Getting ready for fall quarter

This weekend I finally got a piece of paper (not just spoken assurance) confirming that I will be teaching microbiology at Davis this fall. This means I’d better get cracking on the class. I should update my lectures, start gestating exams, and of course start working on this year’s haka.

A haka is a highly ritualized dance and chant in the New Zealand Maori tradition. Probably the most famous haka is the one performed by the New Zealand rugby team, the All Blacks, before each match:

The All Blacks Haka is intimidating, and it serves a purpose general to all hakas. It establishes a relationship, honors both members of the relationship, and clearly states the nature of the relationship. This haka, “Kapa o Pango,” concludes “Our dominance / our supremacy will triumph / and be placed on high! / Silver Fern! All Blacks! / Silver Fern! All Blacks!” The hand gestures emphasize the words, and the bulging eyes and extended tongues are to intimidate the opponent. Other hakas are gentler, with words and gestures that honor heroes or welcome guests.

Like the applause at the end of the quarter, the introductory haka is an academic tradition apparently unique to Davis. The origin of this tradition has to do with the unique circumstances of the university’s founding, and the surprising connection between central California and the South Pacific. It’s relatively well known that John Sutter, the Swiss émigré who founded Sacramento, came to California after a sojourn in Hawaii, and brought many Hawaiians with him. Less widely known is the connection between Davis and New Zealand. In 1906, when the University of California “University Farm” was established in rural Yolo County, there was a scramble to find experienced faculty for a diversity of agricultural programs. In addition to a viticulturist from Alsace and a rice specialist from Punjab, one of the hires was an expert in sheep husbandry, R. W. MacLaren, from New Zealand. To start without the need to train helpers, MacLaren brought with him a dozen of his own from New Zealand, including eight Maori men and their families.

Tragically, MacLaren died after only three years in Davis; homesickness drove him to drink, and he succumbed to liver disease. Before his demise, as a result of his growing debility, his teaching duties had been assumed by his chief assistant, the Maori shepherd George Te Wainoare. Te Wainoare went on to teach at Davis for over a decade, establishing excellent practices in the California sheep industry.

Te Wainoare also established the tradition of greeting his new students every year with a haka. A 1910 letter from sophomore L. H. Teter describes how “before so much as saying hello, the professor danced and yelled at us like a demon, sticking his tongue out at us. Clyde [Deacon] started laughing, but Nibs [Robert Gibbons] seemed genuinely scared…Teywiner [sic] explained that this was his people’s way…” Te Wainoare’s was a beloved teacher who enjoyed warmly collegial relationships with the rest of the faculty. This, combined with the strong strong Maori influence at “the farm” (there were eight Maori families, and only nine students in the first graduating class), it is not surprising that other professors and their helpers started doing their own hakas. The haka was well established at Davis by the time Te Wainoare returned to New Zealand in 1926.

The haka has evolved over a century in California. Professors still write their own hakas, as I must do now for my introductory microbiology class, and the content of the haka is appropriate to the class. The haka is still generally performed in the Maori tongue, though they have been done in the native languages of foreign-born professors and even, it is rumored, in Latin. As a bow to modern times, I will use the campus translation service to arrive at a serviceable Maori rendition (as well as to find suitable Maori words for “bacteria” and “microscopic”).

Despite these changes, the haka still serves to establish the relationship between professor and student. Students expect (and appreciate) a good, creative haka vigorously executed by the professor and the TAs. In return, each incoming freshman class composes a haka. This haka is performed only once, by the entire class, in an extremely moving ceremony during their graduation exercises.

I still haven’t worked out this year’s Microbiology 102 haka, and the haka is (by tradition) never recorded nor is the Maori chant written down. However, here is the English for last year’s introductory biology haka. I have to say that when the TAs and I performed it, it made quite an impression.

O ye small fry!

You were big fish in your pond

But we are sharks, we are sharks!

With this red pen

Your answers will bleed, will bleed!

We are the sharks!

We drive you and push you,

You will be lost, you will be confused!

The test will come

You will shake, you will tremble!

Would you contend with us?

Be rigorous

Hit the books, hit the books!

Consider and think

Grow in wisdom, in wisdom!

Be rigorous!

Consider and think

Then see us eye to eye!

academic blues

I was out walking Opal the page-turning dog the other day when I ran into M, who was walking her dog Petunia. While Opal and Petunia socialized in their doggy way, I talked with M, a biology professor who recently retired from Sac State. She no longer teaches, but she does a lot of advising. I rely on her for updates on Sac State, and she gets the skinny on developments in biology teaching at Davis from me.

The situation at Sac State does not foster optimism, for me or for the state's undergrads. The state's budget woes are terrible and unfortunately routine, meaning that the academic year starts without a budget. Classes are being cut, and M tells me that the biology department is experimenting with much larger classes. Despite this, classes are being cut. As an advisor, the best advice she can give many students is cynical and depressing: hope that many of your classmates fail.

This is unfortunately a reasonable hope. The bottleneck is introductory classes that must be completed for a major. Too many students can't hack these classes because they don't have the study or thinking skills required. They graduate from high school having been taught to take a specific test, rather than having been taught how to learn or think. And, as any geneticist knows, you get what you select for.

So, both at Davis and at Sac State, students are now taking classes--time consuming, full tuition, not-for-credit classes--to prepare for starting a major. Part of me is happy to see these, because I know from my own experience that they're necessary. But, I'm vexed that these classes are even necessary. And, as M informed me, they have a terrible attrition rate.

Addiction comes from infrequent, random hits of good feeling, and the individual successes in education are what make teaching so addictive. However, the vast majority of academic news these days is just so depressing.

Bowhunting

A big chunk of our time in the last week has been consumed with the quest for the ideal violin bow. Like the ideal violin, the ideal bow is a chimera. The ideal bow is light, so it can be moved prestissimo possible; however, it is also extremely strong, so that it can transmit the player’s energy to the violin string. The ideal bow is supple, allowing the violin to sing like the human voice, and it is also rigid, so that it can ricochet and jump off the strings. The ideal bow is completely self-effacing, a passive conduit that relays the violinst’s thought from hand to string, and it also has a unique, charming personality that brings new character to the violin. Since every violin is different, the bow that works for my violin won’t be the ideal bow for Duva’s violin. And since we are who we are, the ideal bow has a price tag less than $3,000.

There are two motives behind our quest for a new bow. One motive is a new violin, a fiddle that Duva purchased “in the white”, rethicknessed, varnished, and set up. The other motive is that, during the summer violin-building workshop, we both got to play something very close to the ideal bow. It was a Tourte. Tourte (who lived around the turn of the 18^th century) was the Stradivari of bowmaking. This bow was everything: light and strong, supple and rigid, neutral and charming. It made every violin sound so much better and gave even the worst of players (specifically, me) confidence in their ability to produce beautiful singing sound. When I closed my eyes, I felt as if the bow vanished, and there was a direct communication between my hand and the violin.

There is only one way in which a Tourte falls short of the ideal. They are available at auction only rarely, and could set you back $100,000.

So, the quest. It involves the hour-and-a-half schlep out to El Cerrito, home of Ifshin’s violins, a wonderland for string players. Once there, and once a price range has been established, we are presented with a bunch of bows and escorted to an acoustically-sealed practice room. Then, to the best of our meager abilities, we push the bows, one by one, in extremis. Find the balance point. See if it bounces off the string and lands on the string evenly over the length of the bow. Check for nimbleness off the strings with Kreutzer’s Etude number X. Try for long singing tones with the “Meditation” from Massenet’s Thais. Listen to yourself play, and if possible, stand across the room while the other plays. Then comes the impossible part—remember how the bow performs, and mentally compare it with the next bow, and the next bow, and the next bow…and after ten bows, try to narrow your choices down to three. The fine folks at Ifshin’s allow you to take these three bows home for further trials.

The next stage is to run the bows by our violin teacher. She has vastly more experience than we do, so we value her judgment on these matters. So, she does the same test that we do. With one, she makes a face like she bit down on a moldy strawberry. With another, she plays a bit, then plays some more, clearly liking the sound, plays some more, and shakes her head when trying the Kreutzer, and plays some more. She produces her report: this one is lively, that one is lyrical, this other one is…well, she knows the perfect word in Estonian, her native tongue. But talking about bows is like talking about wine, prone to poetry and utterly unreachable by accurately descriptive communication.

With her evaluations, it’s on to round two. The process repeats—a drive to Ifshin’s, an attempt to translate our teacher’s feelings into precise adjectives to tell the sales clerk, an hour of etudes until everything sounds the same to fatigued ears, sifting and winnowing, and a new trio of bows to choose from.

We’re at a stage where the bows we’ve selected meet with our teacher’s approval, though not her enthusiasm. No one bow stands out. Of the three bows, I like the mid-century German one for its Steinway-like neutrality. Our teacher likes the modern American one for its responsiveness and power. Duva likes the mid-century French bow for its lyricism. I have a feeling we’ll be going through at least another round of this process, and of course, we will never find the ideal—unless we somehow get a Tourte.

Violinists talk about the intimate relationship they have with their instruments in terms reminiscent of the terms most people talk about their life partners. However, most of the violinists I’ve met—that means, musicians who don’t have a Tourte at their disposal—play a bow that they are merely reconciled to playing. They have actively wandering eyes, and few of them would hesitate to abandon their current bow for something better.

Friday Flora: More from Spicer Meadows Reservoir

A couple more flowers from the trip to Spicer Meadows Reservoir. Both of these were growing in a cascade that emptied into the reservoir--a beautiful spot, shady and cool, and also the home of an ouzel. I didn't get a picture of the ouzel, but a photo wouldn't do much. To get the full ouzel effect, you have to have a movie. They are the bounciest creatures this side of Kangaroos, and seem endlessly cheerful.

Anyway, a wild onion:

And a lily, with a bit of the forest submerged in the reservoir in the background:

The swindle

I sometimes feel as though I need to apologise to my students. It's not that I am suffering from impostor syndrome. After five years of teaching, I'm mostly past that. The problem is that I sometimes feel that I am part of a con being run by the UC, an educational swindle. The UC offers something for sale, specifically, an education. Then, in exchange for the students' (parents') money, what is actually given is a summer session class: compressed, accelerated, pared-down, and severely compromised, with a slightly lower-than-average class of students. To be sure, there are some students who are not swindled. The go-getters are perfectly capable of thriving in these classes, and get their money's worth. There is also a class of students who are not after an education, but instead are pursuing a diploma. These students are also not swindled--as long as they get their passing grade, they have also gotten what they paid for.

However at least half of the students are simply not prepared to take the class. Their high school education or their freshman and sophomore classes leave them with inadequate study and thinking skills to cope with the class. As a result, they do not get the education they paid for. They might, if the summer classes were not compressed, or if K-12 education in California had not been gutted. But this is not the case, and the UC knows it, but continues to run the scam.

The UC's scam could be viewed as part of an intergenerational swindle. Michael O'Hare, a UC Berkeley professor, has posted a letter to his students apologizing for his part in this scam. You should go read the whole thing, but it starts:

Welcome to Berkeley, probably still the best public university in the world. Meet your classmates, the best group of partners you can find anywhere. The percentages for grades on exams, papers, etc. in my courses always add up to 110% because that’s what I’ve learned to expect from you, over twenty years in the best job in the world.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that you have been the victims of a terrible swindle, denied an inheritance you deserve by contract and by your merits. And you aren’t the only ones; victims of this ripoff include the students who were on your left and on your right in high school but didn’t get into Cal, a whole generation stiffed by mine. This letter is an apology, and more usefully, perhaps a signal to start demanding what’s been taken from you so you can pass it on with interest.

I can't apologise for Proposition 13, having been too young to vote when it passed, and I have generally voted with the losers in most California elections. Nonetheless, along with Dr. O'Hare, I proffer my apologies to my students.

Tuesday Musical Creep-out

My piano teacher brought this phenomenon to my attention. Seems appropriate after yesterday's Monday Musical Offering.

A bit creepy--a little like Beethoven via North Korean Mass Games.

Monday Musical Offering

(Inspired by Ron Butlin’s “Vivaldi and the Number 3”)

The notation grew thicker and tangled like a bramble, and somehow the notes themselves managed to look angry as they clung to the staves. The pen moved faster and got drier, finally just scratching the manuscript paper.

The composer paused as he dipped the quill in the inkwell, looked at what he had just written, and scowled. He ferociously scratched out most of what he’d just written, and spilled ink over the remainder. He threw away the quill, crumpled up the manuscript paper, and slam-dunked it into the recycling bin by his desk. He rose, strode over to the kitchen, counted out sixteen coffee beans, ground them, and ransacked the cupboards for a filter. Finding none, he went back to his desk, retrieved the crumpled manuscript from the recycling bin, and folded it into a rough cone. In went the grounds, in went the water, out came the inky coffee into the “World’s Greatest Composer” mug his no-good nephew had given him.

He angrily fished his cell phone out of his pocket and angrily punched the number (it seemed he did everything angrily, his analyst had told him. Of course, this was after he had angrily punched his analyst).

“Louie! Dammit! I’m thirsty!”

The voice of someone who did not want to be distracted answered. “Ludwig …What?”

“Louie, I want beer. Beer costs money. You’re my agent. You’re supposed to get me commissions, patronage! Pay for beer! You haven’t! Why am I giving you a percentage?! Where’s my beer? I can’t compose on coffee!”

“Ludwig, baby, calm down.” The agent took a few moments to figure out just what was going on with his cranky client. “Hey, I lined you up with that sweet gig with Archduke Rudy. Ain’t that going OK? He’s still rolling in the florins, ain’t he?”

“He’s rolling in florins. I am not. I need more gigs, Louie.”

The agent sighed loudly, as if he had to explain the concept of sharing to a three-year-old. “Look, Ludwig, the public’s kinda cool on you right now. Need I remind you how the reviewers felt about those dissonances in the Eroica? And the snit the censor had about Fidelio? And I’m doing pretty good to get any of your sonatas published. Nobody can play ‘em! Look, Ludwig, could you write something catchy, something hummable…something that will sell? Do that, and you can buy some beer—hell, I’ll buy you some beer!”

“Dammit, Louie, it’s 1806, I’m at the peak of my middle period! It says here in Grove’s that I’m a mature composer, writing heroic music, stretching the boundaries of the classical style! I can’t go writing dancehall music. It’s not heroic!”

“Ludwig, you want money for beer, you write music that people will pay for. It just so happens that I was about to call you. I’ve got a juicy commission for you.” Unheard by Beethoven, the agent was desperately flicking through his PDA. “Novelty act from Tyrol—“Josef Dreck und seine tanzenden Kuhen.” Joe got himself some Scottish Highland cattle for his act, and he needs some Scottish music for them to dance to. Something light and catchy. Nice tune, steady beat, cow could dance to it.”

“What!?! Me? Ludwig van Beethoven,” he roared into the phone and looked at his mug, “the world’s greatest composer? Music for dancing cows? Impossible!”

“Come on Ludwig, sweetheart, be reasonable. You could bang it out in fifteen minutes. Just do the piano score. Schuppanzigh can orchestrate it for you. Dreck’s willing to give you fifty florins up front plus 10 percent of the door and your name on the marquee…”

“Bah! I would pay to have my name removed from the marquee!”

“…just some nice easy Scottish-sounding tunes,” continued the agent, ignoring Beethoven. “You know, the censor himself was seen at Dreck’s latest show, he was quoted in Variety as saying “it was better than ‘Cats.’” This might just get you back into his good books, Ludwig. And,” the agent added with what Beethoven thought was wholly unnecessary emphasis, “you would get paid.”

Beethoven flipped the phone shut. He hated cell phones. Every year they got smaller and, he felt, quieter, and the satisfaction he used to get from slamming the handset down on the receiver of his landline was forever gone from his life. He looked at his ersatz coffee filter, opened it up, shook off the grounds and smoothed it out. A vision of a shaggy Highland cow danced through his mind. No, he thought, no bagpipes! Scotland, cows, stupid censors, beer. He mused about the last rave he played at. One of the gilded cosmopolitan hipsters busted some nice moves that he said came from Edinburgh by way of Paris—“Ecossaises,” the guy called it. The music was stupidly simple. A cow could dance to it.

To hell with it, he thought, this is for beer. Beer, beer, beer. He got out a piece of manuscript, set the timer on his cell phone for fifteen minutes, and wrote in a 2/4 time signature.