the inmate's journal : the academy vii

Ouzo

 

At the beginning of my fourth year at Knickerloo, I was coaching an upper-level business student on the difference between a verb and a noun—

 

So a noun’s like … uh … like downtown Sunday morning and a verb’s like a mall Friday night?

 

I’m not quite sure what you mean.  A noun’s an idea, concept, or thing, whereas a verb’s typically something someone—or something—does.  It tends to be prototypically referential and can co-occur with definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase.

 

Yeah, that’s what I said.

 

—when IdI burst into my office, apologizing—Oh Jude, I’m terribly sorry, I didn’t realize you were seducing someone …

 

What can I do for you IdI?

 

Dr. Hite has passed away.

 

He’s dead?

 

He’s passed away.

 

No!

 

Yes.  He was found in the liquor store.  By the single malts.

 

Oh, that’s perfect.  It’s just where he would have wanted to go.

 

It’s a beautiful end.  Everyone’s deeply touched.

 

He was really quite a scholar.

 

Nobody will forget when the electrical engineers briefly understood what a gerund is.

 

Really?  Recently?

 

Oh, no no.  In the early days.

 

But this is horrible.  Who’s going to chair the department?

 

I think Ouzo’s going to.

 

Ouzo?  Who’s Ouzo?

 

You’ve heard of Ouzo.

 

The drink?

 

Your colleague.

 

We have a colleague named Ouzo?

 

You know the door by the stationery room.

 

You mean Dr. Ozeine?

 

That’s Ouzo.

 

The one who sends all those emails?

 

Yes.

 

She wants to become Chair?

 

Nobody else does.

 

I didn’t know she had a first name.

 

She’s only recently begun using it.  We think it’s part of her attempt to appear more accessible.  She’s very political you know.

 

Would her approach be different from Dr. Hite’s?

 

Dugo didn’t do anything.

 

What did you think of that?

 

Not doing anything?

 

That approach.

 

The approach of not doing anything?

 

Right.  As Chair.

 

Like anything, it has its pros and cons.

 

Do you think Ouzo would take a similar approach?

 

An approach of not doing anything?

 

Yes.

 

Difficult to say.

 

But if you had to say.

 

I’ve talked to some of our colleagues about this.

 

And?

 

I haven’t talked to all of them.

 

Naturally.

 

There isn’t a great deal of consensus about the approach she’d take.  Some feel she wouldn’t take a dissimilar approach.  And some feel differently.

 

What do you feel? 

 

I feel about the same way others do.  We need a Chair, I think having a Chair’s very important.  And it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if we took a chance on Ouzo.  What choice do we really have? 

 

Plunking someone who’s spent her life reading de Sade, Austen, and Baudelaire into a management position with authority over 30 people may not make a lot of sense, but since when has sense had anything to do with anything?  Or at least anything interesting?  While efficient, productive, considerate, contextual, perspicacious, just, empathic, dialogical, beautiful, clear, concise, intelligent, witty, powerful, balanced, pragmatic, spiritual, emotionally articulate bosses may be the dream, it’s the average ones who comprise most of reality and the crazy ones who inspire the stories.  Who do you talk about when you’re drinking with friends Friday night?  Emma T. Sloov, the nice and invisible, competent and forgettable colleague you had when working at Tedious ‘R Us?  Or the psycho-sexy bitch who ate your mind for lunch each Tuesday at Helloramica?  Why does my journal exist?  Because of all the boring people I’ve worked with?  Or because of the demonic nights caused by Sister Gooch, Ferrelyn Quest, Magna, Mr. Twatfish, Mae Utne Mori, Maeby Might, Mr. Blood, and Ouzo Ozeine?  Stories rule the world.  And it’s the freaks who make the stories.

 

So I say to you, voyeurs and freakophiles—have one task in life and one task only … become the biggest weirdo you can be.  That way people will talk about you … and, as everyone knows, if they don’t talk about you, you don’t exist.

 

So Ouzo Ozeine, direct descendant of Lilith, English Ph.D. and memo professor, became my boss and began noticing me.  She was 60, but like Bilbo of Middle Earth was well preserved, having the body of a 40-year-old, the energy of a 16-year-old, the ethics of an anaconda, and the fashion of an aristocratic Madam, combining cleavage, boas, leopard stockings, and snakeskin shoes to suggest an animality not entirely aligned with the intellectual pursuits.  

 

This Department, Jude, lacks testosterone.  You realize that’s the reason you were hired?

 

There does seem to be a lot of estrogen.

 

Dugo wasn’t unequipped.  But Scotch got him in the end.

 

It was very unfortunate.

 

Not really.

 

Dr. O’Deal and I are making progress on the comma issue.  We’re discovering the comma’s both abused and not abused and that historical attitudes toward it might be changing … perhaps forever.

 

I’ll tell you why I wanted to meet with you Jude.  The Dean and I have been reviewing your file.

 

The Dean has time to look at my file?

 

The Dean has time to look at everything.

 

That’s remarkable.

 

Don’t be smart with me Jude.  Things have changed.  Dr. Hite, while a brilliant scholar, was not an able administrator.  It’s well known that he left many things undone and the Department as a result has suffered in terms of productivity and reputation.  This has left you with an unrealistic impression about University life.  Perhaps you think being a professor is akin to the lifestyle you remember as a student … late nights, later mornings, coached through each exam and essay by your latest love interest

 

I’m not sure what you mean.

 

You know exactly what I mean.  You are indolent. You have contractual obligations. The gap between these two facts is large.

 

How can I teach eight courses a year, research, write, and publish, do a Ph.D. in four years, sit on seven committees … and be anything but an automaton?

 

Others have done it.  I’d fire you if I could, but the Union makes it impossible until your tenure application gets rejected.  You’re not an academic Jude.  I was entirely against your being hired, but I was outvoted … the other members felt we needed something with a penis.

 

I’m just not sure knowledge has anything to do with working constantly.

 

What do you think knowledge is … a trip to the nude beach?  Knowledge is suffering.  Nobody gets tenure until they’ve sufficiently suffered and made others suffer.  That and that only is proof that they’re sufficiently devoted to the academic life.

 

But Dr. Rums writes haikus, talks to her cats, and derides her colleagues, Dr. O’Deal spends 90% of the year at her cottage, IdI’s a lickspittle and Dr. Bull-Poderbot writes papers about how technology’s going to save the world, Dr. Oam’s lost in Pollyannaville, Dr. Briar proves what every 4-year-old already knows, and Dr. Woefield’s on every drug known to humanity.

 

Irrelevant.

 

Irrelevant?

 

They’ve all got tenure; nothing can be done about them.  You, however, are a candidate. Publications are mandatory for candidates.  Candidates should produce publications the way the upper class produces garbage.  Ouzo stroked a nearby file in her post-apocalyptic office, which was overcome with skyscrapers of unread reports and gibberish publications, a letter opener stuck in one like a 9/11 missile in a stationery city.  There’s one thing you can do for me, though, which might help your Ph.D. situation.

 

What’s that?

 

IdI.  I don’t like her.

 

IdI doesn’t seem too bad.

 

Bad or good is not the issue Jude.  The issue is my dislike of her.

 

What can I do about that?

 

Do whatever you need to do.  Humiliate her.  Damage her reputation.  Get other people to irrevocably despise her.  Ostracize her.  It doesn’t really matter, but I want it as painful and long-lasting as possible.  She’s on the Provost’s Advisory Committee, maybe you can do something there.  Break into her office, play with the files, you know.

 

Kind of like an IdIgate?

 

That’s not funny.  Jude, one thing you’ll realize is that the media only looks for scandals in business and politics.  They expect the academy to be boring and immoral.  That’s our advantage.

 

I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this.

 

How old are you, three?  The first rule of knowledge is that it’s uncomfortable.  The second is that it’s sullied.  The third is that it wears respectable clothes.  If you’re able to pull this off and maintain your dignity I might be able to be convinced you have some intelligence after all and don’t need a Ph.D.  Now go, I have to get ready for a meeting to make the English department think that Sociology’s slandering the VP of Research.