Heard perhaps the most poorly-remembered Simpsons quote of all time today in "Culture and Politics." The only true elements remaining after the teaching assistant was finished were that the quote came from the episode "Homerpalooza" and that someone had said they didn't know if they were being ironic.

I resisted my inner geek and stayed silent. I'd already countered Prof. Clark's assertion last week that the Texan is the only character we see on the plane in Dr. Strangelove. I'm probably becoming "that guy," if that's a guy.

Our Simpsons-misquoting teaching assistant, incidentally, has claimed that Slim Pickens didn't realize Dr. Strangelove was a comedy. In the commentary on my DVD, at least, there's no such claim, and given that some of his lines seem inescapably comedic I'd like to know where this rumor is originating.

Lastly, today my professor said one of the strangest things I've heard in academia. I wrote it down immediately afterwards, so struck was I by how much it sounded like the words of an alien replicant new to our American cultural heritage:

"And Moses, as you all know, was the guy who discovered the Ten Commandments when they were given to him in the Sermon on the Mount."

That's sociology for you, I guess.

Meanwhile, my quixotic struggle to stop "safen up" from becoming an official member of the List of Neologisms on the Simpsons on Wikipedia continues. My guess is that there are only two dozen or so words actually coined by the Simpsons but I have neither the time nor (and this turns out to be the most important factor of all) the energy to fight for the purity of this list.

In any case, the list also includes words The Simpsons has "popularized" as well as a few snowclones and some words notable only for their mispronunciation, presumably to stop would-be nitpickers/fact-checkers like myself. My disillusionment with Wikipedia grows every stronger.

Finally, one last bit of news. My latest nonfiction essay, the one I was incredibly nervous about, was generally well-received tonight. And I got a lot of good, albeit slightly contradictory, feedback. It seems like everyone did tonight: this was one of the better workshops I've attended.

(Odd sidenote: I was thrown for a loop upon discovering that a bisexual girl in our class had described herself in her essay as "queer," and confused most of us, because she feels that "bisexual" implies a two-sexuality system or something like that. This seems ridiculous to me. The word "bilingual" doesn't restrict the number of languages, after all.)

Theoretically they could all have been patronizing me, just as we occasionally patronized some of the lesser writers in Fiction Writing when they made any sort of progress... but for once I've decided to be satisfied and not suspicious. The revision is due next week; I think I could really have something if I work at this.

Excited about writing. This is all part of their plan to crush my spirit forever.