Astro Boy

            On Thursday morning I worked out the chords to the second verse of “Laide jolie Laide” (Ugly Pretty Ugly) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            Seven songs into my morning rehearsal I broke my B string and had to salvage an old one from the cheap but pretty Rose guitar that my upstairs neighbour David gave me a few years ago. I had to just play a verse and a chorus for almost every song to make up for lost time. 

            I weighed 87.7 before breakfast. 

            At 9:23 I made it out the door to head for my Global Modernisms lecture. But when I got to University College there were students inside the door asking for the green screen confirmation that I’d filled out the Ucheck covid symptoms questionnaire before coming to campus. I’d thought we were done doing that, and since nobody ever checked for confirmation when I was attending classes in the fall, I figured it was not an issue. I tried to go on Ucheck with my phone but accidentally turned my phone off and every time I restarted it shut down again. Finally, I pulled out my laptop and did the questionnaire. It seemed weird they were doing this now since it seems we are on the verge of the masks coming off. 

            I was two minutes early for class, but it felt like I was late because Celeste was standing at the front of the room about to begin her presentation. Celeste presented on the scene in the market in Untouchable when Bakha buys sweets and loses himself in the melting of the sugar in his mouth. He says he wants to learn to speak English? I thought he was just learning to read. To be un-self conscious could be to not be aware of oneself. He forgot he was an untouchable. Urchins have no power and so they take this opportunity to pounce on Bakha. Bakha's interiority returns. Losing interiority had put him in the situation. Untouchable explores diff pow din. 

            Apala asks about the Joycean epiphany moment. How epiphany works in global modernism. Everybody says Bakha’s epiphany is in the market, but I think it comes at the end. 

           Modernists said they were apolitical. György Lukács calls this cold war modernism. 

           Julienne did her presentation on Jessica Berman’s “Imagining Justice” from her book Modernist Commitments. Examine connection between modernism, ethics, and politics in 20th. She talks about Untouchable. Does modernity increase liberation? The texts create a web of human relations. She explores philosophers. Does ethics have a place in politics? Some laws separate people. Is modernity positive. 

            Apala asks about ethics in Untouchable. 

            I say that Bakha is really the only ethical person in the novel. 

            I think that a society based on ethics would be based on belief and could be dangerously puritan or imposingly idealistic in some other manner. How is primitivism fitting with ethics and politics? 

            The character of a new nation is designed as a reaction to colonialism. 

            Look at the table of contents of the Mitter article.

            

            I stayed after class to ask if my essay idea wasn’t too wild. I want to argue that Bakha is a child of modern India in the sense that he did not exist and in fact the untouchables did not exist until they were presented in art. I told her I want to use Oscar Wilde’s theory about life imitating art and use some evidence of that such as the fact that the world did not become aware of the colour blue until Egyptians invented blue dye and presented it in their art. She asked why I think that the untouchables didn’t exist before they were presented in art. I clarified that nothing exists in human consciousness until presented in art. She said she looks forward to reading my essay proposal. 

            I walked out of the building with Apala and went to my bike but then realized that I’d forgotten to pee. So, I went back inside and fortunately the covid police remembered me. 

            There were a couple more computer stores I wanted to check before deciding which one I should buy. I’d brought a notebook in which I’d thought I’d written down a list of stores and their addresses, but I’d brought the wrong notebook. I sat down on a bench in the cold sun and turned my laptop on to do a search for the stores, but the sunlight was washing out my screen. I sat on a shadier bench, and it was still difficult to see but I managed to find there was only one more store left and that was PVC on Yonge Street. 

            PVC looks like a husband-and-wife operation with her on the business end and he on the tech side. He didn’t have many desktops in the store and there was a barrier to keep people from walking around. He showed me one tiny, refurbished HP and gave me the specs on a new Asus. He assured me, it seemed a little desperately, that whatever PC I find anywhere else, if I give him the specs he guarantees to find the exact same thing for me at least $100 cheaper. That was nice to know but I didn’t want to wait even a few more days. 

            I headed down to Queen to probably buy the refurbished HP at PCS. I overshot PCS even though I was looking across the street all the way to Strachan. I headed back and found it just after Bathurst. I asked Tom Liu a few questions. I found out that although he builds desktops he didn’t refurbish the HP. It was bought from the supplier. This is a small business with a few branches but he’s not the owner. I was hoping he would deliver if I bought it but he said they don’t. I decided to buy it anyway and after tax, it cost me almost $904. Tom threw in a keyboard and mouse. 

            This HP Pavilion is about half the size of my old HP and lighter and so it was much easier to carry on my bike. I remember a tension-filled ride seven years ago. 

            I weighed 86.2 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I tried to set up the new computer. One weird thing is that it has no manual on/off switch. But later I looked this up and found a forum someone asked about that. Someone else answered with a link to the manual and said, “look at page nine.” Sure enough, there is an almost invisible rectangular button on the right front corner of the top of the PC. It blends in with the surface of the top because it’s at the same level with barely discernible lines around it and looking like a secret trap door. I like the design of it. 

            I was disappointed to find that this HP has only four USB ports in the back and one in front. My old one has twice as many. I found online though that I can get a USB adaptor that turns one USB port into several, like a power bar for electrical plugs. 

            When I tried to plug in the monitor I found the plug doesn’t fit the new HP. I called Tom and he said he will give me an adaptor at no charge. I checked his business card and saw he would be open until 19:00 and so I headed back down there. But when I got there the store was closed and the sign on the door said because of the pandemic they would be closing every day at 16:00. I wished he’d told me that on the phone. 

            I weighed 86 kilos at 17:00. 

            I got caught up on my lecture notes and journal just before dinner. I had some of the herb, garlic and cheese potatoes that I’d made the other day with gravy. I had dinner while watching the first episode of the 1963 Japanese cartoon series Astro Boy, which was based on the comic book that began in 1952. 

            The cartoon is in black and white, but one doesn’t miss the colour because the animation is so good and the writing of it is so clever. 

            The story begins with young Astor speeding in his automatic car along one of the super safe electronically controlled highways of 2013. But suddenly there is an unexplained collision and Astor is killed. His father, Dr Boynton, the head of the Ministry of Science dedicates all of the institute’s resources to the construction of a robot to replace Astor. After a year it is completed and Boynton brings Astro Boy to life by playing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on his lab’s control panel as if it were a keyboard. Astro Boy is given the best education and excels at everything with his super brain. 

            But after a few years Boynton realizes Astro Boy is not physically growing like a real boy and he rejects him. He sells him to the robot circus of the cruel ringmaster Cacciatore. Cacciatore stages a battle between the giant robot Zog and Astro Boy wins but refuses to destroy Zog, which makes Cacciatore angry. Cacciatore has a junk heap of robots that he has not cared properly for. Astro Boy uses his own circuitry to recharge and rejuvenate them all. 

            At the next show a robot explodes and destroys the stadium. Astro Boy saves Cacciatore and the other robots save the spectators. Dr Elefun, the kind old scientist who now runs the Ministry of Science, wants Cacciatore to release Astro Boy from slavery but he refuses. Then because of how the robots rescued the people, a law is passed to liberate them all. Astro Boy leaves with Dr. Elefun. 

            I posted my Discussion Board comment: 

            Celeste presented on the scene in the market in Untouchable. She talked about how to be un-self-conscious could be to not be self-aware. Losing interiority made him forget he was untouchable. Apala asks about the Joycean epiphany moment. Modernists said they were apolitical. Some Modernist scholars push back at this and say it’s not possible to be apolitical. 

            Joelle did her presentation on Jessica Berman’s “Imagining Justice.” Some laws separate people. She asks, “Is modernity positive?” The character of a new nation is designed as a reaction to colonialism. 

            My takeaways: 

            Everybody says Bakha’s epiphany is in the market, but I think it comes at the end. Yes, Anand describes Bakha’s moment of sudden realization that he is an untouchable as if it were an epiphany, right down to the illumination. But this seems ironic. His sudden awareness provides him with no deeper understanding as is characteristic of an epiphany. Suddenly realizing the obvious is not an epiphany. It is at the end that Bakha realizes that he is something more than an untouchable. That is an epiphany. 

            I say that Bakha is really the only ethical person in the novel. 

            A purely ethical society would be based on belief and could be dangerously puritan or imposingly idealistic in some other manner. 

            The idea that presenting a day in the life of a Dalit shows their suffering is true. But it should be kept in mind that Bakha is a fictional character in a made-up story. Chances are 99% of the days of 99% of the real Dalits would have been boringly uneventful, with no apparent suffering whatsoever. It is the horrible and reprehensible overall situation of the conditions experienced by the untouchables relative to the rest of the population that Anand is embodying in Bakha.