We saw Barack Obama speak at Auditorium Shores! Along with about fifteen thousand other people, and all our students. There was a lot of the usual standing around listening to musicians (with that general desperation that starts to show up in performers when nobody's paying any attention to them at all). One of the groups was livid about Katrina ( Read more... )

I'd like to remind everybody to read some James Thurber as soon as you can. I recommend the essays over the stories by far. Actually, screw the stories: find an essay, and read it. You will be happier because of it.

Consider, for example, this flawless paragraph, from "My Own Ten Rules for a Happy Marriage," circa 1957:

Two persons living in holy ( Read more... )

I've got this Norton Anthology of Poetry that I keep around the house, and these days I've taken to picking it up when I've got nothing to do or, better, when I'm avoiding what I have to do (like make lesson plans for Spanish, oh GOD), and just reading randomly. ( Read more... )

So here I am, innocently reading a really fabulous Viking Critical Edition of "The Quiet American" and ploughing through some fairly standard, unobjectionable criticism of the book, dealing with themes of truth, religion, salvation, betrayal. Good stuff. Feeling pretty happy ( Read more... )

I have come to the conclusion that Arundhati Roy is demi-sentient.
Thank you.

I have trouble getting over the fact that shrimp are basically huge insects. We live in a peculiar culture: our (collective) skin crawls at the merest mention of eating roasted grubs, for example, or fried crickets in chile powder (viz. Oaxaca), but then we'll stand over the sink peeling shrimp for hours and eating them boiled and cold... I mean, ( Read more... )

I got this off a BBC "Viewpoints" section on whether or not the left-leaning gov'ts of Latin America are a threat to US hegemony. They interviewed Noam Chomsky (obviously speaking for the Left) and Otto Reich, currently adviser to President Bush ( Read more... )

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! MY HOUSE SOLD MY HOUSE SOLD MY HOUSE SOLD!!!!!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

!!!!!!!

EE!

eeee!

Okay, all that rage? That sputtering and fury? Take that same intensity of emotion and turn it into joy and relief.

Okay, so this is a picky little point, but holy hell, why does everybody feel the need to title their blog "Ramblings from..." or "The musings of..." or "My disjointed thoughts" or whatever? It's self-deprecating, and all, and cute, I guess, but for some reason it just irritates the hell out of me. Perhaps it is the English teacher in me: the words ( Read more... )

Whispers are starting up about Al Gore maybe making a comeback in 2008 as a presidential candidate ( Read more... )