When I was in the 7th grade we moved to Atlanta
so my dad could enter seminary at Emory on the GI Bill.
He wanted to be a preacher. He told the story from the pulpit--
it was only ironic later, in retrospect--about the farmer who did
the same thing, after seeing the clouds spell out PC, which he took to mean
Preach Christ. At the end of the first semester, his faculty adviser told him that
in his case the letters meant Plant Corn. To me, they mean pubococcygeus,
the muscle women contract when they squeeze their pussies shut.
To me, religion is restrictive. Censorious. I don't like censors.
The censor was the Roman magistrate who took the census.
There is thus a normative component to what is banned.
It's put to a vote, almost. A plebiscite. I don't want
a plebe telling me what I can and cannot read.
To me, a university writing program is like a secular
religious order. They pay too much attention to
the received tradition. Father O'Flaherty and Sister Agatha of
the terrible swift ruler. I have a problem with authority. Dogma.
It makes me want to run rabbits and bay at the moon.