Multiple Intelligences and Happy Assholes
February 28, 2009
Last semester, I was talking with my Tuesday-Thursday Freshman Comp class about Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, hoping that the ones who didn’t have a fired-up linguistic circuit would take the risk and try to plug into other tracks (spatial, musical, interpersonal) while writing.
I was showing them how to use a rhyme (musical intelligence) to remember pi to five decimal places, when one of the kids blurted out, “That’s nerdy!” I fumbled with some kind of defense of the technique and then I got this idea.
(Many of my stories have that sentence in them: And then I got this idea.)
I started writing on the board:
BOOKWORM
NERD
ARTSY FARTSY
DUMB JOCK
STONER
BLABBERMOUTH
SPACE CASE
FANATIC
HICK
ASSHOLE JERK
I erased Asshole because I wanted all the insults to have the same relative sting.
And then I said, Hey! Bookworm is just what a good reader is called by people who aren’t as good. A Nerd is a person who’s smart in math. A Dumb Jock is someone who is good with their body. Artsy Fartsy is what people who can’t draw a straight line call an artist. Everybody knows all musicians do drugs, so they get called Stoners. People with strong interpersonal intelligence like to talk — Blabbermouths. People with strong intrapersonal intelligence get called Space Cases. If you have a strong Existential intelligence you risk being called a Fanatic. If you have a strong Naturalistic bent, you’re a Hick, and if you’re competitive and you just beat someone at something, they’re going to call you a Jerk. (Gardner didn’t mention Competitive as an intelligence, but I think it’s one.)
One time, years ago, I was actually in a position where I could walk off a job without worrying at all. I had money. I had another job lined up. I didn’t need the recommendation. Oh yeah — and they really HAD TO have my help finishing a project.
And so when my boss started giving me grief, I told him that the next time he started in on me, I was simply going to walk.
“But you’ll be . . . an asshole!” he sputtered.
“Yeah,” I replied, “but I’ll be a happy asshole.”
I encouraged my students at the end of class to try out being jerks, jocks, nerds — just for grins, to use braintracks they didn’t much use ordinarily.
I haven’t been called an asshole in years. I’m usually the most considerate of souls — to the point of being walked on. But that one time sure was fun. And they treated me better those last few weeks, too.
Jacquie the Ripper
February 27, 2009
Something on one of the kiosks
upset a Regent, so the Provost
told the Dean, and the Dean
told Ramona his Administrative Assistant,
and Ramona told Jacquie the Work Study
to remove all offensive materials
from bulletin boards, walls, trees
and light poles on campus.
Jacquie was too scared of Ramona
(Who wouldn’t be?) to ask
what offensive meant.
She thought the Dean was pretty offensive,
the way he talked golf all the time,
but since he never got his picture
on any posters, she couldn’t take him down,
and nothing else bothered her –
not with the family she came from –
so she really didn’t do anything
till Ramona handed her a copy
of the University Speech Code
written by a bunch of Ph.D.s,
and which Jacquie, with only
a high school diploma (Secretarial Track)
couldn’t decipher any more
than the blackboard after
a Calculus class.
Look,
said Ramona,
I don’t understand it either.
Just get rid of anything
that might bother
a rich Republican woman over sixty.
So Jacquie tore down
any piece of paper
with a cute girl on it,
figuring they’d make
an old lady jealous,
and she tore down anything
that made fun of President Bush
(Wasn’t he a Republican?)
and she tore down all
lesbi-gay stuff, anything
pagan or Catholic,
Native American, African American or Hispanic,
ads to sell musical instruments
(Old ladies like that
would probably hate garage bands)
and requests for rides
([em]Get your own car![/em] she’d probably say).
So Jacquie was standing
in Bluersch Hall, trying
to decide whether
a Green Party ice cream social
would bother the Regent
when a bunch of students surrounded her
and started yelling,
which made her cry.
Then a bunch of suit people
marched into the Dean’s office,
and Ramona sat outside biting her thumb
while Jacquie tried to figure out
what she’d do for a job.
Finally they all went away
and Jacquie was transferred
to Physical Education,
which was fine with her,
‘cause she could swim on her breaks.
Probably other stuff happened
about the posters,
but over in PE they didn’t
talk it, and Jacquie soon forgot –
except to remind herself
never to work that close
to the Big Shots again.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
from Expelling Trelnitz, TJMF Publishing 2007, available from author. Email rickstan.com. Originally published on PoetryCircle.
A Waste Of Evil: A Stark, Ohio Poem
February 26, 2009
a Stark, Ohio poem
When Dickhardt
started work at
Garfield Community College
it was just one
building in a cornfield.
“Now it’s six buildings
in a cornfield,”
says Wheezy Ford
who teaches what
he calls Cro-Magnon
Composition and
Communication,
has the office next
to Dickhardt’s, and makes
dumb puns in
Faculty Senate. It took
Dickhardt ten
years to realize
how deeply Wheezy
hated him
and everyone else,
and five more years
to realize it doesn’t
matter as long as you don’t
take Wheezy seriously –
and how can you,
with his tiger-striped
fedoras, Still Waiting
for Godot T-shirts
and that laugh like
somebody just
punched him in the gut.
One afternoon
over beer, Dickhardt
said, Wheezy, if
we’re all such scum,
why not buy
an AK-47
and clean out the quad
between classes?
“Yeah, right,” said Wheezy,
“and make you famous!
The worst damage
I can do
is leave you all
just as you are.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
originally published on Kelly (Levan) Dolejsi’s breakthrough Noochbomb, now available at Poetry Circle
Cantigas de Cooper Street
February 25, 2009
I launch the thirteenth century
out my window against
the reggae band across the street.
They get louder.
I get louder
but it’s no war.
They just want to play,
I just want to write,
so the space above the street
swirls with steel drums and krumhorns,
Bob Marley swinging
the Blessed Virgin by the hand.
What’s More American
February 24, 2009
a Stark, Ohio poem
Fuzzy Fazoul talking
to Uzzi Uzzolini
down at the warehouse:
“Them shits in Cleveland
pulled my kid
outa line at the airport,
made him strip,
take off his shoes,
sing the Star Spangled Banana,
and kiss a pitcher
of George Bush’s ass, all
cause he FIT THE PROFILE!
Hell! We ain’t no
rag-head nut cases!
We’re Organized Crime!
What’s more American
than that?”
“Fuckin’ A!” said Uzzi.
Fuckin’ A! laughed Dickhardt
when he heard the story.
Branching Out
February 23, 2009
a Stark, Ohio poem
The Twins are branching out.
You can still see
their pink Porsches
side by side
at the No-Tel
on Friday nights,
but now there’ll be
a third car, or
even a fourth.
“They ran through
everybody at
the country club,” said
Addie at the Souper Bowl.
“They’re going out
to the Hideaway now,
even sometimes the DMZ.
Two horny rich blondes!
Must make some
of those old Vets
check their meds!”
Addie laughed.
Ir was a nice laugh.
“They even came here
one day after school,
started talking about
afternoon delight.
Seemed to like my
tongue stud. I thought
if I talked about
high school, it
would turn ‘em off,
but they just got
more intrigued.
So I grabbed this
fat hairy biker
that came in the door
and acted like he
was mine. You could see
their wheels turning
thinking maybe they’d
invite him too,
but then they smiled
and left a nice tip.
I thought I’d have
a problem with the biker,
but when I explained, he
laughed. ‘Oh them Twins,’
he said, ‘Had ‘em a time
or two myself.’”
Addie laughed again.
Dickhardt said, I
must be the only
one in town they
haven’t tried to boink.
“Consider it a compliment,”
Addie said. “We’re
just peasants. You’re
too smart. They’re
scared you might
figure ‘em out.”
A third time she laughed,
and Dickhardt wanted
her to laugh forever.
……………………………………………………………………………….
Originally published on Noochbomb (Kelly Dolejsi’s breakthrough site in the nineties). Now available at Poetry Circle.
The Comprehensible Life
February 22, 2009
a Stark, Ohio poem
[Dickhardt is an English professor at a small junior college in his hometown.]
He remembers his
one try at
paper boy. Walking
through drizzle into
an Elks Lodge — stale
beer smell, peanut
shells on wood floor,
stubbly guys in ball
caps, barbecue chips
bought with a quarter
he couldn’t really afford.
And through drizzle
again to cabbage-smelling
apartment hallways,
to City Hall, cops
clomping around like
bears. Everybody
grumbling if he was late
or the paper was wet.
“It’s better to do a job
people don’t understand,”
Dickhardt said to himself
at twelve, and except
for the barbecue chips
which he still loves,
he’s put that life –
the comprehensible life –
completely away.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Originally published on Noochbomb, now on PoetryCircle.
Dickhardt Hill
February 21, 2009
a Stark, Ohio poem
Nobody remembers that
name except the ancient
fat man in
the three-room museum
downtown. As a fat
little boy, he
rode the streetcar
on Saturdays
to its turnaround
atop Dickhardt Hill
by the Dickhardt barn,
long ago torn down.
Kids who now play
on the sandstone
foundation, know
its history
holding up the barn
the way they know
that Engine Number Nine
rolls down Chicago Line
but point vaguely “out there”
when you ask
where Chicago is.
Dickhardt likes
the winding brick street
and the huge oak
halfway up the hill.
He was born on
that hill, and used
the stone wall as first
base, but he’d laugh
if you told him
the place has his name.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
(Originally published on Noochbomb, now on Editors’ Picks at PoetryCircle.)
Flowers
February 18, 2009
When Orlo died,
he left five grand each
to his kin,
and ten grand to Ruby.
Turn off the sound, now,
watch their mouths fly open:
Ruby?! How COULD he?!
That WHORE?!
Only grandnephew Stanley
said nothing,
just went
to Orlo’s grave
every Memorial Day
with a handful of flowers,
which is where
he ran into Ruby
who later died and left him her share,
minus the five hundred
she’d used for flowers.
“A Collision of White Butterflies by Zek Zhan Yun
February 15, 2009
June 6, 2007;
We were in a garden yesterday and Zek dictated this poem. Good thing I had my journal. One of the reasons he hasn’t appeared sooner is that he spontaneously blurts out poems, and if I don’t have writing materials, he pretends not to remember them when I do. “Let them fly away,” he says.
February 14, 2009
Zek is a little Taoist fella who lives in my head.
Rick Stansberger
A Collision of White Butterflies
It was intentional.
White flutter and spiral –
ballerinas,
courtiers,
priests.
Then tack! the top one dove
and the bottom one
fell to the ground.
Big bees like transports
zoomed in and out.
And that was that:
precedence settled
among the butterflies.
(C) 2007 by Richard Stansberger
originally published in Editor’s Picks at PoetryCircle
