in the news

Governor Sanford — It really didn’t help your image that you “love” the woman. You didn’t always love her. There was a time a while back that you were introduced. Next, well, there were the introductory activities when you might have chosen an alternative behavior.  You’d deserve more sympathy/empathy if you hadn’t revealed that other indiscretions with women are part of your secret resume. I don’t mean to be judgmental, affairs are common, but as a public figure, you open yourself to scrutiny and commentary. You’ve lost your wife, and you’ll lose the Argentinian when the next soul mate comes along. Hello . . . don’t write those sweet nothings in email for crying out loud!

Ruth Madoff — Another who will suffer collateral damage from her husband’s activities. Sad that today they’re seizing their multi-million dollar apartment. This isn’t sarcasm. It makes me feel they way I feel when the Bolsheviks confiscate Dr. Zhivago’s lovely home in the film, crowding his family into one room and burning his (make that “”the People’s) furniture for heat.

Michael Jackson — The Jackson Five never appealed. But I admit that Daughter Dearest gave me Thriller for my birthday last year. I had mentioned  something about liking the music to Thriller. And Beat It. And Billy Jean.  I just listen and and don’t look.

Canto III for the classroom

Dante’s Canto III of Inferno, which I will be teaching in the fall, poses unique challenges like most pre-modern literature beyond language and style.

I wondered what to bring to 21st-century students from this medieval epic poem which depicts a quite literal hell and its inhabitants. (I doubt that most students will believe in a literal hell since they did not, from an earlier poem’s discussion — Rich’s “Living in Sin” – believe in sin in a biblical sense.)

Canto III cantains the entry capstone’s ABANDON EVERY HOPE, YE THAT ENTER.  Early on Virgil shows Dante the “woeful people who have lost the use of the intellect or reason.” What does that mean?  Their further description:

. . . he led me in to the things that are hidden there. There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the starless air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling always through that air forever dark, as sand eddies in a whirlwind (vv. 16-30).

These are the denizens who are driven in tumultuous fervor of expression (note the language/speech/sound diction) but who lack any purpose and attain no goal. Ever. They lost their ability to think, reason, and then communicate sound reason. And they suffer their desultory fate.

And I looked and saw a whirling banner which ran so fast that it seemed as if it could never make a stand, and behind it came so long a train of people that I should never have believed death had undone so many (vv. 55-57).

Plus all this activity is done with speed as people frantically run after a banner (purpose) that never is established.  Modern students will surely relate to a driven but unfulfilled world described so frequently in works with which they are familiar. (See Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” post.)

They should recognize the pitiable, relentless activity of those who have lost the use of their minds, the greatest use of which is the knowledge of truth. That, of course, is why the students are furthering their education.

Thanks for (not) sharing

In thinking about redistribution of wealth, fairness, and responsibility consider the familiar Biblical parable of the ten virgins. (Matthew 25:10-13._

 We might want to know more details about this wedding, but what is undeniable is that the author praises half of the ten: the half that were prepared with oil for their lamps and who refused to share their oil with the unprepared ladies.

The context here is Christ’s second coming and being alert and ready, but the detail of the “selfishness” of those stingy girls could have been omitted without detriment to the story. Was the author saying that we may not mooch someone’s salvation? Yes, but the other principle remains, and I find it interesting and in contrast to the usually touted attitudes in scripture.

I’m not anti-sharing, but there are situations . . .

Post 100 — a poem and a comment

Learning Curves

Driving from the city through rural countryside
to teach literature and composition — “humanities 215″
is instructive:
unprepossessing vutures hover the highway
waiting to get at a fast-food dinner–
“What times are these?” they query, though with thanksgiving.

Small deer convening,  quietly posed for a family photo,
wait for the still sister or mother
and inquire also – or maybe they know.
Roadkill is the special of the day– every day –
though with fewer casualties on the homeward route.

In the country, clouds are closer — really –
they loom relentlessly for miles — black and angry –
especially in the dead spot for cell reception –
a valley between hills of brown cattle all facing east.
 A dead car there would throw a person  
right into a game of chance –

On campus, I’m teaching Hamlet — again.
“To be or not to be . . .” 
That is the only question, as always,
for small or large unremarkable rodentia
and drivers on freeways or backroads –
even if you don’t, Hamlet, do it yourself.

The correct answer: not to be.

 

While this is the poem I had today, I promised myself to write, sometime soon, something that shows nature in a positive light. That’s harder, I think, for most poets. A good thesis might involve poets, say Frost and Dickinson, and how frequently they portray nature as friendly or dark.  They do both. Ultimately, it’s more uplifting to see only the good, but it’s not necessarily more instructive. Consider George Herbert’s “Church Monuments,” wherein the speaker addresses the body regarding preparing to die. 

Richard Everhart’s “The Groundhog” displays a similar theme as mine, though he’s a frequently anthologized pro. (scroll to the one with Eberhart’s name.) It reminds me of Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” And there is a little pathetic fallacy in Frost’s “Bereft” as nature finds out that the speaker is bereft and alone.

What’s your statue?

Billy Collins writes about what his own and others’ memorial statues might look like. The speaker in “Statues in the Park” views an “equestrian” statue and thinks of someone who taught him the symbolism of such works: a horse rearing up, two legs raised meant that the rider had died in battle and so on.

From there his thoughts wander to the more common sort who live ignoble or seemingly featureless lives of pain or grief, unremarkable uses for replication in statues in parks. Naturally he thinks of his own statue — himself on his knees,  eyes uplifted in prayer, simply begging for another day.

Collins’s 2005 collection The Trouble with Poetry is a fitting read for April (National Poetry Month) since Collins has done so much for the repopularization of poetry.  When he served as American Poet Laureate in 2001, he began the Poetry 180 project, which engaged students and others in a hip, thoughtful website which archives his work and the work of other poets, mainly comtemporary.

Take a look at the table of contents of all 180 poems on this Library of Congress sponsored site for some time well spent with some gifted, but less (or never) frequently anthologized poets. And you might enjoy seeing and hearing Billy Collins read “Litany” on You Tube along with a bit of commentary. Search around for other readings. Charming.

Out of it

We were the last people that we knew to get a microwave oven, a cell phone, and a flat screen tv.  What seemed to be such extravagances at the time are now part of everyday life — givens. Are we stubborn? Cheap? Afraid?

A little of all three actually. We don’t want to be told to embrace untried technologies, and we’re extremely frugal. And some things will prove to be dangerous if we just wait.

Tonight someone told me that I’m the only person not on Facebook. I’ve never been to the site or been curious enough to inquire about its potential benefits. My issues here are privacy, time, and fear.  I have read a few articles about its being a time-consuming fabit. And I’m not so sure about making efriends. My daughter says its private. Right.

The baked potatoes and popcorn got me on the microwave. Picture clarity is worth the flat screen, and I do feel safer with a cell phone though I rarely use it. (I don’t text.)

What would convince me to join Facebook?

Barbie — so perfect, even at 50!

Slate is running a video ad for the Barbie Doll. I had the ones on the first page. Still do. My daughter still has hers, I believe, though the pink plastic vans and picnic tables and motorcycles went the way of the secret yard sale.

We played girl games, forged our fashion insight, and pretended to be adults with our adult character dolls — a new thing for the times. And though she is often maligned by feminists for the unrealistic, intimidating role model she presents, Barbie has not lost her appeal whether she’s Nurse Barbie or Soccer Barbie.

The ad makes the case that Barbie has been, if little else, adaptable. Time offers a more detailed, if less edgy, survey of Barbiedom. Enjpy the ride through history.

Troy Patterson writes about Ken in “Boy Toy.”   I had the Ken doll, too, but he disappeared.

You get what you pay for — Good news from Washington

President Obama has it right on merit pay for teachers.  Business knows that rewarding achievement leads to more of the same. Teachers, on the other hand, get the state’s published wages no matter what. Smart?  Savvy? Current? Engaging communication skills? Interesting lessons? High student achievement?

So? You get what the guy down the hall gets even though he spends much time on the web and phone for personal business, doesn’t prepare, can’t or won’t work hard in the classroom, and can’t point to significant student achievement. 

Crazy.

What is the psychology of paying someone what he is worth based on performance? Hard-working teachers have been who they are while wages remained standardized. Will they be even more motivated with the extra pay? They will certainly have that pat on the back, the sense that somebody cares and notices AND the knowledge that they have been distinguished from others. And cash beats a certificate for folks whose pay is already not what it should be.  And if the sky’s the limit, schools will reap the benefits, one of which may be slackers leaving in shame.

Two problems have to be addressed: achievement guidelines and administrator subjectivity.

First, what will school systems reward?  It will certainly include good standardized test scores and completed lesson plans based on a check list. These are concrete and easily documented. But sometimes a teacher’s class gets the windfall from the previous teacher’s work. And any teacher can write out (or now simply print from the web) an impressive lesson plan. Some principals simply don’t know how to evaluate intelluctual development beyond the easily quantifiable form or basic skill.

Intangibles will be harder to grade: changes that occur as a student is enlightened in his thinking about the world and its complex subtleties, the progress, even if limited, of moving from sentence to paragraph to argument — compete with logic. I could go on about the real work of a teacher — it’s not an exact science and it requires  je ne sais quoi.  No doubt there will be a “standard” about the teacher’s ability to “control the classroom.” But how is that quiet environment sustained and does the silence quarantee learning? No, but it makes principals look good.

The second challenge will be personal and subjective. School administrators favor those that support them and make their life easier. And those that they just happen to like.  Hopefully deserving teachers will not be penalized because of petty jealousy, simple antipathy,  or the administrator’s lack of evaluative skills. Hopefully less brilliant, but generally satisfactory teachers will be not be rewarded and therefore encouraged to maintain their status quo based on their neat, correct forms, finishing the text, subdued environments or, God forbid, their snazzy bulletin boards!

Agnostic editor makes case for the Bible, but not God

Slate’s David Plotz read every word of the Bible and lived to write about it in  Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible,

He tells about how fascinating are the stories, the etymologies (shibboleth),  the frequently used allusions. And how cruel the slayings, judgments, and punishments.

Plotz says he began the reading project as an unconcerned agnostic and ended as an angry agnostic. The Bible, it seems, turned him further against God. Yet he admits the value of such a study and wonders why, given the Bible’s significance, more of it isn’t required reading in college and high school.

We know the answer to that.

Who reads the Bible today? We  might “cherry pick” our favorite texts or the easier reads. Or we have determined which parts are just “in there” but not particularly relevant or were cultural manifestations and not applicable. In previous centuries in the West, a working knowledge of the Bible was a given. Today, in teaching, the many biblical allusions are lost on most students. And I’m talking S0lomon-level references.

So ket us hear the end of the matter. The Bible is for many The Word of God. For others, like Plotz, an interesting and important text. Others don’t have a position on it any more than they do on The Grapes of Wrath: it doesn’t figure into anything.

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2212616/pagenum/all/#p2

Slumdog — for the dissent

The acting is certainly engaging, the score enchanting, and the plot and theme valid, if expected.  These alone should comprise a movie that earned plenty of viewers and box office dollars, which, of course, is the case.

And I can see exactly how and why the various juries named it the Best Picture.

For me, the film pleases in the general areas mentioned. Who doesn’t like a rags-to-riches tale?  But Jamal doesn’t win through his own intelligence or skill or even determination. He isn’t that interested in winning the money. He thinks the beloved might be watching because she was watching that one time.

Also clever is the opening epigraphical multiple choice Q&A about why events are about to unfold as they do.

“How did he do it? A) He cheated. B) He’s lucky. C) He’s a genius. D) It is written.”

My problem is personal and aesthetic and probably not shared by anybody else. The gruesomeness is emotionally and visually unpleasant if not in spots unbearable. Let’s see, there’s torture by beating, electric shock, children’s eyes being removed so that they become more convincing (and profitable) beggars, forced prostitution. 

The depictions of very realistic (I assume) dismal, abject poverty are something I don’t like to see at any price while I munch my popcorn as if it means nothing (the representation of reality) and is provided for my entertainment. Slumdog is not a documentary. Kids rolling in their post-diahrreal excrement, digging through garbage heaps, squalid living as in washing clothes and dishes in filthy canal waters with hundreds of others. Lots of non-athletic sweat. Not for me. Someone said that I needed a good dose of reality — it’s good for us to expand our horizons. Call me shallow, but I have plenty of imagination that suffices minus disturbing visuals.

It’s probably not going to spoil it for anyone if I say that the outcome is the desired one.  Through much adversity, boy gets girl — the childhood sweetheart, no less — and they kiss and dance off the stage. AND they are filthy rich, no pun intended, their problems solved, their suffering erased. Because “it is written.” It’s conventional and naive following the film’s pervasive negativity, but this is melodrama. Somebody’s watching over Jamal.

 

An excellent, graded review http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/multiple-choice-review-slumdog-millionaire.php