Boredom sits heavily on our heads. I've never seen so many blank faces in my life. He goes on and on and on and on, gesticulating, describing, hopping from one example to the next: "I died in a complex society!"
Here's a short poem written in the spiral-bound margin of my Anthropology notebook. It describes my professor, Marshall J. Becker, a self-professed brilliant University of Pennsylvania alumnus, forced for reasons of economics to teach "worms" at a "state college." At the end of the semester, I carried, pushed, pulled, and heaved-** his gigantic oak desk up a spiral staircase to the peak of the Old Library at then-West Chester State College on a sultry day just before finals, quite alone, by the way. Becker was off to a sabbatical, and I was off to find some aspirin. Thusly, this "worm" was awarded an "A" in his class--the only one!