a bit of documentation from last week … i had to face down this crowd in various guises all last week … it was tough dirty dangerous work … but somebody had to do it.

i’m just now astonished by the immediacy of the color photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii … never heard of him before now. He worked from 1909 to 1915 … and the pictures … the few that i see at the wikipedia article … just shatter that old grainy black & white world …

note especially the portrait of mohammed alim khan taken in 1911 … yes, the blue robe is astonishing … but even moreso are the natural skin tones of the face … and fingers … the date says 1911 but the image is now now now …

unusually cool weather with snow and frosty mornings have done in the nasturtiums …

click the picture for a bigger version

i’m thinking this guy - Rich Whitney - could get my vote … i’ve got some more thinking & checking to do, but he’s looking really good … somebody i might actually vote FOR … which means he’s, of course, doomed …

The funny thing is that i didn’t know he existed until a few days ago when a letter arrived … and i almost always just pitch them … but the return address was Whitney for Governor … so in itself that sparked my curiosity because it’s been The Rod & Judy Show exclusively around here … & i’m so weary of that …

RW seems to be offering some kind of actual difference on Illinois involvement in Iraq … on small farm policy … on prioritizing the folks at the bottom of the heap. Since he’s Green, his take on environmental issues seems a given.

areas to explore further: his views on reproductive rights and gun control …

Whitney? well … given that i’m regularly sickened by party politics as usual … i’m thinking we could do much much worse … http://www.whitneyforgov.org

this whole week has been rolling up to last night’s football game … lost by one point in overtime … alas … and tonight’s big dance … A Pirate’s Life for Me! … which i will be attending as adult presence … chaperone … omnipotent authority figure … yeah … i’m the guy with the ruler …

i’m not sure how much coming home actually occurs around this time … the week’s real function seems to be a celebration of school spirit … go team … go school … go us … go me …

i’m not meaning to sound sarcastic or cynical about any of this … the hard thing for any teacher who’s been around a while is to remember that this is all happening for the first time … for them - the students …

at any rate the dance is coming & it will be a late night … we stay until the decorations are down … they managed to get ahold of some lobster traps, some pirate paraphernalia … like a pirate mannequin at the wheel, a ten-foot foam and plastic scimitar, a mast with rope, a couple of skull & crossedbone flags, pirates of the caribbean posters and stand-up johnny depp & (i’m told) orlando bloom cardboard figures.

Voters For Peace: The power to end the war and prevent future wars of aggression …

it’s a tiny thing … but … it’s past time for many grains of sand to begin … to clog the gears of war machinery

Beheading of Iraqi priest latest attack on minorities …

nyt war coverage …

what was this nation thinking? … what have we unleashed?

nobody likes an i told you so … but i did …

it has taken me a long while to get the knack of rss & web aggregators … i’m of the old click and go (straight to that other page) school … but lately i’ve found it very tough to get everywhere i’d like to go - to read every blog or site i’d like to … so i tried bloglines for awhile … but kept forgetting to go there …

now i find netvibes … and am very happy to have (found it) … maybe even deliriously happy … it is a great tool for organizing one’s online reading searching viewing life … check it out

i’ve also just discovered the usefulness of safari’s tabbed browsing … duh … i’m pretty slow on the uptake … up until just about now, i’ve had a desktop littered with three four eight ten open browser windows … and enjoyed the new OS X F9 key’s magical separating function … but hey that’s now a thng of the past … i swear …

seems i’ve been sleepwalking through the week … here’s thursday …

at school it’s been Spirit Week leading up to the homecoming game friday … and the homecoming dance saturday night … yesterday was Crazy Day & i wish i’d had my camera … some funny stuff … i did take one picture on a student’s camera, but haven’t see the results …

mindlessness: i didn’t realize we were having a school liturgy today until i found my “eucharistic minister assignment” in my mailbox … i made a mental note to attend the Mr. CHS contest last night & then promptly forgot about it … so wrapped up i was in counting sophomore posts …

at home it’s all eat … sleep … process student paper … count student discussion board posts … plan tomorrow’s class … brush the cat … scoop the poop … my only trips out have been to the physical therapist: dealing with the residuals of the kidney stone business … it’s getting better … the actual pain is … but the residual fear & expectation of the next episode lingers …

as i mentioned to one ap class today … when one student claimed not to be entertained at all by “Sonnet” by Michael Palmer … i said “but it entertains me … art … poetry … music & all are the only pleasant surprises in my day … i live such an utterly regular & predictable life … my joy comes from encounters with art (& with my students, of course)”

but i wasn’t sleepwalking this morning at six … radio said “it’s 33 degrees at o’hare” … so i piled on three t-shirts two sweatshirts a fleece vest and my thick knit hat … dominic, on the other hand, hadn’t tuned in … he had one sweatshirt, no hat … he handled one lap around the property & bailed … but i chugged on for two more … quite comfy …

during period B or C it started snowing … we were chasing down some intricate point about the sonnets when i turned my head & noticed a blizzard … thick snow & blowing … right there … october 12 … 9 something a.m. … snow

now … on to another reading of Othello act I …

how could i have missed Banned Books Week?

well it happened mostly while i was out … out and away …

so i’ll make up for it by listing … as memory allows it … books that have been banned in my sphere of influence … i mean, books that i would have read or taught but was kept from it by someone else or by what i thought someone else might say :

Doubt by John Patrick Shanley
In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason
Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone by James Baldwin
Howl by Allen Ginsberg
Flight to Canada by Ismael Reed
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
The Lost Language of Cranes by David Leavitt
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
Fade by Robert Cormier

most of these were teaching objections … some were reading objections … i’ve read all of them now … except the Baldwin … fell through the cracks …

is this all from the distant past? no … one is quite recent … and still stings a bit

update: on the other hand … i’m grateful for the support of colleagues, department, administrators, parents, and students in the teaching of:

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

in between bouts of paper processing today, i’ve been fiddling with sound files … but i’m really stumped …

ok … i’ve recorded the sound via garageband … & some via (the newly downloaded) audacity … i’ve exported them into iTunes … & they play well there … but how does one go about putting them online … as in the blog?

any help will be appreciated

[update: ok ... i looked to see what i could from learn growing nation and discovered a site called odeo ... and that helps a bit ... but they'll only accept mp3s ... & i've go mine in iTunes as mp4 ... so ... hmmm ... i wonder how one might make an mp3 file ...]

i wonder … if we think of billy collins as a blogger with quirky notions, whimsical, fey, or singular pronouncements instead of poet with this or that aesthetic range, is there some grace to know? it also helps if you’ve got a cool animator at yr command …

Link: Forgetfulness - Billy Collins Animated Poetry.

(yeah … i’m on the youtube thing … a little … i suppose it was inevitable once i got a fast connection … if you don’t have one, just use yr imagination)

somewhat related: there’s all this online chatter about the relation between lipitor (or any statin) and memory loss … it’s mostly all unsubstantiated & anecdotal … what’s a person to believe?

try TWO

is it working yet?

not really