Teacher Trenches

Pseudo-Profanity in Pop Songs

2011-11-26T06:20:00.000-08:00

So I have a piece in the Hartford Courant today, about profanity heard in current pop songs. Or, more accurately, about the profanity not heard in current pop songs, but definitely implied. Only instead of hearing the swear, you'll hear the first letter of the expletive, or you'll hear weird sound in its place. It's the "everything but" manner of swearing.

I called this phenomenon "pseudo-swearing," or just "pswearing." And, as I state in the article, what I resent the most about pswearing is the double-dipping: singers get their songs on mainstream radio, but the hard-core fans who don't mind a little cussing still think they're cool.

As with all of the pieces I've written for the Courant, there was a fence around this one. 700-word-long fence. To abide by the word count, some things had to get cut-- by me or by the editor. Usually, some details end up getting pitched, to preserve the central message.

But I like details. So I decided to go back to my original document and resurrect those details here, on this space, as a sort of "supplemental" to the article published in the Courant. That way, I get two articles for one-- a newspaper piece and a blog entry. (Now look who's double-dipping! Ah, delicious irony!)

* In my original draft, I listed a bunch of songs from the past year that contain "pswearing"--offensive language that was edited out. For space reasons, the paragraph containing that list was cut. But because I think that list shows the pervasiveness of the "pswearing" phenomenon-- and because compiling that list took some time and effort-- I wanted to restore it here. So here are some singers who pswore in their hit songs in 2011:

Usher (“DJs Got Us Fallin’ in Love”)

Maroon 5 (“Moves Like Jagger”)

Mumford and Sons (“Little Lion Man”)

Ke$ha (“We R Who We R”)

OneRepublic (“Good Life”)

Taio Cruz (“Dynamite”)

The last one is probably the most disturbing, only because kids seem to enjoy that song so much. My son Charlie has learned it on piano. There's even a version of the song on Kidz-Bop, for crying out loud. Meanwhile, in the second verse, Taio Cruz says "What the @&#!." Why you gotta go there, Taio?

* In the original piece, I acknolwedged that rock-and-roll artists have always used profanity in their lyrics-- and some didn't try to hide it. For example, while I can't say for sure that ZZ Top said "S-word, I got to have her" in "Legs," I absolutely know that Roger Daltrey drops the F-Bomb in "Who Are You."

The difference in the current drop of artists is that they're actually swearing in the titles of the songs. In my original draft, I listed three such offenders from 2011. Their names were cut from the Courant article due to space restraints, but I wanted to restore them here:

Cee Lo Green, “Forget You” (actually “F-Bomb You”)

P!nk, “Perfect” (actually “F-Bombin’ Perfect”)

Enriques Iglesias, “Tonight I’m Lovin’ You” (actually… well, you can figure it out)

* Of those three, I consider Cee Lo the most egregious pswearing culprit, if only because of the degree of mainstream fame he's achieved over the past eighteen months. Gwenyth Paltrow has covered his signature song on Glee. He sung at the Macy's Thanksgiving parade and is slated to sing for the Obamas as part of TNT's "Christmas in Washington" special. Heck, "Forget You" even showed up in the new Muppet movie, courtesy of Gonzo's chickens. How much of that, exactly, would have happened if he went with his original lyrics?

* The last point I wanted to restore had to do with the purposefulness of profanity in pop music. I'm not necessarily against swearing in a work of art, but I just don't see how many songs are improved, artistically, with the inclusion of profanity. To illustrate this, I said the following: "How about Gwen Stefani’s 'Hollaback Girl,' during which she drops the S-Bomb a whopping 38 times? What effect was she going for there? And could it not be achieved with a mere 37 curses?"

* Finally, I used several sources to while writing this article, and I wanted to note two of them here:

John Pareles, "Speaking the Unspeakable," New York Times, March 15, 2011 (about Grammy-nominated songs containing profanity)

Commonsensemedia.org (which reviews pop songs in terms of their appropriateness for children and teenagers)

Songs from the Fall/ Winter of 1986

2011-11-17T18:14:00.001-08:00

In the fall of 1986, I was the anti-Bill Buckner.

In Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, Bill Buckner let a routine Mookie Wilson dribbler roll between his legs, costing the Red Sox the game. The Sox eventually lost the Series, and the fans and the media pinned the loss, rightfully or not, on poor Bill. His life would never be the same.

Well, my life would also never be the same after the fall of 1986... but in a good way. That's the moment in time when I started becoming more social, when I started hanging out with other folks on Saturday nights besides Julie McCoy, Isaac the Bartender, and the rest of the crew from The Love Boat.

Here's something you have to understand: I went to an all-boys high school located about thirty minutes from my house. Thus, my school friends were scattered across various towns, which made it tricky to see them outside of school. And even when I did see people outside of school, I only saw other boys. For my first two years of high school, I knew NO girls. Forget about having a girlfriend; I didn't even have girl friends.

That all changed thanks to a little thing called a license—and no, not a License to Ill, but a driver’s license. At the beginning of my junior year, five or six of my guy friends got their licenses. Now, eventually, this ability to drive brought the realization that there is no place to drive to, that there really is nothing for teenagers to do in this world. But that came later. Now, the possibilities seemed endless.

So, even though I didn't get my license for another ten months, it didn't matter: I had no problem sponging off my friends. In fact, that's also how I started meeting girls: a friend met a girl from an all-girls school, and our circles of friends meshed.

As a result, in the fall of my junior year, my social life went from zero to... well, a little bit more than zero, to be honest. But hey, it was a transformation, nonetheless, a "coming into my own" (whatever that means). So even though I don't see my guy friends as often as I'd like, and I never see the girls I knew way back when, I always look back fondly on the Fall of 1986, as that moment in history which belongs particularly to me. (A Separate Peace shout-out there.)

I tend to equate epochs in my life with the music on the radio at the time. So, while thinking about the fact that twenty-five years have past since that fateful fall, I decided to do a follow-up to my wildly-successful post, "Rating the Songs of Summer 1986." (No, no one read the darn thing, but I liked it.)

As with the previous posting, I'm going to rate the staying power of twenty-five songs from the Fall of 1986, to determine whether or not they still hold up a quarter-century later. As before, I'm judging the songs according to three criteria:

(a) whether or not I still hear this song on the radio in 2011
(b) whether or not I cringe if I do hear this song in 2011
(c) whether or not I actually like the song

As always, some caveats before we begin:

(1) Since I was going with the whole "25 songs from 25 years go" angle, plenty of songs just plain ol' didn't make the cut. So, sorry in advance to Glass Tiger and Stacy Q, but as your fellow 80s casualty Robbie Nevil once said, “C’est La Vie.”

(2) I tried not to repeat some of the artists that appeared in the "Summer of 1986" posting. So that's why Stevie Winwood ("Freedom Overspill"), Madonna ("True Blue"), Huey Lewis ("Hip to Be Square"), Genesis ("Land of Confusion"), and Janet Jackson ("When I Think of You") don't appear here.

(3) Other songs that should have made this list (and would have if I thought of something witty to say about them) include the following: "Wild, Wild Life," Talking Heads; "Notorious," Duran Duran; "Sleeping Bag"/ "Velcro Fly"/ "Stages," ZZ Top (in my mind, they're the same song); "What About Love," 'Til Tuesday; and "Dancing on the Ceiling," Lionel Richie. (So sorry, Lionel.)

(4) I planned on doing this much earlier-- I mean, three-months ago earlier. I originally conceived this as a just "Fall 1986" piece, but as December dawned, I figured I better throw in Winter 1986 songs as well. And here I am, on the last day of 2011, putting the finishing touches on this stupid thing. Oh, well. I mean, what's time anyway but a human construct?

And now, Songs from the Fall (and Winter) of 1986—the era of The Fly, ALF, and Crocodile Dundee (not to mention the worldwide premier of The Oprah Winfrey Show).

"Take Me Home Tonight," Eddie Money: To borrow a catchphrase from Swingers, Eddie was money back in the 80s. How good was he? In the era of glitz and image that was the 80s, Eddie was able to sell records on the strength of his music. Which I guess is a nice way of saying he was none too attractive. Just check out the video, in which Eddie does the impossible: making Ronnie Spector look somewhat good by comparison.

OK, that's mean, so I'll say something nice: this song is gold. From the eerie opening guitar, to the kickin', legally-required-to-sing-along chorus, the Money-man hit the jackpot with this one. Plus, by getting Ronnie Spector in there, he was able to cash in on the mash-up phenomenon a good twenty years before mashing-up became a pop music pre-requisite. Dollars to donuts, this song is timeless-- and priceless. (Say, did you happen to detect any "money" puns in here?)

"Living on a Prayer" and "You Give Love a Bad Name," Bon Jovi: Recently, I made a bold pronouncement at work: "Of all the acts that rose to fame in the 80s, Bon Jovi has had the longest, most productive career." Then I realized that maybe that pronouncement wasn't all that bold. Honestly, who's their competition? R.E.M.? Van Halen? Only U2 comes close... then again, how many singles has U2 released in the past five years?

Now, one of my co-workers bristled at this idea, on "quality over quantity" grounds. "Sure, Bon Jovi still puts out music," he argued, "but it's all crap." I disagreed: sure, recent offerings such as "We Weren't Born to Follow" or "What Do You Got" may not be the greatest songs ever, but they're hardly crap. Derivative, maybe, but not crap. Oh, he's basically singing the same song over and over, all right... but it's a good same song.

And no matter what you may think of the quality of the music... two stupefying facts remain about Mr. Bongiovi:

(1) He's still cranking out hit singles. Now. In the 2010s. A quarter-century after the band exploded into the "household-name" stratosphere with Slippery When Wet.

(2) Those old songs still get played. Like Jon himself, these 1986 songs have aged well. (Damn you, you 49-year-old rock ambassador, with your wrinkle-free face and full head of hair!)

You know, it's funny: Back in the Fall of 1986, the guy who drove me to high school played his Slippery When Wet tape every morning. Flash-forward twenty-five years, to December 2011: I'm driving to high school (I'm a teacher now), and I hear "Livin' on a Prayer" on the radio. Nothing's changed. Like I said, funny... or, as a reminder of the passage of time and my own mortality, utterly soul-crushing. Take your pick.

"True Colors," Cyndi Lauper: It's clear that this song, her follow-up to her hugely successful She's So Unusual debut album, was meant to show the softer side of Cyndi. Less clear is why she needed to do that, since she had already shown us that side with "Time After Time." No matter: whatever her motive, this song is simply beautiful. But don't take my word for it: ask the 3,000 artists who have recorded the song since 1986 (including Phil Collins, Eva Cassidy, the gang from Glee, and a bunch of other people I never heard of).

By the way, fans concerned that this softer Cyndi no longer wanted to have fun need not have worried: at one point in the "True Colors" video, she's wearing a skirt made out of shredded newspaper. Talk about showing your true colors...

"To Be a Lover," Billy Idol: Another example of an artist showing a softer side in late '86. Granted, "To be a Lover" wasn't Easy Listening Idol... but it wasn't the Rebelliously Yelling Idol, either. Instead, for his first single off Whiplash Smile (great title), Billy "remade" a 1968 R & B song, "I Forgot to Be Your Lover," by William Bell.

I put "remade" in quotations because Billy's version doesn't sound anything like the original... nor does it sound much like anything else he had ever done. And the innovation paid off, at least in the short term: the song peaked at #6 on the Billboard charts. Unfortunately, audiences quickly forgot to be lovers of this song, which slipped from the mainstream by early '87. You never hear this on the radio anymore... and I place the blame for that solely on the doorstep of Cameron Crowe.

Why Cameron Crowe, you ask? Apparently, when he was writing the script for Say Anything..., he initally had "To Be a Lover" in mind for the Lloyd Dobler/ boom box scene. He quickly changed his mind (Crowe has said he liked "To be a Lover" for exactly "one day, the day I wrote that scene"), but imagine if he actually went with Idol over Peter Gabriel? What kind of world would this be?

"Welcome to the Boomtown," David and David: Under-appreciated song, from a wildly, sinfully under-appreciated album, Boomtown . And I don't mean just under-appreciated now; even in 1986, this duo of Davids didn't get the love they deserved. You never hear this or any other David and David song on the radio, and that's a shame, because this album is really, really good. Just didn't take for whatever reason.

Strangely enough, the same can be said about the short-lived NBC cop show from 2002, also called Boomtown. Everyone seemed to praise the show, starring Neal "The-Guy-with-the-Intense-Blue-Eyes-Who-Appeared-Opposite-Tom-Cruise-in-Minority-Report" McDonough, but it barely squeaked out a year. The lesson, of course, to artists everywhere: never name your project "Boomtown."

Three more comments:

(a) A lot of double groups in the 80s, huh? David and David, Duran Duran, Mr. Mister, Lisa Lisa (see below), Talk Talk, and even The The...

(b) If you don't know David and David (and who can blame you, since they only put out this one album?), you owe it to yourself to check out these two other songs, which I feel are even better than "Welcome to the Boomtown": "Ain't So Easy" and (my favorite of theirs) "Swallowed by the Cracks."

(c) Seriously, what's up with Neal McDonough's eyes? I mean, his stare just drills a hole right into your soul...

"Don't Get Me Wrong," Pretenders: I can't pretend to love this song, but I still hear it on the radio, so I guess someone likes it. And at least it's better than the repugnant, unredeemable "Brass in Pocket." What a terrible song, with its chorus and the uber-hip verses all sprinkled with unintelligible British slang like "new skank" and "so reet." The song actually makes my skin crawl and ears bleed at the same time. Man, I hate this song... Where was I? Oh, yeah... "Don't Get Me Wrong"... not a fave, but catchy, harmless, enduring. Let's move on...

"A Matter of Trust," Billy Joel: When perusing through Billy's extensive discography, one may find it helpful to put the songs into categories. First, you have Piano Songs and Non-Piano Songs. Then, as subsets, you have Songs that Are Autobiographical ("Piano Man," "The Entertainer"); Songs that Aren't Autobiographical But Seem As If They Should Be ("Goodnight Saigon," "Downeaster Alexa"); Songs That Tell a Story ("Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," "Allentown," "Movin' Out"); Songs That Suggest Billy Joel is Bipolar ("Summer, Highland Falls," "I Go To Extremes"); Songs That Are Sweet ("She's Got a Way," "Just the Way You Are"); and Songs That Seem Like They're Sweet But Are Actually Kind of Insulting ("She's Always a Woman").

Which brings us to "A Matter of Trust," which I'd call his best Non-Piano Song That By All Rights Should be a Piano Song. Here's what I mean: "A Matter of Trust" is a straight-up ballad, a love song, filled with Billy's signature poetry. In other words, a quintessential Billy Joel piano song. But he doesn't use a piano. Instead, he breaks out an electric guitar and flirts with hard-rock. The result: a “traditional” Billy Joel song that’s also unlike anything else he’s ever done.

Now, some will disagree. Members of the BJC (Billy Joel Critics) have most certainly enjoyed some hearty, self-important snickers over the fact that he called this album The Bridge, since it indeed marks a transition, from the consistent, quality work of his earlier career to the inconsistent, not-quite-so-quality work of his later career. And, yeah, this album, along with the next two (Strom Front and River of Dreams) had more misses than hits. That’s what makes “A Matter of Trust” so noteworthy: it’s the last truly great song of his storied career.

At least so far. But he has more gas in the tank. The original "Piano Man" has one more great hit in him. Trust me.

"The Way It Is," Bruce Hornsby and the Range: Speaking of "piano men"... OK, I'll admit it: for years, I drove the Hornsby bandwagon. From 1986 to 2003, I saw him in concert eight times; for two of those shows, I waited by the bus afterwards and talked with the man himself. So, yeah, you could call me a fan.

And for this, I have suffered. The Hornsby-haters-- and they're out there-- have mocked me, dismissing his songs as repetitive, "Adult Contemporary" fare. But whenever I got discouraged, I remembered all the great artists-- from Don Henley to Bonnie Raitt to Huey Lewis to Grateful Dead-- who have collaborated with him over the years. In short: Hornsby's got game.

And it all starts here-- with a song that earned the band a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1987, that was later sampled by 2Pac, and that is still heard today, twenty-five years later. Face it, Hornsby-haters: Bruce wrote a classic. You may not like it... but that's just the way it is.

"At This Moment," Billy Vera and the Beaters: A song that was never supposed to be on this list-- or any other list of memorable songs, for that matter. Originally released in 1981, "At This Moment" only lasted but a moment on the charts, reaching #79 on the Billboards before falling into obscuirty. For the next five years, Billy and his unfortunately-named Beaters waited for their break.... which finally happened when a TV producer heard them perform and had the idea of using "At This Moment" for his show, the Michael J. Fox sitcom "Family Ties."

And so this going-nowhere-fast song eventually skyrocketed to #1. Moreover, just like Michael J. Fox's marriage to Tracy Pollan, "At This Moment" has staying power; "light rock" stations still play it twenty-five years later. The lesson to undiscovered bands everywhere: if you keep marching confidently in the directions of your dreams, you will find success... even if you try to sabotage your chances with an absolutely ridiculous band name. (I mean, the Beaters? Honestly...)

"Everybody Have Fun Tonight," Wang Chung: Then again, if you have a goofy name, you might as well embrace it: Wang Chung not only included its name in its most famous lyric from its most famous song, but they even turned it into a verb!

What does it mean to "wang chung," exactly? Twenty-five years have not shed any light on this mystery, although the Internet swirls with speculation. (Does it mean "Yellow Bell" in Chinese? Does it mean "perfect pitch"? Is it the sound a guitar makes?) Personally, I think it has to do with the ancient art of Product Placement-- the product, in this case, being the name of the band itself.

Think about it: you take a catchy, up-tempo beat and combine it with a non-sensical chorus that includes the name of your band. And though folks may mock the lyric, everyone's still saying it. And I mean everyone: just look at the "Appearances/ References in Other Media" section of the song's Wikipedia page. From "Cheers" to "Veronica Mars" to "How I Met Your Mother," tons of TV shows have alluded to the line "everybody wang chung tonight."

Hey, I know the Product Placement worked on me: even though I dismissed the song as a 16-year-old, as a 41-year-old, I remember it fondly, as one of the signature songts of the 80s. Man, how did I get wang chunged like that?

"Sweet Love," Anita Baker: Not my necessarily favorite song back in 1986, but I wanted to give Anita some soulful props. This song, her first single, went to #8 on the pop charts and #2 on the R&B charts; plus, "Sweet Love" earned her a Grammy for Best R&B Song and another for Best R&B Vocal Performance (Female). As I said, not my cup of tea, but I respect her for giving us the best that she's got.

"I'll be Over You," Toto: This band really should have hung it up after "Africa." After all, how can you top that? But since everyone somehow thought "Africa" was sung by Asia, Toto soldiered on with this sappy little ditty, which actually reached #11 on the Billboard chart. Alas, the song's title proved prophetic, as fans were quickly "over" this song and the group. In fact, only the inclusion of the irrepressible Michael McDonald saves this song from obscurity. (As an aside, did Toto and Kansas ever go on tour together? Seems like a no-brainer...)

"It's in the Way That You Use It," Eric Clapton: Fun fact, courtesy of the book Scorsese on Scorsese: Clapton's original lyric for this song was "He's getting ready to use you." But director Martin Scorsese (who wanted to use this for The Color of Money) didn't care for the line. So Clapton and singer Robbie Robertson tweaked it a little and came up with a line with the same number of syllables: "It's in the way that you use it." And so was born a great song that, twenty-five years later, is never played and is barely even remembered.

Of course, I personally will always hold this song dear because of its appearance in The Color of Money, which is a film I saw with the first girl I could legitimately call a girlfriend.... regardless of whether she knew I called her that or not. Ultimately, the song's popularity and my relationship with the girl shared the same fate-- i.e. they were both short-lived.

"Shake You Down," Gregory Abbott: My inclusion of this song should in no way suggest that I endorse it; rather, I loathe it. I consider the week this terrible song reached #1 (in January 1987) one of the darkest eras in Billboard history. But I am mentioning it because it taught me something about female/ male perspectives.

The first time I heard this song, I immediately recognized it as limp, sappy-pappy crap. But my new female friends liked it-- loved it, actually. And while they didn't turn me around on this song, they did teach me something valuable: if men are born with the chromosome that prevents them from asking for directions, then women are born with the chromosome that makes them like crappy Gregory Abbott tunes. Somehow, it all evens out.

"The Rain," Oran "Juice" Jones AND "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades," Timbuk-3: I am bundling these two songs together because I never really knew, even at the time, if they were meant to be "real" songs, or jokey/novelty songs-- a la "Pac-Man Fever" or "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun." "The Rain" seems real enough, but the talking part at the end-- the best part, for sure-- is played for laughs.

Timbuk-3's song, on the other hand, is just goofy all around-- at least, that's what I always thought. Only recently did I discover it's not goofy at all; apparently, lead singer pat mAcdonald (yep, that's how he spells it) considers it a song about... wait for it... nuclear holocaust-- with the "dark glasses" being a metaphor for turning a blind eye to a potential future that's made "bright" by a giant nuclear blast.

Huh.

Yeah, I sort of see it, especially since he does make reference to studying "nuclear science" in the very first line. And yet... I somehow liked the song better when I thought it was just goofy.

While both Oran "Juice" Jones and Timbuk-3 were one-hit wonders, 'Buk-3 may have more "juice" than "Juice" as far as longevity goes-- if only because people still say the "bright future/ sunglasses" line. (Then again, that expression may predate the song, I'm not sure.) But I still prefer "The Rain," mostly because of its great put-downs-- for examlpe, "You without me is like corn flakes without the milk! This is my world. You're just a squirrel trying to get a nut!"

Plus, "The Rain' is the only one on this list (as far as I know) that has a rebuttal: Miss Thang's "Thunder and Lightning," which features the woman from "The Rain" sassing back to the man. When your song has a Rebuttal Version, you know you've made it.

"Human," Human League AND "Next Time I Fall," Peter Cetera and Amy Grant AND "All Cried Out," Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force: And I bundling these three together, not because they all do that "male/female duet" thing, but because they all fall into the category of "Songs That I Have Been and On Some Level Still Am Ashamed To Admit I Like."

When I asked my wife which of these three should embarrass me the most, she picked "Human"-- which I actually find the least shameful. So then I decided to do the iPod Test: I have both "Human" and "All Cried Out" in my music library, but no "Next Time I Fall." So I guess my appreciated for Peter and Amy is shoved so far back in the closet that I can't even admit it to my iPod.

The world seems to agree: as far as longevity goes, I feel I actually hear "Human" and, to a lesser extent, "All Cried Out" on the radio, but I never hear "Next Time I Fall." Of course, the next time I do hear "Next Time," you know I'll be singing along. (And now that I admitted that in print, this blog will self-destruct in five... four... three...)

"Will You Still Love Me?" Chicago: It's 1986, and gang warfare erupted on the Billboard charts. David Lee Roth and his ex-band Van Halen put out competing albums (Eat 'Em and Smile and 5150, respectively); Benjamin Orr and Ric Ocasek, both members of the Cars, released singles ("Stay the Night" and "Emotion in Motion," respectively) around the same time; and Peter Cetera and his former bandmates in Chicago slugged it out in an epic Battle of the Wusses.

Just how vicious was this Cetera-Chicago duel? Well, I'm reminded of Sean Connery's line from The Untouchables:

"He brings a knife, you bring a gun. He sends one of your guys to the hospital, you send one of theirs to the morgue. That's the Chicago way."

Only, in this case, instead of knives and guns, the Cetera and the Chiaco guys were armed with cheesy, David Foster-penned ballads.

Who won this battle for soft-rock supermacy? Well, I'd probably give the nod to Petey, since both of his songs from 1986, "Glory of Love" and the aforementioned "Next Time I Fall," went to #1, while "Will You Still Love Me?" peaked at #3. Still, #3 is not too shabby, and Chiacgo proved they could survive without the bizarrely falsettoed Cetera. They'd go their own way-- the Chicago way.

"Heartbeat," Don Johnson: At some point in the fall of 1986, Eddie Murphy let out a big ol' *Phew*. See, up until that point, Eddie was the reigning Celebrity Who Put Out the Most Embarrassing Pop Song, 1985's insipid "Party of the Time." Then, in the Fall of 1986, Don Johnson decided to cash in on his Miami Vice fame by putting out this piece of steaming, soulless, opportunistic crud, which actually has gained some fame over the years.

For example, in 2007, Boston.com put "Heartbeat" at the top of its "Worst Songs of All Time" list (beating out "Party All The Time" at #8). And back in 1999, it earned the #1 spot on MTV's 25 Lame show, commemorating the top 25 videos of all time (which MTV swore it would never play again).

But here's something curious: while I know no one who admitted to liking either "Heartbeat" or "Party All the Time," somehow they both reached the top five on the Billboard charts (#5 for Don and #2 for Eddie). And even curiouser: supposedly, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, and even Barbra Streisand helped Don Johnson on this album... which begs the question: just how crappy would the project have been if these folks didn't assist?

"Word Up!," Cameo: Going out on a limb here: I think this song has enjoyed a longer shelf-life than any other song on this list, save for the two Bon Jovi songs. Not necessarily because you hear "Word Up!" on the radio all the time (even though you do hear it occasionally), but because of the various incarnations the song has enjoyed over the past twenty-five years.

First, in the 1990s, a Scottish rock band named Gun re-made the song, a version which was apparently featured on the soundtrack of the Pamela Anderson vehicle, Barb Wire. (I never actually saw the film, but I'm sure the seventeen people who did would say it was the better for the song's inclusion.) Then, in the 2000s, the song lived on again: Korn (of all groups) made a version; and a radio personality out of Los Angeles named DJ Zax mashed-up "Word Up!" with Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl"-- and actually made "Hollaback Girl" somewhat bearable.

Why has the song enjoyed so many lives? Obviously, it has a great sound, but I wonder if people are also responding, on some level, to its paradoxical Deeper Meaning. See, when I actually looked at the lyrics, I realized the song is actually an indictment rappers and other "sucker DJs" for "putting on airs" and writing about "psychological romance" instead of just writing cool dance music. Hence the paradox: a song that seems to critique other songs for their Deeper Meanings actually has a Deeper Meaning. Ah, Cameo, you tricksters.

"Walk Like an Egyptian," The Bangles: On the one hand, the recording of the song caused some friction among the Bangle-gals (Ban-gals?): it seems the producer not only forbade bandmember Debbi Peterson from singing one of the verses (she was relegated to the whistling section, of all things), he also replaced her drumming with a drum machine. So, some trouble was a-brewing behind the scenes. (Three years later, the group broke up-- not necessarily because of the tensions involving "Walk Like an Egyptian," but it couldn't have helped.)

On the other hand, the good far outweigh the bad with this song: it reached #1 on the Billboard chart in December 1986 and stayed there into 1987; it was the very first song performed by an all-female group playing their own instruments to reach the top spot on the charts; it brought the concept of "cops hanging out in the donut shops" into the limelight; and it still lives on today, as proven by all the "Walk Like an Egyptian" puns that surfaced in conjunction with the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. Bottom line: when you think of great songs from the 80s, this one has to be near the top of the pyramid.

(Unless, of course, you're Toni Basil, the one-hit wonder responsible for 1981's "Mickey." Seems songwriter Liam Sternberg first took "Walk Like an Egyptian" to Toni-- who turned it down! And if you listen closely, you can still, more then twenty-five years later, hear Toni Basil crying.)

"Stand by Me," Ben E. King: Yeah, the movie Stand by Me came out in late-summer 1986, but you heard the song throughout the fall, so I figured I could include it on the list. Moreover, I wanted to end with this song (and, incidentally, *phew* for finishing this mere hours before 2012 rolls in!) for three reasons.

First, some temporal serendipity: on December 31st, 1986, I actually saw the movie Stand by Me in the theater for the first time. Now, twenty-five years later, to the day, I'm here writing about it. So weird.

Second, temporal serendipity, part 2: the song "Stand by Me" was originally released in 1961, so it was 25-years-old when the movie made it popular again. (As a pseudo-aside: I can think of only one other song that charted twice, after a quarter-century gap: the Righteous Brothers' version of "Unchained Melody," in 1965 and then in 1990.) So 2011 marked twenty-five years after that re-release. Fifty years of "Stand by Me"? Hard to believe...

Finally, and most importantly, I wanted to conclude my memory-lane jaunt with this song because of what the song means. The song is about the importance of enduring friendships. The friends I made twenty-five years ago, when all these songs were popular-- well, I don't see any of them regularly. But I do see five of them, at least once a year. We Facebook. We exchange Christmas cards. We are most definitely still friends.

These songs may have provided the soundtrack of this magical time in my life, but my friends were the characters who made the movie of my life fun and interesting and worthwhile. The songs were on the car radio, but they were ones in the car with me. They were the ones who made the memories. They were the ones standing by me.

Twenty-five years ago, I was a junior in high school. Now I teach high school juniors. And for them, I have this one wish: that twenty-five years from now, in the year 2036, you'll look back just as fondly on your friends... and your music.

Word up!

Springsteen's "The Rising" and 9/11 (Re-Post)

2011-09-11T05:36:00.001-07:00

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of September 11th, I played Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" for my high school classes. And as I listened to the song (three times), it struck me how under-appreciated it is, not just as a 9/11 tribute, but also as a song.

Sure, it won Bruce a Grammy for Best Rock Song for 2002. And yes, Bruce played it at President Obama's inauguration. But the song only peaked at #52 on the Billboards, and I don't think many people outside of Bruce's fans remember the song. (Certainly, my students didn't know it. Then again, and it pains me to say this, they only vaguely knew who Springsteen is. As one of them said, "Oh, sure. He sings that song 'Glory Road,' right?" Eh, they're seventeen; they'll learn soon enough.)

In any case, to do my own small part on this tenth anniversary of 9/11 and to help honor the heroes who died that day, I wanted to re-post my interpretation of "The Rising." Basically, I feel the song recounts two journeys, two "risings"-- that of a firefighter literally climbing up one of the Twin Towers and that of a soul moving from this life into the next. Hope you find it enlightening.

You may also want to check out VH1's excellent edition of Storytellers (now online), in which Bruce himself talks about the inspiration behind the song and the lyrics. Start the video around 7:23. (Unfortunately, you have to watch an annoying shampoo commercial with Eva Mendes first. Ugh...)

Anyway, here's the original post...

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For my money, Bruce Springsteen's song "The Rising," off the 2002 album of the same name, is one of the most significant works of art about the September 11th tragedy. Unfortunately, not many people seem to know this.

For one thing, I'm not sure how many people outside of Bruce's core fans actually know the song. Although released as a single in the summer of 2002, the song never enjoyed mainstream, "Born in the U.S.A." kind of success. In fact, although it won Bruce a Grammy for Best Rock Song, "The Rising" peaked at #52 on the Billboard charts.

Even Bruce's die-hard fans seem split regarding what the song means. A quick review of fans' comments at SongMeanings.net suggests this lack of concensus: although all posters seem to agree the song is a response to 9/11, some feel it's a song about a specific firefighter, while others feel it's a song about living with loss and still others feel it's a song about America as a whole "rising" up after the tragedy.

Bruce himself doesn't help matters much. When discussing the song during his VH1 Storytellers performance (in 2005), he makes no direct reference to September 11th (although he makes several oblique or subtle ones).

With that said, what follows is my own analysis of Springsteen's "The Rising." I've used two sources for this analysis: a Time Magazine article, from the July 27, 2002 edition, called "Re-Born in the U.S.A." and the aforementioned Storytellers broadcast. The rest comes from my own noggin.

As with all literary analyses, this is not the answer, but an answer-- just the interpretation of one man trying ot make his way in the galaxy.

Can't see nothin' in front of me
Can't see nothin' coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me

My interpretation proceeds from the idea that the "I" in the song is a firefighter climbing up one of the World Trade Center towers on the morning of September 11th. This premise is confirmed by the Time article which calls "The Rising" "one of two firefighter songs" on the album (the other being "Into the Fire.")

With that in mind, it seems reasonable to say that this initial verse describes a firefighter lost in the smoke-filled staircases of the doomed Twin Towers. This matches up with Bruce's description from the Storytellers performance, although Bruce gets a little more metaphoric, saying he begins the song in the "netherworld," a world that is "transformed" into an "unknown and unknowable place." That transformed "netherworld" could be the chaotic interior of the World Trade Center.

The "chain that binds me" could refer to the narrator's duty, his responsibility as a firefighter, what he calls later "the cross of my calling." The narrator undoubtedly knows he won't escape, that he's climbing to his death, but his duty compels him to keep climbing.

Lost track of how far I've gone
How far I've gone, how high I've climbed
On my back's a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile of line

This verse contains the song's first direct reference to firefighting (well, as direct as we're going to get, anyway): "on my shoulder half a mile of line," which could refer to the hose he's carrying.

Likewise, some listeners seem to think the "sixty pound stone" on the narrator's back is an oxygen tank or some other piece of equipment, but to me, it's more of a metaphorical weight-- once again, the burden of this man's impossible and inescapable duty.

Bruce himself, in the Storytellers performance, refers to the "sixty pound stone" and the "half a mile of line" as, respectively, "what I must do" and the "tools I need to do it."

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

I have a few things to say about the chorus, but I'm going to hold off until the end.

Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin' the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

Again, some more overt clues that the narrator is a firefighter: "wheels of fire" and "bells ringing." (Bruce, on Storytellers, says the bells could be sirens, while also noting other possible connotations, including "church bells" and "tolling bells"-- both of which could be appropriate in the context of the song.)

As I said before, at no time during the Storytellers telecast does Bruce make any explicit reference to 9/11. But when describing the "cross of my calling" line, Bruce talks about the narrator's "uniform." Speaking in the narrator's voice, Bruce says, "my uniform fills me with the power and strength of my responsibility... who I am and what I must do."

One last thing: the "left the house this morning" line is so simple that it might seem like a throw-away line. But to me, it's one of the most poignant lines in the song, as the narrator is leaving behind, for the last time, everything and everyone he knows and loves.

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Not sure this gels at all with my interpretation, but for what it's worth: On Storytellers, Bruce says the "li, li, li"'s mean not only "sing with me" but also "stand along side of me." He later calls them reminiscent of a "prayer."

Spirits above and behind me
Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright
May their precious blood forever bind me
Lord, as I stand before your fiery light

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Several times throughout the Storytellers discussion of "The Rising," Bruce uses the word "transformation," and I think this verse begins the transformation of this narrator. To me, the narrator is in a liminal or in-between space. He's moving into the next world, the world of "spirits." He's preparing to stand before the "fiery light" of heaven.

And yet, even though he's not part of our world anymore ("faces gone"), he's still linked to it. He knows what he's giving up: the flesh and "precious blood" that we all share, that make us human. On Storytellers, Bruce sums up what the narrator is going to give up this way: "Life, life, life... on the edge of something else."

(Incidentally: I originally thought the second line of this verse was punctuated this way: "Faces gone black, eyes burning bright." But brucespringsteen.net, which seems pretty authoritative, puts the comma before "black." Personally, I like my way better: it suggests the faces have died, but something inside-- their spirits, their souls-- is still "burning bright.")

I see you Mary in the garden
In the garden of a thousand sighs
There's holy pictures of our children
Dancin' in a sky filled with light

May I feel your arms around me
May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin' on the end of the line

This begins what I consider the most moving section of the song. To me, the narrator is still in this in-between place-- this surreal, light-filled "garden" (with all its Edenic associations). But, even as he keeps rising into the next life, he's still clinging to his old life and to everything he will be leaving behind.

On Storytellers, Bruce says Mary could be a "wife" or "lover," but he also recognizes the connotations of "Jesus' Mary." I gravitate toward idea that Mary is the narrator's wife, especially since he mentions "holy pictures of our children" two lines later. (Bruce does seem to like the name "Mary," doesn't he? He uses it in "Thunder Road," "The River," and "Mary's Place," to name only a few.)

In terms of the references to "your arms" and "your blood mixed with mine," I'll let Bruce himself describe what he means: "This is what I need; I need your arms; I need your blood. This is what I am going to miss: your physicality. Your flesh and blood. My own physical-ness."

In that sense, the "catfish dancing on the end of my line" is another example of what he's going to miss: the simple pleasures of life. (I've read comments from readers who dismiss that line as trite, but I think it's one of the most vivid, compelling images in the song.)

Sky of blackness and sorrow (a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness (a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear (a dream of life)

Sky of memory and shadow (a dream of life)
Your burnin' wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life

This powerful series of juxtapositions (love and tears, glory and sadness, mercy and fear) marks the culmination of the narrator's "transformation." His soul, his spirit has been rising up into this sky-- the sky which served as the backdrop of this terrible, terrible event. But he goes higher, above the painful emotions.

Throughout this journey, he's been "dreaming of life"-- that is, the physical life, the one he knows he's going to surrender. Finally, in that last line, his journey is complete. He leaves our physical world behind and moves completely into the next world-- the "sky of fullness, sky of blessed life."

Now, as for the chorus...

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine

So, after all my hard-hitting analysis, I bet you can't wait to hear what I have to say about the chorus. And, I have to tell you... well... this is the part that stymies me a little, to be honest.

I see how "The Rising" can have two meanings: the firefighter climbing the stairs, and then the firefighter's soul ascending into heaven. And I can even see how the "lay your hands in mine" line could refer to another soul welcoming this man into heaven (or even this man welcoming another soul that comes after him).

But one word trips me up: "tonight." Why is it tonight, when the attacks happened in the morning?

All I can say is perhaps the point of view shifts in the chorus. Perhaps the chorus describes a group of people coming together at a memorial service, holding hands and remembering their loved ones. Does that work? (Any help out there?)

I hope some people find this analysis thought-provoking or even enlightening, although I know full well some will say I'm over-thinking things, that I'm taking "all the fun" out of listening to music. (I'm an English teacher, after all. You think that's the first time I've heard that?)

And so, I thought I would end this post with a brilliant line from Bruce himself, from the Storytellers session. Describing the creative process that went into "The Rising," Bruce says the following: "Did I think of any of this prior to writing the song? No. But I felt all of it when I was writing the song."

Rating the Songs of Summer 1986

2011-08-12T06:57:00.000-07:00

Summer of 1986-- the summer of Ferris Bueller and Max Headroom. The summer of Maverick, Goose, and Ice-Man. The summer I first read Catcher in the Rye and the summer when I finally committed to memory the words to "Hotel California."

During the summer of 1986, I was fifteen going on sixteen. In the mornings, I went to my first real job, as a counselor at Eager Beaver Day Camp. In the evenings, I usually rode my bike over to my friend Ned's house (neither one of us had our licenses) and swam in his pool or watched movies on his VCR. Somehow, none of this seems lame to me.

But, as I look back twenty-five years later, I think I remember the music that came out that summer most of all. So, with autumn lurking just around the bend, I decided to re-listen to twenty-five songs from that long-ago summer and see how well these tunes have stood the test of time. Basically, have these songs have held up twenty-five years later?

Now, then, to eleminiate some of the subjectivity in determining whether or not a song has achieved immortality, I am using the following criteria:

(a) whether or not you still hear this song on the radio in 2011
(b) whether or not you cringe if you do hear this song in 2011
(c) whether or not I like the song (Hey, I said, I was only eliminating some subjectivity)

Three more points before we begin:

(1) No real reason other than personal preference for why I chose these songs. I was going with the whole "25 songs from 25 years go" angle, and so plenty of songs just plain ol' didn't make the cut. So, sorry in advance to Level 42, Jermaine Stewart, and the Blow Monkeys.

(2) In most cases, I've provided links to the videos, but I take no responsibility for the cheesy content therein; and finally...

(3) Word of caution: the following list includes a rampant use of punning.

And now... the Unheralded and Thoroughly Subjective Evaluation of Pop Songs from the Summer of 1986

"Love Walks In," Van Halen: Some folks identify 5150, VH's first album with Sammy Hagar, as the precise moment where Van Halen jumped the shark, by marketing to teenyboppers and sacrificing face-shredding guitar licks for cheesy synth-keyboards. To them, I say two things: (1) "You ever hear of a little keyboard-heavy ditty called 'Jump'?" and (2) "Oh, and you didn't play the opening to 'Love Walks In' on your Casio keyboard ad naseum back in 1986?"

Haunting and beautiful, like the musical equivalent of Zooey Deschanel, "Love Walks In" also has that cool "aliens as a metaphor for love" thing going on, which never hurts. Hands down, the best single released from 5150-- in a whole other stratosphere than the unlistenable "Why Can't This Be Love?" You rarely hear it on the radio anymore (then again, outside of "Jump" and an occasional "Panama," how often do you hear any Van Halen on the radio?), but for my money, this space-age love song still lives long and prospers.

"Invisible Touch" and "Throwing It All Away," Genesis: I recognized "Invisible Touch" as a calculated, soulless piece of corporate pop before I even knew what calculated, soulless corporate pop was. To me, the song has an invisible touch, all right: it reaches in and makes me throw up my lunch. I much prefer the follow-up single, "Throwing It All Away," also released that summer; then again, "Invisible Touch" is the band's only #1 song, so what do I know? Ultimately, I heard both of these songs on the radio just last week, so I guess I have to concede that the duo have staying power.

(As an aside: Was there ever one moment in the 80s when you didn't hear Phil Collins' voice on the radio? From the summer of 1985 to the summer of 1986 alone, he released "Don't Lose My Number" and "Take Me Home" from No Jacket Required, for which he won a Grammy for Album of the Year. Plus, he sang the duet "Separate Lives" from White Nights. Plus, he had these two Genesis hits, with three more to come in the months ahead. Heck, he even appeared on an episode of Miami Vice! And that, my friends, is the paradox of the 80s: everyone seems to remember it as the decade of big hair and glam rock, but the frumpy, balding British guy in the baggy pants had more hits than anyone.)

"Higher Love," Steve Winwood: The first single from Back in the High Life and the song that officially kicked off my "Winwood phase" (which ended precisely two years later, with the release of Winwood's Roll With It, an album as derivative and insipid as High Life is original and transcendant). No need to think about it: this tune, from its drum-machine beginning to its Chaka-Khan-drenched ending, is a timeless classic.

"Rumors," Timex Social Club: I gotta tell you straight: while I liked this song a lot at the time, I can't say it has taken a lickin' and kept on tickin'. But that doesn't mean the group isn't trying to squeeze a little more blood out of this 25-year-old stone: did you hear that the group is selling a book called How Do Rumors Get Started: The True Story of the Timex Social Club? The long-awaited book, which can be purchased on the group's website, chronicles TSC's rise and fall, "a journey filled with greed (and) broken friendships (which) culminates in the group's break-up one year later." Finally, the truth can be told!

"Sledgehammer" and "In Your Eyes," Peter Gabriel: Shame that Gabriel releases albums with the frequency of Halley's Comet, because this album was So good. (Pun! Pun!) At the time, "Sledgehammer" was the smash hit (More puns!) and it still packs a whallop, but "In Your Eyes" is definitely the one that endures. And yes, "In Your Eyes" was originally released in the summer of 1986, not in the summer of 1989, which is when Lloyd Dobler famously played it outside of Diane Court's window. (Looking back, that scene really walks the line between sweet and creepy, doesn't it? Lloyd Dobler: hopeless romantic, or deviant stalker? You decide...)

"Touch and Go," Emerson, Lake, and Powell: I literally-- literally-- had not thought of this song in twenty-five years, and neither, I'd wager, has anyone else (including Messers Emerson, Lake, and Powell). So, easy "no" as far as standing the test of time, which is not to say it's a bad song; it just had the misfortune of coming out the same year as Europe's "The Final Countdown." (The two are pretty much identical.)

"When the Heart Rules the Mind," GTR: OMG, it's GTR! You know, GTR-- a VIP among the OHWs (One-Hit Wonders), that went MIA after their only single was DOA? Actually, that's not fair: this song is decent enough, but it definitely does not stand the TOT (Test of Time), since it almost never gets played, not even on "Back to the 80s" marathons. And as they say, out of sight, out of (heart-ruled) mind. R.I.P., GTR.

"Take My Breath Away," Berlin: Few things in this life befuddle me more than the enduring popularity of this song. As the "love theme" for Top Gun, this song gives me the need for speed, all right... the need to get this song off my radio as speedily as possible. And, yeah, I know I just said that thing about "enduring popularity," but will not endorse this song on general principle-- that principle being a steadfast refusal to support any song that sounds like the moans of a dying whale.

"Papa Don't Preach," Madonna: Remember Mr. Blue's assessment of Madonna in Reservoir Dogs? "I like her early stuff. 'Lucky Star.' 'Borderline.' But once she got into her 'Papa Don't Preach' phase-- I don't know, I tuned out." And I think I agreed with him, until I remembered that this "phase" also encompassed "Live To Tell" and "Open Your Heart," which I thoroughly enjoy. So, yeah, I've softened to the 1986 Material Girl and to "Papa Don't Preach" in particular. In fact, out of all the teen-pregnancy dance songs featuring Danny Aiello in the video, this might be the best.

(And if you're looking for a little depression: if the narrator of this song did indeed keep her baby, that child would be twenty-five years old. Now, excuse me as I attend to the liver spots exploding on my barren scalp.)

"If She Knew What She Wants," The Bangles: Sandwiched in between the releases of "Manic Monday" and "Walk Like an Egyptian" is this great song that no one remembers. Lost to the sands of time, and that's a shame. (On the flip side, lead singer Susanna Hoffs' starring role in the 1987 flop The Allnighter is also lost in those same sands, and that's not a shame at all. So I guess it all even outs.)

"Modern Woman," Billy Joel: From the soundtrack of the dark comedy Ruthless People. The movie is a forgotten gem; the song, thankfully, is just forgotten. Let's put it this way: even Billy Joel himself apparently wants nothing to do with it. In an interview he gave more than a decade ago, Billy justified the exclusion of "Modern Woman" from his Greatest Hits Vol III this way: "I hated that thing." Fun fact: this is the only song in this list that actually mentions the year "1986" in its lyrics.

"You Can Call Me Al," Paul Simon: And you can call this song a classic, stuffed with lots and lots of words and nutty turns-of-phrases married to an impossibly hummable melody. Who cares that we still don't know who this Al guy is, or why he wants a woman named Betty for a bodyguard, or even what a cartoon graveyard is? This song's still crazy after all these years. Amen and Hallejulah!

"Love Touch," Rod Stewart: From the soundtrack of the Robert Redford comedy Legal Eagles (which I inexplicably saw twice in the theater, although once was against my will), this is just dippy, innocuous movie-pop. I wouldn't call it un-catchy... just un-good. And un-enduring.

"Suzanne," Journey: Yeah, I didn't remember it either. I knew Journey had a song during this summer-- and a relatively decent one, at that-- but I couldn't place it. Even after I looked it up, I couldn't summon the tune. So I guess that says something about the song's ability to stand the test of time. It's also pretty much the only Journey song that has not been featured on Glee. (Then again, it could be in the future. Is Sue--as in Sue Sylvester-- short for "Suzanne"?)

"Tuff Enuff," Fabulous Thunderbirds: Twenty-five years before Bruno Mars proclaimed the things he's do for his decidedly unappreciative beloved (including catching on a grenade and jumping in front of a train), the lead singer of the T-Birds made similarly hyperbolic proclamations of love in this song.

From climbing the Empire State Building to wrestling with a lion and a grizzly bear--this guy will do it all to win the objection of his desire. Ah, but can he pass the most important test-- namely, the test of time? Tuff to say, but I'll let the Birds of Thunder roll into pop culture immortality, only because the lead singer rocks the red suit/ black beret combo and still has the guts to call himself "fabulous."

Incidentally, despite their boastings, the T-Birds do NOT win the award for the Most Outrageous Proclamations of Love by a 1980s Singer-Suitor. That honor goes to the guy from Modern English, who maintains he will not only “stop the world” for his girlfriend but also “melt” with her…. whatever that means. (Are the two related? Do you have to stop the world first in order to melt with someone? And why are either of those favorable things to do?)

"Nasty," Janet Jackson: Well, no one can say Ms. Jackson hasn't stood the test of time; it just hasn't always been for the right reasons. Still, I'll say the song endures, if only because it somehow reminds me of a time when Janet seemed innocent. Oh, the 1986 Janet was still sassy and tough. Just not as... well, nasty.

“Like a Rock,” Bog Seger: “Twenty years now—where’d they go?” Seger’s narrator laments as he looks back on his days as a brawny, carefree, charging-from-the-gate teen. Now consider that he asked this twenty-five years ago. (Oh, look… them liver spots again.)

And yet, despite its age, this song is still Ford-truck tough, enduring all these years later as one of Seger’s best, and certainly the best work of his later years. (And, yes, that most definitely includes 1987’s wretched “Shakedown,” from Beverly Hills Cop 2.)

"Glory of Love," Peter Cetera: Never really cared much for this song, the "love theme" to Karate Kid II, but I can't say that Time has swept the legs out from under it, either. So, I'll begrudgingly say it's stood the test of time, partly because lite rock stations still play it and partly because if I don't, my wife will resent me as trying to sound cooler than I actually am. Two more comments about this song:

(1) What's up with the summer of 1986 and soundtracks? Four on this list already, and that's not even including Michael McDonald's "Shine Sweet Freedom" (Running Scared) Carly Simon's "Coming Around Again" (Heartburn), Kenny Loggins' "Danger Zone" (Top Gun), Jon Waite's "If Anyone Had a Heart" (...About Last Night), and El DeBrage's "Who's Johnny" (Short Circuit). Plus we had the re-release of "Stand by Me." And the Love Theme to Howard the Duck. (Kidding about that last one.)

(2) I always found it curious that Peter Cetera's first post-Chicago hit was a song that sounded exactly like a mid-80's Chicago song. What's the point of leaving if you're going to do the same old stuff? Wouldn't it have been infinitely more interesting if he did something completely different instead, like a cover of "Crazy Train"?

"Venus," Bananarama: The song may be about the goddess of love, but personally, I never had it--love, that is-- for this tune. Still, I can't deny the song has endured, showing up in razor commercials and on American Dad. I guess it all comes down to our collective desire to say the name "Bananarama."

"Mad About You," Belinda Carlisle: In the early 80s, two of my friends made a bet about who was going to be a bigger star-- Madonna or Belinda Carlisle. I guess we know who won that one. Still, Belinda had a few good tunes in her post-Go-Go's discography, including this one. At the very least, this song has lasted longer than the 90's sitcom of the same name. (Say, what happened to Helen Hunt, anyway? Has anyone seen her in, like, the past seven years? Should someone go looking for her?)

"That Was Then, This Is Now," Monkees: For reasons no one can quite explain, 1986 saw a bit of a Monkees comeback. As MTV showed all of the Monkees episodes, radio stations played this song (a remake of a tune originally recorded by a band called the Mosquitos, a name only slightly dumber than the Monkees). The comeback was short-lived, and I would hardly call this song a timeless classic, but maybe those wacky gents could still generate some mainstream Monkeemania in 2011? Hey, a man can be a (daydream) believer, can't he?

"Walk This Way," Run-D.M.C.: Believe it or not, this one gave me some pause. On the one hand, except for a recent mention in the new Smurfs movie, you rarely hear Run-D.M.C.'s version of this song on the radio, which could lead one to deduce the tune didn't have any legs. On the other hand... it's "Walk This Freakin' Way"! The song that introduced rap into the mainstream, revitalized the career of Aerosmith, and influenced pretty much every rap rock act that followed them! And here I am, on my stupid list, suggesting this song didn't stand the test of time? How smurfin' pretentious is that?

"Stuck with You," Huey Lewis and the News: On a recent car ride, my wife and I were trying to decide who had more hits in the 80s. Our calculations put Phil Collins as number one, but right behind him was Huey Lewis. Not Madonna or Michael Jackson or Hall and Oates or even Kajagoogoo, but the big-headed lug from San Francisco. We rattled off fifteen legitimate hit songs without even really thinking about it.

So why doesn't Huey get more love? We determined that, despite his fame, it was always a little embarassing, even at his peak, to admit you were a Huey Lewis fan. But I don't care. I proudly call myself a fan, of the group and this song, and I'm happy this tune has stuck with us for the past twenty-five years.

Hope this was good for a little nostalgia. Weird thing is, as I write this, I can clearly remember these songs from the summer of 1986--which was twenty-five years ago-- but I'm having trouble remembering even three songs from the summer of 2011-- which was just, like, last week. Maybe the short term memory is going in my 41-year-old mind is starting to go. or maybe the current crop of songs just aren't particularly memorable. But most of all, maybe the current songs just aren't that memorable to me.

I think a little paraphrasing of the last line of Stand by Me (a movie which came out, coincidentally, in the summer of 1986) sums up my thoughts nicely on this matter: "I'll never have music like the music I had when I was fifteen. Jesus, does anyone?"

Can Boys Read Judy Blume?

2011-07-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

So I had a piece a few weeks ago in the Hartford Courant, about talking to your kids about "the facts of life." And no, I don't mean the 80s show with Mrs. Garrett and Tootie... which is even harder to explain. (When the show went from seven featured students the first season to only four the next, how did they explain where everyone else went? Did that school only have those four students? How were those four girls, who were so different, even friends? And what exactly is a Tootie, anyway?)

Anyway, back to the article: for a hook, I started with a memory I have about reading Judy Blume books when I was in fifth grade; meanwhile, thirty years later, when my own sons got to the fifth grade, I realized, "Hey, I don't want them reading those books! They're too young for this stuff." Existential crisis ensued.

I got some good feedback on the piece, but quite a few people had the same question for me: What was a boy doing reading Judy Blume?

I guess I kind of understand why they were asking, since, yes, Ms. Judy does have a lot of female protagonists, and, no, her books never incorporated a ton of car chases or laser guns. So maybe she has developed a rep for being an anuthor for girls. But is it justified?

Hey, the first Judy Blume book I read was Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, which has male narrator named Peter Hatcher, and I just kept going after that. I was ten. What did I know about "boy" books vs. "girl" books?

But the whole thing got me thinking: why not go through the Judy Blume books I remember reading as a child and label them according to target gender? So if I think the book is primarily meant for girls, I'll label it "For Girls"; if I regard the book as primarily meant for boys, I'll label it "For Boys." If it seems to me immaterial, that there is no target gender, I'll say "Both." (I was hoping to use that wacky masculine/ feminine symbol that Prince used for a little bit in the 90s, but I guess just the word "both" will have to suffice.)

Before we begin, a few caveats:

This list is in no way exhaustive, as a quick Judy Blume Sporcle game revealed. My Judy Blume phase only lasted for about a year, and I never really read any of her books after 1980's Superfudge. (Sorry, Iggy's House-- just never got around to you...)

This list doesn't include Forever, which I never read. But my wife (who says she remembers girls passing around marked-up copies of Forever in the back of the middle school bus) assures me this is a book For Girls (or maybe Sllightly Scandalized but Nonetheless Very Curious Young Women is more like it).

Finally, this list does not include Deenie or Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself; I did read both of them, but I don't really remember anything about them. I think I'm blocking out Deenie because I'm pretty sure the main character had scoliosis, and in the fifth grade, the only thing that frightened me more than Fantasy Island and the insect segments on That's Incredible was scoliosis. As far as Sally Freedman goes, I honestly remember nothing about it other than the fact that one of the characetrs thought Hitler was living in her neighborhood... or something.

With that in mind.... here are my totally subjective, based-on-nothing thoughts about which genders should read Judy Blume books:

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing: The book that started it all-- believe it or not, the book has three sequels. Classic children's book-- regardless of gender. BOTH

Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great: More of a spin-off than a sequel to Fourth Grade Nothing (you wouldn't call The Tortellis a "sequel" to Cheers, would you?), this book is actually more complicated than its predecessor, thanks to its somewhat detestable narrator, Sheila Tubman. But a great book that has a lot to say about owning up to your own shortcomings. A female narrator, sure, but that doesn't make a darn bit of difference. BOTH

Blubber: Basically, Mean Girls in the 1970s. Not a ton of guy characters, as far as I can remember-- the book is pretty much about girls bullying girls-- but I don't think that makes it a "girl" book; to me, the lesson about the dangers of bullying is universal. In fact, with renewed talk about bullying lately, this book should make a comeback. BOTH

Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret: No equivocating here: totally a girl's book. Margaret and her friends are going through "changes"-- changes which I didn't understand as a fifth grader and only vaguely have a handle on now. (I'm kidding... kind of.) There's another narrative strand about Margaret trying to choose between her dad's Judaism or her mother's Catholicism. But the puberty stuff really drives the book. So, yeah, even though I read it, no one will deny it's a book For Girls.

Then Again, Maybe I Won't: Written a year after Are You There, God?, this is basically its male counterpart: the boy puberty book. At least, that's the way I remembered it. But over the past year, when I first had the inkling to write that Courant article, I read it over, and I realized that the puberty stuff acts as a metaphor for all the other changes the narrator Tony is going through. In this case, most of the changes have to do with his family's newfound wealth, after the dad invents something and makes a boatload of money. But of course, as Tony, a middle-schooler with a nervous stomach, discovers, mo' money means mo' problems. At its core, the book is about classism: if Karl Marx were alive today and had a talk show, this one could be a part of his Book Club.

Still... even though boys and girls could get something out of all the "problems of the nouveau riche" stuff going on, all the puberty talk means it's probably a book For Boys.

Freckle Juice: Hmmmm... honestly, don't remember much about this one, either, except that it was really short and it had illustrations. I read it in the fifth grade, and I definitely remember feeling it was a book for littler kids... which probably means it doesn't have anything edgy or offensive. I'd call this one right down the middle. BOTH

It's Not the End of the World: This "divorce" book has a female narrator, but that doesn't really matter to the plot, which is about children trying to survive their parents' break-up. Kinda unremarkable but not a bad book either. BOTH

Superfudge: This bona fide sequel to Fourth Grade Nothing has the Hatcher family move for a year to the suburbs, buy a myna bird, and add a new member to the family (a baby girl named Tootsie). Just like the original, I'd say this one works for both genders. BOTH

So take that, all you "what's-a-boy-doing-reading-Judy-Blume?"naysayers out there! Clearly, the completely objective data I've compiled shows that out of the eight books mentioned above, only one was pretty clearly "For Girls." Now that I cleared that up, I'll have to start thinking up answers for the new question I'll probably be asked-- "What's a boy doing watching 'The Facts of Life,' anyway?"

Does Bon Jovi Have Any "Forgotten Gems"?

2011-07-11T13:57:00.001-07:00

I know it's been a while since I last posted, but I recently stumbled upon two comments that riled me up enough to write. Naturally, both comments involved Bon Jovi.

The first comment was made by my wonderful niece Lucy, who claimed she "hated" Jon Bon Jovi, because "he is old, he is ugly, and he is not a good singer."

The second was an off-handed remark I read on pages 162-163 of Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City: "It seems the only good Bon Jovi songs were the popular ones," Klosterman posits. "The band has no forgotten gems whatsoever (except maybe 'Love is a Social Disease,' and even that is a stretch)."

(Incidentally, I know that FRC came out in 2001, and that my righteous indignation isn't particularly timely, but I just came across that comment this weekend. So my indignation is righteously timely to me.)

The first bundle of comments, about JBJ being old and not a good singer, I can let slide. My niece, after all, twelve; Dakota Fanning seems old to her. And being twelve, she's not really familiar with Bon Jovi's oeuvre. (And yes, I originally typed "body of work" there.) She's probably more familiar with his more recent offerings, the "Have a Nice Days" or the "We Weren't Born To Follows" or the "What Do You Gots," which no one would consider strongest stuff. Not bad, mind you, just a tad derivative. Oh hell, who are we kidding? They're pretty much the same song. But it's a good same song, so we collectively let it go.

But I couldn't easily dismiss the Klosterman comment about Jovi having "no forgotten gems" and felt determined to prove him wrong. After all, we're fast approaching the 25th anniversary of Slippery When Wet (released August 1986), which is when I first called myself a fan. So I felt I needed to speak on Jon's behalf-- because, you know, he really needs my endorsement.

However, while combing through my Jovi treasure trove for "forgotten gems," I realized two things. First, I'm just about the worst Jovi fan in the world, in that I only own two Bon Jovi albums: Slippery When Wet (on cassette, no less!) and Greatest Hits- The Ultimate Collection. Not sure why I don't own more; I think it started when I didn't buy 1988's New Jersey, both because I didn't like the debut single, "Bad Medicine" ("More like 'Bad Music,'" I oh-so-wittily quipped), and because the album came out right when I started college, a time when you're basically required to pooh-pooh everything that got you through high school. Bottom line: combing through my treasure trove didn't take as long as I thought.

Still, reviewing my admittedly sparse collection brought me to my second realization: "Geez, maybe Klosterman has a point. Maybe the only good Bon Jovi songs are the popular ones!" This came after a car ride spent listening to Disc 2 of Ultimate Collection, which such contains such anthems as "These Days" and "When We Were Beautiful." Never heard of them? There's a reason for that: they're lame. Forgettable.

(As an aside: Why do "greatest hits" collections invariably leave out at least one or two of a band's actual "greatest hits"? How can any Bon Jovi "best of" collection not have "Never Say Goodbye" or "She Don't Know Me" or even "Thank You for Loving Me"? Defies explanation. Would you have a John Parr "best of'" without "Naughty Naughty"? What about a T'Pau "greatest hits" without "Heart and Soul"?)

And yet, I refuse to agree with Klosterman's asserton that Jovi has "no forgetten gems whatsoever." In fact, I came up with three great Jovi songs that, to my knowledge, never got significant airplay:

"Shot Through the Heart": And no, I'm not confusing this with "You Give Love a Bad Name." I'm talking about a great "you broke my heart, you soulless meanie" song from their first album. Basically, "You Give Love a Bad Name, v. 1."

"Wild in the Streets": Last song on Slippery When Wet. Awesome tune, any way you look at it. Check and mate, Chuck Kolsterman.

"Silent Night": When I first saw Bon Jovi in December '86, Jon swung out into the audience on a trapeze-type device and sang this song from a platform. When I saw them in July '87, they did the same trapeze bit, only with "Never Say Goodbye"; when I saw them in March '89, they sang "I'll Be There For You." Yeah, they're all remarkably similar (you could probably throw "Bed of Roses" in there, too), but I think "Silent Night" is the best of the bunch. Definitely a forgotten gem.

So, Bon Jovi may not have a ton of forgotten gems, but he does have them. Of course, only after I wrote all this, I realized something: Why does it even matter, anyway? As long as his popular songs remain unforgettable, who cares about the forgotten ones?

ANTI-Snow Day Rituals

2011-02-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

Preface: Over the past month or so, New England was hammered by a series of snowstorms, which resulted in more than a few snow days. My high school had at least five (honestly, I lost count); my niece's school had maybe eight-- three of which were just for "snow removal."

In the midst of what I started to call "January vacation", something truly bizarre happened: students and teachers started to get sick of all the time off. They actually wanted to go back to school.

So, during one of my snow days, I sat down to write an article about "Anti-Snow Day Rituals"-- a sequel of sorts to a piece I wrote in 2008. Convinced I hit a home-run, I sent the piece into my contact at the Hartford Courant-- who eventually declined it.

I guess I can't blame him. By the time I sent it in, the worst of the snow had passed, which made the piece much less topical. (Or maybe he just thought it was lame. Who can say?)

But, hey, I wrote it, and I think I have some good zingers in here, so I figured I'll put it on the ol' blog. Who knows? Maybe we'll have a freak blizzard in March, and this will suddenly become The Most Relevant Artcle Ever. With the winter we've had so far, it's anyone's guess.

Anyway, here's the Anti-Snow Day piece...

An urgent plea to school children everywhere: Put the spoons back in the drawer. Now.

It started innocently enough. Just a few weeks ago, on the eve of the first major snowstorm of the year, students of all ages were snug in their beds, sleeping in their inside-out pajamas with spoons under their pillows.

Maybe, earlier in the evening, they had thrown some ice cubes in the toilet. Maybe they ran five times around their kitchen table. The rituals vary, but the goal remains constant: to conjure up a glorious—and gloriously elusive—snow day.

Well, it worked—all too well. We got our snow day. And another. And another. We got so many snow days, in fact, that we actually started to get sick of them.

It seems as the snow piles up, snow-day enthusiasm goes down, for two main reasons. The first is purely practical: teachers and students alike are seeing how all these days off are eating into their summer vacations, and they don’t like it one bit. They want it to stop.

The second, more metaphysical reason has to do with preserving the sanctity of the snow-day phenomenon itself. Over the past month, we’ve watched our precious snow days degenerate into something commonplace, ordinary. What was once an unexpected break from routine has become the routine. The magic, the “will it or won’t it?” giddiness associated with snow days, is gone.

Once upon a time, you would wake up the morning of a potential snow day, look out your window, and dash downstairs, to the computer or TV, to check the school cancellation listings. And when your school’s name came up, you would thank God or your superintendent for this amazing gift.

All that’s changed. Now, when teachers and students see their school’s name on that listing, they don’t feel that sense of dizzying rapture. Instead, they feel apathetic, or worse: vaguely disappointed.

Thus, we now find ourselves in this Bizarro Winter, when students and teachers are clamoring to go to school. And so, we must act. We must re-set the universe. We must engage in Anti-Snow Day Rituals.

Never heard of Anti-Snow Day Rituals? Not surprising, because they don’t exist (for obvious reasons). But I’m sure we can come up with something.

The obvious route is take every activity you’ve been doing to encourage the snow, and do the opposite. Flush boiling water down the toilet rather than ice cubes. Instead of running around your kitchen table, walk around the same table, only backwards. (I don’t, however, recommend putting a fork under your pillow; this isn’t worth losing an eye over.)

Or perhaps we could borrow some of the techniques used by brides to ensure a sunny day for their wedding, such as boiling rocks or hanging rosary beads out windows.

Or maybe we just try something completely random: lining a window pane with rock salt, putting a black crayon in the freezer, eating Bit-o-Honey with toothpicks while wearing one red mitten. Silly and non-sensical, yes… but so is hiding a spoon under your bed while earing inside-out PJs.

Or maybe we forget all the ritualistic bombast and appeal directly to the Snow Miser himself, the wizard responsible for all this crazy weather. We could humbly apologize for all our past Snow Day Ritual transgressions. We could swear we’ve learned whatever lesson he was trying to teach us—about delaying gratification, about “how too much of a good thing is not a good thing.” And we could promise that we will never, ever put spoons under our pillows again.

Well… at least, not until next year.

Honestly, It's Tricky Talking to Teens about Lying

2011-02-06T12:23:00.000-08:00

I co-teach Confirmation class in my town-- 9th and 10th graders. And last year, for one class, we did a lesson on lying-- something I see this a lot of as a high school teacher. Here's a typical example:

Me: “Hey, put your phone away.”
Student: “I didn't have my phone...”
Me: "But I just saw you, with your phone on your desk, pressing buttons..."

For many teens, it seems, lying is the default defense mechanism, and in some ways, I understand why: lying is so pervasive, we've almost become desensitized to it. Like Dr. House says, "Everybody lies."

And he's not wrong: parents lie to their children (Tooth Fairy, anyone?); children lie to their parents; advertisers lie to consumers; politicians lit to voters. Students lie to their teachers, and sometimes, teachers lie to their students. (Just so you know, kids: when a teacher says, “Of course, I wrote your recommendation... I just have to print it out,” that means he's going to go and write it that night.)

So, my co-teacher and I wanted to talk to our class about lying, but we didn’t want to stand up in front of them and say that lying is always wrong, because that’s too easy, and we live in a complex world. Nor did we want to say it’s sometimes OK to lie, because that makes it sound like everything is relative. Plus, we didn't want anyone to go home and say, “Hey, guess what, Mom. My CCD teacher says it’s OK to lie!” So it was tricky.

To get started, I presented to them five scenarios, and then we discussed whether the characters involved in each situation were really lying, and if so, was it acceptable to do so, and if they themselves would act similiarly in that situation. The scenarios are the following:

Connor was really under a lot of pressure—from his parents, teachers, and coaches—to improve his grades. But between basketball practices and his new girlfriend, he just didn’t have time to work on his To Kill a Mockingbird paper. So, the night before it was due, he found a paper on the Internet, put his name on it, and handed it in. He’d never done that before, but he promised himself next time, he wouldn’t let it come to this.

Theo was doing his math homework when he heard a pounding on his door. Startled, he ran over to the door to find his friend Marty, who said, “Some guys are chasing me, threatening to beat me up. Can I hide in here?” Theo quickly hid Marty in his closet. Only a few minutes later, when four huge lacrosse players showed up at Theo’s front door looking for Marty, Theo calmly explained that he’s been doing homework all day and denied that he saw him. The thugs bought the story and walked away.

Sarah’s parents were going away for the night, and she was having a big party. Amanda really wanted to go, but she knew her mom wouldn’t let her. So she told her mom she was just going over to Sarah’s to watch movies and play Taboo.
“So it’s just going to be you and a few friends?” Mom asked. “Yes,” Amanda replied. Mom: “And her parents are going to be there?” Amanda: “Yes.”
Mom: “And no drinking or anything like that?” Amanda: “No.”
“OK,” Amanda’s mom said. “I trust you.”

For months, Meredith was trying to get “in” with this certain group of girls, so when they invited her to go to the movies, she jumped at the chance. Only problem: she had already promised her friend Isabel that she would hang out with her. She thought about asking the girls if Isabel could go to the movies too, but she knew that they didn’t really care for Isabel, because of a stupid misunderstanding that happened way back in sixth grade. When Friday came, Meredith told Isabel she was tired and was going to stay home—then, of course, immediately went to the movies with the other girls. She felt bad about lying to Isabel, but what else could she do?

“I went to the Mall today and bought this new sweater!” Kathryn gushed, giving a fashion show to her friend Meghan. “I absolutely adore it! What do you think?” Unfortunately, Meghan didn’t care for Kathryn’s new purchase at all. She thought the whole thing—the color, the style, even the buttons—was wrong. Plus, she didn’t think Kathryn looked very good in it. But she didn’t want to make her friend feel bad, so when Kathryn asked her point-blank what she thought of it, she smiled and, mustering up as much fake enthusiasm as she possibly could, said, “Oh, it’s the cutest! I want one just like it!”

The scenarios generated some very… interesting discussion. For some, we had consensus. In the case of the "Marty is going to get beat up" story (an World War II ethical dilemma I modified to make it relevant to adolescents), pretty much everyone agreed the boy had to lie to save his friend from physical harm. So we talked about conscience and determining the greater good.

The one about the girl who bought the ugly sweater was trickier, but manageable. Most students agreed they would lie in that case, although some of the boys argued for brutal honesty; if someone's feelings get hurt, too bad. So we talked about the idea of tact, about how the girl could perhaps skirt the issue by pointing out something nice about the sweater ("The buttons are very unique" or "I'm so glad you like it").

Of course, some of the students suggested that's pretty much the same as lying, and I'm not sure I completely disagree. (An author named Cassandra Clare wrote, "Tact is lying for adults.") But we countered by saying that perhaps, in this case, you'd rather be dishonest than rude, and maybe it's more charitable to spare the other person's feelings than tell the truth. So far, so good.

Then we got to the two scenarios involving social activities-- lying to mom about a party, or lying to an old friend about a newer, "cooler" friend. Those discussions, to be honest, were a little on the discouraging side, with many of the students saying they'd probably do the same thing. In both cases, they recognized that the person told a lie, but they argued it was necessary. (And besides, everyone lies to their parents, so no harm, no foul.)

Finally, as an English teacher, I was most disheartened by the discussion about the kid copying off the To Kill a Mockingbird paper. Almost every single kid in the class tried to tell me plagiarism isn't lying. "But you're lying to your teacher!" I insisted. "By putting your name on it, you're saying this is your work, when it isn't!" They didn't buy it.

After we went throught the scenarios, we had them do an examination of conscience. We asked them to think of a lie they told in their lives and ask themselves a series of questions. (Does this lie serve my own self-interests? Will this lie, in the long run, make the situation worse or better?
If I get caught telling this lie, will other people get hurt? If I get caught telling this lie, will people be disappointed in me? Is it important for you to be considered a trustworthy person?)

Did any of this work? Not sure. But hey, at least we brought up a prickly issue and talked about it truthfully. And even though my co-teacher and I were a little discouraged by some of their answers, at least they were honest about it. Hey, it's a start, right?

French Onion Soup and the Etymology of "Companion"

2011-01-04T12:11:00.000-08:00

(Note: Yeah, it's been a long time since I posted something to this blog. What can I say? Blogging is relentless, and I'm... well, I guess I'm relentful. But over the past few months, some of my students mentioned they had wandered by the site and encouraged me to post more. So here's something I had written for one of my classes. Enjoy...)

“The bread bowl,” I tell my wife, “is one of the greatest inventions ever.”

She looks up quizzically from her Asian Chicken Salad as I continue in between slurps of my French Onion Soup. “It’s not just the delicious collision of the soup and the sourdough bread that I respect. It’s the efficiency of it all: you actually get to eat the container in which the soup is served. The container becomes part of the meal. How ingenious is that? ”

We’re sitting in a booth at Panera on a busy Saturday afternoon as I make this observation. We’re out running on errands alone, without our twin sons—in fact, we were buying decorations for their tenth birthday party— and we decided to stop for a quick bite. And the introduction of the meal suddenly transforms this afternoon of errands into an actual date.

Parents have to do that once in a while, you know. It’s nothing personal: we love our kids, but occasionally, we have to remind ourselves that we’re not just parents. And so, while eating our meals, my wife and I catch up on a few things. We chat, not just about the sheer awesomeness of bread bowls but about the kids’ upcoming party, curious stories from our jobs, something funny she saw on TV. We laugh. We enjoy each other’s company. And I realize it’s not the bread bowl that makes the afternoon special; it’s the company.

As it turns out, the word “companion” actually involves bread. Like French Onion soup meeting a bread bowl, the word “companion” is actually a combination of two Latin words: the prefix “com,” meaning “with”; and “panis,” meaning “bread.” (The name “Panera” comes from the same root.) Thus, a “companion” is literally someone “to have bread with.”

“Have bread with”? What does that have to with companionship? Think about it: bread is not just one of the world’s most popular foods but also one of the oldest. As a result, over the years, it has come to represent not just a specific kind of food, but food in general.

So, if you hear someone in prayer saying “give us this day our daily bread,” he’s not asking for something onto which he can spread his peanut butter and Fluff. He’s talking about both physical and spiritual nourishment.

So if you think of bread symbolizing food in general, the etymology of “companion” makes sense. After all, you don’t want a share a meal with just anyone. Sharing a meal with someone suggests a level of familiarity and comfort. When you go into the cafeteria, you’ll want to eat with people you know, people you like.

Knowing the etymology of “companion” really helped me appreciate not just the word but also the importance of sharing a meal. Think about this the next time you’re at a restaurant with someone you love: what’s better—the food, or the company you’re keeping?

Dino-Musings

2010-03-03T13:54:00.000-08:00

I know I have been sort of remiss in posting lately... but I have been writing, I swear!

About a month ago, I had a piece published in the Hartford Courant about my latest addiction, the online quiz site called Sporcle. You can check out the piece here.

And today, I had a piece published on a cool site called The Faster Times. Described as "a new type of newspaper for a new type of world," The Faster Times attempts to redeem the dying art of great journalism. Really, an impressive site, with a great mission and some great content.

This week, the Faster Times folks were generous enough to publish something I wrote, a piece entitled "When Did Studying Dinosaurs Get So Complicated?" You can check out the article (and my goofy mug) here.

The "initial shiver of inspiration" (Thanks, Nabokov) for this article came from my nine-year-old son, who has long been a huge fan of dinosaurs. Not that that's particularly remarkable: he is a little boy, after all; he has to love dinosaurs. (I think there must be with some kind of dinosaur chromosome or something.)

Personally, I know I was fascinated by the things when I was his age. But as I read his dinosaur books along with him, I realized something strange has seemingly happen in the past thrity years: we have new dinosaurs.

Hey, I know, I know. How can there be new dinosaurs? They've been extinct for, like, six gazillion years. Then how do you explain all these new-fangled dinosaurs that appeared in my son's books-- dinosaurs I had never heard of before?

Parasaurolophus. Coelophyses. Troodons. And others whose names I couldn't even pronounce. (My son, of curse, had no problem with the names: I remember stumbling over a particularly prickly name while reading a book to him, and he said, slightly exasperated, “Daddy, it’s Compsognathus!”)

So I asked myself, "Where did these crazy things come from, anyway?" When I was a kid, there were maybe five dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurs Rex, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and Pterodactyl. That was it--except for maybe an occasional reference to Diplodocus. Are paleontologists inventing new dinosaurs, just to mess with us?

All that dinosaur angst ended up inspiring the piece that eventually became the one currently appearing in The Faster Times, which is less about terrible lizards and more about the loss of childhood innocence. But I had some other dinosaur-related observations, ones that I ended up cutting from the piece, that I thought I could re-print here. (Ah, praise be the junk-heap that is the blogosphere!)

First off, while writing the piece, I found myself wrestling with one of those overwhelming questions: Why doesn't anyone talk about Brontosaurus anymore? Are you telling me they've not only added dinosaurs, but they've taken one away?

Well, I did some research (i.e. I checked Wikipedia), and apparently, the Brontosaurus was a grown-up version of Apatosaurus, which had been discovered first; thus, the name “Brontosaurus” became extinct.

That Bronotsaurus tangent got me thinking about Fred Flintstone, who loved nothing more than his Brontosaurus Burger after a tough day working for Mr. Slate. Then I started thinking about the Flintstones' bizarre longevity. I mean, they still make Fruity Pebbles cereal and Flintstone Vitamins-- despite the fact that most kids, I'd wager, have never actually seen a Flintstones cartoon.

Think about it: Magilla Gorilla, Captain Caveman, Snugglepuss-- they've all faded from the cultural consciousness. But as long as kids eat breakfast, the Flintstones will live on. Capitalism rocks. (I can't decide if that's a pun or not.)

Final observation that never made it to the final piece: about fifteen years ago, I went to the Museum of Science in Boston and saw a new exhibit for a dinosaur named...Ultrasaurus. And I distinctly remember thinking, “Oh, come on. Now they’re just getting ridiculous.”

I mean, honestly: Ultrasaurus? Doesn’t it sound like a Marvel Comics cartoon super-lizard or something? “An asteroid is careening toward the planet to wipe out dinosaur life as we know it. This looks like a job for—Ultrasaurus!”

Anyway, check out the articles. Till then, enjoy the Bronotosaurus Burgers.

"Make It So!": Jean-Luc Picard and One-On-One Writing Conferences

2010-02-24T03:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, I wish I could run my one-on-one writing conferences with my students the way Jean-Luc Picard runs his starship.

Who would skip a meeting, after all, with the no-nonsense, chrome-domed Captain of the Enterprise? Who would dare give Picard a “revised” draft that looks suspiciously identical to the one from the week before? Moreover, Picard wouldn’t delicately dance around the black holes in a student’s text; no, Captain Picard gives orders, not suggestions-- orders which he always punctuates with the ominous tag-line, “Make it so.” Granted, Professor Picard’s students wouldn’t gain much in terms of self-actualization, but in terms of a polished finished product, they’d certainly learn how to make it so.

Of course, while it would be easier to run a conference like this, it certainly wouldn’t be better-- for me or my students. But as an English teacher who meets frequently with his students in individual writing conferences, I always thought I could take something away from Picardian pedagogy-- namely, his commitment the so-called “Prime Directive,” which any card-carrying Star Trek fan would define as follows: when a Federation starship visits a new planet, the crew members can observe the indigenous cultures, but they cannot interfere with their normal evolutions. Basically, it’s the interplanetary version of the chaos theory-- the “if a butterfly flaps its wings on Jupiter” conundrum.

When I first started teaching in 1995, I used a model similar to the “Prime Directive” for my writing conferences: I saw myself as a visitor in these strange, new worlds my students committed to paper. And although I praised the things I enjoyed, or asked them to clarify moments of confusion, or perhaps helped them see untapped potential already inherent in their texts, I never introduced anything foreign into these worlds. We were simply having a conversation-- at least, that’s what I told myself.

And yet I couldn’t reconcile my understood role as “observer” with my recurring frustrations with conferencing. If I were truly just observing and conversing, why did I feel discouraged when the students didn’t incorporate our “conversations” into their drafts? Or when they did incorporate my suggestions, why the uneasy self-consciousness that they were pursuing these ideas for my benefit, not theirs? My students couldn’t win-- and because I couldn’t figure out why, neither could I.

Then I remembered my “Star Trek”: you see, the “Prime Directive” almost never worked. The Enterprise crew could never simply observe; their visits always seemed to affect change.

In a similar way, I could see that my comments artificially affected my students’ papers, that the gradebook gave me the power to influence their ideas; as a result, I could never have a true conversation with my students in conference, despite my best intentions and pretensions. Thus, for me, the “Prime Directive” model-- the ideal of instructor as detached observer-- proved just as unrealistic and unproductive as “Make it so!”

Here's the straight dope about conferencing, the plain truth that no English teacher really wants to admit: in conference, we're not simply observing; we're interfering in these worlds. We may try to maintain the illusion otherwise; we may preface a suggestion to a student by saying, “This shouldn’t influence your decision,...” but we can't resist the urge to make comments that can only influence his decision.

This charade manifests itself in other ways as well. For example, I talk about “audience,” but when you boil it all down, isn’t the person holding the gradebook the only one they really care about? Or in conference, I double-talk with comments such as, “Well, don’t do this just because I brought it up...”; but in reality, isn’t that what good students have been taught to do-- listen to their instructors?

The awareness of that power probably means I should abandon the ideal of “conference-as-conversation.” However, I can’t forsake the “conversation” model completely, because the alternative-- the overly-directive, “here, write this down!” approach-- is infinitely less appealing. So where does that leave us?

Somehow, we need to find a compromise: a one-on-one writing conference can’t just be a "conversation"; we need to give something to our students. We need to negotiate a place somewhere in between the two poles of “Make it so!” and the “Prime Directive.”

Some may blast this “compromise” as a cop-out-- that we’re being disingenuous with a student if we appear to be having a conversation when we’re really pushing her to think in a certain way through our leading questions. Perhaps with misleading prefaces such as “I don’t want to influence your decision...,” I am giving my students false sense of choice; on the other hand, I think the alternative-- eliminating choice altogether by saying something like, “You absolutely cannot write about this”-- has far more dangerous implications.

I started this entry with an example from science-fiction, but I'd like to end with an example from science-fact: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Now, I'm not a science guy, and I acknowledge at the outset that I have a vague-at-best grasp of the whole thing, but here's the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as I understand it: we can never "see" an electron in its natural state, because the very act of observing it affects it, changes it. There's more to it, of course, but I think this ultra-ultra-ultra-simplification works as a metaphor for what I'm talking about: as teachers, we can't simply "observe" a student text; our very role as teachers affects it. And instead of fighting it, instead of trying to convince ourselves otherwise, maybe we should just accept that fact.

After all, that's something else I've learned from Star Trek: resistance is futile.

TISK (Things I Should've Known), Vol. 1

2010-01-01T15:54:00.000-08:00

As with many great things, the idea started on Christmas Eve.

My wife had mentioned that her sister had made a stuffed artichoke for her and her husband to have for dinner that night. And because my wife knows me well and knows that I have never actually had a stuffed artichoke, she proceeded to explain the process of eating one; apparently, you take off a leaf, put it in your mouth, and scrape the bread crumbs off with your teeth.

(Later on in the week, a lively debate ensued as to the prpoer way to do this scraping business: my wife and her family always had the bread crumbs facing up and scraped them off with their top teeth, while my brother-in-law insists that you should actually have the bread crumbs facing down, and scrape with your bottom teeth. An unsolved mystery of the universe, I suppose. But I digress.)

Back to Christmas Eve. As my wife is explaining all this to me, I realize something: not only have I never consumed a stuffed artichoke, I don't think I even know what an artichoke looks like. If an artichoke every mugged me, I'd be hard-pressed to pick it out of a vegetable line-up.

And that's a fault, I decided. Not because I'm going to start eating artichokes, but because it seems that knowing what an artichoke looks like is something I should know-- if only because everyone else seems to know it.

And thus came the revelation: 2010 is going to be my year for learning things I should have known years ago. The simple things. Everyday things. Artichoke kinds of things.

And not only will I learn about these simple things, I'll write about what I've learned in this space, my poor, long-neglected blog.

First, some answers to some frequently-asked-questions about TISK (Things I Should've Know):

How philosphical/ existential are we talking about here?

Not philosophical at all. I'm talking factual information, not unanswerable questions like "Why did I have a girlfriend at home for my first semester of college?"

Does this have anything to do with you turning 40 later this year? This whole thing smacks of "bucket-list"...

It's not a bucket list. I'm not talking about things I want to do, just things I want to know. So don't bother cuing up your Tim McGraw.

Why write about this stuff? Why not just learn about it?

Partly to chart my journey, partly to resuscitate this blog, and partly to help me commit this stuff to memory. Personally, I've always found that the best ways to remember something are to write about it or to teach it to someone else.

If this is stuff hat everyone else supposedly knows, won't it be a little mortifying for you to advertise your ignorance on the Web like this?

Maybe, but it's the price I'm willing to pay for enlightenment.

Um, if it's just factual information posted here, couldn't someone just go to, say, Wikipedia instead?

Absolutely... except in those rare cases where the information is too basic and commonplace for even Wikipedia's standards.

In any case, above you will find a picture of an artichoke. (Turns out I did know what one looks like. Whaddaya know!)

Cross one off the list.

Diamonds Are Forever

2009-07-05T05:41:00.000-07:00

So, once again, it's been awhile since I last posted something. Hey, I've been busy. Doing what, you ask? Uh... hmmmm... well, for one thing, I was coaching my sons' baseball team. (Yeah! That's it!)

And, to commemorate the end of the Little League season, I thought I'd re-print (with some minor changes) my very first article for the Courant, which originally ran on October 12, 2003. The piece chronicles my time coaching in Charlestown, Massachusetts, from 1994 to 1998. (Man, that's a long time ago...crap, I'm old.) And, to my knowledge, it's the only baseball article in the history of baseball articles to incorporate, in a meaningful way, a quotation from William Wordsworth.

My apologies to any of my former players mentioned in here, most of whom are now, no doubt, college graduates by now. (Again: crap, I'm old...)

Anyway, here's the piece:

I remember praying for rain.

Call it a ritual; only instead of eating ceremonial fried chicken or wearing lucky underwear, I would pray for a well-timed deluge of the local baseball diamond to delay the infamy of actually playing the game, if only for another day.

Even when cursed with sun, I used procrastination offensively; I spent many anxious dugout minutes constructing mental matrices -- considering the number of batters before me, their approximate averages, and the skill of the other team's infielders -- to calculate the odds of making the dreaded Third Out. Poor attempts to trick time, I admit. And time returned the favor: Things slowed way down on that field -- the walk to the plate, the time in the batter's box, even the trip around the bases when I got to them ("Take that piano off your back!" my coach would yell to me). Yet the fastballs still blazed past the logo on my shirt ...

So why return to the minors 11 years later, as a coach? To redeem my own unheralded baseball career? To beef up my resume or impress women with my sensitivity? Maybe to "prove something" to my father, who was still my hometown's Little League president? Or perhaps it had more to do with my favorite Wordsworth quote, paraphrased: "The best portion of a good man's life are his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love."

Ultimately, I don't really know what inspired my cold-call to the local Little League commissioner, the ample-bodied Wayne Davis, in 1994; luckily, Wayne-O didn't ask.

I'm quite sure Wayne never knew what to make of me. A recent college graduate, I just moved to Boston the previous September. I had no family in the city -- no kids of my own or even any distant cousins. And, as far as he could tell, I didn't excel at or even particularly like playing baseball. But I did have a few things going for me: my own clipboard; three dedicated assistants, Mac, Ace and Jason -- whose cool names, I hoped, compensated for their lack of skill; and, most important, persistence.

We coached for five consecutive seasons. Five years, five annual trips for ice cream and five rosters populated by players of all temperaments and abilities. We had all-stars like the Buhay boys, Danny and Timmy, who seemingly played three different sports at any given time. We had Kerry, the 9-year-old girl who could out-throw anyone on the team, including the coaches. And we had our share of kids like Bobby Stone.

Ah, Bobby Stone (always say first and last name, like Charlie Brown) ... I'm quite sure he prayed for rain. And why not? The kid was terrified of the ball; he hurled himself violently into the dirt on every pitch -- right down the middle, high and outside, didn't matter. Bobby Stone thought everyone was against him, even the coaches. And maybe he was right; we invested so many frustrated practices just trying to keep the boy vertical for his entire at- bat, we almost gave up. But, in truth, I liked Bobby Stone. We needed the naturals to win, but I needed Bobby Stone -- mostly because of my sneaking suspicion that, when I played, I was a bit of a Bobby Stone.

The Bobby Stones notwithstanding, Mac, Jason, Ace and I did enjoy a few successes as coaches. A couple of times, we watched as our team went to first place, once after an undefeated season. With a record like that, you'd think I'd have a few knuckleballs of wisdom to pass on to aspiring coaches, right? In truth, I have a few.

First, always put your name on your glove; with all the post-game commotion, the odds are good someone else will walk off with it accidentally. Don't try to coach alone; you can't juggle everything, and besides, who else will want to listen to your war stories about the unassisted triple play?

Don't argue with the ump; you may think you're standing up for your kids, but you're really undermining the spirit of sportsmanship. Don't have scrimmages as practices; they degenerate too quickly. Concentrate on catching and throwing; at this level, defense wins games.

Don't even bring up bunting.

And that crap about "little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love" -- don't believe a word of it.

Maybe, to my shame, I wanted my acts of kindness named and remembered. And maybe that's why, when I look back on my coaching career, I keep returning to this one spot of time.

It's our second year, after the first win of the season (not too many follow that year). I take aside our spunky pitcher, Ryan Collins -- who brought religion to the team by blessing himself before every pitch -- and privately present him with the game ball. Bursting with excitement, Ryan asks if I have a pen. I don't -- we kept score in pencil --and ask him why.

"I wanted to write your name on it," he tells me, before running off to show his mom his blank trophy. Meanwhile, I remain crouching there by that first baseline, thinking: Of all the times not to have a pen!

By signing that baseball, by cementing that moment through the power of ink, I could have guaranteed that our time on the field would be kept somewhere, preserved. Somewhere in Ryan's bedroom -- maybe on a bookshelf, maybe under the bed, to be uncovered only when he packs up for college, but somewhere -- would remain a baseball with a name on it. And I could live again.

Of course, Ryan Collins wouldn't remember he said that; he probably didn't remember two minutes later, and I think that's precisely what ate away at me that night. I want the instant replay to apply in the minors. And I mean, permanent instant replay. I want the kids we coached to remember their time on the field with nostalgia, not as obligations that fell in between thunderstorms. And, when they do remember their baseball days, I want them to recall their coaches not just as the guys who yelled frantically from the baseline to get the ball back to the pitcher. I want them to show up on ESPN someday and mention their former coaches by name. But, in a simpler way, if they grow up, get good grades, go to college and just end up as good people ... well, I want to take a little bit of credit for that, too.

And I know that's unfair. I vaguely remember my own Little League coaches as nice-enough guys, but none of them affected my life in a lasting manner. And yet, I somehow assumed my coaching experience would work differently. We spent our time telling them to get their gloves down when stopping a ground ball, to lift the bat off their shoulders, to run past first base. Somehow, from that, they were supposed to learn, "Don't do drugs, drive carefully, be good to each other."

The four of us -- Mac, Ace, Jason, and I -- always said that one of the best parts about being a coach is the distance: your responsibility to these kids ends with the last out. Yet I found myself referring to them as "my kids," as if we had anything to do with them when a bat and ball wasn't in the vicinity. In truth, I was just someone who told them where to go next inning. I had to give them back.

To rescue me from complete self-absorption, Mac once offered: "Is it about whether they'll forget us? The question is, will we ever forget them? No way."

And this has comforted me. And so, while some more accomplished Little League veterans get ready to do battle in the upcoming World Series, I'll be remembering that impromptu post-game practice when we stayed with Ashley and used a Wiffle ball and bat to help her get over her fear of hitting. Or that season-ending loss, when Steven came over to give me a hug, as tears crushed down his disappointed, befreckled face. Or that 1994 championship final, when Bobby Stone planted his feet in that box and swung the bat, connecting ...

Five years in the minors. Five summers, with the length of five long winters. Five years, five rosters, and a few insights. Don't yell at the ump; you don't want to be remembered that way. Put your name on your glove. Make sure they step on each base.

Oh, yeah. .. and always have a pen handy.

George Lucas, Jar Jar, and the End of the Innocence

2009-05-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

I was twenty-eight going on ten.

Ten years ago, in May 1999, I was caught up in the same cultural phenomenon that was
sweeping the nation, but for me, it was something more.

You have to understand: when I was a boy, Star Wars was my life. I bought the figures, play sets, cards, books, comics, soundtracks, puppets, posters, candy—you name it, except for maybe the Underoos.

I saw Return of the Jedi the day it came out, and then saw it at least five more times that summer. I saw all the movies many, many times. In fact, I knew all the movies by heart. (We didn’t have VCR’s back then, so I would actually sneak a tape recorder into the movies, so I could at least listen to it.)

In my young and oh-so-innocent estimation, George Lucas, the lord of all things Star Wars, was an unqualified genius—and a kind and generous one at that: after the saga seemed to conclude with the death of Darth Vader in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, George promised “prequels”—three more movies, three more adventures filled with great stuff like the Ice Planet of Hoth, the Millennium Falcon, and (my personal favorite) Boba Fett the bounty hunter.

So a year went by, then five, then ten. Finally, in May 1999, sixteen years after the last Star Wars movie, George Lucas offered his legions of fans the dream come true: Star Wars—Episode One: The Phantom Menace.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I bought my tickets a week before and took the day off from work on opening day. And when the lights went out, and those familiar trumpets blared John Williams’ iconic score, and the words Star Wars, in big, yellow letters, filled the screen, it didn’t matter that I was twenty-eight, married, and somehow charged with teaching the nation’s youth. No, at that point, I was a ten-year-old kid again, feeling the Force flowing through him.

Then a terrible thing happened: I actually watched the movie.

Was it the worst movie I ever saw? No. But it was nothing I had expected or even could have settled for. It seemed George Lucas and Co. were so wrapped up in their new-fangled, computer-generated special effects that they forgot to, you know, write an interesting story.

Instead, they reduced the once and future Dark Lord of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker, to an annoying kid.

They offered up a mind-numbingly elongated desert chase sequence, complete with a goofy, two-headed sports announcer.

They created a potentially cool new bad-guy, Darth Maul, and then they (literally) took the legs out from under him.

Worst of all, they subjected fans to… I can hardly bring myself to say it… the loathsome, unforgivable Jar Jar Binks.

A computer generated idiot-alien, Jar Jar almost single-handedly brought down the entire franchise. (And considering this franchise also includes the Ewoks, that’s saying something.)

Jar Jar talked like a four-year-old, which I guess was supposed to be cute. It wasn’t. He was kind of clumsy, too, and I guess watching him trip all over the place was supposed to make us laugh. It didn’t. In fact, it was all I could to keep from crying.

I waited sixteen years for the movie event of a lifetime… and I got Jar Jar Binks?

I suppose it was my own fault. Because I had built it up and built it up to such a degree, the movie could never have exceeded my expectations. But how was it possible that it wasn’t even in the same universe as my expectations?

I’ve actually come to appreciate, over the past ten years, the irony associated with the prequels. At their core, the first three episodes— the plot-challenged Phantom Menace, the inconsequential Attack of the Clones, and the overstuffed Revenge of the Sith—warn against the danger of unchecked power. And, in a bizarre way, that’s the story of George Lucas as well; he became so powerful, no one had the guts to tell him that his ideas were getting increasingly lamer. In the end, the all-powerful Emperor Lucas, seduced by the dark side of his own hype, was not, in fact, a genius—just a schmuck who got lucky.

Looking back ten years later, I can see that Phantom Menace truly marked the abrupt end of my rather prolonged childhood. Few experiences could have topped the high I felt sitting in that theater on the opening day of Phantom Menace back in May 1999. And few could match the disappointment I felt, two hours later, when the movie was over, and my childhood, I realize, was too—irretrievably lost, in that galaxy far, far away.

It's Been Awhile...

2009-02-22T06:47:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know I haven't posted in a bit. In my defense, though, I did write something intended for this space a couple of weeks ago; it just ended up in the newspaper instead.

Here's the deal: my sons, who are in third grade, are playing basketball this year. They've been playing in this league since they were in kindergarten, but this year things got much, much more competitive. There's shouting, name-calling, swearing, and even near-brawling.

And I don't mean the kids. I'm talking about the parents and coaches.

Over the course of this season, I've seen a coach throw down his clipboard after he didn't like a call; parents and coaches mercilessly riding referees (who, incidentally, are just teenagers); coaches blatantly playing favorites and doing anything to win.

And I've heard stories, as well. Stories about coaches actually scouting other teams. Stories about a coach calling another coach an "a-hole," right in earshot of the children. (I'm censoring here; he didn't.) Stories about a coach who got so angry about a call, he and the ref nearly came to blows.

Did I mention these kids were in THIRD GRADE?

So I decided to write a piece about all this for my blog, which I called "When Coaches Lose Perspective, Kids Lose More." But before I posted it, I showed it to my wife to get her thoughts. I don't always run my blog posts by anyone, but this was one was different, because I was being critical of some people in the community; we still have to live here, after all.

Not only did my wife like the piece, she suggested I send it in to the Hartford Courant. She has a good sense about these things, so I took a chance. I figured if they didn't like it, I could just publish it myself.

That was a Tuesday. On Friday, the editor called and said he was going to publish it. On Sunday, February 8, the piece appeared in the Opinions section of the Courant under the headline, "Only a Game-- Until the Adults Suck the Fun Out of It."

I had concerns that the subject matter wasn't particularly original, but the piece definitely generated some great conversation. Even people I hardly knew or didn't know at all sent me e-mails and messages to my Facebook account and even hand-written letters to my high school. A woman who works at my sons' school stopped my wife and asked if she was married to the guy who wrote that piece in the paper. And the feedback was all good (a welcome change from the feedback I got for my Kid Rock article from last July).

Everyone had a story to share, about an incident at a local game involving overzealous parents or an obsessive coach. Everyone agreed that things get too competitive too soon.

And I was even able to take my sons to basketball without getting beat up by the coaches-- which either means they didn't read it, or they read it, but didn't know I was the guy who wrote it, or they read it, knew I was the guy who wrote it, but didn't think I was referring to them.

Here's the great lesson I took out of this whole thing: people still read the newspaper. I've heard a lot over the past couple of years about how newspapers are becoming extinct because everyone gets their news online. That's hooey, I say. People are still reading; they're still sitting down with their coffee and Corn Flakes on Sunday morning and flipping through the paper. That's comforting to me. (So sayth the guy who's writing a blog.)

The Sweater Resurgence of 2009

2009-02-05T03:34:00.000-08:00

This winter, if you've noticed your kid complaining a little more about the chilly temperature in school, don’t go hating on your superintendent. He or she is just joining the club.

According to a 2008 study conducted by the American Association of School Administrators, 62 percent of superintendents surveyed have already resorted to “altering thermostats” as a way to reduce costs during this economic downturn.

Now, some may regard this trend of turning down school heat a sad sign of the times. Me, I welcome it, as another step in the Great Sweater Comeback.

“Comeback?” you ask. “When did sweaters ever leave?” Well, as a high school teacher, I can assure you: sweaters have fallen out of favor among adolescents. And I mean way out of favor: not only do many teenagers claim they don’t own sweaters, a disturbing number don't even seem to know what sweaters are.

After an informal poll of the sweater-wearing habits of the students in my school, I was able to divide teenagers into the following categories:

(1) Students who deride sweaters as Nerd Uniforms.
(2) Students who don’t mind sweaters but prefer “hoodies” (“sweatshirt,” in teen lingo). Said one young man: “If I’m wearing something heavy, it better have a hood. It’s like sitting on a couch without a remote—it just feels awkward.”
(3) Students who claim they don’t own sweaters.
(4) Students who believe they do wear sweaters, when in fact, they’re wearing sweatshirts.

I don’t know what to say about the first two categories; I may not agree with them, but—hey, it’s a matter of taste. The third and fourth groups, though, baffle me. Students who don’t own a single sweater? Could it be possible? I work in a pretty affluent town: do you mean to tell me these kids’ grandmothers didn’t buy them sweaters at some point? (Actually, I’m guessing Grandmas are buying sweaters, but the kids—indignant they didn’t get an iPod, Guitar Hero game, or a Lexus—immediately banish them to the back of the closet.)

Even more bewildering to me is the sizable percentage of students who can’t distinguish a sweater from a sweatshirt. Is the truth that unknowable? Look, if what you’re wearing has pockets, a hood, and the words ‘G. Unit’ across the front, it’s probably not a sweater.

Now, some may say, “Sweaters aren’t out of style, because they were never actually in style.” Personally, I don’t believe that. Think about all the pop-culture sweater references from just a decade ago: on TV, Chandler Bing tried to do for the sweater vest what the Fonz did for leather jackets; and on the radio, the Cardigans polluted the airwaves with that despicable “Lovefool” song, while disenchanted teens across the nation rocked out to Weezer’s great argyle anthem, “The Sweater Song.”

And a decade before that, Dr. Cliff Huxtable offended millions of Cosby Show viewers every week with his freakish, multicolored abominations.

Who does this generation have? Who are their sweater icons—their Chandler Bings, their Dr. Huxtables? Quite simply, they have none.

In the past, some well-meaning crusaders have done their darnedest to spark a sweater resurgence. Nearly two years ago, for example, school systems in the Netherlands turned down the heat to celebrate Warm Sweater Day (in an attempt to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas). And last spring, an American non-profit called Family Communications Inc. christened March 20th “National Sweater Day,” in honor of what would have been Mr. Rogers’ 80th birthday.

So far, these attempts haven’t done much to turn the tide of sweater apathy among adolescents. But maybe fiddling with the thermostat will finally do the trick.

So, teens, in these trying economic times, I implore you: pull those pullovers out of your drawers. Let the turtlenecks peek out from the dark shell of your closet. Ask your grandfather if you can borrow his classic white button-down—you know, the one with the little green Izod alligator.

Wear a sweater. Stay warm. Start a revolution.

So, yes, turning down the heat in our schools is not ideal, but if these measures help to bring sweaters back into fashion—well, maybe that’s the silver lining. Luckily, in this case, the lining is fleece.

MLK and Atticus Finch: Defenders of Nonviolent Change

2009-01-18T17:39:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I've been a bad, bad blogger. But I have a good excuse: I was in a play, a three-person play called The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)." It was an absolute blast-- I'll write about it some day, when I have some distance from it-- but it was also very time-consuming. Long story short: I had to back-burn the blogging.

And now, this post, my first one in weeks, is going to be devoted to someone else's words. Luckily, that "someone else" to a pretty amazing substitute.

During my first year teaching high school, I read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time. (How is it possible, you ask, that I never read it before? Blame my high school. I honestly feel cheated that I had to wait until I was thirty before I read one of the greatest books ever. But let's stick that in the "rant for another time" file.)

Anyway, while reading the book, I realized that Atticus Finch, in his quest for racial equality and his commitment to nonviolence, shared a lot in common with Martin Luther King. After I did some research, I discovered I wasn't the only one who saw this connection; so did King himself.
In fact, King actually makes an allusion to Atticus in his 1963 book Why We Can't Wait.

The Atticus reference occurs in a chapter called "The Sword That Heals," which is itself part of a metaphor King uses to describe "the just and powerful weapon" of nonviolence. Reverend King alludes to a moment in Mockingbird when Atticus goes to the local jail to protect his client, a black man named Tom Robinson, from a mob that wanted to lynch him. The scene gets tense very fast, with the men telling Atticus to get out of the way and let them do their thing.

Suddenly, Atticus' daughter Scout-- blissfully innocent as always-- comes out of the shadows and recognizes the leader of the gang; he's the father of one of the boys in her class. When she calls the man, Mr. Cunningham, by name, the mood changes; it's as if just the simple act of hearing his name awakens Mr. Cunningham to his potential actions, even shames him. The gang disperses, and the crisis is averted. Later, Atticus-- ever the wise sage-- says the incident reinforces the fact that "a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they are still human."

That's the incident in Mockingbird. Here's what King had to say about it in Why We Can't Wait:

"We are a nation that worships the frontier tradition, and our heroes are those who champion justice through violent retaliation against injustice. It is not simple to adopt the credo that moral force has as much strength and virtue as the capacity to return a physical blow; or to refrain from hitting back requires more will and bravery than the automatic reflexes of defense.

"Yet there is something in the American ethos that responds to the strength of moral force. I am reminded of the popular and widely respected novel and film To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch, a white southern lawyer, confronts a group of his neighbors who have become a lynch-crazy mob, seeking the life of his Negro client. Finch, armed with nothing more lethal than a lawbook, disperses the mob with the force of his moral courage, aided by his small daughter, who, innocently calling the would-be lynchers by name, reminds then that they are individual men, not a pack of beasts.

"To the Negro of 1963, as to Atticus Finch, it had become obvious that nonviolence could symbolize the gold badge of heroism rather than the white feather of cowardice."

I haven't taught Mockingbird in years, but I'd encourage anyone who does teach the book to use this connection. Not only does it allow for a discussion about the similarities of Atticus Finch and Martin Luther King, but it also drives home a larger point: that the literature we read in class does not exist in a vaccum. Indeed, the ideas in these texts have real-life implications. They don't always believe it, but it's true.

The Truth about First-Footers, Sauerkraut, and Other New Years Superstitions

2009-01-01T12:15:00.000-08:00

I was just talking to my wife's grandmother (whom we call Mommom) about some wacky New Years Day superstitions-- things to do to bring yourself good luck in the new year, or, at the very least, ward off bad luck. She learned these superstitions, apparently, many, many years ago, when she was living in Pennsylvania. And let me tell you: she had some doozies. For example:

When the new year begins, the first person to cross the threshold of your house-- known in some circles as the "first-footer"-- needs to be a man. And it can't be a man who lives in the hosue either: it has to be a male visitor. (And if a woman enters first? Bad luck for a year!)

On New Years Day, you have to eat a meal of pork, sauerkraut, and mashed potatoes; this will bring good fortune. (And, yes, it is indeed rare to see "sauerkraut" linked with "good fortune.") But whatever you do, do NOT have chicken on New Years Day, as this means you will be "scratching" for money all year.

Mommom also mentioned a superstition involving washing your face while holding coins in your hands... but she never really bought into that one.

While she was telling these stories, my mother-in-law chimed in with a superstition her Italian hairdresser once told her: on New Years Day, you should fill a bucket with water and throw the water out the fornt door, which symbolizes throwing out all of the bad luck from the previous year. But this superstition comes with a caveat: don't throw water on the front porch, because if the water freeze, someone might slip and fall. (This, apparently, happened to the hairdresser's brother.)

When I asked Mommom if she believed these superstitions, she said no... but she still wanted me to be the first visitor to cross the threshold today. "Why take chances?" she said wisely.

(Incidentally, you can read about other New Years Day superstitions at one of my favorite websites, snopes.com.)

Before I wrap up this post, I wanted to take one last look back. I started this blog at the end of last May; I ended up writing 50 posts in 2008. Maybe not "magnum opus" numbers, but not bad. I was pretty proud of some of them, and I wanted to give a few of the forgotten posts one last plug:

"Reviewing a Review" (June 3, 2008): someone reviewed a short story I wrote, and I gave my assessment of his assessment. All very meta.

"Sox Education" (June 19, 2008): This one basically uses the 2004 Red Sox as a metaphor for teaching. I know it's January, and no one cares about baseball right now; still, I wanted to give it a shout-out because I always considered it an "unsung hero" kind of post.

"Mostly, for Worse" (August 30, 2008): In this one, I basically bemoan how newspapers keep running the same comic strips they ran thirty years ago, despite the fact that many of the creators of said comics have died. A fascinating sociological study that no one actually read.

"Last Person on Earth" (October 6, 2008): Here, I talk about how teaching can be an extremely insulating and isolating job; sometimes, it takes an encouraging word from a co-worker to bring you back form the brink of insanity. (I actually got two comments for this one...)

"So Help Me Me" (October 9, 2008): This was an election-themed post, using NBC's West Wing to prove my theory: in order to want to be president, you have to have a God-complex. Again, time has made it less topical, but I was a big West Wing fan, and I had that idea cooking for years, so I wanted to give it one last plug.

"Society is the Spice of Life" (November 30, 2008): All about this phenomenon of "society-blaming." Hey, I liked it, but what do I know?

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the pork and sauerkraut.

Chrsitmas in Literature (Yeah, A Day Late)

2008-12-26T08:42:00.001-08:00

Hey, lookee here: I'm typing this entry on my new laptop!

Yep, big Christmas present my my lovely wife. This will undoubtedly bring peace into our household, as sometimes my children at I are at cross-purposes when it comes to the computer. Can I tell you how many times I have geared up to write the Next Great American Novel only to find my sons are at the computer playing Club Penguin?

Anyway, the entry: for over a week now, I've been meaning to post some trivia questions regarding references to Christmas in literature. Obviously, this would have been more meaningful before Christmas, but... eh, got busy. So here we go. (Answers follow.)

In O. Henry’s short story “Gift of the Magi,” what is the name of the woman who sold her hair to get a Christmas gift for her husband?
In To Kill a Mockingbird, what is the name of Atticus Finch’s brother who visits Scout and Jem for Christmas?
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, what gift from his dead father did Harry Potter get during his first Christmas at Hogwarts?
What Shakespeare play is named after the religious feast that takes place on January 6th (which some believe was when the play was first performed?
In John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, the narrator describes how Owen Meany, during one holiday season, played a role in a Christmas pageant and a role in a version of A Christmas Carol. What were these two roles?
I am an American poet who wrote a poem called "Christmas Trees (A Christmas Circular Letter)," but you probably know me better for that other wintry poem, the one about keeping promises on the darkest evening of the year. Who am I?
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield spends the days leading up to Christmas wandering around what American city? (Too easy? Try this one on for size: In Catcher in the Rye, Phoebe Caulfield reports she is playing what historical figure in her school's Christmas play?)
I’m an American writer famous for stories such as “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” but I also wrote five stories about old-fashioned Christmas customs. You may not know these stories, but they influenced Charles Dickens, who publicly said he owed a debt to me for the success of A Christmas Carol. Who am I?
John Milton, author of “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” is better known for what other religious poem, about the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden?
Which now-classic Christmas movie—about a young boy, a BB gun, and unusual lamp—is based on a book of short stories called In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash, written by Jean Shepherd?
Joe Christmas is the main protagonist of what William Faulkner novel with a decidedly non-Christmas-y title?
In what C.S. Lewis novel does Santa Claus give children named Peter, Susan and Lucy “tools, not toys”—including a sword and a red shield emblazoned with the picture of a lion?
What is the official title of Clement C. Moore's “’Twas the Night Before Christmas”?
Boris Karloff, who narrated the animated special “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” famously played what famous movie monster, originally created by Mary Shelley?
What Scottish poet wrote the poem “Auld Lang Syne” in 1788?
What Yeats’ poem ends with the line, “Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born”?
How many ghosts visited Scrooge in A Christmas Carol?
This term originally referred to the feast which commemorates Visit of the Three Kings, but it could also, thanks largely to James Joyce, refer to a sudden realization of something. What’s the term?
Dr. Seuss created an iconic Christmas character in 1957. What's Dr. Seuss' real name?
What is the name of Scrooge’s former employer, the proprietor of a warehouse who would host Christmas balls?
What Christmas ballet is based on an 1816 short story by M. T. A. Hoffman about a toy that comes to life?
What Irish poet, famous for “Don’t go gently into that good night,” also wrote “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”?

Answers:

1. Della

2. Uncle Jack Finch

3. Invisibility Cloak

4. Twelfth Night

5. Baby Jesus, Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

6. Robert Frost

7. New York (or Benedict Arnold)

8. Washington Irving

9. Paradise Lost

10. A Christmas Story

11. Light in August

12. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

13. "A Visit from St. Nicholas"

14. Frankenstein's monster

15. Robert Burns

16. "The Second Coming"

17. Four (Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come)

18. Epiphany

19. Theodore Giesel

20. Fezziwig

21. The Nutcracker

22. Dylan Thomas

The Secret Power of Pajamas

2008-12-19T08:01:00.000-08:00

Note from author: Today, we had our first snow day of the year. To mark this momentous occasion, I thought I would post an article I wrote last January about "snow day rituals."

The article ran in the Hartford Courant on January 20, 2008. Somehow, the piece was picked up by National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation." Two days later, I was interviewed live on the air by the venerable Neal Conan. You can still listen to the interview at npr.org.

When I stop and think about, the story surrounding this piece really is a testament to the awesome power of the written word: two girls casually mention something to me one morning in a Connecticut high school; I write an article, which is published in a Connecticut newspaper; someone in Washington D.C. reads it and books me on a radio program, which is heard by people across the nation. Like I said, awesome.

Anyway, here's the piece...

I am a high school English teacher, which also makes me a learner. My students teach me quite a few things. Granted, they're usually things no man in his late 30s has any business knowing (new and illegal ways to download music or the term "fo' shizzle"). But recently, my students taught me to something I'll keep with me for the rest of my professional life: the Pajamas-Inside-Out, Spoon-Under-the-Pillow-Snow-Day Ritual.

I learned about this phenomenon in December, the morning after our first snow day. One of my students, still basking in the post-snow glow, said, "I was so sure we were going to school. I mean, I didn't even put my pajamas on inside out the night before!"

"Wait, what are you talking about?" I asked, with my typical air of cluelessness.

"On a night before there's a chance of snow," she explained, "you wear your pajamas inside out and put a spoon under your pillow. The next morning, you'll get a snow day."

"Really? This is a thing?"

"Oh, yeah!" her friend responded with giddy enthusiasm. (These were seniors in high school.) "See for yourself," the first girl said. "Look it up online."

I did, and my eyes were opened. This is not a passing fad, but a way of life. My Internet sleuthing revealed that students from Hillsborough, N.J., to Rochester, N.Y., and on to Fauquier County, Va., practice the Pajamas-Inside-Out, Spoon-Under-the-Pillow-Snow-Day Ritual, or what I will henceforth call PIOSUPSDR.

I discovered that people have done this for years. I uncovered a reference to a Tennessee schoolteacher who learned about the PIOSUPSDR during her first year of teaching, 25 years ago. Other teachers told her, which means the tradition goes back even further.

I also learned that the PIOSUPSDR has some variations. Some students eat an oatmeal cookie before putting on their pajamas inside out. Others lick the spoon before placing it under the pillow.

Even after my exhaustive research, one fundamental question remained: Why in the heck are people doing this in the first place? How could sleeping in inside-out pajamas with a spoon under your pillow possibly influence the weather?

The PJ thing I could sort of understand. Wearing clothes inside out has long been a sign of good luck. (Think rally caps.) But the spoon? I even skimmed through a book of old superstitions, trying to find something that links spoons with weather. I found one that advises couples hoping to conceive a girl to put a wooden spoon under their pillow. But I didn't see the connection to the PIOSUPSDR.

Because my research took me only so far, I went back to my students with my lingering questions. Here's what they had to say:

Question: "Do you wear the pajamas inside out, or inside out and backward?"

Answer: "Just inside out. Once I wore them inside out and backward and the big tag kept scratching my neck and chin all night. The next morning, I had school and a rash on my neck."

Question: "Can I do this in, like, May?"

Answer: "Sorry, but you can only do it when they are actually predicting snow."

Question: "While online, I read that some people throw ice cubes in the toilet in the hopes of getting a snow day. What do you think about that?"

Answer: "Well, that's just silly."

But when I asked if the pajamas/spoon combo works, I got several different answers. Some students squealed, "Yes, definitely!" and had anecdotal evidence to prove it. Others admitted, "Only sometimes" - but even those doubters still do it.

And therein, I think, lies the key. Think about it: we live in a world where multimillion-dollar geostationary weather satellites, orbiting 22,000 miles above our heads, can tell us the weather conditions anywhere on the planet.

All that technology should be enough for anyone, but especially for teenagers, who rely on technology for pretty much everything.

Consider, for a moment, your Typical Teen: When her ear isn't occupied by an iPod, she's got a cellphone up to it. And, when she isn't talking to her friends on her cell, she's IM-ing them about the new photos she uploaded to her Facebook page. While online, she may at some point click back over to her U.S. history term paper, which she can research and write without entering a library or opening a book. She is, in short, inextricably bound to technology.

And yet that same girl, when she hears about a potential nor'easter, will push aside all her electronics, grab a decidedly low-tech spoon and embrace the deliciously irrational possibility of magic and wonder. And there's something sweet about that. Don't get me wrong: The idea of an 18-year-old sleeping in inside-out pajamas with a spoon under her pillow is still kooky. But it's also sweet, and refreshingly innocent.

So yes, this winter my students taught me an important lesson - allow for more magic in your life. Next time they're predicting snow, I'm taking my chances with the spoon.

Bah Humbug to Cupcake Ban!

2008-12-15T17:20:00.001-08:00

Violence, drugs, too many students, not enough funding—so many problems besiege our schools, which one should we tackle first? Fortunately, a few years ago, the Connecticut State Department of Education came up with an answer.

It’s the cupcakes, see. Something has got to be done about the cupcakes.

You know the story: It’s a Winter Celebration (don't you dare call it a Christmas Party!) in Ms. Jenkins’ first-grade class, and Billy’s mom has whipped up some Funfetti cupcakes. So have Olivia’s mom, Joey’s mom, and Katie’s mom. In fact, seventeen mothers baked cupcakes for this one party—all but guaranteeing their children a spot in the Childhood Obesity Club of America, the membership of which currently swells at nine million-plus.

Eat a cupcake, become a statistic—it’s that simple.

In response to the cupcake menace, back in January 2006, The Connecticut State Department of Education created The Action Guide for School Nutrition and Physical Activity Policies, a handbook for helping school districts develop “wellness” plans that meet state and federal mandates.

Fearing they would lose their funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, schools said goodbye to french fries and soda machines, and hello to Baked Cheetos and rice milk.

A fine first step, indeed, but what of those hedonistic romps we call classroom celebrations?

Now, don’t fret, Ms. Jenkins: the Connecticut Department of Education is not outlawing classroom parties all together (yet). The Action Guide merely says that “food and beverages served at school celebrations and parties must meet the district and nutrition standards.” To that end, the Action Guide provides “Ideas for Healthy Foods,” nutritional alternatives to those insidious cupcakes, such as ham, cheese, or turkey sandwiches (with low-fat condiments); carrots with peanut butter and raisins; or vegetable trays with low-fat dip.

Mmmmmmmmm! Veggies with low-fat dip! What first-grader could resist?

The Action Guide outlines other benefits that accompany the “de-cupcaking” of Connecticut classrooms. For example, in deference to children with special diets, the Action Guide recommends that school districts “discourage the sharing of food and beverages.” Thank goodness someone finally said it: there’s far too much sharing among our young people today. We must stop this incessant sharing, before it gets out of hand.

As I said, the Action Guide does not actually prohibit school celebrations—although certainly that would be ideal. In our country, schools were built to resemble factories, and in factories, we work. Enjoyment—even the fleeting enjoyment represented by a cupcake—has no place in our public schools. In this respect, schools must be like celery—bland and flavorless, perhaps, but something you must suffer through in order to become better, stronger citizens.

You may be wondering: "Why not just have some communication among the parents? Can't it be arranged so just one mom brings in the cupcakes, instead of seventeen moms? Can't we keep the classroom celebrations, but just tone it all down a little?"

Nice try... but those who think this obviously fail to see that cupcakes are gateway desserts. One cupcake will launch you into a lifetime battle with Chubby Hubby, Betty Crocker, and Sara Lee.

Of course, these classroom celebration restrictions will meet some initial resistance, as Billy, Olivia, and all the moms from Ms. Jenkins class long for the cupcake-ravaged parties of yesteryear. But they’ll soon come on board. After all, we’re talking about a program to fight childhood obesity… what kind of jerk would find fault with that?

Rattle and Hum and the Inevitable Backlash

2008-12-07T16:36:00.001-08:00

Working with teenagers has taught me not to make any presumptions about the iconic-ness of pop culture icons. (See previous post detailing my disasterous name-dropping of "The Fonz.")

So I'll start by asking: Have you heard of the U2 album Rattle and Hum?

In case you haven't, the Rattle and Hum album...

... came out in the fall of 1988, which makes it-- that's right-- twenty years old. (How's that for a little depression?)

... was recorded during the tour promoting the mega-mega-successful The Joshua Tree album, which debuted on St. Patrick's Day 1987. (In fact, the name Rattle and Hum is borrowed from a line from the Joshua Tree's "Bullet the Blue Sky.")

... includes live performances from the tour, of U2 staples (such as "Pride" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For") as well as covers (e.g. Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" and the Beatles' "Helter Skelter").

... also includes new material, such as "Desire" and "Van Diemen's Land," which was sung not by Bono but by The Edge, and thus unlistenable. (Always unsettling when Edge takes the mic, isn't it? Sort of like when John Oates sang "Possession Obsession" back in the mid-80s.)

... gives us a glimpse into Bono's now-mythic pomposity through throw-away lines such as "All I want is a red guitar, three chords, and the truth," and "Well, the God I believe in isn't short o' cash, Mister!" and-- my favorite-- "Am I bugging you? I don't mean to bug ya..."

... was released in conjunction with a Major! Motion! Picture!, a "documentary" covering the Joshua Tree Tour and U2's journey across America.

... was pretty much panned by critics.

I'd like to stick with those last two points for a minute, because they're actually related. Although many critics didn't love the album (a New York Times review called it an exercise in "pure egomania"), they really didn't like the movie. Or perhaps more accurately: they hated the media marketing blitz that came along with it.

After all, for most of the 80s, U2 was this quaint, socially-conscious college-radio band. Now, not only were these four Irish blokes the biggest band in the world (thanks to The Joshua Tree), they were also taking up permanent residence at Hollywood and Vine with this movie.

Whatever the case, the folks in the media who had always loved U2 turned on the band in the wake of the Rattle and Hum movie. Perhaps as a result of the critical bashing, the film ended up tanking.

The rabid fans tried their best, coming out in droves for the November premier (earning the film a respectable $3.8 million for its opening weekend). But the problem was all the non-rabid-fans-- everyone else in mainstream America, basically, who were either not particularly interested to begin with or kept away by the poor reviews. And so, after the initial rush, ticket sales plummeted dramatically, the film was gone from most theatres by December.

At the time, I remember many folks, fans and critics alike, interpreted the film's not-even-lukewarm reception as a sign that interest in the band had plateaued. Or maybe even worse than that: as a Rolling Stone reviewer said in 1989, "The U2 backlash has set in."

History has not been kind to Rattle and Hum. To many fans, it occupies a place only slightly above 1993's Zooropa and 1997's Pop. And that's not fair.

Except for "Stay (Faraway, So Close)," Zooropa is a lemon (that's a wink! wink! pun, by the way, in honor of a song on the album). At best, it's a loathsome amalgamation of dippy songs not good enough for 1991's Achtung Baby. And Pop is so nakedly awful that everyone associated with it should best pretend that it never happened.

Especially compared to those two train-wrecks, Rattle and Hum looks pretty good. But even on its own merits, Rattle and Hum has a lot of great stuff going on.

Don't believe me? Break out your old cassette player and listen to it again. The album has some good-bordering-on-great songs, including some legitimate hits: "Desire," "Angel of Harlem," and "All I Want Is You" (easily one of my Top Ten U2 song, which actually got even more popular in 1994, when it was used in the film Reality Bites.)

And, while they may not have been "hits" necessarily, two other songs-- "When Love Comes to Town" and "God Part II"-- got some radio play back in the day. Bottom line: the album's not a bad listen, all things considered.

And yet, the stink of the "U2 backlash" still lingers over Rattle and Hum, and that's actually what I want to talk about here. Why was there a backlash? Was it just because of the movie? Was it overexposure? Was it because the album came so soon after The Joshua Tree, making it seem like Joshua Tree Junior? (Or maybe Joshua Shrub? No? Joshua Bush?)

Me, I wonder if the backlash over Rattle and Hum had more to do with its predecessor than with the album itself. Remember, The Joshua Tree made U2 the biggest band in the entire world. It was mega-mega-successful-- which may have been one "mega" too many. Maybe the general public-- including the fans who shepherded the band along the way to super-stardom-- wanted to see them brought down a few pegs.

I'm likening it to the Red Sox. In 2004, when they were chasing the World Series championship, everyone loved them. Their "idiotic-underdog" chic captured everyone's imagination. They continued to coast on that goodwill in 2005, despite some serious post-World Series overexposure. But by the time they won the World Series in 2007, things changed somewhat.

Oh, they're still crazy-popular. They still sell out Fenway. But you know what's changed? The phenomenon of playing in an opposing team's stadium and hearing half the fans cheer for the Red Sox-- that's changed. That showed, to me, that the Sox were no longer media darlings, no longer "America's" ballclub.

And maybe their success had a lot to do with that: They loved the Sox when they were scratching their way to the top. When they got to the top... they moved on to something else. Even worse: they wanted to tear them down. Maybe the same can be said for U2 in the case of Rattle and Hum.

So, yes, I understand that backlash happens, that in many ways it's inevitable, but I'm still not sure why it happens. Is it a product of overexposure? Are people disappointed? Bored? Ready to move on to something else? Or is it resentment? Do people resent when a band, team, friend, colleague makes it? Do we resent someone else's fame and success?

I don't know... but the backlash phenomenon is powerful enough to make me wish this blog is never successful. My skin just isn't that thick.

Society is the Spice of Life

2008-11-30T18:17:00.000-08:00

Many Thanksgivings ago, my father told me something that has stayed with me ever since.

“Society,” he decreed, “is the spice of life.”

First, some context: Dad made this declaration in response to a story I was relating, one of my “life as a teacher” chestnuts involving a pedagogical pet peeve of mine: the tendency of high school students to heap all worldly ills onto the hump of an amorphous entity known only as “society.”

According to my students, “society” is the root of all evil. In their essays and during class discussions, they rail about how “society” dictates what we all wear or buy or listen to. (Don’t worry: teens still wear and buy and listen to these things. But some of them, at least, resent it.)

Gender stereotyping, conformity, ozone depletion, telemarketers calling during dinner—my students pin it all on “society.”

And sometimes it gets personal: as a student once ominously wrote, “I was betrayed by society.”

And yet, teenagers aren’t the only ones guilty of slinging the “society-blame”; adults do it all the time. Last fall, for example, two Michigan teens, Jean Pierre Orlewicz (17) and Alexander James Letkemann (18), murdered, then burned, then beheaded a 26-year-old man named Daniel Sorenson. Responding to the brutality of the crime, prosecutor Kym Worthy said, “It makes us think and ask a lot of questions about our society.”

Well, yes… but shouldn’t it first make us think and ask a lot of questions about Orlewicz and Letkemann?

“Society-blaming” has become so pervasive, it even got parodied on NBC’s The Office. The show’s September 25th premier treated viewers to this exchange, between dumb boss Michael Scott and dumbfounded employee Jim Halpert:

Michael: “We are here because there is something wrong with society.”
Jim: “See, you’re always saying there’s something wrong with society, but… maybe there’s some wrong with you.”
Michael: “If it’s me, then society made me that way.”

Does an array of factors influence our actions and decisions? Absolutely. But using “society” as a fail-safe scapegoat for every aberrant behavior smacks of laziness. And even more insidious than that: society-blaming, to me, somehow exonerates the people who actually do bad things. No one person does anything wrong anymore, because seemingly everyone does everything wrong. And if we blame everyone, aren’t we effectively blaming no one?

So, just what is “society,” anyway, and why does it always seem to cultivate such nasty behaviors? And who lives in “society”? Me? Do I live there? And if so, what does that say about me?

I haven’t ironed out any real answers, but as far as I can tell, “society” is inhabited by “they”—you know, that ambiguous “they” who serve as the go-to source for all the day’s pressing issues. (“You know what they say about ‘Tag’? It ruins kids’ self-esteem.”)

While living in this “society,” “they” seem to spend a lot of time doing “research” or conducting “studies,” which no one has actually read but everyone can reference (e.g. the “studies” that say bacon is good for you).

Moreover, “society” seems to be run by the “government,” an untrustworthy, Big-Brotherly system that keeps us in the dark about bad guys in our midst or earth-devouring black holes.

But even more powerful than the “government” is the “media,” an insidious network that basically forces the good citizens of “society” to buy products they don’t need and vote for candidates they never respected.

Finally, what can’t be blamed on the “government,” the “media,” and all those “studies” can always be chalked up to “human nature”—a convenient card to play whenever you want to defend questionable behavior.

Incidentally, even as I’m saying this, I am fully aware this diatribe against generalizations is sort of generalization in itself. And even a not-so-astute Dunder Mifflin employee could accurately point out that, by suggesting my students have picked up their society-condemning tendencies from adults, I’m blaming their fascination with “society” on (for lack of another term) society. Which brings me to two final points about society-blaming:

(1) It’s scape-goating, an easy way to avoid asking hard questions; and

(2) Like pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving night, it’s really hard to resist. (Spice of life, indeed!)

No, Not That "Twilight"

2008-11-19T16:20:00.000-08:00

All this hubbub over the film version of Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" got me thinking about another book with the same name, a fascinating text I used to teach about eight or nine years ago: Anna Deavere Smith's Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.

Smith's Twilight may not involve vampires, but its main topic is a dark one nonetheless: the Los Angeles riots from April 1992.

In case you're unfamiliar with the L.A. riots, a little history lesson: in March 1991, four white L.A. police officers were caught on tape brutalizing a black motorist named Rodney King. A year later, the four police officers were tried-- and acquitted. That verdict ignited a literal and figurative firestorm, as rioters set fire to over twenty-five blocks of central L.A.

The riots lasted for three days, from April 29th to May 1st-- three days of beatings and burning and looting that caused damage to more than 3,000 businesses. In the end, according to the Los Angeles Times, the uprising resulted in 12,111 arrests, 2,383 injuries, and 58 deaths.

Not long after, Anna Deavere Smith-- an actress and playwright who was also, at the time, a drama professor at Stanford-- was commissioned to write a one-woman show about this frightening moment in time. To probe into the very heart of the cataclysm, Smith interviewed approximately two hundred people who actually experienced the riots. These interviews became the material for her show, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. Or, more accurately, these interviews were the show.

The play is comprised of approximately twenty-five different monologues, all performed by Smith, who would assume the identifies of her interviewees. Even more extraordinary: the material for these monologues were the verbatim words taken from her interviews.

Because her characters are actual people whose actual words inform the script, Smith's work is sometimes "documentary theatre." The Laramie Project falls into the same category. The difference, of course, is that Anna Deavere Smith (an African-American woman) plays every single one of these "actual people" on the stage-- no matter if that person is male, female, white, black, Korean, Latino. The resulting performance was described in a June 28, 1993 Newsweek article as "an American materpiece."

Now, I never saw Smith perform Twilight live, but I have seen the PBS-produced film version, which came out in 2000. And, of course, I read the print version, which Smith describes as a "companion to the theater experience."

Obviously, watching Smith's performance-- witnessing the way she morphs into these differnt characters-- is critical to the experience; however, the book can still stand on its own. In fact, Twilight more than stands on its own as a work of literature.

The book version provides the transcripts of all the interviews/ monologues she ever performed, along with additional interviews she never included in her stage versions. Some of the most compelling interviews (in my opinion, at least) include the following:

Daryl Gates, former chief of the L.A. Police Department, who voices, four times during his interview, his indignant dismay that he has become "the symbol of police oppression" in the United States, "just because some officers whacked Rodney King."

Elvira Evers, a pregnant Panamanian woman who was shot during the riots. Doctors had to remove the baby, who survived but was born with "the bullet in her elbow." This miraculously saved both their lives: Elvira said that if her baby "didn't caught it in her arm, me and her would be dead."

Maxine Waters, California congresswoman whose office was burned down during the riots. Waters, in possibly the most poignant line from the book, describes riots as "the voice of the unheard."

Walter Park, a Korean store ownder who was shot through the eye during the upheaval and had to have part of his frontal lobe removed.

Reginald Denny, a motorist who was famously pulled from his truck during the chaos and beaten to the point of unconsciousness; in an eerie echo of the Rodney King, Denny's attack was also catured on film and aired on the news. In his monologue, he says one day he's going to have "riot room" in his house, but it will be a "happy room"-- a place to put all the "funny notes and the ltters form faraway places" he received in the wake of his ordeal.

"Anonymous Young Woman," an affluent student at the University of Southern California who was worried that the riots would reach her neighborhood and that someone would throw a bottle at one of her father's antique cars. "One bottle," she says, "one shear from one bottle in my father's car, he will die. He will die!" (Naturally, the irony of those words are lost on her.)

Twilight Bey, an ex-gang member who delivers the last monologue in the book and whose name became the title of the play. Twilight is trying to organize a truce between gangs in L.A. but he realizes his ideas are not always accepted. He's called "Twilight" because, as a mediator between opposing forces, he's stuck in-between: "Limbo, I call it limbo... I'm in an area not many people exist."

Obviously, this review is incomplete, but I wanted to give readers a taste of this provocative, thoroughly original, and oft-overlooked work. Check it out if you get a chance. And if you live in Arizona, you can see Anna Deavere Smith in a new one-woman show called The Arizona Project, which debuted November 5th. (You can also check out Smith on early episodes of The West Wing, playing National Security Advisor Nancy McNally. OK, no more plugs.)

The Great Desk Debate

2008-11-16T08:51:00.001-08:00

Decisions, decisions-- teachers have to make them all the time, and they're often of the "behind-the-scenes" variety, the kinds of deliberations that non-teacher-folk would rarely even consider.

Here's one of them: rows or circles? Or, in other words: Do you arrange the desks in rows or in a circle?

It's a real issue. Traditionally (if we're to believe all those Norman Rockwell prints), it seems teachers have always set their classrooms in rows, and intertia, after all, is responsible for many decisions in big institutions like schools. (Why else do you think we’re still reading snoozers like Jane Eyre?)

But is this arrangement the best way? What about all those kids who hide in the back of the room? Besides, configuring the classroom in this way reinforces this idea that the teacher is the one dispensing all the answers, and the students just passively take it all in.

On the other hand, arranging the desks in a circle suggests community and equality. No one voice, not even the teacher’s, is more important than any other, and the circle (what Paschal called the perfect shape, with all points an equal distance from the center) reflects that idea.

With the circular layout (or something like a circle-- a horseshoe, say), no one is sitting behind anyone else, which means students have an easier time actually “seeing” each other and thus talking to each other. Also, since no one can “hide” in the back, the circle encourages the more reserved students to participate.

Morever, the circular arrangement, with the teacher as just another curious and interested voice in that circle, goes a long way to helping students see that not every idea has to be filtered, somehow, through the teacher. While not a guarantee, the circular set-up tends to allow for better, and more student-centered, discussions. (Certainly, more things go into an effective discussion—the choice of text, the enthusiasm of the students, the number of students who actually did their homework, etc.—but the circle configuration can definitely help.)

And, I think students recognize all this. In fact, if you usually have your desks in a circle, and you put them back into rows for whatever reason, they notice. (You can even use this rearrangement to your advantage, as a "punishment" for the students, a reminder of what class could be like if they don't shape up.)

However, the circular set-up isn’t completely perfect, despite what Paschal might say.

If a plus of the circle is that it gets students talking, a minus us that it gets students talking—when they’re supposed to be listening. Obviously, sitting right next to a peer, or in between two peers, intensifies the temptation to chat. For some, the undercurrent of chatting might outweigh the benefits of the rich discussions. As one of my colleagues once said, after she gave the circle arrangement a try: “There were just too many Chatty Cathies.”

Also, the circle configuration may not be the best for tests and quizzes; for some, just knowing the right answer might be just a few inches away may be too much.

So what's the answer to the "row vs. circle" debate? Ultimately, the idealist in me knows that arranging the desks in a circle contributes to important discussions. On the other hand, the realist in me knows some practical considerations get in the way. For example...

If you are sharing a room with colleagues (which I do), you both have to be on the same page as far as the desk arrangement. If not, that means you have to move the desks every time you want to have a discussion—and move them back at the end.

Taking a minute out of class to rearrange the desks into a circle-- not a big deal, especially since you're enlisting the students' help. Getting the desks back into rows for the next guy who's coming in after you-- that's where things het hairy.

At the end of class, you’re trying to collect homework, this student has a question, that student needs you to sign something. Then the bell rings, and everyone bolts. Meanwhile you’re left trying to put twenty-desks back into rows before the next period. And it's not like you don't have things you need to do before youre next class.

As always, it comes down to the issue of time. My school, Glastonbury High, has 45-minute periods; as it is, we have hardly any time to waste. To take up time at the beginning and at the end to move desks may not be the most effective use of instructional time.

Me, I compromise. I have my A.P. English classes get themselves into a circle every day; other classes, I only have them get into a circle on days when I know we're going to have what I like to call a "Life-Altering Discussion of Literature" (that's for another column).

Ideally, I wish I could have the desks permanently in a circle. I think arranging desks in a circle is excellent in theory and often in practice; unfortunately,as with virtually everything in education, we do have to attend to practical issues. What do you folks think?

Back to Reality

2008-11-12T18:30:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a family trip to Walt Disney World. Truly the great American pilgrimage. And if there's a better way to feel like a kid again, I don't know what that is.

They call the park the "Magic Kingdom," and it really is-- if only because of its ability to yank back to the surface all of that childhood innocence laying dormant in the depths your jaded adult soul. I mean, when you're there, you actually fall into believing that Chip and Dale are legitimate celebrities, not some guys in fuzzy suits. Talk about magic.

Unfortunately, that time-transcending magic ran out at about 1:17 on the Tuesday I came back to school. Not because I was back at work, but because of a tragicomic exchange I had with a group of students.

Here's the deal: I was talking to a student right after class. Now, this student is definitely Big Man on Campus: the star quarterback, varsity lacrosse player, brilliant student. Amazingly, he's also just about the humblest guy you'll ever meet.

So, he and I talking in the doorway, and I notice that two female students are waiting in the hallway. When I asked my student if these two girls were waiting for him, he confirmed that they were. So I say, as a joke, "What are you, the Fonz or something?"

Blank stares.

"You've heard of the Fonz, right?" I ask all three of them.

"I think so," one girl hazards. "He was on that 70's show, right?"

"Well, yeah," I say, thankful that this pop culture icon is not lost on the youth. "It was on during the 70's..."

"No," the girl corrects me. "I mean the show called 'That 70's Show.' Wasn't there a character called Fonz?"

"No, that's Fez!" I'm crushed at this point. "The Fonz was on 'Happy Days.' It was like, the number one show for years. Please tell me you've heard of it!"

"Well, when was it on, again?" the other girl asks me.

"Late 70's, early 80's," I answer. And this is where the magic officially stops.

"Are you kidding me?" both girls answer. "We were born in 1991!"

That's the rub with teaching high school kids, I guess: you're getting older, but the kids keep getting younger.

Simile and Metaphor Lyric Game!

2008-11-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I want to comment on the historic election of Barack Obama, and if I weren't so pressed for time, I would. But for now, I guess I'll just say the following:

Yes we did.

Now then...

I see myself being too busy to post anything for the next few days, but I wanted to get something up here. (This blogging stuff is all inertia, I'm discovering; once you go a few days without posting, it becomes way too easy to keep not posting.) So, I'm offering up to cyberspace, completely free of charge, my Simile and Metaphor Song Lyric Game. Woo-hoo!

Here's the deal: each song title below contains a simile or metaphor. Either the song title is actually a simile or metaphor (e.g. Bob Seger’s “Feel Like a Number” or Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am a Rock”). Or the title is excerpted from a line in the song that includes a simile or metaphor (e.g. the title of Bon Jovi’s song is “Bad Medicine,” from the lyric “your love is like bad medicine”; the Hall and Oates song is “Maneater,” but the lyric is “She’s a maneater”). Got it?

Song and artist, please. Answers follow. (Hint: For some reason, there are more simile answers than metaphor ones. I was in a simile mood, I guess…)

1. “I’m on the hunt, I’m after you”

2. “Through all these cities and all these towns, it’s in my blood and it’s all around”

3. “So what is wrong with a night of sin?”

4. “Believe me, believe me, I can’t tell you why, but I’m trapped by your love, and I’m chained to your side”

5. “I’m high as a kite, I just might stop to check you out”

6. “I’m a consecrated boy, a singer in a Sunday choir”

7. “You’re looking for gold, you’re turning away a fortune in feelings but someday you’ll pay”

8. “Here we are now, entertain us”

9. “At night I wake up with my sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head”

10. “Just a fool to believe I am anything she needs”

11. “You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal”

12. “And I stood arrow straight unencumbered by the weight of all these hustlers and their schemes”

13. “Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky”

14. “Just like a muse to me, you are a mystery”

15. “Your love thawed out what was scared and cold”

16. “I had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines that lay”

17. “Who’s to say they way a man should spend his days? Do you let them smolder?”

18. “Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future”

19. “I found myself alone, alone, alone above a raging sea that stole the only girl I loved and drowned her deep inside of me”

20. “All I know is that to me you look like you’re lots of fun”

21. “There comes a time when you heed a certain call”

22. “They set you on the treadmill, and they made you change your name”

23. “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now”

24. “No dark sarcasm in the classroom”

25. “I took it all for granted but how was I to know that you’d be letting go?”

ANSWERS

1. "Hungry LIke The Wolf," Duran Duran
2. "Life is a Highway," Tom Cochrane (or Rascal Flatts)
3. "Rock You Like a Hurricane," Scorpions
4. "Love is a Battlefield," Pat Benetar
5. "Blister in the Sun," Violent Femmes
6. "Loves Me Like a Rock," Paul Simon
7. "Cold as Ice," Foreigner
8. "Smells Like Teen Spirit," Nirvana
9. "I'm on Fire," Bruce Springsteen
10. "She's Like the Wind," Patrick Swayze
11. "Like a Rolling Stone," Bob Dylan
12. "LIke a Rock," Bob Seger
13. "Dust in the Wind," Kansas
14. "Like a Prayer," Madonna
15. "Like a Virgin," Madonna
16. "Fortress Around Your Heart," Sting
17. "Paper in Fire," John Mellencamp
18. "Fly Like an Eagle," Steve Miller Band
19. "Just Like Heaven," The Cure
20. "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)," Dead or Alive
21. "We Are the World," USA for Africa
22. "Candle in the Wind," Elton John
23. "Stairway to Heaven," Led Zeppelin
24. "Another Brick in the Wall," Pink Floyd
25. "Cuts Like a Knife," Bryan Adams

You're Not Really a Teacher Unless...

2008-11-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

Last week, Native-American author Sherman Alexie appeared on Stephen Colbert-- which got me thinking about Alexie's novel Reservation Blues, which got me thinking about this line that has stuck with me for the past nine years.

In the book, Alexie has one of his characters, a Native-American woman named Chess Warm Water, say, “You ain’t really Indian unless there was some point in your life that you didn’t want to be.”

Well, I've come to put my own spin on it: you’re not really a teacher unless at some point in your life you didn’t want to be.

Personally, those “points in your life” happened to me all the time-- daily, maybe even hourly-- during my first year of teaching high school.

You have to know a few things: I have been teaching English for twelve years; I’ve taught college, adult ed, and high school; I regard teaching as perhaps the most important and most noble profession that exists; and my first year teaching high school, I absolutely hated it.

Hated everything about it, as a matter of fact. Hated the hours: waking up inhumanly early after staying up late preparing the night before. Hated the never-ending paperload. Really hated seeing how quickly the essays I spent a weekend correcting would end up in the trash can.

I hated the breakneck pace, how things never seemed to let up. I hated “re-creating the wheel” every day, trying to come up with ways to fill up the interminable forty-five minute class period. I hated watching a “can’t miss” activity, one that I painstakingly created, bomb before my eyes.

And while I won't go so far to say "hate," I think it's safe to say that, for most of that first year, a really, really big part of me couldn't stand the kids. Pretty much everything they did drove me up the wall: how they wouldn’t stop complaining about everything we did; how they kept asking when we could watch a movie; how they complained about my choice of movie when we actually got around to watching one. (“Why can’t we watch ‘Dude, Where’s My Car?’”)

I couldn't stand how they wouldn't shut up, how I couldn’t get them to respect me, how I had no classroom management, and how every one in the room knew it.

Most of all, I hated what the job was doing to me and my relationships. I hated hearing myself unload, once again, another “woe is me” speech on my wife. I hated seeing my general “Mr. Optimist Prime” personality rot away, as I slowly became someone I didn’t recognize, Sir Cynicism, complete with a new philosophy of “Why am I working harder than anyone else? Screw it!” I hated that guy.

You get the idea. Basically, hundreds of times that first year, I thought about quitting. And if I didn’t have two small children to support, I probably would have.

That was then. Now, it's a thousand times better, obviously-- especially in terms of my feelings about the students. Now they make the job, when they used to break it.

But some things-- the unrelenting pace, the crazy hours, and especially, the astronomical paperload-- have remained the essentially same.

This past weekend, I probably spent sixteen hours correcting papers; I was still correcting at 9 pm Saturday night. I'm still not done.

You think, during that marathon correcting spree, I didn't experience a few of those points when I didn't want to be a teacher?

Of course, there's another side, too. Just last night, I was thumbing through Alexie's Reservation Blues, and I came across another great line, also said by Chess Warm Water: "Can't you handle it? You want the good stuff of being an Indian without all the bad stuff?"

Well, that's the other side, isn't it? The interactions with the kids, the rush of seeing learning happen, the thrill of learning something new yourself, the laughter, the hugs at graduation, the sense of amazement you feel when somehow it all seems worth it-- yeah, that's the good stuff. (And summers aren't bad either.)

How can anyone expect the good stuff of being a teacher without the bad stuff too?

It's Been a Hard Day's Night... And I've Been Working Like a Dog

2008-10-25T17:30:00.000-07:00

Man, I've been so busy... I never sent my fan letter to Ringo Starr before the deadline! What's a man to do?

Don't know what I'm talking about? Well, a few weeks ago, the former Beatle made it known, via a short video on his website, that he would not be answering any more fan mail after October 20th. Here's the complete transcript of this blockbuster announcement:

"This is a serious message to everybody watching my update right now. Peace and love, peace and love. I want to tell you, please, after the 20th of October, do not send fan mail to any address that you have. Nothing will be signed after the 20th of October. If that has a date on the envelope, it's gonna be tossed. I'm warning you with peace and love, but I have too much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed. Nothing. Uh... anyway, peace and love, peace and love."

This raises a few questions:

(1) How much fan mail are you actually getting, Ringo?

(2) Aren't you rich and famous? Don't you have, like, people who could answer your fan mail for you? And if you don't have people... hire some! Have you never heard of this concept?

(3) Why October 20th? What was so special about that day?

(4) Don't you think that your "peace and love" comments somewhat conflict with your insistence that we collectively buzz off and leave you alone?

(5) I mean, honestly: you're Ringo freakin' Starr! How much fan mail could you possibly be getting nowadays?

Ringo unleashed his "I have too much to do" message just about the same time I was getting slammed with stuff to do at work. Notice I haven't written any posts in the past week? Oh, I've been writing, all right: in fact, I'm up to the tippity top of my balding head in requests to write college recommendations letters.

Now, understand: I don't mind writing these letters. My students need them, and I'll do whatever I can to help my students. And so, even though writing these letters isn't something any teacher is contractually obligated to do, I nonetheless consider it part of my job.

But it takes time. This week, I wrote tweleve letters; I still have maybe eight more. Each one takes forty-five minutes to an hour for me to write. (I'm convinced the college admissions people probably spend about a minute skimming each letter over, maybe less. But that's a rant for another time.)

Of course, no school will give the teacher time to write these letters. Normal life still goes on. You still have to teach your classes, create your lessons, try to make a dent into your ever-expanding mound of papers.

At some point, you'll try to spend some time with your family. And maybe you'll devote a smidgen of time on your own personal creative pursuits... like that blog you haven't touched in a week. But don't count on it.

Amazingly, you do it. You do it all. As Joe the High School Teacher (no relation to Joe the Plumber), you write those letters. And meet with kids outside of class to talk about their college essays. And coach sports. And direct plays. And advise the Robotics club. (No, I'm no longer talking about myself here. The "you" here is Joe the High School Teacher, remember. I'm not saying I coach a sport or direct plays or advise the Robotics club. I'm just talking about the kinds of extra stuff that high school teachers do beyond their actual jobs. Get it?)

Again, I hope this doesn't come off as "Woe is I." (Yes, that's grammatically correct.) I think teaching is the noblest, most rewarding job in the world, and I'm glad it found me. And I don't mind writing the letters or reading the essays or doing anything else for my students, because they have given me so much in return.

But I am saying this: Who the hell do you think you are, Ringo Starr?

How can you honestly look into cyberspace and tell your fans-- the people who gave you your livelihood-- that you can't answer their letters? And give as your reason that you "have too much to do"? "Too much to do"... are you kidding me, Ringo? What exactly are you doing that's so time-consuming, anyway? You're Ringo, after all, not Bono.

So, here's my appeal to Ringo Starr: Spend one week-- just one week-- as a high school teacher. Or at any real-- i.e. non-Elder-Statesman-of-Rock-- job. Then re-evaluate what it means to have "too much to do."

Peace and love, peace and love-- except I actually mean it.

She's Baaack... But Why?

2008-10-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with teaching... but it has to be said.

I watched a lot of Red Sox on TBS over the past week, and I saw the same creepy commercial about twelve times. And I don't mean the Viagra commercial with the randy old guy dancing around his house.

No, I'm talking about the Direct TV commercial based on the 1982 film Poltergeist. By now, you probably know the deal with these commercials: the Direct TV folks, using their way-cool CGI wizardry, can take actors and put them back into some of their familiar roles.

So they insert new footage of Sigourney Weaver into 1987 Aliens scenes, or they take a modern Robert Patrick and have him reprise his role as the evil-liquid-metal-guy from Terminator 2.

Most recently, Craig T. (which stands for "The Guy from Coach") Nelson filmed a Direct TV ad in which he finds himself in the same haunted house from over 25 years ago.

The commercial also reunites Mr. Nelson with that little girl from Poltergeist, Heather O'Rourke, the one who said those iconic words, "They're here."

Brinigng the two back together would be kinda sweet, except for one thing: Heather O'Rourke died 20 years ago, at the age of 12.

Somehow, putting Heather O'Rourke in this commercial strikes me as all kinds of wrong, even though I can't exactly explain why. I didn't mind when Tom Hanks shook hands with JFK or sat next to John Lennon in Forrest Gump. When Celine Dion sang with Elvis on that American Idol special, I was impressed. And I wasn't creeped out when Natalie Cole sang "Unforgettable" with her dead dad. (OK, I'm lying: that was pretty creepy.)

But at least John Lennon and Elvis and Nat King Cole had careers; maybe Lennon and JFK and Elvis died too young, but not as young as Heather O'Rourke. The girl was twelve years old when she died. Twelve. Her career, her life had just begun. (Then again, she was on the last year of Happy Days. Do you think she got to meet Anson Williams?)

I know someone will say I'm making too big a deal out of this, but to me, using the image of a dead child in this way seems so irresponsible, on the part of everyone involved. Yes, in some sense, it's cool that the technology exists to resurrect a person who has been dead for twenty years. But, as always, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

It's just spooky.

"So Help Me Me"; The God-Complex and the American President

2008-10-09T03:55:00.000-07:00

Why would anyone want to be President of the United States?

It's a legitimate question, this election year more than ever. Whomever we elect is going to inherit an unpopular war, an economy as stable as a 90's-era Robert Downey Jr, a heathcare crisis, and hey, those polar ice caps aren't going to fix themselves. But even in the best of circumstances, you're pretty much guaranteed that half of the populace is going to think you're doing a lousy job.

So I ask again: what would drive a reasonable person to heap-- willingly, voluntarily-- all this abuse onto himself (or herself)?

Oh, sure, you can say something about civic duty and love of country. But I have another theory, one that was inspired by one of my favorite TV shows: NBC's "The West Wing."

For all you non-Wing-nuts out there: "The West Wing" followed the often-tumultuous two terms of President Josiah "Jed" Bartlet (brilliantly played by Martin Sheen). Why "tumultuous"? Well, let's see... over his two terms, President Bartlet got shot; was censured by Congress for not telling the American people about his multiple sclerosis; actually had several MS episodes that left him physically incapacitated; had to find a new vice-president after the first one got caught up in a sex scandal; and stepped down for a short time after his daughter got kidnaped. Plus, he was the butt of a lot of short-guy jokes.

But you have to say one thing about President Bartlet: he knew how to make an entrance.

On the very first episode of "The West Wing" (airdate: September 29, 1999), President Bartlet doesn't appear until the last act, when he dramatically interrupts a conversation between his staffers and some members of the religious right. When one of the religious righters says, "The First Commandment is 'honor thy father," communications director Toby Ziegler corrects her, explaining "Honor thy father" is actually the Third Commandment. (It's actually the Fourth Commandment, but hey...)

In the midst of all this, another religious-guy asks, "So what is the First Commandment?"-- a somewhat unrealistic but nonetheless effective way to introduce President Bartlet, whose authoritative voice booms from the doorway off-screen: "I am the Lord thy God," Bartlet intones. "Thou shalt worship no other God before me."

Now, President Bartlet is, of course, quoting the First Commandment when he says, "I am the Lord your God." But he is speaking in the first-person, so in a way, he is telling the people in that room that he-- i.e. President Bartlet-- is God.

This wasn't the last time the Big Guy's name came up in "The West Wing" (and by "Big Guy," I mean God, not Bartlet-- only in this case, the blurring may be appropriate). For at least the first four seasons-- the ones written by Aaron Sorkin-- Bartlet's Catholicism was mentioned repeatedly.

In the first season, for example, Bartlet grasped rosary beads as he agonized over whether to commute the death sentence of a murderer. He often quoted biblical passages, chapter and verse-- a talent he once used to give a verbal shellacking to a right-wing talk show host who used the Bible as ammunition in her war against homosexuality. ("Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7," Bartlet countered. "If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football?") In the second season, we learn Bartlet, while a student at Notre Dame, had even planned on becoming a priest, until he met his wife Abbey.

Instead of becoming a priest, Bartlet cuts out the middleman and becomes God-- or at least, the next best thing. Indeed, throughout the first two seasons especially, we see evidence of Bartlet's "God-complex." For example, in the second episode, after an American plane is shot down, a steeled Bartlet promises to attack the perpetrators "with the fury of God's own thunder." In the next episode, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry (John Spencer) talks Bartlet down, warning him against "using American military strength as the arm of the Lord."

And in the second season's finale, "Two Cathedrals," President Bartlet actually calls out God in the National Cathedral, calling Him a "son of a bitch" and putting out his cigarette on the marble floor.

"To hell with Your punishments," Bartlet hisses. "I was Your servant here on Earth. And I spread Your word and did Your work. To hell with Your punishments. To hell with You." (Incidentally, he said this in Latin; writer Aaron Sorkin claimed he wanted Bartlet to talk to God in God's own language.)

Even the other characters treat Bartlet as if he were divinity. For example, in the two-part opener for Season 2, we see a flashback detailing how Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe) initially joined the Bartlet campaign. Sam was going to be made partner at a major New York law firm, but when his friend and Bartlet convert Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) showed up at his office, he literally dropped everything to come aboard. Is this or is this not an echo of the biblical story of Jesus convincing his apostles to leave their nets-- and basically their livelihood-- and become "fishers of men"?

Now, Aaron Sorkin never used the term "God-complex" during his tenure as "The West Wing" head scribe. But it should be noted that he did use the term in the movie, Malice (for which Sorkin wrote the screenplay). In the movie, Alec Baldwin's character makes a memorable speech which concludes with the following: "You ask me if I have a God-complex. Let me tell you something. I am God." The name of Baldwin's character: Dr. JED Hill.

Yes, Sorkin does famously recycle names. (Over the course of the series, Josh Lyman saw two psychiatrists named Stanley-- what are the odds?) But the fact that Sorkin had already created a character named Jed who boasted "I am God" could lend credence to the argument that President Jed Bartlet also have a deep-rooted God-complex. After all, doesn't the president have more power than a single doctor?

So, to get back to my thesis: for at least the first two seasons, Aaron Sorkin made the case that the President of the United States-- not his fictional president one, but the actual commander in chief-- may not only have a "God complex," he (or she) may very well want to BE God.

If you think about it, what else but a compelling desire to be the most important person on the planet (in theory) could drive someone to take on such stress, such anxiety, such unparalleled headaches?

So we're left with this comundrum: We want our presidents to be smart, level-headed, and reasonable, but the very desire to be president suggests that this person must have something wrong with him (or her).

Presidential paradox, indeed.

(By the way, the divine Bartlet was resurrected a few weeks ago, when Aaron Sorkin wrote a piece for the New York Times detailing a meeting between Bartlet and Barack Obama. Always good to see President Bartlet again. How come our real candidates can't be more like him?)

Last Person on Earth

2008-10-06T17:17:00.000-07:00

There’s a pseudo-famous short story, usually called something like “The World’s Shortest Short Story" or even “The World’s Shortest Horror Story,” that is so short that I can re-print it here in its entirety:

“The last person on earth sat alone in a room.

There was a knock at the door.”

No one knows the writer, but I wish I did, because I would pay this person some seriously righteous homage. I love this story. How can you not? The ambiguity allows for so many questions, so many interpretations.

Why is this person the last man on earth? Was there some nuclear apocalypse? Who’s coming to the door? Is this person coming to save him? Kill him? Is there even another person at the door, or has the guy gone insane, after being alone for so long?

Me, I prefer a more optimistic interpretation—namely, that the story is about making human connections. I always believed the guy in the story wasn’t really the last person on earth; he just felt so lonely and isolated that he believed he was all alone in the world. But now someone else is knocking at his door, reaching out to him, breaking his isolation.

I show my students this story every year, to illustrate not only ambiguity but also reading strategies, such as inferencing, questioning, and even connecting. In fact, I can connect personally to this story.

The “World’s Shortest Short Story,” you see, reminds me of my first year teaching high school. Why? Because basically, for about six months of that first year, I was that man from the story, the last man on earth, all alone.

Oh, I wasn’t really alone, naturally. But teaching, by its very nature, can be a very isolating job. Some try to put a positive spin on it, say you have a lot of “autonomy.” But really the job can be very insulated and isolated.

“Now, hold on!” the non-teacher might counter. “How can you complain about large class sizes and then turn around and say you’re too ‘isolated’?” Ah, touché…but when I say “isolated,” I’m not talking about a complete lack of human contact. I’m talking about the lack of meaningful interaction with peers, other adults, folks who actually share your pain and can help you get through it.

Don’t get me wrong: my first year teaching high school, I had some great colleagues, and when I went to them for help, I always got it. But they couldn’t help me every minute of every day. Most of the time, just dealing with their own classes, their own separate universes, took up all of their energies.

And all I knew about these other universes is that good things seemed to be happening there. Meanwhile, my own universe seemed ready to collapse in on itself any second and form a black hole.

So, take the natural isolation that comes with the teaching territory, and heap on the feelings of anxiety from believing you’re not only the worst teacher in the building, but quite possibly the worst that’s ever lived—and, yeah, you might feel like the last person on earth, too.

So what sustained me during that first year? What brought me some small degree of comfort, made it possible to keep showing up? Simple: stories.

And no, by “stories,” I don’t mean To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye (even though they did buoy me up plenty of times). I’m talking about the stories other teachers told me about their first years.

I’m not sure when or why I decided to ask other teachers about their own first-year experiences, but I talked to pretty much every teacher I knew that year. Not for advice, necessarily, but for anecdotes. And the more people I asked, the clearer two truths became:

(1) “Man, some of these teachers have some really crappy first years!” and

(2) “They want to tell me these stories. Even the really bad stories. And they’re laughing as they tell them. Somehow, they’re proud of these stories.”

Ultimately, their stories eased my mind. And it’s not just because “misery loves company,” although that probably had something to do with it. And it wasn’t just this egocentric schadenfreudic reaction, where I found comfort in knowing someone else had it worse—although, who are we kidding?, that didn’t hurt, either. But I think it was something else: these stories helped me so much because they were my knock at the door.

That’s right: the knock. The knock that told me I wasn’t alone in the universe. The knock that made me realize, “You mean someone else has felt what I’m feeling? Someone else has been overwhelmed by the work, the students, the doubt?” The knock that convinced me, almost against my better judgment, to keep going with this crazy teaching thing. The knock that ultimately saved my career.

You know, I’ve seen some websites made up entirely of rejection letters—the premise being that if you’re an aspiring writer discouraged by all the rejection letters you’ve received, and you see that everyone gets rejection letters, maybe you won’t feel so discouraged any more. In fact, maybe you’ll feel a sense of community with all of these people.

I have yet to find a place like that on the Internet for first-year teachers—a place where they could retreat to when they’re feeling low and read stories from people who have lived to tell the tale. Maybe this can be that place.

So, to any teachers out there who might read this: Why not send in a few of your stories from the trenches? Maybe some new teacher will read them. Maybe you’ll inspire that new teacher to go to work the next day. But mostly, maybe you'll help him realize he’s not alone in the universe.

Knock, knock.

More Lines with Thorny Rhymes

2008-10-04T14:13:00.000-07:00

Last summer, I posted some musings about popular songs that contained what I call "thorny rhymes"-- also known as slant rhymes or misrhymes or even just bad rhymes.

I christened them "thorny rhymes" in honor of the song which contains possibly the best (worst?) example of such ridiculous rhyming: Poison's "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." You do remember the chorus, don't you?

Every rose has its thorn
Just like every night has its dawn
Just like every cowboy sings its sad, sad song
Every rose has its thorn

Now, maybe back in the 80s, people thought the words "thorn," "dawn," and "song" rhymed. Of course, back then, people also considered Lionel Richie a sex symbol. Now we know better.

(Incidentally, in the category of the Thorniest Rhymes of All-Time, Steve Miller Band's "Take The Money and Run" can actually give Poison a run for that aforementioned money, thanks to following lyrical wizardry:

Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He's not gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his living off other people's taxes

Maybe not as egregious as the "thorn"/"dawn"/"song" combo... but pretty close.)

And now, to the clamor of exactly no one, I present... a whole new batch of thorny rhymes!

Miley Cryus, "See You Again"

I've got a way of knowin' when something is right
I feel like I must have known you in another life
'Cause I felt this deep connection when you looked in my eyes
Now I can't wait to see you again

Now, I like this song. I do. I fully admit it. I like the "Sunglasses at Night"-esque tune. I like the shout-out to her best friend Lesley. I even like the st-st-stutter line (which cost her millions, I'm sure, in potential endorsements from the National Stuttering Association).

But trying to pass of "right," "life" and "eyes" as rhymes? What kind of shoddy lyric-writing is that? Come on, Miley-- what are you, sixteen or something? (Oh, wait...)

Huey Lewis and the News, "I Know What I Like"

I like things that don't change
Because the more something changes, the more it stays the same
I might be simple, take it easy sometimes
But I can be stubborn when I've made up my mind

Here, Zen-Master Huey was probably hoping he had bent your brain so profoundly that you wouldn't notice the lyrics didn't actually rhyme.

Now, stay with me: first, he says he likes things that don't change. Then he qualifies that statement with the oft-quoted truism that the more things change, the more it stays the same.

So, if we return to the first statement with that qualifier in mind, he's actually saying he likes things that don't stay the same. Ergo, he likes change.

So when he says that he likes things that don't change, he's actually saying he likes change.

How's your mind, unsuspecting blog-reader-- blown?

Alanis Morrisette, "Ironic"

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid
It's the good advice that you just didn't take
And who would've thought, it figures

While everyone was so busy gleefully pointing out how this song contains no actual examples of irony, Alanis snuck under the rhyming radar with "day," "paid," and "take." (And, no, that's not ironic, either... just sneaky.)

While we're on the subject... something has always bothered me about the Alanis song "Hand in My Pocket," which contains the following:

What it all comes down to
is that everything's gonna be quite all right
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is flicking a cigarette

What it all comes down to
Is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet
I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a peace sign

Now, these lines don't rhyme... which is fine, since nothing in the entire song rhymes. Hey, no crime there, if that's what she's going for. But why not simply switch the "cigarette" line with the "peace sign" line, to rhyme "cigarette" with "yet"? It seems such an easy and logical rhyme to make.

(Maybe this was an overlong set-up for a small point, but this has bugged me for the last thirteen years. Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. I feel better.)

Don McLean, "American Pie"

Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step

Ah, one of my favorite Rhyme-Crimes: Rhyming a Word with Itself and Hoping No One Will Notice.

You can find other great examples of this in Deep Blue Something's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" ("It's plain to see we're over/ And I hate when things are over"), in Foreigner's "Hot Blooded" ("You don't have to read my mind/ To know what I have in mind"), and even in the great Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" ("I could have another you in a minute/ Matter fact, he'll be here in a minute").

And yet, maybe we can give Don McLean a pass on this one, because (a) the song is nearly-eight minutes and about six billion lines long, so one off-rhyme is no so bad; (b) it's one of those great Deeper Meaning songs, even if no one exactly knows what that Deeper Meaning is; and (c) let's face it: "American Pie" and "Vincent" are really all the guy's got. I say, let's not ruin Don's one shot at immortality by quibbling over a thorny rhyme.

Neil Diamond's "I Am... I Said"

"I am"... I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair

"Now, hold on," the astute reader may say, "these lyrics do rhyme. So what are they doing on this here list?"

Of course, you're right: these lyrics do, in fact, rhyme. But I wanted to include them because they're just patently absurd.

Hey, I like Neil Diamond, and I like the song. But... "not even the chair"?? Not even the chair??? Inexcusable. What does that even mean? What chair? Why are you talking to it? And why do you think this chair would be able to hear you?

Consider this a Thorny Rhyme subset: when an artist achieves a rhyme, but does it in such a completely goofy and non-sensical way, he would have been better off not rhyming.

Still, the "not even the chair" rhyme looks Longfellow-ian when compared to Van Morrison's "And It Stoned Me," which-- in addition to rhyming "backs" with "fence" and "poles" with "road"-- contains possible the worst simile in the history of music:

And it stoned me to my soul
Stoned me just like jelly roll
And it stoned me

"Stoned me just like jelly roll," huh? Hey, unless Irish folks put something in their jelly rolls that I don't know about, that's just some pretty awful lyric-writing right there.

OK, that's all I have for now... but there are more thorny rhymes out there. Many, many more. If anyone out there in hears more examples of thorny rhymes, please send 'em in. Together, we'll help expose this lyrical corruption!

(For more example of misrhymes, see the folks at Am I Right.)

Wizard of "Ozymandias"

2008-10-01T03:31:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had my A. P. kids read Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias." You know it, right? The poem about the prideful king who thought he was all that and a goblet of mead, but hundreds of years later all that's left of his legacy is a broken statue? Not ringing any bells? Well, here it is, anyway:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

You have to love the poem's core paradox. Ozymanidas, the self-proclaimed "King of Kings," commissions a statue of himself-- not only as a testament to his great and sustaining power but also to guarantee his immortality. Of course, hundreds of years later, all that's left of this statute-- and, by extension, of Ozymandias himself-- are shattered fragments: the head, the legs, and the pedestal. Literally and figuratively, the King of Kings has been swallowed up by the sands of time.

Basically: not so much with the immortality thing for King Ozzy.

Ah, but here's the paradoxical rub: by writing this poem, Shelley is immortalizing him, but as symbol of mortality. The statue didn't remain, but the poem does.

Now, I'm not saying I came up with that; it's a pretty obvious paradox, after all. But I have a few other cool, semi-unobvious observations, too, about the poem. And so I present...

Dursin's Five Cool, Semi-Unobvious Observations about "Ozymandias," for Teachers, Students, and Folks Who Want to Look Smart at Cocktail Parties.

(1) You notice how much distance Shelley is trying to put between the reader and Ozymandias? Instead of just talking directly about this fallen king, he starts the poem with a narrator, who is relating a story he heard from a traveler, who tells the story about a sculptor who made a statue of a king.

When I brought Shelley's funky set-up up to my students, one young man said that, by putting this much distance between the reader and the subject of the poem, Shelley is reflecting the content of the poem in its form; Shelley basically reinforces how lost and forgotten Ozymandias by burying him underneath all these layers (the reader, the narrator, the traveler, the sculptor, the king). Good stuff.

But another student disagreed, suggesting that organizing the poem in this way showed how this king was not completely forgotten, because at least one person, the traveler, knows the story. So, in a way, the structure contradicts the fundamental message. Also good stuff.

They're both right, of course. That's one of the great ancillary benefits about teaching English-- learning to coexist with irreconcilable contraries.

(2) Just today, another student came up to me after class with an "Ozymandias" story. (We all have them.) Apparently, she was visiting Hamilton College, and she sat in on a class where the students were reading Robert Frost's poem "Directive." (Too long for me to re-print here; kindly follow the link.) And one of the students remarked something like, "You know, this poem reminds me of 'Ozymandias.'"

Color me definitely intrigued-- there's probably a grad school thesis somewhere in that connection-- but also tragically inequipped to comment on it. I've read "Directive" before and always found it impenetrable. I can see a few surface connections between the two (e.g. Frost's description of "a house that is no more a house/ Upon a farm that is no more a farm/ And in a town that is no more a town"), but I don't know enough about "Directive" to go deeper. Any help out there?

(3) Maybe it's just me (and I know it's not, because after I thought of this, I found this same comparison elsewhere on the Web), but Coldplay's "Viva la Vida" seems to explore exactly-- I mean, exactly-- the same tensions that Shelley does in "Ozymandias."

Think about it: both the song and the poem describe the fall of a prideful king. ("I used to rule the world," the song's narrator says in the first verse, but now "I sleep alone/ Sweep the streets that I used to own.") Yes, the king of the song falls during his lifetime, and there's no evidence in Shelley's poem that his king is ever aware of his ironic fall from grace.

Still, both texts deal with the elusiveness of earthly power. (Compare Shelley's crumbled statue to the song's castles that were built on "pillars of salt, pillars of sand.")

To all English teachers out there, I say play "Viva la Vida" for your students when you teach "Ozymandias." You can show the students how cool you are. Oh, yeah, and the juxtaposition of the two will reinforce the twin themes of the transcient nature of power and the impossibility of material possessions to withstand the onslaught of the passage of time. That too.

(4) If you're not familiar with the movie The Emperor's Club (and you're probably not, because, for some reason, that's one of those Great Movies That No One Has Seen. Why that is, I have no idea. Everyone has seen Dead Poets Society, and The Emperor's Club is far superior. I might even have to devote a whole post to this grave oversight someday. Where was I? Oh, yeah...), one of the initial scenes of the movie contains an indirect echo of "Ozymandias."

Mr. Hundert (Kevin Kline) is a brilliant, slightly-stodgy, and (of course) inspirational high school teacher of Greek and Roman history at an all-boys private school. On the first day of the year, he traditionally has a student read a plaque that says the following:

"I am Shutruk-Nahunte, king of Anshand and Susa, sovereign of the land of Elam. By the command of Inshushinak, I destroyed Sippar and took the stele of Niran-Sin and brought it back to Elam, where I erected it as an offering to my god. Shuktruk Nahunte, 1158 B.C."

Mr. Hundert then asks the class who Shutruk Nahunte is, saying that they can even use their textbooks. "But you won't find it there," he says, for indeed, "his accomplsihments won't be found in any history book."

Shutruk Nahunte, according to Mr. Hundert, is utterly forgotten by history because he didn't make a lasting difference in the world. Says Mr. Hundert: "Great ambition and conquest, without contribution, is without significance."

Sound like anyone else we might know? (Hint: it rhymes with "Fozzymandias"...)

I was so proud of myself for coming up with this connection. But here's the icing on the connection-cake: I didn't come up with this connection! The writer of the story on which the movie was based did.

The film was inspired by Ethan Canin's short story, "The Palace Thief." The first chapter of the story introduces Mr. Hundert and his Shutruk Nahunte bit (spelled "Nahhunte" in the story). Then Mr. Hundert (the narrator) reveals something else he does as part of his first-day ritual:

"... I had one of them recite, from the wall where it hangs above my desk, Shelley's 'Ozymandias.' It is critical for any man of import to understand his own insignificance before the sands of time, and this is what my classroom has always showed my boys." (Italics mine.)

Part of my was exhilirated that my connection had textual precedence, part of me bummed out I didn't think of it first. (Foiled again!)

(5) This last one might be my favorite thing I learned about "Ozymandias" over the past week. Apparently, Shelley had a contest with his friend Horace Smith over who could write the better poem about this king. So they both wrote sonnets, and they both submitted them to the same magazine, The Examiner.

Now considering Shelley's poem is a widely-known staple of English literature, and pretty much no one has ever read or even heard of Horace Smith, I guess you can figure out who won the bet. Still, I think Horace got the fuzzy end of the legacy-lollipop. To be honest, I didn't find Horace's poem that bad. Check it out for yourself:

In Egypts sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows.
"I am great Ozymandias," saith the stone,
"The King of kings: this mighty city shows
The wonders of my hand." The city's gone!
Naught but the leg remaining to disclose
The sight of that forgotten Babylon.
We wonder, and some hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when through the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the wolf in chase,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What wonderful, but unrecorded, race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

How did it all fall apart for Horace Smith? Two factors, I think:

(a) Shelley beat him to it. Shelley's poem was published in The Examiner on January 11, 1818; Smith's was published on February 1, 1818. (Remember when Armageddon came out a few months before Deep Impact? Just like that!)

(b) Writer Guy Davenport summed up the difference between Percy and Horace by (allegedly) saying, "Genius may also be knowing how to title a poem." And indeed, Shelley's knack for titles have helped him in the long run.

What do I mean by that? Well, while Shelley called his poem "Ozymandias," ol' Horace called his "On a Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below."

Not bad, as far as titles go... but lacking a little panache, you know?

Dabbling in “Dibs Not!”

2008-09-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

The rules of “Dibs Not” are as simple as they are unforgiving.

First, a group is confronted with a task, which the group finds distasteful or otherwise unpleasant. In order to avoid said task, all members of the group immediately shout out the words “Dibs Not!” while simultaneously putting their index fingers on or next to their noses. The last person to complete the “Dibs Not!”/ finger-on-nose combo must essentially “take one for the team” and do the unpleasant task.

And there you have it: the glorious exercise in adolescent avoidance that is “Dibs Not.”

Of course, you probably won’t find these rules written out anywhere else. It’s not exactly something a person sits down and explains to someone. But I outlined the rules here for the sake of parents everywhere. Believe me, Mom and Dad: you’re going to want to know about this.

Fortunately, the premise of “Dibs Not” is probably not completely unfamiliar to you. After all, Americans have calling “dibs” on things they want (“Dibs chair!” “Dibs the last brownie!”) for a long time—since at least the 1930s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. If you can “dibs” something desirable, it only follows you can “dibs not” something undesirable.

And the “finger-on-the-nose” thing? That, apparently, is the insurance policy. In the case of a “Dibs Not” photo finish, the person who last applies digit to nose is the loser.

Some folks may dismiss “Dibs Not” as a rip-off of “Not It,” that great battle cry from Tag, but in fact, “Dibs Not” trumps “Not It” in several key areas.

For one thing, you’ve got the versatility factor. While “Not It” only holds dominion over the playground, “Dibs Not” reigns over the entire school. In the cafeteria, for example, students might yell, “Dibs not cleaning up the table!” Or the classroom teacher who asks for volunteers to write on the board might find herself serenaded by an entire chorus of “Dibs Not!”

Then there’s the sheer longevity of “Dibs Not.” While a definite ceiling looms over “Not It” (which effectively dies when kids stop playing Tag), students play “Dibs Not” throughout elementary school, well into middle school, and beyond.

In fact, I first learned about “Dibs Not” when I started teaching high school. All of my students were doing it—including the seniors. That’s right: the ones on the verge of college, the ones at or near voting age, who can legally buy the “Rated M for Mature” videogames they’ve already been playing for years… they too indulged in the Dibs Not Dance.

Why do they do it, and how do they all know about it? No one can say for sure, not even the students themselves. They could only assure me that it isn’t peculiar to my school; no, “Dibs Not” thrives in communities across the nation— in spirit, at least, if not exactly in name.

For example, one student told me at her friend’s school they do “Shotty Not” instead of “Dibs Not.”

“Shotty Not?” I asked.

“Yeah, short for ‘shotgun.’ You know, what you yell when you want the front seat of a car?” She then paused and, remembering she was talking to a teacher, asked, “You have heard of ‘shotgun,’ right?”

Now, for those who think that “Dibs Not” only reinforces the long-standing belief that “kids these days” are always trying to get out of work and shirk responsibility… well, I’d have a hard time refuting that. They are trying to get out of work when they play “Dibs Not”; that’s the whole point of the game. But consider this: somehow, the work does get done, and virtually without incident.

In fact, over the past seven years, never once did any of the “Dibs not!” duels I’ve witnessed result in an argument, because the stragglers—the last ones to say the magic words—ultimately do their parts without fussing about it. They know the score; they understand the system, and they know they lost fair and square.

Then it hit me: the most remarkable thing about “Dibs Not” is not that all teenagers do it, but that they all abide by it. That, to me, takes honor.

Tricky concept, honor. Maybe it means respecting people. Maybe it means doing what’s right even if it’s inconvenient or unpopular. It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

And in my job, as a high school teacher, I see examples of honor all the time: teens starting fundraisers, or traveling to Florida over spring break to build houses for the poor, or just generally supporting one another. Oh, I’m not letting them off the hook here. They don’t always clean up after themselves, they may plagiarize their Toni Morrison essays, and they can drive you absolutely batty on occasion. But overall, and especially in terms of their personal interactions, they show great loyalty and compassion and honor

And that, my dear parents, brings me to why you need to know about “Dibs Not” in the first place: your child’s intrinsic sense of honor and nobility is something you can exploit.

At a loss about what to do about that son of yours who never does any chores? Simple: rope him against his will into a “Dibs Not” session.

Let’s say, for example, you’re finishing up dinner, and you casually say to the table, “Who’s going to clear the dishes?” Then, without pausing even a nanosecond, shout out “Dibs Not!” and place your finger on your nose.

Or better yet: walk into a room and say, “Who wants to clean the cat box? Dibs Not!”

In both instances, you’ll catch your lazy-boned son completely off-guard. Plus, he’ll have to do the task. Those are the rules of “Dibs Not,” after all. Your son knows that, and his pesky sense of honor won’t allow him to refuse. It’s a virtually water-tight plan.

The way I see it, you can complain about what the “Dibs Not” phenomenon says about “kids these days,” or you can use your child’s own avoidance tactic to your advantage. But before you spring a “Dibs Not!” on your unsuspecting offspring, remember the following:

One: make sure you put your index finger on or next to your nose as you say “Dibs Not!”—or run the risk of looking foolish.

And two: Practice the “Dibs Not!”/nose combination in front of the mirror before hand, to make sure you got your timing down. After all, in addition to being honorable, kids these days are pretty darn quick.

On "Talk Like A Pirate Day," The Pen Is WAY Mightier Than The Sword

2008-09-18T03:28:00.000-07:00

I was going to honor "Talk Like a Pirate Day" by writing a post filled with pirate puns and a whole lotta "blimeys," "me hearties," and "cats-o-nine-tails." But you know what? Everyone's going to be doing that.

So I decided to do something a little different: I'm going to celebrate "Talk Like a Pirate Day" by NOT talking like a pirate. Instead, I'm going to wax philosophic about the pirate-parlance phenomemon.

Now before you accuse me of being a poop-deck party pooper, let me assure the masses: I'm not trying to take the fun out of "Talk Like a Pirate Day." First of all, that would be impossible, since talking like a pirate is one of the simple pleasures of life. Secondly, I love "Talk Like a Pirate Day," and I have loved it for six years now.

Think about it: the one day out of the whole year when the letter R gets its due, when everyone's your matey, when you can pick up the phone and actually say "Ahoy!"-- what's not to love?

(Incidentally, according to Fred Worth's 1984 book Incredible Super Trivia, "Ahoy!" was, in fact, the original greeting for the telephone back in 1876, until inventor Thomas Edison very quickly instituted the rather bland-by-comparison "Hello." Who knew Edison was such a pirate-hater? )

And the jokes! My family and I have spent whole meals telling nothing but pirate jokes. ("Who's a pirate's favorite baseball player?" "Nomarrrrrrrr Garrrrrrrrciaparrrrrrrrra." "Where do all the Spanish-speaking pirates hail from?" "Arrrrrrrrrgentina.")

Finally, in terms of sheer entertainment value, “Talk Like a Pirate Day” absolutely eclipses almost all of its brethren in the “Talk Like a–” genre, including “Talk Like a Klingon Day,” “Talk Like Beaker Day,” and “Talk Like a Charlie Brown Teacher Day.” (Only “Talk Like Sean Connery Day” even comes remotely close.)

And yet, under the glitz, glamour and gutturalness of “Talk Like a Pirate Day” is a pretty inspiring story about the power of the written word.

I’m sure the TLAPD Faithful know the story, but for the newly-initiated, it bears repeating: many years ago, two friends, John Baur and Mark Summers were playing racquetball and, as they were wont to do, talking like pirates. They were having a jolly old time—so jolly, in fact, that they wanted everyone to have the opportunity to talk like pirates.

And just like that, "Talk Like a Pirate Day" was born. But, like a tattered treasure map, that only tells you half the story.

Indeed, the legend only truly grew after one of the two co-conspirators wrote a letter outlining the "Talk Like a Pirate Day" concept to syndicated columnist Dave Barry. Sufficiently hooked by the idea, Barry penned his now-famous column explaining "Talk Like a Pirate Day" to the land-lubbing masses.

So if we were chart the route of "Talk Like a Pirate Day": two guys come up with an idea in a racquetball court; they tell the idea to a columnist, who writes about it in a newspaper; that column sparks a revolution that spreads across the seven seas.

But you couldn’t have the revolution without the column. For as ingenious as Baur and Summers’ idea was, if it weren’t for Barry’s newspaper column, you and I wouldn’t be celebrating "Talk Like a Pirate Day" this September 19th.

Ultimately, the history of "Talk Like a Pirate Day" reminds us that just having a great idea isn’t enough. How many great ideas, after all, get locked up in our own private Davy Jones’ lockers, never seeing the light of day? You need to share your idea. You need to write it down and then send it out to the world, like one of those famed messages in a bottle.

And that’s perhaps the lasting lesson of "Talk Like a Pirate Day": that the pen really is mightier than the sword.

Or should I say: mightiarrrrrrrrr!

Allusions of Grandeur

2008-09-16T18:36:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about how I was going to teach my students allusion, when suddenly an idea hit me like a blast from the gun of Optimus Prime himself: I would teach allusion by writing a short story filled with them. Top that, Socrates!

So I started typing up the sheet when suddenly I got stuck—like Augustus Gloop in the pipe. I just couldn’t think of a single allusion. I usually have the Midas touch when it comes to these kinds of stories, but this time, the well of inspiration was as empty as a theatre showing a double bill of Daddy Day Camp and Balls of Fury. (Oh, the horror, the horror.)

I became Ahab, obsessed with finding an allusion. I asked my wife, but she only said, “What am I a clown? Am I here to amuse you?” So, I called up one of my colleagues, but he said, “I’ll only give you one for the low price of one meeeelllion dollars. Deal or no deal?” I’ve never seen anyone who was such a Scrooge with his allusions.

With the speed of a Seeker during a Quidditch game, I called another one of my colleagues, even though talking to him is about as pleasant as giving Jabba the Hutt a sponge bath. He fancies himself as some all-powerful Oz, but he’s usually just full of sound and fury.

When I asked him for an allusion, he replied testily, “You want the truth about allusions? You can’t handle the truth about allusions!” I had to hang up, thinking to myself that I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

Wanting to remove this albatross from around my neck, I called another teacher and asked for help. When I told him I wanted to write a story filled with allusions, he said, “Hey, not a bad idea! Do you mind if I use your allusions, too?”

Now he’s going to come up with his own allusion story! I couldn’t believe he could be such a Judas! “Et tu, Brute!” I muttered then hung up the phone.

Finally, feeling this Atlas-like burden weighing down on me, I simply sat down at my computer and typed: "Coming up with an allusion is harder than snagging the Golden Fleece from Jonah, the Prince of Demark."

There, that should do the trick.

Springsteen's "The Rising" and September 11th

2008-09-09T03:36:00.000-07:00

As with all literary analyses, this is not the answer, but an answer-- just the interpretation of one man trying ot make his way in the galaxy.

Can't see nothin' in front of me

Can't see nothin' coming up behind

I make my way through this darkness

I can't feel nothing but this chain that binds me

Lost track of how far I've gone

How far I've gone, how high I've climbed

On my back's a sixty pound stone

On my shoulder a half mile of line

Bruce himself, in the Storytellers performance, refers to the "sixty pound stone" and the "half a mile of line" as, respectively, "what I must do" and the "tools I need to do it."

Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight

I have a few things to say about the chorus, but I'm going to hold off until the end.

Left the house this morning

Bells ringing filled the air

Wearin' the cross of my calling

On wheels of fire I come rollin' down here

Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

Come on up for the rising

Come on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Not sure this gels at all with my interpretation, but for what it's worth: On Storytellers, Bruce says the "li, li, li"'s mean not only "sing with me" but also "stand along side of me." He later calls them reminiscent of a "prayer."

Spirits above and behind me

Faces gone, black eyes burnin' bright

May their precious blood forever bind me

Lord, as I stand before your fiery light

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Several times throughout the Storytellers discussion of "The Rising," Bruce uses the word "transformation," and I think this verse begins the transformation of this narrator. To me, the narrator is in a liminal or in-between space. He's moving into the next world, the world of "spirits." He's preparing to stand before the "fiery light" of heaven.

This begins what I consider the most moving section of the song. To me, the narrator is still in this in-between place-- this surreal, light-filled "garden" (with all its Edenic associations). But, even as he keeps rising into the next life, he's still clinging to his old life and to everything he will be leaving behind.

This powerful series of juxtapositions (love and tears, glory and sadness, mercy and fear) marks the culmination of the narrator's "transformation." His soul, his spirit has been rising up into this sky-- the sky which served as the backdrop of this terrible, terrible event. But he goes higher, above the painful emotions.

Now, as for the chorus...

Come on up for the rising

Come on up, lay your hands in mine

So, after all my hard-hitting analysis, I bet you can't wait to hear what I have to say about the chorus. And, I have to tell you... well... this is the part that stymies me a little, to be honest.

But one word trips me up: "tonight." Why is it tonight, when the attacks happened in the morning?

A Better Mousetrap

2008-09-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

Talk about building a better mousetrap.

Over a week ago now, I spotted a mouse in our garage. Or I spotted half of a mouse, the back half, as it scampered out of my sight. I then made the mistake of telling my wife, who promptly sprung into lockdown procedure.

“If that mouse gets into the house,” she announced, “we’re moving.”

First, she opened the two garage doors open and kept them open, hoping that the mouse would skedaddle out.

Then she sent me out to buy mousetraps. When I returned home, I saw that she had affixed a sign on the door that leads from the garage to the house. The sign read: “Do Not Open! Use Front Door!”

Now I don’t know if anyone out there has ever tried to set a mousetrap, but it requires a precision usually reserved for heart surgeons. You have to pull back this rod while simultaneously holding down a cheese-shaped platform—which in itself is not so hard, but the whole thing is so ridiculously sensitive that the moment you move your finger away, it snaps. On said finger.

At least a dozen times I tried to set just one of the mousetraps. And a dozen times it snapped, either on my hands or out of them, as if alive. I just couldn’t do it. Plus, my fingers were coated in peanut butter, which I had dutifully spread on the platform-thing to attract the critter.

The whole experience soon went beyond frustrating into humiliating. As I finally closed our garage doors for the evening, I truly felt the mouse had beaten me.

Next morning: I was leaving for work, and I went out the front door to get to the garage. (Remember, per my wife’s sign, we were forbidden to go right into the garage from the house.)

So I’m standing at the garage door, and I’m about the press the buttons on the keypad to open it when I notice something. Something brown against the white garage door, like a leaf or something.

I took a closer look. Then I went back inside to wake up my wife.

“I found the mouse,” I told her. Or more accurately: I found half the mouse.

To get the full sense of this, you need to picture in your mind a garage door. You know how garage doors appear flat, but they’re made up of several panels? And these panels separate slightly when the garage door rolls upward or downward? Are you picturing this?

Now picture a dead mouse trapped between two of those panels. Or more accurately: picture half a dead mouse, the front half, including the head and two front legs. The back half, meanwhile, has been crushed in between two panels.

(I realize it’s hard to describe this in words. In fact, I was contemplating taking an actual picture of the dead mouse, stuck in the garage door. I know posting the picture along with the story probably would have generated some hits. But I somehow thought PETA wouldn’t look too kindly on me plastering on the Internet a picture of half a dead mouse.)

I’ve tried to do the CSI thing and piece together what happened. The best I can imagine is this:

Remember, we had kept the garage doors open for several hours, in the hopes the mouse would run out. Somehow, during that time, the little guy made its way to the top of the garage door while it was open.

Now, I don’t know much about mice, but getting up to the ceiling of a garage is pretty impressive, right? I mean, did he scale walls? Is this Spider-Mouse or something? Beat that, Stuart Little! As I said: pretty impressive.

In the smarts department, though—not quite as impressive. Because when I closed the garage doors for the night, and the ground started moving under its feet, Spider-Mouse didn’t move.

And keep in mind: I have automatic garage doors, which don’t exactly move with the speed of a guillotine. But for some reason, the mouse didn’t move, even as the panels beneath its feet opened up. And then closed again, trapping and then crushing him.

There you have it: the world’s tallest and slowest mousetrap.

So, to all the people in Internet-land, the next time you find a mouse in your garage, don’t waste your time buying ineffective (and painful) mousetraps. Instead, just wait for the mouse to kill itself by getting itself caught in the flaps of your slow-as-molasses garage door.

Works every time.

Mostly, For Worse

2008-08-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

It’s the end of an era—a lame and annoying era, sure, but an era nonetheless.

This weekend, Lynn Johnston is kinda ending her long-running comic strip “For Better or For Worse.” On August 30, 2008, after twenty-eight years, the oh-so-heart-warming adventures of the Patterson family will finally come to an end.

In appropriately hokey fashion, the final panel has an old lady named Iris advising a young bride that she needs to be there for her husband “for better or for worse.” (Now that’s clever!)

Now, I have to admit, I never saw the magic in “For Better or For Worse.” I didn’t hate it, and I didn’t love-to-hate-it. I just found it groan-inducing. And so, I can’t say I shed a tear when I found out it was ending.

What’s that? It’s not actually ending, you say?

Did a call from the comic-strip governor trigger a stay of execution? Did Broom Hilda threaten to turn Lynn Johnston into a Ziggy-like newt if she doesn’t keep writing? Not exactly.

Note how above I said Ms. Johnston is “kinda” ending her comic. I used that qualifier for two reasons:

(1) Ms. Johnston has already been in semi-retirement for a year now. Since September 2007, she’s been writing new material while also running some old strips, as flashbacks.

(2) August 30th merely marks the end of the current storylines. Starting on September 1st, Ms. Johnston is going to go back to the beginning—that is, back to the original strips from 1979—and start telling the same story over again.

Confused? Me, too... but this is how I understand it.

See, the thing that distinguished “For Better or For Worse” from other comics is that the characters aged in real time. (In contrast, the Family Circus kids have stayed the same age for 48 years, while the eldest Blondie kid should be 74.)

And as the "For Better or For Worse" characters got older, the stories got more complicated. So that’s why Ms. Johnston wants to go back to a simpler time. Back to when Michael and Elizabeth were new parents, and the kids were young and carefree. Back to before she had to deal with competition from the likes of FoxTrot and Drabble.

And just like George Lucas touched-up the original Star Wars movies (to the unanimous delight of fans everywhere), Ms. Johnston promises to “fix” things the second time around—maybe add some new dialogue, say, maybe change some of the drawings.

But overall, she’s going to write and illustrate the same stories over again. She even has a name for this concept: “new-runs.”

This plan, as far as I can tell, will allow her to enjoy her retirement without having to walk away completely. See, eventually, papers will run old “For Better or For Worse” strips half the time, and these “new-runs” the other half.

Now how is this different from her current arrangement, with old strips running as flashbacks? It seems hard-core fans (and apparently, they’re out there) thought the flashbacks messed up the continuity. Also, Ms. Johnston has evolved as an artist over the years—so much so that the old comics seemed as if they were drawn by a different person entirely.

But with the "new-runs," she can run old strips and new strips, but since the new strips will look exactly like the old strips, the transition will be seamless.

Ingenious!

And yet, though I give her props for blazing a trail with her “new-runs” concept, I wonder if 50% new “For Better or For Worse” is 50% too much. Maybe it’s time to hang it up. Just walk away.

And not just "For Better or For Worse"; maybe it’s time for all the great comic icons from the past to put the quill in the inkwell for good and call it quits.

Here’s what I mean: a few weeks ago, I went on vacation to Cape Cod. My family has been doing this vacation for over thirty years. A lot has changed in that time: Thompson's Clam Bar has shut down (despite having the coolest radio commercial ever); the Cape Cod Mall got a makeover; videogame staples like Dig Dug and Galaxian are long extinct, replaced by those stupid games that spit out tickets (which you can trade in, after you collect about a hundred, for a pack of Smarties).

But a lot has stayed the same: the beachside hotels; the pine-needle driveways; and most of all, the comics.

Look, I like nostalgia as much as the next guy, but I have to say, the geriatric array of comic strips in the Sunday edition of the Cape Cod Times bummed me out a little. Below are some of the titles the Cape Cod Times ran in its funny pages on August 17, 2008 (along with some facts and figures I got from that fount of knowledge, Wikipedia):

Classic Peanuts: The original Peanuts debuted in October 1950. Since Charles Schulz' death in 2000, papers have been re-running old strips as “classic”: according to the fineprint, the comic running on August 17th was from 1961.

Garfield: Debuted in 1978. (Yes, that means the fat cat turns thirty this year.)

Doonesbury: Started in October 1970.

Hagar the Horrible: Started in 1973. Creator Dik Browne died in 1989.

Wizard of Id: Began in 1964. Creators Johnny Hart and Brant Parker both died in 2007. (Interestingly enough, they died a little over a week apart—with Hart dying on April 7th and Parker on April 15th).

Andy Capp: Started in 1957. Creator Reginald Smythe died in June 1988.

Hi and Lois: Debuted in 1954. Of the two co-creators, Dik Browne (of "Hagar the Horrible" fame) is dead, and Mort Walker is 85.

B.C.: Began in 1958. Creator Johnny Hart died in 2007.

Dilbert: Began in 1989.

Beetle Bailey: Began in 1950 by Mort Walker. One of the only comics of that generation still produced by its original creator. (Did you know Beetle Bailey is actually the brother of Lois, of "Hi and Lois" fame? It’s true.)

Family Circus: Debuted in 1960.

The Lockhorns: Started in 1968. Creator William Hoest died in 1988.

Blondie: First published in 1930. Original artist Chic Young died in 1973.

Shoe: Debuted in 1977. Creator Jeff MacNeally died in 2000 (and with him, any chance of knowing why the strip is called “Shoe” when the main character, that sort of plump, world-weary reporter-bird, is actually named Cosmo. Shoe is another guy. What’s up with that?)

The Born Loser: Debuted in 1965. Creator Art Samson died in 1991.

And, of course, count in "For better or For Worse" in that list as well.

Now, just look again at the birthdates of some of these comics. Dilbert is the “new kid,” and he’s almost twenty. Beetle Bailey originally enlisted during the Korean War, for crying out loud! And if the comic "Blondie" is 78 years old, that means the character Blondie has to be in her late 90s!

Not only that, how do some of these comics continue to survive, having offered such little in the way of actual entertainment for so long. Don’t get me wrong: I thrilled to the philosophical musings of "B.C." back in the day, and I admit to owning three or four of the ninety-seven Garfield books.

But Andy Capp—never found it funny. Not once. And Family Circus? Family freakin’ Circus? Come on! Bil Keane has made a career out of recycling five running gags:

* Billy takes over for Bil Keane
* Dead grandma looking down from heaven
* Dotted Arrow follows one of the kids around the house/ neighborhood
* Kids blame mishaps on “Ida Know” and “Not Me”
* Parents imagine what kids will be like as grown-ups

How has Bil Keane been able to stretch out five gags for forty-eight years? It boggles the mind.

Quite simply, they’re just too old. All of them. They have to go—“For Better or For Worse,” included. No new-runs. No nothing. Just done.

Problem is, I don’t see a ton of feisty up-and-comers waiting to take their spots once these strips step down for good. As part of my extensive research, I also reviewed the comics in the Boston Sunday Globe and the Boston Sunday Herald. Both papers ran some old chestnuts, but they ran some (relatively) "new" ones as well, such as "Rose is Rose", "Stone Soup," and "Zits."

And I have to tell you: these new comics weren’t great. At least, I didn’t find any that I could see running, in any form, fifty years from now.

What does that mean? Maybe the comic scene is an obsolete medium. Maybe some day, there will be no funny pages... or, sadly, pages at all, for that matter.

Or maybe a new batch of artists will crop up, who will create new iconic characters—new Garfields and Dagwoods and Woodstocks.

Till then, I’ll guess we’ll have to suffer through “new-runs”… for better or for worse. (You knew I was going to say that, didn’t you? Sorry, I couldn’t help it.)

Cure for the Summertime Blues

2008-08-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

Well, tomorrow is my first day back in class. To commemorate the passing of Summer 2008, I thought I'd re-print an article that ran a year ago, in the August 2007 edition of a now-defunct magazine called CT Slant. The piece is a little dated (with references to Shrek and Captain Jack), but I wanted to run it because I think it eases the transition into autumn.

Weird note about this article: the editor asked me in June to write a piece about the end of summer. So I had to re-create in my mind the dog-days of summer only a few days after I got out of school. Psychologically, I think it sort of messed up my whole summer.

Anyway, here's the unedited version of the piece, originally published in CT Slant under the headline, "And So It Begins."

If you’re thinking about finally taking the kids out strawberry picking, you’re about a month too late.

Unlike the apple-picking season, the Connecticut strawberry season is short, running only from the second week of June to the first week of July, tops. During that window of time, when the majority of strawberries have changed from green to whitish to pink to red, the season peaks; in other words, the majority of strawberries are ripe. But that moment of ripeness is also the moment of decay; after that, the strawberries get soft and squishy, a yummy snack for some nasty black bugs.

In many ways, Connecticut’s strawberry season can serve as a metaphor for our entire summer—not just in terms of the fleetingness of both but because New England summers also tend to decay. The ripeness of July gives way, as it does every year, to a soft and squishy August, forcing you to face a sad fact: the party is just about over.

Actually, you first faced this truth a long time ago, back when you were just a child. Remember those days? The bell would ring on that last day of school, and in that instant, the whole summer would stretch out before you like the limitless blue Atlantic. To this grade-school version of you, summer means freedom—a special kind of freedom, one unlike any other, that delicious, glorious, “no-more-teachers’-dirty-looks” kind of freedom.

But that very freedom can also paralyze. You have so many things you can do, you end up doing nothing. You have so much free time, you end up wasting it.

And so, not long after the dust from the fireworks settle, you find yourself saying, almost against your will, those two words that mark the unofficial death knell of summer: “I’m bored.”

And not long after that, you overhear your mom on the phone saying to her friend, “I can’t wait for school to start so we can get back into a routine.” You’d take her to task for her blasphemy, if not for that part of you that actually agreed with her.

Hey, don’t get me wrong: I love summer. I love everything about it—from barbecues to bocce, from the scent of sunscreen to the rush of liberation that comes from walking outside barefoot. But even I can’t deny that, around the first week of August, you see signs of summer’s decay at almost every turn.

At the multiplexes, your Shreks and Spideys and Captain Jacks have been eased out, replaced with underwhelming Underdogs and Daddy Day Camps and, yes, new Care Bears movies. Liquor store owners have removed all Summer Ale stragglers from the shelves. For weeks now, Target has been pushing “Back to School” sales.

Summer decays. But that’s not altogether a bad thing. It has to decay; the deteriorating dog days of early August cushion the blow for September, when summer finally leaves us for good. And by winding down the way it does—with a whimper, not a bang—summer actually gets us excited for what’s coming up.

Here’s what I mean: I teach high school, and at the start of every year, I always marvel at the energy those first few days bring. And most of this energy comes from the students themselves. That’s right: the students—the same kids who proclaim their hatred of school to anyone who will listen, the ones who danced a jig on that last day in June—are now legitimately excited to be back.

Don’t get me wrong: they’re not exactly begging to get back to lectures on the Harding administration or quizzes on the periodic table. But they know that the beginning of school means the beginning of autumn, and in New England, autumn has some pretty cool associations, too— pep rallies and corn mazes and country fairs and apple-picking. These kids have watched another seemingly endless summer recede before their eyes, and they’re understandably sad to see it go, but they’re also are excited for what’s next.

So, yes, you’ve missed your chance to pick strawberries, but don’t despair. Instead, look at what’s coming up. Strawberry season’s over, sure, but hey… how ‘bout them apples?

Teach the Second Day

2008-08-21T17:13:00.001-07:00

"Summer is short. But summer school is long."

--Brian, former summer school student

"July is a month of Saturdays. August is a month of Sundays."

-- qtd. by my boss

Two weeks ago, my summer school job ended. One week ago, I was vacationing on Cape Cod. And one week from now, I'll be right back in school.

Kind of depressing, when you put it that way, isn't it?

Before the last drips and drabs of summer officially go down the drain, I thought I would offer some advice to the new teachers, the ones who are fitfully trying to get everything ready before Showtime. My mentor gave me this advice when I first started out, and I still follow it to this day. Here goes.

So, let's say you're a new teacher, and you're thinking about what to do on that very first day of classes. You figure you'll take attendance, probably mangle most of your students' names, and then... what? What do you do with them on that first day?

Now, your instincts may be telling you to go over all the nuts-and-bolts stuff-- you know, the course requirements and the attendance policies and, probably most importantly, your classroom management pronouncements.

And that's a good instinct, because that stuff is essential. It's also boring as all get-out. I mean, drier-than-burnt-dust kind of boring.

It takes a special kind of teacher who can dazzle the students with a review of the syllabus. And if there's ever a day you'll want to dazzle them, it's the first day. That's when you want to grab them. Moreover, that's when you want to impress upon them that your classroom is a place where work gets done.

The fact is, as cliched as it may sound, you really don't ever get a second chance to make a first impression. Does that mean you won't ever get them back if you make an unfavorable first impression? Of course not. You'll definitely get them back. But it's a battle you can avoid if you hit it out of the park on Day One.

So instead of doing all that administrative, nuts-and-bolts stuff on the first day, why not push all that off until the second day? And what do you do on the first day? The second day's lesson.

See, the second day is when you had planned to do some real teaching. For the second day, you've designed a great lesson-- one that's engaging and exciting and thought-provoking. The second day is when you're going to show off your pedagogical chops, when business is really going to pick up.

So why not do that good stuff on the first day? Why not teach the second day first?

Think about it: You go into the first day with all this energy. And, believe it or not, so do the kids. Yeah, everyone's bummed out about the summer being over, but even the students come into the classroom on that first day with an unmistakable enthusiasm, a readiness to get it started. Can't really explain it, and it doesn't really last for long. So why waste all that energy-- both yours and theirs-- by reading over your "drop-the-lowest-quiz" policy?

"Wait," you might be saying, "Won't they eat me alive if I don't review my classroom management rules on that first day?" Oh, you can touch on it. But I'm saying don't spend the whole period on this kind of stuff. Instead, roll out your surefire lesson, one that engages the students so profoundly that they don't even have time to consider goofing off.

I remember, in one of the dippy education courses through which all aspiring teachers must suffer, one of my instructors once said, "The best classroom management tool is a good lesson plan." Now, I'm not sure I always believe this, but as far as the "Teach the second day" philosophy goes, it's pretty sound.

The best part of all this is you don't have to do any extra work: as a new teacher, you already have the second day prepared. You've probably had it prepared since June. So just move it all up a day. And then on the second day, you can take some pressure off yourself and review all the necessary, but nevertheless unthrilling, adminsitrative stuff.

Teach the second day first. Think about it.

Interview with Ellen Wittlinger, Part II

2008-08-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

Ellen Wittlinger is an author of Young Adult (YA) novels, including Razzle, Zigzag, The Long Night of Leo and Bree, Blind Faith, and Parrotfish. She is probably best known, however, for her novel Hard Love, which won the Printz Honor Award for excellence in Young Adult literature in 2000.

Hard Love, published in 1999, is narrated by an alienated (and alienating) teenager named John who falls for his lesbian friend, Marisol. In July 2008, Mrs. Wittlinger returned to these characters with the publication of Love and Lies: Marisol's Story, a brand-new story told from Marisol's perspective.

The following the second half of my blog interview with Mrs. Wittlinger:

Mark Dursin: You once said that a novel can’t be about just one idea; instead, a writer needs to explore several different “strands” and then somehow weave those strands together. Could you talk more about that? How do you come up with the “strands” for your novels?

Ellen Wittlinger: The strands develop as the story goes along. A book about a boy who falls in love with a lesbian girl might be interesting, but if you add in that both of them are writers who are putting their thoughts down in zines, there's another dimension to the story. If their surroundings are of interest too--she as a city kid, he as suburban, and both of them discovering the joys and beauties of Cape Cod--there's more richness. If the girl is overprotected by her mother and the boy is not even touched by his mother, you've set up an interesting dynamic which can work through their characters throughout the story. In other words, you set up situations which will make the work deeper. I hope that makes sense.

MD: You have a knack, I think, for writing endings that readers don’t expect (Gio doesn’t get the girl in Hard Love, Kenyon moves away in Razzle, and I won’t spoil the ending of Love and Lies). Still, the endings are still appropriate and satisfying to the characters. How do you decide the best—not necessarily the most obvious or easiest—ending for a book?

EW: It has to satisfy me. My endings sometimes frustrate my readers and they write to ask me what happens next. But I prefer the more realistic endings. Movies tend to tie things up in a bow at the end, but that's not how real life works. I think it helps the characters to live on in the readers' minds if you aren't sure just what will happen to them next. That's the way I like books to end, so that's the way I end mine!

MD: Do you have the ending in mind as you write?

EW: Again, it depends on the book. Sometimes the ending is inherent in the beginning and sometimes not. I would say usually I have a vague idea where I'm going, but I don't know exactly how I'm going to get there. Which makes the writing more fun for me. When I'm just working toward an ending I've already decided on, it's not as magical.

MD: What are the nuts-and-bolts of your writing process? When and where do you do your writing? Do you write everything on computer? Do you save drafts?

EW: Now that my kids are grown and gone I have a much more lax schedule. The Internet has also played a role in eating up a chunk of time that I used to use to write. These days I usually spend the morning doing email, business and promotion stuff, until a late lunch. Afternoons are for writing, and if I'm working well I'll sometimes go back and work again after dinner, but not usually. I make notes in longhand and sometimes write a poem or other short piece in longhand, but all the novels are written on the computer. I do save drafts, at least for awhile. In fact, I use up way too many trees because I like to print everything out and see it as I'm revising. I revise in longhand before going back to the computer.

MD: A growing number of English teachers feel that we should replace the “classics” with Young Adult books (which kids tend to prefer), but seemingly just as many feel that the classics are foundational and should never be removed from the curriculum. Where do you stand on this?

EW: I think there's a place for the classics in high school, but I'd certainly like to see YA books brought into the classroom as well. There are so many wonderful, well-written YA books now which speak directly to the teen experience, and not every kid will find these on his/her own. It seems to me that acquainting them with YA novels might very well spark an interest in reading in teens who are bored silly by Silas Marner or Great Expectations.

MD: Do you think academics, as a general rule, have a snobby attitude against Young Adult literature?

EW: Oh, sure. Hey, teachers aren't paid much--they should at least be able to feel a little bit superior. And adult writers certainly feel that way about YA writers. I try to let it roll off my back, but sometimes it's maddening.

MD: You may be one of the most “fan-friendly” authors I’ve ever known. You respond personally to e-mails (that's how I came to know you); you have a Facebook page; and now you're doling this blog interview. Do you think that kind of accessibility is unusual?

EW: Not anymore. I think it's become incumbent on us to reach out to our fans. It was my publicist who suggested I get MySpace and Facebook pages, and it was a good idea. But even in the past there were always authors who responded to fan mail diligently. And if I got more of it, I probably wouldn't be able to. It does eat up writing time.

MD: What kinds of books do you like to read? What are you reading now?

EW: I just finished reading Mark Doty’s Firebird: A Memoir, for my adult book group. I do read a lot of YAs, though. I've been reading graphic novels lately (Bone, Vampire Loves, etc.) in preparation for writing one. I loved Alison Bechdel's Fun Home. And I'm looking forward to digging into the new John Green novel, Paper Towns, and M.T. Anderson's second volume of Octavian Nothing. Oh, I recently read and loved E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, too. And I like to read books about writing-- for example, Take Joy by Jane Yolen which I've also been dipping into lately.

MD: A few years ago I had a student who said Hard Love was the only book he ever actually read in high school—I mean, cover to cover. And he liked it so much that he went out to the local library and got out another one of your books, Razzle. (His mother was entirely amazed by this behavior.) And I have a bunch of stories like that, about reluctant readers who really gravitated toward Hard Love. Why do you think that is? What is it about that book that captivates people?

EW: I've had letters and emails from kids telling me this too, but to be fair, I know many other YA authors who get similar letters. This is obviously why we need lots of different kinds of books available for this age group. They aren't all going to like the same thing. The miracle is when you get the right book to the right kid at the right time.

As far as Hard Love goes, I suspect what draws kids in is (1) the zines which make the book look different and maybe make it easier to get involved, and (2) the straightforwardness of the two main characters: Marisol, who is a truth-teller, even if it hurts; and John, who's just beginning to understand the truth about himself. Truth is very important to teens, and they often believe that they're the only ones telling it.

MD: I remember you told a story about how your husband was describing to someone the kinds of books you write, and he said, “She writes about how art can save you.” Do you think that’s a fair assessment of your body of work? And how can art “save” a person?

EW: I think it's a very apt assessment, although maybe not the last word on the subject. I think many people are "saved" by art when the world doesn't seem kind to them otherwise. An artist can be herself, no matter how odd the rest of the world finds her. The art itself gives you the self-esteem you might not find anywhere else. Art is a safe place.

MD: How has Hard Love "saved" you, as the author? Or, at the very least, how has it changed your career?

EW: Hard Love has definitely set me on the right path as an author. Winning the Printz Honor has kept the book in print and more and more teenagers seem to find it all the time which is very rewarding. It's helped me find an audience for all my books, and it's allowed me to write fulltime. I owe a lot to that little book!

An Interview with Ellen Wittlinger, Part I

2008-08-08T07:03:00.000-07:00

Three summers ago, I read for the first time Ellen Wittlinger’s young adult novel Hard Love, which recounts a few months in the life of a teenage boy named John who falls in love with his lesbian friend.

To be honest, before reading this book, I never really got much out of Young Adult (or YA) Lit; the topics and characters just didn’t interest me that much. But I enjoyed reading Hard Love so much that I looked the author up on the Internet and shot off an e-mail that said “You redeemed Young Adult Lit for me!”

Later that day, Ellen wrote back. We’ve maintained a correspondence to this day.

That’s not the only reason why Ellen Wittlinger is my favorite young adult novelist, of course: there’s also her writing voice, her engaging characters, her ability to reach even the most reluctant of readers. I’ve seen it myself, time and time again, with some of my own students: proud non-readers who end up really liking Hard Love. Just as she redeemed YA Lit for me, she redeems reading for these students.

Even if you’re not a teenager, even if you’re not much of a reader in general, I encourage you to read some of her books, which include Razzle, Sandpiper, The Long Night of Leo and Bree, Blind Faith, Parrotfish, and, of course, Hard Love (for which she won the Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature).

Ellen’s most recent book, a follow-up to Hard Love called Love and Lies: Marisol’s Story, was published in July 2008. While Hard Love is narrated from the point of view of John (who also goes by the pseudonym Giovanni), Ellen tells Love and Lies from the point of view of John’s former love interest, Marisol Guzman.

Recently, Ellen agreed to do a blog interview with me, which I will publish in two parts. In Part I, below, we mainly discuss her newest book, Love and Lies; Part II broadens the conversation to include her career and her writing process.

Mark Dursin: Love and Lies is a follow-up to Hard Love, but I notice that the word "sequel" is not used in any of the promotional descriptions. On the cover, for example, Love and Lies is called a "companion" to Hard Love. Any reason? Does "sequel" have connotations you wanted to avoid?

Ellen Wittlinger: Calling the second book a "companion novel" was my editor's choice. He felt that "sequel" would lead the reader to believe that both books are from the same point of view, and they aren't. In fact, John/Gio has a much smaller role in the new book, while Marisol becomes the protagonist and takes center stage. I do, however, sometimes refer to L&L as a sequel just because people know what the word means and might be unsure about "companion."

MD: When you finished Hard Love, nine years ago now, did you ever have a sense that you wanted to return to these characters? Did you push to write this new book? Or did your fans lead you to it, or maybe your publisher?

EW: I didn't think I would ever write a sequel to any of my books because I always thought I'd finished the story I had to tell about the characters. For years, kids asked for a sequel to Hard Love, but I didn't even think that was possible because Marisol was headed to college and YA novels don't traditionally take place in college. But then, at some point, I started to think I would like to go back to those characters, especially Marisol. I always really enjoyed that character and I knew there was a lot more to explore with her, and finally it occurred to me that, duh, she could just defer college for a year.

MD: While nine years have passed in "our" time between Hard Love and Love and Lies, only four months have passed for the characters. Two questions about time: (a) Was it tough for you to get back into these characters after such a long lay-off? and (b) What's the relationship between "their" time and "our" time? When does these two books "happen"?

EW: Yes, it was initially difficult to get back into the characters. I was so afraid I would get them wrong and my fans would be upset that they didn't recognize the people they'd come to know in Hard Love. It just took a little bit of writing and rewriting (and re-reading Hard Love) to get back into their heads again.

As for your time questions, well, I think I fudged it a bit. The original book came out in 1999, and that's when kids were big into doing zines. By 2007 zines had faded into the background a bit, so I didn't mention too much about them in Love & Lies. Instead I have Marisol and John both taking a novel-writing class. I'm trying to get away with convincing you that these two books really do happen four months apart.

MD: Many of the changes that have happened in those nine years, it seems to me, involve technology. For example, back in the late 90s, zines were "the thing." Now, zines have been largely replaced by blogs. Do you think blogs are basically "zines on a screen"? And if Marisol were alive in 2008, would she be a blogger? (See, I snuck in another two-part question.)

EW: For the most part, yes, I do think blogs are "zines on a screen," and I do think Marisol would be a blogger now. But what I miss about online blogging is the tactile sense of physically putting your own book together, getting the type, pictures, etc. and making up the pages, then copying them, stapling them, handing them to someone. But that may just be my age. I'm not ready to give up books for the Kindle yet either. I suspect teens would not see any difference between making their blog page and making a zine.

MD: Love and Lies is narrated by Marisol, whom I've always found a polarizing character. From my experience teaching Hard Love, many students think she leads Gio on; they feel for him, but at Marisol's expense. Do you agree with that reading? And was there any conscious attempt this time around to make her more sympathetic?

EW: Well, I do know that some students, particularly boys, feel that Marisol leads Gio on. I didn't feel that was true when I was writing the book, though, and I'm always surprised by that idea. She does tell him right up front that she's lesbian and he shouldn't expect her to change. And she reiterates that throughout the book.

I think teens have read and seen so many happy-ending stories that some of them just expected these two would end up together no matter how unlikely that scenario was, and when it didn't happen, they were upset with the character (instead of me!). I don't like to tie up my books with pretty ribbons at the end. I like them to be hopeful, but not unrealistically happy.

As for me making a conscious attempt to make Marisol more sympathetic--it wasn't so much that I wanted her to be sympathetic as that I wanted her to understand what a hurtful love could feel like. Marisol is so confident, so sure of herself--to the point of cockiness--I thought that she needed a little wake-up call in order to grow and change.

MD: Hard Love has just one ill-fated kissing scene, but Love and Lies contains some legitimate sex. Granted, you don't include long descriptions of, let's say, "sexual congress," but on the other hand, there's a tad more than just the implication of sex in Love and Lies. Why did you decide to go "there" in this book?

EW: You go where the book takes you. Marisol is 18 and she's looking for an adult kind of love. In the first book, there was no reason for more than a kiss, but in L&L, Marisol no longer lives at home, and she's involved with an older woman; it would be unrealistic for it not to move into the bedroom. I never write about sex without weighing and measuring each word because I know many other people will do the same. I put it in when it has to be there.

MD: I suppose I should ask about Marisol's lesbianism. I never found it problematic, and I never had any students or parents complain, but I sense it could be a problem for some readers. (After all, the people who want to ban To Kill a Mockingbird and Huck Finn may not exactly warm up to a book about a young lesbian exploring her awakening sexuality.) Have you ever received any negative feedback to the character of Marisol?

EW: Hard Love was never, to my knowledge, publicly challenged. That doesn't mean, of course, that the book wasn't silently censored in other ways, removed from shelves, not purchased to begin with, etc. And I have several times been dis-invited to speak at schools when people realized that I had written books with gay and lesbian characters.

My bottom line on this topic is that I will talk about whatever books the students have read for my visit, but if a student has a question about another of my books, even (or especially) one with gay characters, I'm going to answer those questions too. This just makes some people very uncomfortable. Who knows, maybe Love & Lies will be my second book to be challenged! (The first was Sandpiper, which has been challenged several times for dealing with oral sex.)

MD: Hard Love has many recurring themes-- for example, the theme of "touch" (in the physical sense-- John's mother won't touch him-- and in the emotional sense). Any themes you want readers of Love and Lies to watch for?

EW: You know, I never write a book with the idea of "theme" in mind. I'm always a little surprised when people point out to me what my themes are. I think most authors would say the same. Theme is your job.

MD: Well, does that mean you don’t necessarily have an intention in your writing? Do elements like symbols or themes just “happen” as part of your creative process, rather than you writing toward them?

EW: It depends on the book. In a book like Parrotfish, of course I have an intention: to make the transgender character understandable and relatable. But I would say theme is never the first thing I'm thinking about. I always begin with character and then figure out/discover what those characters have to say, who they'll be, how they'll impact each other. I'm not thinking about theme or symbolism in the first draft, for sure.

As I go back and see what's happening in the book, what direction it's taking, then yes, I might enhance something to play on what's already there. That's the tinkering part of revision, and it's a fun part of the process.

MD: One more question about authorial intention: the knock against English teachers is that we over-analyze things, or we apply meaning to aspects of a text that the author may not have intended. Thoughts on this?

EW: Well, I think it depends how this is done. I don't necessarily think the author is the final authority on a book; I'm often surprised at what someone has taken from one of my books. A book is a sort of conversation between the writer and the reader. You take from a book what you need to take, so having someone point out what you might take from it--I don't have a problem with that. I think that sometimes kids get turned off to English because they feel that a teacher has sucked the life out of a book by analyzing it to death, but I think that if a teacher really loves and respects the book himself, this isn't going to happen.

MD: Judy Blume wrote five books about Fudge and his friends and family, and I don’t even know how many books Beverly Cleary wrote about Henry Huggins and Ramona Quimby. Any chance you might write another book about Gio, Marisol, et al? Are there more stories to tell?

EW: Well, who knows? The ending to L&L is fairly ambiguous. There could be another story to tell about these characters. It probably depends on how well this book sells and whether my publisher is interested in doing a third book.

(Stay tuned for Part II of this interview with author Ellen Wittlinger.)

Story Time with Springsteen

2008-08-06T13:34:00.000-07:00

Bruce Springsteen calls his latest album Magic. After last weekend, I have an idea why.

Last Saturday night, my brother Matt and I saw Springsteen at Gillette Stadium. The show got off to an ominous start: even before the band played a single note, the sky erupted with a furious symphony of its own. Thunder. Lightning. Torrential rain and winds.

The storm didn’t last long, but what it lacked in endurance it more than made up for in intensity. Within seconds, we were all soaked. And when everyone took cover, we were also crushed and cramped under the same enclosures. To top it all off, we had to sit through an hour-long delay to ensure the worst of it had passed.

You know what? No one cared. No one complained. We were all just excited to see the Boss.

Now that’s magic!

The only moment that ever-so-briefly broke the spell for me took place right before the skies opened up. Just as my brother and I were walking into the stadium, we ran into two of my former students. (This qualifies as magical in itself; after all, there were only 30,000 people there.) I told them that the last time I saw Bruce was twenty years ago, in 1988.

“Wow,” one of them marveled, “I wasn’t even born yet.”

“Yeah, I was negative one,” the other mused.

Just then, as if on cue, we heard our first crash of thunder, as I wondered what threatened to put more of a damper on the evening: the rain, or the reminder of my mortality.

Twenty years—damn. A lot has changed during that time: I got married, had two kids. I moved to Connecticut, became a homeowner. Began a teaching career and started losing my hair. (Those two may or may not be related.)

A lot has changed for Bruce, too, in those twenty years. He divorced his wife and married his bandmate Patti. He divorced his band too, for a time, and went through a period of comparative irrelevancy as a singles act (Tom Joad, anyone?) before heading back to E Street where he belongs.

Now, twenty years later, the Bruce and the E Streeters are back together, but they’re not just doing same ol’, same ol’. Before the show, when I mentioned to my brother how excited I was to hear “Rosalita,” he warned me they probably wouldn’t play it. Even though Bruce always closed with “Rosalita” in the early part of his career, he only plays it sporadically now. You almost can’t blame him for wanting a change.

“Think about it,” Matt reminded me. “If Rosalita was a real woman, she’d be in her fifties now.”

Again: twenty years—damn.

And yet, the moment Bruce started playing, it was as if no time had passed. He still rocked, just as vigorously, as transcendently as I remembered. On that stage, he defies time, and through him, we do too.

How does Bruce accomplish this bit of magic? I suppose I could chalk it up to his much-vaunted energy, but that can’t be the only thing. After all, all the energy in the world can’t redeem lousy material. No, Bruce can defy time because the songs themselves are timeless.

And not just because his songs are catchy and eminently singable (even though they certainly are). And not just because Springsteen is a true poet, with a knack for vivid images and natural rhymes (even though he certainly is). For me, when it comes to writing songs,“ The Boss reigns because he is first and foremost a storyteller.

Take “Thunder Road,” for example: the song is a narrative, about a guy who wants to convince his girlfriend Mary to take that “long walk’ from her porch to his car, so they can leave their town full of losers and make something of their lives. It’s a simple story, really, but through those desperate, lonely people, Bruce sums up the longing and unfulfilled desires of the entire world.

This is just one example. Go through his catalogue, and you'll see all of Bruce's best songs tell stories: Jungleland—a story about gang violence; “Hungry Heart”—a story about the worst (and yet somehow most celebrated) dead-beat dad in history; “The Rising”—a story about a firefighter climbing one of the Trade Towers; even “Glory Days” is a story about folks who can’t stop telling stories.

I guess I always knew this implicitly about Bruce, but his ability to tell stories in song really hit me that night at the concert, as I watched him try on and then shed different personas with each new number. Then I started thinking about how essential storytelling is to so many other other songs I consider personal favorites:

“Hotel California”; “Boys of Summer”; “The Boxer”; “Cats in the Cradle”; “Roll Me Away”; “Message in a Bottle”; “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”; “Fast Car”; “American Pie”; “Margaritaville”; “Levon”; “Livin’ on a Prayer”; “Jack and Diane”; “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” or “Allentown” or even “Piano Man.”

Heck, even “Puff the Magic Dragon” tells a story (and, no, it’s not about marijuana). Even “The Pina Colada Song,” even “Copacabana” tell stories. (Oh, come on: just try and tell me you don’t like them!)

And pretty much every country song in the world—from Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” to Dixie Chicks’ “Traveling Soldier” to Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”—tells a story. That’s essentially what country music is: storytelling with a heaping side of twang.

We value stories so much in our music that we actually try to apply stories even when they’re not there. Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight,” for example, apparently has nothing to do with a drowning friend, but man, does that story ever ratchet up the song’s coolness factor. Same with James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain”; his friends actually didn’t put Suzanne on that doomed helicopter. That was just a rumor that sprouted around the song. An urban legend. A story.

We don’t even have to understand the story the song is telling to like the song. I have no earthly idea what’s going on with Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”—something about jokers and thieves—but I’m hooked regardless. And I liked Elton John’s “Daniel” even before I found out I found out that Bernie Taupin had written a third verse which explained that Daniel was a Vietnam vet who lost his eyesight. Without that verse, the song doesn’t make much sense—but who cares? We know there’s something going on.

Thus brings me to my treatise: Songs that endure, songs that leave an indelible imprint on your psyche, tell stories.

Now can you have great songs that don’t tell stories but are simply fun and catchy? Absolutely. (See “MMMMBop” and mostly every song from the 80s not included on The Joshua Tree.)

And can you have songs that tell stories but still stink? Sure. (After all, that new Katie Perry song “I Kissed a Girl” tells a story, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying to me.)

Still, it seems to me, as a general rule, that a catchy song with great lyrics that tells a story has a greater shot at immortality than a song that is merely catchy or merely has great lyrics. To me, it’s the difference between “Love Me Do” and “Eleanor Rigby.” Or “P.Y.T.” and “Billie Jean.” Or “Cover Me” and “Thunder Road.” (Sorry, faithful Springsteen fans, but it’s true.)

We need stories, as a culture and as individuals, because that’s how we learn. It’s a paradox, really: We learn about ourselves through other people’s stories. It seems counter-intuitive at first, and I often see students struggle with this idea when they write personal narratives. They don’t want to get too specific because they think someone else couldn’t get something out of it if they do. I have to assure them that the more specific a story, the more universal its appeal. And the more universal its appeal, the greater its shot at immortality.

That's the real magic of storytelling: the ability to transcend time.

One last thing: at the end of last Saturday’s show, just shy of midnight, for the seventh song of his encore, Bruce said he would play one final song—or as he called it, “one more fairy tale about New Jersey.” It was “Rosalita,” of course, and with those opening chords, the house erupted just as raucously just as it did twenty years ago—maybe even more so.

And let me tell you: for a woman in her fifties, Rosie sure can rock. Just like her creator, she hasn’t aged at all.

Incidentally, for all those who are interested, here's the set list from the Saturday, August 2nd Springsteen show in Foxboro, Mass:

Summertime Blues
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Radio Nowhere
Lonesome Day
The Promised Land
Spirit in the Night
Tunnel of Love
Little Latin Lupe Lu
Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?
Hungry Heart
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Youngstown
Murder Incorporated
She's the One
Livin' in the Future
Mary's Place
The Rising
Last to Die
Long Walk Home
Badlands
* * *
(Encore)
I'm Goin' Down
Jungleland
Born to Run
Glory Days
Dancing in the Dark
American Land
Rosalita

Kid Rock... or Kid Crock

2008-08-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

Note to Readers: Since my last post was about the responses to this article I wrote (back on July 9th), I figured I might as well re-post the article itself. (After all, I don't know when Courant.com will take it down.) In this version, I restored some of the lines the editor originally cut for space reasons.

"Old and Busted, All Summer Long"
Mark Dursin
Hartford Courant, July 9, 2008

You may be wondering why you’ve been hearing classic rock staples like Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” on your favorite Top 40 radio station this summer. In fact, you’ve been hearing neither. And both. And at the same time.

You’ve actually been hearing Kid Rock’s latest single, “All Summer Long,” from his platinum album Rock N Roll Jesus. Technically known as a “mash-up,” this song mixes together familiar Zevon and Skynyrd bits into a concoction that has proven quite potent. “All Summer Long” has scaled to the top of VH1’s Top 20 Video Countdown and recently entered Casey Kasem’s America’s Top 20. And apparently, according to kidrock.com, the single is Number One in Germany.

The song, in other words, has its fans all over. I don’t count myself among them. In truth, the song offends me.

Now, one could make the case that the song was not written for a man in his late 30s like myself—except the lyrics suggest otherwise. In the song, the 37-year-old Kid Rock reminisces about the glory days of his misspent youth, when he’d take his girlfriend out to the lake to smoke and drink and…well, you know. The first line of the song even provides a year: 1989. So, actually, I fit the song’s target audience quite nicely, thank you very much. And yet, the song offends me.

Mind you, the concept of sampling—of borrowing sounds or melodies from other songs—doesn’t particularly rankle me. Hey, back in the summer of 1990, I liked M.C. Hammer’s “Super Freak”-fueled “U Can’t Touch This” as much as the next guy—and possibly more than the next guy (though it pains me to say it now). When done effectively, sampling can fire some healthy nostalgia: when you hear echoes of Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America’ in Gym Class Heroes’ “Cupid’s Chokehold,” or the distinctive hook of Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” in Rihanna’s “S.O.S.,” you remembered why you liked the original songs in the first place.

Moreover, some artists breathe new life into old songs by putting them in unusual contexts. Bruce Hornsby and Michael McDonald may not have a ton of street cred, but they both got hip-hop makeovers courtesy of Tupac (in “Changes”) and Warren G (in “Regulate”), respectively. Heck, Jay Z even made the musical Annie seem cool in his song “Hard Knock Life.”

So, no, Kid Rock’s sampling of classic rock staples in “All Summer Long” doesn’t bother me—at least, not in theory. Nor am I particularly offended by the fact that the song is soulless, commercialized, corporate pap—even though it most assuredly is. The song has the word “summer” in the title, and—wouldn’t you know? – was released just in time for summer. Back in April, Kid Rock even allowed the song to be used as a theme for a World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view. Then again, a lot of songs on the radio are soulless, commercialized, corporate pap, so why should this one bother me so much?

Ultimately, Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long” offends me as a high school English teacher. Not because I consider it plagiarism; technically, it isn’t. Remember, a plagiarist tries to claim, explicitly or implicitly, that borrowed material is his or her own, and Kid Rock does nothing of the sort here; he credits the original performers in the album’s liner notes, and he even refers to “Sweet Home Alabama” in the chorus (lest we think he’s unaware he’s ripping off other, infinitely superior songs).

Kid Rock is even going on tour with Lynyrd Skynyrd the summer (you can catch them in Hartford on August 31st), which leads one to believe Kid’s cool with the Skynyrd camp.
However, though he may not have plagiarized, Kid Rock is definitely guilty of something else, maybe something even worse for an artist: laziness. Basing your whole song on borrowed licks from not one but two well-known tunes is bad enough, but the underlying theme of the “All Summer Long”—that whole “music inspires reminiscing about lost youth” thing—is so late-70’s Bob Seger. Basically, I defy anyone to find one original note or notion in Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long.”

Here’s where it gets personal: As someone who reads hundreds of student essays each year, I am constantly battling against clichés—not only trite phrases but, worse, hackneyed ideas. Of course, the students don’t set out to write clichés; they think they’re generating good, original stuff. And, to be fair, “good, original stuff” is hard to come by in the derivative culture of 2008. (Just look at the term “derivative culture.” I didn’t come up with it, but I saw people using it all over the Internet. So even the vocabulary we use to lament the culture of imitation is inherently imitative.)

Is it possible to come up with a truly original idea? Maybe not. But the great writers can take the old ideas and reinvent them, look at them from different angles, take them apart and put them back together in funky, un-obvious ways. That’s very possible… but it takes work.

Unfortunately, I don’t see evidence of too much “work” in “All Summer Long.” Instead, Kid Rock lazily rolls out, quite literally, the same old song and dance… and ends up with, arguably, the biggest hit of his career. And that success more than offends me; it infuriates me. How can I teach my teenage students to work hard, to value their ideas, when Kid Rock can make millions off insipid, derivative dribble like “All Summer Long”?

In the original “Sweet Home Alabama,” the singer admits, “Watergate doesn’t bother me,” before famously asking the audience, “Does your conscience bother you?” I might ask Kid Rock the same question.

Making Cyber-Connections, All Summer Long

2008-07-29T17:02:00.001-07:00

Writing-wise, I've had a strange and enlightening month, one that culminated in a free CD. And to think I owe it all to Kid Rock.

Let's back up a little, shall we?...

A few weeks ago now, I had a piece in the Hartford Courant about Kid Rock and his song "All Summer Long," which is a "mash-up" of two other songs, Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama." In the article, I basically made the case that the song offends me because it rewards unoriginal thought.

Now, I don't have any problems with Kid Rock. (No one would ever accuse me of being a huge fan or anything, but I like two of his song, "Picture" and "Lonely Road of Faith," quite a bit.) Nor do I have any problems with sampling in general, as long as the new artist does something different with the borrowed material. I just don't see anything "different" about "All Summer Long."

The article ran on July 9th, in the Commentary section of the Courant; it also ran on the Courant's website, which allows readers to post comments about the articles. As it turns out, my simple Kid Rock piece ended up getting a whopping 54 comments.

Now, to be fair, that total is sort of misleading; three of those comments were made by my friend Mac, who posted several goofy comments under different pseudonyms; and a few people posted more than once-- e.g. "Southern Rock Girl," who posted nine times. Still, the degree of fuss conjured up by the article surprised me.

And these posts came from people from all over-- not just from Connecticut, not just from New England, but from Illinois, Canada, Georgia, Arizona, even Germany. How this piece ever came across their radar, I'll never know.

(Bizarre aside: I also found a link to the piece on al.com, the site for "Everything Alabama." Again, how did they even find it?)

And what did they all have to say about the piece? Well, the comments could be divided up into several categories:

Folks Who Are With Me. For example, Paul from Dover, NH said, "Very well said Mark. I knew this "song" made me angry and I couldn't quite put my finger on why, but you summed it up perfectly." Or Old Skool from Phoenix, who said, "All Summer Long is nothing more than Kid Rock singing over a Karoke-like mix of Zevon and Skynyrd. Oh, wait...he changed the lyrics. Big deal. What's next? A guitar player who rises to fame playing Guitar Hero? There's nothing original here. It's Karoke. It's the musical equivalent of paint-by-numbers."

Folks Who Are Against Kid Rock. These are people who didn't exactly agree with me; they just hate Kid Rock. Example: Jeff H from Haddam, CT, who proclaimed"Kid rock suks, and this song is a perfect example of how bad this no talent a$$ clown suks."

Folks Who Love Kid Rock. These people love anything Kid Rock does-- if he recorded an album of him hocking loogies, they'd buy it-- so naturally, they had to dis me.

Folks Who Think It's Just a Fun Song. I don't necessarily disagree with these people-- for example, the ubiquitous Southern Rock Girl, who professed, "I love the song it's all around fun as it's supposed to be so rock on kid rock." Thing is, I never said it wasn't a "fun" song; I just said it wasn't original. Why can't a song can be both?

Folks Who Say I Should Lighten Up. These are a more intense than the "It's Just a Fun Song" posters; these are the readers who think I'm way too full of myself. For example, texasgirl from Voss, Texas suggests, "maybe you should turn off the radio and try to attend some teacher's conference on being a more positive teacher. Or better yet, try to enjoy summer a little and catch one of his concerts."

Folks Who Have Branded Me an Elitist. This is where it started getting personal, because these posters basically called me a rotten teacher. For example, the poster from Maynard, MA who called himself "Not a pompous snob" (hmmmm... wonder what he's suggesting by that name?) posted three times, each one more full of rancor than the last.

"It's unfortunate that such elitist, empty folk are teaching our youth," he said in his first post. In another posting, he described my writing style as "dripping with arrogance and disdain for another's point of view." And in another, he seemed to be giving me advice: "Please, for your own happiness, crack open a beer, kick back, put the headphones on, and crank up the song once more. And, try to relax. Let the music take you away and stop being so full of yourself." (Somehow, he resisted signing off, "Love, Not a Pompous Snob.")

Folks Who Sort of Forgot About Me and Starting Responding to Each Other. After a while, some posters started responding to another, calling each other names instead of calling me names. That's always fun to watch.

I'd like to bring it back to the "Folks Who Branded Me an Elitist"-- specifically, the "Not a pompous snob" guy. In fact, I'm going to quote a larger section of one of his postings, from Wednesday, July 16th:

"I looked up some of your articles and your theme seems to be the same
throughout your writing; you sound like an angry, unfulfilled writer who is
upset that you haven't achieved the level of wide market success you feel
entitled to, and you're frustrated that so many people who are obviously less
intelligent than you are finding monetary success. Unfortunately, one senses
anger throughout your writing, such as in your essay on how superior you are in
intelligence to the moronic students you teach who simply parrot back what
they've heard of Robert Frost's classic poem "The Road Not Taken." Perhaps it is
you who is simply parroting the comments that the elitists, whom you surround
yourself with, mutter, and giggle at how you all know better."

I'll take the last part first, the part about my fellow elitist co-workers, which seemed particularly and unnecessarily nasty. I think if you walked into my workroom, you wouldn't find one single "elitist" among us. If anything, my co-workers don't give themselves enough credit for all their hard work.

(Is it just me, or do you think this guy has a beef against English teachers? In an earlier post, he said he "despised" his high school English teachers, for their tendency to "examine and re-examine books to death, often missing the fact that reading a book can be a simple act of enjoyment." I mean, talk about unresolved conflict... *sheeeesh*...)

As for me coming off "frustrated" and "angry" and "entitled" and "superior"... well, all I can say is, I don't think I'm like that, and I think anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not like that. And I'm sure my students will especially say I'm not like that. I always try to champion my students' comments; that's one of my trademarks. And to suggest otherwise, without ever seeing me "in action," seems unfair.

I guess "Not a pompous snob" is entitled to his opinion, of course... but deciding that my distaste for Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" means I'm an elitist and dismissive of my students' insights seems like an awful big leap.

But here's the real remarkable thing: all these people not only took the time to read the Kid Rock piece, but they took the time to respond in writing as well. And some responded multiple times. Heck, "Not a pompous snob" didn't just trash this one piece: he researched other pieces I wrote and then trashed them as well!

If you think about it, that's pretty amazing. Really, does it matter if they're cheering you, or they're booing you, as long as they're doing something? Even if the readers disagree, even if they call me names, at least I provoked a response. (Granted, maybe too much of a response in the case of "Not a pompous snob," who kinda hurt my feelings... but hey, I'll survive.)

Probably the best response to the piece arrived last week. I was popping into my school, and I saw that someone I didn't know had mailed me a package. As I opened the envelope, I found a CD, for a band called The New Intertia, along with some fliers and a letter, which read, "Thank you for your letter about Kid Rock. I hope you like my band better. I promise, for good or ill, we are original."

How cool!

So, what did I learn from all this, as the month comes to a close? Probably a lot, but I'll settle on four truisms:

The written word is powerful and has far reaching effects.
The written word backed by the Internet is even more powerful and far-reaching.
Self-promotion is essential to art. (The New Inertia guy was trying to promote his work, the same way I'm trying to promote my work on this blog. That's why I'm giving The New Interia a plug. Check them out: they have a cool, late-80s-"Cure"-thing going on.)
Finally... don't mess with Kid Rock fans. They fight back.

Why Graduation Parties Rock

2008-07-27T11:24:00.000-07:00

Last night, I went to the graduation party of one my former students.

I usually go to one graduation party a summer. That is, I get invited to one per summer, and I usually go, and I’m honored to do so. I wouldn’t say it’s uncommon to invite teachers to a high school graduation party, but I don’t know if teachers typically rank high on the list of invitees, either. (Personally, when I was in high school, it didn’t even occur to me to invite one of my teachers.)

I should say, too, that these parties are not like the rager in Say Anything, where Eric Stolz dressed up as a rooster and Lili Taylor sang her 63 original songs to her ex-boyfriend, including the classic “Joe Lies.” Pretty much everyone at that party got loaded—even Ms. Evans, the guidance counselor played by Bebe Newirth, who smiles as she gives her keys to the Key Master, Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack).

Suffice to say, the graduation parties I attend are nothing like that. They’re innocent affairs. Family affairs. The kind of party that features badminton and fruit salad and Great Aunt Barbaba.

Still, whenever I go to one of these parties, I always feel the tiniest pang of awkwardness right as I’m making that twelve second trek from my car to the front door. Mostly, I worry if my very presence, as “Mr. Dursin, Former Teacher,” will suck all the fun out of the room; maybe the kids will feel that they can’t act like themselves, or they’ll feel compelled to stop their “Pin the Tail on the Teacher” game.

Not only that, but as a male teacher, I always want to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Thanks to the yahoos out there who play beer pong with their students (or worse), the rest of us normal teachers have to walk the thinnest of thin line, of connecting with our students without making it seem as if we want to be their BFFs. As my former director once said, “Caesar’s wife must be beyond reproach.” I guess, at these parties, I lean more toward Caesar’s Wife than Bebe Newirth.

And yet, when I walk in through that door and are greeted by the shrieks and the manly "one-handshake-hugs" from my former students, any lingering awkwardness or apprehension melts away and I’m reminded, once again, not only why I love going to graduation parties but why going to graduation parties is one of the coolest things a teacher can do. And since it seems Web readers prefer numbered lists, here are five reasons why:

(1) The Kid Is Awesome. It’s always the real special student that invites you to his or her party. Yes, as a teacher, you’re always making connections with students, but let's face it: some students you get to know better than others. Simply put, there are some kids that you just think are awesome. (This isn’t playing favorites or anything; it’s just the reality of human relationships.)

(2) The Parents Are Awesome. Awesome kids tend to come from awesome parents. They always thank you for coming to the party, thank you for helping out their child, thank you for being a good teacher. Their graciousness can actually humble you. Last night, as I was leaving, the mom gave me two containers of food to bring home and a gift—a book called Hamlet’s Dresser. I left thinking, "Wait: it’s your daughter’s party, and you’re giving me a gift?" Like I said, awesome.

(3) Awesome Kids Tend to Hang Out With Other Awesome Kids. For me, seeing these kids in all of their awesomeness outside of the classroom—in their “natural habitat,” so to speak—is always vindicating for me. Here’s what I mean: so often, when I tell people that I teach high school, they give me this “Oh, you poor thing” look or say something about how teens these days are out of control. Not only are they lazy, not only do they lack any respect for authority, but the throw parties reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. Usually, the people who tell me this don’t know any teens personally; they just saw something on Dateline.

I almost want to videotape a graduation party like the one I went to last night, just so I can show it when folks go off on one of those rants and say, “Here they are, these so-called rotten kids, these purveyors of debauchery—eating finger rolls and fruit salad, playing badminton, talking about how they saw a Wall-E/ Get Smart double bill at the drive-in.”

Of course, I’m not so naïve to think they don’t throw Dateline-worthy parties, but seeing them outside the classroom at graduation parties somehow reinforces for me that it’s not an act; they’re not just good and pure and awesome students, but good and pure and awesome human beings.

(4) The “Shorts” Factor: One former student, who I’ve known for two years, commented to me that she never saw me in shorts before last night-- an innocuous observation, but one that speaks to a real phenomenon: teachers don’t always seem “real” to students. Functions like graduation parties allow students to glimpse behind the curtain to the “real” person beneath the teacher, the person who not only exists outside the walls of the school but actually-- *gasp!*-- wears shorts.

(5) The "Connection" Factor. I think as we get older, we tend to forget how significant high school graduation is. It really is an important milestone. And if you’re invited to celebrate this important day, that basically means you’re important too. I don’t want to get too mushy about this, but the person who sent you the invitation is basically saying, “Look, I met a ton of people in high school, but you really made a difference. You may not even know how you helped, but you did, and I want you here.” And that’s a pretty great thing, if you think about it

So, to the parents and students out there wondering if you should invite a teacher to your graduation party, I say go for it. And for the teachers out there who have ever found themselves on the fence about going to a graduation party, I say give it a shot. You won’t be sorry. Most likely, you’ll leave remembering why you chose teaching in the first place—and, if you’re really lucky, with some strawberry cheesecake as well.

Postscript: In Defense of Catcher

2008-07-21T16:14:00.001-07:00

Last word on Catcher in the Rye (I swear)...

It may seem strange that I feel the need to defend one of the most widely read-- and widely loved-- books ever. But, over the years, I've talked to many academics who poo-poo Catcher for a bunch of reasons.

One colleague told me she zips through Catcher as quickly as she can, because she just can't stand Holden. Another said the more he reads Catcher, the less he sees in it. I even remember my own A.P. English teacher, twenty years ago, warning not to use Catcher as an example on the essay for the A. P. Test. (Apparently, the book isn't "acamedic" enough.)

Hey, these are smart folks who know their literature, and I'm not going to say they don't have legitimate reasons for losing interest in Salinger. But I wanted to respond to the three of the knocks I've heard over the years against Catcher in the Rye:

"It's all voice."

Even folks who have soured on the book will acknowledge that, in the character of Holden Caulfield, Salinger created one of the most identifiable and iconic "voices" in all of literature. But, they say, once you get beyond the "voice," there's not much to the book.

I'm not sure I agree with that. First of all, let's not discount the talent it takes to create that "voice"-- to capture the speech of this teenager so perfectly that you can actually hear the character in your mind as you read it on the page. Think that's easy?

Of course, Salinger's commitment to creating this iconic voice meant some things would go by the boards. You won't find in Catcher the same kind of lyrical passages that you can find in, say, Gatsby or Beloved. You just won't. It's not that kind of book.

Besides, dismissing the book is "all voice" doesn't take into account all of the great literary stuff going on in there. Symbolism, ambiguities, paradoxes, unrealiability-- oh, Catcher's got 'em, all right, in spades!

"I hate Holden."

Other teachers I've talked to like the voice but can't stand the person speaking. Holden Caulfield's depressing, they say. He's self-absorbed. He lies all the time. He does nothing to help himself. In short, he's a terrible role model. And he never changes throughout the course of the book.

In truth, they're right, mostly. He is depressing, because he's depressed: he still hasn't worked through the death of his brother Allie; he feels let down by his parents and teachers; and, as he says over and over, he's "lonesome as hell." He's terribly flawed, but he tries to mask all his pain with his snappy banter and wisecracks. To me, all this makes Holden totally compelling.

But I can't say Holden doesn't change. He absolutely does. In the penultimate chapter, when he sees Phoebe reaching for the gold ring but doesn't try to stop her, thus realizeing that sometimes you have to let kids learn form experience (I won't quote the passage here, because I just did in my last post)-- that shows that he did learn something. It's a small change, but a significant one, because he ackowledges to himself he can't be the "catcher in the rye."

"It's too simple."

This complaint, an offshoot of the "It's all voice" dig, is not about the plot exactly (even though some students have complained that nothing really "happens" in the book); it's about the fact that, in their eyes, the book lacks sufficient literary chomps. I've heard some teachers wonder what they can "do" with the book, beyond the obvious "catcher in the rye"/ "falling from innocence" symbolism.

I guess I have two responses to this. First, I think there's a lot you can "do" with the book, especially in terms of symbolism. In addition to the "catcher" symbol, Salinger includes many
separate yet inter-related symbolks throughout the text:

-- The big glass cases from Chapter 16 symbolize for Holden a place where you can capture in stasis the flux of life. (To me, that's as important a symbol as the "catcher in the rye." But who's going to buy a book called The Big Glass Case.)
-- The ice imagery (the fish Horwitz the cab driver talks about that are "frozen in ice," the fact that Holden always talks about how cold he is) relates to the same theme represented by the big glass cases: preservation. After all, when you put things in ice, you preserve them, and that's what Holden wants: he wants to preserve moments, so nothing changes.
-- Holden's game, when he's drunk in Cahpter 20, of hiding his imaginary wound suggests-- to me, anyway-- that he's concealing his pain. He doesn't want anyone else to see how much he's hurting.

Now, come on! How can you say there's nothing "to do" with this book?

Secondly, I don't know if I'd brush off the "falling" imagery so cavalierly. The "fall from grace" theme is one of the most essential themes in literature, and Salinger does such a great job weaving examples of "falling" throughout the text, besides the big "catcher in the rye" symbol: when Holden leaves Pencey Prep, he slips on peanut shells and nearly breaks his crazy neck; when he goes to see Sunny the prostitute, he trips over his own suitcase; when James Castle falls out the window, he's wearing Holden's sweater; even Mr. Antolini says Holden is on the verge of a "horrible fall."

These references underscore that Holden is still falling form grace; he's an adult, but he's definitely not a child. He's still in between.

The funny thing is, I wonder if the disinterest some of these teachers are feeling for Catcher may represent a bit of a "fall" as well. Maybe the symbols seem "obvious" to us because we've read it so many times. Maybe we feel we've exhausted the text. Somehow, we need to re-capture the innocence of reading for the first time. Maybe we need to remember when we were high school students ourselves, when we weren't experts in litarure, when the "fall from grace" theme still seemed new to us.

Maybe we're too good at this "English teacher" stuff. Maybe, as readers, we've lost a little of our innocence over the years as well.

One last thing: I read Catcher for the first time the summer before my junior year in high school. I can honestly say that reading that book, at that time, changed my life. I had never read a book like that ever. And it sparked in me the first inkling that I could maybe teach literature for a living. I'm an English teacher because of Catcher in the Rye. (And I hope my students think that's a good thing!)

Billy Collins, "The History Teacher," Catcher, and... a Poetic Debut!

2008-07-19T09:14:00.001-07:00

Over a week ago now (sorry, been kinda busy), I went to see Billy Collins read some of his poetry.

For those of you who don't know Billy Collins, get to know him. A former two-time U.S. poet laureate (from 2001 to 2003), Collins is brilliant and creative while at the same time accessible and funny . Here's a sampling of his work:

The Lanyard

Tension

Litany

Don't fret if you're not a fan of poetry: Billy Collins is totally the Non-Fan-of-Poetry's Poet. First of all, as I mentioned above, his poems are funny-- and not "guy-in-a-beret-sipping-mochachino-while-smiling-smugly-at-the artist's-use-of-synecdoche" funny, but actually funny.

His humor contributes to his other cardinal virtue: his accessibility. Now this may sound like a slam-- like I'm calling him simplistic or something-- but I don't mean it that way at all. I mean that all great poetry works on several levels, one which is the purely literal level. And most people, even folks like my dad who know nothing about poetry, could "get" a Collins poem on a purely literal level. More than just "get" it: they can get something out of it.

One of my favorite Collins poems also happened to appear on the 2007 Advanced Placement Literature Exam (but I want credit for including it on my Freshman Final Exam two years before that). The poem also connects nicely to Catcher in the Rye, a topic I haven't quite finished milking the crap out of yet this summer. It's called "The History Teacher," which I will re-print below, with no permission from anyone whatsoever:

The History Teacher - Billy Collins

Trying to protect his students' innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.

And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.
The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
"How far is it from here to Madrid?"
"What do you call the matador's hat?"

The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan.

The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,

while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.

To me, this is classic Collins. First of all, on a surface level, it's legitimately clever and funny. But if you want to go deeper than that (and I always do), the poem raises important questions about how much we coddle our children. Just think about those communities that don't keep score in youth soccer or little league games-- that way no one goes home with hurt feelings. Like the history teacher in the poem, the parents in those communities want to be Innocence-Protectors.

In that way, Collins' history teacher and those Concerned Little League Parents resemble Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, who likewise wants to preserve the innocence of children. That's what the title means, remember: Holden wants to stand in at the edge of a cliff and catch kids from falling from innocence into experience.

But unlike Collins' history teacher, Holden eventually figures out that his dream job is impossible. You can't keep kids from losing their innocence; you can't erase all the "F--- you"'s from the school stairwells. And even if you could, you probably shouldn't. As Holden says as the end of the novel, as he watches his little sister Phoebe ride the carousel:

"All the kids kept trying to grab for the gold ring, and so was old Phoebe, and I was sort of afraid she'd fall off the goddam horse, but I didn't say anything or do anything. The thing with kids is, if they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. if they fall off, they fall off, but it's bad if you say anything to them."

Collins takes this idea one step further in "The History Teacher": you can't prevent kids from losing their innocence, because they're not really that innocent to begin with. Check out these lines: "The children would leave his classroom/for the playground to torment the weak/and the smart,/mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses." Despite the history teacher's attempts to "protect their innocence," these kids are just plain rotten.

Meanwhile, the teacher walks home past the proverbial white picket fences, completely ignorant to the violence on the playground. The way Collins juxtaposes the two, it's almost as if the teacher is the child, living in the naive and innocent world, while the kids are the jaded adults.

Now that's deep stuff. Or you could say I'm looking into it too much and just enjoy the "Chilly Age" and Spanish Inquisition stuff. That's what's great about Billy Collins.

In any case... I was so inspired by Collins' reading in general, and "The History Teacher" in particular, that I actually went out and wrote a poem myself, which I have given myself permission to debut here. It's nowhere near Billy Collins, of course, but hey, I'm a beginner:

Kids Those Days, by Mark Dursin

“Kids these days,” I hear them grumble.
“Plump and lumpy, violent and vacant,
Enslaved to shoot-‘em-up screens.
Brazen, back-talking bullies, all—
Oh, these kids these days.”

Fair point, I guess, but I’d like to know:
What about kids those days—
The ones who ate Sugar Smacks
And fake-smoked candy cigarettes?
They saw “Grease” in the theater, kids those days,
and all its naughty bits.
They waved Han Solo blasters at each other
And played “Kill the Man with the Ball.”
(That’s “kill”: not touch, not tackle,
Not attempt to detain. But kill.)

Don’t kid yourself:
Kids those days, like kids these days, watched too, too much TV.
These and those kids play “Tag”:
They label someone “It”—
The third-person objective pronoun—
Then run away.

They also belly-laugh and snort,
Those kids, these kids, and even yet-to-be kids.
They throw rocks in rivers
and jounce on alligator seesaws.
They find joy in churning Hoodsies into soup.

And they dress up as shepherds and angels in Christmas pageants,
Smiling shyly as they parade past proud parents,
Who’ve received special dispensation, just this once,
To use flash photography in church.

Field of Dreams/ Catcher in the Rye Connections

2008-07-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

For eight summers now, I've been teaching Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and for eight summers, I've been showing the 1989 Field of Dreams along with it. And what does a film about spectral baseball players in an Iowa cornfield have to do with a depressed 1950s teenager wandeirng through New York? I'm glad you asked!

First off, the most obvious connection: for the three of you out there in Internet-land who may not know this,...

Field of Dreams, the film, is based on the novel Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella.
In the film Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella goes to Boston to find a reclusive novelist named Terrence Mann.
In the novel Shoeless Joe, Ray Kinsella goes to New Hampshire to find a reclusive novelist named J. D. Salinger.

That's right: Terrence Mann is loosely-based on J. D. Salinger. And I say "loosely-based," because Salinger is not a large, black man with a voice that sounds suspiciously like Mufasa. But like Terrence Mann, both the real-life J. D. Salinger and the character J. D. Salinger from the novel Shoeless Joe are hermits who stopped writing (or at least, stopped publishing their writing) at the peaks of their careers.

Incidentally, you really can't teach Catcher without talking about Salinger's biography; over the years, it seems more people are more interested in what Salinger hasn't written in the past forty years than anything he's ever has actually written. (You can find out more on Salinger's perculiar reclusiveness in the documentary, J. D. Salinger Does Not Want to Talk.) And the Terrence Mann character provides a way to segue into Salinger's infamous reclusiveness.

Beyond the Mann-Salinger connection, the film shares some thematic connections with Catcher. You can find the real biggie in Terrence Mann's famous climactic speech. (Come on: You know the words-- say it along with us!)

"People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won't mind if you look around, you'll say. It's only $20 per person. They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they'll watch the game and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh... people will come Ray. People will most definitely come."

The whole speech, and especially the parts I italicized, is about the biggest dream of them all: regaining childhood innocence. And Ray's field makes that impossibility possible. That's why those thousands of cars show up at the end: to get back to a time when there were no mortgages, no gambling scandals, no fallen heroes. That's childhood, essentially.

Holden desperately wants a place like Ray's field. He wants to be the "catcher in the rye," the guardian who keeps kids from losing their innocence, from falling from grace. He knows it can't happen in real life, but he wants it anyway. (Of course, a place like Ray's field can happen in the movies-- an artform which Holden claims to hate. If Holden actually saw Field of Dreams, he'd probably dismiss it as being "corny" or "phony." Or at least, he'd say those things, but who knows what he'd really feel deep down? )

Holden's desire to be a "catcher in the rye" relates to his fundamental fear of change. This seems odd to say, since he has been to four different high schools, but Holden can't deal with change and flux. This relates to one of the most important and most overlooked symbol in the book, for my money-- just as significant as the "catcher in the rye" symbol: the "big glass cases," which Holden talks about at the end of Chapter 16.

Holden marvels at how the "big glass cases" you find at museums preserve things: they keep objects and moments frozen in time. "Certain things they should stay the way they are," Holden says. "You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone."

Holden could probably really use a place like Ray's ballfield, a place where time stands still, where the flux of life is held in stasis. Basically, the Iowa ballfield is the equivalent of Holden's "big glass case."

Of course, if Holden heard a voice telling him to build a baseball field, he would never do it. For one thing, building the field takes work; Holden won't even pick up the phone to call Jane Gallagher. In addition, Holden, despite all his posturing, is too concerned with what everyone else thinks about him. (Remember, in the movie, all the locals think Ray Kinsella's crazy, the "biggest horse's ass in three counties.")

Finally, Holden is too self-absorbed to do something to help someone else. And that's really what the building of the field was for Ray. Just like he said to Shoeless Joe near the end of the film, "I never once asked what's in it for me." And his selflessness allowed Ray to realize his dream of playing catch with his dad. Holden's a lot of things, but you'd never really call him selfless.

There are other smaller connections too (Allie's baseball mitt with the poems on it, the name "Richard Kinsella" appears in Catcher), but the connections I detailed above get to the heart of both texts. Showing the movie in conjunction with the novel highlights the themes in both texts; plus, it's an excuse to show a timeless classic in class. And maybe, if you get "meta" with me for a moment, that timelessness can be a connection in itself.

Serendipity time: this past weekend, I was watching the Red Sox-Orioles game, and Kevin Costner was in the booth with Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy. (Some of Field of Dreams, remember, was shot at Fenway.) And Costner was saying that, while making millions at the box office is nice, he's more interested in making movies that stand tghe test of time. (I'm paraphrasing, but that was the general gist of it.)

Well, he may not have passed the "test of time" with Dragonfly, but he definitely did with Field of Dreams. The film has aged well-- so well, in fact, that it doesn't age. And in that sense, the film Field of Dreams is like the "field of dreams" it showcases. Maybe Holden's idea of the "big glass case" is not so impossible after all.