Saturday, February 14, 2004

The Andy Warhol Story.

I was just reading Calvin and Hobbes and there was a strip in there that completely encompassed my degree in a nutshell.

Calvin: "A Painting. Moving. Spiritually Enriching. Sublime. ...High Art
The Comic Strip. Vapid. Juvenile. Commercial Hack Work. ...Low Art
A Painting of a Comic Strip Panel. Sophisticated. Irony. Philosophically Challenging. ....High Art "

Hobbes: "Suppose I draw a cartoon of a painting of a comic strip?"

Calvin: "Sophomoric. Intellectually Sterile. ...Low Art "

Wow. In four panels, he managed to explain something in my Pop Culture courses that no lecturer has managed to make clear in the hour they were given. I think that if they had used the comic strip, they could've been over and done with the lecture WAY sooner than they managed.
I miss that kind of discourse though. I recall having a ton of fun taking pop culture apart in class. Of course some academics managed to make all those courses REALLY boring. I wanted to take a course called Rock something and switched courses after the introductory lecture. It was interesting but the lecturer just killed it.
Geez, I really miss learning. I wish I could remember those courses a little better. Sadly I majored in Television so I think I missed a whole lot in terms of learning about other forms of pop art...Of course, now I'm a Literature teacher who can't really teach Lit the way the schools want their students to learn it.
This really sunk in to me when I took a look at the books on the reject pile from my bosses. Talk about major downers. HAlf of those books were stuff that I think would've made it into my uni reading list and there they were, rejected. Too controversial, lacking in Literary merit.
Literary Merit.
It's beginning to get more and more clear to me that I will eventually get fired.
*igh.

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