Brownian Movement

beautiful bookstores

2012-02-01T22:03:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure all these bookstores qualify as beautiful, but at least almost all of them are interesting.

why one shouldn't self-publish

2012-02-01T21:59:00.000-05:00

Here are four rather good reasons not to self-publish. I'm still trying to learn the "stop hurrying" suggestion.

authors don't know literature

2012-02-01T21:58:00.000-05:00

OK, so the title of this post is a bit smarmy, but I really have to differ with the 125 famous authors who chose the greatest books of all time. This list is predictable, for the most part, as it chooses primarily difficult books and primarily modernist works. It seems the hold the modernists have over this generation of writers is fairly clear, which is disappointing. Note also that there are no poets or collections of poems and the only authors they list from their 125 are fiction writers. And is Faulkner really the only American author to get into the top 10? Just sad.

how to eat

2012-02-01T21:53:00.002-05:00

Michael Pollan (who's coming to Chattanooga in April, by the way) gives some helpful hints on how to eat better. My favorite: Don't buy any cereal that makes your milk turn a different color.

sad news

2012-02-01T21:51:00.002-05:00

Wislawa Szymborska, the Polish poet who won the Nobel prize in 1996, has died. She was one of the first poets I read and enjoyed, even at a time when I had no idea how to read contemporary poetry. I found her poem, "Some Like Poetry," in The New Yorker, and I carried it from one city to another as I moved around trying not to be a teacher or writer. I became both, so I now share that poem with my students. I was recently told that her influence was clearly in my poetry, which I can only take as a compliment. It's time to go back and read more of her work.

coming out at a Christian college

2012-01-31T21:57:00.000-05:00

Oddly enough, my classes and I talked about homophobia on a Christian campus today, and I then ran across this article via Facebook. More and more students are talking about their experiences on Christian college campuses and how they dealt with their time there, and I think such conversations can only be good, as it's one of the main issues we don't talk about these days. Then again, part of me doesn't want to talk about it, as the talking has often been filled with hate and fear. That seems to be changing; at least I hope it is. More stories can only help. Here's one more.

texting run amok

2012-01-31T21:54:00.000-05:00

It seems that people text pretty much anywhere these days. In case you were wondering, here's research on how people use their cell phones while in the bathroom.

how this year will be different

2012-01-21T22:18:00.000-05:00

My resolution for this year is to accomplish less, as I felt like I spread myself too thin last year, and I just wasn't happy by the end of the year. As such, I won't be updating this blog with the regularity I did last semester. My writing will still show up on a regular basis, but other content really won't. I hate that, as I enjoyed the conversations some of the articles started both here and on Facebook, but the blog is just one of the things that will have to suffer to help me find better balance in life. I hope you understand.

poems from Murray

2012-01-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

I did my final residency for my MFA last week, so I've been spending this week working on revisions. I'll have more revisions coming next week (I hope), as I get ready to send off the first draft of my thesis to my mentor. I'm not going to post the originals of these, as some of them barely resemble these and some of them would have several drafts at this point. However, any and all feedback is appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Jack Has Not Outgrown Everything

The night I turned ten, I felt the weight
of a life with double digits, despite
being surrounded by Star Wars sheets,
a lightsaber on the table beside
me. Perhaps it was because I had learned
that even Darth Vader could die. Perhaps
it was because my friends spoke of funerals,

where sisters who had punched them, pulled their hair
would cry over their coffins, and cousins
who had left them out of their games of hide
and seek or ghosts in the graveyard would now
regret every moment of fun they had
ever had. I thought such feelings were like
the puberty teenagers talked about,

something to be passed through, gotten over
by the time I turned twenty. When I turned
ten, I was told to let my imaginary
friends—Timmy and Tommy, the twins—fade away,
but they grew up with me, got jobs working
the graveyard shift, spend weekends on the couch,
watch basketball, always cheer for the underdog.

Jack Receives Spam Promising an Enhancement Bonus

I know I’ve lost a little spring,
left behind the half-step in the half-court,
one of my many moves I once had,
left it like it was nothing more than my high school

yearbook from my freshman year, chosen
Most Likely to Succeed, posed for the picture.
My peers paired me with the geekiest girl,
the one who worked on physics on the bus,

calculated vectors and force while we
made ice into projectiles, launched them
from open windows, measured the force
of our fun. She wore her best black dress,

a silver bow in the back matched her braces;
my tie, slightly loosened, as thin as her lips,
my jacket as blue as the Miami Vice
sky, my smile as bright as my condescension.

She wrote beside our picture in handwriting
that looped around our names: Stay true to yourself
and you’ll go far. But I know no pill
or powder will give me the frisson

I felt following fourteen-point quarter
or when whatever girlfriend I was with
giggled like every other girl I knew,
touched my arm, told me I was too much,
just too much.

Jack Practices Diplomacy

I have given away a lifetime of lives
already, traded ten years in a teenage
auto accident, wanted to watch my parents
retire, sit outside a condo in Cancun,
tell embarrassing stories about my siblings

and me, at least. And when my gall bladder
gave out in my early thirties—thought I
was having a heart attack or someone
had found a way to adjust my aorta

with a crescent wrench—I told it to take
twenty, even thirty years, just for five
more, maybe ten. But now I have found
my forties, know my end is inevitable,

if not as near as I feel, I have changed
my approach, send diplomats to death
like a dad in a divorce does lawyers,
thinking only, Not the children. Please,
not the children, anymore.

What Jack Refuses to Focus On

His father’s fall as he went to the mailbox
one morning; shelves of Lean Cuisine spaghetti,
lasagna, French bread pizza, chicken with sugar
snap peas, devil’s food cake, banana pudding,
cherries jubilee; reports he did not run

on Friday afternoon, Monday morning
starts at six; a new location for Lowe’s,
built on land where his elementary
school spread out for sixty-two years before
the bigger one was built on highway

64; the water stain on the seventh
ceiling tile, resembles Florida, maybe
Maryland; his spin move to the basket
that still works, most of the time, the way his back
feels the following day, reminding him

how he should have said no when his friends forced
him to play; the doctor’s appointment
his HMO makes for him, as if his mother
still scheduled his life; plaid slippers his father
once wore to pick up the paper every
morning, the right one always slightly in front

of the left, as if eager to see what had
happened over night; the twenty-four-year-old
in the office down the hall, whose ideas move
women and men toward him, move management
to notice him, not others; computers that can do taxes
while playing chess and carrying on

a conversation; the barking cough that couldn’t
be cancer; the forty-six-year-old police
officer who had a heart attack while walking
his dog—reporters said what they always say:
completely unexpected, unpredictable,
no one saw this coming, had just been to

the doctor; the CPA exam he failed
five times; Hackney Distribution’s account
he has been unable to balance for two
months, stares at columns so long they slide from side
to side like his childhood television

when the vertical hold went out; finding
his mother’s hearing aids in the kitchen
trash, just beneath a banana she only ate
half of; the scar on Ryan’s skull; the metallic
ping knocking on the underside of his hood.

a few revised poems

2011-12-28T14:52:00.000-05:00

These poems didn't change much from their last draft, so I'll just skip putting the originals up. Any feedback is appreciated, as always. Thanks for reading.

Your Voice, Crying

Like the lepers, you lived
in the desert
of your diagnosis, the solitude
of your despair, but you heard the voice
of one who told you of a time
when your crooked life
would be made straight, when your tests
would return results that showed
only joy
in your body.

And when your prophet proved
true, you knew you had not felt
before, that the scans
showing nothing
left in your body
could never show
everything
that mattered.

Unfinished Business

Multi-talented, you moved
from one area to another as if changing
shoes. When you wrote, your first
chapters flowed as if you had dreamt

your muse the night before, arranged
arguments and analyses like dominoes--
perfectly placed and perfectly spaced--
that would fall at the flick of your finger,
but you left them there, moved

to music, getting to the second
movement of your symphony, just beginning
to develop your theme, which affected
all of us who heard you humming

the week you worked on it, until you moved
to art, then languages and linguistics,
and on and on until you left

college altogether, your dorm room door
ajar, a keyboard in the corner, canvas askew
on an easel, pen and paper on your desk,
a dictionary open beside your half-written

page of Sanskrit, left us to wonder where
you had gone, left us to turn in completed
tests and papers with inadequate answers.

Immaculate

Your parents tried to protect
you, attempted to save you
from sin they saw surrounding
you: sharp objects irresistibly attracted

to your open eye; lead-paint-lined
toys; and boys, of course.
So they provided you with extra
padding: pillows in your child

safety seat; homemade games
with corners sanded smoothly
into curves; and boys who were pre-approved,
as if they were credit cards

for you to use in appropriate situations.
But when you passed from
their presence, when the hard life
dug into the soft spots

of who you had become,
when he and she played a game
whose rules you did not know,

you wondered whether it had been worth it,
wondered what life could be like
with sin and salvation.

eggnog winner

2011-12-20T22:00:00.000-05:00

The other day, I posted about a race where one drinks eggnog while running a mile. It has now been run, and you can read about the race and winner here.

more lectionary revisions

2011-12-16T13:42:00.000-05:00

I'm continuing to work on my older series of poems, and it's clear I really needed to work on endings, as I find myself focused on those more than anything else. It's easy to see in "Ars Poetica" that I was teaching both Wallace Stevens and Rainer Maria Rilke that semester. Thanks for reading.

Ars Poetica

Though iconoclasts have shattered
our images, we still see

the branch that blooms only when winter comes,
on Christmas Eve,
even in a bottle we keep on the kitchen
table, still see the jar
that sets the wilderness ajar,

becomes the center
of our universe, as we revolve
around it, even see gentians
growing in Germany, always on the slope
of the same mountain. Though the images
are fractured, even though our tongues

are coated with bitterness, and we only smell
the acrid air
we continue to choose to breathe,
we still speak

the unthinkable,
touch what others are unable
to hear, write words in sand
even the earth attempts to erase.

Comedy is Tragedy That Happens to Other People

Like Adam and Eve, I have been tempted,
tasted the red apple--or banana or fig
or whatever it was--but not
by knowledge; no, knowledge is no

temptation today. Instead, cheap
fame, my name on the radio, the illusion
of reality on television, but I don’t need
a laugh track, funny enough
on my own, though some sympathy

oohs and aahs for emotional
moments would help create
character. I want the sitcom
wife, exasperated and frustrated

by my foibles, loves me; everyone
laughs aloud until my moral
message, twenty minutes after opening
credits, as if I were Mr. Keaton or Judge

Philip Banks, deliver wisdom I wish
I had in fifteen-second sound bites
that will live for all eternity

of syndication, save teenagers
from tough times so they will sing my praises
every time they hear the theme song.

The Man Who Was Almost a Man

You went from Tennessee to Texas
to Tacoma, never finding any of them
far enough

from families and friends
you were fleeing, as they did not define you
as you wished; you saw yourself

as a seer, a prophet of philosophy,
speaking as the first to stumble
onto ontology, while we told stories

of a boy trapped in a bathroom at Burger King,
so small you could not open
the door, cried out through the crack

for help, or when you allowed ground ball
after ground ball to pass you
as you drew in the infield dirt, sat

picking your nose. So you tried Taiwan
and Tibet, hoped to reincarnate your
reputation before returning to us

as a missionary for your newfound
maturity, but the boy in the baseball cap
kept tugging at your shirt

tail, saying he was tired
of playing, just wanted
to go home.

new word

2011-12-16T12:40:00.000-05:00

Today's Wondermark not only shows the jealousy that writers feel, it also uses the word "glummifying," which is awesome.

just stop

2011-12-16T12:39:00.000-05:00

Here is a list of 30 things you should stop doing to yourself. While I'm not sure I agree with all of them, suggestions like "Stop trying to be someone you're not," "Stop being idle," and "Stop blaming others for your troubles" are pretty good advice.

eggnog and running

2011-12-16T12:37:00.000-05:00

There are several runs that involve food, with the Krispy Kreme Challenge probably the best known, but now it seems one can try to drink eggnog and run a mile. I would say that that sounds easy, but it doesn't, nor does it sound pleasant. I'm perfectly willing to suffer by running mile after mile, but don't make me drink eggnog while doing it.

some older poems, revised

2011-12-14T18:49:00.000-05:00

A woman read one of my poems for the devotion at a church meeting last night (which makes me terribly proud, self-conscious, and slightly mortified all at the same time), and it prodded me to do some more revision work on some older poems from that series (old here is about two years, by the way). Thus, here are some I worked on today. Thanks for reading.

That Kind of Customer (original)

We order hope like it’s a ham
and cheese sandwich, only toasted whole
wheat, no lettuce
and light on the mayo. In difficult
situations we try to order off
menu, create a cuisine
that will comfort us, that will provide all
the sustenance we think we need
or deserve, while taking away
from the tip for every misstep, as if God
were a server
and short-order cook combined,
when he actually meets us at the door,
hands us a hairnet and a handful
of recipes, then points
us to the kitchen.

That Kind of Customer (revision)

We order hope like a ham
and cheese sandwich, only
on toasted whole
wheat, no lettuce, light

on the mayo. We try
to order off menu, create
a cuisine of comfort—meatloaf
and macaroni and cheese—
so heavy we want to sleep

until the next meal. For
every misstep, we take
away from the tip, as if
God were a server and

short-order cook combined,
when he actually meets us
at the door, hands us a hairnet
and a handful of recipes,
points us to the kitchen.

Animal Husbandry (original)

In the early winter, we speak of peace
so often it seems we are Miss America

on message or some Salvation
Army Santa Claus outside

the supermarket, yet we put peace
off, as if it were a chore, like cleaning

out the closet or emptying
the recycling; we push peace
to some unforeseeable future, pass it along

to some savior who will deliver it
to our table, as if it is cream for the coffee we ordered
for dessert, as if the lamb and lion will lie down

with one another
without any work

from us to help them make
the transition, as if we had the words

to say to them,
to tell them
what they need
to know, at least not yet.

Animal Husbandry (revision)

In early winter, we speak of peace
so often it seems we are Miss America

on message or some Salvation
Army Santa Claus outside

the supermarket, yet we put peace
off, as if a chore, like cleaning

out the closet, emptying
the recycling; we push peace

to some unforeseeable future, pass it along
to some savior who will deliver it

to our table, as if cream for the coffee we ordered
for dessert, as if the lamb and lion will lie down

with one another without any work
from us to help them make

the transition, as if we had the words
to say to them, to tell them what they need
to know, as if one word were all they needed.

Fleurs d’Espoir (original)

When we remember the cactus
that bloomed when it could not remember

rain or the gentians that grow from the frost
of the far side
of the mountain, we must speak hope

into existence, speak the word
into the world, rolling the o

in our mouths as if it contained the sweetness
of a kiss, letting the oh break forth

from our souls, letting the softness
of the sound sneak into the hardness
of our hearts, breaking apart brothers

who bicker, then binding them
again in the belief
that flowers can flourish

for at least a day, even in the driest desert,
even in the darkest
corner of our hearts, even
in the empty words we share.

Fleurs d’Espoir (revision)

In between eyewitness accounts
of war and tales of theft and murder
and mistrust, we read of a cactus
that bloomed when it could not remember

rain and gentians that grow from the frost
of the far side
of the mountain, and so we speak hope

into existence, rolling the o
in our mouths as if it contained the sweetness
of a kiss, let the oh break forth
from our souls, the softness

of the sound sneaking into the hardness
of our hearts, breaking apart brothers
who bicker, then binding them
again in the belief

that flowers can flourish
for at least a day, even in the driest desert,
even in the darkest corner

of our hearts, even in the empty
words we write.

always a good subject

2011-12-14T18:33:00.004-05:00

Comics about Moby-Dick are always worthwhile. Pardon My Planet has one of the more interesting takes on the subject, though.

year-end movie list

2011-12-14T18:33:00.000-05:00

Now that lists of books are beginning to abate (though not much), movie lists are starting to pop up. This one from The Atlantic has some interesting comments, including naming The Muppets the most political movie of the year.

sparking discussion or controversy (or both)

2011-12-14T18:31:00.000-05:00

A church in New Zealand has a billboard up with Mary (the mother of Jesus, not one of the others) with a positive pregnancy test in her hand. The church says that they're trying to "avoid the sentimental [and] trite" and to "spark thought and conversation." They've definitely avoided sentimentality. Of course, a billboard from two years ago with Joseph and Mary in bed was defaced, so this year's billboard seems to be faring better.

slightly sacrilegious

2011-12-10T22:17:00.000-05:00

So, this post might just be a bit sacrilegious, but it's still pretty funny. You might recall the hoo-ha about Rick Perry's recent ad about gays in the military (and kids not being able to celebrate Christmas in schools or some such odd connection). Here's one article about that ad (there are plenty more), and here's the actual ad. Now, here's a parody, where Jesus responds to Perry's ad (the bad acting and appearance of "Jesus" is humorous enough, but the parody is also just pretty funny).

bilingual punning

2011-12-09T21:55:00.000-05:00

Pearls Before Swine has a good strip today that involves French, cereal, and language. That's always a good combination.

millionaire job creators?

2011-12-09T21:53:00.000-05:00

NPR did a great story this morning where they went looking for some of the millionaire job creators who are opposed to the tax on them that President Obama is suggesting. The problem is that they couldn't find any, even asking Republican congressional offices and business groups lobbying against the tax. When they finally did find some millionaire business owners via Facebook, they either said that they weren't concerned about the tax or that they supported it. This would be funny if it weren't a real issue in our lives.

self-publishing success

2011-12-09T21:47:00.003-05:00

I'm not a big fan of self-publishing, as I can easily see how it would lead an already crowded market to become even more so; however, I also remember that Whitman self-published Leaves of Grass, and that turned out reasonably well. Here's one success story from more recent times. What I notice, though, is how many of these works are clearly genre fiction. In fact, I recently read that Romance books are far and away the best sellers in ebook format. Oddly enough, poetry doesn't get a mention.

watch what you drink

2011-12-08T21:57:00.000-05:00

Runners at the Las Vegas Marathon said that they got some bad water during the race. Really bad water. Running 26.2 miles is difficult enough; running it after throwing up several times is almost impossible. I'll be curious to see if anything happens after all of this, but I'm really glad I wear a fuel belt.

what about Y and W?

2011-12-08T21:55:00.002-05:00

It seems, as the title of this blog post suggests, "Vowels Control Your Brain." You've been warned.

cult films

2011-12-08T21:54:00.000-05:00

If you're looking for some cult films to watch, here are 100. I have no idea what classifies as a cult film, though, as Star Wars somehow ends up on a list with movies like Brazil. Everyone in the comments section seems put out that The Princess Bride got left off, which is humorous.

science and superheroes

2011-12-07T21:23:00.000-05:00

Here's a pretty good article about making our disciplines more accessible to people. In this case, a scientist uses Batman and Iron Man to help people understand how our minds, bodies, and technology work (or don't).

what, exactly, do they want?

2011-12-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

Employers say that colleges don't prepare graduates for the workplace, but I'm not really sure what it is they want. They mention critical thinking and adaptability, but when I looked at the overall results of the survey, I still couldn't find anything more specific than phrases, such as "key skills." I'm of the mind that our job isn't to prepare them for specific jobs (unless they're in something that is designed for a specific job, such as teacher certification, for example), but I'm also aware that we need to help get our students to a point where they can get a job. Perhaps some better communication about what it is employers want would help (and isn't "employers" rather vague?).

I could give an answer

2011-12-07T21:14:00.000-05:00

If I see an article titled "Why Americans Spend Too Much," I could answer that with something as simple as "Because we're a bunch of greedy bastards." But that could just be me. This interview from NPR gives a more nuanced answer.

more on the Vonnegut biography

2011-12-07T21:09:00.000-05:00

It seems that Mark Vonnegut doesn't much like the new biography of his father by Charles Shields. I'll be interested to read it, as Kurt Vonnegut never portrayed himself all that positively to begin with.

for the title, if no other reason

2011-12-07T21:07:00.000-05:00

You should read this very brief note at The Rumpus for the title alone. Beyond that, though, is does a good job of reminding us of why Amazon is awful.

if I had enough time

2011-12-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

Here's a short essay about the pleasures of re-reading books. I wish I had the time to go back and read a long list of them, but people keep writing more and more good work (see previous post, for example).

more best fiction

2011-12-07T21:03:00.000-05:00

This list from Laura Miller at Salon looks quite good. I already had most of these on my list, but I'm checking to make sure I've got the top 5, as I want to read them all. When is the question, of course.

thoughts on acting and art

2011-12-06T22:18:00.000-05:00

John Lithgow on NPR talking about how he became an actor and what he tells younger people considering the field. My favorite quote from the website easily relates to writers, as well, "Chances are, you will never get a chance to follow through on these ambitious projects, but the reason will be someone has finally hired you to act. But in the meantime, you have kept yourself alive with just creative energy. You have given yourself hope that you can accomplish something. It's very important to stay creative and not simply to wait around for people to want you." Instead of sitting around waiting to be discovered, we need to be creating. Good idea.

a couple of paired poems

2011-12-05T22:04:00.000-05:00

These are actually revisions of two poems from the current series I'm working on. However, the originals aren't really needed to see what I'm doing here. I was trying to clean one of them up, certainly, but I also needed to make the connection between the two stronger, as they come one right after the other in the series. I hope that's clearer now. As always, any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Jack Reminisces With an Old Friend

Those twenty years
younger tell me I’m being left
behind, try to turn me to their
technology--would label me
a Luddite, if they knew what

one was—their iPhones and
Blackberries buzzing with breaking
business, while I wait for email
to load; they Skype with clients I can’t find

in the phone book. But I remember
what I was told two decades ago;
a young man from the mail
room--no hot shot Harvard grad--
would walk with me to lunch,

even after he passed me with his
first promotion on his path
to company president, told me
what Willy Loman was told

was wrong, that who you know
must matter. He tells me even now,
every Wednesday when we meet
for drinks, the only forty-five minutes

his phone is silent, talk about the lives
we once lived, when we sat and
sorted mail for more important
men: I, complaining of tedium

and low pay; he, wondering what
work they did on the weekends,
what kind of whiskey they had
in their office, has said its name
every Wednesday for twenty years.

Jack Hears Some Helpful Financial Advice

Walking to Wednesday
drinks, she stopped us--
a young woman wearing hemp
shorts and Chacos, a smile

reminding me she was not working
in the middle of the week--
asked us to give to a good cause.
Though no longer a young man
from the mail room, he felt the need
to explain his reluctance:

But I had a recent retirement rollover, you see; I’ll grant the goodness of the cause, do not disagree, but my money must move, not play dead like a dog, need new tricks to keep up. And gas has gone up again; a fill-up for my Ford Ranger costs as much as my monthly payment, or almost. Of course, I want a cure for cancer, a means to a medicine to ameliorate MS symptoms or whatever it was you said, but now is not the time to tap my resources.

Walking away, he found
a five in his pocket,
produced it with the joy

Jonas Salk must have felt,
backtracked, handed
it to her humbly.

smarter than a 10th-grader

2011-12-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

An adult took the test designed for 10th graders, supposedly to test whether or not they are performing at grade level or not. He did not do very well. I've thought about doing the same thing with the GRE, actually, just to see how I would do.

still loving books

2011-12-05T21:30:00.000-05:00

In William Pannapacker's latest essay for The Chronicle of Higher Education, he talks about why we still love books. It was a nice reminder of the things that books evoke that their digital counterparts do not. It caused me to remember some books I still own, along with the notes and marginalia that have accumulated there over the years, not all from me, of course. It also made me want to go browse an old used bookstore.

what NPR personalities look like

2011-12-05T21:28:00.000-05:00

I suppose you could just do a search and see what NPR folks look like (I'm always surprised, I'll confess), but it's a lot more fun to see what Gaelan Kelly thinks they look like. Here's Part I and Part II.

just waiting to fall

2011-12-04T21:50:00.002-05:00

Cul de Sac has the tinsel of Damocles in today's comic. Do I really need to give you another reason you should be reading this comic?

what pronouns tell us

2011-12-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

Given this count of most frequently used words in speech and writing, I'm not surprised we think the world is all about us.

cultural relativism run amok

2011-12-04T21:47:00.000-05:00

Overall, I agree with this article's argument, as I don't think we should ever get to a point where we accept anything just because a particular culture says it's appropriate (if anyone comes after me with a knife and fork, I assure you I won't be responding with cultural acceptance). However, I do have to nitpick some wording from when O'Leary writes, "One outcome has been the popular convention that all cultures are of equal value." I do believe that all cultures are of equal value, just as I agree that all people are of equal value. That does not, however, mean that all cultures are equally right or just in the same way that all people are equally right or just. In the context of the article, I see the point being made, but the wording makes it rather problematic. And thanks to RC for pointing me to this article.

answers to questions you might have wanted to ask

2011-12-03T21:28:00.000-05:00

Rachel Held Evans has been running a series on her blog simply called "Ask a ..." series. One of the more popular installments is the Ask a Gay Christian interview, where readers posed questions to Justin Lee, the director of The Gay Christian Network. If you're interested in such issues, you should give it a read.

not a fan of haiku

2011-12-03T21:15:00.000-05:00

I've never thought much of haiku as an art form (though I'm open to being convinced), but the combination of haiku and traffic signs actually is fairly interesting. I especially like the Keats reference (you know, he was known for his haiku (haikus? haiki?). Thanks to Mox for this one.

technology comics

2011-12-03T20:23:00.000-05:00

Both Pearls Before Swine and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal have their takes on technology today.

quotes from Rebecca Solnit

2011-12-03T16:14:00.001-05:00

I didn't enjoy Rebecca Solnit's A Field Guide to Getting Lost as much as I did her earlier book on walking (Wanderlust), but it still had its moments. Here are several quotes I found interesting.

“Leave the door open to the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.”

“Love, wisdom, grace, inspiration—how do you go about finding these things that are in some ways about extending the boundaries of the self into unknown territory, about becoming someone else?”

Explorers “were always lost, because they’d never been to these places before. They never expected to know exactly where they were. Yet, at the same time, many of them knew their instruments pretty well and understood their trajectories within a reasonable degree of accuracy. in my opinion, their most important skill was simply a sense of optimism about surviving and finding their way.”

“The important thing is not that Elijah might show up someday. The important thing is that the doors are left open to the dark every year. Jewish tradition holds that some questions are more significant than their answers, and such is the case with this one.”

“Most of hem [childhood memories] have grown fainter with time, and whenever I write one down, I give it away: it ceases to have the shadowy life of memory and becomes fixed in letters; it ceases to be mine; it loses that mobile unreliability of the live…”

“Sometimes an old photograph, an old friend, an old letter will remind you that you are not who you once were, for the person who dwelt among them, valued this, chose that, wrote thus, no longer exists. Without noticing it you have traversed a great distance; the strange has become familiar and the familiar if not strange at least awkward or uncomfortable, an outgrown garment.”

“Maybe writing is its own desert, its own wilderness.”

“There isn’t a story to tell, because a relationship is a story you construct together and take up residence in, a story as sheltering as a house.”

“…awareness of ignorance is not just ignorance; it’s awareness of knowledge’s limits.”

“To destroy false notions, without even going any further, is one of the ways to advance knowledge.”

“Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don’t—and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown.”

good news for Humanities folks

2011-12-01T21:41:00.000-05:00

At least according to the MLA, jobs in the Humanities are supposed to increase this year. Of course, that does little to help the scores of adjuncts who have had to piece work together for years and will probably continue doing so, but at least it's improvement.

too simplistic

2011-12-01T21:39:00.000-05:00

So it seems that the brains of conservatives and liberals are different. Not surprisingly, liberals' brains lean more towards understanding complexity, while conservatives' brains are more focused on processing fear. As much as I would like to simply believe that's true, it seems way too obvious to me. Life just usually doesn't work out that cut-and-dried. Then again, perhaps I'm just simply trying to understand complexity instead of being afraid.

still more best books

2011-12-01T21:37:00.000-05:00

Here are five books that "stay with you" (that sounds like a hearty meal, by the way). I'm looking forward to reading Barnes' new book, and here's Fielding's book yet again. As much as I love Moby-Dick, I don't think I'll read Moby-Duck.

bar jokes and grammar

2011-12-01T21:35:00.002-05:00

From McSweeney's, here are seven bar jokes involving grammar or punctuation.

Superman's face carries culture

2011-12-01T21:34:00.000-05:00

It seems that one can trace changes in culture by looking at the way different artists drew Superman's face, from his incarnation in 1938 to now. I like this approach, as it reminds us of how art not only shapes culture, but also reflects it.

it's what?

2011-12-01T21:33:00.000-05:00

The word of the year, at least according to Dictionary.com, is tergiversate. Of course it is. What I really like is that they found a couple of news articles that actually use it. No wonder no one's reading the paper or magazines these days, with words like that in them. We might actually have to look them up.

more best books

2011-12-01T21:30:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year when a number of people are listing the best books of the year. Here's a list of 10 from The New York Times. I've now added The Art of Fielding to my reading list, as it keeps getting mentioned.

say the wrong word, get slapped

2011-12-01T21:28:00.002-05:00

I've long been bothered by the slang use of the term "gay" to mean "lame" or something similar (in fact, in one of my high school teaching jobs, I accused students in a letter to the editor of the school newspaper as being "intolerant bigots," but the letter didn't run). Here's an 8th-grader who has created a public service announcement about it, which is rather humorous (and poorly acted, as one might expect).

and I thought I was hurting

2011-12-01T21:27:00.000-05:00

I was certainly in pain after my marathon a couple of weeks ago, so I can't imagine how Garrath Douglas is going to feel after running two marathons in one day. Oh, and they're in two different states. He has to finish the first in under 3:30 (!) to catch his flight to the second one. He's doing it for a charity, though, so I'm glad to see he's suffering for a good cause.

minor revisions

2011-11-30T21:41:00.000-05:00

These poems from my latest series were mainly suffering from point-of-view issues and a bit of clarity. Thus, I'm not even going to post the originals, as the problems with these don't make a good deal of sense without looking at many more poems from the series. However, if you have suggestions on how to make them better stand-alone poems, feel free to comment. Thanks for reading.

Jack Walks Inside to Avoid Heat and Humidity

I wake an hour early
every morning,
pace the treadmill,
measure pressure

and pulse, know what causes
it to rise, know what
the day will entail: co-workers
who cannot function

during Monday morning
meetings, hungover from
their weekends, forty- and fifty-year-olds free

from their college-aged kids,
who behave like their
parents, vice versa;
long-term insurance
options in Human Resources,
my parents too poor

to purchase, so someone must
plan for their future,
and mine; dinner meetings
with managers who mumble

and grumble about their
stocks and bonds that bind
them to happiness, or gas
companies who gouge their

wallets--hit me where it
hurts--I, too, compelled to contribute,
commiserate for commitment.
The treadmill chirps like birds

that nest outside, beside sidewalks,
each mile,
each minute moving
behind me, the same stretch
of rubber road
meets my feet again and again.

Jack is Rudely Awakened

The four a.m. phone call comes
like a heart attack, like my heart stops
before it starts again, a straight line
of coke and caffeine. But I have not

died, nor has anyone I know,
as far as I knows, nothing
more than a motel’s malfunctioning
phone, the same as the sink

stopper with a slow leak, will make
the morning shave more difficult,
get what I pay for when I want
a weekend away from work

and home. No one knows
the number here to call,
tell me if death has come
as it does, like a four a.m.

phone call or like the long letters
my seventh-grade girlfriend
Gloria used to write in the summers,
describing every detail of her day—
the taste and appearance of her paste-like

oatmeal or soggy, sugar-laden
cereal, turned the milk blue or brown before
she ate it to the kiss she gave
a stuffed bear named Bonzo, fuzz-laden lips

she only stopped moving when
asleep—letters whose endings I knew
before the beginning, knew before
I turned the twelfth

or thirteenth perfectly
perforated page, the closing would
come: With love, if I was
lucky; otherwise, Sincerely.

Doug Considers the Future of Baseball

Doug wants to be frozen,
so he says—cryonics,
not cryogenics,
he insists—but only his head;
they can burn his body

for all he cares. By the time technology
can bring him back, they can build
a better body, one without forty-year
flab, ankles that ache

without the weather’s help.
Bill sneers, says it sounds too
Six-Million-Dollar-Man-like
for him, talks of Ted Williams,
whose head was supposedly used
by employees as a soccer ball

(I ask if a baseball would have
been better). Doug focuses
on Williams’ future,
how his rebuilt body and
eyes could still see every seam,

see the stitch of every pitch,
hit four hundred for as long
as we all lived. I admit the technology
is tempting, as we want a world
of Saturday and Sunday afternoons

sitting on comfortable couches
watching a baseball player
from before we were born
hammer one hit after another, not even
our can of beer breaking a sweat.

a library phantom?

2011-11-30T21:38:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure about the name for the anonymous benefactor that left 10 paper sculptures in libraries, but the works themselves are fabulous. Go look at them here.

what to read

2011-11-30T21:35:00.002-05:00

The New York Times has released their list of the best 100 books of 2011. I'm a bit surprised by some of them, especially The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (as it's not that strong of a book, though he could have made it one, had he lived) and the biography of Kurt Vonnegut, which got a mediocre review, at best.

writing about God

2011-11-30T21:31:00.000-05:00

Eric Weiner talks about writing about God (or religion or something along those lines), and he should know, given his new book, Man Seeks God. Given that I have a spiritual memoir coming out next summer, I understand how he feels.

what you need to know to succeed in college

2011-11-30T21:29:00.000-05:00

Jarvis Slacks suggests just three things a college student needs to do to succeed. While I'm not sure one could make an A only doing these three things, he is largely right in that almost all students would pass with just doing these basics (not counting classes where one needs a certain level of ability, such as an art class, where I wouldn't have a chance of passing). Oh, and just in case, there's some gratuitous cursing, in case you need some of that today.

weighty matters

2011-11-30T21:27:00.000-05:00

It seems that the South is not the only place where people are seriously struggling with their weight, as the top two cities listed in recent research as being high in heart disease and obesity are from the Midwest. The South definitely rounds out the rest of the list, but I was glad to see that MS, GA, AL, and TN missed it completely.

Not surprisingly, people's idea of what their ideal weight is has also increased over the past couple of decades. American men, on average, would like to weigh 196, up 16 pounds from twenty years ago, while women would like to weigh 138, up 9 pounds from 1991. As we get heavier, we change our expectations at least a bit.

ways to think about grammatical mistakes

2011-11-30T21:19:00.000-05:00

If you get frustrated with people's grammatical mistakes, you should read this blog post. You'll like it alot.

the good old days

2011-11-29T21:56:00.000-05:00

Wondermark takes on the internet and Gilgamesh, sort of. By the way, if you have access to a print copy of Poets & Writers, you should read David Malki's (the author of Wondermark) essay on bookstores in the most recent issue.

disappearing sounds

2011-11-29T21:54:00.000-05:00

In this blog post, Robert Krulwich talks about sounds that are disappearing or have already gone (like the dialing of a rotary phone, for example), though he thinks only people over 50 can connect with them, though I can easily say that, at 41, I owned or dealt with all of them, save for one (the coffee percolator). He then has some 20-somethings make a list of sounds from their generation.

He also links to Kara Kovalchik's "Sounds That Your Kids Have Probably Never Heard," which includes the rotary phone again, but also gives a broken record, a cash register, the TV station sign-off (which I fell asleep to when staying over at friends' houses many a time), and a gas station driveway bell (which some oil change places still use, by the way).

five novels to check out

2011-11-29T21:46:00.000-05:00

Alan Cheuse has chosen his 5 best books for 2011. I'm happy to say I have three of these on my wish list. Now I just need the time to read them. Have I ever mentioned, by the way, that I taught with someone who studied under Cheuse. He once asked him why almost all of his reviews were positive. Cheuse said that he wanted people to spend time on worthwhile books and that he was more comfortable pushing them towards such books instead of panning others. Makes a certain amount of sense, though I did hear Cheuse tear into a book once, even quoting passages to show how poorly they were written, and it was rather enjoyable.

snack time is over

2011-11-29T21:43:00.000-05:00

You might remember the psychology professor who left class because his students did not bring snacks. He has been told not to do so again. The interesting part to me is that he's been doing this exercise for 39 years, and no one seems to have forgotten before now. I'd love that kind of track record in a class.

endings are always a struggle for me

2011-11-28T18:38:00.000-05:00

Throughout much of my career writing poetry, my endings were clearly didactic, making sure the reader knew exactly what I was trying to say with my poem. I'm trying to get better at that, so many of my revisions focus on that problem. Here are two examples and the way I tried to revise them.

Dreams Deferred (original)

I once wanted to be an astronaut, float
through silent space, away from the worries
of the world, but you reminded me of gravity

and the seriousness of career
choice, suggested something more realistic
and retirement-ready. In high school, I sat beside
Jackie Street, the unchanging variable

that made math class bearable, as she laughed
at my comments on cosines
and asked for just enough help
with her homework, but when I proposed

a prom invitation,
you suggested your younger sister, a perfectly average
personality with no risk

and even less reward. When I put a poem
to paper, took the time to create
rhyme and meter, you warned me that words

are worthless in today’s world, that people want
to see ideas on a screen, with special
effects, so I stored it in the back
of a drawer, with an orchid
corsage, a NASA jacket patch, and
a pile of other possibilities.

Dreams Deferred (revision)

I wanted to be an astronaut,
once, float through silent
space, away from the worries
of the world, but you reminded me of gravity

and the seriousness of career
choice, suggested something more realistic,
more retirement-ready. In high school,
I sat beside Jackie, the unchanging

variable that made math class
bearable, as she laughed
at my comments on cosines,
asked for just enough help

with her homework, but when I proposed
her as a date for the prom,
you suggested Susan, the girl four
houses down the street, the one who was kind

to her mother, no risk,
even less reward. When I put a poem
to paper, took time to create
rhyme and meter, you warned me that words

are worthless in today’s world, that people want
ideas on a screen, with special
effects, so I stored it in a scrapbook
my sons now thumb through,
sit beside the bay window in the great

room, the oak and maple outside cast shifting
shadows over a dried orchid
corsage, a NASA patch,
pages of other possibilities.

The Fall of Man (original)

I should have seen it
coming, should have heard the distance

in your voice when our conversation focused
on the future, when I found the note you left

yourself about concert tickets
you had not mentioned

to me, or when we argued
over boy band harmonies or J-Lo’s career, conversations

that would have passed peacefully
in the past, but now concluded

with conflict every time. I should have seen it
coming, as the wind had hints

of winter as it began
to blow, as the leaves changed
to gold and crimson, colors I had always wanted

for a wedding, but only one
of us could see the signs;
only one ever can.

The Fall of Man (revision)

I should have seen it
coming, should have heard the distance

in your voice when our conversation focused
on the future, when I found the note you left

yourself about concert tickets
you had not mentioned

to me, or when we argued
over boy band harmonies or J-Lo’s career, conversations

that would have passed peacefully
in the past, now concluded

with conflict. I should have seen it
coming, as the wind had hints

of winter, as the leaves changed
to gold and crimson--colors I always wanted

for a wedding--as the chill
promised bonfires, hayrides, and hot

chocolate, but delivered nothing
more than black ice on a Monday morning

commute, unwilling to reflect
my headlights pushing through the dark.

who would have ever guessed?

2011-11-28T18:34:00.000-05:00

It seems that some, perhaps even many, professors actually enjoy teaching. Given the world of higher education and the way the public at large perceives professors, such news might come as a shock, actually. I do teach at a teaching institution, but most of the professors I know who work at larger schools also enjoy the classroom experience a good deal. That's a message that's worth spreading.

religion on the wane

2011-11-28T18:32:00.000-05:00

At least statistically, religion seems to be on the decline in America. Given that I live in the South and teach at a Christian university, I usually don't notice such developments, so I'm curious as to whether or not he's right. Certainly, outside of this bubble I live in, most of the people I know, even those who grew up in the church, have moved away from it, but that's just anecdotal evidence. I do think it's interesting he uses the term "apostate" to refer to people who have left the church. I know that's an accurate term, but it has such negative connotations to me, for some reason.

the Dead Sea Scrolls' author(s)

2011-11-28T18:30:00.000-05:00

There's more evidence that the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by members of an Essene community, though it's a bit unclear exactly what that community might have looked like. Given that some people believe either Jesus or John the Baptist (or both) come from an Essene community, this idea could make some sense.

they might not look like the Terminator, but...

2011-11-28T18:27:00.000-05:00

I had never heard of the concept of "shadow work," the work we do that we don't get paid for, but I found this article fascinating, especially the connection to technology. Essentially, businesses use technology to load work onto the customer that they used to hire people to do (think of the example of a service station, which he uses, where people used to check our tires, pump the gas, etc., all of which we now do, including run the credit card).

our brain gets better with age

2011-11-28T18:25:00.000-05:00

I'm fascinated with our brains and how they work, so I liked this brief explanation of myths about the brain (no, we don't only use 10% of our brains; who came up with that, anyway?). I especially like the last one (on page two), where we're told that brains "peak at age 22, then slowly decline, starting at age 27." Then, as if that were not encouraging enough for those of us in our 40s, "some mental skills improve with age. Older people have larger vocabularies, are better judges of character, and score higher on tests of social skills, such as how to resolve a dispute. They also out-perform the young on remembering images and phrases that evoke positive emotions, which may explain why surveys show that, on average, older people are happier."

a few minor revisions

2011-11-23T14:23:00.000-05:00

The revisions here aren't significant, so I'll omit the originals. However, I'm always looking for more feedback, so feel free to give me suggestions on these. Thanks for reading.

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

We ignore the inevitable, deny the destination
we were destined for before
birth, whether by a deity
all-knowing, limits of science,
or three women

with thread. So when we see Caius
in his coffin, hear
of some heartbreak, we
pity his parents, perhaps

say a prayer for his wife
and children, then build bigger

barns, buy another car--a convertible,
perhaps--add to a retirement
that will sustain us

seventy years longer
than we could ever live, even turn up
the television a little bit
louder whenever the thought

of our mortality sneaks in the back
of our minds, a burglar
in the back door, past the security
system we pay to protect
all we are worth.

Ad Hominem

An apologist for anything
or anyone, you defend the depraved
and defenseless as if there were no
difference, not out of compassion
or passion or love of law,
but to pass time, listen
to your logic and eloquence,
anything to break
the boredom of life, to argue against
the angst and ennui
you experience, as if two words
you learned in college
could describe the emptiness
of your life, the billable hours
continuing to add up.

some Victorians wrote small books

2011-11-23T14:18:00.000-05:00

There will be an auction of a book written by Charlotte Bronte when she was 14 years old. It's half the size of the credit card and requires a magnifying glass to read.

don't must of us want more time to read?

2011-11-23T14:15:00.000-05:00

Here's some good advice on how to find more time to read, something most of us are looking for.

a different approach to church

2011-11-23T14:13:00.002-05:00

Here's a great article about what the church should be focused on (hint: it's shrinking the church, not growing it). I especially like that I saw this on my minister's Facebook page.

4 3/4 degrees just doesn't have the same ring

2011-11-22T22:03:00.000-05:00

A new study shows that the ever-popular six degrees of separation might be a bit far in our more-connected lives, shifting it to more like 4.74 degrees. Of course, the study uses Facebook, which certainly changes the situation, but it's still interesting.

runners love it, but schools don't

2011-11-21T21:52:00.000-05:00

I'm a big fan of chocolate milk these days. Last fall, when I was trying to train for my first half-marathon in about 5 years, I was struggling to recover from hard workouts. I started drinking chocolate milk afterwards, and everything changed. I can understand schools' concerns with the sugar, but they simply need better chocolate milk. I make my own, and it's much better than soft drinks (and store-bought chocolate milk).

they often don't agree

2011-11-21T21:50:00.000-05:00

According to science, the odds of your existence are incredibly improbably. According to poetry, you were destined to exist. I'm not sure why their disagreement should be news.

a world without religion

2011-11-21T21:48:00.000-05:00

It seems there was a debate over the issue "Would the world be better without religion?" I didn't listen to the debate, as I was more interested in who was involved. I can understand three of them, but Dinesh D'Souza for the Christian side? No wonder they lost the popular vote. I remember reading this guy two decades ago when I was naive enough to believe he knew what he was talking about. I haven't believed that for years.

not just for people who don't like people

2011-11-21T21:46:00.000-05:00

Thought this article is angled around people who don't like other people, the part I'll focus on is the outlook for writers. This forecast lists salaried writing positions (especially via the web) as on the upswing in the future. It's not writing poetry or novels, but it's writing that can pay the bills.

not always a good thing?

2011-11-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

Some elementary schools (and beyond) are deciding that technology might not be the right tool for all students at all ages. I'm a fan of limiting access to students until they get older, as they need time to explore with their senses that computers just don't give them. There's a difference between reading about something and going outdoors and seeing it or creating it with your hands. I like the approach some of these schools are taking.

as if running isn't difficult enough

2011-11-20T21:49:00.000-05:00

Running a marathon is extremely challenging. I can't imagine running one and sketching the process. Thanks to SKS for this one.

wall decor even I can get behind

2011-11-20T21:44:00.002-05:00

I'm certainly not one who gets excited about wall decorations, but this e.e. cummings wall decal looks great.

not someone I'd want to hang out with

2011-11-20T18:16:00.000-05:00

As much as I loved Kurt Vonnegut's writing in college and still love what I think is his best work, Slaughterhouse-Five. However, I'm glad I never had to deal with him on an interpersonal level, as every story I've heard about him portrays him the same way as this piece does: not easy to get along with. Perhaps that goes with the type of writing he did, but I'm still glad I avoided that aspect of him.

gaming the game

2011-11-20T18:13:00.000-05:00

People talk about strategies of playing Jeopardy! on a regular basis, as it's often not the smartest person who wins the game, but the person who plays the game better. It seems that one person has developed a system that beats them all, and, as a former math major, I find it fascinating.

getting back in the habit

2011-11-19T21:45:00.000-05:00

Since I wasn't able to work out much of the past week due to the marathon the weekend before, I wasn't able to really work on any revisions. I'm trying to get back in the swing of things with one this morning. In this one, I really tried to work on the ending, as I thought I slipped too much into the telling that often plagues me. As always, thanks for reading.

Missionary Dating (original)

You thought you could learn
my language, convert me with a cavalcade
of catechism questions, one after another

after another,
after my heart and soul, as you sampled
the local cuisine, the favorite
foods--my mother’s upside-down
spaghetti bake and my father’s famous sausage
gravy--even tried the traditions

of the natives, the cranberries on Christmas
Eve, popcorn the next

morning. But, despite your efforts to save
my social standing, you could never comprehend
that coins are not the currency
of our commerce, that we still barter, trading time

for ideas, and that we do not worship
inert idols that flicker
with faith

in the living room; we find the spirit
in the whisper of the wind
that you were never silent
enough to hear.

Missionary Dating (revision)

You thought you could learn
my language, convert me with
catechism questions, one after another
after another, after

my heart and soul, sampled
local cuisine, favorite
foods--my mother’s upside-down
spaghetti bake, my father’s famous sausage

gravy--even tried traditions
of the natives—cranberries on Christmas
Eve, popcorn next
morning. Despite your efforts to save
my social standing, you could not comprehend

that coins are not our currency;
that we still barter, trade time
for ideas; that we do not worship
inert idols that flicker with faith

in the living room. As we sing songs
older than all of us, you wonder
what a paw-paw patch is,
and as we tells stories any of us

could finish, you sit on the margins
scrolling information on your iPad,
the light on your face almost
like the firelight in the opposite corner.

not much has changed

2011-11-19T21:43:00.000-05:00

I've never been questioned by a police officer for running, but I've certainly had people react with dismay or a bit of mockery. In 1969, it seems such behaviors were more common.

a computer is like a plant

2011-11-19T21:42:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting article on Watson, the supposed supercomputer who keeps winning at Jeopardy!, and how his thinking skills might be more similar to a plant's than to a human's. In fact, he's probably beneath a plant. For the record, he is not even a he.

making us all feel inadequate

2011-11-18T21:48:00.000-05:00

Most of us have heard all that da Vinci did during his lifetime. Now, we get a glimpse at his to-do list. Stopping by the store for pasta does not seem to be on it.

another book for the wish list

2011-11-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

I liked Jonathan Lethem before this interview (though I'll readily admit to being disappointed in The Fortress of Solitude, which seemed to get him so much attention, while I really liked Motherless Brooklyn), but I really like him afterwards. I'm always a fan of honesty, and I like the fact that he takes on issues other writers won't. If I ever get into the popular kids' club, I'll try to do the same.

so who's to blame

2011-11-17T21:28:00.000-05:00

There has been a great deal of talk lately about rising tuition costs and how colleges and universities are to blame for the rise in student debt. While tuition rates have gone up over the last decade, the most significant increase comes in spending on books and off-campus living. Perhaps the schools aren't responsible for much of the problem. Let's have our legislatures go after the textbook companies or landlords and watch the same people who attacked universities and colleges try to defend the free market.

the myth that just won't die

2011-11-17T21:26:00.000-05:00

I heard several years back that the story about Eskimos having numerous words for snow was not true. Turns out that English has more words for snow and that folks have been trying to kill this idea for decades. Please don't perpetuate false linguistic information.

math and art comics

2011-11-17T21:21:00.000-05:00

Pardon My Planet lays out what's wrong with students' math skills, while Cul de Sac shows an art form that has everything.

the value of the liberal arts

2011-11-16T21:29:00.000-05:00

Students who attended liberal arts colleges are actually rather satisfied with their choice to do so, even in today's economy. Here's my favorite quote: "They were also more likely to say that they had found a mentor in college, been challenged by a professor, and experienced a sense of community among students." That sounds to me like what a college should be.

advising is teaching, too

2011-11-16T21:27:00.000-05:00

I'm glad to see advising getting some good press, as I'm a big fan of its importance in students' lives. It's underrated as a way to continue to teach students, especially in talking about the wide variety of careers one might have (which is especially important in liberal arts majors).

just idiotic

2011-11-16T21:26:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if you'll be able to read this article, so I'll summarize: universities should stop using print books, and one university needs to be the first to have the courage to do so. He lists lots of reasons for this argument, but they all have some sort of caveat ("A student's Hamlet might contain not just the notes that a student would find in a print edition but collective notes from actors, directors, scholars, and other contributors. The college's version of Hamlet might be linked to whatever notes Laurence Olivier or Harold Bloom had written in the margins of their own copies. It might be linked to scenes and versions already on YouTube, or to open courseware from institutions around the world." -- note there there are 3 uses of "might," one for each example).

While I'm a fan of using electronic media for readings, as I do so quite often, I also realize that print books still have a significant role to play. In fact, when I mentioned his idea to my students, they hated the idea, as they still like having paper. Last, I don't think it's a coincidence that he is an "educational author and software designer," not a professor.

I didn't think this was news

2011-11-16T21:22:00.000-05:00

When I first saw the headline, "Women more likely to have 'broken heart syndrome,'" I really thought this was one of those studies that tells us what we already know. However, it seems that broken heart syndrome actually leads to death, as people suffer such grief that their heart actually balloons and does not work as it should (that seems redundant, actually). That physical problem is what I find more interesting than anything else here.

inspirational, but a bit worrisome, as well

2011-11-16T21:19:00.000-05:00

I'm all for running through pain and continuing along when others think quitting is the best option, but even I can admit that there are dangerous situations. Here's a video of a high school runner who has to crawl across the finish line when his body just won't hold up due to dehydration. I'm glad he's fine, and I'm thrilled that he was able to finish.

I should try this

2011-11-14T21:17:00.000-05:00

A professor was frustrated that no one brought snacks to class, despite two people having signed up to do so. Thus, he walked out of class. If only my biggest concern were students bringing snacks to class.

Buddhism and science

2011-11-14T21:15:00.002-05:00

Teaching science to Buddhist monks sounds fascinating, and I really wish I could have read more about it. I like this article, but it cuts off way too early for me. That's my only complaint, though.