Professor John S. Gordon is not your standard English professor – if such a thing exists. By day, he sits in his leatherbacked easy chair in his office, wing-tips atop the matching foot rest, grading papers and holding office hours; by night, he watches Sex and the City.
A truly well-rounded man, The College Voice asked Professor Gordon for his opinion on a number of pressing issues to the campus community. He’s got more spunk than you’d think.
Jazmine Hughes: What’s your opinion the new camel mascot? Do you think it looks like a Pokemon/the Loch Ness Monster/an angry horse with a dolphin coming out the back like most students do?
John Gordon: It reminds me of Snoopy being the Red Baron. A camel, after all, is an herbivorous beast of burden. The new mascot looks as if he’s really pissed off about that.
JH: What Sex and the City character are you most like?
JG: Definitely Samantha. I’m a slut.
JH: Why do so many English professors have beards? Should all of the
others grow them?
JG: There was a time when having a beard meant being a non-conformist, only in a not-really sort of way, and that’s when I started mine. Also, never underestimate sloth: shaving every morning can be a real pain. And vanity: some years ago I cut off my beard to see what had happened to my face, and my wife, who had never known me without a beard, was appalled. I believe the word “gargoyle” came up. So that was that.
Should all English professors have them? A neat idea, but after all a lot of English professors are women, and if I answered “yes” it might be taken as a sexist comment, and you can’t be too careful about such things on campus nowadays, so – ha! – you’re not going to catch me that easily.
JH: What is your drink of choice? Teach our readers how to make it.
JG: Attend, o youth, and learn. Beefeater Gin, Noily Prat Vermouth, five-to-one, straight up, one olive, pimento included. Should be shaken with crushed ice long enough for a small amount of the ice to melt into the mix. Martinis cooled otherwise – in the freezer, for instance – are unacceptably astringent. Incidentally, I deeply regret having to report that Gordon’s Gin is just not up to snuff.
JH: Please define, to the best of your ability, a tank top.
JG: I have no idea what a tank top is, and I refuse to learn. “Tank top” is like “head cheese” – a classic case of two words that never ought to be seen in one another’s company. I mean – what? – something that makes your top look like a tank? Is that the best you gals can come up with? The same goes for “tube top.”
JH: And, of course, what do you think about the College Voice? Compliments only, please.
JG: When I came here, thirty years ago, the student newspaper was an embarrassment – one of the worst things about the college. Now, it’s one of the best. Actually, the only time it’s really bad anymore is when my colleagues in the faculty get all in a lather about something someone wrote and sign some silly sanctimonious petition and get it published there. But I suppose you can’t do anything about that.
So congratulations to Claire S. Gould and her estimable stable of editors and writers.
I wonder: do camels have stables?
