Daily Thoughts 4/1/2009

Lecture sous la lampe (Reading under the lamp) by French painter Léon Pourtau (1872-1898)

Daily Thoughts 4/1/2009

Today was a pleasant day. I called a few more people about Earth Day. I have three groups ready to help with the library for Earth Day, The Friends of the Library, one of the neighborhood block associations, and the local Family YMCA. I contacted both churches about Earth Day that are close to us. It is a matter of persistence. Our local high school is doing a window display about alternative energy in the display cases at the front of the stairs.

I ordered a few literary criticism books this morning. In our literature section, Shakespeare is the most popular subject, and Othello is the most popular play by Shakespeare. The bard still rains supreme in literature and plays.

Two books came in for me to read, On The Road, The Original Scroll by Jack Kerouac. This book is rather interesting. It is how Jack Kerouac originally wrote On The Road. It was written on a single roll of paper without indentations or paragraphs. I have not started reading it, but it is very visually interesting.

The other books is The Human Side of Enterprise Annotated Edition by Douglas McGregor. This book is the basis of Theory Y style management or a participative, interdependent management style. The central idea is how to motivate people who are self directed and self motivated, or find the motivators to make people more self directed and self motivated. I find myself in this category of people.

Morning Poems, Blook

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Good morning, It is Valentine's day, February 14, 2008. I am going to try something new today. We are doing read a favorite poem today where I work. I think I may introduce the program with what is considered the most famous love poem of all time as well as Shakespeare's Sonnet 141:

How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day'sMost quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints.

I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

William Shakespeares Sonnet 141, In Faith I Do Not Love Thee With Mine Eyes

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,

For they in thee a thousand errors note;

But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,

Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;

Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,

Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,

Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited

To any sensual feast with thee alone:

But my five wits nor my five senses can

Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,

Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man,

Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:

Only my plague thus far I count my gain,

That she that makes me sin awards me pain.

I thought I would open the day with some classic poetry appropriate for Valentine's day. Don't forget your loved ones on this day. Both Shakespeare and Browning are thoroughly out of copyright. Anyways, I thought I would open with some poetry to start the day off.

I finished reading the Howard Zinsser On Writing Well book on the subway and took some notes on the content in blue ballpoint pen. When I get home, I will write a review on the book.

I pulled a truck of books to bring to the poetry program I am doing today to bring to the program today, a mix of poets; Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, Nikki Giovanni, Hart Crane, Alice Walker, Charles Bukowski, William Carlos Williams, Diane Wakoski, Sylvia Plath, Audre Lord, Rimbaud, Robert Frost, Theodore Roethke, Daniel Berrigan, Li Po, Ha Jin, Bei Dao and others.

I am going to the supermarket at lunch time to get some cake, mini-muffins, and juice. The room should be set up with a microphone downstairs. Going to the supermarket to get things for programs is always an interesting experience. This is the first time I am attempting to do a poetry style program at the library.

Not a huge amount of people came, eight people, and a few people came in and out to look at the room as well for other events. There were a few people who promised to stop in, but never came. A few people took flyers for other programs.

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Anyways, I was just thinking about something I saw about blogging. My blog would officially be called a blook-- or a book blog. It is one of those supremely silly terms which technologists come up with. It ranks with the idea of web 2.0. It is a rather entertaining term. It might be a new way to combine words in language. For example there are splogs-- spam blogs. Maybe someone will create a blook splog for peoples enjoyment. It would be on how to make money auctioning blogs over the internet.

Perception And Format In Media

The Globe Theatre

One of the things I notice a lot is that people are being assigned to read plays in high school and college. Shakespeare is one of the most assigned authors. The thing which bothers me about this is that in the class room Shakespeare is read not shown. I enjoy watching Shakespeare far more than I enjoy reading his work. In fact, there is very little effort to get people to critique the live play in the classroom setting. In effect the experience is being changed from its original intention. The context changes. Individual words on the written page are analyzed for their meaning.

Many students come in confused about Shakespeare because they have no way to place the words with the actions. They set aside the script of the book unable to understand and ask for the movie. The problem with this is which movie. Are they going to take the Laurence Olivier stage dramatization, or are they going to take the action film Romeo Must Die with Jet Li in it. This actually happens. Quite often they take the wrong movie. Those who take the video get a context for what they are reading and can understand it far better. I think generally if a first person first sees a play, then reads it, there is a better context for understanding.

However, the Jet Li problem with Romeo Must Die is not a joke. Imagine a person in high school or college in the future coming into the library and asking for the Neil Gaiman version of the dvd of Beowulf. It is not out yet, I am looking forward to the dvd. They come in and get a fantasy version of Beowulf then use it to write their class assignment. Angela Jolie as Grendel's wife is very different than original. Because, they don't want to be bothered they don't read Beowulf because it is "too hard" and they hand their assignment based on the movie. I can imagine the confusion on the teachers part. Beowulf is a lot harder than Shakespeare for many students to understand. The language is older.

Another thing which quite often happens is that people come in to get the unabridged audiobook of an assigned book like Catcher In The Rye. I think this may have an opposite effect on understanding. Although, they are not reading the book in question, they are hearing every world in the book being pronounced. If they have difficulty reading, they are still going to get the full experience of the book. In many cases, this leads to better ability to write about the book than reading the title.

I think this is one of the reasons why audiobooks are so popular. People have different learning styles. Some people understand more when they see the movie, other people understand more when they hear the story, and others need to look up close and hold the book. People learn differently.

Getting back to Shakespeare. I notice that very few people read Shakespeare's sonnets. They are meant to be read. I can understand people analyzing individual sonnets much more than analyzing a play.

The other thing which happens is that people read Blooms notes or Cliff notes. These are canned summaries of a book. They guarantee a canned answer which will give a student a passing grade. Many people just want to pass the class and only read the notes. These will most of the time guarantee a passing grade. How do you guarantee a person read the book with these kind of things? I don't think you can. These, however, are better than watching a movie about a book because they at least attempt at accuracy. Many people have lost that sense of value tied in with the concept of a "liberal education." Education in literature is supposed to expand your horizons...

Teachers are finally noticing the multiple formats in the classroom. Quite often people are being assigned to watch movies. Freedom Writers is a popular assignment. I haven't seen it, it is just an example. Maybe, they are asked to watch the Color Purple and comment on the film.

It is also becoming acceptable to use multiple formats for assigned topics. Many people don't even bother with reading books, they just go to the internet. This brings up the idea of authority. How do you know the information being presented to you is accurate. Let us take up the issue of Wikipedia, we say when people want to use Wikipedia, "We cannot guarantee the accuracy of this material." Apparently, Wikipedia is about as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. http://www.news.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html In away, this is both disturbing and hilarious.

Sometimes authority is more about control of access to information than accuracy. I think people are more disturbed about the loss of the authority of information than accuracy. However, with certain subjects like math, history, or science the wrong information can be presented. There is a real attraction by some students to use radical versions of history that more closely align with their ethnicity or background. These are readily available on the internet. Schools want the standard version so everyone can be on the same page. This must make it very hard for teachers on occassion.

Using multiple formats is often the best thing to do for many assigned topics. Let us take the example of Martin Luther King Jr. A college student is assigned to write about Martin Luther King Jr. Generally, watching video clips of him, listening to his speeches on audio, and reading about him at the same time will give a much better understanding than just reading alone. This is becoming expected because it gives a more comprehensive understanding of the subject.

I wish there were more forward looking teachers who both showed the video in the classroom of Shakespeare, the right one, and asked the student to read the book at the same time. Literacy in both the printed word and media literacy are becoming equally important. It is very easy to make bad decisions about media.