Chapter MLXIV: In Which it is Determined that a Mouse is No Match for a Badger

This promises to be another long post. I won't apologize for that, but I will try to segment the text for maximum accessability. As my friends here in Madison can attest, I am a bit of what we call a "word whore" (technical academic term), and while I may not have much to say, I can take a lot of time saying it if you put me in front of a computer. So bear with me. The first section is a brief rant about academia and academics, so if this is of no interest to you, skip ahead a bit. I promise there's a delightful section about drinking and the conclusion to the epic battle between man and mouse.

There are times when I really hate being an academic, and today was one of those days. In our graduate seminar on race and the "color line" in 20th century American Lit., we spent several minutes discussing two pieces of artwork that dominate the Supreme Court chambers (or courtroom, or trial-thingy, whatever the term). These are two classical Romanesque sculptures or bas-reliefs that depict such things as "Wisdom" and "Justice" and "The Majesty of Law" defending us from the evils of the world. We were invited to analyze these pieces and consider the effect they would produce on an observer, attempting to understand the way we in theory relate ourselves to the law.

Of course, being academics in a course about race, the class immediately leapt to attacking these pieces for their dominant, white, upper class, male, Christian ideologies. We concluded that they were actually involved in subjugating the masses, racist, misogynist, classist, elitist jerks who forced Christian ideals on the populace (this from a tablet with ten Roman numerals on it, which in theory represents the Bill of Rights but which, due to its profoundly Christian overtones of the Ten Commandments, automatically supercedes the overt interpretation of the piece, regardless of the facts that the rest of the piece is decidedly early Roman/ pre-Christian, there were no other overtly Christian symbols in the piece, and that the Ten Commandments were originally a Jewish concept). Whether these judgments were of the scupltor, the Founding Fathers, the formers of the Law itself, or the Supreme Court throughout the ages was never made clear.

While I will not debate the merits or faults of these claims themselves (yes, our Founding Fathers were not quite as racially or sexually enlightened as we claim to be today), I was incensed that the immediate instinct of the class was to criticize, attack, and attempt to subvert these things, as if the Supreme Court itself throughout all of its history was nothing more than some covert offshoot of the Republican Party (yes, the requisite Alito references were made). The class did not even consider the intent of nobility, the spirit of the Law that seeks to elevate Man out of a Hobbesian State of Nature, the impact not only on the participants but the Justices themselves of these eternal gazes of impossibly wise men (or muses or spirits), or anything else remotely positive regarding this artwork. And of course, when I, simmering with indignation, attempted to rectify this issue, I, in my eloquence, blathered on about tourists, the architecture of D.C. in general, and vague feelings and memories of my own time there. My inarticulate comments were greeted with a somewhat awkward silence, and then the topic shifted.

Sometimes I wonder if we, as critics, take the critical part of our work to too great an extent, looking only for faults and not for successes, and more often than not applying time-tested criticisms to new issues because they are "safely liberal." Why are we so quick to tear down, particularly items that are arguably works of art, especially when we are just as often willing to praise junk because it is in some undefinable way "interesting" to a select few? We at times seem so committed to appearing enlightened and socially acceptable that we automatically destroy things in order to put ourselves into a better light as intellectuals. Of course, some of this frustration may involve my eternal ire at being a conservative in a world of super-liberals. And, I wonder if our critiques of the Supreme Court and its artwork would have been quite so vehement if there were a Democrat president who had just appointed two extreme liberals to the bench. But forgive me, that's insensitive, thinking my fellow academics are bound within their personal politics and not living freely the life of the mind.

Here ends the rant. Now, the tale of drunkenness, mousedom, and children's theatre.

So the Baker was in town this weekend. This man is a very good friend of mine from high school, in that we took many classes together and performed in practically every play together throughout our four years (He played the Baker to my Jack in Into the Woods, hence the name). He lives in New York now, but is on tour with a children's theatre production which happened to be performing in Madison today. As he had Sunday off, we decided, quite naturally, to celebrate our meeting through the consumption of alcohol.

We dined at the Great Dane, a brew pub of some repute, and proceeded to each get a 10 glass sampler of their many different beers. Said beers were consumed, according to the rules apparently laid down in the ancient court of Hammurabi, where one cannot progress to the next beer until the other has also completed that beer, and beers must be drunk in order from light to dark. This led to some amusing scenes, as his beer came with a helpful placement guide and mine did not, so he proceeded to sniff each questionable beer to determine which one I must consume next. A great stickler for the rules, the Baker, and as I am a gentleman and a drunkard, I honored his rules with only a minimal amount of mockery.

Ten beers (40 oz) later, we were met by my Madison friends Nittany Lion and the Puncher, who escorted us to another bar with less undergraduates and more seating (vital things in Madison on a Saturday night), and we were later met by TheoryPirate, the Lady in Black, the Red-Headed Stepchild (the other half of Gray Matters), and a friend of hers from Iowa, whom I promptly forgot in my drunkenness and never spoke to. We each imbibed a great deal more beer and traded insults and wounds (well, we traded insults while the Puncher punched me and bit the Baker, a man she had known for less than two or three hours, due to his mockery of her beloved Red Wings). In the course of the evening I believe I was referred to as the Battle Cat to his He-Man, a statement I take gross objection to, as I always figured myself in more of a Man-at-Arms role. Of course, we ended the evening with drunken karaoke, which takes on new meaning when you're being antagonized by a drunk musical theatre professional with actual training. The epic session ended around 3:30, and I proceeded home while Lady in Black gave my friend a ride back to his hotel.

Upon my return, I found, much to my delight, the piteous corpse of my slain foe, the mouse of which I have previously written. After an epic duel in which he proceeded to steal the peanut butter from several traps without setting them off (much to my chagrin and amazement at his dextrous prowess), I replaced said peanut butter with Bucky Badger American Pasteurized Process Cheese Food (TM). Needless to say, the might of Bucky Badger quickly overcame the cunning of the mouse. I returned home in my state of extreme inebriation and found the lifeless carcass, and proceeded to perform a brief but exhilarating victory dance about my living room whilst heaping curses upon the spirit of mine enemy. Depositing his earthly remains in a bag, I removed him to the outside dumpster, swinging the bag over my head in the tradition of Tom Sawyer and other mouse-haters and continuing my curses, until I noticed the random man standing in my parking lot looking at me as if I were insane. Chastened, I meekly deposited the bag in the dumpster, and returned home to sleep, dreaming of victory.

The Baker's visit ended well, as we watched the Bowl and then I saw his play, a delightful musical comedy about the 1849 Gold Rush which taught the children present that racism and slavery are bad, Adam Smith capitalism is perhaps the greatest thing ever, it is ok to make a farce of the legal system when a higher ideal is at stake (the freeing of the aforementioned slave), and that vaguely Mexican/hispanic men are comic and somewhat homoerotic. All in all it was an enjoyable history lesson, and it has led me to the conclusion that all adults should watch children's theatre every once in a while.

Now, I go to buy shoes. Sorry for the ginormously long post. Well, not really, as this is my blog, and no one forced you to read it. Besides, you just wasted time that you could have spent doing actual work, which is really what blogs are for.