The hour badly spent

Mark Erbacher believes that memorizing Revolutionary War documents makes one person more American than others.

As U.S. citizens, we feel we are well versed in our nation’s history and knowledgeable of its laws and practices. However, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently found - for the third year in a row - that a great number of Americans know very little about this nation’s history and government workings.

According to americancivicliteracy.org, of the over 2,500 randomly selected Americans who took the 33-question test, 1,700 failed. The average score was a depressing 49 percent. Possibly even more frightening is the average score of the elected officials that were surveyed: 44 percent. That means, of course, that the average person, according to this quiz, is actually more versed in American history and the government than those they have chosen to speak for them.

Eh. Once the "No Child Left Behind" generation grows up, those test scores should fly as high as a bald eagle. Of course this means once we have enough smarties we can take them off the endangered species list and hunt them in defense of our 2^nd Amendment rights.

Some of the results are simply awe striking. More than twice as many people knew that Paula Abdul is a judge on American Idol than knew that the quote “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is taken from President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, that, coincidentally, President-elect Barack Obama quoted in his acceptance speech.

Is this surprising? Paula Abdul has been fine since the 80s. "Of the people, by the people, for the people" has not characterized government in at least eight years. God damn America.

Almost 40 percent of people surveyed believe that the president has the right to declare war, when he or she doesn’t. Of those elected officials who took the quiz, 30 percent were unaware that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence. Also, 20 percent of these same elected officials thought the Electoral College was established to supervise the first presidential debates.

That’s quite a bit of information. Gee, I wonder where he’s going with all this.

I might be biased; I am, after all, a political science major and have studied a lot of these things more than most, but these results absolutely terrify me.

Part of me thinks my life would be much easier if Mark Erbacher was the standard by which my intelligence was measured. Think it’s tougher than going up against a fifth-grader.

So America, do us all a favor: pick up a newspaper, or a book for that matter, and learn something.

Whatever; books are for coastal liberal elites, like Erica Hateley. Presumably, many of us are reading your column. It might be helpful, therefore, to explain in an entertaining way, what your field of study (lol political "science") actually is and what sort of interesting useful reaganisms you learned in civics this week. Conversely, supercilious gasbaggery really won’t do us any good.

[K-State Collegian]

When the Claremont Trio — a violinist, a cellist and a pianist — played in McCain Friday night, I faced a special kind of angst: that of writing about musicians without actually knowing anything about music. Fortunately, though, an Expert Vibrato Analyst came along to help clarify the finer points of…well, vibrato and shit. Now we know what a "movement" is! Sort of.

The first piece, Haydn’s Trio in G major, was… well, I don’t remember much of it. The second piece was more modern; Schoenberg’s "Cafe Music." It was faux jazzy; it sounded like a dude in a suit sneaking through dark hallways. I kinda liked it but kinda also thought it felt like a cheap trick? Added just to please the youngs in attendance. The Expert Vibrato Analyst articulated the misgivings perfectly: when jazz isn’t performed by tried and true hep cats, it just sounds funny.

We both enjoyed the third piece: Antonín Dvorák’s Trio in F minor. And the encore — Gallop, the fifth movement of George Bizet’s composition, "Children’s Game" — was an excellent follow up, being that it was (1) upbeat, and (2) short.

Asking people about the music was awesome, as those who weren’t completely comfortable talking about chamber music struggled to sound like they were. "They’re definitely virtuosos," said one kid, adding that he enjoys pieces when they’re "played in minor keys" (ha ha ha, I have no idea WTF that means. I’m dumb. My biggest reason for attending was that the performers are hot). After the show I caught up with Professor AND Mrs. Donald Hedrick: "The playful virtuosity of the encore was fun." He added that he "liked the Dvorák the best. It speaks to my Slavik spirit. It reminds me of Prague (??)," he said (I caught him off guard). Professor Donnelly and his satanic eyebrows hit the nail on the head: "Chamber music scares people."

[Claremont On Tour]

Leave it to an English professor to use a high-minded subject like medieval literature as an excuse to flirt with students and fixate on sex, thus guaranteeing a captive audience.

"I’m a big geek," she said, going on to prove it by explaining that she watched the special features on her Lord of the Rings DVDs, which gave her insight into armor worn by medieval knights. Hell yeah that’s hot, and that’s not all.

Today’s topic was the lais (songs performed in 13th and 14th century Europe) written by Marie de France. What are lais usually about? Matlock explained by means of what she called a bad joke: "A lai is basically a brief romance." Actually that was an excellent joke.

One lai was about Lanval, a knight in King Arthur’s court. Depressed, Lanval went off into the forest and fell in love with a magic pixie dream girl. She loved him back and blessed him with wealth. Lanval grew generous at court, and people started to like him.

Once Lanval’s status rose among his peers, Queen Guinivere went after his nuts (and failed). Matlock made kissey noises to illustrate her point.

Later we discussed Tristan and Isolde, a timeless tale illustrating the pleasure of adulterous lovers being together. Matlock was satisfied that the movie "had pretty people." (We like when teachers take backhanded swipes at subject matter).

By the end of the class, there was more material to examine, but not enough time for it. "I skipped the part about celibacy," she said. "You can read that by yourself if you’re interested."

Did she just tell us to go masturbate? We were going to do that anyway.

Those of you who actually do give feedback recently observed that in the past, we have been preoccupied with rampant homophobic binge drinking, penis size, and "poetry" about shagging and/or not shagging 21-year-olds.

All that is behind us now. We are completely sober, our penis has grown (I’m a grower!), and uh, we can cool it on the poetry for a little while. Mostly because there are important, more mature issues to focus on. One thing, in fact, has been needling us for weeks now, and the confusion from it is driving us up the fucking wall. WE HAVE TO RESOLVE THIS. Specifically: who exactly the heck is reading this blog from Lake Charles, Louisiana? Seriously. If we don’t find out, we’ll keep blogging, but we’ll feel kinda weird about it. So Lake Charles, feel free to say hi in the comments.

Putnam, for me, is supposed to be temporary, but apparently everyplace else is filled to capacity. I talked to Housing this afternoon and they’re still processing cancelled contracts and adjusting for students who didn’t show up this semester. So there’s still hope as far as getting a place where I can prance around naked and sip foofy cocktails far from society’s harsh judgements.

 No problem, Lammle’s Santa Monica Theatre. We’ll continue to deposit our feces at the same place we always do: this blog.

So far I’ve gone to see Stop Kiss, the Modigliani String Quartet, Huck & Tom and the Mighty Mississippi, Too Many Sopranos, Brian Pemberly’s poetry reading, Dunya Mikhail’s poetry reading, Denise Lowe’s poetry reading, Allison Wallace’s memoir-reading, and lots of other fun stuff, all independent and date-less. But Thursday night’s performance of Romeo & Juliet was different. I’d been looking forward to this since last semester. I needed someone — and not just ANYONE, but someone special: another hyper-literate bastard, to sit with me and make mischief. Otherwise, the whole experience is ruined by constant thoughs of "I’m awesome and everybody else in the world missed out, because they all suck." So, Rhymes With Leather, my favorite nerd, heroically restored my faith in humanity by coming with me to this affair.

The acting was superb all-around. Notable roles:

The lanky Mercutio, of course. He swaggered around with a pimp cane and dick jokes, fucking dominating every scene in which he appeared. Pure awesomeness.

Benvolio delivered his urgent tone with a rich clarity to his voice.

Unfortunately, Romeo couldn’t accomplish this. His lines tripped out over each other at the same high speed throughout his performance; his sense of urgency overpowered, instead of underlining, his emotional expression. No joy, no despair, no delight, no pining adolescent lust, only the same homogenous desperation. Perhaps I was disinclined to like him because of his tousled hair, Ivy League chin, and piercing, intense eyes. But Rhymes With Leather didn’t seem to mind that stuff too much.

He had that kind of angsty, teen aloofness. You know? He reminded me a lot of the way that Leonard Whiting portrayed Romeo in the Franco Zeffirelli version. The fact that he was in love kind of takes over and of course he’s going to go crazy with desperation. His joy was and is Juliet, so–brace yourself–like Edward essentially can’t find his happiness without Bella, Romeo has all of his joy in Juliet. Basically there was no point in finding joy in anything else. This Romeo, I thought, handled that very well, and therefore I was pleased with his performance. He’s a teenager in love; what more can you ask for? You see that Twilight reference I slipped in?

Duly noted. Maybe she should be writing this review.

"It’s a girl thing," she explained during the post-perfomance reception, as I attentively guzzled mimosas. I see what she’s saying. And Romeo truly did a good job of body-acting; gestures, fluid grace moving across the stage — that stuff enhanced his part, and ultimately I did not dislike him.

I was originally disinclined to like Juliet solely on the basis of her pretty blonde tresses. And as The Grey Lady pointed out, Juliet held a doll with her in a lot of scenes, reminding us that she’s playing a 13-year-old, which we didn’t really want to think about. Nevertheless, it was clear early on that the actress really inhabited every scene she was in. Her voice was clear and pleading. She delivered her lines at a musical pace. Every word hung in the air, like the last line of a song refrain. And as she spoke she would move to and fro, across the stage or across the balcony, starry-eyed, clutching her hands and pivoting gracefully on her heeled shoes, putting a lot of body movement, along with the words, into delivering her character to us. Tres magnifique.

All in all, I was on the edge of my seat, the whole time, taking in every movement on the stage (some scenes had a lot of activity; fighting, dancing, more fighting. Those were a real treat) and every word that fell from everyone’s lips. I tip my hat to the pretentious bastard who actually threw the script together.