I mentioned in the previous long post about swashbuckling through some slides, and by that I really just meant that I carried myself with a certain braggadocio, the air of a too-cool teacher from the 'hood. It was a defense mechanism to hide the vulnerability I was feeling. But over time spent with these folks I realized that my personality is just that anyway, just a lower-key version.
At one point during someone's talk I turned to this young Irish lady who teaches at American University in Kirkuk, in the Kudistan region in Iraq, a young lady I got to know rather well as we conversed often and deeply (and whose name I never actually caught), I turned to her and asked what should have been one of the first question you ask anyone there but never do because we just assume, I asked:
"So are you a Pynchon head like the rest of us?"
She made a strange pout and thought for a second, "Um, no, just a reader..." and I could tell she didn't know what I meant. And then she said, "'Head' like, how? Do I love and study the guy?"
I said, "Yeah, yeah, like, do you love the work and search it out and the like..." and then I motioned to the rest of the room, "...most of these folks are scholars, but me, I'm more of a head..."
She smiled and said, "Me, no. Not me. My husband, though, he'd definitely a head," and she laughed halfway through saying the word 'head' in the same way you would if you self-consciously use another culture's slang in the way it's meant to be used even when it's mostly foreign to your normal vernacular.
Overconfident Californians, baby, spreading the Word!
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