#27

Oscar Wao? Oscar WOW. A Dominican sci-fi geek and his cursed family who live in Paterson New Jersey are the focus of this wonderful novel, which also provides a mini-lesson in the history of a tortured island nation and its sordid dictator Trujillo. Junot Diaz writes an engaging snappy slang, and peppers his book with more geeky pop cultural references than a full season of Futurama. Funny, tragic, hip, and deserving of its Pulitzer.

dog daze

dog daze, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

my neighbor's dog likes this recent weather

God help me

Booker T. Washington Middle, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

So I had an interview at Booker T. today. It went very well. We discussed a return to the arts-integration focus Booker T. had before its calamitous fall the last five years into wretched and abysmal decay.

If they offer me a job I might take it, despite better offers at much safer schools. What the fuck is wrong with me? This is the school where attacks on staff are leading the charge in violence-prone B'more. The school where I've had weapons in the classroom, where I've seen kids kicked in the head, where I've been called a "cracker ass muthafucka" by students on numerous occasions. Where just today I had a girl screaming "stop grabbing my tit muthafucka" as a boy wrestled her to the ground and I had to pick him up by the ears to get his filthy paws off her.

I am so torn. Booker T. is the school that needs me most, my desire to teach high schoolers aside.

Oh, God. Maybe they will make this decision easy by not offering me the job.

What have we here?

Looks like the return of Move Like Seamus to Mick O'Shea's Irish Pub is imminent. A new line-up and new setlist await.

Too bad their new rhythm guitarist is so unphotogenic.

#26

Yeah, I think I liked it. I have some reservations however:

• the use of the narrative "we," which is intended to show the degree of absorption inside corporate culture of each individual into a hive identitiy, is gimicky and quickly tiresome
• the story is episodic and seems stitched together and the amusing anecdotes are often not that funny and not that suprising to anyone who has actually had a job in a corporation
• ditto for the caricatures of people who work in corporations
• I can't talk about the po-mo trick unleashed near the end, because it's a spoiler. It's not wholly unbearable here, but said trick is like the "it was all a dream ending": done to death!

So I didn't like it until the "shift," about which I shan't speak in case you are reading or going to read it, and then I must admit I became interested in the book as a novel instead of just as a gimmicky farce about corporate behavior. Do I think this should have been nominated for the National Book Award? Hell, no. But I liked it well enough to finish it.

grilled

Oooh, I think I bombed my interview today. In some instances I gave vague, meandering answers to questions I should have nailed. I did ok on some stuff, but were I the one interviewing me today, I'd not hire myself.

The other candidates up for the job were long-time high school City English teachers. Gulp.

There are 2 things I bring to the table which might be of value at this particular school: college teaching experience and business management experience. This is an "innovation" school with an emphasis on career and college track students. I think I can help kids develop practical writing and reading skills necessary for their lives as functioning citizens. I think I can do this while sharing my passion for art, music and literature, which is also important, given the arts integration focus at this school.

Whether I communicated any of this well or even adequately today is up in the air. We'll see. They said the chosen candidate would face two more obstacles: teaching a lesson plan in front of students from the school who would evaluate it with the administrators present, and then a third interview. Gulp, gulp.

I do have a couple aces up my sleeve:

• male teachers are in high demand, and I am the only male seeking the position
• my wife works closely with this school and they all know her and respect her, and I have met the administrators before socially
• my mentor teacher knows one of the administrators who interviewed me

If I don't make the cut, I take the other offer and settle for 7th grade. No biggie.

a breath of fresh air

Leesha forwarded this vid, and it's pretty cool. I want a compressed air car now!

High Fi

I iTuned this last week--think I first read about it over at B12Partners--and it's awesome. There's a great track featuring Cab Calloway, who grew up near by, who was best friends with my 85-year-old neighbor's brother (they have the photos to prove it), and who went to Booker T.

And speaking of Seth's blog. I'm reluctant to go there any more. He and Steven Hart always cost me money with their quality recommendations. Hart recently plugged Junot Diaz, which I'm currently loving.