I didn’t have much of a break at the beginning of this semester. I got here at 5am and slept and had a good dinner and immediately hit classes, two of which are at neighboring schools. I’m reading a bombastic French Novel: Huysmans’ A Rebours, Paradise Lost, Aeneid, as well as various articles and passages, as well as re-learning Japanese. I was reading Cultural Amnesia by Clive James and I started Swan’s Way but those will collect dust even though I make myself believe I’ll carve out time to read them this semester.

This is the second semester in a row that I’ve had a course at Mt. Holyoke, an all Women’s school. You’d think a boy getting to hang out at a girl’s school would be fun; I hate it. They have this awesome endowment, a lovely campus, and great resources. Their art museum houses ancient Greek potery, Roman statues, high Renaissance art, works by Millet, Picasso, Monet and many many other works. The room I take a class in has a plaster replica of a panel from Ghilberti’s The Gates of Paradise. It’s hard to be on their campus and not see some kind of treasure. But every time I’m on that campus my eye starts twitching in anger, it usually starts as I am riding the bus to the school and I sit around and listen to Mt. Holyoke students riding back from Amherst.

Let me explain. I really like listening to people. I like hearing about how people are feeling, how their days are going, what they think about politics and ideas and culture and art. But when I’m around Mt. Holyoke all I can hear is twaddle and the voices of women who take every opportunity to vie for a posture. They take every opportunity to make clear what majors they are, that they ride horses and sail, and will be touring Italy in the fall. In the few classes I have taken there, the active voices, the ones who raise their hands the fastest, take the longest time to make a point, and try and fit in personal anecdotes into their responses, tend to know precisely-DICK about art. What they do know is how to sell themselves. Now, I fully believe that the school is a great institution and must have quite a number of brilliant pupils, but I am just ranting about what is most visible. When at Hampshire obnoxious language is common but hearing passionate people talk about ideas is just as common. But at Mt. Holyoke all I can hear are girls shouting their pretensions and career goals.

Some Holyokisms:

Girl 1: I didn’t know you were in this class (an art history course)

Girl 2: (in a voice audible to everyone in a small auditorium) Oh, I’m a biochemistry major but I really love art.

Later in the semester I heard girl number 2 asking girl number 1 what is so important about Marcel Duchamp five minutes before the final exam. I’m not being a snob here. It’s perfectly fine if someone doesn’t know who Duchamp is, but when you are privileged enough to be taking an art class which is superfluous to your major, claim that you love art, and can easily open a web browser, go speak to a leading professor of art history, or SEE A PIECE BY DUCHAMP IN YOUR OWN MUSEUM you don’t have an excuse.

Another:

White girl walking with three other white girls: “God, I’m really sick of white people”

I can’t even comment on that one.

Every Monday and Wednesday morning, at 8am I’m on that campus, my eye twitching away.