This passage in Bach's "Menuet in G Major" took me three weeks of less than diligent practice to grasp. I say grasp because I still execute it haltingly. (A counting hang-up, not a fingering problem: Inexplicably, I want to linger on that lower D.)

The piece is arranged for late beginner/early intermediate players. My daughters, who began their piano studies on the same day as I, are solid early to middle intermediate players with regular bursts of real competence and even talent. This piece was, quite literally, child's play in their hands. But I? I am still a beginner. So since Satie's "Gymnopedie No.1" (my "Traumerei" -- see this entry for an explanation) is so clearly beyond my abilities, I content myself with simpler selections from the literature.

Simpler is relative, though, isn't it? Heh, heh, heh.

In coversation with our piano teacher, I regularly liken my piano studies to learning a second language as an adult: No matter how much I practice, facility eludes me, and my "accent" is unmistakable.

Many people have had this experience, I think, especially where music is concerned. We become steeped in the notion that if we can't excel, there's little point in pursuit.

~ From Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast (Bill Richardson)

And yet I derive so much pleasure from the pursuit. Moreover, my piano studies enhance my daughters' studies; for example, their practice sessions are informed by my empathy and my understanding, however limited, of what can be gained through repetition, diligence, and earnest effort. And while my own execution may splutter and collide, I do understand what is written on the page. I can remind them of dynamics and time and key signatures. I can hear a note that seems off. I can suggest alternate "attacks" on difficult passages. I can guide and gently correct. And though their technical skill far outstrips mine, I match -- and occasionally exceed -- their enthusiasm for a challenge. This enlivens our studies.

I often wonder how music students fare in homes in which the parents dutifully schedule and pay for music lessons but play no active role in the practice (beyond periodic nagging). I would imagine that sans a real gift for music, a student without meaningful support at home must struggle with the seemingly unrewarding rigors of practice.
_______________________

The pursuit is the point. I remind myself of this regularly -- especially when confronted with the yen to linger on the wrong notes.

Many people ask you how you do it, and I am familiar with and very fond of your response entry. But what I want to know is how you find time for paid, professional work, plus reading, plus educating your kids. Reading between the lines, I sense that you often give up sleep, you don't finish all the books you start, and that it's easier to educate your kids now that they're older. A related question: how did you do it when your kids were smaller, and needier?

My short answers
(1) The kids weren't small and needy at the same time.

(2) I only finish (i.e., read cover to cover) about half of the books I begin.

(3) Previously, I could get by on five hours of sleep.

(4) I tuck the work in between and around lessons and field trips and activities and whatnot.

(5) My husband does the laundry.

My expanded answers
(1e) Moreover, my oldest and my youngest were the easiest babies and toddlers EVER. Amiable. Easygoing. Tolerant. Happy. Slept at least five hours each night by the end of their first month. Ate anything when they were older. And so on. So I was homeschooling the oldest at eight while caring for an infant and toddler, yes, but I was homeschooling a bright, motivated, easy to get along with firstborn while caring for the world's second easiest baby. My middle child wasn't hard, at all, by the way. She just wasn't easy, either. She's a lot like her mother.

(2e) Some books are mistakes; some lose me; and some must wait for another day and another day and another until they are reshelved or returned to the library. [Added later: And some simply don't need to be read from beginning to end.] I began about 320 books this year, which is up quite a bit from last year. This probably reflects the fact that my oldest worked fulltime all summer and attended the local college fulltime this fall. In other words, I lost a third of my student body.

(3e) I started sleeping more in mid-2006. Now I must have seven hours.

(4e) This is not always easy, but it is always worth it -- both for the income and for the identity apart from wife, parent, teacher. I am a writer.

(5e) Every night. All aspects. What a relief, huh? I rarely even enter the laundry room (unless he's traveling). More, when he is home, whether it's evenings, weekends, or time off, he does all of the things I do when he's not here (e.g., tidying, cooking, dishes, being the go-to parent, etc.).
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And I don't need any reminders. I know how good I've got it. I often joke with Aunt M-mv that if, in fact, we only get as much as we can handle, then clearly no one thinks I can handle much, at all.

Either that, or I'm in for a whopper of a surprise as an old lady!

A lifetime of excellence

Elsewhere, earlier this year, I responded to a poll about homeschooling mistakes. Mine? Well...

In the beginning (and that was more than a decade ago)...
I'd work the day. In other words, I'd parent, teach, and write/edit on Monday, and it was good. And I'd parent, teach, and write/edit on Tuesday, and it was good. And I'd parent and teach on Wednesday, and it was good enough. And I'd write and edit on Thursday, and it met the deadline.

You get the idea. For those first couple of months, although I had an unwavering commitment to and clearly articulated philosophy about the family-centered learning project, I was working day-to-day. "That was good. That was good. That was pretty good. That was good. That wasn't, but there's tomorrow." This was my fundamental mistake.

Superficially, no, there's not much wrong with it, but when I finally read Marva Collins for the first time about a year into our homeschooling adventure, I realized I was going about our days all wrong.

Collins writes:

Many of us can be excellent for a day, but we find a lifetime of excellence to be just a bit difficult. Good teachers leave their egos and problems at the door each morning. They become so immersed in the children they teach that they forget time, problems, who they are, or what they can't do. They believe that they exist for their students. They hear with their hearts, they see with their souls, and they teach with their conscience.

I realized with an unsettling all-at-onceness that I didn't want to be good (or good enough) for a day. I wanted to be excellent most of the time. And so far? I wasn't even close.

And it is utterly doable. It really is. If I refuse to lower my expectations but raise them, instead. And then exceed them. If I refuse to whine or complain or yield to more self-indulgence than the occasional bookstore coup. If I teach. Lead. Coach. Motivate. Inspire. Give my students the best that I have to offer every. single. day. My goal, then, became a lifetime of excellence, not a day or two here and there. A lifetime.

And it all began with raised expectations -- for me and for my students.

And don't for a minute think that this means we marched through the aisles of Jewel chanting Latin declensions (although we did that -- just twice, though). Or that the children are all bound for Harvard (they're not). Or that we drill endlessly or read only leatherbound Great Books. Anyone who reads my M-mv entries knows none of that is what we're about here.

But we do arrive at every morning seeking the moments of learning, discussion, synthesis. We're never (well, rarely) "off." Each and every day is about learning more, doing more, thinking more, writing more, drawing more, discussing more, connecting more -- all with a clarity of expression that approaches excellence. Every. Day.

Bird by bird is an sound approach for dispensing with projects, but it will not help one live each day with excellence. Do you see the difference? Each day is a fresh page, sure, but I'd prefer that the pages that preface it represent my best work at that time.

We tend to let ourselves "off the hook" too often for trite things, and then, when the big events arrive, and we're unprepared -- mentally, spiritually, organizationally.

Excellent for a day is pretty easy. Excellence over the course of lifetime? Difficult. But doable.

Just. Do. It.

Follow up
After making that post, someone inquired: "How do you make each day an excellent learning day and keep up with your deadlines?"

Simply put, by fitting the work into the interstices that parenting and teaching permit. And that often means going to bed late and getting up early. My current gig does not require any 9-5 contact with clients or sources, so I haven't had to deal with distractions of that nature since, hmmm, late 2002, I think. (More about that near the bottom of this post.) I write about fitting it all in here: It all begins with me.

And here, too: Fine Art Friday (with its related and long aside).

And in a series of posts in which I worked through Linda Hirshman's polemic about women and work, I discuss how I squeeze it all in (and how important my work as a writer and editor is to me):
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

I was also asked, "Did you cut back on your writing/editing after reading Marva Collins?"

Believe it or not, no. I actually took on more work. First-born. What can I say? But if you can believe my luck, my key contact was an older man who arrived at work at 6:30 a.m. or earlier each weekday. When we needed to meet, we did so at 6 a.m. We dispensed with our telephone conferences before 7:30 a.m. The rest? Email worked well for us. And I attempted to make email work well enough for anyone else, including writers who were contributing to the newspaper, for example.

When my "boss" on that large project (a weekly publication, quarterly newspaper, and all of the literature associated with an ambitious capital campaign) left, I only lasted another eighteen months with that client. I then took a two-year break -- writing only articles (with, admittedly, mixed results -- I think I only placed eight pieces during that period). A few months after our relocation, though, I scored my current gig, which I love. Collins simply shook me out of complacency. Okay or good isn't really good enough. Not for me, anyway.

The folks at Why Homeschool are conducting a contest: Do you have ideas for an eye-catching graphic to promote the Carnival of Homeschooling? Check out this entry for specifications and contest rules.

Fine Art Friday

The Bookworm (c. 1850) and Scholar of Natural Sciences (c. 1875)
Carl Spitzweg, German pharmacist and painter (1808-1885)

From 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die:

The Bookworm has become a much-reproduced emblem of bookish eccentricity: an elderly scholar totters on a ladder, thoroughly absorbed amid towering bookshelves and bathed in Spitzweg's favorite golden light... [S]ome interpret this work as a benign satire on lofty scholarly ambitions.

And from the Milwaukee Art Museum:

[Scholar of Natural Sciences], one of Spitzweg’s most famous paintings, is a satire on lofty scholarly ambitions that inevitably fail in the absence of genuine ability. The dedicated scholar depicted here might also be self-referential.

I love these bits: a benign satire on lofty scholarly ambitions and lofty scholarly ambitions that inevitably fail in the absence of genuine ability. Heh, heh, heh.

More about Spitzweg here and here. (Note: Neither of the two aforementioned sites screams, "Authoritative!" but there is surprisingly little online about the pharmacist-painter.)

You'll find the Fine Art Friday archive here.

From the archives:Resolutions that are built to last

And so New Year's Eve approaches.

Let me appeal to your petulant elitist side (as opposed to your lurking egalitarian side), and entreat you to make no "promises to self" that involve measuring your food or rearranging your bedroom to accommodate a large, ugly treadmill or other torture device. If rooms must be arranged, let it be to make way for more bookshelves or a roll-top desk with countless cubbies. Nordic Track, indeed. What, bosh. Walk to the bookstore or the library if you need to tone and firm. But invite ugliness into your home? Bleah. Never.

Avoid resolving to lose ten pounds, run two miles daily, and get up at 5 a.m. every day to accomplish it. These are resolutions built like Chevy Cavaliers and Nabisco Sugar Wafers (that is, not to last).

Similarly, avoid the dangerous slip-slide into self-pity and -recrimination that can define those days before January 1. (Hint: The slip-slide usually begins when you reluctantly switch from seasonal music, and in a desperate bid to find music to which you can relate, you put on a station or cd that violently jerks you back to your late teens and early twenties.) Folks, this is not where you want to be.

Stop the insanity!

Put on some jazz or classical. Relax with a cup of Trader Joe's coffee and a small slice of their New York cheesecake.

Ah, better.

Now.

If you must list and sort and promise, well, will these work?

(1) Resolve to read more, think more, write more, learn more. Update your wishlist at Amazon.com.

(2) Subscribe to a magazine that opens new worlds to you. (No, Entertainment and People don't count.) May I suggest The Economist?

(3) Promise yourself more than twenty minutes daily to think, a space-time into which nothing and no one can creep without your express mental invitation. It is in this quiet zone that you will uncover your creativity.

(4) Begin a correspondence with someone who will share your reading discoveries.

(5) Keep a reading log, noting favorite passages.

These are resolutions built to last.

The New Year's Eve material above originally ran four years ago in an entry entitled "'Death Planet,' prions, and suggestions for a happy (or at least not pitiful) new year."

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

The "Pigeon Man" has died.

This image first appeared on M-mv three years ago, on 11.10.2004. It was taken on our last day as residents of Chicago -- just before we moved to the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie.

Today I learned that Mr. Joseph Zeman, a.k.a. the Pigeon Man of Lincoln Square, died this past Tuesday. He was struck by a car in the 3300 block of West Devon Avenue. Mr. Zeman was seventy-seven.

'Pigeon Man' fatally struck on NW Side (Chicago Sun-Times, December 19, 2007)

Lincoln Square 'Pigeon Man' remembered (Chicago Sun-Times, December 20, 2007)

Oh, you know you want a Read. Think. Learn. bumper sticker, so go ahead: Treat yourself.

Holiday circular

I think today is the last day to place orders to arrive by standard delivery before Christmas Eve, so if you're still shopping for gifts, why not shop the M-mv bookstore for cool ideas.

Use one of our Amazon links.

Or just get that special someone the best gift ever.

You could also consider M-mv gear, found here, here, and here. Just so you know, though, I'm not certain gifts from Cafe Press will arrive by December 24.

As always, thank you for your business. And Merry Christmas!

An increasingly arcane hobby

From "Twilight of the Books" (New Yorker, December 24, 2007):

There’s no reason to think that reading and writing are about to become extinct, but some sociologists speculate that reading books for pleasure will one day be the province of a special “reading class,” much as it was before the arrival of mass literacy, in the second half of the nineteenth century. They warn that it probably won’t regain the prestige of exclusivity; it may just become “an increasingly arcane hobby.” Such a shift would change the texture of society. If one person decides to watch “The Sopranos” rather than to read Leonardo Sciascia’s novella “To Each His Own,” the culture goes on largely as before—both viewer and reader are entertaining themselves while learning something about the Mafia in the bargain. But if, over time, many people choose television over books, then a nation’s conversation with itself is likely to change. A reader learns about the world and imagines it differently from the way a viewer does; according to some experimental psychologists, a reader and a viewer even think differently. If the eclipse of reading continues, the alteration is likely to matter in ways that aren’t foreseeable.

[Emphasis added]

December 19: A Christmas story, of sorts

One year, when I was still quite young, my family shopped at the Christmas craft fair held at my elementary school. I remember admiring, nay, coveting a black dog crafted from yarn and a hanger. It was the most adorable thing at that fair, and I wanted it. Alas, I didn't have enough money for that and presents for my sister and parents. I walked away from him reluctantly.

A few weeks later, my sister and I somehow determined that it would be a good idea to exchange gifts early. After obtaining permission from our parents, we did — on December 19. Each year since, that date has felt as bittersweet as the early gift exchange did. You see, I just knew my sister had gotten me that adorable black dog for Christmas, and now I had him in my arms! But the best part of Christmas — the delicious anticipation — was over in a shred of wrapping paper and a squeal of thanks nearly a week before the holiday had actually arrived.

Funny how those seemingly insignificant moments shape our view of things forever.

Later that night, my mother told me that my adorable dog was a toilet paper cover. She drew me aside to do so; neither my sister nor my father is in the memory. I still loved the dog, but for reasons a kid can't find words for, even as an adult, I somehow became ashamed of loving him as much as I did.

Every year around this time, I wonder whatever happened to him. For someone with such a remarkably clear and reliable memory, I am amazed by the pages that have been torn from my mental notebook. To remember the dog with his black yarn loop "fur," the happy secret of just knowing my sister had gotten him for me, and the bittersweetness of the early gift exchange but not to remember where I hid him seems... odd.

And sad.

You know what? Christmas always makes me a little sad. For all of the familiar reasons, sure, but also because I don't think my sister ever knew how very much that black dog meant to me. I loved him so thoroughly, and I loved her for giving him to me. And sometimes I wish I could go back in time and get things right that I missed the first time through — sort of like Ebenezer trying to speak to the people in his Christmas Eve visions. I would say to my sister, That was so kind and loving and generous of you, and I am so glad you are my sister. I love this dog, and I will keep it forever.

In a way, I guess I have kept him forever.

That was so kind and loving and generous of you, and I am so glad you are my sister. I love you.



Postscript: My mother was wrong, by the way. The dog was not a toilet paper holder. He was simply a dog. This craft site includes an image of the type. I assure you, though, that my black dog was much finer. His ears were short, and his fur was made of soft, thick yarn.

And I loved him.

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

The consolations of philosophy

From "The New New Philosophy" (NYT, December 9, 2007):

Philosophers don’t observe; we don’t experiment; we don’t measure; and we don’t count. We reflect. We love nothing more than our “thought experiments,” but the key word there is thought. As the president of one of philosophy’s more illustrious professional associations, the Aristotelian Society, said a few years ago, “If anything can be pursued in an armchair, philosophy can.”

Elsewhere today, someone lamented, "I'm Nobody! Who are you? / Are you -- Nobody -- Too?" The writer wondered what one could do -- in the evenings sans a budget -- to find her self, so to speak. Although the query tied in nicely with some ideas I expressed earlier this week, I was inclined to respond in a different tone this morning.

My response
Have you considered studying philosophy? I'm not kidding. In man's search for meaning, philosophers discern threads of understanding. These thinkers spend their lives wondering, Who am I? Why am I here? How did it all begin? Where will it end?

And, not unsurprisingly, they all come up with different answers.

Far from being the dry stuff of overwrought and pedantic tomes, philosophy can be vibrant! Exciting! Energizing! No, really! There is a reason college "bull sessions" (even if their content is sophomoric -- or worse) are so memorable: They exercise our minds while flapping our lips. The philosophizing makes us feel alive and united in a quest to ascribe meaning to life, the universe, and everything.

(42)

Studying philosophy gives one's life a context that seems to say (quixotically) that we are both never alone and always alone.

See what I mean? Stimulating stuff.

Alain de Botton and Christopher Phillips offer neat contemporary introductions to the subject, but so does Richard Watson in a weird little book called The Philosopher's Diet: How to Lose Weight & Change the World. If these speak to you, enter into the worlds from which the authors call you.

By the way, the study of philosophy, done right, is the opposite of navel-gazing. It should lead you out even as it causes you to see in with greater clarity.
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Look: I am -- Nobody -- Too. But remember:

How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!

Cognitive reserve

From "Mental Reserves Keep Brains Agile" (NYT, December 11, 2007; log in may be required):

Cognitive reserve is greater in people who complete higher levels of education. The more intellectual challenges to the brain early in life, the more neurons and connections the brain is likely to develop and perhaps maintain into later years. Several studies of normal aging have found that higher levels of educational attainment were associated with slower cognitive and functional decline.

Dr. Scarmeas and Dr. Stern suggest that cognitive reserve probably reflects an interconnection between genetic intelligence and education, since more intelligent people are likely to complete higher levels of education.

But brain stimulation does not have to stop with the diploma. Better-educated people may go on to choose more intellectually demanding occupations and pursue brain-stimulating hobbies, resulting in a form of lifelong learning. In researching her book, Ms. Ramin said she found that novelty was crucial to providing stimulation for the aging brain.

On the corner of my desk

In my last "On the nightstand" entry, I made a foolish promise. I am happy to report that I broke it within ten days.

I haven't time for my usual ramble among the books, but here are some new acquisitions, including several gifts from Aunt M-mv.

:: Mister Pip (Lloyd Jones)

:: The Museum of Dr. Moses (Joyce Carol Oates)

:: I'll Go to Bed at Noon (Gerard Woodward)

:: Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Bill Bryson)

:: Carpe Diem: Put a Little Latin in Your Life (Harry Mount)

:: The Jerk (starring Steve Martin, whose autobiography was quite good)

:: Economics in One Lesson (Henry Hazlitt)

:: Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe (Nancy Goldstone)

What I like best is a book that's at least funny once in a while... What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.

~ Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye

Related entry: Defending Holden

By the way, can you believe that this is the fifty-fourth "On the nightstand" entry? Wow.

Snow and ice

My deadline is a week from today, and although I have words to go before I sleep, many words to go before I sleep, I feel strangely serene. Mr. M-mv will be leading the family-centered learning project for a few days while I tap, tap, tap wildly on this keyboard. Perhaps knowing that I will have three traditional (i.e., 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.) workdays in which to meet my work goals contributes to this uncharacteristic serenity. There is, after all, great freedom in being able to focus exclusively on the writing while someone else drills Latin, explains "Why," and prepares the meals.

The serenity may also be explained by the muffled gray in which the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie is enveloped. The ice storm has closed schools, made roads impassable, and slowed the intrepid mail carrier. But from where we sit sipping coffee, the danger seems remote. And only the news of the sounds -- and, by extension, the problems and cares -- of the world are arriving here, and those through thick, thick cotton. Yes, only the tick-tocking of the wind-up clock here in my office and the murmurs of the Misses M-mv are reaching my ears clearly. Oh, and the creaks and soft sighs as this sturdy old house arranges itself, Atlas-like, under the weight of the snow and ice.
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Coffee. Math. Chess. More coffee. Birdwatching. Latin. Still more coffee. Literature. Piano practice. Work.

And so our gray, where-is-the-mailman, is-tomorrow-horseback-riding, I-love-you, be-careful, icy day will pass.

And tonight I will crawl under the heavy quilt on our bed and read beside Mr. M-mv.

And tomorrow begins the race to the deadline. See you if the work permits, folks.

When it goes gray, we need to dream again.

Elsewhere, someone wondered if others sometimes feel as she does: that despite all of the good things in life, there is no joy. What the heck is wrong with me?

Nothing is wrong with you, I replied. Sometimes, though, the realization that we have arrived at adulthood and it looks nothing like what we dreamed of when we were eleven or thirteen or even twenty-one can provoke this feeling.

I don't ordinarily spend much time in the company of women; I don't like them much. But my daughters' involvement with the community swim team has thrust me into their midst for the last six months, and I've learned that many women, homeschooling and not, feel all but enslaved to their homes and their families -- even women who are also working traditional jobs!

Simply put, even as they acknowledge that they have good husbands, nice homes, and decent kids, they also admit that they feel like it all falls to them to keep it going. This, I think, is one of those gender-specific issues. I have never met a man, for example, who frets, "How will I get all of the laundry done!?"

Related anecdote: Yesterday, a woman shared that she felt so bad... her daughter had finally learned to dive, but the mother had missed the first successful attempt. "She's still upset about it. I feel so bad. She kept saying, 'Did you see it? Did you see it?' And I hadn't. I feel so bad."

"When that happens to me, I just say, 'No, why don't you do it again for me?'"

"But then she would still be upset. I didn't see the first one."

"Then say, 'Mommy has a life apart from watching your every single move, dear. I'm paying attention now. Would you dive again?'"

"I could nev-- Do you do that?"

"I don't have to. If the kids need my attention, they call to me to ensure that they have it. They've always known that while I'm their biggest fan, I also have a life quite apart from being their mother."

"Oh! Well! That's my problem! She knows I have no life. I have no life! None at all!"

This story seems to run true to the common theme: We women seem to think that it all falls to us. We must see every dive, so to speak. And we become so consumed with the quotidian -- the everyday rituals that keep the house comfortable, the husband happy, and the children well -- that we expend any extra time and talent we might have kept in reserve for our own pursuits.

I don't know how other women escape the malaise that can suck the color from their lives, but I have always clung to the conviction that while I am a wife and a mother, I am also me first. When all is said and done, I must live with me, so I must like me, nay, love me. So I have always made time to pursue those things which contribute to my self-definition, including work, yes, but also things like music lessons, reading (and I don't mean books for the kids), ornithology, and more.

Often when these virtual discussions develop, someone will suggest more personal care or a vacation. I do think that exercise and basic self care are critical to one's mental clarity, but I'm not sure Calgon paints the color back in, if you know what I mean. And a vacation? Well, it's all there -- the house, the husband, and the kids -- when you return. How does leaving it really help you deal with it? I think that when it all goes gray, we've lost sight of the technicolor dreams of what we could be. When it goes gray, we need to dream again.

This is not a call to run away to a Paris cafe, by the way. Just a suggestion that if you feel this way, you might consider that it is all in you to recover some of the "stuff" that makes you you.

This is your brain on Shakespeare.

From "The Shakespeared Brain: A Theatre of Simultaneous Possibilities":

This, then, is a chance to map something of what Shakespeare does to mind at the level of brain, to catch the flash of lightning that makes for thinking. For my guess, more broadly, remains this: that Shakespeare's syntax, its shifts and movements, can lock into the existing pathways of the brain and actually move and change them—away from old and aging mental habits and easy long-established sequences. It could be that Shakespeare's use of language gets so far into our brains that he shifts and new-creates pathways—not unlike the establishment of new biological networks using novel combinations of existing elements (genes/proteins in biology: units of phonology, semantics, syntax , and morphology in language). Then indeed we might be able to see something of the ways literature can cause affect or create change, without resorting to being assertively gushy.

More bardolatry here.

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

At least forty-five minutes daily

Over at Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant:

Why the hostility? Because this isn’t just about the glorification of ignorance, but the glorification of people who refuse to accept anything but their ignorance. A remotely thinking person would stop in his tracks and realize that they’ve made a mistake or consider that facts and evidence may have some bearing on maintaining a mind set. And here’s the thing. It’s not as if Shepherd is being asked to weigh in on the Jungian influence on advertising or distinguish between an AK-47 and an M16, but she’s being asked to respond to a basic fact that anyone with a basic elementary school education knows!

[T]his isn’t just about the glorification of ignorance, but the glorification of people who refuse to accept anything but their ignorance.

Brilliantly stated, sir.

Fine Art Friday

The so-not-fine edition: File this under "What were they thinking?" Be sure to browse through all three pages.

Snow day

Send them into the sun and snow.
Don't fret when they get wet.
Lend them your favorite scarf; it's their favorite, too.
Greet their snowwoman like an old family friend.
Invite her to join you for cocoa when it's time to go in.
Duck your head good-naturedly when they chide you, "Oh, Mom! You're so silly! She will MELT!"


Warm them inside and out.
Fill their bath with bubbles.
Toast their socks in the dryer.
Serve them cocoa that's more warm than hot.


Paint their tiny toenails with more polish and sparkle than color, a nod to their femininity yet a preservation of their little-girlness.
Read them a soft, sweet, simple story.
Hold their hands when they nod off.
Pretend not to notice that, yes, they really did need a nap.
Kiss their fragrant heads.
Say, "I love you."
They can hear you, even when they're sleeping.

This entry first appeared on 1.29.2005.

From the archives:The monastic preservation of our culture

Our 10.31.2003 RDA was Morris Berman's The Twilight of American Culture, a book, as we noted then, that "inspires copious note-taking and several runs to the library to find the many texts to which he refers in making his impassioned argument for a monastic approach to preserving what is best about our culture."

Berman posits that our culture — as successful and pervasive as it may seem — is in decline. He refers to Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West:

Every civilization has its twilight period, said Spengler, during which it hardens into a classical phase, preserving the form of its central idea, but losing the content. Hence, Egyptism, Byzanticism, Mandarinism. In the American case... ‘McWorld’ — commercial corporate consumerism for its own sake.

Berman’s is a bleak forecast.

Our entire consciousness, our intellectual-mental life is being Starbuckized, condensed into a prefabricated designer look in a way that is reminiscent of that brilliant, terrible film The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (a great metaphor for our time).

While we at M-mv don’t necessarily share the weight of Berman's pessimism, we do relish the idea of being part of an army of “monks” (autodidacts!), rather like those in Miller’s quirky little fantasy, A Canticle for Leibowitz, collecting and guarding little bits of the best of our culture. Modern-day monks are unafraid to allude to Shakespeare, the bible, or Dickens, even when the audience looks at us askance. We’re aliens in our culture’s “hardening phase,” but we monks have the satisfaction of collecting what is best about us for the civilizations that follow after our dark age.

Practically speaking, autodidacticism and the monastic preservation of our culture mean that we monks are often wildly out-of-step with the educational models that prevail in our society’s schools. We're still part of that society, though, so, of course, we hope that one or the other of us positively influences those we meet, that we effect change. Our children are too young for us to predict in what ways their uncommon education will render change, but in small ways, they have already influenced others, as have we. ("Mental multivitamin," anyone?)

Read. Think. Learn. That's our job, fellow autodidacts. Let's do it well.

Gee whiz.

From "Is Photography Dead?" (Newsweek, December 10, 2007):

Film photography's artistic cachet was always that no matter how much darkroom fiddling someone added to a photograph, the picture was, at its core, a record of something real that occurred in front of the camera. A digital photograph, on the other hand, can be a Photoshop fairy tale, containing only a tiny trace of a small fragment of reality. By now, we've witnessed all the magical morphing and seen all the clever tricks that have turned so many photographers—formerly bearers of truth—into conjurers of fiction. It's hard to say "gee whiz" anymore.

Birds at the feeders

So far this morning, we've been visited by the following bird friends:

American Crow
American Goldfinch
Black-capped Chickadee
Dark-eyed Junco
Downy Woodpecker
House Sparrow
House Wren
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Red-breasted Nuthatch
White-breasted Nuthatch

You'll find our complete backyard bird list here.

I just spent 4.25 hours at Kiddie Las Vegas and another .75 hours driving home in bad weather -- a trip that ordinarily takes about ten minutes. Can you say, "Chinese food for dinner, kids!"?

Heh, heh, heh.

From the archives: I think...

that almost everyone arrives at a point in his or her life at which he or she realizes, "I am woefully ignorant."

It doesn't matter how many As we received, how many honors were bestowed upon us, how many diplomas hang in our offices. All of us who aspire to the so-called examined life will, sooner or later, be challenged by our own lack of knowledge, insight, synthesis, etc. At some point, yes, each of us will wonder, "Was I ever smart? What do I really know? What have I actually learned?"

What will separate some from others (dare I contend, some from most?) is that rather than accepting the status quo (and rather than losing too much more time railing against our own inadequacies and apportioning blame to that school, those teachers, and this program for said inadequacies), some of us will work... late into the evening. Some of us will rise... early in the morning. Some of us will turn off the television... and read, write, think, grow, learn. Some of us will stop being apologists for the cozy comforts of pop culture... and actually seek out the difficult books, the thought-provoking plays, the masterpieces of literature, music, dance, and art, as well as the marginalized works. Some of us will cease maintaining that we were never into math, never needed chemistry, were just awful at statistics... and learn to appreciate numbers, reason with science, and discover new territories of the imagination to map. Some of us will set aside the to-do lists, the schedules for self-improvement, the public announcements (virtual and otherwise) of this or that plan for personal growth... and Just. Do. It.

To be sure, some will toss their arms in the air. Say, "I am who I am. Deal with it." Scoff at those of us who fret about the twilight of culture. Scold us for caring too much about books and ideas. Deride us for valuing wordsmithery, discovery, history.

And that's okay.

Isn't it?

No, not really.
_______________________

The cadences of language and literature have changed such that most forty-year-olds with decent schooling and one or two degrees are easily frustrated with any sentence that wanders, folds in upon itself, and floats, swirls, glides like water down the drain. Even those with Advanced Placement credits, medals in English lit, advanced degrees... even they, quite possibly, arrive at this point without ever having had to the hard work of decoding difficult works of literature, of really learning a second (or third language), or of mastering basic math and science principles. So Faulkner bores them. Don Quixote leaves them cold. They don't get Moby Dick. Middlemarch makes them tired. Plato's Republic? The Prince? Shakespeare? Homer? Logic? Math? Who cares? What for?

The "Let's Go! Let's Go! Hurry UP! Go, Go, Go!" mentality that pervades our business transactions and the Power Point school of presentation and the five-paragraph view of the world that governs our post-baccalaureate "education" have slowly stripped us of the ability to savor language. To read. To think. To learn. To hold a Great Conversation. And to synthesize all that we're learning. To reconcile it with the life we lead.

And the life we want to lead.

Steve Almond (Candyfreak) describes this well: "The unexamined life, it might be said, offers an extraordinary profit margin."

Ayup.

What's a frustrated former A student supposed to do?
_______________________

So you're not as smart as you thought you were. You are, though, far from stupid or dumb or a lost cause. Why? Because more than one-half of any problem is recognizing that there is one. If you're reading this with even the faintest nod of recognition, I'm guessing you've arrived at that point, the point at which one realizes, "I am woefully ignorant."

And I'm guessing that you're just not the sort to throw your arms up in the air and let the next three or four decades slide easily past, right?
_______________________

What a great gift parents give themselves when they acknowledge the gaps in their own learning and seek to fill them, joyfully, beside the people they love most in the world--their children; when they redress the educational "wrongs" done them and in doing so, model the wonders of learning.

Yes, we may have been gifted in our youth, but we are most truly gifted now, don't you agree?

Forty years from now, you may still say, "Oh, how ignorant I am!" But it will be with the sort of hard-won wisdom that being a lifelong student yields, not with the sort of middle-aged despair that can beset one early on the trail of autodidacticism.

This entry first appeared on 10.07.2005.

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

From the archives: A grief ago

The following material first ran three years ago today.

The text (Dylan Thomas) and the illustrations (Chris Raschka) of A Child's Christmas in Wales have transformed the geography of the imaginations of the Misses M-mv, whose desks are strewn with their own drawings depicting their favorite passages of this seasonal favorite.

"But that was not the same snow," I say. "Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards."

"Were there postmen then, too?"

"With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells."

Have you heard Thomas read this treasure? We'll wait.
____________________________

"Death has caught me, / it lurks in my bedroom, and everywhere I look, / everywhere I turn, there is only death."
(Gilgamesh, Book XI)

I reread A Child Christmas in Wales last night, then knocked Gilgamesh (and a (thank goodness!) empty mug) from the nightstand when I set it down. Certainly this was an invitation to return to Stephen Mitchell's most wonderful seminar on the hero's journey, "the mother of all heroes' journeys," writes Mitchell, "with its huge uninhibited mythic presences moving through a landscape of a dream."

The archetypal hero's journey proceeds in stages: being called to action, meeting a wise man or guide, crossing the threshold into the numinous world of the adventure, passing various tests, attaining the goal, defeating the forces of evil, and going back home. It leads to a spiritual transformation at the end, a sense of gratitude, humility, and deepened trust in the intelligence of the universe. After he finds the treasure or slays the dragon or wins the princess or joins with the mind of the sage, the hero can return to ordinary life in a state of grace, as a blessing to himself and to his whole community. He has suffered, he has triumphed, he is at peace.

So Gilgamesh is a quest story, maintains Mitchell, but on close inspection, it's a "bizarre, quirky, and postmodern" one.

Ayup.

Paging through Mitchell's remarkable version of "the oldest story in the world, a thousand years older than the Iliad or the Bible," I paused, as I have several times now, at Book VIII. Enkindu, Gilgamesh's best friend, has died. "Hear me, elders, hear me, young men," laments Gilgamesh,

"[M]y beloved friend is dead, he is dead,
my beloved brother is dead, I will mourn
as long as I breathe, I will sob for him
like a woman who has lost her only child.
O, Enkindu, you were the axe at my side
in which my arm trusted, the knife in my sheath,
the shield I carried, my glorious robe,
the wide belt around my loins, and now
a harsh fate has torn you from me, forever.

And, as before, the cadences of his profound grief recalled to me W.H. Auden:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

____________________________

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
("Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night," Dylan Thomas)

And as is my wont, I sat up at precisely 3:14 a.m. and marveled anew at how playfully, skillfully the brain arranges its thoughts when left to its own dreamy devices.

Dylan Thomas. Gilgamesh. W.H. Auden.

A grief ago...

Were my mind as facile during my waking hours, I'd be a force with which to be reckoned.

The recommended daily allowance