Sunday with Zin: The Books Artists Make

Sissy Buck: “Inextricably Woven”

Hello I am Zin and what could be better than books and art? Bookart!

These were not illustrations for books or books about art or books containing art but books as artists conceive them so they are not traditional books they are art pieces! This was an exhibition of the students from the Kate Cheney Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts at USM!

This was part of the Portland First Friday celebration for April and happened the same day as the Edible Book Art Festival! I could not find many pictures online so I had to rely mostly on my own pictures which are not great but they may give you an idea of what happens when artists create books and reading them becomes part of an artistic statement!

Some of my favorites were by Sissy Buck who did the piece in the header photo. She also made a piece from her series “Fitting Words:”

In this series, “Fitting Words”, I have used the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzles that I have done over the years (in varying degrees of completion) for my imagery. By enlarging the crosswords and printing them in layers of different colors using Xerox lithography, the abstracted images take on a different meaning and quality…another riddle or puzzle.

I love the NYT Sunday puzzles and no other puzzles will do! I photocopy them every week at the library so this was a convergence of all sorts of great things for me!

Artist Rush Brown also did a piece called “Susie Dancing” which I liked a lot it was like a cutout mural hung across the wall! He said he was the only man in the workshop at the time! I wonder why women are more interested in making books as art objects than men?

Many of the books took unusual form! Cynthia Ahlstrin made “Without Consent” which was an actual book turned into a shoe and because of the title hints at a very interesting story! In an “introduce yourself” video she talks about “getting away from rendering what you actually see and it becomes more of a conversation between the layers” and yes this piece did that! She also made a piece about a shoe and books that won an art show titled “Every Shoe Tells A Story” which is very clever!

Bonnie Faulkner is a glass artist but she played with book art and made “The Journey’s Angst” which was more of an accordion shape out of paper.

Libby Barrett (who has a fantastic website of wonderful book art where each piece is amazing) made “Summer Day” which is also like an accordion shape with haiku. Libby also made a wall hanging “30 Days” a wall book of postcards for a month!

I wish there was an album of professional pictures for all the pieces because many of them were wonderful! Elizabeth Berkana made a book out of playing cards and Tessa Jeffers made “Little Gold Dress Book” which was a dress made out of the folded pages of a book! Catie Hannigan made a weaving on one page with “I don’t think about you” on the other page! That was brilliant! Susan Colburn-Motta made a wonderful piece titled “Leaf Floating on Water” and she makes a lot of book art but I do not have a picture so you will have to take my word for it or keep an eye on the Center for Book Arts for their next exhibit or workshop!

My Secret Life as a Fourth Grader

Quite by accident, I found myself taking a Freshman Comp course.

How does one do that by accident? I noticed a tweet by one of the behind-the-scenes guys from my Calculus course, promoting his latest project: WexMOOC, the system attached to Coursera’s Writing II: Rhetorical Composing class. I didn’t realize it was the second half of Freshman Comp (I thought it was the actual study of rhetorical devices), but since I spent 15 weeks in Calculus whining “I’m a words person, not a numbers person,” I figured it was only fair I put up or shut up. I was also very curious about just how a computer would evaluate the writing of 25,000 students, and the only way to really find out was to take the course – to let it evaluate mine.

This generated a great deal of anxiety: what if I flunk? It’s one thing to risk a fail at calculus. Flunking writing is a whole different matter, ego-wise.

I do lots of things that aren’t acceptable in Freshman Comp. For instance, I digress, which is capital-b Bad unless you’re David Foster Wallace. But it’s how I think; it’s what makes writing feel like flying, and clipping my wings for writing class becomes like the last time I tried to sing, which is also like flying, in a choir, which is also like clipping my wings: most of the music was terrific, but after a while the director got on my case about my vibrato, and suddenly I couldn’t wait to get home from choir practice so I could sing and fly in my living room, which defeats the purpose of singing in a choir. But choir directors – and Freshman Comp teachers – don’t care about flying. Digressions = Bad.

I also nest parentheticals (one of the reasons I love Vi Hart is, she nests all over the place [sometimes dual nests, one on the audio, one on the video] and not only does she not apologize for it, it’s become – along with digression – one of her trademarks). However, in Freshman Comp, parentheticals, especially nested parentheticals, are Evil.

Punctuation is another mode of flight Freshman Comp teachers don’t like, unless they’ve changed since I last took a Freshman Comp course, which was, admittedly, some time ago. Back when the USSR was still the Evil Empire, in fact. Semicolons seem to be a bad thing, though I don’t understand why; they’re perfect when you want a little break in rhythm somewhere between a period and a comma. Em-dashes make teachers – and editors and online workshoppers – sad. In fact, most punctuation aside from periods, commas, and quotation marks, are quite stigmatized. You can use one exclamation point per 10,000 words (or 5,000 or page, the point is, they’re rationed, and that’s why I love Zin). Colons precede lists and lists alone, and only if you have a very good reason for a list. And speaking of lists, the Oxford comma makes Freshman Comp people downright surly, even though it’s functional, occasionally necessary, and historically proper.

Screw that. I want to fly. But I also wanted to see how WexMOOC works. One must sacrifice sometimes for Knowledge.

After poking around WexMOOC a while, I realized the computer is more of an organizer than an evaluator in this course. It would store our assignments, and manage the horrendous logistics of peer-evaluation, a mainstay of MOOC humanities courses. It would make sure each essay was read and evaluated anonymously by a set of other students from a range of experience and ability levels, and thus be a lot better than a message board rating system where, just like in high school, some people end up more popular than others and it has nothing to do with quality.

At least, that’s what I thought – until WexMOOC told me I write like a fourth-grader.*

The first assignment, which would not be peer-evaluated unless we re-posted it elsewhere, was a wide-open invitation to discuss how we felt about some aspect of writing or literacy. Since I’d just had a crisis of confidence following the Initial Course Survey (yes, basic demographic stuff is terrifying when it includes rating yourself as a writer from weak to strong), I used that experience as the core of my 800-to-1000 word essay (which follows).

Then I discovered the part of WexMOOC called “Analytics.”

It’s based on the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Scale which I keep calling the Jamaica Kincaid scale, much to my embarrassment. And not-Jamaica-Kincaid thinks I write like a fourth grader.

Now, I know I took this too seriously (it has nothing to do with the “grade” for this non-credit class which really has no grades) and far too personally. But when someone, even a software someone like WexMOOC, tells me I write like a nine-year-old, I take it seriously. And personally.

I vaguely recalled from my linguistics days that pretty much every American news magazine, such as Time, has about an eighth-grade readability level, and there’s a fourth-grade poet in this year’s Pushcart volume, so I wasn’t too upset. Just upset enough.

The internet contains numerous Flesch-Kincaid utilities, so I used two of them on some of the Pushcart essays available online. Maybe Time sticks to eighth-graders, but Pushcart writers go for high school sophomores, juniors even.

I was very depressed.

When I’m depressed, I listen to music, in this case, my YouTube Likes to cheer me up (I have a Wallow playlist for wallowing, but in this case, I wanted to snap out of it). One of the videos was Vi Hart’s Ted Carpenter commentary about audiences. I hadn’t listened to this in quite some time, and it was just what I needed to hear: all this talk about writing to your audience is fine but there’s value in talking out loud, too, which is what Vi Hart does. And pretty much what I do. That video also ended up as the backbone of my Project Runway recap, since one of the season-long conflicts there was about artistry vs. commerce. They could’ve had a bang-up season with that kind of theme if they hadn’t cheapened it with male strippers and fake drama. But that’s more digression.

Feeling cheered by Vi, I did more research. I put my own essay into one of the online Flesch-Kincaid. It should, of course, have returned more or less the same results as WexMOOC (minor variations always occur). But it didn’t. I’d been promoted to 9th grade. Seems my sentence count went from 129 in WexMOOC to 47 in both online Flesch-Kincaid utilities. That is not a minor variation.

I felt a lot better. The fault, dear writer, lies not in my prose, but in the computer that I am nine years old. I’m still worried I might flunk Freshman Comp, but at least I’ll do so as a teenager.

On Encountering the Participation Survey Question: “How would you characterize yourself as a writer (very weak/weak/average/strong/very strong)?”

Am I a writer?

I suppose it depends on your definition. If “a writer” is one who writes, then of course I am; most people are. Most of us write something, at some point. Maybe it’s a business letter to a client reporting on the progress of an evolving deal. Or maybe it’s just a line to personalize the Hallmark birthday card for Aunt Helen so she won’t feel like her family has relegated her milestone to perfunctory duty, or, more prosaically, a shopping list (produce first, since that’s where the entrance to the grocery is, then deli, then canned goods, pastas, pet foods, paper products and cleaning supplies, finally ending up with dairy and frozen foods before heading to the register).

But that isn’t what’s really meant by “a writer,” is it? No matter what the emotion, real or contrived, is conveyed to Aunt Helen, regardless of the organization and planning – the narrative, really, predicting the little tale of a journey through the supermarket – that goes into a shopping list, “a writer” is typically someone who writes for someone other than his family, or for herself, and for purposes other than necessities of daily living.

So am I a writer, or not?

About once a decade, I jump again into fiction writing, just to see if I’m still really bad at it: I recently learned, oh yes, I am. Maybe I’m just not good at storytelling. Maybe I’d rather explain or inform or enthuse than narrate. Maybe I’d rather say what I want to say than figure out how to configure characters and plots and symbolism to do it for me. My publications have been so few, and in such unmemorable venues (you mean you haven’t heard of Diddle Dog, Forge, or that 80′s classic, Camera Shopper?) they don’t even count as publications. I don’t even have an e-book on Amazon. I know sixth graders who have e-books on Amazon.

I do have a blog, subtitled “I’m Writing and I Can’t Shut Up,” but it’s in a dusty corner of the internet where few bother to tread. I like it that way. If I thought anyone were actually paying attention to me, I’d be paralyzed.

But here’s the thing: I think – I process the world – by writing. I’m processing this class, this assignment, these very thoughts right now, by writing.

When I read a story I love, I write about it. I explain to some imaginary blog reader who may live only in my head what I thought of when I read the story, where it took me, what I remembered that I hadn’t thought of in a long, long time. When I read a story I hate, I write about that, too, and say exactly why I hate it, often using those same tools of memory and association, perhaps to claim it didn’t take me where it should have (in my own opinion) or that it took me somewhere that offered me nothing. Or maybe that it refused to take me anywhere. I’ve even come to the point where I’m willing to post these observations on a blog, to publicly say, “I loved this” or “I thought this was stupid” and let others judge me, or not, for literary comprehension.

If someone breaks my heart, or if I’m yearning after something I can’t have, when I fail, I write about it. These writings usually remain private, but they’re a necessary part of recovery from the emotional spills of life. Sometimes I’ll be unable to sleep – all this stuff bouncing around in my head – until I’ve pounded out a page or two, at which point it organizes itself and becomes manageable: Oh, I see, I’m feeling rejected (or ignored or unappreciated or frustrated or or or…). Oh, I remember, I’ve felt this way before. Oh, it’s ok, I got over that then, and I’ll get over this now.

When I get terrific news, or fall in love, or conquer some mountain that once towered above me, somehow it isn’t real until I write about it. Often this writing remains private as well. It’s hard to brag in public, not only because it’s obnoxious, but because there may be those out there waiting to tell me that my joys are trivial, or, even worse, are interfering with their misery.

And that’s where the Participation Survey for this course comes in.

I spent a long time looking at two of those questions – “How would you characterize yourself as a writer/reader?” I know it’s not a trap. They’re meant to be guidelines for data analysis, to allow collation of statistics showing how people feel about their writing before and after the course, with the goal being to increase self-perceived ability. With tens of thousands of students signing up for these courses, they have nothing to do with someone looking askance at my evaluation of myself: “Really? That’s what you think of yourself, is it? We’ll just see about that.” They have nothing to do with the universe punishing hubris.

I hope.

Because, after spending most of the last 58 years writing, reading, reading about writing, writing about reading, thinking by writing, I finally found the courage to say: I’m a strong reader. I’m a strong writer.

I am a writer.

*The Flesch-Kincaid scale measures readability, not writing level; so while it indicates one must have fourth-grade reading ability to read, it does not actually place an evaluation on the level of writing. It just feels that way.

Sunday with Zin: Edible Book Festival

Hello I am Zin and I am back from my vacation! I hope everyone missed me!

While I was on vacation (and I did not really go on an actual vacation I just took a few weeks off from Sunday with Zin) I went to the Edible Book Festival at the Library!

I had a lot of fun with this last year and I did try for a while to come up with an entry but last year the guy who did the Banana Kareninut Bread with the little smashed banana Anna on the train tracks intimidated me especially since the year before he did Beer and Loathing in Las Haggis the year before and set a very high bar! But he was not there this year which was sad. There were other wonderful things though!

Pi(e) was very popular this year! The winners for both the Children and Adult divisions were about pi(e). But they were very different kinds of pi(e)!

A nine-year-old girl won for “Lord of the Pies” complete with broken eyeglasses and a pie-dough pig head bloodied with strawberry-rhubarb juice! I voted for it because I could not help but vote for it, but I was surprised other people voted for it! And I was most surprised that nine-year-olds are reading Lord of the Flies! She must be very special and I think her parents are probably very special too!

The adult winner was for Life of Pi which of course featured the life cycle of a pie arranged in a circle from the apples and flour to the completed pie! She had to put warnings on one pie to say it was not baked and should not be eaten (we were allowed to eat everything after the judging so taste was not a factor at all). But I had a soft spot for the book and she was clever so I voted for her too! I am so surprised I voted for the winners in both divisions!

Stinky Cheese Man came in third maybe not because it was such a cool rendition but because it is such a cool book! It is a Post Modern Book of Fairy Tales and right there I wonder if I have become so very old, that children are reading post-modern literature! But it is very funny and I enjoy watching the video because I like all that meta stuff! I wish we had meta fiction when I was little!

One of the prettiest entries was Gingerbread Man and it won a prize too. It was a very well-done gingerbread house book!

I voted for an entry that was not very pretty and did not involve any baking or really any food work at all but I appreciated the sign that accompanied it: it was an ordinary fruit salad in a plastic tub from the grocery store with a little note:

Literary Fruit Salad
One Pound of Cantaloupe, Ezra Large
one Sun Dried Raisin
A Half Cup California Grapes, Imported from Oklahoma
Five Small Peppers
One Diced Mango from South America (I think maybe it should be Mexico but I could be wrong)
Peach Jam from Giant Peaches

Now I have to come up with ideas again for next year! I still have this idea to actually make a book out of fruit leather and licorice laces and maybe big bars of chocolate. Except I probably will not but it does not hurt to think about it. It is always fun to see what people come up with.

Last Rites for CNN

Image by The Young Turks

CNN died this week.

Boy, did they blow it when on Wednesday they reported the fictitious arrest of a suspect who at that point hadn’t even been identified. But that isn’t even my biggest complaint about the television news media’s performance this week.

I follow very few Twitter accounts: 39 at the moment. My elected representatives. My local paper. A few political commentators I like. A couple of fun things. And a bunch of writers and literary magazines. So on Monday, when I suddenly had 30 new tweets in a few minutes, I figured something was up. And it was: an explosion at the Boston Marathon. A serious explosion.

The first question in this situation is always: Is everyone I know and love safe? I had no friends or family at the event, so I was spared that particular anguish.

I turned on the TV. Here’s what I wanted to know:

What happened?
Who did this?
Why?
Are people still in danger?

Instead, on MSNBC I heard a terrorism expert talking about… I don’t even know what he was talking about, but it had nothing to do with what I wanted to know at that moment. On CNN, I heard an on-site reporter, audibly nervous now that she was in the middle of a crisis instead of covering a recreational event, call in to say she was in a locked-down business and couldn’t see anything and had no access to any official. Then Wolf Blitzer used the T-word.

I turned the TV off and went back to Twitter, where the real information was.

I knew that – I lived in Boston for nearly twenty years – but if you’re not from New England, you might not, and it seemed an important detail. Don’t call your sister’s office; she’s not there.

That gave me a good summary of the situation; it was accurate, factual, and included what wasn’t known, inviting me to wait for an update when accurate information was available. And it wasn’t necessary to repeat it over and over and over to fill up hours of live coverage.

But the real difference was in the amount of information that was actually helpful:

This was all useful information, especially for people more closely involved than I, who had totally different needs for information. If CNN had been airing this kind of information, instead of useless reporters saying nothing just to avoid dead air – for that matter, if they’d just shut up for a few minutes and aired video with similar helpful chyrons from local officials – I wouldn’t have turned off my TV in favor of Twitter.

Maybe it’s different on Twitter if you follow hundreds or thousands of people. I’ve never understood how it’s possible to do that; it’s all I can do to keep up with thirty-nine. Or are you not supposed to actually pay attention to individual tweets? I’m a Twitter newbie, maybe I’m doing it wrong. And Twitter isn’t without it’s difficulties: in the middle of a crisis, previously scheduled items – whether an innocuous joke or even a perfectly fine book promotion – are annoying at best. And any idiot can set up a fake account and pretend to be anyone. But on Monday I became convinced of one thing: in a crisis, for breaking news, Twitter is better than CNN or MSNBC. The news people have become irrelevant now that we have direct access to the people with actual information.

For some reason I didn’t watch the networks on Monday; maybe that was different. I found the NBC coverage of the last phase of the Friday Night Standoff to be uninformative (since there was nothing to report until they took the guy into custody), but also unoffensive, whereas on MSNBC, Chris Matthew lost any credibility he may have still had when he asked the former FBI and AFT agents who were his interviewees if the FBI could determine the ethnicity of the suspect from the photograph, to see if he was “from Yemen or something.” Even the MSNBC segments hosted by Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow, two of my favorite people in the world, annoyed me with irrelevance and the need to parade a constant stream of speculating experts.

But Twitter worked for me just fine. From now on, my breaking-crisis-news source is Twitter. It’s the death of CNN. And that’s kind of sad.

Remember how CNN started? Not the date they went on the air, which was way back in the 80s, but when they really came into their own, in January 1991 when Bernard Shaw and Peter Arnett watched the start of the war live, up close, and personal from their hotel room. Today, that doesn’t seem like much. In fact, war correspondents have been covering combat since before WWI, and some of us grew up watching the Vietnam war on the evening news. But this was the first time we’d watched the start of a war, live, on tv.

But they’ve turned into something else, and they’re not really useful for breaking news any more. That doesn’t mean they’re useless, of course. It’s my go-to channel when I have 15 minutes to kill and have idle curiosity about what’s going on in the world. Fareed Zakaria has his moments on GPS. And I never miss Howard Kurtz and Media Matters, though it’s frequently just a way to poke competitors in the eye and call it “media analysis.”

The problem with 24-hour-news is, you have to have 24 hours’ worth of news. Or repeat the same news over and over, every hour. Or turn not-news into news. And when over time you end up with a bunch of competitors, you have to do that flashier, sexier, and above all – first. You end up with Wolf Blitzer holding a pressure cooker because props are good TV. You end up reporting the fictitious arrest of a suspect not yet even identified. Compared to that, the misreporting they did on the Supreme Court decision last June was a trifle.

Maybe it’s all about cutting costs, or about ratings, about replacing actual journalists with on-air talent who test well with focus groups. But it’s how you become something I watch when I have nothing else to do, instead of the place I go when something happens. It’s how you become airport news.

I tend to lag behind the curve. I didn’t get cable TV until 1992 (I saw the Gulf War reporting at a friend’s house). I only got high-speed internet a year and a half ago, for pete’s sake. And I just started using Twitter this year. So maybe I’m the only one who wasn’t aware that cable news, as news (as opposed to issues discussion and political commentary) was dead.

But I know it now.

What I learned from MOOCulus

This is an example of the way in which mathematics is a democratizing force: problems that at one time would have only been accessible to the geniuses on earth are now accessible to everyone. At one time in history, you would have had to have been the smartest person on earth to have calculated the area of some curved object. But now, armed with the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, we can all take part in these area calculations.

—Jim Fowler, MOOCulus, Calculus 1, Winter/Spring 2013

I’ve commented before on my lifelong adversarial relationship with mathematics. But I can’t seem to leave it alone. And even The New Yorker knows writers should learn math. So yeah, I took another math course. Calculus, via Coursera. Fifteen weeks of (free) online math class. Sheesh. What am I, crazy? Yeah.

But this course was special.

How can you not have fun in a class where the teacher considers calculus to be a democratizing force? Where the windowsill features a bowl of coffee beans with a fork stuck in it, and there’s a shelf held up by a dozen Pellegrino bottles? Where lectures are sprinkled with references to LOTR and Douglas Adams (“Suddenly, A Whale…”) and video games (I’d never heard of Portal before, or the closing song “Still Alive,” and now I’m obsessed with it; it was the perfect theme song for the class)? Where videos feature little paper cutouts of a guy moving in front of a light to show his shadow lengthening at a rate related to his speed, drawings of gobbling and belching of functions (complete with music and sound effects), ninja sheep leaping over ladders, the integral monster conquered by donning a wizard hat?

“One does not simply walk into calculus”

—Jim Fowler, MOOCulus, Calculus 1, Winter/Spring 2013

It’s hard not to become engaged in the process thanks to lead instructor Jim Fowler, who might be able to make a go of a supplementary career talking math with Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert the way Neil deGrasse Tyson talks astrophysics; who oozes enthusiasm for the subject and hangs out on the forums (as do the other team members) to answer questions and offer encouragement. Sure, I spent every Monday and Tuesday, when the new materials went up (sometimes Wednesday and even Thursday) tearing my hair out, cursing, and crying. But I couldn’t quit; I’d miss all the fun, and anyway, I couldn’t let these guys down.

I couldn’t let down Steve Gubkin, designer of the MOOCulus online exercises, who, when a student posted a comment on the forums about having the memory span of a goldfish, pointed him to a goldfish video with a Pete Seeger soundtrack. We really were never alone.

I couldn’t let down Bart Snapp who only got a little screen time early on but showed up regularly on the forums to address questions about the textbook he put together from existing open-source materials (and if you’ve priced calculus textbooks lately, you’ll know how much that’ll save you).

I couldn’t let down Tom Evans, who wrote the music that started each video lesson and who introduced me to the astonishingly beautiful mathematical music of Michael Blake during Pi Day festivities on the Forums.

And I sure couldn’t walk away from Jim, who somehow found time to drop by a Mathfic topic (new project: fiction related to math, similar to Updike’s “Problems“) I’d started on the Forums (of course I did, what else would you expect?) and recommend some particularly appropriate Jorge Luis Borges pieces. Who, even though he has a frightening array of academic degrees, never made us feel like Calculus – the Freshman Composition of the math department – was trivial. To the contrary: he radiated a thoroughly genuine excitement about topics he’s probably taught dozens, maybe hundreds of times before.

Lecture Topics:

“Morally, why is the product rule true?” 4.02
“Why Shouldn’t I Fall in Love with L’Hopital?” 7.03
“How Long Until the Grey Goo Destroys the Earth? 7.04

—Jim Fowler, MOOCulus, Calculus 1, Winter/Spring 2013

I’ll admit, though: the first few weeks weren’t easy. I was a little worried for a while there.

See, this is what I was used to: I’d study a chapter (or, in this case, watch a video), take a test that measured how well I paid attention to the chapter/video, and the grade would scold or praise me. This is what I was expecting. This is what I’d trained for all my life. This is what education is all about: doing well on tests. Isn’t it?

But that’s not what this course was about. It wasn’t about being rewarded for diligence or punished for sloth. It was more of a system to get us to move from theory to application. To use what was in the video to reason out a way to solve the problem. The exercises were part of an overall learning experience, with a Hint button for when we got stuck so the MOOCulus system (written by Steve, based on the open-source code used by Khan Academy) could tell when we were struggling, when we’re ready for more difficulty, and when we’d mastered an application (though it’s not quite that sophisticated, at least not yet, but that’s the goal).

The weekly quizzes – which again, seemed unfamiliar at first – allowed virtually unlimited attempts, that pushed the concepts and applications to their limits, twisted things around so we’d recognize them from all angles. The idea of the exercises and tests wasn’t to judge me, to make sure I was paying attention in class, to see how smart or hard-working I was: the idea was to actually teach me something. Or, more accurately perhaps, to get me to learn.

“Mathematics isn’t just about isolated facts, it’s really about analogies between ideas… it’s like in literature where metaphor plays such an important role.”

—Jim Fowler, MOOCulus, Calculus 1, Winter/Spring 2013

I discovered the underpinnings of this kind of thing about halfway through the course in an article by another Coursera teacher, who talks about what I now think of as “the bonobo method” in a HuffPo article. I wish I’d seen before the class started. I think I would’ve been a lot calmer had I realized I wasn’t supposed to look at the questions and know them all, the way I’d been doing it for a very long time.

And part of the idea wasn’t just to teach me calculus; it was to teach the team members how to teach calculus. Jim Fowler laid it out pretty clearly in a presentation (in an OSU session aptly titled, “Steal My Idea,” an attitude that needs more legs) that makes it clear how cool math education can be, and how MOOCs can be extremely beneficial to students and teachers.

But does it work? Did I actually learn any calculus?

Damn right I did. When it came time for the final – which, by the way, was announced as more of an evaluation than a learning experience – I zipped through nearly all of it without a hitch, only needing some time for the material covered in the final week or two. Ok, I’ll admit, I wagged the last question; it was multiple choice, with three attempts, so I think it would’ve been pretty stupid not to wag it. And I still have trouble with minus signs and remembering the derivatives and antiderivatives of trig functions. But I can’t believe how much I actually, really, truly learned. A long time ago, when my brain was a lot younger, I took an in-person calculus course. I got an outrageously high score (103, I think, thanks to bonus questions). But the main thing I learned there was how to write really small to fit every possible equation I might need on the single 3×5 index card we were allowed to bring into the test with us. This way worked much, much better.

MOOCs have seen some bad press recently (not helped by the ironically tragic, or tragically ironic, total meltdown of Coursera’s own “Fundamentals of Online Learning” course in February). Some of it is just the usual fear of anything new, the fear of impersonal technology taking over and losing the human connection. Yet in this online math course with thousands of students (35,000 to start) I felt more engaged with the course, more connected to the staff and the students, than I have in pretty much any in-person course, including some in pretty touch-feely humanities subjects. I had a blast. In Calculus. And this week, at the end of the course, many of us have left notes on the forum about how sad we are that it’s come to a close.

This was a triumph
I’m making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS.
It’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.

- “Still Alive” from Portal (yet another cool thing I learned in Calculus)

Changing the Way I Read

It started last August, when I read Roxane Gay’s essay/call to action, “We Are Many. We Are Everywhere” about writers of color:

The world of letters is far more diverse than the publishing climate would lead us to believe. You only need to open your eyes and open your mind. I challenge everyone to pick five (or more) writers from this list with whom you are not familiar, look up their work, see what these writers are about.

Though the phrase “binders full of women” would become a laugh line a few months later, that’s exactly what she created: an online binder of the names of writers of color, with links to web pages and blogs, for anyone thinking they’d like to read (or publish) more diversely, but with no idea where to find diverse voices. Turns out, it’s not really that hard; you just have to look.

Like one of the good well-meaning people I am, I nodded my head in approval and did pretty much nothing to change my own behavior. Oh, I looked through the list, I noted who I’d read and who I hadn’t, and I bookmarked it. Did I change my reading habits? Not really.

I’m pretty much an impulsive reader. I click on links and end up buying a book on a whim (or, more recently, put them on hold at the library in my own version of austerity). This haphazard approach has mixed results. I have books from five years ago on my to-be-read shelf, and I have a book waiting for me at the library (library books have to get priority, since they, unlike me, have deadlines). But a lot of it depends on my mood at a given instant. If I were to pick a dozen must-reads from last year (besides the short story prize anthologies and literary magazines), would I pick those same dozen books I actually read? Probably not. Do I want to change that? Yeah, sure. Am I going to? Um, maybe later, I’m kinda busy right now.

Then, just last month, two near-consecutive media events convinced me to change the way I read.

First was Andrew Ervin’s response, also published in The Rumpus, to the VIDA report showing the wide gender gap in book reviews printed in the most widely-distributed and prestigious journals and magazines. Andrew discovered he, another well-meaning sort, was not immune: only 23.5% of his reviews were of books written by women.

The big question I face now is: What can I do to change this? I don’t want to be part of the problem any longer.

And that’s where I started some serious cogitation. I don’t want to be part of the problem, either. But I was still not sure what to do about it.

Then Media Matters published their report on the diversity of Sunday morning talk show guests, divided by White Men and Everyone Else (and that pretty much illustrates the issue right there, doesn’t it). Across the board, on all networks, a little more than 60% of the guests who got to explain their views to the American public were white men. Except for UP with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, where 57% of the guests were Everyone Else (for some reason, Melissa Harris-Perry’s show, also on weekend mornings directly following Chris on MSNBC, was not included in the statistics, which again, pretty much illustrates the issue).

Hayes explained the diversity of his guests to the Columbia Journalism Review:

“We just would look at the board and say, ‘We already have too many white men. We can’t have more.’ Really, that was it,” Hayes says. “Always, constantly just counting….
…
“You have to say, ‘We give ourselves this rule,’ and that’s going to force us to just be more resourceful,” Hayes says. “Because I genuinely don’t think there’s another way to do it. If you don’t do that then the inertia and the tide are so strong, unless you are committed as a priority to actively fight against it, you’re going to end up reproducing what everyone else does.”

You have to change, or you’ll end up doing the same old thing. That’s what Andrew Ervin said. That’s what Roxane Gay said.

That’s what I say.

So I’m changing the way I’m reading. Not entirely, of course. I’m still committed to the BASS, Pushcart, and PEN/O.Henry prize anthologies, to TNY and One Story. They come with some measure of diversity built in, particularly of gender. But the other reading – the impulse reading – that’s where I can make a small change.

The first step towards changing the future is seeing the present, and coming up with a measurable goal.

I created a spreadsheet of the books, using my Goodreads account, to get a statistical picture of my reading habits for the past couple of years. Leaving aside the anthologies, I discovered the following:

In 2011, 75% of the books I read were by White Men.
In 2012, 64% of the books I read were by White Men.
In 2013, 50% of the books I’ve read so far were by White Men.

At least I seem to be heading in the right direction. I could stop reading for the year right now… no, I have a better idea.

For every book I read by White Men, I’ll read a book by Everyone Else. I’ll stay at 50/50 for 2013.

[I had a whole riff about the strangeness of determining who's white and who isn't, but I got scared that it could be misinterpreted, so I deleted it. Then I realized I deleted something because I got scared, and that's not who I want to be, so I'm putting it back in again, and if someone wants to complain about it, go ahead.]

Some of this got a little tangled, of course. Nothing’s ever as simple as statistics makes it seem. The most fun exploration was, what is “white”? How do I count someone who’s biracial? And how do I find out race, when I don’t know anything about the author and the bio doesn’t say? Do I just find a picture and guess? And just what am I suppposed to do with Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, whose American father and mother from the Northern Mariana Islands “raised her on a yacht in the South Pacific”??!? At least she’s clearly female (and, by the way, her novella The Man Who Danced With Dolls is spectacular), so I can put her in “Everyone Else” and not worry about it. Hisham Matar, whose Anatomy of a Disappearance has been on my to-read list since I read the excerpt “Naima” in TNY, is on Roxane’s list, but not Saïd Sayrafiezadeh (or Etgar Keret, and I also want to read Suddenly, A Knock On The Door) – how do I count these?

Yes, I’m having a little fun with this. But I’m also glancing alongside a serious question: since “race” is so nebulous and meaningless, why have we as a society given it so much power? And can changing the way I read help to fix that? No, probably not. But at least I won’t be part of the problem any more. And the more people decide to not be part of the problem, the smaller the problem becomes.

My goal opened up more interesting cans of fascinating worms. Would I have been so quick to grab Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins, on the strength of his wonderful Financial Lives of the Poets and guided by a bunch of awe-struck reviews, had I instituted this rule at the time? Maybe. As is, I’m sorry I “wasted” one of my White Men slots on it. I’m glad I didn’t spring for the Saunders collection – not because I wouldn’t have enjoyed it, but because I’ve already read four of its stories – and adored three of them (but I wouldn’t have wanted to have wasted another WM slot on what would amount to six stories, see?). This is why (some) White Men worry about reverse discrimination: they know exactly what it means when you have to be better than everyone else just to seem as good as. They invented the game.

On the other side, I wasn’t really tempted by the new Diaz, though I love the final story; I just don’t really want to read more “Miss Lora“-style stories, and I’m more interested in the science-fiction novel the excerpt “Monstro” was taken from. I bypassed Alice Munro, for the same reason I didn’t check out Saunders; I’d read four of the included stories (at least I think they’re included), and while they’re outstanding, I wasn’t going to pop for the rest of them. So I’m not going to be reading books I wouldn’t otherwise read, just because they’re written by Everyone Else.

So am I changing the way I read, or not? Yes, but it’s not a matter of not reading books I want to read or reading something I’m less interested in – not at all. That’s usually the complaint about quotas – and let’s be honest, that’s what we’re talking about – that less qualified minorities will replace more qualified majorities. I disagree with that premise. I think it’s a matter of expanding the base of choices, and being sure you’ve got a full view of the field. And looking at what’s meant by “qualified,” which in the case of reading often boils down to: “Just how much of my desire to read this book is based on being able to casually mention to my friends that I read it?”

What this means in practical terms is that I keep expanding my field of vision. I see fifty, a hundred book commentaries every week (depending on how much attention I’m paying to Twitter and my feeds). It’s easy to remember the book everyone’s talking about. Just by the numbers in the VIDA report, the book people are talking about most is probably going to be a book by a White Man.

What if instead I kept a running list of books, paying special attention to those that don’t get that much attention, the books I only see mentioned once or twice, by someone who makes it a point to read diversely? A binder full of books by Everyone Else. What if I start thinking of a book as a little more interesting because it was written by someone who’s going to give me a different perspective, because it’s about a person, theme, event that isn’t familiar? What if I value Other Voices as much as I value Big Names? I can’t read every book that appeals to me, but I strongly suspect I can still read most, if not all, of my “must haves” and still keep my Diversity Quotient at 50/50 if I’m a little more mindful with my impulse choices.

I’m not trying to change the world here. I’m just picking a book to read. And I won’t be part of the problem from now on.

Zin is on Vacation!

Hello I am Zin and I am taking a vacation from blogging! Everyone should take a vacation once a year right?

I have too many ideas and no time to actually do any of them so I will not be posting for the next few weeks or maybe a month but then I will be back with more Literaria and next weekend is the Edible Book Festival and I will tell you about that too when I get back and other things as well.

Sunday with Zin: Naked Shakespeare

Hello I am Zin and on February 1 Shakespeare went Naked! And I watched!

Naked Shakespeare is a performing arts group in southern Maine that performs Shakespearean sonnets and brief scenes from his plays in everyday places like taverns and summer fairs without costumes or lights or scenery or even a stage! They just show up and speak! It is pretty remarkable! On February 1 as part of the First Friday festivities here in Portland they took over the Atrium of the library for a performance. It was quite strange because the Atrium is very small, it is maybe 30 feet wide, and people were sitting on the floor and wee littles were crying and people were coming and going and the actors never got distracted! It was amazing to watch them keep focused on what they were doing!

They had a special challenge because they were in the middle of the floor with nothing but a bench and people were lined up against both walls and the ends, so it was like they were in the middle of a rectangle of audience! They had to keep moving around so everyone had a chance to hear and see them up close and all of this was improvised which I think is pretty impressive when they are also performing Shakespeare!

Because of the time of year the theme was “Will You Be Mine” and the works were about love of all kinds from the love sonnets and the comedies to of all things King Lear and Cordelia! That was my favorite because the actors were really good! When Lear entered I think the whole audience was worried the actor was having some kind of medical problem he was so convincing!

I took a video recording of the Sonnet 29 (“When, in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state…. Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising…”), a short scene from Measure for Measure, and a longer passage from Troilus and Cressida which I have never read or seen before. Because the actors were sometimes two feet away and sometimes fifty feet away the sound is a bit odd but it gives an idea of the very un-Shakespearean setting! At least un-Shakespearean as we are used to seeing Shakespeare performed now.

Good words and good performers work anywhere!

FLOODED: The Benefit for Longfellow Books

Imagine this:

You’ve got cancer. You’ve just completed a round of chemo with a new drug, a nasty one that not only knocked you on your ass, but knocked your white blood cells right out of existence, so you’re three days in the hospital on IV antibiotics trying to get the infection under control. You’re feeling like crap, so you haven’t had time to worry about the historic snowstorm – Nemo, some nitwit at The Weather Channel decided to call it – that started last night. It’s all white from your hospital bed, anyway.

Oh, and you’re the co-owner of a Fiercely Independent Community Bookstore, which you coaxed into existence when the bookstore you managed went under after the new Borders opened at the mall thirteen years ago. Of course, Borders is Books-a-Million now, but your little place is still there, though you get a little nervous every time a showroomer aims a cell phone at a best-seller, or you see someone sitting at Starbucks with a Kindle. Still, you love what you do, and that counts for a lot.

Your phone rings. Who’s calling on a night like this, a night white with snow? Ah, it’s your buddy, neighbor to the store, probably going to give you a pep talk. Ok, you’ve got the energy to deal with that. Though for someone who’s just been lying in bed for three days, you’re awfully tired. You hope it’s because your body is working hard along with the antibiotic, and maybe making new white blood cells to boot.

“Stu, I’m standing outside your store, water’s pouring down from the ceiling, alarms are ringing, fire engines are pulling up, they want to break down the back door… ” You wonder briefly if this is some kind of strange semi-hallucinatory reaction to the antibiotic, but the phone is very real in your hand, your friend’s voice is very real in your ear, and apparently the water and alarms and firemen are very real at your store. But you’re tethered to this IV bag with a length of tubing and to this bed by chains of fatigue, so you call your co-owner (who might also wonder if you’re hallucinating; hell, you still sorta wonder/hope maybe you are, yourself) and he says he’ll check it out.

He calls a little while later. There was indeed water pouring into the store from the ceiling. Water + books = not good. “Stu, the firemen were carrying books out of the way of the water! Double armloads of books! A Bucket Brigade of books! Firemen saving books! Like they’re children!” You wonder again if there’s something in the IV antibiotics that causes hallucinations.

But no. The storm blew in a window on the second floor above the store. Snow blew in and melted, which would’ve been bad enough, but the real trouble started when the pipes froze because that set off the sprinkler system that’s doused – ruined (sprinkler water isn’t clean and pretty) – half your stock. Only half your stock, thanks to the Portland Fire Department. But you’re going to be closed a while.

Maybe this is it. You’ve been selling books in one way or another since the 70s, but maybe the universe is trying to tell you something.

Turns out, the universe may be trying to tell you something, but Portland is telling you, Not So Fast.

Within two hours of the story being Twittered out by the Portland Press Herald, your Facebook page will have 200 offers of help.

Within two days, you’ll have to ask people to stop calling and dropping by the store as you clean up and try to figure out a recovery.

Within four days, the Maine Publisher’s and Writer’s Alliance will schedule FLOODED: An Outpouring of Literary Conversation in Support of Longfellow Books – and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Russo and a host of other Maine writers like Ron Currie, Jr., Bill Roorbach, Monica Wood, Moira Driscoll and Brock Clarke will all volunteer immediately for the panel – at the SPACE Gallery, which will donate the facility for the evening, since you’ve schlepped books the four blocks so many times for so many literary events over the years (Zadie Smith being the first, back in 2002), and Rogue’s Gallery will provide T-shirts at cost with “We Survived the Flood of 2013″ on the front and “Longfellow Books, Fiercely Independent” on the back for sale. The Benefit will sell out in less than a day, probably the quickest sellout in SPACE Gallery history. That night will be full of love, full of humor, full of books, full of talk about books and writing those books, full of t-shirts, full of readers, writers, and business people in a tiny city that won’t let its bookstore go gentle into that good night.

And this is the story you will tell.

Footnotes: Because this story was too important to me to be cluttered up by links, I’ve listed them all here:

Longfellow Books now scheduling readings just like old times
Zin posted about the flood; I wanted to get my two cents in, too, so I got to do this post about the recovery
FLOODED: An Outpouring of Literary Conversation in Support of Longfellow Books, organized by Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance – thanks for a great evening
WCSH-6 News Coverage of the recovery
Portland Playback Theater, a unique troupe dedicated to “the art of improvisation with real-life stories spontaneously shared by members of the audience” who donated the $900 in proceeds from their March First Friday performance
Richard Russo, who discussed how painful it was to write his new memoir, Elsewhere
Monica Wood, whose memoir When We Were The Kennedys Zin discussed last year after attending a reading at PPL.
Ron Currie, Jr., whose new novel, Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles features a character named Ron Currie, Jr., who’s a writer…
Bill Roorbach whose new novel Life Among Giants about a football player’s tragedy started with the notion of fame
Brock Clarke who skillfully moderated the Fiction discussion in a hilarious direction (“There’s a lot of sex in these books”) so we didn’t get a chance to hear much about his latest novel, Exley
Moira Driscoll, actress, audio book reader, and gracious Memoir panel moderator
Rogues Gallery provided t-shirts which became an instant hit

Time for a break…

It’s that time again. Zin will be here tomorrow for Sunday with Zin, and I’ll be back next Wednesday and Thursday for recaps. Then I’ll pick up my regularly scheduled schedule.

See you on the other side.

Sunday with Zin: Keep Calm and Turn the Page

Keep Calm and Turn the Page!

Hello I am Zin and this is a story that has a sad beginning but a warm and hopeful middle and I believe it will have a happy ending!

You probably know we had a big storm here that started on Friday, February 8 and went for two days. Maine got a record snowfall of 31+ inches! We had the usual problems we have with snow. But Longfellow Books, my Fiercely Independent Community Bookseller, had some extra problems beyond too much snow!

First the storm blew in a window on the second floor of the building above the bookstore and snow blew in and melted and dripped through the ceiling into the bookstore!

Second, the pipes in the building froze!

Third, because the pipes froze, the sprinkler system went off and water sprayed all over the books!

This set off all kinds of alarms but there was a blizzard out there! So it took time for the store owners to get there and I am surprised they were able to, but they were, and the fire department was there already, they had broken in the back and covered some of the books with tarps and were carrying books out of the store to save them! Firemen saving books!

“It was a reverse ‘Fahrenheit 451,’” Bowe said, referring to Ray Bradbury’s 1953 science fiction classic, in which books are outlawed and burned by firemen.

— Portland Press Herald article

That sounds like a book person!

About half of the 30,000 books were ruined! They hope insurance will pay for most of that but they have also been closed for a week and they expect to be open only sporadically for at least another week!

But like the sign in the window says: Keep Calm and Turn the Page.

That sounds like a book person, too!

This bookstore was voted Portland Icon in 2012 so Portland is helping! The Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance has arranged two events and a third way to help:

First, a Cash Mob on Saturday, March 2, for people to show up at the store and buy books! They can also buy Great Flood 2013 Gift Certificates for later on if they do not need any books right now! I know I am going to need some books later this year so I think I will get one!

Second, a Panel Discussion at the wonderful SPACE Gallery on Sunday, March 3: FLOODED: An Outpouring of Literary Conversation in Support of Longfellow Books! Richard Russo and Monica Wood will talk about memoir, and Ron Currie Jr. and Bill Roorbach will talk about fiction – all Maine writers, all who have given readings and talks at the bookstore in the past, three of them I have read, two of them appear in this blog! I have my ticket already! I bought it when I got the email announcing the event! And it is a good thing because three days later it is sold out!

Third, MWPA is collecting donations by PayPal and check until March 15!

It sounds crazy to give a donation to a private business but a retail business especially one as tenuous as a bookstore that must close for two weeks needs help and they are part of the community and hold so many wonderful events for free we must do something! The bookstore has been getting calls and Facebook queries asking how people can help so now they have three concrete ways to help!

The two owners Chris Bowe and Stuart Gerson were employees at Bookland (I did not know that) which was the bookstore that went out of business 13 years ago (I remember that) when Borders opened in South Portland so look who is still standing! They have held it together this long and they are not going to let a storm get in the way:

“Never underestimate the power of an independent bookstore,” [Bowe] said. “We have survived the chains. We have survived Amazon. We have survived the Kindles. The bookstore is one of those good places in the community. We will struggle, but we will get there.”

Again that sounds like a book person and I believe him!

Reading Matters: Public #Respect for Writers

I went to my Fiercely Independent Community Bookstore on Friday evening for a reading by Maine resident Eleanor Morse, author of the recently published White Dog Fell From the Sky. Typically, about 25 to 40 people attend these readings, and most show up at the last minute. The reading at 7pm was to be preceded by a half hour of what was billed as “Zimbabwean music” which could’ve meant anything from a recording to the Maine Marimba Ensemble (none of whom are Zimbabwean but they specialize in traditional and contemporary Zimbabwean music). I figured I’d listen to the music, snuggle into a corner seat out of the way of latecomers, and if the music was canned, I could always, ahem, find something to read.

It didn’t work out that way.

At 6:32 the main room of the store was jammed. Forget sitting – there was barely room to stand. The instrumentalist and vocalist were indeed playing and singing from the side room. I wandered back and thought I’d snagged a reasonable spot to stand.. but they kept coming, and coming, and coming… I ended up on the steps to the basement. I couldn’t see the table where the speaker would be, or the musicians, or, really, anything other than a wall of people in front of me. I had to leave; I was getting claustrophobic, and I wasn’t going to be able to see or hear anything from where I’d ended up.

Now, it might sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not – I’m rejoicing! On this Friday night in January, in Maine, at least 100, perhaps 150 people came out to hear a 62-year-old female author talk about her novel set in Botswana during South Africa’s Apartheid. It helped that Oprah listed it as a Must-Read for January 2013. It helped, of course, that she’s a local (she’s from Peak’s Island, and the store owner said the latest ferry had deposited half of the island’s winter residents in time for the event). And I suppose it helped that we’re in our January Thaw and it was well above freezing. But still, the enthusiasm of that attendance, the mellow intensity in that store, more than compensated for any disappointment I felt at missing the talk.

This is good news.

Skip to Saturday morning, with me working on calculus (yes, I’m taking yet another math course) and half-listening to UP with Chris Hayes, part of the weekend-morning liberal porn block on MSNBC. I could’ve sworn I heard him say George Saunders would be at the table next, which, of course, would be silly; UP features political, economic, and social policy wonks, activists, commentators, and academics, not fiction writers, not even fiction writers known for their anti-consumerism viewpoints.

But it was indeed George Saunders, whose recently-published collection Tenth of December includes several terrific stories I’ve read from TNY and BASS, like the great title story, the truly astonishing “Semplica Girl Diaries” and the heartbreaking “Home.”

But it wasn’t just George Sanders. It was also Ayana Mathis, whose The Twelve Tribes of Hattie I started last week. And Victor Lavalle, who I’m not familiar with (but perhaps I should be; The Devil in Silver looks interesting), and Michael Chabon whose name I seem to have been mispronouncing all along.

Four literary fiction writers. On a political commentary show? Yes – discussing President Obama’s political narrative, multiple voices, a foot in two worlds… politics and literary theory collide.

It’s all available online in four six-minute segments (yes, there are forced commercials beginning each segment) which automatically chain from Segment One (or if you want to be contrary, you can watch Segment Two, Segment Three and Segment Four individually). Yes, it is political. Yes, everyone there likes Barack Obama. Yes, there are some places they could’ve gone, maybe should’ve gone, but didn’t. But the storytellers are gathered around the Pastry Plate (which is so popular to viewers, it has its own Twitter account with 2000+ followers; no, not me, I have enough trouble following people, let alone carbohydrates) to talk about storytelling, and they do.

Some highlights:

Section introduction (Chris Hayes):

Perhaps more than any other national political feature in recent memory, Barack Obama has used speeches and big rhetorical set pieces to define his character, tell his story, and propel actual political events….
Given Barack Obama’s remarkable gift in storytelling and the impending second act of the drama of his presidency, we thought it would be enlightening to invite some genuine experts in storytelling to give their thoughts on the narrative President Obama is creating.

George Saunders:

What he’s really doing is saying to the listener, ‘I trust you deeply. I’m going to be as honest as I can, I’m going to tell you the weirdest marginal truths, and because you’re as smart as I am, you’re going to lean forward.’ In fiction that’s an important principle, to assume the best of your reader, don’t puppeteer, don’t condescend.

Ayana Mathis:

It is this question of creating a narrative of yourself… and it is a combination of public perception and his own perception of himself.

Victor Lavalle:

People who are drawn to fiction are asking the writer, “Do a good enough job to help me become invested in someone else for a time, so I can see our common humanity, our common pain, our common everything, and maybe come out of here with the sense that I’m not the only one feeling this loneliness, this sadness…” that’s part of the pact of writing fiction vs nonfiction.

Chris reads a quote from the January 2010 Junot Diaz TNY essay, which may have inspired this whole angle; even Flannery Connor gets a quick mention as an aside.

Then there’s the usual closer of the show, “Now We Know,” a report of something each guest has learned this week. The first 2:38 is Chris; football fans and climate change deniers will not enjoy it. But then Ayana talks about her discovery of the use of a blossoming pear tree in two disparate works, George comments on the value of humor thanks to some galley proofs he read, Lavalle bemoans the poor quality of bootleg DVDs, and Michael worries about this giant thing scientists just discovered floating around out there in the universe, a cluster of quasars so huge it can’t possibly exist. It was the most fun Now We Know segment in a long time.

Two public displays of affection for books and writers: What a great start to the weekend.

Sunday with Zin: Puppet Opera

Hello I am Zin and I love opera! And I love puppets! So what could be better than a puppet opera?

Paper Bull Puppets and VOX Maine put on Hansel and Gretel this year! I did not attend the formal performance where they had live singers and a pianist but they did excerpts at the library and even though it was announced as a Children’s Event, it was ok for adults to go! So I was able to see it! It was really wonderful! It was something like a dress rehearsal for them with all the scenery and the shadow work and it was lovely! They did the beautiful “Evening Prayer” scene which was really lovely! Unfortunately Hansel’s head came off at the end of the first excerpt so they had to repair him during intermission but one of the guys came out and had us singing and he talked about opera and puppets, so it was just fine!

They do not use hand puppets or marionettes, but bunraki, a traditional Japanese theater that uses hand-guided puppets! Two or three people, dressed in black, handle the puppets, one the head and body, one the arms and one the feet! It kind of looks like they are taking care of an injured child because they are all gathered around these three-foot-tall puppets but after a while I stopped noticing the people and just looked at the puppets!

I went to the library early to browse the Edward Gorey display again and maybe find some new thing to read and in the lobby were Hansel and Gretel! It was so cool, the puppet handlers had them sitting on the fountain and they just were trying to generate some interest so they let me take a short video and some pictures! There was a lady telling the puppets not to fight and I wanted her to be quiet but she kept telling them to kiss and make up and they did! Then the puppet handlers talked to us for a while and while they were talking Hansel and Gretel’s heads were moving like they were looking around, and Hansel poked Gretel and pointed to something in the commissary, it was really quite good, they made those puppets look alive even when they were talking to us!

I did not know this before I went to see the show but it is very appropriate that Hansel and Gretel is a puppet opera because that is how it was written! He wrote a few songs for a puppet show his nieces were doing, then he wrote a few more and a few more and suddenly he had the whole story as an opera! It is frequently performed this way in fact!

Thank you Paper Bull Puppets and VOX Maine (and Portland Public Library) and I hope you do another show soon!

Notes to Those who Erroneously Found Their Way Here via Peculiar Search Terms

To: does anyone put dishes in a lawyer bookcase (7/29/12)

First, let’s call them barrister bookcases, shall we, because “lawyer bookcase” has me seeing self-important guys in suits crammed behind the glass, threatening to sue me if I don’t let them out. Now: It never occurred to me to put dishes in my barrister bookcases, as my dishes are in cupboards and my barrister bookcases are full of books. But I’m always impressed by creativity. Perhaps people who put their dishes in their barrister bookcase put their books in the dishwasher?

To: can u fix god up 2 help karen carlson 2 come !,god (4/9/12)

Well, thank you, that’s very kind of you, but I really don’t need any help with that, and I would like to think God has better things to do.

To: the 8 weirdest things women have hidden in their vaginas (4/10/12)

Initially, I thought the prosthetic eye would take it. But no; once the rolled-up Donny Osmond poster entered the ring, the competition was over. And by the way, I clucked when this one took me to HuffPo (oh, come on, tell me you wouldn’t hunt down something like this), but not for long: the original source is a BBC3 program titled “Bizarre ER.” They are famous for keeping a stiff upper lip over there.

To: has grechian carlson cheated on husband ( 7/30/12)

This is something people worry about?

To: what does taco stailing hoe mean? (9/30/12)

At first I assumed this should be “taco sailing home” which brought images of little people in crispy corn tortilla shells headed across a salsa sea. But I’ve discovered through assiduous research it should actually be “taco stealing hoe,” and while I thought it odd that a garden implement would be interested in, much less capable of, stealing tacos, to my surprise, there is an Urban Dictionary entry for this moniker.

To: well apart from shoe jobs which happend as i got older, as long as i could remember i’ve always liked putting things into girls heels or boots without

Don’t finish that sentence. Please.

To: how to mell a stobs (6/23/12)

As near as I can tell, you simply whack it a few times. But you may wish to consult an expert.

To: frida kahlo monobrow propfourteen in one day?? (5/15/12)

So that’s why I got a spike of hits on a year-old post having nothing whatsoever to do with Frida Kahlo but nonetheless displaying the Frida Kahlo minibook from Etsy (it’s a long story) on that day. Was it a Frida Kahlo holiday? And darn, I missed it. Maybe next year.

To: “roukis sean thomas” or “roukis s thomas” or “roukis thomas” or “r s thomas”,surgery,workshop ( 7/22/12)

Are you a podiatrist stalker?

To: can i sue my private chef for unsafe food handling (10/8/12)

This is America, one can sue pretty much anyone for pretty much anything. The real question is, will such a lawsuit be successful. Perhaps you should consult the lawyer in your bookcase.

To: is tamas dobozy an asshole

Let me guess: you’re a student. When you’re a student, everyone’s an asshole.

To: free incest novells containing pedophelia,cheating, mother and son to read (11/12/12)

Respect writers by paying them fairly for their work, please.

To: why are they called chux pads (11/6/12)

I researched this pretty thoroughly (which explains why I’ve never accomplished anything in life), and have found no definitive answer. I did discover a highly interesting article outlining the perils of pioneering and the rewards of mass marketing, as Johnson & Johnson, makers of the original “Chux” brand of disposable diaper (possibly playing on the term “to chuck” for discard), failed miserably only to see P&G create Pampers ten years later and revolutionize the world of baby poop disposal. I also discovered there is a Kinky Medical Blog. This concerns me. If the FBI should confiscate my computer, what will they think?

To: im eight weeks pregnant and i have alot of bumpling in my side is this just gas i don’t fart or release it (11/28/12)

Please do, before you explode.

To: junot diaz abused women

Unless you can prove it, I believe that’s slander. Or maybe libel, which is it for online statements? Let’s get the lawyer in the bookcase again. I never realized how handy that lawyer bookcase could be.

Sunday with Zin: Pecha Kucha

Hello I am Zin and welcome to the October 2012 Pecha Kucha Night in Portland Maine!

Pecha Kucha (pronounced “pa-CHOK-cha” and meaning “chit-chat” in Japanese) is like a flash art exhibit! Except sometimes it is about more than art! There have been 2,226 stories told so far since 2003 worldwide, probably one near you! It was started as a design thing in Tokyo, and grew from there!

Each presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds each! That is six minutes and forty seconds to display and narrate 20 slides of whatever you have! Paintings, sculpture, projects, sketches, ideas, dance, poetry! Anything that can handle narrated slide format! And no introduction – the emcee takes care of that! It is amazing how much ground you can cover in that time!

I learned about Pecha Kucha at the Sidewalk Art Festival this past summer via Dana Trattner, who showed the art she painted over the years through several eye surgeries! I made a note to go to the next one, and it was last month at the wonderful SPACE Gallery!

My favorite was Lindsay Stockbridge, a sculptor and recent MECA graduate who was inspired by her walk of the Appalachian Trail! Before she left she made some sculptures of beached whales, because that is how she felt! When she saw the trees she imagined them as the legs of giant moose, so she made a bunch of moose! Some of them she bronzed! Then she made a 4×4 house in the sand that washed away with the tide leaving only the frame! And because, she says, we always look for a face or figure in inanimate objects – like the man in the moon, or even the moose! – she sculpted a conch shell with a hand coming out of it – this was I think my favorite thing I saw all night!

Moose Sculpture by Lindsay Stockbridge

Activist and USM Art Teacher Jan Piribeck described her work on the Good Fences for Good Neighbors project! Since there are a bunch of ugly chain link fences in the Bayside area, a group of artists got together and created art from them! They used only recycled materials, things that would have been thrown away. One of the most available materials was Blue Wrap, the stuff medical facilities use to wrap up sterilized items! It is not reusable once it is removed from the medical instrument, but it is not soiled or damaged in any way, it is just not sterile any more, so people are looking for ways to re-use it, and these artists came up with this one! One of the fences cast a shadow of faces on the ground when the sun was at a certain angle, it was amazing! And the Blue Wave fence just blew in the breeze like a real wave!

One of the goofy things at Pecha Kucha was the Flashlight Sponsors! Do you think this is worth $25 to a local business: “Your logo slapped on an 11×17″ billboard and personally marched across the stage for all to see. As your logo makes its way across, the emcee will say a few kind words about your business while it gets beamed at by a 1,000,000 candlepower flashlight.” It was really cool! It was like something out of Vaudeville!

Dave Weinberg is a graphic designer and illustrator with a hobby: collecting captioned cell phone pics for his Cellphone Sketchpad blog! Some are funny, some are pretty! Anyone can submit! With or without the headline and caption!

Kevin Tacka is a Portland artist who also makes fountains for each First Friday celebration! He considers it a success if it works without losing water for 3 hours! He makes these videos of them on YouTube! My favorite is Who Let the Kitty Out of the Bag for his Cat-Topped Fountain from 2010! I am amazed at how creative he is with fountains! Water falling from the sky, the Pyrex, the Wedgewood, the Campfire Cowboy, water shooting through the sky over his sketchbooks onto an old canvas – I never realized fountains could be so much fun!

Marty Pottenger talked about one of her many projects, Art at Work, particularly the City Writers Group that gives police officers, fire fighters, engineers, accountants, parking lot managers, anyone who works for the City of Portland, to meet, write, and react to work-related prompts like First Day, or Mentors.

Not everything was about art! John Ossie told us how a bow saved his life! As in bow and arrow! He had been getting worse and worse with degenerative disk disease in his back and neck, in more and more pain, on so many medications, but he was dragged to a yard sale by his wife and he found a bow and started working with it and it did great things for exactly the right muscles and he is much better now! He even went camping! And oh by the way he is a skilled archer, he shot an arrow that split right into the one already in the target! That is very hard to do! So the bow he found by accident was a real gift! And Brody Wood read her poetry while a dancer performed and the slides were cast on them, it was very interesting!

All of the presentations had something to say and were unique and interesting! Portland has an event about once a quarter and I bet there is a Pecha Kucha night near you! If you have been to one, or if you go to one in the future, tell me about it!

I Can Breathe Again…

They threw everything they had at this guy. Grover Norquist. Citizen United. The Tea Party. Karl Rove and his American Crossroads. Dick Cheney. Sheldon Adelson. Donald Trump. Targeted suppression of voting rights on a scale that makes Jim Crow look like an amateur. Racism – subtle and not – and outrageous but convenient lies. The comfort of ignorance. The revisionism of an Etch-a-sketch campaign. Even Dancing with the Stars. And, of course, God.

And he won anyway.

Here’s where the Democrats could use a little God.

Not the God some of us already have – the one who says “forgive seventy times seven” and “as you did unto the least of these you did unto me” and “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven” (funny how fundamentalists can switch from literal to metaphoric interpretation when they need to).

No, we could use a God more in the image of the right wing, a God who needs hurricanes to make his point. Like sending a hurricane on the first day of two consecutive Republican conventions, and a week before the election when things are nail-bitingly close and the RepBot has momentum. You know that if things had gone a little differently – if the hurricane had hit North Carolina on Labor Day or Sandy had suddenly veered East and never made landfall – the red airwaves would’ve been proclaiming the Will of God.

But Democrats will have to suffice with the will of the American people. Which once in a while is capable of more than you ever thought it could be.

I didn’t even realize how tense I’ve been about this election until about 7pm last night when I started to get scared. I tried to read. I tried to play a game. I tried to watch a movie. I was a mess. So I found comfort in the tweets and retweets of Baratunde Thurston, David Rees, Nate Silver, Melissa Harris-Perry, Roxane Gay, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Thanks, guys, I needed that. Until 11:12pm when I could relax and watch the Rove/Trump comedy hour.

Congratulations, President Obama.

Sunday with Zin: Coursera

Hello I am Zin, and I love to learn! And the Internet may be full of crap and nonsense but it is also full of wonderful ways to learn and I just discovered a new one!

Way back in March I heard about Khan Academy, and I still do a few math review exercises every day just so I remember how, and sometimes look at a video on History or Art! One of these days I am going to try Physics (again – oh, how many times I have tried to study Physics!) or maybe Chemistry and if I go slowly enough I might get somewhere! It is a very good place to catch up on the stuff you either missed in high school, or have forgotten about!

But now I have discovered Coursera! It is another FREE online classroom, this one more about college-level and career-development courses in many disciplines! Like Computer Science, Business Management, Life Sciences, Humanities, etc etc! There are 33 participating universities! And these are real universities, like Duke and Wesleyan, not the ones on matchbook covers and in strip malls!

I am right now in Week 2 of “Design: Construction of Artifacts in Society” which lasts until mid-December. It is meant to present a design methodology, so it cuts across mechanical, product, and system design by talking about user “gaps” and the most effective way to go from a need to a product! So far the examples have been an ice cream scoop, a scooter, and an urban cart! I am having some trouble with the logistical aspects of the course (I did not know I would need a camera, and I am not sure I actually want to build an artifact) but I am very much enjoying the video lectures! The text is downloadable as well. There is something about a video lecture that is so much more absorbable than a textbook alone!

(Introductory Lecture: He may not be Mr. Personality but it is clear and understandable)

The teacher also does practical examples, like observing his son scoop ice cream to show how to determine important user needs (he runs the scoop under hot water twice to warm it up; what if the scoop could be designed to hold heat better? He holds it awkwardly, what if the handle were contoured? And it is funny to watch his teenage son who perfectly captures the “awww, Dad, you are so lame, do I really have to do this?” affect of the good-but-trying-not-to-show-it kid). He visited an ice cream shop to observe them, but they were not happy to see him! They would not let him film the employees scooping! I am surprised, I would think a store would be happy for the publicity!

It seems this is a real thing, too, not just some thing someone made up to overcomplicate the issue! It is a whole process, and right now we are on Defining User Needs. There is an entire methodology for determining and phrasing and categorizing and prioritizing those needs! And the most interesting tidbit I discovered: a focus group is less time-efficient than one-on-one interviews for determining user needs! Maybe not for other things, but in this, it is!

The other thing I found interesting is the different types of user need, and they can be graphed by how well they are met by user satisfaction! Some are “linear needs” and the better the design meets them, the happier the user is, which is what you would expect, yes? But some needs are “must-haves” and if they are met, the user does not even notice them, but if they are not met, the user will be intensely dissatisfied! And some needs are “latent” and they are things the user does not even know s/he needs but if they are met, the user will be very delighted! So there are ways to make your user miserable, and ways to make your customer very happy, and it is a matter of prioritizing! I love this kind of theory!

There are more than 5,000 students from all over the world taking this course! We have a forum set up for us to discuss issues and ask questions and communicate with a TA (we can not email the professor directly, since there are just too many of us). Considering it is free, it is quite remarkable!

I am not sure why these schools are offering these courses! The best I can figure is that it is a test-run for distance-learning, sort of like a survey but more practical. They can see where people get lost, what happens that goes too fast, and because it is free, they do not have to give refunds if students are unhappy!

Most new classes begin in September or January, but there are new ones just about every week. Introduction to Astronomy, How to Reason and Argue, and Drugs and the Brain are coming up in the next month: Go see if there is something you would like to learn!

Was That The Earth Moving Or A Big Truck?

Last Saturday evening, I started signing up for my free month of Netflix (yeah, yeah, that’s pathetic, go ahead, make fun of me) when I lost cable internet and tv service for what would be twelve hours. I noted it was a sign of the times that I was pretty nervous – what if something terrible had happened, like a bomb or a nuclear meltdown or whatever it is that disrupts cable service, and how would I know about it, being informationally stranded? I understand cable phone was out, too, but luckily I haven’t bought into the whole “bundling” idea so I called someone and was reassured nothing major was afoot; I spent a pleasant evening reading and note-taking for later blog posts (leaving research for later) and in the morning all was back to normal.

Last night I finally (four days later) got around to finishing my signup and actually watching something on Netflix (no, I won’t say what – there’s a limit to how pathetic I’ll publicly prove myself to be) when something odd happened. I had my headphones on, so I wasn’t clear exactly what it was: it felt like someone stomping on the floor behind me, hard enough to shake my chair and rumble the hardwood. My cat doesn’t weigh enough to cause that kind of vibration, and I was the only one in the apartment, so I turned around, startled, to check for… I’m not sure what. Nothing was there, of course. Angela and Rayanne re-demanded my attention (ok, maybe I will humiliate myself, but only for those lame enough to get the reference) so I chalked it up to the new neighbor next door moving furniture, or the guy sharing custody of his four-year-old upstairs letting the little kid run through the place again, and went back to high school.

I ignored an earthquake.

Ok, so it wasn’t much of an earthquake. It was, as they say, “light.” 4.0, no damage, no injuries (though one store was checking lightbulbs because here in Maine you can’t tell if a lightbulb has broken unless you listen to it carefully). But one that most people feel, especially indoors. It was centered 40 miles to my west, and was felt all over New England and upstate New York, presumably into Canada, because on the East Coast, earthquakes travel like that, seeing as our crust is “older, colder, and denser” than the tectonically-active West Coast. Wouldn’t you know.

I want a do-over. Because I kind of missed it. I realized what it was 45 minutes later when I moved from computer to TV and saw a news crawl while watching debate prep on MSNBC. And I nearly missed that, too, since I don’t read those news crawls any more, but the words “Maine earthquake” jumped out at me.

That’s me. I had to see on TV that I’d been in an earthquake.

Today someone asked me if my cat was acting funny beforehand, since animals are supposed to sense impending earthquakes. My cat can’t sense her food dish sometimes, so I doubt it, but who knows. All I know is she wasn’t running around screaming or clawing at me. Sorry, Lucy.

Hey, come on, I live a block away from what passes for Downtown Portland, and my living room window overlooks a parking lot. Sometimes it’s noisy. Sometimes 747s headed for the Jetport fly low overhead. Twice a week, when the street-cleaning trucks or snowplows go by around midnight, it always reminds me of that scene in The Killing Fields where the Khmer Rouge tanks drove through the city. So a little rumbling, what’s the big deal.

I missed an earthquake. There’s something sad about that.

And I’m wondering if Netflix is cursed. I’ll give it one more try, probably tonight. So be ready, Northern New England. Who knows what will happen this time.

Sunday with Zin: First Friday in October 2012

Hello I am Zin and I had so much fun at First Friday this month! It went from Edward Gorey and string quartets to blacksmiths with marimbas and break dancers in between!

First I went to the Edward Gorey exhibit titled “Elegant Enigmas” at the library! Even if you do not recognize the name, you probably have seen his work! The exhibits included first editions for many of his works, from the 1982 illustration for Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and War of the Worlds to his backdrop and costume sketches for the 1983 Carnegie Mellon production of The Mikado! And his completely crazy alphabet books, including my favorite, The Glorious Nosebleed (“He wrote it all down Zealously”)! It is truly Zin material!

A string quartet was playing in the lobby when I left, so I waited and listened with about thirty other people because we would have had to walk between them to get out! Everyone just stood and listened, it was like a six-minute pause, very sweet!

Across the street in Monument Square a different band was playing – The Maine Marimba Ensemble plays contemporary Zimbabwean marimba music! I did not know there was contemporary marimba music, but of course there is! It is wonderful, you can watch videos at the link above!

And because it was a warm night, many people were out for First Friday! Some of them were funny – there was a man trying to preach and a group of girls in green makeup and dressed as monsters – maybe zombies? – kept following him! They had a sign on a sheet between two poles that read “DamnedNation” or something like that, and it was so funny, because they can not tell him not to preach but he can not tell them not to be on the sidewalk either! I actually am not 100% sure they were not part of the same troupe doing street theatre!

There were also several dancers, including one young man doing break dancing (ouch, the brick sidewalk must have hurt his back!) using a glass storefront as a window! That is what happens a lot, people just come out and practice whatever it is they do and they put a box or a hat down and hope someone gives them money! Some girls doing modern dance did the same thing, they had hula hoops but they did not use them while I was watching.

All the galleries and stores and of course the art college (MECA) had displays and lots of stuff going on, but my favorite thing was the Blacksmith! Sam H. Smith – that is really his name – is a Master Blacksmith and had a mini-forge and hammer and was making hooks and pokers and triangles right there on the Congress Street sidewalk! He was very nice and answered a lot of questions (yes, this is what he does for a living, and he has to abide by the same First Friday rules as the musicians because his instrument is the anvil). Update May 22 2013: Today the Portland City Council banned fire! Not completely just for blacksmiths and jugglers and street artists because of safety concerns! He seemed very careful to me but I do not know much about fire safety but I am now so sad I will not be seeing him again at First Friday any more! The website for Sam has disappeared but you can still find him at the Portland Forge page on Facebook!

Thank you Portland for another great First Friday!

Sunday with Zin: Fifty Shades of East Millinocket

Hello I am Zin! I have learned so much about paper in the past few months!

First there was Richard Russo talking about his new book Interventions being printed in Maine on sustainable paper. Then it was Monica Wood and her memoir about growing up in a paper mill town, and her short story collection set in a paper mill town. And now, it is Fifty Shades of Grey which is printed on Maine paper!

When Random House ordered 3,000 tons of Baxter Brite Grade paper for the books, the Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket had to open more machines and hire more workers to fill it! And they might open the defunct mill in neighboring Millinocket to make the wood pellets that supply the paper mill to supply the 110,000 tons needed to print the European editions!

In the video from the recent Rock Center story (the appearance of the story on a national newsmagazine show is itself covered by the Bangor Daily News), they encourage people to buy the book, not the e-book versions! Like papermill engineer David Jamo, who has not read the book (I have not either) says: “There’s nothing like the feel of a book in your hands.” E.L. James might be able to think of a few things.

I am very happy for the workers in East Millinocket and I hope their prosperity continues and they enjoy the fruits of their labors for a very long time! But can I admit there is also something very sad about this! It is like the beautiful 2011 Holiday Message (picture above) from mill owners/financers Cate Street Capital (“To our new friends and neighbors in Millinocket and East Millinocket”). Those majestic snow-covered pristine pine trees might be captioned: “Now cut these suckers down and turn ‘em into mommy porn!”