Yooks and Zooks

         Dr. Seuss’ The Butter Battle Book was published in an age of paranoia.  It was 1984, and President Ronald Reagan had already been in office for four years.  His opinion of the “Evil Empire,” or USSR, was well known.  The rest of the USA reflected that stance, while the Soviet Union plainly requited them in their fear and loathing.  And both sides were staring at each other across the oceans, looking very much like they were ready to do something about it.

                                                             

During the early 1980’s the Iron Curtain still held strong, and the Berlin Wall would keep standing until 1989.  In 1980, the very year that Reagan became president, France detonated their first neutron bomb.  Not that this was exactly breaking news; France had had nuclear weapons since 1960, along with the UK, the USSR, and of course the USA.  By the 80’s that roster also included Communist China, India, and Israel. 

On November 18, 1981, President Reagan announced his plan to spend $180 billion on arms over the next six years.  The next year Reagan banned US citizens from traveling to Cuba.  The year after that, he announced his support for the Nicaraguan Contras.  Also in 1983, the CIA denied that an airliner shot down over the USSR had actually been on a spy mission as the Soviets claimed, and the US Marines invaded Grenada.

        

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts.  He went to college in Dartmouth College, where he worked for the Jack-O-Lantern (Dartmouth’s humor magazine), until he was dismissed for violating prohibition laws.  He continued contributing occasionally under assorted aliases, his first use of the nom de plume “Seuss.”  Later, he briefly attended Oxford, where he met his future wife.  It was she who pointed out that he was wasting his time with higher education when what he loved so much was his illustrations.  He agreed, and from then on devoted himself full time to his art. 

Before WWII, Geisel worked for the Saturday Evening Post, Standard Oil (creating ad campaigns for Flit bug spray for over 15 years), and PM Magazine.  During WWII Geisel made training movies with Frank Capra’s Signal Corps.  It was there that he was introduced to the art of animation, and used a cartoon character he named Private Snafu in a series of training films. 

He was working with the SC when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed in 1945, and watched tensions between the new World Superpowers continue throughout the Cold War and into the 1980’s.

There have been two stories told as to why Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated children’s books.  The first, told by Seuss himself, was that a clause in his contract with Standard Oil prohibited him from ever writing in a variety of fields, but not children’s books. There are others who say that Dr. Seuss loved a good story better than being straight with the press.  These others point out that he wrote his first children’s book in the same year that he and his wife, Helen, found out they would never be able to have children of their own. 

Either or both stories might be true, or the truth might be something entirely else: correlation does not prove causality.  But whatever the reason, the fact remains that Dr. Seuss, who had employed himself with the Saturday Evening Post and the Signal Corps making political cartoons, was now creating nothing but children’s books.

On November 23, 1983, Yuri Andropov, General Secretary to the USSR, announced an increase in the number of missiles aimed at the United States.

On January 12, 1984, Dr. Seuss published The Butter Battle Book.  The book begins,

“On the last day of Summer, ten hours before Fall . . .

. . .  my grandfather took me out to the Wall.”

   

The seasons were changing and the precursor to Winter was upon the land.  Indeed, it would happen literally any moment.  During the time when this book was first published, I remember hearing again and again about Nuclear Winter, and the devastation it would cause across the world for thousands of years.  One wonders if the rest of the Butter Battle Book story took ten hours for Grandfather to tell, and if this childlike “Once Upon a Time” is not a grim foreshadowing of the fate that befalls the child narrator as soon as the pages are closed.

The Wall is always capitalized, a deliberate barrier reminiscent of the then-standing Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain both.  In this Seussian land, the Wall separates two almost identical nations – the Zooks and the Yooks.  The Yooks, from whose point of view the story is told, are dressed in fine Union blue.  The Zooks, on the other side of the wall, are dressed in red, the traditional (in the USA) colour of Communism.  They are enemies over a minor point of ideology that they revere above all else: upon which side to butter their bread.

In 1984, there were Communists and Capitalists.  With “bread” being an old slang term for money and “bread and butter” being one’s career, any good capitalist knows “which side of his bread is buttered on,” a common euphemism for knowing where one’s money comes from. 

To most capitalists, the most obvious difference between Capitalism and Communism is in resource dispersal.  Unlike in Capitalism, in the ideal Marxist Communist state everything is divided according to need, and given to the commonwealth according to ability. A minor point of contention, really, especially if one reads the Communist Manifesto.  Many of the demands therein have been granted by Capitalist systems over the decades, in fact, including the establishment of a public educational system.  But this was more than sufficient reason for humans to kill each other, so the spread of butter did well enough for the Yooks and the red-wearing Zooks.

As the first passage makes clear, the narrator in The Butter Battle Book is the grandson of the Yooks’ Wall sentry:

“. . . as a youth, I made watching my goal, watching Zooks for the Zook-Watching Border Patrol!”

   

 In 1950 Joseph McCartney had claimed there were 205 Communists in the State Department, and Klaus Fuchs was sentenced to 30 years for spying for the Soviet Union.  In 1984, though McCarthyism was not quite so blatant as it once was, the USA still feared spies and enemy action.  Small wonder, then, that the Yooks were constantly vigilant against their hated enemies.  But the narrator himself is almost completely uninvolved in such matters.  Much like the grandson in Andronicus Titus, he is simply a witness to his grandfather’s tale, listening in awe as the old Yook tells him of the arms race that has led them to this final conflict.  Such is the fate of children.

Almost the entire book, therefore, is a flashback narrated by the boy’s grandfather to him, as he in turn shares it with us.  The grandfather is not an evil man, in fact he is very loving.  But he is a product of his culture, and his nationalistic fervor is merely a reflection of the Yooks around him. 

From a simple snick-berry switch to discourage Zooks from the wall, to a slingshot, to a compound slingshot, to explosives, to bombing aircraft, each time in turn the Zooks matched the Yooks weapon for weapon, sometimes outdoing them.  Ultimately, the arms race of the Yooks and the Zooks ends in the weapon to end all weapons: the Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo, a small pill capable of destroying both countries at once.

At this turn, as the story spins into its conclusion, we find we are hearing again from the grandson at last.  He is the innocent, swept along by forces outside his control, knowing just enough to stare in horror at what is about to happen. His grandfather welcomes him to the Wall as a witness to the making of history as, in an act of pure genocide, the Zooks are to be wiped out as a people completely.

“You will see me make history! Right here!  And right now!"

The story is unusual in Seuss’ works, in that there is no tidy conclusion.  Seuss allowed for no gentle solution as he did in Horton Hears a Who, no point where kindness wins the day as in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, not even a small ray of hope and call to action among his young readers such as in The Lorax.  But there was no happy ending to be seen in real life, either.  With the Communist and Capitalist powers poised, each with fingers on their prospective buttons, Seuss ended the book with each Wall sentry holding his own identical doomsday pill over the Wall . . .

"Grandpa! I shouted. "Be careful! Oh, gee!
Who's going to drop it?
Will you . . . ? Or will he . . . ?”
"Be patient," said Grandpa. "We'll see.
We will see . . . "

  

 We will see indeed.  The Iron Curtain fell at last, and the Berlin Wall was finally torn asunder.  But the bombs are still out there, be they nuclear, chemical, or germ.  And as the old-time Zooks have ceased being a problem – and/or the US has stopped being a problem for them – others have hopped up on the Wall to take their place.  The story is still just as relevant as it was almost 30 years ago.  And there’s still no happy ending in sight.

(Eagle and Bear cartoon courtesy of http://www2.potsdam.edu; Reagan cowboy cartoon courtesy of http://miloswanton.com; The Butter Battle Book is (c) Dr. Seuss.  All art is (c) their original artists and all rights are reserved.)

First of all, my apologies to my readers for the delay in this post.  It should hit before midnight, Blogger Standard Time.  However, I did completely lose track of time.  I apologize, and have taken steps to avoid such things happening again.

Now with that out of the way . . .

Last Friday, Lauren and I went to a costume party.  It was being thrown by a friend of hers for a lovely lady's birthday, and the theme was The Nightmare After Christmas.  Undead preferred, characters from the Tim Burton movie even better.

So, of course I went as the Doctor.  After all, he's allowed everywhere.  Just ask him.  This was partially because I already had most of what I needed for the costume, partially because makeup is a challenge when you have my level of face fur, and partially because it's cold out there, and the costume is warm.

Oh - and Tom Baker's birthday was recent.  Though I didn't know that at the time, I'm sure that was a reason as well.  That's just how clever I am.  I plan for contingencies I don't even know about.

I went as Tom Baker's Doctor, specifically.  Though he was not my first Doctor (Peter Cushing - you never forget your first), he is solidly one of my favorites, and the first that I watched faithfully.

(For some reason, my Blogspot is not accepting my photographs at the moment.  I will remedy this when I can.)

I think I make a decent Doctor.  I went to the Salvation Army and picked up a few garments I needed, and the Tigress was kind enough to lend me her scarf.  In the process of playing around and being as social as I was able (with frequent trips to quiet corners for head space), I was able to determine that, yes indeed, I still look good in a splendid waistcoat.  I haven't worn a waistcoat seriously since . . . well, let's just say a long time.

So, now I am experimenting.  More vests and button-up shirts may be in my future, and I plan to re-earn how to sew so I can do maintenance on my future outfits properly.  And I know just what my first hand-made waistcoat should be.  I've already picked out the fabric, such a lovely harlequin motley . . .

I have been influenced by many doctors over the ages, as I think of it.  Doctor Who, Doctor Teeth, Doctor Strange, Doctor Seuss . . . perhaps next week I'll speak more on one of them.  But for now, I bid you all a fond fare-ye-well, and remain

--Coyote.

Squeaking Under the Wire and Twit Notations

First of all, the good news: I got my blasted funding!

The Financial Aid office put me on Financial Probation, for reasons that currently remain unclear.  So, now I am on Financial Probation and Academic Probation, but I am allowed to borrow money from Uncle Sugar at exorbitant rates to educate myself. 

Had they sent me an email along with the written letter as is customary, I would have had the weekend to prepare.  But since they sent it snail mail only, I got the news Saturday night and quickly arranged to get books and everything else Monday.  Fortunately, my Monday class starts late – otherwise I would be mildly hosed.  Though only mildly – people have started classes without books before.  So, my trek through academia at Wossamotta University continues, at least for the time being.

I will jest about being a neo-luddite from occasionally, but in sooth something like this would be infinitely more difficult to navigate without the Internet.

Secondly, the renaissance sword group I run with, Random Wit and Rapier Twits, had a meeting not long ago, and I took some impromptu minutes.  I’m not going to post anything dealing with Twit business here, obviously – that would be rude.  And any tips here are the kind that Twits everywhere wish more troupes would follow anyway.  But upon reviewing the notes after I posted them, I realized that perhaps I should have edited for more than just typos. 

For what follows, the fault is entirely mine.  We were discussing costuming and garb.  I swear.

Men’s garb: loose shirt with long cuff or bracer.  No Imperial entanglements, please.   

Take a second shirt, in the name of Reason!  Ideally, three: have a back-up in case of tearing.  The underarm rip leads to Nippleman issues (and his faithful side-kick, Teat-Mutt).

Kilts are for Scots or Irish only.  Wrap-around or sewn.  No regimental, please.  Bunnies are fine.  “Mommy, what’s that?”  “Just let me die.”  Represent, man.  Represent.

The codpiece is out of style by Elizabeth, but was the padded bra of Henry’s age.  Disco goldfish.  Paunch noses.  Tickle-me Cookie Monster.  Vast, vast poetic license.  Come now, are we not comedy?

Skirts are long rectangle, or the gourd skirt Triangle Man effect.  Also bum roll.  Not what it sounds like.  Tapestries better for overskirt, heavy flannels are good too, but something with weight is required.  Modern materials are fine so long as it looks good.  But whatever skirt is on your waist, have it on a waist band, not on a drawstring.  I think so, Brain, but burlap chafes me so.

Ladies with bodices require boning, some more than others.  Laces can get almost anywhere.  Stays are also possible.  Bloomers for modesty.

[Character Name]: A ruff.  Muslin?  Something cheap, as always.  White, off-white.  Because there is nothing more pompous than a bird that has swallowed a plate.

Have a belt just for your equipment: it’s all about the thickness.

No capes.  Edna Mole is God.

Gangdam style is definitely Korean, not Japanese.  Apparently this is very important. 

Love sacks are much better than they sound.

For the record, the gaff about Gangdam Style being Japanese was mine – that’s how it ended up in the notes. 

While I do not currently perform with the Twits – that would involve lots of sunshine and crowded lanes – I am there for support.  They are a very fine group, and I think they are bringing something important back to the Ren Fest scene.  And, soon enough, the world will see what that is.

Sometime again,

--Coyote.

(Sunrise picture courtesy of musicandhappiness.com; coyote maze pic courtesy of sundaycomicsdebt.blogspot.com; characters from Bloom County were created by Berke Breathed; the Twits own themselves.  All rights reserved by their rightful owners.  No narwhals were harmed in the making of this blog, but some were exposed to Twilight novels and may still be feeling disoriented and hostile.  In case of narwhal encounter, use your best judgement.)