Lucky Mud & Other Foma by Christina Jarvis

Author:Christina Jarvis [Jarvis Christina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: biographies of authors; creative nonfiction; american literature; environmental books; climate change; literary nonfiction; cultural criticism; biography; vonnegut; kurt vonnegut; nature; literary criticism; naturalism; environmentalism; biographies; essays; autobiographies; anthology; book club; biographies of famous people; gifts for book lovers; autobiography; book lovers gifts; library; librarian gifts; nerd gifts; literary gifts; gifts for readers; book lover gifts; book lover; literature; reading accessories; book lovers
ISBN: 9781644212264
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2022-09-15T18:00:00+00:00

Vonnegut moves from these reflections to a description and image of goblet cells and the social hierarchies created by different skin characteristics, noting that “persons with oily skins were much less popular than those with dry skins.”

Returning to the image of the three men working on the Robo-Magic, Vonnegut challenges the hierarchies and segregated facilities based on different skin colors and types: “The skins of all three men, incidentally, contained a dark brown pigment called melanin, which protected the deeper parts of their bodies by absorbing ultraviolet rays, which could be harmful. The black man was so much blacker than the other two simply because his skin contained so much more melanin.” Invoking his physical anthropology courses, Vonnegut then explores the number of cubic centimeters in the three men’s braincases, compares his own braincase to Dwayne’s, pits the braincase of Ivan Turgenev against Anatole France’s, and then concludes his study by observing, “The largest brains of Earth, on average, belonged to Eskimos.” This conclusion and the accompanying illustration of an igloo playfully undermine the comparative studies of skulls that helped create the racial hierarchies that supported “sea pirate” colonization and other forms of nineteenth- and twentieth-century scientific racism.

The scenes of the three men’s collective efforts to bring the Robo-Magic to life further challenge the logic of segregation. Dwayne surreptitiously observes the three men cackling, guffawing, and having a “heavenly time” as they work on the washing machine in the “whites only” bathroom. Even though the two white men, Fred T. Barry and Elias Keedsler, possess the power and privilege that comes with rank and ownership, the real ingenuity and skill behind the Robo-Magic comes from John Thompson, the Black man who built the machine’s “frame and gears and drive shaft and bearings from the parts of junked Keedsler automobiles.” When the other two men want to stop working to break for lunch, Thompson presses on and shames them into continuing their tests of the Robo-Magic. In frame, work habits, and creativity, he’s “imperial,” and the narrator notes that “he knew and everybody knew that he was the best mechanic in town.” Even Thompson’s clothes add commentary to the scene. While Barry removes his shirt, Thompson keeps his “purple and gold track shirt” on because it’s a gift from his grandson Garfield, “a quarter-miler and broad-jumper at Crispus Attucks High School.” Likely alluding to Jesse Owens and the Olympian’s epic challenge to myths of Aryan superiority, the narrator explains that “Garfield would go on to win two gold medals in the Olympic Games in Germany, where factories for killing unwanted human beings were just being built.”

5.3 * These deleted hand-drawn signs and reflections on racial segregation were part of Vonnegut’s more in-depth critiques of racial injustice in late drafts of Breakfast of Champions. Archival image by Kurt Vonnegut, courtesy of the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Copyright © Kurt Vonnegut LLC, used by permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.

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