A different kind of wealth.

[I thought this post would be a farewell to Seoul. Instead, it wanted to be something I should have written three years ago, when I ended my six years in Shanghai. It won. I'll say bye to Korea later. And isn't writing a wonderful thing.]

*     *     *

It’s probably normal to hit a “regrets” stage when you close out your time in a foreign land. All the things you didn’t do, didn’t appreciate, didn’t explore. I’m certainly there. I leave Seoul for Singapore in a month, the next strange chapter in this stranger’s life.

I’ve made no secret over the last three years about my luke-warm to icy feelings regarding Korea. But really, Korea never had a fair shake with me. I came here after six years in Shanghai, for crying out loud, one of the most friendly and colorful and dynamic and blessedly cheap metropolises in the world. I learned enough Mandarin while there to be able to engage the Shanghainese in surprisingly meaty conversations, with the added entertainment value for my Chinese interlocutors that I carried them out with the vocab and grammar of a four-year-old. Learning babyspeak made it fun to be a stupid foreigner there.

And then there’s the fact that for China, a swarm of foreigners is a new experience. The Chinese borders were closed to the world until very recently, so we foreigners are items of extreme exoticism and curiosity there. And Shanghai and the other big cities have also seen an influx of migrants from the under-developed central and western regions of China – peasants who have never seen a weiguoren, a “white devil.” Bonus points if you’re of African descent: I’ve known such people who’ve told me the Chinese walked up to them and, without a word, touched their skin and hair in wonder.

All of this, in a word, makes living in China as a foreigner a constant form of play.

And then there’s the flip side: China’s 50-year isolation after the Communist Revolution means that it’s blessedly non-Westernized. Away from the tourist and shopping districts in the cities’ shiny new centers, in the traditional city neighborhoods, the city outskirts, the small towns and villages, and the countryside, there are no signs of Western civilization consumerism. No Starbucks or Burger Kings or damnable WalMarts or Gaps. Instead, there are mom-and-pop markets, farmers’ markets, noodle shops, karaoke bars, fabric markets full of tailors, foot-rub and massage parlors. There are as many bicycles as cars in this purer, disappearing China – and these bicycles, often ancient, battered, rickety and wobbly, are a breed far removed from the status-conscious Treks and whatnots that would cost many Chinese a full year’s salary. Grandmas and grandpas ride these old bikes as their primary form of transportation, their “cars.” Young couples ride them tandem, the beau pedaling and his girl sitting primly sidesaddle on the rear rack, on sunny days topped by a lovely umbrella to shield her fair skin from the sun. They ride slowly, often well-dressed, and you can hear them conversing as they go. They often stare or doubletake at you as they glide by. “Weiguoren….hallo!” Toothy smiles. Play.

Grandmas squat on the sidewalk with their squatting grandchildren, steadying them so they can pee on the sidewalk without mishap. It’s normal – and really, foreigner, relax. How dirty can baby-pee be? Mothers carry their babies in jumpers designed to expose their bottoms, a daily parade of babies’ butts. Barber shops full of migrant peasant girls staring out the windows, almost never working, instead watching TV or chatting and eating together, or napping. They’ll take you upstairs and give you an hour’s massage for ten bucks. Sometimes “massage” is more broadly defined than it is in the West, without seeming seedy at all. The moral world is different here too,  much more accepting and far less ashamed of Nature. If massages are to relax all of the body, the thinking seems to go, then it only makes sense that the whole body be massaged.

And the wonder of the public parks in China: already at six a.m. they’re alive. Grandmas in military formation under a willow, led by a grandma with a ghetto-blaster playing traditional Chinese folk songs. They dance with swords, red fans, red scarves that fly in synchronous arcs as the old gals twirl. Grandpas carry their pet birds or crickets in bamboo cages, hang them on low tree branches, and sit under them with other grandpas on portable stools. Rainbow bridges arc over their upside-down reflections in the canals. The willows rustle, the birds sing. Peasants beat the sun to lay their daily harvest on the sidewalk, barter with the locals buying their daily vegetables. They weigh them on notched bamboo sticks suspended by a string, with counterweighing stones on one end. The big smiles, the missing teeth, the bowed backs from decades in the fields. The thatched hats.

The neighborhood park is also a free gym. More grandmas and grandpas, fathers and mothers, teens and children swarm the simple machines for their daily workout. They wear leather dress shoes with cheap gym suits or pajamas – pajamas, you’d been told, are a status symbol, since owning a pair means you have money to spare. They wear dress shirts and pants, they wear anything and everything as they do their sit-ups and back-stretches and presses. You see your neighbor – the one who had the chicken tethered to his front patio for several days until yesterday, when you happened by as he was wringing its neck in preparation for the night’s dinner – doing pull-ups. The sun is still not yet up.

After the sun goes down, these people fill the park for different activities. Young couples sit on its hillocks in the dark, next to the reflective pond and mechanical waterfall, away from their crowded apartments, to feast on their privacy together. Young and old alike fill the park’s circular center plaza, where yet another grandma with a boom-box fills the twilit sky with ballroom dance music. Old and young waltz, foxtrot, tango; they do it man with woman, man with man, woman with woman, young with old. They do it with four-year-olds. They see the weiguoren and pull him out to shake a leg, laughing at his baby-talk with those smiles, those missing teeth, those other perfections.

Looking at all of these people – the ancient ones most of all – it dawns on you that you, of all the foreigners teaching at your school and living in this neighborhood at the edge of Shanghai’s sprawl, may be the luckiest. Unlike you, they’ve been teaching algebra, or physics, or literature or phys. ed., while you, blessedly, have been teaching the history of China – the history of these very people dancing around you, dancing with you, at the park. Looking into the old folks’ bright and wizened eyes, at the lacework lining their faces, you’re struck by the fact that these very same people so happy around you now lived, decades ago, through the hardships of the Civil War, the Japanese Invasion, the Great Leap Forward, the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution. How many of them have seen starvation, war, re-education, labor camps? How many loved ones have they lost – or been betrayed by? And yet here they are now, leading you in a dance whose steps finally, after a century-long nightmare, are light and joyous. Christ, the presence of old Chuang-tse laughing down the Tao,  and of the imperturbable old Buddha mindful that this too shall pass – both are palpable in them all.

All of this, in a word, makes living in China as a foreigner a constant encounter with a truly different world. These people, with their cramped, dingy apartments and their dates on their battered old bicycles, with their bad teeth and their conspicuous pajamas, with their $100 a month incomes – they are poor, looked at with one set of eyes. But looked at through different eyes, that see wealth in terms unrelated to income, they’re among the richest people I’ve ever known.

If I ever have the chance to live there again, I’ll probably take it. No country – America included, America especially – has ever suited me like China has. If that luck doesn’t come my way, I count myself among the blessed for the experience. I know that’s sentimental, but it’s no less true for that.

The dance.

A simple grace.

A natural thing.

Morning Tai Chi at the Bund.

A storied face.

Primary transportation.

More photos below the fold…

The grace.

A simple pleasure.

Another story.

Still life.

The old city.

A Shanghai classic.

Sustainable families.

The old "flat tire on a date" trick? I think not. (Pretty dress.)

Woman and woman, woman and man, man and man...

The wealth.

Youth (a lesson in elderly living).

Timeless.

11 Comments

• At June 15, 2009, Pat wrote:

  What a beautiful farewell! You captured the beauty of it all just perfectly. I spent 30 days traveling all around China and was amazed at the simpleness that surrounded me yet people seemed happy there. It reminds me of a simpler time here in the US when people seemed happier. Thanks so much for sharing and bringing back wonderful memories for me.

  [rq=13738,0,blog][/rq]Future Carnival of Education Host

• At June 15, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Thanks Pat. That simplicity is something that could civilize the West, isn't it? And maybe save the world.

  I know, I know - China's gone into industrial-consumer overdrive. But so many of the people don't seem to have lost that simplicity despite that....

• At June 16, 2009, diane wrote:

  Thank you for sharing this Valentine to China. How different from my daily life, how basic, how charming. It is the gentleness and quiet dignity of the people that sounds so appealing. Your word pictures are as lovely as your photographs.

• At June 16, 2009, Ann and Billy wrote:

  Loved your post. We are currently in China, living our first year in Nanjing. We lived 3 years in Hong Kong and loved that, then 2 years in Africa. While Africa was a great adventure, Hong Kong remained our "home." Now, we are loving a different view of China. We identified so strongly with all of your observations - and so very well written! My white devil husband of senior age with gray/white beard and long ponytail gets LOTs of stares. We are so fortunate to be in this country at this time, you can feel history being created all around you.

• At June 17, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  It is a Valentine, isn't it?

  It's weird how central the public park is to daily life there, and how absent from American life. Think about the social and health benefits, all at no cost.

  I think it has much to do with the centrality of the bicycle to Chinese culture, and of the automobile to American. Our cars take us too far from our community for parks to be as important...

• At June 17, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Ann (?) Billy (?),

  I can see why you liked HK. I spent a week or so there. And I spent a week in Nanjing, which I think is one of the most beautiful cities in China - the trees and broad streets there were things hard to find in Shanghai.

  Enjoy your time!

• At June 17, 2009, ShellTerrell wrote:

  This is a beautiful recount of your life in Shanghai. I enjoyed the words as much as the beautiful photographs. Currently, I'm an expat living in Germany and in the next few years I hope to be making way to Japan, Korea, and possibly China. These are places my students are from and live and I promised to come visit and possibly stay for a while?! I am so glad I came across your blog through your beautiful sonnet. I am including your blog in my blog roll and hope some minds will be transformed in the process. Your blog reads more like an adventure than a blog.

• At June 18, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Shell, thanks for the kind words. Where in Germany are you? I was stationed in Wuerzburg in the late '90s, about midway between Frankfurt and Munich in Franconia (sp?). It's a great country to live in. Hope you're enjoying it. And what school are you teaching in?

  Clay

• At June 19, 2009, shellterrell wrote:

  I am right by Wuerzburg in Stuttgart. It's probably about 1 1/2 away. I teach English at the Deutsch Amerikanische Zentrum. There are several here. I really do enjoy Germany and living abroad. I'm sure this will be the first stop of many expat adventures!

• At June 24, 2009, Chuck wrote:

  Love the article. I can't get enough of these stories. Warms my cold, cold heart. I wish to experience this some day, next year maybe.

  weiguoren, doesn't “white devil”, that's gwolow. weiguoren literally means "outside-contry-person. They are surprising sensitive now?!

• At June 26, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  You're right, weiguoren means foreigner. Didn't mean to imply that it means "white devil," but I sure did, didn't I?

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*     *     *

If I tried to stand in front of students in a classroom and say everything I want to say about Book V of Gilgamesh, I’m afraid I would scare them – I mean scare them for real, as in make them lose sleep.

That’s really not something I want to do. They’re 14, 15 years old. Life should be light at that age.

Then again, they’re in high school now, and if you think about a lot of what they’re supposed to be learning right now, it’s hard to argue that education shouldn’t be frightening sometimes. Think of their history classes: darkness, darkness. Gladiators fighting to the death for the entertainment of the elite Romans, criminals being nailed to die on crosses in the name of Roman justice; centuries later, “heretics” – independent thinkers – being burned alive in the name of God; centuries after that, scientists and philosophers “disenchanting” the universe, giving us less and less reason to believe any comforting old notions that Something Up There loves us, that anything comes after death; guillotines working overtime, later, in Paris – and human ovens, later still, in Auschwitz; poison gas in World War I drowning soldiers in their own blood-filled lungs, American mushroom clouds atomizing entire Japanese cities in a flash, on and on.

James Joyce wrote it and it’s true: “History is a nightmare” – and schools serve up those nightmares to students daily.

And yet, those nightmares don’t seem to frighten our students. They didn’t scare me either, when I was in high school. Honestly, I don’t even remember anything from my high school history classes. Something about youth, maybe, is immune to the terror we should experience when looking at our reflection in history’s mirror. Or maybe it’s school, the way it teaches the stuff. Maybe all the adults in charge of education – the teachers, the textbook-writers, the principals and parents and politicians and preachers – share this desire to protect students from terror. They want to sanitize the terror, tame it into factoids. Just like me.

But is it possible that this desire to protect students from fear, to keep them comfortable, is actually a deeper betrayal of their education? Is comfort more important than truth?

I often think students entering high school need to hear a few things about adults, since we’re on the subject of comfort and truth, that they may have never heard adults say. For one thing, students might seriously consider the probability that most adults do choose comfort over truth, and compromise over goodness, in a million small ways. They might consider, too, that many, maybe most, adults choose to remain comfortably ignorant and entertained instead of to keep at the hard work of understanding the world and behaving in helpful ways. They might, in short, consider that most adults in both their own small world, and the larger one, are seriously limited, flawed, imperfect beings. And that, worse yet, our students will very probably grow up to be just as flawed.

That’s true of me, more than I care to admit. I still try to learn, to be a good person. But I don’t try nearly hard enough. It’s too inconvenient, and compromise is easier. Preach as I may at my students to be good boys and girls and solve the world’s problems when they grow up, impress them as I may with whatever knowledge or cleverness or passion I can muster – I’m still, to a very large degree, a hypocrite. Preaching goodness is easy; doing it is too hard. I know about so many wrongs in the world that should keep me awake at night, force me to stand up against them whatever the cost. But instead, I sleep easy. Welcome to adulthood.

This is not to say that we adults are bad. We’re just all-too-human. We’re still part of history, after all, and history didn’t magically stop being a nightmare the year we were born. The mirror is still a dark one. And it’s important to remember that there’s still much beauty and light in that reflection, too. It’s not all dark. And it’s certainly better than not being here, not being a part of it.

I guess I say all of this because something about Book V disturbs me in a very real way. There’s a moment in it that leaves no room for laughs, though I’m sure most readers didn’t notice this when they read it.

I didn’t notice it either, the first few times I read Gilgamesh. In fact, Book V struck me as probably the dumbest, most boring chapter of the whole epic (and we shouldn’t be surprised that this chapter is the one most often included in English textbooks). But English teachers have a luxury most other adults don’t have: they get to read the same book over and over and over, year after year. Because of that, they know something many other adults don’t know: great books only get better with each new reading.

A case in point: I’ve written two lectures on Book V already, lectures I worked really hard on, but they didn’t do it for me, so I didn’t publish them. In the more than two months since the last lecture, I’ve been stuck the whole time on Book V, unable to get into it and unable to get beyond it. I’ve been obsessing on it, thinking about it involuntarily at the dinner table, on the couch, in bed, on drives, on walks. It wouldn’t let me go, and I couldn’t let it go – and I wanted to, believe me, because it’s the end of Gilgamesh I hunger to get to in these lectures. But I’ve been stuck wrestling with the middle for two months. It hasn’t been happy. But something became clear this week, and if I can get it out here, dark as it is, I will be happy. Enjoy the irony, and give me a bit more time to finish the next lecture. I’m pulling back from my writing job at Change.org in order to get back to this work.

1 Comments

• At June 19, 2009, Dana wrote:

  Thanks for the update. Knowing just how seriously you take this work makes me excited to see what comes out of it!

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From Social Media Today, 3/10/09, some fantastic toys for Twitter types who wonder how many times their blog posts have been URL-shortened, tweeted, re-tweeted, hokey-pokeyed, and tweedlededummed:

With the right tools, everything is measurable.

BackType tracks tweets associated with a source URL regardless of the shortener used to link back to it. twInfluence measures Twitter influencers, not just by followers, but also by reach, velocity, social capital and centralization. Retweetist tracks the most “retweeted” people, URLs, and also those who actively “RT” others. Tweetbacks, Disqus, and Chatcatcher are tracking related tweets and directly connecting and listing them as traditional trackbacks at originating blog posts.

FriendFeed already released APIs and with Facebook opening up the News Feed to developers, apps will emerge that can track blog posts by volume of likes and shared links.

At SXSW, Klout will debut a new service that helps bloggers and content publishers measure Link Authority and a conversation index by tracking the frequency of shared URLs tied to the weighted stature of those sharing them compared to other links shared during the same time frame. The service will eventually provide a foundation to compare source URLs ranked within the service over time.

12 Comments

• At March 13, 2009, Michael Doyle wrote:

  First, I call bull poop on the opening line of the quoted source:

  "With the right tools, everything is measurable."

  This is a western European conceit (and quite possibly other cultures as well, but I've enough on my hands dwelling on our own madness), and it's going to kill us, and maybe take Earth out as well.

  Life is finite, our economic practices destroy other peoples not within our vision because, well, they're less than the well-dressed refined elite we call "us", and now we glow in our sophisticated electronic version of navel gazing.

  Yep. I'm guilty, too. Might be time for me to do something about it. Thanks for the wake up call.

  Michael Doyles last blog post..Separating the wheat from the chaff

• At March 14, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Michael,

  Yep, it was a silly line to write. Let's hope he was aiming at hyperbole (and I think he was).

  Did you ever wonder if, in the grand scheme of things, the computer addiction might not reduce our waste and destructiveness, since we're not out driving around, buying more, yada yada, but are instead now sitting more quietly at home?

  Maybe wrong. Gaia will shake off her fleas soon enough, anyway, don't you think?

• At March 15, 2009, Kate Tabor wrote:

  Hi Clay -

  I am sure that I could quantify the number of people who visit my blog, who retweet my postings, who respond on plurk. I'm sure I could see who is #1, #100, most popular - But I'm in the process of rethinking who I am as a teacher, and this will feed into what I am trying to step away from. I've taught now in the upper school for three years. I'm not one of the "cool" teachers although I am the haven for my "D&D" boys and the social misfits on the fourth floor. I can beat myself up to be popular, worry about the same things that these tools would have me think about with my blog/twitter spaces. That's not good for me now. Indeed, I need to listen to the I Ching, and get my ego out of the way.

  Kate Tabors last blog post..Bone tired

• At March 15, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Michael, Kate,

  Thought experiment: You write something on a subject you care about. A million people read it. Universe A: You never knew, and thought nobody cared, so you never wrote more on the same subject; Universe B: You did know, so you wrote more on the same subject, and more people cared.

  Some of the tools above give you Universe B.

  If you write and publish, I think there's value in knowing which things you write resonate, get forwarded, cause a buzz.

  To reduce it to egotism misses the "market research" function any publisher wants - especially self-publishers like us all.

  It also misses the networking potential. What if a NY Publisher showed up in one of those re-tweet subscriptions? You're suddenly connected to someone who might offer a book deal.

  Is that egotistical? No, that's smart - for a writer who wants to make it in the writing world.

  Any writer should be honest enough to admit that s/he cares about the fate of what s/he writes, its reception in the world.

  And that some of the tools above make a simple RSS subscription serve that care seems low-maintenance enough.

  Both reactions strike me as weird, frankly. It's a share that took 30 seconds to perform, and suddenly two of my warmer web-relations are getting all psychoanalytical about it. If it's not your thing, why not just move on, instead of onto a soapbox?

• At March 15, 2009, Kate Tabor wrote:

  @Clay - please, please don't feel like I'm on a soapbox. I'm just at a place right now at school where I feel under siege by the cult of personality. I have done my best to be "real" as a teacher, to teach what I think kids need to know in a way that resonates with them. All this in an atmosphere where we are told by a colleague in a faculty meeting that if we don't want kids to cut class, well - we just need to be more fascinating. I worry that if I start looking at blog stats and tweet stats that this will become something I worry about. I don't believe that I have much of a readership. I'm delighted when I get an unexpected comment, but I just assume that my sister - and maybe you and Michael- read my blog. I'm not sure Universe B cares about me, and I'm afraid to care about them.

  I don't want to spoil one of my favorite web-relationships with the deadly funk that has crept in (maybe it's the never ending cold, or the fact that we are laying off staff but increasing administration, or because we are hiring someone to fill my upper school position (I return to my old post as reading evangelist and seventh grade teacher next year) and it seems like we are more jizzed about someone who is a "journalist" but has never taught a class than someone with a love of the classroom. So sorry - I am in on my day off (again) making sure the yearbook gets to the printer in time for Class Day in June. I'm cranky and sad.

  Kate Tabors last blog post..Bone tired

• At March 15, 2009, Michael Doyle wrote:

  Dear Clay,

  Didn't mean to sound weird--it's who I am, and I have a very edgy relationship with this internet thing anyway. I can't speak for Kate, but I get (too?) psychoanalytical about most things human, and folks don't notice until I get all squirrelly on their "thing"--and FWIW, it was the quote, not you that got me going.

  "Did you ever wonder if, in the grand scheme of things, the computer addiction might not reduce our waste and destructiveness, since we’re not out driving around, buying more, yada yada, but are instead now sitting more quietly at home?"

  Yep, and that's why I'm edgy about it.

  1) We're mortal, our time here finite. Time in front of the monitor is less time chatting with Leslie, reading a book, dirtying hands in the garden, poking around for clams. If we're at work, wasting time makes sense. At home, though, not sure a computer is a plus. I love mine, I use it a lot, but not sure time here (which is essentially time away from family) is harmless.

  2) Computers require lots of electricity, both from the outlet in my home and in far away places holding data.

  3) The internet is loaded with advertising. Most folks think it doesn't affect them. It affects me.

  4) Computers are relatively expensive, though much less so now than ten years ago.

  5) Computers have toxins--lead, cadmium, mercury, barium, beryllium, brominated flame retardants. Not my problem, true, but is somebody else's.

  6) Data mining--my access here is tracked. Not going to go into the particulars why this bothers me here in a short post, but it's easy enough for me to fix if I just stay off.

  7) Health: I'm sitting. Doing almost nothing.

  8) Selected population: the internet is populated by people who can afford both computers and the time to dally on the net. A few of them (such as yourself) are fascinating and brilliant. Would you have been quite as fascinating if you grew up using the internet? No way to know, I guess, but you would not be who you are.

  Now, that's not to say I'll stop using the internet, though you did make me pause and think about it, a good thing.

  I ride motorcycles. I love motorcycles. They are not harmless, and I do it anyway.

  And yes, Gaia will shake off her fleas sooner or later. I think most of us in western culture forget that we are the lead fleas.

• At March 15, 2009, diane wrote:

  I look at Google Analytics fairly often but don't let the stats there dictate my self-esteem. I blog and Tweet and Plurk for the sheer joy of it. I have connections I could never have dreamed of, opportunities that are exciting and unexpected. I use what I feel is beneficial, disregard the rest. Sometimes I question the value of my online activities, but not often and not seriously. I'll take what I can get and be glad.

  dianes last blog post..A Pair of Twitter Tools

• At March 16, 2009, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @ Clay

  Thanks for sharing these are some very interesting links.

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Watching Web 2.0 Deepen Learning

• At March 19, 2009, Michael Doyle wrote:

  Uh-oh.

  Michael Doyles last blog post..Planting season

• At March 19, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  No "uh-oh" on this side, Michael. I still love you deeply, madly, etc.

  Just too blasted busy.

• At July 1, 2009, Jaison "The Master Dater" wrote:

  Hmmm.. BackTweets is definitely one of my best Twitter-chums at the moment. It could be even more better if they offered an RSS feed for a particular search, like search.twitter.com.

  .-= Jaison "The Master Dater"´s last blog ..Does Twitter Help Your Relationship Or Harm It? =-.

• At July 1, 2009, Christopher Golda wrote:

  Thanks! And we do offer RSS feeds for searches — click on the feed icon on the page or in your browser.

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Gilgamesh - the Earth's Oldest Epic. Stephen Mitchell's fine 2004 adaptation.

[The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good, Evil, Nature, and the Hero, Backwards ~ This post ~ 7. A Goddess Prays 8. The Modern Mischief of the Gilgamesh Poets]¹

Since the last “lecture” five long months ago, I’ve left Gilgamesh and Enkidu stuck at the gates of Uruk, ready to journey to the Cedar Forest to kill the “evil” – or, depending on which god or mortal you listen to, “sacred” – monster Humbaba. Life got in the way since then. Click the footnote if you’re curious how.²

Since I need to ease back into this world after such a long hiatus, let’s pause to catch an idea regarding that “evil or sacred” detail before it flits away. It’s worth lingering on.

One Pleasure of Polytheism

That Humbaba could be considered “sacred” by the god Enlil, but “evil” by the sun-god Shamash and the goddess Ninsun (who is also Gilgamesh’ mother), suggests that religious dogmatism and absolute certainty about questions of good and evil, right and wrong, did not plague polytheistic religions the way they do religions with only one god – especially ones claiming, moreover, to possess the divinely-authored book.  Nobody claimed divine authorship of Gilgamesh, as far as I know. So the Sumero-Babylonians must have felt a nice bit of intellectual freedom to dispute it and discuss it as a result.

I’m not denying that rabbis, theologians, and imams have endlessly disputed their texts too, of course. I’m just saying that there’s still a difference between a religious text acknowledged to be the work of humans, like Gilgamesh, and one attributed to the godhead itself, that seems to make an essential difference in how a culture relates to it.

Me? I’d prefer the Sumerian option. Whoever the first priest in history was to come up with the claim that “these are God’s very words,” or “God wrote this book,” was, wittingly or not, a political genius. Look at the power that gives members of our priestly classes to this day. People are more comfortable disputing an Einstein or a Darwin than they are their humble neighborhood preacher. It’s mind-boggling, really. (And, come to think of it, literally.)

Anyway, before leaving Uruk, I want to linger on a couple more details from Book III that I didn’t mention in the last installment. They happen after Gilgamesh announces his plan to kill Humbaba to Enkidu, and before he and Enkidu leave. They’re minor, but interesting enough – especially in light of what comes later.

I’ll try not to be a spoiler.

The Birth of Something New

We left Gilgamesh justifying his decision to commit, in Enkidu’s view, a sacrilege by arguing that, on the contrary, his act was heroic. In lines that Achilles would echo in the Iliad a thousand years later, Gilgamesh articulates the classic heroic answer to the classic existential question, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”

We are not gods, we cannot ascend
to heaven. No, we are mortal men.
Only the gods live forever. Our days
are few in number, and whatever we achieve
is a puff of wind. Why be afraid then,
since sooner or later death must come?

So since immortality is impossible, what’s the next best thing in life? An immortal name. In other words, that thing we call “fame.”

I will make a lasting name for myself,
I will stamp my fame on men’s minds forever.

The Greeks would call this pure hubris – another great man thinking he’s a bit too great, and setting himself up for a tragic lesson thereby. As it turns out, the people of Uruk seem to see things this way too. First Enkidu, in tears, and then the city elders called to Gilgamesh’s throne to hear the announcement, ask Gilgamesh the same pointed question:

How can any man, even you,
dare to enter the Cedar Forest?
Who among men or gods could defeat [Humbaba]?

Everybody is counseling Gilgamesh to live his life restrained by traditional religious piety – Humbaba is Enlil’s guardian, thus holy; don’t defy the gods. They advise prudence instead of passion; humility, instead of hubris.

Moreover, none of them believes Gilgamesh can achieve the goal he’s set for himself.

And when the elders finish their pleas, what is the King’s response? First, in another instance of that “double that balances” motif, since Enkidu is crying at his side: laughter. And after that, no response at all, other than a “Let’s get moving” to Enkidu. Gilgamesh has chosen bravery over cowardice, fame over oblivion, the chance of greatness over mediocrity. He’s chosen free human will over traditional religious fear.

This just might be the first written example of Humanism in the history of our species. And the court poets who polished this story over 2,000 years have several “wtf twists” about this in store for us yet.

More soon. I promise.

1. This series based on the beautifully poetic 2004 Stephen Mitchell translation of Gilgamesh.
2. I got sucked into the presidential campaign first, then into interviewing for a radio job and a writing job over six weeks or so after that (I got them both, thank goodness), and then into applying and interviewing for a new teaching job beginning this summer (which worked out well too – I’ll be in Singapore by July to settle in and begin teaching Asian history there). On top of that, we’re still dealing with mourning in my family over my mother-in-law’s passing, and with the ominous mood of the global meltdown. Strange times.

32 Comments

• At February 17, 2009, Unsucky English, Lecture 1: On Gilgamesh | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] Next: 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards ~ 6. Gilgamesh and the Birth of the New Man [...]

• At February 17, 2009, The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] [The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: this post ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards ~ 6. Gilgamesh and the Birth of the New Man.] [...]

• At February 17, 2009, Good, Evil, Nature, and the Hero - Backwards: Unsucky English, Lecture 5 (Gilgamesh, cont’d) | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] The Gilgamesh Series So Far: 1. Gilgamesh: Dangerous Questions 2. The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job 3. Adam and Eve, Backwards 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards 6. Gilgamesh and the Birth of the New Man [...]

• At February 17, 2009, Unsucky English, Lecture 3: Adam and Eve in Bizarro-World | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] [The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: this post~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards ~ 6. Gilgamesh and the Birth of the New Man] [...]

• At February 17, 2009, Bob Brussack wrote:

  "People are more comfortable disputing an Einstein or a Darwin than they are their humble neighborhood preacher." -- I've been struck by this more than once attending a friend's funeral and hearing that the only true gate to eternity is the door of the preacher's church.

  By the way, I hadn't known about Apture before visiting your site. Cool app. Very cool.

• At February 17, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  It's a striking thing, isn't it Bob? Loved the sauce in your added twist.

  And Apture is indeed a nifty tool.

• At February 18, 2009, Kate Tabor wrote:

  Nice to see Gilgamesh back, Clay. A couple of things occurred to me as I read your post.

  The first after reading this: "religious dogmatism and absolute certainty about questions of good and evil, right and wrong, did not plague polytheistic religions the way they do religions with only one god."

  How can we get back there? I've been having a case of the churchy heebeejeebees lately as the church I am vacationing from (as a Roman Catholic married to a Jew) has been doing its best to further alienate me (ecumenical conversation pointless; Holocaust denying priests reinstated, blah blah, blah). One of my facebook 'friends' from high school posted this status update: "P-B- is I love going to church. Seriously, it is one of the awesome things in life."

  And then there was this comment on her status: "A-B-E- I feel the same way, and can you imagine how much people like us will LOVE heaven?!"

  I can't even begin to describe how uncomfortable/frightened/nauseous that makes me -

  Point 2: You remind us that Gilgamesh was advised to be prudent not passionate; humble instead of proud. And no one believes that he can do what he says he is going to. He chooses "bravery over cowardice, fame over oblivion, the chance of greatness over mediocrity...free human will over traditional religious fear." Well, I teach American Literature and in this I see the characters of Hester Prynne, Sethe, Dick Hunter (from Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger) Jay Gatsby, Daisy Miller, Huck Finn, Tom Joad, as well as Henry David Thoreau! Gilgamesh seems to be the the ur-hero of all protagonists.

• At February 18, 2009, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @ Clay

  The question of the problem of evil is perhaps one of the most intriguing out there. For me the Christian answer lead to my faith taking on an adult form. The answers to the problem are either: atheism, polytheism, idealism, or perhaps biblical theism. Atheism denies God so no problem, polytheism attributes good to the good gods and evil to the bad gods, and idealism pretends evil doesn't exist. The Christian answer is much more complex but perhaps one of the most overlooked passage in the New Testament was Luke 13 and Jesus' comment on the tragedy of the tower of Siloman. Perhaps a conversation for another time.

  @ Kate

  I would agree the branch of ecumenism seems to be bending in a disturbing way as of late.

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Watching Web 2.0 Deepen Learning

• At February 18, 2009, Kester wrote:

  This is a general response to the entire series so far. You have several premises which I would like to address. These will be very brief, although I may flesh them out later in my own blog.

  1. Civilization is good.

  I don't see how this is supported by the text. On the one hand, one could argue that Gilgamesh showing off his walls to the boatman supports it, but it seems that the wooing of Enkidu, making him "fit" for civilization, also robs him of his power and innocence. That is, to be civilized is to be separate from and feared by nature.

  2. Sex is good.

  Again, I don't see how the text supports this. First, Shamat uses sex, basically, to rob Enkidy of vitality and power (taking his breath/life with her kisses). Second, Enkidu initially curses her for corrupting him as he is dying. Third, even when he is blessing her, one of his blessings is that she will steal the husband of the wife who has seven children. Even if they thought it was good then for prostitutes, even temple prostitutes, to do this, I hope we would disagree!

  3. How the Bible is A) derivative and B) substandard

  I absolutely agree that the Bible is obviously influenced by the cultures in which the Hebrews sojourned. "Job" is a monotheistic retelling of "The Poem of the Righteous Sufferer." "Ecclesiastes" reads like a longer version of "The Babylonian Theodicy." And the 10 Commandments are a shortened version of the 42 Laws of Ma'at. I would argue that shows their unfolding understanding of their God.

  Further, I would argue that you do the Bible a disservice. Some random observations (attempting to limit my observations to the Old Testament):

  - The Bible is more feminist. In Gilgamesh, Enkmidu never considers Shamat as a potential friend. It must be a male. In the Bible, Adam's mate is a woman.

  - In the contest between Dumuzi (Tammuz) and Enkmidu (which reflects Cain and Abel), Ishtar chooses Dumuzi (the shepherd) over Enkmidu (the farmer) like God chooses Abel (the shepherd) over Cain (the farmer). Although Ishtar did prefer Enkmidu initially. But, later in the Bible, Cain kills Abel and then makes the first city. I think that's important. The first city, with walls and pollution and war and such was made by the first murderer.

  - This isn't from Gilgamesh, but why did the Mesopotamian pantheon make humans? Why, as their slaves! To work for them, make food for them, and give them an easier life. Why did the God of the Bible make humans? To put them in paradise, to love them, to make them happy.

  - In both Gilgamesh and the Bible, the woman gives "the fruit" to the man. But it is significant that, in the Bible, it is only when the woman AND the man have eaten that their "eyes are opened." In Gilgamesh, the woman is, basically, the snake ... the tempter (or "ress").

  I could go on, but moving on to your claims in this post:

  4. Polytheism isn't dogmatic

  First, polytheistic priests are every bit as dogmatic as monotheistic ones. Hammurabi didn't hem or haw in his Code (given by Shamash). Anu didn't give a waiver. So don't blame God if monotheists are assholes. Second, so what if they argue about what is right and wrong? They're petty and they play games with humans, from Gilgamesh to the Iliad to ... ummmm ... some other famous polytheistic text, the gods are worse than my students. Third, as Socrates would say, if there are gods, and the gods are not in agreement, then there must be a higher Good to which they aspire. It is that Good that I, and other monotheists, worship and hope to emulate. It is in our attempt to force others to follow our interpretation that we fail, not in our attempt to follow Truth.

  5. Gilgamesh is a humanist.

  He might be. He certainly defies the gods and his own mortality. But, like Odysseus, he is dashed against the immovable rocks of gods and fate. If anything, the poem says, "Try as you might, you will fail. Maybe, if you're lucky, and especially pathetic, you'll be remembered." Even Odysseus became a priest of Poseidon in the end.

  So, there you go. I think you are confusing God with His followers. We're raging assholes. Please don't blame Him for us. And, for all its failings, I must laud the Old Testament for this. It takes the hopelessness of Mesopotamian mythology and philosophy and the aristocracy of Egyptian religion and changes it into something much more humanist, hopeful and plebeian.

  All that said, I love Gilgamesh and many, many thanks for pointing me to the Mitchell translation. Wow! Excellent read (which most Gilgamesh renderings are not).

• At February 18, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Kester, real quick - excellent challenges and extensions. I love it. If only authoritative books made space for readers challenges in the same way.

  I'll respond more soon. No time right now. Just wanted to say thanks for taking the time, and again. More soon.

• At February 18, 2009, Kester wrote:

  Thanks for responding and I look forward to hearing more. Two quick notes. Pardon my "Enkidy" typos and "The Babylonian Theodicy" is supposed to be "Dialogue of Pessimism."

  Kesters last blog post..κύκλος κλαν

• At February 18, 2009, Kester wrote:

  Don't forget Discordianism. I think there might be a future for something called "Ismism" which would be, I suppose, belief in belief?

  Kesters last blog post..κύκλος κλαν

• At February 18, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Charlie, I'd love to hear your take on how the Tower analogy applies to theodicy. My ears for Luke 13, which I just re-read, must not be long enough. It didn't speak to me. Why is "repenting or perishing" a key to the existence of evil? (And that's assuming we agree that this seems to be the thrust of both the Galileans' executions and the Siloman tower analogies.)

• At February 19, 2009, Speroni wrote:

  @Charlie

  Morality (ideas of right and wrong or good and evil) really have little to do with religion, even though religion. If we were to take the bible at face value, we would still have slaves and women would be 3rd class citizens, the fact is morality continues to grow, even though God's word stagnates. I like this explaination of morality better.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

  Also, food for thought:

  http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html

  @Kester

  Don't forget Pastafarianism:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

  @Gilgamesh

  Man you have a chip on your shoulder. Already king of the first and greatest city and you have to go around killing innocent evil monsters to prove a point. Hubris, as it has been mentioned, shall be your downfall.

  Speronis last blog post..We are indeed

• At February 20, 2009, diane wrote:

  Clay,

  I didn't analyze or deeply ponder this little essay, just followed the shiny words in delight. Humanism - yes! How wonderfully attainable and...human.

  dianes last blog post..Five Changes to Education--A new Meme

• At February 22, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Speroni, that "Stages of Moral Development" link is a keeper. Thanks for dropping it.

  (Sorry your comment was stuck in the spam queue for so long. Chalk it up to an insane backlog.)

• At February 22, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Kester, okay, as promised (and hurried!):

  1. I think I've said on several occasion that civilization is given a very ambiguous treatment in my view. I'm tracing it, and won't wrap it up until I wrap the series up.

  2. I've already talked about sex being complex in this work too. I'm not going to get ahead of the series by addressing parts of the text I haven't reached yet, so stay tuned. But I hope you'll meet me at least on the contrast of sex and gender seen in Gilgamesh/Shamhat in comparison with Genesis/Eve, and Sumero-Babylonian culture v. ancient Hebrew?

  3. We agree the Bible is derivative of the more ancient culture of Mesopotamia. "Substandard" is a value judgment, and can't be applied in a blanket manner. I'll continue trying to qualify any comparisons that way as I go. But since you subscribe to the Biblical belief system, it seems, and I don't in many ways, we're bound to disagree about a lot.

  4. I was making a simple observation: in a polytheistic system in which god A says "x is good," and god B says "x is bad," it seems individuals within that context have little choice but to reflect and decide which god they believe is right. In a monotheistic system in which there is nothing but single dictates by a single god, I argue there is less room for such moral deliberation.

  I don't think we should attribute Platonic idealism to Socrates. That came in Plato's later dialogues, long after Socrates' death and Plato's departure into abstractions we have no evidence Socrates entertained. Socrates is a mouthpiece in the later dialogues for Plato's unfolding philosophical journey. (I don't buy Plato, either, fwiw. Neither did Aristotle.)

  5. I'm not finished with my take on the lessons of the epic re: Gilgamesh's "humanist revolt." It's not so simple, I agree, and will argue as I go.

  Love your humble and salty close. I don't find it so easy to exculpate religious texts from their consequences in human society, though.

  I do agree that the Old Testament did advance Middle Eastern social ethics in several admirable ways - but you have to grant that those advances were ultimately racist and authoritarian, insofar as they only applied to "the Chosen," and still demanded unquestioning obedience from those Chosen.

  Peace out for now.

• At February 22, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Thanks Diane. I can't wait for life to slow down so I can speed up.

• At February 23, 2009, Kester wrote:

  Speroni,

  I considered Pastafarianism, but I'm prone to nightmares. Speaking of mares, if I were to stray from my current beliefs, I think I'd become a worshiper of the Invisible Pink Unicorn. (http://www.invisiblepinkunicorn.com/ipu/home.html) In addition to being more friendly, it's also invisible (so as not to cause aforesaid nightmares).

  Regarding morality and the relationship to religion, let me twist that a bit. For some theists, our religion is not so much adherence to a religion, but the end of a search for Truth. Think less Inquisition and more Socrates. In that sense, religion has quite a bit to do with morality.

  [Spoiler redacted - Clay] (Sorry, Kester!)

  I thank you for the links as well. Food for thought.

  Kesters last blog post..κύκλος κλαν

• At February 24, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Speroni, @Kester,

  Do you guys mind if I edit out the parts of your comments that play "spoiler" for those who haven't read the full story?

  A weird question, I know :P

• At February 24, 2009, Speroni wrote:

  Sorry about that, you can rescind the last comment.

  Speronis last blog post..We are indeed

• At February 24, 2009, Kester wrote:

  Clay, feel free to delete this if it is a spoiler (you might be going to flesh out this idea later, even though it's already happened in the text you've covered). But you had hinted at Enkidu as Gilgamesh's lover. I had wondered about that myself, because it says they embraced "as a husband embraces a wife". I wonder what exactly that means. Does it mean physical or emotional intimacy?

  Also, Clay, I will respond to your comments soon. Need to ponder them some more.

  Kesters last blog post..κύκλος κλαν

• At February 24, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Hi Kester,

  The possible homosexuality is as ambiguous to me as it is to you, I think. I normally respond to the question with a shrug anyway, because it seems pretty clear that sexual norms change dramatically in space and time. Were Achilles and Patroclus lovers in the Iliad? Jonathan and David in the Old Testament? I don't know.

  I've never had much interest in the question until now, though, so thanks for bringing it up.

  Because if not only non-marital/non-monogamous heterosexual activity, but also homosexual, are suggested as normative in this text, it supplies us with another interesting possible causative argument for the pretty harsh anti-homosexuality in so much of the Jewish Law in the Torah.

  If Eve is an example of Hebrew ressentiment of the Goddess-culture surrounding it - and especially that of Judea's Babylonian conquerors - then maybe the "abomination" of homosexuality is similarly what Joseph Campbell calls a "mythic inversion" of an enemy's culture.

  It's possible. Not sure how plausible. Thoughts?

• At February 25, 2009, Kester wrote:

  Hey, Clay.

  Given Greek culture, I'd be willing to bet that Achilles and Patroclus were lovers. Women seemed, at best, vessels for procreation to them. Given Jewish culture, I'd say no for Jonathan and David, despite David's assertion that Jonathan's love was "better than the love of a woman." But I wouldn't be surprised, either. Perhaps the myriad commands regarding it (although there aren't quite as many as I once thought) are evidence that it was rather common.

  But I don't know enough about Mesopotamian culture in that regard to hazard a guess. It seems that, for the Greeks, the homosexuality went hand in hand with a denigration of women. Only a male could be an equal, thus, only a male could be a true lover. There seems to be a similar denigration of women in Mesopotamia if the Cuneiform Codes and even "Epic of Gilgamesh" can be taken as evidence. I note that especially when Enkidu seeks a "true friend" which he apparently can't find in Shamat. And I definitely sense an attitude of "if it feels good, do it" (or him).

  I'm never sure what to make of homosexuality in the Bible. It's only mentioned once, and in a glancing way, in the NT. In the OT, it's mentioned several times, but in the same lists as "disobedient to parents", touching dead people and such. Unclean or disruptive to the community, not evil. Even Sodom and Gomorrah doesn't seem to be about homosexuality as Ezekiel 16 lists their sins as the following: pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Sounds more like the U.S. than anything.

  If I were to guess, it seems like the OT connects marriage with procreation. Don't "spill your seed" or get it on with a dude 'cause it won't make babies. But that's a guess. Most of the things labeled as "serious" sins make sense to me. That one ... I just don't get it.

  Also, if it were "mythic inversion," I would think it would be more associated with Egypt than Babylon. Abraham had come from Ur, but Israel hadn't been established in Canaan yet when the majority of the Torah was written.

  Regardless, I think it entirely plausible that Gilgamesh and Enkidu found physical pleasure with one another. The Celts did it before battles. The Bushido has codes regulating homosexual relationships. Now that I think of it, I'd kind of be surprised if they didn't. But it's hard to base it on hard evidence because I just don't know what "embraced like a husband embraces a wife" might have meant 5,000 years ago.

  More on Eve in another response.

  Kesters last blog post..κύκλος κλαν

• At February 25, 2009, Kester wrote:

  OK, Clay, here we goooooo ....

  1 & 5. Will reserve judgment on civilization and "Gilgamesh as humanist" for now ... but would like to throw in that, if my Cain/Abel theory holds, whatever might have been meant by "fill the earth and subdue it" is NOT what we have done.

  (Skipping 2 for a moment)

  3. We probably will disagree about the Bible, although I definitely don't idolize it as many Christians do, nor do I think God dictated it word for word. The "Brick Testament" does a fine job of pointing out some of the idiocy in the pages. (http://www.thebricktestament.com/) That said, I think almost all religious works are derivative, especially polytheistic ones. Also, I would say that, because the Hebrews were OF the ancient culture of Mesopotamia, it is their culture as well. It's not derivative if it partially belonged to you in the first place.

  4. I might agree that Polytheism is kind of an ancient version of post-modernism, except the texts don't back it up. When one didn't properly obey a given god, that god would show you who is boss 'till you did and you were sunk unless some other god came to your aid. Thus, it was less about human decision-making and more about which god was the most powerful.

  I agree about Platonic Idealism and Socrates. However, it is generally agreed that, of all Plato's works, the "Apology" (in which Socrates made the argument that there must be a higher good than the gods) is a fairly accurate representation of Socrates' thought moreso than Plato's.

  (On a related note, I wrote a children's book meant to be the first in a series to introduce the ideas and personages of philosophy to kids so as to better teach it in middle and high school. I'd love to get your response to it.)

  But I will agree on this. Whether polytheist or monotheist, it seems that the human ultimately becomes arbiter of what s/he believes to be true. In a post-Hume world where even basic cause-and-effect relationships can be questioned, it must be so. And I'm willing to concede that polytheistic gods, while more petty about taking offense, seem to give more leeway about right and wrong.

  2. Regarding sex and gender in Mesopotamian vs. Hebrew culture, I can agree there is a difference, but I think that Hebrew wins out. I'll limit my answers to the parts of the text you've already covered:

  - Eve vs. Shamat: Eve succumbs to the tempter and tempts her husband. Only when he eats is innocence lost. Shamat IS the temptress, sucking the life from Enkidu and taking his innocence. The OT serpent says "you will be like God ..." Shamat says, "you are like the gods..." Enkidu, realizing that she has taken his innocence, is angry with her even then, long before ... what happens later.

  - As I've already mentioned, Eve is the partner for Adam. Enkidu seeks another male. Why is Shamat not good enough?

  - In both the OT and the Cuneiform Codes, women can be considered 2nd or 3rd class citizens. I certainly wouldn't say the OT was any worse.

  - Mesopotamian religion certainly seemed more laissez faire about sex in general. But that attitude seemed tied in with a certain disdain for women, an objectification I find disconcerting. Gilgamesh orders Shamat to lure Enkidu. I'm not a statist regarding prostitution (really, about anything); but it bothers me. It makes me wonder how many of the "sisters of the gods" at the temples chose their vocation willingly. I don't like the fear and disgust at menstrual cycles in the Bible, but I am at least as disturbed by the way women seem to be receptacles of male lust in Gilgamesh.

  - Will hold off on Ishtar as represented in the text. But you know what I mean.

  Regarding religious texts and their influences on society, I agree. But I see that with almost any text. Marx led to Stalin. Nietzsche led to Hitler. Both of those were devoid of God. Mohammed led to Bin Ladin. Bible led to Bush. Aztec mythology led to a veritable assembly line of human sacrifice. The only reason the Bible seems worse is because the Christian Church ended up on the top of the heap for a long time.

  That said, I hold Christians more accountable than the others. They are more culpable... WE are more culpable if only because we had an Example to live up to, and we failed miserably. What's worse, we stamped His name on our racism, our genocide, our intolerance and our wars. If I believe in Truth, then I have to be honest about the bad stuff, too.

  Thanks for engaging me on this. If I sound like a jerk, it's more because I'm really interested and passionate. And I know you have a billion other responses to get to as well. (I'm jealous.) Take your time.

  Kesters last blog post..κύκλος κλαν

• At February 27, 2009, Blog: Beyond School | Bscopes Feeds wrote:

  [...] Blog: Beyond School tagged with: education Post: http://beyond-school.org/2009/02/17/gilgamesh-6-the-new-man/ [...]

• At March 10, 2009, Freestyle Pen: Part of the problem or part of the solution? wrote:

  [...] School Unsucky English, Lecture 6: Gilgamesh and the Dawn of Man 2 weeks [...]

• At March 16, 2009, Unsucky English, Lecture 7: A Goddess Prays | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] [The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards ~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good, Evil, Nature, and the Hero, Backwards ~ 6. Gilgamesh and the Dawn of Man]1 [...]

• At March 16, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  FYI, number 7 is up: A Goddess Prays

• At March 18, 2009, cburell wrote:

  Number 8 is up: The Modern Mischief of the Gilgamesh Poets

• At June 26, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Lecture 9 is up: Gilgamesh and the Original "Original Sin".

• At July 4, 2009, Gilgamesh and the Original Original Sin: Unsucky English Lecture 9 | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] no human could succeed at this task against the gods’ will, Gilgamesh laughs possibly the first atheist’s laugh in history – or literature, anyway – and off he and Enkidu go to slay the [...]

Related posts:

1. Unsucky English Lecture 7: Gilgamesh: A Goddess Prays [The Unsuc
2. Unsucky English, Lecture 4: The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards (Gilgamesh, Book Two) [The Unsuc
3. Good, Evil, Nature, and the Hero – Backwards: Unsucky English, Lecture 5 (Gilgamesh, cont’d) [The Unsuc

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Like Dean, I already did a similar meme about eight things, so pardon me for fiddling with this one for the sake of self-pleasuring.

I’m going to give it a musical bent.

7 Things You Might Not Know About My Musical Tastes

1. Joni Mitchell Slays Me

Blue Goddess.

I’ve been listening to almost nothing but Joni Mitchell’s Blue on my drives to and from my weekend work at the radio station for the past two months. I would marry Joni in a heartbeat for the mere pleasure of looking over her shoulder as she wrote her lyrics. They stand right up there with Keats and Shakespeare, *hrumph-hrumph*, mutatis mutandis,  in my book. Add to that the purity of her voice as it navigates the crushingly brave but fragile melodic lines of her songs, and you can add me to the list of those who are, to quote Keats in the “Ode on Melancholy,” “among her cloudy trophies hung.”

God, Blue is perfection. Where to start? “All I Want” should be sung at every wedding:

All I really, really want our love to do
Is just bring out the best in me and you, too….

I want to talk to you
I want to shampoo you

(–that “talk to you” / “shampoo you” rhyme slays me in rhyme, image, and whim.)

I want to renew you
Again and again
Applause, applause,
Life is our cause.
When I think of your kisses
My mind see stars.

I could go on and on, and will a bit more. (But you’ll have to click to read it below the fold:

How about “California,” with its lines,

I met a redneck on a Grecian Isle,
He did the goat dance very well.
He gave me back my smile,
Though he kept my camera to sell.

There’s more to say about “California” – especially the concluding “Will you take me as I am?” plea at the end, which comes as close to an “essential question” and bone-deep prayer to Life as anything anyone could want – but really, you have to hear it to love it.

How about the crushing “The Last Time I Saw Richard”?

The last time I saw Richard
was Detroit in ‘68
and he told me
‘All romantics meet the same fate
someday, cynical and drunk,
and boring some stranger
in some dark cafe.

(I’m generally not a drinker, but otherwise I get Richard.)

‘You laugh,’ he said,
‘You think you’re immune -
Go look at your eyes
They’re full of moon

You like roses and kisses
and pretty men to tell you
All those pretty lies, pretty lies
When you gonna realise theyre only pretty lies
Only pretty lies, just pretty lies.’

He put a quarter in the wurlitzer,
and he pushed three buttons
and the thing began to whirr
And a bar maid came by
in fishnet stockings and a bow tie
And she said
‘Drink up now its gettin on time to close.’

‘Richard, you haven’t really changed,’ I said
‘It’s just that now you’re romanticizing
some pain that’s in your head.
You got tombs in your eyes,
but the songs you punched are dreams -
Listen – they sing of love so sweet,
love so sweet
When you gonna get yourself back on your feet?
Oh and love can be so sweet, love so sweet.’

Richard got married to a figure skater
And he bought her a dishwasher
and a coffee percolator
And he drinks at home now most nights
with the tv on
And all the house lights left up bright.

‘I’m gonna blow this damn candle out.
I dont want nobody coming over to my table,
I got nothing to talk to anybody about.
All good dreamers pass this way some day,
Hiding behind bottles
in dark cafes.
Dark cafes
Only a dark cocoon before I get my gorgeous wings
And fly away
Only a phase, these dark cafe days.’

Sheesh. To quote Frank Zappa, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Just go buy or download Blue. And Court and Spark. And Ladies of the Canyon. And Hejira (oh my god, Hejira:

I’m porous with travel fever,
But you know I’m so glad to be on my own.
Still somehow the slightest touch of a stranger
Can set up trembling in my bones.

I know – no one’s going to show me everything.
We all come and go I know.
Each so deep and superficial
Between the forceps and the stone.

Well I looked at the granite markers
Those tributes to finality, to eternity -
And then I looked at myself here
Chicken scratching for my immortality.

In the church they light the candles
And the wax rolls down like tears:
There’s the hope and the hopelessness
I’ve witnessed thirty years.

We’re only particles of change I know, I know
Orbiting around the sun;
But how can I have that point of view
When I’m always bound and tied to someone?

White flags of winter chimneys
Wave truce against the moon
In the mirrors of a modern bank
From the window of a hotel room.)

I quit. Just listen. (And Joni, if you’re reading this, and despite the charge of bigamy, can we talk?)

2. Gustav Mahler’s Symphony Number 9 (and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and unfinished 10th, plus Das Lied von der Erde - “The Song of the Earth”) was, I’m convinced, penned by (choose your) God or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

God.

I discovered Mahler in Los Angeles in the early ’80s, thanks to the divine intervention of Nat King Cole’s adopted son Kelly, who died of AIDS in the ’90s. Kelly saw me in Ship’s Coffee Shop on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, near UCLA,  one 3 a.m. reading Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice, and mistook me for other than straight (no harm done, it’s happened many a time). He sat next to me at the counter and struck up a conversation about literature that led to my impressionable young self declaring Humanities as my major and Mahler and Beethoven as my gods. Then he dumped me when he realized I was woefully immature and, possibly worse, irremediably straight (I didn’t choose this, it’s just me).

Anyway, he lent me his Mahler LP’s and, long story short, after a few failed attempts to hear the divinity, one magic listen to the First (the “Titan”) finally delivered it. This ex-semi-hillbilly ploughed through and memorized Symphonies One through Six, never got Seven and Eight, and to this day considers the Ninth the most perfect artwork he’s ever encountered.

Why? The first movement, to me, captures the full range of Mahler’s emotions as he coped with the news that, at roughly 51 years of age, a terminal heart condition meant a tragically early end to his life. (I don’t care, frankly, about the factual accuracy of this interpretation. If it’s a fiction, which it may be, it works for me. Why not in Art as it is in Religion?)

The murmuring cellos are the murmuring heart. The falling thirds are the tender acceptance of a mortality that can’t be forestalled, and the beautiful expression of the same. The chaos of the middle and end of the movement are the gamut of other emotions – rage, despair, metaphysical searches (against hope) for consolation, on and on.

Then, BAM, the second movement is an entirely funky burlesque that breaks all rules of decorum. Mahler seems to be giving the finger to critics who accused him of lacking skill in counterpoint, so he gives it to them with a vengeance. The guy’s so cool – he goes out of this life not crying, but showing his ass and his scorn in unparalleled sublimity. The second movement rocks.

I don’t particularly care for the third movement, but the final fourth makes its peace with mortality in a way that, musically at least, bridges the way to heaven. It doesn’t end so much as die, quietly and exquisitely. I defy you identify exactly where the performance stops and the silence begins.

To quote Das Lied von der Erde,

Dunkel ist das Lieben,
Ist der Tod.

[Sad is life,
is death.]

3. I would also marry Nick Cave – and I’m straight.

Also God.

Jesus, where to start.

From his early “Kicking Against the Pricks” LP, Cave reminded me of William Blake in his ability to “marry Heaven and Hell.” (The structure of his song, “The Hammer and the Anvil” on that album is also reminiscent of Blake.)

Cave’s blend of diabolical anger and aggression with angelic tenderness and romanticism (not to mention his deftness at blending Christianity and Eroticism) just does it for me. (Puritan alert: skip the following lyrics – you won’t get their beauty:)

The butcher bird makes its noise
And asks you to agree
With its brutal nesting habits
And its pointless savagery.

Now, the nightingale sings to you
And raises up the ante.
I put one hand on your round ripe heart
And the other down your panties.

Everything is falling, dear;
Everything is wrong.
It’s just history repeating itself.
And babe, you turn me on -

Like a light bulb.
Like a song.

You race naked through the wilderness;
You torment the birds and the bees.
You leap into the abyss, but find
It only goes up to your knees.

I move stealthily from tree to tree;
I shadow you for hours.
I make like I’m a little deer
Grazing on the flowers.

Everything is collapsing, dear;
All moral sense has gone.
It’s just history repeating itself
And babe, you turn me on.

Like an idea,
Like an Atom bomb.

We stand awed inside a clearing,
We do not make a sound.
The crimson snow falls all about,
Carpeting the ground.

Everything is falling, dear;
All rhyme and reason gone.
It’s just history repeating itself
And, babe, you turn me on.

Like an idea,
Like an Atom bomb.

I also love these heretically holy lines from “The Gates of the Garden,” which, again, are so channeling Blake (think “The Sick Rose” or ‘The Garden of Love”). It’s set in a churchyard, in which stand a lover and his beloved:

Leave these ancient places to the angels.
Let the saints attend to their keeping of the cathedrals.
And leave the dead beneath the ground so cold,
For God is in this hand that I hold -
As we open up the gates of the garden.

Won’t you meet me at the gates
Won’t you meet me at the gates
Won’t you meet me at the gates
To the garden

“God is in this hand / that I hold.” Slay me. (Then remind me of the cynicism of Joni’s “The Last Time I Saw Richard”: “All romantics meet the same fate / Someday cynical and drunk …. in some dark cafe…. / Pretty lies.”)

I love Cave’s disdain for modern mediocrity; it rings of Nietzsche:

Back on the street I saw a great big smiling sun,
It was a Good day and an Evil day and all was bright and new,
And it seemed to me that most destruction was being done
By those who could not choose between the two.

Amateurs, dilettantes, hacks, cowboys, clones
The streets groan with little Caesars, Napoleons and cunts
With their building blocks and their tiny plastic phones
Counting on their fingers, with crumbs down their fronts.

I passed by your garden, saw you with your flowers -
The Magnolias, Camellias and Azaleas so sweet -
And I stood there invisible in the panicking crowds
You looked so beautiful in the rising heat.

I smell smoke, see little fires bursting on the lawns,
People carry on regardless, listening to their hands.
Great cracks appear in the pavement, the earth yawns,
Bored and disgusted, to do us down.

Babe
It seems so long
Since you’ve been gone
And I
Just got to say
That it grows darker with the day.

(If you roll your eyes at the apocalyptic nature of the poem, you’re not paying attention to the state of the planet. How many decades does our species have left, based on scientific research? If you say more than ten, I’m inclined to argue. But I hope I’m wrong.)

Cave’s two lectures, “The Flesh Made Word” and “The Secret Life of the Love Song,” are available on CD as well. “The Flesh Made Word” is a stunning bit of prose-poetry theology via coming-of-age personal narrative. He’s one of the best heretics alive.

Coda:

Ah, sheesh. It’s time for a nap. Dean, thanks for starting this. It’s the most impossible post I’ve ever written.

17 Comments

• At January 18, 2009, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  Thanks for sharing. I'll have to check out these musicians. I've been hording my itunes gift cards from Christmas. Might have to do some shopping today.

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Putting the Fun in Fundraising

• At January 19, 2009, Kate Tabor wrote:

  So, Clay - yes, and yes! And that means I have to check out Nick Cave.

  "Blue" and Joni Mitchell are such a part of a certain time in my life. I wore the grooves out on my copy of Blue and have since replaced it, lost it, and replaced it. "I wish I had a river I could skate away on."

  When I lived in Boston I auditioned for and was able to perform, for one weekend only!, at the Tanglewood Music Festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Festival Chorus. Seiji Ozawa conducted Mahler's 3rd (with women's chorus - why I was there) Jessye Norman was soloist. Between standing on stage in the Shed during rehearsals and performance, watching Ozawa conduct (the orchestra and curiously -me), being steps from Norman, and hearing the Mahler, I can understand the ecstatic mystic experience.

  Can't wait to read more.

  Kate Tabors last blog post..7 things meme

• At January 19, 2009, Dean Shareski wrote:

  I"m sure you know but Joni Mitchell is also from Saskatchewan. In fact, she did an 8th grade english assignment on her and we arranged to spend the afternoon with Joni's parents. I still have the interview somewhere. Her own music is highly influenced by her.

  Dean Shareskis last blog post..Ed Tech Posse 5.1

• At January 19, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Kate - wow. Some of my earliest Mahler recordings were by Ozawa and/or the BSO (Erich Leinsdorf's BSO recording of the First is still my favorite. I _think_ it was the BSO.)

  Jessye Norman, too, was an early fave. And you freaking got to sing in the third?! The third mvmt's Midnight Song (based on my man Nietzsche's Zarathustra, no less!) is so beautiful. But not choral, so you sang the Das Knaben Wunderhorn song in the fourth? (And wow, you heard Norman sing the Midnight Song.)

  It's been so long since I've listened to it. Maybe I should.

  As for Joni, I'm not at all surprised you loved her. She's made for poetry lovers. I didn't "discover" her until I was in my 30s, strangely.

  And Nick Cave? Try "The Boatman's Call" and (my favorite, I think - ) "And No More Shall We Part." The 2 lectures are great for lovers of speaking and writing (and religious studies) too.

  Prepare to be tagged when I finish this thing ;-)

• At January 19, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Dean, actually, I only knew she was from Canada. Your pronouns scrambled my brain in your comment, but anything you can offer about that - my god, I'll pay you to tell Joni's mom to read this "proposal" to her ;-) - I'm all ears for. I literally get chills every time I listen (closely) to so many of the songs on "Blue," (and other cd's), even after hundreds of listens. She's in a class of her own, in my book, as a lyricist, vocalist, and songwriter.

• At January 19, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Charlie, oof, I hope the Cave recommendations to Kate came in time.

  As for Mahler? If he's new to you, I think chronological is the best journey. Following his development from beginning to end makes it easier to appreciate his late works, which are his greatest, but also least accessible (even to 'smart' people like you).

  Herbert von Karajan's Berlin Phil Symph. 5 is stunning. Leonard Bernstein is solid on them all. And Benjamin Zander does a fantastic version of the Ninth that also includes him talking through how to conduct it (which is also simply him expressing his love for it, detail by detail) that is a treasure in itself.

• At January 19, 2009, Dean Shareski wrote:

  "pronouns scrambled the brain". Admittedly my comment scratched from my iPhone was not the best device to try and make a lucid comment. I've been fully chastised by a world class English teacher. It's as if my golf game was critiqued by Tiger Woods.

  Dean willl try and find the footage and post the said footage on the Internet. (pretty sure I didn't use a pronoun there). ;-)

  Dean Shareskis last blog post..Ed Tech Posse 5.1

• At January 20, 2009, diane wrote:

  My daughter is a second-generation Joni Mitchell fan. You already knew, of course, that Joni is one of the few recognized female Dudes. Liked the way you linked Mahler and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, also.

  For dreamy poetic moments, I like Debussy, Impressionist painters, Portrait of Jenny (the movie) and Mallarme's "Afternoon of a Faun." Oh, and T.S. Eliot - his words sing to me.

  dianes last blog post..The Form of Information

• At January 20, 2009, Kate Tabor wrote:

  Yes, I got to sing the Des Knaben Wunderhorn piece. It went by in a blink. I remember not even needing my music. Norman was amazing. Ozawa was like watching a dancer - and the horns! The whole experience was incredible. The night before we had performed Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé (with all those dreadful-to-sing wordless choir passages) under the baton of Charles Dutoit (who was a real jerk to all the musicians in my unschooled opinion). That hour in the Shed did not prepare me for the next day's Mahler. We sat and absorbed the music that came before us. We rose in unison, Ozawa raised his face to us, and we sang: "Es sungen drei Engel einen süßen Gesang - three angels sang a joyful song." My middle school German got me through the pronunciation and it was not a far stretch to understand at a cellular level the idea of the joyful song that never ends and the angel choir. Wow, I haven't thought about that day in a long time. Many thanks for unlocking that memory for me.

  Kate Tabors last blog post..7 things meme

• At January 20, 2009, Adrienne wrote:

  Clay, you didn't mention any jazz on this list - have you heard Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters? Hancock and his producer "arranged the music to interpret or express the emotions of the lyrics." Check the album out here. It is truly a masterpiece. You can also listen to tracks on the Verve website. I often fantasize about doing something similar with other lyrics or poetry, but I'm not a talented enough musician.

  Adriennes last blog post..Is It Easy Being Green? My Visit To Green School

• At January 21, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Tee hee. World-class prig, more like (and yes, that "g" was not a typo, and I did not intend to use an old April Fool's word).

  You kill me. Post it, man, post it.

• At January 21, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Diane, so nice of you to fatten my reading and viewing list :)

  Joni's a Dudess. I just can't bring myself to call her a Dude.

• At January 21, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Adrienne, Now this _is_ Part I. Jazz will come.

  I'll _try_ the Hancock, but don't hate me if I report back that it, like most post-Bop jazz (fusion and all of that) didn't do it for me. I like Hancock more just for recognizing Joni's genius.

  Plan to listen soon. :)

• At January 21, 2009, Jennifer wrote:

  Hey Clay,

  "The Last Time I Saw Richard" is one of the best stories ever sung. Come to think of it, so is "River". So, for that matter, is "This Flight Tonight", and ... well, you know, I could go on. Blue and Hejira are indeed masterpieces.

  If you care to venture into the jazzier side of Joni's songcrafting sometime, take a listen to "Mingus" ('79). It's just as brilliant, if a little bit more jarring to the ears. And I count "Hissing of Summer Lawns" ('75) among my favorite albums of all time.

  Just had to write. Mahler? I don't know enough to know. Nick Cave I like, but haven't listened enough to feel very strongly about his lyrics. But I am a huge fan of Joni from way back ... pretty much as soon as I could understand the words, I was hooked.

  Jennifer

  Jennifer's last blog post..Instructional Technologist, “In Quotes”

• At February 18, 2009, Meme Mash Up: 7 things and Music « Living on the Lip of Insanity wrote:

  [...] Clay Burell, was tagged for the  Seven Things You Might Not Know About Me meme - but felt he had “been there/done that” with an Eight Things meme not too long back.  So, he “fiddl[ed] with this one for the sake of self-pleasuring” (he really did say that) and gave “it a musical bent. [...]

• At February 23, 2009, Patrick Anderson wrote:

  After years of listening to classical music I discovered that my favourite period is the late 19th century with composers like Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner and Vaughan Williams.

• At February 24, 2009, Mike Oomens wrote:

  Hey Clay,

  If Nick and Mahler are God, let me introduce you to the holy trinity...

  The Dirty Three - Warren Ellis (violin), Mick Turner (guitar), Jim White (drums).

  An instrumental three-piece from Melbourne whose live shows need to be seen to be believed. Will stop you dead in your tracks three days later. A complete live experience - drama, tears, joy and rock'n'roll. With a violin!

  Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEERfJDBZqA

  Warren Ellis actually plays with the Bad Seeds so you've probably heard him already.

  Find them and enjoy.

  Cheers,

  Mike.

  Mike Oomenss last blog post..Filmism: Or how a blog improved thinking about Film.

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The Wonderful World of International School Hiring Fairs

It was wonderful, in a weird way. Talking for hours for four straight days to school leaders around the world about our views on teaching and learning (and most interestingly, though probably most damning for many of my job prospects, about technology in education) is an interesting way to spend the time.

Without naming names of schools or interviewers, here’s a random and sleepy-eyed report of lessons learned from the experience.

1. Bad interviews are good things

No matter the reputation of the school, the people sitting across from you in the hotel room asking you questions in that school’s name are a stronger indicator of how it would feel to work at that school. I talked to English department heads whose questions – and my answers – made it clear to both of us that we would, or would not, make a happy marriage. There was an unsurprising correlation between this marital element and the offering or non-offering of a position at each school. Schools touting themselves as “21st century schools” and banging their laptop program drums – and during interviews with which I expected flower petals to descend from on high – on an occasion or two turned out to instead voice sentiments belonging to, um, people who’d obviously never experienced the literacy magic that happens after a few months writing and conversing behind the wheel of a blog. No rose-petals there – instead, many mental leaves of wet cabbage fell, probably, in both our imaginations. Marriage for the next two years? We think not. Thank goodness for the bad interview, and for the “We’re sorry we cannot offer you a job at this time.” No apology necessary, really – good luck.

2. “Energy is eternal delight” – so its opposite is….?

(h/t to William Blake who, though dead, deserves eternal credit for the eternally delightful maxim.) If, like mine, your own heart seems to pump more espresso than blood, then it may be important to consider the energy coming from those interviewing you. I’m not saying interviewers need to be manic or anything; I’m just saying a lack of excitement, of a sort of buoyancy – of even a decorously restrained intensity – when discussing educational vision while courting for a temporary professional marriage may be, well, a screaming red flag. Granted, the interviewers are stuck in their hotel rooms interviewing candidate after candidate for many more straight hours than the candidates themselves, but still – we’re all teachers, current or past, so we should be pretty good at keeping our energy level up whenever a professional client enters the room, be it classroom or hotel room. The short version? Beware the droopy interviewer, and put a gold star by the inspired/inspiring one. You are, after all, bound to be sitting in many more meetings with them if you sign the contract to work with them. If they’re sleepy, chances are you’ll be a sleepy worker with them. But if they’re exciting – in a way that rings true (and we all have what Hemingway calls a “shock-proof sh!t-detector,” don’t we, to distinguish real from fake excitement, yes?) – then consider fishing your pocket for that ring, and dropping to your knees on the spot.

3. Interview questions make the interviewer.

By the end of the first of my four days of interviewing, it struck me how different interviews are based on the questions asked (and not asked) by the interviewer. Some of them seemed as stilted and scripted as the worst end-of-chapter questions from the worst textbooks (redundant?). They felt less like interviews than exercises in checking off the questions boxes. It wasn’t quite “schooliness,” so can we call it “interviewiness”?

The best interviews, on the other hand, were more free-flowing and responsive, characterized by give-and-take expansiveness as one party or the other heard something no script could predict.

4. Being yourself is better, come what may, than trying to be someone else.

Think about it. Not only does pretending to be what you’re not cheat your interviewer – it also cheats you. Show your true colors now, so you’ll know whether it’ll be okay to show them over the length of your contract. I love the fact that, at my second interview with the two interviewers for the school I chose, Singapore American School, I replied to a question by saying something to the effect of, “There’s no denying that people’s first impression of me is often, ‘Damn, Burell, you’re too intense!’ But after a while they see the rest of me, and realize I’m also mellow in my own way.” “Damn” is a soft enough word these days – and I certainly don’t toss out higher-level potty words like rhymes-with-fit or ends-many-limericks-about-Nantucket or leads-to-supposedly-eternal-damnation in professional company – and I wondered about the wisdom of the utterance after it escaped my mouth (and this was in like the middle of the second hour of the interview), but somehow the fact that the offer was still made left me feeling even happier than otherwise about accepting it when it came in hour three.

5. Check your ego at the door.

I got about an even mix of offers and rejections from the schools I talked to. One school in particular seemed so right after two interviews that getting the rejection note broadsided me with the force of a turbo-powered school bus. I bumped into one of the interviewers later, and he told me that choosing my competitor over me was the hardest decision they made the night before, and that it took them over an hour of group deliberation to make it. A rejection can happen for all sorts of reasons – maybe they needed yearbook experience you didn’t offer, or needed that administrator whose spouse happened to be a less-qualified candidate for the position you want. So don’t take it personally.

6. Remember to research.

I’m sure I blew one interview by expressing my desire to get experience in a program they didn’t offer, and expressing my distaste for the one they did. Oops. I’d mistakenly thought they did offer that program.

7. Benefits, preps, class sizes, and student mix.

You don’t offer a flight home after the first year? You don’t cover dependents? 70% of your student population is Korean? You laugh off the notion that four preps is too much for new (or old) teachers?

8. Courtesy is cool, good will is good stuff.

When it came down to thinking I’d be choosing between two very attractive schools, I told one of them how I hoped that saying “no” this time, if the decision went that way, wouldn’t close the door to a “yes” next time in years to come. The gentlemanly answer of the man I said this to was so winsome, I don’t know what to say, other than that it made me want to work in this man’s school even more. The answer was no less impressive for its simplicity, which was, simply, “Your saying no to us will offend us no more than we’d want to offend you if we said no to you. It’s the nature of the beast, and we understand that, so no doors will close at all.”

9. Remember to check yourself in the mirror before you leave your hotel room for the day’s interviews.

I can’t believe I forgot my belt. At least my fly wasn’t down.

That’s about it. Hope it helped, and fyi, Mr. Utecht, consider the assignment done

9 Comments

• At January 18, 2009, Brian Lockwood wrote:

  Of all your interviews, was there anyone there that didn't know of your blogging presence? No names of course but I'd find it surprising if you said yes. Did any of your past blog post become part of your interview discussions?

  Brian Lockwoods last blog post..Some where between Narita & ycat

• At January 18, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Funny question. My blog never came up.

• At January 18, 2009, Andrew Torris wrote:

  Clay... great post! You are so right on all accounts, and also provide a glimpse of the side of the interview I haven't been in for a while. Funny how little differences there are from both sides of the hotel room.

  Thanks for sharing your reflection.

  Andrew Toriss last blog post..Thank You Carl Anderson!

• At January 19, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Andy,

  Thanks for the props. You make me hope an interviewER from the fair (hint hint?) will write a companion piece. Would be interesting to read.

  (BTW, a certain JB ranked high on my list of decent folks it would be a pleasure to work with, fyi. Really kind and as droll as they come. Was nice to talk with that one.)

• At January 20, 2009, Adrienne wrote:

  Clay, I so enjoyed reading this, probably because I can relate to it so much ... I have been to somewhere around 5 int'l job fairs in the past 8 years (one in one season, then in two separate seasons, I attended 2 fairs). They are intense but I love the energy and meeting such a diverse group of people, both administrators and teachers. Your post almost made me wistful, as I sit here wondering where I'll be next year, fielding the questions from colleagues. It *is* strange for it to be February, knowing I'm leaving, but not attending a job fair.

  Like Brian, I'm surprised your blog never came up. Honestly, I would have thought a lot of recruiters' first stop after the interview and reference check would be Google.

  Thanks for sharing; I'm excited for you as you move to the next venture, and I'll be following eagerly!

  Adriennes last blog post..Is It Easy Being Green? My Visit To Green School

• At January 25, 2009, The World of International Schools | always learning wrote:

  [...] third day heading to an entirely different country (or, sometimes, without a job at all). Julie and Clay shared their ups and downs from the Bangkok fairs this year - so many of those points could have [...]

• At January 25, 2009, The World of International Schools « Follow That Elephant! wrote:

  [...] third day heading to an entirely different country (or, sometimes, without a job at all). Julie and Clay shared their ups and downs from the Bangkok fairs this year - so many of those points could have [...]

• At February 5, 2009, Education - Change.org: Snark Attack: UCLA Research Dissing Technology Bombs wrote:

  [...] cases, of our schools. I shared an experience along these lines on my other blog, where I gave a report of my experience at the teacher recruitment fair I went to in Bangkok a few weeks ago: Schools [...]

• At February 17, 2009, Unsucky English, Lecture 6: Gilgamesh and the Birth of Something New | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] or so after that (I got them both, thank goodness), and then into applying and interviewing for a new teaching job beginning this summer (which worked out well too - I’ll be in Singapore by July to settle in [...]

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I really, really, really beg you to come. (And I’m going to be begging some of you to guest-blog from time to time, to bridge the ed-geek world with the larger ed-world, if I can.)

If you haven’t seen change.org, you should find them interesting from the social media and participatory citizenship angles. There’s already a huge, incredible community of readers, commenters, and doers (I hope) over there.  I’m both humbled and fairly certain they meant to send the acceptance email to somebody else.

I won’t be unplugging Beyond School, as I said. Things more personal and literary-historical will stay here. Things more educational and reformist will be over at http://education.change.org.

FYI, I’ll be in Thailand interviewing with schools for the next week, then taking a long-overdue honeymoon on Ko Samui the week after that. But I’ll be back, goodness willing.

10 Comments

• At January 4, 2009, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  @Clay

  The new blog looks great. Thanks for posting the Darling-Hammond vs. Keegan debate. Good luck in Thailand and I hope you have a great vacation.

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..7 Things and Pop-Tastic

• At January 4, 2009, spgreenlaw wrote:

  I already love the new blog. The whole change.org website is pretty amazing, actually, and it will be great to see how it expands over time.

  Best of luck with the interviews and have a great honeymoon.

  spgreenlaws last blog post..01.01.09 (Hello)

• At January 5, 2009, robertogreco wrote:

  Congratulations, Clay. The new blog is already in my reader. I love the way you defined your role as "expert skeptic."

  Happy new year and enjoy your travels.

• At January 6, 2009, Catherine Moon wrote:

  I added your new blog in my bookmark list :)

  I'm glad to see that the new quest looks settled and to hear that you are continuing with this blog. Though they do not directly address education, good readings that let students add more perspectives on subjects typically not taught in schools (e.g., Gilgamesh series) are part of going beyond school, and I have to confess that I still look forward to reading more of those posts also. As you mentioned before, they are "healthy" diversions.

  Happy new year and I hope you have a wonderful time in Thailand.

  ~Catherine

• At January 7, 2009, Harold Shaw wrote:

  Clay - the blog has an easy look and navigability to it. It will be interesting to see what you and your guest bloggers will write about here. I look forward to it and congratulations !!!

  Harold Shaws last blog post..Our 210th variation on the theme, "Thank you for using FeedBurner."

• At January 12, 2009, Paul C wrote:

  Your new blog adds a degree of empowerment to everyone who believes that there are dimensions to school which can always be enhanced, locally and globally.

  Paul Cs last blog post..CBC Radio Invitation: Obama Play List

• At January 14, 2009, don’t mind the mess. make yourself at home. « Higher Edison wrote:

  [...] I recently moved Higher Edison here from its former digs. When a business moves to new location, it’s always classy when they paint-scrawl the new address (”We’ve moved to 325 Industry Boulevard!”) on papered-over storefront windows. My version of that redirect scrawl: After a too-long, unplanned sabbatical from writing, a period happily packed with parenting and other worthwhile distractions, I’m gingerly easing back into it. I hope. Meanwhile, much has changed. You can say that again. [...]

• At January 15, 2009, Teny Eurdekian wrote:

  Wow; congrats! I'm going to be keeping up with that site as well, it looks very interesting (and I heard about change.org somewhere from a youtube video about helping girls in 3rd-world countries, but never ended up visiting the site).

  I still hope you continue posting here, though. I want to read through your old archives, hehe.

• At January 17, 2009, Michael Doyle wrote:

  I've been there--I liked it better here, but I'm a fart that way.

  That's not why I'm posting, though. At change.org, you have a petition running for Linda Darling-Hammond. Fine.

  Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but when are we going to stop tip-toeing around and look at Mr. Duncan for what he is?

  Any way you can open up petitions like this one to general comments? What am I missing?

  (If I wanted a coronation, I'd move my clan back to Europe.)

• At January 31, 2009, Clay Burell wrote:

  Catherine, I'm so bad at replying when my inbox gets too stuffed! But I wanted to say a) thanks, and b) it's great to hear from you. Give me an email update on how school feels!

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