them monkeys

Like many language controversies, the 'singular they' is much older than most people imagine.

"There's not a man I meet but doth salute me / As if I were their well-acquainted friend..."
—William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act IV, Scene 3

This is but one example from the body of work of literature; it seems to be a fairly recent, and a very American, development to decry those who choose this option to solve their gendered pronoun issues, but that isn't what I want to talk about.

First of all, I believe whole-heartedly in Chomskyan grammar; that language is an organic entity unto itself, that it evolves on its own in ways that are not necessarily controlled by humans, and that it exists in a symbiotic relationship with people. I also agree more with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than with its detractors: that language at the very least helps up define and understand our world. I personally am inclined to believe an even stronger version of this idea, that in many ways language defines us and how we look at the world, and (most importantly in this context) how we define ourselves in relation to other people.

So. If language evolves... and in many ways shapes how we define ourselves and the structures of our inter-personal relationships... it makes the singular-they much more than a simple question of grammar. It becomes one of gender equality.

As is probably apparent by now, I am completely in the camp of the singular-they. What I love about the ideas of language as an organic entity and a defining energy is that it can evolve to help people overcome inherent biases by allowing us more ways to express ourselves and our relationships. English doesn't have an accepted gender-neutral singular pronoun? As it evolves it can incorporate one. Rather than the terribly awkward "he or she" or the unpronounceable s/he, why not a simple 'they'?

I can hear you now; you're saying, "okay, that's all well and good... but how does it fit in with the story of the hundredth monkey, hmmmm?"

Glad you asked.

For those you who aren't familiar with the idea, it's a simple parable about the power of the collective unconscious to foster change in the world. There is an archipelago, on which lives a species of monkey. They subsist primarily on root vegetables they dig out of the inland forest. One day, a monkey on one of the islands has taken a tuber to the edge of the water for some reason and accidentally drops it in. She picks it up and discovers, low and behold! It's waaaay tastier without all that dirt and grit all over it. Her brother notices her discovery and quickly learns to wash his own food. Soon the whole family, and then the whole tribe on the island, is washing their own food off before eating.

Here's the clever part; say there are 99 monkeys on that island. Suddenly, a monkey on a neighboring island carries his own potato out to the surf and drops it in. He's the hundredth monkey; the one who somehow caught on to the energy of new knowledge simply by his lifetime membership in the collective unconsciousness. Soon enough, all the monkeys on all the islands are washing their food. One discovers that, if you drop a potato in the hot springs in the mountainous regions of the island and leave it there for awhile, it becomes softer and easier to chew. Another monkey puts some of the hot water in a coconut shell and adds the potato to that, along with a little sea brine and carrots. Bam! All the monkeys are making soup. One discovers how tasty those little lizards are, the really annoying ones that are all over the place on the islands and keep you awake half the night, and soon enough all the monkeys are adding lizard meat to their stews. Soon one of the monkeys has their own show on Food Network.

But I digress. Really, the whole reason I bring up the story of the hundredth monkey at all is to do my part to spread the seeds of the singular-they. Every ounce of psychic energy added to the collective soup is significant; by writing this blog and sending it off into the Interweb (an organic form of information in its own right, with the power to influence both language and the collective more quickly than any force ever before), I add my own small voice to the growing din clamoring for the acceptance of the singular-they when English 2.0 is finally released.

Dracula

I just watched this old Roman Polanski vampire movie from 1967, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Or Pardon Me, but Your Teeth Are in my Neck; Polanski wrote, directed, and also was the costar. He pops up in his other movies of course, but for this one he actually was a central role. In many ways it was a heartbreaking movie, only because he pines for, pursues, and attempts to rescue a character played by Sharon Tate... even in the movie his love for her is apparent. It adds a whole new level to the movie, which is at its heart a slapstick comic satire of the vampire genre in general, and specifically of the "vampire hunter" character.

More interesting to me, however, is the way this movie works in comparison to other entries in the body of vampire literature and movies. I wouldn't call myself a connoisseur of the genre, not even an enthusiast really... I've read a couple of the books, and seen some of the movies. I definitely appreciate the Dracula novel, and Coppola's take on it, as well.

What I really liked about The Fearless Vampire Killers is how it drew out some of the sexual themes of the vampire myth, especially the homosexual energy that pervades the archetypal symbolism but is conspicuously absent in much of the body of work (Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire being an obvious exception). I think there's been something of a reinterpretation of the myths in the last few decades, or maybe an emphasis on different facets of the myth.

In Tod Browning's original classic movie, for example, the "monster hiding behind the façade of bourgeois respectability" is central. Coppola returns the primacy of the love story and the erotic energy of the vampire; he also has a lot of FEMALE homoeroticism, of course, but (in my opinion) Stoker's novel is much more interested in the male homosexuality than the female.

Writing when he was, of course, this theme and the images he used to pursue it were well cloaked. It was in some later analyses of the text that people really started to delve into what he was exploring. One significant example in the story is when Lucy is dying, and requires constant blood transfusions; the men all take turns giving her their plasma. She has become a conduit through which all of these men can share their vital bodily fluids.

Another way Stoker explored the theme was in the very way he under-emphasized it; it gains significance in its absence. The perfect example is the respective deaths of Lucy and Count Vlad. When the boys kill the vampire Lucy, it takes over three pages and is described in gruesome detail. The last third of the book loses all its energy as they pursue Dracula over land and water.They finally catch up to him, and the ultimate death plays out like this:

"But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart."

That's it. The whole book builds to this moment, and it takes 36 words to complete.

The significance of this curious decision becomes clear when viewed through the spectrum of the Victorian era, and what you could and could not get away with writing about. It was bad enough to describe the graphic penetration of a woman by a man... but of a man penetrating another man? No way. So Stoker glosses over the one and, if anything, OVER describes the other.

The other interpretation of this fact in a sexual light is to see what a female vampire represents: a strong sexual woman who is fully aware of, and in control of, her powers. This archetype is one that comes back again and again throughout the history of literature, and is always perceived as a threat to the patriarchy. It reached one of its apexes in the Victorian era.

"...Lucy's eyes in form and color, but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew...Had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile...With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone...There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur. When she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands."

Lucy is voluptuous and devilish... the opposite of the virgin mother, she actually feeds on small children, devouring their innocent soul with her power and strength. She has gone from virtuous and innocent to promiscuous and degraded... so of course she must be destroyed. Her realization of her powers make her the ultimate threat to male primacy.

It would be very hard for me to believe Stoker wasn't aware of these choices he was making, and I like to think he's satirizing the common attitudes of the era, both about the Jezebel archetype and also the male homoeroticism that was so repressed. Again, this is why I enjoyed The Fearless Vampire Killers; it actively explored this theme with the character of the Count's son, who constantly pursues the young Roman Polanski character. It plays it up for a joke, of course, but it one of the few examples I've seen that even brings up that interpretation of the novel (which is obviously the granddaddy of all vampire narratives and informs any vampire story that has come since).

#2 pencil

I have an interesting dilemma at work. Like most males, I have a block about going to the bathroom in unknown places. Well, by going to the bathroom I mean going "number 2," of course. One of the biggest ways men and women differ is the places they're comfortable going to the bathroom. A guy will go pee anywhere, anytime. He'll whiz out of a moving car window in the middle of traffic if the weather is reasonable. But he's very particular about where he will poop. Now, I'm not one of those guys who will only go in my own bathroom... but I definitely prefer it to anywhere else. I'll go at work without qualms now, and I can go in public if the need arises. But given the choice I'll definitely wait until I get home. In my experience, women are able to go in pretty much any clean public restroom. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they have to sit down even if they're just going pee; the practical mechanics of #1 vs. #2 are not nearly so different for women. For men it couldn't be any more different. Seriously; how many women do you know who would pee in a drinking fountain if there was a long line at the restroom?

You should probably pretend you didn't just read that.

In any case. Another difference in the scatological adventures of men and women involves the two D's: duration and distraction. The two are intimately connected: a man needs something to distract him while he's going, and this generally leads to longer "visits." Women are in and out, quick as a stinky fox... but of course they use about 10x as much toilet paper as men. While we're on the topic, here's an interesting sociological phenomenon: men don't use toilet paper when they pee. They'll use it for everything else of course; blow their nose, clean their ears... we'll even use it to dry our hands if the paper towels are gone. But it would never occur to us to "dab off" after peeing.

For me, the distraction is different depending on where I am. I read magazines at home, and do crosswords at work. I always use the same book to set my crosswords on, a small paperback biography of Van Gogh that my mom got me for my birthday several years ago (I'm sure she'll be happy to know I still use it so regularly... no pun intended). I also use the same pencil every time, and I invariably place it behind my ear. It occurred to me the other day how utterly disgusting this is. I always put a toilet seat protector down when I use the bathroom at work, a friend of mine told me once that since we work in a white collar office building with other reasonably intelligent, well-educated people, he didn't feel the need to protect himself from our floormates... I reminded him that I've gone to lunch with exactly that sort of person often enough to know how they eat. And I choose the protector. Every time.

Not to get bogged down in tangents, but one thing I really hate is to go into the bathroom at work, have nobody in there so I can get the good stall, get all prepared, put down the paper protector, sit down... and the seat's warm. I just don't like to be reminded of all the other people who use that same toilet all day. It's like eating a hotdog; I enjoy eating hotdogs. I think they're tasty. And I have a tacit understanding with my brain and my gut that, as long as none of us actively consider what it actually is that the body is consuming, we don't have to worry about it. Warm toilet seats are like that. There's no way to get around the awful truth.

But anyways, it occurred to me how ludicrous it was to use a toilet seat protector but stick a pencil that I've used to do crosswords while going poop, probably a few thousand times by now, behind my ear every time I go. Terrible, really. That's the only word for it.

I wish I had a solution, but I don't. I've started putting the pencil in my pocket instead of behind my ear, but it's very inconvenient and I'm worried I'll forget about it and sit on the pencil. And the only thing I can think of that would be worse than sticking a #2 pencil behind my ear is having it pierce my skin.