I’m a bit of a brainiac. Learning has always been my jam, enough so that summer began to bore me once I got into my adolescence. There was just so much stuff I didn’t know but wanted to. What were stars made of? What happened to the dinosaurs? How does this work? How does that work? What is the other thing made of? How do you use a microscope? A telescope? Paint? Who lived before me? What did people used to do, and why did they do it? Yes, I could learn through reading, but I wanted to be able to ask questions. I wanted people to show me things. I wanted to see and hear and experience. I loved school so much that back in college I would be in the library or lab the very first week of class. My roommates would come and retrieve me with a promise of pizza and beer because “it’s only the first week and we’re going out.”
Thirty-six years later, I still love learning, only now I’m into The Great Courses. I get it for about $150 a year through Roku and it’s much more entertaining than walking around a university campus reading the faculty’s minds. (It’s also much cheaper than paying anywhere from $39 to $239 per course.) Whatever you’re into, they’ve got a course on it. Last spring and summer I learned a lot about the Roman Empire, World Heritage Sites, and stolen masterpieces, and I’m currently halfway through a series about the castles of Europe. The courses in my queue range from Norse mythology to Stoic philosophy to exoplanets to ancient writing and the history of the alphabet, and of course, bird-watching. It’s all quite fascinating and wonderful.
Yet the series that drew me to The Great Courses in the first place is The Real History of Dracula. Roku ran ad about it on the home screen and I just couldn’t resist. There are two professors and they kind of play off one another with one, Brittany Warman, Ph.D., more prone to subtle and intellectual jokes and puns and the other, Sara Cleto, Ph.D., a little more serious. Throughout 10 lectures they cover a lot of ground, including the origins of vampire lore, how Dracula tapped into the xenophobia of the time (oh, those pesky foreigners from Eastern Europe with their old ways of doing things), the parallels between vampire stories and different versions of “Bluebeard” and “Snow White”—all kinds of good stuff. I was glued.
Another fabulous course is Secrets of the Occult, with Richard B. Spence, Ph.D. The next time someone comes at you with accusations of the occult being evil, remind them that occult only means “supernatural, mystical, or magical beliefs, practices, or phenomena.” To that end, the very belief in a deity and the rituals people engage in to try to connect with said deity are all occultism, including prayer, blessings, and sacraments, not least of which is the Roman Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion in which the faithful believe that bread and wine transmogrify into the very body and blood of Christ, and then they consume that body and blood. (And they call us blood-sucking fiends? At least we don’t eat the flesh.) Indeed, it’s pure occultism to believe that a spirit impregnated a virgin who then gave birth to a baby who grew into a man who walked on water and later rose from the dead and ascended into a different realm we can’t see. God is nothing if not supernatural, so there ya go. Occultism is not all astrology, Tarot, and Aleister Crowley. (Speaking of Crowley, Spence talks about him again in another terrific course, The Real History of Secret Societies. Templars and Cathars and Masons, oh my!)
Point is, I’m glad for things like The Great Courses and other ways of learning. My knowledge quest is one reason I’ve long lamented the brevity of the human lifespan. There just isn’t enough time to learn all there is to learn, which is why I decided to let someone else give me all the time I need. You know who you are.
And now for today’s candy, which could only be wax fangs.
Frankly, I find these to be grossly speciesist and inappropriate, but whatever. It’s not the children’s fault, so I direct my ire toward the grown-ups who propel this mockery forward. Unfortunately, the ignorant ones never taste good.
*Hat-tip to Good Will Hunting for the title of this entry. I absolutely agree with the premise. I do have a degree, but there is something to be said for $1.50 in late charges at the public libary and no student debt.
zenzalei 