Todos fazemos cocó!
Today, I stood up in front of my children´s literature class and, with a straight face, gave a 10-minute presentation on a book that was important to me and my personal development:
I tried to tout its literary merit with a survey of its many motifs, including poop, geese poop, and elephants. With a daring and expansive scope, the author successfully chronicles the harrowing tale of every living creature pooping. Impeccably clean and featuring few plot holes, this book manages to work in every conceivable deus ex machina as characters are crossed and double-crossed in a vicious circle in which the only character to escape the cycle is Hydrogen, the damsel in distress, locked in the eternal bond of an unloving marriage with the good-for-nothing Carrier Molecule. Be it free will or be it fate, the bond may only be broken by the free-spirited NAD, the protagonist of a story so complex and convoluted that he never once actually makes an appearance. When the narrator states that "[...]A one-humped camel makes a one-humped poop, and a two-humped camel makes a two-humped poop--just kidding!" the reader is literally drawn into the story on the next page, pants halfway around the knees in a symbolic nod toward Confucianism. Now more than a witness to the plot, the red-faced reader becomes a featured player in this story of growth and learning, thereby overcoming the deeply ingrained communication barrier that inherently lies between any adult author and child reader, neatly requiring centuries of literary theory to be re-evaluated.
I would have said stuff like that, but all I could get out was that it teaches children to be comfortable with natural cycles and tries to de-mount the Western disideal of nudity and bodily functions. And it helps kids learn to shit on porcelain.
My professor kind of just stared at me the whole time, with less raptured fascination and more "quê?" I don't really care. If she's too dense to see the obvious link between the rhino, who "[p]oops without even paying attention" and the corruption of the American dream, it's her own fault for being blind to the truth. You don't need a conspiracy theorist to tell you that if you rearrange the letters in "RHINO" to get "HORNI," and then cross out an "I" to avoid drawing a conclusion far too obvious to be reasonable, you will wind up with the word "HORN." Given the principal theme of the story, this may be assumed to be a coded reference to the Jazz Age, the historical 1920s American period named by a young, disillusioned F. Scott Fitzgerald, who would soon write the classic "The Great Gatsby" in 1925, which was later adapted into a movie version starring Robert Redford, who charmed audiences in "Indecent Proposal" with Demi Moore in 1993, who one year earlier starred in the critically acclaimed "A Few Good Men" with Kevin Bacon.
The defense rests.
I talked to her after class, and she said that while I don't speak Portuguese too well [editor's note: I was not drunk at the time, placing me at an unfair disadvantage] my writing skills are "masterful." That's pretty cool, I guess, but all she ever saw of my advanced pencraft was a two page essay in which I incorporated the same phrase that I would incorporate into any other essay, namely "[...]stitching old and new as they interwove themselves into a new social fabric." A+. Done and done, honey bun. Tell Merriam and/or Webster that I left a surprise in his mom's uterus.
But other than that, the presentation sucked for me. I handled it like a farmer with a penchant for having sex with nimble, greasy pigs would try to exercise said penchant. No, not clumsily. I was going more for "eagerly." But whatever. It could have been worse. I could have tried to have sex with nimble, greasy pigs mid-discussion. And at least I didn't mention that there's a film version currently being produced.
I tried to tout its literary merit with a survey of its many motifs, including poop, geese poop, and elephants. With a daring and expansive scope, the author successfully chronicles the harrowing tale of every living creature pooping. Impeccably clean and featuring few plot holes, this book manages to work in every conceivable deus ex machina as characters are crossed and double-crossed in a vicious circle in which the only character to escape the cycle is Hydrogen, the damsel in distress, locked in the eternal bond of an unloving marriage with the good-for-nothing Carrier Molecule. Be it free will or be it fate, the bond may only be broken by the free-spirited NAD, the protagonist of a story so complex and convoluted that he never once actually makes an appearance. When the narrator states that "[...]A one-humped camel makes a one-humped poop, and a two-humped camel makes a two-humped poop--just kidding!" the reader is literally drawn into the story on the next page, pants halfway around the knees in a symbolic nod toward Confucianism. Now more than a witness to the plot, the red-faced reader becomes a featured player in this story of growth and learning, thereby overcoming the deeply ingrained communication barrier that inherently lies between any adult author and child reader, neatly requiring centuries of literary theory to be re-evaluated.
I would have said stuff like that, but all I could get out was that it teaches children to be comfortable with natural cycles and tries to de-mount the Western disideal of nudity and bodily functions. And it helps kids learn to shit on porcelain.
My professor kind of just stared at me the whole time, with less raptured fascination and more "quê?" I don't really care. If she's too dense to see the obvious link between the rhino, who "[p]oops without even paying attention" and the corruption of the American dream, it's her own fault for being blind to the truth. You don't need a conspiracy theorist to tell you that if you rearrange the letters in "RHINO" to get "HORNI," and then cross out an "I" to avoid drawing a conclusion far too obvious to be reasonable, you will wind up with the word "HORN." Given the principal theme of the story, this may be assumed to be a coded reference to the Jazz Age, the historical 1920s American period named by a young, disillusioned F. Scott Fitzgerald, who would soon write the classic "The Great Gatsby" in 1925, which was later adapted into a movie version starring Robert Redford, who charmed audiences in "Indecent Proposal" with Demi Moore in 1993, who one year earlier starred in the critically acclaimed "A Few Good Men" with Kevin Bacon.
The defense rests.
I talked to her after class, and she said that while I don't speak Portuguese too well [editor's note: I was not drunk at the time, placing me at an unfair disadvantage] my writing skills are "masterful." That's pretty cool, I guess, but all she ever saw of my advanced pencraft was a two page essay in which I incorporated the same phrase that I would incorporate into any other essay, namely "[...]stitching old and new as they interwove themselves into a new social fabric." A+. Done and done, honey bun. Tell Merriam and/or Webster that I left a surprise in his mom's uterus.
But other than that, the presentation sucked for me. I handled it like a farmer with a penchant for having sex with nimble, greasy pigs would try to exercise said penchant. No, not clumsily. I was going more for "eagerly." But whatever. It could have been worse. I could have tried to have sex with nimble, greasy pigs mid-discussion. And at least I didn't mention that there's a film version currently being produced.