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Life Is Like Pizza

2010-09-20 · letter vlog · John · 3:48 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Books & writing · mode: Personal essay · tags: recurring series, community lore

In an open letter to 15-year-old Hank, John argues that critical reading (shown through Bloom's definition of a nation in Ulysses) reveals there are no easy definitions separating 'us' from 'them', and that reading is a way into seeing other people as we see ourselves.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — John proposes a theme week: open letters to their 15-year-old brothers; 'do you like my shirt' is rhetorical

  • ★★★ John proposes a theme week this week (week of 20 September 2010): open letters to their 15-year-old brothers. (hedged) — 00:00:00

00:00:09 — Letter to 15-year-old Hank: life is a lot like pizza; is pizza American, Italian, Greek or Brazilian (6000 pizzerias in Brazil); 15-year-olds feel English-class symbol hunting is torture

  • ★★ John tells 15-year-old Hank that life is a lot like pizza, asking whether pizza is American, Italian, Greek or Brazilian. (playful) — 00:00:14 · United States

    “life is a lot like pizza.”

  • ★★ John says Brazilians eat more pizza than anyone in the world, with more than 6000 pizzerias, enough to eat at a different one every day for 18 years. (playful) — 00:00:20

  • ★★ John says that, like many 15-year-olds, Hank feels being made to look for metaphor, symbolism and theme in English class is a kind of torture. (playful) — 00:00:39

00:00:48 — What critical reading does, shown through Ulysses: Bloom's definition of a nation, Irish and Jewish in-betweenness, insiders and outsiders, better conversations than the giant squid of anger

  • ★★★ John says critical reading helps us understand what to think about and gives us a framework for how to think about those things. — 00:00:51 · also in: Non-VIrgin...a Lexical Gap?

    “helps us understand what to think about and it gives us a framework for how to think about those things.”

  • ★★★ John retells a bar scene in James Joyce's Ulysses: asked what a nation means, Bloom says the same people living in the same place, or also in different places, and is mocked. — 00:01:03

  • ★★★ John says the reader realizes that we have no better definition of what makes a nation, or of what membership in any community means. — 00:01:21
  • ★★ John says Bloom is in an in-between space: Irish but also Jewish, which many characters in the novel see as inherently un-Irish. — 00:01:32
  • ★★★ John says we all want to be on the inside of our communities (Ireland, the US, a clique, Nerdfighteria), and whether insiders need outsiders is a hard question Ulysses explores. — 00:01:39 · United States, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ John says asking what we really mean by such identifiers is a better start for conversations about who is American or a Nerdfighter than shouting at each other. — 00:01:54 · United States, Nerdfighteria, giant squid of anger

00:02:15 — Is pizza American? Pizza is so ubiquitous it is hard to define, and people are the same way (Italians in Italy, America, of Chilean descent)

  • ★★★ John says pizza is so ubiquitous that it is hard to say what pizza even is, and people are the same way. (playful) — 00:02:31
  • ★★ Applying Bloom's definition, John notes there are Italians in Italy, Italians in America and Italians of Chilean descent. (playful) — 00:02:44 · United States

00:02:54 — Conclusion: critical reading shows there are no easy definitions of 'us' and 'them'; author's intent doesn't matter; reading is a way into seeing others as ourselves; sign-off and diet joke

  • ★★ John says the readers should be laughing at the men mocking Bloom, who think there is some easy, uncomplicated definition of Irishness. — 00:02:54
  • ★★★ John says the fundamental thing all critical reading does is reveal that there are no easy definitions that distinguish 'us' from 'them'. — 00:03:00 · othering
  • ★★ John says reading with an eye toward metaphor lets us become the person we are reading about, which is why books have symbols and English teachers deserve attention. — 00:03:08
  • ★★★ John says it doesn't matter whether the author intended a symbol, because the job of reading is not to understand the author's intent. — 00:03:16

  • ★★★ John says the job of reading is to use stories to see other people as we see ourselves; then the world looks like endless beautiful variations of pizza. — 00:03:23 · perspective-taking

    “the job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as we see ourselves.”

  • ★ John, who is on a diet, wonders whether he made the whole video so he could eat one piece of pizza. (playful, hedged) — 00:03:42

Humor (significant)

  • Writing to 15-year-old Hank, who suffers through English-class symbolism, John reveals his future. — 00:00:48

    “By the way, fifteen year old Hank. I am now an author.”

  • John acts out today's style of discourse by shouting 'I'm a Giant Squid of Anger, I do not listen to you!' — 00:02:10

    “That form of communicating hurts not only the quality of discourse, but also the quality of my glasses.”

  • Eating a slice of American pizza, John explains how it differs from Italian pizza. — 00:02:24

    “this pizza is fortified with sodium which is a mineral, or a vitamin. All I know is that it's good for you.”

  • After a whole essay on critical reading built around pizza, John eats a slice. — 00:03:42

    “Did I make that entire video so that I could eat one piece of pizza on my diet? Maybe.”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: close reading · Leopold Bloom · nation · othering · perspective-taking · Ulysses

Also: authorial intent · Brazil · giant squid of anger · Ireland · Italy · John Wyse Nolan · pizza · United States

Only in the description or credits: James Joyce

Also centred on close reading: The Return of Question Tuesdays · OMFG CATCHER IN THE RYE!!! · The Catcher in the Rye, Part 2 · Question Tuesday! Paula Deen Riding Me (and critical reading) · Question Tuesday: TFIOS Movie, Existential Crises, and Symbolism

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 3 videos, 2010-09-20 – 2010-09-24.