Hokum 107-139

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            After another thoroughly enjoyable set of writings from Hokum, I have decided this is my favorite book we’ve used so far this semester. Being from the south, I love the dialect. I was surprised how easily I was able to read it, especially after hearing how difficult it was for some people to understand.

            These stories and jokes were some of my favorites; I laughed out loud at the punch line of the joke on page 114 by Bert Williams, which I will quote in full because it was so good:

Rasmus Bigby used to play with a little white boy about his age. One day the little pale one was crying bitterly and his mother says to Rasmus, ‘What’s the matter with Ronald, Erasmus?’

“He’s cryin’ ‘cause I’m eatin’ my cake an’ won’t gib him none.”

“Is his own cake finished?”

“Yassum. An’ he cried while I’se eatin’ dat too.”

This line fit perfectly with a Spongebob episode I remember. After Patrick and Spongebob “steal” a balloon, they realize they are criminals and leave town, planning on living on their few belongings. For food, Patrick and Spongebob only had one chocolate bar each. Of course, when Patrick eats his own chocolate bar unconsciously, he thinks Spongebob stole his bar: “You took my only food. Now I’m gonna starve!” Here is the link so you can get the full effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMHB-NZY0UQ

            I also have to point out Bert Williams’ first joke in the book because he mentions the first time he went to the big city…which is of course the best city: Chattanooga/Chattanoogy/Chatt-town/Chattavegas/Chattaboogie. Chattanooga is awesome, in case you didn’t know. You should stop by sometime.

            The short story by Rudolph Fisher on King Solomon Gillis and his trip to Harlem was entertaining as well. The foreshadowing given by the insider’s view into Uggam’s conversations was well done; I knew something was going to happen, but the way it happened was a surprise. The story overall was interesting because there was always a tension between corruption going by unnoticed and being caught. These stories are great, and I look forward to more of them. While they are not all humorous, many of them are simply good stories, even if they portray a pretty ugly subject at times—racism.

Fourth Meeting 10/18

            Denily and I had our fourth meeting the other day (actually, it was technically our fifth meeting, but seriously, who’s counting?! Oh wait….). Either way, we had another good conversation about various topics. First, we followed up from the last meeting on the election in Venezuela. Unfortunately (spoiler alert!), as I already said, Chavez was reelected. What a bummer. I asked Denily why he keeps being elected. Chavez definitely has a negative reputation in most of the world, in my evaluation, so I was surprised that he won again. According to Denily, he gets all of his votes from the poorer population, which is very large. Apparently, his presidency hasn’t helped many of them get out of poverty either, because they keep voting for him. Denily was upset, but obviously can’t do anything to change it at this point.

            We haven’t been able to meet for about two weeks because of conflicts in our schedules, so we caught up on what the other had been doing. Denily had gone to Houston to be with some friends there, while I had just stayed here.

            Denily and all the international students had their midterms last week as well, and she said she did very well! Being an ESL student sounds like it would get somewhat repetitive eventually though; Denily says now they will basically do the same thing they did the first half of the semester, but only with different books. In the second half of the semester, they will be reading Life of Pi. I had the misfortune of reading this book years ago, in my freshman year of high school. As I recall, I had to read about 200 pages of boredom before actually getting anywhere. The dislike of the book may have just come from lack of maturity back them, but I still have clear memories of disliking the book. Maybe I would like it better if I read it again; however, Denily so far doesn’t like it either, so maybe I was correct all along.

            So far, it has been cool to hang out with someone from a different country just to talk. Another thing we talked about was Denily’s former exposure to the United States. It was no surprise that before coming to TCU, Denily had only been to Florida, where a large Spanish speaking population makes life easy for south and central Americans. She said she had always wanted to go to other places, but had never been able to do this, since she always travels with her family, none of whom speak English, until now. Denily hopes to someday go to many different parts of the country with her English skills as strong as they are already. She is currently trying to convince her family to make plans for a more exciting family vacation elsewhere in the United States.  

            Our fourth meeting was fun, as always. Denily and her friend Norelly (also from Venezuela; in fact, she is Manoj’s conversation partner) signed up for some kind of gym class at the Rec, so she left to go do that at the end of our meeting. We’ll meet again next week!

Third Meeting 9/15

I know, I am so slow to write these up. But don't worry, I'm slowly catching up...anyway, on to the actual post...

            Denily and I met for our third time this semester over the most delicious Mexican food ever. Hence it was appropriate to talk a lot about food, which is great! I picked up two chicken burritos from Tacos Ernesto ahead of time (look it up; this place is delicious) and brought them back to campus.

            Like I said last time, Venezuelan food lacks almost all spiciness, so I was hoping the slight spiciness would not ruin the food for her. Fortunately, she enjoyed it, although I am not sure how much so. We continued to talk about food. Denily says that food in Venezuela revolves around beef, or at least beef is the most important meat. While the hamburger and ground beef are probably the most common examples of beef in America, Venezuela has a different way to serve it. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name or how exactly it is prepared.

            Denily and I also talked a little bit more about our hometowns. Denily is from the capital of Venezuela, Caracas. While Denily loves her city, she thinks it is unsafe for foreigners due to crime rates. She said that if you walk around looking like a tourist, people are bound to take advantage of you. If you go everywhere with a local or appear to know the city though, you would probably be safe. However, the way she describes her city makes it sound awesome. Temperatures around the year are between 60° and 80° despite the fact that it is only about 10 degrees north of the equator. The beach is only about 5 miles north of the city, but in between is part of a mountain range with peaks in the 2500-meter range. She mentioned that there are even some hotels in the mountains from which you can see both the ocean and the city. It sounds like a perfect vacation setting. I told her some about Chattanooga as well (and this is for you readers to hear as well!). Chattanooga is basically the best city ever. It is large enough to have life, but small enough that traffic isn’t obnoxious. It is the home of many historical events, including battles from the Civil War. It is full of southern hospitality. And one of my favorite things about Chattanooga: the outdoors. Chattanooga is a huge outdoors city, with a river running right through downtown, mountains all around, and trees everywhere. You can go behind my house and just walk deep into the woods (to a point, before it slopes off into a 200 foot drop). Anyway, advertisement for Chattanooga is done (for now).

            Denily also mentioned the upcoming election….but not our election, the election in Venezuela. Hugo Chavez has been the president of Venezuela since 1999. After being the president for only a few years, he made huge changes to the legislature, including an increase in term length of the president from 5 to 6 years, as well as a limit on only 2 terms per president. Of course, Chavez, being the nice guy that he is, decided later in 2009 that the idea of 2 terms per president didn’t make sense, so he changed it back so any president could have an unlimited number of terms. So after already completing 2 terms, he ran for a third. Denily and most of her friends were hoping this election would end differently. But it didn’t. He won again. This post would have been more exciting if I had posted it before the election, but I am so slow that I am posting it after the fact...sorry!

            So that was our third meeting. It was interesting hearing about another country’s politics and culture again. I’ll talk to y’all later!

Hokum 19-36

Today we started reading Hokum, "an anthology of African-American humor". I wasn't sure what to expect from the reading until I jumped right in. We read 3 stories, "On Being Crazy" by WEB Dubois, "'Possum or Pig?" by Zora Neale Hurston, and "Let me at the Enemy--an' George Brown" by Chester Himes.

As I read, one of the common themes I noticed was that these African American writers often wrote things that seemed to ridicule their own culture. The front page of the book is a picture of an eaten slice of watermelon, which seems to correspond with self-ridicule, since there are stereotypes portraying African Americans as loving watermelon. While Dubois didn't make fun of his own culture, Hurston's short story (set in pre-Civil War times) seems to make fun of a situation where a slave has done something against the master's rules and is trying to avoid punishment. The main character (John), a slave, has been stealing piglets for food for a little bit of time, causing his master to be suspicious. When the master investigates, John does everything he can to avoid punishment; he tries to convince his master that he should go to his own house instead of his small cabin; he tells him he is cooking possum instead of pig. But at the last minute, when the master demands to have some of what John is cooking, John comes up with a response that I thought was pretty funny: "Well, ah put dis heah critter in heah a possum,--if it comes out a pig, 'tain't mah fault." Finally realizing there is no way to convince his master to leave, John feigns innocence essentially acknowledges that he may actually cooking a pig, but that it isn't his fault because he did not start off with a pig.

If this story had actually occurred, it is unlikely this humorous excuse would have saved John from punishment (thus showing the futility of his exercise), but his wit makes light of a tense situation and ends before anything bad happens. 

In Himes's story, I really sensed that the main character High C was being ridiculed. First, he believes a man (George Brown) who promises a job that seems suspiciously misrepresented, follows up on the recommendation, and then loses his job, his money, and his woman (Beulah). In the end though, he enters the army, which was his original plan, where he finds he is able to get revenge on George Brown, the man who ruined his life. This humorous twist at the end of the story fills out loose ends in the story and leaves the imagination open to what may have happened between him and George Brown after the story is over.

Overall, I really enjoyed these stories. While they were not laugh-out-loud comedies, they were entertaining stories with a little twist at the end.