Mills in the Box

So, WWU finally woke up to the fact that Perry really is back on campus teaching small people how to think big (and likely getting hurt in the process.) They've heeded our universal demand for Mills to be featured (or included at all, really) on their Theatre Department Faculty Webpage. (He's not allowed in the real-life, uncyber Performing Arts Center itself, but that's a privilege hardly worth the battle.)

How the swine got beat back from their weird stance that Perry is not technically a member of the Theatre Department Faculty--disregarding his course load, which is comprised of only theatre classes--and so could be excluded, is at this point unknown to us. If any of you out there in Brutal Battle Land know the scoop, fill us in. And those who may have helped that along after reading the Back to School! post in Sept., 2008, many thanks for speaking up.

Anyhow, since the Good Professor is doing his goshdarndest to get his young charges to wax beyond the box, the only intelligent response is to stick him back in one.

If you've actually invested the time (roughly 8 seconds) to read the official Mills Bio on the WWU site, I'm sure you had a chuckle or three at the occasional Millsism that managed to slip past the censor's loupe and stamp. But since this post is unofficial, and we don't believe in scrubbing the planet clean with sweat, blood and bleach like the sh*t s*cking f*ckn*ts at Western, we thought it might be fun to offer the four alternate (and mostly longer) versions Perry wrestled with before arriving at the one that steals only 92 words worth of power away from his headshot, which we reproduce here:

1. (74 words) - Perry F. Mills teaches (read: taught) Aesthetics, Film, Dramatic Literature, Playwriting and patience. His book on film studies is in the library and out of print. During the past five years he has been on a picaresque adventure, details @ [he lists this blog's URL, which would be self-indulgent and perilous to the space-time continuum to actually re-link to here] and he is currently enjoying a unique relationship with his cohort. Take a class with him if you want to sample academic diversity. He's not good looking, but he's hard to kill.

Okay, so far so good. Not a whole lot to split hairs over (or the nits in them). I can easily imagine the reasons WWU ended up excising the link to our blog since they're a festering stool sample of cowardliness (though they'd probably cite something like "impartiality maintenance".) But on to the other #2.

2. (101 words) - Perry F. Mills applies the Socratic method to the sedate study of Film, Aesthetics, Composition and Dramatic Literature when he is not basking in the glow of his unique relationship with his cohort. His film text Simply Cinema is in the library and out of print. His playwriting students have won many awards and are currently in production in NYC and London. He has no outstanding warrants for his arrest and is expected to live out the year. For details and extrapolated blandishments, check out the website [again he lists our URL]. He's not good looking but he's hard to kill.

Okay, maybe that one is a little rambly. And since WWU is all about advertising (I wonder do they still have giant Coke ad banners manning every door of the PAC like Imperial Guards or Swastika Tapestries?) it's no surprise that the marketing mavens saw the word "sedate", looked for it here between "Security Needs" and "Segment Transcriptors", saw that the word doesn't *actually exist*, and cleansed it. I assume they suffered similar ados about "extrapolated blandishments." (Is anyone else wondering about this "cohort" and the nature of this "relationship"? No? Good, that means you appreciate privacy which is odd for someone currently on the internet. Moving on...)

3. (118 words) Perry F. Mills has been herding yuppie larvae for the state since 1980, except for a five-year break suggested by his cohort. His methods are viewed with suspicion by the "Exceptional" and the dull. He is so esteemed by his peer group [sic] that he is excused from the onerous duties of attending faculty meetings and entering the Performing Arts Center. He is a known whistle-blower and has been suspected of various fabricated lies currently on view @ [us, here, now]. He cannot be trusted to cover-up corporate crime and the popular Ponzi-scheme you are planning, so don't tell him about such. Get out of his way and let him do the work.

Oh, shit, I think I get who the "cohort" is now. Sorry, I's a touch slow. Alma-mater Syndrome.

4. (159 words) Perry F. Mills was hired by the founder of the C.F.P.A. (William Gregory) to further the Liberal Arts component of the Fine and Performing Arts curriculum. For 30 years he has espoused a standard and a style which is a challenge to those who have neither, has endured duress and insult from palace politicians and criminal maladroits, and has maintained the highest expectations in the face of compromise and Philistinism. If you wish to take a class from a scholar cast in the traditional mold, take his classes; if you want to slide by on an unexamined sinecure, avoid him. This is no joke: sit up straight, get serious and explore diversity in Academia before it vanishes forever down the drain of mollycoddling and dreck that characterizes the courses you complain about when you "get real" with friends. The choice is yours; can you afford to take it easier than you already do? Get busy...

- Palace Politicians and Criminal Maladroits
- The Face of Compromise and Philistinism
- An Unexamined Sinecure
- The Drain of Mollycoddling
- The Drain of Mollycoddling and Dreck

Which of these wouldn't you like to see as the title of the film that will inevitably get made about this brutal battle??? I think the whole marketing department quit and created a version of Cirque du Soleil in Afghanistan after reading this one.

So...vote on which one you like the best! Or better yet, compose one of your own and if I get enough responses to not have it seem like a desperate plea for further flogging of a dead horse, I'll re-post them in a new post and thereby create a Bio-Feedback Post Loop!

Or better yet go read something more 'ducational...

Now where's that Molly when you need some coddling?