Why I Love Chaucer

This is Chaucer.



Well, not really because it's a painting, and probably not even a very good likeness at that because it was done in the 15th century, after Chaucer died.

Ennyhoo. While there are many enjoyable things about The Canterbury Tales,  perhaps the greatest is Chaucer's deep love of fart jokes. So, for example in "The Miller's Tale," our main wench Alison is pursued by two suitors (despite being married) - Nicolas and Absalon. Absalon is kind of a fop, so clearly she goes for Nicolas, the sexy Oxford grad student.

Here's the setup. No wait. First, a vocabulary lesson, and then the setup.

ers = ass
yblent = blinded
buttok = buttock
fart = fart

Now you know Middle English. NOW, the setup.

Nicolas and Alison are lying in bed and Nicolas hears Absalon wooing Alison outside the window. Nicolas gets some ideas, so then you get this little vignette:

And up the wyndowe dide he hastily,
And out his ers he putteth pryvely
Over the buttok, to the haunche-bon;
And therwith spak this clerk, this Absalon,
"Spek, sweete bryd, I noot nat where thou art."
This Nicolas anon leet fle a fart
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,
That with the strook he was almost yblent

That's Middle English, by the way. Here's an artist's representation:




I just wanted to use that picture.

Little does Nicolas know that Absalon is waiting with a hot iron from the smithy across the street,

And Nicolas amydde the ers he smoot.

Classic slapstick. Don't ever let anyone tell you the Middle Ages were all about humorless religious zealots and oppressive feudal squalor.

That Old Time Music

I'm not sure why these cats were sitting outside the Student Center the other day playing that old time music, but I'm not going to complain about anything that involves an accordion and a mandolin. I heard them telling an Italian guy that a lot of the music was from the Shetland Islands. Who knew? So I had a nice little afternoon listening to them jam and reading some Chaucer.

Mortal Combat

Oh dear. I just realized I've been neglecting the blog. A thousand apologies. I've got a few tales stashed away since it's been a while, but for the sake of engaging the audience, I'll begin with a tale of danger and daring.

One of the delights of my lilliputian dorm room is the absence of a screen on my window. I can lean out and get some lovely sunset pictures of the views to the west, climb out the window and study on the bench behind my dorm room, or scramble up the trail for some hiking. Or, I could do that if all the trails weren't shut down because of the risk of blazing inferno.

One of the not-so-great things about no screen is the astonishing number and array of insects in this part of the world. On Monday I was harangued by a vicious wasp for an hour or so while attempting to write a paper. Isn't it amazing how bugs will bang into every surface of a room and still not manage to find the open window? Aren't they just astonishingly dumb?

A while back, I returned from a party in our common room late at night, only to discover I had left my window open. This is treacherous business at night because bugs have a propensity towards light sources, as I'm sure my reader is aware. So I returned to my room only to discover that it had been overtaken by several very large and frustrated insects who were ping-ponging against the walls. In my half drunk (all drunk) state, I first attempted to trap the largest and most frightening of these bugs in a cup so that I could release him into the wild. He was having none of it, though, and immediately flew right back in the open window.

I know, bugs are dumb.

Then, not having any actual bug spray on hand, I sprayed him with Off, which only served to confuse and anger him further. At that point, he landed on the floor under my desk, thus enabling me to smack him with a shoe. Here's the invader:

I know. Not that bad. I'm a wuss. Trust me, he looked much bigger alive.

In the process of killing him I bent my fingernail back, so now it looks like this:

I know. Also not that bad. But it's bruised, right? Right? Oh well.

I haven't resigned myself to getting a screen yet, but I may have to break down at some point if it results in more bodily harm.

A Failed Attempt to Prove the Relevance of the Humanities

Anyone who has known me for more than a week understands that I have a deep, warm love of procrastination. So you'll understand why I'm sitting here staring out the window at a sapling when I should be working on the presentation I have to give tomorrow over The Knight's Tale.

I'm getting into a groove here finally and feeling far less anxious (I'm terribly frightened of new people, you see), plus the work load has picked up a bit, so I haven't had time to write the past couple of days. Additionally, I've been deliberating how to report my goings-on here without A) simply walking through every mundane second of my day (e.g., "then I perused junk websites on the internet for an hour while evading my theoretical Freud readings...") or B) boring to the brink of madness any readers this blog might have with horrifying accounts of said theoretical readings ("then Freud spends 3 pages reviewing the definitions of the German words heimlich and unheimlich ..."). You see the perilous cycle in which I find myself then.

I am learning some new stuff though, silly and pointless though it may seem. I guess "gothic" is one of those words you hear a lot without really thinking about what it means. So when you think of gothic literature you probably think of like, Christopher Walken with his teeth filed down:

That's from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In case you were wondering if Christopher Walken really filed his teeth down.

Or maybe this:

That's "The Raven." In case you were wondering why I posted a picture of a guy talking to a raven.

Or...perhaps this:

And to be honest I'm not really sure how that last one fits in at all.

BUT. It turns out that gothic is only about headless horsemen and lunatic opium eaters on the surface. REALLY it's all about American history and our anxiety over our treatment of Indians and black people and whatnot. It's actually pretty interesting. So suck on that for a while the next time you watch The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror.

Or you could check out this insane book we're reading called Edgar Huntly, which is about a crazy white guy who sleepwalks and tomahawks a bunch of Indians to death then sacrifices a panther and eats it. He also kills his brother-in-law. It's nuts.

On that note, I must excuse myself so I can go consider why Chaucer preferred to write stories about knights encountering fairy queens than to write about their exploits of daring in battles against the heathens. And no, it's not because he was gay. Seriously, I took out student loans for this. Please refer back to The Simpsons clip from my first post for relevant commentary.

Cheers!

Just Call Me John Muir

Well, probably not. I'm not about to go charging up a glacier armed with only my notebook and my sense of childlike wonder.

But I did snap this cool picture after a little hike behind the dorms. I saw the clouds rolling in on my way back from the gym and I felt a little inspired to try out some of the new photo apps I got for my phone.

I think it looks real nice.

We have a dance tonight. With a dance contest. I've been told there will be margaritas, so someone had better make good on that promise.

Dorm Tour!

This won't take long. Mostly because my dorm room has usable living space roughly equivalent to my car. It's starting to grow on me a little though. Just a little.

This is where I sleep. And study. And watch movies.

My favorite part is my tiny sheepskin rug from IKEA. Lady tried to eat it twice. I was sort of upset, but she looks like this:

So I forgave her.

Next we have my desk/kitchen.

See? Wine. Coffee pot. Computer. Texas stuff. Done.

Moving on around the room to storage. I'm actually somewhat impressed with the amount of storage in here. I suppose that's a good thing since if I had, say, a dirty shirt thrown carelessly on the floor, I would have nowhere to walk. Plus they have this nifty little medicine cabinet/dresser area that's pretty handy. I threw the prison-issue sheets they left out for us up on the top shelf, and I put the case of wine down below for easy access.

The bookstore here at St. John's actually has a really cool postcard selection with all kinds of new and old postcards, and they're all just 80 cents each (that seems cheap for a postcard, but really I wouldn't know). So today I made myself a little postcard collage to spice things up:

All kinds of stuff in there. A cow, Chaucer, mountains, old washing machines, a dog reading a book...

Now for the best part.

Not too bad, eh? Plus I can climb out my window and run up a mountain. Or rather, I could if I didn't run out of breath after 20 yards.

Happy Friday! Here's Some Dolly to Celebrate

I am often made the subject of fun (by Will) for my love of 80s and 90s country. If you ever watched CMT in the early 90s, then perhaps you'll agree with me when I say that this was a golden age for music videos. If you didn't, well, check out this erudite Dolly and you'll see what I'm on about. High art indeed, my friends.