Chapbook entry

Shakespeare's As You Like It

Act Four, Scene One

JAQUES: Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.
ROSALIND: Why then, 'tis good to be a post.

More for the chapbook

Act One, Scene Three

CELIA: Why, cousin! why, Rosalind! Cupid have mercy! not a word?
ROSALIND: Not one to throw at a dog.
CELIA: No, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs; throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.

Act Two, Scene One

DUKE SENIOR: And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.

Act Two, Scene Seven

JAQUES: Invest me in my motley; give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through and through
Cleanse the foul body of the infected world,
If they will patiently receive my medicine.

Act Three, Scene Two

JAQUES: God be wi' you: let's meet as little as we can.
ORLANDO: I do desire we may be better strangers.

Act Three, Scene Five

ROSALIND: But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's love:
For I must tell you friendly in your ear,
Sell when you can: you are not for all markets:
Cry the man mercy; love him; take his offer:
Foul is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.
So take her to thee, shepherd: fare you well.

Act Four, Scene One

ROSALIND: But these are all lies: men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

On the nightstand

The "embarrassment of riches" (a.k.a. "birthday loot") edition.

The Other Family (Joanna Trollope)
From Aunt M-mv. This may be my Book 9 entry in Girl Detective's 15/15/15 challenge -- I'm about seventy pages in and could probably finish this afternoon, if I stay focused (which will be hard because I picked up two cool graphic novels at the library). Book 8 was the mixed genre YA novel I Am Not a Serial Killer (Dan Wells), which was terrific. Hey, stop by and see what others in the challenge are reading.

Identifying Trees: An All-Season Guide To Eastern North America (Michael D. Williams)
Purchased with a bookstore gift card from Aunt M-mv. I had thought I wanted The Sibley Guide to Trees, published last fall, but when I compared it to Williams' guide, it did not seem like it would be as helpful to us in the field.

Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Bryan Peterson)
From Mr. M-mv. I had put this on my wish list last year. Receiving it now has reawakened my interest in the Nikon, which has yet to become my travel companion.

Friday Nights (Joanna Trollope)
From Aunt M-mv, who also consults my wish list. Thank you, dear sister.

Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West (Ethan Rarick)
See note above. And how did it end up on my wish list? This news story.

The Art of Teaching: Best Practices from a Mentor Educator (The Teaching Company)
From Mr. M-mv.

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (Deborah Heiligman)
The Canterbury Tales (Peter Ackroyd)
Antony and Cleopatra (William Shakespeare)
Shakespeare Unbound: Decoding a Hidden Life (René Weis)
Shakespeare Retold
Actors Talk about Shakespeare (Mary Z. Maher)
Contested Will (James Shapiro)
The Letters of Sylvia Beach (edited by Keri Walsh)
Prefaces to Shakespeare (Tony Tanner)
With the exception of Antony and Cleopatra, the above were purchased using gift cards and cash from my mother, mother-in-law, and aunt, supplemented, of course, by the generosity of Mr. M-mv.

Notes
I still need to put together my chapbook entry on Love in the Time of Homeschooling, and I'd like to knock out the April edition of my so-called "reading life review," as well as a wrap-up of my participation in the 15/15/15 challenge. The house chores and yard work are all done, and apart from two long bike rides and a 1 p.m. date with PBS on Sunday (Hamlet with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart) I have nothing scheduled this weekend, so look for those posts by Monday.

Until then, happy week-ending, fellow readers, thinkers, and autodidacts.

"Chuck, good luck to you, buddy."

Man, I don't even like sports talk, but I love WGN Radio, and these spoofs just crack. me. UP. First, David Kaplan and Chuck talk about the Cubs; then we're reminded that Kaplan is not paid to be the people's puppet (Whoa!).

Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day

Choose a favorite poem and carry it with you to share with family, friends, colleagues... even strangers on the el train.

From the Academy:

Poems have been stowed in pockets in a variety of ways, from the commonplace books of the Renaissance to the pocket-sized publications for Army soldiers in World War II.

You'll find more information here.

And remember...
You don't need a plan or a permission slip (or even a National Poetry Month) to enjoy poetry with your children. Simply pull down a collection of poems and read. Play with the language. Take turns delighting in silly poems. Teach one another the importance of old favorites. Recite from memory the poems you've learned. Let favorite pieces become part of the pattern of your family's secret language, like lines from favorite books and films.

Love of language and learning does not grow from lists or lesson plans.

It blossoms in the place where children hear

To fling my arms wide,
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done,
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark, like me --
That is my dream! *

and can imagine the speaker, draw him, talk to him, and know what he'd say next.

* From the poem "Dream Variations" by Langston Hughes

A selection of M-mv poetry entries
■ "I’m not having a good light here at all." (1.22.2009)
■ Poem in Your Pocket Day (4.17.2008)
■ The recommended daily allowance (12.20.2006)
■ Russian lit (3.12.2006)
■ "Not waving but drowning" (2.19.2006)
■ "The Gift Outright" (1.20.2006)
■ Czeslaw Milosz (12.02.2005)
■ Stopping by woods on a snowy evening (11.25.2004)

And now I am forty-six.

And now I am forty-six, which is five years older than my father was when he died. The photo above was taken when I was not quite one, when my father was twenty-three.

Twenty-three.

My son, his namesake (and my father-in-law's, too), will be twenty-three in two years.

Two years.

Two photos of me.

I was seven years old when the photo on the right was taken.

When I was seven, forty-six seemed old. Impossibly old.

No, forty-six seemed ancient.

And now I am forty-six.

And now I am forty-six, and it feels as without time and date as the grass on Pop's front lawn, the shells along the beach, the weeds and butterflies in the old lady's field.

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

And now I am forty-six, and it feels as old as overdue library books and jeans that tug at the hips and comfortable shoes.

And now I am forty-six, and it feels as young as dandelions and unopened presents and a new straw hat.

Happy.

Birthday.

Spring!

Take a long walk.

Throw rocks in the lake.

Drive with all of the windows down.

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

Dream.

Read.

Sleep in.

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

Let Bob's Service wash the car.

Better, participate in a community carwash fundraiser.

Eat cherry or grape tomatoes. Whole. POP! SQUISH!

Let the kids push you on the swing.

Learn something.

Talk about something other than yourself. (Please.)

Read.

Bring canned goods to the food depository.

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

Live.

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

Just get on with the living.

This entry first appeared in a slightly different form 7.16.2005 and has been revisited several times since.

Advice: Take it. Leave it.

Subtitle: A post for those just beginning their home education journey... to say nothing of those who've lost something along the way:

1. While your family's days should most decidedly not be about scoring in the Xth percentile on state-required exams, winning a regional [insert kiddie contest here] prize, or earning a House & Garden medal for cleanest kitchen counters, it's important to remember that growing children with good hearts and active minds tends to be more easily accomplished when

(a) their environment has some rhythms and rituals and routines (rising and resting at regular intervals; anticipating repetitive activities (like feeding the fish, reading from the book of 365 stories for 365 days, making the bed, and taking turns with the pet chores)); and

(b) their leader (teacher) models the attributes he or she wants to see in her students.

Which is another way of saying, find a daily dance, a workable rhythm to set the day's tempo. Something catchy but neither too fast nor too slow.

2. Focus on the moment you're in. Not on the best handwriting book, most compelling history text, or most brilliant math program. Not on message boards or blogging buddies. (In fact, if you can, try an experiment: Limit yourself to no more than, say, one virtual visit daily.) Not on all the stuff you could be doing. No. On the moment you're in. On what you should be doing. Teaching. Learning. Coaching. Leading. Modeling. So, for example: Your children's minds are wandering? They've got holes-in-the-brain, you say? Where is your mind? Are you focused on them? Yeah, I didn't think so. Now that you are, discover why aren't they focused. Physical needs met? Something big coming up? Time for a walk?

You get the idea.

3. Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of one thousand, a bad day, a spring-feverish morning, a calamitous pre-Christmas afternoon begins with you. That's not an accusation. It's an attitude. If you know it all begins with you, you know you have the power to, if not control the situation, then certainly control your response to it (which is control of the most excellent kind).

3. Don't neglect yourself.
Eat right.
Exercise.
Take vitamins.
Sleep well and for as long as your body needs.
Develop some rituals and routines that enable you to present a fresh face and a clean smile to your children and your students each morning.
Read. Think. Learn.
Take some time for yourself when and where you can get it.
Celebrate your achievements in meaningful ways.
Reflect.
Maintain real relationships. Cut back on the virtual.
Visit a museum.
Roll down a grassy hill. Can you still do a cartwheel?
Leave notes in your partner's jacket pocket.
Revisit a favorite hobby or book or movie from your youth.
Dance.

Remember: Before you are a partner, a parent, a teacher, an [insert occupation here], you are simply you. Ensure that you like who you are.

And take care of yourself.

For other posts of this nature, visit the Parenting and Teaching tabs. Note that the "Speaking practically" post (which begins, "One refrain among parent-teachers is that life sometimes (for some, often) gets in the way of schooling") may prove particularly helpful.

Many thanks, virtual acquaintances. Yes, I, too, am weary of virtual poaching, but what can one do? That so many of you have also observed it over the years does offer some comfort. So, again, thank you.

"Context is all-important."

Tim Gunn rejoins Alan Kistler of "Crazy Sexy Geeks" to continue his critique of superhero costumes.

Hat tip: Girl Detective.

WGN just mentioned this story in its newscast.

Currently, I can find no other source but this one. As if I didn't have enough to worry about. Sigh.

Another 15/15/15 update

As you may remember, Girl Detective hatched this plot, and I jumped in, but now, with the end of the month looming, I'm finding it increasing hard to believe I will hit the eight books I projected, let alone the fifteen she suggested.

But that's okay.

So, what do I have to report? The list of titles that will be completed during this challenge:

Book One: Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter's Uncommon Year (Laura Brodie)
Chapbook entry soon.

Book Two: An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)
An endearing (and witty) protagonist-and-best-buddy duo coupled with a somewhat less than plausible plot make this a lightweight but entertaining YA novel.

Book Three: Rules of the Road
I passed! Only one question wrong! Yay!

Book Four: The New Global Student (Maya Frost)
As I have mentioned here and elsewhere, the Misses are fascinated by the idea of completing their college education abroad. Frost suggests a number of ways to make this happen.

Book Five: Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes; an abridgement)
With the Misses. A serviceable retelling.

Book Six: The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Philip Pullman)
Part of the Canongate myth series.

Book Seven: As You Like It (William Shakespeare)
Our selection for celebrating Will's 446th birthday.

Even though I haven't much to report, others in the challenge do, so stop by to see what they're reading.

The capacious-bottomed gal's guide to bicycling

That is the blog feature I daydream about now, nearly every time I get into a groove on the trail. I think there's an audience out there, one that might appreciate my ruminations on the merits of a minivan of a bicycle (e.g., the Diamondback Serene), my musings on the value of exercise that feels like child's play, or my thoughts on the challenge of hills, the importance of high-quality pedals, and the wonder of sharing this adventure with your family.

But the last thing this blog needs is another "feature." Heh, heh, heh.

Anyway, a little rain and a little more wind did not deter us this morning: We managed more than nine miles. And since dismounting, it's been the sort of slow, splendid Sunday afternoon that many families only dream of: puttering in the yards, enjoying delicious Chinese takeout, practicing a little, studying a bit, reading a lot, and looking forward to "Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking" later this evening.

Don't ever underestimate the power of choices that enliven your sense of self, folks.

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

“Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets...”

Today is Talk Like Shakespeare Day! Need something to say? Begin with the Shakespearean Insulter, thou saucy dismal-dreaming popinjay!

Need another reason to celebrate Will's 446th birthday? Read the entries collected under Bardolatry.

Finally, if you're in the area, don't miss the Shakespeare Project of Chicago's performances this weekend.

Tim Gunn on... superhero costumes?

Two words: Can't. Miss.

Hat tip: Girl Detective.

"[G]ee, all this simple living can set you back."

Heh, heh, heh. Apparently I am not the only one who thinks Real Simple isn't.

From "Not Really Simple" (In Character, April 19):

There's a photo essay featuring elegant mothers and their poetically posed toddlers that actually seems to be about hand-tatted lace, which appears in the foreground or background of nearly every picture. And here's one about jewelry crafted out of the original brass door numbers at New York's Plaza Hotel - the pin goes for $260. I closed my issue of Real Simple, stuffed with equally tasteful and equally minimalist ads for wines, Toyota Priuses (the automobile of choice for simple people), and many, many wrinkle creams, and thought: gee, all this simple living can set you back.

Speaking of being set back...
I had said I might not manage more than a poem or short story on some days of Girl Detective's 15/15/15 challenge -- and I was right. I have about fifty pages of An Abundance of Katherines (John Green) to go, and, much to my chagrin, I did not even make it to the halfway point of Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which is not a comment on the quality of either book but rather a remark on my lack of reading time over the last two days.

Since we still have a trip to Jewel, a full slate of studies, and the season finale of "Project Runway" (Go, Seth Aaron!) to go before we sleep, I'm not terribly optimistic about completing either of these two worthy novels today, but we'll see.

Even though I haven't much to report, though, others in the challenge do, so stop by to see what they're reading.

“Mobile phones don’t need to be the antichrist for theater.”

M-mv reader P.B. sent me the following NYT link: "Such Tweet Sorrow: Shakespeare Gets the Social Media Treatment."

Speaking of readers and links...
M. wrote, "I read recently of a friend's grief at the loss of his mentor, Janet Adelman. A quick Google search today turned up this lovely commentary by her, at Berkeley's 'What Good Teachers Say About Teaching.' I thought it might be of interest to you." And, indeed, it is.

From Adelman's 1986 statement:

I try to give [students] a basis for talking about the text in a way that will continue to matter to them; by demonstrating the extent to which acts of interpretation are necessarily isolated moments in a long process, I try to free them from the constricting effect of feeling that they have to know already everything that they will ever know. Because this emphasis on enabling goes hand in hand with a very strong emphasis on logical argumentation and on textual evidence, students learn that they can take risks and still meet the requirements of rigorously logical exposition. They learn too that they can talk about the issues that most matter to them without abandoning clarity or analytical rigor. [Emphasis added.]

And getting back to Shakespeare...
Coolness! Friday is Talk Like Shakespeare Day!

Check out our Bardolatry posts for more inspiration. And remember, Saturday is Will's 446th birthday.

Brookfield Zoo

Always a family favorite, the Brookfield Zoo usually guarantees a wonderful family field trip. Sunday was no exception. More, the weather cooperated: It was sunny and cool.

Oh, and the new Marine only pretended to find his sisters' antics unamusing. (If only I could find that photo of him, age twelve, similarly antagonizing the concrete lion who guards the south entrance... Heh, heh, heh.)

And now we are four again....
Monday was our new Marine's last day of "recruiter assistance." (His leave was extended by seven days so he could work for the recruiting station responsible for his enlistment, a neat assignment that he was able to share with his two closest Marine buds.) Yesterday he returned to San Diego for additional training, after which he will be assigned a permanent duty station.

And we're fine, but I want to thank you, again and again, for all of the notes of encouragement and support over the last fifteen weeks. M-mv readers ROCK! Please continue to keep PFC M-mv -- and all of the men and women who serve -- in your thoughts.

Fierce and beautiful, a 15/15/15 update

I expect the rumble of the UPS truck any minute. Today's delivery will include Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, and it will fill every spare minute from its arrival to the words, "Previously on 'LOST.'"

Reviews here and here.

Eleven years ago today

Yesterday I received a short note from Dave Cullen, whose non-fiction work Columbine made my (short) list of particularly exceptional reading experiences in 2009. Cullen thanked me for my support of his book and reminded me that today is the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy. If you missed Columbine last year, you may want to pick it up now: It's available in an expanded paperback edition.

Cullen writes, in part, "I'm excited about the way students have embraced the book. They tell me they are taken in by the vivid way it captures teen-age lives and the adolescent experience. So this year, I'm devoting most of my touring to high schools and colleges. I posted some photos and will be adding video footage. I am also creating Instructor Guides for teachers and profs to use the book in classes, and have posted the first guide for English/Writing--more are coming for psychology, journalism, etc."

Check out my disclosure statement. I have nothing to gain by sharing this information with you, apart from the satisfaction of recommending a book that will certainly make you think.

Got Shakespeare?

The Shakespeare Project of Chicago presents

Antony & Cleopatra
by William Shakespeare

Directed by Peter Garino
Assisted by Gail Rastorfer

Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Newberry Library, 10 a.m.
60 West Walton Street, Chicago, IL

and

The Wilmette Public Library, 2 p.m.
Corner of Park and Wilmette Avenue, Wilmette, IL

Sunday, April 25, 2010
The Highland Park Public Library, 2:00 pm
494 Laurel Avenue
Highland Park, IL

All performances are free to the public, but seating is limited.

Digital Detox Week

Those of you familiar with my TV Turnoff and screen-time awareness posts (begin here, if you're not) will probably be interested in Adbusters' Digital Detox Week, which begins today.

As I've said before, I certainly won't advocate a week-long screen fast, but I don't think any harm can come of suggesting that a periodic evaluation of our time management, including an earnest evaluation of the amount of time we spend in the company of screens rather than faces, is, quite simply, a good idea. If some people require an event to remind them to do this, well, fine.

Turn away. Turn off. Whatever. Just remember: Life is short.

Spend it in ways that enliven your selfhood.

15/15/15 update

As I mentioned below, Girl Detective hatched this plot, and I'm in.

After finishing my first book (chapbook entry to follow), I realized that it might be clever to use the challenge to polish off books in various stages of "partially read," which led me to John Green's An Abundance of Katherines. I'm also doing a little rereading: Maya Frost's The New Global Student. Why? Because the Misses are now quite intent on studying abroad. Finally, I'm hoping Girl Detective will allow me to count Rules of the Road. Yeah, that accident I had four years ago came back to haunt me: I must take a written test to renew my license this year. Blurgh.

So here is my round-up:

Day One: Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter's Uncommon Year (Laura Brodie)

Day Two: An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)

Day Three: Rules of the Road

Day Four: The New Global Student (Maya Frost)

Fifteen Books. Fifteen Days. Fifteen Blogs.

Girl Detective hatched this plot, and I'm in.

Kind of, sort of.

As I mentioned in my comment to her proposal, I may only manage a short story -- or a poem -- some days, but that's all right. I'm thinking that seven books in fifteen days would be a fair accomplishment over the next two weeks. The Misses and I have some catch-up schooling to do since we took (unplanned) time off during PFC M-mv's leave. More, I've been cycling daily, which makes a capacious-bottomed woman tired in the evening, prime reading time. Finally, an artist reception (for the Misses) and a birthday celebration (for me) are already on my calendar. I see my reading time shrinking, shrinking, shrinking.

But I'm in. And my book for Day One will be Laura Brodie's Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter's Uncommon Year.

Brewer's blackbird

How we'll be spending our starry nights...

The Orion SkyQuest XT10i IntelliScope Dobsonian Telescope with Object Locator.
Thank you, Mr. M-mv!

And the poem in my pocket today?

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Maybe character doesn't matter.

From "Good Writers. Bad Men. Does It Matter?" (In Character, March 30):

A great majority of us have done discreditable, even cruel things in our lives, even after we have ceased to be children. And the great majority of that majority find it in our hearts to forgive ourselves, and to think more about how we have been injured than the injuries we have made. But it seems to matter more when a writer or artist behaves badly. Why should it? If my dentist loves one of his daughters more than any of his other children, or a Boeing engineer is having an affair with her best friend's husband, it is cruel. But their cruelties don't impair the quality of my bridgework or disturb my tendency to sleep peacefully through take-offs and landings. Why does the bad character of a writer or artist matters so much more? And how does "mattering" work?

Those of you who remember this entry will know that I agree with Sam Shulman, who concludes, "But if we can't be good - and it seems that we can't - then it's not a bad thing to try to make something out of what is missing in us, or at least to see how others do it. And if we readers are complicitous - well, that's not a bad thing either."

Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, CA

We spent last Wednesday putting our feet in the Pacific (the Misses had never been to California before this trip), birding (hummingbirds, ravens, cormorants, pelicans, Brewer's blackbirds -- oh, my!), and meandering along the trails of Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. Good stuff.

Books for the journey: Birds of San Diego (Chris C. Fisher and Herbert Clarke) and Birds of California Field Guide (Stan Tekiela).

April is National Poetry Month

As I've said several times before, you don't need a plan or a permission slip (or even a National Poetry Month) to enjoy poetry with your children. Simply pull down a collection of poems and read. Play with the language. Take turns delighting in silly poems. Teach one another the importance of old favorites. Recite from memory the poems you've learned. Let favorite pieces become part of the pattern of your family's secret language, like lines from favorite books and films.

Love of language and learning does not grow from lists or lesson plans.

It blossoms in the place where children hear

To fling my arms wide,
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done,
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark, like me --
That is my dream! *

and can imagine the speaker, draw him, talk to him, and know what he'd say next.

* From the poem "Dream Variations" by Langston Hughes

A selection of M-mv poetry entries
■ "I’m not having a good light here at all." (1.22.2009)
■ Poem in Your Pocket Day (4.17.2008)
■ The recommended daily allowance (12.20.2006)
■ Russian lit (3.12.2006)
■ "Not waving but drowning" (2.19.2006)
■ "The Gift Outright" (1.20.2006)
■ Czeslaw Milosz (12.02.2005)
■ Stopping by woods on a snowy evening (11.25.2004)

Poem in Your Pocket Day
On April 29, celebrate Poem In Your Pocket Day! Choose a favorite poem and carry it with you to share with family, friends, colleagues... even strangers on the el train.

From the Academy:

Poems have been stowed in pockets in a variety of ways, from the commonplace books of the Renaissance to the pocket-sized publications for Army soldiers in World War II.

Last year and the year before, I decided to carry a poem in my pocket each day of National Poetry Month, and I posted snippets of several of my selections. I plan to do the same thing this April, and the Misses will be joining me this time. I heartily invite you to do the same.

At some point, I'll post a list of favorites from among the many poetry books on our shelves. Until then, though, don't miss A Child's Introduction to Poetry: Listen While You Learn about the Magic Words That Have Moved Mountains, Won Battles, and Made Us Laugh and Cry (first mentioned in our 8.26.2006 "On the nightstand") or Garrison Keillor's Good Poems (found in "Writing warm-up" from 3.26.2006). I found many of last year's poem-a-day selections in these wonderful volumes.

Celebrating children's poetry
Once again, Greg at GottaBook is hosting "Thirty Poets / Thirty Days," a month-long celebration of poetry that will feature a new previously unpublished work by a different popular poet each day. Bookmark GottaBook and visit throughout the month.

Guess what the bunny left in our Easter basket!

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

From the archives

Happy Good Friday!

Electroshocker

Are you familiar with "dirty electricity"? I wasn't until I checked out this Prevention feature: "11 Ways to Protect Yourself from Dirty Electricity."