Thursday February 10, 2011

OH WELL. You know what? I thought. I should see what Jim Lileks is doing. After all, life is full of surprises. Maybe it'll be like running into someone I went to college with and seeing that he's way cooler than he was when I knew him -- I might then be forced to think whether I had misjudged him, or whether people can change more than we normally think they can; either way it will lead me to an improving contemplation of the human condition. Surely that can't be bad.

As for the reading to the class: it’s the school’s annual Readathon, and I was a “celebrity” reader for my daughter’s class and a first grade class. Fifth-graders are tough. They know everything. Top of the food chain, ma. One kid was sitting back with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing what appeared to be Oakley sunglasses, challenging my remarks on the difficulty of climbing Everest. K2 was harder, he said, and yes. he’d read the book I was about to read.

At this point you want to walk over and DI the guy until he sits up straight and looks away and says SIR YES SIR, but that battle: long lost. Adults are not Elders, or creatures worthy of respect; they’re just slower, lesser creatures who have authority because they’re older, and there’s no reason other than that. I don’t believe in ancestor worship, but I do remember having respect for grownups. They were not my “friends.” They occupied a completely different realm...

Oh, never the fucking mind.

UPDATE. In comments, lots more interest in Jimbo, child behavior, and A Wrinkle In Time than I expected. Well, I should have expected the last -- this crew has a serious representation of sci-fi nerds. (I was never that way myself; I was always more of a nerd without portfolio.) And Lileks is an endless source of pleasure even when he's not fantasizing Fargo engulfed by barbarian hordes.

But those damn kids? HMDK, for example: "I agree with your point and despise Lileks, but I also hate snotty spoiled kids. You'd think that'd make me conflicted. It doesn't. Turns out: I have plenty of hate to go around." Oh well I appreciate that. But as for kids, my default reaction to their occasional impudence is 1.) recognition of my jacked-up-shit former self, reincarnated in better clothes; and 2.) a gently-delivered message that if you miss this, kid, it's your loss. YMMV but I haven't been shivved by the little hoods yet.