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Report of Scholastic Record for Year Ending 1824
Grade 3
Trier Public Elementary School
Trier, Kingdom of Prussia
Student: Marx, Karl
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Social Studies: (Mr. Engels)
Teacher Comments:
Karl is a bright little boy who plunges into the subject with gusto and enthusiasm. He is extremely verbose, however, and when asked to give a book report about the Queen of Prussia, instead of making a diorama out of a shoebox like the rest of his classmates, launched into a didactic harangue about how asinine and stupid the bourgeoisie are and how much he wants to hang them by their thumbs and kick them. He is a little disturbed and hypersensitive about ownership. Once, when it came time to clean the slate board erasers, he organized a general strike of the other third graders until the school janitor agreed to open the windows to let a little oxygen into the room (his chief "demand"), and the students were allowed to each claim a pro rata stake in the chalk. For this, he was idolized by some of the more dim-witted boys, which Karl used to maximum advantage in regards seating arrangements and sharing of lunchbox items. Karl is particularly adept at sharing the lunchbox items of others.
Grade: B-
Citizenship: (Mr. Hegel)
Teacher Comments:
Karl is hopelessly lost and is easily distracted by his neighbors in class. He seems bored and listless. I saw no evidence that he grasped the material. I fear he is doomed to repeat it.
Grade: D-
Science: (Mr. Nietzsche)
Teacher Comments:
Karl is a curious young man with prodigious powers of observation. His occasional exuberance is grating, however, and he needs to concentrate on his limitations, discard the mythology of "goodness" that the other teachers sometimes stuff into his head, and accept the random cruelty of the natural order. Then he will make quite a talented young scientist, his deeply flawed demonstration about the sexual habits of chiggers notwithstanding.
Grade: C+
Mathematics: (Mr. Einstein)
Teacher Comments:
Karl has an almost robotic knack for adding two and two and arriving at a sum of five. Although he tackles certain problems with aplomb, including those involving sets and subsets by counting, comparing, ordering, and so on, he is something of a dunce at simple arithmetic. Whilst even at this formative age he has claimed an interest in one day working as a bank teller or as an economist, God help us all should that ever come to pass. I recommend that he consider the Prussian People's Vocational School. One day, I am certain, he will make a very fine bicycle mechanic.
Grade: D
German Language and Literature: (Mr. Goethe)
Master Marx has a passable command of German grammar and syntax. He tends to write in impossibly long run-on sentences, but, then again, so does everybody in Germany.
Grade: B+
Music: (Mr. Bach)
Master Marx is tone deaf, cannot carry a tune, has no sense of melody, harmony, rhythm, or syncopation, cannot read a note to save his life, and cannot name a single composer, German or otherwise. Other than that, he is a brilliant student.
Grade: F
Physical Fitness: (Mr. Wagner)
Master Marx is sickly and pale and somewhat girlish in his approach to boxing -- which does not bode well for his future as a German Übermensch, a graduation requirement of the State curriculum. The scent of pickled herring and chopped liver is often on his breath and herein lies the problem; he is obviously not getting a sufficient German diet of sauerbraten and bratwurst at home. He has little stamina and is almost always picked last for dodge ball. Next term, I plan to toughen him up by taking him to the gym, putting on boxing gloves, and punching him in the head until he is impervious to pain. This will make a man out of him and will also keep the boxing gloves finely honed.
Grade: C
Checklist
Works and plays well with others Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Prepared: Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Punctual: Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Respectful of Others: Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Respectful of School Property: Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Ability to Solve problems: Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Participates: Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Appropriately Groomed: Yes/No/Needs Improvement
Overall Grade: D+
Recommended for Advancement to Next Level: Y/N
Showing posts with label Groucho Marx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Groucho Marx. Show all posts
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Saturday, November 7, 2009
An Evening of Distinction
Some years ago, Claude Levi Strauss, Albert Einstein, and Groucho Marx gathered at a country house for dinner to discuss the issues of the day. Herewith, some recently unearthed excerpts of the Salon des Refusés to be Quiet:
Groucho: What time is it?
Einstein: Assuming that the equivalence principle holds, gravity influences the passage of time. Light sent down into a gravity well is blueshifted, whereas light sent in the opposite direction (i.e., climbing out of the gravity well) is redshifted; collectively, these two effects are known as the gravitational frequency shift. More generally, processes close to a massive body run more slowly when compared with processes taking place farther away; this effect is known as gravitational time dilation.
Groucho: Is that your final answer?
Levi Strauss: The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.
Groucho: Let's try a new subject. If you're so smart, can you figure out how to get the salt out of this shaker?
Einstein: It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer.
Groucho: Well, how long have you been working on the salt problem? My steak is getting cold. Can you do something about it, already?
Einstein: Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice, I can help in the greatest of all causes -- goodwill among men and peace on earth.
Groucho: At the moment, goodwill among men doesn't seem so pressing a problem. After all, it's just the three of us here; we're all alone, and...
Levi Strauss: Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor any one in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe. Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.
Groucho: Huh? A child of five would understand this. Einstein, would you run out and fetch a five-year old child? I can't make heads or tails of Levi-Strauss.
Einstein: Your lack of understanding is a matter of perception. When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of the globe, he doesn't realize that the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it.
Groucho: Yes. But not lucky enough to notice that the roast is burning. Gentlemen, have we no respect for supper?
Levi-Strauss: The anthropologist respects history, but he does not accord it a special value. He conceives it as a study complementary to his own: one of them unfurls the range of human societies in time, the other in space.
Einstein: Did you say "space?"
Groucho: Oh no! I beg of you!
Einstein: A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Groucho: Say, there's a knock at the door. I'll just see who it is...
....
Why, look, everyone! It's Marcel Marceau! Say "hello," Marcel.
....
....
....
....
....
Einstein: He doesn't use language?
Levi-Strauss: Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.
Einstein: It seems Marcel Marceau is trapped in some kind of invisible box where time has slowed down. This brings to mind a paradox - for how can both the passenger on a moving train and another, his twin on the platform, both see each other's watches slow down? By using my general theory of relativity, which applies to non uniform motions like that of the train, one can demonstrate that the twin on the train has actually aged less. I discuss this in my book.
Groucho: From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.
Einstein: I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.
Groucho: Speaking of which, shall we have a little music?
Levi-Strauss: Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.
Groucho: Naturally. Well, gentlemen, I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it. Marceau, you can have this plate.
Groucho: What time is it?
Einstein: Assuming that the equivalence principle holds, gravity influences the passage of time. Light sent down into a gravity well is blueshifted, whereas light sent in the opposite direction (i.e., climbing out of the gravity well) is redshifted; collectively, these two effects are known as the gravitational frequency shift. More generally, processes close to a massive body run more slowly when compared with processes taking place farther away; this effect is known as gravitational time dilation.
Groucho: Is that your final answer?
Levi Strauss: The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.
Groucho: Let's try a new subject. If you're so smart, can you figure out how to get the salt out of this shaker?
Einstein: It's not that I'm so smart , it's just that I stay with problems longer.
Groucho: Well, how long have you been working on the salt problem? My steak is getting cold. Can you do something about it, already?
Einstein: Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe. But maybe, by raising my voice, I can help in the greatest of all causes -- goodwill among men and peace on earth.
Groucho: At the moment, goodwill among men doesn't seem so pressing a problem. After all, it's just the three of us here; we're all alone, and...
Levi Strauss: Just as the individual is not alone in the group, nor any one in society alone among the others, so man is not alone in the universe. Being human signifies, for each one of us, belonging to a class, a society, a country, a continent and a civilization; and for us European earth-dwellers, the adventure played out in the heart of the New World signifies in the first place that it was not our world and that we bear responsibility for the crime of its destruction.
Groucho: Huh? A child of five would understand this. Einstein, would you run out and fetch a five-year old child? I can't make heads or tails of Levi-Strauss.
Einstein: Your lack of understanding is a matter of perception. When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of the globe, he doesn't realize that the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it.
Groucho: Yes. But not lucky enough to notice that the roast is burning. Gentlemen, have we no respect for supper?
Levi-Strauss: The anthropologist respects history, but he does not accord it a special value. He conceives it as a study complementary to his own: one of them unfurls the range of human societies in time, the other in space.
Einstein: Did you say "space?"
Groucho: Oh no! I beg of you!
Einstein: A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Groucho: Say, there's a knock at the door. I'll just see who it is...
....
Why, look, everyone! It's Marcel Marceau! Say "hello," Marcel.
....
....
....
....
....
Einstein: He doesn't use language?
Levi-Strauss: Language is a form of human reason, which has its internal logic of which man knows nothing.
Einstein: It seems Marcel Marceau is trapped in some kind of invisible box where time has slowed down. This brings to mind a paradox - for how can both the passenger on a moving train and another, his twin on the platform, both see each other's watches slow down? By using my general theory of relativity, which applies to non uniform motions like that of the train, one can demonstrate that the twin on the train has actually aged less. I discuss this in my book.
Groucho: From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.
Einstein: I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.
Groucho: Speaking of which, shall we have a little music?
Levi-Strauss: Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.
Groucho: Naturally. Well, gentlemen, I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it. Marceau, you can have this plate.
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