Balls and Walnuts
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The Rulez Part Deux
In 1929, Bronislaw Malinowski published The Sexual Life of Savages. Malinowski, a Polish anthropologist, was an early pioneer of ethnographic field work. He (or perhaps his publisher) also knew how to title a book to move it off the shelves, but that’s neither here nor there.
Malinowski’s Trobriand islanders are gone now. Even in 1929, you could have legitimately asked how closely Malinowski’s analysis corresponded to reality — ethnographer bias, and all that lot. Nowadays, his work lies somewhere between history and fantasy.
I mention this because I’m about to do a mini-Malinowski: report on the sexual mores of a culture as described to me by one informant (yes, I’m sure M had several) regarding a people long since transformed by time and history: the French, circa 1955. Furthermore, I’m remembering this conversation twenty-two years later. How accurate is this? The sexual proclivities of Tolkien’s elves may have a firmer basis in reality.
The Rulez
A while ago, I mentioned how I broke some key rules when I courted Karen. My faux pas didn’t trash our budding romance, and may have even helped things along. For me, that proves something: there are no rules. Rules are bullshit. At least, they were in 1982 when I came a-courting, and I can’t believe things are any better today.
But wouldn’t it be nice if there were rules? What could be better than a universally agreed-upon code of behavior to ensure that no one would be humiliated, ever again? Or is it unnatural for men to think about the rules when we’re used to thinking with our jewels?
And the winner of the music contest is . . .
DEAN!
And no, he didn’t get fifty million entries, even though he posted fifty million times. Just the max, two.
Wish you could all win but hey, rulez is rulez.
Dean, email me your new address and I will arrange for your teh awesome prize to be sent to you. malmerkin at gmail dot com.
HEY! I just had a great idea for a new drink: absinthe and a slug of espresso, a nice big fat octopus tentacle added in as a stirrer. I’ll call it the Cthulhu Cthooler*.
D.
*Who says I can’t still write.
Thirteen senior year memories
I’ve written more about my last year at Berkeley than any other year of my life, thanks to Karen, but I’m sure I can dig up a few fresh stories for you, as well as a few links to old stories some of you may have missed. Onward!