Cloister Commentary, Day 188: Semicolonoscopy

Dr. James Terry is one of the best profs at Stephens College–he’s admired by students AND colleagues–and yesterday he staged his students’ annual Punctuation Day competition. He assigns each of the class’ finalists a punctuation mark, then charges them with the task of designing a creative presentation that effectively defines each, illustrates its uses, and offers tips to the confused, and delivering it on stage in the school theater. This year, he invited me to judge, and, in introducing me, asked me how I liked to celebrate National Punctuation Day. Having only learned of its existence the day I received his request, I lied that I like to spend the morning writing, then the afternoon giving my work a semicolonotomy (I am a mite too fond of them). Also, after submitting my ballot, I learned I was the first judge to ever award all three categories (creativity, volume, overall excellence) to the same student, who revealed the mysteries of–wait for it!–the semicolon to her peers. By the way, half of the students were beaming in via Zoom (one presented that way), the other half plus the educators were masked, and tape prevented any of us from being closer than eight feet from each other; props to Jim and Stephens for providing a safe and healthy place to learn. (Note semicolonic restraint exercised above.)

Nicole and I have had a bit of a rough week, if you’ve been following, but I’d like to recommend neighborhood walks and sitting meditation to any of you who are also mourning or otherwise suffering (the national events of the week have been enough to cause an excess of both in almost anyone). Also recommended: taking meals together, talking the grief out, listening to The Beatles, and watching uplifting programming (for us, Woke and Unpregnant).

Streaming for Strivers:

I’d like to thank Spacecase Records for lighting a punk rock fire in me. Found within: early work by Meat Puppets, 100 Flowers, Leaving Trains, and The Gun Club.

Cloister Commentary, Day 181: On Brock’s Block

Big highlight of the day–I visited with my old Hickman English Department and Academy of Rock colleague Brock Boland during his lunch hour. Brock is the kind of colleague who can make the worst school day survivable. His sense of humor and knack for entertainment are well-known, but his wisdom and ear are equally impressive; he and I both recently lost our fathers, and we shared some of our recent experiences, which lifted me considerably. We also enjoyed Cajun Crab House’s fried catfish (him) and Royal Red Shrimp (me) lunch specials. I didn’t know what the heck the latter was and ordered it strictly for that reason. It’s basically a bagged shrimp boil with new taters, corn on the cob, and sausage. What it was was delicious. Miss ya, Brock!

The rest of the day was spent scheduling Zoom tutoring appointments, in fact, my favorite kind: helping Steph Borklund’s students with their film genre essay assignments. She’s a smart, warm, enthusiastic prof, and we’ve been teaming up for years. Also, our 12-year-old border collie Louis is ailing, so I kept a very close eye on him. I am not going to speculate, because it’s 2020.

Miami went up two games to zip on the Celtics. Could we have a Heat-Nuggets final, 2020? Please?

Streaming for Survivors:

Would you care for a musical tour of “The Old, Weird America”? Tired of “The New, Weird America”? Traverse one of the best discs of six of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music–this one’s country blues dominated. Be sure to lean forward on “Prison Cell Blues.”

Cloister Commentary, Day 178: Grogginess Redeemed

I awakened at 3:45 a.m. from dreaming about my dear friends Janet and David and couldn’t get back to sleep. Nicole was already awake (Sunday Night / Monday Morning Educator Syndrome), so we caught up on reading, meditated and went on a long neighborhood walk–we’d alllllllmost gone back to sleep at 5.

Going into work, I was groggier than if I’d just had a colonoscopy (sorry–hey, I’m due…grrrrreart!), but after having my temperature taken by the executive assistant to the school president, who is very kind, and working my way Get Smart-style into my office, I settled in for work. And I had some: a paper challenging left brain -right brain theory to proofread and comment on, a Zoom conference with one of my outstanding summer school students and her academic advisor, then a Success Center staff check-in (also on Zoom). I also went for 15-minute campus walk during my lunch break–it was a gorgeous day. As I left, I stopped at the library counter to talk NBA and politics with my colleague Dan Kammer, a conversation I was grateful was not on Zoom.

Culture Report:

Books: We always try to read Columbia’s annual One Read. I was skeptical when I perused a few descriptions of this year’s choice, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Books about aristocrats are not normally my cuppa. However, Towles’ wit and style immediately won me over, and it’s more relevant to this project than I could ever have imagined.

Music: The new EP by the band The Human Hearts, Day of the Tiles, really hits me where I currently live (in a world on fire). It’s really smart and passionate; in fact, it’s veins are open. It apparently has a connection to Mountain Goats, a band I admire without quickened pulse but about which I am not a adept.

Shows: Unlike seemingly the series’ entire audience, we are not won over by the HBO adaptation of Matt Ruff’s terrific tome Lovecraft Country. We have not given up on it–we are big fans of the source–but continue to feel it’s a little dumbed down, suffers from kitchen sink disease, and lacks even a modicum of subtlety. Last night’s episode had its moments, as they all have, but was more jarring against the tone of the original narrative. And, believe me: I was down for this series. Seriously down.

Food: I can eat 50 stuffed poblano peppers.

Streaming for Strivers:

Currently residing (unfairly) in the where-are-they-now file.

Cloister Commentary, Day 175: Beatles and Books

Two very memorable occurrences.

At the beginning and the end of a Friday at the end of her first week of virtual teaching for the 2020-2021 school year, Nicole had a to give herself a dose of John Lennon and The Beatles. This led to a full-on, high-volume barrage of Fab Four until late in the evening, and we’ll be watching Beatles movies today. I asked her if anything special triggered her choice, and she simply said, “They make me feel good!” There are deniers of things wonderful as well as horrible; I’ve always enjoyed watching Beatle contrarians labor to try to explain why they weren’t any good. Their joy is difficult to gainsay, in particular. Beer and Moscow Mules were also involved.

The second thing was a Facebook post by my friend Duncan Parks. I taught Duncan, always sharp and witty, when he was knee-high to a grasshopper in middle school, then later when he was a high school student. Mr. Parks was apparently doing some cleaning yesterday when he found an old red English textbook that he received from me when he was a Smithton Wildcat. He posted a picture of it, which instantly reminded me that I’d rescued the whole batch from the incinerator that year, 1) because the selections were excellent; 2) because I’ve always liked textbooks as a resource (as opposed to the focus of a class); and 3) because I hate waste. Also, it gave me pause to again reflect on the fate of physical media, a mental exercise that’s becoming an obsession.

Streaming for Survivors:

Let’s wave goodbye to the great reggae singer Toots Hibbert, who just stepped on a rainbow.

Cloister Commentary, Day 171: Reading is Exciting, Bananas are Boring

My sweetie Nicole starts school today, and she put in about 12 hours of organizational work at home yesterday. After she finished in the evening, she showed me a deeply detailed spreadsheet of all the students she works with; I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s necessary, I think, given the strange new world she’s entering. But it puts the lie to the ridiculous “lazy” claims some are making about teachers (us, I should say) lately.

For myself, I’m missing the work, but at least I have good books handy. My favorite phenomenon in reading is encountering something in one book that leads me to another book that leads me to something non-literary. I have been strolling through a Zadie Smith essay collection for over a year (her best pieces are like a glass of good bourbon: strong, a little spicy, with unique notes), and in a piece I read recently she wrote about the influence a book, The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi, had had on her–she was re-reading it after having first wrestled with it as a kid. The chunks she excerpted were delightfully wicked, like Wilde, so I had to read it myself. 15 pages in, I had to look up Kureishi; I hadn’t known he wrote the screenplays for two movies that were wildly popular when I was a video clerk but had never gotten around the seeing, My Beautiful Laundrette and Sammy & Rosie Get Laid. I may have missed the boat thirty years ago, but it’s docked and ready for me now (if I can find the latter streaming somewhere). I love reading–it’s incredibly exciting, simple as that.

A teacher friend of mine started his classes the other day with a counterintuitive ice-breaking query: “What’s one boring fact about you?” Takes the pressure off having to dare to be interesting! Let’s play: you share in the comments, and here is mine.

I completely peel a banana before I eat it.

Thanks, Kevin!

Streaming for Strivers:

Soul, jazz-style, courtesy of two masters.

Cloister Commentary, Day 164: Candelabra

At my job, my four other co-workers and I of course must be masked at all times, but we are also encouraged to stay in our offices with the doors shut unless it’s absolutely necessary that we leave. At least we can take our masks off while we’re cloistered, but the situation makes other modes of communication necessary. My boss (who is an outstanding one) emailed me to ask for my office phone number because for some reason she didn’t have it.

My reply: “That could be because I don’t have an office phone.”

Boss: “Wait? You’ve never had an office phone?”

Me: “Nope.”

Boss: “Well, you’re getting an office phone, I’ll see to that!”

Students have to start really procrastinating before our tutoring picks up, so that will have to stand for the highlight of my first day back to on-location work.

I’ve been hearing talk in some quarters about “lazy teachers.” I assume that’s related to our city public school system going virtual for at least the first week. Funny: I’ve heard teachers called many things over my career–“merfer” is my personal favorite that I’ve experienced–but lazy has never been one of them. It’s not a profession I’ve frequently seen the lazy rush into, and one thing we all have in common is having teachers. I’ve had, and known, some subpar ones–think back to how you witnessed your own teachers practice–but even they have seldom been lazy. Why not? It’s almost impossible to be lazy and merely survive the job. Manage humans, create, disseminate, and explain curriculum, then assess the output for 100-150 of those humans per assignment? If that were all there were to it, and it ain’t, it’d require diligence whether one taught virtually, in hybrid, or in person. Just this morning, I was texting with a former colleague who is instructing virtually all year, but has five separate courses to prepare for. There is nowhere to run and hide in slothfulness, indolence and lethargy from that. Another fellow colleague told me today she is already burning her candle at both ends, and virtual teaching won’t ease that. I suggested she needed a candelabra.

Sorry. I don’t know why I’m even explaining; chances are if you asked the accusers to come on and show the rest of us how it’s done, they’d have to go see a guy about a horse.

Besides: teachers did not create or exacerbate our current problem; childcare may be a fringe benefit of public education, but it’s not in the job description (or in our pay grade); and our country has had the chance to create a national child care program, as well as a society with reasonable safety nets for situations like the present–but, well, I believe that’s (apparently) largely considered Communistic, socialistic, Satanic, enabling, or some such other evil. I am aware of the strain hybrid and remote learning puts on families, especially those struggling already with non-COVID obstacles, but “lazy teachers” are not the proper target for vilification. Ok, done.

Cool new show (new to us, anyway): The Indian Doctor. Rooting interests: seventh game success for the OKC Thunder, and I’ll take either the Nuggets OR the Jazz, providing Murray and Mitchell light it up again’

Streaming for Strivers:

That’ll be the day, indeed.

Cloister Commentary, Day 163: Work To Do

This was my last day before I go back to work. I will be tutoring students virtually from my office in Hugh Stephens Library (which at present is closed), as well as touching base intermittently with Stephens freshmen about their progress in getting adjusted. It is not likely to be the most exciting professional semester I will ever have spent, but I’m eager to get back to trying to help. I may also be doing some curbside notarizing….

For a last day before work, we were relatively quiet. We cleaned the house and WD-40’d some squeaky things; we Zoomed with family and friends; we listened to old favorites Earl King, Lucinda Williams, and Bettye LaVette; we ate leftover Indian food for lunch and ordered a Tony’s Pizza Palace favorite for dinner (the Veggie Zeus); I marveled at the NBA shooting guard Battle of the Ages pitting Denver’s Jamal Murray against Utah’s Donovan Mitchell; Nicole snagged us some groceries; and we hit the sack early.

Streaming for Strivers:

In compensation for this entry’s lack of sizzle, I bring you this.

Cloister Commentary, Day 152: Worthy Distractions

I am only tutoring at Stephens, not teaching, this semester. Since January of 1984, only one other semester has passed when I haven’t taught classrooms of kids. That was Fall 2015, and it was agonizing. I missed it in my mind and bones; fortunately, Stephens hired me to instruct in January of 2016. I am already missing it again, but Nicole and I are constructing a plan by which I can best support her as a full-time public school educator and keep us both healthy in a pandemic. I think that will be as challenging and rewarding as teaching–I’m going to give it my all.

I know I promised you the results of the Duke’s vs. Blue Plate Mayonnaise Taste Test, but Nicole left for work before revealing which one I liked better. I will say that it may come down to vinegar and egg yolks.

COVID forced us to cancel a brief trip to see friends in Memphis. I turned to the great Memphis music writer Stanley Booth to distract me from the disappointment. His collection Red Hot and Blue: 50 Years of Writing about Music, Memphis, and Motherf**kers is absolutely essential, and if it didn’t fully assuage my frustration, it surely inspired me to fire up the turntable. Thanks for the gift, Clifford!

I realize I left out my observations on the other half of the NBA Restart Playoffs yesterday. Well, I’d like to see both L.A. teams upset; Utah vs. Denver is the alternating-day equivalent of Indy vs. Miami–seriously interesting viewing/rooting; I’m going to have to flip a coin to decide whether my alternating-day favorite is Boston or Toronto. Oh yes: supposedly the NBA has “lost America.” Bunk. It didn’t lose any fan it couldn’t afford to anyway. Upward, onward.

Old Louis is getting too gimpy to jump into the tub, and he won’t tolerate being lifted, so–soon as it warms up–he may be getting the garden hose. He returned from the dog hotel seriously funky.

Streaming for Strivers:

Another worthy distraction.

Cloister Commentary, Day 149: Misanthropy and Grief

Simply watching the morning headlines, reading about the fight to stop the Equal Rights Amendment, and observing flags and bumper stickers on travelers’ cars on the highway was enough to activate a tiny bit throbbing bulb of misanthropy within me. Misanthropy and grief: a toxic cocktail.

Which makes me realize that one way I’ve always broken that bulb in the socket is through being in the midst of young folks across four decades. Most of my fellow public school teachers would agree, I think, though outsiders might think we’re crazy. Daily exposure to a cross-section of the public as their coming into their own, as you’re challenging them and they you, as they find their place in a group, talk about their lives and connect them to subjects under discussion–it’s a pretty good antidote to the humans-are-a-virus malady.

But that’s just another reason why this pandemic sucks, because daily exposure is viral roulette.

Streaming for Strivers:

On that hopeful note?

Cloister Commentary, Day 143: Charming but Treasured, Boring but Important

The day began with a simple task–try again to get Scrappers, the seriously runty stray that our two backyard cats have brought into their professional learning team on the deck, to the vet for an exam. He’s about six pounds soaking wet, and he’d shown enough trust for me to pet him and pick him up. Not to mention that fact that he looks worse for wear. I figured we could easily get him into a cardboard carrier and to the clinic on time.

It was not to be. On Try # 1, I foolhardily tried to grab him gloveless (I did have on a hoodie for arm protection) and got my hands mildly shredded when he exploded out of my hug with the strength of three toms. On Try # 2, which Nicole executed perfectly and we teamed to get him into the crate, the little fart literally TORE his way back out of it and hid stubbornly under the bed, at which point we gave up and shooed him back out of the house with a broom. A few hours later, he was forgivingly figure-eighting around my ankles when I came out with food; at least he knows what side his bread’s buttered on. He may have to tough his way into full health.

We each got mail: Nicole, a package of KN95 masks, I an autographed copy of the newest record by master alto saxophonist Charles McPherson (as well as an autographed photo of him–a charming throwback move I will treasure). I know what you’re thinking: “That defines the difference between their priorities!” Not quite. I have a collection of masks that I wear regularly when I’m in company and I’ve been trained by the last five months to wash and sanitize my hands in timely fashion. But supporting my heroes’ work I am still committed to!

Together, we watched the school board approve a delayed start for the public school year and the use of hybrid scheduling for a tool against COVID-19. I had forgotten how riveting school board meetings were, but seriously speaking it fell under the heading of “Boring But Important.” And it wasn’t that boring: sounds like we have an intelligent and supportive group of critical thinkers on the board. The district and the city have their work cut out for them–what lies ahead is fairly uncharted territory.

Streaming for Strivers:

Did Duke ever go bossa? Mildly, but seductively.