "misfit theme song" are revealing:
"We're a couple of misfits, we're a couple of misfits--
What's the matter with misfits?
That's where we fit in.
We may be different from the rest...
But who decides the test
of what is really best?"
In "Christmastown," those who decide "the test of what is really best" seem to be the tyrannical and thoughtless majority, reinforced by authoritarian sanction by Santa, the pseudo-benevolent despot. Those who question the status quo--those who are already marginalized--are mocked, punished, and driven out of the community.
Over the years it's become apparent to me that this simple children's cartoon contains some real subversive elements: Hermey's misfit-ness is the result of apparent "choice," but the kind of choice where the alternatives are to be true or false to oneself. Rudolph's misfit-ness is the result of birth rather than choice. Change "dentist" to "gay" and "red nose" to "black skin." Now the subversive message is clear: Santa is racist, the Head Elf and the elf community is homophobic, and "Christmastown" is really "Whiteytown."
Given this subtext, the change of heart on the parts of Santa and the Head Elf at the end are more than just the formulaic ending to a well-known Christmas fable. Although it takes a prodigious feat of community service on both Hermey's and Rudolph's parts (each requiring skills peculiar to their misfit-ness) to bring the authorities and the community to repentance, repentance is indeed the note sounded in the conclusion. Everyone, including Santa, apologizes to the misfits. And in the end, difference is valorized rather than exiled.
I'm less satisfied than I was a few years back about the repentance theme at the end; sure, there's some personal repentance, but there's no systemic or structural change in the stratified society of the North Pole. And Hermey dances with a girl elf at the end (a girl elf? where were they, anyway, till the end scene where apparently they exist only to dance and ex-gay-ify Hermey?). Sigh. Well, maybe Hermey is bi. That would be all right. But Santa's still a dope; and the acceptance of Hermey and Rudolph at the end has the feel of a grand exception made in their individual cases on the basis of personal merit that symbolically covers over their misfitness.
And my reflections below don't even comment on the role of the "Bumble," whose very name is short for "abominable," the adjectival form of abomination--that which by definition must be obliterated and exiled from community in the name of purity--the Bumble's rehabilitation comes at the expense of a dramatic transformation of his nature, the removal of his teeth, the symbolic repository of his anger and violence and hatred; he is, in short, tamed. And by whom? The White Man, standing in as the paradigmatic civilized human, who in his own estimation, has colonized and owns the North and is determined to reap riches from it. ("Gold! Siiiiiiiilver!") I mean, wow. Awesome. [I think they must have cut the scene where Santa and Yukon Cornelius duke it out for the property rights to the North Pole...]
without further ado:
theological reflections on "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"
One of my favorite perennial Christmas classics is that edition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer where Burl Ives narrates as Sam the Talking Snowman and sings. You know, the one where the little figurines move around jerkily but endearingly. (For some interesting info about this classic, click here.)My favorite character in this thing is Hermey, the Elf who wants to be a dentist. Herbie reveals this sick unnatural ambition in a conversation with the Elf Boss, who lectures him threateningly:
Hermey, miserably: Not happy in my work, I guess.
Head Elf: WHAT??!
Hermey: I just don't like to make toys.
Head Elf: Oh well if that's all...WHAT??!! You don't like to make toys?!
Hermey: No.
Head Elf, to others: Hermey doen't like to make toys!
Others: (repeat it down down the line) and in chorus: Shame on you!
Head Elf: Do you mind telling me what you DO wanna do?
Hermey: Well sir, someday, I'd like to be...a dentist.
Head Elf: A DENTIST? Good grief!
Hermey: We need one up here...I've been studying it, it's fascinating, you've no idea, molars and bicuspids and incisors--
Head Elf: Now, listen, you. You're an elf, and elves make toys. Now get to work!
The ontology undergirding the Head Elf's reprimand of Hermey leaves no room for consideration of an elf who deviates from his "nature" by not liking to make toys. It's simply inconceivable. Hermey's attempt to "fit in" is stymied when, engrossed in the task of providing teeth for some dolls, he misses elf practice and suffers another confrontation with the Head Elf, which concludes with the Head Elf's vicious assertion, "You'll NEVER fit in!" Miserable, Hermey jumps out the window in self-imposed exile, his only option to be true to himself.
Rudolph's situation is parallel. Born with the disgusting congenital deformity of a red glowing nose, his parents are horrified (even his own mother can only weakly offer, "we'll have to overlook it," while his father goes so far as to actually hide it by daubing mud on his son's face.) Later, at the "reindeer games," Rudolph outshines the other reindeer in skill, but when his prosthesis falls off, everyone gasps and his erstwhile playmates mock and shun. The authority figures echo this attitude: the Coach gathers everyone up and leads them away, saying loudly, "From now on, we won't let Rudolph join in any of our reindeer games!"
Santa's role throughout most of the cartoon is to legitimize the prejudices against the misfits already evident in lesser members of the Christmastown community. When Santa visits the newly birthed Rudolph, his unthinking prejudice becomes plain when he comments that Rudoplh had better grow out of it if he ever wants to be on his team of flying reindeer. Santa's behavior at the scene of the reindeer games is even more disturbing; like his pronouncement at Rudolph's birth, he says, "What a pity; he had a nice takeoff, too." For Santa, Rudolph's skill is less important than his nose, an arbitrary physical attribute. A distant and authoritarian figure, Santa is unaware of Hermey's plight (apparently the welfare of elves is beneath his notice) and condemning of Rudolph's gall in considering himself a reindeer of the same worth and dignity as the others.
Rudolph and Hermey get together, and a few lines of their "misfit theme song" are revealing:
"We're a couple of misfits, we're a couple of misfits--
What's the matter with misfits?
That's where we fit in.
We may be different from the rest...
But who decides the test
of what is really best?"
In "Christmastown," those who decide "the test of what is really best" seem to be the tyrannical and thoughtless majority, reinforced by authoritarian sanction by Santa, the pseudo-benevolent despot. Those who question the status quo--those who are already marginalized--are mocked, punished, and driven out of the community.
Over the years it's become apparent to me that this simple children's cartoon contains some real subversive elements: Hermey's misfit-ness is the result of apparent "choice," but the kind of choice where the alternatives are to be true or false to oneself. Rudolph's misfit-ness is the result of birth rather than choice. Change "dentist" to "gay" and "red nose" to "black skin." Now the subversive message is clear: Santa is racist, the Head Elf and the elf community is homophobic, and "Christmastown" is really "Whiteytown."
Given this subtext, the change of heart on the parts of Santa and the Head Elf at the end are more than just the formulaic ending to a well-known Christmas fable. Although it takes a prodigious feat of community service on both Hermey's and Rudolph's parts (each requiring skills peculiar to their misfit-ness) to bring the authorities and the community to repentance, repentance is indeed the note sounded in the conclusion. Everyone, including Santa, apologizes to the misfits. And in the end, difference is valorized rather than exiled.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
things you might consider buying me to prove you love me
Don't miss it: Clare's got a list too.
JTB's Post-Defense-Christmas-However Long it Takes Damn It! Wish List
JTB's Post-Defense-Christmas-However Long it Takes Damn It! Wish List
set of new business cards made by the one and only Virgil O. Stamps LetterPress Laboratory (a.k.a., the indomitable Sarah Coffman)(done, and they ROCK)
- t
hat this year's NaNoWriMo will be different...and guilt-free(damn it. I'll have a third helping of guilt, please?)
- tennis shoes...now that I will hopefully have time to play some tennis!
- a bottle of champagne, thank you very much. (or scotch.)
Here Comes Science!(done, so, if you're Emily, any music that in your opinion I should be acquainted with but am not cool enough to be on my own)
- that Cyborg Feminist Mom mug TKP designed for me...very reasonably priced, too (or, alternatively, my superhero cape, please? a great addition to the ridiculous academic regalia...)
- speaking of, anyone wanna help with the buying of some ridiculous academic regalia?
- Encyclopedia of Science and Religion, edited by J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, et al.
roadtrip to Canada!(already covered! yay!!! and merry Xmas Jen!)- ....well, I'll leave this one blank (Brent, you know what goes here).
- France! (maybe not for Xmas. maybe for, say, some lovely leisurely springtime...)
- I'm a Mom with a Wish List
- I'm a Posthuman with a Wish List
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