Sunday, June 22, 2014

On absurdity and inverting the norm

Been a while, eh? In the meantime, I've submitted my first-ever solo book manuscript to the publishers and finished up another (edited) and sent *that* to another publisher. I've had my sister visit (and she's still here) and we've proceeded to explore the byways of this part of the United States (details another time) but I'm popping in now to share a couple of things:

1. This is a list of Monty Python sketches that are the favourites of various well-known (in varying degrees) people. Almost all of them point out the anarchic chaos that was central to much of Python but is it Neil Gaiman who encapsulates well what I think of them: the anarchy and chaos but also the unfamiliar-in-the-familiar. In other words, you think you know what will happen next but it doesn't happen the way you think it will. To me, this is a useful reminder that what may seem obvious to one person (social collective) is not so to others. I try make this the central point in my teaching but it's usually more difficult than it sound, especially when the thing you are teaching is national security or terrorism when the students think they know who are the baddies (and it's never "us")

2. As a fan of men in suits myself, I appreciate this!


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