S2: MC/DC

Madeline Shabbat

2011-08-15T20:32:00.000-07:00

Sharing a laugh - warming up with Frere Jacque and Curious George on the iPad

Sofia, decked out in her best Madeline yellow

The crowd, in hats made in the Dagim hat factory

Dagim leading

Main Madeline Shabbat architect Alisa with my birthday girl

Sofia is always ready to hug!

Bruna made all the Dagim special Madeline balloons

Izi's 3rd birthday party

2011-07-10T15:04:00.000-07:00

Daphne's Dagim Friend Izi's 3rd birthday party at Westminster Park.

Enjoying the water feature

Izi, the birthday girl

Ooooh

Arnav, chillin' as usual

Frosting is the best part

Running back and forth

Sasha, Izi, and Daphne

A two year old could do that!

2011-07-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Mostly testing out whether posting personal pictures on this blog is worth it for friends and family who want to download them. But also sharing some of Daphne's art.

This one is a frog. Entirely by Daphne.

Marker on (unused) pizza cardboard. Also Daphne solo.

This train is a collaboration between Daphne and Diane.

Diane added the smoke, and not much else, I think.

"Get the camera!"

POPULAR CULTURE blog entry: Friday, May 7

2010-05-05T09:25:00.001-07:00

For this blog entry, reflect on the entire learning community. Discuss the skills that you have had the most success learning about, skills that remain difficult for you, and what aspects of the learning community you have found most and least enjoyable. Be specific: talk about particular readings, videos, activities, assignments, essays, chapters, etc. The purpose of the reflection in this blog entry is to help you prepare your mind and spirit for the very end of class, including the reading final. Sharing your reflection will also help your classmates prepare. Finally, Professors Simon and Wahl take these blog entries very seriously as we learn from the semester and plan future courses.

SUCCESS IN COLLEGE:Blog entry for Tuesday, 4-20

2010-04-13T05:13:00.000-07:00

For Tuesday, formulate your portfolio plan. Write in your blog entry about which two essays you will choose to revise for your portfolio and why you want to choose those essays. You might consider how those essays represent your work for the semester, why they are your best essays, why they are the most important to you, why they will be the easiest to work on, etc. Give specifics about what the essays contain and what you will need to do to revise them.

Popular Culture Blog entry, Monday April 12

2010-04-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

The blog entry assignment for Monday, April 12 is to examine your environment and decide in what ways it is "toxic" and what ways it is not. Start with the definition of the toxic environment and give details from your own life--your transportation, the availability and price of fast food or healthy food, your ability to exercise properly, etc.--to show ways in which your environment is toxic and ways in which it is not.

Catalyst website

2010-04-06T06:05:00.000-07:00

Click here to get to Catalyst

Success in College: Blog entry in-class 4-6-10

2010-04-06T05:23:00.000-07:00

Re-read pages 273-275 in A Hope in the Unseen, where Cedric discusses his conflicted feelings about taking pride in his accomplishments. Does Cedric ever do things that are too proud, even arrogant? Does he not take pride in his accomplishments when he should? What is your reaction to this dilemma? What would you tell Cedric to help him figure out how to think about his pride?

Write one well-developed paragraph with a topic sentence and details, including details from the novel. Post your paragraph on your blog. You have 30 minutes.

What I ate on Friday

2010-04-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I had a Kashi Tasty Little Chewies Bar during class... they are marketed to be good for you, but I'll bet they're not. My favorite is Cherry Dark Chocolate. I also had three cups of coffee before noon, one I made for myself at home and drank on the bus, and two I bought before class and during our break. (Professor Simon bought me one of those! We trade off. Free coffee tastes better.) I put sugar and cream in my coffees. That's why Prof. Simon made a face when she accidentally drank mine.

I didn't bring my lunch like I have been doing lately, but I didn't get cafeteria pizza, either. I went from school directly to a store which shall remain nameless, where I had to return some pants that didn't fit. Near the store is Commonwealth brewpub, where I stopped in for a beer and some fries ("chips" because that's the British name for it, and this is a British themed pub. I put malt vinegar on the chips, which were awesome. The beer was a cask ale... that's like an old-style ale that is only partially fermented and keeps fermenting as it's in the keg. So, more than bottled beer or regular keg beer, it's actually ALIVE! I got a bitter, which is a british style beer, in a british-size pint, which is bigger than an American pint.

I didn't eat anything else until later that night. We were pretty much out of food, so I made a frozen pizza... it's Harris Teeter brand, Palermo's, which is actually pretty good. I had Spinach and Goat Cheese flavor. I may have had another beer too, but just one. I get too sleepy these days if I have more than two beers in a day. Then, for dessert, I raided Daphne's Easter basket. But don't worry, it wasn't too bad, since she doesn't eat candy yet anyway. So we really bought the candy for ourselves. Jelly Belly jelly beans, with the flavor chart telling you which they are. I like Very Cherry flavor.

Pop Culture blog entry for Monday 4-5

2010-04-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

For your blog entry for Monday, April 5, record everything you eat on a single day, either Friday or Saturday. Describe the food and your experience eating it, and offer whatever comment you have about it. This would be a good entry for do piece by piece, adding new foods and your thoughts frequently.

SUCCESS IN COLLEGE LC: In-class blog, Tuesday 3/30

2010-03-30T04:33:00.000-07:00

Choose one question and write one well-developed paragraph with topic sentence and examples from the book. (Questions supplied by student Success in College and Beyond students Andrea Williams and Fabian Fuentes.)

1. A statement made by Barbara: “The problem with black people is that if someone gets a little more than them, everybody jump on him saying he thinks he’s better and all”. Do you find that statement true, and how can Hope in the Unseen motivate you to rise above the fray and leave the haters behind?

2. Did you feel that is some ways Cedric was embarrassed by his background; even more so when his mother and sister came to visit? If so what brought you to that conclusion? Use examples from the book.

3. Could Cedric have handled the altercations with his fellow students on his dorm floor differently? How would you have handled the altercations? Why?

4. Describe Zayd's and Cedric's conversations. What is valuable about their friendship to each of them?

5. How can we compare and/or contrast professor Tom James and his star student Franklin, with Clarence Thomas and Cedric?

Pop Culture in-class blog: Monday, March 29

2010-03-29T06:22:00.000-07:00

CHOOSE ONE:

1. Agree or disagree with this statement: The residents of Double Deuce should tell the police, and Hawk and Spenser, what they know about crime in their apartment complex instead of keeping quiet. Why do you agree or disagree with this? Use specific evidence from the novel.

...OR...

2. Do you like the characters better as they are represented in the book or on the TV show? Why?

Write one well-developed paragraph with a topic sentence, major details, and minor details. This timed exercise is practice for the final in-class essay.

POP CULTURE Blog entry Friday 3-26

2010-03-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

Double Deuce is affected by first-person narration from Spenser's point of view. Everything we know about the story comes from what Spenser sees, hears, and thinks. To explore how that has an effect on the story, your assignment for Friday is to take one part of the story and tell it or describe it from a different character's point of view.

For example, you could choose to tell or talk about one of the confrontations between Hawk and Spenser and the gang... from Major's point of view, or Hawk's, or Jackie's. Or you could examine one of the times Spenser and Susan cook dinner... from Susan's point of view. Or any other scene in the book from any character's point of view other than Spenser's. Be sure to read to the end of the book in order to have many different parts of the story to choose from.

You can use first-person to tell the story as if you were the character if you want (pretending to be the character and using "I" as if you were the character), or you can discuss it in your own voice in third person (using the character's name to describe what he or she is thinking).

EXAMPLE:
When Erin Macklin meets Spenser in his office in Chapters 18 and 19 and he convinces her to help him navigate Boston's ghettos to find Devona's killer, I imagine that she might be a little suspicious of him. But they also seem to share a kind of understanding as they talk and drink whiskey. Maybe she was thinking things like this:

I went to Spenser's office because Susan told me I could trust him, but I was expecting him to be just another cop-type guy, looking to put my kids in jail. I was surprised that he understood so much of what the kids were going through. I could see that he gets that the kids aren't bad, just brought up wrong and living in a terrible environment. I didn't expect him to understand why kids shoot each other over girls or gold chains. The cops just think they're animals. But Spenser said, "something's got to matter," and I knew he got it. I decided to help him, for the kids. Not because I was flattered when I saw him looking at my legs even though he knows I'm friends with Susan and I used to be a nun. Really, men are all alike. Still, it was nice sitting in his warm office sharing a drink with a man who understands me and doesn't feel like he has to talk all the time. If he hurts one of my kids, I'll feel betrayed.

Pop Culture: 16 and Pregnant

2010-03-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

Blog entry due for Popular Culture Learning Community, Monday, 3/22/10:

How does the episode about Chelsea reflect the reality of parenthood, pregnancy, and family responsibility? What aspects of the episode are most effective in showing the reality of Chelsea's situation?

Pop Culture: Blog entry assignment for Friday, 3/12

2010-03-10T06:17:00.000-08:00

Go to the Black Inventions Mobile Museum in the lobby of the ST building and check out the exhibits. Then choose option 1 or option 2.

Option 1: Pick a quote from an inventor that you think is applicable to success in college and success in this learning community. Give the quote and the source, then write in your own words what you think the quote means, and finally discuss how it applies to reading and writing well and/or succeeding in college. Give examples from your own experience in college.

Option 2: Pick an invention that has had an effect on popular culture. Write, in your own words, how the invention had an effect on popular culture.Use specific examples from what you have learned about popular culture in this class and in your life.

POP CULTURE CLASS: Blog entry for Monday, March 8:

2010-03-05T09:48:00.000-08:00

Write a review of Real World DC, based on your viewing of episode 2 in class and on your own online. http://www.mtv.com/videos/real-world-washington-dc-ep-2-bipartisan-lovin/1628979/playlist.jhtml Write at least one well-developed paragraph that gives your opinion in the topic sentence and support for your opinion in the major and minor details. In addition to considering the entertainment value of the show, you might want to say whether you think the show is valuable to viewers, whether they get something out of it other than entertainment. You might want to consider MTV’s tag line for the show: “what happens when people stop being polite and start being real.” Note: please be respectful and open-minded when discussing issues of sexual preference, race, and religious beliefs on the show.

A Hope in the Unseen - favorite parts

2010-03-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

If I were taking a midterm today, I would write about Cedric's graduation speech. I think it's really interesting that after taking so much abuse from his classmates, he would get up and try to rally the crowd like he did. His speech at first raised concerns among the faculty because he was so negative, talking about the "Dreambusters" who were in students' way. (He meant that they were in "his" way, I'm sure.) So he had a bland, watered-down speech prepared, but when the day came for the speech, he got up on the podium and kind of lost it for a minute. He had forgotten his glasses, so the crowd looked fuzzy and he couldn't see their faces, which gave him courage. He abandoned his prepared speech partway through and started ad-libbing, preaching like he had seen Bishop Long do in church. He ended up talking about the Dreambusters anyway, and it brought down the house. I think it was much more appropriate and successful than it would have been if he had stuck to the script.

Blog entry for Success in College and Beyond, Tuesday 3-2-10

2010-03-02T05:13:00.000-08:00

If the midterm were today, and you were about to receive an essay question about A Hope in the Unseen by Ron Suskind, what part of the book would you want to be able to write about? Summarize that part in your blog entry.

Real TV?

2010-03-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

My favorite show right now is one on HGTV called Property Virgins. On that show, people who have never bought a house before get the help of Sandra, a Canadian real estate agent (she always says "hoose") and TV personality. First the people take a walk with Sandra in their dream neighborhood, looking at houses they would like to live in and guessing how much they cost. They always think they would be way less than they are, and Sandra bursts their bubble and tells them they are going to have to make compromises on their wish lists in order to afford their first hoose. Then Sandra takes them around to three houses they could buy, they look at them and weigh the pros and cons, and in the end choose one and make an offer on it. Sometimes they get the house, sometimes they don't.

I think this show is very realistic in that the people buying houses are pretty dumb about it, and I guess that most people buying houses are probably that way. Look at the real estate crash recently--it's because people bought houses they couldn't afford, and banks let them do it. The people also tend to obsess over things that don't matter, like the color of the paint on the walls. You're going to buy or not buy a half-million dollar house because a room is painted green? Paint that thing! But I think it's very unrealistic in that the house-buying experience is the same thing, every single episode. I imagine that people buying houses look at WAY more than three houses before finding one that works for them. Or they should anyway.

POP CULTURE blog entry for Monday, March 1

2010-02-26T08:45:00.000-08:00

Here is the blog entry assignment for the Popular Culture Learning Community... Answer the follwing question: How "real" is the TV you watch? To answer this question, think about the television shows you watch and discuss the ways they are realistic or not realistic. Think about this a bit before answering; most shows can be considered realistic in some ways and unrealistic in others. For example, some people might say that the Simpsons is realistic because it shows a dysfunctional family... even though it is a cartoon in which many unrealistic things happen.

Welcome Sucess in College and Beyond Learning Community!

2010-02-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

To S2: MC/DC's many fans: we have added a new set of student blogs. Go to my links (coming soon) to click on students' blogs from the "Success in College and Beyond" Learning Community--a combination of my English 001 class and Dr. Cathy Wilson's Student Development class, "First Year Experience." Looking forward to getting to know their virtual selves in this forum.

Blog entry for Monday, 2-15-10: music lyrics

2010-02-12T07:40:00.000-08:00

Here are the directions for your blog entry for Monday, February 15: 1. Choose a song you like. 2. Write down the lyrics. 3. Punctuate the lyrics correctly as if the song were sentences, with periods, commas, etc. 4. Write the lyrics, correctly punctuated, in your blog entry.

Some notes: treat the lyrics as if they were sentences, in paragraphs. Don't leave them in the original "lines" from the song. Those probably aren't in sentences. If you find the lyrics on the web, fine, but you will have to edit them into sentences with punctuation. Lyrics on the web aren't already like that. See these examples:

http://s2mcdc.blogspot.com/2009/11/it-takes-two-lyrics-punctuated.html
http://profmamamc.blogspot.com/2009/11/aarons-choice.html

A new batch of LC blogs

2010-01-31T21:06:00.000-08:00

Check out my links for the new batch of bloggers in the "Don't Believe the Hype": Reading and Writing about Popular Culture learning community... Spring '10 version. Most of the links seem to work. Should be several more added soon.

LCers, go ahead and use your blog to write about whatever (keep subject matter appropriate while the semester's in progress, please). We'll also have official blog assignments we'll all do. Here's the first one: take any idea you talk about in your first essay (your popular culture autobiography) and tell a story about it--something that really happened. For example, if you say you like watching football on TV, tell a story about a particular time you were watching football. Try to be as detailed as you can. The idea is to practice going into more detail when giving examples.

Thanks, Fall 09 Pop Culture Learning Community

2009-12-12T09:38:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone in Professor Simon's and my Fall '09 Learning Community, "Don't Believe the Hype": Reading and Writing about Popular Culture, for a great job blogging this semester. Students did eleven blog entries in addition to our 9 graded essays and revisions. For perspective on that amount of writing: the collegewide course requirements for the writing half of our learning community call for a total of 10 writing assignments. LCers, you doubled that, and that doesn't even include in-class writing or portfolio essay revisions. Great job; shake out those fingers.

Visitors, check out the LCers' final blog entries (for the class, hopefully not for forever) under "Links", which provide an overview of our semester.

Blog entry for Wednesday, Dec. 2

2009-11-30T09:02:00.000-08:00

For this blog entry, reflect on the entire learning community--the reading and writing parts of the coruse--so far. Discuss the skills that you have had the most success learning about, skills that remain difficult for you, and what aspects of the learning community you have found most and least enjoyable. Be specific: talk about particular readings, videos, activities, assignments, essays, chapters, etc. The purpose of the reflection in this blog entry is to help you prepare your mind and spirit for your final portfolios and tests. Sharing your reflection will also help your classmates prepare.

What I learned from King Corn and Chew On This

2009-11-19T19:01:00.000-08:00

Besides learning that I'm kind of homesick for Iowa, but kind of not, I learned that basically, many of the environmental, economic/labor, and health issues are the fault of soda, or as I would have said in Iowa, "pop." I also learned that the problem is huge and involves lots of money, so it's not going to go away any time soon. Farmers are subsidized to grow more and more and more corn every year, so there's always a surplus, which means that they can make corn syrup really cheaply, and Pepsi and Coke can make tons of money. Oh, and we all get diabetes. Oops.

In addition, because all that cheap corn is lying around, we can fatten cows up really quickly and thoroughly (by keeping them in confinement feedlots and feeding them corn all the time), and it makes really fatty meat. Plus it produces soooo much waste. The feedlot in King Corn produced as much wasate as a city of 1.7 million people. Isn't methane from farm animal manure contributing to global warming, too? I think Al Gore told me that.

I have really been trying to stop drinking soda for health reasons, but now I think it's kind of an ethical issue. I don't want to give them my money any more. It just feeds the corn machine. Completely by coincidence, when I was in Whole Foods today, they were giving samples of Snowville Creamery Milk, which comes from grass-fed cows in Ohio. It's non-homogenized (meaning the cream still rises to the top), pasteurized at lower temperatures, and bottled on the farm then shipped to grocery stores the same day. It tasted really, really good, kind of creamier than the milk I usually get (which is already organic and all that, but not grass fed. I got some for Daphne. $3.19 a gallon... I don't think that's that much more expensive than other milk, is it? I'm also going to shop at my local farmer's market more--I got some apples from there last week, and they were like, 100 times better than ones from the grocery store, so I actually ate a few apples this week. Only had cafeteria pizza twice this week. Maybe by next semester I'll be writing, "I am hungry, so I will eat grass-fed organic beef."

Anyway, I'm going with grass-fed meat and milk from now on, and a complete moratorium on soda. If I find I can't afford as much meat, I'll just eat more veggies. I will do a grass-fed meat recipe this weekend and report here what it was like. (My parents had some grass-fed beef recently and they said they definitely could tell the difference... unfortunately, it's the fat in beef that makes it tasty (not the big chunks, but the tiny flecks in the grain of the meat itself), so it probably won't be as good, or as tender, unless i get dry-aged... but then we're looking at $20+ per pound, easy.

Blog entry assignment for Friday, 11/20

2009-11-19T18:29:00.000-08:00

For Friday, blog about what you learned from King Corn and Chew on This, and what you can do to have an impact on the problems created by the way food is produced.

It takes two lyrics punctuated

2009-11-12T18:48:00.000-08:00

I wanna rock right now. I'm Rob Base, and I came to get down. I'm not internationally know, but I'm known to rock the microphone because I get stupid, I mean outrageous. Stay away from me if you're contagious cause I'm the winner. No, I'm not the loser. To be an M.C. is what I choose. Ladies love me. Girls adore me. I mean, even the ones who never saw me like the way that I rhyme at a show. The reason why? Man, I don't know, so let's go 'cause it takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight.

Hit it!

My name is Rob. I gotta real funky concept. Listen up 'cause I'm gonna keep you in step.
I got an idea that I wanna share. You don't like it? So what? I don't care. I'm number one, the uno. I like comp. Bring all the suckers 'cause all them I'll stomp. Bold and black, but I won't protect all of my followers 'cause all I want is respect. I'm not a doctor. Put them in rapture. A slick brother that can easy outfox ya cause I'm Rob, the last name Base, yeah, and on the mike, I'm known to be the freshest, so let's start. It shouldn't be too hard. I'm not a sucker, so I don't need a bodyguard. I won't fess, wear a bulletproof vest. Don't smoke buddha, can't stand cess, yes. It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight

Hit it!

The situation that the Base is in: I'm kinda stingy; that's why I don't wanna lend a funky rhyme to a foe or a good friend, but listen up 'cause I want you to comprehend cause I'm the leader, the man superior. I take care of ya and then ya get wearier, so just sit. my rhymes are not counterfeit. The record sells which makes this one a hit. It won't hurt to listen to Red Alert. Take off your shirt; make sure it don't hit the dirt. I like the kids--the guys, the girls. I want the ducats 'cause this is Rob Base's world. I'm on a mission. Ya better just listen to my rhymes 'cause I'm all about dissin' cause
it takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight.

Hit it!
I stand alone. Don't need anyone cause I'm Rob. Just came to have fun. Don't need friends that act like foes cause I'm Rob Base, the one who know about things that make ya get weary. Don't cheer me; just hear me out 'cause I got the clout. Shout (Ho!) before I turn the party out. I won't stutter.
Project my voice. Speak clearly, so you can be my choice on stage or on record. Go to the Wiz and select it. Take it off the rack. If it's wack, put it back. I like the Whopper; f### the Big Mac. If you want static, so let's go. So, throw up your hands. Go for what you know. Bro', I got an ego. Yo, talkin' to me? No. Oh. 'Cause Rob is in the front; EZ Rock is on the backup. We're not soft, so you better just slack up 'Cause I'm cool, calm just like a breeze. Rock the mike with the help of EZ
Rock on the set. The music plays; only cuts the records that I say. It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight.

Hit it!

All right, now, EZ Rock, now, when I count to three, I want you to get busy. You ready now?
One, two, three, get loose now!

It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight.

Hit it!

Blog entry assignment for Friday, 11/13 (Friday the 13th!)

2009-11-11T07:59:00.000-08:00

1. Choose a song you like. 2. Write down the lyrics. 3. Punctuate the lyrics correctly as if the song were sentences. 4. Write the lyrics, correctly punctuated, in your blog entry.

Example: Now, when you bug out, you usually have a reason for the action. Sometimes you don't; it's just for pure satisfaction. ... etc. ("Buggin' Out," A Tribe Called Quest.)

What I'm eating

2009-11-03T18:45:00.000-08:00

Starting now, 9:45 p.m. on Tuesday: I just ate two chocolate truffles from Whole Foods, in bed. I put them in the freezer for a few minutes so they aren't so smushy. I got them as a treat for when my parents were in town last weekend. I'm also drinking my nightly liter bottle of Harris Teeter seltzer water. I have heard that the bubbles "leach away" nutrients, but I don't believe that. It's a good digestive after meals.

I didn't used to ever eat breakfast, but I've been starving in the morninglately. Wednesday and Thursday (and if they have it this morning, Friday) I had hashbrowns and bacon from the cafeteria. I switched to turkey bacon on Thursday. Supposedly healthier, but I don't know how anything that salty couldn't be bad for you. Also, the pork bacon was somehow dry and greasy at the same time. I eat breakfast on the walk from the cafeteria to my office. Plus coffee. I am down to two cups a day now, one at the apartment from the machine in the lobby (It's Starbucks!) and one at school... you know, the one you see me drink after MC Munchies opens up at 10. That fake Dunkin Donuts coffee in the cafeteria is foul.

I have a small but unhealthy lunch most days. I am hungry, so I eat pizza. (coordination) Because I am hungry, I eat pizza. (subordination) I am hungry; therefore, I eat pizza. (coordination with conjuctive adverb). One slice of sausage on Tuesday, pepperoni on Wednesday, cheese on Thursday. Plus I snack on nuts I keep in my office. A handful or two holds me over. I'm such an idiot, I even had pork chops to bring to work to eat, but I kept forgetting. Now I'll have to throw them away.

This week, all my colleagues had tons of leftover Halloween candy, so I ate too many Reeses, Mounds, and Sweet tarts to count. One day I must have had 10 Reeses in the afternoon.

Dinner--on Monday I made Moroccan spice-rubbed pork tenderloin with sauteed apples and zucchini. (had to get that in there cause I'm proud of myself.) Tuesday was some kind of leftover... I can't remember what it was. Wednesday, leftover pork tenderloin, apples/zucchini. I was surprised that my daughter didn't like that. I thought she would, but she spits it out. Thursday is sandwich night! We go to the Whole Foods after work and buy sandwiches, but I bought a piece of salmon out of the deli case and cooked some frozen mixed veggies with it. Daphne didn't like the salmon either; I was picking it up off the floor. Tonight I'm going to try to talk my wife into going to Trio's, a diner down the street. I want a hamburger.

Why did I eat so much pork this week?

Blog entry assignment for Friday, 11/6

2009-11-03T18:39:00.000-08:00

This week, we'll start writing about food. To start with, keep track of everything you eat from now until Friday morning. Describe the food and your experience eating it, and offer whatever comment you have about it. This would be a good entry for do piece by piece, adding new foods and your thoughts frequently.

Erin Macklin's Point of View

2009-10-27T18:47:00.000-07:00

When Erin Macklin meets Spenser in his office in Chapters 18 and 19 and he convinces her to help him navigate Boston's ghettos to find Devona's killer, I imagine that she might be a little suspicious of him. But they also seem to share a kind of understanding as they talk and drink whiskey. Maybe she was thinking things like this:

I went to Spenser's office because Susan told me I could trust him, but I was expecting him to be just another cop-type guy, looking to put my kids in jail. I was surprised that he understood so much of what the kids were going through. I could see that he gets that the kids aren't bad, just brought up wrong and living in a terrible environment. I didn't expect him to understand why kids shoot each other over girls or gold chains. The cops just think they're animals. But Spenser said, "something's got to matter," and I knew he got it. I decided to help him, for the kids. Not because I was flattered when I saw him looking at my legs even though he knows I'm friends with Susan and I used to be a nun. Really, men are all alike. Still, it was nice sitting in his warm office sharing a drink with a man who understands me and doesn't feel like he has to talk all the time. If he hurts one of my kids, I'll feel betrayed.

Blog entry assignment for Friday, 10/30

2009-10-27T18:25:00.001-07:00

In class, we talked about how the story is affected by first-person narration from Spenser's point of view. To explore that effect, your assignment is to take one part of the story and tell it or describe it from a different character's point of view. For example, tell or talk about one of the confrontations between Hawk and Spenser and the gang... from Major's point of view, or Hawk's, or Jackie's. Or examine one of the times Spenser and Susan cook dinner... from Susan's point of view. Be sure to read to the end of the book in order to have many different parts of the story to choose from. You can use first-person to tell the story as if you were the character if you want, or you can discuss it in your own voice.

Double Deuce

2009-10-23T06:49:00.000-07:00

I like all the snappy comebacks in Double Deuce--Spenser and Hawk never give a straight answer to anyone. It would be fun to be able to be that much of a wiseguy. I think that it is because of their jobs. They don't really answer to anyone, so they don't have to worry about offending people like Marge, or the police detectives. They do, apprently, have to worry about offending their girlfriends, though. I guess no one is immune from that.

I also think the portrayal of the "ghetto" in Double Deuce is unrealistic in just how completely barren of any humanity it is. Maybe things are just better now than they used to be, way back in the early 90s (but it feels more like 80s) but come on--the kids had never seen crayons and tried to eat them? Seems unlikely to me.

What I read

2009-10-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

I read all kinds of stuff all the time--newspapers, magazines, fiction, non-fiction, whatever, so I'm going to have to pick something. How about the 33 1/3 books? Those are a series of books about musical albums. (33 and a third rotations per minute is the speed a 12" record plays at on a turntable.) I've read two lately, about albums I like. One was good and one was terrible. The good one was about The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique. The book was full of all kinds of interesting background information: what the Beastie Boys were doing at the time (partying in Los Angeles), who the weirdos who produced the album were (The Dust Brothers and the reclusive DJ Matt Dike) and what they were like, what samples they used for the songs, how they wrote and recorded the songs. It really gives you a lot to think about when listening to the album. The bad one was about the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime. It just rehashed the same old stale personal reactions about how cool the album was and how the author listened to it on cassette in his car. I had tons of questions about the album that weren't answered, and he just missed lots of things. Like, he speculates, song by song, about why they left certain songs off the album when they put it on CD... but if you look at the songs, you realize that THEY LEFT ALL THE COVER VERSIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE'S SONGS OFF! One book was written with readers in mind. The other seems to be written for the personal gratification of the author. That's fine, but don't publish it for people to buy then.

Blog entry assignment for Friday, 10/23/09

2009-10-21T06:58:00.000-07:00

Two blog entries in a week--we're bloggin' like crazy.

For Friday, describe your reaction to reading the first part of Double Deuce. You could write about what you liked about it, what you didn't, what you could or couldn't relate to, the characters, your experience reading it... whatever!

Blog entry assignment for Monday, 10/16

2009-10-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

A Blog entry assigned for a Monday? Crazy!

For Monday, 10/16, discuss what you read in your spare time. Newspapers, magazines, novels? Which ones, which sections, what kinds? Stuff online? What sites? You can talk about things you've read recently, what you liked and didn't like about them, how you feel about reading in general, who your favorite writers are, what your favorite book is, etc. etc. Give specific examples.

S9 = S2

2009-10-16T07:45:00.001-07:00

So the Metrobus drivers' union has told its members to follow ALL safety regulations no matter what--"don't give supervisors a reason to write you up." This means no passing other buses at stops, which means that an express bus that doesn't make all the stops... has to stop behind ones who do. At all the stops. S9 catches up to S2 and makes all the stops with it. Still, there are more buses running, so it's better than it was before there was an S9... door to door travel is still improved, and if you catch an S9 it's plush and less crowded. But it looks like the days of 30-minute door-to-door commutes between MC and DC are over for the time being. Oh well, I wasn't getting through the whole sports page anyway.

Kolaches as folk culture

2009-10-09T04:32:00.000-07:00

My family on my Mom's side is 100% Czech. (From what is now called the Czech Republic, but before the fall of communism was Czechoslovakia and before that was once Moravia and Bohemia. My family is Moravian. In the town where my mom grew up, they told "bohemie jokes," as "bohemie" is a disparaging term for Bohemians.

ANYway, around Christmas, my Mom and her sisters follow the tradition of making Kolaches. They are a kind of bready pastry, kind of like a breadier bagel, with an indentation in the middle for fruit filling, usually apricot, prune, or poppy seed. They are great for breakfast.

Not only does eating them remind us of our heritage--my Mom sometimes reminisces about her mom and her grandma making them, and all other kinds of Czech food they had in the house around Christmas--but the process of making them is also a tradition. This is beause they're not easy to make correctly. The dough has to be just right. It is easy for them to come out tough or flat. I should know--that's what happened when I try to make them. So knowing how to make them the right way is something my Mom and her sisters talk a lot about. For me, it means that upholding the tradition isn't jsut about deciding to make them. It's something you have to work at and learn.

Kolaches at wikipedia (Reading this, I was glad to see that my family pronounces it the old Czech way, not the Americanized way I've sometimes heard: a singular one is a "Kolach," not a "Kolachy."

Blog entry for Friday, 10/9

2009-10-09T04:23:00.000-07:00

The Popular Culture Learning Community for Friday, October 9, is to write about a "folk culture" tradition you participate in. This can be a family, national, or other tradition.

Being Real on reality TV

2009-09-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I think that the more obnoxious, mean, and stupid reality shows are, especially the competitive ones (what are the most over-the-top ones we can think of? Surreal World is pretty bad. For example, there was the time when Vern, who plays mini-me, got drunk. and the [whatever] of Love ones are too) the more "real" they really are. I feel like that when I'm in one of those moods where I'm feeling down on people and judgmental about them--when it seems like every third person I see is throwing candy wrappers in the street or swearing loudly at their kids or cutting me off with their BMW in the crosswalk. That's when it makes sense to me to see people acting the fool, exploiting each other, playing off stereotypes, and selling themselves short, all for a little bit of money. When I'm feeling like that, those shows can sometimes seem like an honest reflection of the way most people really are. But...

TO BE CONTINUED...

Blog assignment for Friday, 10-2

2009-09-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

LCers - This week, let's write about "Reality TV." You can write about any of the shows we talked about in class last Friday... or if you can't think of any, you can write about the episode of "16 and Pregnant" we saw. Write on the following question: How "real" is reality TV? So you'll want to think of some ways it is "real," (more real than other kinds of TV?) or some ways it's not real. (Unreal? Fake?) Practice using examples from shows to support your points. For example, students in previous classes have had a good time with "Flava of Love" or "Rock of Love" with this one. If you think hard, there are some ways that even something so ridiculous as that show can be said to be "real" (Realistic?) OR I'll bet you can think of some ways that even a documentary on a serious subject, like "16 and Pregnant" can be a bit unrealistic. We want to move beyond last minute thoughts and get some good ideas down, but this is still an informal assignment. DO spend some time thinking and writing about this (and taking notes watching TV if that helps you. DON'T worry about being "wrong." DO try to develop your ideas with examples. DON'T worry about grammar. Have fun!

Straight Outta Iowa

2009-09-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

I like all kinds of music--punk, jazz, rock, whatever--but lately I've been listening to lots of rap. Sometimes I feel weird about it because I'm not very hip-hop looking, sounding, or acting. I first got into it in about '86-'89, through the Beastie Boys, N.W.A., Public Enemy, Kool Moe Dee, Whodini, Cool J, and Native Tongue groups like Jungle Brothers, Tribe Called Quest, and especially De La Soul, who I still love today. I especially love sampling--grabbing bits and pieces of other songs, sometimes very unfunky songs, and rearranging them and/or scratching them to make them funky. For example, De La Soul managed to sample such square groups as Hall and Oates and actually make them funky. Another thing I love is that rap has always valued free speech. Sometimes that involves saying things that are controversial or offensive, but it's a place where people can express themselves without limits. A lot of the resulting free speech I choose not to listen to because I think it's hateful and unnecessary--for example songs that express hatred for gay people and even advocate violence against them. On the other hand, some of that speech takes place in songs that are undeniably funky, like Ice Cube's "Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself." I do like that song even though I think some of the things he says in it are just wrong to say.

I mostly listen to music on iPod (or on vinyl or through the computer at home) but when I'm in a Zipcar, I get to check out what's current on PGC or KYS. I like when they have DJs (like Quicksilver) actually mixing, on the lunch hour or after work. Does anybody know what time those shows are on or whether I can get podcasts of them? Not only is it fun to hear the DJ mixing, but they play old stuff you don't usually hear on the radio. But sometimes I get self-conscious when I pull up to a stoplight with the bass bumping, and I turn it down so I don't look like the guy from Malibu's Most Wanted.There's a hip hop show on WPFW (88.9) every night at 11, but I'm usually sleeping.

I also love to go see live music at clubs, especially the Black Cat. I've hardly seen any hip-hop shows live at all. I mostly go see punk and indie bands from "back in the day" (and kids, my "back in the day" is BACK. in the DAY.) I last saw the Waco Brothers at Iota on my birthday over labor day weekend. They're a country-punk-commie band with songs about unions. It was an afternoon show, so I could get home for dinner with the family. Before that, I saw the Breeders at the 9:30 club. That's Kim and Kelley Deal, twin sisters from Ohio, one of whom was in the very successful 80s-90s alternative band The Pixies. The other is a former drug addict, and her sister taught her to play guitar to give her something to do, and now they're a band. That was great too. They just played again at the Black Cat, but I didn't go. It's just too hard right now with my daughter, plus I only get to really hang out with her on the weekend and I don't want to miss that time.

Blog assignment 9/25/09

2009-09-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

This week's Pop Culture Learning Community blog assignment is about music. What music do you listen to? Why? Where? How? Etc. Be sure to mention a particular song somewhere in your post. We will read each others' blogs in class on Friday and comment on some of your classmates' blogs. Of course, you can always comment on each others' blogs in advance of Friday.

Watching TV this week

2009-09-14T18:52:00.000-07:00

Watching TV ain't what it used to be.

I used to kick back, enjoy a cold beverage and some chips, flip through the digital listings, and set reminders for all manner of great viewing: sports! (not just football and hockey, but curiosities like Australian rules football and soccer.) Movies! (not just new movies but movies I'd seen again and again, like Pulp Fiction or Full Metal Jacket. IFC and Sundance, I love you.) A full hour of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert every night. Seinfeld and Simpsons reruns virtually whenever I wanted.

But now things are different. I have a daughter who goes to bed by 9:00 pm, and we still live in a one-bedroom apartment. I won't get into how this particular routine was decided on, but what it means is that we put baby Daphne to bed in the living room, where the TV is, and we go into the bedroom at 9:00. I've never been a TV-in-the-bedroom kind of person, so I don't see any TV that starts after 9:00. Further, when I do watch TV before 9:00, I'm never JUST watching TV. I'm either watching Daphne, which means reading with her, walking around and around the kitchen island with her, keeping her from banging her head into everything... or if I'm not on baby duty, I'm cooking or cleaning.

That means my attention is fragmented, which I don't get all the way into any TV show. Take the Redskins game last week for example. Normally, I'd be watching closely, ready to break into the theme song from Benny Hill as the latest bunch of multi-millionaire underachievers wearing the racist logo fall behind by a couple of touchdowns, then get it together just enough to make a frantic comeback in the second half but still lose. I'd be waiting for that entertaining shot of the latest coach/savior rubbing his face with his hands. (Norv Turner was my favorite--he always looked like he needed a laxative.)

Well, maybe not watching as much TV will make me a better person, less likely to take pleasure in the failure of others.

Blog Assignment for 9/18/09

2009-09-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

This post is the blog assignment for the Fall 09 "Don't Believe The Hype" popular culture learning community. It is due on Friday, 9/18/09.

By friday, write a blog entry of at LEAST one well-developed paragraph on the following general topic: What thoughts do you have about the TV you have watched this week? (You can write on anything related to this topic that you want. If you want, use pictures, links, whatever!)

On friday, we will be looking at each other's blogs and commenting on them. Prof. Wahl and Prof. Simon will be doing their own blog entries too.

Have fun!!!

S9:MC/DC

2009-09-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

I ride the S9 now, not the S2. That changes everything.

the "9" busses are the express versions of busses on select routes. They make fewer stops, there are fewer riders, you get there faster... plus all the "9" busses are the new fancy ones with comfortable seats.

SOOOO much less interesting. Fewer drunks, crazy people, cross-cultural interactions. I don't even have to wear headphones anymore.

My Diet and the Toxic Environment

2009-04-13T08:42:00.001-07:00

What do I eat in a typical day? When I first considered the question, I thought that it would really depend on whether it was a weekend or weekday. On weekdays, I eat from the cafeteria at school, which really makes my diet much worse, I think, because I always have a big, greasy slice of sausage pizza, and often a Dr. Pepper. Also, on weekdays, I don't eat breakfast, which I guess is not good. If my wife remembers to actually put a banana in my hand before I leave for work, I will eat that on the bus, but that isn't a sure thing.

Well, this Saturday, when I think about it, my diet was just as bad. I did eat breakfast, but I ate Raisin Bran, which I'll bet has a bunch of sugar in it...and I always put sugar on top of that. I did have the banana too, but I would have been better off just having that. For lunch on my supposedly healthier weekend day? Frozen pizza, three slices! That and my cafeteria pizza? Definitely a product of the "Toxic Environment" described in Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me." Easy, quick, cheesy, and greasy. No dishes to clean, no tupperware to carry to work, no need to actually sit down at a table. I can gobble it down while walking around campus or grading papers. It's not so much a meal as a transfusion of feeling OK. No sausage on the pizza at home, but it's not exactly rice and beans.

Dinner is my saving grace. We cook at least twice a week for dinner, often vegetables, and since it's just the two of us, we have leftovers for the entire week. Plus, cooking and eating as a family is the opposite social situation as the Toxic Environment. If my pizza is about grabbing something because I'm too busy and lazy (and because, I'm convinced, that the cafeteria puts something addictive in that stuff), then shopping and cooking together is about going slow, planning together, talking, accomplishing something. It's really a thing that brings us together as a family, like our hour-long weekend walks. So, though my diet is partly a Toxic Environment situation, I guess I can feel good that at least once a day I break out of that pattern.

"snitching" in Double Deuce

2009-04-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

Why don't the residents of Double Deuce, the housing project in Robert Parker's Spenser novel Double Deuce, just call the police instead of hiring detectives to come and clean it up. Of course, I know what people will say: They're afraid for their well-being because they assume the gang's reach goes so far that even an "anonymous" tip will be traced back to them; the police won't do anything anyway; etc. I do understand those things, but it's too bad that we've things get this far out of hand. We think of "government" as something that rules us, when in fact, it's supposed to be something that we make work for us in the ways we want. We pay for it, after all. The police should be a tool for the people to use, not a part of what oppresses us, so we should demand that they protect us. Now, if people actually feel some empathy for those in our community who bring violence and addiction to their families and friends, well, that's another story. But let's not condemn crimes and do nothing about them.

Professional Development

2009-03-27T12:00:00.000-07:00

I am in a professional development class right now. Why is it that when you get a bunch of teachers together to take a class, they always do all the things that drive them crazy when their students do them... like getting online and doing personal things while the instructor tries to teach. Should have turned on LANSchool so she could see my screen from the front. That's what I do. Who knows, maybe she could have saved me from myself and made me learn something. Or maybe it's just my responsibility.

Feelies live in DC

2009-03-18T18:59:00.000-07:00

Went to see the Feelies with friends David, Jonathan, and Jason on Saturday night, and they were everything I'd hoped. I've never seen them live; most people haven't, as their legendarily "anti-careerist" career kept the New Jersey / New York postpunk legends from touring very much during their heyday in the 80s.

The whole band sounded great and played really assertively, especially frontman Glenn Mercer. His guitar solos were riveting, never meandering, and we cheered them spontaneously like at a jazz show. His voice surprised me, deep but more out front and confident than on the albums. He's a Lou Reed kind of talk-singer, but he can also really actually sing. It helped that it was some of the best, clearest sound I'd ever heard at a club. (In part because the size of the room was essentially halved for the non-sellout crowd, with the movable stage pushed forward quite a ways.)

Mercer, fact-checking-cuz /percussionist Dave Weckerman, and the rest of the original-mach II band looked really comfortable rocking out post-40 (post 50? It's possible, though they were pretty young when they started out in the late 70s.) Except for Bill Million, who I didn't expect to look comfortable, given that his "personal and family problems" broke up the band in '91 when he moved his family to Florida for a job at Disneyland without telling anyone. He looked kind of anxious and weird, the effort of concentration required to keep up with the "hyper-strum" rhythm guitar evident in his face. But I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he looked that way at the height of his powers either.

They played very lively versions of songs from all their albums, with energy building throughout the show as Mercer began to jump around and Weckerman worked himself into a frenzy. Then FIVE two-song encores, which seemed like a lot of leaving and coming back. Maybe Million dashing from the stage while the last note of several of the encores had something to do with it. The encores were mostly all covers--the VU covers available on Feelies albums, Patti Smith's "Dancing Barefoot," and Jonathan Richman's "I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms" paid tribute to the band's 70s New York roots. The cover of REM's early "Boxcar," presumably learned for the tribute to REM at Carnegie Hall a couple of nights earlier, worked in the opposite direction, paying tribute to themselves as an influence on REM and the whole indie underground. Neil Young's "Barstool Blues" was my favorite--a perfect choice for Feelie-ization, with metronomic strum replacing Young's quavery swing.

The first time I heard the Feelies was on cassette in Dave's Toyota Tercel in the middle of the night. He, my future wife Diane, and I were coming home to DC from New York, where Dave had taken us to see the Mekons for the first time. With "Crazy Rhythms" cranked and the trees rushing by in the headlights, it felt like were in a time machine. Later, when my wife took me to New Jersey in HER Toyota Tercel for the first time, we made a pilgrimage to Crazy Rhythms Records, where the selection was disappointing and they claimed never to have heard of the Feelies. But they pointed us to a very cool record store around the corner. I bought Mojo Nixon's "Whereabouts Unknown," produced by Roscoe Ambel with Will Rigby from the dBs on drums. The guy behind the counter in that second store looked like he could have been a Feelie or a dB himself.

Check out this interview with Glenn Mercer and Dave Weckerman in the great online magazine Perfect Sound Forever. The interviewer, Jason Gross, also has a music blog, Ye Wei aka Wild Taste.

Baby Borrowers and family relationships

2009-03-04T04:24:00.000-08:00

When I saw episode two of Baby Borrowers, it made me want to be really nice to my wife. Seeing the teens sleep deprived, irritable, and fighting with each other struck a cord. Just the night before, my wife and I had had a terrible night of getting up with our little Daphne, who, as they told us in the hospital when whe was born seven months ago, is "very alert," and "loves to be held." Yeah, we noticed: when does that kid ever sleep? Anyway, the night before seeing episode two, I was up until 3 a.m. with her, trying to rock her to sleep and put her down, then I couldn't take it anymore and woke my wife up to take over. In my sleep deprived state, I got it in my mind that it was some kind of affront to me that my wife was sleeping while I was up. I don't remember, but I think I wasn't that nice to her when I crashed. Trying to get a baby to sleep when she doesn't want to is incredibly frustrating. It is absolutely not the baby's fault, and in Daphne's case, she just wanted to lay on our shoulders, not in her bed. Further, there's nothing you can do if she doesn't want to sleep. It's a complete loss of control. Add to that to a happily snoozing spouse (so it seems to a sleep deprived brain), and it can kind of feel like everyone's against you, like it's not fair somehow. I'm amazed that Cory did as well as he did under those circumstances, with Alicia just checking out altogether.

Update: Daphne doesn't like it when I grade papers late at night--that makes her not want to sleep. So I'm planning ahead better during the day...and remembering to be nice to my wife!

I ride the bus

2009-02-15T16:32:00.001-08:00

I'm an expert at riding the bus. I takethe S2 bus from 16th and V Northwest, Washington, DC, to Alaska Ave and Georgia Ave. Then I cross Georgia Avenue, cross Blair Park, and I'm at work: Montgomery College, Takoma Park / Silver Spring Campus. Back again on the S2 after work, unless it's the 79 Express down Georgia Avenue to the Georgia Avenue metro stop, then two stops on the Green Line to U St./Cardozo stop, then either a 90-something bus down U to 16th, or walk. Headphones are a must, especially in the morning before coffee, to drown out conversations. Coffee is a must--the bus drivers don't seem to care, and I've never spilled. SmartCard is a must--standing there putting coins and bills in the machine is for chumps. And one more must--greeting the bus driver getting on and saying thanks getting off.

In this blog i'll be writing about my experiences on the bus, among other things.