Day #61

Sometimes kids set themselves to fight and you can tell they don't really want to, but you can't be sure. There's a ritual to City school fights, where a lot of jawing and "your mammas" ends up with two boys standing cheek-to-cheek, their heads actually tilted in, an intimate almost conjoined connection. They wait like that, like gunslingers, for someone to make the first move so the swinging can commence. Sometimes the swinging never commences, and they start clenching because neither boy wants to fight, they want the teacher to come over and get between them. This way they can say they stood their ground but they don't really have a chance to get hurt.

Two of the biggest sixth graders performed this silly dance in my room yesterday. Gregorious and Talons started jawing as soon as we walked in from lunch, and then they were standing touching cheeks together. I rushed over as much smaller kids pulled on my arms and pleaded "please don't stop this one, please let them fight, we want to see this one, please!" I got between them just as the clenching/wrestling started, and then Talons decided to throw a punch at Gregorious after I got there, like a true pussy. The weakest most frightened kids do that, throwing a sucker punch in effect when the fight is over and they can't get hit back.

As is often the case, Talons' punch missed his target and hit me in the jaw. Even though he packs a good 160 pounds, he didn't do any damage or even really hurt me, but I went ballistic. I grabbed a handful of shirt and threw him into a chair which slid across the floor. I turned and howled at Gregorious to get out and then I hauled Talon by the ear down to the AP, with Gregorious five paces behind us and following.

Of course, true to form, they were sent back to class ten minutes later.

Exactly two weeks until Xmas break. Oh, yeah. Hot diggety!

Day #59

In two weeks and two days I start 1.5 weeks off. It will be a badly needed break from being called "cracker ass muthafucka," from being pushed and jumped on by teenagers, from having to call parents every day. A break from violence, hopelessness, and despair, from seeing the results of poverty, addiction, and abuse. I am counting down the days like a prisoner in his final weeks of incarceration.

And yet over the break I will think of each of my students at least once and I will worry about them and wonder if they are having a good holiday.

Illuminoctem

When I saw "Eurydice" @ Single Carrot Theater, I thought, "Wow, that's going to be tough to top." And yet, given the streak Single Carrot is on, I knew they would out-do themselves again. I didn't expect it to happen so soon, however.

"Illuminoctem" is an exhilarating home-run. It's a myth re-cast as a short story re-done as a play and re-imagined by the Carrots as a wordless sequence of dance and movement vignettes, and it is AWESOME. It's like Einstein on the Beach meets The Enigma of Kasper Hauser mixed with Duck Amuck. I was totally blown away, and left thinking "I need to see that again."

By turns disturbing, erotic, and beautifully moving, "Illuminoctem" is another triumph. If you haven't seen a show at Single Carrot yet, then you are missing out. This play is a collaboration with many other local artists, including a crew of very clever choreographers, with a fantastic score and amazing light design.

Even the Sun gushed about it. Don't miss!

Day 59

Today Rash was itchin' for a confrontation. I called his house for the gillionth time, hoping to catch his mama and ruin his weekend. Instead his gramma answered, and she said "Mr. G, I want you to take Rash for a walk. Do you hear what I'm saying? He don't have a man in his life, and he needs a man to take him for a walk. You take him where you think you need to: the bathroom, the hallway, or out behind the school. You do what he needs being done. Or, even better, you embarrass him in front of the class. You understand what I'm tellin' you, Mr. G.? You hear what I am saying?"

"Why yes I do. I hear what you are saying. You are requesting that I get physical with your grandson. Do I have your permission?"

"Oh, sweet Jesus. You not only have my permission, you have my request. I want you to be firm with him."

Rash was standing next to me, and I had my phone tilted out so he could hear what Granny was saying. His eyes got bigger and bigger as the phone call progressed. Before I hung up I started rolling up my shirt sleeves. My 6th graders this year have only seen me in dress shirts or sweaters: they haven't seen my arms. They started saying "Damn!" and "Dag!" I pushed my sleeves all the way up as I hung up the phone. Then I picked Rash up and used him as an eraser on the front board. Then I folded him up and rolled him around on the floor a while, and then I opened my supply cabinet and put him inside and locked the door. He calmed down noticeably.

Then T said "you try that on me and I'll hit you." I went after him and he ran out in the hall. I took off my glasses and said "hit me. I want you to hit me." The classroom emptied behind me. "Your class is off the chain," T said, backpedalling, "you need to get them back in the room." "Hit me," I said. "I want you to hit me, because then I can defend myself." I kept moving toward him and my class was following me, eager and abuzz with excitement. Other kids started moving to other classroom doors and looking out.

"You ain't got my mom's permission!" he squealed as I applied the Pinch of Death to his trapezius, and he fell to the floor. I drug him back in my class by his shoes and picked him up and put him in his chair. T is more than twice as big as Rash, but I was making a point and would not be deterred. T has failed twice and uses his size to bully his classmates. "You big and tough, aintcha? You go hard," I said. "A 13-year-old bullying 11-year-olds. Well, you ain't such a much. I wish I was 13 again so I could teach you the lesson you deserve. STAY IN YOUR SEAT AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH."

The other kids in class were clapping and laughing and I asked who was next and then taught my lesson.

Do I enjoy this stuff? Hardly. After being sick for the third time in two weeks, I was frankly winded after rubbing Rash on the board. But it got my point across.

Thank God for the weekend. I am wiped!

#48

Yeah, I'm officially on a Jack Vance kick now. The Star King is hard-boiled sci-fi compared to the more lyrical and mythic Dying Earth series. But the universe is gorgeously imagined, the characters--particularly the villains--are deliciously heinous, and the action is a quite satisfying revenge plot. I can't wait to consume the rest of the series, and recommend again Jack Vance to fans of Ballard, Calvino, Borges, etc...

A couple months back I didn't think I would get to 50 books this year; I feel more confident now. Last year I made 60, and the year before I hit the 100 mark. Slacking in my old age!

#47

I'm drawn to restless souls, to spiritual seekers, to those unsatisfied with every theory, every approach, every explanation. As far as such types go, Joan Halifax has quite the resume: she's a student of Thich Nhat Hahn, she's been an apprenticed shaman in a variety of Mexican and southwestern tribes, she's done retreats and pilgrimages world-wide, she's studied the Dogon and lived amongst them, she's slogged the Himalayas, and she was even married to Stanislov Grof, the pioneer of LSD therapy. A roshi and PhD and shaman all in one: doesn't get more restless than that!

Mostly the book is a collection of stories about her travels, about her meetings with tribal elders, about their warnings and prophecies. I found it a quality addition to the bookcase of similar meandering tomes. She advocates a return to old ways of coexisting with nature, a re-awakening of our deep ecological awareness that we do not live outside of Nature, but that we are part of Nature. And yet she says airplanes and garbage and pollution are part of our world and part of us, we just need to be more sensible and aware of the harm we cause, and we should try to limit or mitigate it; she references the Japanese regret of the pain of human suffering, which recognizes the aesthetic beauty of our sadness: mono no aware. Right now I'm fighting my second sickness in two weeks, this one more daunting than the first, and I'm trying to find the beauty in it.

Guest Blogging

Casey over at The Contrarian has always been kind to Blog-Sothoth, and he recently asked for my favorite albums of the Oughts. I found this assignment particularly difficult, because I don't often listen to what's current. I mean, I'm just discovering the Pixies, Perotin, and Funkadelic!

But whatever. I heard a lot of good albums in the past ten years by The Shins, The Decembrists, Belle and Sebastian, The Flaming Lips, Outkast, Sonic Youth, Ryan Adams, Scott Miller, Toubab Crew, the Ting-Tings, Aimee Mann, etc, etc. But many of these albums were spent after a year or so, and I don't need to hear them again.

Here, however, are the five I haven't exhausted yet. [Were I to add a sixth it would be either Boxer or Heart Like a Lion. Or maybe Spooked--man, I'm terrible at keeping lists concise!]

And speaking of Casey, his new LP Eldritch Musicks is due soon. I've got both Northern Lights and Soft Rock in heavy iTunes rotation, so I'm rather excited to hear his Lovecraft-inspired song cycle. Will it top the Fungi from Yuggoth!?

Day #56

Arson event #3 today, before school even started. It was 7:15, and a handful of kids were in the building, most of them in the cafeteria eating their free Title I breakfast. I was rushing around doing errands, trying to find a copier that worked, etc. I bumped into two 7th graders who are always in the hallway when they aren't supposed to be. I directed them to move along to where they belonged and headed downstairs to the office. I came back three minutes later and my room door was popped and there was smoke in the hall. Then there was an announcement to clear the building.

It appears the two jackasses set fire to a bulletin board. They were on camera when I confronted them, then they were off camera when the fire was set, then they were seen on a different camera fleeing down the hall away from the fire after it started. Their story? "Mr. G was chasing us, that's why we ran." Didn't wash, because I'm on camera on the first floor while they were running upstairs.

My room was popped because some of my students at breakfast saw the fire. One ran to get me and another ran to get the fire extinguisher. By the time an adult knew what was happening, the kids had already alerted the main office, found an adult, and put out the flames! I was quite proud of them.

So the day began with everybody standing outside in the cold for 45 minutes as the fire fighters did their SOP. Figures this morning would be the first truly cold school day of the year.