The Wall

Witch number one, drown in a river! Witch number two, got a noose to give her! Witch number three, gonna watch her burn! Witch number four, flogging take a turn.

Children’s rhymes can be surprisingly morbid & violent.

I am a racist, I despise gingers and mudbloods, I hate Gryffindor house, and my parents work for the man who killed your parents. Do you want to be my friend?

The question is: do you want to be my friend? Because I think you’re trying to show me you don’t.

I don’t know why I was afraid of it all those years. I think I was concerned about falling in, but I have found that if I climb on top of the potty and I put one foot on either side of the potty hole rim, and get a firm footing, I’m actually quite safe. And you know, using the potty is a great time to socialize! You simply look over to the stall next to you, and you say, have a right chat with your neighbor. ‘Oh, hello there, good sir. First time using the potty, too, eh? Good luck, my man.’ Then you simply squat, like so, and I do my business… in my diaper as usual… and then I undo the side latches, and let the diaper simply fall into the potty. Yes, father will hear of this.

I’m glad to hear you have mastered that basic function, and I hope your parents are proud.

IDK whoever post this, plz don’t use pink for weird questions (well, not trying to judge). But wall, can you change that post to a different color? Pink is supposed to be used for mythical questions…. at least in my world. Hmm… I’m going to be an octopus today so I can spread all other posts BLACK! Since we’ve been hug-deprived with all the physical distancing thing, I’m going to hibernate…

I’m sorry to say that although you’re free to pick a color, you’re not free to prevent others from picking it. Please enjoy your octopus life. I admire the octopus skill of changing skin colors and patterns to match surroundings.

I didn’t choose the color. It was automatically chosen by something/somebody. Also, why do you think this is weird? It comes from the University of Michigan. No one there would find it weird.

Fair! Notwithstanding whether U. Michigan is weird, this excerpt from A Very Potter Sequel, was… unusual… shorn of context. Now that I know it’s quoted speech from a parody version of Draco Malfoy speaking to Goyle, I get the humor. There’s a lesson in here somewhere about how humor works when the audience knows the allusion.

I have a few questions. Don’t answer if they are too personal: If you had 3 wishes (with the same rules as Aladdin), what would you wish for? What is your guilty pleasure (example: chocolate)? What is your deepest desire? What do you consider to be the biggest flaw in your flawless personality? Do you feel comfortable sharing your ideological view with the world? Do you have any regrets? 

Wishes: that everyone would slow down, revel in the joy of being alive, and be more mindful of each other’s feelings. Guilty pleasure: the scent of floor cleaner. Deepest desire: to last as long as China’s Great Wall. Biggest Flaw: passivity. Ideological view: we should all assume people act in good faith until they show us otherwise. Regrets: I sometimes think I could have made a good exterior wall.

We can neither get coronaviruses nor drink corona beer…. but we walls do have our own health issues, for instance, post-its falling off (in my case) or, like my poor Dad, the apartment wall – he’s had some awful bouts of paint peeling in the past (but he’s all better now.) Worse, my Mom’s family are sea walls and one of my aunties was completely destroyed by a storm.

I am a library wall, so my values are to support and to protect by providing shelter to knowledge and the people who want it. Many people used loans to get more knowledge, and are now having great difficulty repaying them partly because they aren’t being fairly compensated for the value of their expertise and knowledge. Loan forgiveness would help ameliorate the immediate problem. It wouldn’t, however, solve the bigger problem, which is an “information economy” that depends on a lot of education but isn’t paying for that education.

Sometimes I just feel like kids have this wiseness that no adult could ever understand. Oh! I know someone who is very wise…Winnie The Pooh!

Gotta respect the wisdom of Pooh! “When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.”

8 9. Which, again, no biting.

Remember to always look on the positive side!

And Happy Friday to you! Thanks for your words of encouragement – I know my readers will appreciate them, too.

In regards to the werewolf that I mentioned earlier…well, I feel like a werewolf sometimes, and I do bite! Yummmy! Yeah I used to bite my therapist and dentist, not that much rn, but occasionally to ppl around me. U probably don’t know how it feels like to bite someone since you are a wall. Anyway, meow! There is nothing on the student conduct handbook that prohibits biting, right? Though I feel like they just throw students a disordered conduct when they want to sanction someone w/o a good reason. 🙁

No biting! I’m a wall, so pretty impervious to bites from everything but heavy machinery, but you humans have soft outer coverings that make you vulnerable to hard objects like teeth. Though I’m not a lawyer, I suspect state laws about assault and battery would cover biting were BC’s internal policies to fall short. But they don’t. The phrase “physical violence” is a good catch-all. Consent almost always provides good guidance: next time the urge to bite someone strikes, ask whether it’s OK if you bite them, and abide by the answer. No means no.

okey… human world is so hard to understand, I wish I’m a unicorn after all. lol

Be the mythical animal that is within you.

Did Washington know about the dinner?
Was there Presidential pressure to deliver?
Or did you know even then it doesn’t matter where you put the U.S. capital?

I’m not entirely sure, because I was not in the room where this happened. Though, point of family pride for me, an ancestor of mine through my Dad’s side was an actual dining room wall at 57 Maiden Lane, and saw and heard everything! But no worries, NYC has done pretty well for itself in the intervening years.

I know that cats Meow, dogs barks, but what noises do unicorn make? Also, is it okay that I always feel like a werewolf during full moon? Oh, and do you think BC will mandate a 14 days quarantine for all students given the increasing COVID cases – that would be a horror movie to my mental health lol.

I’ll take your questions one at a time. Unicorns: Would anyone know if they heard one? This book may have clues: bit.ly/BCL-unicorns. Werewolf: As long as you only FEEL like a werewolf, we’ll all be fine. Please don’t bite anyone. Quarantine: Unless numbers spin really out of control I assume BC will stick with the tried and true: quarantining known cases and contacts. The positivity rate at BC is twice what it had been, but is currently (last week) 0.8%. Middlesex County rate for the last two weeks is 2.8%.

A previous answer says smoking on campus is not allowed. Where are medical cannabis patients supposed to go if 1) smoking is illegal in public and 2) we can’t smoke on BC’s campus and 3) students in dorms don’t have access to a private property ?? Hike out to the reservoir each time (and even then, be worried about its illegality?) what mixed messaging by legislation – smoking is legal but only for property owners, or people who don’t live in restricted apartments of some sort?

This is a great question. I’ve put out feelers to the Office of Student Conduct and University Health Services and will get back to you on this when I hear more. I will note I’ve been told BC’s hands are tied here because of federal funding.

I wish I was born somewhere else. This country is rotten. People say the politics are corrupts, the laws dont work, the police is innefective and violent, but the problem is the people. The people makes this country suck. The biggest problem in the country is the people themselves. And I hate this. I wish I could go to another country. But Im poor. I dont even have money to go to another city, much less another country. And if I try to get out illegally I will probably die. How can leave this horrible place?

I’m sorry you’re in that position. If your country is a functioning democracy, it’s worth getting involved in organizations that can redress some of these ills; sometimes people are a problem because they see no hope of change. If your country is not a functioning democracy, make sure to strengthen bonds with family and/or friends and watch out for each other. You might not be able to change your country, but you may be able to improve your small corner of it. Big changes always start small. Keep the faith; sometimes change takes a long time.

Thank you for answering everyone’s questions!

You’re very welcome! Answering questions is what makes me happy!

It’s the year of ox! By any chance we can have an ox visit to the library?

Happy Lunar New Year to you, too! I have not heard of any available therapy oxen, but will keep them in mind for the future. And… since Valentines Day is coming; with regard to oxen love, did you know we have a children’s book in the ERC with the amazing combo of subject headings: “Romance Fiction” and “Oxen — Juvenile fiction”? bit.ly/XOOX

One that is life changing, one that you have to re-read because that’s how good it is. One that you think about all day and all night. A poem that will keep me up at night. A poem that is motivational, yet deterring. A poem that is happy, yet sad. Something that can really help me in life. If you can ever find a poem like this I don’t know how I may ever repay you. Honestly walls are great like that you give them a question and somehow they come up with an answer, even if it’s not the one you’re looking for.

This is a very challenging question, because different poems and poets resonate with different people at different times of their lives. Finding the right poem for you at the right moment is something like finding the right person; just as no person is the best person for everyone or every moment, no poem could do that, either. Also, just as you shouldn’t depend on another person to change your life, it’s also risky to depend on a poem to do so. That said, here are some poems that have resonated with many people; perhaps they might resonate with you right now: poetryfoundation.org/poems/44484/to-autumn, poetryfoundation.org/poems/52192/at-the-fishhouses, poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=28618. If you’d like to read widely but don’t know where to start, the poetry foundation has a great page where you can browse by topic, form, period, or region: poetryfoundation.org/poems/browse. Good luck on your quest, and may you discover many meaningful poems!

It disgusts me how objectified they are. Should I be attracted or does that have something to do with my sexuality?

Human desire and attraction has never seemed to me to correspond to anything rational, so I think you should feel comfortable about whoever you are or are not attracted to. Media objectification of women’s bodies has certainly merited a lot of scholarly attention. If you’re interested, here are some books related to the subject in our collection: bit.ly/BCL-women-media.

Why do people develop those fetish? Is it due to nature or is it something related to childhood experience?

The honest answer is that we don’t know. It was alleged in the Steele Dossier that there was some activity with a prostitute in Moscow involving urine, but it hasn’t been verified. As to how people develop sexual fetishes, it’s anyone’s guess. Freud would likely have attributed it to childhood experiences. This wall’s approach to human sexuality is that as long as everyone involved is a freely consenting adult, it’s none of my business.

Thanks for the book recommendations, I’ll definitely check one or two out from somewhere.

You’re welcome! Check with your local library – you may have some great options for checking out eBooks.