I Fucking Hate Ernesto

So, no one was really available on the phone, so I've resorted to ranting via blog. Sorry.

To catch everyone (all three of you) up, Ernest is the Graduate Teacher in my Holocaust class. Basically he leads a discussion every Friday morning at 8. I FUCKING HATE HIM. Like, I hate him so much it is ridiculous.

REASONS WHY I HATE ERNESTO

1. I hate Ernesto because his discussions are a colossal waste of time. Discussion section is all I have on Fridays, and it's also the earliest class of the week. Thus, every Friday I drag myself out of bed after about four hours' sleep (for an explanation, see the blog before this), shower, dress, and go all the way across campus. FOR NOTHING. The "conversations" are terrible. They consist largely of Ernesto asking broad and ultimately unintelligible questions. After about a minute of silence, Ernesto will answer these questions himself, although the answer is only loosely connected to the question. Or, we have a "we love everyone" discussion in which random people give their profound insights into the latest book. Examples: "I think that this book is hard to understand. I mean, she doesn't, like, say things...like...directly. It's like...poetry...and stuff." "I think the author's purpose is to tell us that the Holocaust is really bad." Today we went off on an Ernesto-led tangent about the American government. Ernesto claims that he is doing research into the PATRIOT Act (which is interesting, because at the beginning of the course, he was researching Latin American trauma literature). He then asked the class, "Do you guys know what the PATRIOT Act is?" One girl raised her hand and said, "Yeah, it's an act that basically gives the government total control." To which Ernesto replied, "Yeah." Now, as you should know, I am quite possibly the LAST PERSON ON EARTH that would EVER defend the Bush Administration, but I wanted to punch the bitch in the face. That is NOT what the PATRIOT Act does. It does a lot of things, but declares martial law it does not. Then Ernesto said that he plans to bring in some scholarly articles that talk about how America is now a fascist state. A friend of PATRIOT Girl's (it's clear why they get along) said:

   "To a certain extent, that's totally not an opinion, though. I mean, fascism is believing in an idea and pushing it on others. It's like today, how we're going into Middle Eastern countries on really questionable premises, all in an attempt to eradicate the Islamic race."

   That was a direct quote. I was so appalled by it that I wrote it down in my notes. First, that is totally not what fascism is. Fascism really describes an authoritarian, nationalist, right-wing government. It in no way applies imperialistic tendencies. Second, and perhaps most disturbingly, ISLAM IS NOT A MOTHERFUCKING RACE, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY. Is America fascist? A little bit, yeah. But Islam is still not a race.
2. I hate Ernesto because arbitrarily grades the quizzes. I got a nine out of sixteen on the first quiz in the class. Now, mathematically that is an F, but in ErnestoLand, it's actually a B-. Of course, although I got a nine, he wrote "8=C+" on the top of my paper. Hmm...2+3+2+2=9. Not eight. He had no reason for the grade he gave me, either. The page was literally blank except for the grade. When I asked him to discuss the quiz with me...
3. I hate Ernesto because ERNESTO FUCKING STOOD ME UP AT HIS FUCKING OFFICE HOURS. TWICE.
   
4. I hate Ernesto because he gave me an 86% on my paper because he clearly doesn't understand anything at all about grammar, or the Holocaust. First off, he docked me some points for not using MLA format on quotes longer than four lines. I did indeed have a four-line quote. But it was indented properly. The quote next to which Ernesto attempted to edify me was actually only two-and-a-half lines. He said repeatedly that I "needed to make my sentences clearer." For example, "In studying the Holocaust, Italian chemist Primo Levi's memoir Survival in Auschwitz is frequently billed as an "objective" account of his experience, and of the whole machinery of the Holocaust itself." Ernesto underlined the word Holocaust and wrote, "You mean the Nazi regime." In fact, I did not mean the Nazi regime. I meant the machinery of the Holocaust itself. I know how hard it is to swallow, that I said what I meant, but on my honor, I swear that I did.

In short, I FUCKING HATE ERNESTO. On Tuesday I'm going to go and talk to the professor of the course and try my damnedest to get him sacked. I pay that bastard. I PAY HIM.

sitting

sitting outside the museum
on a park bench
a mother and a daughter
they watch the people
the people that come and go

they talk sometimes
when they see a man with a funny hat
or a woman with a pretty dress
or about the art that they saw inside
about the beautiful pictures

so much there is that the little girl does not ask
so many things she burns to know
like why some pictures looked nothing like the world
some worse, some better,
and why so many seemed so sad

the people walking by
they remind her of the pictures
of the broken man and his guitar
of the girls dancing
of the people on the river-bank

instead the little girl looks at her mother
and asks her

mama, if people don't have wings how can they fly

and her mother thinks and she says

not everyone needs wings to fly baby
some people live their lives without ever feeling the ground

A Conversation Overheard

Josh: Uh, Doug, you just touched my ass.
Doug: Yeah, I know.
Josh: That's kinda gay.
Doug: But I called you a homo first.
Josh: Yeah, but you touched my ass.
Doug: But I called you a homo. That means it's fair game.
Josh: What, so you can do whatever you want because I'm a homo?
Doug: Pretty much.
Josh [walking away]: Yeah, whatever. Next you're gonna tell me that it's cool if you touch my balls.
Doug: Well...that is the next step in being a homo...

Knowing

O you who know
did you know that hunger makes the eyes sparkle that thirst dims
them
O you who know
did you know that you can see your mother dead
and not shed a tear
O you who know
did you know that in the morning you wish for death
and in the evening you fear it
O you who know
did you know that a day is longer than a year
a minute longer than a lifetime
O you who know
did you know that legs are more vulnerable than eyes
nerves harder than bones
the heart firmer than steel
Did you know that the stones of the road do not weep
that there is one word only for dread
one for anguish
Did you know that suffering is limitless
that horror cannot be circumscribed
Did you know this
You who know.

I should be writing my paper right know, but I can't. Today in class we started discussing Auschwitz and After, a memoir by Holocaust survivor Charlotte Delbo. She was a political prisoner, not a Jew, but her memoir is no less poignant. Her voice haunts me. I can't get it out of my head. After Night, Survival in Auschwitz, and Fatelessness, I didn't think that anything would get me this badly. But it does.

Read that poem up there aloud.
Slowly. With feeling. Explore every pause.
What's in them?
Nothing. An all-encompassing, abject nothing.

Marie by Charlotte Delbo

Her father, her mother, her brothers and sisters were all gassed on
arrival.
Her parents were too old, the children too young.
She says: "She was beautiful, my little sister.
You can't imagine how beautiful she was.
They mustn't have looked at her.
If they had, they would never have killed her.
They couldn't have."

rail-thin children
dance on the dry ground
making empty gestures
praying for rain

strange men pass through
longing for drink
the children mouth nonsense shapes
and speak soundless words

"no water here"

alone, alone they dance
to squeeze some mercy from angry gods
like moisture from rocks
it does not come

but still they stay, in this dry month,
bound to the barren earth
by roots of blood
roots of guilt and shame

there is no rest for the weary
in these antique lands
no peace for the dead
only dust.

Storytelling

They're laughing next door. Loudly--for that is how they do everything. One of them is recounting a sexual exploit; such conversations are the logical termination of their digressions. In them, the raconteur is suave, debonair, and skilled. His prey, some pretty ingenue, falls for his easy words. They remove themselves to a secluded room--always secluded, and always a room. They lie on the bed and kiss gently. Their hands begin to explore each other's bodies, and as he reaches that area just above the hem of her skirt, she whispers in his ear. "I'm a virgin." That, of course, does not stop him; it was not meant to, after all.

So gently, she trembles. So tenderly. As their clothes fall to the floor, she grows shy, but he holds her nevertheless, kissing her on the side of her face as she turns away, afraid or ashamed. Gradually they dissolve back onto the bed, and he gives her the greatest pleasure she has ever known.

It is unspoken, the truth--for what fun is the truth? What illusory solace can honesty provide? For they all know that he was not really suave, and that the beer, not his words, lured her upstairs. The kisses were not gentle, and the pace was far quicker. In reality, she did not tremble; she was too numb. His kisses missed her mouth because he could not find it. Their disrobing was entirely unglamorous, and the act itself...it was hurried, sloppy, and unspectacular. She laid back and felt nothing save discomfort as he spasmed wildly. A few vigorous thrusts and it was over. He was satiated, and she was shamed.

Of course, none of this is said--it makes for a terrible story. And so, they all go their separate ways, to their beds, where those few moments before sleep cast aside all pretense. In this limbo they remember their awkward patting gestures, made as she silently cried, platitudes grossly incapable of giving back what was taken away. In this insecurity they drift to sleep, and the morning will see them as gods yet again.

Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference...

... She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."

-T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land