Phil Gordon

            On Tuesday morning I memorized the penultimate verse of "Sans blague" (No Joke) by Boris Vian. 

            I finished posting my translation of "Je croise aux Hébrides" (I Cruise the Hebrides) by Serge Gainsbourg. There is one more song on my 1982 Gainsbourg list and then 18 for 1983. 

            I weighed 85.7 kilos before breakfast. 

            I worked on doing research for my English in the World essay. But I got tired and took an early siesta from noon to 13:30. 

            I weighed 84.6 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a bike ride an hour earlier than usual. 

            I weighed 84.4 kilos at 16:00. 

            For tonight's Medieval Literature class one of our readings was supposed to be from William of Malmesbury but the specific text was not specified. I downloaded his Chronicles of the Kings of England but that's 350 pages. I emailed Alex the TA a few days ago to ask which text was required but she didn't get back until today. She said the text should have been in the online version of The Broadview Anthology of Medieval Literature which I would have had access to if I'd paid for my book. But then she added that the Malmesbury text isn't on the Broadview site anymore and so she gave us an alternative reading of The Rime of King William. I told her that all they had to do was name the specific Malmesbury text we had been required to read, but I read the poem about the death of William the Conqueror. 

            I was caught up on my journal at 17:23. 

            At 17:55 I logged onto Zoom for the Medieval Literature lecture. 

            Professor Walton was sick again and so our TA Alex was teaching the class. 

            There was a question about our response papers. Issues of interpretation are up to interpretation itself. It could be about insiders and outsiders, gender, space, etcetera. Alex doesn't know if we need to use outside sources but thinks if we want to we can. Write what feels best. Most importantly, show engagement with the text, using line numbers and close reading. We can present it as if we are hosting a seminar. A five-minute summary. 

            Today we have a shift to a period of transition before, during and after the Norman Conquest and a move to Middle English. 

            How history is presented. 

            She asked us, "How do you like hearing about history?" 

            I said I really liked hearing about it in fictional dramatizations but with a historical context like in the old TV series, "The Adventures of Robin Hood". I said even though it was fictional it still represented some of the real historical background with the Normans in power and the Saxons being second class or less. There were even Medieval songs sometimes. 

            People are talking about the musical "Hamilton" and have mixed feelings. 

            We have a bunch of formats today. How is history influenced by literature? What kinds of history are the different texts. How do the styles of the texts fit the goals of the authors? What is history trying to tell? 

            I was put into a breakout room with a few other students to look at the above questions in relation to Geoffrey of Monmouth's A History of the Kings of Britain, Book 6. 

            I said that the picture that this chapter paints of England is pathetic. The English king appeals to the Romans to help against the foreign invaders but the Romans are patronizing and can't be bothered with England anymore. A Christian warlord appeals to a Saxon king who says there was a time he would have loved to rule England but now it's damaged goods. 

            Bede had a very historical mind and The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are also pretty serious.

            Robarts has one of the major Old English texts archives. There are 7 versions of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles. Each group's writing had different goals. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles are different from Geoffrey of Monmouth's A History of the Kings of Britain. Geoffrey is getting the reader's attention before he gets to history. People remember Geoffrey. He creates a narrative. 

            Who we associate with or want to imitate. 

            The History of the Kings of Britain is not necessarily the history of England. He makes the kings look good. 

            The Roman invasion was civilizing but we have two pagan situations. It is less about paganism vs Christianity and more about who one wants to align England with during the transition. 

            I said the Romans probably knew how to deal diplomatically with Christianity by that time after having dealt with it for a thousand years. In 313 the joint emperors Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan, a manifesto of toleration, which, among other things, granted Christians full legal rights. Christianity became the official religion of Rome at the end of the fourth century and Vortigern was appealing to Rome in the fifth century and so it wasn't a matter of choosing between pagans.

            "Pagan" is an othering term. People at the time probably didn't know what a pagan was. They were just distinguishing self-imagined communities. Benedict Anderson wrote Imagined Communities. One of the arguments for protonationalism was around religion. There were insiders and outsiders. 

            The other religion is pagan. 

            People in the middle ages didn't know they were medieval. 

            What is our period? 

            Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white woman nine months before Rosa Parks. But Colvin was pregnant and unmarried and so she did not serve as a poster child for the civil rights movement. 

            I said war is gradually disappearing and so our era might be remembered as being part of the time of international warfare. There is a debate amongst scholars about the decline of war that leans towards the time since 1950 being the most peaceful period in history. 

            Whose history do they want to be part of? 

            I say we idealize Scandinavia. As of 2020, all of the Nordic countries rank highly on the inequality-adjusted HDI and the Global Peace Index as well as being ranked in the top 10 on the World Happiness Report. 

            What qualities of Romans did they try to claim? 

            We took a ten min break at 20:00 during which time I started dinner cooking and made tea. 

            We broke off into three groups again. 

            Group 1 talked about King Lear. 

            Unferth's swim contest with Beowulf. Beowulf said I lost but won't lose this time. A subtle play between humility and pride. To be a king one needs to be a bit arrogant. 

            Group 2 talked about Arthur. 

            Someone mentioned that book 7 mentions sodomy addiction. Alex pointed out that sodomy is mistranslated. In those days it meant any kind of non-procreative sex. It was actually considered worse to give oral. 

            I was in Group 3 and we talked about William the Conqueror as represented in "The Rime of King William." 

            I said it was the first mention of the poor in any of the texts that we have studied. They had not been on anyone's radar before. This author actually cares enough to mention that the poor lamented William's hunting laws. 

            Comparing Beowulf to The Rime of King William. Beowulf is alliterative and The Rime actually rhymes. 

            William was protecting the deer for his own hunting pleasure. Henry 8 also had strict laws about hunting. The royal family in Britain has exclusive rights to swans. The Crown has held ownership of all unmarked mute swans swimming in open waters across the country since the 12th Century. They also own all of the dolphins. 

            Geoffrey was writing in the anarchy period shortly after the Norman Conquest. His successor was Empress Matilda. House of the Dragon is loosely based on the Anarchy. 

            We finished class at 20:55 and dinner was ready. 

            I had a potato with melted butter and a slice of roast beef while watching episode 11 of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

            In this story, Granny is set on trying to get Elly May married to Sonny Drysdale. When she was eavesdropping on the couple from a tree the night before she heard Sonny tell Elly that he was going to give her a ring in the morning. Of course, he meant a ring on the telephone. 

            Meanwhile back in the hills of Tennessee, Jed's cousin Pearl has received photographs from Granny of Elly with Sonny. Pearl has always bragged that her daughter Jethrine would get married before Elly and so now she is determined to make it happen. Jazzbo Depew is supposed to come over to pick up Jethrine and take her to a barn dance but Pearl says they are going to stay right in her parlour so she can steer the encounter toward marriage. Jethrine is nervous and so Pearl gives her a glass of elderberry wine, but even though she only has one glass she is drunk by the time Jazzbo gets there and can barely move when he tries dancing with her. 

            We learn that Jed's late wife was named Roselle and that Granny and Roselle took six months to train Jed's horse to stop under the elm tree where he proposed to her. 

            Instead of giving Elly an engagement ring, Sonny comes to take her driving. When he goes to kiss her on the hand she says, "Don't you bite me!" Sonny says, "A kiss on the hand is a very proper greeting!" Elly says, "Oh!" and she kisses his hand. Then she tells everybody to kiss Sonny's hand and they all step forward. Sonny leads Elly away. Granny and Jethro want to follow them in the old truck and they think that if they wear dark glasses he won't notice. 

            Sonny takes Elly to his room but she doesn't know that his flirtations are flirtations. 

            When Sonny brings Elly home after their drive, Granny takes Sonny into another room to have a talk while Jed is supposed to talk with Elly. Jed just tells Elly that when she's in love she'll know. Granny asks Sonny what he thinks of Elly and he says she's beautiful and charming but lacking in social graces. Granny asks what that means and Sonny tells her Elly can't dance. Granny sets out to prove him wrong and then she, Jed, Elly, and Sonny start dancing to some down-home music. They all have a great time and Sonny dances up a storm too. Jethro walks in and wonders why they're dancing. Granny says they are celebrating Elly's marriage to Sonny. Sonny dances for the door and leaves, calling for his mother. 

            Jazzbo was played by Phil Gordon, who was a jazz musician in the 40s and 50s before breaking into acting. He hosted a children's variety show on local TV in New Orleans and also became a dialect coach. 

            For the fifth night in a row I didn't find any bedbugs.