January 28, 2012
one of my favorite students - he must be about 5 or 6 years old in north american years - one day hit upon a nickname for me that he found hilarious.  ”paul-t monkey honeybee”.  when the kids speak this name, it’s said as though they are probing something… testing authority.  they laugh and i laugh with them, encouraging this kind of mischief.  (how sad were the teachers who couldn’t bear it when they weren’t taken seriously?  i remember a few from junior high school…) there’s a sonorous pleasure in the way they speak it, very metered, with an emphasis on the second syllable.  paul-TEE mon-KEY hon-EY bee.  and then this week, another of my favorite kindergarten students started making these iconographic images to accompany my title.  they’re really bizarre.  i only have one at home here, will have to bring the rest back.  she also writes stories about me falling into poo-poo.   i looked at these drawings today and they seemed linked to the question of self-representation that this form - the tumblr form - always brings up for me.  which parts of the self to put forward?  i’d like to lower the gates… more immediately and actively give expression to my thoughts… make this a repository for all the complexity, embarrassment, sentiment, thought and experiences.   always takes a long time.   and a cringe.   hi trevor!

one of my favorite students - he must be about 5 or 6 years old in north american years - one day hit upon a nickname for me that he found hilarious.  ”paul-t monkey honeybee”.  when the kids speak this name, it’s said as though they are probing something… testing authority.  they laugh and i laugh with them, encouraging this kind of mischief.  (how sad were the teachers who couldn’t bear it when they weren’t taken seriously?  i remember a few from junior high school…)

there’s a sonorous pleasure in the way they speak it, very metered, with an emphasis on the second syllable.  paul-TEE mon-KEY hon-EY bee.  and then this week, another of my favorite kindergarten students started making these iconographic images to accompany my title.  they’re really bizarre.  i only have one at home here, will have to bring the rest back.  she also writes stories about me falling into poo-poo.  

i looked at these drawings today and they seemed linked to the question of self-representation that this form - the tumblr form - always brings up for me.  which parts of the self to put forward?  i’d like to lower the gates… more immediately and actively give expression to my thoughts… make this a repository for all the complexity, embarrassment, sentiment, thought and experiences.  

always takes a long time.  

and a cringe.  

hi trevor!