Endings and Beginnings

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Every year at this time is bittersweet. It’s graduation season, and as college instructors, we work to see our students graduate, leave us, and move on to bigger and better things.  We enjoy seeing that new world opening up for them, but I, at least, am also always a bit sad to see those bright shiny faces leave us.

In part, some of that sadness simply comes from the inevitable fact that I will lose contact with students with whom I have developed a bond. Granted with the internet, I can keep in touch with many of them, and I do, but the bond changes as well. Of course, that is not a bad thing, but it’s still a bit sad. I can only imagine how it feels for parents who are watching their children end one phase of life to begin another, but I would guess most instructors have an inkling of that feeling.

We had one of our graduation ceremonies last night, and it was full of such endings and beginnings. However, we had two students for whom their would be no earthly beginnings.  We handed out two posthumous degrees. I mention this because it made the bittersweetness of such a time even more so. I had the pleasure and privilege of teaching both of these remarkable women. Hearing their names made me weepy, but then, again, I was already prone to being weepy by the nature of the occasion.  Naming these two women was appropriate–both would have been honor graduates. For me, it made the evening more poignant as it made clear just how starkly the endings and beginnings can be.

But, it was not a sad occasion, and graduations should be bittersweet. They are a time of transition for all involved, as they should be. Ultimately, graduations mark change and growth and life, and that is what it’s all about. So congratulations to all of our graduates, and to all who are graduating at this time of year. May your next steps on the journey take you to many wonderful places.

Weekend

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No time to blog yesterday since we hit the Rock. I got a haircut which isn’t much of a haircut. I was disappointed and ended up buying the first three Cat Who books for my Nook.  I did however score bacon and a t-bone steak at Waffle House.

Today is the last day before work starts, and I guess I eventually have to do something with the stupid World Lit 2 class. Hmm, you know I eventually should buy Night and The Kite Runner shouldn’t I? Despite having absolutely no desire to read them or teach them–It’s sad, I don’t want this class to make at all :( This stupid Diversity grant has killed my desire to teach it. Oh well, I shall choose things I like for everything else. And come Fall, I’m backing out because I’m so disillusioned with both the grant and my colleagues.

 

Friday

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Not much going on today. Laundry and book club. My two critical studies on fairy tales arrived, so I shall be reading those. I hope to pick up the first 4 The Cat Who books, and then it’s back to work :(

More later

Fairy Tales

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So Comp 2 is a weird class. It’s a writing class with literature as its focus, but I’ve never really found a thread to pull it all together. Our text is eclectic to the extreme–if you like only dead and “literary” writers. I’ve grown bored with our book, so I am always looking for ways to make it interesting to me, if not my students. I’ve been doing genre fiction, but this spring I’ve decided to focus the whole semester on Grimm’s fairy tales. Afterall it’s 200 years since they were published.

I’ve been looking at scholarship on fairy tales, and there’s a ton of it. Some of it looks fun! I think this might be a good way to open my students up to both critical thinking and to academic scholarship. I’m also looking at the various ways fairy tales have been updated.

I haven’t finished picking out the fairy tales I want them to read. There will have to be some of the classics: Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and so forth. I’m also looking at some of the other ones that most people aren’t familiar with like The Boy Who Traveled to Learn How to Shiver, The Handless Maiden, Allerleirauh, and more. I think this is the most fun I’ve had prepping for a class in ages.

I know I want my students to write a parody of a fairytale, and they will have to write a short paper defining the difference between myth, legend, and fairy tale. I’ll also have them analyze and interpret some fairy tales using some of the scholarship. They’ll also have to pick a fairy tale and do a presentation on it–not sure what I want in that yet.

No matter, I think I will have fun–even if they don’t :-)

Review: Dearie: The Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz

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2848862298_Julia Child 2I am a huge fan of Julia Child. I grew up watching her food shows on PBS. I have the two volumes of The French Chef, and I loved watching them as I treadmilled.  I’ve also read Noel Riley Fitch’s biography of Julia Child called Appetite for Life. I’ve also read Child’s memoir My Life in France. I’ve read the volume of letters between Child and Avis DeVoto, and Jeanne Connant’s A Covert Affair: Julia Child and Paul Child in the OSS, so it is not much of a surprise that I grabbed Dearie Bob Spitz’s biography of Julia Child when I saw it. I didn’t get to read it until Christmas break, and since it is such a long book (576 pages), it took the whole break.

It is, however, a fun read and was very enjoyable. Fitch’s earlier biography Appetite for Life was a great book, but it was more of an academic biography and read as such; Spitz’s book is not academic, and it has a gossipy, chatty tone. The tone feels much like the tone Child would have wanted.

dearie julia Spitz starts with family history, and we learn that Julia McWilliams came from strong explorer stock with a good business sense on her paternal side, and a wild, free spirited streak from her maternal side. The two made for a formidable woman. Spitz does spend a bit too much time on her grandfather and father, but the context of their somewhat dictatorial presences does help to explain Julia Child’s strong stubborn streak and some her contradictory ways.

We learn about Child’s early childhood (she was a hellion), and we go through school with her (not an academic and not very challenged by her schools). We see young Julia try to find her path in New York and Pasadena, and we watch her flounder purposeless. We also go with Julia into the OSS. The romance with Paul Child is shown, and we do learn more about Child and his past.

The book finally gets to Julia Child the cook about halfway through, and it is here that the book sings. We see Julia Child becoming the figure we are most familiar with, and we see the contributions and the collaborations she had with the two most important figures of her life: Paul Child and Simca Beck. The books follows through the writing of Mastering the Art of French Cooking all the way to Child’s last books. Spitz depicts Julia Child as a very ambitious, engaging, gossipy, pig-headed woman who was dedicated to her crafts of cooking and teaching and entertaining. Also, Spitz shows Julia Child’s very pragmatic side, and she was very pragmatic in both business and in her personal life. Her handling of Paul Child’s decline, and even her own both illustrate her pragmatism.

While much of the  material has been covered in other books about Child, Spitz’s very engaging tone and clear admiration for the complicated person that was Julia Child comes through. His style does sometimes veer into the gossip-sheet sort, but it fits the personality he’s depicting.

Finally, Dearie is a fun read, even if in spots it drags a tiny bit and gossips a bit much. It fills  out our knowledge of Julia Child, and it certainly does not diminish her reputation, but adds to her complexity.

Hello 2013

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Okay, so it’s a new year, and I am still a terrible blogger.  That means I need to make a resolution to  write and blog more. I hope to do so. I hope to at least add a paragraph a day to this silly blog–even if it is a paragraph of nothing. Afterall, if Jerry Seinfeld can have a sitcom run for about 10 years about nothing, then I can certainly blather about nothing for a paragraph a day–right?

So why don’t I blog? One reason is I’m sort of lazy, and I fear I am boring. These are lousy reasons for not doing something I like to do, but those reasons are there. Another reason is that I let myself get so caught up in what is going on that it wears me out, and I don’t feel like doing anything. Apathy, again, is a crappy reason to not do something.

So for 2013 I resolve to write here in this blog about something every day. Since my other resolution is to try and get my diabetes under better control through exercise, I can certainly post my exercise stats if nothing else.

I can always post about cats or teaching or food or beading or books or music or…there’s so much I do think about and do that I really don’t have an excuse for not blogging. Really, I don’t, so I say 2013 is the year I write more here, and then who knows where that will take me.

 

The Superions: Destination Christmas

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I will fully admit to being a bit warped and having an oddball sense of humor.  I’ll also admit that Christmas can be a bit dark and absurd. For these reasons, I adore The Superions’ Destination Christmas.

The Superions is the side project of Fred Schneider of the B-52s and a couple of his friends.  They create devilishly funny dance music. Destination Christmas is devilishly funny Christmas music that you can dance to! And laugh your rear end off to.

 The cd has 11 tracks. The first is “Santa’s Disco” which is a major ear worm. Trust me, it will stick in your head. The song presents Santa’s workshop as a disco that parties so hard that Christmas is forgotten. I can’t help but laugh when I hear this song, and the chorus stays stuck in my head for days! Here, give it a listen. The second song is another ear worm, and a tribute to that most abused Christmas delight, fruitcake. Again this song just sends me into giggles–with lines like “It’s heavy as lead/ If it hits you in the head/ it will kill you dead.” The video added to the song; well it adds belly laughs to my day. I love the added touch of the hazmat suits. “Chilling at Christmas” describes a romantic Christmas gone astray when an avalanche takes out the apartment building of the song’s narrator. Then my absolutely favorite song of the cd “Teddy and Betty Yeti” is wonderfully macabre and silly. The story of two drunken and pissed off yeti who never get presents and their riotous and deadly visit to Santa’s workshop. I don’t think any song makes me laugh so hard.  But then it fits right in with my love for Christopher Moore’s The Stupidest Angel.

The next tracks are “Christmas Conga (Jungle Bells)” and “Jingle Those Bells”; both undermine the traditional idea of jingling sleigh bells. “Under the Tree” is a really creepy sort of seduction song of romance under the Christmas tree that ends with a cell phone call–everything is ruined by cell phones. “Crummy Christmas Tree” seems like a song sung by the Christmas tree that Charlie Brown finds, and this time the tree has not got a happy ending! “Laughter at Christmas” and “Christmas Tears” remind us (in a very funny way) of all the things that go wrong on Christmas. We’re also rather sardonically reminded of the family nature of Christmas for good or for nil. And “Santa J’Taime” is one really odd song that ends the cd. After watching the video, you’ll be fully aware of how warped The Superions are, but it’s a wonderful type of warp.

So I love The Superions Destination Christmas. I love it so much that I lost it because I drag it everywhere. Sometimes we all get caught up in the hustle, bustle, the stress, and the “trying to be good” of Christmas, this cd cuts right through that to the lovely bizarreness of our human get togethers and our human natures, and well it makes you laugh–well, okay it makes me laugh. And laughter is always a good thing at Christmas in my book!

Fats Domino’s Christmas Gumbo

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I may live in Arkansas after a 10 year stint in Oklahoma, but I was born and spent the first 27 years of my life in the New Orleans area. Like most people from New Orleans, you can take the girl out of the city, but you can’t take the city out of the girl. This leads me to the second of my Christmas CD commentaries, Fats Domino’s Christmas Gumbo.

Fats Domino is, of course, a New Orleans legend, but I stumbled across this Christmas cd by accident–my husband found it for me.  The cd has a nice New Orleans sound that cures my homesickness and always cheers me up. It’s an upbeat cd for the most part, and it has many of the popular Christmas classics. It’s Fats Domino’s own inimitable style though that gives the album its charm.

It has 12 tracks on it, and the first two are pure Fats (he wrote them). They are also the songs I like the most. The first is called “I Told Santa Claus,” and it’s a sweet little New Orleans jazzy song with a sense of humor. The second is “Christmas is a Special Day,” and it manages to catch the religious sentiment of the season and the whole point of the season without being too maudlin. This is followed by Fats singing the classic “Jingle Bells” and “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” I usually dislike “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” because of its cloying sentiments, and in other hands, it seems such a downer of a song to my ear. However, Fats has a bluesy style that comes across as upbeat, and the horn section just keeps the song more cheerful than melancholy, as does Fats’s performance. This is followed by “Silver Bells,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Blue Christmas,” “Silent Night,” and “White Christmas.”  All of these have a jazzy New Orleans flair which lift them out of the usual. They are simply fun to my ears. The last two tracks are “Please Come Home for Christmas” and “Amazing Grace.” Both songs are clearly sung with great heart by Fats, and “Amazing Grace” is just lovely.

Fats Domino is of course a class act, and so is this cd. My love for it comes from the fact that its jazzy sound soothes my homesickness. These are the Christmas songs I turn to most when I need a dose of New Orleans. It’s a shame this cd isn’t really well known; it should be.

Tomorrow’s cd: The Superions’ Destination Christmas. 

It’s THAT time of year.

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So yesterday was Thanksgiving, and everything worked out well. Much food was eaten, and some laziness achieved. A good day.  I’m also very thankful to have spent the day with my family, and to have talked to my mom on the phone. I’m very thankful for all the good things in my family. And one more thing to be thankful for–it’s Christmas music time!

I love Christmas music, so to celebrate that love and the season, I have decided to review Christmas music (old and new) for the season. Hopefully, a Christmas record a day. I’m going to start with a classic today.

One of my favorite Christmas cds is Bing Crosby’s White Christmas (originally released as Merry Christmas). I grew up with this one on vinyl. In my mind and heart, it is the soundtrack of Christmas.  From the opening strains of “Silent Night” to the silliness of “Mele Kalikimaka,” this whole cd just screams Christmas. It’s a classic for a reason :-) .

This cd has all of the classic carols, and they are sung by Bing in his prime. My favorite tracks on the cd are “Adeste Fideles” (“O, Come All Ye Faithful”) which fits Bing’s voice nicely. The classic “White Christmas” takes me back to the few white Christmases I’ve had in my life (New Orleans never got a lot of snow, and Arkansas gets some). “Silver Bells” is one my favorite carols, and Bing sings it with Carole Richards and their voice combine so sweetly. I also like the less known “Christmas in Killarney.” Bing’s tribute to Ireland amuses me, and of course, who can not smile at “Mele Kalikimaka” sung so cheeerily by Bing and the Andrews Sisters.

I don’t have the musical vocabulary to explain why I like this cd so much, and it’s probably not about the musicality anyway, but rather the traditions that go with the cd.  Nostalgia certainly plays a huge role in why I love this cd, but it’s also a good cd with good songs. Afterall it’s been in print in some form or about since 1945 :-) .

Tomorrow, Fats Domino’s Christmas Gumbo.