And it's very real because first of all I'm really not a novelist, I'm a feminist critic and I didn't have the talent to make up anything and I really didn't have to.
So anyone who writes Oy Pioneer is absolutely Jewish and if you're Jewish you have to have a Jewish mother, which is a problem in itself.
I'm not going to read a part about the mother but I'll just tell you one thing about her.
When I was writing my book Feminist Fabulation, I was sitting in my childhood bedroom and she took a can of Lysol and she sprayed it at my head.
Like I was trying to write my feminist book and Lysol was going around my head and I said why are you doing this?
And she said to me because I don't want to catch a computer virus.
And she was absolutely serious and then she said stop doing this and go out and find a husband and all she ever said to me was go out and find a husband.
So I don't have to make up anything.
And in the beginning of my career I started out at a southern state university which I call the novel Black Hall State University and there weren't any Jews there.
They were just like cows and mountains.
And I'm from Queens and I'm not very at home with cows and mountains.
So I had to escape the place where there was no Jews.
So I figured out where to escape.
I went to Germany.
And this worked fine.
And since I had to get married because of my mother just saying I got born, she said get married.
I became an expert on the feminist separatist planet where they kill men.
And I spent all of my career going to academic conferences reading about feminist separatist planets where they kill men.
And this did not make the men happy but I would read these papers and all I would do would be to look at the audience trying to find a cute man who would marry me.
But nobody wanted to marry someone who's an expert on feminist separatist planets where they kill men.
So I didn't get married until I was 46.
And someone really did marry me.
There were two people in here who really met my husband so it's not a figment of my imagination.
So this is about someone who is like me and not me and her name is Sandra Lear and it takes place.
Sandra is 34 so it's like 20 years ago and I'm not Sandra because I'm not 34 but when I read it it does take place 30 years ago.
So Sandra is a feminist theorist by date and a husband hunter by night.
And I want to start with the part where Sandra is on a Fulbright and again I know that German universities have improved.
But please understand that this is 20 years ago where she encountered male German department heads from hell.
And that's what was here then and please 20 years ago and this is what happened to...
I think you're not here today now.
Yeah, well I wouldn't... I do say things but I wouldn't say that but you did and I guess I think it's a fact you were saying it.
So this is what happened when Sandra walked into a German university to begin her year as a Fulbright scholar and this chapter is called Slaughterhouse One.
I as usual distracted myself from my failed husband hunt by becoming immersed in scholarly work.
It was late October and the German term had begun.
Ulrika the assistant introduced me to my new colleagues.
Frau Dr. Lear, I would like you to meet hair professor Dr. Himmler Hunschnort and hair Dr. Adolf Schweinshank.
Lovely to make your acquaintance hair professor Dr. Hunschnort and hair Dr. Schweinshank.
Thank you Frau Dr. Lear, they said in unison.
Since I could use the time German academics took to articulate people's titles to complete a book proposal, I failed to understand how they ever accomplished anything.
These men reminded me of a laurel and hardy teen.
Hunschnort in his late 60s, so he's now dead, was fat and jovial.
Schweinshank in his early 40s was thin and dour.
Hunschnort was about to retire as professor and department head. Schweinshank was going to be his successor.
No woman had a chance to fill the position. The situation did not bode well for me.
While Hunschnort was rather fatherly, Schweinshank viewed me, a woman whose vida was longer than his, as a threat.
Hunschnort's first attempt to engage me in conversation was absurd, not sexist.
And the following conversation really and truly happened, and although it was 20 years ago, I remember it like it was yesterday, and I could not make this up.
Cross my heart, although that's not Jewish, and hope to die, this is what was said to me.
Frau Dr. Lear, he said, I am happy to inform you that your office does not face the slaughterhouse.
This was certainly not the right thing to say to a Jew in Germany, especially one who does not eat red meat.
But I, too, was on my best behavior.
Slaughterhouse, I ask calmly and quizzically.
Ulrika, sensing my discomfort, explained that since a pig slaughterhouse was located behind the English department,
pig screens were sometimes audible in the morning.
But don't worry, Ulrika continued to explain, as hair professor Dr. Hunschnort said, your office faces in the opposite direction from the slaughterhouse.
The slaughter should not bother you.
This information was...
This information was reassuring.
So I was confronted with one slaughterhouse I could live with.
Hunschnort and Schleinsche were another matter, however.
And now I will go on to the chapter where I was confronted with a plethora of German penises.
And I had close encounters with them, and this is also true, and I also could not make this up.
And this chapter is called Heat.
My friend Susan phoned to suggest a second excursion.
Now that we've recovered from the American army base, let's go to one of those great German swimming pools.
Although I knew that Germany has many elaborate pools replete with contraptions, such as squirting fountains and bubbling hot and cold water,
I was not prepared for the particular organic contraptions I would encounter at this pool.
I could easily accept women and men sharing the same locker room.
After all, I had previously witnessed naked people strolling through the English garden in Munich.
I was shocked. I was shocked.
I remember noticing a particular stroller, a naked man who carried a shoulder bag.
Seeing one naked walking person is much worse than seeing a naked group.
I was glad to learn that at the S Fund, located nearest to the English garden, nudity is verboten.
Maybe my relief was somehow attributable to my Jewish Puritan ancestors or to my contemporary American upbringing.
When I accompanied my parents to their Atlantic Beach beach club on Long Island, they never failed to chastise me for wearing revealing bathing suits.
Remember, I was younger then.
I respond by describing the immunity in Munich.
You're not in Munich anymore, they always say.
And now I was in a Schwimm band located near Rottengan.
I was nervous because I really did not want anyone I knew, especially male colleagues and students,
even that was true when I was younger, to see me attired in a bathing suit.
I hesitantly followed Susan into the sauna.
I don't know what you were going to think about this, said Susan.
Why not?
My question was immediately answered when she opened the sauna door.
All the sauna users were naked.
Sandra, we have to take off our bathing suits.
It would be weird not to.
If we're not naked, we'll seem like boy-yours.
Okay, I suppose you're right.
I said as I removed my suit.
I was almost numb.
I had never seen so many penises in my entire life.
And to this day, this is true.
The sight of wall-to-wall penises was strange.
I was not sure that I was enjoying the view.
Nonetheless, I followed Susan into the sauna.
We sat with a group of naked men.
I can't believe this.
I just can't.
And I still can't.
I'm not used to seeing so many penises.
I don't think that I'm suffering from penis overload, I whispered.
I don't know how to whisper.
German speak in a more subdued voice than Americans.
And I'm married to a French Canadian.
He was here in Germany with me in Dortmund.
And I would be in the S-bahn and I would scream,
Maurice, what stop do we get off?
And he's from a European background as a French Canadian.
He was appalled and he would go, shh.
And I didn't understand that I was yelling,
which is normal to me as a Jew and a New Yorker.
So the text says, shh.
These people all speak English, Sandra, please.
All right, I won't say anything else.
But what does one do in here if one needs a person one knows?
I'm not sure.
I need some air.
It's too hot.
I'm going out for a few minutes.
Oi, I was left alone with the German penises.
The sauna door abruptly opened.
A stricken looking Susan entered.
Someone we know is coming.
Since you can't take cover, brace yourself.
The owners of the German penises chuckled.
They were eager to see what a puritanical American woman would do
when publicly and directly confronted with a penis
attached to a familiar person.
A sauna off is nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Susan clutched my hand and closed her eyes.
The door opened.
Who in snort ended?
Naked.
Lovely to see you, proud Dr. Lear.
Likewise, Himmler.
I saw no need to use formal titles and surnames
to acknowledge phallic power when confronted with a penis.
The end of this never happened.
Himmler Hunchnort never walked into the sauna.
I made that up.
But I thought it served the chapter well.
And that is my snippet from Oi Pioneer.
And I enjoyed reading it to you.
And I hope that you enjoyed hearing it.
And I have to learn how not to laugh at my own writing.
That doesn't portend well when you're trying to read it.
And I wondered what excerpt I should use to read at this conference
because it is all true.
And it's about me running around to German universities.
And since I got married at 46, I spent my whole life
fraternizing with science fiction scholars.
And when I read this in Manhattan,
and nobody knows about German universities
and nobody knows about science fiction scholars,
but here there was very little I could read.
I couldn't read the chapter where I turned Darko Suven into a vampire.
And I certainly couldn't have read it if he were here.
So I think I will just use the little part that I read to you.
And I enjoyed it.
And I'll quit while I'm ahead.
And thank you very much for listening today.