Birding

Pete Dunne, contributing editor for Birder's World and author of Essential Field Guide Companion, reduces the "secret" to becoming a better birder to a nine-point list, which appears in the October 2006 issue:

1. Don't just go birding. Learn the birds.
2. Use good equipment.
3. Go birding a lot.
4. Bird with better birders.
5. But go birding alone, too.
6. Learn from your mistakes.
7. Start young. ("[T]he very best birders [...] all started young. Cheer up. They started knowing less than you know now.")
8. Read everything.
9. Have fun.

That last is the most important, especially for those of us least likely to join the corps of elite birders: Have fun.

Watch. Learn. Bird. Read.

Have fun.

For those who follow our backyard birding adventures, our Project Feederwatch materials arrived over the weekend. Are you participating?

And we recently added the Golden-crowned Kinglet and the Great Horned Owl to our list.

This is Halloween. This is Halloween.

'Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems in a place perhaps you've seen in your dreams. For the story you're about to be told began with the holiday worlds of auld. Now you've probably wondered where holidays come from. If you haven't I'd say it's time you begun.

From Roger Ebert's review of The Nightmare before Christmas:

One day Jack stumbles into the wrong entryway in Halloweentown, and finds himself smack dab in the middle of preparations for Christmas. Now this, he realizes, is more like it! Instead of ghosts and goblins and pumpkins, there are jolly little helpers assisting Santa in his annual duty of bringing peace on earth and goodwill to men.

Back in Halloweentown, Jack Skellington feels a gnawing desire to better himself. To move up to a more important holiday, one that people take more seriously and enjoy more than Halloween. And so he engineers a diabolical scheme in which Santa is kidnapped, and Jack himself plays the role of Jolly Old St. Nick, while his helpers manufacture presents. (Some of the presents, when finally distributed to little girls and boys, are so hilariously ill-advised that I will not spoil the fun by describing them here.) Tim Burton, the director of "Beetlejuice," "Edward Scissorhands" and the "Batman" movies, has been creating this world in his head for about 10 years, ever since his mind began to stray while he was employed as a traditional animator on an unremarkable Disney project.

The story is centered on his favorite kind of character, a misfit who wants to do well, but has been gifted by fate with a quirky personality that people don't know how to take. Jack Skellington is the soul brother of Batman, Edward and the demon in "Beetlejuice" - a man for whom normal human emotions are a conundrum.

The only Halloween movie that even begins to compete with The Nightmare before Christmas is the classic It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Happy Halloween, folks.

Anniversary

Tomorrow marks Mental multivitamin's third anniversary. Ayup. Three years of reading, thinking, and learning -- and writing about (or synthesizing) that reading, thinking, and learning.

As I did last year, I've collected a post from each of the last twelve months to mark this virtual milestone. These posts aren't necessarily "the best," but they are among my favorites.

Happy anniversary, fellow readers, thinkers, and autodidacts.

He is home. (11.06.2005)

He is home.

He was gone so long that his messy dresser top charms me.

Let's go. (12.28.2005)

Mild insomnia.

Spurts of wakefulness, not necessarily anxiety-filled, either. Just patches of a-few-minutes-too-long wakefulness in the midst of otherwise comfortable sleep.

Defending Holden (1.17.2006)

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.

"You'd be sitting all alone!" (2.04.2006)

And the sort of conversation that older married couples have -- the kind that is underscored by the fact that you can still glimpse his eighteen-year-old self (and he, yours) in a face rounder, lined, and graying at the temples and punctuated by the knowledge that you still want him (and he, you) -- followed.

True Tuesday (3.28.2006)

Among other things, I was a band geek, twirler, DFW speech contest winner, literary magazine and yearbook editor, newspaper managing editor, NHS member, chorister, and thespian (a word that caused my mother mild consternation when I announced my acceptance into the Thespian Society) who never dodged gym, never sat in detention, nearly earned an F in an honors history course....

I will be forty-two soon. (4.27.2006)

And now I am nearly forty-two, and it feels as off-the-clock-and-calendar as cardigan sweaters and and beaded hats and fuzzy baby heads and branches against impossibly blue skies.

Twenty years (5.17.2006)

The phone doesn't ring in our house. Sure, folks call us. But the phone doesn't ring. Ayup. Seven or so years ago, I turned off the ringer, and I haven't looked back. This is what voice mail is for, I reason, to help us manage intrusions. I respond to calls when it's convenient for me.

More work (6.29.2006)

It would be self-delusional to think that the pieces I pen (or edit) are reshaping the world, as Hirshman maintains women in positions of power can and should do. I am not in a position of power (well, I head a benevolent dictatorship of three subjects, but that's not exactly wielding a ring of power, now, is it?), although my influence as a parent, a teacher, and, yes, even as a writer remains to be seen. Sure, in my most recent assignment, I have improved the product's quality and, by extension, pleased the boss and the firm's clients. That's a great feeling -- it's a feeling that, for me, far outstrips the satisfaction I experience after finishing, say, the kitchen chores. But I'm not exactly reworking the political landscape, if you know what I mean.

And, let's be honest, neither are you.

Mr. M-mv rose at 5:15 a.m. (7.22.2006)

Mark the softer punctuation. Mark it well because enfolded in the swish of the sponge on the breakfast dishes and the sound of the crows discovering the meatballs you set out, in the companionable silences and soft murmurs the quotidian comprises, in the commas and semicolons and periods is, well, life.

August is laughing... (8.05.2006)

And as the paddleboat slap-slap-slaps away from the shore, I remember former selves, young and laughing, and an old wooden canoe silently skimming across the glassy surface of the wide water.

August laughed then, too.

The one you remember (9.07.2006)

The most effective teacher is the one whose words ring in your ears decades later, the one whose cadences and observations and challenges sculpted the landscape of your imagination. You remember him. He is the one who refused to accept less than your best work. He made you think. He demanded that you demand more of yourself.

Yes, that's it.

The most effective teacher is the one you remember.

"And let me speak to th'yet unknowing world" (10.19.2006)

And so it follows that a stage production with an unlikeable Horatio would confound our expectations of Hamlet-world. A weak, sniveling Horatio, a Horatio who shrinks from Hamlet's touch, cringes when the prince draws near, is certainly not one to whom we can hold fast during Hamlet's whirlwind tour of life, man's universe, and everything in it.

The Saturday Review of Books

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

Don't forget...
You need to set your clocks back when you head to bed tonight. Looking for suggestions on how to spend your extra time over this long, autumn weekend? Visit our newly remerchandised bookshop.

On the nightstand

This is the fortieth "On the nightstand" entry -- a snapshot (picture and words) of the books on my nightstand right this very second. Let's call it "the anniversary edition": We celebrate our third on Monday, October 30.

You know the drill: I'll turn to page thirty of each of the featured books, locate the tenth complete sentence on that page, and include it (or its reasonable approximation) with the title, author, and a brief note on how it ended up on the stack.

To the books, then.

:: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
You were right -- heads.
How it ended up on the stack: Master M-mv and I are still working on our impromptu unit on contemporary theater. Birthday week intervened, and we set aside R&G. When we resumed "normal programming," we read along with this audio production. This film will complement our reading and discussion.

:: Black Fly Season (Giles Blunt)
Every now and then, Cardinal's thoughts were interrupted by a feminine tack, tack, tack of hammer and nail.
How it ended up on the stack: I adored Forty Words for Sorrow, so I don't know what took me so long to seek out Blunt's other work.

:: The Red and the Black (Stendhal)
Julien did not think of her at all: in spite of his distrust for fate and men alike, at this moment his soul but a child's.
How it ended up on the stack: As I mentioned here, I'm reading along with these good folks.

:: Lisey's Story (Stephen King)
Sometimes, he will tell her not long hence, speaking from a hospital bed (ah, but he could so easily have been on a cooling board himself, all his wakeful, thoughtful nights over), speaking in his new whispering, effortful voice, sometimes just enough is just enough.
How it ended up on the stack: Still not apologizing for my deep and abiding affection for King. I'm seeing a lot of positive press on this effort, so I'm looking forward to lugging it into bed for some mental M&Ms these next few nights.

:: A Theater of Our Own: A History and a Memoir of 1,001 Nights in Chicago (Richard Christiansen)
Rostand, stung by the legal battle, protested, observing that there were "big noses everywhere in the world," but Gross would not be put off.
How it ended up on the stack: I decided I had to have it after perusing it once again in the lobby of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. (We were there during birthday week for the Terry Hands-directed Hamlet. My impressions of the play are recorded here.)

The Saturday Review of Books
Each week, Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

Don't forget...
You need to set your clocks back when you head to bed tomorrow night. Do you need suggestions for spending your extra time over the long, autumn weekend? Visit our newly remerchandised bookshop.

Fine Art Friday

"Window overlooking the Woods" (1899)
Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940)

I have, of course, seen this painting at the Art Institute of Chicago many, many times before. Imagine my surprise, then, when it became new to me last Wednesday.

Vuillard's "Landscape" commands all but an entire wall in its display room, and when I entered, I saw what appeared to be bright red splotches on the the far left of the canvas. What?! I approached and on close inspection realized that in the sea of muted greens and blues and purples were red flowers in the window box.

The discovery charmed me.

Seen and heard at the Art Institute
We couldn't help but notice the teacher, who was clad in a much-too-tight skirt. She exited the ladies' room outside the Kraft Education Center and addressed the boys, who were outfitted in white shirts and blue khaki slacks -- their school uniforms. They had been waiting in the hall, clustered on the low seating at the Center's entrance.

Her Shhh! Shhh! was louder, so much louder, than the buzz of little-boy noise that preceded her arrival.

"Shhh! I said, 'Quiet!' There are nine of you! Twenty-one girls are quieter than the nine of you! Shhh!"

"Don't bother them with numbers," my son intoned.

"What?" I asked softly.

"Don't bother them with numbers," he repeated in low tones. "Kids don't care about numbers."

"What do they care about?"

"Right now? Not numbers. Hanging out with their friends. Being out of the classroom. Talking. Having fun. Not numbers," he repeated, and I was reminded that wisdom is not an age.

Twenty-one girls exited the ladies' room. Twenty-one shirts tucked into twenty-one skirts. They moved as if one body. The teacher rewarded them with a smile and then addressed the docents. "Where would you like us?" she asked sweetly. They weren't fooled by the harridan-turned-softspoken-miss.

Were they?

The students were sorted into groups and assigned to (bewildered) docents.

And as soon as their teacher click-clacked away, her fat ass bobbing in that ridiculous, ill-fitting skirt, the boys -- each and every one of the nine noisy boys -- fell still and silent and turned their gazes on the docents.

And the twenty-one girls erupted into shrill giggles and a wave of movement -- pushing, pulling, then pressing, pressing, pressing forward against the alarmed docents, who looked, for all the world, as if they were drowning among the waves of white shirts tucked into blue skirts. All those girls, talking, talking, talking.

Shhh! Oh, shhh!

Decorating Halloween cookies

Apple picking

From Robert Frost's "Unharvested":

May something go always unharvested!
May much stay out of our stated plan,
Apples or something forgotten and left,
So smelling their sweetness would be no theft.

And from his "After Apple Picking":

... and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.

The nearest book

From pages turned:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next four sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig around for that "cool" or "intellectual" book on your shelves. (I know you were thinking about it.) Just pick up whatever is closest.

Here is my contribution:

"But believe me, the primary vocation for people like him is having enough to eat. He led me to understand, pretty clearly, that he couldn't ignore these secret visits."

"And me, I had to be ignorant of them!" exclaimed Monsieur de Rênal, flaring up once again, and stressing every syllable. "Things go on in my house that I know nothing about.... What's this? Is there something between Elisa and Monsieur Valenod?"

Can you guess the book?

"This day is call'd the feast of Crispian."

From Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare:

According to a legend which can be traced back no further than the eighth century, Crispin and Crispian were two brothers, Christian, living in Rome. They fled the persecution of Christians begun under the Roman Emperor Diocletian. They traveled to Soissons in what was then Gaul (later France), and there they remained in hiding, supporting themselves as shoemakers. In 286 they were found and beheaded, presumably on October 25, which became their day of commemoration. They were the patron saints of shoemakers and their day was particularly celebrated in France. And it was on October 25, 1415, that the Battle of Agincourt was to be fought.

From Act IV, Scene III of Shakespeare's Henry V:

King Henry:

No, my fair cousin:
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
...
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart. His passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, "Tomorrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispian's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered,
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Wondrous stuff! Watch the Branagh film today.

The Thirteenth Tale

Yes, I've moved this post up again. If you haven't already bought or borrowed a copy, do. It's the perfect book for this season.

Doesn't that cover just shout, "Read me!" though? I've asked. My promotional copy arrived in early September, but I didn't obey the cover's implicit command for two weeks. By the time I reached, hungrily, page 78, I was mentally typing my response to this wonderful book, and I was thinking that Setterfield had "restored to me the virginal qualities of the novice reader, and then with her stories she ravished me." (p. 33)

I don't know if it was James Mustich, Jr., or Thomas Meagher, editors of the now defunct (R.I.P.) A Common Reader (ACR), who wrote the catalogue copy for Elisabeth Luard's Emerald, but in the passage, one or the other described his wife's search for a book to "read read," or something like that. In later catalogues, with attribution, ACR employed the phrase "thumpin' good," a description that was used commercially by W.H. Smith, to describe books you want to "read read" -- books that set you in search of other books like them. I tell you all this by way of explaining that in my mental (re)draft of this post, I relied on "thumpin' good" to describe The Thirteenth Tale. In my 'net travels, I later discovered that the phrase had occurred to another blogger under Tale's spell.

Flipping through an old copy of the ACR catalogue this evening, I read another description (of an altogether different book):

It has been a long, long time since I was so completely transported by a novel, and I have eagerly passed my copy around to friends and colleagues in search of a good read. They returned it (quickly!) with the same demand: "Give me another like this one -- please!"

Yes! That's it! That is precisely how I feel about The Thirteenth Tale.

The dust jacket announces that Diane Setterfield's first novel, The Thirteenth Tale, is "a love letter to reading."

And it is.

Consider these passages:

p. 17
People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a king of magic.

p. 24
The hours between eight in the evening and one or two in the morning have always been my magic hours. Against the blue candlewick bedspread and the wide pages of my open book, illuminated by a circle of lamplight, were the gateway to another world.

p. 32
I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same. Books are, for me, it must be said, the most important thing; what I cannot forget is that there was a time when ther were at once more banal and more essential than that. When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fulfilled. And during this time, these days when I read all day and half the night, when I slept under a counterpane strewn with books, when my sleep was black and dreamless and passed in a flash and I woke to read again -- the lost joys of reading returned to me.

Need more? Amazon describes the novel as a "rousing good ghost story." Publisher Weekly notes, "Former academic Setterfield pays tribute in her debut to Brontë and du Maurier heroines." The short review goes on to describe Setterfield's prose as "graceful storytelling." Check out this review by Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings. Then visit the The Thirteenth Tale website to read an excerpt or to hear an interview with Setterfield. And while you're there, mention Mental multivitamin when you enter "The Thirteenth Tale Special Leather-Bound Edition Sweepstakes."

I know. I know.

Sometimes I am just much too easily amused.

Riddle

What do you do when your new boss requests a one-hour telephone meeting for 9:30 a.m. on a Monday?

No, let's make this really interesting. What do you do when your new boss requests a one-hour telephone meeting for 9:30 a.m. on a Monday, and you learn that you have five thousand words due before 8 a.m. that Tuesday?

A. Run around the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie while tugging on fistfuls of your sensible bob.

B. Run around the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie while tugging on fistfuls of your sensible bob and shouting random Shakespearean quotations.

C. Don Nick & Nora sock monkey pajams and assume the fetal position under the big quilt.

D. Have your students complete part of their Monday work on Sunday night. Help everyone see the wisdom of getting to bed early (so they can rise earlier than usual on Monday). Offer your students a delicious breakfast while reviewing with them most of the rest of their remaining work. Give them the assignment sheets you prepared Sunday night to keep them on-target while you're attending said telephone meeting. Share in a delightful post-meeting snack and rousing game of Blokus. Review the assignments they've completed so far. Offer them two treats from Halloween basket, promise them toasted cheese and bacon sandwiches for lunch, ensure they're comfortably back on task, and then call Aunt M-mv to talk about the meeting. Serve the promised lunch. Work on whatever remains of the day's lessons. Practice piano. Get the five thousand words done.

I did a little of A and B. I seriously considered C. Then I went with D.

It's. Just. Not. That. Hard.

The Saturday Review of Books

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

Many thanks to all who sent birthday messages to Master M-mv and Miss M-mv(ii). I shared each and every note with them; they were delighted to receive so many well-wishes. Again, thank you.

No birth stories. (I'm not a birth-story kinda gal.) No platitudes. No trite poems or Hallmark sentimentality. Just a simple declaration: This is my bright-eyed baby girl. She's a reader, a thinker, an autodidact... and a mathemagician and observer of human nature wise beyond her now nine years. (Wait. Stop. I want to get off.) Happy Birthday, Miss M-mv(ii)!

Fine Art Friday

I have always adored "Entertainer (Tomb Figure)." Since "The Monk" was in storage, I contented myself with a long visit this familiar figure, a piece of buff earthenware from sixth-century China.

While we enjoyed a companionable silence, the Entertainer and I, I marveled again at the synthesis and synchronicity that define my reading-thinking-learning life. You see, in Ancient China, clay figures were buried in tombs to provide the dead with protection and companionship. Just the day before, I beheld the "Shabti of Tutankhamun," on the front of which, Spell 6 of the Book of the Dead appears -- a request to perform required labor for the king when summoned. The mental juxtaposition of the funerary figures, each of which expresses its culture's fervent hope that life follows death -- was profound.

"And let me speak to th'yet unknowing world"

In Hamlet: Poem Unlimited, Harold Bloom notes:

[W]ithout Horatio, we are too distanced from the bewildering Hamlet for Shakespeare to work his guile upon us... Horatio pragmatically is the most important figure in the tragedy except for Hamlet himself. Through Horatio we the audience contaminate the play.

[...]

Highest and lowest are one the Hamlet-world. But they aren't for us, and our representative in that world is Horatio. Where theatricalism governs all, and Hamlet is master of the revels, we hold fast to Horatio, who is too drab to be theatrical. We hope we are not drab, but we cannot keep up with Hamlet who is always out ahead of himself.

In other words, we need Horatio. Never mind the critics who dismiss or disparage Hamlet's "true friend." We know we need Horatio. We need him to mediate the larger-than-life-ness, the all-at-once-ness, and the too-too-much-ness that is, as Bloom calls it, Hamlet-world. We need Horatio to be the one reliably real thing in the matryoshka-doll nesting of plays within plays within plays that is Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Horatio loves Hamlet — unconditionally, without question, so much so that he contemplates suicide as his sweet prince is dying. And because he loves, we love.

We need Horatio.

And so it follows that a stage production with an unlikeable Horatio would confound our expectations of Hamlet-world. A weak, sniveling Horatio, a Horatio who shrinks from Hamlet's touch, cringes when the prince draws near, is certainly not one to whom we can hold fast during Hamlet's whirlwind tour of life, man's universe, and everything in it.

In the Terry Hands-directed Hamlet now playing at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Horatio is thoroughly unlikeable. Detestable, really. We begin to suspect that nothing good can come of the role when Timothy Edward Kane as Horatio addresses the apparition in so hand-wringing a manner as to make an audience member grip her armrests to prevent leaping up and shouting, "Oh, buck up, man!" But when he withdraws from Hamlet's greeting — "Sir, my good friend, I'll change that name with you." — actually turns aside as if Hamlet's breath might befoul him, we know that something dear has been lost, irretrievably lost to us. Our companion for this journey has fled; we're on our own.

What remains, then, is an unfiltered or unmediated Hamlet. That's it, you know. Hamlet must arrive at the edges of our consciousness filtered or mediated by Horatio. Sans a good and true Horatio, Hamlet becomes just a man — a smart man, a conflicted man, a man aware of all his thoughts and feelings and more aware of them than any other man before or since, a man of exuberant, often excessive drama. But still, just a man. And Shakespeare created something more than just a man when he created Hamlet.

The reduction in status (from Every-Single-Man to Just-a-Man) changes the nature of the tragedy and its namesake too much to go unmentioned or unnoticed. It quite nearly ruined the play for me.

That said, let me offer this: Ben Carlson's turn in what must be the most challenging role in all of drama history is remarkable. It is remarkable as much for its intensity and perfect pitch as for its humor. Carlson — and Mike Nussbaum, whose Polonius challenged all that I have ever believed about the "wretched, rash, intruding fool" — reminds the audience that Hamlet is supposed to embody every. single. aspect. of what it is to be human, including irony and humor.

It is a shame that this production's Horatio never didst hold Hamlet in his heart because it's not difficult to imagine the heights and depths Carlson's Hamlet could have achieved with a truer friend.

Other notes:
:: Ophelia (Lindsay Gould) spent a lot of time on her toes — to the point that it actually distracted me. "Why on earth does she keep doing that?" I thought. "Was she directed to play this as if she were auditioning for The Nutcracker?" On the other hand, her portrayal of madness was heartbreaking.

:: I'm no Shakespearean scholar, but I don't think I'm venturing into untrodden territory when I posit that Osric was written as a sort of humorous distraction, a little levity inserted between the tussle in Ophelia's grave and the slaughter that will shortly ensue. Hamlet, master of language, toys with the flourishing page as a bored lion might bat a baby mouse. And yet Kevin Rich's Osric was memorable. He made me want to reread those passages in Act V, Scene ii.

:: James Harms as First Player: Absolutely. Perfect.

:: Bruce A. Young as Claudius and the Ghost: Just right.

:: Is it just me and Master M-mv, or did this production vaguely remind others of the Branagh film version? Something about the costumes, I think.

Tully and Tut

In 1958, Francis Tully, a fossil collector, discovered a marine creature at Mazon Creek. He brought it to the Field Museum, but the scientists there were unable to identify it. The "Tully monster" was finally described by Field Museum curator Dr. Eugene Richardson and named Tullimonstrum gregarium. (The species name gregarium means "common.") Every fossil of the "Tully monster" has been found here in Illinois, and so it has been identified as the official Illinois state fossil.

This is just one of the things we learned this morning for free -- or for the price of an annual membership, anyway -- while visiting the Field. (You'll find "Evolving Planet" exhibition highlights here.)

What we learned at "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," on the other hand, cost us $84.75: $59.75 for tickets (four member tickets at $10 each and one full-price child's ticket at $16, plus a service fee) and $25 for five headsets to complement our tour. Non-members pay more. A lot more. The burning question: Is it worth it?

The Field houses a wonderful permanent exhibit -- "Inside Ancient Egypt" -- that has always satisfied this family's interest in the subject. And the Art Institute of Chicago's collection features Egyptian sculpture in stone, clay, and bronze, as well as coins, glass, jewelry, vases, and mosaics. We've seen both exhibits too many times to number. Moreover, years ago, the Art Institute hosted a "Treasures of Egypt"-type exhibit that all of us attended. Before this afternoon, I would have said that this family had enjoyed its fill of canopic jars.

But the opening moments of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" are nothing short of magical, and no matter what I say, the simple fact is that the young people in our group thoroughly enjoyed themselves today. Miss M-mv(i) maintains that it was the best time she has ever had at the Field -- aside from Members' Night -- and that's saying something.

Is it saying $84.75 of something?

Well....

Now you can be jealous, M.

Mr. and I gave Master two tickets (main floor, center) to Terry Hands' Hamlet. For this week. And, yes, I will be accompanying the birthday man-boy.

Life is good.

When did this happen?

(Note: I moved this post up from 9.26.2006 to mark Master's seventeenth birthday.)

He didn't ask my permission. He simply grew up... an outcome for which I had steeled myself early: "We are letting them go from the moment they arrive in our lives," I would intone, as if I were some sage Earth Mother-type with wisdom to spare.

Yeah, right. Well, I'm no Earth Mother. And while my words may have been letting him go, my heart was having none of it.

There, in my heart, he will always be some shimmering morph of the beautiful, easy-natured baby he was and the good man he has become.

Later...
What is it about fall that makes me feel this way?

Is it something about the butter-yellow sun in the impossibly blue sky? Or the way the light slants through the windows at cool-weather angles? Or is it the smell of burning leaves? The feel of flannel sheets?

What is it about fall that makes me feel much too young to be the mother of a man? That makes me feel that it all passed too quickly? That I'd like another decade, please?

Wait. Stop. I want to get off.

Someone bring me the little boy who wore a pillowcase clipped with a clothespin and declared that he was Batman... then Superman... then a Ninja Turtle. Someone find that new reader who kept books under his pillow, that new writer who clasped his fat pencil in a starfish hand. Someone go get that boy who couldn't swim across the pool, was destined to be the world's oldest guppy.

Please. Someone.

We can't possibly have travelled this far already... can we?

The recommended daily allowance

The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class (David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim)

From the book description:

Millions of Americans keep bedside books of prayer and meditative reflectioncollections of daily passages to stimulate spiritual thought and advancement. The Intellectual Devotional is a secular version of the same -- a collection of 365 short lessons that will inspire and invigorate the reader every day of the year. Each daily digest of wisdom is drawn from one of seven fields of knowledge: history, literature, philosophy, mathematics and science, religion, fine arts, and music.

Good stuff here.

Hey, have you visited our bookshop yet?

The Saturday Review of Books

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

Original. Card-carrying.

M., the original and card-carrying member of M-mv's "best and perfect" audience, writes:

Long time, no e-mail! I'm in the midst of "when I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed" ("Psycho Killer," Talking Heads). This phase began last May. But I do seem to have plenty to link....

I thought of you when I saw this review for Little Children yesterday. [I heartily recommend Tom Perrotta's novel.]

And I also thought of you when I read this. [Ah, yes. You know, this book was out of print for a long, long time. I'd tell folks about it, and then they wouldn't be able to secure a copy. Now? It's right back on the bookshop shelves. While I'm glad that it's readily available, I'm not so sure about the trailers for the film. We'll see, though, huh?]

Love your birding posts. Some enormous black birds have taken up residence in the spindly trees in our backyard, a tableau reminiscent of the opening titles of "Six Feet Under." And now I'm reminded of the Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." {shudder} On a happier note (because, for me, there's something calm and reassuring about this person), have you read Jimmy Carter's article about birding in south Texas? Being a well-traveled ex-president has its privileges. (You don't need to be a subscriber to access the rest of the article.)

So have you seen Hamlet? Was it "a very smart, very wintry and very new Hamlet" (Sun-Times) or just "cold" (Variety)? I am insanely jealous. [No need for that. The Hamlet we were slated to see was the Shakespeare Project of Chicago abridgment, and the weather, the ACT, and Mr. M-mv's travel schedule conspired against us. At least we have Branagh, though, right?] I saw, and loved, Terry Hands-directed productions of Richard II, Richard III, and Much Ado About Nothing (still my favorite) in the 1980s. To my surprise, BBCAmerica broadcast the four modern updated versions of Shakespeare. I was even more surprised at how much I liked them, although each one seemed to run out of gas about two-thirds of the way through. I'm still thinking about The Taming of the Shrew, though, which was particularly clever. And Rufus Sewell wasn't too hard on the eyes, either.

Something else I'm still thinking about: Jaron Lanier's "Digital Maoism" essay (you linked to a Newsweek article about it, I think [ayup -- right here.]) and the subsequent discussion at Edge.org. Wow. In the introductory comments, John Brockman quotes Beckett's Molloy and Shakespeare's Macbeth. He also cites John Updike, as quoted in a Washington Post article:

"Unlike the commingled, unedited, frequently inaccurate mass of 'information' on the Web", he said, "books traditionally have edges." But "the book revolution, which from the Renaissance on taught men and women to cherish and cultivate their individuality, threatens to end in a sparkling pod of snippets."

"So, booksellers," he concluded, "defend your lonely forts. Keep your edges dry. Your edges are our edges. For some of us, books are intrinsic to our human identity."

Seems to be in the vein of Morris Berman's Twilight (which admittedly I haven't read yet -- only your excerpts)? Interestingly, the Edge.org commentators have a similar view of modern American society but believe the digital revolution may be the cure:

Networked-based, distributed, social production, both individual and cooperative, offers a new system, alongside markets, firms, governments, and traditional non-profits, within which individuals can engage in information, knowledge, and cultural production. This new modality of production offers new challenges, and new opportunities. It is the polar opposite of Maoism.
— Yochai Benkler

(I'm not thrilled with the sentence structure, but you get the idea.)

I was also startled to read this, by Quentin Hardy:

[T]he recurring failure of "the crowd," no matter what the century or the tools in question, to be clear-eyed about where it is in History: Usually someplace in the middle, but acting like we are at the beginning or end of something major, something world historic. Something that will finally afford us, as individuals and a species, a kind of certainty in Time. Something that will bring absolute judgment after all the generations. Something that will relieve each individual of the burden of being good.

Something for me to think about when reading about End Times, etc., on the [insert name of forum here]. And something for me to think about when reading about the Bush administration, etc., on progressive blogs.

As always, thank you for making me think. [No. Thank you, M.]

P.S. Did you know that [daughter]'s nickname is "Biff?" I've been wracking my brain, trying to remember where I'd come across Biff before: the name of the bully in a 1960s era comic strip? the name of the bully in a 1960s era TV show? Aha! the name of the disillusioned son in a 1950s era play.

Fine Art Friday

"Monk," 1997-99

Katharina Fritsch

From the Art Institute of Chicago "Art Access":

The work of Katharina Fritsch has been described as "art that goes bump in the night." An encounter with her imagery, whether a single sculpture such as Monk or group of assembled objects, can be startling and disturbing.

Have you ever met the Monk sculpture? He is, by turns, frightening and, somehow, comforting.

And amazing, too.

I will meet up with him again next week.

A thought for this Fine Art Friday...
Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith. (Thomas Merton, monk, writer)

The reading life

So, I joined an online reading group and will be taking this novel at a pace of about fifty pages per week -- a close reading, not unlike the sort of inspection Francine Prose espouses in Reading Like a Writer:

I organized the classes around the more pedestrian, halting method of beginning at the beginning, lingering over every word, every phrase, every image, considering how it enhanced and contributed to the story as a whole.

Funny, I never considered the lingering to be pedestrian. Savoring a text, in this reader and writer's opinion, is a lost art. I look forward to (re)discovering it with my fellow readers.

What the Misses are reading today
Since I already discussed what Master M-mv is reading, I figured I'd satisfy any curiosity you may have about what the Misses are enjoying.


The Curse of King Tut (Patricia D. Netzley)


Tutankhamun: The Mystery of the Boy King (Zahi Hawass)

Yeah, we're taking them to Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs at the Field Museum during birthday week. Oh, no. They're not one bit excited.

Heh, heh, heh.


The Black Stallion (Walter Farley)


Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (P.G. Wodehouse)

Having thoroughly enjoyed Thank You, Jeeves (to the accompaniment of this audio production), they launched into Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (to the accompaniment of this audio production).

Since they regularly use such words as prognostication -- correctly and more than once -- in their imaginative play, I'm thinking that perhaps generous doses of Wodehouse belong in the national curricula for third and fifth grades and whatnot, eh, Jeeves?

I'm just saying.

Added later...
Have you visited our bookshop yet?

ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go. They do not move.

Oh, sure. I love snow days, birdwatching, imaginative play, baking brownies, and all of the things that make this life, this one, and no other, but I'd be lying (by omission) if I didn't also acknowledge that one of the very best things about directing the family-centered learning project is conversations like today's, in which we discussed existentialism and the uncanny resemblances -- thematic and structural -- between Waiting for Godot and No Exit.

Ayup.

Life is good.

Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett)
p. 7
ESTRAGON: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.

p. 31
VLADMIR: That passed the time.
ESTRAGON: It would have passed in any case.
VLADIMIR: Yes, but not so rapidly.

p. 35
ESTRAGON: Wait! (He moves away from Vladimir.) I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't have been better off alone, each one for himself. (He crosses the stage and sits down on the mound.) We weren't made for the same road.

p. 38
VLADIMIR: I missed you... and at the same time I was happy. Isn't that a queer thing?
ESTRAGON: (shocked). Happy?
VLADIMIR: Perhaps it's not quite the right word.
ESTRAGON: And now?
VLADIMIR: Now? ... (Joyous.) There you are again... (Indifferent.) There we are again... (Gloomy.) There I am again.

p. 51
VLADIMIR: Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! (Pause. Vehemently.) Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? (Estragon says nothing.) It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come --
[...]
ESTRAGON: (aphoristic for once). We are all born mad. Some remain so.

p. 58
VLADIMIR: [...] We have time to grow old. The air is full of our cries. (He listens.) But habit is a great deadener. [...]

p. 60
ESTRAGON: I can't go on like this.
VLADIMIR: That's what you think.
ESTRAGON: If we parted? That might be better for us.
VLADIMIR: We'll hang ourselves to-morrow. (Pause.) Unless Godot comes.
ESTRAGON: And if he comes?
VLADIMIR: We'll be saved.

Resources: Audio production, Cliffs Notes Readings on Waiting for Godot (Greenhaven Press), SparkNotes, GradeSaver, and a film.

No Exit (Jean-Paul Sartre)
p. 5
GARCIN: Your eyelids. We move ours up and down. Blinking, we call it. It's like a small black shutter that clicks down and makes a break. Everything goes black; one's eyes are moistened. You can't imagine how restful, refreshing, it is. Four thousand little rests per hour. Four thousand little respites -- just think! ... So that's the idea. I'm to live without eyelids. Don't act the fool, you know what I mean. No eyelids, no sleep; it follows, doesn't it? I shall never sleep again. But then -- how shall I endure my own company?

p. 16
INEZ: Yes, we are criminals -- murderers -- all three of us. We're in hell, my pets; they never make mistakes, and people aren't damned for nothing.
ESTELLE: Stop! For heaven's sake --
INEZ: In hell! Damned souls -- that's us, all three!

p. 19
ESTELLE: [...] When I can't see myself I begin to wonder if I really and truly exist. I pat myself just to make sure, but it doesn't help much.
INEZ: You're lucky. I am always conscious of myself -- in my mind. Painfully conscious.
ESTELLE: Ah, yes, in your mind. But everything that goes on in one's head is so vague, isn't it. It makes one want to sleep.

p. 38
INEZ: [...] So carry on, Mr. Garcin, and try to be honest with yourself -- for once.

p. 42
INEZ: [...] So what? Which shall it be? Which of the three of us will leave? The barrier's down, why are we waiting? ... But what a situation! It's a scream! We're -- inseparables!

p. 45
GARCIN: Will night never come?
INEZ: Never.
GARCIN: Will you always see me?
INEZ: Always.
[...]
GARCIN: [A]nd I understand that I'm in hell. I tell you, everything's been thought out beforehand. They knew I'd stand at the fireplace stroking this thing of bronze, with all those eyes intent on me. Devouring me. [He swings around abruptly.] What? Only two of you? I thought there were more; many more. [Laughs.] So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, and the "burning marl." Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot polers. Hell is -- other people!

Resources: Cliffs Notes, SparkNotes.

Later this afternoon...
Finish reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard) and watch the film.

It's October 12, and it's snowing.

New bird species discovered

Yariguies brush-finch.

Stories here, here, and here.

Amen.

"[S]chool districts can explore intelligent design in current events or comparative religions classes."

Other coverage here and here.

Related (older) story here.

"[W]e lurch from impulse to action."

From "Mastering Your Own Mind" (Psychology Today, September-October 2006):

For most of us, the lag time between provocation, impulse and action is shorter than a heartbeat—just a quarter of a second between the trigger event and the response of the amygdala, or fear center. In that fraction of a second, our emotions have time to swamp our judgment—and often do.

Meditation, however, promises to break this apparent chain reaction by allowing us to recognize "the spark before the flame." Through many hours of quietly observing the customary tyranny of the emotions, you may gradually familiarize yourself with the quiet of your mind—the part that one day might choose not to be tyrannized. Says Ricard, "You become familiar with the way emotions arise, how they can either overwhelm your mind or vanish without making an impact."

From "The Ed Schools’ Latest—and Worst—Humbug" (City Journal):

America’s historical ideal of public schooling as a means of assimilating all children (and particularly the children of new immigrants) into a common civic and democratic culture is already under assault from the multiculturalists and their race- and gender-centered pedagogy. Now Ayers and his social justice movement, by dismissing the civic culture ideal as nothing more than “capitalist hegemony,” subvert the public schools even further—while subsidized by the taxpayers, including the capitalists who supposedly control the schools.

Chuckle
To wee or not to wee: CST offers tiny 'Hamlet'

On the nightstand

Books. On the nightstand. Under the pillow. In the knapsack. On the piano bench. And so on.

This is the thirty-ninth (!) "On the nightstand" entry. To celebrate M-mv's rapidly approaching third birthday (or anniversary, or whatever) -- October 30 -- I'll turn to page thirty of each of the featured books, locate the tenth complete sentence on that page, and include it (or its reasonable approximation) with the title, author, and a brief note on how it ended up on the stack.

To the books, then.

:: Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett)
Perhaps he's dead.
(An aside: In my studies this week, I learned that Beckett once observed, "The key word in my plays is 'perhaps.'" Perhaps he's dead. Perhaps he's not. Perhaps Godot will come. Perhaps he will not. Perhaps.)
How it ended up on the stack: Master M-mv and I are doing an impromptu unit on contemporary theater. We read along with this audio production and have been discussing the play -- endlessly, perhaps. We're hoping to acquire a film version before the end of next week.

:: Simple & Direct (Jacque Barzun)
A very few are well made or justified by a previous lack, and it is astonishing to observe that in spite of the strong prejudice against Latin and Greek -- "those perfectly useless dead languages" -- ordinary journalists, professionals, and office holders keep making up vocables out of anicent roots excluded from their all-modern curriculum.

:: A Jacques Barzun Reader
This kind of expertise does not of course exclude the use of statistics when these are available -- the numbers of people who attended the Handel Festivals in the eighteenth century, who welcomed Jenny Lind to the United States in 1850, or who visited the Crystal Palace the following year.

:: Begin Here (Jacques Barzun)
[Letter grades] are also much sounder than the verbiage of psychological descriptions and they distinguish degrees of merit far better than standardized scores.

:: Teacher in America (Jacques Barzun)
Words should point to things, seen or unseen.

:: The House of Intellect (Jacques Barzun)
The rhythmic return of the main themes make it evident that questioning the proportions of the worl would be met by the statistical argument -- there is in the world more fornication than philosophy; and by the documentary argument -- all facts are created equal.
How they ended up on the stack: I'm on a bit of a Barzun tear.

:: A Wild Ride up the Cupboards (Ann Bauer)
This morning, I could hardly breathe as the clock overhead ticked toward ten.
How it ended up on the stack: This is a promotional copy. (See this entry for more information about my policy.) I'm squeezing it in between studies and Barzun and Godot and work -- and I'm pleased to recommend it. Bauer chronicles one woman's struggle to meet the challenges of parenting an autistic child. Into this first-person account, she weaves the related story of the narrator's uncle, who likely suffered from the same disorder but during a less forgiving time.

:: Disobedience (Naomi Alderman)
I admit it. I paused so he'd think I was going to tell him I loved him, or wanted him back.
How it ended up on the stack: This, too, is a promotional copy. It's next up on the "free reading" pile, after A Wild Ride up the Cupboards.

:: Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl)
Perhaps the June Bug understood Dad had felt that way about all the others, but armed with three decades' worth of Ladies Home Journal editorials, an expertise in such publications as Getting Him to the Altar (Trask, 1990) and The Chill Factor: How Not to Give a Damn (and Leave Him Wanting More) (Mars, 2000) as well as her own personal history of soured relationships, most of them believed (with the sort of unyielding insistence associated with religious fanatics) that, when under the spell of her burnt-sugar aura, Dad wouldn't feel that way about her.
How it ended up on the stack: A review attracted my attention in early August, and then other lit-/book-bloggers raved. So. I had to have it.

:: The Art of Teaching (Gilbert Highet)
But, meanwhile, what is the teacher to do?
How it ended up on the stack: Inspiration.

:: Hamlet: Poem Unlimited (Harold Bloom)
Where all is theatricality, our grounds for judgment must shift.

:: The Art of Possibility (Rosamund Stone Zander)
Most members of the class share this experience, and some even report that as they walk down the corridor toward the classroom each Friday afternoon, the clouds of anxiety and despair that frequently shadow a hothouse American music academy perceptibly lift.
How they ended up on the stack: J.B. recommended these. (See this entry.)

Other books pictured
:: On the Art of Writing (Arthur Quiller-Couch): See this entry.
:: Reading Like a Writer (Francine Prose): See this entry.
:: The Mountain Man's Field Guide to Grammar (Gary Spina): See this entry.

Master M-mv's contribtions
:: Woe Is I (Patricia O'Connor)
:: The Orwell Reader (George Orwell)

Gentle reminder...
Did you see this post already? Have you read the book, then? If not, do! If so, delightful, no?

Either way, don't forget to mention Mental multivitamin when you enter "The Thirteenth Tale Special Leather-Bound Edition Sweepstakes." There may be something in it for both of us.

The Saturday Review of Books

Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating this week.

Fine Art Friday

"Gallery of the Louvre" (1831–1833)
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791–1872)

From the Terra Foundation for American Art's teacher's guide to the painting:

Samuel Morse painted most of the Gallery of the Louvre between 1831 and 1833 inside the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. The room shown in Morse’s large-scale painting is the Salon Carré ("square room"), a famous gallery in the museum, at the time Morse made his painting. Many of the pictures that he chose to represent were distributed throughout the museum; they were not displayed together in the Salon Carré. Morse chose what were, in his opinion, the best works of art that the Louvre had to offer, so that when he took the painting home to America he could show the public the great art of the famed French museum. In making his painting, Morse rolled his 6-x-9-foot canvas around the Louvre on a cart. Back at his studio in New York Morse painted in both the frames for the individual artworks he had copied and the people shown in the gallery.

Using prompts similar to those in the teacher's guide, Miss D. introduced us to this painting once upon a time ago, before the Terra shut its doors. (See "The art of saying goodbye".)

What was the artist trying to tell us with this painting?
Why do people go to museums?
Why do artists copy the work of other artists?

Happy Fine Art Friday, folks.

"[E]njoy the readily enjoyable...."

In my work Tuesday night, I read the following quote from the Gwendolyn Brooks autobiography, Report from Part One:

And she is also here to enjoy. She will be here, like any other, once only. Therefore she must, in the midst of tragedy and hatred and neglect, mightily enjoy the readily enjoyable: sunshine and pets and children and conversation and games and travel (tiny or large) and books and walks and chocolate cake.

Brooks is not, I know, speaking about women in general. She is, in this passage, referring specifically to the role of an African American woman. But she could be talking to any woman, no?

Enjoy the readily enjoyable.

I'd like to offer, as I have on other days with different words, that one choice we have when nothing seems to be going the way we hoped or dreamed is to enjoy the readily enjoyable.

Sunshine and pets and children and conversation and games and travel (tiny or large) and books and walks and chocolate.
May you choose things that enliven your selfhood and resist those that do not; may you enjoy the readily enjoyable.

The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consists in nothing more than the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives meaning to our life on this unavailing star.

(Logan Pearsall Smith, American essayist and critic, 1865-1946)

Back in April, I wrote that rather than a piano, Mr. M-mv was going to give me piano-sized allocation for violin lessons. Regular readers know that I haven't had much luck in the violin lesson department.

Moreover, the Misses are ready for formal music study.

And so now we have a piano. Lessons begin Saturday.

A nod to the most extraordinarily helpful resource: The Piano Book: Buying & Owning a New or Used Piano (Larry Fine).

The piano is the social instrument par excellence... drawing-room furniture, a sign of bourgeois prosperity, the most massive of the devices by which the young are tortured in the name of education and the grown-up in the name of entertainment.

(Jacques Barzun, French-born American scholar and teacher)

Barzun's The House of Intellect and Begin Here are recent companions, so this quote about the piano attracted my eye. It may be premature, Mr. Barzun, but I'd hazard that this pursuit will not torture us. Moreover, we don't have a drawing room, so it's not a piece of furniture.

It's an instrument.

A dream come true.

The 40th Carnival of Homeschooling

~ Hosted by HomeSchoolBuzz ~

A day in the life

Phat Mommy has asked that folks post homeschooling "day in the life" entries that describe "what you did on a certain day. Every minute -- from the moment you wake to the moment you go to sleep. Include all the mundane details. You’ll find when you read other people’s posts that the mundane isn’t really all that boring. It’s real and human and it helps us all connect."

We've done this before, twice, and, really, just change the names of the books or the topics I'm writing on for work or the takeout menu (heh, heh, heh), and you have today's account. And tomorrow's. And so on.

So, for those who fancy that sort of thing, our "day in the life" entries:

A typical night and day here (10.11.2005)

An uncharacteristic entry (11.05.2004)

Manual competence

From "Shop Class as Soulcraft" (The New Atlantis, Summer 2006):

This would seem to be significant for any political typology. Political theorists from Aristotle to Thomas Jefferson have questioned the republican virtue of the mechanic, finding him too narrow in his concerns to be moved by the public good. Yet this assessment was made before the full flowering of mass communication and mass conformity, which pose a different set of problems for the republican character: enervation of judgment and erosion of the independent spirit. Since the standards of craftsmanship issue from the logic of things rather than the art of persuasion, practiced submission to them perhaps gives the craftsman some psychic ground to stand on against fantastic hopes aroused by demagogues, whether commercial or political.

A little more on JCO

Book World grabbed the wrong book the other day. In my reply to her post, I mentioned a biography that may appeal to those who enjoyed my recent post on Joyce Carol Oates.

From my 1998 Amazon review of Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce Carol Oates (Greg Johnson):

Biographer unable to get past his own admiration
Admittedly, Johnson undertook an ambitious and daunting project. Oates, frequently (and annoyingly) labelled our "most prolific" writer, has amassed a considerable volume of work -- novels, short stories, poetry, plays, essays. Her range is amazing, limitless (though her productivity has become somewhat of a literary joke). As a "subject," Oates has challenged interviewers to present the "real" Joyce Carol Oates. She herself is quite taken with the many faces of JCO -- writer, wife, teacher. So, apparently, was her biographer. Unfortunately, Johnson never gets far enough past his admiration of this underappreciated writer to actually reveal anything new about her.

The biography begins promisingly enough with a retelling of Oates's family life and education. But from there, it begins to unravel, relying on a chronological record of Oates's writing life. While Johnson does an admirable job of describing Oates's passionate and incredibly committed approach to her craft, his "love" for his subject hardly allows for an objective presentation. One can almost hear Oates editing him: "No, not that way. It wasn't like that. Rather..."

Nevertheless, devoted Oates readers will appreciate this book. It is slow-going, and the biographer has certainly "glossed over" certain thorny issues in his retelling of the Oates myth (e.g., her anorexia, her "perfect" marriage, her "rivalries" with other writers), but the book offers neat insights into the writing life (the successful writing life) and intelligent comments on Oates's work, particularly her fiction.

By the way, it's that time again -- the perennial hope for JCO's Nobel Prize.

M-mv in the Los Angeles Times

Scroll to mid-article: "Booked-Up Publishers Could Be in a Bind" (October 1, 2006).