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White Tower Musings

~ This blog will be an attempt to explain the significance of various works of literature, the authors that create them, and some effort to understand correlations between great writing and contemporary events.

White Tower Musings

Tag Archives: Banned Book Week

Jammer Talks About: Fahrenheit 451 and Banned Books

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Book Review, Education, Jammer Talks, Libraries, Literature, Novels, Politics, science fiction

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Banned Book Week, Banned Books, Book Review, Catalyst University, censorship, Education, Fahrenheit 451, ignorance, Jammer Talks About, Joshua Jammer Smith, Libraries, literary education, Novel, Politics, Ray Bradbury, science fiction, The Illustrated Man, Video lecture, YouTube

fahrenheit-fourfiveone

It was recently Banned Books Week and so I thought I would do my part to cover a novel which I’m rather partial to.  Fahrenheit 451 is a novel I was exposed to because one of the best teachers I’ve ever had assigned the book The Illustrated Man for class.  Ray Bradbury, along with Stephen King, became an author I adored and so I picked up Something Wicked This Way Comes and Fahrenheit 451 on her recommendation. 

This novel is a science fiction masterpiece, but also one of the most misunderstood books in my opinion because everyone likes to focus on the book burning aspect of the plot rather than the deeper theme of combatting ignorance. Bradbury isn’t just writing about censorship in order to say censorship is bad.  The problem with censoring books is not just that it stops people from reading a book, the problem with censorship is that it stops people from reading a book and then thinking about it and the questions it asks. 

Banned Books week is more than just an opportunity to read naughty books in order to feel rebellious, it’s far more personal and political.  Reading Banned Books is a chance to counter ignorance because the only way to become smarter is to admit to ignorance so that someone can help you learn more. 

I’ll leave it at that and let my reader see the video for themselves and come up with their own opinion.  Because, after all, that’s the point of reading in the first place. 

Thank you for reading, and thank you for watching. 

banned

 

TO WATCH THE VIDEO FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acXZx5gzHeU

 

 

 

 

Banned-Book-Poster-smaller700

 

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We Searched For A Clever Burn Title, But None Could Be Found

09 Saturday May 2015

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Literature, Novels, science fiction

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Banned Book Week, Banned Books, book burning, books, censorship, dystopia, Faber, Fahrenheit 451, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, ignorance, knowledge, Montag, Novel, Ray Bradbury, Reading, science fiction, Stephen King, text, The AntiChrist, Utopia vs. Dystopia

When I was young I remember there being a huss and fuss about the Harry Potter series, but before I continue I just now realize I started a sentence with the phrase “when I was young.”

Sigh.

At any rate, I was discussing the book series with a friend and she described a massive Harry Potter book burning that was a social function at her church when she was younger. After I cringed and popped something in my neck while muttering something in tongues, I was able to think on this and remember that this was no real shock anymore. I recall one instance in which a man on the local news was interviewed a s apparent concerned over whether his children should read Harry Potter. Spare you the details, he wasn’t comfortable. It’s no surprise to discover this given the numbers that state that Harry Potter was the most banned book in the years of 2000-2009. But this article is not about Harry Potter, though that essay shall and will be written at some glorious point. Instead I would like to turn my attention to the novel that contains this important and wonderful passage:

“Listen. Easy now,” said the old man gently. “I know, I know. You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.”

I regret terribly that such a lesson is not stamped on the interior of every book ever published and tattooed on the arm of every babe that born to this world. This quote derives from a short yet essential novel by Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451, fahrenheit-fourfiveonenamed because Bradbury believed that was the temperature at which paper bursts into flame, is one of the most essential texts on battling censorship and tyranny, but also of the important value of knowledge to our society.

Taking place in the not too distant future, America has become a world surrounded by alienation and mass culture. Guy Montag, the protagonist, is a fireman that burns books, for in this new age a firemen’s role has been reversed for the task of starting fires, rather than putting them out. I have read the book up to three times now and each time I am reminded of how lovely the book is. I hate the ending, but Bradbury in my experience never could write a really satisfying or unambiguous ending. Nevertheless Fahrenheit 451 is worth your time if for no other reason there has never been a better time to understand the hubbub.

Ray Bradbury despised and feared most of the modern media that has now become the background noise of our day to day lives. He hated radio, did not care for television, he thought movies were a waste of time, and that comic books were nothing but mass produced pulp that would leave a child brain dead. While the man was entitled to these opinions, as is the reader, I might recommend you keep that last opinion to yourself when next you visit a Comic Con. The central argument of Fahrenheit 451 is dystopia, a pattern of literature that has assumed pressing concern to much of the young adult fiction that floods the market place. And while there are some good books such as the Hunger Games Series that adequately set the tone of totalitarian willpower that dominates the genre, very few have gotten to the realistic portrayal. As much as Katniss (I hope I spelled that correctly or else the Tween hordes shall come in droves) is a rebel that stands up to system that seeks to dominate her people, her very presence as a hero seeks to disrupt the very notion of dystopia. The idea of the genre is that it serves as the antithesis of Utopia, the vision of the world in which mankind has attained perfect peace in the world. This entails that every aspect of society serve as a means of crushing the individual spirit of those that exist in the society, both through psychological and physical intimidation or indoctrination. If such is the case The Hunger Games cannot be properly called a dystopian works, though if you disagree by all means please let me know.

The world of Fahrenheit 451 is defined by a profound feeling of helplessness. Citizens are noted to sporadically commit suicide, and in the first few pages of the novel Guy Montag’s own wife is found with a bottle of sleeping pills in her stomach. Along with this psychological torment is the constant presence of mass culture, for Mildred, after she is necessitated by a snakelike machine shoved down her throat, immediately sits in the televisor room where three wall size television sets blast “the Family” away until she has no original thoughts and barely recognizes her own husband.

This in turn leads to one of the most important passages of the novel. Now brace yourselves, this is gonna be a long quote:

Faber examined Montag’s thin, blue-jowled face. “How did you get shaken up? What knocked the torch out of your hands?”

“I don’t know. We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren’t happy. Something’s missing. I looked around. The only thing I positively knew was gone was the books I’d burned in ten or twelve years. So I thought books might help.”

“You’re a hopeless romantic,” said Faber. “It would be funny if it were not serious. It’s not books you need, it’s some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the `parlour families’ today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios and televisors, but are not. No, no, it’s not books at all you’re looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn’t know this, of course you still can’t understand what I mean when I say all this. You are intuitively right, that’s what counts. Three things are missing.

“Number one: Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more `literary’ you are. That’s my definition, anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.

“So now do you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam. Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality. Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth? But when he was held, rootless, in mid-air, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn’t something in that legend for us today, in this city, in our time, then I am completely insane. Well, there we have the first thing I said we needed. Quality, texture of information.”

“And the second?”

“Leisure.”

“Oh, but we’ve plenty of off-hours.”

“Off-hours, yes. But time to think? If you’re not driving a hundred miles an hour, at a clip where you can’t think of anything else but the danger, then you’re playing some game or sitting in some room where you can’t argue with the four wall televisor. Why? The televisor is ‘real.’ It is immediate, it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be, right. It seems so right. It rushes you on so quickly to its own conclusions your mind hasn’t time to protest, ‘What nonsense!'”

Bradbury’s novel speaks to a true romantic nature for the importance of books upon the individual mind and spirit. It is not just that books are useful tools that grow our intellects, there are bastions of true intellectual beauty where the soul can breathe deeply, and the mind is afforded the agency to stop to ask, is everything in my reality as it should be. Some might suggest that this notion is too romantic, and that in the age of e-books and online pdfs, what is the point of finding merit in hardbound books anymore.

To that, my dear reader, I must protest and cite another great writer, one that led me to Bradbury in the first place. Stephen King spoke in a brief interview that while our knowledge of books as they were is changing, the idea of “the book” will remain the same. It doesn’t matter whether you read Nietzsche’s The Antichrist on a Nook or in paper, as long as the translation is reliable enough, you’ll understand the man’s ideas. Whether you read To Kill a Mockingbird on an ipad a cell phone or a first edition hardback, though if you do on the last one I hate you in ways I can’t possible describe, you’ll still read one of the most important American literary documents in history. The reason for this, is that you’ll be reading. Period.

Books, short stories, essays, poetry, sacred texts, mythology, philosophy, all exist to challenge ignorance. It is as Faber states at the first quote cited here, if no one bothers to challenge you, then you shall never grow. I am an adult with a bachelor’s degree in English, working on a masters and I cannot for the life of me find a better quote for this new age. Or one that seems so pertinent. I’ll recite again for you:

You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people’s faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.

Yes Fahrenheit is a science fiction novel about burning books, and such a topic is crucial to discuss, and the fact that the novel has been banned is perhaps one of the best lessons in irony. My goal is always to offer alternative explanations or analyses given to the public, and in the case of Fahrenheit while the issues of censorship are pertinent and timeless, another lesson this book has to offer is that it is not a crime to be ignorant, but it is crucial that one acknowledge ignorance lest it become your defining character.

 

 

 

 

**Writer’s Note**

If you were curious, I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t actually know the temperature at which paper ignites. The reason is because I’m not very well schooled in chemistry, and because there are many different varieties of paper, each of them burning at a different degree.

 

**Writer’s Note**

I just realized Burn, Baby Burn would have been a great title. Better one anyway. Well, live and learn.

 

***Writer’s Note***

All quotes taken from the novel Fahrenheit 451 were taken from the Del Ray 50th anniversary paperback edition.

.

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Semper Ubi, Sub Ubi: “Always Wear Underwear”

23 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith in Literature, Politics, Ulysses

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Banned Book Week, Banned Books, body humor, Dav Pilkey, Essay, excrement, God's Little Acre, James Joyce, Jessica Roake, Literature, Mark Twain, One Nation, The Adventures of Captain Underpants, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ulysses, Underpants

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Recently I received the opportunity to read a banned book. I’m fortunate enough to attend a university in which Banned Book Week is not only a vital activity, but also a yearly one. Along with a basic introduction from librarians, as well as displays in the library following the history and practice of censorship, there is the opportunity to be filmed reading banned books. Last year I was unfortunate to discover that Banned Book had passed without my knowing and so the chance to raise a middle finger to censorship was denied to me. This year I was determined to remind censorship to go fuck itself, and so I arrived at the table ten minutes before anyone else showed up with my copy of Ulysses in tow. I was 819the first person of the week to read book, as per my pre-meditation. I sat before the camera and once I was given the signal began to read. After two minutes I received the signal to wrap up and so I finished. I’ve included a link below to YouTube in case you would care to watch. I’m not sure why you would, but if you feel so inclined here it is. I’ve also added a clip from two years ago when I was able to read the book God’s Little Acre.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUbYOAVN0r0 (Ulysses)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du-9_ClGoas (God’s Little Acre)

I felt proud in this moment for I had denied the censor the chance to stifle my voice, as well as the voice of Joyce. This was my choice.

Now the selection of Ulysses is in part due to a recent fascination I’ve had with the author and his work. Regular readers of this blog will understand this. I approached the table with a firm dedication in mind to read Ulysses or else Catch-22. What a conundrum. In fact I had brought along three books, in case I had been outmaneuvered and someone had beaten me bannedto the punch of actually reading first. Struggling already with three different books in mind I recognized a cart of readily prepared “offensive material” and discovered a forgotten tome. Resting in the stack was a copy of The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey. At once I had a conflict of interest. It may surprise some, but when I was younger I had some problems with actually reading. I enjoyed films such as the Pagemaster and television programs like Wishbone that encouraged reading, but Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda had a way of sneaking into my day and stealing most of my attention(though in my defense I was an avid reader of Calvin and Hobbes and remain so to this day). However, about the time I reached the fourth grade I discovered a book that instilled, devotion is too pale a word so intense passion for reading will have to suffice. Captain Underpants became my entire reading life. It began with the first tome followed by the attack of The Talking Toilets, The Alien Lunch Ladies, the threat of Professor Poopy Pants, and the books continued to collect until I had a respectable library. Picking the book up the morning of my reading I read the first two chapters in a heartbeat and at once I was conflicted. I chose Ulysses in the end because it seemed unlikely anyone would bring their own copy of the book, and the novel is just too important not to be read.

61fM9j2P8KL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Captain Underpants, much like Leopold Bloom when his own book was first published, has in recent times become a figure of controversy. In fact, the slim tome that constitutes the first volume of the multi-part series is the most banned book in America as of this writing. Consider that statement for a moment. A book designed for children about a superhero who runs around in underwear has been banned more than Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Invisible Man, Fahrenheit 451, and the list goes on and on.

Any steady reader of this blog may begin to question why I would waste my time concerned over a book that appears, upon examination of the plot, anything but literary. Two young boys by the name of George and Harold are tricksters who enjoy making comic books about a superhero named Captain Underpants. While not making these comic books they are re-arranging sign lettering into jokes about smelly armpits and peeing on rugs (and no, that is not a Big Lebowski reference). The teachers at their school are tyrannical bullies that enjoy punishing students with homework or else torturing them with homework assignments, the worst of all is Principle Krupp. George and Harold pull off the ultimate prank by ruining the State Football championship by filling the marching Bands instruments with soap, the cheerleader’s pom-poms with underpants01pepper, and finally in an almost orgasmic dénouement they fill the football with helium sending it miles into the air after it is kicked. Of course Krupp manages to catch them in the act and blackmails them until George and Harold decide enough is enough and they hypnotize him with the 3-D Hypno Ring (a call back to parents who remember such ads in the back of magazines and comic books that promised opportunities of X-ray glasses and Superman Muscle kits). Taking back the power from Krupp they decide to have a little fun and convince the man that he is really Captain Underpants. Krupp bounds heroically from the school however and the boy, fearing for the man but mostly fearing for their own skins (they are kids after all, or perhaps human beings is more fair) they pursue him until they find themselves caught up in the plot of the nefarious Dr. Diaper, a dwarfish man with razor sharp teeth who plans with to blow up the moon with his Laser Matic 2000 and take over the world.

I believe this is enough to get my point across.
The Adventures of Captain Underpants is certainly not a masterwork of literary achievement, but the book was good enough to make me want to pick up books when I was George and underpants02Harold’s age. As was stated before despite my near obsession with reading I was actually not much of a reader as a child. I enjoyed Calvin and Hobbes, but beyond that I found reading to be a chore. The text books I was required to pick up for school promised only cold facts and reinforcement of the idea that I was JUST a child. The Adventures of Captain Underpants appears into the narrative of my life rather mysteriously. I believe it was at the school book fair that I discovered the first volume, or perhaps it was Barnes & Noble? I can’t remember. What I do remember was the impact that it made. While I did not manage to hypnotize my teacher, I did manage to collect the second, third, fourth, and fifth books as they were published and bought by my parents who were thrilled that I was reading anything and not simply trying to beat the sixth castle on Super Mario World (for the record I have beat it, but I still cannot get past the eighth castle). In hindsight however I understand why the book at first appears to be so threatening to the established quo.

Jessica Roake, in her essay One Nation, Underpants examines the novel excellently when she says:

The teachers are the real villains here: narrow-minded, cruel idiots who taunt George Where_Are_Those_Boysand Harold, throw parties upon their suspensions, and generally delight in punishing children. They are Roald Dahl’s evil adults, but even more broadly-drawn; like Dahl, Pilkey does not sugarcoat the unfairness of childhood or the petty tyrannies of adults on power trips. At Jerome Horwitz Elementary, drawn from Pilkey’s own childhood experience, teachers punish creativity and praise blind obedience. They force the students to obey soul-crushing rules, oppose independent thought, and feed them poisonous cafeteria food and aggressively mind-numbing lessons.

This gross caricature of the villainous teacher may not be appreciated by the underpaid, overworked educators who toil thanklessly to educate the nation’s children–I don’t know any teachers who actually relish the pain of children the way Pilkey’s do (except the gym teachers of my youth). But with all due respect to the dedicated teachers (and none to the gym teacher), so what? Any teacher/student power dynamic is tipped in the adult’s favor, and children need to feel like someone understands the fundamental unfairness of their world. Pilkey may be overly hard on teachers, but there can sometimes be nothing harder than a terrible teacher for a struggling kid.

And anyway, Pilkey, like Dahl, does not demand that his youthful protagonists be better than the adults who torment them. The boys sabotage the work of their fellow students (“nerds” come in for an unsettling amount of scorn from the usually underdog-rooting Pilkey) and often cross the line from pranksters to genuine terrors. Pilkey, though, is defiant in his refusal to judge the boys as anything other than good, rowdy kids ill-served by an authoritarian education system intent on medicating them into submission. Pilkey was just such a kid, and on his website writes, “I had a pretty tough time in school. I’ve always had reading problems, and I didn’t learn the same way that most of the kids in my class learned (being severely hyperactive didn’t help much, either). I was discouraged a lot, and sometimes I felt like a total failure.”

In this way I believe it is not that far off the mark to compare Captain Underpants to Leopold Bloom and Huckleberry Finn, for all three protagonists have inspired a sense of revulsion in the cruel who despise their honesty, and a refuge for those who appreciate just that.

9780590846288-3Bloom, as I have stated in a previous essay, is a carnal being and bracingly frank. Describing the “smell of his wife” while eying the young woman on the beach that he will soon enough rub-one-out to he says:

Clings to everything she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Strays. Drawers: little knick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff in her shift on the bed. Knows her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. Reminds me of Strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes and corners.

While this is hardly sling-shotting a fake dog turd under Dr. Diaper’s butt to distract him, the impact of this line could not be underestimated. Smells in the more classical or Victorian presentation would only ever be positive when referring to a man’s wife. While Bloom is not negating his wife’s particular aroma, every image presented is not necessarily flattering. “Holes and corners” would have been scandalous to an audience unaccustomed to such bracing honesty. And if my reader will indulge me I shall recite a passage I have noted before, because it is the best damn example I have:

Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently, that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it’s not too big to bring on piles again. No, just right. So. 338798Ah! […] He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell.

Bloom’s content dumps however have not inspired the same level of ferocity as Huck Finn’s free moving lips. I have begun reading the book The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn recently, slowly however. Grad School is a mean bitch that eats your life one precious day at a time (worth every second). Now I had begun my reading of the book with the understanding the text was loaded with racial slurs that was indefensible and employed only for the sake of providing white men the excuse to employ that pathetic rhetoric devise of “I’m not a racist…but.” However, upon beginning the actual text I was reminded of my usual appreciation of Twain. The story is often sold to us as a harrowing allegory of possession and racism in humanity, when in fact it is simply the narration of a fourteen year old boy who possess little luck in life. Huck Finn has an abusive Pa who reappears in his life once Huck has discovered gold in the previous text of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (a book which I will admit I don’t care too much for). Huck, wanting not to hurt the man he should have every reason to despise, fakes his own death and escapes to the River where he encounters Jim, a run-away slave who is blamed for his death.

A professor of mine discussed a portion of the novel during a meeting in her office hours, and I later learned she had written a paper over the section entitled “the Story of Sollermun’”. In it the former slave Jim discusses the passage in the Bible in which Solomon proposes to cut the child in half. Jim says:

“Who? Me? Go ‘long. Doan’ talk to me ‘bout yo’ pints. I reck’n I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as dat. De ‘spute warn’t ‘bout a half a chile, de ‘spute was ‘bout a whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a ‘spute ‘bout a whole chile wid a half a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain. Doan’ talk to me ‘bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”

 “But I tell you you don’t get the point.”

 “Blame de point! I reck’n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de real pint is down furder—it’s down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was raised. You take a man dat’s got on’y one or two chillen; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o’ chillen? No, he ain’t; hecan’t ‘ford it. He know how to value ‘em. But you take a man dat’s

got ‘bout five million chillen runnin’ roun’ de house, en it’s diffunt. He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat. Dey’s plenty mo’. Achile er two, mo’ er less, warn’t no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!”

 I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there warn’t no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let Solomon slide.

 

Before you continue, ask yourself a question. Did you really listen to Jim, or were you just waiting for the word nigger to pop up?

So I return to the issue of a banned book and the necessity of reading them. We should encourage the reading of banned books, because they eliminate confirmation bias, the psychological condition that enforces negative or positive opinions despite the coincidence or logical correlation between two points. People searching for racism in Huck’s behavior will obviously find it once they observe the word they are looking for, but they have missed the forest for the trees. While Jim is referred to as nigger by Huck, Twain, through Jim, has observed the condition of slave ownership. It is impossible to truly love something if it is bounteous. Much like Midas would come to loathe or become apathetic to gold, so Solomon grew to children, so too many people would grow to “niggers.” Because many of the richer landholders would be able to afford great quantities of slaves, they could afford the apathy toward the sadism and injustice that could occur on their plantation. Here begins a fascinating conversation about the travesty that is the slavery institution (and before anyone suggests that slavery is over and done with the World Cup of 2022 will be held in Qatar, which is a modern day slave state).

Though we may be uncomfortable with the ideas expressed by Huck, that is no reason to abandon the conversation altogether. Both Huck, and Bloom, and yes, even Captain Underpants all have perspectives of life and humanity that need to be observed. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, like Much of Twain’s books, begins with a notice by the author which reads:

NOTICE

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be pros-

ecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; per-

sons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR,

Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

So it does in The Adventures of Captain Underpants, however Pilkey is a little more accommodating:

Sturgeon General’s Warning

Some material in this book may be considered offensive by people who don’t wear underwear.

Reading a banned book is a rewarding and depressing experience, because you are quick to discover that the books will only make you laugh, or, perhaps even worse, they will make you think.

Banned-Book-Poster-smaller700

 

 

**Writer’s Note**

I have included a link to the rest of the article which I would highly advise, for it is beautifully written and the most intelligent defense of the book I have yet to read.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/family/2012/09/dav_pilkey_s_captain_underpants_books_why_kids_love_them_and_parents_should_make_peace_with_them_.html

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Wilson AA Aaron Sorkin Abram Adams A Brief History of Time A Brief History of Time: From The Big Bang to Black Holes Absalom, Absalom abscence of evidence for god's existence Abscence of god abstinence and why it's shit abuse abuse of authority Abuse of Military authority abyss Academia Academic Book Academic Libraries Academic Writing Acadmic writing A Chilean Dictator's Dark Legacy Achilles A Christmas Carol A Clash of Kings A Clockwork Orange action Action Films Action from Principle Activism Adam & Eve Adam Kesher Adam Piore Adam Smith Addiction ADHD Adolf Hitler A Doll's House Adrian Brody Adrian Cronauer adultery Adventure Fiction advertising advertizing A Dying Tiger—moaned for Drink— Aenema Aerosmith A Farewell to Arms Africa African History Afterlife A Game of Thrones Agency Agent Dale Cooper aging agriculture A Happy Death A Historical Guide to Ralph Waldo Emerson A History of the World Part 1 AIDS Airspeed Velocity of Swallows Aislinn Emirzion Alan Berube Alan Dean Foster Alan Ginsberg Alan Moore Alan Turing Albatross Albert Bigelow Paine Albert Camus Alberto Giocometti Alchemy Aldis Hodge Alec Baldwin Alec Baldwin Gets Under Trump's Skin A Letter to a Royal Academy Alex + Ada Alexander Dumas Alexander Nehamas & Paul Woodruff Alexandra Socarides Alfred Habegger Alfred Hitchcock Alfred Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson Alice in Wonderland Alice Walker alien alien-human sexuality Alien: A Film Franchise Based Entirely On Rape Alienation of Affection Alien Covenant aliens Alison Bechdel Allegory Allison Pill All Star Superman All the President's Men Al Madrigal Almonds in Bloom Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace Alton Sterling A Matter of Life Amazon Amelia Airheart America American Creative Landscape American Dream American Empire American Exceptionalism American Flag American Gods American Horror Story American Horror Story: Freak Show American Landscape American literary Canon American Literature American Politics American Radical American Revolution American Soldiers American Territory A Midsummer Night's Dream A Mind of It's Own: A Cultural History of the Penis Ammon Shea A Modest Proposal Amon Hen A Moveable Feast A Muppet Christmas Carol Amy Holt anal penetration Anal Sex Ananssi Boys An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child Anatomy Anchors Aweigh Anderson Cooper 360 Andre Maurois Andres Serrano And Tango Makes Three And Yet... Andy Warhol Andy Weir An Ent is Not a Tree A New Hope Ang Lee An Ideal Husband animal cruelty Animal Farm Animal House Animal Reproduction animation An Indian’s Views of Indian Affairs Anita Bryant Anita Pallenberg ankh Anna Karenina Anna Kendrick Anne Kronenberg Annie Hall Annie Proulx A Noiseless Patient Spider Anthem Anthony Bertrand Anthony Comstock Anthony Perkins anthropology Anti-Bullshit Anti-Hero Anti-psychotics Anti-Semitism Anti-theism Anti-War Novel Antoine de Saint-Exupery Anya Taylor-Joy Any Human Heart Apartheid apathy Aplasia Apocalypse Apocalypse Now Apollyon Appalachia apple Apple Inc. Apple Logo apples apples & peanut butter Aquaman A Queer History of the United States Arches Archibald Cox Are You My Mother? 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Powell D.B.A.A.: Don't Be An Asshole D.T. Max Dafne Keen dagger Daily Show Globe is Going the Wrong Way Dale Cooper Dale Peck Dallas Shooting Damon Brown Dan Dietle Dangerous Board Games that can Kill You Daniel Chaudhry Daniel Clowes Danny Kaye Dan O'Bannon Dan Rather Dan Vega Dan White Darjeeling Dark Knight Returns Darkness Darren D’Addario Darryl W. Bullock Darth Vader's Little Princess Darth Vader and Son Daryl Hannah data Dave Archambault II Dave Gibbons Dave McKean David David Bowie David Bowie Made Me Gay David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music David Copperfield David Day David Foster Wallace David in the Orrery David L. Ulin David Lipksy David Lipsky David Lynch David Lynch Keeps His Head David M. Friedman David Sedaris David Silverman David Simon David Yates Dav Pilkey Day-O Days of Our Lives Daytripper Dead Babies Dead Baby Tree Dead Poet's Society Deadpool Deadpool Killustrated death Deathclaw Death Proof Deborah Tannen decanter deception Deckard Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire deep time degeneration Degredation dehumanization Deirdre Donahue Deliverance Delores Haze Delorez Haxe is Lolita's Real Name Democracy Democrat Demons Denis Villeneuve denominational differences depression Derek Thompson Derrida Description of the Female Body desert Desert Hearts desire Destiny Dewey Dewey: The Small Town Library Cat Who Touched the World Dewey Readmore Books Dewey the library cat Diamond “Lavish” Renyold Diane Selwyn Diary Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Process, Poetics Dick McDonald Dick York Dictatorship Dictionary Die Hard diffusion dildo Dimebag Darrell Dionysus Director's Style Disasterpeice Discipline and Punish Discourse Disney Dissociative Identity Disorder dithyramb Divinity Django Unchained DK Books Documentary Does the News Matter to Anyone Anymore? Domestcity Domestic Abuse Domino Effect Donald Duck Donald Pleasence Donald Regan Donald Trump Donald Trump Alec Baldwin Don DeLillo Don Juan Don Juan de Marco Donna Anderson Donna Deitch Don Quixote Doris Kearns Goodwin Dorling Kindersley Handbook Dory Dostoyevsky Doug Douglas Adams Douglas Brinkley Douglas Sadownick Dr. King Schultz Dr. Manhattan Dr. Rockso Dr. Salvador Allende Dr. Sam Loomis Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Draft dragonfly Drama Dream Drugs Drunk DSM Duma Key Duncan Duracell Durin's Bane Dustin Hoffman dysfunctional relationship dystopia Ebony Clock economic disparity economic disparity between blacks and whites economics Eddie Marsan Eddie Valiant Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Wright Edith Hamilton Edith Hamilton's Mythology Editorial Edmund Burke Edmund Wilson Ed Skrein Education Edward Gibbon Edward Norton eggs Ego Egypt Egyptian Empire Egyption Revolution Elaine Noble Elbert "Bo" Smith elderberries Eleanor Roosevelt electricity Elie Wiesel elitism Ellen Montgomery Ellen Page Ellen Page is awesome just in case you didn't know and if you didn't know you really need to know because seriously she's fucking cool as fuck Elliot Kirschner Elliot Richardson Elmo Saves Christmas elocution Elves Elvis Emerson and Antislavery Emerson’s ‘Moral Sentiment’ and Poe’s ‘Poetic Sentiment’ A Reconsideration Emile Hirsch Emily Dickinson Emily Dikinson emotion empathy Empire empiricism encomium Endless Nights Endnotes enema Engineer English-Irish relationship English 1301 English Romanticism Ent-Wives Entertainment Entmoot Entomophobia Ents enviornmentalism Epic Epic Novels Epilepsy Episcopal Episcopal Church Epistemology of the Closet Epistolary Novel Eraserhead Eraserhead Baby erectile dysfunction Eric Idle Ernest Hemingway Ernie and Bert erotic fantasy Erwin Rommel Escape from New York Esquire Essais Essay Essay Collection Essential Dykes to Watch Out For Estimating Emerson: An Anthology of Criticism from Carlyle to Cavell Eternal Recurrence Ethan Hawke ethics ethos Et Tu Brute? Eugenics E Unibus Pluram E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction Eurocentrism European "Discovery" fallacy European exploration Eve Arnold Even Stevens Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises Everyday Use Evil Evil as a Force Evil as Force Evil Bear Man Evil Dead Evil is abscence evolution Evolution is not JUST a theory excrement exile existentialism Existentialism and Human Emotions Exit Through the Gift Shop Experimental Essay Expose Eye Imagery in Blade Runner eye liner Eyes eye shadow Ezra Pound F. Murray Abraham F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Valentine Hooven III Faber Fabio Moon fable Facebook Activism facebook arguments Faggots Fahrenheit 451 failed environment Failed Hero Failed Writer failure Fairy Tale Faith Fallacy Fall Out 4 family Family Guy Family Guy Ipecac Fan Culture Fans fantasy Fareed Zakaria Farley Granger Farm-Aid Farm Crisis 1980s farting fart jokes Fart Proudly Fast Food Fastfood Nation Father-Son Relationship fathers fatwah Fat Woman Stereotype fear fear of death Fear of Laughter feces Federal Housing Administration Federico Infante Tutt'Art felching fellare Female Masculinity Female Masturbation Female Poets Female Sexuality Feminimity feminine energy Feminism femnism fencing Ferguson fertility festival Fiction Fidel Castro Fievel Goes West Fight Club Film Film Noire Film Presentations of Gay Men film review Finding Dory Finding Nemo Finnegan's Wake Fiona Staples fire Fire Demons Firehose Firehouse Shining fireworks First Lady Fish Fisherman fish sex Five reasons 'Gatsby' is the great American novel flags Flannery O'Conner Flashpoint Flawed hero flowers fly fishing Folk Hero folklore Fondation of Reality food chain For Argument’s Sake: Why Do We Feel Compelled to Fight About Everything? Forgetting Sarah Marshall Forrest Forrest Gump For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports fossils foundation of reality Founding Father Founding Fathers Founding Fathers Purity Myth Fourteen Stories None of Them are yours Fourth Dimension Fox News Fozzy Bear Fraggle Rock frame narrative FrameRate Francis Dolarhyde Francis Ford Coppola Francois Rabelias Frank Frankenstein Franklin J. Schaffner Frank Miller Frank Oz Franz Xaver Kappus François Rabelais Frasier Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings Frederic March Frederico Infante Fred Hembree Fred Kaplan Freedom freedom of information freeing the figure from the marrble free speech free will Free Working Press French Press French Revolution Freshman Year Composition Course Freud Freya's Unusual Wedding Frida Friday the 13th Friedrich Nietzsche friendship From Hell fruit juice fuck Fuck-ups fucking Full Frontal Full Metal Jacket funeral Fun Home Fusion Futurama Gabriel Ba Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal Gaius Cassius Longinus Gal Gadot gambling Game of Thrones Gandalf Gangs of New York Gangsters garden Garden of Eden Garnet Garth Ennis Gary Collison Gary K. Wolfe Gary King Gay Gay Batman Sex Fantasy Gay Leather Fetish Gay Macho: The Life and Death of the Homosexual Clone Gay Male Butt Cheek Gay Men Gay Men Comics Gay Movie Night Gay people in politics Gay Porn Gay Sex Gays in Politics Gaza Wall gender Gender Expectations Gender Fluid GenderFuck Gender Identification Gender Identity Gender Studies Gender Trouble Gene Kelly General George Patton General Omar Bradley generational gap generational trauma Genetically Modified Organisms genocide Genre Gentlemen Prefer Blondes Geocentric Universe Geoff Johns Geoffrey Rush geometry George C. McGavin George C. Scott George Gordon Lord Byron George Lucas George Orwell George Owell: A Collection of Essays George Takei George W. Bush George Washington Gerald M. Garmon Gerald of Wales German Legend Gertrude Stein Ghostbusters Ghost of Christmas Present Ghosts Ghost World giant cocks GI Bill gif/jif? Gilgamesh Gimme Shelter Girl in the Radiator Girls Girls Education Girl Up glasses Glen Quagmire Gloria Steinem Goals Goat-Demon Imagery Goats Shit...A LOT god God's Little Acre god is not Great gods Godwin's Law Goethe Gonzo Good and Evil Goodfellas Good Morning Vietnam GoodReads Good vs Evil Goofy GOP Gordon Gecko Gore Vidal Go Set A Watchman Gotham Gothic Gourmet government acountability GPS Gracie and Frankie Graduate School Graduate Student graduation graffiti Graham Chapman grammar grandchildren grandma Grandparents Grant Morrison grapes graphic novel Grave Robbers graveyard Gravity Great Courses Great Expectations Great Hookers I Have Known Great Speeches by Native Americans Great White Sharks Grecian Urn Greek Drama grieving Grinch Grocery Shopping Grotesque Groucho Marx Grouchy Old People growing Guest Author Guitar gum Guys H.D.F. Kitto H.G. Wells H.P. Lovecraft H.R. Haldeman Halcyon Haleth son of Hama Hal Halbrook Hal Incandenza Hallie Lieberman Halloween Hamburger hammer Hammond Typewriter hamsters Hands Up Don't Shoot Hank Williams Sr. Hannah and Her Sisters Hannibal Hannibal Lecter References Hans Zimmer Happy Birthday Harbinger Vol. 1 Harlem Renaissance Harmony Harmony the Sex Robot Harold and George Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle Harold Bloom Harper Lee Harpers Harrisson Ford Harry Belafonte Harry Morgan Harry Potter Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harvey Keitel Harvey Milk Harvey Milk gives me hope Hastings Hatari Having erotic dreams/fantasies about sailors and whales is perfectly normal...Todd Hayao Miazaki Hays Code headband headphones Heart Beating Heart Shaped Box Heath Ledger Heavy Metal Hector He did it with a bucket Heimdall Helena Bonham Carter Hell henge Henry David Thoreau Henry Drummond Henry Ford Henry Hill Henry Killinger Henry Kissinger Henry Louis Gates Jr Henry Miller he Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants Here's Johnney! Herman Melville Hermoine Didn't Masturbate and Neither Did Jane Eyre Hero heroes Heroes of the Homosexual community heteronormativity High Anxiety Hillary Chute Hillbillies Hippie Historical Accuracy history Hitch-22 Hitchcock-Truffault Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Hitler Fetish Hobbits Hocus Pocus Holden Caulfield Holidays Hollywood Home Owner’s Loan Corporation Homo-Social Relationships Homoeroticism Homos Homosexual Clone Homosexuality Homosexuality as mental illness Homosexuality History Honda P2 Robot Honest Trailers honey Hook hooker Hookers Hope Hope Speech Horace Smith Horns horror Horror Fiction Horror Movies Hostel hot alien babe Hot Fuzz Houen Matsuri housewives Howard K. Smith How Hiram Really Died and What Came After How People Become Atheists How to Make Love like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale How To Talk to Girls At Parties How Unpleasant to Meet Mr. Eliot HR 40 Hubris Huckleberry Hound Hugh Hefner Hugh Jackman Human/Robot Love Story Human Beings Perception of Reality Human Body Human Developement Human evolution human exploration Human Ideas are Grander than any Religion humanity Human Memory Human Narcissim Humbert Humbert Humor humors Hunger Games Hunter S. Thompson Hurricane Lolita husbands and wives Hyena Hymn to Intellectual Beauty I'm almost positive the song Tribute is the song they couldn't remember but I realize that's a controversial position I'm Going to Go Back There Someday I'm Not a Racist But... I'm Tired I've Been Down That Road Before I, Claudius Icarian Games Icarus Ice Cream that ISN'T Ice Cream Ida Tarbell Idealism identification Identity Identity Crisis Idris Elba If they ask if you want Pepsi throw over the table throat punch the shit out of them and then proceed to burn that motherf@#$er down If you're reading this pat yourself on the back because you can read and that's awesome ignorance I have Measured Out My Life in Coffee Spoons and K Cups I know too many Michaels I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings I Like It Like That I Like it Like That: True Stories of Gay Male Desire illusion Illusion of choice I Love Lucy I Love Lucy Mug iMac imagination Immanuel Kant immigrants imperialism Imposter Complex Impressionists incest Incorporation of images in Pedagogy Independence Day Independent Comics Indie Fiction Individual Initiative Individual Will Industrial Nightmare industry infidelity Infinite Jest Infinite Jest Blogs Infinite Possibility Infinity Informed Democracy Inherit the Wind Injustice innocence vs ignorance In One Person Inquisition insanity Insects Inside Out inspiration integrity intellectual Intellectual Declaration of Independance Intellectual masculinity Intellectual Parent Inter Library Loan internet Interview invert Invisible Man Invitation to a Beheading Ion IOWA iPad Ipecac iPhone ipod IRA I Racist Iran-Contra Irish history Irish Writers I Ruck, Therefore I Am Isaac Asmiov Isaac Deutscher Isabel Allende Isabella St. James Ishmael Islam isolation Israel Issa Rae It It's an Honor It's truly truly difficult to find good coffee and by good coffee I mean the type that leaves you feeling as if you've actually tasted something beyond human understanding close to the furnace of all Ivory Tower of Academia I wandered lonely as a cloud I Want a Wife I Was a Playboy Bunny I Will Fight No More Forever J.D. Rockefeller J.D. Salinger J.K. Rowling J.R.R. Tolkien J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century J. Robert Oppenheimer J.Y. Smith Jack-O Lantern Jack Halberstam Jack Lemmon Jack Nicholson Jacob Marley Jaimee Fox Jake Gyllenhaal James A. Berlin James Franco James Joyce James Mason James Walker Jamie Lee Curtis Jammer Jammer's Books Jammer Talks Jammer Talks About Janelle Asselin Janet Leigh Jane Tompkins Janitor Jared Leto Jason Momoa Jason Robards Jason Segel Jason Walker Jasper Fforde JAWS Jazz Jean-Baptiste Clamence Jean-Paul Sartre Jeffrey Brown jem Jenna Jameson Jennings Jenny Kleeman Jerome Lawrence Jerry A. Coyne Jesse Ventura Jessica Rabbit Jessica Roake Jesus Jewish men Jewish mother Jim Crow Laws Jim Gaffigan McDonalds Jim Gordon Jim Henson Jim Henson: A Life Jim Henson: The Biography Jimmy Breslin Jimmy Conway Jimmy Stewart Jim Woodring Joan Quigley Joe Hill Joel Myerson Joe Pesci Johann Sebastian Bach Johnathan Franzen Johnathan Hyde John Bernard Books John Bunyan John Carpenter John Carroll Lynch John Cleese John Colapinto John F. Kennedy John Gavin John Goodfellow John Harvey Kellogg John Irving John Keating John Keats John Knowles John le Carre John Lee Hancock John Lennon John Lennon Vs Harry Potter John McCain Puppet John McTernan John Metta John Milton John N. Mitchel John Oliver John O’Meara John Quinn John Steinbeck John Thomas Scopes John Wayne John Wayne Westerns Joker Jonathan Kemp Jonathan Luna Jon Lee Anderson Jon Stewart Jon Stewart if you're reading this please come back we miss you Joseph Burgo Joseph Cohen Joseph Heller Joseph Stalin Joshua Jammer Smith Josiah Bartlet journalism Journalistic Credibility Journalistic Integrity Joyce in Bloom Judaism Judge Doom Judge John M. Woolsey Judi Dench Judith Judith "Jack" Halberstam Judith Butler Judy Brady juggler Julius Caesar July 4th Jumanji Jumpin Jack Flash Jump in the Line Jurassic Park Just for the record Henry Kissinger is a collossal asshat and is perhaps the most revolting human being that has walked this earth and I just wanted to remind you of that fact along with the fact that Justice Justin Hall Just Say No Kake Kansas Kapital Karl Marx Kate Kate Dickie Kate McKinnon Katharine Graham Katherine V. Forrest Keep it Gay Keira Knightly Keith Haring Keith Richards Keith Richards's Hands Kelsy Grammar was a GREAT Beast Kenneth Clark Kermit the Frog Kevin Birmingham Kevin J. Hayes Kevin Spacey Kill Bill killing animals for food Killing in the Name King King George VI King James Bible King Lear Kingsman-The Secret Service Kinsey Kirk Douglass Kirsten Dunst Kissing Ass Kissinger Kissinger: A Touch of Evil Kitty Fane KKK Knights knots knowledge Korean War Kouri Kristin Wiig Krysten Ritter Kubla Khan Kurtis J. Wiebe Kyle MacLachlan labia majora labia minora Labyrinth Lady Gaga Lady Kluck landscape Langston Hughes Language Language of Cinema Language of Lord of the Rings Lani Kaahumanu Larry Kramer Larry Wilmore Last Week Tonight Lateralus Laughter Laura Laura Bates Laura Dern Laura Herring Laura Palmer Laurel and Hardy Lauren Bacall leaf leather Leather Daddy Leatherface Leather Straps Leaves of Grass lecture Lee Harvy Oswald Left Behind Legend of Zelda Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past Leley M.M. Blume Lemon & Ginger Le Morte d’Arthur Lenore Leo Bersani Leonard Nemoy Leonardo DiCaprio Leon Trotsky Leopold Bloom Leopold in Bloom Leo Tolstoy Lesbian Gym Lesbianism Lesbian Porn Lesbian Pulp Fiction Lesbian sex Lesbian sexuality Lesbians in White Leslie Jones Les Miserables Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls letter Letter from Birmingham Jail letters to a young contrarian Letters to a Young Poet Letter to a Christian Nation Lev Davidovich Bronstein Lewis Carroll Lex Luthor LGBT History LGBTQ Fiction LGBTQ Suicide Rate Liberalism and Homosexuality Liberty Libraries Library Library's Social Function Library: An Unquiet History Library as Civic Center library card Library History Library Philosophy Life life drawing light light-bulb Lighthouse of Alexandria Light in August Light vs Dark Lincoln Linda Cardellini Lindy West Lines Composed in a Downtown Jazz Bar linguistics lintel Lionel Logue L is for Lesbian literacy Literary and Philosophical Essays Literary Canon Literary Criticism literary education Literary Fiction Literary Rivalry Literary Theory Literary Theory: An Anthology, 2nd edition Literature Little Red Book Little Red Riding Hood Little Richards Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds Livy Lobster Lobsters are Bugs Local History Lock & Key Logan logos Loki Lolita Lolita Garden Scene Lollipop Chicken Long Read Long term effects of radiation Loony Tunes Loraine Hutchins Lord's Prayer Lord of the Flies Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings Lorne Michaels Lorraine Bracco Los Angeles Los Angeles culture Love Love isn't about ALWAYS agreeing Love Poetry Love Story LSD Luce Irigaray Lucky Buddha lufthansa heist Lugene Tucker Luke Goebel Luna Lovegood lust Lymericks Lynchian Lyndall Gordon Lyndon Johnson M.E. Smith M.M. Bakhtin Mabel Loomis Todd Macbeth MacBook Pro Mackintosh Mac McDonald Madam Xanadu Mad Max Fury Road Madness as Sublime Madonna magic Maiar Maine Lobster Maine Loster Festival Malala Yousafzai Male Persona Male Sexuality Man-Stache Mandingo Fighting Mandingo myth Manga Manhood in America: A Cultural history Manifest Destiny Manipulation of men Manipulation of women Manolin Man the Reformer Man Thinking manuscript Mao-Zedong Maps Marcus Antonius Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap Margot Robbie Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe: The Woman Who Died Too Soon Mario Kart Marion Crane marionette marital rape Marjane Satrapi Mark Bingham Mark Frost Mark Hamil Mark Millar Mark Twain Mark Twain: American Radical Mark Twain Annual Marlin Marlon Brando Marrakech Marriage Marshall McLuhan Marshall Plan Mars Symbol Martin Freeman Martin Luther Martin Luther King Jr. Martin P. Levine Martin Scorsese Martin Sheen Marvel Marxism Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft masculinity Masculinity: Identity conflict and Transformation Masculinity Studies Mason Crumpacker Mason Crumpacker and the Hitchens reading list mason jar Masque of the Red Death Mass consumerism Mass Shooting Master Nicolas Masterpiece Theater Masturbation Math mathmatics Matilda Matt Damon Matt Fraction Matthew Battles Matthew Shepard MAUS Max Hastings Maya Angelou Maynard James Keenan May Sarton McClure's McDonalds McDonalds Brothers meat mechanical pencil mechanical pencils Medea Medical abnormality Medieval Philosophy Medieval Physiology Medieval Romances Mein Kampf Mel Brooks Melissa McCarthy Melkor Memento Mori Memes memoir memory Meno Menocchio Meow merchendise Mere Christianity merkin Merrium-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary Merry Meta metacognition metaphors Metopia Meursault Mexican American War Michael Berryman Michael Bronski Michael Brown Michael D.C. 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The Author

Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith

Joshua Ryan "Jammer" Smith

I received my first name "Jammer" as a drunk rugby player pointed to my mother as she suffered my relentless in utero kicking and said, "Hey he's jammin her! Jammer!" Since then the name has stuck. As of this writing I'm in my mid twenties, dreading my early thirties, attempting to grow a beard, working on achieving my masters in English and Rhetoric, doing everything in my power to get a collection of short stories published, and as always trying to understand what my wife sees in me. I knew that I had to be a writer (one does not become an artist one simply becomes aware of one's abilities) during my sophomore year of high school when my teacher gave me her copy of Stephen King's The Green Mile. Like a man possessed I drank up the writings of King and other writers like him until I experienced Christopher Hitchens in a two year hiatus from school. Since that time I have done everything in my power to grow and improve as a writer. It is who I am and everything I want to be, except of course for Cookie Monster (and maybe Rolf the Dog but only for the musical talent). My nonfiction work is mostly devoted to this blog or academia, but in my fiction I act as a crazy wisdom shaman attempting to demonstrate and examine societal norms and sexual politics. Should my work every become published I promise to make the announcement here. I hope these essays encourage any and all who read them, to not only think for themselves, but also to consider reading the great works examined here. Finally, a note on the title of this blog. Intellectuals have often been attacked for retreating into the "ivory towers" of their mind, rather than living in the real world. I mistook "ivory" for "white" when I wrote the title, I couldn't remember the damn word, and by now it's too late to retreat. I even remarked to my sister that this mistake could easily come to disaster should anyone replace the "t" in tower with a "p." I do not deny that I live often within the confines of my own mind rather than in reality, but when I do retreat into that space I consider myself fortunate that I may retreat into a space brimming with ideas and knowledge. I do not apologize for being an intellectual, even if it's a dirty word, especially if it is a dirty word. It will be my life's effort to further pursue knowledge and wisdom, understanding clearly that I shall never possess even a fraction of it all. But I will try. If you enjoy this blog, or would be interested in writing for the site, you can contact me via the email address at the end of this paragraph, no book, essay, film, short story, play, etc. is off topic, though I do have to approve the essay before I publish it. Thank you for your time, and thank you reading. whitetowerhrcontact@gmail.com

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