Three Ravens

I'm teaching the Medieval Period.  One of my favorite days of the year is coming up tomorrow and Friday, when we discuss some medieval alehouse ballads.  Here's one of my favorites, "The Three Ravens," performed by Peter, Paul, and Mary:

I'll also be playing and singing "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan.  It's a version this old alehouse ballad, "Lord Randall":

"O where ha you been, Lord Randal, my son! 
And where ha you been, my handsome young man!" 
"I ha been at the greenwood; mother, mak my bed soon, 
For I'm wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down."

"An wha met ye there, Lord Randal, my son? 
An wha met you there, my handsome young man?" 
"O I met wi my true-love; mother, mak my bed soon, 
For I'm wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down."

"And what did she give you, Lord Randal, my son? 
And what did she give you, my handsome young man?" 
"Eels fried in a pan; mother, mak my bed soon, 
For I'm wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down." 

"And wha gat your leavins, Lord Randal, my son? 
And wha gat your leavins, my handsome young man?" 
"My hawks and my hounds; mother, mak my bed soon, 
For I'm wearied wi hunting, and fain wad lie down." 

"And what becam of them, Lord Randal, my son? 
And what becam of them, my handsome young man?" 
"They stretched their legs out and died; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm wearied wi huntin, and fain wad lie down." 

"O I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son! 
I fear you are poisoned, my handsome young man!" 
"O yes, I am poisoned; mother, mak my bed soon, 
For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain wad lie down." 

"What d'ye leave to your mother, Lord Randal, my son?
What d'ye leave to your mother, my handsome young man?"
"Four and twenty milk kye; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick at heart, and I fain wad lie down"

"What d'ye leave to your sister, Lord Randal, my son?
What d'ye leave to your sister, my handsome young man?"
"My gold and my silver; ; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick at heart, and I fain wad lie down"

"What d'ye leave to your brother, Lord Randal, my son?
What d'ye leave to your brother, my handsome young man?"
"My houses and my lands; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick at heart, and I fain wad lie down"

"What d'ye leave to your true-love, Lord Randal my son?
What d'ye leave to your true-love, my handsome young man?
"I leave her hell and fire; mother, mak my bed soon,
For I'm sick at heart, and I fain wad lie down"

Nice little thought for the day:

Whom, then, do I call educated? First, those who manage well the circumstances which they encounter day by day, who possess a judgement which is accurate in meeting occasions as they arise, and rarely miss the expedient course of action. Next, those who are decent and honourable in their relations with all men bearing easily and good-naturedly that which is unpleasant or offensive in others, and being themselves as agreeable and reasonable to their associates as is humanly possible to be. Furthermore, those who hold their pleasures always under control, bearing up under them bravely and in a manner worthy of our common nature. Finally, and most important of all, those who are not spoiled by their successes, who do not desert their true selves but hold their ground steadfastly, as wise and sober-minded men, rejoicing no more in the good things which have come to them through chance than those which through their own nature and intelligence are theirs since birth. Those who have character which is in accord, not with one of these things, but with all of them, these I maintain are educated and whole men, possessed of all the virtues of a man. 

I read this on the AP English teacher list-serve this morning.  It was surrounded by fierce debate over who said and/or wrote it.  Plato, Socrates, or Isocrates.  So far, some of the brightest English teachers in the nation can't seem to come to an agreement.  And when I looked for myself--mind you I did not spend much time looking--I cannot say for sure either, though my best guess would be that Socrates said it, and Isocrates wrote it down at some point.  I really don't know though.  Strike one, internet!  Regardless, it's a nice little meditation for the day.  

Seriously, this is not happening?!

The Braves lost.  Cards are tied in extra innings.  Is it time to go crucify a goat or something?  I mean really.

Three Games for the Wildcard

Thanks for nothing Cubs.  Now we sweep the best team in baseball.

The Braves go to Philly and the Cards go to Houston.  Three games remaining, one game lead.

Open House

One of the real marathon days of the school year is over and done--for parents and for students. I was at work yesterday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. for Open House. And it's not the Open House your parents went to when you were growing up either. Open House doesn't mean the doors to the building are open from 4 to 6:30 and teachers are in their classrooms grading papers and available to meet and greet parents as they explore the school facilities at their own leisure. Oh no. It's a full-scale, theatre of the absurd-esque, dramatic production, complete with scary clowns "charading" the hallways and miming for money, an hour long public address in the auditorium to a captive audience of antsy observers, and followed by two complete cycles of the bell schedule where parents are forced to race around the building following their children's A day and then B day class schedules. Teachers give the parents ten-minute informational presentations, the bell rings, and then the parents race the clock across the building to the next class, hoping not to be tardy. Four hours later, not a single parent has met a teacher or administrator for any sort of meaningful conversation or introductions, and everyone involved, from the wonderful PTSA volunteer to Danny's poor little sister who is too young to stay home alone, is slam exhausted.

I used to wear a big-fake smile and dance around the room telling the parents all my credentials and qualifications and what they should expect out of their children and my rules and requirements and all about my philosophies and methodologies and assignments and reading. I hated it. I mean really--hated--it. Because you're good and comfortable with kids doesn't mean you like talking to their parents in a setting like that. If I'd wanted to talk to large rooms full of adults, I'd have been a preacher or a politician--or a principal. That's not what I do.

So this year, I continued something I started last year. I put William Carlos Williams's poem "This is Just to Say" on the Smartboard, and I taught it to them.

They signed in, had a seat, and when the bell rang, I walked in, said, "Okay let's get started. This is what we do in class....volunteer to read the poem?.......Mr. Z, thank you. Go ahead..."

"This Is Just to Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold"

"Well read! Where might you find this piece of writing.........right! On the fridge........what is it?............ooooo, a confession, good analysis. Nice word..........this is a poetic form known as syncopated free verse--a HUGE little poem that just continues to bloom in the mind over time--in my case, it's been blooming for about 20 years now, unfolding more and more every year...........so you guys identify with this?.............you eat your wife's Ben and Jerry's?! I'd never do that lol...........is the plum an apple? Is the speaker Adam? Maybe. Is it virginity? gasp Innocence? better....maybe........Is it easier to get forgiveness than permission? Yes..........Will your child feed me a line like this at some point in the school year? lol. Yes...............Do ya'll see what's going on in here? Yes........rinnnnnnnnng.....Bye now! Thanks for coming! Call me if you need anything......don't forget your homework!!!!! lol." They shuffled out of the room just like their kids--smiling and joking. It was actually fun. Fast, furious, and fun.

My experience this time turned out to be positive--but only cause I just did what I do everyday instead of trying to kiss proverbial ass with a dog and pony show. The new and improved Open House definitely goes right along with every other aspect of the "more is better" American way. We're gonna force teachers to be transparent. We're gonna publish their test scores in the newspaper. We're gonna make them publish two grades a week on Edline. But the politicians, administrators and parents can run amuck. I heard there were teachers who got grilled about their AP scores. Parents openly challenged one master teacher's methods in this open-to-the-public, classroom setting. I observed it personally during my "prep" period (I sat in her room and saw it with my own two eyes). One teacher of juniors was asked by a parent--publicly, and in an accusatory tone I might add--if they would be exposing his child to rated "R" movies. The teacher had never done such a thing in her career--well maybe a not-rated-R scene from a rated R movie, just to make a point or introduce a lesson. The hallways are rated X. Heaven forbid a history teacher use a scene from Forrest Gump to make a teaching moment come alive a little.

I think, in the end, everyone involved would have been just as happy to mingle around the building, tour the beautiful campus, stand out by the reflection pool for a minute, and go introduce themselves to the teachers that Danny had written down on a scrap piece of paper, his favorites of course, for his parents to make sure and say hello to.

Note to My Cardinals Fans

Kyle Lohse outpitched Roy Halladay as the Cards beat the Phillies on Monday night to pull the Cards within two-and-a-half games of the Wildcard. The Braves, with both aces Jair Jar-Jar Jurrjens and Tommy Gun Hanson on the DL, are fading faster than a summer tide. The Braves's magic number is 7. This is starting to become painful to watch. Excruciatingly nerve-racking, like watching a bull that's already been slain fight to the bitter end as the evil crowd cheers. I still believe, but damn. If we hold ya'll off, it's looking like it might have to be without two of the best pitchers in the N.L. Not good.

As always, I remind you that I love the Cards, and if it has to be anyone to do it, I want it to be them. So just keep that in mind as you're gloating like a horny goat. I'll buy the damn Moylan's Kilt-lifter Scotch-style ale for you if you win, and I'll watch you drink it. (I made a stupid bet with my tennis team captain.) And I'll cheer for your boys to go all the way if it happens.

But if the Braves eek it out, and they get the Gun and Jar-Jar back, we could make a run that we'll all remember for the rest of our lives. Chipper Jones, bottom of the 9th, Game 7 of the World Series, on one leg a la Kirk Gibson, cue The Natural soundtrack, bases loaded, down by 3...

Go Braves!!!!

Hyponothing

I was talkin' to my bass player, Tj, on the drive home from Marty's yesterday morn after an awesome night of revelry at the bar in Hot Springs. (Sweet H graciously granted a much needed kitchen pass so long as I was home early enough Sat morn to cook some breakfast for everybody, which I did.) Tj is a big time chiropractor/alternative medicine guy. He's also a prodigiously wise fellow for his age. He's also my old, college guru--the guy that first said, "There's no such thing as a bad trip....if you are the master of your own trip...." and I have had mad respect for him, his opinions, ever since. I listen to his advice when he doles it out.

I was trying to explain to him how good I've been feeling lately as a result of my acute efforts to get healthier and was telling him I almost feel bad around my friends cause I just feel like standing on top of a table and yelling it at the top of my lungs sometimes. I need to temper that desire and also the urge to tell everyone else what they should be doing so they can feel like me. (Make sense?) Well, anyway, I used the thing about "hypomania" as an anecdote to try and convey what I was talking about--about how I go through periods where I feel REALLY good and then other times where I'm just okay(not depressed, just so-so)--and i was saying I'm "hypo" right now.

He cut me off abruptly, even curtly--he does that at times--and severely "cautioned" me not to self-diagnose--not to give "names" to things I'm feeling or experiencing. He said the line about, "You become your diagnosis." I have to admit, it shut me up pretty good, and I've been pondering on it for a good 24 hours now.

Some of the things that have come to mind are like (and this may be stating the obvious--forgive me): the whole reputation I have among my buddies for drinking 97 beers in one sitting (which I'm desperately trying to cast off); over-exaggerating (My dad told me a million times not to exaggerate. Couldn't resist.); the "hypo" thing I mentioned; being a former (and constantly tempted) cig-smoker; fantasy sports management and Braves fanaticism (important stuff); Matt the writer/tennis player/teacher; Matt the "Healer" (Myers-Briggs personality test thingy). Those are just a few.

I thought you might think this was valuable advice too. I know I'm guilty of the whole self-fulfilling prophecy thing. Everybody is really. But just don't call it that from now on. Just be, man.

Beautiful part about it all is, in the words of another ole buddy, Nico, "All we got is time, mon ami. All we got is Time." Time to get better. Let's do it, yo?

What Every Little Boy Knows

Because of baseball.

A beautifully written, neat little essay by T.R. Heally: "Chin Music"

My recommended reading for the month of September. (See sidebar.)

Slow Trains and Baseball

If you haven't figured it out yet, I like thinking about baseball, talking about baseball, reading about baseball, writing about baseball, watching baseball, playing fantasy baseball, and pitching Wiffle balls to my 3 year old. (He hit one over the carriage house into the alley the other day.) I've written numerous posts on Dirt Bombs about baseball. I "collect" and devour baseball scenes from fiction and poetry--even ones that are bad. I'm just a sucker for them. (My favorite baseball scene is probably in The Old Man and the Sea, and Don DeLillo's Underworld also has some great baseball writing.)

A while back, I found a literary journal that has a whole section of baseball stories. I haven't read it in a long time so when my fantasy baseball season ended suddenly and unexpectedly without making the playoffs--my boys just folded in the final week of the season and lost the last playoff spot by one game--there was a deep void in my life. I've had to find other ways to get my baseball fix. If you're like me, you'll love Slow Trains's section "On Baseball." The stories, some good and some bad, are amazing. Check it out and let me know what you think.

And if you know of any other stuff like this, please, LET ME KNOW about it. I love this stuff!

One Cent Sales Tax Increase in Little Rock Passes

If you haven't heard already, both sales tax increase proposals passed 54% to 46% in yesterday's local election. I was against one of them and for the other and I don't mind saying it. One was a 3/8 cent hike for "Capital Investments" (primarily a huge pot of money to be generated for ten years for "discretionary" spending/investment in local commerce, i.e. a research park, whatever that is--pretty vague), and the other a 5/8 cent hike for "City Operations" (maintenance and improvements on what we already got that we can't afford anymore--roads, sidewalks, parks, zoo, bike trails, half-burnt recreation centers).

The voting groups in this election were pretty telling. The votes split primarily along socio-economic lines and neighborhood lines--but not necessarily along party lines. Still, once again though, we were split almost dead-down-the-middle. We're polarized again, even when we don't split on political ideology.

There was a significant African-American turnout that was divided. I heard they broke down along local/personal political lines. It's a bad time to ask people who are struggling financially to take on more of the tax burden. But lots of the neighborhoods (sidewalks, streets, and services) that will be spruced up are in poorer, largely African-American neighborhoods.

Many of the residents of the older neighborhoods in Little Rock voted against the 3/8 cent increase largely because some of the money is headed out to west county for two new fire stations. We didn't ask anyone to clearcut the Ouachitas and build McMansions and new strip malls. They can obviously afford their own "green" fire stations. After all, Obama is paying 10 million of the 10.8 million that they need if I understand correctly.

Some wanted their shiny fire engines, but didn't want to pay for cruddy, inner-city sidewalks.

And yet another group simply believed that the city needs more money, and in the grand scheme of things, we're talking about an extra dime on a hundred dollar purchase. These guys won, and they're probably right. I just wish it had been handled better by the political big-dawgs in the city--on all sides. We were divided before, and this hasn't helped any. We will need to keep a Q-beam spotlight on that big ball of money that's being generated for the next decade. Forgive me if I'm cynical. I just fear that money's gonna be doled out to the same 4 or 5 guys that always get the big money in Arkansas.

I watch students at school every day--rich and poor--drop dimes in the hallway and not even bother to stop and pick them up. I may start collecting them in a mason jar and see how long it takes to fill up.

Get ready for school board elections next week. I suspect some more of the same. Wonder if we'll ever get together and agree on what's best. If we can't get together on what's good for Little Rock, how are we going to do it as a nation?! I want to see an election where the turnout is impressive and the winner gets 75% or 85% of the votes. This 50-50 stuff is just more bad news.

A Window Into My Classroom

The following blog is the most recent post from my English Lit class blog, Senior English. I thought some of my readers at Dirt Bombs might enjoy it. There's a link to my class blog on the sidebar if you're interested in reading more. Have a nice day.

That's Wyrd

I did a little research on the Old English, Anglo-Saxon concept of the wyrd. Simply put, it is most easily defined as a notion of "personal destiny" or fate. The word wyrd derives specifically from an old Germanic word and has cognates in ancient languages spanning from regions all across Europe, Central Asia, and all the way to northern India that date back to the Copper Age in the 5th and 4th millennia BC (5000-4000 BC). So this notion of a personal destiny runs deep in the blood and spirit of humanity.

What fascinates me the most, in the context of this course, is the collision between Christianity and personal fate on the British Isles during the Roman Empire. In the literature that you are reading right now, you can see how the monks embraced the notion of fate. After all, they would already have had both unconscious/subconscious and intellectual/academic exposure to the notion. But from what I can tell in my own reading, they saw it as the best avenue into the spiritual concerns of the "natives" of the lands that they conquered. As I said in class, in a world where it was highly likely on any given day that a child could die of sudden illness or a warrior could die in hand to hand combat, this notion of fate was just a matter of fact. Weather very directly affected survivability on a month to month basis. There were constant local battles for resources and security. Nothing was a given. Everything was hard. So if it was your time, it was your time. I don't mean to suggest that people only associate fate with death. It's just one of the most prominent associations that people make.

It seems that when the Roman Empire monks, who came from a much more "civilized" and secure place, picked up on the Anglo-Saxon locals' aforementioned spiritual, practical (and understandable) reliance on the concept of wyrd"ness" they ran with it, and the rest is history. Since then, as far as I can tell from both historical research and personal observation, the concepts of "personal destiny" and the God of Christianity have melted together more and more--to the point that we can observe it in popular American culture ranging from soap operas to politics (and yes that was a clever joke and yes it is sad). As I mentioned in class, I have a hard time accepting that some things are just meant to be--especially when they come from "religious" angles. Was 9/11 unavoidable? Was it predestined by God? That's not for me to answer for you, but I don't mind admitting that I have a hard time accepting it. Did God "kill" my mom with breast cancer when she was in her 40's? Was that divine fate? Maybe so. But I'd rather think of the fate end of it in more modern, scientific terms. She had genes that were more prone to cancer than other, healthier women. Yeah, God may have created those genes. Once again, it's not for me to say in this setting. But I don't mind saying that I don't think God gave her those genes In The Beginning. It just happened. My mom fought a valiant battle against a deadly disease, she contributed to research that has helped many women since survive breast cancer, but in the end, she "ran into a sword." If she'd have lived 5 years longer, they probably would have saved her. It was just wyrd, man. Those firefighters that heroically ran into those buildings trying to save lives and died--that was their personal destiny, and we will always venerate them for it. That's all I know to say.

I hope you will think about these types of things all year long on a deeper level than you have in the past. It's never my intention to "change" your belief system. But I do want you to question it so that it will grow stronger and more sound. This is why we read literature.

See you in class.

Labor Day Dream Sequence

My boss is making me dig a hole wide enough and long enough and deep enough to place a corpse.

Then using my wicked, lucid dreaming, super powers, I switched it to:

My buddy is helping me dig a pit wide enough and long enough and deep enough to cook a whole hog.

Controversy Abounds!

Prompt:

Zygotes have the unequivocal, inherent right to mature into living, human beings--regardless of the circumstances, and impoverished American mothers should be required to have their tubes tied after they give birth to two babies.

Please, discuss.