My “old butcher” Arthur McA. Miller, Ph.D. Mac. Mac Miller. To me? A professor, poetry teacher, faculty advisor, thesis committee member, bon vivant, raconteur, when-I-needed-it ass-kicker, John Ruskin historian, secret caregiver, maniac, and my fucking personal hero for at least three semesters. Handful of random Mac moments: Told me a paragraph in a paper on Kurt Vonnegut was “curiously like whipping a dead mule with misplaced rhetoric” Remarked to our terrified, slack-jawed poetry workshop that he thought one of the week’s less successful drafts didn’t actualy need an ending—”Because it might as well just keep going on forever!” This was not intended as a compliment. Occasionally telegraphed his relative stress by lighting a new cigarette before the previous one was half-done. One day, in “Longpoems,” a third cigarette was lit. I feel confident no one in attendance ever forgot that day. Once singled out one of my particularly shitty poems as one of the most peculiarly gruesome instances of “the pathetic fallacy” he’d ever encountered. “Would you mind demonstrating how you can tell when a goddamned rose thorn is ‘angry?’” I could not. Why do I mention all of this? Because, yeah, I love remembering Mac. But also because he’s the man who—the week I finished my thesis and was preparing to stun the world with my disarmingly Twain-like observations on American culture—flatly informed me of a fact I once found intolerably bitter: “Merlin. Nobody fucking cares what your major was, buddy. People only care that you got your ticket punched. Just say, “I graduated,” and leave it at that. They just want to know you can finish projects, and know how to put up with bullshit. That’s it. As I stood, woozy, in that fire hazard he called an office, I felt like I’d been gutted. But, yeah, y’know it also kinda changed my life. And, Jesus Christ, was he ever right. Thanks, Mac. Consider my ticket punched. Totally unrelated anecdote: One time Mac asked my housemate, Richard, and me to housesit his decrepit old family mansion for a weekend. Not until we were back in Sarasota (and after Mac had been back for at least a day) did we realize we’d accidentally left a bag of shitty shake weed somewhere in his living room. It was probably pretty easy to notice; given that it it would have been sitting right next to a pumpkin-shaped bong that our friend, Chris, had fashioned out of a Halloween-themed Happy Meal. Once we got the courage together, we gingerly inquired as to whether Mac might have…found…anything we might have…you know…left behind. And, he immediately fired back, “You mean that shit I put in my goddamned spaghetti sauce last night?!? SURE, I found it!” Then he froze for a moment, propelled his very pointy face to about an inch from the tip of my nose, and produced the most menacingly toothy grin I’ve ever seen. Then he spun on a heel, threw an enthusiastic victory sign, and clambered down the steps, cackling, that brown leather satchel held together with jute-string bouncing merrily off his right leg. Fucking love that guy.
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My “old butcher”

Arthur McA. Miller, Ph.D.

Mac. Mac Miller.

To me? A professor, poetry teacher, faculty advisor, thesis committee member, bon vivant, raconteur, when-I-needed-it ass-kicker, John Ruskin historian, secret caregiver, maniac, and my fucking personal hero for at least three semesters.

Handful of random Mac moments:

  1. Told me a paragraph in a paper on Kurt Vonnegut was “curiously like whipping a dead mule with misplaced rhetoric”
  2. Remarked to our terrified, slack-jawed poetry workshop that he thought one of the week’s less successful drafts didn’t actualy need an ending—”Because it might as well just keep going on forever!” This was not intended as a compliment.
  3. Occasionally telegraphed his relative stress by lighting a new cigarette before the previous one was half-done. One day, in “Longpoems,” a third cigarette was lit. I feel confident no one in attendance ever forgot that day.
  4. Once singled out one of my particularly shitty poems as one of the most peculiarly gruesome instances of “the pathetic fallacy” he’d ever encountered. “Would you mind demonstrating how you can tell when a goddamned rose thorn is ‘angry?’” I could not.

Why do I mention all of this? Because, yeah, I love remembering Mac.

But also because he’s the man who—the week I finished my thesis and was preparing to stun the world with my disarmingly Twain-like observations on American culture—flatly informed me of a fact I once found intolerably bitter:

“Merlin. Nobody fucking cares what your major was, buddy.

People only care that you got your ticket punched.

Just say, “I graduated,” and leave it at that. They just want to know you can finish projects, and know how to put up with bullshit. That’s it.

As I stood, woozy, in that fire hazard he called an office, I felt like I’d been gutted.

But, yeah, y’know it also kinda changed my life. And, Jesus Christ, was he ever right.

Thanks, Mac. Consider my ticket punched.

Totally unrelated anecdote: One time Mac asked my housemate, Richard, and me to housesit his decrepit old family mansion for a weekend.

Not until we were back in Sarasota (and after Mac had been back for at least a day) did we realize we’d accidentally left a bag of shitty shake weed somewhere in his living room. It was probably pretty easy to notice; given that it it would have been sitting right next to a pumpkin-shaped bong that our friend, Chris, had fashioned out of a Halloween-themed Happy Meal.

Once we got the courage together, we gingerly inquired as to whether Mac might have…found…anything we might have…you know…left behind.

And, he immediately fired back, “You mean that shit I put in my goddamned spaghetti sauce last night?!? SURE, I found it!”

Then he froze for a moment, propelled his very pointy face to about an inch from the tip of my nose, and produced the most menacingly toothy grin I’ve ever seen. Then he spun on a heel, threw an enthusiastic victory sign, and clambered down the steps, cackling, that brown leather satchel held together with jute-string bouncing merrily off his right leg.

Fucking love that guy.

Source: Flickr / merlin