- My understanding of blogs has developed considerably. I used to think about them as the online version of the journal I used to keep next to my bed. Good blogs are not like that, for three reasons: digital media, audience, and narrative. Digital Media: To this forum, I can link to anything on the Internets; that does not just change what I write, but how I think about writing and what I do while I am writing. Audience: No one reads those old black and white comp books of mine, or they shouldn't. In theory, someone is reading this (you are, maybe) and that impacts composition. Narrative: All good blogs build the frame of a larger story or at least an ethos.
- I am picking up freelance writing and editing jobs lately and having a blog allows me to showcase the range of my writing proficiency easily.
- Stories swirl around in my head like that cotton candy machine at the fair. I just have to put a stick in the opening, and they start coalescing, clumping, and changing. I knew from the beginning that taking one of my favorite lines from my favorite novel (Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing) would be fruitful, but after a couple of days of writing and talking about writing with friends, I realized that I really need a place to capture these stories in my head. There are lots to come: like when I cut myself with a razor while shaving, on purpose, and how I got paid, as a child, to protect a spy in the Smithsonian museum. Or about the three girls whose footprints always stay in the sandbox together and take on a life of their own. Or friends I have lost or shucked. Or how I think my life is, by an accident of metaphysics, connected to the life of Ben Folds. Some are true all the way through and some, by only being thought, are even truer.
- I need to write my dissertation. I will tell you what it's about later; I promise. Have you ever read any Lyotard? My dissertation might become the metanarrative of the blog. In that case, let's hope postmodernism never happened, because, according to Lyotard, metanarratives go away. If there's a "totalizing metanarrative" I want to keep, it's completing my Ph.D. Maybe writing every day, even informally, will help the formal stuff along. See my first post about completing my diss. Update: no writing since then.
- Whether it's a good one or not, the details of my life make up an unusual story. My interests and experiences connect me to other groups of people (music and movie fans, parents, academics, the religiously curious, urbanites, naturalists), but no big dotted-line surrounds them all. Some of my experiences might be helpful or entertaining to an eclectic variety.
- I learned how Google enables me to take a picture with my cell phone, textualize it, and immediately post it to the blog without sitting down at a computer. I adore this feature and use it frequently. My photoblog entries are like eyeball postcards.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
In which I try to determine what I am doing and why
Keeping a blog is new to me, but not to the rest of the world. I have probably spent as much time critically reviewing blogs over the last two weeks as I have writing. Why am I doing it? As I approach my 50th post in two weeks, here are some answers.
Let the wild rumpus start!
Those may be the most memorable words I have ever read aloud as a parent.
Tomorrow I am headed to Where the Wild Things Are with my two oldest (9 and 11). I already saw the movie -- on opening night. I am that kind of fan of an assortment of things (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Cormac McCarthy, lots of musicians). I was really excited about the film. For once, I thought, an indie-kids movie.
I was disappointed. In Spike Jonze's adaptation, Max ceases being "Everykid" and becomes something darker. As much as I support exploring alternatives to cinematic "stability", Where the Wild Things Are wanders too far into the forest and does not really want to come home.
As a literature and writing teacher, I have used Sendak's book in conversation and in class to discuss psychoanalytic criticism. Most of the psychological world recognizes that large bodies of water represent an unconscious or mystical experience. This is probably because of the unfathomable (sorry, I know this is painful) depth under the ocean that we know exists but cannot access. The ocean, in a dream, is like the closet that we shove all of the emotions we need to keep but can't find room for. Eventually we know we are going to have to clean that place out. In both the story and the film, just such a body of water separates the real world from the wilder one.
Max, the story's young protagonist, has plenty that needs cleaning. In the film he has a new backstory, immersed in the pathos of abandonment, isolation, anger, and gender confusion. In the book (do you remember?) he was just a kid who chased his dog around with a fork. Movie Max has a lot more on his plate and, subsequently, a lot more to deal with when he crosses the water.
Spike Jonze and crew have done an effective job reminding fans of the book about detail: Max's name carved in the boat, some key quotations, and the final supper scene. However, the fact that Max needs some serious therapy before, during, and after his trip disturbs the film for me. Here is the central question: is it easier to think that Max's destructive and dictatorial urges hide inside all of us, or to diagnose the Wild Things dream as the ramblings of a semi-neglected and borderline schizophrenic kid? The book leans more toward the former, and the movie toward the latter.
It reminds me of the quandary that the movie Falling Down created for me. At the end of that Michael Douglas modern dystopian classic, the protagonist is colored as a mental patient who needs his meds. Ok, fine. But didn't I sit through the whole film relishing his destructive break-down? Didn't I want to have the same experiences too? It just made it too easy when the film made him "crazy"; it would have been better if he were just like one of us, making the choices that most of us only dream about.
Wild Things's Max is a solitary figure, and rightly so. He has to become isolated to give us the terrible beauty of his vision. I just wish that the film left us with the feeling that we are all Max, battling those demons and keeping those voices (mostly) quiet in our heads. Crazy-ing up Max is a scapegoating move.
Still, my oldest two want to see it. They are old enough, and we are going, if just to have something to talk about. Exploring the effects of art is one my favorite things about parenting. They always teach me something; most people who want to have a serious conversation about anything do, as well.
That is Max Records, who plays Max in everyone's favorite story about a boy who dreams he is a king.
Tomorrow I am headed to Where the Wild Things Are with my two oldest (9 and 11). I already saw the movie -- on opening night. I am that kind of fan of an assortment of things (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Cormac McCarthy, lots of musicians). I was really excited about the film. For once, I thought, an indie-kids movie.
I was disappointed. In Spike Jonze's adaptation, Max ceases being "Everykid" and becomes something darker. As much as I support exploring alternatives to cinematic "stability", Where the Wild Things Are wanders too far into the forest and does not really want to come home.
As a literature and writing teacher, I have used Sendak's book in conversation and in class to discuss psychoanalytic criticism. Most of the psychological world recognizes that large bodies of water represent an unconscious or mystical experience. This is probably because of the unfathomable (sorry, I know this is painful) depth under the ocean that we know exists but cannot access. The ocean, in a dream, is like the closet that we shove all of the emotions we need to keep but can't find room for. Eventually we know we are going to have to clean that place out. In both the story and the film, just such a body of water separates the real world from the wilder one.
Max, the story's young protagonist, has plenty that needs cleaning. In the film he has a new backstory, immersed in the pathos of abandonment, isolation, anger, and gender confusion. In the book (do you remember?) he was just a kid who chased his dog around with a fork. Movie Max has a lot more on his plate and, subsequently, a lot more to deal with when he crosses the water.
Spike Jonze and crew have done an effective job reminding fans of the book about detail: Max's name carved in the boat, some key quotations, and the final supper scene. However, the fact that Max needs some serious therapy before, during, and after his trip disturbs the film for me. Here is the central question: is it easier to think that Max's destructive and dictatorial urges hide inside all of us, or to diagnose the Wild Things dream as the ramblings of a semi-neglected and borderline schizophrenic kid? The book leans more toward the former, and the movie toward the latter.
It reminds me of the quandary that the movie Falling Down created for me. At the end of that Michael Douglas modern dystopian classic, the protagonist is colored as a mental patient who needs his meds. Ok, fine. But didn't I sit through the whole film relishing his destructive break-down? Didn't I want to have the same experiences too? It just made it too easy when the film made him "crazy"; it would have been better if he were just like one of us, making the choices that most of us only dream about.
Wild Things's Max is a solitary figure, and rightly so. He has to become isolated to give us the terrible beauty of his vision. I just wish that the film left us with the feeling that we are all Max, battling those demons and keeping those voices (mostly) quiet in our heads. Crazy-ing up Max is a scapegoating move.
Still, my oldest two want to see it. They are old enough, and we are going, if just to have something to talk about. Exploring the effects of art is one my favorite things about parenting. They always teach me something; most people who want to have a serious conversation about anything do, as well.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Five for Friday: Google, Singents, Bridget vs. Max, scary aliens, QVC
Funny this week . . .
1.While playing Spades at night with my kids and Clo-Show, I was looking up something Internetishly on my phone. My daughter says, "What are you doing Dad? Play a card." Without looking up from his hand, Clo-Show mutters "He's googling how to count."
2. My shower idea that someone who is a single parent, but half of the time, is a Singent.
3. My youngest son's fascination with the part of Bridget and the Gray Wolves, in which the little girl commands her pack of wolves to find their trees and have a pee before bed ("they obediantly found their pee trees").
5. My mom's comment, while donating a QVC faux animal-skin coat to Halloween costuming, "would you wear this?"
1.While playing Spades at night with my kids and Clo-Show, I was looking up something Internetishly on my phone. My daughter says, "What are you doing Dad? Play a card." Without looking up from his hand, Clo-Show mutters "He's googling how to count."
2. My shower idea that someone who is a single parent, but half of the time, is a Singent.
3. My youngest son's fascination with the part of Bridget and the Gray Wolves, in which the little girl commands her pack of wolves to find their trees and have a pee before bed ("they obediantly found their pee trees").
- N.B. Bridget and the Gray Wolves is an interesting feminine version of Where the Wild Things Are. She may be a little bit cooler than Max. At least less destructive and a better imaginary parent.
5. My mom's comment, while donating a QVC faux animal-skin coat to Halloween costuming, "would you wear this?"
Thursday, October 29, 2009
I am dying to know.
This is also a good time to say that I have hit 50 viewers. Interesting. I promise I have only accessed the blog from 37 different computers, so that means 13 real people!
I am thinking some today about balance. If you are coming back on a semi-regular basis, let me know which posts you like most. I cataloged everything yesterday, so pick your favorite. I have lots more stories to tell, but I can bend them just like a balloonist.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Critical pedagogues of the world, unite!
Jamie Littlefield, of selfmadescholar.com, wrote on 4 Ways to Recognize a True Teacher several months ago. I just came across it today.
I can see by Jamie's reading list that we have a confluence of influence. As an M.Ed. student I was trained in the culture of critical pedagogy by at least one professor and fed a steady diet of Freire, McLaren, Macedo, Kozol, and Gatto. I learned, as maybe she did, that free thinking, peer-making, and instilling autonomy does not go down to well in any authoritarian institution. Inevitably, I have been complemented for my work in three public high schools while at the same time finding the work environment and orientation to the student professionally untenable.
Jamie has efficiently nailed several qualities of mystical teaching. I may or may not achieve them in my university classrooms, but I certainly aim for them. She observes that valuable teachers teach us how to think, not what to think. This is reason why my favorite students end up being the ones who challenge me. At least in the humanities, argument is the algebra we use.
It reminds me of my obsession over the past few years, in both my dissertation and my teaching, over the difference between content and methodology. As a literature teacher (I am looking forward to my first lit class in a while this spring), I want to instruct students on a method, or methods, of interpretation. Everyone else makes fun of how much English departments like to use the word "hermeneutic", but here it suits my needs. I am not too concerned about what conclusion an undergrad arrives when she takes apart "Young Goodman Brown" or Beloved. What I care much more about is how clear is the method she used to get there.
Quintillian was saying similar things at the end of the Roman Empire, when he handed on a twelve volume treatment of education that ended up being the model that Europe used for centuries afterward. Institutio Oratoria was not Quintillian's creation; he just documented what he saw going on around him to great degree. What you take from that picture is a thorough understanding of the fluidity of language and, consequently, knowing, and how important it was (and is) for a student to be adept at intellectual methods rather than intellectual facts. In fact, unless we plan on coming to the end of knowing, the facts will always change, but the best methods will continue to provide fruit or evolve into stronger ones (like the transition from text-only research to researching digital media).
I don't know if Jamie was headed in this direction, but she sure pointed me there. Attention to method, language, research, interpretation . . . these are the trademarks of the most powerful kinds of knowing. Making fans and creating drones, as Jamie writes, does not get us there. In a certain sense, teaching a student to observe, identify, and solve one problem, with an meta-critical attention to his process, enables him to use that method with any related problem in the future.
That's why I don't care if we get every "classic" read in my American Literature semester in the spring. Doing the literary dance really well through a handful will be enough.
I said I would come back to this article. It had me thinking all evening. After dishes, signing school notebooks, cleaning out folders, and getting lunch ready for tomorrow, I am just able to wedge it in before my shower.
I can see by Jamie's reading list that we have a confluence of influence. As an M.Ed. student I was trained in the culture of critical pedagogy by at least one professor and fed a steady diet of Freire, McLaren, Macedo, Kozol, and Gatto. I learned, as maybe she did, that free thinking, peer-making, and instilling autonomy does not go down to well in any authoritarian institution. Inevitably, I have been complemented for my work in three public high schools while at the same time finding the work environment and orientation to the student professionally untenable.
Jamie has efficiently nailed several qualities of mystical teaching. I may or may not achieve them in my university classrooms, but I certainly aim for them. She observes that valuable teachers teach us how to think, not what to think. This is reason why my favorite students end up being the ones who challenge me. At least in the humanities, argument is the algebra we use.
It reminds me of my obsession over the past few years, in both my dissertation and my teaching, over the difference between content and methodology. As a literature teacher (I am looking forward to my first lit class in a while this spring), I want to instruct students on a method, or methods, of interpretation. Everyone else makes fun of how much English departments like to use the word "hermeneutic", but here it suits my needs. I am not too concerned about what conclusion an undergrad arrives when she takes apart "Young Goodman Brown" or Beloved. What I care much more about is how clear is the method she used to get there.
Quintillian was saying similar things at the end of the Roman Empire, when he handed on a twelve volume treatment of education that ended up being the model that Europe used for centuries afterward. Institutio Oratoria was not Quintillian's creation; he just documented what he saw going on around him to great degree. What you take from that picture is a thorough understanding of the fluidity of language and, consequently, knowing, and how important it was (and is) for a student to be adept at intellectual methods rather than intellectual facts. In fact, unless we plan on coming to the end of knowing, the facts will always change, but the best methods will continue to provide fruit or evolve into stronger ones (like the transition from text-only research to researching digital media).
I don't know if Jamie was headed in this direction, but she sure pointed me there. Attention to method, language, research, interpretation . . . these are the trademarks of the most powerful kinds of knowing. Making fans and creating drones, as Jamie writes, does not get us there. In a certain sense, teaching a student to observe, identify, and solve one problem, with an meta-critical attention to his process, enables him to use that method with any related problem in the future.
That's why I don't care if we get every "classic" read in my American Literature semester in the spring. Doing the literary dance really well through a handful will be enough.
I said I would come back to this article. It had me thinking all evening. After dishes, signing school notebooks, cleaning out folders, and getting lunch ready for tomorrow, I am just able to wedge it in before my shower.
Are knock-knock jokes funny?
Two men are having a debate on the comedic value of knock-knock jokes. One is 34 years old, and has taken the stance that knock-knock jokes are not funny. One is 3 years old, and has taken the stance that they are.
In his arsenal, the younger debater, who loves owls, knows the following knock-knock joke:
However, he keeps it to himself until, as the argument hurtles toward its conclusion, the younger of the two produces his trump card. He draws his opponent into the following exchange:
The older man falls to pieces with laughter. He has been championed. The younger man returns to his crayons.
In his arsenal, the younger debater, who loves owls, knows the following knock-knock joke:
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Who.
Who who?
Is there an owl in here?
However, he keeps it to himself until, as the argument hurtles toward its conclusion, the younger of the two produces his trump card. He draws his opponent into the following exchange:
Knock-knock.
Who's there?
Who.
Who who?
[smugly] That's right.
The older man falls to pieces with laughter. He has been championed. The younger man returns to his crayons.
A telling
As, perhaps, people stumble backward into reading All is Telling, I will tell a story.
A boy decided, after a long struggle, that he was unhappy. He couldn't put the disparate pieces of his life together in a sensical way. As an only-child, he grew up accustomed to his only company and goals, but the choice-web of his life grafted new ones to him. Now he had academic, parental, and martial concerns. The first two were vibrant, fluid, and alive. The third one was paralyzed.
Against his own instincts and upbringing, he separated and began the process of divorce. He was accused, at times, for deciding to leave his children as well, but this was not true. Keeping them as close to him as was fair and possible became his passion. He was not a terribly schedule-oriented person; he became one when it was required. He continued, as best he could, to keep up with the pressures of teaching, research, laundry, diet, and grooming. Some of these fell by the wayside occasionally.
He has survived a two-year divorce negotiation that felt more like a war. He is beginning to think dissertation again. His income is a fractured patchwork of freelance projects, teaching pay, and loans. Somehow, he has arranged it so that his parenting time and work time is separate. His life is buoyed by the weekly arrival of his children, the beauty of a new relationship, and tightly weird urban family.
He enjoys rock shows, handcrafted art, profound movies, frisbee, Legos, drawing, reading aloud, singing, studying and arguing. You may not know him, but you could.
He will thrive. Also, he lives in New Mexico.
Against his own instincts and upbringing, he separated and began the process of divorce. He was accused, at times, for deciding to leave his children as well, but this was not true. Keeping them as close to him as was fair and possible became his passion. He was not a terribly schedule-oriented person; he became one when it was required. He continued, as best he could, to keep up with the pressures of teaching, research, laundry, diet, and grooming. Some of these fell by the wayside occasionally.
He has survived a two-year divorce negotiation that felt more like a war. He is beginning to think dissertation again. His income is a fractured patchwork of freelance projects, teaching pay, and loans. Somehow, he has arranged it so that his parenting time and work time is separate. His life is buoyed by the weekly arrival of his children, the beauty of a new relationship, and tightly weird urban family.
He enjoys rock shows, handcrafted art, profound movies, frisbee, Legos, drawing, reading aloud, singing, studying and arguing. You may not know him, but you could.
He will thrive. Also, he lives in New Mexico.
Picking fights with words
Specifically, for Kinkos from a Wikipedia entry on weird plurals in English:
The plural deers is listed in some dictionaries, but is widely considered to be an error.
Like Bill Murray said in Rushmore:
Take dead aim on the rich ones, get them in your cross hairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything, but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget.
The plural deers is listed in some dictionaries, but is widely considered to be an error.
Like Bill Murray said in Rushmore:
Take dead aim on the rich ones, get them in your cross hairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything, but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Thao Knows Better in Atlanta, Nov. 9
Thao Nguyen returns to Atlanta soon to tour behind her sophomore studio album, Know Better, Learn Faster. We saw her at the Earl last time, and she signed a ticket stub for my daughter who really wanted to be there, but was too young.
I hope to grab a picture or a chat with Thao when she's here. She's academic-folk, I think, so maybe we can solve the health care, education, or mortgage crises together. Probably not, though.
Here's how I first fell in love with Thao's performance style in a little video of an NPR appearance.
And here's an article in Pitchfork, which is the best review I have seen so far of the new album. I can't get the opening line of one of the songs out of my head . . . "Everybody, please, put your clothes back on. We must see what the trouble was for."
I hope to grab a picture or a chat with Thao when she's here. She's academic-folk, I think, so maybe we can solve the health care, education, or mortgage crises together. Probably not, though.
Here's how I first fell in love with Thao's performance style in a little video of an NPR appearance.
And here's an article in Pitchfork, which is the best review I have seen so far of the new album. I can't get the opening line of one of the songs out of my head . . . "Everybody, please, put your clothes back on. We must see what the trouble was for."
Created twice, Elaine Pagels, and some help from you
I had a debate last night and now can't for the life of me find a resource that I like to peg to either side. Can you help?
The meat of it is this: there are two different creation story frames in Genesis, one taking place mostly in Chapter 1 and the other in parts of Chapter 2. The order if events is different, as are the tone and conclusion of each story. Either this is significant, from the perspective of belief, or it is not a big deal, so went the conversation.
Elaine Pagels has plenty to say in her books (specifically Adam, Eve, and the Serpent) and so, interestingly enough, does Wikipedia (see here). However, I was surprised at how few credible, academic treatments I could find on either side in a couple of Google searches.
I need to burrow into the library databases now, but I would prefer to link to something everyone can see, access, and debate.
The meat of it is this: there are two different creation story frames in Genesis, one taking place mostly in Chapter 1 and the other in parts of Chapter 2. The order if events is different, as are the tone and conclusion of each story. Either this is significant, from the perspective of belief, or it is not a big deal, so went the conversation.
Elaine Pagels has plenty to say in her books (specifically Adam, Eve, and the Serpent) and so, interestingly enough, does Wikipedia (see here). However, I was surprised at how few credible, academic treatments I could find on either side in a couple of Google searches.
I need to burrow into the library databases now, but I would prefer to link to something everyone can see, access, and debate.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Wrestling with bears is difficult.
I feel like I have been doing it all day. By wrestling I mean thinking; by bears I mean troubles. However, I did come across this quote in an essay titled "Think Again: God" by Karen Alexander in Foreign Policy this month.
We are meaning-seeking creatures. While dogs, as far as we know, do not worry about the canine condition or agonize about their mortality, humans fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives. Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues. So God isn’t going anywhere.
It reminds me of the Kenneth Burke scholarship I have read in the last three years, and it makes the case for an approach to belief that is actively curious and academic rather than dogmatic.
We are meaning-seeking creatures. While dogs, as far as we know, do not worry about the canine condition or agonize about their mortality, humans fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives. Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues. So God isn’t going anywhere.
It reminds me of the Kenneth Burke scholarship I have read in the last three years, and it makes the case for an approach to belief that is actively curious and academic rather than dogmatic.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Why does the Rural Alberta Advantage hate deer?
We traveled to see one of my indie-rock favs, the Rural Alberta Advantage, some weeks ago. The RAA sprung out of nowhere when eMusic chose their debut Hometowns as a recommended album last year (interview here). Nils, Amy, and Paul play guitars, hand-held percussive instruments, a sonorous tom-tom, and a blazing hot set of drums. Here they go, in Athens, Georgia, September 09:
They put on a phenomenal show. I can't wait to see what a second album does to their sound.
On the dreary way back home, out of the mysterious liminal space by the side of the road, came three snarling harbingers of destruction to spread enmity and chaos. One of them looked like this:
It attacked my car.
Yes, it was a deer. No, there was nothing else I could do -- there was forest on one side and another terrified driver on the other. I just had to grit my teeth, say a prayer, and barrel in. We caught her somewhere near the shoulder.
This tumultuous midnight rendez-vous did $2,100 worth of damage to my ride. I have been driving a lame rental car for a week while the body work was being completed. Today, I gladly return the Vanillamobile to its keeper and break Veronica, my pumpkin sweetheart, free from her prison. Peace out, Sonata:
What we learn here is that the Rural Alberta Advantage is behind a forced deer extinction across this country. You'd think they would like the furry guys, being rural and all. Really, I love you RAA.
Listen to some RAA on HearYa.
They put on a phenomenal show. I can't wait to see what a second album does to their sound.
On the dreary way back home, out of the mysterious liminal space by the side of the road, came three snarling harbingers of destruction to spread enmity and chaos. One of them looked like this:
It attacked my car.
Yes, it was a deer. No, there was nothing else I could do -- there was forest on one side and another terrified driver on the other. I just had to grit my teeth, say a prayer, and barrel in. We caught her somewhere near the shoulder.
This tumultuous midnight rendez-vous did $2,100 worth of damage to my ride. I have been driving a lame rental car for a week while the body work was being completed. Today, I gladly return the Vanillamobile to its keeper and break Veronica, my pumpkin sweetheart, free from her prison. Peace out, Sonata:
Listen to some RAA on HearYa.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Internal vs. external
Today was a Dad-day: rhythmic, energetic, scheduled, and extroverted.
From drop-off one at 8am to drop-off two at 9am; from pick-up one at noon to pick-up two at 3.30; from breakfast to lunch to dinner; from playing kickball outside to playing cards before bed, parenting is my tether to concrete and simple beauty. And real work, not the theoretical kind.
From drop-off one at 8am to drop-off two at 9am; from pick-up one at noon to pick-up two at 3.30; from breakfast to lunch to dinner; from playing kickball outside to playing cards before bed, parenting is my tether to concrete and simple beauty. And real work, not the theoretical kind.
A Starbucks refill
A couple of days ago, I wrote a casual post in which I made an invisible connection between Starbucks and Melville's Moby Dick. It was just an easy guess, but I got curious. Read Erik Neu's posting here. He got curious about the same thing and did the research.
Even more interesting than mythbusting the origin of the Starbucks name is Neu's comment at the end:
Even more interesting than mythbusting the origin of the Starbucks name is Neu's comment at the end:
"Voila, the brain connects up a plausible, internally consistent explanation; better than the original, except that it isn't correct." In a footnote he extends his idea: "This reminds me of something I read recently, can't remember where, that fiction is more satisfying than reality, because fiction requires itself to be consistent."
How appropriate for All is Telling?
Gen-Y critique; don't look
Mark Bauerlein, an Emory English teacher, published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal last month titled "Why Gen-Y Johnny Can't Read Non-Verbal Cues." It provies an interesting counterpoint to Cowen's article referenced yesterday.
I am not sure I agree with the bulk of Bauerlein's assertions, but I have started telling texting-students to put away their phones in class.
I am not sure I agree with the bulk of Bauerlein's assertions, but I have started telling texting-students to put away their phones in class.
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