It’s almost the weekend, right? And the end of back-to-school week.
So why not a cute song about the crushing of a young child’s soul. I always did like Harry Chapin.
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The Edge of the American West 
19 comments
September 3, 2009 at 7:14 pm
serofriend
One sidenote, for anybody reading: a racial signifier can become a source of empowerment (itself a contested concept) if transformed into an ethnic sign, i.e., red power, brown power, etc. Historians of race and ethnicity have renewed interest in this topic.
September 3, 2009 at 7:18 pm
serofriend
Egad, the H-NET review link didn’t work.
September 3, 2009 at 7:44 pm
eric
I’m missing the relationship between that idea and this song.
September 3, 2009 at 7:50 pm
serofriend
Isn’t the teacher hammering into the student the “adult” ideas of right and wrong, black and white? Read an analysis online, but you probably know more than the author. Happened to be reading that book and and considering notions of “black” and “white.” I don’t think I’m too far off the mark here.
September 3, 2009 at 8:03 pm
serofriend
Since the analysis (by Russel Nadel) can be found on Harry Chapin’s website, I’m assuming that the interpretations accord with Chapin’s intentions.
September 3, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Ahistoricality
Tom Chapin’s pretty fun, too. He has his own educational song.
September 3, 2009 at 9:34 pm
serofriend
Hah! I’ve concluded that a friend of education is no friend of Sarah Palin espousals.
September 4, 2009 at 9:14 am
eric
considering notions of “black” and “white.” I don’t think I’m too far off the mark here.
Except the song doesn’t mention “black” or “white”, so it’s really hard for them to signify here. The colors of oppression in the song are “red” and “green”. Thinking carefully about the signifiers, clearly Harry Chapin wanted to warn against letting your children be cowed by communist tree-huggers.
September 4, 2009 at 9:24 am
serofriend
Thinking carefully about the signifiers
Yup, I see that (crossed my mind last night). Places limitations on signs. Duly corrected.
September 4, 2009 at 10:47 am
AaLD
Eric, slightly off-topic (ok, entirely off-topic), your UC Davis football team is coming to town this weekend for the first game between Davis and Fresno State since the leather helmet era. Unfortunately for your Aggies, though, if Davis is the Athens of the Central Valley, Fresno is its Sparta. It could still be interesting, though – the Bulldogs have always had a talent for losing games they ought to have won (or keeping them close).
September 4, 2009 at 8:46 pm
TF Smith
THAT explains Victor Davis Hanson….
This…is….FRESNO!
September 5, 2009 at 11:32 am
AaLD
Oh, yeah. VDH is pretty popular around here. The local paper dutifully runs all of his columns. But I swear – he must have only 2 or 3 columns that he rotates, with minor changes.
September 5, 2009 at 11:41 am
TF Smith
How do they deal with thr fact that he sold out and moved to the big town?
I think you’re right, as far as VDH:
“You know, this reminds me of Thucydides…”
“You know, this reminds me of Herodotus….”
“You know, this reminds me of Livy…”
September 5, 2009 at 1:18 pm
AaLD
How do they deal with thr fact that he sold out and moved to the big town?
We’re used to that sort of thing around here. It’s a surprise when someone with talent/money and/or fame stays.
September 6, 2009 at 5:39 pm
TF Smith
Saroyan went home again after leaving – does he get much credit for that?
September 6, 2009 at 5:41 pm
dana
Unfortunately for your Aggies, though, if Davis is the Athens of the Central Valley, Fresno is its Sparta.
Davis should be okay as long as they didn’t play Syracuse last week…. (wakawakawaka)
September 6, 2009 at 6:44 pm
TF Smith
Dana wins the thread…
September 6, 2009 at 7:17 pm
andrew
But many of Saroyan’s papers left for a big town library and on a blog like this, isn’t that the most important thing?
September 7, 2009 at 10:47 am
AaLD
Saroyan was forgiven for straying. Even when he lived in the big city, he still spent time here, staying connected to the local Armenian community. There was some hand-wringing over his collection going to Stanford, but if I remember right it was his heirs who made that call. One thing he didn’t want (but got anyway) was having stuff named after him. Our main concert hall downtown was named the Saroyan Theater after his death (he threatened to sic his lawyers on the city if they named it after him before he died – I guess living writers don’t like being memorialized much).