Allison Hayes

            On Monday after midnight I did my usual search for bedbugs and found none. That makes twelve days without a sighting and if I reach the two week mark I'll stop doing these pre-bedtime searches. 

            I downloaded the lyrics for "Arthur, où t'as mis le corps?" (Arthur, Where'd You Put the Corpse?) by Boris Vian. It's a fairly long song and over the next few days I'll work on my translation. 

            I finished working out the chords for "U.S.S.R. / U.S.A." by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I'll go through it in French and English and then upload it to Christian's Translations to prepare it for publication on the blog. 

            I weighed 90.1 kilos before breakfast, but breakfast consisted of half a bowl of grapes because I had to leave for my first in person class in a year and a half. 

            On my way to US Lit class my bike suddenly went into high gear and while I was trying to switch it back the chain came off. I had to stop and get my hands greasy putting it back on and making it worse was the fact that the chain had somehow gotten on the outside of the chain guard. I had to pry the guard a bit to push the chain back under it. I started riding again but at first I couldn't switch the chain back down to the middle gear wheel. After riding and fumbling with it for a while it finally went down. 

            I had come a bit early to make sure I could find the room in the Sidney Smith building where course was taking place. But it turns out to be in the same room where I took The Canadian Short Story and the Philosophy of Aesthetics course. It's also the last room where I wrote a live test. 

            Professor Morgenstern was already in the lecture hall struggling with the technical issue of coordinating her laptop with the projector screen. She was on the intercom with tech support. 

            I took out my laptop and tried to get the chord to stretch from a front seat in the middle to a plug on the front wall but it wouldn't reach. The guy behind me in the second row saw my problem and offered his extension cord. That was nice of him. Later another guy sat in the front row two seats away and asked if he could plug into it as well. I'll bring my own next time. 

            There were still several minutes before the start of class and so I had time to go to the washroom and scrub most of the chain grease off my hands. 

            The professor began by saying it was strange to be there since the last live class she taught was in March of 2020. 

            She says that some people wonder why she is teaching Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau in a literature course. These texts are crucial to the canon of the United States. She advised us to bring a literary sense to any written text we study, pause over the wording and sentences and apply close reading. She assured us that the course will feel more literary in the traditional sense soon. 

            We returned briefly to Frederick Douglass. The terms "slave" and "man" are powerfully opposed terms that cross one another in Douglass's writing. Could we substitute the word "individual" for "man"? Is gender marking important. I think in talking about being resurrected from the tomb of slavery Douglass is making himself and the African slave in general into a Christ figure. He is self resurrecting. He was criticized for not depicting his escape but in doing so he would have revealed secret information and put others in danger. His actual escape was not a dramatic adventure but it was clever and required a lot of help from others including his future wife. Douglass is stronger for having developed self reliance. Juxtapose his copying of the writing from Master Thomas's school writing book while literally working in limited space with his fistfight with the slave master. 

            She gives us Emerson's biography because of its historical and social context but tells us to focus on the primary text. 

            Emerson was revered for his influence but also critiqued. He was a major influence on Thoreau who became more like Emerson than Emerson. Emerson was shocked that Thoreau took him at his word so much. Herman Melville had a critical perspective on Emerson. Emerson is not celebrated as much in our era but Ralph Waldo Ellison used Emerson as a character in his novel. Emerson pops up elsewhere in the US canon from time to time. 

            Emerson was a Transcendentalist philosopher whose priority was meditation on the private self. More recently people are interested in his politics and his environmentalist thinking. Emerson's thinking can be tied in with New England's history and the Calvinism of the Puritan settlers. Calvinism will play in important part in the 19th Century novel The Scarlet Letter, which we will be reading shortly. 

           The Calvinist belief is that we are born fallen with an innate depravity and few among us are elected to Grace. There rose a general dissatisfaction and a cultural distancing from that theological model. This led to the formation of the Unitarian Association. The movement was away from the sinful and toward the divine potential of everyone. To understand goodness we must become excellent and godlike. 

            Emerson came from a long line of ministers and became one himself but resigned to become a poet and an essayist. He transvalues religious terms and values. He'll use a word in a sense in which he does not want to use it and then use it in another sense. He does not like traditional prayer. He would rather sit silently with the congregation in the church than hear the minister's sermon. 

            Puritanism led to Unitarianism which led to Transcendentalism. Transcendentalism was a club made up mostly of Unitarian ministers. The rule was not exactly the same as Fight Club. The rule was that no one whose presence would prevent discussion was allowed to attend. Emerson's "Manifesto of Nature" from 1836 was important. Transcendentalism can be said to be the equivalent of English Romanticism. 

            But the Romanticists didn't call themselves Romanticists whereas the Transcendentalists called themselves Transcendentalists. 

            The Bible is history rather than revelation and communion is rejected in favour of self reliance. Juxtapose Douglass and Emerson but note this essay predates Douglass's narrative. Emerson came late to abolition. He met Douglass when he attended a speech he gave in 1844. 

            Emerson had an epigrammatic style that was ridiculously quotable. He says the same thing over and over until he gets it right and then says it all in one sentence. His arguments do not follow the usual process of having a beginning, a middle and an end. 

            We looked at the first paragraph with its emphasis on genius and the spoken word over the written. He promotes spontaneity and says that we miss out on our individuality when it is returned to us from outside. Great art teaches that we should abide by our own spontaneous impressions.

            I said it sounds like he's saying it's a race and it seems odd to me that we should be ashamed of someone getting an idea before we do. 

            Getting one's self from another is shameful. Is it a race to stand apart as an individual? It seems competitive but Emerson would not like it to be seen that way. He's saying don't let insecurities trump your passion. Individuals are infinitely rich. We learn what it means to be a self by missing out on it. If we are taking the self from another we have an alienated majesty. We must witness our own sovereign nature. 

            Genius in its original definition is one's own personal pagan spirit. He writes about childhood because the pre-social child and the innocent adult have on their faces the text of selfhood. Emerson likes the word "virtue" which has the same root as "virile." One must pay attention to his intended meaning because he sometimes uses the word "virtue" in a negative sense. He is re-inventing virtue. He invokes the radical idea of revolution, but a personal and not a political revolution. Do not be burdened by the past. Do not be consistent but rather be now. 

            We took a break. 

            Emerson's view on social bonds. Is the individual gendered and racialized? Goodness must have an edge. Make careful decisions. He sometimes gives money to causes that don't fit what he wants to support. He's not saying he has achieved the ideal he speaks of but continues to try. 

            Blood relations can be set aside for those with whom one has a spiritual affinity. A family by choice rather than birth. But spiritual affinity may not be a choice either. One's genius is one's god. He hopes he will have good justifications that are more than whims. 

            Is the individual a man? There are two kinds of men. One of them is at odds with the self. The radical artist is associated with manly traits. But elsewhere he says we want men and women. The social conformist becomes feminized in his philosophy. To be great is to be misunderstood. 

            The "brute" is perhaps what is perceived as the primal man whom he represents with the example of the Maori whom he calls the naked New Zealander. 

            I say that he picks someone so far away that they become purely imagined as an ideal. 

            She suggests we use close reading to look at the Maori objects that Emerson mentions. 

            Emerson once introduced Thoreau as being always right and perverse. 

            Thoreau asks himself what can I do without? His little cabin on Walden Pond was built on Emerson's property. Professor Morgenstern sees Thoreau as a male version of Emily Dickenson. His life had the quality of performance art. Thoreau says to serve the state is to resist it but this is not a call to arms but merely invokes the revolution. He promotes passive resistance by opting out. One does not have the obligation to take on the wrongs of the nation and so one should withdraw allegiance. If one does that the revolution is accomplished. Neither be a machine or a mind serving the state but rather serve by following one's conscience. But if one does that one will be treated like an enemy. If I don't pay my tax then the revolution is accomplished. Do not be afraid of bloodshed because far worse occurs when the conscience is wounded. 

            Thoreau's night in jail was like a performance. He was more like a tourist in a cell but did not feel confined. Meditation cannot be imprisoned. 

            I told the professor after class that his night in jail can be compared to Arthur Koestler's Darkness At Noon in which the author really did experience prison. She agreed that it seems funny that he would make such a big deal about one night in jail when so many have served real time. 

            I said many of us have spent one night in jail. She immediately thought that meant that I have and I have but I wasn't saying that. She asked if I wrote an essay about it and I said no, not an essay.

            Since I was downtown already I finished the distance of what would be my usual bike ride by riding up to Bloor, east to Yonge, south to Richmond and then home. 

            I weighed 89.1 kilos before lunch. 

            I took a siesta and slept half an hour longer than usual. 

            I worked on posting my blogs and then typing my lecture notes. 

            I weighed 89.6 kilos before dinner. I had a potato with gravy and two pork chops while watching an episode of Gomer Pyle. 

            In this story Gomer and Sergeant Carter go to Washington because Gomer is representing Camp Henderson as a singer at a special event. Gomer expects to be seeing the sights of Washington with Carter but Carter plans on ditching Gomer to hook up with his old girlfriend Rose Pilchek. Carter is disappointed that he and Gomer are sharing a hotel room because of their difference in rank. When Gomer goes siteseeing Carter makes an excuse that he's visiting relatives. He meets Rose but every time he's getting romantic he gets a call from Gomer telling him what landmark he's just visited. Finally Gomer visits the White House and wanders by accident into the president's office. He is so excited that he calls Carter from there and he is arrested and finger printed by the Secret Service. Since he's in Washington with Carter the secret service come and get Carter from Rose's apartment. Once their story checks out they are allowed to leave but on the street Gomer almost gets hit by a car. It turns out to be the president's limo and he says "Hey Mr President" and gets a wave. Later when Carter and Rose are on a dinner date and Carter thinks they are free of Gomer he finds them anyway. Carter tries to get rid of him but when Rose hears Gomer met the president she wants to hear all about it and invites him to join them for dinner. 

            Rose was played by Allison Hayes in her final role. Allison was Miss Washington D.C. in the 1949 Miss America pageant. Her first film was "Francis Joins the WACS" in which she played opposite the famous talking mule. She played Livia in "The Undead" and co-starred in "The Unearthly". She starred in "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman." She considered her best performance to have been in "Count Three and Pray." She played poker dealer Ellie Winters on the "Bat Masterson" TV series . I didn't finish typing my lecture notes until after dinner and then by the time I updated my journal it was bedtime.