One minute, I’m watching families talk about how they don’t know how to buy school clothes for their kids on their minimum wage salaries; the next, I’m watching spoiled 18 year olds watching martial arts films on their $1000 toys, under the pretense of taking notes in a classroom. —Mike Arnzen —Getting By In Class…with HP Pavillion Notebooks (Pedablogue)
Great post, Mike.
The ad would be great to show as part of the “Education” component of our freshman composition course, “Seminar in Thinking and Writing” (which I’m not actually teaching this year). Sounds like it should have run on MTV or during Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. While driving to and from Kentucky last week, there were many stretches when the only radio selection was country music. Several times, I heard a Kenny Chesney song, “Keg in the Closet”. Talk about the celebration of anti-intellectualism…
We went to class just to pass the time, back in ’89
We had a keg in the closet, pizza on the floor
Left over from the night before
Where we were going we didn’t really care
We had all we ever wanted
In that keg in the closet
But maybe I’m too sensitive. I’m still annoyed by the Pringles ad that showed cool students playing around in the quad with their Pringles, and showing a stuffy middle-aged prof kind of wiping his greasy, potato-chip stained hands on his vest.
Pringles only cost about a buck at Wal-Mart. Wouldn’t a professor with an office like that be eating, I dunno, cucumber sandwiches or Turkish delight, or maybe swilling brandy?
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Thanks for setting me right on that,
"Swilling brandy" Blasphemer!! One _never_ "swills" brandy (I almost fainted in my tweeds)! One uses a snifter - and warms the brandy against the palm of your hand. (*snort*)
Now for all of you - this is called "sarcasm" :)
Full disclosure - I adore brandy (Cardenal Mendoza, Courvoisier, and Hennessy are all in my cabinet at home).
Hm... Plato was worried about all art, since it inspires the emotions rather than enlightening the intellect. I don't know that country music is any less intellectual than any other popular genre, though of course some songs are more blatant than others.
watc out for that turkish delight...I hear it can be habit forming.
also, country music is anti-intellectual by nature. Witness the horrible Toby Keith song that claims that booting peoples asses is the "American way." Last time I checked, that wasn't one of the founding principles of our country. Jefferson and the other founding fathers don't seem like they'd be much of ass kickers.
Us wacky professor types don't know how to eat cool food, but I've known quite a few grad students who had all they ever wanted in that keg in the closet, sadly. Whatta song. I don't listen to country, but I'll look for it.