David, Brian, Ellen and I were kind of a ridiculous combination of people. I mean, we were all friends or acquaintances, so it's not that weird that we worked together, but our senses of humor all collided to form a hot mess. We laughed so much, I'm surprised none of us pulled stomach muscles.
We started our group work with Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. We'd take group tests and give presentations, and the four of us would breeze through the assignment, then spend the rest of the time joking around.
Crime and Punishment gave us the gift of 2 long-running jokes: 1) Svidrigailov was/was not a pedophile, and 2) Some jerk who may have been "self-aggrandizing"---- to tell you the truth, I don't remember who the self-aggrandizing fuck was, but I do remember Brian and I got into a raging argument with Ellen and David about it during a group test. It was getting out of control--- it was the only question we missed on the test, and we got the highest score of all the groups, but we were too busy attacking each other with I-told-you-so's and The-answer-key-is-wrong's to bother noticing. I think at that point, the rest of the class started to hate us. And whenever we disagreed with each other after that, we'd say, "What was that? Self-aggrandizing?"
Crime and Punishment gave us the gift of 2 long-running jokes: 1) Svidrigailov was/was not a pedophile, and 2) Some jerk who may have been "self-aggrandizing"---- to tell you the truth, I don't remember who the self-aggrandizing fuck was, but I do remember Brian and I got into a raging argument with Ellen and David about it during a group test. It was getting out of control--- it was the only question we missed on the test, and we got the highest score of all the groups, but we were too busy attacking each other with I-told-you-so's and The-answer-key-is-wrong's to bother noticing. I think at that point, the rest of the class started to hate us. And whenever we disagreed with each other after that, we'd say, "What was that? Self-aggrandizing?"
As for Svidrigailov, I still get shit about this. So, the English groupers had to do a character analysis on Svidrigailov as one of our projects. If you've read the book (and even if you haven't), Svidrigailov was the rich guy who tried to seduce Raskolnikov's sister, but couldn't, and represented everything that was wrong with the corrupt Russian aristocracy--- even though he married into it to pay off debts (that's what you call impressive gigolo action- when will women learn, you can't turn a ho into a house-husband?). But he was supposed to be a bad dude, or at least outwardly bad, conflicted on the inside.
Toward the end of the book, Sviddy has a nightmare about finding an orphaned child on a bed, and then when he tries to help the kid, the orphaned child tries to have sex with him, and he wakes up freaking out. As well he fucking should, right?
We got into an argument over whether he was a pedophile. I argued, "He's not a pedophile! That dream is supposed to represent how he corrupts everything he touches, whatever his intentions!" I argued so valiantly, that Brian and David accused me of being in love with Svidrigailov. No joke. Brian "outed" me at the end of our presentation, when our teacher asked how many students liked Sviddy (as we called him). A bunch of us raised our hands. Then Brian turned to me and said, "Wait, didn't you like Sviddy, like, big-time?"
Guess who was accused of being in love with a pedophile (by the entire class) for the rest of the year?
Right here and now, let me clarify something: if I'm going to hit it with a character from a Russian novel, I'm going with Misha Gordon from Doctor Zhivago, and that's primarily because he was played by a hot Italian man in the BBC mini-series. Or Andrei from War & Peace, who was also played by a hot man in the old Russian movie. Am I a superficial, borderline-illiterate asshole? Yes, I am. To tell you the truth, I only read about a quarter of Crime and Punishment. It just so happens that it was the quarter about Svidrigailov, so I can assure you--- homeboy was NOT a pedophile.
Then again... the internet seems to disagree with me. So I'm going to go with this rationalization: I was 16 when we read this book. What the fuck did I know about anything, let alone psychology? I'd have to read it again to know for sure. But after spending 10 years thinking it wasn't so, I'm reluctant too stubborn to change my mind. Also, I'm realizing--- my description of Svidrigailov makes him sound like a bad boy with a heart of gold. Just my type. Fuck. Apparently I did like Sviddy big-time!
Anyway, before we graduated (we all went to different schools), we made an "English Group promise" to stay in touch with each other and keep up the English Group magic/sarcasm-fests. We kept up the e-mails for, like, a few months. This was, by far, the best one (and probably the only funny part of this entry)- Brian sent us his AIM (remember, in the days before g-chat) conversation with a college friend:
Brian: Yeah, so we had this group in English.
Random Friend: Oh yeah?
Brian: yeah. smoking hot chicks, some footballphiles, and oh yeah, a gay guy, too
Random Friend: A gay guy. ooh, was he hot? can you hook me up with
him? how flexible is he with his legs?
Brian: dude, stop thinking with your gay dick. i m trying to tell you
about my english group here.
Random Friend: oh all right.
Brian: anyway, yeah i did ALL the work. no one in that group ever
worked. i read and read and read, and those people would just start doing other things.
Random Friend: other things. like what?
Brian: well, this nims dude would never shut up about his beloved broncos. it s some football team in denver. it s some loser team that s lost more super bowls than they won. when he wasnt talking about the football team, he was talking about some girly tv show. woodever or something.
Random Friend: Woodpecker?
Brian: no, man. that s you. i m talking about a tv show.
Random Friend: oh right.
Brian: anyway, yeah, he talked about that show with this one girl named pareesa. now, pareesa s the biggest gossip in the entire persian american population. she would also just start uncontrollably laughing for no apparent reason. oh, and, she had a thing for this old russian pedophile. man, was she into pedophiles.
Random Friend: so am i.
Brian: yeah, but you go for anyone with three legs. moving on, then she talked about french with this other girl, ellen. now, ellen talked about the weirdest things. once, she was telling us about a jewish guy who shat in a bag so that he could chuck it at a house or something*. and oh yeah, one time, the name "billy" came up. man, her face got ultrared. she apparently had the hots for him. but she wouldnt tell me who it was**.
Random Friend: i wonder if it was my billy.
Brian: no, it wasnt. anyway, and another girl, sharon. she s chrisitan. So she totally freaked out this one time i said "shit". that was not a good day for me. that was the day i got rejected by nims's dad when i asked him to prom.
Random Friend: oh i remember. you had to take nims' mom to prom.
Brian: yeah. anywho, it s late. go to bed, kid.
him? how flexible is he with his legs?
Brian: dude, stop thinking with your gay dick. i m trying to tell you
about my english group here.
Random Friend: oh all right.
Brian: anyway, yeah i did ALL the work. no one in that group ever
worked. i read and read and read, and those people would just start doing other things.
Random Friend: other things. like what?
Brian: well, this nims dude would never shut up about his beloved broncos. it s some football team in denver. it s some loser team that s lost more super bowls than they won. when he wasnt talking about the football team, he was talking about some girly tv show. woodever or something.
Random Friend: Woodpecker?
Brian: no, man. that s you. i m talking about a tv show.
Random Friend: oh right.
Brian: anyway, yeah, he talked about that show with this one girl named pareesa. now, pareesa s the biggest gossip in the entire persian american population. she would also just start uncontrollably laughing for no apparent reason. oh, and, she had a thing for this old russian pedophile. man, was she into pedophiles.
Random Friend: so am i.
Brian: yeah, but you go for anyone with three legs. moving on, then she talked about french with this other girl, ellen. now, ellen talked about the weirdest things. once, she was telling us about a jewish guy who shat in a bag so that he could chuck it at a house or something*. and oh yeah, one time, the name "billy" came up. man, her face got ultrared. she apparently had the hots for him. but she wouldnt tell me who it was**.
Random Friend: i wonder if it was my billy.
Brian: no, it wasnt. anyway, and another girl, sharon. she s chrisitan. So she totally freaked out this one time i said "shit". that was not a good day for me. that was the day i got rejected by nims's dad when i asked him to prom.
Random Friend: oh i remember. you had to take nims' mom to prom.
Brian: yeah. anywho, it s late. go to bed, kid.
*Actually, David was telling that story, and Ellen and I were begging him not to. It was pretty gross. Ellen and I were covering each other's ears and screaming "NOOOOOOOO STOP! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAVID!" This only encouraged David to tell the story frequently, to provoke us. Ellen and I would do this funny thing every time David would start to tell that story: we would scream and beg him to shut up, and then we'd cover our mouths (to prevent gagging), and then cover each other's ears with the other hand, and then push our heads against each other so the other ear would be taken care of, while going, "ewwwwwww ew ew ew"
** Dude, who wasn't in love with Billy after meeting him?
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