Back to the Fair

We went back to the fair tonight as it was still there. This time, instead of going in the afternoon, we went at night. The lights flashed; the music boomed and swirled; people jostled their way down the street. It was quite fun.

****

There is a graveyard bisecting the major commercial street of Oxford. It is normally silent and pristine: a typical graveyard. Tonight, a pair of men lounged on a grave that was like a table while swigging a beer; a couple made out, her back against the grave.

*****

For dinner tonight, I had a sausage that billed itself as a hot dog. It was from a stand that called itself, “A Taste of America,” with a Statue of Liberty, a race car, an American flag and a bald eagle. Besides that, they also served fries with wasabi slathered on top, fries with sausage and fries with gravy. I got the impression that the proprietors of the stand had read but never experienced Americana. The hot dog was quite good.

From another stand, I had a nutella crepe. It was of indifferent quality. That was unfortunate, because when you have a nutella crepe, you expect big things. It belongs in that category of foods like milkshakes, grilled cheese and BLTs: foods that are impossible to screw up.

*****

There were tons of fake gun games at the carnival. They came in many different varieties: rifles, pistols, assault rifles, crossbows, etc. These games seem much more common in the UK than in the US, and interestingly, guns are much less common.

An Irish-looking bald man stepped up to the stand. He slowly took up the gun and stared at the target. It was quite small. He shot and glanced it, but not enough to win. His pretty girlfriend in a red sweater stepped out from behind him to take a picture of him shooting. His hand began shaking as he watched. The bone in his hand moved and the tip of finger twitched forward the slightest bit but he did not shoot. He put the gun down and wiped his palms on his green vest leaving behind oily streaks. He picked up the gun once again and squeezed his shot immediately. He missed badly. He let out an expletive and shot again and missed badly again.

“Fucking carnival games,” he said to his girlfriend, “They’re always rigged.” He repeated himself to two friends who drifted over.

*****

The best story for last of the fair: while passing by the kitschy Americana, we passed by another type. Or I suppose you could argue that it was of the first type. A pair of Confederate flags were posted on the corners of the milk bottle toss stand. The balls fashioned to look like empty coconuts. In the middle of the stand there was a Japanese flag, of the old school: the sun at the bottom of the flag with the red rays rising to the top.

I raised a hubbub about it amongst my group; I was quite disturbed. I don’t know whether it was the din or indifference, but no one responded initially. I began specifically pointing it out to people. They responded in a, oh isn’t that weird? kind of a way. I admit that I shared that attitude to a certain extent but I was also offended. I wondered whether I should find out about it.

I had dinner in between while I contemplated the question. I decided to ask them. I approached the stand while thinking about what I would say. I planned to start by asking: “You know what that flag is?” I felt that this was some sort of act of gonzo journalism; I expected some extreme answer to this hugely unusual thing. On the bumpers of pickup trucks, sure, maybe; in a fair in Great Britain?

There were two men at the stand, a younger curly blond in a track jacket and a older balding man, the kind of guy you expect to be called, “bloke” in some British film. They answered the question somewhat distractedly; they were busy serving customers.

[I’m certain all of these lines are correct as written; I’m unsure as to the order.]
Younger Dude: “It’s like a Western thing, right?”
Older Dude [not acknowledging other’s answer; I believe he didn’t hear YD]: “Southern Gentleman.”
Younger Dude: “Yeah, like that.”
Me: “Yeah, their whole ‘gentlemanly’ lifestyle was based on slavery.”
Older Dude: “It was a Civil War thing, right?”
Younger Dude: “Yeah, they were rebels, right?”
Me: “Yes, they were the South. The slavery side.”
Older Dude [who is unmistakably English]: “We’ll win next time.”
Younger Dude: “We’re not pro-slavery here, we don’t mean anything by it.”
Me: “Well, it’s an offensive thing in many parts of America.”
Older Dude: “Enh.”

I left.

What’s up here with these attitudes? Note the confluence of two distinct strains: “gentlemen” and “rebels,” and the identification of these two dudes with it. They were not, I believe, racists, but rather very casual about the possible meanings of their statement. They saw it as another piece of kitsch like, say, “The Pepsi Generation” or some shit, a loose amalgamation of values. The idea that gentlemen and rebels could also be slaveholders could not be aligned with one another.

Of course, these attitudes are only possible in extraordinarily sloppy public educational system in America. Only when the Civil War is referred to as “The War of Northern Aggression” and Robert E. Lee and the lot unambiguously celebrated as heroes (see: Dukes of Hazzard) can this type of cultural export exist.

The reality is more complicated. It took two to tango. And the South was fighting for slavery, no doubt about it. They were fighting for state’s rights, sure; the states’ rights to slavery. They were fighting for the Southern way of life, sure; the Southern way of life in terms of keeping slaves. The tragic thing of the war were the poor farmers who made up the bulk of the South’s armies, who held little stake in the system as it was. If a better example of Marxist false consciousness exists, I’m not aware of it.

Undoubtedly, the tactical genius of a Robert E. Lee or a Stonewall Jackson provides much to admire. But these guys weren’t military buffs; they aligned with the Confederacy the same way I align with Apple Computer or some other brand: a positive set of connotations. Those gentlemen could only be so leisurely and so courteous because of the toiling of those beneath them. But we all imagine ourselves at the top, and that’s what those guys were doing.

******

We really began working with the Shakespeare lines today. Deeper than mere reading, we really looked at every line. I was struck by two things. First, by the dirtiness of Shakespeare. He loves fart jokes, poop jokes, penis jokes, vagina jokes, fucking jokes: you name it. There’s this association we have with great literature of the olden past, that it be pure and untainted. That does a real disservice to a guy who was willing to write:

“By my life, this is my lady’s hand; these be her very C’s, her U’s and her T’s, and thus makes she her great P’s.” (Read it to yourself and stumble over the “and her” like this: “n’ her,” and you’ll realize.)

The other realization I came to about Shakespeare is probably on the exact opposite axis. Technically, Shakespeare fits so much into each line. He builds such complexity of character into each saying, with such intent, that it is simultaneously humbling (in that I know I can never equal it), and inspiring (in that I can see what he’s doing and perhaps, in some small way, mimic it)

*****

It feels so weird to travel such a distance and yet to see home everywhere.