Some things, like hair, are more important than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

If you're in my curriculum group you probably think this blog post is going to be about how I got into an argument with our guest lecturer today over the disgusting ease with which he switched between sets of terms (Israel and the Palestinian Territories, vs The Occupiers and Palestine) depending on whether he was speaking to Palestinians or Israelis.

But no. I have an even greater injustice to speak out against.

So this guest speaker enters the room. I take a quick look at him--besides the tie that's slightly too loud for England he looks pretty normal. Typical man in a suit from an organization. However, as soon as he was invited to begin his talk, things quickly went downhill. With an ounce of hysteria in his voice, the first words out of his mouth were a desperate insistence that the windows be opened. As he threw off his jacket, tore off his tie, and rolled up his sleeves, I was starting to worry that he was having some kind of an extreme male menopausal hot flash that would result in us having a naked and crazed guest lecturer standing in front of us.

I froze in panic as some classmates hurried to the windows to allow cool air in. I know it must seem as though I'm making a bigger deal out of this man's uncomfortable warmth than perhaps I should, but I know that if I were in the same situation (a guest in unfamiliar territory who feels uncomfortably warm) I would just grin and bear the heat. I don't care if I'm dressed in more layers than a Victorian woman and the classroom's heat is so intense that the friction of pencils on paper causes small brush fires to break out--I don't give a shit. If I'm a guest speaker somewhere I'm STILL not going to perform the professional equivalent of a burlesque show by removing even a blazer.

My God, I thought. My God, this man must be crazy. The tie is off. And beneath his polite requests there is a palpable sense of urgency that seems to scream, "I AM SO WARM! I AM SO WARM! WE HAVE TO OPEN THE WINDOWS IMMEDIATELY!!!!"

With the opening of windows and speedy professional nudity this man's thirst for coolness was immediately quenched. For a second I was ready to forget the fact that this man was OH MY GOD SO WARM!, but then he turned his back to the class.

I saw it, and for a split second I continued my usual daydreaming. Today's reverie involved Robin Hood asking me to give up the whole teaching thing in favor of simply being a badass. This then morphed into imagining Robin Hood, St Stephen, and Ronald McDonald having a picnic together. They were just about to--WAIT. WAIT. Hold the phone. Stop the presses. Get into your nuclear bunker. What in the name of Hank F. Effington is attached to the back of that guy's head?

From the front he looked totally normal. Okay, maybe his mustache was slightly too big and slightly too ginger for his gray beard, but otherwise he looked average. Slight receding hairline, gray hair, glasses...nothing too weird here. I found myself employing my Jedi powers to get him to turn again so I could catch sight of it. Come on...come on...

BINGO!

I took a moment to just stare at it in all of its rattail glory. I've really never seen anything like it. It looked like if he grew it out for another couple of months he could tuck it into his belt loop and use it as an alternative to suspenders. It was so long, a nearly never-ending braid, and my God was it tiny. At its widest it was about the width of my pinky, but it quickly withered away into a tiny braid that would make a fine toupee for a fetus. Such a tiny braid, how could he do it himself? Does his wife braid it every morning as she silently dies inside? Can such a man even attract a wife?

I briefly got a hold of myself and turned away from the hypnotic hairdo, but unfortunately I made eye contact with one of my classmates. And we just knew. We just knew. This man has a goddamn RATTAIL.

Well fuck, I thought to myself. I came here today to learn, but there goes any hope of me not having at least three inappropriate and uncontrollable giggles today. All of them hair-related. As it happened, I did manage to control my giggles (though I did have a couple of spontaneous fits of shaking). I did, however, find myself unable to stop myself from imagining what it would be like to pull on it. Not just a slight tug. I mean a serious yank that throws the man around the room like a rag doll tied to a ceiling fan. I wanted to grab hold of that rattail and drag the man around the room. I wanted to use that rattail to turn that man into a human hammer like Miss Trunchbull does. How much force would I need to apply to floor him simply by tugging on his hair? I wondered to myself. Could it be used like a leash? When he gives horsey rides to his children (assuming he has any I think we can safely assume they all--even the girls--have rattails), do they use it as a whip?

But enough about this man's hair. There's one more thing that must be addressed:

The Snort.

Look, I know what it's like to laugh. Sometimes you get a little carried away and you might snort a little bit. But provided you commit ritual suicide immediately afterwards, this snort is completely forgivable. This man, however, apparently thought he'd forgo the laughter that accompanies this embarrassing and unholy noise and simply have a snort in a vacuum.

What am I talking about?

Here's a normal snort laughter:
[*Punchline of a joke*]
Hahahahahhaha--SNORK--HaOMGthatwassoembarrassinghahahah

Here's this guy's laughter:
[*Punchline of a joke*]
SNORK!


I'm sorry, but simply making a snort noise is not an acceptable alternative to laughter. I can forgive his gross political views, his hot flashes, and even his rattail. But I feel that snort laughing without actually laughing is a character flaw that should be grounds for immediate termination. And I don't mean firing him.

Giraffe cranes with a taste for blood.

I wish people had “for hire” lights, just like taxis. I don’t mean “for hire” like we’re all prostitutes, I mean “for hire” in the “I’m ready and willing to interact with other homo sapiens at this moment” sense. It’d be perfect for those days when I want people to fuck off—I’d just turn off the light and only tourists and others ignorant of taxi protocol would continue to try to hail a conversation. Because sometimes you (and by you I mean me) have days where you don’t want to be rude to people and you can’t just tell them the truth: that right now the thought of interacting with another person makes you desperately want to vomit. And because humans don’t have “for hire” lights, the only option left is to hide. And think about giraffes.

That’s really what I did today. Apologies to people trying to track me down, but I need to think about giraffes much more than I need to interact with other people right now.

Before I talk about giraffes, I think I need to talk about cranes for a bit first. See, I’ve been thinking about cranes and claws for a while. Mostly because a few nights ago I had a dream that the school I was working at suddenly materialized in a claw machine that I was controlling. So then I dreamed that I could pick up students and teachers who pissed me off, hoist them up into the air, and then drop them into what Dream Sam recognized as nuclear waste, but which Awake Sam recognizes was actually horse shit.

Another thing that has got me thinking about cranes a lot is the fact that every day on the drive home we catch a glimpse of the city. There’s this one moment in particular where we get off the freeway and you see this glorious bit of green, and the city’s famous buildings sort of poke through the newer buildings and the green and…and…I can’t really describe it. But I love it.

But then there are construction cranes. Oh my God, there are cranes. Cranes everywhere. But not that much construction… For a while I had convinced myself that the cranes were actually an invading alien race, quietly biding its time until it had bred enough new cranes to form a crane army for a hostile takeover. Now, of course, I see that’s ridiculous. See, these cranes peer their heads over the houses and famous spires of the city like giraffes sticking their heads over the railings of the zoo’s giraffe enclosure to say “Herro!” to tourists.

Yes, dear reader. I am convinced that cranes are actually mechanical giraffes bred in the locked, underground laboratories of this city by creepy graduate students from the Ukraine to kill the people of this town.

Igor: “We’ve done it! We have successfully created the world’s first mechanical giraffe!”

Evgeny: “MUAHAHA!”

Igor: “And now we shall let these creatures loose on the city to wreak havoc, these giraffe cranes with a taste for blood! MUAHA—“

Evgeny: “And Cheerios.”

Igor: “Sorry?”

Evgeny: “They are giraffe cranes with a taste for blood…and Cheerios. I fed them Cheerios, too. They seemed to quite like them…”

Igor: “[*heavy sigh*]”


And so they’ve planted these mechanical giraffes everywhere in the city. I sat and stared for an hour at one in particular today, and I’m convinced he is a mechanical giraffe who wants to avenge the brutal turning into scrap metal of his father, the great giraffe crane king, Okonkwo. I imagine him going on a vengeful rampage through the city. “Nooooo!” people would scream as he picked them up and lifted them over the city before dropping them to be impaled on one of the city’s dreaming spires. Well, the few Israelis he’d find would say, “No no no no no” in a rapid fire, but everyone else would definitely go for the one “Nooooo!”

And so Chinua Achebe, this vengeful giraffe crane, lies dormant as the students and hordes of open-mouthed Japanese tourists pass by him, not knowing what level of monster lies in wait on the corner, just by that pub and that library.

But I know.

My cover letter

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am pleased to apply for the post of Teacher of RE at your school, as advertised on the TES website.

At this point you are probably wondering what that blinding light is. You know, that mesmerizing but slightly painful light that seems to be suddenly shining in your life out of nowhere, just as soon as you opened this letter? Well, to answer your question, that light is the sun shining out of my ass.

Now now, stick with me here. You are dealing with the biggest BAMF this side of the River Avon. I don’t even know which side of the Avon we’re on at this point, since I haven’t the slightest clue where the fuck the River Avon is, but regardless of the Avon’s geographical location I can pretty much guarantee that I am the greatest teacher you will ever see.

What do I mean? I mean my kids know the Bible so well that they can fart the 10 Commandments in morse code in their sleep. My kids understand the concept of the Trinity so well that they literally made their Math teacher’s head explode. My kids understand arguments for the existence of God so well that Richard Dawkins actually weeps with fear and dives into the nearest trashcan like something out of Scooby Doo when he bumps into my kids on the streets of Oxford.

Bitches worried about how I deal with SEN kids? I am such a goddamn champ that I actually cured my students of their SEN issues. None of this standing around trying to make provisions for these kids like a little bitch would. I cured blindness, much like Jesus. Except I did one better than JC and cured dyslexia as well.

Safeguarding? You’re worried that I’m not gonna keep your kids safe? I will personally bite the head off of any bastard who tries to lay so much as a perverted GLANCE at my kids. And then I will use his head in some kind of a fucked up voodoo ritual—that’s how seriously I take safeguarding. One time a kid had some weird bruises on his arms so I used my laser vision to incinerate his parents into an irrelevant pile of dust that blew away in a slight breeze--at Parents Evening. And then I had one of them free biscuits and ate it like it ain’t no thang.

Bitch please, you think I can’t differentiate for pupils of differing ability levels? Bitch, it be like 27 different goddamn lessons when I teach.

In conclusion, if you don’t employ a fucking BALLER like me, I will have you sectioned. And no, I don’t mean taken in for mental health observations. I mean literally chopped up into sections.

Sincerely,
Sam

I think I'm too immature to get to Heaven.

Well, the good news is that I did finally venture out of the library. This morning your favorite (yeah, I said it. What of it?) field anthropologist ended up attending mass, and in terms of having a meaningful experience I think I would have to call it an indisputable failure. And, as always, that was my own damn fault. True, it wasn’t as bad as the time I spent almost all of a Quaker meeting thinking about what would happen if someone were to fart (would they just stand up and claim it as divine inspiration?), but it wasn’t much better.

Usually when I venture into mass or any other service I tend to use it as an opportunity for a nice think, since I’m not much of a participant. Sometimes it turns into a great experience, as if it’s meditation for stuffy Republicans like me, but other times…like today…it’s basically an hour of me trying to block out inappropriate thoughts. And no, you filthy perverts, when I say “inappropriate thoughts” I don’t mean vulgar mental images. Today “inappropriate thoughts” means, “What is the worst song I could possibly start belting right now in the middle of mass?”

This is my version of a Koan, I guess.

Think about it. You are in a large church, surrounded by priests, people training for the priesthood, and the saintly people they know and love. It’s an incredibly important service, there’s a sacrament in it and everything, and my God is there a lot of solemn kneeling in prayer. You’ve given it a lot of thought and you’ve concluded that you’ll probably only be able to get a few bars in before one of the acolytes tackles you into submission—so which song is it? Which song is the most hideously inappropriate thing you could possibly imagine belting during the middle of mass?

What got me thinking about this was all the special clothing they put on for services. Observing the cassock and cotta-fest that is mass made me think of muumuus. Thinking of muumuus made me think of fat ladies. Thinking of fat ladies made me think of the busty black women who sing, “It’s Raining Men.” Which, obviously, gave me the urge to stand on top of my chair and start belting “It’s Raining Men.”

As soon as I became conscious of that thought I conceded defeat. Trying to have a proper think during today’s mass would be an exercise in futility, so I might as well devote the next hour or so to coming up with an even worse thought than singing “It’s Raining Men” instead of “Agnus Dei.”

I decided that “It’s Raining Men” clearly wasn’t beaten by such favorites as Tom Jones’ “Sex Bomb” or Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl,” but it was definitively trumped by anything produced by the Village People, particularly the YMCA. (Though, once the fog machine that is the thurible really gets going, what is the church if not a massive and cheesy bar mitzvah? Get some cheap DJ lighting in there to play on the fog and you got yourself a Jewish rite of passage.)

The ready-made ridiculous dance moves (and I don’t just mean the wacky arm movements—yes, I mean the embarrassing pelvic thrusting, too) that come with the territory made the YMCA a strong candidate, but thinking about bar mitzvahs made me consider the potential of music from other faiths. The obvious choice was the Islamic call to prayer, but that seemed less ridiculous and more dickish. Simply drowning out one statement of faith with another would be turning a bit of fantasy into a bit of jihad, and that just ain’t my style.  

What about the song “Chai”? 

We had to learn how to dance to this travesty in religious school. I have to imagine that Israeli dancing is probably the most offensive thing you could possibly do in a church; not because it’s offensive to the church in particular, but just because Israeli dancing is simply offensive in all contexts. I should probably provide full disclosure though: the fact that my uncoordinated ass was forced to dance in circles as a crucial part of my religious education from the age of 3 until I was 12 might have something to do with my dislike of Israeli dance. So maybe singing and dancing to “Chai” in the middle of mass is not objectively all that awful, when compared with the option of the YMCA.

But I don’t want to rule out all faith-related musical inappropriateness. Although, to be honest, the worst thing you could possibly sing in the middle of a mass in a high church setting probably comes from the Christian tradition itself:

RE according to Sam

After Friday you should expect a massive post about my first taste of teaching (it’s in the works, I just can’t be bothered to finish it until I turn in my paper on Friday), but in the meantime I’ve been thinking a lot about this paper. If you’re not part of the Religious Education Massive*, then I should probably explain that we need to plan how to teach Christianity to middle schoolers (Key Stage 3) over six weeks. So basically I have six lessons to teach all of Christianity. Whatever, no big deal.

(*I learned the word “Massive” the other week, and apparently it’s like a gang…and now I can’t stop using it for everything. I’ve even started using it to refer to certain items of clothing, like my underwear is no longer my underwear but rather the “TOP DRAWER MASSIVE.”)

What I hate about this assignment is that I have to make the lesson plan that looks good, not the lesson plan that I would desperately like to do. The lesson plan I have to do is carefully justified with education policy documents and research into how kids learn. The lesson plan I would LIKE to do is justified with “because I feel like it.”

Actually, my justification would be in the form of song. I’d sing “because” to the tune of “We’re Off To See The Wizard” from “The Wizard of Oz.” So it’d be like, “Because because because because becaaaaaauuuuuuuse….” And then say, “Because I said so.” It’s the sort of thing that makes me think I’ll be a fantastic parent one day.

Anyway, what is this fantasy scheme of work? Well, basically we’d just sort of walk around—my God would there be a lot of walking. And we’d listen to Christian pop and haredi techno and Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise,” and it’d be fine. Occasionally we’d feed ducks and talk about it, and when we felt like it we would spend hours with our noses in the Bible, looking for something to laugh about. You know, the sort of thing that gives me the giggles during services (“These men are not drunk as you assume—it’s only 9 in the morning!”).

When we got bored we’d make fun of Midrash and then, if we were still bored, we’d invent the field of Christian Midrash just for laughs. We’d make fun of the Talmud for obsessing over minutiae that God Himself doesn’t have time to worry about, and after we finished we’d put together a “WHO WORE IT BEST?” fashion magazine spread for various popes.

We’d make frequent visits to churches, mosques, synagogues, cult centers, whatever, and for once in my whole method I’d lay down the law and I’d beat any kid who set one foot out of line. Unless someone farted, in which case the children would be encouraged first to laugh and then to loudly debate which member of the congregation dealt it. And rank the church on The List.

As I have completely unpredictable whims, one moment we’d be kumaya-ing it up and looking at squirrels somewhere, and five minutes later I’d be screaming at them to sit their happy asses down, shut up and open their books. I very humbly believe that this system, my system, is the best system of education. Ever.