Notes

[1] “The thing things.” That statement makes no more sense to me now than it did twenty-eight years ago when I first read that sentence. In German it’s Das ding dingt. Is it possible that it’s some kind of onomatopoeic joke that just doesn’t translate? Does the thing thing? Is it thinging right now? If it stops thinging how will I know? Is it possible Heidegger’s translator had a lisp and it’s “the thing sings”? Separate question: do the Ting Tings derive their name from this phrase?

Today is the winter solstice, which means that it’s time for the duck-rabbit to flatten its ears and tuck its head neatly under its wing.

Wishing you all, dear readers, a joyous and not in the least bleak midwinter,

Much love &c., D-R.

I wouldn’t normally post two dispatches in such quick succession, but my post-departmental-vote-gift-to-myself has been license to luxuriate in gratuitous Fluevoggery and idle bloggery.

More to the point, I received from my dear friend Natalie last night an email that fairly begged in the manner of a Dickensian street urchin to have a dispatch constructed around it, particularly given my recent discussion of London accents.

This was how the message began. I am quoting verbatim with only names redacted and explanation in square brackets.

From: Natalie ----
Subject: Chimney sweep clothes

To: ----- ------

Hi -----,

I don't suppose --- [elder flopsy-duckit] has any 
chimney sweep-like items of clothing? Waistcoat 
(vest in US terms), newsboy hat, dark colored shirt?

All right. Let’s mull this one over. I’ve flexed my fingers and cracked my knuckles. I’m going to enjoy this.

Now, I haven’t confirmed this with Natalie, but my strong hunch is that I was the first and possibly the only person she approached with this request. Now, why is this significant, you might ask?

It’s significant because, as you are now aware, the duck-rabbit hails from Norf London, which, in days gone by, positively teemed with under-age chimney-sweeps. And so, naturally, Natalie, who hails from Cheltenham, my dear, supposes, simply from the harsh tones of the duck-rabbit’s vowels, that it simply must own a full set of child-size chimney-sweep attire. [1]

What makes Natalie’s assumption that the duck-rabbit, as a Norf Londoner, would be likely to possess a full complement of chimney sweeping attire quite ironic is that Natalie herself, as an Englishwoman, was, as her email demonstrated, subject to the same kinds of assumptions.

For, as Natalie’s email went on to explain, the very reason she needed chimney-sweep attire was because her eldest son had been cast as

“a chimney sweep in the school performance next week 
and we've just been asked to provide these items!”

Now, is it simply a coincidence that Natalie’s son (whose cherubic face and ever-so-slightly Anglicized accent cry out “Oliver!”) was cast as a chimney-sweep?

No, my friends, it is not.

Rather, here we have here a rather nice dramatization of how one set of people (LAUSD teachers) will make the assumption based, on all likelihood, the 1964 film of Mary Poppins, that all English families, even upper-middle-class ones, are able to get their hands on chimney sweep-clothes on short notice. But that set of English people will in turn make a more specialized set of assumptions. They know that they don’t own the chimney-sweep clothes, so the people who must own the chimney-sweep clothes must be the Londoners. Right? And then, in turn, the born-and-bred Londoners (like myself) assume that it is current residents of London who are in possession of the national stock of chimney sweep-clothing. And then, those London residents assume that it is, oh, I don’t know, the people who live in Mile End who have the chimney sweep clothing. [2] We may illustrate the proposition thus:

And so on and so forth. We are all convinced that there is someone who has easy access to child-sized chimney sweep clothing. And we are all wrong.

I present this to you as a facetious and flippant example of something serious and deeply troubling, which is the phenomenon of implicit bias. It’s something I talked about during last week’s final History of Modern Thought lecture, when the assigned reading was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Frankenstein provides a very obvious of example of implicit bias, perhaps most clearly in the reaction of Felix De Lacey to the creature created and brought to life by Victor Frankenstein. Felix is characterized as just and sensitive. He is horrified and indignant when he witnesses a trial that sentences a Muslim merchant to death, and “it was judged that his [the Muslim merchant’s] religion and wealth rather than the crime alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation.” And yet, the just and sensitive Felix, merely upon “beholding” the creature, who kneels submissively at Felix’s father’s feet, “in a transport of fury ….dashed [the creature] to the ground and struck [him] violently.”

That word “transport” is revealing, I think. To be transported, in this period, is to be in a reverie, a dream-like state, not acting consciously.

I said this was an example of implicit bias. What kind of implicit bias? As you’ll recall if you’ve read the novel, Shelley represents Felix as involuntarily moved, not to fury, but to love, by the “exquisite beauty” of Safie, the “lovely Arabian.” That which is beautiful produces love. That which is hideous (an adjective that is frequently applied to the creature by those who witness his appearance) elicits fury and violence. [3]

I present Frankenstein to my students as a novel about the tyranny of sight. Automatically deeming the beautiful to be lovable and the hideous to be worthy of violent attack is a form of implicit bias. I mean obviously, one could also be explicitly biased in this way, but the example of implicit bias (as embodied, I’m arguing, by Felix, who regards himself as a champion of justice) is more interesting and also more disturbing because more pervasive and more insidious.

I’ve been thinking a lot about implicit bias recently because at a fantastic event I attended last weekend held by the UC Working Group on the Philosophy of Perception, one of the philosophers mentioned the Harvard Implicit Association Test. The philosopher recommended taking the test as an interesting but also rather unsettling experience. [4]

There are several components to the test and I have taken one of them, the Gender and Career Implicit Association Test, twice. Why have I taken it twice? Because the first time I scoffed at my result, which was as follows: “Your data suggest a strong association of Male with Career and Female with Family compared to Female with Career and Male with Family.”

This was, in fact, the data analysis told me, a stronger than average association; most people who take the test have a moderate association of male with career and female with family.

After taking the test once, I was irritated. I felt that I had been bamboozled into those associations. I would take the test again, I decided, and this time I would concentrate, and my true, unbiased self would reveal itself. Taking the same test for the second time was illuminating. Knowing exactly how the test worked now, I had assumed that the tasks would be easier the second time around. Instead I was now quite painfully aware as I was completing the text that it was, in fact, trickier for me to associate “male” with family and “female” with career. The end result was exactly the same.

For those of you who don’t know, I have had a full-time job for the last seven years and for the last several years He-Who-Must-Be-Preserved has stayed at home full-time with the children. Interesting, huh?

In some ways, taking the test merely reinforced something that already seems obvious, which is that there can be a remarkable, unsettling discrepancy between one’s conscious and subconscious beliefs. When we were discussing Frankenstein and implicit bias in class on Wednesday, the discussion turned, naturally, to police violence against African-Americans and racism more generally. One student observed that when Americans see a bearded, dark-skinned, middle-eastern looking man, they think: terrorist. As I observed to the student, what’s especially disturbing to me is that I suspect that I myself, the daughter of a dark-skinned, Muslim man, the sister of a swarthy-looking fellow who is never not subjected to a special search when he goes through security at airports, am also guilty of harboring this same implicit bias. [5]

If the non-traditional division of labor in our household for the last several years has made no dent in my “strong” association of “female” with “family,” then I suspect that it’s probably quite difficult to change one’s implicit biases. But surely it must be good to cultivate an awareness of them, nonetheless, no? For even if we cannot easily change our implicit biases, we can at least, in recognizing them as biases, more systematically avoid acting upon the reflexive judgments that they produce. To do avoid acting upon such reflexive judgments may not amount to casting off the “Mind forg’d manacles” of implicit bias, to quote one of the all-time great defenders of chimney sweeps; but it does, at the very least, represent one way of resisting those bonds.[6]

Notes

[1] The only thing I know about Cheltenham is that there is a famous girls’ boarding school there called Cheltenham Ladies’ College. That’s all you need to know.

[2] Entirely gratuitous reference to Mile End purely so I could mention this song.

[3] If anyone knows anything about the etymology of the word “hideous,” I’d be interested. I looked in the OED but there wasn’t much information.

[4] The fact that many people who take the test do find it unsettling is indicated by the waiver you have to agree to before taking it: “I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed.”

[5] One of the Harvard tests is focused on this bias in particular. See the Arab Muslim – Other People IAT at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html No, I haven’t taken it yet. I’m scared to.

[6] No, not Bert from Mary Poppins. Good God, who are you people?

The duck-rabbit is fairly sure that it gets some of its best ideas while driving to work listening to Taylor Swift. It’s the combination of Sunset’s smooth, familiar curves and Swift’s soothingly poppy melodies that lulls the duck-rabbit’s mind into a blank space, as it were, enabling it to hop-sail-and-skip on the surface of its consciousness in a most delightful way.

We’ve already discussed, at some length, the Starbucks lovers / long list of ex-lovers lyric in “Blank Space,” have we not? Well, today I want to comment upon another aspect of the case of the misheard lyric.

Here’s the question: is a misheard lyric a kind of sonic duck-rabbit? [1]

This question occurred to me on my drive today when “Blank Space” came on and I realized that I could no longer hear the lyric as containing the phrase Starbucks lovers, I could only hear it as “long list of ex-lovers.” Whereas, previously, I could only hear the lyric as containing the phrase “Starbucks lovers.” I think if I concentrated hard enough I could probably think myself back into hearing it as “Starbucks lovers.” But it’s one or the other, right? You can’t hear both at once, just as you can’t see duck and rabbit at once.

Here I would argue that a misheard lyric is a duck-rabbit in a way that a metaphorical sentence is not, at least not in terms of the phenomenological experience it produces. Consider, as an example of a metaphorical sentence, another lyric in “Blank Space:” “I get drunk on jealousy.” In his book The Structure of Metaphor, Roger M. White suggests that we may regard a “metaphorical sentence as a ‘Duck-Rabbit’; it is a sentence that may simultaneously be regarded as presenting two different situations; looked at one way it describes the actual situation, and looked at the other way, an hypothetical situation” (115). I think that it’s right that a metaphorical statement refers to two situations (being drunk; being consumed by jealousy) but I think that the way that one experiences a statement such as “I get drunk on jealousy,” is not one of gestalt-switching between those two situations. Rather, the impression is one of what Richard Wollheim calls “twofoldedness,” in which figurative and literal are bound together.

If anything, I’d say that a figure like zeugma is more accurately characterized as a duck-rabbit. Think of all those lines from The Rape of the Lock like “stain her honour, or her new brocade.” A line like that foregrounds both the figural and literal situations in which “stain” signifies, confronting you first with one and then the other, in quick succession. And (maybe this is just me, I am biased, clearly), I do think that there’s something about the pleasure of zeugma (or at least Pope’s sort of zeugma) that is comparable to the pleasure of viewing a duck-rabbit or certain other sorts of ambiguous figures. I’d characterize the affect that both produce (and sorry to be technical here), as delighted surprise. 

But, I digress. Let’s get back to the sonic duck-rabbit. Consider another, slightly different example. Remember my chum Stacy, the Trader Joe’s peanut butter connoisseur? How could you forget, right? Well, there we were again, Stacy and I, at the faculty center, eating lunch, and I was telling her how, last week, an American woman who was seated next to me at a work lunch was convinced I was American and expressed deep skepticism at my frosty insistence that actually, I did still have an English accent, thank you very much. But then the tables turned, as Mr. Wordsworth or Ms Swift would say. I uttered a single phrase (I can’t remember what it was but “could I have a glass of water, please?” would be a safe bet), and she gasped, “Oh, there it is!” This example prompted Stacy and I to recall that when we first met, Stacy herself, who is also English, thought I was Australian.

“Isn’t that funny?” Stacy mused, “because now I don’t hear any Australian in your accent, the very idea seems absurd, and your accent sounds completely English.”

Maybe, the duck-rabbit got to wondering, accents are also duck-rabbit like in nature. Like the ambiguous song-lyric, it’s either one thing or the other. And once you’ve classified someone’s accent, as, say, Norf London, you can’t go back to hearing it as Sydney, no matter how much you might like a sunny little burst of Bondi Beach in your life every now and then. No, once you’ve clocked the accent as Norf London, Norf London it remains, with all of its questionable charm, innit?

Now, could I be completely and utterly wrong about all of this? It’s highly likely. In fact, I’m striking an overly confident tone simply because I want someone to argue with me about this. How is it that that song goes?

“All I wanna do is argue about words,

I got a feeling, I’m not such a rare bird.

All I wanna do is argue about words,

Until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard.”

Notes

[1] Important: a sonic duck-rabbit bears no relation to Sonic the Hedgehog.

Preserved!

I plan to devote the rest of my days to brokering a peace between these two factions:

Please do raise a glass this evening and toast yourself for being such a delightfully supportive, kind, witty, warm-hearted, good-looking, suave, and intelligent friend to a duck-rabbit. I’ll be raising a glass to each of you, which will take me, ooh, about 26 units over my 2-glass limit. But all I have to do tomorrow is attend a seminar on the philosophy of perception. Easy-peasy, innit?

Much love,

D-R

xx

Dear Readers,

I write to you today, Friday November 28^th 2014, with seasonal greetings, and a request. My department votes on my tenure case a week from today (the vote has now been pushed back twice: from November 7^th to November 14^th; and then from November 14^th to December 5^th). I hesitate to ask so directly for moral support, but (deep breath): I would be so gratified if you would send me some messages of good-will, any time between now and next Friday… preferably in a slow but steady trickle culminating in a cascade of happy thoughts between, ooh, 1pm and 3pm on December 5^th.

Do I feel a bit sheepish asking you so boldly for encouragement? Why yes, I do: but, all of the lavishly compensated mental-health professionals in my life tell me gravely that one must ask one’s loved ones directly for what one needs, and so that is what I am doing: I’m just a duck-rabbit, standing in front of an exceptionally well-dressed, good-looking, intelligent, witty, and warm-hearted readership, asking it to send it good wishes. I have been shake, shake, shaking in my Fluevog boots, and hearing from you all would have a steadying effect.

When I was in Montreal, recently, I read the third installment of Bridget Jones’s Diary, which I enjoyed immensely. In tribute to Bridget, I will compose the remainder of this post in the form of a list. I think you’ll find that the raw data supplied in this list furnish you with a surprisingly rich sense of the texture of the duck-rabbit’s daily life over the past month.

November 2014: a Portrait in Numbers

• Number of times I have listened to “Shake it Off” by Taylor Swift while driving to work: 76.
• Level of volume at which I generally listen to “Shake it Off” while driving to work: 11.
• Number of students with whom I have conversed only minutes after sobbing pathetically alone in my office: 12.
• Number of students who have commented upon my “tired” appearance during one of the afore-mentioned conversations: 1.
• Number of times I have exercised in the last month: 1.
• Number of students who been to office hours claiming to have “solved the problem of induction”: 1.
• Number of students who have in fact “solved the problem of induction”: 0. [1]
• Number of money-making schemes concocted in effort to persuade oneself that an unfavorable departmental vote would actually be a felix culpa: 3.
  • Plan A) On Track: Lose Weight While You Wait: A 7-year Weight-Loss Plan.
    • On Track unveils a completely new, user-tested weight-loss scheme. Far easier to implement than the ancient but useless advice to eat healthily and exercise regularly, On Track provides a simple step-by-step program for weight-loss success. Instead of tedious calorie-counting and trips to the gym, with the On Track system, you write an academic monograph. While there may be an initial period of weight gain during the writing process, the pounds eventually melt away as you shed water-weight from crying in your office plus extra pounds in muscle as you stop making time for exercise and find your limbs slowly atrophying. The combination of lost muscle and dehydration will have you squeezing back into your skinny jeans towards the end of year 7. [2]
  • Plan B) Now that He-Who-Must-Be-Preserved has gone back to work, the duck-rabbit has been responsible for dropping off the younger flopsy-duckit at preschool and has become better acquainted with the parents of the younger flopsy-duckit’s classmates. One of the parents, let’s call her Layla’s mom, is a creature of staggering beauty. This is not another case of the Sophisticate (surely you remember her? The Deneuvian belle of the elder-flopsy-duckit’s schoolyard?). No, this woman’s beauty has absolutely nothing to do with clothing or style. This woman simply looks like she was sculpted by Michelangelo (or else by one of L.A.’s most skilled plastic surgeons). She’s the Venus de Milo, Amal Alamudddin, Nefertiti, and Kim Kardashian all rolled into one. Anyway, the point is that the duck-rabbit’s Plan B is to become Layla’s mom’s agent and, somehow, in a manner yet to be determined, make millions from her exquisite bone structure.
  • Plan C) Monetize blog through subscription plan.
    • In a pricing scheme that promises to yield funds just barely sufficient to maintaining the duck-rabbit’s frugal Santa Monica lifestyle, all current subscribers will be charged a $3000 annual subscription rate.
    • Or why not choose the premium plan ($4000 per annum) and bask in the happy glow of knowing that the duck-rabbit will compose one post a year especially for you.
    • Or, if that’s not your bag, premium plus ($10000 per annum) comes with the guarantee never to mention you in the blog.
    • Still feeling anxious? Premium double-plus ($20000 per annum) is the plan for you, which comes with the promise that the duck-rabbit will never contact you again.

And, on that note, I will bid you good day and wish my American readers Godspeed and bonne chance as they shop shop shop off the Thanksgiving pounds; may we all fall happily into whatever duck-rabbit holes lie ahead of us.

Yours truly, as ever,

Rabid-Duckwit

Notes

[1] I am sorely tempted to write a whole post about my conversation with this student. But would it be ethical? I’m still debating this. Without going into detail, I think I can divulge that one of the aspects of the claim to have “solved the problem of induction” that I find especially endearing is the fundamental misapprehension involved in this student’s belief that the “problem of induction” is a problem that requires solving. The idea of a solution to the problem of induction reminds me of the idea (one, funnily enough, that I have mentioned in the class in which this student is enrolled) in Hitchhiker’s that 42 is the answer to the question of life, the universe, and everything. The claim to have solved the problem of induction also clearly ranks as the Best Student Remark Ever, blowing out of the water the student who described John Milton’s Eve, in an astute application of the immortal words of Christopher Brian Bridges, Esquire, as “a Lady on the Street but a Freak in the Bed.”

[2] Note: the On Track system does not guarantee the publication of any monographs produced during the course of the program nor the successful outcome of any voting procedures associated with the promotion to Associate Professor.

Montréal–Trudeau Immigration-Officer: Bonjour-Hello.

Duck-Rabbit: [Rather over-excitedly] Bonjour!!!

I-O: Ça va?

D-R: [Reflexively] Oui, ça va bien!!! [Mid-sentence realizes that replying in French is ill-advised because it gives the impression—sadly, false—that the duck-rabbit will be able to answer more complex questions in French. Decides that swift action must be taken to correct this false impression.]

[Pause]

D-R: But actually, that’s all I can say in French.

I-O: [Mock-annoyed] Why did you say “Bonjour” then? If you say “Bonjour,” I’m gonna talk to you in French!

D-R: [Opting to treat “Why did you say “Bonjour”? as a genuine rather than a rhetorical question] I dunno, I just said it and then I realized I was digging myself into a hole … [trails off]

I-O: [Perusing the D-R’s passport] Twenty-one street, huh? Just like the movie, right?

D-R: [Drawing a blank] Uhh … what movie? [Plumbing deepest recess of brain comes up with ‘80s TV show with Johnny Depp. But surely he can’t mean that. No, this is a test; he is probably referencing some avant-garde Québécois 1970s film. But all I can think of is Johnny Depp! Throwing caution to the wind ] Do you mean that old TV show with Johnny Depp?

I-O: [Frowning at D-R] What show with Johnny Depp? No, no, it’s a movie.

D-R: A Canadian movie?

I-O: [Impatient] No no, it’s an American movie, it’s a recent movie.

D-R: Who’s in it then?

I-O: Oh, I don’t remember … these young actors … you know, the one all the girls think is really hot ….

[Pause]

D-R: Oh oh oh Channing Tatum!

I-O: Yes!

D-R: 21 Jump Street!

I-O: [Excited] Yes!

D-R: So … [Unsure whether it should divulge this next piece of information or whether this will be unnecessarily humiliating for the Immigration Officer]….so …. that movie actually was based on the 80s TV show with Johnny Depp …

I-O: Huh, really?

D-R: [Trying not to look smug] Yup.

I-O: I did not know that. [Pause]. Uh, so what brings you to Montreal?

D-R [Relief that the conversation has finally moved on from 21 Jump Street gives way to panic because it has been so long since the answer to this question has been something other than “work” or “visiting family” that the duck-rabbit is momentarily stalled … What’s that stock phrase that is sometimes used in this context? “Are you here for business or pleasure”? ]

Uh I’m here for … pleasure?

[Wait, that sounds really dodgy. Why does that sound so dodgy? Oh God, is the phrase “business or leisure” not “business or pleasure”??? By saying “pleasure” rather than “leisure” has the duck-rabbit given the impression that it will be engaging in some kind of illicit behavior? How can I correct that impression? Oh, I know!]

Uh, I meant pleasure with friends [Oh God, that sounds so much worse!]

I-O: [Frowning at the duck-rabbit and repeating the phrase slowly and deliberately] “Pleasure with friends”?

D-R: [Babbling] What I meant to say is that I’m meeting some friends here … for fun …

I-O: [Now extremely suspicious] And where are you staying?

D-R: Uh … in a flat?

I-O: And where is this apartment?

D-R: Uh … well, I dunno exactly. I mean, do you want me to look up the address? [Starts rifling in purse looking for phone]

I-O: [Slowly, as if talking to small child] Are you staying in Montréal?

D-R: [Stops rifling through purse] Oh! Yes, yes, in Montreal. At least I think so.

[D-R finds that, in effort to be scrupulously honest, is instead acting increasingly shiftily and avoiding eye-contact in manner of person who has something to hide]

I-O: [More suspicious] And to whom does this apartment belong?

D-R: [Up-talking] Well, we rented it?

I-O: And who is “we”?

D-R: Uh, me and my friends?

I-O: How many friends?

D-R: Four. I mean three. No, wait, four. Plus me.

I-O: And do your friends live here or are they coming here from the U.S., like you?

D-R: Welll … uh, two of them are coming from the U.S. And one of them is coming from Toronto. [Pause] No! I mean, two of them are coming from Toronto!

[Long pause]

I-O: [fixing the duck-rabbit with the unflinching gaze that is the same merciless stare your doctor trains on you when he or she asks, “And how many drinks do you have a week?”] Is … this … a bachelorette party?

D-R: [Horrified] NO! Good God. A bachelorette party? No way! Jeez. No, we are all old married ladies.

I-O: [Glancing back down at D-R’s passport]: 1974! You’re not old!

D-R: [Bashfully] Well … thanks, I guess.

I-O: [Stamping passport and grinning at the D-R]: Have a great trip!

D-R: All right! I will!

Dear Readers,

This morning the younger flopsy-duckit refused to go to preschool until she had squeezed into a tutu-style dress that she has long since outgrown but which she can’t bear to give up wearing (Thanks, Mahin). Once she had struggled into it, she picked up a plastic sword and brandished it gleefully at me. “I’m a bad fairy,” she announced.

Ahh, like mother, like daughter. The duck-rabbit was never a bad fairy but it was, once upon a time, a very poor excuse for an elf. [1]

Pray, have you heard tell of the Woodcraft Folk? No? Allow me to enlighten you. The Woodcraft Folk is an organization for children that was founded in Britain in the 1920s. It is along the lines of the Boy Scouts or the Girl Guides, but it was and is open to both boys and girls, and its feel and ethos are quite distinctive. In the parlance of my youth, it is (or at least, it was, in the 1980s), terribly “right on.” This phrase might need some unpacking for my American readers. I couldn’t find a good definition in the OED, but did find this in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English:

right on informal

1 British English someone who is right on supports social justice, equal rights, the protection of the environment etc. – often used to show disapproval because someone does this in an extreme way [PC, politically correct]:

And here is the example they offer of correct usage, which is, uh, right on, in the other sense:

It’s one of those annoyingly right-on magazines about the environment.

I don’t think it’s quite right, though, that “politically correct” is synonymous with “right on,” although it may partly be that they feel like the product of quite different cultural moments. For the duck-rabbit and, by extension, for all English people, the phrase “right on” conjures up both a particular historical moment, which is Thatcherite Britain, as well as a particular character archetype, most perfectly embodied by Rick from The Young Ones, a show that was huge when I was in my last years of primary school. This is how the Wikipedia entry for The Young Ones accurately characterizes Rick: “Rick is a self-proclaimed anarchist who is studying sociology and/or domestic sciences (depending on the episode).”

I can’t say I honestly recall what the Folk Marshall (i.e. the adult leader of the local Woodcraft Folk branch) was like, based on the two meetings I attended. But I do know that it was a man and in my mind he was Rick.

From the beginning, the duck-rabbit’s feelings about the Woodcraft Folk were deeply, deeply conflicted. I wanted to be in it because, in the final couple of years of primary school (so, aged around 9-10), all of my friends were in it and they would always talk about how brilliant it was and I felt left out. But I didn’t want to be in it because it also sounded bloody miserable. In fact, I attribute my enduring suspicion of camping to the early trauma of hearing about Woodcraft Folk camping holidays.

Not that I ever got so far as to even contemplate going on one of their camping trips. I barely got through two of the weekly meetings, which had, as I recall, the following structure. They began with a gathering in a circle and a discussion of current affairs. The very idea of this filled me with dread. In primary school, I already felt acutely aware that my political consciousness was radically under-developed. I had no opinion on whether Neil Kinnock would be a worthy successor to Michael Foot. I had no opinion on Nigel Lawson’s economic policy. Yes, if pushed, I could muster up a reasonable display of contempt for Margaret Thatcher or approval for the CND, but these did not feel like opinions as such, but rather mere acknowledgements of the banally obvious. Such views had the same status, in my mind, as the view that Monday mornings were generally bad while legwarmers were generally good. I mean, it was just common knowledge.

No, my strong opinions were reserved for other topics, such as books by Noel Streatfeild (thumbs up), side ponytails (double thumbs up), the Eurovision Song Contest (would we ever again reach the skirt-ripping heights of Bucks Fizz in 1980? It seemed doubtful); and the relative merits of various Torvill and Dean ice dance routines (Bolero was overrated; Mack and Mabel was the best; that bit when he flips her over his head!)

I still remember the agony of sitting in the circle at the first meeting while a boy I knew slightly, Adam (he lived across the street and was the same age as me, but his Dad was a local councilor— Labour, natch—which felt like an unfair advantage), held forth, loftily, on the political issues of the day. He and a couple of other boys I knew from school dominated the discussion. I felt completely out of my depth, and felt emphatically that there was nothing I could possibly contribute. It was actually an uncanny foreshadowing of how I often felt in graduate school (especially in that Lacan seminar).

After the excruciating first circle of hell we moved on to the equally excruciating second circle of hell, in which we played non-competitive games. Those of you are keen on games (Claire; Natalie) know that I am slow on the uptake when it comes to competitive games, and this trait, which was already well-established in my primary school years, was one I hoped might actually prove to be an advantage at excelling in the non-competitive game field. My memory of this section of the meeting is just a blur of dropped beanbags and futile pleading with the Folk-Marshall to please just let me sit on the sidelines and watch. He refused so then I drifted aimlessly around the room pretending to play because I couldn’t follow any of the games, which meant, I reflected, with mortification, that I was now actually failing at non-competitive gameplay.

As I say, I can’t say I remember the specific games, but after perusing a list, today, of Woodcraft-folk approved games, this is the one that feels most familiar:

Catch it-Drop it : All in circle standing except one in centre. Centre person tosses ball to someone in circle while calling a command “Catch-it/Drop-it.” Person must do opposite of command i.e. drop if told catch. If wrong goes in centre.

I would dispute the notion that this game is, in fact, “non-competitive.” How is a game in which you can get something wrong, and for which the price you pay for being wrong is to stand, by yourself, in the middle of a circle of your peers, non-competitive? Obviously, the inept players are going to keep being in the circle and the skilled players are not. Which is why I didn’t want to play.

In the final circle of hell, we would each work towards earning our badges. Over the course of my two Woodcraft Folk meetings I desperately tried to memorize the elfin creed, which was the necessary requirement for earning the most basic of all the badges. There are many version of the creed, but the version I had to learn went like this:

I will grow strong and straight – like the pine;

Supple of limb – like the hare;

Keen of eye like the eagle;

I will seek health from the greenwood,

Skill from crafts,

And wisdom from those who will show me wisdom.

I will be a worthy comrade in the Green Company,

And a loyal member of the World Family.

You might be thinking: how perfect! The creed encourages the would-be elf to think of him or herself as embodying both rabbit-like and bird-like qualities. But, actually, I think it just serves to highlight how bad a fit the duck-rabbit was for the Woodcraft folk.

Think about it. An eagle soars; surveys; devours. A hare flexes; sprints; leaps.

A duck waddles, flaps, quacks. A rabbit lopes, dozes, twitches.

In conclusion: an eagle-hare is altogether a hardier, loftier breed of hybrid than a mere duck-rabbit.

I can’t remember if I ever earned my badge. All I recall is struggling to memorize the bloody creed. But somehow, as must be obvious to you by now, dear reader, although I could not commit the creed to memory, and although I only ever attended two meetings, never to return again, the Woodcraft Folk left a deep, lasting, scarring impression on me.

It helped me come to a series of realizations about myself.

• I do not generally enjoy organized fun unless it involves dancing.
• Talking about world affairs, playing games, and memorizing words that are meaningful to you, are all activities that can be deeply enjoyable. But they are not enjoyable for me when they are prescribed.
• The Woodcraft Folk sucked all of the joy out of being an elf. As a child, I was obsessed with the Ladybird book version of The Elves and the Shoemaker. I still have my copy. My favorite part of the book was the unveiling of what I considered to be the elves’ masterpiece: a pair of lilac colored, gold-trimmed booties that I coveted with a passion. In fact, I still covet them. That is what being an elf should be all about. Benevolent mischief. Dainty stitches. Gold brocade. Soft leather. I could have been such a good elf.

The shoemaker’s posture clearly conveys that he has never seen a pair of shoes this fucking fantastic in his whole life. And he’s a professional shoemaker! And an old man!

Yours very truly,

Your very own furry, webfooted

Rabid-Duckwit

Notes

[1] I was not a bad fairy although I was, it might justly be argued, a bossy one. When I was four I played the fairy on top of the Christmas tree in a dance recital. I was meant to tap my magic wand on large gift boxes out of which were supposed to emerge toys come to life, as played by a bunch of two-year-olds. But the two-year-olds were terribly uncooperative. I had to engage in a lot of vigorous wand-tapping and fierce whispering to coax them out.

In Taylor Swift’s infectious song “Blank Space” there’s a line that the duck-rabbit was quite certain contained the phrase “Starbucks lovers.” [1] It was quite positive that is, until it Googled “Taylor Swift ‘Starbucks lovers’” and discovered that the line in question is in fact one of those universally misheard lyrics (the line actually refers to a “long list of ex-lovers”). But “Starbucks Lovers,” is, serendipitously, an apt title for the story I am about to share with you of my near-meet-cute-but-even-nearer-meet-hideously-scarring encounter with an older gentleman who was coming out of the Starbucks near Wilshire and 26th.

This was some time ago, maybe about a year ago. I was walking on Wilshire Boulevard between 25^th and 26^th streets. This is not a section of Wilshire I often walk on, but I had just taken a pair of boots to Mike’s Shoe Repair to be resoled. After dropping off my boots, I headed out the store and started walking East on Wilshire; my next stop was the running gear store that’s a block East. I put in my earbuds and I can’t remember if I was listening to music or a podcast, but I know that I was striding cheerfully, breezily, with a spring in my step now that the cloth bag swinging from my shoulder no longer contained a pair of boots.

So there I am, striding along, yes, perhaps, possibly, somewhat oblivious to what lies ahead in my path. According to Google Maps, the Starbucks is 131 feet from Mike’s Shoe Repair, and so it would have taken me approximately 1 minute to walk that distance. So, there I am, striding jauntily, step, step, step. I can see the intersection of 26^th Street ahead of me, step, step, step. I can see the big glass windows coming up on my left and maybe, maybe, I turn my head just slightly to glimpse at my reflection in the glass. Step, step, step, 57, 58, 59, and GASP!

Sharp intake of breath! The door of Starbucks is swinging open and a man is suddenly exiting the door and stepping into my path, clutching his cardboard cup of coffee. We both stop short, me gasping, him glaring as he niftily swings the arm carrying the coffee out of the way so as not to spill it on me. We look at each other for a second, and his glare, I decide, is the glare of someone twenty years older than me thinking damn kids with their damn earbuds who don’t look where they’re going.

But my gasp is not, importantly, the gasp of damn oldsters with poor taste in coffee who don’t look where they’re going. No. My gasp is the gasp of Oh dear God, and sweet Mary, mother of Jesus! Harrison Ford! Han Solo, you rogue! Indiana Jones, as I live and breathe! Is it really you? And are you about to spill your cup of scalding, burnt-tasting liquor all over my now weak-kneed body? A beat later, another thought followed, which was, Starbucks? Really? Aren’t you rich enough to buy that special coffee made from civet-cat-shit? Or, at the very least, go to Intelligentsia? Is it Calista? Does Calista make you go here because she’s addicted to nonfat sugar-free pumpkin-spice lattes?

All right. Are you with me so far? Good. Now, pay very close attention. I want to make sure you catch my drift. Everything written so far in this post up to and including this here sentence but not necessarily any subsequent sentences is completely true.

With that said, here’s What Happened Next.

“Watch your step, sister,” he growled.

Watch yourself, mister,” I snapped back.

The duck-rabbit elegantly took a step back to allow him to pass. But at the same time Harrison Ford took a step forward. “Excuse me,” he muttered grumpily. Now the duck-rabbit sidestepped nimbly to the right, but simultaneously Harrison Ford swerved to his left, and the two were thrown together, in a remarkable piece of slapstick, once again, and this time Harrison Ford’s cup of coffee spills all over the duck-rabbit.

At this unfortunate turn in the tale, those of you who, like the duck-rabbit, have “Blank Space” stuck in your head may be concerned that this vignette is swiftly (pun intended) turning into a horribly literal illustration of Ms. Swift’s warning to all those “Starbucks lovers” that such love may leave you “with a nasty scar.” And so I will take this opportunity to assure you that, in a terrific stroke of good luck, Harrison Ford’s coffee had cooled significantly in the time that had elapsed between the moment when the star-struck barista tremblingly handed him the steaming cup and the second when it spilled upon the duck-rabbit. And, therefore, the cup of black coffee did not produce third-degree burns upon the duck-rabbit’s lightly feathered and furred body.[2] But Harrison Ford did not realize this. Harrison Ford felt remorseful. He apologized gruffly but profusely and tried to mop the duck-rabbit with paper napkins.

“Are you gonna, uh, sue me?”

“Well,” said the duck-rabbit, “while I am in a great deal of pain, as you can see from my reddened and yet not horribly blistered skin, I believe that these burns are the sort that will heal in 3-5 days.”

“Well that’s a relief,” said Harrison Ford a little too cheerfully.

“But that’s not to say it doesn’t hurt,” added the duck-rabbit aggrievedly. “It hurts like crazy.”

“Well where doesn’t it hurt?” asked Harrison Ford concernedly.

The duck-rabbit fell silent and pointed to its left elbow. Harrison Ford bent over and kissed the duck-rabbit’s left elbow very tenderly.

“Where else?” he asked.

The duck-rabbit pointed to its forehead. Harrison Ford bent over and kissed the duck-rabbit’s forehead.

“Where else?”

The duck-rabbit pointed to its right eye. Harrison Ford kissed the duck-rabbit’s right eye gently.

By this time a circle of onlookers had gathered around us. They watched, mesmerized.

“Where else?” asked Harrison Ford.

At that precise moment the door of the Starbucks swung open again and a blond wisp of a thing sailed out the door and straight into Harrison Ford, who now found himself drenched in non-fat sugar-free pumpkin-spice iced latte.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Calista,” growled Harrison Ford.

The duck-rabbit decided that this was the moment to make a dignified exit.

“Next time lose the earbuds, sister,” Harrison Ford shouted as the duck-rabbit turned its tail and strode East on Wilshire.

“Yeah, and you watch your step, old man,” yelled back the duck-rabbit, without giving him a second glance.

Notes

[1] Did Swift take her song title’s inspiration from Edward Young, “His mighty mind travelled round the intellectual world; and, with a more than eagle’s eye, saw, and has pointed out blank spaces, or dark spots in it, on which the human mind never shone”? I think the only possible answer is: obviously, yes. See http://metaphors.iath.virginia.edu/metaphors?q=blank+space&sort=relevance

[2] I was actually nastily scarred by scalding coffee when I was about eleven. My Mum was serving coffee to dinner guests and, in response to her query, I assured her that yes, I was sure it was a good idea to wear my roller-skates inside, but it turned out that I was wrong about that.

Last March, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies in Williamsburg, Virginia, I delivered a paper in which I coined a phrase. The phrase was “‘in her shoes’ thinking.” It was a simple appropriation of the late British philosopher Peter Goldie’s phrase “in his shoes” thinking, which was his shorthand for a type of thinking in which you project yourself into a person’s situation while retaining elements of your own character. I changed the pronoun without thinking twice about it. But when it came time to read the paper out loud, I realized that switching the gender of the pronoun changed the phrase’s meaning in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

Ours was the first panel of the first day, the dreaded 8am slot. We had, accordingly, a small audience: a small audience, but a high-quality one. Slipping into a seat in the second row was a colleague who is admired not only for her brilliance but also for the stylish figure she cuts. It was upon spotting this striking figure in the second row, just minutes before delivering my paper, that I began to deliberate upon the significance of changing the pronoun in the phrase.

Because, you see, “in his shoes” thinking is one thing. “In her shoes” thinking is quite another. Think “in his shoes” and an array of roles come to mind; tinker, tailor, soldier, spy; best man; gigolo; patsy; thief. Think “in her shoes” and the taxonomy is quite different: stacked heel, stiletto, sandal, ballet flat; court shoe, ankle boot, platform, wedge. I don’t usually make off-the-cuff remarks when delivering papers, but the presence of my exquisitely dressed (and shod) colleague prompted me to make a version of this observation, noting that “‘in her shoes’ thinking” suggested not simply what one might think in someone else’s situation but the more whimsical fantasy of how it might feel to walk the world in the oh-so-so-chic shoes favored by a fashionable colleague.

Eight months later, I found myself re-enacting this scene in a manner that made me think again about what it meant to think oneself “in her shoes.” The duck-rabbit was at yet another conference, this time the North American Conference for British Studies meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Another conference; another panel; another paper. Except: no: so over-extended was the duck-rabbit that it did not have time to write a new paper and, for the first time ever, found itself, to its embarrassment, in the position of giving the same paper again. I comforted myself with the thought that there was not a high likelihood that any members of the slender audience who had attended the Williamsburg panel would also be present at the Minneapolis one, which also seemed destined to draw a small crowd, scheduled as it was, in the final slot on the final day.

The audience for the panel in Minneapolis was indeed small, in number matching the number of speakers on the panel (not so rare an occurrence at academic meetings). The first three people who sat down were strangers, but the last woman looked familiar, although her name escaped me. She greeted me by name and when she spoke I immediately recognized her as one of the other speakers from the Williamsburg panel. “Hello!” I returned and then I paused, realizing that the jig was up. “But … I’m sorry,” I continued, slowly, abashed. “I’m …. I’m afraid that you’ve heard this before …” “Now, don’t go chasing away a quarter of our audience!” the panel chair mock-chided me.

It was a strange sensation, when the duck-rabbit finally walked over to the podium to deliver its talk. A different room but the same talk; one of the same listeners; and I was even wearing the same dress as I had last time. But the shoes were different. I was wearing different shoes, different boots, to be precise.

I had bought the boots the previous day in downtown Minneapolis. The idea had been formed on the flight from L.A. to Minneapolis. Em, my traveling companion, had told me about a recent discussion thread on facebook that involved the very same fashionable scholar who had attended my Williamsburg panel. The subject of the thread was boots, sparked by a fetching picture that someone had posted of their chicly shod feet. The boots were Fluevogs, and, soon, Emily explained, the chorus grew, as dix-huitièmistes from far and wide chimed in to sing the praises of their Fluevogs.

“Have you heard of them?” Em asked.

I had not.

I lived, at that moment, in a Fluevogless universe. When we landed in Minneapolis, Em quizzed Jessica, our elegant and gracious hostess. Had she heard of Fluevogs? By way of reply, she rushed upstairs and returned bearing a very large white cardboard box, from which she produced her very own Fluevogs, pristine and unworn. We oohed and ahhed. There was in fact, Jessica mentioned, a Fluevog store in Minneapolis. A plan was hatched.

It seemed to the duck-rabbit, you see, at this particular juncture in its life, that the purchase of a pair of kickass Fluevogs was a necessary course of action. The date of the department’s vote on the duck-rabbit’s tenure case had been pushed back, yet again. The duck-rabbit’s book had just been published. It felt like a moment for zipping up and buckling up; for swishing and swashbuckling; for rebooting and booting up. It was moment in which the duck-rabbit felt itself thinking that it needed to be strapped in very tightly or else all hell might break loose.

The very next morning, at the Fluevog store, the bespectacled Fluevogologist (yes; she gave me her card, and that is her job description) unsolicited, presented the duck-rabbit with a pair of boots. They were tall. They were black. They had a sturdy heel, and a long zipper. Most importantly of all, each boot had its own “harness” (this was the Fluevogologist’s term), a little loop of leather that went under the arch and buckled across the outer ankle bone. The Fluevogologist harnessed me in. I stood up and strode around the store. I felt tall. I felt trussed and fastened in just the right way. I felt ready to ride off into the sunset, dance all night, and duel at dawn. I felt ready to take down the Dread Pirate Roberts, or maybe moonlight as him for a while.

The boots were called “Luna,” the Fluevogologist explained. Luna: I liked that. My book cover (what a thrill it is to begin a sentence that way!) features an image of the character Baron Munchausen hanging from a rope attached to the moon. As I say in the book’s introduction, he has harnessed the moon but he has not disenchanted it. I like the image because of the tension it captures. Munchausen has captured the moon, but he’s also flailing wildly, about to fall, and possibly—as the elder flopsy-duckit pointed out, with concern—meet a grizzly end at the mouths of the two bears who nuzzle on the ground beneath him. Just who is ensnared here, and by whom?

As I delivered my talk, my boots felt stiff, as if they were holding me upright, steady on my feet. I told the audience of four how Sir Walter Scott describes his own prose style in Waverley by contrast to a flimsy, flighty, flying carpet. His prose is a good old English post-chaise, he insists, with four wheels firmly on the ground. And yet, I argued, Scott has it both ways, performing a sleight of hand whereby his very disavowal of narrative enchantment permits him to get away with a more subtle yet equally audacious feat of illusionism. Scott’s is a harnessed form of enchantment, I decided. He takes (explicitly, in fact), the Arabian Nights as a model for what he wants to do, but he grounds it, the flying tapestry becoming the galloping post-chaise careening along the English highway.[1]

After the three speakers had given our talks, our panel chair made gracious comments upon our papers. When it came to my talk, he seized upon my coinage, ‘“in her shoes” thinking’ and joked “Size 7 Jimmy Choos?”

“Actually, size 7 and a half Fluevogs,” I replied, in a whisper audible only to Em.

It felt necessary to verbally affirm my ownership, because those badass, rugged boots still felt—still do feel—like someone else’s shoes, like they belong to someone tougher and altogether more heroic than a nose-twitching, ear-quivering duck-rabbit. It was good to remind myself that this, right here, this was me standing in my own shoes. I was harnessed but not yet disenchanted.

My fluevogs, taking a well-deserved rest on the floor of the Minneapolis airport.

Notes

[1] In his remarks in Ivanhoe on historical fiction, Scott identifies Galland’s Arabian Nights as exemplifying the effect at which his historical fiction aims, in which unfamiliar “manners and style” are “in some degree familiarized to the feelings and habits of the Western reader.”