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Wednesday, June 16, 2004
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BLOOMSDAY ITSELF
"I'm embarrassed for the university, I'm embarrassed for her, and, quite frankly, it shocks the sense of human decency. She needs to give an immediate apology ... talk about an ivory tower approach to management." Here speaks Jim Martin, a University of Colorado regent, expressing his "outrage" over the horrific thing that the university's president said recently during a deposition in the lawsuit brought by a group of women who claim sexual assault by some of the university's football players. How disgusting could the president's comment have been to draw the ultimate insult ("ivory tower")? Women's groups too are "appalled," though UC sociology professor JoAnne Belknap is simply "very disappointed." The comment's "lack of sensitivity," USA Today reports, has "sparked a fresh storm of protest" on the already controversy-ridden campus. What'd she say already? Asked whether she agreed that a "vulgar term" pertaining to a woman's anatomy, a term used by one of the football players, was "filthy and vile," the president thought about that and said that while it was certainly a "swear word...its meaning depended on the circumstances in which it was used." Huh? replied the lawyer. Could such an abomination ever appear in a non-degenerate context? Well, President Hoffman responded, "I've actually heard it used as a term of endearment." To make matters far, far worse, the president's spokeswoman later tried to explain: "Because she is a medieval scholar, she is also aware of the long history of the word dating back to at least Chaucer." I doubt Jim is appeased by the president's ivory-toweresque disinterest here, her professorial attitude of neutral inquiry and historical perspective relative to this naughty word ... On the other hand, am I the only one embarrassed appalled and very disappointed that a university regent uses "ivory tower" as a term of abuse? Jim, Jim, Jim. Anyway, here's a little something for you to read on this special day from your namesake, Jim Joyce: A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far. No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's, clutching a naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world. Desolation. Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned into Eccles Street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? Valuation is only twentyeight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes. |