Demonstrating Good Teaching: Syllabus

Sullivan on that movie:

I repeat that there is something deeply disturbed about this film. Its extreme and un-Biblical fascination with human torture reflects, to my mind, not devotion to the message of the Cross but a kind of psycho-sexual obsession with extreme violence that Gibson has indulged in many of his other movies and is now trying to insinuate into Christianity itself. The film could have shown suffering and cruelty much differently. It could have led us into the profound psychological pain that Jesus and his mother and disciples must have endured by giving us some human context to empathize with them; it could have prompted the viewer to use his or her own imagination to fill in the gaps of terror, as all great art does; it could have done much more by showing us much less. But the extremity is Gibson's obvious point. I can understand why traditionalist Catholics might be grateful that there is some Hollywood representation of their faith. But they shouldn't let their gratitude blind them to the psychotic vision of this disturbed director - and the deeper, creepier, heterodox theology that he is trying to espouse.

the trib finally reviews silesky's gardner bio... Chicago Tribune: Fascinating biography of a literary bad boy

Though it's not required, artistic success and personal chaos often go hand in hand. And while it isn't fair to say that a writer might have accomplished more if only he had calmed down a bit, one feels equally uncomfortable saying that, having accomplished so much, these fellows were entitled to their share of fun, especially when they didn't really seem to be enjoying themselves all that much. It's precisely because John Gardner was a world-class roisterer that the rest of us have to work that much harder not to remember him only in that way.

just discovered this... Pedablogue... and this timely (for me) reflection... Teaching Rereading

At the same time, we also need to teach students the value of rereading a work. But I find this notion -- rereading -- extremely difficult to 'sell' today's harried and stressed-out students. I beg them to reread pieces, especially if we're going to discuss the same text for more than one period. But so few of them do. The root of this problem lies in consumer culture, of course, which trains us to swallow texts like chocolate bars, bank them in our brains, and move right along. Clearly, the arts don't work that way and literature is not a commodity the way that a Hershey bar is. A student might be able to absorb primary details or even pick up common interpretations of a piece (from something like Sparks Notes) but she'll never truly be reading for meaning if she isn't rereading. The first time we read we react, as though to stimulae. It's the second time through where we are at greater liberty to contemplate, to analyze, to interpret -- in ways that are less under the guidence of the author and more under the guile of the reader.

definitely in sync with this piece from erin... way to go, kiddo

lyric by j.d. gilmore... of the flatlanders...

Well you may wake up in the night
And wonder if you're dreaming
And referee the fight
Between the being and the seeming
And when the victor holds your hand up
To the great unknown
You've got to go back to sleep alone

i'm not sure whether having to explain myself is a good thing or... a deeply bad thing... i'm leaning toward the latter...

lately find myself strangely - or not so - in sync with much at Andrew Sullivan's place... you figger out what...

David Wojnarowicz by Felix Guattari

David Wojnarowicz's intention is explicitly ideological: his aim is to affect the world at large; he attempts to create imaginary weapons to resist established powers.

artist: David Wojnarowicz

but some facial elements are nearly exact... that must be it... mustn't it?

kyle's blondness is more platinum than erin's...

because i almost never call erin kyle... erin has longer hair than kyle...

i was explaining something about dover beach when i called kyle erin... why do i always call kyle erin? always...

this morning i'm thinking that Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding is a tremendous piece of work... and the cat concurs...

Judas pointed down the road
And said, "Eternity!"
"Eternity?" said Frankie Lee,
With a voice as cold as ice.
"That's right," said Judas Priest, "Eternity,
Though you might call it 'Paradise.'"

"I don't call it anything,"
Said Frankie Lee with a smile.
"All right," said Judas Priest,
"I'll see you after a while."

Johnny Cash Lyrics

Hello I'm Johnny Cash

I hear the train a comin' it's rollin' round the bend

And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when

I'm stuck in Folsom Prison and time keeps draggin' on

But that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone

When I was just a baby my mama told me son

Always be a good boy don't ever play with guns

But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

When I hear that whistle blowin' I hang my head and I cry

[ guitar ]

I bet there's rich folks eatin' in some fancy dining car

They're probably drinkin' coffee and smokin' big cigars

Well I know I had it comin' I know I can't be free

But those people keep a movin' and that's what tortures me

[ guitar ]

Well if they freed me from this prison if that railroad train was mine

I bet I'd move it on a little farther down the line

Far from Folsom Prison that's where I want to stay

And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away

happy birthday, Johnny Cash

found this on another blog... can't remember where... makes me want to read kerouac again... i wonder if he still matters... to me... but my reaction to this suggests he does... (o... it was at the ever-flowing whiskey river)

BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE
by Jack Kerouac

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

(found here)

downloaded this gorey tt font... like it a lot... am gonna use it when i get home... in honor of his birthday... come back to us, edward gorey...

Goreyography: The West Wing: The Works of Edward Gorey

some kind of fit... gorey's birthday... ash wednesday... just not sure what kind of fit... but i'm getting ready for both...

spend some time here...

consider this...

explore this...