If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
-Henry David Thoreau
Draw a Sitting Dragon
11 years ago
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
KCMetropolis.org Debut
Times, they are a-changing
By Diane Thompson
By Diane Thompson
This everyman, or more aptly put, everywoman, story takes place in an unnamed small Midwestern town outside of "The Cities" in Minnesota during 1969-70. It is a tale of personal and national growth and of discovery told through the lives of Pastor Gunderson, played by Barry Williams (a.k.a Greg Brady), and the four ladies who run the church kitchen.
Click here to read full review.
Source: KCMetropolis.org
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Happy Birthday Bird!
"There was one thing he wanted to do. He didn’t worry about anything else -- as long as he could play that horn." - Jay McShann
At age eleven, he had just begun to play the saxophone. At age twenty he was leading a revolution in modern jazz music. At thirty-four, he was dead from years of drug and alcohol use. Today, Charlie "Yardbird" Parker is considered one of the great musical innovators of the 20th century. A father of bebop, he influenced generations of musicians, and sparked the fire of one of the most important and successful American artistic movements.
Born in 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas, Charlie Parker grew up just across the river in Kansas City, Missouri. By age twelve he was playing in the high school marching band and in local dance hall combos. It was then that he first heard the new sounds of jazz. Hanging around the Kansas City clubs, the young Parker went to hear every new musician to pass through. Some of his earliest idols were Jimmy Dorsey, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Louis Armstrong.
As a teenager he married his childhood sweetheart, Rebecca Parker Davis. Living in Kansas City, they had a child, but as Kansas City declined as a center for jazz, Parker longed to leave his hometown for New York. So, just around age twenty, Parker sold his horn, left his family, and hopped on a train to New York, where he was destined to change the face of American music forever.
In New York, Parker had difficulty finding work at first, but playing with Jay McShann’s band he began to develop his fiercely original solo style. Within a short while he was the talk of the town and Dizzy Gillespie and other members of the Earl Hines band convinced Hines to hire him. Gillespie and Parker became close friends and collaborators. Of the time Gillespie recalled, "New York is the place, and both of us blossomed." Leaving Hines, the two moved on to Billy Eckstine’s band, where they were able to expand their range of experimentation.
The seeds of modern jazz, or "bebop," as the new style came to be called, were also being sown by now legendary pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, drummers Kenny Clark and Max Roach, and trumpeter Miles Davis. All were frequent Parker collaborators on recordings and in the lively 52nd Street clubs that were the jazz center of the mid-1940s. Beyond his amazing technical capacity, Parker was able to invent a more complex and individual music by disregarding the four- and eight-bar standards of jazz and creating solos that were both fluid and harsh.
Though the experiments of jazz were being heard worldwide, in the United States much of the popular media ignored the music and concentrated on the culture -- the berets, horn-rimmed glasses, goatees, and language that characterized the bebop style. Jazz critic Leonard Feather noted, "There was no serious attention paid to Charlie Parker as a great creative musician ... in any of the media. It was just horrifying how really miserably he was treated. And this goes for the way Dizzy Gillespie was treated -- and everybody." Due in part to dissatisfaction with the amount of critical attention he was receiving and in part to his years of on and off drug use, Parker slipped into serious addiction. On a two-year tour of California, his drinking and drug addiction worsened, and for six months he was in a Los Angeles rehabilitation center.
It was not until his tour of Europe that Parker began to receive the attention he deserved. Visiting Paris in 1949, Parker was greeted with an almost cult status. His European trips also encouraged him to expand his musical arrangements, including backing strings for both touring and recording. However, as continuing personal and creative pressures mounted, he went into a tailspin: drinking, behaving erratically, and even being banned from "Birdland," the legendary 52nd Street club named in his honor. Throughout this time, however, one thing remained intact -- Parker’s playing continued to exhibit the same technical genius and emotional investment that had made him great.
In 1954, while working again in California, Parker learned of the death of his two-year-old daughter, and went into further decline. He separated from his then common-law wife, Chan Parker, and was reduced to playing in dives. The cheap red wine he had become addicted to was exacerbating his stomach ulcers, and he even once attempted suicide. On March 9, 1955, while visiting his friend, the "jazz baroness" Nica de Koenigswarter, Charlie Parker died. The coroner cited pneumonia as the cause, and estimated Parker’s age at fifty-five or sixty. He was only thirty-four. Though Parker was a titan among jazz musicians of the time, it would take the country at large years to learn that for a short while in the 1940s and 1950s one of the most profoundly original American musicians had walked among them virtually unrecognized.
Source: American Masters
At age eleven, he had just begun to play the saxophone. At age twenty he was leading a revolution in modern jazz music. At thirty-four, he was dead from years of drug and alcohol use. Today, Charlie "Yardbird" Parker is considered one of the great musical innovators of the 20th century. A father of bebop, he influenced generations of musicians, and sparked the fire of one of the most important and successful American artistic movements.
Born in 1920 in Kansas City, Kansas, Charlie Parker grew up just across the river in Kansas City, Missouri. By age twelve he was playing in the high school marching band and in local dance hall combos. It was then that he first heard the new sounds of jazz. Hanging around the Kansas City clubs, the young Parker went to hear every new musician to pass through. Some of his earliest idols were Jimmy Dorsey, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Louis Armstrong.
As a teenager he married his childhood sweetheart, Rebecca Parker Davis. Living in Kansas City, they had a child, but as Kansas City declined as a center for jazz, Parker longed to leave his hometown for New York. So, just around age twenty, Parker sold his horn, left his family, and hopped on a train to New York, where he was destined to change the face of American music forever.
In New York, Parker had difficulty finding work at first, but playing with Jay McShann’s band he began to develop his fiercely original solo style. Within a short while he was the talk of the town and Dizzy Gillespie and other members of the Earl Hines band convinced Hines to hire him. Gillespie and Parker became close friends and collaborators. Of the time Gillespie recalled, "New York is the place, and both of us blossomed." Leaving Hines, the two moved on to Billy Eckstine’s band, where they were able to expand their range of experimentation.
The seeds of modern jazz, or "bebop," as the new style came to be called, were also being sown by now legendary pianists Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell, drummers Kenny Clark and Max Roach, and trumpeter Miles Davis. All were frequent Parker collaborators on recordings and in the lively 52nd Street clubs that were the jazz center of the mid-1940s. Beyond his amazing technical capacity, Parker was able to invent a more complex and individual music by disregarding the four- and eight-bar standards of jazz and creating solos that were both fluid and harsh.
Though the experiments of jazz were being heard worldwide, in the United States much of the popular media ignored the music and concentrated on the culture -- the berets, horn-rimmed glasses, goatees, and language that characterized the bebop style. Jazz critic Leonard Feather noted, "There was no serious attention paid to Charlie Parker as a great creative musician ... in any of the media. It was just horrifying how really miserably he was treated. And this goes for the way Dizzy Gillespie was treated -- and everybody." Due in part to dissatisfaction with the amount of critical attention he was receiving and in part to his years of on and off drug use, Parker slipped into serious addiction. On a two-year tour of California, his drinking and drug addiction worsened, and for six months he was in a Los Angeles rehabilitation center.
It was not until his tour of Europe that Parker began to receive the attention he deserved. Visiting Paris in 1949, Parker was greeted with an almost cult status. His European trips also encouraged him to expand his musical arrangements, including backing strings for both touring and recording. However, as continuing personal and creative pressures mounted, he went into a tailspin: drinking, behaving erratically, and even being banned from "Birdland," the legendary 52nd Street club named in his honor. Throughout this time, however, one thing remained intact -- Parker’s playing continued to exhibit the same technical genius and emotional investment that had made him great.
In 1954, while working again in California, Parker learned of the death of his two-year-old daughter, and went into further decline. He separated from his then common-law wife, Chan Parker, and was reduced to playing in dives. The cheap red wine he had become addicted to was exacerbating his stomach ulcers, and he even once attempted suicide. On March 9, 1955, while visiting his friend, the "jazz baroness" Nica de Koenigswarter, Charlie Parker died. The coroner cited pneumonia as the cause, and estimated Parker’s age at fifty-five or sixty. He was only thirty-four. Though Parker was a titan among jazz musicians of the time, it would take the country at large years to learn that for a short while in the 1940s and 1950s one of the most profoundly original American musicians had walked among them virtually unrecognized.
Source: American Masters
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
John Hughes, 1950-2009, Rest in Peace
“My heroes were Dylan, John Lennon and Picasso, because they each moved their particular medium forward, and when they got to the point where they were comfortable, they always moved on.” - John Hughes
John Hughes was one of the most impactful artists of my childhood...
Parental Discretion is Advised...
Sixteen Candles
And this song...oh yeah...I'm immediately a teenager again:
And a little tenderness...
And chicks who can't hold their smoke:
Bueller?
Clark!
What an amazing human being!!!
Writer:
Drillbit Taylor (2008) (story) (as Edmond Dantes)
Beethoven's 5th (2003) (V) (characters) (as Edmond Dantes) ... aka Beethoven's 5th: Big Paw (USA)
Maid in Manhattan (2002) (story) (as Edmond Dantès) ... aka Made in New York (USA: poster title)
Home Alone 4 (2002) (TV) (characters) ... aka Home Alone: Taking Back the House (USA: DVD title)
Beethoven's 4th (2001) (V) (characters) (as Edmond Dantès)
Just Visiting (2001) (screenplay) ... aka Les visiteurs en Amérique (France)
Beethoven's 3rd (2000) (V) (characters) (as Edmond Dantès)
American Adventure (2000) (TV) (characters) ... aka National Lampoon's American Adventure (USA: complete title)
Reach the Rock (1998) (written by)
Home Alone 3 (1997) (written by)
Flubber (1997) (screenplay) ... aka Disney's Flubber: The Absent Minded Professor (promotional title)
101 Dalmatians (1996) (screenplay)
Miracle on 34th Street (1994) (screenplay)
Baby's Day Out (1994) (written by)
Beethoven's 2nd (1993) (characters) (as Edmond Dantès)
Dennis the Menace (1993) (written by) ... aka Dennis (UK)
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) (characters) (written by) ... aka Home Alone II (USA: short title)
Beethoven (1992) (written by) (as Edmond Dantès) ... aka Beethoven: Story of a Dog (Australia: cable TV title)
Curly Sue (1991) (written by)
Dutch (1991) (written by) ... aka Driving Me Crazy
Career Opportunities (1991) (written by) ... aka One Wild Night
Home Alone (1990) (written by)
Christmas Vacation (1989) (written by) ... aka National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (UK: complete title) (USA: complete title) ... aka National Lampoon's Winter Holiday (UK)
Uncle Buck (1989) (written by)
The Great Outdoors (1988) (written by)
She's Having a Baby (1988) (written by)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) (written by)
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) (written by)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) (written by)
Pretty in Pink (1986) (written by)
Weird Science (1985) (written by)
European Vacation (1985) (screenplay) (story) ... aka National Lampoon's European Vacation (UK: video box title)
The Breakfast Club (1985) (written by)
Sixteen Candles (1984) (written by)
Nate and Hayes (1983) (written by) ... aka Savage Islands (UK)
Vacation (1983) (screenplay) (short story "Vacation '58") ... aka National Lampoon's Vacation (UK) (USA: complete title) ... aka American Vacation (Europe: English title: video title)
Mr. Mom (1983) (written by) ... aka Mr. Mum ... aka Perfect Daddy (Philippines: English title)
Class Reunion (1982) (written by) ... aka National Lampoon's Class Reunion
"Delta House" (5 episodes, 1979) - The Matriculation of Kent Dorfman (1979) TV episode (written by) - Campus Fair (1979) TV episode (written by) - The Deformity (1979) TV episode (written by) - The Lady in Weighting (1979) TV episode (written by) - The Shortest Yard (1979) TV episode (written by)
Producer:
New Port South (2001) (executive producer)
Reach the Rock (1998) (producer)
Home Alone 3 (1997) (producer)
Flubber (1997) (producer) ... aka Disney's Flubber: The Absent Minded Professor (promotional title)
101 Dalmatians (1996) (producer)
Miracle on 34th Street (1994) (producer)
Baby's Day Out (1994) (producer)
Dennis the Menace (1993) (producer) ... aka Dennis (UK)
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) (producer) ... aka Home Alone II (USA: short title)
Curly Sue (1991) (producer)
Dutch (1991) (producer) ... aka Driving Me Crazy
Only the Lonely (1991) (producer)
Career Opportunities (1991) (producer) ... aka One Wild Night
Home Alone (1990) (producer)
Christmas Vacation (1989) (producer) ... aka National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (UK: complete title) (USA: complete title) ... aka National Lampoon's Winter Holiday (UK)
Uncle Buck (1989) (producer)
The Great Outdoors (1988) (executive producer)
She's Having a Baby (1988) (producer)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) (producer)
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) (producer)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) (producer)
Pretty in Pink (1986) (executive producer)
The Breakfast Club (1985) (producer)
Director:
Curly Sue (1991)
Uncle Buck (1989)
She's Having a Baby (1988)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Weird Science (1985)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Sixteen Candles (1984)
Actor:
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) (uncredited) .... Guy Running Between Cabs
The Breakfast Club (1985) (uncredited) .... Brian's Father
Class Reunion (1982) (uncredited) .... 'Girl' in dress with paper bag over head ... aka National Lampoon's Class Reunion
Soundtrack:
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) (writer: "I Can Take Anything" (1987))
Vacation (1983) (lyrics: "The Walley World National Anthem") ... aka National Lampoon's Vacation (UK) (USA: complete title) ... aka American Vacation (Europe: English title: video title)
Self:
Hal Roach: King of Laughter (1994) (TV) .... Himself
Source: imdb.com
John Hughes was one of the most impactful artists of my childhood...
Parental Discretion is Advised...
Sixteen Candles
And this song...oh yeah...I'm immediately a teenager again:
And a little tenderness...
And chicks who can't hold their smoke:
Bueller?
Clark!
What an amazing human being!!!
Writer:
Drillbit Taylor (2008) (story) (as Edmond Dantes)
Beethoven's 5th (2003) (V) (characters) (as Edmond Dantes) ... aka Beethoven's 5th: Big Paw (USA)
Maid in Manhattan (2002) (story) (as Edmond Dantès) ... aka Made in New York (USA: poster title)
Home Alone 4 (2002) (TV) (characters) ... aka Home Alone: Taking Back the House (USA: DVD title)
Beethoven's 4th (2001) (V) (characters) (as Edmond Dantès)
Just Visiting (2001) (screenplay) ... aka Les visiteurs en Amérique (France)
Beethoven's 3rd (2000) (V) (characters) (as Edmond Dantès)
American Adventure (2000) (TV) (characters) ... aka National Lampoon's American Adventure (USA: complete title)
Reach the Rock (1998) (written by)
Home Alone 3 (1997) (written by)
Flubber (1997) (screenplay) ... aka Disney's Flubber: The Absent Minded Professor (promotional title)
101 Dalmatians (1996) (screenplay)
Miracle on 34th Street (1994) (screenplay)
Baby's Day Out (1994) (written by)
Beethoven's 2nd (1993) (characters) (as Edmond Dantès)
Dennis the Menace (1993) (written by) ... aka Dennis (UK)
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) (characters) (written by) ... aka Home Alone II (USA: short title)
Beethoven (1992) (written by) (as Edmond Dantès) ... aka Beethoven: Story of a Dog (Australia: cable TV title)
Curly Sue (1991) (written by)
Dutch (1991) (written by) ... aka Driving Me Crazy
Career Opportunities (1991) (written by) ... aka One Wild Night
Home Alone (1990) (written by)
Christmas Vacation (1989) (written by) ... aka National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (UK: complete title) (USA: complete title) ... aka National Lampoon's Winter Holiday (UK)
Uncle Buck (1989) (written by)
The Great Outdoors (1988) (written by)
She's Having a Baby (1988) (written by)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) (written by)
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) (written by)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) (written by)
Pretty in Pink (1986) (written by)
Weird Science (1985) (written by)
European Vacation (1985) (screenplay) (story) ... aka National Lampoon's European Vacation (UK: video box title)
The Breakfast Club (1985) (written by)
Sixteen Candles (1984) (written by)
Nate and Hayes (1983) (written by) ... aka Savage Islands (UK)
Vacation (1983) (screenplay) (short story "Vacation '58") ... aka National Lampoon's Vacation (UK) (USA: complete title) ... aka American Vacation (Europe: English title: video title)
Mr. Mom (1983) (written by) ... aka Mr. Mum ... aka Perfect Daddy (Philippines: English title)
Class Reunion (1982) (written by) ... aka National Lampoon's Class Reunion
"Delta House" (5 episodes, 1979) - The Matriculation of Kent Dorfman (1979) TV episode (written by) - Campus Fair (1979) TV episode (written by) - The Deformity (1979) TV episode (written by) - The Lady in Weighting (1979) TV episode (written by) - The Shortest Yard (1979) TV episode (written by)
Producer:
New Port South (2001) (executive producer)
Reach the Rock (1998) (producer)
Home Alone 3 (1997) (producer)
Flubber (1997) (producer) ... aka Disney's Flubber: The Absent Minded Professor (promotional title)
101 Dalmatians (1996) (producer)
Miracle on 34th Street (1994) (producer)
Baby's Day Out (1994) (producer)
Dennis the Menace (1993) (producer) ... aka Dennis (UK)
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) (producer) ... aka Home Alone II (USA: short title)
Curly Sue (1991) (producer)
Dutch (1991) (producer) ... aka Driving Me Crazy
Only the Lonely (1991) (producer)
Career Opportunities (1991) (producer) ... aka One Wild Night
Home Alone (1990) (producer)
Christmas Vacation (1989) (producer) ... aka National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (UK: complete title) (USA: complete title) ... aka National Lampoon's Winter Holiday (UK)
Uncle Buck (1989) (producer)
The Great Outdoors (1988) (executive producer)
She's Having a Baby (1988) (producer)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) (producer)
Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) (producer)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) (producer)
Pretty in Pink (1986) (executive producer)
The Breakfast Club (1985) (producer)
Director:
Curly Sue (1991)
Uncle Buck (1989)
She's Having a Baby (1988)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
Weird Science (1985)
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Sixteen Candles (1984)
Actor:
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) (uncredited) .... Guy Running Between Cabs
The Breakfast Club (1985) (uncredited) .... Brian's Father
Class Reunion (1982) (uncredited) .... 'Girl' in dress with paper bag over head ... aka National Lampoon's Class Reunion
Soundtrack:
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) (writer: "I Can Take Anything" (1987))
Vacation (1983) (lyrics: "The Walley World National Anthem") ... aka National Lampoon's Vacation (UK) (USA: complete title) ... aka American Vacation (Europe: English title: video title)
Self:
Hal Roach: King of Laughter (1994) (TV) .... Himself
Source: imdb.com
Monday, August 3, 2009
Watch Out Kansas City...
...here I come! I am excited and honored to announce, beginning in the Fall of 2009, I will join the many talented writers at KCMetropolis.org, Kansas City's Online Journal of the Performing Arts, as one of its theatre critics.
My beat will include plays by America Heartland Theatre at Crown Center (2450 Grand Blvd, KCMO), putting on such productions as Peter Colley's I'll be Back Before Midnight and It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, a Kansas City premiere written/adapted by Joe Landry from the screenplay by Frank Capra just to name a couple.
I'll also be writing on productions by Actors Theatre, 30 West Pershing Road, Suite 850KC, MO 64108. Upcoming titles to be released soon.
Who knows what else they'll throw my way? Whatever the case, I can't wait to get started and hope you will become a reader!
SUPPORT LOCAL PERFORMING ARTS!
Check out KCMetropolis.org, add it to your Favorites, sign-up for the weekly eblast to stay abreast of the KC performing arts scene, and donate if you can.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
I Tried to Learn Nothing Yesterday
"Today for Show and Tell, I've brought a tiny marvel of nature: a single snowflake. I think we might all learn a lesson from how this utterly unique and exquisite crystal turns into an ordinary, boring molecule of water, just like every other one, when you bring it in the classroom. And now, while the analogy sinks in, I'll be leaving you drips and going outside."
--Calvin, from Calvin & Hobbes
I nabbed this most insightful quote from a kick-*ss blog written by a kick-*ss unschooler. (Thanks Heart-Rockin' Mama!)Yesterday was Learn Nothing Day, a holiday created by Sandra and Holly Dodd to poke a little fun at those folks who ask us questions like, "But if you don't go to school, how do you learn?"We've gotten that comment, mostly from kids. The adults are a bit more discerning in their questioning, asking if we worry about college or how we learn about physics or what our days look like because they could never "stand to be home with their kids" every day. It's ok, it's normal to misunderstand something that's out of your realm of experience, but to unschoolers, who operate on the belief that learning happens all the time - ALL*THE*TIME - it does, truthfully, get a little tiresome after a while.
I'd forgotten to warn my kids ahead of time that Learn Nothing Day was approaching. It's only the 2nd annual and I didn't pay much attention to it last year. This year, however, I told Jonathan about it over breakfast. His reply? "I wish I'd known this sooner, so I could've planned better."
He has a whole pile of new birthday gifts so there's no WAY he won't learn anything today. But then we laughed about how we were learning something while we discussed not learning anything. And then we learned how hard it is to try to learn nothing. Doh!
His school friend summed up our point nicely by chiming in, "I try not to really learn anything during summer break" with a shrug. What he means, of course, is that he doesn't do anything schooly - no reading of textbooks, no writing of reports after reading a good book, no creating a diorama to explain that cool documentary you just watched. And therein lies one of my biggest beefs with the way school operates. Schools would have us believe that learning happens only when you are being taught by someone else. They'd also have us believe that it's "work" and "a kid's job" and "very serious" and other such sobering things. And in school - it is, usually. Even the younger grades get less and less fun as the push for higher test scores and earlier reading takes over.
But kids are learning all the time - ALL*THE*TIME - in AND out of school. They're learning even when they're seemingly "doing nothing" because, honestly, it's impossible to do nothing.
What unschoolers have captured is the beautiful realization that learning isn't separate from living. That in the process of living, learning happens. ALL*THE*TIME. When you're preparing for a birthday party, you're learning. When you're reading, watching tv, playing a video game you're learning. You're even learning as you rest or watch clouds drift by or sun yourself on the beach. It's impossible to not learn.
Humans are hard-wired to learn from their surroundings, but it helps if one is interested, motivated, and inspired. And this is where school does a really sh*t job. And before you give me over to the teachers' unions for a lashing in the public square, listen - I WAS a public school teacher and I KNOW how teachers' hands are tied (to a certain extent). What would be really beautiful is if a whole bunch of school personnel rose up and said, "we're tired of this drudgery!" and started interacting - really interacting, on a level that isn't "I say - you do" - with the kids. Then watch the students' eyes light up and let the revolution begin.
I know, I know. DUDE - WHAT AM I SMOKING?
But seriously, people - we've got to stop operating under the assumption that kids won't learn if they aren't forced, coerced, prodded, and locked into a damn brick building for 7 hours of every day, 180 days a year. It's ludicrous. And we also have to stop believing that the only important things one learns are what's taught within school walls.
When talking with Jonathan's school friend today, we used the example of his juggling. He's an expert juggler for his age and he spends a lot of time researching technique, watching pros on youtube, finding the right equipment, practicing, and even choreographing new and unique rhythms. "Just think how much you learn about juggling all the time!" I pointed out, and we talked about how learning isn't something one only does at school. He does learn at school, and he's an excellent student, but that's one way to learn among many. He seemed happy at that notion, that he learns at school but he learns in other ways at other times and in other places as well, and it's not always stressful or boring or difficult.
And as for the whole "what about college" thing (or what about physics or writing term papers or learning to meet assignment deadlines or "insert stereotypical worry here"), unschooling doesn't mean you just give everything over to the universe and say "what will be, will be!" and then dance off into the sunset with your dreadlocks swaying and leaving a trail of incense behind. You do what anyone would do who wants to get into college (or take a physics class or write a paper or meet a deadline) - you prepare. Unschoolers don't learn little bits of this and that in separated-out morsels in preparation of possibly "someday" needing that information. They follow their interests and tackle their goals and learn what they need to learn as they go. And it works.
And it works on a radically different timeline from school, too. Just because state mandates say that fourth graders learn to long-divide, it doesn't mean there's some innate need to learn to long-divide at age 9. No one needs to long-divide until they need to long-divide. Not sooner, not later. And when one needs to know something, one typically goes about learning it.
Adults have a difficult time wrapping their heads around this. But usually those fears also stem from the worry that their child will be too different from other kids, or they'll appear to be neglectful parents. It's easier to follow the herd. I totally get that. That's why you'll see unschoolers hugging and jumping up and down in glee when they get together - SOMEONE LIKE ME! It ain't easy to paddle against the current, lemme tell ya.
But what it comes down to is this: What do I care about more, my child's freedom and well-being and happiness? or the nosy lady's misinformed opinion at the local mini-mart?
No contest.
Paddling upstream gets easier. I tried to learn nothing yesterday. I gave it a really good go. I was so tired from hosting 4 parties in 6 days that I sat on my butt almost all day, sorting through digital photos (oops, I learned how to use flickr), blogging (oops, I used an online thesaurus to choose some words), reading magazines (oops, I flagged several recipes and art activity ideas), and eating (oops, I learned that grazing on leftover party food all day makes me a bit queasy *BURP*).
I challenge you to learn nothing for one day. And then, the next time you wonder about us wacky weirdo unschoolers, perhaps you'll pause and think.... "You just might have something there...."
Source: I nabbed this article and quote from another awesome, unschooling, blogging mama, Piscesgrrl. Thought it timely with the approach of the traditional school year.
--Calvin, from Calvin & Hobbes
I nabbed this most insightful quote from a kick-*ss blog written by a kick-*ss unschooler. (Thanks Heart-Rockin' Mama!)Yesterday was Learn Nothing Day, a holiday created by Sandra and Holly Dodd to poke a little fun at those folks who ask us questions like, "But if you don't go to school, how do you learn?"We've gotten that comment, mostly from kids. The adults are a bit more discerning in their questioning, asking if we worry about college or how we learn about physics or what our days look like because they could never "stand to be home with their kids" every day. It's ok, it's normal to misunderstand something that's out of your realm of experience, but to unschoolers, who operate on the belief that learning happens all the time - ALL*THE*TIME - it does, truthfully, get a little tiresome after a while.
I'd forgotten to warn my kids ahead of time that Learn Nothing Day was approaching. It's only the 2nd annual and I didn't pay much attention to it last year. This year, however, I told Jonathan about it over breakfast. His reply? "I wish I'd known this sooner, so I could've planned better."
He has a whole pile of new birthday gifts so there's no WAY he won't learn anything today. But then we laughed about how we were learning something while we discussed not learning anything. And then we learned how hard it is to try to learn nothing. Doh!
His school friend summed up our point nicely by chiming in, "I try not to really learn anything during summer break" with a shrug. What he means, of course, is that he doesn't do anything schooly - no reading of textbooks, no writing of reports after reading a good book, no creating a diorama to explain that cool documentary you just watched. And therein lies one of my biggest beefs with the way school operates. Schools would have us believe that learning happens only when you are being taught by someone else. They'd also have us believe that it's "work" and "a kid's job" and "very serious" and other such sobering things. And in school - it is, usually. Even the younger grades get less and less fun as the push for higher test scores and earlier reading takes over.
But kids are learning all the time - ALL*THE*TIME - in AND out of school. They're learning even when they're seemingly "doing nothing" because, honestly, it's impossible to do nothing.
What unschoolers have captured is the beautiful realization that learning isn't separate from living. That in the process of living, learning happens. ALL*THE*TIME. When you're preparing for a birthday party, you're learning. When you're reading, watching tv, playing a video game you're learning. You're even learning as you rest or watch clouds drift by or sun yourself on the beach. It's impossible to not learn.
Humans are hard-wired to learn from their surroundings, but it helps if one is interested, motivated, and inspired. And this is where school does a really sh*t job. And before you give me over to the teachers' unions for a lashing in the public square, listen - I WAS a public school teacher and I KNOW how teachers' hands are tied (to a certain extent). What would be really beautiful is if a whole bunch of school personnel rose up and said, "we're tired of this drudgery!" and started interacting - really interacting, on a level that isn't "I say - you do" - with the kids. Then watch the students' eyes light up and let the revolution begin.
I know, I know. DUDE - WHAT AM I SMOKING?
But seriously, people - we've got to stop operating under the assumption that kids won't learn if they aren't forced, coerced, prodded, and locked into a damn brick building for 7 hours of every day, 180 days a year. It's ludicrous. And we also have to stop believing that the only important things one learns are what's taught within school walls.
When talking with Jonathan's school friend today, we used the example of his juggling. He's an expert juggler for his age and he spends a lot of time researching technique, watching pros on youtube, finding the right equipment, practicing, and even choreographing new and unique rhythms. "Just think how much you learn about juggling all the time!" I pointed out, and we talked about how learning isn't something one only does at school. He does learn at school, and he's an excellent student, but that's one way to learn among many. He seemed happy at that notion, that he learns at school but he learns in other ways at other times and in other places as well, and it's not always stressful or boring or difficult.
And as for the whole "what about college" thing (or what about physics or writing term papers or learning to meet assignment deadlines or "insert stereotypical worry here"), unschooling doesn't mean you just give everything over to the universe and say "what will be, will be!" and then dance off into the sunset with your dreadlocks swaying and leaving a trail of incense behind. You do what anyone would do who wants to get into college (or take a physics class or write a paper or meet a deadline) - you prepare. Unschoolers don't learn little bits of this and that in separated-out morsels in preparation of possibly "someday" needing that information. They follow their interests and tackle their goals and learn what they need to learn as they go. And it works.
And it works on a radically different timeline from school, too. Just because state mandates say that fourth graders learn to long-divide, it doesn't mean there's some innate need to learn to long-divide at age 9. No one needs to long-divide until they need to long-divide. Not sooner, not later. And when one needs to know something, one typically goes about learning it.
Adults have a difficult time wrapping their heads around this. But usually those fears also stem from the worry that their child will be too different from other kids, or they'll appear to be neglectful parents. It's easier to follow the herd. I totally get that. That's why you'll see unschoolers hugging and jumping up and down in glee when they get together - SOMEONE LIKE ME! It ain't easy to paddle against the current, lemme tell ya.
But what it comes down to is this: What do I care about more, my child's freedom and well-being and happiness? or the nosy lady's misinformed opinion at the local mini-mart?
No contest.
Paddling upstream gets easier. I tried to learn nothing yesterday. I gave it a really good go. I was so tired from hosting 4 parties in 6 days that I sat on my butt almost all day, sorting through digital photos (oops, I learned how to use flickr), blogging (oops, I used an online thesaurus to choose some words), reading magazines (oops, I flagged several recipes and art activity ideas), and eating (oops, I learned that grazing on leftover party food all day makes me a bit queasy *BURP*).
I challenge you to learn nothing for one day. And then, the next time you wonder about us wacky weirdo unschoolers, perhaps you'll pause and think.... "You just might have something there...."
Source: I nabbed this article and quote from another awesome, unschooling, blogging mama, Piscesgrrl. Thought it timely with the approach of the traditional school year.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
"The Start-Up Kit"
This was sent to me from my friend, Kirbi, who said it made her think of me (what a WONDERFUL compliment). I'm unsure of its source, but I dig it.
Source: unknown
Friday, June 12, 2009
Ruthless & Toothless Knows What Kids Like
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
June 18, 1983: Sally Ride, the First American Woman Into Space
Tony Long 06.18.07
1983: Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to travel into space.
Ride, who hoped to become a professional tennis player before deciding she wasn't good enough, became a physicist instead and joined NASA in 1978 as part of the first astronaut class to accept women.
After the usual training, Ride joined ground control for the second and third space shuttle missions, serving as communications liaison between the shuttle crews and mission control. She was also involved in developing the robot arm used aboard the shuttle craft to deploy and retrieve satellites.
Ride's turn to go into space came at the shuttle program's seventh mission, as a crew member aboard Challenger. She was aboard Challenger for her second flight as well, an eight-day mission in 1984. In all, Ride logged around 345 hours in space.
While it was a milestone for the U.S. space program, the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova preceded Ride into space by almost exactly 20 years. On June 16, 1963, the former textile worker went aloft aboard Vostok VI.
Ride was training for her third mission when Challenger blew up in January 1986, killing everyone on board. With all training suspended in the wake of the accident, Ride was appointed to the presidential commission charged with investigating the causes of Challenger's demise.
She retired from NASA in 1987 to return to Stanford University, her alma mater. She later joined the faculty at UC San Diego as a physics professor.
Since leaving NASA, Ride has remained active in the academic side of space exploration, taking a special interest in attracting more women to the sciences in general, and the space program in particular.
(Sources: NASA, Lucidcafe.com)
1983: Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to travel into space.
Ride, who hoped to become a professional tennis player before deciding she wasn't good enough, became a physicist instead and joined NASA in 1978 as part of the first astronaut class to accept women.
After the usual training, Ride joined ground control for the second and third space shuttle missions, serving as communications liaison between the shuttle crews and mission control. She was also involved in developing the robot arm used aboard the shuttle craft to deploy and retrieve satellites.
Ride's turn to go into space came at the shuttle program's seventh mission, as a crew member aboard Challenger. She was aboard Challenger for her second flight as well, an eight-day mission in 1984. In all, Ride logged around 345 hours in space.
While it was a milestone for the U.S. space program, the Soviet Union's Valentina Tereshkova preceded Ride into space by almost exactly 20 years. On June 16, 1963, the former textile worker went aloft aboard Vostok VI.
Ride was training for her third mission when Challenger blew up in January 1986, killing everyone on board. With all training suspended in the wake of the accident, Ride was appointed to the presidential commission charged with investigating the causes of Challenger's demise.
She retired from NASA in 1987 to return to Stanford University, her alma mater. She later joined the faculty at UC San Diego as a physics professor.
Since leaving NASA, Ride has remained active in the academic side of space exploration, taking a special interest in attracting more women to the sciences in general, and the space program in particular.
(Sources: NASA, Lucidcafe.com)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Never Judge a Book by Its Cover
I love this story!
"Boyle's Got Talent" by Mike Krumboltz
April 13, 2009 12:53:39 PM
"American Idol" isn't the only launching pad for aspiring singers. Across the pond, "Britain's Got Talent" scored a huge boost in the Buzz after an unassuming contestant gave an amazing performance.
Susan Boyle (remember that name) became a Web phenomenon after singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. The performance brought the audience to its feet and left the judges (including Simon Cowell) either speechless or in tears.
Before going on stage, Ms. Boyle admitted some self-deprecating facts about herself (she's never been kissed and lives alone with her cat, Pebbles). For those reasons and more, audiences were expecting the female William Hung. They were wrong.
Lookups on the sudden star posted huge gains. A no-name just the other day, Ms. Boyle quickly surged into our top 5,000 overall searches. Blogs and gossip rags went wild. The Mirror jumped on the story, reporting that while Ms. Boyle thought she "looked like a garage" on TV, she received a standing ovation when she showed up at her local church.
Other sources write that as a child, Ms. Boyle was the target of bullies because of a disability.
But, with her newfound fame, she is getting the last laugh. In fact, she's already meeting with officials from Mr. Cowell's Sony BMG label. This may have been the first you've heard of her, but it certainly won't be the last. You can watch her performance below...
Susan Boyle Sings on Britain's Got Talent 2009 Episode 1 @ Yahoo! Video
"Boyle's Got Talent" by Mike Krumboltz
April 13, 2009 12:53:39 PM
"American Idol" isn't the only launching pad for aspiring singers. Across the pond, "Britain's Got Talent" scored a huge boost in the Buzz after an unassuming contestant gave an amazing performance.
Susan Boyle (remember that name) became a Web phenomenon after singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables. The performance brought the audience to its feet and left the judges (including Simon Cowell) either speechless or in tears.
Before going on stage, Ms. Boyle admitted some self-deprecating facts about herself (she's never been kissed and lives alone with her cat, Pebbles). For those reasons and more, audiences were expecting the female William Hung. They were wrong.
Lookups on the sudden star posted huge gains. A no-name just the other day, Ms. Boyle quickly surged into our top 5,000 overall searches. Blogs and gossip rags went wild. The Mirror jumped on the story, reporting that while Ms. Boyle thought she "looked like a garage" on TV, she received a standing ovation when she showed up at her local church.
Other sources write that as a child, Ms. Boyle was the target of bullies because of a disability.
But, with her newfound fame, she is getting the last laugh. In fact, she's already meeting with officials from Mr. Cowell's Sony BMG label. This may have been the first you've heard of her, but it certainly won't be the last. You can watch her performance below...
Susan Boyle Sings on Britain's Got Talent 2009 Episode 1 @ Yahoo! Video
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Women's History Month: Diane Arbus (1923-1971)
The public celebration of women's history in the United States began in 1978 as Women's History Week in Sonoma, California. In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women's History Week. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, and March was declared Women's History Month.
Before the 1970s, there were one or two scholars who would refer to themselves as "women historians." Until this time, history was written by men about men and quite frankly, for men. However, fueled by the feminist movement of the 60s and the continued political and economic discrimination of the female sex in the 70s, women turned to their own history as a way to document their status as second-class citizens. The invisibility of women in history was to become a thing of the past.
A traditional study of Women's History would generally include a chronological examination of distinguished and influential women in history such as Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank, Indira Ghandi, Queen Elizabeth I, Maya Angelou and many other important female icons whose stories shape Women's History as we know it today.
Issues at the forefront in documenting women's history were of the broader spectrum of American life, including such topics as the history of urban life, public health, ethnicity, the media, and poverty. As with the focus of most western history, the initial documentation of women's history tended to present a typical middle-class, white experience. Since few women held high political or professional positions in America in the 1970s and as civil rights stood ever-more in the forefront of politics, Women's History grew to include a more diverse cultural story and the shared, ordinary experiences of women such as child-rearing, birth control, education, family, and sexuality.
2009 Women's History Month: A Reflection of Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus is my own personal study during this month's celebration of Women's History. Inspired by the movie Fur, a fantastical and imaginary tale, released in 2006 and starring Nicole Kidman, I've been digging into the personal, professional, and artistic history of one of America's most important photographers of the 20th Century - Diane Arbus.
Kidman, a
distinguished artist in her own right, beautifully and delicately portrays the eccentric photographer and her fascination with her neighbor, played by Robert Downey, Jr., who has stuck her fancy and who inspires her to explore her inner freak and photography in this whimsical, somewhat biographical tale.
Diane Arbus began photographing in the 1950s. Her work has been described as "contemporary anthology" and juxtaposes American stereotypes. Diane's work ranged from commercial photography for magazines such as Esquire and Vogue to the ordinary and even bizarre. As she shed the constraints of her traditional, affluent upbringing and American cultural expectations, Diane had a propensity for spending time with and photographing drag queens, circus performers, the mentally ill, and nudists - those who were on the fringe.
(Photo by Diane Arbus - Untitled. 1970-71)
Diane (dee-ann) Arbus was born in 1923 to wealthy, Jewish parents, David and Gertrude Nemerov. She had a privileged life with her two siblings in New York City, growing up in large apartments on Central Park West and later Park Avenue. Diane's family owned Russek's of Fifth Avenue, which was a department store specializing in furs.
"I grew up feeling immune and exempt from circumstance. One of the things I suffered from was that I never felt adversity. I was confirmed in a sense of unreality," she later told Studs Terkel, for his Hard Times: An Oral History of the Depression.
Diane met Allan Arbus in her parents' store when she was 13, and the two married in 1941when she was 18. Allan and Diane owned and operated a fashion photography studio in New York City where they carried out stereotypical roles of the time with Allan as photographer and Diane as assistant. However, their photographs were published giving credit to them both. They shot for magazines such as Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine, and Vogue, but their wealth never measured to that of Diane's family's.
The couple had two children, Doon and Yolanda and continued to work together until 1956 when Diane decided to pursue her work independently. Though the couple remained friends, they separated in 1959. "I always felt that it was our separation that made her a photographer," Allan told the New York Times . "I couldn't have stood for her going to the places she did. She'd go to bars on the Bowery and to people's houses. I would have been horrified." Allan remarried in 1969 and moved to California where he won the role as Dr. Sydney Freidman on M.A.S.H. Diane Arbus would go on to become one of the most original and influential photographers in the Country.
Arbus' most widely known images are those of her more freakish subjects and reflect her dark documentary-style. Diane was awarded Guggenheim fellowships both in 1963 and 1966 for her non-commercial work. In 1967, John Szarkowski, curator of photography at the Modern Museum of Art, featured Arbus in the New Journalism movements's (think Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe) manifesto exhibit, New Documents, where Diane established her reputation. Her story is the stuff of Shakespeare, and her own tragic decline stopped abruptly a few years after her launch.
Succumbing to depression in 1971, Diane committed suicide by consuming barbiturates and cutting her wrists. The Museum of Modern art held a retrospective of her work a year later, which became the most attended solo photography exhibitions in history. The art book that followed, edited by Doon Arbus and Marvin Israel is one of the best selling art books in history.
Diane Arbus' story tells the tale of of so many other great artists - brilliant and tortured. Her life and work are an important part of not only Women's History but also of the photography scene of 20th Century American and of the New Documents movement. Arbus touched, and continues to touch, people with a creepily mythical hand.
"Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot," she wrote. "It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe. There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats." (1)(2)
Images found on the internet by Diane Arbus
Identical Twins. Aperture.
Untitled. 1970-71
Tattooed Man at Carnival. MD. 1970
Title Unknown.
Mia Farrow.
Before the 1970s, there were one or two scholars who would refer to themselves as "women historians." Until this time, history was written by men about men and quite frankly, for men. However, fueled by the feminist movement of the 60s and the continued political and economic discrimination of the female sex in the 70s, women turned to their own history as a way to document their status as second-class citizens. The invisibility of women in history was to become a thing of the past.
A traditional study of Women's History would generally include a chronological examination of distinguished and influential women in history such as Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Earhart, Anne Frank, Indira Ghandi, Queen Elizabeth I, Maya Angelou and many other important female icons whose stories shape Women's History as we know it today.
Issues at the forefront in documenting women's history were of the broader spectrum of American life, including such topics as the history of urban life, public health, ethnicity, the media, and poverty. As with the focus of most western history, the initial documentation of women's history tended to present a typical middle-class, white experience. Since few women held high political or professional positions in America in the 1970s and as civil rights stood ever-more in the forefront of politics, Women's History grew to include a more diverse cultural story and the shared, ordinary experiences of women such as child-rearing, birth control, education, family, and sexuality.
2009 Women's History Month: A Reflection of Diane Arbus
Diane Arbus is my own personal study during this month's celebration of Women's History. Inspired by the movie Fur, a fantastical and imaginary tale, released in 2006 and starring Nicole Kidman, I've been digging into the personal, professional, and artistic history of one of America's most important photographers of the 20th Century - Diane Arbus.Kidman, a
distinguished artist in her own right, beautifully and delicately portrays the eccentric photographer and her fascination with her neighbor, played by Robert Downey, Jr., who has stuck her fancy and who inspires her to explore her inner freak and photography in this whimsical, somewhat biographical tale.Diane Arbus began photographing in the 1950s. Her work has been described as "contemporary anthology" and juxtaposes American stereotypes. Diane's work ranged from commercial photography for magazines such as Esquire and Vogue to the ordinary and even bizarre. As she shed the constraints of her traditional, affluent upbringing and American cultural expectations, Diane had a propensity for spending time with and photographing drag queens, circus performers, the mentally ill, and nudists - those who were on the fringe.
(Photo by Diane Arbus - Untitled. 1970-71)
Diane (dee-ann) Arbus was born in 1923 to wealthy, Jewish parents, David and Gertrude Nemerov. She had a privileged life with her two siblings in New York City, growing up in large apartments on Central Park West and later Park Avenue. Diane's family owned Russek's of Fifth Avenue, which was a department store specializing in furs.
"I grew up feeling immune and exempt from circumstance. One of the things I suffered from was that I never felt adversity. I was confirmed in a sense of unreality," she later told Studs Terkel, for his Hard Times: An Oral History of the Depression.Diane met Allan Arbus in her parents' store when she was 13, and the two married in 1941when she was 18. Allan and Diane owned and operated a fashion photography studio in New York City where they carried out stereotypical roles of the time with Allan as photographer and Diane as assistant. However, their photographs were published giving credit to them both. They shot for magazines such as Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times Magazine, and Vogue, but their wealth never measured to that of Diane's family's.
The couple had two children, Doon and Yolanda and continued to work together until 1956 when Diane decided to pursue her work independently. Though the couple remained friends, they separated in 1959. "I always felt that it was our separation that made her a photographer," Allan told the New York Times . "I couldn't have stood for her going to the places she did. She'd go to bars on the Bowery and to people's houses. I would have been horrified." Allan remarried in 1969 and moved to California where he won the role as Dr. Sydney Freidman on M.A.S.H. Diane Arbus would go on to become one of the most original and influential photographers in the Country.
Arbus' most widely known images are those of her more freakish subjects and reflect her dark documentary-style. Diane was awarded Guggenheim fellowships both in 1963 and 1966 for her non-commercial work. In 1967, John Szarkowski, curator of photography at the Modern Museum of Art, featured Arbus in the New Journalism movements's (think Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe) manifesto exhibit, New Documents, where Diane established her reputation. Her story is the stuff of Shakespeare, and her own tragic decline stopped abruptly a few years after her launch.
Succumbing to depression in 1971, Diane committed suicide by consuming barbiturates and cutting her wrists. The Museum of Modern art held a retrospective of her work a year later, which became the most attended solo photography exhibitions in history. The art book that followed, edited by Doon Arbus and Marvin Israel is one of the best selling art books in history.Diane Arbus' story tells the tale of of so many other great artists - brilliant and tortured. Her life and work are an important part of not only Women's History but also of the photography scene of 20th Century American and of the New Documents movement. Arbus touched, and continues to touch, people with a creepily mythical hand.
"Freaks was a thing I photographed a lot," she wrote. "It was one of the first things I photographed and it had a terrific kind of excitement for me. I just used to adore them. I still do adore some of them. I don't quite mean they're my best friends but they made me feel a mixture of shame and awe. There's a quality of legend about freaks. Like a person in a fairy tale who stops you and demands that you answer a riddle. Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats." (1)(2)
Images found on the internet by Diane Arbus
Identical Twins. Aperture.
Untitled. 1970-71
Tattooed Man at Carnival. MD. 1970
Title Unknown.
Mia Farrow.
A Family on Their Lawn One Sunday in Westchester. NY. 1968
Ozzy and Harriett.
(1) Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Depression. Newpress, 2000.
Title Unknown.
Masked Woman in Wheelchair. PA. 1970
(1) Terkel, Studs. Hard Times: An Oral History of the Depression. Newpress, 2000.
(2) Oppenheimer, Daniel. Diane Arbus. The Valley Advocate.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
Theodore Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on March 2, 1904. Today is Dr. Seuss' 105th birthday!While most commonly known for his children's books (he wrote over 60 of them), “Dr.” Seuss was both the editor-in-chief of the college newspaper and also drew more than 400 political cartoons in two years for a New York daily newspaper. It was as a college student at Dartmouth that he started signing his work “Seuss.” Once he graduated, he started signing his work as “Dr. Seuss” when submitting it to a humor magazine. After marrying, he continued to write humor and illustrate. When World War II started, he began his political cartooning. Eventually he designed and illustrated posters to support the war effort, and joined the U.S. Army where he was the leader of the animation department.
Neumeier, Russ, Wired News, wired.com, March 2 2009
..........................................................
The stories and images of Dr. Seuss parade through all of my childhood memories, and I attribute my early love of reading and writing to my love of his stories.
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
Tell us how Dr. Seuss impacted you!Do you have a favorite Dr. Seuss book?
Mine was always Green Eggs & Ham....until my son was born. Then, I read One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish to him over and over and over. I think this must be how it is with all children and their first Seuss book. For YEARS, we fell back on this comfortable story, intoning the rhymes that made up the tiny tale while we delighted in the images on the pages with no need to read the words. Now, I can't help but love this story above all other Seuss tales. It's become a player in the parade of those memories as well.
What's your favorite Dr. Seuss story and/or memory?
Hop on Pop, The Cat in the Hat, or Horton Hears a Who?
Friday, February 6, 2009
Inupiat Annual Spring Bowhead Hunt
Don't be Turned off by TVDressed warmly and mostly in white from the waste up (to be less visible while approaching bowhead on the water), these Inupiat (en-oo-pee-at) Eskimos await the perfect opportunity to strike a passing whale.
Inupiat Eskimos are the only people on Earth permitted by International Whaling Laws to hunt the once declining bowhead whale. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the bowhead whale were hunted by Yankee whalers to the brink of extinction. Only through strict regulations has the bowhead made a come-back.
Students take leave of school to be a part of the 50 teams of Inupiat hunters who head out onto the ice to hunt the bowhead in the Spring. "The sole purpose of hunting is to survive and feed our families," says an Inupiat hunter, "we can't plant gardens, so they go out."
NatGeo's television program, INSIDE, presented a beautifully done piece on the Inupiat whale hunters of Barrow, Alaska last week. Cole and I thoroughly enjoyed learning of the Inupiat's 6000 year (wow!) history in the region, were moved by the bowhead whales' importance in the lifestyle, spirituality, and health of the Native Inupiat Eskimos, and were saddened but realistic regarding the reports of the ever-shrinking Arctic Ice, which the Inupiat's utilize as a platform for their camps and as a launching grounds for their whalehunting expeditions.
If you have the chance, give it a watch (or ck out the link below)! You'll be amazed by how much you learn.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/inside/3479/Overview
Image courtesy Catherine Yrisarri / Hoggard Films
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
AP Reports - John Updike, prize-winning writer, dead at age 76
By HILLEL ITALIE – 49 minutes ago
NEW YORK (AP) — John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.
Updike, a resident of Beverly Farms, Mass., died of lung cancer, according to a statement from his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.
A literary writer who frequently appeared on best-seller lists, the tall, hawk-nosed Updike wrote novels, short stories, poems, criticism, the memoir "Self-Consciousness" and even a famous essay about baseball great Ted Williams. He was prolific, even compulsive, releasing more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s. Updike won virtually every literary prize, including two Pulitzers, for "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest," and two National Book Awards.
Although himself deprived of a Nobel, he did bestow it upon one of his fictional characters, Henry Bech, the womanizing, egotistical Jewish novelist who collected the literature prize in 1999.
His settings ranged from the court of "Hamlet" to postcolonial Africa, but his literary home was the American suburb. Born in 1932, Updike spoke for millions of Depression-era readers raised by "penny-pinching parents," united by "the patriotic cohesion of World War II" and blessed by a "disproportionate share of the world's resources," the postwar, suburban boom of "idealistic careers and early marriages."
He captured, and sometimes embodied, a generation's confusion over the civil rights and women's movements, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Updike was called a misogynist, a racist and an apologist for the establishment. On purely literary grounds, he was attacked by Norman Mailer as the kind of author appreciated by readers who knew nothing about writing.
But more often he was praised for his flowing, poetic writing style. Describing a man's interrupted quest to make love, Updike likened it "to a small angel to which all afternoon tiny lead weights are attached." Nothing was too great or too small for Updike to poeticize. He might rhapsodize over the film projector's "chuckling whir" or look to the stars and observe that "the universe is perfectly transparent: we exist as flaws in ancient glass."
In the richest detail, his books recorded the extremes of earthly desire and spiritual zealotry, whether the comic philandering of the preacher in "A Month of Sundays" or the steady rage of the young Muslim in "Terrorist." Raised in the Protestant community of Shillington, Pa., where the Lord's Prayer was recited daily at school, Updike was a lifelong churchgoer influenced by his faith, but not immune to doubts.
"I remember the times when I was wrestling with these issues that I would feel crushed. I was crushed by the purely materialistic, atheistic account of the universe," Updike told The Associated Press during a 2006 interview.
"I am very prone to accept all that the scientists tell us, the truth of it, the authority of the efforts of all the men and woman spent trying to understand more about atoms and molecules. But I can't quite make the leap of unfaith, as it were, and say, `This is it. Carpe diem (seize the day), and tough luck.'"
He received his greatest acclaim for the "Rabbit" series, a quartet of novels published over a 30-year span that featured ex-high school basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom and his restless adjustment to adulthood and the constraints of work and family. To the very end, Harry was in motion, an innocent in his belief that any door could be opened, a believer in God even as he bedded women other than his wife.
"The tetralogy to me is the tale of a life, a life led an American citizen who shares the national passion for youth, freedom, and sex, the national openness and willingness to learn, the national habit of improvisation," Updike would later write. "He is furthermore a Protestant, haunted by a God whose manifestations are elusive, yet all-important."
Other notable books included "Couples," a sexually explicit tale of suburban mating that sold millions of copies; "In the Beauty of the Lilies," an epic of American faith and fantasy; and "Too Far to Go, which followed the courtship, marriage and divorce of the Maples, a suburban couple with parallels to Updike's own first marriage.
Plagued from an early age by asthma, psoriasis and a stammer, he found creative outlets in drawing and writing. Updike was born in Reading, Pa., his mother a department store worker who longed to write, his father a high school teacher remembered with sadness and affection in "The Centaur," a novel published in 1964. The author brooded over his father's low pay and mocking students, but also wrote of a childhood of "warm and action-packed houses that accommodated the presence of a stranger, my strange ambition to be glamorous."
For Updike, the high life meant books, such as the volumes of P.G. Wodehouse and Robert Benchley he borrowed from the library as a child, or, as he later recalled, the "chastely severe, time-honored classics" he read in his dorm room at Harvard University, leaning back in his "wooden Harvard chair," cigarette in hand.
While studying on full scholarship at Harvard, he headed the staff of the Harvard Lampoon and met the woman who became his first wife, Mary Entwistle Pennington, whom he married in June 1953, a year before he earned his A.B. degree summa cum laude. (Updike divorced Pennington in 1975 and was remarried two years later, to Martha Bernhard).
After graduating, he accepted a one-year fellowship to study painting at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts at Oxford University. During his stay in England, a literary idol, E.B. White, offered him a position at The New Yorker, where he served briefly as foreign books reviewer. Many of Updike's reviews and short stories were published in The New Yorker, often edited by White's stepson, Roger Angell.
By the end of the 1950s, Updike had published a story collection, a book of poetry and his first novel, "The Poorhouse Fair," soon followed by the first of the Rabbit books, "Rabbit, Run." Praise came so early and so often that New York Times critic Arthur Mizener worried that Updike's "natural talent" was exposing him "from an early age to a great deal of head-turning praise."
Updike learned to write about everyday life by, in part, living it. In 1957, he left New York, with its "cultural hassle" and melting pot of "agents and wisenheimers," and settled with his first wife and four kids in Ipswich, Mass, a "rather out-of-the-way town" about 30 miles north of Boston.
"The real America seemed to me 'out there,' too heterogeneous and electrified by now to pose much threat of the provinciality that people used to come to New York to escape," Updike later wrote.
"There were also practical attractions: free parking for my car, public education for my children, a beach to tan my skin on, a church to attend without seeming too strange."
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Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
NEW YORK (AP) — John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, prolific man of letters and erudite chronicler of sex, divorce and other adventures in the postwar prime of the American empire, died Tuesday at age 76.
Updike, a resident of Beverly Farms, Mass., died of lung cancer, according to a statement from his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf.
A literary writer who frequently appeared on best-seller lists, the tall, hawk-nosed Updike wrote novels, short stories, poems, criticism, the memoir "Self-Consciousness" and even a famous essay about baseball great Ted Williams. He was prolific, even compulsive, releasing more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s. Updike won virtually every literary prize, including two Pulitzers, for "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest," and two National Book Awards.
Although himself deprived of a Nobel, he did bestow it upon one of his fictional characters, Henry Bech, the womanizing, egotistical Jewish novelist who collected the literature prize in 1999.
His settings ranged from the court of "Hamlet" to postcolonial Africa, but his literary home was the American suburb. Born in 1932, Updike spoke for millions of Depression-era readers raised by "penny-pinching parents," united by "the patriotic cohesion of World War II" and blessed by a "disproportionate share of the world's resources," the postwar, suburban boom of "idealistic careers and early marriages."
He captured, and sometimes embodied, a generation's confusion over the civil rights and women's movements, and opposition to the Vietnam War. Updike was called a misogynist, a racist and an apologist for the establishment. On purely literary grounds, he was attacked by Norman Mailer as the kind of author appreciated by readers who knew nothing about writing.
But more often he was praised for his flowing, poetic writing style. Describing a man's interrupted quest to make love, Updike likened it "to a small angel to which all afternoon tiny lead weights are attached." Nothing was too great or too small for Updike to poeticize. He might rhapsodize over the film projector's "chuckling whir" or look to the stars and observe that "the universe is perfectly transparent: we exist as flaws in ancient glass."
In the richest detail, his books recorded the extremes of earthly desire and spiritual zealotry, whether the comic philandering of the preacher in "A Month of Sundays" or the steady rage of the young Muslim in "Terrorist." Raised in the Protestant community of Shillington, Pa., where the Lord's Prayer was recited daily at school, Updike was a lifelong churchgoer influenced by his faith, but not immune to doubts.
"I remember the times when I was wrestling with these issues that I would feel crushed. I was crushed by the purely materialistic, atheistic account of the universe," Updike told The Associated Press during a 2006 interview.
"I am very prone to accept all that the scientists tell us, the truth of it, the authority of the efforts of all the men and woman spent trying to understand more about atoms and molecules. But I can't quite make the leap of unfaith, as it were, and say, `This is it. Carpe diem (seize the day), and tough luck.'"
He received his greatest acclaim for the "Rabbit" series, a quartet of novels published over a 30-year span that featured ex-high school basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom and his restless adjustment to adulthood and the constraints of work and family. To the very end, Harry was in motion, an innocent in his belief that any door could be opened, a believer in God even as he bedded women other than his wife.
"The tetralogy to me is the tale of a life, a life led an American citizen who shares the national passion for youth, freedom, and sex, the national openness and willingness to learn, the national habit of improvisation," Updike would later write. "He is furthermore a Protestant, haunted by a God whose manifestations are elusive, yet all-important."
Other notable books included "Couples," a sexually explicit tale of suburban mating that sold millions of copies; "In the Beauty of the Lilies," an epic of American faith and fantasy; and "Too Far to Go, which followed the courtship, marriage and divorce of the Maples, a suburban couple with parallels to Updike's own first marriage.
Plagued from an early age by asthma, psoriasis and a stammer, he found creative outlets in drawing and writing. Updike was born in Reading, Pa., his mother a department store worker who longed to write, his father a high school teacher remembered with sadness and affection in "The Centaur," a novel published in 1964. The author brooded over his father's low pay and mocking students, but also wrote of a childhood of "warm and action-packed houses that accommodated the presence of a stranger, my strange ambition to be glamorous."
For Updike, the high life meant books, such as the volumes of P.G. Wodehouse and Robert Benchley he borrowed from the library as a child, or, as he later recalled, the "chastely severe, time-honored classics" he read in his dorm room at Harvard University, leaning back in his "wooden Harvard chair," cigarette in hand.
While studying on full scholarship at Harvard, he headed the staff of the Harvard Lampoon and met the woman who became his first wife, Mary Entwistle Pennington, whom he married in June 1953, a year before he earned his A.B. degree summa cum laude. (Updike divorced Pennington in 1975 and was remarried two years later, to Martha Bernhard).
After graduating, he accepted a one-year fellowship to study painting at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts at Oxford University. During his stay in England, a literary idol, E.B. White, offered him a position at The New Yorker, where he served briefly as foreign books reviewer. Many of Updike's reviews and short stories were published in The New Yorker, often edited by White's stepson, Roger Angell.
By the end of the 1950s, Updike had published a story collection, a book of poetry and his first novel, "The Poorhouse Fair," soon followed by the first of the Rabbit books, "Rabbit, Run." Praise came so early and so often that New York Times critic Arthur Mizener worried that Updike's "natural talent" was exposing him "from an early age to a great deal of head-turning praise."
Updike learned to write about everyday life by, in part, living it. In 1957, he left New York, with its "cultural hassle" and melting pot of "agents and wisenheimers," and settled with his first wife and four kids in Ipswich, Mass, a "rather out-of-the-way town" about 30 miles north of Boston.
"The real America seemed to me 'out there,' too heterogeneous and electrified by now to pose much threat of the provinciality that people used to come to New York to escape," Updike later wrote.
"There were also practical attractions: free parking for my car, public education for my children, a beach to tan my skin on, a church to attend without seeming too strange."
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Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Chinese New Year Soup
Cole and I made and devoured this soup for lunch today. Try it! You won't be sorry.
Basic Ingredients:
3 small cans chicken broth - approx. 1 quart
(I recommend reduced salt..and then salt to taste)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 eggs
2 scallions, sliced
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (optional)
1/4 guar (optional - makes the soup thicker as you would expect of an asian soup)
1. Put cup or so of the chicken broth in blender, turn it on low, and add the guar (if using). Let it blend for a second, then put it in a large saucepan with the rest of the broth. (If you're not using the guar, just put the broth directly in a saucepan.)
2. Add soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, and scallion. Heat over medium-high heat and let simmer for 5 minutes or so to let the flavors blend.
3. Beat eggs in a glass measuring cup or small pitcher - something with a pour-lip. Use a fork to stir the surface of the soup in a slow circle and pour in about 1/3 of the eggs, stirring as they cook and turn into shreds (which will happen almost simultaneously). Repeat three more times, using up all the egg, then serve!
Yields: 3 biggish servings, or 4 to 5 small ones (but this is easy to double!)
4 servings has each: 2g carbs, trace of fiber, 8g protein
For a more Thai-like soup:
Add one or all of the following to the above: sliced cooked chicken or tofu, roasted peanuts, cilantro, roasted garlic, rice noodles, top with bean sprouts.
Basic Ingredients:
3 small cans chicken broth - approx. 1 quart
(I recommend reduced salt..and then salt to taste)
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 eggs
2 scallions, sliced
1/2 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (optional)
1/4 guar (optional - makes the soup thicker as you would expect of an asian soup)
1. Put cup or so of the chicken broth in blender, turn it on low, and add the guar (if using). Let it blend for a second, then put it in a large saucepan with the rest of the broth. (If you're not using the guar, just put the broth directly in a saucepan.)
2. Add soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, and scallion. Heat over medium-high heat and let simmer for 5 minutes or so to let the flavors blend.
3. Beat eggs in a glass measuring cup or small pitcher - something with a pour-lip. Use a fork to stir the surface of the soup in a slow circle and pour in about 1/3 of the eggs, stirring as they cook and turn into shreds (which will happen almost simultaneously). Repeat three more times, using up all the egg, then serve!
Yields: 3 biggish servings, or 4 to 5 small ones (but this is easy to double!)
4 servings has each: 2g carbs, trace of fiber, 8g protein
For a more Thai-like soup:
Add one or all of the following to the above: sliced cooked chicken or tofu, roasted peanuts, cilantro, roasted garlic, rice noodles, top with bean sprouts.
Monday, January 5, 2009
"Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery"
The title to this post are the lyrics from one of my favorite Bob Marley songs, "Redemption Song". With Martin Luther King Day and the Inauguration of President Elect Barack Obama approaching, Marley's hopeful lyrics reflect the my own hopes for the New Year and for the years to come.
I have no idea of the quality of this recording as my volume
isn't working currently. Hope you find it enjoyable.
I have no idea of the quality of this recording as my volume
isn't working currently. Hope you find it enjoyable.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
"The Darkling Thrush"
Thomas Hardy's timely meditation on the turning of an era.
By Robert Pinsky Posted Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008, at 7:58 AM ET, www.slate.com
"This month's classic poem is Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush," which Hardy dated "31 December 1900": the last evening of the 19th century. More than a decade ago (June 1998), as the millennial year approached, I offered Slate readers "The Darkling Thrush" as a hard-to-equal model for responses to the turn of a millennium.
Now, at what many hope is the start of a new era, and in time for the new year, here again is Hardy's vividly described little bird with its blend of comedy and pathos. The "blast-beruffled" thrush in its wintry landscape may represent Hardy's bow of his head toward John Keats and Keats' great "Ode to a Nightingale" of May 1819—when their century was much younger..."
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
31 December 1900
Thomas Hardy
For more information on Thomas Hardy, click here.
By Robert Pinsky Posted Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008, at 7:58 AM ET, www.slate.com
"This month's classic poem is Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush," which Hardy dated "31 December 1900": the last evening of the 19th century. More than a decade ago (June 1998), as the millennial year approached, I offered Slate readers "The Darkling Thrush" as a hard-to-equal model for responses to the turn of a millennium.
Now, at what many hope is the start of a new era, and in time for the new year, here again is Hardy's vividly described little bird with its blend of comedy and pathos. The "blast-beruffled" thrush in its wintry landscape may represent Hardy's bow of his head toward John Keats and Keats' great "Ode to a Nightingale" of May 1819—when their century was much younger..."
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
31 December 1900
Thomas Hardy
For more information on Thomas Hardy, click here.
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