Shiraz, Iran: November 1, 1978. The day I was born. I’d like to say it was a Wednesday, but who the hell knows, I’m not Rainman. And even if I did have a talent for counting errant toothpicks, wrapping one’s mind around temporal exactitude once the International Date Line has been crossed is nearly impossible.

I was a child born into a time of revolution and flux. Iran had only recently deposed their Shah and the first day of the hostage crisis was almost exactly one year away. The world watched with concern as Iran’s 2500 year old monarchal tradition dissolved in a fantastic heap of religious fundamentalism.

Winslow has replaced his head with jack-o-lanterns lots of times (and he’s replaced his body with a jack-o-lantern once, too). I figured it was about time for him to think outside the box.

Who is the most reviled human being? Who is the brunt of the unkindest jokes? The title gives us away. It’s the mother-in-law.

In this lecture I will not propose that we mother-in-laws feebly protest our bad reputation. Hell no. I say, let’s get born again into society’s stereotype. Let’s use it to get the benefits we so obviously deserve. Above all, let’s help our children expunge those feelings of guilt towards us now, while we’re living, rather than suffer those unfixable feelings of guilt when we’re gone.

I’m imagining Winslow on a dark room with his first-generation Gameboy, killing off Kirby over and over again in hopes of populating an entire ghost house in Super Mario World…

Proposal for a Ph.D. Thesis in Sociology The University of West-Central X

Introduction:

The sociology of children’s play spaces is such a well-mined field that it might even be characterized as a veritable minefield for potential dissertation writers. Horizontal and vertical studies abound, as do methodologies, which range from (unsurprisingly) the concrete to the theoretical, and from studies of single play spaces, to comparative studies of multiples.