An Evening with the Professor

Last night the Professor made dinner for a bunch of us--pork ribs, cole slaw, salad, corn on the cob, corn bread, bean soup, potato wedges, and brownies. There was so much food and it was so, so good. Over dinner we talked about authenticity and the tension between the cool and the co-opters of cool, how the cool need to be co-opted in order for their vision to spread, but how once their vision is spread, it runs the risk of no longer being cool, and they with it. Couple that with the fact that the cool are not nearly as cool as they seem if you start asking too-tough questions about authenticity and you have all kinds of interesting tensions*. Also, I decided last night, though I didn't bring it up, that three of my toes are really cute, one of them is ordinary, and one of them looks unfortunately like a submarine. Let's take them in order--The piggy that went to market is very cute. It is narrow as it comes off the foot and then has a nice round shape at the top. The piggy that stayed home is also very cute, long, but not garish, and pleasantly plump. You'd put the piggy that stayed home in your mouth if it were clean and the left one has a cute freckle. The piggy that had roast beer also very cute. Almost the twin of the piggy that stayed home**. But the piggy that had none? I don't wear terrible dress shoes, but it's apparent that the piggy that had none is a casualty of women's shoes. It really looks like a torpedo and snuggles itself under the piggy with roast beef like it's ashamed of how non-toe-like it looks anymore. The piggy that went whee whee whee all the way home is okay cute. It's somewhere between torpedo and attractive. But from the bottom, I think it's a different story. The big toe is not so cute from the bottom. Both of them have big thick callouses on the side. But my other toes? God damn. They look so round and pink and happy. How can you not love them? *Though, thank god, no one used the word problematize, my least favorite word in the English language, followed closely by praxis and then hegemony. Hegemony used to be my least favorite word, but then I found out that it actually does have a useful meaning, if used correctly. I'm still not convinced that there's any reason for the other two words to exist other than to allow the person using them to construct a little impenetrable word fort around his weak ideas. **Though this genetic mutation passed me by, many folks in my family have conjoined piggies that stayed home and piggies that had roast beef. If you're good, the Butcher will show you his webbed toes.