“‘You are in deep doo-doo, little girl.’”

From "Placing the Blame as Students Are Buried in Debt" (NYT, May 28):

Over the course of the next two years, starting when she was still a teenager, she borrowed about $40,000 from Citibank without thinking much about how she would pay it back. How could her mother have let her run up that debt, and why didn’t she try to make her daughter transfer to, say, the best school in the much cheaper state university system in New York? “All I could see was college, and a good college and how proud I was of her,” Cathryn said. “All we needed to do was get this education and get the good job. This is the thing that eats away at me, the naïveté on my part.”

Related entry: Paying for college, revisited

"It’s not an either-or proposition: nature versus technology; country versus city."

From "Guilt Trip into the Woods" (Brain, Child, Spring 2010):

Initially I was drawn to Louv’s call for immersion in the natural world. Yet long before I finished Last Child in the Woods, I wanted to chuck it across the room.

[...]

Of course some children enjoy pressing flowers. My son’s idiosyncrasies only illustrate that kids are passionate about a variety of things. But as with so many journalistic trend stories, Louv employs a largely anecdotal approach to make a bigger claim: that all children need nature—and if they don’t get the version he prescribes, they will be less joyful and alive.

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

Field trip

File yesterday's "Get to Know Fermilab Guided Tour" under "F" for "field trips we've been meaning to take for years and finally got around to" -- like the Naper Settlement, for example.

All of us were absolutely fascinated.

On the nightstand

Here's a stack of books in various stages of being read and appreciated. More about the rest of this month's reading adventures by next Tuesday.

■ An Education (Lynn Barber)
Memoir. In April, I was mesmerized by Carey Mulligan's performance in An Education, which is based on one section of Lynn Barber's brilliant memoir. This was one of those situations in which reading the book followed watching the movie, but neither work suffered by the comparison. In fact, I highly recommend both the film and Barber's wry autobiography.

■ Quicksilver (Neal Stephenson)
Fiction. I guess you could say that Girl Detective is making me do it. I think. Heh, heh, heh.

■ Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith (Deborah Heiligman)
Non-fiction. The author paints a remarkable portrait of a marriage if not defined then certainly shaped by the conflict between one spouse's religion and the other's science. Replete with insights into Victorian society and excerpts from primary source materials (letters, journals), this is a near-perfect biography. One quibble: The writing is sometimes painfully simple. If the intended audience can make its way through the excerpts from Darwin's texts, the passages from Jane Austen's novels, and the quotes from family letters and journals, then it can certainly handle a more sophisticated prose style from Heiligman.

■ Desperate Passage: The Donner Party's Perilous Journey West (Ethan Rarick)
Non-fiction. Just started this gift from Aunt M-mv.

■ The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading (Lizzie Skurnick)
Non-fiction. This has been on the shelves for a while. I pulled it down thinking it might be a good companion during swim practices.

■ The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Philip Pullman)
Fiction. Part of the Canongate myth series. I am actually rereading this.

■ Readicide (Kelly Gallagher)
Education.

■ Story Craft (John R. Erickson)
Non-fiction.

■ The Happiness Project (Gretchen Rubin )
Memoir.

Summer school

Read. Think. Learn.

It's not exactly an educational philosophy that lends itself to a traditional September to June academic calendar, so we study year-round, which not only promotes the sort of synthesis on which the life of the mind thrives but also allows ample time for extended music practice, art classes at the college, star parties (when conditions permit), sleeping in (whenever needed), field trips, and simply breathing.

Now, the flexibility of year-round studies aside, I must admit that our academic calendar has been at least partially defined by the demands of the winter and summer swim teams, and in our neck of the tiny woods on the prairie, summer swim season (which comprises one week of evening practice, seven weeks of early morning practices, one weekday evening meet per week, and a conference) has begun. From first practice to final conference, the entire season comprises eight weeks, and over the last six years, I have learned that it works well for us to plan what I call "eight solid weeks" of studies since daily practice and weekly meets dictate a certain rhythm. So, tuck ninety-minute music practice sessions in here and a weekly piano lesson there, then hang some reasonable academic objectives in the frame, and voilà! I've built a rigorous but utterly doable plan that includes, in our case, forty math lessons and eight tests, a history course, four novels, two plays, a handful of short stories, ongoing memorization projects, science, logic, Spanish, and, yes, art -- always and forever, art. (To say nothing of a several mornings at the beach, many excursions on the bike trails, and a few field trips!)

Anyway, in preparation for this year's summer endeavors, I reorganized the "bird room" and prepared a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils that included Smencils. And although my students are now entering seventh and ninth grades, they have certainly appreciated the whimsy of watermelon-, grape-, and cinnamon-scented pencils as we discuss the finer points of literary analysis and algebraic equations.

Whether you study year-round or on an traditional academic calendar, whether you homeschool or not, remember the whimsy, folks, because I can guarantee that they will.

"I forgive you."

"It worked."

Added later: More happily in the hereafter.

"Keep going!"

Fine Art Friday

Woman on a High Stool, 1914
Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954)
See important note at the conclusion of this entry.

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, we headed into Chicago last night to see "Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917." The Art Institute offers members-only access to the exhibit for the first hour after the museum opens each day, as well as Thursday and Friday evenings, 5 to 8 p.m., and I'd be lying if I didn't admit that this is one of my favorite membership perks.

Following a pattern established long ago, the Misses and I spent time preparing for our visit by reading a few introductory texts:

■ Henri Matisse (Jude Welton)
We heartily recommend the series of which this volume is a part -- Artists in Their Time. Simple without being simplistic, these introductions to such artists as Matisse, Claude Monet, and Andy Warhol include biographical data, images of the artist's work and the work of artists who inspired and/or were inspired by him, context-setting commentary on the artist's work, a timeline, and more.

■ Matisse from A to Z (Marie Sellier)

■ Matisse (Nina Hollein)

We made a stop at Half-Price books en route, and while we were waiting for the folks behind the counter to make an offer on the books we brought in -- Serendipity! Synchronicity! Synthesis! -- we found a slim volume comparing and contrasting the work of Matisse and Picasso. We had already learned that these two "giants of modern art" met in the livingroom of one of their patrons, Gertrude Stein -- the beginning of both a friendship and a rivalry. It was a revelation, then, to see images of their work side-by-side and to read the following Matisse quote:

One day, having met Max Jacobs on one of the boulevards, I said to him: "If I weren't doing what I'm doing, I would like to paint like Picasso." "Well, that's odd!" said Max. "Do you know Picasso said the same thing about you?"

We hit more traffic than we expected and didn't arrive at the museum until 6 p.m. Flustered by the delay and -- admittedly, I'm out of practice after so many years in the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie -- the antics of commuters behind the wheel, I needed to "wind down" and was, therefore, grateful that for the power-walk from the main entrance to Regenstein Hall. (Although dodging all of the visitors there for Free Thursday Night programming was not unlike driving on the 90 at 5:20 p.m. on a weekday. Egads, people!)

After slipping past some visitors who were irate beyond appropriate expression that "Radical Invention" was then open only to members, the four of us -- Mr., the Misses, and I -- took a deep breath, then took in the work of Matisse.

The Piano Lesson (0ne of my favorite works by Matisse, it's featured in this Fine Art Friday entry ) was painted during the creatively fertile four-year period on which "Radical Invention" focuses, so I was pretty confident it would be included in the exhibit. Before I saw that piece, though, I came upon Woman on a High Stool, which was painted two years earlier. "I really like this," I announced. Twenty minutes later, Miss M-mv(i) showed me why: As we stood before The Piano Lesson, she pointed out, "Look. It's the woman on the high stool." And sure enough, it is. Matisse frequently included images of his previous paintings and sculptures in his paintings, and the austere woman on the stool appears to be the ghost-like piano teacher. Serendipity! Synchronicity! Synthesis! I love it, just love it.

Oh, sigh. As usual my desire to write more outstrips the time I have to do so. Well, let me leave you with this link to a video overview of the exhibit and the following anecdote about Matisse: In 1908, his patrons, the Steins, gave Matisse money to begin an art school in Paris. Eager to learn from the Fauve or "Wild Beast" behind such work as Woman with a Hat, Matisse's students were more than a little to surprised to discover that their teacher wanted them to copy ancient Greek statues and study the work of the Old Masters. Artists must learn the rules of color and composition before they can break them, Matisse maintained. That is, after all, how the radically inventive artist himself learned: Gustave Moreau taught Matisse to improve his technique by copying the Old Masters, and Matisse made his first income as artist by selling those copies.

Learn the rules before you break the them.

Good advice.
__________________________

Note: To see the works featured in the Fine Art Friday entries, you must click on the links that are provided. Chosen for its authority and/or clarity, each image link represents one of the most suitable of the many images of a particular work currently available on the web. The goal is to direct M-mv readers to an image that will offer sufficient detail -- enough to convey some sense of the work's appeal. Each Fine Art Friday also includes at least one link to an article or web item about the artist.

"[O]ften everyday life is sinister enough."

From "The Read: I'm Sorry, Ms. Jackson" (The New Republic, May 19):

Jackson’s fictional world is dominated by women: secretaries a bit past their prime and still unmarried, or mothers stuck at home with their children, longing for companionship yet terrified of their neighbors’ gossip. These stories almost always take place in interiors—houses, offices, apartments—and show a particular fascination for the efforts required in making a home: the grocery shopping, the painting and decorating, the small repairs. The men are notable mainly for their absence; it’s the women who perpetrate cruelties ranging from the petty to the shocking.

Hat tip: The Sheila Variations.
__________________________

We just got back from the Art Institute, which permits members-only access to "Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917" for the first hour after the museum opens each day, as well as Thursday and Friday evenings, 5 to 8 p.m. More about the exhibit in a Fine Art Friday entry. Until then, though, two words -- highly recommended -- and a (somewhat) related news article: "On (Surprisingly Quiet) Parisian Night, a Picasso and a Matisse Go Out the Window" (NYT, May 20).

Sonnets

❧ Sonnet XIII
❧ Sonnet XIV
❧ Sonnet XV
❧ Sonnet XVI
❧ Sonnet XVII
❧ Sonnet XVIII

Related entry: "In this distracted globe..."

Challenge the conventional wisdom

This NYT article is interesting, but in focusing on alternatives for students who may not have the skill set required to finish, let alone excel in, college, it neglects to discuss non-traditional choices for academically well-equipped students who simply seek paths other than one directly from secondary to higher education.

They're having a very good year.

Miss M-mv(i) and Miss M-mv(ii) earned first- and second-place honors, respectively, in their division in the piano competition.

Yes, they competed in the same division, and, yes, I am as proud of their support and love for one another as I am of all of the work and preparation that led to their excellent performances.

Good stuff, folks. Good stuff.

"Dudes, listen: Our lives suck."

Also from the "I ❤ Hurley (and Charlie and Jin and, yes, Sawyer -- definitely Sawyer)" files:

Sonnets

❧ Sonnet VIII
❧ Sonnet IX
❧ Sonnet X
❧ Sonnet XI
❧ Sonnet XII

Related entry: "In this distracted globe..."

"I got troubles, lord, but not today"

Don't get me wrong: I actually like Jacob and the Man in Black. (And I still don't think we can ascribe good to one and evil to the other quite as easily as some would like us to believe, by the way.) But when I turn back to the beginning of this sprawling, sometimes wonderful, sometimes infuriating narrative, I wonder if it isn't a bad idea, to add the frame after you've told each of the traveler's tales.

If you know what I mean.

A seemingly unrelated aside: It's no wonder that Stephen King is such a fan of the series, is it? Its run is not unlike some of King's best early novels -- that is, sprawling, sometimes wonderful, sometimes infuriating. Right? In fact, watching "Lost" reminds me of my first time reading The Stand: The last third began much too slowly and then raced to a conclusion that was reasonably satisfying, even if it didn't address every question raised. The middle third was serviceable but enough with this and that minor and/or superfluous character already; get back to the ones I really want to hear about. And the first third? The best. The ultimate achievement in engrossing, thought-provoking, and, yes, entertaining storytelling.

Yeah, just like that.

More synthesis, synchronicity, serendipity

After an impromptu lesson on Bradbury, we read "All Summer in a Day" and then watched a short film based on the story.

■ Part One
■ Part Two
■ Part Three

The subsequent discussion included pointed observations about endings (Bradbury's thought-provoking, open-to-interpretation conclusion -- "They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out." -- and the cathartic, yes, but ultimately sentimental and false close of the film adaptation) and a spirited retelling of my experience meeting director Henning Carlsen (because despite his self-contradiction, he made an excellent point about the relationship between adaptations and the works that inspired them).

It was a good day. A very good day, indeed.

Synthesis. Synchronicity. Serendipity.

In "The Moral Life of Babies" (NYT Magazine, May 3, 2010), Paul Bloom, professor of psychology at Yale, tells readers, "A growing body of evidence, though, suggests that humans do have a rudimentary moral sense from the very start of life."

He concludes:

Morality, then, is a synthesis of the biological and the cultural, of the unlearned, the discovered and the invented. Babies possess certain moral foundations — the capacity and willingness to judge the actions of others, some sense of justice, gut responses to altruism and nastiness. Regardless of how smart we are, if we didn’t start with this basic apparatus, we would be nothing more than amoral agents, ruthlessly driven to pursue our self-interest. But our capacities as babies are sharply limited. It is the insights of rational individuals that make a truly universal and unselfish morality something that our species can aspire to.

I was reminded of his article this morning while reading "Mythologist of Our Age," Slate's celebration of Ray Bradbury's oeuvre. Why? Because while babies may possess an instinctive moral compass, however primitive, children can be so cruel, can't they? And Bradbury gave us one of the most profound illustrations of their capacity for cruelty -- or at least their thorough lack of compassion -- in "All Summer in a Day":

They walked slowly down the hall in the sound of the cold rain. They turned through the doorway to the room in the sound of the storm and thunder, lightening on their faces, blue and terrible. They walked over to the closest door slowly and stood by it.

Behind the closed door was only silence.

They unlocked the door, even more slowly, and let Margot out.

"Clutching at his chest, he gasped 'It is too good, too good!'"

From "Theory, Literature, Hoax" (NYT, April 29):

Holy inconsistency! Of course. It was precisely in the tumultuous play of contradictions, smeared all over like glow-in-the-dark goo, that the prank was lifted above the rank of banality to become brilliant. And who among us could fail to detect the erudite allusions swimming in the rich nonsense? Does the barber who shaves all and only those who do not shave themselves shave himself? Does the invalidity of all universal statements invalidate itself? I never doubted for a moment that the author of the hoax was acquainted with the more recondite researches in the paradoxes of self-referentiality, leading me to conclude that these high-minded high jinks had their source close to home.

Happy Mother's Day!

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

Sonnets

❧ Sonnet VI
❧ Sonnet VII

Related entry: "In this distracted globe..."

"Crows, on the other hand, show up and they try and figure it out."

Two years ago, Joshua Kelin gave a fascinating TEDTalk on the remarkable intelligence of crows. Yeah, I've recommended TED before. Maybe now you'll bookmark it, eh?

Fine Art Friday (Yes, on Thursday)

"Goodrich Bicycle Tires: "Best in the Long Run""

I know. I know. I've extolled Norman Rockwell's virtues before, but it's worth repeating. And I hope you took time to look -- really look -- at the image I linked. That little boy out front embodies exactly how I feel most days (not every day, but most) on the bike trail -- worry-free, wind-tossed, and incredibly, impossibly young.

■ I showed the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed.

■ My fundamental purpose is to interpret the typical American. I guess I am a story teller.

■ I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be. So I painted only the ideal aspects of it -- pictures in which there are no drunken slatterns or self-centered mothers -- only foxy grandpas who played baseball with the kids and boys who fished from logs and got up circuses in the backyard.

~ Norman Rockwell

This is the part where someone expects me to defend my abiding affection for and admiration of that alternately maligned ("Too sweet!") and celebrated ("Quintessentially American!") artist, whose name has become a sort of adjective for a version of American life that may exist only in our collective imagination.

Not rising to that bait. I adore Rockwell illustrations -- the subjects and the execution. To me, his art is like the writing of one of my favorite authors.

Crisp. Direct. Big-hearted. Insightful.

"Commonplaces never become tiresome," Rockwell once observed. "It is we who become tired when we cease to be curious and appreciative."

May you remain curious and appreciative. I know I will.

Sonnets

❧ Sonnet II
❧ Sonnet III
❧ Sonnet IV
❧ Sonnet V

Related entry: "In this distracted globe..."

"For a brief time before the ink dries, it’s possible to smudge what’s written."

From "How Our Brains Make Memories" (Smithsonian, May 2010):

One of the scientists who has done the most to illuminate the way memory works on the microscopic scale is Eric Kandel, a neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York City. In five decades of research, Kandel has shown how short-term memories—those lasting a few minutes—involve relatively quick and simple chemical changes to the synapse that make it work more efficiently. Kandel, who won a share of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, found that to build a memory that lasts hours, days or years, neurons must manufacture new proteins and expand the docks, as it were, to make the neurotransmitter traffic run more efficiently. Long-term memories must literally be built into the brain’s synapses. Kandel and other neuroscientists have generally assumed that once a memory is constructed, it is stable and can’t easily be undone. Or, as they put it, the memory is “consolidated.”

According to this view, the brain’s memory system works something like a pen and notebook. For a brief time before the ink dries, it’s possible to smudge what’s written. But after the memory is consolidated, it changes very little. Sure, memories may fade over the years like an old letter (or even go up in flames if Alzheimer’s disease strikes), but under ordinary circumstances the content of the memory stays the same, no matter how many times it’s taken out and read. Nader would challenge this idea.

Bad backyard birding pics

A murder of crows has been harassing the great horned owl who calls the tiny woods "home" all. day. long. In the (bad) photo below, you can see one of the raucous brood cawing right above the owl's head.


The poor guy/gal just wants to nap.


The blue jays are in on the action, too. "I'm bad, too, my corvid relatives!" they're shrieking. "I'm bad, too!" (I have no photo, bad or otherwise, of their antics.)

And the following pics? Well, taken this past Saturday, they're a wee bit better than the two previous images. I present the elusive male rose-breasted grosbeak. A missus has visited here several times over the last five years, but until this weekend, we had never espied the male. Isn't he nattily dressed?

Birdwatching

We had just gotten on the road to O'Hare and our adventures in Southern California. Mr. M-mv and the Misses were chatting animatedly as I drove along the primary route out of our tiny town, but I was quiet, watching a large bird flying nearby. Was it a heron? No. Was it a turkey vulture? No. Wait. It's coming closer. Its head is... white?!? No, it can't be. Not here. But, yes! I think it might just be... Closer, closer... "Oh, my god, guys! Look! It's a bald eagle!"

Only a few moments into our journey and already we had been detoured -- but happily so. We pulled into a small business complex and watched, transfixed. Apart from the zoo, we had never seen a live bald eagle.

How beautiful, and, yes, majestic. (To say nothing of unusual, if not rare for this area.) Wicked cool, folks. Wicked cool.

Hey, for those who are new to M-mv, I keep my life list here and our backyard list here.

Reading life review: April

■ Birds of California: Field Guide (Stan Tekiela)
Nature.
■ Birds of San Diego (Chris Fisher)
Nature.
■ Torrey Pines State Reserve, Third Edition
Nature.
These three books were my literary companions during our trip to Southern California.

■ One Second After (William R. Forstchen)
Fiction.
Billed as a book "so important it has become the topic of a congressional debate," this novel offers a compelling premise -- What would life be like if the country were crippled by EMPs? -- in prose so inelegant that I had to set it aside after only sixty pages. I had thought it would be the perfect airplane/airport book, but it didn't even rise to that low standard. Believe it or not, I do plan to finish it, though, since I want to know how it ends. WARNING: Some creative skimming may be involved.

■ Poems from the Like Free Zone (Taylor Mali)
Poetry, audiobook. I listened to this twice -- once in O'Hare and once in the air (from LAX to O'Hare). Mali is, in a word, brilliant, and I, like, love him? Heh, heh, heh.

■ Burnt Toast on Davenport Street (Tim Egan)
Read-aloud. This is one of my favorite books in all the world. Egan writes offbeat narratives and punctuates them with some of the quirkiest, most endearing illustrations I've ever found in a children's book. Other faves include Serious Farm, Metropolitan Cow, and Friday Night at Hodges' Cafe. (Do I need a note here to remind folks that reading aloud from old family favorites is a good -- nay, a grand idea, no matter how old the kids are? I sure hope not.)

■ Love in a Time of Homeschooling: A Mother and Daughter's Uncommon Year (Laura Brodie)
Memoir; education. Chapbook entry here.

■ An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)
YA fiction. 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.

■ Rules of the Road
I passed! Only one question wrong! Yay! More, my license photo is quite nice.

■ The New Global Student (Maya Frost)
Education (a re-read). 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.

■ Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes; an abridgment)
Classic. With the Misses. A serviceable retelling.

■ The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (Philip Pullman)
Fiction. Part of the Canongate myth series. Pullman attempts to (re)define the nature of writers and narrative using the greatest story ever told. By turns interesting... and irritating.

■ As You Like It (William Shakespeare)
Play, classic. With the Misses. This was our selection for celebrating Will's 446th birthday. We also (finally!) watched Branagh's film version and were deeply disappointed.

■ I Am Not a Serial Killer (Dan Wells)
YA fiction. No, John Wayne Cleaver is not a serial killer -- not yet, anyway. And this mixed-genre novel is not what you think. One word: Wow! I haven't met a sociopath this interesting since Joyce Carol Oates' Zombie.

■ The Other Family (Joanna Trollope)
Fiction. If you've never read Trollope, this is as good a novel to begin with as any other. She crafts quality prose and develops memorable characters. The phrase (pardon the cliché) "keenly observed" comes to mind when I think of her books -- this one, yes, and others I've enjoyed, including The Choir, A Village Affair, The Rector's Wife, The Men and the Girls, Other People’s Children, and Marrying the Mistress.
________________________

Note: The last nine titles in this review were completed during Girl Detective's 15/15/15 challenge. I had initially projected that I would complete seven books during the course of the challenge, so completing nine was more than a little satisfying.

"In this distracted globe..."

I moved through much of April feeling a little... distracted. We spent the first few days of the month (and the last few of March) in San Diego, exploring Torrey Pines, seeing our new Marine, and celebrating his graduation. We brought him home for a seventeen-day leave, which was, by turns, comfortable and easy (Hey! It's like he never left!) and something of an adjustment (But it's really not quite the same any more, is it?). Easter, an artists' reception, a field trip, and two evenings with Aunt M-mv. The Dobsonian telescope arrived! Then the new Marine departed on April 20, and that, too, was something of an adjustment -- for all of us. We celebrated Shakespeare's birthday, and then last week we celebrated mine, the latter of which celebration included plans with Aunt M-mv on Wednesday and a healthy dose of taking it easy (TRANSLATION: stopping by the bookstore that must not be named to spend assorted gift cards and going out to lunch using gift cash and cards).

Next thing I knew, it was May 1.

Make no mistake: The Misses and I had a productive month in terms of literature, math, and music. We were also out on the bike trail at least two dozen times. More, the yards and house are in good order.

But.

I was distracted enough that I forgot to enjoy National Poetry Month. And while I have always maintained that one doesn't need a plan or permission slip to celebrate poetry, it is fun to have one, and I had BIG plans for this past April.

And now it is May.
________________________

I have only read a few of Shakespeare's sonnets, and I can't say I adored the experience. Until recently, I would have maintained that if his work did, in fact, invent the human, the heavy-lifting was accomplished by the plays. But that's not a reader-thinker-autodidact speaking, is it?

No, it's not.

It is May 1, and I am no longer distracted. I plan to celebrate poetry by reading at least one of Shakespeare's sonnets daily until I have read all one hundred fifty-two of them. My companions on this journey will be Caedmon's recording of Sir John Gielgud reading these "most personal glimpses of the soul behind the genius that was Shakespeare," the Folger Shakespeare Library edition of the sonnets, and, yes, the "No Fear Shakespeare" edition of the sonnets.

Care to join me?

❧ Sonnet I

Chapbook entry

Love in a Time of Homeschooling (Laura Brodie)

p. 54
Still, long-term homeschooling held no allure for me. I wanted plenty of time for my own teaching and writing and solitude. One year was the limit of my excitement.
________________________

COMMENT: Interestingly, one of the many reasons long-term homeschooling held holds great allure for me is that I wanted plenty of time for my own reading, writing, thinking, and, yes, solitude.

p. 67
None of these authors described the daily struggles of homeschooling. They mulled over curricula and philosophies and all the flaws of traditional schools, but they didn't discuss the power struggles and irrational moments of fury that emerge in any family, however loving.

Maybe they wanted to protect their children's privacy. Maybe they didn't want to reveal their families dark sides. Or perhaps they all enjoy perfect parent-child relationships, with minimal arguing, whining, and teeth-nashing.
________________________

COMMENT: Or maybe it's some combination of the above, Laura: respecting the privacy of one's family members, protecting them from the others' ill- or uninformed judgment, and, yeah, enjoying some pretty durned good relationships.

p. 140
Fortunately, after a few conversations on the difference between good words and bad, Rachel had cleaned up her act, but I discovered over time that I didn't mind the occasional shit, damn, or crap so much as the shallow drivel that many elementary-age children were absorbing from American pop culture: daily discussions of who was cool and was not cool, whose clothes were pathetic, what boy was hot. Compared to all the gossip about social winners and losers, Rachel's second-grade profanity sounded downright eloquent.
________________________

COMMENT: Agreed.

p. 141
Homeschooling offered the chance to fill the gaps in my own education, let alone Julia's.
________________________

COMMENT: This is a fairly common observation among home educators. The opportunity to address the shortcomings of one's own educations is, after all, one of the great gifts of homeschooling.

p. 236
It might seem strange: you'd think that a ten-year-old would know how to ride a bike already. Most children master the feat somewhere between ages four and eight. But traffic on our road comes too fast to make the street a child's playground, and our neighborhood has no cohort of bike riding kids to inspire my girls. Our house is situated too far from town for a child to ride a bike to school or the library, and most of our family excursions take place on mountain trails, not roads suitable for bikes. As a result, none of my girls had learned how to ride a bike, an omission that nagged at my conscience.
________________________

COMMENT: We thought they'd learn when we moved to the little house in the tiny woods on the prairie, but they ended up learning how canter and jump...


... a couple of years before they learned to ride bikes. And that's okay (even if some folks do think it's strange).

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