Gulp

A terrible story, and I'm amazed it doesn't happen more often. Ask me over drinks sometime about flying into Tegucigalpa.

One Week Away

My ear drums are ringing satisfactorily from our loud rehearsal last evening. We've got two more full set-list runs scheduled this weekend before we take the revAMPed Move Like Seamus live next Friday at Mick O'Shea's.

Be there @ 9:30.

[photo by Danielle-Marie Tompkins]

cool

"bird-brained" should no longer be pejorative

#31

I'd read Ancient Images long ago and thought it would be nice to revisit before Campbell's new one is released this side of the pond in July. Campbell's got two gears in his novels: the re-awakening of some hoary pagan magic, or the descent of some paranoid loser into obsessive stalking and murder. Ancient Images is of the former category, and it holds up well. A TV film critic and researcher discovers a copy of a suppressed Karloff and Lugosi horror film and dies mysteriously just as he's about to screen it. The film is stolen, and his friend takes time off from work to trace any information she can about the movie. What many thought was fiction turns out to be all too real, bwa hahah ah ha.

Campbell is an aquired taste. He's more about atmosphere than action, and his obtuse style can frustrate. But I've always liked his style, and the way he puts the fear into atmosphere.

Hard Times at Douglass High

I keep thinking about adding HBO to our DirectTV subscription. They've got a documentary coming up about Frederick Douglass High in B'more--where most of my kids from this year will end up next year (at least those who pass and who don't drop out).

Unfortunately I'm a teacher off for the summer, so I can't afford HBO until next August. By then I'm hoping Hard Times at Douglass High will be on DVD.

Only 9 instructional days to go

We're reading a novel called Bang! with the 8th graders. Lukie got the book through a grant which donated sufficient copies for us to give each student their own. She's been itching to get it into the classroom all year, but until we finished the mandated City pacing guide that wasn't possible. The kids love the book, which is about guns and city violence and youth. Many are reading ahead and asking questions about the moral ramifications of choices people make.

I don't know why we have to read stuff like The Giver, which the kids hated and to which they could not relate. I mean, I'm all for using a variety of books to teach literary analysis skills--but our kids are 8th graders who read at a fifth grade level. They need materials that engage them, books that will interest them in reading. I don't think, frankly, that we should teach literary analysis skills (characterization, theme, plot) until the kids can freakin' read at grade level. We're doing them a dis-service by asking them to analyze characterization in a book like The Giver when they can barely read it.

But anyhow, today we're watching an episode of The Simpsons in class, called "The Cartridge Family."* The kids know a lot about guns and gun violence obviously, but they don't know much about guns as a controversial political issue. I want them to know about the NRA and gun control legislation, etc, and this seems a good place to start. I may show them Bowling for Columbine in whole or in part later (though the logical fallacies are irksome Moore's movie is good for starting dialogue and debate). I also want to talk about how kids get killed in the cities all the time, but when a school shooting happens in the 'burbs we have national news coverage for weeks, and the implications of this.

A funny story I never mentioned here: Nat came to class with a huge bandage wrapped around his left wrist.

Me: What happened to your hand?

Nat: The police beat me up.

Me: Really? What happened?

Nat: They said I stole something.

Me: They beat you up for stealing something?

Nat: Nah. They was chasing me for stealing a scooter. But I didn't steal it, someone gave it to me.

Lukie: Did the person who gave you the scooter steal it?

Nat: Yeah. I cut my hand on a gate.

Me: A gate?

Nat: Yeah, one of those metal things around a yard with the spikes on top.

Me: A fence.

Nat: Yeah. I tried to jump it and the spike went through my hand.

Me: And the police beat you up?

Nat: Nah. They actually helped get my hand off the fence.

*The kids like Family Guy better.

Container gardening

Container gardening, originally uploaded by Blog-Sothoth.

My goal is to put flower boxes in nine of the 13 front windows on our house. Some of them are rather hard to get to, however.

#30

I enjoyed some aspects of the book, including the manner in which 'surveillance' is handled. I'd have thought, given the title, that Raban's book would have focused on state snooping into the lives of private citizens. Most of the government intrusion occurs in the background, however, with subtle hints of growing police oppression and intrusion into everday life. This is refreshingly "real," and reflects our current descent into soft fascism. The book shows how regular citizens increasingly watch each other and use technology (Google) and subterfuge to check each other out. We all are guilty of surveillance. Of course many of Raban's characters are liars and cheats, and since everybody is guilty constant surveillance is what people deserve. Or something.

Most of the characters are simply drawn caricatures created simply to get their political views in the text: the paranoid liberal conspiracy theorist, the freedom-loving right-wing academic who hates Islam, the lefty who tolerates the erosion of civil liberties for security, etc. There is some fine writing, and an alarming passage or two, but I was most dis-satisfied by the novel's peculiar ending.