The Questioning Ear

Am I the only person who has noticed that the question mark looks a lot like the human ear?



Well, they're sort of similar, eh?  How many of you recognize the guy in the image?  Alfred E. Newman is of course the fictional mascot of Mad Magazine.  Remember Mad?  I used to read it as a kid.  I think my super cool and sophisticated big brother with anger management issues must have introduced me to this dear little rag when I was in grade five.  A whole new world opened to me with the pages of Mad.  Through the outrageous cartoons, caricatures of famous people, satirical takes on popular movies and on pop culture and the sheer lunacy of much of the humour, I learned for the first time not only that I should ask questions but how to formulate and ask them and whom they should be asked to.  I learned to really listen to what I heard around me.  I learned to speak truth to power because my ears became question marks.

By the time I was twelve I was already steeped in irony.  I had a rapidly developing awareness and interest in the world and current, political and international affairs while watching my parents' marriage go south.  At the same time I endured daily beatings and bullying from my brother, both my parents and kids at school.  Thanks to Mad I learned how to see everything through the lens of farce.  Thanks to Mad it all became somehow absurd and by the same token tolerable.  I was learning to question with my ears.

I had already acquired a remarkably mature and sophisticated political and social awareness while I was only fourteen.  I became seriously interested in social and revolutionary movements and anarchism. It became impossible for me to trust at face value anything I was told by my parents, my teachers or by politicians.  I was questioning with my ears.

Even when I morphed into a teenage Jesus Freak I did not cease to question authority.  While my "betters" were misquoting St. Paul way our of context about why we have to submit to secular authority (and accept slavery, misogyny and legislated homophobia as already givens) I was adhering to Jesus standing up to the Pharisees and his Apostles giving no heed to the authorities as they persisted in proclaiming the Good News regardless the consequences.

My mother wanted me badly, while in grade six, to see the movie The Sound Of Music.  She got her wish when together we went to see a matinee production in the spanking brand new Richmond Twin Cinemas.  I was twelve.  I had already read the satire in Mad: The Sound Of Money.  A teacher in grade six had tried just months earlier to transform us into a choir and was intent on our learning almost every song from that movie.  I had already memorized the Mad lyrics to one song and she looked at me in righteous horror when she heard the wrong words coming from my mouth.  "Where did you learn those words!" she demanded afterward, or at least I think that's what might have happened.  I can't remember my answer but she was not particularly pleased with my answer, tone or the smirk on my face.

Here they are:

Do
 means cash for all of us

'Ray
for musicals like this,

Me
a star so big that by

Far
it really couldn't miss.

So
insipid is the plot,

La-
di-da although we know,

Te-

dious it is a lot

And it will bring us back much
Dough Dough Dough Dough!

What? Me worry?