Schiele and synthesis revisted

Our post on Egon Schiele made "Strange Brood" think. From their their related post:

Although the connection between the two is a fabrication of one person's mind it splendidly depicts the structure of human thought and emotion--the linking of new thoughts and feelings to ones already stored in memory. Hamsun's character is thirty years older than Schiele's painting, but it is fair to say that both are ahead of their time; they are similar in their prophetic embodiment of the worldwide nightmare of the early twentieth century.

More about synthesis
Responding to our post "Synthesis," C. wrote:

I just read that you're going to be writing about the Wannsee Conference and that you and your son discussed Night. As a juxtaposition, you might want to look at There Once Was a World by Yaffa Eliach. A meticulously researched book, it tells the history 1065 to 1941 and the individual stories of people in the Shtetl (Jewish town) of Eishyshok and the treatment of these people by the Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian authorities. I think to understand the great dislike or hatred that people felt for the Jews in Western Europe that led to tremendous plans to exterminate them you need to go even further back and see that this was the continuation of a long history of persecution.

I am in an interesting position because my father grew up in Munich not too far from Dachau, which also became an extermination camp. He talks about how the Jewish families "disappeared," but since they were kind of "clannish" and kept to themselves, no one really knew them well or talked much about the disappearances. The SS came at night, when the neighbors were not around to see, so there were no eyewitnesses. If there had been, there was also a sense of fear of getting too involved because the authorities could come after you. Towards the end of the war, if there was the smell of burning flesh and people suspected something, they would have been too terrified to talk openly about it. His young father and later his stepfather both were drafted to fight under Hitler and were never found. At the end of the war, Hitler desperately sacrificed many young men in a war he knew was lost, and many bodies were never recovered from Russia. We suspect the stepfather's body remained there.

I married an American Jew, a descendent who places his roots in the Lituania/Poland/Russian area. (No one from there is too precise about where they're from, because they kept getting shoved back and forth across borders, something you'll see if you read There Once Was a World.) We have often discussed what made the Jews such a target, and I think much of it was their non-conformist attitude. They gave their allegiance to God, not to a country or a person. This made them stand out/apart and would have made it easy for them to be a target. Knowing they were not accepted into the greater society would have made them more clannish, setting themselves apart even more. Some of the more learned men were kind of monkish, not sharing the values of the culture as a whole. I know you can relate!

Yaffa Eliach's collected photographs are hanging in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. I have not gotten to that Holocaust museum but have visited the one in Israel and in Amsterdam. The one in Amsterdam was particularly interesting because at the end you were asked to participate and vote on whether you thought a particular utterance should be protected by freedom of speech laws or should not be allowed as it was a form of hate speech. I can almost see you and your son intensely discussing these particualr vignettes.

Anyway, I felt I needed to email you in case you were interested in studying a bit further. Due to tragic situations, among them the Eastern European pogroms and the holocaust, my husband has no real history of his family and enjoys trying to understand more about his roots by reading histories like Yaffa Eliach, and I have found them fascinating reading as well.

Mental multivitamin blog cloud

Make yours here. (Found at Book Moot.)

The reading life

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
~ Joseph Addison ~

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
~ Mortimer J. Adler ~

Beware of the man of one book.
~ Thomas Aquinas ~

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision
and strengthens our most fatal tendency--
the belief that the here and now is all there is.
~ Allan Bloom ~

A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen,
is that you can take it to bed with you.
~ Daniel J. Boorstin ~

Readers may be divided into four classes:
1.) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in
nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2.) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get
through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3.) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4.) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by
what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~

The greatest gift is the passion for reading.
It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites,
it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind.
It is a moral illumination.
~ Elizabeth Hardwick ~

In a very real sense, people who have read good literature
have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.
It is not true that we have only one life to lead; if we can read,
we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
~ S. I. Hayakawa ~

Checked out from the library
Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading: Finding and Losing Myself in Books (Maureen Corrigan)
Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe about Our Schools--and Why It Isn't So (Jay P. Greene)
Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds (Joanne Jacobs)
What Should I Do with My Life? The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question (Po Bronson)
Birds of North America: Life Histories of More Than 930 Species (Fred J. Alsop III)
The New Encyclopedia of American Birds (David Alderton)
Discover Nature in Winter: Things to Know and Things to Do (Elizabeth Lawlor)
Birding for Beginners: A Comprehensive Introduction to the Art of Birdwatching (Sheila Buff)

Recent acquisitions
The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide (Robert Pinsky)
A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (James Shapiro)
Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer (Peter Turchi -- my own copy, finally!)
The Vicomte de Bragelonne (Alexandre Dumas)
Louise de la Valliere (Alexandre Dumas)
The Accidental (Ali Smith)
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (Thomas Cahill)
The Story of Science, Book Two: Newton at the Center (Joy Hakim)
Small Steps (Louis Sachar)
Cell (Stephen King)
Beyond Black (Hilary Mantel)
Painting the Walls Red: The Uninhibited Woman's Guide to a Fabulous Life after 40 (Judy Ford)

Wendy Wasserstein

Playwright Wendy Wasserstein, who celebrated women confronting feminism, careers, love and motherhood in such works as “The Heidi Chronicles” and “The Sisters Rosensweig,” died today. She was 55.

Read the Boston Herald article here.

Debra Pickett interviewed Po Bronson

His manner really does seem to reflect this hurt, like he wants to know what's so wrong with writing a book full of good news for families? With spreading the message that, despite all the horror stories about the death of family life, people manage to overcome huge challenges every day, just like they always have?

But there is still a small, cynical part of my brain -- thank you, James Frey -- that doubts Bronson's sincerity and wonders if he isn't just ahead of the curve on the next great book-marketing technique: being really, really nice.

Even as he sips his post-lunch cappuccino, I still can't decide.

Read the Sun-Times column here.

A Common Reader

I have no words.

Heavy, heavy sigh.

Added a little later: Oh, dear. I've always wanted this. Rather desperately. (Wondering how I might acquire it at auction prices and then wondering, "Is this behavior akin to a vulture weeping a little while nibbling on his friend the goat?" Ayup.)

Synthesis

The synthesis of my reading, thinking, learning.

The intersection of my work -- my research and writing -- and my reading and teaching.

The juxtaposition of this book and that assigned topic or that discussion and this discovery.

And so on.

Yes, I've written many, many times about the strange serendipity that sometimes steers my autodidactic pursuits, as well as the phenomenon that is the mind's ability to link this with that, to make the connections or, as we read in yesterday's entry, grow the "dense forest of interlocking branches." Yet repetition does little to diminish my wonder, even when the connections are somber, as they were today.

Like many high school students and their teachers, Master M-mv and I have been discussing Night this week. And this morning, I sat down to work and learned that the Wannsee Conference is one of my assigned topics.

As I said, somber.
_____________________________

On Friday, January 27, 2006, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum observed the first International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

There is only one thing worse than Auschwitz itself... and that is if the world forgets there was such a place.
-- Henry Appel, survivor

Midlife crisis

I had meant to link this article when I read it a few weeks ago. Thank goodness for mental "tickler files."

From "The Myth of the Midlife Crisis" (Newsweek, January 16, 2006):

[R]ecent discoveries in neuroscience show that the aging brain is more flexible and adaptable than we previously thought. Studies suggest that the brain's left and right hemispheres become better integrated during middle age, making way for greater creativity. Age also seems to dampen some negative emotions. And a great deal of scientific work has confirmed the "use it or lose it" adage, showing that the aging brain grows stronger from use and challenge. In short, midlife is a time of new possibility. Growing old can be filled with positive experiences. The challenge is to recognize our potential—and nurture it.

Later:

Magnified tremendously, the brain of a mentally active 50-year-old looks like a dense forest of interlocking branches, and this density reflects both deeper knowledge and better judgment. That's why age is such an advantage in fields like editing, law, medicine, coaching and management. There is no substitute for acquired learning.

Still later:

Research has identified several types of activity that can, if practiced regularly, help boost the power, clarity and subtlety of the aging brain.

:: Exercise physically.
:: Exercise mentally.
:: Pick challenging leisure activities.
:: Achieve mastery.
:: Establish strong social networks.

In conclusion:

[O]ur brain hardware is capable of adapting, growing and becoming more complex and integrated with age. As our brains mature and evolve, so do our knowledge, our emotions and our expressive abilities.

Musing...
Perhaps the articles, books, conversations, etc. that speak most powerfully to us are those with which we violently disagree and those with which we heartily concur. This article was one of the latter. I've been singing the "Use It or Lose It" song since before I started "Mental multivitamin." (See this early entry.) Growing older has helped me begin to perceive the wisdom that the four-plus decades that came before can offer. Growing older has also forced me to accept that the journey is half over: Life is short, and it would be foolish to waste any time.

Read. Think. Learn.

Work.

Play. Laugh. Love. Live.

Zoe the Van

The loan for Zoe the Van is (finally) paid off! (And she's still running -- knock wood.)

I made the final payment yesterday. Hooray!

The sun is brilliant, streaming, and warm. Right now, it's 42 and climbing, and after lunch, I'll don my swishing, swirling, sweeping green cape to walk to the library with the children.

I can't help but be glad for this day.

Zoe the Van is ours.

We're healthy.

And happy.

I have work (writing and researching), work that makes me happy, that makes me think, and that pays well (enough) and regularly.

I woke up again this morning.

And Zoe the Van is ours.

Certainly, the accumulation of little things (broken washers, puking cats, stomach flus, and miserable math tests) can slowly crush the joy from our lives. But just as certainly, the accumulation of little things (paying off the loan on the van that still runs reliably (knock wood), receiving a (modest) check for one's first major-market sale, reconnecting with old friends, and feeding fat pigeons in Central Park) can enliven us, fill us with joy and that sense, however cliche-ridden, that it is good to be alive.

Yes, I think it all hinges on finding meaning and happiness or joy or comfort in the everyday, the commonplace, the quotidian.

Donna Booshay ("Quiet Life") wrote about the simple joy of fresh, clean laundry a few days ago. "Name this picture," she asked her readers. The photo showed a basket of clean laundry. "Call it 'The Quotidian,'" I suggested.

I shared with her this quote from The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work" (Kathleen Norris):

Our culture's ideal self, especially the accomplished, professional self, rises above necessity, the humble, everyday, ordinary tasks that are best left to unskilled labor. The comfortable lies we tell ourselves regarding these "little things" -- that they don't matter, and that daily personal and household chores are of no significance to us spiritually -- are exposed as falsehoods when we consider that reluctance to care for the body is one of the first symptoms of melancholia. Shampooing the hair, washing the body, brushing the teeth, drinking enough water, taking a daily vitamin, going for a walk, as simple as they seem, are acts of self-respect. They enhance one's ability to take pleasure in oneself and in the world.

The comfortable lies we tell ourselves regarding these "little things" [...] are exposed as falsehoods....

Yes, they are because the little things do matter. They matter a lot.

Wishing all of you joy in the little things, in the quotidian, in today.

Butter-yellow sun, blue skies, and warm (for January, anyway) temperatures.

This is an invitation to step away from the flickering screen, to upset the routine, to treat a Thursday like a Saturday. Yes. You can.

Take a long walk.

Bounce rocks on the melting layer of ice on the lake.

Drive with one of the windows open.

Sing along with the car radio. Even (perhaps, especially) at stoplights.

Take the snow- and salt-crusted van through the automatic carwash.

(Close that window first!)

Laugh and scream under the noise and bubbles.

Swim. There must be a YMCA or community pool nearby. Put on last summer's suit and swim.

Make grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon and tomato.

Learn something.

Dream.

Read.

Plan to sleep in tomorrow morning.

Buy two newspapers, a local and a regional. Read more than the funnies.

Talk about something other than yourself.

Bring canned goods to the food depository.

Dance to your own eight-track. Stop eyeing the room to see what everyone else is doing. Just move.

Live.

Yes, stop thinking about living, planning it to the minutest detail, scheduling it, listing it, comparing to-do lists with any who will listen.

And just live.

Butter-yellow sun, blue skies, and warm temperatures -- in January. Let's not waste this day, folks.

"Roger!"

As we snaked along the line of impatient travelers, I realized it had been nine years since I had last boarded a plane. Miss M-mv(i) was then ten months old.

The time since that trip had passed in books and picnics and field trips and late-night star parties, in ballet and museums and Little Ponies and Prisma pencils, in two moves and math facts and painted lady butterflies fleeing cracked chrysalides, in hugs and occasional tears and laughing refrains and art exhibits and all of the gestures and phrases and memories that make one family this and not that.

The time since that trip had passed...

And here we were, nine years later, just Miss M-mv(i) and I this time, climbing aboard a plane.

Did you know they still invite excited young passengers to say, "Hello," to the captain and his co-pilot?

This is how the birthday to remember began -- with an invitation to sit in a pilot's chair.

"How was it?" I asked of her adventure.

"Cool," she replied. "And warm."
________________

On the return trip a couple of days later, the captain had made Channel 9 available so that passengers could hear the pilots' converation with the control tower. Miss M-mv(i) decided to tune in.

About halfway into the flight, she said (a little loudly because she had the earphones on), "Oh, Mom! I can hear them. They're both talking. One pilot is a woman, and the other is named Roger!"

And how will the next nine years pass?

In laughter, certainly.

Egon Schiele

It happened again.

That wonderful synthesis of my reading, thinking, learning.

We were making our way along 89th (I think), from a subway station toward the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when street banners bearing the image of Egon Schiele's painting "Self Portrait with Arm Twisted above Head" (1910) attracted my attention. I thought, That is exactly how the narrator of Knut Hamsun's Hunger looked to my mind's eye. (More about Hamsun, Hunger, and all here and here.)

What do you think?

And, no, we did not visit the Neue Galerie. A more pressing NYC experience beckoned us.


There is nothing quite as delicious as a hot slice of good New York-style pizza. Mmm, mmm.


Russian nesting dolls
We walked from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Central Park.

My very own nesting dolls (matryoshka) bounced in my bag as we made our way to the park.


Aunt M-mv bought them for me from the sort of street vendor who seemed so kind and helpful that one would be tempted to buy just about anything from him.

Doesn't the littlest one look unduly worried?

What I'm reading
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide

The Accidental (Ali Smith)
In October, I desperately wanted to shout (virtually shout, anyway), "I made a major-market sale!" An assistant editor from [insert household-name magazine here] had written "to make sure we have the correct information for an upcoming story," and I read the message as, "We bought your story." But then I heard nothing. And when the piece ran (short, fun, complemented by a photo but buried in the back and labeled in a way that did not necessarily whisper (let alone shout) "Major-market sale"), I began to wonder if, in fact, I had sold the piece...

Or simply given it away.

So.

I didn't talk about it much.

Then, in the hours before I left for the Big Apple (Do folks still say that?), the morning post bore a check (not big, but, oh, boy, that's okay with me!) from [insert household-name magazine's publishing company here]. And now I can shout:

I made a major-market sale in 2005!

Master and Misses M-mv were the first to hear, then Mr. M-mv, then Aunt M-mv, and now, several days later, you.

What has this to do with Ali Smith's The Accidental?

I will tell you.

When we arrived in New York, Aunt M-mv gave me a gift card to a bookstore.

Because she was proud of me.

[Insert huge grin here.]

I used the gift card to buy The Accidental.

Primordial couple

Primordial couple
Dogon peoples, Mali
Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century
Wood and metal, 28 3/4 inches high
Gift of Lester Wunderman, 1977

One of the highlights of our whirlwind tour through
the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Ayup.
Bloggin' from the Big Apple and Lower Hudson Valley.
And it's almost as cool as Chicago.
Heh, heh, heh.

Elrond: Nine companions. So be it. You shall be the fellowship of the ring.
Pippin: Great! Where are we going?

Heh, heh, heh. See you soon.

"The Gift Outright"

Poet Robert Frost had penned "Dedication" to read at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy in 1961, but the sun's glare upon the snow blinded the aging Frost (he was eighty-six). He stumbled over a few lines of the new poem, but it was too unfamiliar for him to have memorized it.

He regained his composure and recited "The Gift Outright" from memory.

The land was ours before we were the land's.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England's, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

American Treasures the Library of Congress maintains an online exhibit that includes an image of the poem in Frost's hand.

For literary analysis of "The Gift Outright," visit this Modern American Poetry entry.

Young readers

A few days ago, Book Moot mused on "Series Books", writing, in part:

As a reader and a librarian I have always been a huge fan of series books for kids (and grownups.) If teaching reading is the goal, then series books are the ideal material for young readers. The characters are a known quantity, the action is (usually) fast paced and the format familiar.

Kids get to be better readers by READING. As educators we want as many words as possible to pass beneath their gaze. I was always amazed at librarians who refused to have Goosebumps or Captain Underpants in their libraries. These two series especially, appeal to reluctant readers who cannot begin to handle Harry Potter.

Great stuff there. Bookmark Book Moot.

M-mv readers who have been around a while already know that this dovetails with my own philosophy of reading. The following is excerpted from our 6.12.2004 "On the nightstand (under the pillow, in the knapsack, etc.)" entry.

[I]n other forums I visit, the conventional wisdom is that allowing young minds to indulge in the equivalent of mental M&Ms is bad parenting, capital B, capital P.

As you may have guessed by now, I am anything but conventional.

Here's my recipe for growing readers, thinkers, and autodidacts: Read to your children. Everywhere. Everything. From the moment they arrive in your life. Read. Talk. Think aloud so they can hear. Put books in their hands, under their pillows, in their knapsacks. Give books as gifts. Make a celebration out of their first library card. Let them learn to read like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. On your lap as you struggle through a difficult text. At your elbow as you read the daily newspaper. Beside you as you rediscover The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Let the words wash over them. Soak into them. And reading will be as breathing, eating, sleeping. It will be something they do simply because they are alive. And goofy mysteries and silly serial novels, movie tie-ins and horrible horror stories will more than fit into your children's reading lives because life's meals cannot all be salads and milk with apples for dessert. One must have chocolate. And cookies. And cake. And Twizzlers. And Smarties. Not too much, of course. But some. Because they taste good going down. Because the empty headachy sensation that follows a binge of Junie B. Jones reminds young readers, thinkers, and autodidacts that Ramona the Pest and Ramona the Brave are far more satisfying books.

Guide their reading.

Don't dictate it.

Defending Holden

Elsewhere, someone posted a poll of sorts, inquiring, more or less, "What are your top-ten picks for must-read books for high school students?"

When the College Board first published its version of the "great books," they included "The Short List." I no longer see this list online, but I have a hard copy:

Jane Eyre
The Mill on the Floss
Invisible Man
The Great Gatsby
The Scarlet Letter
The Odyssey
Hamlet
Oedipus Rex
Gulliver's Travels
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I agree with the boldfaced titles. Based on my experiences as a student and as a teacher, however, I would replace the remaining four with

The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
No Exit (Sartre)
Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury)
The Stranger (Camus) or Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)

Naturally, I found it difficult to limit myself to ten: What about Great Expectations (Dickens), The Three Musketeers or The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas), and Heart of Darkness (Conrad)?

I suspect this is why the College Board's list comprises one hundred and one titles. Heh, heh, heh. Just ten? So difficult.

I wasn't surprised by the inquiries about my inclusion of The Catcher in the Rye. It falls in and out of favor, but you know I'm not one swayed by fashion. In the places in which I've taught (from college lecture halls and writing centers to a juvenile detention facility for young men), Holden's narrative has, like no other, cracked open the discussion coconut. From the classrooms of a tony suburban high school into an undergrad honors seminar in a small liberal arts college over to the cramped, dirty classroom of that juvie center, Holden bounded. He captivated, angered, and alternately dismayed and delighted.

For this alone, he will remain in my top ten.

He makes. students. think.

Folks approaching the discussion from what they perceive as a "classical tradition" might perhaps pooh-pooh Holden's smarmy, smutty, smug (and ultimately sad) retreat from the world of "phonies," dismissing it as somehow (for lack of a better word) unworthy. But I've read this book and taught it and, finally, felt it (this last when I experienced Holden's breakdown with Master M-mv last year), and I maintain that Salinger gave young readers a memorable (if sometimes despicable) character that has (again, in my experience) reached even non-readers.

My efforts as director of our family-centered learning project color all of the teaching experience that came before — color it bolder and more memorable. So, perhaps another reason Holden looms important to me is that in my discussions with Master M-mv, I saw my student stitching pieces of Holden to bits of Harrison Bergeron to parts of Mercutio and even Hamlet to scraps of Pip and threads of, yes, Pi, and so on.

To watch a student so easily synthesize what he is reading with what he has read before, to see the characters roam so freely and knowingly in another's mind — nodding acquaintances who share secrets — is one of the most remarkable aspects of this reading, thinking, teaching, learning life of mine.

And so Holden joins Huck. And Horatio. And the trio of eyelid-less sinners of Sartre's No Exit. And so on. Because these characters talk to the readers I've met.

And they talk to me.

Dismissing Holden (and, by extension, Salinger) is not uncommon. In "J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, Aging Gracelessly" (Washington Post, October 18, 2004), Jonathan Yardley argues, "The combination of Salinger's execrable prose and Caulfield's jejune narcissism produced effects comparable to mainlining castor oil." He notes later, however, that while it is "a maladroit, mawkish novel," its popularity and influence are inarguable.

I stumbled across this piece in my work last week, in that joyful and amazing intersection of my writing / working life and my reading / teaching life (which I last mentioned when Saroyan and Hamsun met in my mind's corridors). Early last week, I wrote about Salinger, Saroyan, and Sandburg. Is that not an unlikely trio?

Anyway....

Some might argue that just about any book can yield discussion, but I'd counter that this is really only true when you're talking with readers. But I haven't always worked with readers, and with non-readers (or less than ideal readers (more about this in a moment)), a deafening sound of silence often follows an enthusiastic teacher's inquiries about the latest reading assignment when, for myriad reasons, a book has failed to connect with the students (or vice versa).

Oh, sure, you can lead, cajole, and coach responses. And I did. But with Holden? I never needed to. He spoke to (shouted at!) both my readers and my non-readers with little to no interpretation from me. The students fairly exploded with questions, opinions, assertions, and reactions.

Call me crazy, but I love that sort of visceral response to literature.

Maybe the pollster sought the ideal reading choices for ideal young readers. Maybe. But the simple fact is, not many of us are raising ideal young readers — readers who pine only for Dickens and Eliot and Austen and Homer and ol' Will; in fact, not all of us even were ideal young readers. I crafted a list from the many, many works that have spoken to my students, the ideal and not so ideal and the non- readers alike. There is, again, in my experience, enough on my list to ensure that something (and perhaps more than one something) will reshape the landscape of a student's imagination, drag him or her into an ongoing conversation with books and authors and characters.

(And, no, Master M-mv did not need to be dragged. He is, perhaps, the ideal young reader. Lucky him. Most of the rest of my students, though? And the younger version of me? Far from ideal. The combination of Hamlet's muttering, Holden's shouting, Huck's musing, and the rest of it, though, brought me (and, I'd like to believe, my students) a little closer to ideal.)

There are many opinions on lit and the teaching of said. These are just some of mine.

And Holden stays.

Carnival redux

Week three of the Carnival of Homeschooling is up. Presented as "the complete alphabet of homeschooling," the line-up includes fifty-one submissions from home educators. (You'll find us under E.)

An amended update on the BoB Awards

Apparently, you can vote more than once (like last year). Yes, you can vote once daily until January 30, according to the latest post at the BoB site. When we attempted to vote again, though, we received the following message: "It looks like you have already voted. Your vote was not counted." This is a common refrain among the M-mv readers with whom we've corresponded about this issue. How 'bout you?

Master M-mv suggested that we encourage folks:

"Get out and vote... again! (Unless you can't.)"

But I think I'd like to get back to our regularly scheduled programming, so I've moved the BoB button into the sidebar.

Winterfest

Yesterday it was back to the bog. The sunshine waned, but we savored its weak light after so many weeks of gray.

Hey, did you stand and stare last night? The winter sky in its crisp, clean starry brightness offered beautiful viewing.

Added later

I spoke to a kind young man in the Research Department at Harpo Studios this afternoon. (He indicated that he was not permitted to give me his name.) I explained to him that the language in the official rules and regulations for Oprah's National High School Essay Contest seemed to preclude participation by home-educated teens. He didn't seem to think so, but he put me on hold to confer with a colleague. No, he asserted when he returned to the call, it didn't seem that homeschooled students were prohibited from entering.

I explained that the language is somewhat misleading, though:

Oprah's National High School Essay Contest (the "Contest") is open to all legal residents of the United States, who are currently enrolled full-time in a public or state-accredited private or parochial school in grades 9–12 in good standing.

The Research Department staff member continued to maintain that he didn't think homeschoolers were excluded, but he recommended that the best way to confirm this would be to send an email through the website.

If you are interested, I urge you to write in before speculating. You don't want to be stranded on the Island of Conclusions (the place at which we arrive "every time you decide something without having a good reason").

"The only way back is to swim, and that's a very long and a very hard way."

(Yes, The Phantom Tollbooth.)

Whatever the outcome, I stand by my assertion that today's selection is a remarkable book and, yes, perhaps even mandatory reading. It can reshape the landscape of readers' hearts. Read well, it can change lives.

Read. Think. Learn.

"[M]andatory reading for every human being on the planet"?

Okay. Now I am inclined to agree.

I don't know why I thought she had long ago "assigned" Night to the suburban housewives her club (and audience) seems to comprise, but I did. I had mentioned that unforgettable book to Mr. M-mv when I posted on 1.06.2006, thought, "She's already done that," and came up with Man's Search for Meaning to fill the void.

In all truth, however, I did think that, either way, slavery and race relations were most likely to be the topics she covered, not the Holocaust.

And I was wrong. And, as I said, I'm inclined to think "mandatory reading" is not such a hyperbole, after all.

"[M]andatory reading" redux

Remember this post?

Well, tommorow we learn how well I guessed.

The first two books that came to mind: Native Son or Invisible Man.

Other ideas: Go Tell It on the Mountain. Things Fall Apart. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. (M., an original and card-carrying member of M-mv's best and perfect audience, maintains that I may be onto something with this latter.)

Two far-far-out ideas: All Quiet on the Western Front. Man's Search for Meaning.

A suggestion I've made in the ten days since first posting: Huckleberry Finn.

Po Bronson

Dear M-mv:

Hi, I'm Po Bronson's researcher, and I just saw your blog about reading Po's book. I hope I can show Po the picture of your boots [Note: Scroll down in this entry.] before he gets on an afternoon plane -- I know he's going to love that.

Anyway, I noticed you have a couple Chicago blog links on your site. [Note: Well, blog rings, anyway: Chicago Blogs and Chicago Bloggers.] If you're in the area, we'd love you to join us at a reading/discussion Po's doing in Chi this Weds. (Below is the info.) You can lurk or introduce yourself to Po. But, regardless, I think you'd really enjoy it: it's less of an actual reading -- more just talking about a few of the people in the book, and he'll probably read a short story he wrote about family as well.

Hope you enjoy the book!

Best,
Ashley Merryman

_______________________________

Enjoy the book? I am enthralled by the book. I can't be in Chicago Wednesday night, though. How 'bout you?

Talk & Signing
~ Po Bronson ~
Author website
Author of Why Do I Love These People? Honest and Amazing Stories of Real Families
Wednesday, January 18, at 7 p.m.
Transitions Bookplace
1000 W. North Avenue
Chicago, IL 60622
Store Phone: (312) 951-7323

Dear Mr. Mitchell

Dear Mr. Mitchell:

Forgive the passive: You are still remembered... and missed.

With much admiration,

Mrs. M-mv

On the nightstand (under the pillow, in the knapsack, etc.)

For this, our twenty-sixth "On the nightstand" entry, just as I did for the last three, I will discuss only what is on my nightstand, under my pillow, in my knapsack, on my desk, under the car seat, etc. right now, today. As before, then, it's not the month in review, just a snapshot of one day's worth of books in various angles of repose -- being read, waiting to be read, being evaluated, being rejected. And again, I'll turn to page seventeen of each of the books, locate the fifth complete sentence on that page, and include it (or its reasonable approximation) with the title, author, and brief note on how it ended up on the stack.

Let's begin.

:: Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds: Notes from a Northwest Year (Lyanda Lynn Haupt)
But none consider the starling a major food source, and it is doubtful that predation makes much of an impact on starling numbers.
How it ended up on the stack: C., who blogs at Classical Home, recommended this title. She said that the introduction, in which the author describes her fourth-grade teacher's astonishment that the young Haupt knew one bird from another (an Evening Grosbeak, in this case), made her think of the Misses M-mv.

Haupt wrote, "I have always remembered the day I discovered that it is not necessarily 'normal' to know a bird's name." C., this morning, as the Misses M-mv and I were talking, Miss M-mv(i) declared, "Oh, I'm so glad I'm not normal. If I were, I'd be all "Bobby! Oooooh!" about boys and stuff, instead of into my art and my books and my birds and all."

"Bobby! Oooooh!" Heh, heh, heh.

:: Why Do I Love These People? Honest and Amazing Stories of Real Families (Po Bronson)
The twenty-first century is indeed bringing us a new world, with a higher aspiration for family than ever before.
How it ended up on the stack: I was first attracted by the cover of this book.


It reminded me of one of my favorite M-mv photographs.


Then I realized Bronson had penned it, he of The Nudist on the Late Shift and Other True Tales of Silicon Valley, and thought, "Let's test-drive this one."

:: The Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand (Jonathan Stroud)
It was wide and cold, and had a floor of black-and-white tiles.
How it ended up on the stack: I am almost certain I bought this because of a Book Moot entry.

:: The Day I Became an Autodidact (and the Advice, Adventures, and Acrimonies that Befell Me Thereafter) (Kendall Hailey)
What I Did: Fell in love with a University of Kazan dropout, a fellow who couldn't pass his law examinations, and a lad who spent more time in debtors' prison visiting Dad than in school.
How it ended up on the stack: See this entry.

:: How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method (G. Polya)
"If a, b, c are measured in feet, your formula gives the diagonal measured in feet too; but if you could change all measures into inches, the formula should remain correct. Is that so?"
How it ended up on the stack: My work prompted me to pick this up. Polya was one of my assigned topics last month. Polya maintained, "Solving problems is a practical art, like swimming, or skiing, or playing the piano: you learn it only by imitation and practice. [... I]f you wish to learn swimming you have to go into the water, and if you wish to become a problem solver you have to solve problems." In How to Solve It, the work this Hungarian-born mathematician considered his most prized publication, he reduced problem-solving to four steps:

I. Understand the problem.
II. Devise a plan.
III. Carry out the plan.
IV. Look back.

Learn more about Poyla here.

:: Parnassus on Wheels (Christopher Morley)
Reading sonnets always gives me hiccups, too.
:: How to Do Things Right: The Revelations of a Fussy Man (L. Rust Hills)
Ideally you should have such an avid family picnic organizational cadre set up that no advance planning would be necessary.
How they ended up on the stack: Both of these appeared in the A Common Reader catalogue (see this entry), and the first was also recommended on a literary blog I visited (but not Pages Turned, apparently, although I do have S. to thank for "Apocalypse," a short story she recommends most highly).

Business matters
Browse. cool Check out our original shop or or the Read. Think. Learn. shop (mugs only) or the "best and perfect" audience shop. Just drop us an email if you have any questions about the designs and/or products.

Shop Amazon.com via any M-mv link. No matter what you want, Amazon delivers. We appreciate your business.

Previous "On the nightstand" entries
12.19.2005
11.11.2005
10.21.2005
9.26.2005
8.25.2005
8.5.2005
7.6.2005
5.28.2005
4.18.2005
3.20.2005
2.14.2005
1.14.2005
12.21.2004
11.21.2004
10.12.2004
9.13.2004
8.24.2004
7.19.2004
6.12.2004
5.19.2004
4.22.2004
3.12.2004
2.15.2004
1.26.2004
12.31.2003

"1 Min, 32 Secs"?!?

I must be losing my touch. Once upon a time ago, I routinely solved the puzzle in under a minute, but it's been a while since I flexed that particular mental muscle, I guess; I'm slowing down. "What's she going on about?" Set. We've been recommending it since we started this autodidactic hike. Go ahead. Give it a try.

For this and the rest of of our links, click here.

Main floor center

Yes! We have five tickets.

"Suburbs: A cliché from hell"

Despite its relative youth, suburbia is already a thoroughly mythologized landscape with its own set of clichés and conventions. The word brings to mind a number of images and associations, many of them negative. The suburb is a land of white-picket fences and well-trimmed lawns, of teenage angst and mindless materialism.

As historian Margaret Marsh has written, "The idea of suburbia transcends space and civic boundaries and becomes a means to conceptualize a way of life."

Read the essay here.

"The suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs"
From The Hours:

Virginia Woolf: This is my right; it is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the Capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity. I wish, for your sake, Leonard, I could be happy in this quietness.

[pause]

But if it is a choice between Richmond and death, I choose death.

It's sunny here. We've seen the sun for about thirty minutes since early December. Gray, gray, gray. Not today. The yellow stuff is caressing the yards. Flickering screens off.

Serendipity

On 12.11.2005, the RDA was Knut Hamsun's Hunger. I wrote, in part:

Looking back, I find it rather remarkable that the 1920 Nobel laureate was considered "beyond the pale of the literary canon," but my graduate studies are, what, fourteen years behind me... I'm a better reader, thinker, and student now than I was then. Oh, how I wish I could tap on the shoulder of my younger self: "Ask him what he means by including Hamsun in this line-up. Go ahead. Ask."

Two weeks later, I mused, "While I can understand the allure of reading lists and reading plans, the serendipity that leads us from one book to the next attracts me to the reading life in a way no scheduled slate of must-reads ever could."

And last night, serendipity waved, "Hello," again.

Last night, one of my assigned topics was William Saroyan.

As a writer Saroyan made his breakthrough in the Story magazine with "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze" (1934), after the popular song. The protagonist is a young, starving writer who tries to survive in a Depression-ridden society. "Through the air on the flying trapeze, his mind hummed. Amusing it was, astoundingly funny. A trapeze to God, or to nothing, a flying trapeze to some sort of eternity; he prayed objectively for strength to make the flight with grace." Saroyan's character has some connections to Knut Hamsun's penniless writer in his famous novel Hunger (1890), but without the anger and nihilism of Hamsun's narrator. The story was republished in Saroyan's bestselling collection, and with its royalties Saroyan financed his trip to Europe and Armenia, where he learned to love the taste of Russian cigarettes. He also developed a theory that "you may tend to get cancer from the thing that makes you want to smoke so much, not from the smoking itself." (from Not Dying, 1963)

It is one sort of pleasure when this book so naturally leads to that, the "complementary reading experience" I described in the 12.23.2005 entry -- "this book dovetailing with that, thus, locking both of them forever in my mind's library of text and story and character and intent."

But it is an altogether different sort of joy, yes, joy, when one's writing / working life so neatly synthesizes with one's reading life.

Forgive the overly self-referential post. Sometimes, though, I really must get all of the words out, just thank god or the confluence of events or both that brought me to this place, with these people, that work, those experiences. Serendipity, maybe. The revealed patterns and small joys that transform the quotidian into a life well worked, well read, well lived.

Carnival redux

The folks at Why Homeschool will host another carnival later this month. If you're interested in contributing, visit them here to learn how to submit. (Deadline for submissions: January 16.)

"[Y]ou can swat flies with them"

Read Joseph Epstein's Commentary -- "Are Newspapers Doomed?"

The trouble with blogs and Internet news sites, it has been said, is that they merely reinforce the reader’s already established interests and views, thereby contributing to our much-lamented national polarization of opinion. A newspaper, by contrast, at least compels one to acknowledge the existence of other subjects and issues, and reading it can alert one to affecting or important matters that one would never encounter if left to one’s own devices, and in particular to that primary device of our day, the computer. Whether or not that is so, the argument has already been won, and not by the papers.

M-mv on Epstein here, here, and here.

Epstein, writing in Snobbery: Delight in excellence is easily confused with snobbery by the ignorant.

"Read it like you hate me."

From N.S.'s column today:

Not only is "Read it like you hate me" original, but it conveys the exact right sentiment for somebody trying to write well. Most writers say they want frank criticism when in fact what they want is praise.

"Read it like you hate me" machetes through that, grabs you by the collar and says, "I really, really want your true opinion, the criticisms you would lovingly tote up reading the work of somebody you loathed." But in six words.

People who hate you -- trust me on this -- parse the smallest errors of grammar. They point out tiny logic flaws. They don't sit back and applaud like seals.

"Read it like you hate me." This is why we need editors, by the way. Because our sisters and significant others cannot read it like they hate us. Not really. They can try to be ruthless, sure, but few loved or liked ones can read our work with an eye as keen as someone who hates us... or an editor, anyway.

Heh, heh, heh.

The Best of Blogs 2006
The folks hosting the Second Annual Best of Blogs Awards announced the Best Book/Literary Blog Finalists. Again, many thanks to those who nominated us, to those who named Mental multivitamin among the finalists, and to those hosting and sponsoring the BoBs. Best wishes to the other nine bloggers in this category.

Added later: Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant maintains that one shouldn't care about blog awards. (He's referring to the Bloggies; I'm extrapolating.) He writes, in part:

If you have written a post begging your readership to nominate you for the Bloggies, then please do us all a favor. Stop blogging. You’re part of the problem.

Because blogging isn’t a popularity contest. If you are not offending at least one reader or writing something that causes your readership to think, if you are not taking advantage of this alternative medium to do something worthwhile and different, the things that other [media] can’t do because they need advertising and readers, then I hope you’ll spend the rest of your days without an Internet connection working at a small-town newspaper banging out a weekly gardening column that offends no one.

He made me think, to be sure, and here is what I decided: There's nothing wrong with being delighted that someone appreciates your work. Did you read the Menand article I linked in this entry? Our culture may have become a little prize-silly, yes, but I have viewed the nods here and there less as a popularity contest and more as an acknowledgment that, "Yes! Folks are reading us, getting us. Yay!" I may not care for comments (and you know I don't), but I never thought I was working in a vacuum, either.

Eh. Maybe that's just me. I am a reader, a thinker, and an autodidact, but I'm also a writer, which ordinarily presupposes, ayup, a reader... or two. And if a couple of those readers like M-mv enough to put its name in the ring for this contest or that, I'm not going to assume a pose of righteous indignation.

On the contrary, I'm going to enjoy the pleasure that positive recognition -- of whatever size or strength -- can bring.

They're so cute.

From "The Cute Factor" (New York Times, January 3):

Scientists who study the evolution of visual signaling have identified a wide and still expanding assortment of features and behaviors that make something look cute: bright forward-facing eyes set low on a big round face, a pair of big round ears, floppy limbs and a side-to-side, teeter-totter gait, among many others.

Cute cues are those that indicate extreme youth, vulnerability, harmlessness and need, scientists say, and attending to them closely makes good Darwinian sense. As a species whose youngest members are so pathetically helpless they can't lift their heads to suckle without adult supervision, human beings must be wired to respond quickly and gamely to any and all signs of infantile desire.

The human cuteness detector is set at such a low bar, researchers said, that it sweeps in and deems cute practically anything remotely resembling a human baby or a part thereof, and so ends up including the young of virtually every mammalian species, fuzzy-headed birds like Japanese cranes, woolly bear caterpillars, a bobbing balloon, a big round rock stacked on a smaller rock, a colon, a hyphen and a close parenthesis typed in succession.

Ah. This explains how, at the pivotal moment in the Morgan Freeman-narrated film about "fuzzy-headed birds," five autodidacts ranging in age from eight to nearly forty-two breathed, "Awwww! Isn't that cute?"

Recent acquisitions

Profiles in Courage (John F. Kennedy) and Woe Is I (Patricia T. O'Connor) are repeats, extra copies for the personal library I'm helping Master M-mv build. The Noonday Demon (Andrew Solomon) is an audiobook of a spine-and-pages book already on my shelves. Three Short Novels (Wendell Berry), Double Vision (Pat Barker, whose Regeneration trilogy ranks among the most memorable experiences of my reading life), Elizabeth Costello (J.M. Coetzee), and Joe College (Tom Perrotta, who also wrote Little Children, which we've heartily recommended) are new friends.

Yes, GIANT BOOK SALE is running its three-weeks-until-we-roll-out-of-here-folks discounts: $1.50 for all softcovers; $2 for all audiobooks; $3 for all hardbacks. We've covered this addiction before.

I've decided that, in the end, sometimes it's better to succumb.

Truthy, not facty

From "‘Truthiness’ voted 2005 word of the year":

A panel of linguists has decided the word that best reflects 2005 is "truthiness," defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.

The American Dialect Society chose the word Friday after a runoff with terms related to Hurricane Katrina, such as "Katrinagate," the scandal erupting from the lack of planning for the monster hurricane.

Funny thing is, though, that I actually heard the words "Katrinagate" and "podcast" (the word voted "most useful" by the Society). I even heard the expression "jump the couch."

But "truthiness"? Never heard it until the news station that lulls me to sleep most nights began reporting the story.

Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes in lexicology, said "truthiness" means "truthy, not facty."

I see. Why, that explains it, no? Truthy, not facty.

Crash
Ebert defends his choice of Crash as the best film of 2005 in today's Sun-Times.

It is useful to be aware of the ways in which real people see real films. Over the past eight months I've had dozens of conversations about "Crash" with people who were touched by it. They said it might encourage them to look at strangers with a little more curiosity before making a snap judgment.

These real moviegoers are not constantly vigilant against the possibility of being manipulated by a film. They want to be manipulated; that's what they pay for, and that in a fundamental way is why movies exist. Usually the movies manipulate us in brainless ways, with bright lights and pretty pictures and loud sounds and special effects. But a great movie can work like philosophy, poetry, or a sermon.

Regular readers may remember that we recommended Crash. Looks like we're in good company.

And speaking of good company, Ebert also enjoyed the film we watched Monday night: The Station Agent. From his review:

[W]riter-director Thomas McCarthy is aiming more deeply. Yes, this is a comedy, but it's also sad, and finally it's simply a story about trying to figure out what you love to do and then trying to figure out how to do it. Joe has that part mastered, since the coffee wagon represents a lifestyle so perfect that the only way to improve it would be if, say, a dwarf moved into the train station. Finbar thinks he has life mastered -- he thinks all he wants to do is sit in his train station and think about trains....

Mr. M-mv and I give this movie (which M., a card-carrying member of M-mv's best and perfect audience, recommended) two enthusiastic thumbs up.

Finbar McBride: You said you weren't going to talk to me if I sat here, Joe.
Joe Oramas: I haven't said anything in like twenty minutes.
[Fin checks his pocket watch]
Finbar McBride: Nine.
Joe Oramas: You timed me?
Finbar McBride: Mm-hmm.
Joe Oramas: That's cold, bro.

"[M]andatory reading for every human being on the planet"?

Not to be facetious, but, really. Can every person on the planet read? And could there possibly be one book universally regarded as "mandatory reading"?

With nods to Book Moot and Semicolon, here's a link.

And here's my take: January 16 is Martin Luther King Day, and the book will be the subject of an essay contest for high school students. Oprah’s penchant for hyperbole aside ("[M]andatory reading for every human being on the planet," indeed), I’m thinking Native Son or Invisible Man.

Other ideas: Go Tell It on the Mountain. Things Fall Apart. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

Two far-far-out ideas: All Quiet on the Western Front. Man's Search for Meaning.

Awards season

Mental multivitamin received several nominations in the Best Book or Literary Blog category, including one from Rich at Shockingly Provincial. He nominated us in the same category last year. Many thanks, Rich. Jackie nominated us in this category, too, and won a $25 gift card to Starbucks from the folks sponsoring The Second Annual Best of Blogs Awards. How cool is that?

Sherry of Semicolon, a blogger I greatly (albeit, virtually) admire, nominated Mental multivitamin in the Best Education or Homeschooling Blog category. Many thanks for that, Sherry.

Finalists will be announced by January 10, and then the voting begins.

Funny. The day I realize M-mv might be a finalist in the BoBs again is the day I read Louis Menand's article about "the history and social function of cultural prizes and awards."

Can you say, "Heh, heh, heh"?

Whimsicrap

The work of surrealist Raymond Queneau pushes the envelope of traditional structure and narrative, but few outside his native France are familiar with his work. Why? Perhaps because his novels and poems brim with puns, colloquialisms, phonetic spelling, and invented words... and it's difficult to translate newborn words. Like whimsicrap.

From his poem "Cleanliness":

The little pigeons full of whimsicrap
used to come and go flying over Paris
giving its walls an exquisite shade
of avian poop grayish in tint.

Don't you wish you knew how the translator decided Queneau meant "whimsicrap"?

Described as the precursor to postmodernism, Queneau "formed a bridge between the irrational world of Breton and other surrealists and the philosophical 'absurd' of existentialism." One of his best known novels, Zazie dans le métro (1959), was developed into a film directed by Louis Malle.

Zazie: What's a hormosessual?
Albertine: A man who wears blue jeans.
Zazie: Aw, you're joking!

But Cent Mille Milliards de Poemes may be the work that attracts readers today. Written in 1961, the work consists of a set of ten sonnets. A line from one sonnet may be combined with any line from each of the nine others, yielding one hundred billion (title translation: "one hundred thousand million") possible sonnets.

Here you'll find Beverly Charles Rowe's English translation, including a grid of the permutations.

Added later: A. writes:

I once dated a musician. A jazz musician. He was 22 and I [was] 17 in the year 1972. His world was filled with music and he was just odd enough to think up new ways to play and write his stuff. One day, he showed me a piece of paper divided into 16 squares, each square filled with a phrase of music. He claimed one could start anywhere on the page, play each square of music once and finish along with anyone else playing, who started in different squares, and it would sound good. I can read music, so I looked at the squares in different combinations. He was right. About five years later, the avant garde jazz musicians in Chicago began to experiment with this kind of music.

The sonnet site reminded me of M.'s music.

Cat M-mv

Breaking the "No cat pictures" rule... again. Heh, heh, heh.

Nicholson and Ellie will host the 94th Carnival of Cats on Sunday night.

More Cat M-mv here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Improbable fiction

Tomorrow is Twelfth Night, a holiday celebrated by some branches of Christianity to mark the twelfth and final night of the Christmas season.

How will Family M-mv will mark the occasion? With bardolatry*, of course.

:: Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has; but I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.

:: ...[S]wear horrible, for it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.

:: If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as improbable fiction.

Yes, Twelfth Night. Savor it in text or in a delightful 1996 film production featuring Ben Kingsley as Feste.


* "Bardolatry, the worship of Shakespeare, ought to be even more a secular religion than it already is. The plays remain the outward limit of human achievement: aesthetically, cognitively, in certain ways morally, even spiritually. They abide beyond the end of the mind's reach; we cannot catch up to them. Shakespeare will go on explaining us, in part because he invented us...."

From Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. I guess you could call it a catechism of bardolatry.

Amen.

Books for readers with imagination

So what is the news about A Common Reader? I've rung their 800 number and visited their web site ("Happy Holidays from A Common Reader").

Nothing.

Carnival

M-mv is a "performer" in The Carnival of Homeschooling.

Vocabulary

Do you have a "superior command of the language"?

You do if you know these words, according to the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries.

From the Houghton Mifflin press release:

BOSTON, MA — The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.

"The words we suggest," says senior editor Steven Kleinedler, "are not meant to be exhaustive but are a benchmark against which graduates and their parents can measure themselves. If you are able to use these words correctly, you are likely to have a superior command of the language."

We've created the study sheet. All you must do, then, is...

Read. Think. Learn.