class time part three
09.29.03 @ 5:09 p.m.
I've been surprised today by just how many people I know that I've bumped into on campus.
Two grand things I overheard:
A boy and a girl walk down 13th Street between Condon (where I am sitting, people watching and thinking my class is there rather than Friendly). He is wearing shorts and a grey hooded sweatshirt. She is wearing a bright red plaid jacket/shirt that makes me think of hunting. He says, as they pass me: "I will give you this sweatshirt if you never wear that again."
A man holding up a tie-dye shirt and other wads of cloth stands next to Jesus Dude across from the bookstore. The best hawking cry EVER: "Underwear for gas money!"
This is what I missed most about going to school, I think. All the great opportunities to observe the strangeness that is the human being. Hearing snippets of conversation. It's so perversely satisfying. I was also extraordinarily amused by the punk boy I saw in the bookstore today, especially because his eyes were really wide, making him look VERY paranoid indeed. In retrospect, he looks a lot like a guy I knew in high school and who goes to school here, but I sincerely doubt he would have made the prep to punk journey. Which makes me think "Amazing Journey."
This term's rock history adventure will be spending a lot of time on the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Today we watched a video called Renegades that was mostly about Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Elvis. We were mostly to watch the ways that black and white music influenced each other. Pat Boone's name came up an astonishing number of times. It was funny to watch this unidentified man (I'm sure he was identified, but I don't remember who he was) saying that no black people listened to Chuck Berry. "'Way down in Louisiana...' Damn Louisiana! We don't want it!" Also Little Richard is an extremely amusing man. It was claimed that Alan Fried coined the term 'Rock and Roll' so listeners wouldn't be able to identify the race of the performers based on genre and borrowed the African-American slang for sex to do it.
America was so fucked up back in the day. I love it. Like how TV in this country was so censored and so very afraid to cause offense, whereas British TV was far more open and bawdy. And yet we're the crass ones now.
Anyway. Taking the bus is nice and easy and I think I'll have little to no trouble settling back into the school groove, though I just don't know what to do with myself between classes. I imagine a lot of time will be spent in the library and the EMU computer lab.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
