I Like 'Em Thick: A Retrospective Apology to My English Teachers

By Adam Mastroianni | Experimental History

I feel it is time to offer a sincere apology to every English teacher who ever crossed my path.

For a long time, I operated under the assumption that "great literature" was a total scam—a form of academic torture designed to punish teenagers for the crime of being young. I viewed the canon not as a collection of masterpieces, but as a "jobs for snobs" initiative, where former English majors invented complexities to justify their employment.

The Concept of "Thickness"

I eventually realized that truly great art—regardless of the medium—possesses a quality of responsiveness. It unfurls as you give it your attention. The more time you invest, the more the work reveals. This "thickness" is so intoxicating that it drives people to the madness of trying to teach it to high school students.

However, thickness creates a paradox: the more a work rewards the diligent reader, the more it tends to alienate the casual one.

This is where I believe my teachers owe me an apology. They treated literature as if its brilliance were self-evident, visible to anyone glancing at the cover. In reality, these works are like subterranean caverns filled with hidden gems.

The Classroom Dialogue: Teacher: "Alright, time to enter the cave!" Me: "But it looks empty." Teacher: "Entering the cave constitutes $30\%$ of your final grade." Me: (Takes two steps in) "Yep, totally empty." (Trudges out and lies about seeing something).

If they had simply provided the right equipment, I might have actually tried.

Required Spelunking Gear:

• Crank-up flashlight
• Patience for narrow antechambers
• Waders for flooded passageways
• A willingness to get dirty

---

A Lesson in "Butt Music"

For years, I treated art museums like a high-stakes scavenger hunt. I wasn't there for contemplation; I was there for collection. I would sprint through galleries, hunting for names I recognized.

This changed when I encountered Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights. It is a 500-year-old triptych that feels like it was painted 500 years in the future. As Wilhelm Fränger noted, it is a realm of "irresponsible phantasmagoria" and "freakish riddles."

In the final panel, amidst the chaos of naked figures and pink demons, there is a man with musical notation printed directly on his buttocks.

Initially, I thought this was a charming "Easter egg"—a testament to the painting's thickness. But as I dug deeper into the research of medieval music expert Ian Pittman, I realized the painting was even thicker than I imagined.

The Hallucination of Harmony

The "music" on the butt is actually a joke. It lacks a clef, the spacing is erratic, and the staff lines are inconsistent. To turn it into a song, you have to invent the notes. In modern terms, the musicians are hallucinating.

def interpret_butt_music(notes):
    if notes == "nonsensical":
        return "Make it up as you go" # This is what the musicians did
    else:
        return "Actual Music"

Bosch didn't want the music to be played. He believed that secular music was a direct path to eternal damnation.

Throughout his work, musicians are depicted in agony:

• A man trapped in a drum played by a raccoon-demon.
• A figure crucified upon a harp.
• The "butt music" man being crushed by a massive lute.

For Bosch, providing a playable song on a backside would be equivalent to the government distributing The Anarchist's Cookbook. The music isn't a secret melody; it's a warning: Play music outside the church, and the demons will get you.

Defining Thickness

I find it amusing that I grew up during a moral panic over rap music, while Bosch lived through a moral panic over all music. The message was clear: "Your heart will be ripped out and served to Beelzebub's servants."

This is the essence of thickness. We can try to quantify it as a relationship between attention ($A$) and revelation ($R$):

$\text{Thickness} = \lim_{A \to \infty} \frac{dR}{dA}$

So, what exactly is "thickness"? There is no simple definition, which is precisely why it is so rare and so extraordinary.