Two days past the full moon

The semester crashes to a close. It has always been a curious time for me, who has spent his life in schools. Students suddenly appear at every class meeting, though some don’t quite know where their place in the classroom might be. I am besieged by students wondering if they have turned in all of their assignments, and what else they might do to improve their grades. I become obsessed with all that I have not taught or taught well, and I fret that I have miserably failed. I bemoan the papers I have yet to read and turn the radio louder.

I’ve thought for a while that finals are irrelevant: if teachers must wait until the semester’s end to know what students have learned, then somehow the classroom has failed. If students have to wait until the end of the semester to learn anything, then the classroom has failed. Rather than oppressive, the end of semester ought to be festive, a celebration of learning and intellectual growth. But too often the semester’s end is approached with dread, and students early start packing to get out of town. Teachers sharpen their pencils and hide behind closed doors.

The weather has turned bitter cold. I used to mind the change, but over the years I have come to expect the frigidity, and have even come to enjoy it. What I enjoy, I think, is the shift in consciousness from a Fall outlook to a winter perspective, and the resultant change in my body feel and postures. The winter tests me in ways that no other season does; when the Spring finally arrives, sometimes in six months time, it is a visceral response I experience. Ah, I have survived the minus thirty degree temperatures, and the wind chills which defy imagination, and the darknesses even in the midst of day. I do not sleep like the bear, but I do hibernate a bit, and think too much of the world as a cave.

Do I sound a bit depressed today? So be it! Next week is Chanukah, and with the winter solstice before us, we light the candles which represent resistance to oppression, resistance to assimilation, resistance to darkness and despair. I’m going to buy my children music this year to help them through the winter—it will brighten my own.

I’ve finished almost the full sixth season of The Sopranos. I’ve seen it all on DVD over the past several years, though I now subscribe to DirectTV and will watch the show’s conclusions in real time. I’ve grown to feel about each of the characters a high degree of disgust: they are each so cruel and selfish. Though they speak of love and loyalty, they display none of either. It is one of the first times that in a long running series TV has not inspired sympathy for a repulsive character. Archie Bunker is a case in point: he became cute and cuddly as he spewed hate. Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes is another example: we laughed at his behaviors as he guarded those who we know were suffering. And these were the POW camps where the killings were not as methodical as in the Death Camps. Even Redd Foxx’s Sanford became adorable. But there is nothing appealing about any of the Sopranos. Even Tony’s shrink seems to be vicariously enjoying the violence and criminality which is part of the daily lives of the characters. And those in the story that do not practice violence, like Carmella and Tony’s own children, certainly tolerate it and enjoy the fruits derived from it.
Why do I watch? It is a well written and acted show, and like reading The Sun Also Rises or The Great Gatsby, the fascination at the repulsive nature of the characters draws me in. Ugliness is often as attractive as beauty—didn’t Milton know that when he created Satan?