Acquisitions

:: The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism (Ross King)

:: Dearest Friend: A Life of Abigail Adams (Lynne Withey)

:: Paper Trails: True Stories of Confusion, Mindless Violence, and Forbidden Desires, a Surprising Number of Which Are Not About Marriage (Pete Dexter)

:: The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (Elyn R. Saks)

:: The Spelling List And Word Study Resource Book (Mary Jo Fresch and Aileen Wheaton)

Thank you for you interest in Mental multivitamin, folks.

On the ...

... piano, I think. Heck, where isn't there a stack of books around here?

I've been toting these three around in my knapsack for a week or two (It can't be three, can it?), but work and my music studies cut into my reading time, so I unpacked them when we returned home from music lessons today.

And there on the piano -- yes, it's the piano -- they sit.

:: The Art Thief (Noah Charney)
This is a review copy.

Charney, an art historian, offers his guide to the ten must-see paintings in the United States on the Amazon page for his debut novel. His recommendations include Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, which, as many of you know, is one of my personal favorites. Charney writes:

Hopper's is a dark America. Foreboding in its brightness, ominous in the strong harsh colors, dark without shadows, lonely in crowds, tender-heart helpless in a kingdom of advantages. His characters are taking advantage or being taken advantage of. The subtext of Hopper’s works defies their surface opacity--we think we see everything clearly, understand the moment portrayed, until we stare further. A cottony doubt creeps in from the edges of his paintings. Where is the darkness in this land of light? It is in the oxygen in Hopper's trapped rooms and nightscapes. No wonder that Hitchcock modeled his cinematography and sets to resemble Hopper’s backdrops. In Nighthawks, we learn how lonely a city can be. A painted Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Hopper's protagonists seek comfort and companionship in an ocean of fellow humans, and find none. Like cave dwellers huddled around a fire, the nighthawks of the title lean into the counter of a late-night diner for safety. We have a sense that they could help each other float in the aquatic darkness, if only they realized it.

Now, if Charney's novel were written with the same sure hand....

:: Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited (Elyse Schein and Palula Bernstein)
I think I'll be spending my evening with this advance reader's edition. (The book is due out on October 2.) You know I'm a sucker for a good memoir. The last one that captured my imagination was the heartbreaking If I Am Missing or Dead: A Sister's Story of Love, Murder, and Liberation (Janine Latus; related entry here).

:: The Used World (Haven Kimmel)
And I will probably spend my Sunday morning with Ms. Kimmel, the author of one of the books that commands a spot on the shelves of my (neglected) store. No newspapers for me tomorrow. A pot of coffee, my favorite blanket, and this novel.

What kind of reader are you?

From Hanging out in ‘Hangover Square’:

Readers are idiosyncratic beasts that can nevertheless be divided into species. There’s the skimmer, the trash whore, the short-attention giggle-seeker, the populist, the escapist, the wistful romanticist, the book group conversationalist, the academic, the self-improver, the factual addict, the fetishist, the literary stalker.

(Nod to Magnificent Octopus.)

From N.S.'s September 28 column:

People think of Shakespeare as high-toned, sophisticated stuff, with all that "To be or not to be" airy-fairy nonsense, which is a hoot, because Shakespeare is dirty.

Randy swordsmen tupping eager young wenches, goatish dukes lusting after virginal maidens, their flailing limbs barely veiled under a thin layer of Elizabethan poesy.

From Iago's shout of "Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs" -- surely the best sexual euphemism in literature -- to Hamlet's leering double-entendre to Ophelia, "Did you think I meant country matters?" the Bard's lofty speeches and noble sentiments are well-spiced with plenty of good old-fashioned smut.

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

Free people read freely

Yes, I moved this post up from its 9.24.2007 position.

Banned Books Week (ALA):
September 29–October 6, 2007

According to the American Library Association, Banned Books Week

celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met.

Some banned books:
Brave New World
To Kill a Mockingbird
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Fahrenheit 451

What's the difference?
The ALA describes the difference between a banned book and a challenged book:

A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. The positive message of Banned Books Week: Free People Read Freely is that due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

(An aside: Am I the only one who thinks this 'graph is badly written and in desperate need of a copyeditor?)

The recommended daily allowance

From 120 Banned Books: Censorship Histories of World Literature (Nicholas J. Karolides, Margaret Bald, and Dawn B. Sova):

The phrase "suppressed on political grounds" casts a shadow of a heavy-handed government blocking its citizens from receiving information, ideas and opinions that it perceives to be critical, embarrassing or threatening. This image, unfortunately, is too often reality. It is not, however, limited to dictatorships such as those of Hitler's Nazi Germany, Stalin's communist Soviet Union and Suharto's Indonesia. The governments of democracies also participate in attempts to censor such critical material in order to protect their own perceived state security.

Further, the impression that censorship for political reasons emanates only from national government is mistaken. The second common source of such activity is at the local community level, generated by school board members or citizens, individually or in groups, who attack textbooks and fiction used in schools or available in school libraries.

Among the books discussed:
All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque)
Johnny Got His Gun (Dalton Trumbo)
Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
The Gulag Archipelago (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
_____________________________

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
— Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Technorati tags: censorship, banned books

National Book Festival

Greetings -

I'm reaching out on behalf of the Library of Congress and its upcoming, seventh annual National Book Festival. This free event, scheduled for 10 AM to 5 PM September 29th, invites book lovers of all ages to join some of the nation's best-selling authors, illustrators and poets in an annual celebration of reading on Washington DC 's National Mall.

I hope you'll share with M-mv readers as the event continues to delight and engage year after year. The National Book Festival Web site contains all relevant info including:

● Pavilion and book signing schedule,
● Full list of the more than 70 appearing authors (along with bios and photos),
● Author podcasts(including Ken Burns, Sheila P. Moses, Charles Simic, Victoria Rowell, Sanjay Gupta and more)
● And finally, new this year, the Young Readers Toolkit – built especially for kids, teachers and parents to bring the Festival to life in homes, classrooms and libraries.

In addition to the wealth of info found on the Festival Web site, I also have a number of Festival author Q&As from David Baldacci, Jodi Picoult, Lalita Tademy, Terry Pratchett, Patricia Schultz and many more. Let me know if you’d like to share with your readers – I’m happy to pass on if you’d like.

For additional info I’ve pasted below the official media release, as well as a list highlighting a few of this year's participating authors. Please feel free to get in touch should you need additional info for M-mv – I’m happy to help!

Best,

Rachelle

Rachelle L-
www.loc.gov/bookfest
202.---.----
Full press release here: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2007/07-133.html

Featured 2007 National Book Festival authors:
● Fiction & Fantasy – featuring authors Jodi Picoult, Joyce Carol Oates, Terry Pratchett, Lalita Tadmy and Susan Vreeland
● Mysteries & Thrillers – featuring authors David Baldacci, Brian Haig, film critic Stephen Hunter and author Lisa Scottoline
● History & Biography – featuring Diane Ackerman, Ken Burns, biographer Arnold Rampersad and Lincoln historian James Swanson
● Home & Family – featuring “Iron Chef” Cat Cora, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, “Ms. Manners” Columnist Judith Martin and 1,000 Places to See Before You Die author Patricia Schultz
● Poetry – featuring U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic, and poets Jack Prelutsky and Anne Stevenson
● Children – featuring Judy Moody author Megan McDonald and Flotsom author David Wiesner
● Teens & Children – featuring Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale author Holly Black, Sarah, Plain and Tall author Patricia MacLachlan and The Legend of Buddy Bush author Sheila P. Moses

Fine Art Friday

You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.
~ Henri Matisse

The Piano Lesson, 1916
Henri Matisse, French, 1869-1954

According to the Museum of Modern Art, the boy in the painting is Matisse's son, Pierre. From MoMA:

Piano Lesson treats two unlike spaces—a view through a window into air and the flat and tangible canvas of Woman on a High Stool—as if they were quite equivalent. Matisse is addressing issues both formal and philosophical. In describing the playing of music he also takes art-making as his subject, and the filigree bar of curves supplied by the music stand and balcony ironwork—a lovely touch amid the painting's interlocking triangles and rectangles—might almost be a visual version of music's curling notes.

Yes, I know. I've become quite the broken record, but I did see The Piano Lesson for the first time in 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die. As I said last Friday and the Friday before that, the collection includes beautiful images of the paintings and short (albeit, unevenly written) descriptions of each. If you haven't already, borrow or buy the book soon. It's delightful. Good stuff for the armchair autodidact.

You'll find more about Matisse here and here.

The Misses and I were actually set to begin an art adventure about Matisse before I saw The Piano Lesson. We'll be working with Matisse: Cut-Out Fun with Matisse and Artists in Their Time: Henri Matisse.

Technorati tags: art, Matisse

Camera-shy?

Do you avoid the camera because you're not as thin or young or stylish as you once were?

I used to.

Boy, was I ever so much younger, thinner, and more stylish twenty-five years ago than I am now!

Aside... Although I must say, I have awesome (for me) hair now. No, really. When I was young (thin and stylish), I always talked about growing my hair out, but I always ended up perming it (the 80s) or cropping it close (the 90s). Now, though, it's a middle-length bob, thicker than genetically-predisposed fine/thin hair has any right to be, and remarkably bright. I don't color it, so you can find the occasional silver "pony" hair, but it's nice hair. I like it a lot.

And I rather like my "cheaters," too. I always get a nice frame, and I like the way I look in glasses -- although I am glad I didn't need them when I was younger.

Anyway... In 1996, I became a fulltime at-home parent. And unlike the first go-'round in the late 80s and early 90s, I now had two young people to take care of and no California-beautiful culture to inspire me to hit the health club every day.

And then I became pregnant again.

And so it goes.

This a familiar story to many women.

We grow older.
We -- some of us -- grow (a bit) thicker.
We -- some of us -- fall (a bit) off the fashion wagon.

For a while, I avoided photos. I had never loved sitting still for the camera, anyway, so this didn't represent a big change (although my capacious behind certainly did -- heh, heh, heh). But one day, my husband bemoaned the fact that we only had a handful of photos of the two of us and none of just me.

And I resolved that this was how my family knew me.
And saw me.
And loved me.

Only one of them had ever known me when my waist was (yes, honestly, and truly) just under twenty-one inches. And he, for all appearances and actions and accounts was (is!) still reliably loving and wildly in love with me.

So bring on the cameras! Bring them on! Take a photo of my grinning face. Get one of me painting with my daughters! Cleaning the yards with my son! Hugging the man I have loved for more than twenty-five years!

Heck, publish a full-body shot of me on the trails of [insert name of natural setting here] -- twice! -- in the [insert name of newspaper here]. And I will clip it to send to friends. I will link it to an email message for family.

Yeah, my waist and bottom are larger, and I haven't donned a pair of heels and hose since... oh, a very long time.

But this is me now. If I were to wait for "me then," life would halt. And that would be a very poor plan, indeed. So I say:

Thank you for thinking I am worth capturing an image of.
Thank you for remembering me.
Thank you for being in my life.

*CLICK* *FLASH*

Look at me.

I'm happy.

Where I'll be at 8 p.m. How 'bout you?

Crouching

Crouching -- or more accurately, squatting (that is, hunkering down, folding one's body close to see what's at one's feet) is valuable skill. If you haven't done it lately, do. Bring your reading, thinking, learning self close to the crusty, warm autumn earth.

No cheating.
Keep your feet flat.
Don't wobble on tiptoes.

There.

Now your hands are free to point at prairie flowers, poke (gently) at "woolly bears," and pick up tiny treasures.

Things look different from this height. They smell different, too. More like dry soil and dying leaves and animal trails.

In our three years here at our little house in the tiny woods on the prairie, we've become reacquainted with the fundamental reason for crouching: It's the most comfortable position from which to play with sticks and bugs and leaves and dirt.

Life is that simple, folks. It's we humans who make it angsty.

Set aside the drama.
Grab a stick and play in the dirt.
Do as the Misses M-mv do: Pretend.

Pretend you're a bird. Or a fox. Or a chipmunk.

Or, as the Misses like best right now, a "wolf friend."

Play.

It'll do wonders for your perspective.

Two links to make you think

With a nod to Master M-mv (who, in turn, gives props to his honors comp prof).

Medieval Help Desk

Web 2.0

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

Fine Art Friday

The School at Rome by Stephen Farthing

I came across The School at Rome in the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die. As I said last Friday, the collection includes beautiful images of the paintings and short (albeit, unevenly written) descriptions of each. In fact, the reproduction of The School at Rome in 1001 is much lovelier than the link I was able to uncover. I'm telling you: Borrow or buy the book soon. It's delightful. Good stuff for the armchair autodidact.

Anyway, according to the editors, The School at Rome is based on Farthing's "vivid recollections of the grand library of the institution where he had spent such a happy year." The painting is described as haunting, but I would simply say that it's memorable -- for its subject, of course, but also for the odd, almost jarring, persepctives at work.

So here is that wonderful synchronicity at work in my reading-thinking-learning-writing-doing life again: As I was perusing Stephen Farthing's site, I came across a list of his essays and books. In 2004, Farthing edited Will Barnet: In His Own Words with Sandra April.

Yeah, the same Will Barnet I featured in last week's Fine Art Friday. Indeed, the same Barnet about whom I am learning from this book, which arrived at our tiny libray (per my request) on Wednesday.

Oh, how I love, love, LOVE all of the connections.

And, yes, of course, now I feel that I must read Farthing's An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Art.
_____________________

Mr. M-mv is home today. In my "Oh, dear! I am getting a head cold, aren't I?" haze this morning, I had quite nearly forgotten he'd be here. But then I saw the clock: 9:04. Wonderful, wonderful, I sighed, contentedly. He is home.

Forty-four hundred words by bedtime is my goal today, which sounds far more demanding than I believe it will be. I've already done all of the research; Mr. M-mv is here to attend to the daily; and I'm motivated: We have a full weekend planned, and I'd like this ring-billed gull (It doesn't seem right or fair to call my work an albatross, now, does it?) off my neck before we leave.

Think motivating thoughts before you click away... there, got 'em. Many thanks. See you folks on the other side.

Technorati tags: art, Stephen Farthing

Speaking practically

One refrain among parent-teachers is that life sometimes (for some, often) gets in the way of schooling. Without entering into the "life is the education" debate, let me just suggest -- ever so gently -- that one needs to be careful about letting life derail the home education train.

Family M-mv has been at this gig for a decade. I have three children and a fairly demanding job as a writer and editor. And, yes, as I've noted before, life happens. We've had health scares, death (family members and friends), job changes, moves, a major automobile accident, illnesses, broken bones, budget woes, and so on.

What keeps our train on the tracks, then, is remembering that we have an obligation -- in fact, a legal responsibility -- to educate our children. While homeschooling certainly gives us some flexibility in terms of coping with life's challenges, it does not give us a "pass" on getting the job done. Teachers in traditional classrooms, for example, also experience life's upsets, great and small, but if our children were their students, we'd have every expectation that despite the other demands, those teachers would teach our children.

And so we must have the same expectation of ourselves.

Life happens, but the teaching, learning, coaching, studying, and all the rest must continue. No, I didn't have Family M-mv whip out logic texts during a wake or read Shakespeare during medical testing, but I handled all but the most pressing aspect of any crisis when the work of teaching and the work of earning my living was done -- just as I would if I were engaged in a traditional 9-to-5 job.

Sure, we take a day here and a day there. Even a week when needed. But we use a year-round schedule, so there's time enough for life and education. And, yes, sometimes life's challenges are the education. But if I found myself in a perpetual round of skipping lessons and work assignments to cope with life, I'd need to evaluate seriously my ability to continue with home education.

Some practical advice

■ Schedule routine medical and dental appointments for early in the morning or late in the afternoon. This allows you to get a full day of studies in after or before the visit.

■ The needs of one's own family must be first. We are allowed to say to others, "No. I'm sorry, but, no."

■ Illness happens, to be sure, but unless the teacher is ill, some things can go forward as planned. Reading aloud, for example, works well with young patients. Books on tape. Science videos. Unless everyone is down for the count at once, use illness to give the well students some extra attention.

■ Meetings? Again, before school hours or after. On the weekends, even. I can conduct a lot of business between 6:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., and 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Many folks are keeping a sliding schedule. See if those who need to meet with you can accomodate at either end of the business day.

■ Turn off the phone. Yes, you can. Don't splutter at me about the pressing reasons you can't. Just do it. Turn it off. (For that matter, some folks may also need to shut down the computer, too.) The only time my telephone ringer is on is when the oldest (who works) is gone; he needs to be able to reach us. Otherwise, I check messages when I'm on break from our reading-thinking-learning day.

■ Put the children's education first. Force it to the front of the line on your mental to-do list. Once this becomes a mental habit, you will be better able to discern when it's acceptable to let life creep into the day.

Technorati tags: homeschooling, parenting

In a bit of playful procrastination (yes, another deadline looms), I decided to revisit my blog cloud. The new one (right below) doesn't look that much different than the original (bottom) -- with the notably additions of Pollock, Barnet, and Shakespeare.

Get yours here.

Morning reading

Arts & Letters Daily

The following teaser -- "Many of our best novelists may well be narcissists, or even, God forbid, pundits. So what? Let’s judge books by their contents, says Stephen Elliott" -- reminded me of last week's virtual discussion about narcissistic personality disorder.

From Elliott's essay, "Focus on the words - not on the writer":

It left me uneasy. What does it matter if a novelist is also a pundit or a performer or a narcissist? If Johnson were a narcissist, would "Jesus' Son" have less value; would it cease to be one of the greatest works of fiction of the past century? I wouldn't care if Johnson had his own show on Fox News, I would still want to read everything he ever wrote (for the record, there are no great Republican novelists working today, but that's another issue).

Later, he writes:

The problem is not with the author's personality (or appearance), it's with the readers and critics who pay too much attention to it. Focusing on a writer for not "humping his ego" has the same effect as focusing on writers who are outspoken, or attractive; they're two sides of the same coin. What matters is the book, and the book has to stand on its own merit. [Emphasis added.]What the author accomplishes, or doesn't, outside of the book is fine for the gossip pages, but it doesn't merit mentioning in a book review.

Of course, I agree with that boldfaced bit wholeheartedly.

From the archives, this entry, in which I maintain:

The text should stand alone. [Emphasis added.] All of the observations about Oscar Wilde's character, while compelling (and exquisitely rendered in, for example, Richard Ellman's biography), do not alter the message of the text itself.

Perhaps I should say, the text can stand alone. If only we let it.

I do love stitching together the bits of my reading-thinking-learning-writing-doing life, this thought to that article, these observations to those experiences.

Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when everyone has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.

~ Søren Kierkegaard writing in "The Midnight Hour"

Click to enlarge

Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality....

~ Emily Dickinson

On the dashboard

Well, I've fallen a bit behind in my monthly (or so) chronicle of books read, test-driven, and/or acquired. And then there are all of the review copies....

Let's (re)start simply. Yesterday, the following books kept the Misses M-mv and I company while we took turns in the piano studio.

:: Drawing from Nature (Jim Arnosky)

:: Sketching Outdoors in Autumn (Jim Arnosky)

On Fridays, the Misses and I spend the afternoon studying math, reviewing Latin, and prowling the library that is just a spit up the road from Master M-mv's college. This past Friday, we discovered a new world on the shelves of that lovely place: Jim Arnosky's books.

Apparently, Arnosky embarked on his writing/illustrating career partially in response to the media hysteria concerning Lyme disease. People had become afraid of spending time with nature, and Arnosky sought to remedy that.

If you've been with M-mv for a while, you might remember that last year around this time, the Misses and I discovered Gordon Morrison's beautiful nature books. (See this entry.) Our joy on meeting Arnosky through his work is akin to our joy on meeting Morrison: simple, heartfelt, and complete.

Drawing from Nature is...

... discovering the upside down scene through a water drop. It is noticing how much of a fox is tail. Drawing from nature is learning how a tree grows and a flower blooms. It is sketching in the mountains and breathing air bears breathe.

I invite you to sharpen your pencils, your eyesight, and your sense of wonder. Turn to a fresh leaf in your drawing pad and come outdoors.

And, yes, we also checked out Sketching Outdoors in Winter, Sketching Outdoors in Spring, and Sketching Outdoors in Summer. What I find particularly remarkable about Arnosky's work is that, at least in the the five books of his we now know, he is speaking to any amateur naturalist/artist. In other words, an interested adult will find these texts as inviting as an interested child.

:: DragonArt (J. "NeonDragon" Peffer)

The Misses do not confine their artistic pursuits to any one subject. Dragons, though, are an especial favorite of theirs, and they love this book.

:: The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick)

This is a curious book: five hundred-plus pages, more than two-thirds of which are illustrations. I'll admit that I picked it up with a scoffing skepticism: What's this? And now, quite simply, I am hooked. Highly recommended.

Also found on my dashboard...
A stylin' Boardroom Black Insulated Bottle by Trudeau, a gift from Aunt M-mv. It's the way fashion-forward autodidacts are toting their coffee these days. *WINK*

Fine Art Friday

Woman Reading
Will Barnet, American, 1911-

From "Dancing on the Edge: Will Barnet and Bob Blackburn at the Mason Gross Galleries":

The serigraph, Woman Reading, really shows a woman reading. And that's a very definite cat curled up with her, and a very definite book in her hands. But you can't simply label it "representational." Look at the woman's eyes: you can see she's not reading, she's looking elsewhere; she may even be aware that she is what's being read. The book might be a mirror she doesn't want to look into. Or perhaps she's using it to hide some flaw in her forehead or maybe the fact that she doesn't have a forehead, since she actually only consists of a segment of a face against a semblance of pillow with a fraction of sheet cutting her off at the chin. Look at the image more closely still and it's almost as if she's been very neatly and precisely mutilated. So much for realism. Woman, bed, bedclothes, book, and cat are all provisional; it's the equivalent of an artist showing you his hand: here are the elements, now see how you can put them together.

I came across Woman Reading in the book 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die. Say what you might (must?) about such collections, this one includes beautiful images of the paintings and short (albeit, unevenly written) descriptions of each. Good stuff for the armchair autodidact.

By the way, the 1001 description of Barnet's work says nothing about neat, precise mutilation. Woman Reading is, note the editors, "a study of his wife Elena with the family cat." They continue:

[The painting] exemplifies his inimitable style of combining poetic figuration with graphic abstraction in order to create a modern humanistic portrait. Barnet explores, deconstructs, and then reinvents artistic traditions, ultimately producing an image so refined it is reduced to the very essence of emotional and visual intensity.

Neat.

While looking for more information about Barnet, I found this image: Emily Dickinson. Oh, isn't that lovely? 'turns out that Barnet illustrated a collection of Dickinson's poems, The World in a Frame. From a description of the book:

Barnet's respect and love for Dickinson's poetry sing from the drawings reproduced in this book. From his portraits of the artist ("To pity those that know her not / Is helped by the regret / That those who know her, know her less / The nearer her they get") to his drawing of a cricket on a blade of grass ("But witness for her land, / And witness for her sea, / The cricket is her utmost / Of elegy to me") to his picture of a tree full of crows ("The saddest noise, the sweetest noise, /The maddest noise that grows, -- /The birds, they make it in the spring, / At night's delicious close"), Barnet captures the essence of the poet's work.

If you poke through this site, this, and this, you will learn -- as I did -- that birds often appear in Barnet's compositions. I found myself falling a little in love when I saw this self-portrait. A crow friend. Remember, too, that Jackson Pollock tamed a crow. [Insert contented sigh.] The joy of discovery sometimes feels like that, doesn't it? Like the trip-and-fall into love -- or at like a crush or modest obsession.

More on Barnet here, here, and here. From that last link, I learned of Barnet's Jersey connection; a little like falling in love, I say.

And now, a poem for this fine (art) Friday:

"In the Garden"
by Emily Dickinson

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew
From a convenient grass,
And then hopped sidewise to the wall
To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all abroad,--
They looked like frightened beads, I thought;
He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,
I offered him a crumb,
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam,
Or butterflies, off banks of noon,
Leap, plashless, as they swim.

Click to enlarge

Another THWOCK!-er

Click image to enlarge. It's just like being here.

If you read the entry below, you know that the bird friends who call the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie, "Home," are wont to THWOCK! into our large front windows.

Yes, we've tried hanging bird silhouettes and plants. Next up? We hear ribbons and bells might work. (If the neighbors didn't already find us odd, this might do the trick, eh?)

Donna thinks our windows are too clean. If only. Oh, I do clean them, but they are strangely resistant to remaining clean.

Ah, well. We'll figure something out.

Later.

Right now, I'm making brownies for today's picnic at the nature center. It's only fifty degrees right now, and while it's supposed to reach seventy-five or so later, that will be after our walk. While we're on the trails, it should be cool and crisp. I've been looking forward to this adventure, and so have the Misses: We're meeting friends from the summer swim team. (Yes. The curmudgeon uses that word. Sparingly.)
___________________

The "Girls Rule" School begins Little Women this week. They read The Penderwicks over the summer, so I'm looking forward to learning how much (if any) of a debt they think Birdsall owes Alcott (to say nothing of a host of other writers). I like hearing them think.
___________________

Work and piano practice will be my priorities for the next four days, so you may find a few more photographs and/or "From the archives" posts than usual.

See you as time permits.

THWOCK!

Click image to enlarge. It's just like being here.

No matter what we do to deter them, one or another of our bird friends manages to THWOCK! into the big front window with a regularity that is nearly as stunning to us as it appears to be to the hapless THWOCK!-er.

Thank goodness Boy-boy is here to save them.

Word!
Have you seen this? By the way, the Oxford English Dictionary is eSpindle Learning's Word Cup dictionary authority. Take a sample quiz here.

Another September celebration
The Autumn Moon Festival falls on September 25. Family M-mv will be making delicious East-Meets-West Moon Cakes. Do you know the legend?

Don't miss...
Outer Life's post on culling books and genre fiction and, oh, all of the stuff he writes about so well and not nearly often enough.

The 89th Carnival of Homeschooling

~ Hosted by Why Homeschool ~

Virtual friend and the original and card-carrying member of M-mv's "best and perfect" audience, M. recently drew my attention to a subject to which I had not previously given much thought. Now, of course, I am thoroughly interested.

More from the Mayo Clinic's description of narcissistic personality disorder:

If a friend or family member exhibits persistent narcissistic behaviors that disrupt work or relationships, you might suggest that the person see a doctor to discuss how to cope more effectively with criticism or emotional problems. It's unlikely, however, that you'll be able to convince a person with narcissistic personality disorder to seek help to correct the narcissistic behaviors or the person's unrealistic self-image.

Fascinating stuff, no?

Reminds me of my last book-length foray into psychology: The Sociopath Next Door (Martha Stout, Ph.D.). Stout posits that one in twenty-five Americans is without a conscience; which means, of course, that we have, all of us, interacted with (worked with? dated? lived across the hall from?) sociopaths. This is a quick, chilling read. In a hurry? Skip to page 156 for "Thirteen Rules for Dealing with Sociopaths in Everyday Life," then read Chapter 11, "Groundhog Day." You will gasp in recognition because you've met a Tillie.

I know I have.

And one of the ironies of my "listening profession" is its lesson that in many ways, each of us ultimately remains a mystery to everyone else.
~ Martha Stout, Ph.D.

Ayup.

Added later
Oooh, this bit from the Mayo Clinic fascinates me, too:

Their personal relationships and interactions are driven by the need for admiration and praise. [...]

[S]eeking admiration also makes people with narcissistic personality disorder vulnerable to criticism. If someone criticizes an individual's contribution to a project at work, for example, he or she will perceive this comment as an assault on an image that needs to be protected at all costs and may [...] may express rage, disdain or defensive behaviors.

In other words, nacissists are serial bullies.

Years ago ...

I would put the telephone ringer in the "ON" position early on Tuesday mornings.

Tuesday morning was the time I accepted calls from JO'B, calls in which he discussed my work on that week's edition of one of publications I edited and published for his organization. The work kept me in enough money for lunches out, taekwondo, museum memberships, Prismacolor pencils, and books.

Always books.

I liked it well enough.

That Tuesday I had already talked with JO'B, but I had forgotten to move the telephone ringer to the "OFF" position.

That Tuesday, then, the phone rang and jangled and clanged before the answering machine took messages from the electronically hushed tangle of yammering voices.

That Tuesday my children and I washed and dressed.

And went grocery shopping.

And that Tuesday, as we moved among our fellow shoppers, I conceded that it might, indeed, be fun to try that; that choosing this and that would be fine; that getting those would not break my budget; that, in fact, getting these, too, was certainly a fine idea.

That Monday, by the way, was the last day on which my oldest, then eleven, was entirely a child.

Even so, that Tuesday he ate a bowl of Froot Loops and milk with his mother and sisters when we returned home.

Froot Loops taste like plastic fun and false hope.

And the colors run in milk.

We don't buy them often.

I am probably much too old...

to be beguiled by a pop music video, but... one, two, three, four... I am.

One, two, three, four --
Tell me that you love me more.
Sleepless long nights
That is what my youth was for.

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.
~ Jerry Seinfield
_____________________

Amateurs wait for inspiration. The rest of us just get up and go to work.
~ Chuck Close

From Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students by Their Brains (LouAnne Johnson):

p. 9

Why do so many teacher candidates ace their education courses, read all the latest journals, carefully observe good teachers, shine like stars during their student teaching, and then crash and burn during their first year in the classroom?

Because education, desire, intelligence, passion, and talent do not automatically enable you to communicate complex ideas to other people.

p. 33

Be careful. Everything you say, every single day, may be recorded in your students' heart forever.

From The Seventh Seal:

Jöns: Ah, me. No matter which way you turn, you have your rump behind you. That's the truth.

Painter: The rump behind you, the rump behind you... there's a profound truth.

When a classroom teacher displays student work (on a bulletin board, for example), it is to highlight or celebrate student achievement. The display of quality essays or mastered math tests or pretty penmanship worksheets does not speak to the teacher's ability (or accountability): It speaks to the success of some students... and, conversely, the failure of others (measured, of course, by the absence of their papers from the display).

(Note that such displays, particularly in the elementary grades, might also be thematic and/or decorative in nature; for example, when each member of the class prepares a colored Jack-o-lantern face for a Halloween display or copies out a favorite passage from one of the novels of a visiting author for posters announcing the event.)

The only context, then, in which a display of the detritus of a student's school week -- the rest of the worksheets, quizzes, chapter summaries, book reports, crayon creations, and all -- and a chronicle of what pages and units the student covered during said week would be even slightly appropriate (let alone even moderately interesting) would be in a presentation to the student's concerned and/or interested parent or guardian (and/or the student's counselor, I suppose).

Otherwise, it's just tedious and deadly dull.

To say nothing of silly: After all, sans a requirement to provide such a record (as in the parent, guardian, and/or counselor mentioned above), such a display wouldn't even play in a traditional classroom. Imagine the scribble and scraps of two or three children, let alone twenty-five or thirty-two! The teacher would run out of room -- if she weren't laughed out of the school by her colleagues first.

Besides, what have worksheets to do with the real work of teaching and learning?
_________________________

When teachers gather to discuss their progress as practitioners of their craft or vocation (i.e., teaching), they do not trot out their students' papers as evidence that they have met their own professional objectives or goals. No, even the most unseasoned instructor would know better than to present someone else's work as evidence of his or her own labor.

(For purposes of this discussion, let us -- reluctantly -- leave aside the topic of using standardized testing scores as evidence of a teacher's labor.)

In a quality conversation about being held to account, then, teachers would talk trends and patterns. They would share ideas and resources. They would compare texts and techniques. They might bring particular cases to the table -- carefully and with concern for the privacy of the students. They might challenge each other to do and be more.

But a parade of pointless papers?

Never.

Because the scraps of the students' past week (month, year) are not evidence of the teacher's ongoing labor.

A teacher's work is how he presented the material, how she may or may not change her presentation going into the next week (month, year), how he responded to this question, how she meets that sort of classroom management challenge. A teacher should be held to account for the way he focused on the moment he was in and the connections she made in her heart and the hearts of her students... meaning heart in its ancient sense, as the place where intellect and emotion and spirit and will converge in the human self.

A teacher's work is not his students' papers.

Another perspective

It is precisely the 24/7/365 nature of this life, this writer-wife-parent-teacher's work that centers me, that offers me strength and a rhythm to set my heart and mind to, that even -- dare I admit it? -- appeals to me most.

If I wake another morning, it will be beside a man I love, a man I have loved since I was eighteen years old.

It will be to the smell of my favorite beverage.

It will be the sound of my favorite radio program and the birds breakfasting at our many feeders.

It will be to a home lined with books.

It will be to a list of assigned topics and to clients and to the joy of having work that partially defines who I am.

It will be to the anticipation of another day in the company of the people I love best in this world.

And even if the only time that I am physically alone is in the shower or on the -- ahem -- toilet, I can mentally retreat. I can revisit the wonderfully appointed rooms of my imagination or daydream or space out or even -- *GASP* -- take a nap.

I have grown so accustomed to and comfortable with the quotidian aspects of my life -- of our lives, of our life together -- that to complain about them now would feel a little like complaining about spaghetti being thin and straight:

It's just the way. it. is.

Besides, of all of the years of my life, I have most enjoyed the last decade. I have worked harder, learned more, and loved better during this time than any other. And I love the person I've become during this time. Just LOVE her.

So,

When my family does leave for a time....
Or when my husband is home for the day....
Or when we vacation....
Or when I go out for a while....

When, in fact, we change the rhythm to which we have all set our hearts and working souls....

We all manage. We do well. We make memories. Life goes on. But each of us -- and most especially I -- look forward to the return of the "unrelenting" 24/7/365 nature of what we do and what we have here in the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie.

The recommended daily allowance

The Seventh Seal

[Block's squire, Jöns, returns from asking directions of a man who turns out to be long dead.]

Block: Did he show you the way?
Jöns: Not exactly.
Block: What did he say?
Jöns: Nothing.
Block: Was he mute?
Jöns: No, milord. He was most eloquent.
Block: Indeed.
Jöns: But very gloomy.

_________________

If the films of Ingmar Bergman are indeed a master class in filmmaking, then I attended my first session on Friday night... and was dazzled.

And I was reminded -- again -- that there is so much to learn and see and read and do. How does one arrive at the age of forty-three, for example, without having seen a Bergman film? I feel alternately giddy with the delight of discovery, however late, and, yes, a little ashamed that I had previously missed this.

I will add that it is a hard, hard thing, this reconciling oneself to the idea that there will only be enough time to learn how much one will never, ever know.
_________________

Roger Ebert writes:

Films are no longer concerned with the silence of God but with the chattering of men. We are uneasy to find Bergman asking existential questions in an age of irony, and Bergman himself, starting with "Persona" (1966), found more subtle ways to ask the same questions. But the directness of "The Seventh Seal" is its strength: This is an uncompromising film, regarding good and evil with the same simplicity and faith as its hero.

_________________

[As Block looks away, we see now that the "priest" is actually Death.]

Priest/Death: What are you waiting for?
Block: Knowledge.
Priest/Death: You want a guarantee.
Block: Call it what you will.

[Block kneels as if praying to the figure of Jesus.]

Block:Is it so hard to conceive God with one's senses? Why must He hide in a midst of vague promises and invisible miracles? How are we to believe the believers when we don't believe ourselves? What will become of us who want to believe but cannot? And what of those who neither will nor can believe? Why can I not kill God within me? Why does He go on living in a painful, humiliating way? I want to tear Him out of my heart, but He remains a mocking reality which I cannot get rid of. Do you hear me?
Priest/Death: I hear you.

[Block turns to kneel before the priest behind the confessional screen.]

Block: I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise. But knowledge. I want God to put out His hand, show His face, speak to me.
Priest/Death: But He is silent.
Block: I cry to Him in the dark, but there seems to be no one there.
Priest/Death: Perhaps there is no one there.
Block: Then life is a senseless terror. No man can live with Death and know that everything is nothing.
Priest/Death: Most people think neither of Death nor nothingness.
Block: Until they stand on the edge of life and see the Darkness.
Priest/Death: Ah, that day.
Block: [laughs bitterly] I see. We must make an idol of our fear, and call it God.

Links of interest

:: About Ingmar Bergman

:: Analysis of The Seventh Seal from Film & the Critical Eye by Dennis DeNitto and William Herman

:: The script for The Seventh Seal

Thank you!

As I've said many, many times before, affiliate programs have become ubiquitous: Everyone features links and subtle (or not so) requests that visitors buy using said links. All I can do is to thank you, again and again, for your continued interest in Mental multivitamin and the recommendations made here.

So... late last month, when I received the message that makes my readerly heart sing:

Amazon.com Associates (associates@amazon.com) sent you an Amazon.com Gift Certificate!

I selected:

:: Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature (Linda Lear)

:: Here If You Need Me: A True Story (Kate Braestrup)

:: Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help (Douglas Anthony Cooper)

:: The Savage Detectives (Roberto Bolano)

:: Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul (Karen Abbott)

Again, thank you.

Just about a month ago, the Misses M-mv and I channeled Jackson Pollock for our "Pollock doesn't use pink" adventure.

Would you believe me if I told you that we have already been discovered?

Take a look....




Ayup. Those are our paintings, hanging in a museum.

Heh, heh, heh.

Do your paintings or photographs belong in a museum? Visit this site.

From "Coalition aims to expose Shakespeare":

Some of Britain's most distinguished Shakespearean actors have reopened the debate over whether William Shakespeare, a 16th century commoner raised in an illiterate household in Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote the plays that bear his name.

Acclaimed actor Derek Jacobi and Mark Rylance, the former artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, unveiled a "Declaration of Reasonable Doubt" on the authorship of Shakespeare's work Saturday, following the final matinee of "I am Shakespeare," a play investigating the bard's identity, in Chichester, southern England.

[...]

The declaration names 20 prominent doubters of the past, including Mark Twain, Orson Welles, Sir John Gielgud and Charlie Chaplin.

The recommended daily allowance

After (Francine Prose), narrated in the first-person by "smart jock" Tom, concerns the nightmarish and surreal escalation of measures employed by the administration at Central High School following the slaughter of athletic classmates by black-coat-wearing loners at the nearby Pleasant Valley High School.

This easy-to-read YA novel is a chilling meditation on the small ways in which we are robbed of personal freedoms in the name of safety. Pick it up already forgiving Prose for the occasional implausibility (e.g., brainwashing by email?) and anticipating an unforgettably grim conclusion.

p. 96

"A kind of overidentification seems to take place with Holden and his complaints, to the detriment of the students, who should be given more positive models of how young people their age should think and behave. They start to think they are Holden Caulfield --"

Wait a minute! Did Dr. Willner imagine that I believed I was Holden Caulfield? Or that I was anything like him? I never thought he was a role model, just a character in a novel! I liked being in Holden's brain, hearing his private thoughts. But my life was completely different from his. I had friends, I liked my dad. And I hadn't really hated school until after Pleasant Valley.

Related recommendations can be found in this post.

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

Fine Art Friday

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven't time, and to see takes time - like to have a friend takes time.

The days you work are the best days.

You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

~ Georgia O'Keeffe

An art session inspired by O'Keeffe

Autumn Trees, The Maple (1924)
Petunias (1925)
In the Patio VIII (1950)

Speaking of flowers...

If people would just look at the paintings, I don't think they would have any trouble enjoying them. It's like looking at a bed of flowers, you don't tear your hair out over what it means.

Have you seen Pollock? Brilliant.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney)

You can sample Kinney's middle-school humor here, but trust me: This is a funny book, for kids and their parents.

Content rules

Perhaps the love of, or the intense need for, reading is psychological, an eccentricity, even something like a neurosis, that is, a pattern of behavior that persists beyond its usefulness, which is controlled by inner forces and which in turn controls.

~ Elizabeth Hardwick
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From "Goodbye to All That" (Columbia Journalism Review, September/October 2007):

A harsher truth may lurk behind the headlines as well: book coverage is not only meager but shockingly mediocre. The pabulum that passes for most reviews is an insult to the intelligence of most readers. One is tempted to say, perversely, that its disappearance from the pages of America’s newspapers is arguably cause for celebration.

Later:

In this view, only the review (or book) that is immediately understood by the greatest number of readers can be permitted to see the light of day. Anything else smacks of “elitism.” This is a coarse and pernicious dogma—a dogma that is at the center of the anti-intellectual tradition that is alive and well within America’s newspapers. It is why most newspapers barely bother with reviews. And it is why most newspaper reviews are not worth reading. I sought to subvert this dogma. Of course, ideally I wanted what Otis Chandler in his heyday had wanted: mass and class. But if it came down to a choice between the two, I knew I’d go for class every time. In literary affairs, I was always a closet Leninist: better fewer, but better.

Note: This CJR cover story includes a bit about the Richard Schickel brouhaha. Steve Wasserman notes:

Sure, two, three, many opinions, but let’s all acknowledge a truth as simple as it is obvious: Not all opinions are equal.

Moreover, the debate over the means by which reviews are published—or, for that matter, the news more generally—is sterile. What counts is the nature and depth and authority of such coverage, as well as its availability to the widest possible audience. Whether readers find it on the Web or on the printed page matters not at all. Content rules.

Indeed. This "word-addicted and the book-besotted" blogger thinks so, too. Content rules.

What do you think?

Read. Think. Discuss.

Tuesday

These six bars of hand-crafted soap, a gift from Mr. M-mv to remember our lovely Ren Faire adventure, have made our little house smell -- mmmmmm -- wonderful.

Get yours here. (Not you, Aunt M-mv. An indigo bunting told me that someone who loves you is already sending you some.) Shipping is quite reasonable, and I assure you: You will not be disappointed.

Speaking of disappointment...
I'll be honest: Some of the early buzz on Gordon Korman's Schooled (gathered, I'll admit, from posts on a homeschooling board) set me up for disappointment. The premise is that a boy raised by his grandmother on a commune is suddenly thrust into "real life."

Both Master and I have read the book and found it refreshing and touching. Cap, the homeschooled boy who finds himself running for president of the eighth grade at C Average Middle School (an "l" is missing -- can you find it?), is certainly painted in seemingly broad, stereotypical strokes: hippie-ish, peace-loving, clueless -- must be a "freakazoid" homeschooler, right? But only the most superficial of readers would miss Korman's point: Cap is weird but wonderful; most of the students at C Average are normal -- frighteningly so.

The writing is clear, and here, the device of of letting a round of characters narrate the story works well. Perhaps what Master and I loved most, though, was Korman's insistence on a point with which we are already familiar: One earnest, smart person can influence others and effect change -- even if by just being comfortably and completely himself.

The Misses M-mv are in for a treat when their brother and I take turns reading this aloud to them this week.

Related aside: Of course, Schooled is now forever paired in my readerly imagination with Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl, which I read in late August. Spinelli's title character, also homeschooled until the moment she (and her ukelele and pet rat) set foot in Mica Area High School -- offers her classmates the same gentle model Cap offers his peers.

Excellent stuff.

More information

Website of Gordon Korman
Website of Jerry Spinelli

Look up!

Get your interactive sky chart here. Remember: Beyond city limits, you can observe many wonders with the naked eye... even more with a quality pair of binoculars. Astronomy does not require a telescope, folks. Just a clear night in a place free of light pollution with a decent sky chart.

Heaven.

Fare thee well; I must away!

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