Your Mom's a Genre

"Being an artist means dressing like an artist"

 Bug Martini
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"Genre breathed its corpse-breath in her face, and she was lost. She was defiled. She might as well be dead."

Ursula K. Le Guin - On Serious Literature
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Once upon a time, Werwolfe (a.k.a. the me) had to fill up a semester of university with one more elective. I considered digging into paleontology but I'd already filled years' worth of curriculum with sciencey-type stuff. I decided instead to elect my other interest, scribbling disjointed ramblings which no-none will ever  writing.

The Creative Writing class was packed with almost thirty students, eight to nine tenths of them female. If the validity of a liberal arts education (sans some sciences) would even for a moment match the sheer volume of tuition America spends trying to teach cheerleaders how to, like, expostusploit wordsy-type stuff, the entire continent would be awash with Dickinsons.* Then the instructor walked in.

Though that doesn't do her justice. I should say the middle-aged professor aristocratically strutted into the room along an invisible red carpet, straight-backed and patting down her lustrous regalia, giving her adoring public ample time to admire her... poncho. Yes, a poncho. She proceeded to run through the course introduction, warmly reassuring her students of finding themselves in an open space where they could freely express themselves and explore their interests and emotions in both long and short forms. Oh, but also that she would not under any circumstances be accepting genre fiction.

The rest of the hour descended into of some convoluted Alcoholics Annonymous string of introductions while sitting in a big circle. I can't remember much except for constantly biting my tongue while glancing sideways at Professor Poncho, trying not to scream:
"Genre fiction? No, YOU're a genre fiction!"

What doesn't constitute "genre" to one of her ilk? Chastely romantic tales of a handsome, rich young male bettering himself to suit his lady love? Coming of age stories? Tearjerkers about impoverished housewives or single mothers trying to make ends meet? War stories about plucky small-town lads reading their "Dear John" letters in the trenches? Feminist rape fantasies? Purple epics about overwrought starving lesbian abstract painters living in lofts above insouciant Bohemian coffee shops? Those aren't genres?

And look, I'll not besmirch the noble poncho on its own merits. I'm sure it's a fine garment for a variety of occasions. If a math or chemistry professor might wear one to lectures it would simply come off as quirky or more likely, unremarkable. Unfortunately we all know who wears ponchos north of Rio Grande, and it's not Clint Eastwood. We've known it ever since beatniks gave way to flower power. But biologists and chemists know better than to wear their trademark white coats everywhere they go, so you'd think the more socially conscious artsy liberals would stay away from flimsy turtlenecks, berets and tweed patches on leather blazers. Doing so betrays an undue concern for fabricating brand identity instead of substance. A woman greeting her new flock of impressionable young minds while wearing what amounted to ceremonial vestments saw fit to implicitly insult speculative fiction as somehow limited or artificial or superficial or who knows what. Never mind the personal fable of a refined artistic spirit delving the human condition while being misunderstood by the callow masses may itself be the most over-represented boilerplate in history.

So anyway, long story short: the geology building sat right next door, first-week registration changes are a thing and Paleontology turned out to be quite the fascinating... genre.





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*
Unfortunately such a subspecies would rapidly out-reach its ecosystem. Biological science has determined that each specimen of D. emily requires an exclusive range of at least 5.7 hectares amply stocked with snakes, incipiently mossy tombstones and of course only the happiest of air. Their unedited waste manuscripts would inundate the surrounding countryside with such a wealth of bleak whimsy as would glut the saprophytic capacity of a mega-Gaimans' worth of goths.