The Writer's Life 4/18 - Bricks

Way back in late 1979, the Pink Floyd four-sided album The Wall began its rise up the charts, going platinum in several countries, eventually selling more than eleven million copies in the USA alone. One of its songs, Another Brick in the Wall (Part II), was the band's only #1 single. Co-written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour, it skewered formal education: "...We don't need no thought control/ No dark sarcasm in the classroom..." I was 29 at the time, an aide at John Dewey H.S.. I vividly remember sitting in the staff room of the gym teachers, listening to the conversation between a teacher and a lovely student of reddish hair who frequently visited him. She got real snooty talking about how much she hated the song. Although I liked it despite its simplification of the issue, I didn't say a word in its defense. Who was I to put my two cents in? I was a hypocrite, someone who had always hated school now working in one. I remember wondering if that beauty had even an ounce of teenage rebellion. I wonder how her life turned out. Anyway, what resurrected that memory was a list I came across at parenthood.topix.com/ about amusing ways teachers have gotten back at students: Here a few: "Yeah, keep rolling your eyes. You might find a brain back there." "I know when you're texting in class. Seriously, no one just looks down at their crotch and smiles." On a note taped over a clock: "Time is passing. Are you?" "I don't know how, but you used the wrong formula and got the correct answer." (I think I know, but I'm not snitching.) "Please ask to play the piano - unless you're Mozart but I know you're not because he's dead." I prefer Van Halen's vision of the issue in Hot for Teacher:

"I don't feel tardy."

My thanks to Barry Spunt, author of Heroin and Music in NYC, who bought a book on the trials of being a celebrity, and to the gentleman who bought three sci-fi novels in Russian; to the woman who bought two Mozart CD's; to the kindly, elderly man who bought Sinatra, A Man and His Music; and to Lou, who bought two action DVD's. The floating book shop received donations from three sources today. Alexander E. Poet brought a mix of books, music and movies, my Tuesday benefactress rolled up with several pictorials and interesting works of non-fiction, and Herbie handed over a paperback mystery. I had a difficult time closing the trunk of my old Hyundai. Not bad considering Political Man stopped by early in the session and began berating Russians as "stupid." Although I was afraid people would think I shared his opinion, I let him vent, hoping he would soon leave, which he did Strangely, he wasn't on an anti-Trump jag this day.

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