Worth Reading

Up at Jane's, I finished Wicked and left if for Jane and Kelsie (who promptly photographed the book and posted it to facebook!). The story's definitely imaginative and delightful, although the ending is weak and anticlimactic.

On Jane's deck, I also began (again) Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. I'll keep working through that as I continue my book-a-week (at least) project.

Because it doesn't seem as though I can read one book at a time, I'm also taking bites out of another antique book I found, probably with Lisa last year: Catholicism and the American Mind was published in 1928. Interestingly, what I've read so far (that we Americans should accept those mysterious Catholics in our midst) could be applied to Muslims today.

Short and Sweet

I know that I said I wanted plot, but instead I read through a slender 1940s volume called And the Greeks. Its subtitle is A Book of Hellenic Recipes and Culinary Lore Collected, Edited and Arranged by Allan Ross MacDougall, author of The Gourmet's Almanac.


MacDougall was a friend of Edna St. Vincent Millay (her biographer and letters editor), Isadora Duncan (her manager, correspondent, and biographer), Kay Boyle (correspondent), Djuna Barnes (correspondent), William Carlos Williams: lots of the folks I studied for my MA thesis. It seems as though he was an activist for women's suffrage in England: he must be the student mentioned here in a 1912 news article.


Here's a blurb about MacDougall from the New York Public Library's dance collection:


Allan Ross Macdougall, an American writer born in 1893 [and died in 1956--took me a while to find that date!], lived and worked in Paris in the 1920's His subjects were wide in range, from the performing arts to the decorative arts for the periodical Arts and Decoration, and sometimes perfume and make-up for the magazines Charm and Beauty. A member of Isadora Duncan's circle, he wrote an essay entitled “Isadora: an essay in the biography of an American dancer” which was eventually published in 1960 as Isadora; a revolutionary in art and love. With Irma Duncan, he co-wrote a partial biography of Isadora Duncan entitled Isadora Duncan's life in Soviet Russia and her last years, published in 1929.

Reading

On Monday, I finished T.C. Boyle's When the Killing's Done: don't think I'll read another by him. The story was fairly interesting for the first half, but it ended like a bad murder-mystery with an escaped rattlesnake (one of ten that had been in burlap bags on a boat that got crashed by a giant ship) peeking at humans celebrating their eradication of wild pigs from a California island. Yeah, irony.

Boyle's prose is excessively detailed, calling attention to his ability to notice details, like exactly how many ounces of vodka in drunken mother's glass. And most of his characters were women, imperfectly realized, who vacillated between the female stereotype (worried about make-up and hair) and the male stereotype (competitive to a fault).

Next, I began a series of short stories that Ricardo left for me (at least I think that's where I got the book): Say You're One of Them is set in awful Africa, and I couldn't stand the first story about a 12-year-old prostitute supporting her family, told from her little eight-year-old brother's point-of-view. I also tried the last story, again a child protagonist, who witnesses her Tutsi mother's murder by her Hutu father. The brutality is supposed to be humanized by the child protagonists, but for me the stories just reinforce the *lack* of humanity that people attribute to Africans. I think it supports racism, and I don't know why Oprah picked it for one of her book club offerings.

So after that, I began again the Mark Doty memoir Firebird. I've tried it before--I love his poetry--but again, the narrative point-of-view bothers me: the excessive detail that doesn't add up to anything but an awareness of the narrator's powers of cataloging observation. But I dipped around in it, reading beginnings and middles of chapters, finishing the ending because I wasn't sure I'd be able to read the chapters chronologically.

I've gotta find a novel, I guess, that'll pull me along. Faulkner awaits, as does Sinclair's The Jungle. I know Toni Morrison has a new novel, Home, and I don't think I've read her last one, A Mercy, on sabbatical when I was reading all of Morrison. So I guess I'll get started on one of them or go to the library.

It's summertime!

Book A Week

Since my "summer vacation" started this week, I figure I should have some kind of project. I decided to read at least a book a week: easy! This week, I've read Lives of the Monster Dogs, a Half-Price Books purchase I made last December because I thought Lisa might like it. I finished it at her house on Thursday.

Today, I picked up a book that a Metro State student left me last year! I'd forgotten that a student, a woman I think, proposed that we read T.C. Boyle in American lit. S/he left me the book When the Killing's Done: not a title I'd usually pick up. One of the reasons I'm not interested in the whole Hunger Games phenomenon: to me, children killing children is not entertainment.

So the books are going to be those that are around me that I should have read all the way through (The Jungle, A Sand County Almanac) and those I've bought or been given and haven't yet read (they're all over my house).

Stay tuned: I'll post finished titles to the right.

Grades posted

Officially, I'm off contract. I should really clean out my office, and hope to do so sometime next week, but I have no more grading to do, no more student writing to read: yay.

Another student email

Community college students have such complicated lives. Here's one story. 


"Sarah" was in my Engl 90 class, a developmental level writing class designed to get students ready for Comp 1. "Sarah" was doing pretty well; she often stayed to herself in class, tucked up at a corner computer near my desk, checking her phone for text messages all the time, writing pretty thoughtful prose.


I wrote an email to her (see the bottom), and she responded today:

Hello Ms. Daniels,

I apologize that it took me so long to respond back to this email. I have been extremely busy lately trying to get myself together. I meant to get in contact with you to tell you my situation but I guess now will be the perfect time. I had to withdraw from all of my classes due to the high level of stress I was dealing with. Not only that but I am far out in [suburb] at a battered womens shelter. After being done with being a victim of domestic violence I had to escape as soon as possible. Although ever since I withdrew from all of my courses I have regretted it so much because I really did want to finish the semester off the right way. But don't think I won't go back to college it's just going to be put on the back burner right now. I still have my dreams of earning my degree in medical field. Well I appreciate the concern and thought I tell you where I'm at in my life right now. I enjoyed taking your course ans you're a wonderful instructor to be around. Also one last thing I was wondering if you would be a reference for The Salvation Army [Housing] Program? I am hoping and praying I get accepted into this program so I can get my life back on track. 

Sincerely, 

"Sarah Student" 

________________________________________
From: julie.daniels@century.edu [julie.daniels@century.edu]
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 3:56 PM
To: "Sarah Student"
Subject: Engl 90

Dear "Sarah",

I just noticed that you dropped our course! Why? I hope everything is okay because you were on track to pass the class.

Please let me know how you are.

Sincerely,
Julie

Memorized?

In tonight's Shakespeare class, I've asked my students to do recitations (thanks, Ray!). They must memorize and recite at least 14 lines of Shakespeare: a sonnet, a soliloquy, a speech. Many of the students are terrified! But I've bought gifts for the top two recitations (the class won't "vote," but they'll give input). The prizes are a book and a Shakespeare figure (given to me in Seattle last summer by Josh--it'll have a good life with a student).

So many students have complained about this assignment--it's too hard! So I decided to do the same, since I'm terrible at memorization. I've picked sonnet, number 29, and I've been working on it for a week. Let me see how much I can remember:


When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising
Hap'ly I think of you and then my state
Like to a lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven's gate.
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That I would scorn to change my place with kings.

Okay--I'm going to copy the *correct* version below: I was pretty close!

"When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state 
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate, 
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, 
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, 
With what I most enjoy contented least; 
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, 
Like to the lark at break of day arising 
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

End-of-Semester Letter

Here's an email I just received: he sent it last night after our last class meeting. He's sent many over the semester, mainly pleading for a different grade. We'll see what he wrote for his final essay . . . !

Hi professor Daniels.  I just want to thank you for the interesting experiences in the course.  I did learn a lot from all the authors.  While I rewrite the totally new essay 2, I remember that you told the class "in all  your years of teaching, only one student got a lower grade when rewriting the essay."  I could possibly be the 2nd person in your career.  I will accept any score that you give.  I truly wish you will have a wonderful Summer.  Take care

Terry

He's right that I have only had one experience where the student earned a lower grade after revising: he could be the second since he didn't take my advice about revising; instead, he wrote a whole new essay. Usually when students do that, they end up with about the same grade because they make the same errors on the new essay.

*Sigh*.