February 25, 2009

Maybe I just came to it too late. Until last night I had never seen a famous film that shaped the psyche of my generation. Until last night, I had never seen a modern classic. Until last night, I had never seen The Breakfast Club.

Until last night, I always thought I’d like it.

 If I’d seen it first at 14, not at 38, I’m sure my response would have been different.  At 14, I would have empathized with the characters, would have felt their plight as they struggled against the arbitrary cruelty of public education. I would have related to their efforts to define themselves outside the simple definitions placed on them by the artificial school system.

At 38, I was just bored. And a little unsettled. I had gone in expecting the kind of warmth that has endeared to me other John Hughes films.  I was expecting a little “Home Alone” and instead got something closer to “Home for the Insane.” 

The characters’  harsh language and treatment of one another drained the film of its humor and me of my empathy. I found it difficult to feel sorry for any of them, especially John Bender, the group’s criminal ringleader.

The lack of clear resolution didn’t help. When the final credits began to roll, I was still unsure of what had happened, still unclear what, if anything, had changed for these people.

I was too young ,just 14 or 15, to see The Breakfast Club in its original run. The John Hughes film that defined adolescence for me came a few years later and stands, I think, as his masterpiece. No movie until that time affected me Like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Oh, how I wanted to be Ferris.

Both John Bender and Ferris invite others to confront the truth about themselves, but Ferris accomplishes this through play rather than through the kind of verbal violence that characterizes Bender. Ferris Bueller and The Breakfast Club hit on the same theme: that public school is a stupid waste of time. But, the warmth of Ferris Bueller makes that message so much easier to digest. So, Bueller is a movie I will return to, but now I know I have no desire ever to be again  a member of The Breakfast Club.

Save Ferris!

February 20, 2009

Somewhere early on, probably in my ninth or tenth year, I discovered I could call myself on the telephone.  I have been fascinated by telephones since I was a kid. The notion of an anonymous, disembodied voice whispering in my ear has long held me frozen in creepy thrall. Even today, I sometimes spend time reading online about phones and their lore.

My first telephone experiment began in the days when everyone still had not only a land line, but a rotary dial.  I don’t recall exactly how, but I discovered that if you dialed a certain number, I believe it was 9, and then quickly dialed your own seven digit number and just as quickly depressed the two little poles that stuck up from the cradle built for the handset, sometimes your phone would ring. When you answered, there would be no sound other than the sound of an open connection.

I saw the possibilities immediately. My favorite trick was to wait until my mother was settled comfortably on the couch engrossed in some late-70’s television program. I would sneak to the back bedroom and employ my telephone know-how. Within a few seconds, the phone would ring.

Mom would answer and I would burst out laughing, unable to restrain my delight over my own cleverness.

I would wait to hear my mother laughing too, and then her exasperated voice crying, “Deeeeaaaannn!”

Later, when I learned to control my outbursts of laughter, I would wait for her to answer and pitch my childish voice as low as I could and say, “Is Dean there?” 

I always hoped she would get up to look for me and find me smiling back with the receiver in my hand. Unfortunately, she never fell for it.

Memories like these are part of what made me a little wistful to see the land line telephone on this list of 24 things about to disappear from America. Who knows how much of the romance of life we will have lost when they go?

February 19, 2009

Teaching four sections of the same course four semesters in the row tends to take the surprises out. That’s why a couple of days ago; I was shocked to have a new teaching experience. For the first time, I kicked a kid out of class.

Well, perhaps “kicked out” is a bit too strong. Really what I did was simply invite him to sleep in a more comfortable location.

 He was nodding off almost as soon as he entered the room, unable to stay awake long enough to say “here” as I took attendance. After that, he fell into a deep slumber.

I tried my usual tricks for dealing with somnolent scholars. I stood right in front of his chair while I lectured. I made direct eye contact with him, or rather made direct eye contact with his closed eyelids. He sat in the front row through it all, head bobbing and nodding peacefully in his open hand.

Finally, I stopped my lecture and woke him long enough to suggest that if he needed to sleep he really should just go sleep.

 ”No, no,” he said. “I’m okay. I can do this.”

 He made an effort to sit up straight, to keep himself roused.

Apparently, the “this” he was referring to was “sleep soundly right where I am” because two minutes later he had slipped again into the land of nod. I walked to his desk.

 As I approached, his buddy beside him reached out and smacked the back of his sleeping head. No response.

 I stood dead in front of him and stopped talking. He persevered in blissful repose.  I rapped my knuckles on top of the wooden desk. Still nothing.

 A moment later, his eyes flickered and he emerged into momentary consciousness.

 ”Really,” I said “why don’t you just go sleep.” I know those chairs can be uncomfortable and I would hate to see a good nap spoiled. Poor kid.

 ”Uh, ok,” he finally mumbled. Then, he stood and shuffled out of the room.

 I stood in silence and watched him go.

 Only afterward, did I turn back to the other students. They looked scared. Their eyes were the size of plates. The color had drained from their faces. Their expressions said, “That could have been me.”  I assumed they all intended to sleep in class as soon as they could and I had just complicated their plan.

Feb. 17, 2008

We came for the free rentals.  We stayed for the memories.

When we received a letter in the mail offering us a two-week free trial of Netflix, the rent-by-mail DVD company, we had every intention of canceling when the trial period ended.

Once we got our first few discs though, we decided to stay. We are not new release people. Instead, we spend most of our movie watching time working our way through television shows popular years ago.

Lately, we’ve been spending time in the ’80’s.  We’ve cleared the first two discs of “Moonlighting,” and put to bed quite a few episodes of “Newhart.”

It’s not just the jokes and implausible plot lines that keep me hooked. I’m also amazed to see how world has changed since, for example, 1985 when “Moonlighting” debuted. Maddy and Dave galavant around L.A. solving crime without a cell phone. They have no laptops, no satellite television, no google. When they want to know something, they have to get up from their desks!!

At a deeper level, television comedies from that period refelected the mood of their time. They were characterized by a simplicity, a straight-forward lack of irony, and a disarming goofiness that is foreign to us now.  Our defenses are higher, thicker, stronger these days.

Still, there are many wonderful things to recall from that era. Like, remember how excited you were when you heard the 1985 Nobel Prize for Physics had gone to Klaus Von Klitzing for his work on the quantized hall effect? Man, that was awesome.

Well, if you’d forgotten that, here’s a link to a page full of trivia about the year 1985.

February 16, 2009

It seems something always comes up to keep me out of Sunday School. Yesterday, it was vampires and teen sex.

Because my wife is one of our church’s musicians, I’m always in the building during the Sunday School hour, but never make it to class. Since my school/work schedule is so demanding, while others are tucked away in classrooms studying the scripture, or talking over Miss Julieta’s aches and pains, I can usually be found alone in the sanctuary already in my pew slogging through some academic treatise as dense and dull as it is obscure.

Yesterday, I took a break from the pretensions of academia long enough to savor this fantastic article about the Twilight series of books, the first of which was just released as a film last fall. The author is one of a new stable of up and coming writers at the The Atlantic Monthly. I’ve read her work before and liked it, but this article is exceptional and I wanted to share it.

On a personal note, it looks more and more like my contract with my current employer will not be renewed next year. I am a visiting professor, which is academic-speak for “temporary laborer.” When I signed on in the fall of ‘07 it was clear to me this was only a short-term job while the college looked for someone who might meet the criteria they thought important in a permanent guy.

Last year, they were unable to find anyone so my contract was renewed. This year, however, it looks like they might have found someone. So this fall, they’ll probably be showing him his new office and showing me the door. Therefore, we ask that you please remember us in your prayers. If you don’t pray, we also accept donations. Cash preferred.