Gangs of Greensboro

There was some sort of gang fight outside my house yesterday. I live in suburbia, mind you, so this isn't something you see every day. Around 4:00 in the afternoon I noticed about 10 cars parked outside in the street that aren't normally parked there. The house I live in is on a dead-end street, so it's odd to see much traffic out there anyway. I don't think I would have paid much attention to what was going on if I hadn't noticed one of the cars; a white Honda with the shahada, or Islamic profession of faith, emblazoned on the back window. I put on my glasses (I have 20/80 vision) to see the Arabic calligraphy more clearly. As I was looking a man of Middle Eastern descent came running from the end of the street towards the car. He opened the trunk and pulled a black pistol out of his pants - what looked like a .45 caliber or 9mm. He placed the pistol in the trunk and ran back in the direction of where the street dead-ends. This was alarming as there is a high school a couple hundred yards beyond where the road dead-ends. Between where the road ends and where the school is located is a patch of woods with a roughly cut path running through it. Students come walking through the woods after school every day, as it's an easier way to get to this neighborhood than taking a more roundabout route through neighborhood streets.

Not long after the Middle Eastern looking guy had taken off to the woods, a couple of cars full of black dudes pulled up on our street and parked. Two of them had baseball bats, which they tucked into their baggy pants. One of them whipped out a cell phone; he appeared to be yelling at someone on the other end. They began walking down the street towards the woods as well. Now I was very curious. This wasn't a game of pick-up baseball.

I went outside to see if I could see or hear anything. Nothing was visible from where I was standing, but I could hear yelling coming from the woods. There was a group of people arguing with each other. Well, not so much arguing as hurling insults at each other and saying "muthafucka" every other word. I heard the distinct sound of a metal baseball bat hitting something - that hollow metallic ping that I'm sure anyone who's played peewee baseball is familiar with. The yelling and shouting continued. A minute or so later I could hear the sound of many feet and limbs tearing through the woods; leaves being rustled and branches snapping. Roughly 20 or so high school age kids came running out of the woods, including the baseball bat armed black dudes and the Middle Eastern guy. To borrow a phrase, they were running like scalded dogs. Everyone made for their cars and burned rubber. By this time I was standing in the drive-way, but I don't think a single one of them even noticed me as they ran past. A minute or so later two Hispanic dudes came walking casually out of the woods, got into a red SUV, and left very casually.

Within five minutes about 10 cop cars were on our street. I told them everything I saw and heard. The woods were searched but as far as I know all they found was a baseball bat. One of the cops suggested that it was gang related, but I didn't see any gang colors. From what I could tell it was a planned ambush or confrontation. Being so close to the school, so out of sight, and so highly traveled by students who live in this area, it makes for a good place to ambush or instigate fights.

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On a completely unrelated note, Aidan Hart is one of my new heroes. I have never seen modern iconography done so beautifully, so true to the old style, and yet possessed of such a unique mannerism as Hart's. I'm simply enchanted by his icons. They reveal not only the poverty of my own work, but the poverty of those I would consider to be my superiors in the art. I was marveling at how luminous and old these images were (I mean, so many of his works look like they were made in the 12th century), and discovered that he uses semi-precious stones as some of his pigments. Amazing.

I'm currently working on an icon of Saint Elizabeth, the new Russian martyr. She is the first 20th century Saint I've attempted to render. Prince Felix Yussupov records a trip he took with her to the isolated Solovetz monastery, located on an island in the White Sea. What he recorded of the Grand Duchess is one of the most human portraits of a saint that exists:

We went one day to visit one of these hermits, who lived in a cavern in the heart of the forest. It was reached through an underground passage so small that it could only be entered by crawling on all fours. I managed to take a snapshot of the Grand Duchess in this position, which I showed her to her great amusement. Our anchorite slept on a stone, and the sole ornament of his cell was an icon of Our Saviour before which a night light flickered, He gave us his blessing without saying a single word.

My favorite episode involves the purchase of a bear by the prince:

On our return, we stopped again at Archangel. While the Grand Duchess visited churches and convents, I spent two hours before the train left in strolling around the town. In the main street my attention was attracted to a poster announcing the sale by auction of a white bear. I went into the auction room and bought the bear, which was as vicious as it was big. I could imagine the reception he would give intruders in the courtyard of our house on the Moika. I gave instructions that he should be sent at once to the station, and saw to it myself that he was put in a cattle truck which the terrified stationmaster promised to have coupled to the Grand Duchess' train. Having made these arrangements, I joined the latter in her saloon carriage where she was having tea with a few ecclesiastics who had come to see her off. All of a sudden, we heard furious grunts outside. A crowd gathered on the platform; our visitors exchanged anxious glances. The only person who kept calm was the Grand Duchess, and she was convulsed with laughter when she heard what it was all about. "You are quite mad," she said to me in English. "What will these poor bishops think?" I had no idea what they thought, but I knew what they would have liked to do to me from the sour looks they gave me and from their icy good-bys.

5 years later Elizabeth received her crown of martyrdom at the hands of the Bolsheviks.

First day back

Returning to school after a month's absence is trying in that for all of your freshness and rest, you are quickly reminded of how depressing the place is and how it makes you so weary as to want to flee from it. I first went to the library to return some books and check out some others. As I made for the elevator I noticed two fellow history students approaching me. I do not care if they read this; I suspect anyone scarcely does, but I said "how are you doing?" and received no response from them save "hey." I slowed my walk to talk to them, as they were going in the opposite direction, but they proceeded onwards, as if they did not wish to speak to me. This was especially upsetting because one of these individuals, a woman I will not name, expressed great interest in remaining my friend some months ago, after first spurning my romantic advances. Now she never contacts me, and would flee from my presence rather than give me a line of talk.

Afterwards I went to the humanities building, which is itself utterly inhumane. It is built like a cave; it's walls lined with square pieces of slate. There are scarcely any windows, or benches in the halls, and the walls have little or no decoration (you can't nail a picture into rock). I came to see if the woman I had been assigned to for the semester, the department secretary, was in her office. When I discovered she was not there I went in search of her, only to find a professor that I dislike, a man I'll call J. He is a dandy of a man, and he walks and engages with everyone else as if he is conscious of the fact that we all know he is pretty. Today he was wearing all black; black shoes, socks, slacks, shirt, and tie. Before he noticed me I spun on my heels and walked quickly away.

The only bright spot was running into my friend A. We may not be the closest of friends, but at least she speaks to me. This semester is going to be trying, but at least it is my last at this wretched school.

Having accomplished very little I went home. Tomorrow I'm not going in, but staying home to read. I'm currently reading about Henry Hughes, one of the lesser known pro-slavery ideologues of the Old South. I see many similarities between Hughes and myself, at least in our personalities. On October 20, 1850, Hughes wrote in his diary: "I wished I labored with my hands. I wish a little cottage, with honeysuckles around it was mine." I have this same wish, but unlike Hughes, I am not prevented by great ambition.

On Tudor Accession.

Imagine being the attendant to an aging, incompetent king who no longer cares for anything but his empty world, which consists of little more than the smoking of cigarettes, drinking gin, and looking out at the world like a misanthropic shut-in slowly dying of consumptive cough.

Last semester I experienced such. Last semester I was assigned to the worst professor in the world. I cannot name him here, though I assure you nothing would please me more than to let the world know of his utter disregard for his students, indeed for everyone but himself. What a depressing specimen of humanity! This professor, who I will refer to as F., is an older man, who some years ago suffered a stroke, yet managed to stay on as a professor at my university. F. can still function, but the stroke has mostly impeded his mobility. He shuffles with a cane and walking a mere 100 feet causes him to get winded. He speaks with an effeminate Southern accent and wears large, plastic frame glasses with a gold chain. He never cleans the lenses, so he looks out at everything through a disgusting glaze of dead skin and body oil. He is wholly bald, except for a pathetic comb-over. Nose hairs grow out of his nostrils to the extent that they form a type of handlebar mustache in their own right. Although he cultivates no actual beard, he scarcely shaves and white scruff is perpetually clinging to his sagging flesh. He is, in polite Southern parlance, “never married,” a phrase which indicates homosexuality. This was something I was ignorant of until very recently, but it explains his lack of a wife and dress, which was idiosyncratic to say the least (he owns more pairs of Crocs, and in more colors I believe, than most women). He has no children, no wife, and lives alone.

His office is a picture of gross negligence. There are papers and boxes stacked haphazardly. Boxes of books he’s received in the mail but never opened, balled up, crusty tissues, old newspapers and copies of the Chronicle of Higher Education, and an assortment of stockpiled and unopened bottles of Snapple and bags of Lay’s potato chips. There is a collection of old, gigantic cups of Starbucks iced coffee, which he drinks every day, but never finishes, and remain until the cleaning lady removes them after a few days. He is clearly a disorganized personality. When I came into his office in the morning (which was every day, with no respite), he would be seated, in his chair looking dourly at a newspaper, in Elvis Costello’s words “picking upon the bones of last week’s news,” for the newspapers were often days old. I would sit down and he would question me about “what I knew,” which was very little since I wished to keep the conversation as brief as possible. I only wanted to know what I had to do that day, nothing more. Conversation with him was a chore since he is intolerant, ignorant, and ridiculously old-fashioned. He once expressed the opinion that all Presbyterians were “hypocrites” (I did not mention I was raised one). On another occasion he declared his pleasure at hearing of the death of historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese. When I asked why he replied, “because she’s a communist and a feminist.” He seemed surprised to learn that Elizabeth Fox-Genovese had repudiated Marxism and converted to Catholicism some time before her death. But that statement, more than just about anything, made me despise the man (Elizabeth and Eugene Genovese are my historical heroes, and I love both their Marxian works and their more conservative writings, such as “Mind of the Master Class.”).

He is a feeble man, and for too long I allowed that fact to cloud my perception of his actions. At times I got the sense that he was using his old age and declining condition to get me to do more work than I was supposed to be doing for him. I was only assigned to him for 15 hours a week, but just sitting in on all three of his courses each week took up 9 hours. On top of that I was keeping his grade book, attendance, answering emails students sent him (he can’t work a computer, or a non-rotary phone), administering tests, grading objective and essay portions of tests, administering make-up tests, and holding ad-hoc office hours. I also bothered to close his office door and turn off the lights at the end of the day, something he never did. He never even turned his own computer off. In the course of the entire semester I only remember it being off once, and that was when the power went out at school. So, in addition to all of this I had my regular grad school responsibilities: reading a couple books a week, writing a paper or two a week, and working on a 40 page research paper.

His classes were embarrassing. I was the GA for two sections of a 200 level course on Western Civ. and a 300 level course on English history. In neither class were the students required to write a paper; this isn’t surprising for a 200 level, but for 300 level history courses writing a research paper is par for the course. This wasn’t the only standard that was lowered. Lecture hardly ever took place; instead, he made me show videos. Videos, videos, videos. Generally students are happy to get to see a video, but in his classes they were so common that the students actually began to get sick of them. I’d say 80% of the semester was taken up with videos. Kenneth Clark, Simon Schama, and the HBO mini-series on Elizabeth I were passed off as good history. I could tell he had been showing these videos for years, especially Kenneth Clark’s “Civilization.” Since we showed the same video in two sections of the same course every day, I began to notice that he always laughed at the same snobbish jokes Kenneth Clark made – once in the morning and then again in the afternoon with the second section. His laughs were short bursts of air, rather like hiccups. On many days he simply would leave the class once the video had started and go home, leaving me to watch the class and ensure that something was learned. But generally students would wait until he was gone and leave the class very discreetly. It got so bad that eventually I told the students that if they had any respect for me they would at least stay in class. They didn’t have to watch the video; they could sleep for all I cared, but they should at least stay. This seemed to work, and by the last quarter of the semester I was able to keep the vast majority in class, although many of them were elsewhere mentally.

The tests were a travesty. He gave the answers to the fill in the blank section the week before the test. The review sheets were word-for-word what would be included on the tests. The essay questions were also given beforehand, but he always failed to adequately prepare the students for them since there was no lecture. When he did attempt to prepare the students for the essays, they scarcely profited. His lectures were generally hard to follow and his handwriting was illegible. Eventually I was enlisted to write on the board for him as he lectured. On at least one occasion he wasn’t even at school, so I had to prepare the students for the essays. Since I knew little about the subject at hand, I did a very poor job of preparing them. To top it all off his grading was inconsistent; students who got Bs should have received Cs and students who wrote little more than a paragraph would receive Bs. Students rarely failed his tests, though. I can only remember two or three students who failed tests, out of 150 students. Students who were making grades in the 60s and high 50s were receiving Ds.

No students failed in any of his classes last semester. This is out of 150 students. At least three individuals failed to show up for the final exam. His solution? Count their second test grades twice. So, these three individuals were given passing grades without even showing up for the final. Another student, after complaining to him about a grade she made on a quiz, received 10 points to her final average, catapulting her from a mid-range B to an A+. All because she complained vociferously.

I did more than half of his work last semester. A conservative estimate is 60%, but I think I did a solid 80% of his work. All he did was occasionally come in, talk for 15 minutes, and grade some essays. I sat in class every day, took attendance, played the videos, typed up the tests, administered them, graded the vast majority of them, kept the grade/attendance book, kept the office hours, and made sure everything didn’t fall apart because of his negligence. And he’s still trying to get me to do his work now, even though I’m not his assistant any longer. He wants me to read his student evaluations, which is illegal, to make sure that they are “fair.” I didn’t flatly refuse, I simply ignored his request. He emailed me the other day and asked me to answer an email he received from a student about her grade last semester. It’s not gonna happen. I refuse to. If I continue to do this he will continue to use me. Last week he invited me to have lunch with him, not because he enjoys my company, but to serve his own interests. Paying for my lunch sets up a sort of clientage whereby he can call on me to do favors for him. I won’t have it.

There is a great deal of talk in the department regarding his job. He plans on retiring at the end of this year, but the higher ups want to remove him from the classroom while still paying him. The head of the graduate school asked me what I thought should happen and I gave him two scenarios: remove him from the classroom so that he can no longer screw over hundreds of students, or failing that, make sure you assign him a grad student who can keep everything from falling apart and keep things straight. For now it looks like he will still be on at the university. I’ll just have to avoid him as best I can, which shouldn’t be hard since I’m not going to be there much during the day.

I am glad for this experience, although it was without a doubt my worst semester in six years of higher education.

Free Market

The free market is just what its name suggests; a market where everything is free. Well, not totally; the only price is your dignity. My friend C. goes to this place every month to give away junk he’s picked up and to pick up new junk. I went with C. and K. to the free market last weekend. It was an experience.

Characters begin to gather at the Carrboro town commons around 1:30 on Saturday. They plop down boxes full of junk; clothes, children’s books, macramé, vinyl records by Yves Montand, wooden bowls, and bike parts. Other people’s clothes, unwashed, and still smelling of their homes. Items that look like they’ve been in the bottoms of drawers for 25 years, only to meet this undignified fate. So many of these things look like they were purposely made to be generic junk. To me there is something dirty in this, and I don’t mean simply bacterial. I get the sense that some people really rely on the free market to get by. Hispanic women swarm around each box as it arrives, and you have to crane your neck in order to get a look at what’s inside. They empty a box of space heaters in a heartbeat. Frenzy and curiosity. You wouldn’t give a damn about this stuff had it been on sale in Goodwill for 99 cents, but the fact that it’s free changes the whole dynamic. Suddenly you’re seizing hold of things and putting them in your car for protection from thieves.

C. is in his element. He finds a free fedora and scarf and walks around wearing them, calling himself “Prince of the Hobos.” In what is without a doubt the find of the day, he comes across all three extended edition LOTR films, in their original cases, in perfect condition. That’s like $150 worth of DVDs for free. My friend Sweet shows up and we stand back and watch the scene. Carrboro is such a crazy town. It’s not North Carolina; I know North Carolina. I grew up 20 miles away from Carrboro, yet it’s completely different. There are too many hippies here, too many unconventional people for this to be part of North Carolina. Carrboro is the patchouli scented pimple growing on the ass of North Carolina.

Free market is clearly something the anarchists have latched onto. A couple dozen anarchist types with gutter trash clothes and dreadlocks (I can hardly tell them apart from the homeless, who are legion in Carrboro/Chapel Hill) are on the scene giving away free bread, bananas, potatoes, jars of pickles, and of course revolutionary literature. One of the pamphlets is about how to fix your bicycle. I find it amusing how cycling has come to be some sort of revolutionary thing, and yet little old conservative me does it every day because it’s cheap and fun. I don’t find cycling to be inconsistent with a traditionally conservative political outlook, just with a way of life that is based around suburbs and long commutes. When the anarchists dump the free viands out onto a table, the crowd swarms around, tearing through boxes of bananas and potatoes. There were also dozens of loaves of bread, stale, from Trader Joe’s. I was reminded of the gladiatorial battles in which the Roman Emperors would display their munificence by having slaves throw loaves of bread to the swarming plebes. Hanging over the scene is a banner that reads: “THE COMMONS. NO LANDLORDS OR BUREAUCRATS.” No dignity also.