The hour badly spent

Long ago, my mother told me the origin of the word "jazz." Early in the 20th century, white people slandered the art form by calling it "ass" music. When it started actually catching on, everyone had to call it something else, less ass-ish. Add J, change the SS to ZZ. And quit being so square.

As part of my journal project for Development of the English Language, I checked up on my mom’s story and looked up the etymology of jazz in the OED. Turns out my she was mostly right. In West Africa, "jas" or "jass" was a word that meant "hurry up," having a strong sexual connotation. When black people in America started to play the type of music we now call jazz, mainstream musical culture wanted to deride the style by calling it "jass," with emphasis on the sexual connotation. But it caught on. So instead they did the thing with the ZZs.

I dutifully reported my findings to Dr. Potts (legs!) one afternoon after she had showed the class an educational film on jive talk. The next class period, she talked about the word jazz. Exactly what I had told her!

To emphasize her point, she wrote "jazz" on the board.

Then next to it she wrote "jass."

But she put a space between j and ass.

Then she underlined ass.

Then she said something else.

Then she said "ass."

Okay, yes, I know that was a lot of buildup for a minor payoff. But I am, like, really immature. Scope it: later on that day Dr. Potts solicited our input on the origin of the word cockroach.

"Where do you get that word? Does it have anything to do with roach? Or cock?"

Might as well say a few words about my book-learnin’ and whatnot, since that’s how I pass the time in between drinks.

So I guess I’ll talk about how much I hate Spanish class.

All the Spanish professors I’ve met here are slightly hostile and give lots of busywork.

And there are way too many messy oral presentations (not the good kind). Becoming fluid at one-on-one conversation is one thing. Stumbling through conversation in front of the whole class is completely different. Last week was our biggest project: a group presentation on racism, sexism, machismo, and marianism. I was all set up to deliver a knockout show, complete with Virgin Mary Powerpoint slides (hottie!). But when I started talking, I kept tripping up and saying "uh, umm." I was feeling really self-conscious about my otherwise excellent espanolish, but then I remembered that I do the exact same stupid stumbly thing in English. So in this class, if you’re not good at public speaking already, tu te coges.

Comedy screenwriting was just not what I thought it would be. We watched some sitcoms - which usually just put me to sleep, because I don’t really watch TV anyway (I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll be the one to make the pretentious douchebag jokes). We wrote a scene for Frasier and a script for 30 Rock. That 30 Rock script was a vampire, sucking all my creative semen like a Korean porn star, leaving me with none for myself (I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll be the one to make the contortionist masturbation jokes).

Last semester, in the process of taking Jonathan Holden’s poetry class, I got used to the act of writing poetry regularly. In screenwriting, all we wrote was that one scene and that one script. I had not become used to writing scenes regulary, so when script time rolled around, yo me cogio’ otra vez (it was another frantic clusterfuck). That whole time period gave me writer’s block, and to top it off, the script turned out sort of unfunny. Hopefully they won’t notice at tomorrow’s workshopping.

But at least that’s all done. Development of the English Language was pretty rad. And now that the worst is behind me in the other courses, maybe I can catch up on the reading for Dr. Potts (legs!), so I can stop faking it in front of her. Heh.