From the memoir of J.D. Salinger's 18-y.o. lover...

...when he was 52! - she was a precocious writer that he wooed by letter, and she dropped out of Yale and lived with him for a year though they never had sex because she suffered from constricted vagina - in this section leading up to where they are about to try to make love for the 1st time, she reflects on how at that time she knew so little about sex (from Joyce Maynard's "At Home in the World: A Memoir", pp. 119-121):

Sex is the movie they show us in seventh-grade gym class, about the miracle of menstruation, and my own terrible shame when, a couple of years later, the miracle finally happnes to me, and I cannot bring myself to tell my mother. So a full year goes by, until the day she confronts me, having cleaned my closet, and found, at the very back, a brown paper bag filled with a year's worth of sanitary napkins, now crawling with bugs. "How could you?" she says. Now I am more ashamed than ever.

J.D. Salinger was a fucked-up little puppy. He loved young girls that had this innocence about them, but he wanted them to be sexually precocious. He would be very nice at 1st and fill their minds with his eclectic Eastern religious stuff, and then eventually begin to criticize them, telling them not to take things personally, and finally end up accusing them of belonging to the world and saying that he never really knew them. So fucked up.

Section antics (3 of 3): A topical story.

So, for the last section of the year, one of the articles we read was this feminist article discussing the rape and dismemberment of the Whore of Babylon in the book of Revelation (the prof likes to assign a range of types of scholarship for students to critically interact with, to get a sense of the contours of the field).

Anyhow, most every student loved to trash the article, which was a bit loopy at times, but there was this one evocative paragraph talking about how scholars feel free to treat the rape as a symbol, but if it was a male prostitute getting raped, the symbolism would break down and they would feel compelled to treat it as an actual event.

So, I read that, and when people were like, "So?", I told a story about my one friend's 2nd-wave feminist mother who wears muu-muus and smokes a lot but has a gentle, soothing voice and a comforting presence, and about how one time she was telling me about when she first saw "Deliverance", of course when it was out in theaters (I of course explained what the movie was about, adding, of course, that I never saw it).

"So," I was like, "She told me that she was deeply bothered for 3 days after seeing the rape scene. And, it was only after that she really thought about it that she realized that she had seen a lot of different women graphically raped and even murdered on screen a lot of times and never gave a 2nd thought about it, but here the reason that she was so bothered by a man getting raped was simply because he was a man, and she was like, 'See, it's the patriarchy in my head!'".

(Saying that last bit, I tapped the side of my head with my index finger, but I kept a grave face.)

A few people nodded seriously and in total agreement - actually, there were 2, and they were both men! - but people in my section didn't know what to say, mostly, so, after a pause, I was like, "And you know, she's right," and saying that, I shrugged and nodded, gravely.

Section antics (2 of 3): A joke.

A few weeks ago in section we were discussing the story in Acts of Ananias and Sapphira, where they keep money from the church and both end up falling dead.

So, I told the story of how like 3-4 years ago when I was on an archaeology trip for my masters, me and this doctoral student kept bitching about how obnoxious everyone was taking pictures that they could one day use in lectures - it made sense to do that, but they were taking pictures of *everything* and weren't even taking time to consider what they saw, and oftentimes would even step in front of you and other tourists rudely!

Anyhow, when we were on this acropolis in Turkey with a really well-preserved Athena temple, the Turkish tour guide was sure to point out this steep cliff by the temple, and said to be careful taking pictures, since a few years ago this German tourist woman was taking a picture and backed up right off the cliff and fell and died.

At that, my doctoral student friend started giggling and nudging me and being like, "Punishment miracle, punishment miracle!".

At that, the kids in my section laughed.

Section antics (1 of 3): A crack.

A few sections ago I had to do some major shit like right after section, so I convened section 10 minutes earlier so I could end it 10 minutes earlier, and 3 minutes before we were ending, I already started to gather up my stuff.

As I wrapped things up and put on my coat to leave, I was like, "Look, when I have some place to go, section ends on time."

No one laughed.

...leaving...

...I've been time-delaying posts, since I'm so busy and am leaving my neighborhood this week...

2 weekends ago was my last trip to the grocery store.

I had told the 2 of the (black) cashier women I like that I was moving, and so I made sure to tell them that this was my last time through the store. They said they were going to miss me, and to come by and visit them!

Addendum.

The next day after writing up a saddened review on Yelp, the karaoke host from hipster karaoke sent an email out to his list saying it's the 2nd time in his life he's done a St. Patrick's Day show, and he's regretted it both times...

He also said that he's worried about the crowd, and from now on will stop advertising on his site, and just sending out emails to his list to announce shows, so people brought in over Yelp can't easily figure out when to come.

I wonder if this was independent of my two-star (out of a possible five) Yelp review.

Hipster karaoke is dying.

Hipster karaoke is dying. It's been moribund for a while, ever since it started getting written up on yelp and people started flocking to it, but the last few times I've been there, there's been some serious negative energy.

For example, the people coming there tend to sneer a bit at everything...

One fatter (white) woman who I just met made a crack about how shitty the bar was, and other people laugh *at* (rather than 'with') the host's numbers - he dresses up as an 80s-rock loving Texan (he's from Texas, and loves 80s-rock), but in slightly ridiculous, but non-mocking way - and during Thanksgiving when they had turkey bingo, some older hipster guy kept making a big point out of buying bingo cards so he could win the Polish sausage prize when it was up, and when he did win it, he kept making ironic fun of the contest and the people running it, and when he went up to sing later on, he took his sausage up and played it like an air-guitar.

And, people laughed at him, he was part of the show.

Too, there's all these bridal parties that start coming in, of these taller bitchy (white) girls who pile out of cabs and are dressed in black, and, like all bridal parties, they behave obnoxiously and then if you look askance at them, they say shit to you...

Like, the other night, they went back to the list and were browsing the list back there before signing up, and holding up all the people who were going to sign up, when the host had these books out on the counter in the hall, and *that's* where you were supposed to browse songs, the book by the list was just to flip open to the song and get the song number to write it down. I was like, "You know, there's some books out there to browse," and one of the girls was like, "So?", and I was like, "Oh no, I just figure that might be more convenient" (she was a bitch, the bride was this fuggly thing with a "BACHELORETTE" tiara and an overbite and a veil on that had little pink plastic penises attached to it).

Someone said that it's actually rated the number-one night spot in the city now online, bigger than the opera and all these clubs, since though there's only like 40 reviews, they're all 5 stars.

Also also, even some of the regulars are getting shitty... This newer (white) guy who sings hard rock is nice enough, but he brought his (white) hipster girlfriend in the other night and she was seriously drunk, and twice at two different points in the night she was flailing her arms and whacked me in the face, and when I gave her a little bit of a look, she didn't even apologize.

Also also also, though the host works off of tips and the bar is now making a killer, the host is actually making a lot less money than he used to, when the nights were more intimate and more fun and people gave more to him.

Anyhow, I sang the Stones's "Mother's Little Helper", got a little pissed off, tried to hang out with friends and enjoy myself, and then left.

I don't think I'm going back soon.