Last week, “Lisa the Iconoclast” (1996) was up for discussion in my Simpsons class.
(Lisa discovers that the town hero, Jebediah Springfield, was actually Hans Sprungfeld, a pirate who fought George Washington, hated the town he founded, and took credit for taming a “land cow” (buffalo), even though he had simply shot it. No one but Homer believes her, and the town historian actually covers up proof she’s right. When she confronts him, he admits it & is prepared to let her tell the townsfolk. Lisa reconsiders, though, since “the myth of Jebediah has value too.”)
When I last taught the class, in 2019, we had a robust discussion of whether Lisa made the right choice in ultimately keeping Hans’s secrets.
We did this time as well, but we spent more time talking about how this episode would likely be very different if it were written today.
While Miss Hoover calls Lisa a “PC thug . . . who keep[s] the rest of us from landing a husband,” today, Lisa would be derided as “woke.”
I also postulated that our recent grappling of history, specifically the removal of confederate statues, might have changed Lisa’s perspective on preserving a false legacy.
When a student asked why Lisa is okay with abandoning her quest to spread the truth and protect her reputation, it occurred to me that maybe it’s enough that the town historian validates her, especially after he gaslit her. I noted that “gaslighting” wasn’t a common term in 1996 (and that we overuse it now).
I’m not sure exactly what would happen in a cromulent 2024 version of this story, but I’m sure it would embiggen my streaming time.
For the fourth or fifth time in my career, a parent reached out today. She didn’t identify which student is hers, but it’s someone in my premed writing classes. She said students were upset about the “volume” of essays in a short time.
I wrote back, explaining that we only have three essays in the quarter. I told her when they were due and why they were spaced the way they were. (One is a scaffolding assignment for another, for example.) I also stressed that each assignment was on the syllabus from before the class started, with instructions and due dates.
And then I told her this:
“On the first day, I also shared my own experience with being overwhelmed in college (students in my circumstances have a less than 1% chance of getting a bachelor’s degree). I asked them to talk to me if things started going wrong, if they started falling behind, etc., saying that we could work it out together. I explained that the only way I got through college successfully was communicating with my instructors.
“Thus, I’m really disappointed by your email.
“Rather than the students engaging with me, someone’s mother has been dispatched.”
The mom got back to me. She said the context I provided, which her kid left out, assured her that I was reasonable about my expectations and schedule. And she apologized.
Two stressors have risen in awful prominence lately.
First, health. (Warning: this is gross.) Several weeks ago, my gastro doc asked me to do a cleanse, to determine if I have IBS-C (her guess) or IBS-D (my guess). It’s D. It’s so D. Now, after the cleanse, my diarrhea is so much worse, both in frequency and, grossly, consistency. I have to carry wipes with me to the bathroom, if I hope to be able to put clothes back on after I go.
Naturally, the clean up takes a while, and at work, the lights (on timers), turn off before I’m done.
Yesterday I was dealing with that, and then when I went to bed, I turned my head and my neck went out. It was extremely painful: I couldn’t control my tears, in addition to not being able to move my head. Hubby had to lift me up so I could take medication; the lifting made me scream.
It was the third time in the last five weeks that my neck has done that.
So I’m exhausted, and I’m worried, and all of this is exacerbated by my other big stressor:
Work.
The university is up to something. All UWP lecturers are being moved to the Writing Center, we’re told. The profs in my department heard the news at the same time.
This decision, about how writing will be taught, was made without input from a single writing instructor.
It has also been made without the larger senate being notified. It really seems like having most of the courses in a department being taught by people outside the department, not to mention gutting a department that serves all undergraduates, would be something the senate should have to vote on, right?
(It’s not the first time campus-wide decisions about writing instruction have been announced to us without us being given any advanced notice, the opportunity to advise, or without the senate being informed.)
The university is not being forthcoming about what this change means. In fact, they often claim they can’t answer our questions because we have a union, which is 100% bullshit.
Then, this afternoon, my husband told me he met an app developer who has a couple of employees who have also been hired by UC Davis to create an app to grade essays (we would upload our rubric and some general comments and the AI would do all the grading). The developer said grading would take seconds and that it’s obvious the university would need fewer writing teachers.
Of course, writing teachers know that’s not how grading works. Even those teachers who grade with a points-based rubric, instead of holistically, like many of us do, could never trust AI and some impersonal comments to do the work.
AI isn’t smart enough yet. I can’t think of a single writing assignment I have that could be responded to in that way.
My doctors would like me to have less stress, but just writing this out has made my neck tighter. I’m really worried about my health, and I’m really worried about my job. And I live in a country where my healthcare is dependent on my job.
Today in 1875, my (Grand)daddy’s grandfather, John Andersson Waltonen, was born in Finland, on a prosperous dairy farm.
He and one of the milkmaids had a “miracle baby” (according to my GDaddy, “a baby miraculously born only a few months after the wedding”). His family didn’t accept her, since she was lower class, so they immigrated to America.
John’s wife never did learn English.
Without class struggles, lax immigration policies, and premarital sex, I wouldn’t be here.
This week, I got the Atwood journal out, after finally getting a missing piece. It was important to me to do that before doing the all-day upper division comp exam scoring yesterday.
Since then:
There weren’t enough scorers, so I have to find time this weekend to score a bunch more essays.
Came home to a dead water heater.
Thoth brought in a rat and put it in the food bowl, like “I made dinner!”
I spent most of the night sick in the bathroom.
Just got an email that the last piece of the journal has a mistake they didn’t catch, so it’s technically not done.
On stand-up comedy class days, we play a five minute headline game, wherein I bring in headlines, and we pretend we’re in a late night writers’ room, coming up with punchlines.
Here’s one I wrote today:
Today in 1849, the first woman graduated from medical school.
Also today in 1849 was the first day a male patient said, “Sure, sweetie. Now go get me a real doctor.”
A not insignificant reason why it’s easier to have IBS when working from home:
At work, I have to remember to take my phone into the bathroom with me, for its flashlight function. UCD’s bathroom lights are motion operated, but only counts motions outside the stall.
When I have terrible diarrhea, as I do today, it’s not fun to find myself in a completely dark bathroom.
(rest more, try at least 52 new recipes, see a movie in the theatre each week; learn to make 12 new cocktails)
Number of resolutions kept: 2
Days in hammock: 0
New Recipes Tried: 59
(Best new recipe: Spicy Thai Eggplant with Ground Pork and Tofu)
New Cocktails Made: 17
Podcasts I’ve tried to keep up with: 23
Magazine subscriptions I tried to keep up with: 6
Times Karen drove down from Santa Rosa to see me: 2
Movies watched: 69
(including 6 at the Sacramento French Film Festival)
Oscar-Nominated Movies last year: 9 + 15 this year = 24
Oscar-Nominated Shorts: 11
Drunk women encountered at the airport who could not believe she had to change terminals to get to Omaha: 1
Times Jeff accidentally told the Omaha woman to get off the tram at the wrong stop: 1
Times I overheard Italians saying “Mamma Mia” in a completely natural way, which I didn’t believe they did: 6 (three just at the airport when dealing with tourists)
Times my house was completely clean: 0
Times in Ireland that I went to find a King crest souvenir because a paternal ancestor migrated from Derry to PA in the 1700s, and a Conroy crest souvenir because my maternal cousins’ paternal ancestor migrated from Derry to PA in the 1800s, and I learned that some Conroys anglicized their names to King, so maybe my cousins and I are related in another way way back: 1
Painful two-part dental procedures: 1
Places visited: 9
(Chicago, Indianapolis, Milan, London, Guatemala, Northern Ireland, Malta, Anaheim, Verona)
Weeks away from home: 8
Full days home between Milan and Ireland: 5
New nieces: 1
Bad mental health months: 2
New combination air fryers / toaster ovens, which resulted in the net loss of one kitchen tool: 1
Visits to the airport Pappadeux: 2
Derry Girl sets sat upon: 2
Museums & Galleries: 25
Times Jeff and I went back to the same favorite restaurant in Malta: 5
Fancy multi-course dinners in Malta: 1
Times I could get a taxi easily in Derry: 1
Times I could NOT get a taxi easily in Derry: 3
Times I could NOT get a taxi at all in Derry: 3
Times I set up a taxi and waited for it on the street at 5 a.m. and it didn’t come and didn’t come and finally they sent another taxi because the first one had a flat and the driver told me to relax because we had plenty of time, but then I got to the airport (the airport with *1* terminal) and they had stopped check in and the lady who worked there started to lecture me about getting to the airport on time and I started to cry and she let me check in, so I did get to join the 11 other people getting on the plane a while later: 1
Students who got into Prized Writing: 2
Conferences: 7
New summer abroad classes developed: 1
Film Festivals: 2
Indian fairs: 1
Trying fry bread for the first time: 1
A dinner ruined by nearby conservative Americans in Milan: 1
Times I wanted a gazpacho (with egg topping), but misread the menu and somehow ended up paying 16 euros for *a* poached egg with gazpacho drizzle: 1
Poached eggs enjoyed: 0
London Arboretums: 1
New lovely scarves: 3
Times I got Covid: 1
Days picking up wine with my man: 1
Times a pharmacist in Milan was rude when I needed help for my IBS: 1 (“No. We don’t have it! Goodbye!!!”)
Nando’s meals: 6
Atwood talks given: 1
Times I got a flat tire on the way to my Atwood talk and abandoned my car on the side of the road to make it on time: 1
Meals at my favorite Milan restaurant (Mappamando): 5
Other Live Shows: 3 (Nina Totenberg; Meow Meow; The Labricks)
Times Meow Meow had Jeff come up on stage as part of her act: 1
New tires required: 2
Front end work required: 1
Times Dante got a flat while my car was in the shop: 1
Days just in December when I couldn’t walk: 3
Days in December when I could just shuffle: 5
Classes taught: 12
(full time is 7)
New ornaments for the tree: 11
Time I tried Malort: 1
Times I enjoyed Malort: 0
Times I finished 25 years of teaching and threw myself a party: 1
Times I got closure or clarity on my student loans: 0
Times I had to start repayments on my student loans: 0
(Have they been forgiven? Who knows. Probably?)
Live Plays: 16
Hours spent researching my family tree: not enough + too much. This next year, I’ll keep track of how many people I add.
Ear Surgeries: 1
Worsening health conditions, including my clumsiness (I have broken three wine glasses while doing dishes this week): all – 1 (my ears)
TV Shows: 84
Arts and crafts projects: 1
New roombas: 1
Lower bite guards that don’t stop me from grinding at all: 1
Books Completed: 84
New jewelry organizers: 1
Stand-up performances with my students: 4
Completely dreadful scamming Airbnb hosts: 1
Times I read through this list and realized why I might be ending the year exhausted beyond measure: 1
Perfect weddings in Guatemala: 1
Wedding ceremonies in Woodland to make it legal here too: 1
The Details:
New recipes: Spiced Roast Chicken with Tangy Yogurt Sauce; Berry-Jam Fried Chicken with Savory Cornbread; Mustard and Rosemary Pork Tenderloin with Fried Apples; Saucy Chicken and Peppers with Manchego Polenta; Slow Cooker Chicken and Stuffing; Red Wine Chocolate Cake; Pork Medallions with Red Pepper Sauce; Ginger-Sesame Pork Burgers with Slaw; Thai One-Pot; Laap Pla Duk (Thai Catfish Salad); Chicken Soup with Chilis, Coconut Milk & Lime; Corned Beef; Meyer Lemon Olive Oil Cake; Garlic Red Pepper Chicken; Peanut Noodle Salad with Cucumber and Roast Pork; Pastrami Carbonara; TikTok Baked Spaghetti with Bison; Creamy, Lemon Pasta (from NYT); Best Damn Air Fryer Chicken Legs; Spiced Pork Chops with Peas, Radishes, and Mint; Spicy Thai Eggplant, Pork, and Tofu*; Crock Pot Pork from AllRecipes, with Air Fryer Green Beans from The New York Times; French Sloppy Joes; Lamb Burgers; Chicken Stroganoff; Rosemary, Honey, and Fig Cake; Egg and Potato Chip Tortilla; Slow Cooker Massaman Curry; Murgh Kari (Indian Chicken Curry); Skillet Tortellini with Corn and Rosemary; Catalan Tomato Bread; Slow Cooker Ethiopian-Spiced Chicken and Black Lentil Stew; Fig Sour Cream Cake with Caramel Cream Sauce; Laab; Air Fryer Ranch Pork Chops; Crunchy Baked Pesto Chicken Thighs; Slow Cooker Sweet and Sour Chicken Thighs; Cumin Lamb Noodles with Eggplant; Soy-Butter Corn Ramen; Air Fryer Sesame Chicken Breast; Blueberry No-Churn Ice Cream; Sheet-Pan Chicken Thighs with Spicy Corn; Air Fryer Chicken Wellington; Slow-cooker Spanish Chicken; Coconut Curry Salmon; Pizza Chicken; Cannelloni*; Slow Cooker Coconut Pork Curry; Air Fryer Cod; Grilled Tandoori Chicken Sandwiches; Chicken Pesto Pasta Bake; Pork au Poivre; Dutch Baby (Ham and Cheese); Fettuccini with Ham and Zucchini; Curried Lentils with Ham; Summer Rolls; Salmon with Lemon-Ginger Butter; No Bake Eggnog Pie; Grandma’s Casserole, but with Elk!
New Cocktails: Moonpool; Lemon Basil Martini; Death in the Afternoon; Corpse Reviver 2; Lemon Lavender Sour*; Blood Orange Irish Mule; Brainstorm; Emerald; Southside*; Tom Collins with Wild Pink Icelandic Gin; Monte Carlo; Lemon Lavender Old Fashioned; Blackthorn; French Absinthe; New York Sour*; El Diablo; Hot Buttered Rum
Podcasts: RadioLab; This American Life; Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me; History of Egypt; Morning Edition; All Things Considered; American History Tellers; Sidedoor; LeVar Burton Reads; Savage Lovecast; Will Be Wild; Working It Out; More Perfect; Fresh Air with Terry Gross; You’re Wrong About; The Retrievals; Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend; 1865; Over My Dead Body; Beef and Dairy Network Podcast; Wiser than Me; This is History with Dan Jones; American Scandal; RadioLab
Magazines: The New Yorker; Discover; Smithsonian; Fantasy and Science Fiction; Asimov’s; National Geographic
Movies: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande; Weird; The Mitchells Vs. The Machines; Lover Come Back; The Muppets; The Muppets Most Wanted; Star Wars IV, V, VI; Star Trek 2009; Guardians of the Galaxy; You Hurt My Feelings; Love Sarah; Ticket to Paradise; Brian and Charles; The Lion in Winter; Luther: The Fallen Sun; Indiana Jones 1, 2. Spiderverse 2; The Night of the 12th; Everybody Loves Jeanne; Little Ones; The (In)Famous Youssef Salem; Labyrinth; Past Lives; Indiana Jones V; Dungeons and Dragons; Emily the Criminal; Shaun the Sheep; Blue Beetle; Austenland; Linoleum; A Man Called Otto; Barbie (twice); Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings; Bob and Marge Go Large; Hunt for the Wilderpeople; Crazy Rich Asians; The Nannies; The Man Who Came to Dinner; Bridget Jones’s Diary; Paddington 2; Toni; Catherine Called Birdie; Clueless; The Boy and the Heron; Trains, Planes, and Automobiles; Chicken Run 2; Poor Things; Persuasion; Elvis, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once; The Fabelmans; Tar; Triangle of Sadness; Women Talking; Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio; Puss in Boots: The Last Wish; The Sea Beast; The Whale; Blonde; To Leslie; Empire of Light; Babylon; Saltburn; Renfield
Comedy Specials: Wanda Sykes: I’m an Entertainer; Nate Bargatze: Hello, World; Jim Gaffigan: Quality Time; Kathleen Madigan: Hunting Bigfoot; Russell Howard: Lubricant (2); Mike Birbiglia: What I Should Have Said Was Nothing; Birbiglia: My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend; Neal Brennan: Blocks; Leanne Morgan: I’m Every Woman; Randy Feltface: Smug Druggles; Randy Feltface: The Book of Randicus; Zainab Johnson: Hijabs Off; Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love; Birbiglia: The Old Man and the Pool; Pete Holmes: I Am Not for Everyone; Leo Reich: Literally Who Cares?!; Maria Bamford: Local Act; Trever Noah: Where Was I?; Eliza Shlesinger: Unveiled; Ari Eldjárn: Pardon My Icelandic; John Leguizamo: Latin History for Morons
Live Plays: The Hombres; Book of Mormon; The Predictor; Accidental Death of an Anarchist; Tambo and Bones; Strange Loop; Dr. Semmelweis; The Play That Goes Wrong; Clyde’s; Ragtime; Harry Clarke; The Anarchists; POTUS; Christmas at Pemberly 3; To Kill a Mockingbird; Hadestown
New Shows: Andor; Kindred; His Dark Materials; The Last of Us; Moon Knight; Queen Charlotte; American Born Chinese; Poker Face; Shrinking; The Bear; Blindspotting; Ahsoka; Hijak; Life on Our Planet; White House Plumbers; Over the Garden Walls; Colin from Accounts; The Diplomat; Obama’s Working series
Mostly Kept Up With: Call the Midwife; Foundation; Outlander; Futurama; Star Trek: Strange New Worlds; Harley Quinn; The After Party; Foundation; Picard; Schmigadoon; Loki; Upload; Lower Decks; Breeders; Disenchantment; Lupin; Our Flag Means Death; Vienna Blood; Doctor Who; For All Mankind; Bob’s Burgers; SNL; The Simpsons; Fargo; Gilded Age; Reservation Dogs; The Crown; Abbot Elementary; Barry; The Great; Marvel’s What If; Good Omens; All Creatures Great and Small; Vikings: Valhalla; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; Seth Meyers; Colbert; Daily Show; Resident Alien; Ted Lasso; Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; Barry; Miracle Workers
Shows Jeff and I binged that I had seen before: The Americans; Counterpart; Acapulco; Brooklyn 99; Killing Eve; For All Mankind; The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; The After Party; Schmigadoon; Only Murders in the Building; Ted Lasso
Other binges: Kim’s Convenience; The Spanish Queen; Julia; Scrubs; Archer; The White Princess; The White Queen; This is Going to Hurt; The Witcher (S1); I Love That For You; Vikings
(I first wrote this for Matchflick (now defunct) in 2009. I’m posting it here today in honor of Tom Smothers’s passing.)
I don’t know what’s going in your stockings this year, but if I had my way (why do I never get my way?), it would be a copy of David Bianculli’s DANGEROUSLY FUNNY: THE UNCENSORED STORY OF THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR. I would probably throw in some DVDs of the show just to make sure you were able to appreciate the master comedy show Bianculli is talking about.
None of my college students knows who the Smothers Brothers are, which is a shame, since all of the political satire the students enjoy (on THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART, THE COLBERT REPORT, and SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE) owes its existence to the brothers and the show they created.
Of course, they’ve heard of THE SIMPSONS, which featured the Smothers Brothers last Sunday. They’ve also heard of Steve Martin, who got his comedy chops as a writer for the show, but they don’t know the other great writers or the impact the show had.
A few years ago, I did a unit on censorship with some classes and I showed the students a great documentary on THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR called SMOTHERED. It illustrated the spirit of the show with fantastic clips and interviews and then took the viewer into what the show is most remembered for—being taken off the air.
THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR made a lot of people uncomfortable because of its progressive politics. It was against racism, against politics and religion as usual, and against the Vietnam war.
My students were unimpressed—the satire seemed tame, but we must remember that comedy shows had not tackled politics or race or war or religion on T.V. before. All of a sudden, a T.V. show had the attention of the White House (and not in a good way). Network executives came under fire for allowing the show on the air.
It’s hard to put ourselves back in time to this moment. Try to imagine watching the news about Kent State—the National Guard opens fire on unarmed student protestors (and quite a few students who were merely walking to their next classes). Now try to imagine your neighbors being happy that those students are dead; many people said the students deserved to die because they were protesting the war. To protest the war was un-American and thus exercising your freedom of speech made you a target.
The SMOTHERS BROTHERS came under similar scrutiny. In fact, I asked my grandmother about them a couple of years ago and she was still mad—she saw their Vietnam protests as a direct insult to her husband who was serving in the war. (Strangely, it was my grandfather who first introduced me to THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS.)
The network wanted to get rid of them, but there was a contract. Thus, the network ended the contract at the first chance, when they claimed that a tape was delivered to an affiliate a few hours late. That same year, THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS won the Emmy for best writing. The show also sued the network for breach of contract and won.
But by then it was too late. Decades later, the network wanted another SMOTHERS BROTHERS special. They said they wanted edgy. A lot had changed. TV had changed and THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS was the germ of that change.
Now, when you watch the DVDs, you’ll note that a lot of the numbers are silly; it’s a variety show after all. And like all shows, it’s uneven. But just as MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS changed and defined British comedy, THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS made American television satire what it is today.
We luckily have a great adjective to describe that which the British wrought: Pythonesque. We don’t have a similar word for the comedy THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS gave us, except, as Bianculli reminds us, “dangerous.”
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