Pretty flowers

Alternate post title: In which my new camera [now pictured below] arrives and pleases me greatly.

Added later: In which my old camera looks on with thinly veiled jealousy.

Fine Art Friday

Excavation, 1950
Willem de Kooning, 1904-1997

More about de Kooning here, here, and here.

"The attitude that nature is chaotic and that the artist puts order into it is a very absurd point of view, I think. All that we can hope for is to put some order into ourselves."

From the archives:Professionalism and home education

Recently, in another forum, I read an article that appeared in the monthly newsletter published by a popular Christian homeschool curriculum provider. The article details the many changes one woman made after listening to teacher-training tapes available through said curriculum provider. These changes included rethinking her wardrobe ("I'm a professional teacher. I simply don't get paid monetarily. However, now I dress like one.) and adopting a longer school-day schedule ("We commence around 7:30 a.m. and end by 4:30 p.m. whether we re finished or not.").

I share neither the writer's religion nor her commitment to to the curriculum provider. I do, however, share her conviction that there's nothing wrong with inserting some, for lack of a better word, professionalism into the pursuit of home education. I wouldn't go about in the ways in which she has. Still, she makes some excellent points.

To me, coming to the home education table (or couch or front porch or whatever) in the same way in which you would arrive at a more conventional job (i.e., washed, dressed, and prepared) is a terrific idea. I haven't much (any?) use for charts and elaborate planning, but I have great regard for arriving at the daily with my game face on and the playbook memorized.

In the article -- "Musings from a Mom" (link currently unavailable) -- Deidre Salmon writes, "It was surprising to hear that [insert private school name here] often tests homeschoolers for admittance and finds them lacking. We all think our children are brilliant and several grade levels ahead of where they should be. Apparently this is not so. More homeschoolers must hear that."

I agree. We are ill-served by the false impression that simply because we home educate, we are providing a superior education. We need a periodic reality check, and the fact is that some homeschoolers are un(der)prepared for more conventional academic success.

And you know what? I'd prefer that my students not find themselves ill-equipped because of my poor planning or inadequate preparation. Treating this endeavor with the same commitment and, yes, professionalism I bring to my more conventional work may help me avoid failure -- mine and theirs.

I've long maintained that a successful homeschooling experience begins with the parent-teacher. See "It all begins with me," for example, where I wrote, in part:

When the work is taking forever to complete, when the quality is less than expected, when enthusiasm has waned, etc., I don't need to look much further than the example I've been setting. Have I been on-task? Have I been doing my job(s) with attention to detail? Have I conveyed my love of the subject and of the family-centered learning project?

For more than six years, here and elsewhere, I've written about the joy of discovery, the mornings in Nick and Nora sock monkey pajamas, the field trips, and all of the M&M moments that make me so glad for this adventure. But I've been just as quick to assert that this, to me, is a job -- one to which I bring commitment, skill, and, again, a sense of professionalism. When I taught in more traditional environments, my students had me -- 120 percent of me, as the cliche goes; some days, more. I see no reason to offer my own children anything less.

Now, that said, I have never had any desire to replicate a school environment in our home. Not. Ever. It is important to me, however, that my children give their studies as much consideration as their art, their imaginative play, etc., and the way I've communicated this is by modeling the behavior I want to see. In other words, I read, study, think, write, learn, and discuss. I work. Right there beside them. How else can I hope to communicate the importance of this pursuit?

May I add that I'm not altogether sure how one engages in Socratic dialogue if one is not present. I mean, I'm all for encouraging academic independence, but I am the teacher, tutor, coach, and (often) discussion leader. Um, 'hard to teach, tutor, coach, or discuss if I'm regularly in another room (mentally or physically), no?

Yes, I manage our home. And, yes, I work (hard, in the interstices parenting and teaching and homemaking permit). And, yes, my family has, over the last decade of homeschooling, dealt with its share of medical crises, relocations, absent spouse syndrome (a.k.a. a lot of business travel), death (of friends and relatives), even a major automobile accident -- so I know (as well as anyone else, anyway) that "life happens." It's just that, like Ms. Salmon, perhaps, I'm pretty convinced that school must keep happening, too.

She has decided that the way to ensure this is by adopting a certain schedule and a new wardrobe and whatnot. Someone else may accomplish the same with schedules or plans. Someone else may do so with a certain academic program. And so on. I do it by approaching the family-centered learning project as work. Good work. Work I love. But, still, work. And if, as I said, I'm on the job? I'm generally dressed for it, and I'm always prepared for it.

And it works for me.

(Sorry, Myrtle. I know how you loathe that phrase. Heh, heh, heh.)

Note:If you appreciated this entry, you may enjoy some of the posts collected in "Thoughts on education and parenting."

Tom Sawyerish

Earlier this week, the Misses M-mv and I made entries into our nature journals, a thoroughly wonderful way to pass an hour on an early-spring afternoon. Not for the first time, I recalled the passage in Get to Work: A Manifesto for Women of the World, in which the author, Linda R. Hirshman, decries a stay-at-home mother's life:

My correspondent's life does have a certain Tom Sawyerish quality to it, but she has no power in the world.

This morning, as I nurse my second cup of coffee while correcting math lessons and counting birds at our feeders, I have neither the interest nor the strength to enter into a meaningful dialogue on the subject of women and work, so I'll confine my remarks to this query: Which text did Hirshman read that made her think Tom Sawyer has no power (i.e., influence) in or over his world?

[Added later: From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:

[T]hey came to jeer, but remained to whitewash... Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.

Ayup.]

Heh, heh, heh.

A thin, pale sun warms the patch of galanthus in our back yard. Today I think I will add these to my journal.

Related aside
From Anna Botsford Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study:

In my belief, there are two and only two occupations for Saturday afternoon or forenoon for a teacher. One is to be out-of-doors and the other is to lie in bed, and the first is best. Out in this, God's beautiful world, there is everything waiting to heal lacerated nerves, to strengthen tired muscles, to please and content the soul that is torn to shreds with duty and care.

In my belief, one could substitute the word "Saturday" in that passage with "any." What do I know, though? My life, after all, has "a certain Tom Sawyerish quality to it."

Book notes
My companion today: Proust Was a Neuroscientist.

In which I am interviewed

The transcript:

1. Please tell us about your family and your home-life.
There are five people in my family, and there's not one of 'em I'd swap.

Seriously, check out my reply to Question 3. I think everything anyone needs to know about our group is captured in those linked entries.

2. How and where did you grow up? What did you aspire to be when you “grew up” as a child?
I was born and raised on the Jersey Shore in a newer suburb in which "all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." To the question "How did you grow up?" I'd reply, "Slowly." To the question "Where did you grow up?" I'd say, "Well, I began growing up in earnest the day I got married, so the answer is South Jersey." (Since beginning my own family, I've lived in South Jersey, Southern California, and Chicago.)

As for what I wanted to be when I grew up... well, although I toyed with the idea of becoming a teacher or an interpreter for the United Nations, I always knew I would be a writer.

And for twenty-six years, that is precisely what I have been.

3. What is an average homeschool day for you and your family?
Check out these entries: A typical day and night here, Let's go, and Morning meditation: What I lived for. Although they're a couple of years old, they really speak to what our days look like and what we're all about here.

I would only add my children are now 18, 12, and 10.

4. When did you decide that homeschooling was for your family and what method did you use?
Grab a cup of coffee (or a bottle of Mountain Dew) and sit back. This is the longest of my replies.

As an admissions counselor — first for a private junior college and then for a large university, both in Philadelphia — I traveled to public and private high schools throughout New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware in the late 1980s. For the most part, I did not like much of what I saw, particularly the lack of zeal that seemed to define most students' interest in their studies. I was particularly unsettled by the afternoon I spent at the high school from which I had graduated six years earlier.

By that time, my husband and I had already talked about having children. Where will they learn? I wondered one evening after a particularly unsatisfying day at the local high schools. I spent some time at the public library, researching alternatives to traditional schools, and came across John Holt's Learning All the Time. While we do not subscribe to the radical unschooling approach Holt espoused, his book is all but completely responsible for making me believe that homeschooling was not only a viable but also a practical alternative to the conventional classroom model of education.

Even so, we did not homeschool at first. By the time our oldest was three, we were living and working in So. Cal. and had an excellent relationship with the staff of the child-study center at the university where I had earned my master's degree, so our son attended the school-day program there. Then we moved to Chicago and were fortunate to find an excellent private school for Pre-K/K. It was one el stop from my office, so I walked him to school every morning, spent many lunch hours folded into a too-small chair at a too-small table, and rode home with a companion bursting with stories about trips to the museums and parks, visits from musicians, and myriad projects. A parochial school admitted our son to first grade a year early, and all continued to go well: He had been an early reader; he had a precociously large vocabulary and was socially adroit; and he was, by all accounts, a born leader.

In second grade, however, he met his match in an older teacher who prized unquestioning obedience and standardized testing. Oh, the stories I could tell!

But I won't. I'll skip to the end: School ended in late May, and we spent the summer between second and third grades visiting the city's parks, museums, zoos, libraries, theaters, and more. We took long walks and short naps. We discovered that our son needed eyeglasses. How had he seen the boards during second grade? we wondered. As it turns out, he hadn't. So the ophthalmologist ordered glasses, and I ordered a math program, and on a particularly hot day in August, I said, "Hey, dude. Let's get to work."

We never looked back.

He is now a senior in high school. By the time he was sixteen, he had completed all of the conventional requirements for high school graduation (apart from driver's education) and was using texts from my undergraduate and graduate studies in English, psychology, rhetoric, and linguistics and texts from his aunt's undergraduate studies in physics and chemistry to further his studies. We moved out of Chicago in 2004, but in the two years before we moved, he took classes through the city college system. This year, he simply enrolled as a full-time student at the local college, taking advantage of the dual enrollment program to earn college credit while "finishing" high school. He is awaiting an admissions decision from [insert institution name here]. Frankly, after completing said institution's arduous application process, we are all awaiting an answer.

Our daughters, unlike their brother, have never been to school — and they don't need glasses.

Let's see. In 2001, I read Jessie Wise's The Well-Trained Mind. As I said, I had first been motivated to homeschool by the seeming lack of zeal that I had encountered when visiting high schools. Later, our philosophy was shaped by the idea that the conventional classroom does its best to encourage academic competence, but academic excellence? Not so much. TWTM offered one blueprint for achieving academic excellence, and I have culled many ideas from the first edition of that resource, including the idea of teaching history in three four-year cycles.

That said, I use only one "program" — a math system that I have used since we began this journey. The rest of our studies I cobble together based on need (theirs), interest (theirs and mine), and books I admire and/or appreciate (e.g., White's books on philosophy for young people, Copi's logic text, Horner's Rhetoric in the Classical Tradition, and Gombrich's The Story of Art). We study year-round, and our music, Latin, and math studies give each day its basic shape.

5. What does your homeschool/work space look like? Can you show us a picture?
Check out this entry for a glimpse into our home.

6. How long have you been blogging?
I have been blogging for about 4.5 years. In fact, M-mv will celebrate its fifth anniversary in October.

7. Why did you come up with the title "Mental multivitamin"?
When I started "Mental multivitamin," I had only one idea... to chronicle my studies; to write across the "curriculum" of this reader-thinker-autodidact (and unabashed generalist); to synthesize what I am learning about astronomy and history and ornithology and current events and literature and technology and art and, yes, about myself, my family, and the world. Okay, I had two ideas: Given the glut of "mommy blogs," I wanted my blog to do and say something else, something not that, if you know what I mean. The title, then, was meant to convey that M-mv was a place for readers, thinkers, and autodidacts.

8. What was the first blog you read online?
I think it was One-Sixteenth.

9. What do you like to blog about the most?
Books and the reading life... and the synthesis, synchronicity, and serendipity that define my own reading-thinking-learning life.

10. What are some hobbies you enjoy?
I tend not to think of my pursuits as hobbies but rather as studies. For example, I have been studying piano with my daughters since October 2006 — we're preparing for our second recital. And I am taking a correspondence course in bird biology through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Book obsessed

[The previous link didn't work properly, so I have embedded the video. Enjoy.]

Joe Perlman's collection comprises thirty-five thousand volumes.



There's a difference between collecting and amassing.

Fine Art Friday

Yes, yes, late. And the subject is bad -- bad art, that is.

Here's the story. Here's another. And here's a related image.

Postscript: I still plan to offer a post on the excellent new Meg Wolitzer novel, The Ten-Year Nap. I also have a couple of RDA/chapbook-style entries in queue. More later.

Oh, I almost forgot. An older friend of mine is fond of culling through the local newspaper and clipping items she thinks family and acquaintances may miss. A little one-inch item was taped to her recent note to me. The note read, "I remember how much you like birds." Attached was a summary of this longer article about the Beck's petrel.

Simple gestures like this, gestures that say, "Hey! I know you!" without making any subsequent demands on me always bring to mind one of my favorite lines from Willy Wonka:

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

__________________
This is the part where someone says, "That's actually from The Merchant of Venice." Yes, pedant. We know: Act 5, Scene I. Portia speaks:

That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

From the archives:Happy Good Friday!

Every year of my seven-year working relationship with the man whose initial signature was "JOB," he greeted me such on this day in the Triduum. The first time it staggered me. Happy Good Friday? Even in my child-like understanding of the Roman Catholic tradition, I couldn't reconcile "Happy" with "Good Friday."

"It's the beginning of the greatest mystery of our faith," he explained. "He dies, but we know how the story ends. He rises. It is a celebration, the greatest celebration in our tradition. Happy Good Friday."

Happy Good Friday.

[Mrs. M-mv now issues an advisory that some regular readers may wish to click away.]

Once upon a time ago...
I was a lector in one of the city's large Catholic parishes. I am a great reader-aloud (this is not self-congratulation, just a statement about one of my skills), and the stories on the liturgical calendar are among the greatest ever told, aren't they? Whether you believe or not, the stories inspire awe. And it is this reader's opinion that they should not be thundered or mumbled or chanted. The stories simply must be told. Read. With expression, not affectation. Oh, and I loved sharing those stories as much as I love reading aloud to my own children.

It happened, then, that the Triduum schedule was drafted. The liturgical director "scripted" the Passion readings for the evening Good Friday mass, breaking them into parts that five lectors would share. I was one of the lectors asked to read.

When I took my place at the lectern for the third time that Good Friday evening, it was to read the passages concerning Christ's crucifixion and death.

Regular M-mv readers (those who have not already clicked away) know that I am the sort of writer or storyteller who affects no false drama -- I laugh when it's funny, cry when it's sad. There can be no pretense. Artificiality is the death of narrative. Heck, it's the slow death of feeling, of everything, isn't it?

So it happened that, arriving at the sentences in which Jesus acknowledges his mother, my throat closed with tears, and that at "Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit," I was reading through tears. Usually one to look my fellow parishioners in the eye while lectoring, I simply couldn't see anymore. I chose, then, to keep looking at the page. I can't tell you what I thought or observed in the long moment that followed my last word and my move away from the lectern to take my place among the other lectors. I knew only that these were among the most profound passages in perhaps the greatest narrative ever written, and that they overcame me. (Later, I realized that, believer or no, if these words do not arouse in one overwhelming emotion, then one simply isn't human.)

I stood with the other lectors and, as they say, collected myself. Writers know that these moments arrange themselves and occur far more quickly than we can possibly describe. As regular awareness returned to me, though, I realized that silence was an immense roar in my ears. That "what comes next" had not begun, seemed unlikely to begin. That the hundreds of people crowded into that large, darkened church, the priests on the altar, the Eucharistic ministers behind me... we were, all of us, spellbound.

Of course, at some point, the liturgy did continue, in its power and the promise of hope and renewal.

But, for a few moments, we were, that Good Friday night, aware of terrible sorrow, the ineffable sadness that precedes a renewal or realization of a hopeful promise.
_______________

What wise man said that we must look at Christ and not Christians because Christians disappoint but Jesus himself never does? If we were spellbound, then the spell did not last nearly long enough. Many parishioners felt compelled to talk with me afterward, about how this was the first time they had actually heard the words, felt them, been moved by them. A hundred, two hundred, and more thank-yous and hugs and tears. My legendary personal space issues had been lifted from me for this one evening, and I began to understand the meaning of "a community of faith."

On the Monday after Easter, however, I learned that a young new priest was disturbed by the "drama" of the Good Friday liturgical celebration and was vehemently recommending a more traditional approach -- notably a "straight read-through" delivered by priests or deacons, not members of the lay ministry.

My faith is usually strong, but my religion? A fragile thing in a glass menagerie.

It shattered that day.

Christ is in my heart, I think, in the hearts of anyone who can even begin to sense the enormity of his narrative. And today, he acknowledges his mother, giving her to his trusted friend. And today, he dies. Again. Because it is only in the repetition of the narrative that we humans. get. it. He will die every year. And he will be born every year.

It's a story that perhaps mothers see most clearly.

And it makes us weep.

And that's not drama, you foolish priest.

It's life. And, perhaps, the promise of something beyond it.

Happy Good Friday.

Heads up, "Lost" fans.

'looks like one of our favorite small-screen obsessions will return with five more episodes beginning on April 24 in a later (and better -- for me, anyway) time slot. Some buzz here.

And let the record show that I have always maintained that it was Michael in the coffin in Jack's flashforward last season. I'm all right with being wrong on this, but the theory seems increasingly plausible.

Hey, did you catch Mark Harris' article in the March 14 issue of EW? From "Unpopular demand: The ways we watch TV":

These days, there are two kinds of television series: Eye TV and Ear TV. Eye TV is intense: You care about it so much that not only do you know when it's on, you actually watch it when it's on. And you really watch it — forks down, phones away, laptops idle, iPods off — because you're worried that if you don't, your friends will tell you what happened or you'll stumble upon spoilers or plot discussions on the Internet and you will be behind.

Eye TV isn't classified by the ratings it gets but by the unquantifiable intensity and devotion of its fan base.

And, yes, of course: "Lost" is Eye TV. Writes Harris:

Lost is Eye TV; I don't watch, but I deeply respect the religious devotion of those who do. After each episode, those viewers practically shine a flashlight behind the TV to make sure they haven't missed anything.

Get your flashlights out, folks, and enjoy this evening's episode.

Postscript: And because so many of you are also "House" fans, I'll remind you that our favorite addict -- I mean, doctor returns to the Great American Campfire with new episodes beginning on April 28.

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
~ Arthur C. Clarke

Clarke died yesterday: NYT obit.

Book notes
My favorite work by Clarke is Childhood's End. If you haven't read it, set aside everything on your nightstand and make time for this novel.

Speaking of dead authors, as regular M-mv readers know, Kurt Vonnegut is dear to this reader's heart. Yesterday I was offered a review copy of Armageddon in Retrospect, a collection of new and unpublished writings by Vonnegut. Introduced by his son, Mark Vonnegut, the collection takes as its themes war and peace, offering, according to the publisher, "a much needed (and much missed) voice for the troublesome times we live in today." As you can imagine, I am certainly looking forward to reading this one.

On the MP3 player

Aunt M-mv gave me an early birthday gift: a Sansa Clip MP3 Player. Master M-mv promptly loaded it with favorites from my collection:

:: When Love Speaks: Featuring Kenneth Branagh, Joseph Fiennes, Ralph Fiennes, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Rickman, and Imelda Staunton, among others.

:: The Essential Shakespeare Live: Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company and featuring, among others, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen, and Patrick Stewart.

:: Sonnets: Caedmon Shakespeare; read by Sir John Gielgud. Need I say more? If you decide to treat yourself, get this and this, too.

Book notes
Reading today
:: An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Kay Redfield Jamison)

Recently acquired
:: To Say Nothing of the Dog (Connie Willis)
:: The House With a Clock in Its Walls (John Bellairs)
:: Providence of a Sparrow: Lessons from a Life Gone to the Birds (Chris Chester)

Finished, need to write review
:: The Ten-Year Nap (Meg Wolitzer)

Sign of spring, part two

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

March and April are the cruelest months.

Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night.
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.

The poem above was found among Vladimir Mayakovsky’s papers after his suicide on April 14, 1930. The middle section, with modest revisions, served as an epilogue to his suicide note. Yes, plagued by critics and disappointed in his personal relationships, the poet, who had criticized poet Serge Yesenin for committing suicide, took his own life: You and I, we are quits, and there is no point in listing mutual pains, sorrows, and hurts.

And so it goes.
______________________

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the popular press' claim of a link between suicide and the holidays is unfounded, a myth. "In fact," notes the CDC web site, "suicide rates in the United States are lowest in the winter and highest in the spring."

In other words, March and April are the cruelest months.

Indeed.

Twenty-five years ago today, someone I loved committed suicide. No one talked about it then. No one talks about it now, really. I didn't learn that his was a death by suicide until a couple of years ago.

Because someone decided it was time to talk about it.

Better late than never, right?

Right.

Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all U.S. men, maintains the CDC (although, interestingly, Reuters Health reports that heavy men may be less apt to commit suicide).

Folks spend an awful lot of time fussing over (or at least paying lip service to) healthy hearts and arteries and muscles and teeth. Oh, and the time and money they throw at appearances -- hair and skin and nails... and weight.

But do they talk, really talk about mental health with their primary care physicians? Do they invest, really invest in their emotional well-being?

In short, will they seek help if they need it? Will they even know they need help?

Because, as it turns out, "with help comes hope."

"Suicide is NEVER the answer," asserts Suicide.org. "Getting help is the answer."

Getting help is the answer.
Know the suicide warning signs. If you know someone who may be suicidal:

Listen to him with sincere concern for his feelings. Do not offer advice, but let him know he is not alone.

Share your feelings. If you feel that he may make a reckless decision, tell him that you are concerned. He needs to know that he is important to you and that you care.

Ask -- in a straightforward and caring manner -- if he has had suicidal thoughts or if he has made a suicide plan. If you feel you cannot ask the question, find someone who can.

If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255.

The Mayo Clinic offers these additional suggestions.

And, if you're like me, someone who knows someone who died by suicide, you may find the collection of articles at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) helpful.

From the AFSP:

[Y]ou should know that 90 percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death (most often depression or bipolar disorder). Just as people can die of heart disease or cancer, people can die as a consequence of mental illness. Try to bear in mind that suicide is almost always complicated, resulting from a combination of painful suffering, desperate hopelessness and underlying psychiatric illness.

Take care of yourselves.

Take care of one another.

Reading notes

Recently finished
Y: The Last Man, Book 9: Motherland
So desperate was I to learn how this story will end (Book 10 will not be released until June) that I visited the local comic book store. This is not part of my usual errand run, I'll tell you. I don't know... I was half expecting a dingy shop with only one way in -- and out -- and a scary man looming over the counter, shelves of dusty action figures and Star Trek memorabilia framing his head of unwashed hair.

Well, there was no dust on either the action figures or the Star Trek memorabilia, and the man, whose height ruled out looming and whose hair had definitely been washed within the last two days, was quite helpful. He found issues 56, 59, and 60 of the comic in the store and will have 55, 57, and 58 for me next Wednesday.

By the way, I first caught the graphic novel "bug" from Girl Detective and Book Moot. You can read about my favorites here, here, and here.

Nearly finished
Doomsday Book (Connie Willis)
I am thoroughly enjoying this sci-fi/time travel adventure. I am actually most invested in the present-day action: the doting professor worrying about his student, who has been transported back to the Middle Ages -- just as the Black Plague begins its fatal sweep across the land.

Reviewing
The Ten-Year Nap (Meg Wolitzer)
A fan of Wolitzer's previous novels -- The Wife and The Position -- I expected to enjoy this book. And I am. More when I finish reading.

Recently acquired
The Lodger Shakespeare: His Life on Silver Street (Charles Nicholl)
What the Dead Know (Laura Lippman; hat tip to Girl Detective)

Sign of spring, part one

Read. Think. Learn.Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Sawyer's nickname for me is "Rinse 'n' Repeat."

Heh, heh, heh. How apt, huh?

Get yours.

The recommended daily allowance

Slings & Arrows, Season Two

On 2.26.2008, I wrote, Mr. M-mv and I both adored the first season. Here's hoping the second is as wonderful.

Well, it was even more wonderful. Perfect and brilliant and perfectly brilliant.

From the Amazon review:

It’s amazing what can happen in the theatre. Dramas unfold, epic stories and indelible characters are formed, battles are fought, lovers wooed and spurned, and every once in a while, a play is actually performed. And so Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross) is back as the Artistic Director of the New Burbage Theatre Festival for a second season of the backstage machinations and on stage drama that is Slings and Arrows. After a triumphant first season that revolved around the staging of Hamlet, season two uses Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s most difficult and cursed plays, as the central device for this season’s plots lines. Things begin close to where they left off in season one. As the last performance of Hamlet winds up a mysterious old woman, in witch-like fashion, practically dares Geoffrey to undertake Macbeth, and her ominous tone makes it clear it won’t be easy. The lead actor (Geraint Wyn Davies) engages Geoffrey in a titanic clash of egos, with the ghost of Oliver (Steven Ouimette) continuing to weigh in from beyond the grave. The rest of last season’s stellar cast returns including Rachel McAdams, leading woman Ellen (Martha Burns), and the excellent Mark McKinney as scheming/bumbling CEO Richard Smith-Jones. The return of guest director Darren Nichols (Don McKellar) to stage a post post-modern Romeo and Juliet provides many of this season’s best moments, and shows the hilarious side of what happens when artistic imagination and exuberance outpace artistic ability. --Daniel Vancini

Excellent writing. Great acting. Insights into both the artistic and business aspects of theater. Shakespeare. Gosh, what's not to love?

Writes M.:

I think the consensus is that the first season is the best, but the second is my favorite by far. More focus on the plays and the Oliver the ghost parts seemed more integrated into the story (or maybe I had become accustomed to the conceit). Incredibly funny minor characters -- Darren Nichols returns, and there's Sanjay of Froghammer. I have a big smile on my face just thinking about them.

So do I.

Fine Art Friday

View of the Sea at Scheveningen (1882)
Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch Post-Impressionist (1853-1890)

A mural for a bagel store
Artist unknown

It's all right. Go ahead. Ask. What does the first image have to do with the second? Well. I'll tell you.

In mid-February, J. wrote to ask me about attribution for a phrase I had used elsewhere: "bringing home the bagels." When I employed the phrase, I meant to convey the idea that my income is not necessarily large (when compared to that of Mr. M-mv, the bacon-bringer), but it is certainly complementary (i.e., bacon tastes better on bagels).

J. also wrote, in part:

I saw your mention of the Emile Bührle Foundation art robbery on your blog; I was stunned when I heard about it the other day, and it was nice to see someone else thinking about it, too. Art thievery really intrigues me, for some reason. I've read a few pieces about the stealing of the "Mona Lisa," Munch's "The Scream" (all of them), and it never fails to make me wonder what kind of person steals art, and why.

Surely someone has written a good book about that. I need to find it.

My search for a good book on the subject of art theft yielded the informative and richly illustrated volume Museum of the Missing: A History of Art Theft (Simon Houpt). Houpt, a journalist, writes:

Art theft is a big business. There are tens of thousands of missing paintings and sculptures, perhaps more than one hundred thousand. Interpol, the international association of police agencies based in Lyon, France, believes the market for stolen art and antiquities is third on the list of worldwide illicit activities, right behind drugs and arms trading. Estimates range from $1.5 billion to $6 billion annually. But if we can put aside the money for a moment, the cultural losses are even greater. Art defines our societies, outlines our aspirations, shows us way of seeing the world that science never could. When a painting goes missing, we all lose a piece of our common heritage.

An appendix entitled "Gallery of Missing Art" includes, among other stolen treasures, Van Gogh's "View of the Sea at Scheveningen." Apparently, the thieves used a ladder to reach the roof of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and stole both "View of the Sea at Scheveningen" and "Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen." A year after the December 7, 2002 theft, two men were tried and convicted in a Dutch court, but the paintings still have not been recovered. There is a bit more about the case here. (And, yes, you must peruse the web site for the FBI's Art Theft Program. Fascinating stuff.)

So, there you have it. My most recent example of serendipity and synchronicity: Van Gogh and... bagels.

I have walked this earth for 30 years, and, out of gratitude, want to leave some souvenir.
~ Vincent Van Gogh

"[T]he quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers."

From "What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?" (WSJ, February 29, 2008):

The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not easy: well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on, kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons to fit their students. "We don't have oil or other riches. Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele Frantsi, a school principal. [Emphasis added]

It alternately amuses and alarms me that a plainspoken assertion can cause such gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands.

For example, why is it so painful to consider that an education program cannot exceed the quality of the teacher?

Oh.

I see.

Heh, heh, heh.

Seriously though, as I've said before, I think this view is a little right and a little wrong.

I think that the quality of any educational program can only be measured by its participants -- that is, any evaluation must take into account both the ability of the teacher and the natural talents of the students. I feel compelled to further define this idea: A good teacher can often improve the academic performance of poor or mediocre students. Good students can perform in spite of poor or mediocre teachers (although it is a disservice; ask anyone who did so, who performed well enough in spite of an incompetent teacher, or coach, or piano instructor). Good teachers and good students can make magic together. Great teachers and great students? Oh, that is the stuff of memorable years and classes, isn't it? And, yes, great students can and should outpace their teachers. But put a poor or mediocre teacher and poor or mediocre students together, and the results are always going to be poor or mediocre. In other words, the program can only go as high or as far as its engine permits, no matter how well all of the parts get along.

Let the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing begin.

Again.

Related entries:

"The quality of teachers affects student performance more than anything else." (11.07.2007)
The title of today's entry is taken from the article referenced in this post.

Elsewhere... (11.20.2007)
My assertion that any evaluation of an educational program must take into account both the ability of the teacher and the natural talents of the students first appeared in this post.


What I'm reading today
I picked up Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason from the library last night.

Wednesday

I thought about titling this entry, "A meditation on tires." In the image above, you can just about make out a car. It's the rental (hence, the spot in the driveway, as opposed to the place of honor: the garage) I used while Zoe the Van was in the shop getting, among other things, four new tires ($116 per, plus the alignment and labor [insert heavy sigh]).

Have you any idea how important tires are? Neither did I -- until last week. I am now a believer. Heck, I even plan to promote National Tire Safety Week (April 20 - 26). Mark your calendars, folks, and be tire smart.


Book talk
Last week, I was offered a copy of Love and Consequences: A Memoir of Hope and Survival. Yesterday afternoon, I received a note that it had been recalled. Two clicks later, I read that the supposed memoir by Margaret B. Jones was, in fact, a fabrication. In the words of her editor, "There's a huge personal betrayal here as well as a professional one."

I have two questions: In this post-Frey world, how could this have happened? And where the hell are all of the fact-checkers -- gone to flowers, or what?

Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?


More book talk
I just finished Y: The Last Man, Book 7: Paper Dolls and am reading Y: The Last Man, Book 8: Kimono Dragons while the Misses practice piano and work on their math assignment.

I picked up Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them (David Anderegg) and Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy (Eric G. Wilson) from the library last night, and an advance copy of No-Man's Lands: One Man's Odyssey through The Odyssey (Scott Huler) is winging its way to the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie.


Link, think
"The Ignorant American" (U.S. News & World Report, March 10, 2008):

I was particularly shocked, in a recent National Geographic -Roper study, by how many Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 don't think it's important to know a foreign language or to know the location of countries in which important news is being made. Not knowing these things is ignorance. Being proud of not knowing them is something else. It's being both antirational and anti-intellectual. To say that it's not at all important to know a foreign language is just plain stupid.

And, yes, Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason is also on its way to my nightstand.

"Why Kids Need a Big Dose of Nature" (also from U.S. News & World Report):

Nature deficit disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, including diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional sickness. Nature deficit can even change human behavior in cities. Long-standing studies show that the absence or inaccessibility of parks and open space is associated with high crime rates, depression, and other urban maladies.

Recommended: Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods.

"How to get a lover and win at poker" (The Economist, February 28, 2008):

The author sees rational calculation everywhere—even, or perhaps especially, in matters of love. Romantic types might say they seek the perfect soulmate but the revealed truth is more prosaic. Marriages are market-based transactions, swayed by supply (what is available) as much as demand (what the heart desires). Men may prefer slim women and women favour tall men, but both will alter their demands in response to market conditions. Suitors settle for what is on offer now, even if plumper or shorter than the ideal, rather than hold out for the perfect partner.

And, yes, I added Tim Harford's The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World to my wishlist after reading this review.

Number sense

From "Numbers Guy" (New Yorker; March 3, 2008):

Dehaene has spent most of his career plotting the contours of our number sense and puzzling over which aspects of our mathematical ability are innate and which are learned, and how the two systems overlap and affect each other. He has approached the problem from every imaginable angle. Working with colleagues both in France and in the United States, he has carried out experiments that probe the way numbers are coded in our minds. He has studied the numerical abilities of animals, of Amazon tribespeople, of top French mathematics students. He has used brain-scanning technology to investigate precisely where in the folds and crevices of the cerebral cortex our numerical faculties are nestled. And he has weighed the extent to which some languages make numbers more difficult than others. His work raises crucial issues about the way mathematics is taught. In Dehaene’s view, we are all born with an evolutionarily ancient mathematical instinct. To become numerate, children must capitalize on this instinct, but they must also unlearn certain tendencies that were helpful to our primate ancestors but that clash with skills needed today. And some societies are evidently better than others at getting kids to do this. In both France and the United States, mathematics education is often felt to be in a state of crisis. The math skills of American children fare poorly in comparison with those of their peers in countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Japan. Fixing this state of affairs means grappling with the question that has taken up much of Dehaene’s career: What is it about the brain that makes numbers sometimes so easy and sometimes so hard?

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