David Winters

            On Wednesday at 10:00 I left for my first Romantic Literature class. It wouldn't start till 11:00 but I wanted to find the right room at OISE and I like to be early anyway. This was my first time taking a class at OISE, though I attended a lecture there twenty years before I started going to U of T and I’ve certainly used the library a lot.

            There were two others in the classroom when I arrived. One guy looked up and said “hello” but I couldn’t tell at first if it was a “welcome” hello or a “what are you doing here?” hello. I was half an hour early so I didn’t know if the two of them were doing something official that I was interrupting. It turned out that they were just early for the same class as I was.

            I had been hoping that there would be the kind of desks that each had access to a plug so I could use my laptop during class, but there weren’t. The seating turned out to be these rounded plastic desks on wheels. The largest part was the circular storage area for backpacks and such that was curved up around the edges like a soup plate. The seats sit on a 360-degree pivot and the desk parts have a 180-degree pivot. The whole contraption kind of reminded me of a tilt-a-whirl ride for one.

            I picked a desk near the front and moved it temporarily forward so I could reach the wall plug and do some work editing a Word document that I’d made of the pasted text from a PDF of Wordsworth’s preface to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads. When I do that the paragraph format is lost and so I have to move the text back into place.

            Professor Karen Weisman arrived early and immediately approached me about how far forward I was. I assured her that I would be moving back before we started. She told me she’d injured her shoulder and I guess she meant that she needed more time to set up. I asked her if there was anything I could move for her. She appreciated that and asked if I would move the lectern for her. She complained that there was supposed to be a desk in the room for her but they didn’t bring one. There was a table in the corner near the door and I suggested we could move that for her to use as a desk. She asked for “two strong Romanticists” to help move the table. The guy who’d said hello when I came in and I moved it to where she needed it.

            I turned off my computer and moved back a proper distance, though still at the front where I like to be. Once the professor had settled in at the table there was still ten minutes before start time. I asked her what happened to her shoulder. She shook her head and frowned in mild self-disgust and explained that on July 13 she’d stood on a chair to reach a high shelf, fell and broke her shoulder. I looked up July 13^th of this year on my calendar and commented that it had been a Friday the 13^th. She said that it had actually been after midnight when she fell, which put the date on Bastille Day. She asserted that she’s not superstitious but Bastille Day has a lot of significance for Romanticists, as we’ll find out later in the course.

            It was because of her injury that she had felt the need to change the class location from the Sidney Smith Building, three blocks south of Bloor on St George to OISE as it’s closer to her office in the Jackman Humanities building at St George and Bloor.

            She noted that our room at OISE has natural light and encouraged us to open the shades on the windows, so several of us did. The windows are large and face north and east. She commented that she’s never taught a class at Sid Smith in a room with windows and so maybe our move to OISE was a blessing.

            The professor was wearing a sling for her shoulder, which she referred to as a medieval torture device. She urged us to not clap her on the shoulder.

            She explained why she had stressed in the syllabus that we need to have the 10^th edition of the Norton Anthology of English Literature. She said that it’s very important for group discussion for everyone to be on the same page and that changes in edition bring changes in text.

            Our first assignment will be due on October 17 on the subject of childhood in the poetry of Wordsworth. Nature and childhood are important in Romanticism. These can be complicated when we throw in the author’s self-reflection. The individual mediating the external world and what it means to be refracting the external world through the structures of our own consciousness. She encouraged us to read the assignments before doing the required reading so we can think about them as we read.

            She said that we would have 3, 5 and 7-minute discussion questions during class. We will receive no marks for participation.

            The nature of Romanticism makes interpretations contestable.

            We looked at Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”

            In Romanticism there is a reciprocal relation between history and culture.

            She read the poem and asked for comments.

            I pointed out that to identify with a cloud is to feel above it all but that the daffodils bring him down to earth.

            She said the poem uses the past tense to represent a memory.

            The speaker situates himself above and joins that which is below.

            Daffodils blossom in the spring, which is a time of relief and regeneration. He is looking down upon the flowers but is not impressed with them until later.

            Romanticism has a self-reflexive nature and self-reflection draws attention to one’s own procedures. Look at language, diction, stanzaic patterns and how these are manipulated.

            It’s a poem about memory and how the daffodils become monumental in memory.

            After class I asked the professor if she’s okay with being called Karen. She answered that she prefers “Professor Weisman” but if I have a problem with that I can call her Karen. I’ll call her Professor Weisman.

            I rode over to The Bob Miller Bookroom to buy the book. I asked for the Norton Anthology of English Literature and was directed to a cove of books that included a three-volume set that was held together by shrink-wrap, that had a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I on the front and a bold warning on it that there are no returns if the plastic is broken. I looked at the set through the plastic and tried to figure out if this was what I was looking for. I didn’t see any other Norton anthologies of English literature and so I took it to the counter to ask first if this was what I needed. I showed the cashier the syllabus book list and told her that the course is Romantic Literature. She assured me that this was the volume that I was looking for. I was still hesitant because the syllabus had asked for “volume D” of the anthology and I didn’t see “D” written anywhere on the set. She seemed like she was getting a bit impatient with me. She said she didn’t know what “D” meant but this was what I needed so I bought the set, paying $94.45 after tax.

            I rode along Bloor until the first red light, which was Ossington. I crossed the south and was about to cross west when suddenly my backpack felt lighter and I heard a thump. The zipper on my backpack had come open and the bag containing the anthology fell onto the sidewalk. I was just putting it back in and fixing the zipper when a guy approached me to ask if I ever modeled at OCAD. I told him yes and he said he used to draw me there back in 1993. “You were the one with the exciting poses!” I said, “It’s nice to be remembered.” I told him that I would be working at OCADU that evening and he asked how much it pays and I said, “About $20 an hour”. He told me his name was Bob and we shook hands and then said goodbye. He looked kind of down and out.

            I stopped at Freshco to buy some vanilla and some coconut Greek yogourt.

            I made a toasted cheese sandwich for lunch with tomato and cucumber and took a siesta.

            In the afternoon I did some journal writing and at one point went to the washroom, bringing the anthology with me. I tore open the plastic and started looking through the books to see which one was volume D and I realized that all of the books in the set I’d bought were pre-19^th Century, which is before the Romantic period. I had blown $95 on the wrong books. I was kind of pissed off at the cashier because she had assured me twice that I was buying the right set of books. I would have to take the books back and try to get a refund but it was too late that day because I had to go to work.

            I worked from 18:30 to 21:30 for Dmitri Bondarenko at OCADU. He's new this year at the art school and he apologized to me at least a couple of times for not being right on top of everything in relation to having a model in his class. He actually did fine and fell all over himself to make me comfortable. It was a standard drawing class in terms of my job as I started out with short gestural poses and we worked our way to longer ones until there was one pose for the final hour. On my breaks I worked on my journal with my laptop.

            I started watching 50s show, “The Naked City". I haven't found a full package to download of this series so I've just been grabbing the episodes that are available. The first episode I could find is number seven. These shows had fairly high production values and the writing was quite good. Plus they were all shot on location in New York, mostly in the South Bronx and so there was a gritty authenticity to the stories that they wouldn't have achieved if they'd filmed it in a studio. This story was called “No More Rumbles” and involved a teenage gang in a territorial rivalry with another gang. The Flying Dragons had gotten hold of a gun and had used it as a threat to put the Hawks into retreat in the last rumble. But now the Hawks have also acquired a gun. They found two Flying Dragons, Marty Nemo and Little Pancho walking together. One of the Hawks chases the two through the alleys until Little Pancho is shot and killed. The cops question Marty but he won't talk. The lead cop in this series is played John McIntire, the father of Tim McIntire whom I wrote about yesterday in regards to his appearance in a Mike Hammer movie.

            At the next Flying Dragons meeting their leader tells the gang that one of them has to kill the Hawk that killed Pancho. There is an interesting mood shift among the gang on hearing this, as taking a gun and shooting someone no longer feels like a gang activity. There is a sense of togetherness to being involved with a rumble whereas assassination is a lonely act. They play something like rock paper scissors to find out who will be the one to pull the trigger and Marty is selected. He clearly doesn’t want to kill anyone but he feels pressured by his only social group to do his duty to kill the guy they call Ramrod. He anonymously tips off the police that there’s going to be a hit on Ramrod but the night comes when the gang takes Marty to do the job. He's particularly disturbed when he sees that Ramrod is on a date with his girlfriend and he'll have to shoot him in front of her. They follow Ramrod and his girl into her building and send Marty in after him. But once inside Marty tells Ramrod to run and then Marty knows that now he will be a target because he betrayed his gang and so he runs out the back. The police catch up with him later but they've already learned that Marty couldn't go through with the killing and so after a hearing he will probably get off. John McIntire’s character is Lieutenant Muldoon and his portrayal of a cop is not very realistic. He acts more like a kind grandfather than any police officer I’ve ever come across. He tells Marty that he’ll help him get his job back when the hearing is over.

            Marty was played quite convincingly by David Winters who later played A-Rab in the movie West Side Story. He was born in England but came to the US when he was 14. After West Side Story he became a sought after and award winning choreographer as well as a writer and director. He had a band called David Winters and the West Siders from 1957 to 1962 and the guitarist for the band was Paul Simon. David and Paul were a songwriting team at that time.