March 14, 2006

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  The Daily News 1  I’m finishing up teaching Taming of the Shrew, and right now, I’m busily prepping to teach Romeo and Juliet. 2  Dang. I didn’t know they died. 3  So…Slovan Milosevich walks into a bar, but I didn’t want really to bother even TRYING to spell his stupid name. So yeah, I’m a day late. And Maureen Stapleton also did. So it goes. 4  So back to Romeo and Juliet and all. I think my students actually enjoyed Shrew, the classic Shakespearean romp starring Elizabeth Taylor and Slovan Milosevich. 5  Oh, wait. I’m getting old, man. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. 6  That’s better. It doesn’t matter. Nobody ever listens to a word I say anyway. More’s the pity. Too bad, because most of what I say is right on the dot. Right on the dot. Hmmm. Evidently not. I guess I’m just ridiculous. A joke. So it goes. You can’t protect people from their own folly. More’s the pity. If they’d only listen. I look to the paper I’ve had on my wall since I became an idiot savant, attempting to save people from themselves. It’s clearly useless. This is what it says: Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain.  -Friedrich von Schiller 7  This prompted a kid earlier this year to ask, “Who’s Fried Rich?” 8   All a friend could say is ain’t it a shame. 9   And there you have it. My life in a nutshell. Nobody listening to the voice. Ever. It’s beginning to take its toll. Okay, enough serious. Let’s move back to where we were. Something knocked me off track there. I may even know what, and again, more’s the pity. Anyway… 10  What a film. Just a blast. I haven’t watched it in quite some time, and it’s always a romp. Taylor and Burton, I swear. 11  This is great. On Friday, my sixth period class came in after sucking all the sugar straight out of Hawaii, and they literally bounced all over the joint, hither and yon, and locations beyond. Eyeballs wound up on the same side of their noses, and their heads seemed to split and scurry in six different directions. 12  I decided then and there that Taylor and Milosevich could wait. It was pop quiz time. 13  You see, a pop-quiz is usually intended to take the sugar out of the game. Trade secret. Or it was. 14 Just the act of making kids open their binders and take out paper can usually simmer down a sugar high, but you know those zoo animals that suddenly go OOOOOOOOOOOOH-OOOOH-OOOH-AHH-AHHH-AHHHHHHHH!!!? You got it. 15  One girl’s head vibrated so swiftly that I saw concentric line formatiions of her head flying every which way. 16  Somewhere in the midst of her head doing hitchy 360′s, exorcist style, she said, “I had a little CANDY last period!” OOOH-OOOH-OOOH-AHHH-AHH-AHHHHHHHHHH!! 17  “You don’t say,” I replied. “Can you put take out a piece of paper, please, and write your name, date, and period number?” 18  She looked up like she had mastered in Zombie Awareness, and slowly, almost as though conditioned, pulled a sheet out and began to write. 19  Eventually, the pop-quiz, and oral quiz, began to take hold, and before long, they just calmed and showed one another their answers. 20  I enjoyed that I was able to avoid throwing the sofa through the wall, and onto the lawn outside my room, or of even removing the metal door from its hinges and hurling it across the basketball courts. 21  “Number seven, ” I said. “What was the name of the first Theatre in London?” And so on. By number 10, I began to feel a bit froggy, so I threw this one out there, just to see who the cheaters were: 22  “What was William Shakespeare’s first name?” 23  Six heads immediately looked up at the poster of Shakespeare in my room, a poster that didn’t have his first name, which is William. 24  You’re welcome. 25  Others turned around and asked one another that very loaded question. 26  As of this writing, I am still awaiting at least five more answers. 27  When I told them yesterday that I might be teaching Romeo and Juliet tomorrow, one kid raised his hand and said, “I thought they were dead.” 28  “Nope!” I ventured. “They’re very much alive, and we’ll be meeting them tomorrow or the next day.” 29  “Whoa! Dude! They must be HELLA old!” 30  Yeah. 31  HELLA. 32  Peace. Have  a lovely day. 33  I know I will. 34  Will you?   ~H~

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