Thoughts on "Trouble"

The photos and recipe will come tomorrow. I got home last night (I have to upload photos from home, and the recipe - which is both on a slip of paper, and the crust recipe is in a book) and was in the middle of my early-spring (unusually early this year) "MEH" - I get this way when the trees flower, and guess what started flowering this weekend? The elms. The fornicating elms*. (And yes, that's what they're doing and that's what's causing my misery). Elm pollen is one of the things I'm most allergic to, apparently: had a near-migraine Sunday, had one yesterday, woke up with one this morning. (I knocked today's back to a manageable level, but I am going to take advantage of my "no afternoon classes and office hours" to bail early today)

I just hope this means the trees get it out of their systems early.

(*Okay, strictly speaking, trees don't fornicate, they pollinate. But calling them "the pollinating elms" doesn't carry the same force and meaning)

So anyway. I was out in the field with my Soils class yesterday. (For this lab, it mostly involves me showing them the map, pointing to the areas that have the soil association they need to collect, and then just standing around while they do it), and I got to thinking more about that "Ya Got Trouble" song.

Two things:

1. Really, that song is (to my cynical worldview) not that bad a representation of what many politicians do - and probably HAVE done, down over the years:

a. Find a link (even if it's tenuous at best) between what YOU want to promote, and something you figure the people want. (If the two things can be summed up as a brief slogan, all the better).

b. Repeat it over and over again. Repetition shows how IMPORTANT something is.

c. Appeal to the emotions. (I'm sure I've fallen for this over the years; I think we all have blind spots. But when I can SEE that someone, be they salesman or politician, is appealing purely to emotions he or she may THINK I have, I turn off pretty quickly)

d. Play on their sense that they are "good" people ("I know all you folks are the right kind-a parents")

e. Exaggerate

f. Suggest that if they do NOT do what you are suggesting, that the community is heading for the worst kind of "Moral Degradation" (That exact term may not be used, and what the individual on the stump believes is moral degradation will vary depending on various factors, including which side of the aisle they are on). Throw in that they, specifically, will be harmed ("caught with the cistern empty on a Saturday night...")

(I suppose I could also add "g. ?????" and "h. Profit!" but that's kind of implied).

Yeah, as I said: I'm pretty cynical about a good 95% to 99% of politics, which is partly why I don't talk about it on here. (Also, politics can be extremely polarizing. I have, in fact, seen friendships break up when one person learned the other person had the opposite party affiliation.)

And, on a happier note, 2. The song really does include a lot of references to things....things I've picked up over the years via osmosis and such, which is why I tend to think reading widely and paying attention to what you read/see/hear is valuable. While not knowing the cultural references in "The Music Man" will not doom your enjoyment of culture, I do think having a smattering of things like Shakespeare and the Bible and other well-known works (Even "classic" children's stories like Alice in Wonderland and Winnie-the-Pooh) gives one a better understanding of the milieu in which one moves.

For example: Dan Patch. I didn't know what that was the first time I heard the song, and I think I conflated Dan Patch with Old Scratch (which I did know, somehow) and pictured that Hill was describing a jockey riding the devil...which isn't TOO nonsensical, given the context. But actually, Dan Patch was a famous "trotting" horse - a sulky racer. (And another thing I assume from that song: at some point in time, sulky racing was seen as gentlemanly and respectable, whereas racing with jockeys astride horses was low-class. Actually, that song plays A LOT on the idea of "you're the right kind of people and you don't want your kids doing the kind of things that the wrong kind of people do." An appeal to snobbery, I suppose. Or something: maybe more of an appeal to "You folks are good middle-class types, not like those bohemians that go to jockey races")

Also, Bevo, Cubebs (I think I'm spelling that right) were early brands of cigarettes, but that's pretty clear from context. And Sen-Sen is a strongly flavored breath mint sort of thing (They still MAKE Sen-Sen, in fact).

And that dime novels were not something "nice boys" read (Presumably they were poorly written with sensationalistic plots). In fact, there was a time when novel-reading was looked down upon - I know I've read how it was considered an unacceptable pastime for young ladies. (Presumably, because it made them dissatisfied with their own lives, and kept them from more productive tasks). (Or at least, I seem to remember reading that somewhere...then again, novels go back to the era of Jane Austen, so SOMEONE had to be reading those novels). (And interestingly, now some studies show women read novels more than men. Not sure if I buy that, but I suppose it could have to do with the fact that the way school is structured now, many young boys get "turned off" of school...Or it could be that men read more non-fiction and women read more fiction, though of course I think a big Your Mileage May Vary needs to be slapped on that.)

And the idea that "new" music would corrupt the young (see also: jazz, boogie-woogie, rock-and-roll). I wonder how long that's been going on? Did parents forbid their children from going to affairs where Strauss waltzes would be played? (It's interesting how things people today think of as "classics" or even a little "staid" were the popular entertainment of their day....Dickens was serialized in the magazines and people breathlessly waited for the next installment*. And Shakespeare had a wide following....not just the "upper class" or educated sorts knew his plays.

(It actually gives one a bit of pause, and I admit openly this is my own slight snobbery showing: in the 2300s, if we haven't annihilated ourselves, will things like "Two and a Half Men" be considered "classics"? I'm sure in Shakespeare's day, there were people who detested his plays and thought they were trashy and that the bawdy jokes were just too much and over-the-top....)

(*Hence the phrase, I remember reading somewhere: "Does Little Nell live?" supposedly uttered by someone meeting a person returning from Britain via ship...the next installment of The Old Curiosity Shop had been published in Britain before it was published here. Though perhaps that suggests rather that Harry Potter ("Does Harry Potter live?") will be the remembered series, rather than "Two and a Half Men" - which I admit, again in my own snobbish way, makes me happier to contemplate).

You know, I don't know if other people do this kind of thing...I've said before my brain is kind of like an overstuffed attic, or maybe some kind of bizarre search engine where retrieving one thing brings up several more loosely-related things...and because of how my brain's wired, I get interested in those different threads and start following them. (I do this in my work, too - I have many articles I want to read some time that I found when searching for an article that I "needed.")

But in a strange way it makes me happy to know who Dan Patch was, or why "dime novels" would have been disapproved of.