Thursday, November 16, 2006

Don't get a Miltonist angry!

Or maybe that should be, don't get a Miltonist drunk and make her stand around in the extreme cold at a football game that her side is losing. No, really: don't do that. Or if you do, make sure that you're not sitting anywhere near her.

In honor of The Big Football Game this weekend, for which George Washington Boyfriend and I will be disappearing for the next several days, I'd like to share with the internets what happend at BFG two years ago, the last time the event was held in this particular location.

First, it should be explained that my alma mater, being an Eastern college of a certain vintage, has its share of terribly patrician alumni, and the same is true of our chief rival. This rapidly-aging species is especially in evidence at BFG, where they seem to cluster together--the fine-featured gents in their camel-hair coats and the wives with their careful hairdos and Ferragamo scarves draped about their shoulders like shawls. Walking past their tailgate parties I've seen table linens and dented silver cocktail shakers.

Our group of friends always puts together a tailgate, too, and although it's nothing like that, it does feature a goodly amount of alcohol. Two years ago Flavia imbibed rather a lot of that alcohol, in rather a short period of time, and was then hustled off to the horrors of this particular football stadium and this particularly hideous losing game. Now, over the years, we've wound up getting seats further and further away from the undergraduates and deeper and deeper into the alumni section--and this year we happened to be sitting in the midst of a big block of Rival School alumni, many of whom were of just the WASPy sort detailed above.

Flavia was not, perhaps, fully aware of whom she was seated among. Flavia was, perhaps, under the misapprehension that she was back in college, among the sort of students who competed to come up with the wittiest and most offensive cheers and insults in the course of the football game. But at any rate, as Alma Mater was losing, she went into that bit that she did all through grad school. That bit wherein she berated Alma Mater, asking why the school couldn't just win a goddamn fucking football game one fucking time when she gave this school her slave labor and and taught its ungrateful students--and, really, she didn't ask for much, but, goddammit! Couldn't the morons complete a motherfucking pass already?

(Normally this bit would have been enacted with little if any profanity--but, well, see "alcohol, consumption of," above. See also, "losing, again.")

The WASPy sexegenarians behind her were appalled. Somewhat amused, but mostly appalled. They murmured among themselves. And then said one archly to the other, in what I think of as the putting-in-the-monocle voice, "What do you suppose she teaches them with that mouth? Do you suppose she teaches them. . . Shakespeare? Or perhaps it's Dante?"

Clearly, said his tone, this dreadful woman wouldn't know the first thing about such subjects; she must be some horrid little scientist or perhaps someone who works on feminist studies or something. And oh, it just goes to show that INRU lets anyone in these days!

George Washington Boyfriend, overhearing this, couldn't resist turning around and saying, with a grin, "Actually, sir, you may not believe this--but she's a Miltonist."

WASPy gent looked horrified. "Oh dear. Thank you so much for telling me--if she heard me, she'd kill me!"

Now, this fella may simply have been abashed at being caught mid-condescension. But I've always prefered to think that there was something about the wrath of a Miltonist that struck particular fear into his heart.

11 comments:

MountainLaurel said...

Not much makes me laugh hysterically in my office, but this did!

I'm calling this a preview of when my two best friends and I will celebrate the 20th anniversary of our friendship. Copious amounts of alcohol will be consumed, and football may play a role also.

RageyOne said...

Oh goodness! That is too funny! Thanks for the laugh! LOL!

Professing Mama said...

I loved this story.

Never fuck with a Miltonist. It's a good credo to live by.

:)

St. Eph said...

I see a line of merchandise in your future. Hell, if Chaucer can make some cash from off-color mottoes, so canst thou.

And, dude, like there isn't a whole section of Shakespeareana dedicated to insults. I like to imagine that the onstage stuff was considerably raunchier than what the publisher saw fit to preserve.

Oso Raro said...

I'm not sure it's the Milton, most likely the fact that you're got a bit of Lady Sovereign in ya! (If you don't know her, look her up on ITunes)

I, for one, cannot believe you actually go to BFG! That's what I find really shocking about this post. Maybe some things should be kept in the closet :-P I only went once, when it was at that other place, got drunk too (natch), and don't remember much (I actually think I missed the game), but do remember a party the night before at a PU alum's house who was at grad school there, chugging Jackie D. on a dare str8 out of the bottle (ugly!), then making out with a beefy Puerto Rican from T* College also up for the game while La Zeez (equally drunk) just watched, almost like out of a Todd Haynes film.

Ah, sweet youth! It sounds like Peaches but was more like Square Pegs. Have a weinie for me :-)) I would ask you too for a PU baseball cap, but I'll be back out there in December so I might as well get one myself. Gotta keep up the butch facade, altho a baseball cap from PU almost screams "Effete Fudgepackette"!

My goodness, did I actually say that?! And I'm not even drunk! (looks forlornly where the bottle of Maker's Mark used to live, until it went away, i.e. was drunk)

Anonymous said...

Jesus, Oso Raro, that's scary. I was just closing my iTunes window where I was searching for Lady Soverign when I opened this page to your comment.

What do you recommend I get? I first discovered "Random" on a Live 105 Sixx Mixx out of SF here (Party Ben sorta started the mashup craze). I downloaded a few things -- Adidas Hoodie, Cha Ching, Love Me Or Hate Me -- but didn't like them as much as Random. Something about that bass line just does it for me, and I don't even have anything with a sub right now.

so which album should I go for first?

- scr

Flavia said...

Oso darling:

That sounds, really, not unlike many of my experiences at BFG, except for the fact that we actually do make it in the gates of the game! My friends and I go, mostly, because we were all in the band (which I believe was more or less the same during your time at INRU--which is to say, nuts). Plus, there are a damn lot of us near both schools. And then there's the fact that, perhaps, I secretly aspire to a monogrammed silver cocktail shaker life myself.

(Oh, and that's my brother asking you about Lady S.)

negativecapability said...

Sigh...Blakeans just don't inspire the fear and awe that a Miltonist does.

When people hear that I study Blake they usually want to listen to the Doors and smoke joints with me and talk about free love or something :)

Little do they know that Blake can be just as scary as Milton!

Pamphilia said...

Come not between the Miltonist and her Wrath!

Way to go. That is awesome. We should all try to be more like Miltonists in general.

Oso Raro said...

Flavia: I love the understated, elegant way you circumscribe the dissipation that is BFG. Hooray for the Band! Making it to BFG would have been good, but I was oh-so-sophisticated at PU (also, hung over), and never could rouse the enthusiasm, although if I knew then what I know now about football, I would been there with bells on (ahem).

SCR: Lady Sov is purely a track by track artist for me, so chacun à son goût. I must admit I only like her best-known singles (Random and Love Me...) but the Little Bit of Shhhh remix on Itunes is good, and Hoodie is cute, but in my book you've got her current greatest hits covered, for better or worse. If you're looking for album buying, I would go with Public Warning, as it seems to compile the hits from her first with later work.

Just my two cents :-)

Pamphilia said...

PS Now I finally understand why we haven't met yet in Real Life. Not that you're a secret BFG attendee (as an undergrad I went to the only prestigious new england uni where the football players were probably too stoned to score and I was too much of a pretentious black turtleneck theory-head to care) but that you're a Miltonist! I'm more of a late 16th century person. That explains it. Because otherwise we definitely would have encountered one another by now.