One of the most gratifying aspects of my relocation to the Midwest – ten years ago already – was the sheer expanse of it all. I spent the first 28 years of my life in New Jersey, where one’s gaze generally cannot travel more than a hundred yards before it runs smack into a building, tree, hill or other structural/topographical feature.  Nebraska entirely redefined the notion of “available space” for me.   I vividly remember looking out upon the prairie first time, across fields that stretched away toward a horizon that seemed to be endlessly receding. The sky itself was bigger, a vast dome of brilliant blue.

I felt a wave of upward-sweeping vertigo, a sensation I experienced on the observation deck atop the Empire State Building, head craned back and staring at that structure’s spire only a few stories above. Beyond that, nothing between me and the vacuum of space except a few miles of rapidly thinning atmosphere – and the irrational feeling that at any moment one could fall upwards into it and be lost.  Yeah, the prairie was a little like that the first time I really saw it.

So why, my fellow Nebraskans – with all of this glorious expansiveness available to us in the Midwest – why in God’s name is it necessary for you to position yourselves right on top of me in the grocery store?

I can’t figure it out. More and more often, patrons at our local supermarkets are finding new and inventive ways of invading my personal space, despite the remarkably wide aisles and generous floor plans we enjoy in Nebraska’s fine retail establishments.  I first noticed this phenomenon when fellow shoppers – almost always the larger ones, for some reason – began insinuating their fleshy bulk between me and the jars of spaghetti sauce or peanut butter at Super Target – despite the fact that I was standing less than two feet from said items.

Now, I’m not indecisive when it comes to making my selections, so it’s not as if they have to wait patiently while I mull over the competing virtues of Ragu’s  4-Cheese Blend and the pricier Bertolli Mushroom and Roasted Garlic Marinara.  And yet, without warning, excuse or apology, they manage to slip themselves into the scant 18 inches separating me from the shelves, pushing me backwards into the center of the aisle with the gentle but firm pressure of their meaty flanks and buttocks.

It may be somewhat odd that I’m as sensitive to this problem as I seem to be.  Growing up on the east coast, the press of the crowd is a fact of life.  As a child of the 70s and 80s, I’d successfully navigated the chaotic push and pull of sweaty mobs at Van Halen and Aerosmith concerts by the time I was 16.  But as I approached my late 20s, I found that I had less and less tolerance for that sort of thing – until it actually blossomed into a low-level phobia of being hemmed in by human bodies.

Nebraska is, for the most part, a natural fit for me. There’s a lot of space.  Even in “crowded” environments, it’s like living in a depopulated world by New Jersey standards. In my first five years as a Midwesterner, the most serious challenge to my newly developed ochlophobia was my experience of the audience at a James Taylor concert. And I can tell you, the risk of being caught up or trampled in a mob rushing the stage is a lot lower when James launches into “You’ve Got a Friend” than when Eddie and the boys hit the opening chords of “Panama” or “Hot for Teacher.”

So, on the whole, this sort of thing usually isn’t a big issue for me any more in the Midwest.  Except as it pertains to supermarkets.

Recently, the problem has centered on the checkout line.  It is not at all uncommon, as I wait for the cashier to total up my purchases, to sense a looming presence directly behind me.  Oftentimes, I can hear the labored wheeze of breath and even feel the warm, cigarette-soured exhalations on the back of my neck.  If I turn around, they are right there, inches away, watching with unabashed interest as I enter my debit card pin number on the keypad.  God forbid you ask for a little room while you complete your transaction – you’ll only be answered by a look of bovine perplexity and vague, baffled resentment.

My fellow Nebraskans, what’s behind all this?  Is it the allure of the raw animal pheromones I periodically squirt out of my various glands, or the spontaneous pull of my scintillating wit and magnetic personality?   Might it have something to do with the gravitational field naturally generated by high-mass bodies in three-dimensional space?  Perhaps the cause is more psychological than physical.  Perhaps some culturally pervasive atmosphere of Midwestern autophobia – fear of being alone – is to blame.   Whatever the cause, the result is pretty much the same.  I end up involuntarily sharing space with a complete stranger whose physical proximity to me is rather more intimate and unwelcome than one’s encounter with a particularly vicious hemorrhoid.

I beg you – please, please stop.  Back up a few paces.  Take advantage of the breathing room while we still have it in this part of the country.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that my son, at three years old, is already exhibiting some of his daddy’s quirks.  Given that most toddlers have not yet become sensitized to that part of the social contract that governs sovereignty over personal space, Nathanael can be said to be slightly ahead of the curve.  In principle, I approve of his caution in keeping others at bay.  But I also foresee problems when, inevitably, he must learn to negotiate the ebb and flow of larger crowds of people.  I guess we’ll just have to wait until Van Halen goes on tour again to get him used to it.

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In recent weeks, I’ve caught myself uttering two sentences that I never, ever thought would pass my lips.  Both of them were about my son.  The first was, “We gotta get that boy into a dance class.”  The second, “C’mon Nate – it’s time to put your leotard on.”

Interestingly enough, these statements are entirely unrelated to one another.  The first was spoken in reference to Nate’s absolute, unfettered joy in dancing along to his favorite music.  It’s a tendency we first noticed when a close family friend gave us a novelty electronic panic button that played the “Chicken Dance” when pressed.  Nate’s physical response to the tune was both original and strikingly chicken-like in a frenetic, unchoreographed sort of way.  He has since progressed to more elaborate and contolled dance moves to songs such as the Veggietales rendition of the B52’s “Rock Lobster” (“Rock Monster”) and the close-harmony singing of Ladysmith Black Mombazo.  Kelly and I have encouraged him in this, and will continue to do so – it makes him happy, it gives him a little extra exercise, and I burn about 250 calories just from laughing (literally) my ass off.   As for the leotard issue, that has to do with a potty-training/diaper-control technique that we’re trying at the moment.  I won’t go into details – let’s just say that if I had a FEMA-issued hazmat containment tent available, I’d use that instead.

The point is, neither of those statements seem at all calculated to advance the accepted standard of masculinity that prevails in our little corner of the Midwest.  Remember, we’re talking about a state that was carved (some might say stomped) out of the flat wilderness by hardy, taciturn northern Europeans who turned with disgust from the frou-frou hills and valleys of the east and the flashy, ostentatious mountains of the west.  Those plains-breaking, clod-busting folk brought with them the solid, conservative values that made the challenge of life on the prairie possible – hard work, healthy living, God-fearing, three square meals per day and all that.  None of their kids ever danced to the music of the B52’s – not even “Love Shack.”

Despite the weight of local culture and history against us, we are in principle a pro-dancing household.  This is not to say that I dance frequently myself.  My own attempts usually follow upon several pints of rum-and-coke at any given wedding reception, and often necessitate some kind of group intervention (i.e. tackling) to stop me on humanitarian grounds.  Left unrestrained, my dancing style resembles the twitchy, crook-necked gyrations demonstrated by Charlie Brown and his pals on the old Peanuts television specials, only less elegant . . . and more dangerous.  Those in doubt need only consult my wife, who will gladly recount her own narrow escape from serious injury and possible death while we performed the bride & groom’s “first dance” on our wedding day five years ago.

Happily, Nate is already showing signs of a higher level of technique.  His principal style approximates Snoopy’s joyful “Suppertime” dance, crossbred with the aggressive, fist-pumping action of mid-‘80s icon Billy Idol.  Other dance stylings in his repertoire range from slow spinning to Johann Strauss’ On the Beautiful Blue Danube, to ecstatic leaps and tumbles along with up-tempo gospel music.  Just picture John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd in the “Reverend Cleophus James” episode in The Blues Brothers, and you’ll have a good idea of what I mean.  I just thank God he’s shown no interest in country line dancing yet.

But the fundamental question remains: are we allowing Nate to develop unseemly, non-salt-of-the-earth habits by encouraging his dancing? By opting to enroll him in a dance class rather than, say, Deer Hunting for Toddlers at the local YMCA, are Kelly and I undermining the solid, masculine traits that would make life in the Midwest that much easier for him?  Some might say, “Yes!  Get that boy a tin of Skoal, a subscription to Guns & Ammo, and season tickets for the Huskers!”  Others might say, “No, you’re doing fine, but can’t you steer him away from the B52’s?”

For my own part, I’ll just hold the course and say, he can dance if he wants to.  But I’m still butch enough to hope that we can get rid of that damn leotard before he starts doing Baryshnikov impersonations in front of company in the living room.
I think he likes that thing just a little too much.

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Human beings are, for the most part, social animals.  With the notable exceptions of individuals such as Ted “Unibomber” Kaczynski, most of us enjoy the sense of personal affirmation that comes from the company of persons with similar backgrounds and interests.  Even old Ted might have made a few friends if he’d put down the wires and detonators and got out of the basement more often.  One can just imagine his profile on a social networking site such as MeetUp or Match.com:  Brilliant but sociopathic recluse seeking like-minded individuals to share a violent hatred of industrial development, higher education institutions and the persons who represent them. Schizophrenics OK, but please no smokers or fatties.

Even those of us who don’t consider ourselves to be compulsive “joiners” are finding that we’ve somehow become card-carrying members of an alarming number of groups or causes.  Facebook is a big culprit because of the ease with which it enables us to recruit one another into whatever pet peeve/crusade is currently chafing our privates.  It’s become remarkably easy to show people just how socially conscious you are by clicking a “join” or “become a fan” button.  But there is a downside.  Unless you’re careful, five minutes on Facebook can result in your induction into groups with murky agendas like VPALP (Vegetarian Parapsychologists Against Latex Products) or SPIT (Society for the Protection of Incontinent Tapirs), of which I have somehow been elected secretary and treasurer.

And don’t even get me started on the Freemasons.

Our natural interest in banding together for the most obscure reasons manifests itself everywhere in pop culture these days.  For example, as a former professional bookseller, I’ve always been fascinated with the growing number of novels that are themed around clubs or societies with quirky, amusing names.  Most of these – well over 90%, is my guess – fall within the chick-lit category and feature titles that are no doubt intended to be either charming and folksy, or hip and trendy.  Here’s a partial list of various series and one-off novels to hit the shelves in recent years:

• The Joy Luck Club (probably the most respectable of the bunch, but who am I to say?)
• The Friday Night Knitting Club
• The Hindi-Bindi Club (huh?)
• The Women’s Murder Club
• The Mother-Daughter Book Club
• The Potluck Catering Club
• The Sunday Philosophy Club (the one book on this list I’ve actually read)
• The Wildwater Walking Club
• The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club (deserves an merit award for shoehorning both “society” and “club” into the title)
• The Persian Pickle Club (never heard it called that before! ga-ziiing!)
• The Jane Austen Book Club
• The Penny Pinchers Club
• The Hot Flash Club
• The Dirty Girls Social Club (sounds GREAT – recently added this to my wishlist on Amazon)
• The Supper Club (boooooring!)
• The Blue Bottle Club
• The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club
• The Widows Club
• The Professors’ Wives Club (Helen: So, Agnes, I understand the editors of Philology Today never deigned to review your husband’s latest book.  You and Philip must be so disappointed! / Agnes: (slaps Helen viciously across the face) “You bitch!!!”
• The First Wives Club
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2009 winner of the Self-Consciously Quirky Title Award)
• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (now a major motion picture featuring America “Vespucci” Ferrara)
• The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner
• How Dolly Parton Saved My Life: A Novel of the Jelly Jar Sisterhood
• The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society (the only novel ever to unite the epic themes of crochet, women’s book groups and Big League Chew under one cover)
• The Red Hat Society (not, surprisingly, about the Sacred College of Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church)
• The Red Hat Club (not this one, either)

And the list goes on.

I’m no psychologist – I don’t even play one on TV – but I suspect that the glut of club/society/sisterhood novels currently on the market speaks to a deep-seated human need to feel validated by belonging to something greater than oneself.  Either that, or it’s a cheap and easy way of jumping on a fairly lucrative bandwagon.  Why this should manifest itself so prevalently in media that specifically targets a female audience is beyond my competence to say, but it might have something to do with the reason women go to the bathroom in a group when dining out together at restaurants.

This is not to say that guy-focused literature couldn’t benefit from a similar marketing approach.  As yet, that’s still an untapped opportunity – but it’s probably only a matter of time before we start seeing titles like The Homebrew Lager and Enchanted Urinal Society or The Brotherhood of the Universal Remote.

That said, I’m not above a little literary opportunism myself.  I’m hoping to release my new children’s book The Baby Seals Club next year if I can get my editor to stop fighting me on the title.

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or,

The Thrill and Anguish of Unplanned Dentistry

It’s amazing how quickly our bodies begin to break down.

One minute you’re fresh out of high school with the constitution of a racehorse in its prime, the next minute you’re preparing to let a doctor with a latex glove give you the old two-fingered “how’s-your-father” while you face the wall of his office, grit your teeth and try to think of something pleasant.  As someone somewhere once put it, our bodies always betray us in the end, no matter how careful we may have been about taking care of ourselves.

Now that I’m circling my fortieth birthday, it has a actually become a little bit of a personal spectator sport to see which part of my body will volunteer to support the medical establishment next.  This past week, it was good old “Number 18” – a heretofore-cooperative molar on my lower left jaw.

Number 18 and I had always enjoyed a good relationship.  I could count on him to handle the grinding action needed for peanuts, celery sticks and the occasional piece of steak.  For my side of the bargain, I provided an assortment of pricey toothpastes, name-brand mouth rinses, and at least two treatments per day with a nifty electric toothbrush.  Sure, I could have been more regular with the flossing, but I didn’t totally ignore that part of it either.

I wanted Number 18 to be in my life forever.  I thought the future stretched out before us to the horizon.  I thought we had something special, that we could handle whatever foods life threw at us – together, as a team.  We had some good times, Number 18 and I – that wonderful New York strip steak at the Lied Lodge in Nebraska City, the lamb curry at the Weston Hotel in London.  But we wouldn’t have stopped there.  We would have gone on to chew bigger and better things – exciting things – things that no one had ever thought to chew before.   But it was not to be.  Wednesday morning found me first at my dentist’s office and then, an hour later, at a nearby oral surgeon.  Number 18 had split cleanly in half – don’t ask how or why.  Perhaps he looked at my overall physical condition and decided to get out of it before the going got rough.  All I know is that the post-mortem didn’t show any abnormalities in the tooth – no cavity, no infection.  He just . . . well, cracked under the pressure.

Now, I’m not especially squeamish when it comes to medical procedures, but dental work usually scares the hell out of me.  I’ve had a root canal or two in my time, sure – and I got through them with only a moderate amount of agonized writhing, whimpering and incontinence.  But most of my most significant dental experiences took place during my graduate student years in my capacity as a crash test dummy for the university’s dental school.  From a purely professional standpoint, it ranked up there with the kind of quality dental care one might associate with POW camps in the darker, less-tourist-friendly corners of Cambodia.  If those treatments had been interrogations, I would have told them anything – anything – up to and including the secret recipe for my famous German potato salad.  I’ve never, ever desired to re-live the experience.

Now, however, the stakes were higher.  This was the first time that I’d actually been in an oral surgeon’s chair – and I was flirting with the idea of having a full-on panic attack

The first things I noticed were the wrist restraints on the chair arms.  No, I’m not kidding.  Black, nylon cuffs with seams of industrial strength Velcro bolted to the chair frame – more humane than leather straps or chains perhaps, but still more than enough to start me shaking.  Frankly, I’d always thought if I ever ended up in a chair with wrist restraints, I’d either be praying fervently for the governor to call before they threw the switch, or (preferably) I’d be the paying guest of a masked, statuesque blonde wearing stiletto heels and a skin-tight black leather catsuit, playfully swishing a riding crop in time with the thunder of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in the background

As neither of those contexts applied to my current situation, I could only surmise that the reality would be much, much worse.  And so I sat in the chair, facing a blank wall and feeling the warm numbness creep across the left side of my head as the anesthetic took hold of a goodly chunk of my facial nervous system.  Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” ran through my mind on continuous loop:  Relax – just a little pinprick / there’ll be no more – AAAUUUUUUUUGGGHHHH! / but you may feel a little sick. At any moment, I expected the doctor to swoop in, strap me into the chair, and then – laughing maniacally while planting a foot on my chest for extra leverage – begin prying at my gums with a crowbar and pliers.

In the actual event, nothing of the sort happened.  The surgeon and his assistant stepped in rather casually, as if they were just passing by on their way to another, more interesting procedure (which they were).   They inquired about how the anesthetic was working, asked me to open my mouth so they could “take a look” – and before I knew it, good old Number 18 clanked unceremoniously into a small, kidney-shaped metal tray and was whisked away to whatever fate awaits molars once the Tooth Fairy no longer has jurisdiction over them.  Within minutes, I was once more in my car with a bloody wad of gauze in my cheek and on my way back to a marketing meeting at the office where I would give the most convincing Vito Corleone impersonation of my life.

And so the watch begins again – which body part will give up on me next?  With any luck, it’ll simply be my hair – but the smart money is betting on the brain.

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I.  Transgression and Compensatory Justice

Civilization, we are taught to believe, is built upon a foundation of law, order and ethical imperatives that compel individual persons to cooperate with one another in pursuit of the common good.  In practice, this supposition supports little if any actual weight.  If history teaches us anything, it is that “civilization” (to borrow a phrase from Robert Anton Wilson) is what you can get away with.

This theme pops up in some of the most unlikely corners of popular culture.  The other evening, for example, I ran headlong into it while Daddy read to me – perhaps for the forty-seventh time – Curious George at the Aquarium.  As I listened, it truly began to dawn upon me that nearly the entire Curious George oeuvre isn’t simply a series of tales about an inquisitive little monkey.  Rather, it can be read as a sequential meditation on the fragility of the social contract that theoretically governs our understanding of crime, punishment and social order as a whole.

For those unfamiliar with CG at the Aquarium, the major plot points may be quickly summarized.  While visiting the city aquarium with his friend (owner?) the “Man in the Yellow Hat,” George becomes curious about the many exhibits and animals there are to see.  Thoughtlessly (?), Yellow Hat leaves George unattended for a brief period in order to conduct business of his own. Almost immediately, George wanders off to investigate the many sights and sounds of the aquarium, antagonizes a sand crab and engages in a variety of other types of reckless behavior.

George’s adventure reaches its climax when he breaks into the penguin exhibit.  After amusing himself by interfering with what could only be a carefully-regulated habitat intended for rare and delicate polar creatures, the monkey is spotted by staff members who then raise the hue and cry.  George attempts to bolt and in the process leaves a door open for all the penguins to escape.  In the ensuing chaos, a baby penguin nearly drowns while unattended by its parents and unobserved by the aquarium staff.  George’s serendipitous rescue of the penguin chick is noticed by a child, who brings the fact to the attention of the director of the aquarium.  Inexplicably, the director applauds George’s heroism and makes him an honorary staff member of the facility.

Like the greater part of the Curious George canon, Aquarium follows a deceptively simple and familiar narrative pattern:  (1) George is left unsupervised by Yellow Hat; (2) he is presented with an opportunity to exercise his insatiable curiosity and thus creates mischief; (3) the situation spins rapidly out of control as a result of his actions; (4) George salvages the situation by helping to contain or solve the problem; (5) George is rewarded for his “help” or is otherwise let off the hook for the problem he caused.

While many, no doubt, find Aquarium to be a charming and light-hearted romp, is worth pointing out that these narratives throw the ethical underpinnings of civic order so seriously into question as to render meaningless the fundamental concepts of “good” and “bad.”  As the books consistently reiterate when introducing George, he is “a good little monkey, and always very curious” (emphasis added).  The question is, “good” in what way?  Can we attribute “goodness” to an individual who is either unwilling or unable to observe the most basic dictates of the social contract?  And would the same principle not also apply to me whenever I happen to unspool the entire toilet paper roll because I’m feeling “curious?”  The matter is further complicated by narrative details suggesting that George is not without a sense of right and wrong, and therefore by necessity bears the weight of responsibility.  Assuming that George has no ethical compass to steer by, why would he then attempt to flee when spotted in the penguin habitat by the aquarium staff? No – that dog, as they say, won’t hunt.

It is difficult to escape the sense that Aquarium illustrates a strange and distorted view of “compensatory justice.”  Said another way, the narrative suggests that the system of civic law can be transgressed at will so long as the transgressor subsequently mitigates or neutralizes the disorder caused by his actions.  From this perspective justice and its framework of ethical coercion have no a priori power to dissuade individuals from misconduct.  Would the reader feel the same way if the story concerned a “curious” and incompetent stockbroker who seriously compromises his client’s money, but is then put in charge of the Federal Reserve as a reward for salvaging part of the situation?  Having attempted something very like this pattern of behavior in my own household, I can say that the innocuous conclusion to George’s misadventures stretches the farthest limits of credibility.

II.  Carnival Theory and the Good Little Monkey

There are, of course, alternative readings possible when exploring the ethical dilemma posed by Curious George and his many adventures.  A relatively unexplored, but compelling approach concerns the theory that the structured transgression of social norms may either strengthen civic cohesion, or erode social bonds in order to lead to new – and possibly even better – forms of social organization.  These interpretations draw heavily upon carnival theory as advanced by critical theorists such as Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault, Terry Eagleton and many others.  Although it is beyond the scope of this discussion to explore these critical approaches fully, we’ll look at a few of the most relevant points as they apply to Curious George.

Returning again to the narrative template of the series, we see that George’s mischievous behavior generally results in a period of chaotic disorder that steadily escalates until the situation is resolved by the monkey’s resourcefulness and/or the intervention of a third party.  A Bakhtinian-Eagletonian reading of this structure might argue that George’s descent into mischief is a ritualized response to the oppression of conventional authority structures as represented by the Man in the Yellow Hat.  Almost invariably – though not wholly inexplicably – Yellow Hat temporarily disappears from the action, despite his certain knowledge of George’s propensity for mischief in his absence – only to return when the comedic mischief has run its course and normalcy begins to reassert itself.

From this perspective, the structured period of carnivalesque merriment and misrule operates as a kind of “safety valve” through which the pent-up energies, impulses and frustrations of the populace are safely dissipated, enabling conventional social authority to re-impose its control.  Precedents may be found in such traditions as the Roman Saturnalia or the medieval Feast of Fools, both of which involve the licensed, temporary disruption of the social order through merriment, mischief and reckless behavior.  Accordingly, it may be that George is left deliberately unattended so that he might experience a cathartic release of his own energies and rigidly-constrained desires.  It is worth noting that, by the conclusion of many Curious George stories, we find our hero spent and relatively quiescent, safely back in the tight psycho-social grip of Yellow Hat – a “good little monkey” once more.

Pursuing Michel Foucault’s approach to the suspension of social norms, however, we can arrive at a somewhat different interpretation.  Foucault notes that the liberation enjoyed during the loosening or deviation from social norms need not end in a reaffirmation of those norms, but rather can open the door to a reconfigured social order:

A culture, imperceptibly deviating from empirical orders prescribed for it by its primary codes frees itself sufficiently to discover that these orders are perhaps not the only possible ones or the best ones. (From The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Michel Foucault)

Foucault also points out that such periods of carnivalesque disorder can be simultaneously liberating and unsettling, an observation which sheds considerable light on the tone of George and his adventures.  As previously noted, George’s mischief not only frees him from the dominance of Yellow Hat, but also frequently forces him to occupy a new (albeit short-lived) place in an alternative social order.   An excellent example of this dynamic may be found in Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory.  Here, George’s tampering with the factory’s machinery leads to a crisis in which the monkey must insert himself into the industrial production line in order to save the chocolates from spilling from the conveyor belt to the factory floor.

Even though George himself is the author of the near-calamity, he is praised for his skill and resourcefulness in boxing the chocolates faster than any human being.  Following Foucault’s argument, George’s mischief obliges us to seriously consider an alternative social order in which monkeys hold a viable place in modern industry.  It is, in fact, one of the factory workers who recognizes the potential George and his misbehavior represents:  “Bring that monkey more boxes!  He’s helping us catch up!” (p.20)  Nevertheless, that open door is quickly shut again; George is whisked away from the factory by Yellow Hat, suffering from severe stomach pains as a result of eating too many chocolates.  Even in Aquarium, his adoption as an “honorary staff member” at the conclusion of the story is no more than a token gesture, a pseudo-appointment with no real cachet in the professional world outside of George’s brief reign of misrule.

Ultimately, George is never permitted to pursue Foucault’s thinking to its logical conclusion.  The pendulum swings from order to chaos, from repression to liberation and back again, evoking the tragedy of George and his plight.  His place in the social system described by H.A. and Margaret Rey – and those who continued their work – is distressingly static.  At best, his only real mobility is to become further ensconced in the culture of his human master.  As at least one critic has noted, Curious George is to Yellow Hat as Shakespeare’s Caliban is to Prospero. (John J. Miller, WSJ 2 February, 2006).   In such a case, can we hold Curious George to the same standards of ethical conduct and civic responsibility that we take for granted?

About the author:

Nathanael P. Medwick is Chair of Literary Philosophy at Children’s Choice Daycare in Lincoln, Nebraska.  He is the author of numerous monographs including The Virtue of Disobedience and When the Poopie Hits the Fan:  The Politics of Transgression in Modern Childcare Settings.

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Welcome back, Comrades -

In our last chapter, we examined techniques for resisting the will of adults through passive non-attention, otherwise known as displaced focus. While the non-attention method can yield some temporary success, sooner or later the adults will counter your lack of enthusiastic compliance by attempting to grab and physically carry you off to whatever undesirable destination or activity awaits.  Here, physical as well as mental techniques must come into play as you adopt the toddler resistance posture known as The Sandbag:

1.    Loosen your back and torso muscles so there is no rigidity in your abdominal section that might provide the adult with some usable leverage.
2.    Loosen your neck muscles and allow your head loll forwards, backwards, or side-to-side depending on how you are being held by the adult.
3.    Unlock your knees so that the adult is unable to stand you up on the floor without simply causing you to collapse completely.
4.    If you are being dragged by the upper torso, be sure to let your feet and legs become entangled in any potential obstacle within reach – furniture, toys, the dog, etc.

Advanced Technique:  Modified Sandbag Pose
The Modified Sandbag Pose is a highly useful method involving both active and passive resistance techniques.  You will have already discovered that your greatest point of vulnerability lies in being grasped by the upper torso beneath the arms.  In so doing, the adult uses the leverage point created by your armpits to gain a decisive advantage in the struggle to get you to the bathtub, dinner table, car seat, etc.

Fortunately, at 2-4 years of age, you are still flexible enough to execute the necessary counter-maneuver, although it will take some practice to master.  Here is a basic guideline:
1.    Bend at the waist and knees, bringing your legs up in back of you.  This shifts the center of your weight away from the vertical axis of the adult’s body.
2.    The shift in balance should cause the adult to lean forward slightly.  When you sense this, loosen your upper torso and shoulder muscles.
3.    Let your upper arms relax and roll your shoulders upward so that your armpits are no longer providing leverage for the adult’s grip on your torso.
4.    As you begin to slide downwards, raise your arms above your head.  You will quickly slither out of the adult’s grasp.
5.    Unlock your knees and return to your prone position on the ground.
6.    Repeat steps 1 through 5 as necessary.

Again, don’t hesitate to experiment with other variations on the Sandbag method.  Remember that every adult is different, and it may take some time to discover the exact body posture for exploiting the mental and physical limitations of your particular parents.

Good luck, Comrades – and stay tuned for the next installment of The Virtue of Disobedience.

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So – I’m driving home, having just picked up Nathanael from daycare.  It’s a nice spring afternoon in Lincoln.  The air is crisp and clean, with just a residual hint of fresh, cool moisture from the previous night’s rain showers.  Dappled sunlight plays across the office buildings, their windows reflecting heaps of white clouds against the brilliant blue sky.  Nate’s had a great day playing with his friends, and is busily telling me about it in his usual, adorable jabber. In one tiny hand he happily clutches his latest masterpiece – an abstract crayon composition on construction paper.

But something is amiss.  It begins with a faint, buzzing rattle coming from the dashboard.  Soon a low, rhythmic pulse courses through the frame of the car seat.  From there it travels up my spinal column until I can feel the throb in my teeth, particularly the filling in a lower left molar – a monument to a fondly-remembered root canal.  And then I can feel it in my entire skull, flashes of light skipping across my vision as tiny bolts of electrochemical energy arc erratically along the surface of my pulsating cerebral cortex.

Is this it?  Is this the big aneurism I’ve always feared?

No, it’s worse.  It’s a kid driving up next to me in a late model Grand Am with his windows down and the stereo blasting hip-hop at decibels that are showing up on satellite imagery as seismic anomalies.  He’s seated almost impossibly low behind the wheel – so low that he must be using an elaborate network of mirrors to see over the dashboard.  He’s wearing a sleeveless basketball jersey that definitely looks like high grade silk.  A baseball cap with severely flattened brim sits deliberately askew on his close-cropped head at an odd (though no doubt precisely measured) thirty-degree angle over his right eye.  Both jersey and hat are so brilliantly white that they bounce the sunlight back with painful intensity, making his pasty, early-spring Midwestern pallor look like he’s sporting a savage tan.  A generic tribal tattoo circles one well-toned bicep, no doubt indicating his social status in some indigenous or inner-city sub-culture.  A razor-thin line of beard swoops along his jawline, forking towards the chin and upper lip with a precision that could only be achieved by high-end military targeting lasers.

To complete the ensemble, his mouth is pursed in the trademark “Eminem sneer” – a look that must have taken hours balancing a turd on his upper lip in front of a mirror to perfect.  Coupled with the hooded-eye, deadpan look on the rest of his face, he gives the impression of being truly pissed off (c.f. Rockin’ the Suburbs, by Ben Folds).  Maybe not as pissed off as the guy on the car stereo, who’s discoursing at length about what he intends to do to those rival thugs and law enforcement personnel who get in his way, but still pretty angry all the same.

Yup – you’re hardcore, all right.  You are definitely street.  You sure are one tough *&^%$#@ gangsta.  Um . . . well, except for the fact that you’re also a total corn-shucking cracker, kiddo.

Look, you can be forgiven for not knowing that your pedigree can be traced to Vanilla Ice, who made a laughingstock out of himself back in the 80′s.  You were probably still pooping your Pampers at the time, if in fact you had already even been born.  You can also be forgiven for admiring Eminem who, whatever my personal opinion of his music might be, is at least authentically “street.”  What you cannot be forgiven for is the fact that you are trying very hard to graft a hip-hop thug image onto your pseudo-urban life in a smallish and relatively comfortable midwestern community.

In all likelihood, the closest you’ve come to a hardcore encounter with gangsta culture was while playing Grand Theft Auto on your PS3.  The closest you’ve probably come to a serious confrontation with law enforcement was the time you cried yourself to sleep in the back of a police car after getting picked up on a DUI on prom night.  The fact that you’ve crammed a sound system capable of servicing a 5000-seat concert arena into your car does not make you street.  The fact that you acquired your urban drawl from the iPod you got on your birthday does not make you street.  The fact that you learned how to flash gang signs by studying rap videos on daytime MTV does not make you street.  Even Sesame Street is more street than you are.  At least that show was originally created with the educational needs of actual inner-city, low-income kids in mind.  You, in contrast, are more like Fraggle Rock with a slightly bad attitude.

On the other hand, if you are a member of a historically oppressed and economically disadvantaged minority, and/or striving to escape or transcend – by any means necessary – urban living conditions that would make your current circle of friends, family and neighbors cringe in abject fear . . . well, you have a shot at being street.

If you’re still in doubt about the authenticity of your urban persona, here’s a quick and easy test that will clear up any uncertainty:

1)  Put on your best urban wear, drape on the bling and head to Trenton, New Jersey.
2)  At approximately 11:00 p.m. on a Friday, begin walking due east from the corner of South Broad Street and East State Street.  (Extra credit:  Use your best pimp swagger as you walk – the one you perfected on the mean streets of Lincoln, Nebraska.)
3)  Continue for three blocks.  Then stop and answer the question below:

Test Question #1: Are you still alive? (Pick one of the following responses)

YES – Congratulations, you might have some street in you after all!  But keep in mind that the neighborhood you just strolled through is like the Hamptons compared to South Central L.A., where the real thugs live.  Now proceed directly to the emergency room.  Those stab wounds should heal in a month or so if they didn’t perforate any major organs.

NO – Thank you for playing, but you are definitely not street.  There are no consolation prizes for our contestants, alas, but we will be happy to pour a libation of Tequila over your grave at the funeral.  You know – gangsta-style.

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It’s May in Nebraska, which means for the first time in nearly six months, I have the option of taking my daily relaxation in the backyard with only the fear of violent tornados touching down suddenly, destroying all life and limb in its path.  I celebrate these peaceful times by taking a snooze al fresco until the sunny patch I thought was beneath me suddenly moves across the yard.  No worries.  It’s my choice – either find another sunny patch, or retire under the Management’s bed – my own personal den, if you will.  I realize what an unburdened life I lead.  It’s why I sleep so soundly.

Yet, my golden slumber isn’t without its trials.  So is the nature of this world:  even that which pleases us most can distress us to the core.  I’m nearly 91 years old, and with age comes this kind of wisdom. 

No, you see, I have this problem. It’s kind of embarrassing, yet I know that you can probably relate.  Otherwise, I’d shamefully keep this secret to myself.  Though to some in my immediate circles, it is no secret at all.

When I sleep, I often…well, my muscles relax, causing my colon to…You see, I can only hold it in for so long, but while I am sleeping, it is difficult to regulate the muscles that control my…

Ok, I’ll just out with it.  I fart in my sleep.

There you have it.  What a burden I’ve been carrying!  Thank goodness I have you to talk to – you who won’t judge me or laugh in my face as you pass me on the sidewalk.  I know that humans can understand – I’ve never met one who didn’t feel it was entirely appropriate to squeak one out while seemingly alone in a room, away from the other party guests, family members, foreign dignitaries.  Don’t worry.  I’ll never tell.

All would be perfect if what I produced didn’t assault one’s olfactory sense.   But it never fails.  The Management can be sound asleep for hours, and will still awaken to one of my silent-but-deadlies with a choke and a cry, rising out of bed as if possessed a la Linda Blair, exclaiming “DEAR GOD, MOZART!”

They know I am the culprit.  My scent is impossible to emulate.  No human, animal or vomit-coated rotten egg factory could even attempt to replicate its potency.  Among other members of my species, I would be canonized.  I’d take my place among the greatest of farters in all dogkind as St. Flatulent-of- the-Great-Plains-Boston-Terriers.  But living as I do among human beings and a “sort-of” canine breed (I’m sorry, I missed something: Genji is a Japanese what?), my gift is a curse.  The Management has purchased several of these towers they call “ionizers”, which they quickly switch on moments after realizing that drawing breath may result in suffocation or death.

Immediately following the expletives, hand-fanning, face covering, flailing, spinning and spraying of hospital-strength deodorizers (a can in each hand), they lift the bedskirt to find my bulging eyes and submissively relaxed ears to ask me the question on everyone’s mind:  WHAT DID YOU EAT?

It must be a rhetorical question, because they never stick around for a response.  Instead, they stomp off to further eliminate the smell or exit the room, depending on what time of day or night it occurs.

Eating grass is a gas, baby. Can you dig it?

Gosh, I don’t know, I’ll think.  What the heck DID I eat today?  There was that half eaten boiled egg that Nate threw on the floor at breakfast, followed by the patch of grass I devoured as my mid-morning snack, followed by a few rejected mini-corn dogs at lunch (also courtesy of Nate), a pile of freshly cut lawn clippings, that rotten stick I found by the back fence, a bird foot (yes, tastes of chicken), a microwaved chunk Salisbury steak with gravy for dinner (yum, keep it coming, skinny kid), and that moist diaper that…well, no, I only nosed around in that, so it shouldn’t count.  I ate a few bits of that awful dog food, just to humor the Management.  What else, what else…oh, I did happen to catch about a half-cup of shredded mozzarella that spilled from a bag that the Management tried pulling apart for about five minutes while mumbling something about the kind of sadistic bastard who would design packaging like that.  Ha.  “Resealable bag my ass!”  They crack me up.

Dr. Ruppert (the man who saved my life when my back went out last summer) suggested that I try food journaling.  “It’s easy to just stuff your face all day and not realize what you’re eating,” he said as he inserted the thermometer.  “I hear ya, Doc,” I strained to say.

“Also, that grass you’re addicted to is bad, bad stuff,” he advised.  “Got plenty of clients on detox.  Plus we have a support group that meets every other Wednesday evening throughout the summer.  Maybe talk to the Management about it.  I think it could help.  I’d never suggest going cold-turkey, after all.”

“Turkey?  I thought.  “Yes.  With gravy please.”

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