what happened to sunday ... after church i sat and continued reading ap essays well into the late afternoon ... then i fell asleep and dreamed i was james brown ... probably had somerthing to do with what was in my ears ... i looked out the window at the beautiful day filled with bicycles passing by ... school lawn was a gathering spot for the lake county bike tour ... went out for food with dom ... watched the end of six feet under ... pretty good i thought ... and just now re-re-read nabokov's piece on good readers and good writers ...

pondered the complications of tomorrow when seniors are out to a class meeting for period B ... then two classes ... then sophs are out period G ...then one class ... effectively jacking classwork out of sync for the rest of the week or a few days ... grrrr ... but ... i will survive ... there's still as much to love about this week as any ...

yeah ... bracing for the upcoming dylan carousal ... two "new" albums on the 30th ... scorsese's film in late september ... he'll probably be all over the papers ... get used to it ... in preparation i've begun a bedtime reading of david hajdu's really good positively 4th street: the lives and times of joan baez, bob dylan, mimi baez & richard farina ... not the least intriguing of whom is richard farina ... (also interesting to read this with paul elie's the life you save may be your own ... you get a real thick slice of mid-century americacult)

The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack

Live at The Gaslight 1962 ... coming 30 august to a *bucks near you

been grotesquely negligent of my correspondence ... i owe you a reply ... and you will get one ... eventually ... just don't know what to say (to any of you) yet ... in the midst of this storm which is the start of a new school year ...

and it was our first school mass ... the one with the freshhmen in folding chairs on the main floor ... seats of honor ... and somewhere between the first reading and the homily my eyeglasses exploded ... a lens flew down onto the bleachers ... a tiny screw vaporized ... the whole world goes fuzzy ... i left right after communion to do what i could before the next class ... found a paper clip and reassembled the glasses ... right now i'm thinking i need some pliers to clip off these slightly too long pointy ends ... got a eye doc appointment for next wednesday ... can probably make it ... but am reminded how thoroughly useless i am without this little things

question for sophs ... who is the oldest person you have known?

day two ... and we're in a silent room ... they're writing their first in-class essay on the summer reading ... question: Write an essay about Louise Erdrich's novel in which you "make a good case for distortion," as distinct from literary realism. Analyze how important elements of the work are "distorted" and explain how these distortions contribute to the effectivenes of the work. Avoid plot summary.

and so it begins

the rain held off for the morning walk ... and then came pouring out its heart about noon during my open periods on this first full day of school with students and everything ... my throat hurts as it should but my feet are not too bad ... and my head is not spinning ... i've got tomorrow covered i think except for the last two periods but that's what quiet evenings in the study are for ...

Questions and Answers on the Network of Spiritual Progressives - Tikkun ...
Our central demand is this: We want a society that promotes rather than undermines love and generosity, kindness and caring, peace and nonviolence, recognition of the spirit of God in each other human being, joy and pleasure in life, humility and social responsibility, recognition of the Unity of All Being, recognition of our interdependence with all other people on the planet and with the wellbeing of the planet itself, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of creation.

When the Oil Pan's Empty . . . Bye-bye Conspicuous Consumption ... quite a rant

Nakell, Narrativity Issue 3 ...thanks, suzanne

tomorrow's the first day of school ... with students ... all the other stuff falls away

Gotcha! - The pleasures of literary hoaxing

what does it mean that this week i'm posting only one a day at finish your phrase ... and a not very enlightened one each day at that ... it means i've hit a wall called starting the school year ... and maybe another wall without a name ... we'll see

first day back & ok ... but chafed in meetings by ... a kind of talk that's probably unavoidable ... in combination with a fairly stark stripping of my classroom ... of a few pieces of nicely liked old furniture ... now gone ... just student desks teacher desk & red chair computer cart file cabinets empty bookshelves (three unaccountably new and taller with no more actual shelf space ... one old) the usual posters still up ... it needs a huge old rug of many colors to cover the cold white floor ... grumpy ... for at least twenty small reasons i know ... and a few that seem to lurk just off ...