More quirky poetic roll-calls (this one from August the 1st, 1975). If you’re not yet familiar with this teaching trick of Allen’s, see here, here and here
AG: We’ll take the roll, (and), the lines, rather than beginning with a word, will end with, “in my father’s pants”. So when you answer the roll, just fill in whatever is in your father’s pants in your mind – “I found eternity in my father’s pants”
Student: “He’s filled with printer’s ink and has a pica-pole down in my father’s pants”
AG: He’s filled with ink and has a what?
Student: Pica-pole.
AG: “A pica-pole down in my father’s pants”? – A pica-pole? What’s a pica-pole?
Student: It’s a measure that measures picas.
AG: For printers?
Student: Picas. Right,
AG: Pica-pole?
Student: P-I-C-A
AG: Pole
Student: “When my mother’s yelling, I’m glad I’m not in my father’s pants”
AG [to student, Walter Fordham]: – Walter Fordham, what are you doing in your father’s pants?
Student [Walter Fordham]: – “Coins, switch-blade, matches and pipe in my father’s pants”
AG: What was the first word?
Student [Walter Fordham]: Coins.
AG: Oh, coins.
Student: “My mother moved to my father’s pants”
Student: “I tried for years to fit in my father’s pants”
Student: “I tried to swim in my father’s pants”
AG: Across what?
Student: “Cigar butt and pretzels in my father’s pants”
Student: “Big red bony hands in the pockets in my father’s pants”
AG: “Big red bony hands in the pockets of my father’s pants”
Student: “Christmas morning in my father’s pants”
AG: Christmas morning?
Student: “She’ll never be in my father’s pants”
AG [to class in general]: Where’s Martha Flynn?
Student: She’s in.. she’s stuck in Delaware..she couldn’t come.
AG: Oh she never came (so she’s out)
Student: “She never came in my father’s pants”
AG: “Martha Flynn, stuck in Delaware, never came in my father’s pants”
Student: “Stamps from Ecuador in my father’s pants”
Student: “I feel like a fool in my father’s pants”
AG: “I feel like a fool in my father’s pants”
Student: “There’s an endless pocket in my father’s pants”
Student: “Soot from Cleveland factories in my father’s pants”
AG: “Soot from Cleveland factories in my father’s pants”
Student: “Rock chips, hammers, my mother’s legs in my father’s pants”
AG: “Rock chips, hammers and my mother’s legs…”?
Student: “I found the truth in my father’s pants”
AG: You found the truth? Well.. There’s a tendency for everybody to be very abstract “in (their) father’s pants”. I mean, you might find some cumulus rain-clouds in your father’s pants, or something.
Student: “I couldn’t fit in his shoes so I left his ashes in my father’s pants”
AG: Umm.. You couldn’t fit his ashes in his shoes or you couldn’t… ?
Student: “Foreign coins in my father’s pants, foreign coins in my father’s pants”
AG: Foreign coins?
Student: “Fifty-seven years have made their way through my father’s pants”
AG: “Fifty-seven years have made their way through.. ? Did I miss anybody?
Student [Eva Marino]: Yeah, me, Eva Marino
AG: Pardon me?
Student [Eva Marino]: Eva Marino
AG: What’s your last name?
Student [Eva Marino]: Marino! – M-A-R-I-N-O
AG: I don’t have it listed, but that’s alright. Are you sort of signed-up or something? (for) credit? , Anna Marino?
Student [Eva Marino]: Eva!
AG: Eva Marino, what about your father’s pants?
Student [Eva Marino]: “Grey-striped cuffs on the bottom of my father’s pants
AG: Grey-striped cuffs…? – Okay, anybody else registered that I didn’t get
Student [Paul Cotton]: I’m auditing this class.
AG: Yeah, what’s your name?
Student [Paul Cotton]: Paul Cotton< AG: Is this the first time you've been here when I've called the roll? Student [Paul Cotton]: No, I was here once before.
AG: Uh-huh.. What happened in your father’s pants?
Student [Paul Cotton]: “Worms are squirming in my father’s pants”
AG: Who else?… Yes?
Student [Rachel Peters] – Rachel Peters. I just registered.
AG: Yes
Student [Rachel Peters] – “You could fit a Mack truck in my father’s pants”
AG: You could fit a Mack truck in? – Knutson, Tom
Student [Tom Knutson]: Knutson, Tom, I was registered from the start.
AG: Uh-huh
Student [Tom Knutson]: “Secret subtle mysteries and me in my father’s pants”
AG: Secret sun mysteries?
Student [Tom Knutson]: Subtle
AG: Subtle mysteries. Who else? Who else? [points to unidentified student] What was your line?
Student: “My mother’s ground-up breasts with melted cheese..rancid…”
AG: Alright, alright..yes, anyone I missed?
Student [Michael Bartuccio] – Michael Bartuccio – “Secret chemical energy Father, secret chemical energy..”
AG: ..in your..?
[class continues with discussion of William Carlos Williams (see earlier and subsequent segments)]