The DN
1 Something is out of whack.
2 I think every year right around this time something spins a little crooked, that maybe the roof of a house breaks off with the wind and flies away, leaving dusty bugs and creased, amazed faces. It is that time of the year.
3 In his classic short story The Scarlet Ibis, author James Hurst describes this time of the year as "the clove of seasons." The word "clove" means split; an ibis is an exotic bird.
4 In the opening paragraph of the story, Hurst nails the other-worldly gloom of this strange and muggy season. Listen:
"It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the bleeding tree. The flower garden was stained with rotting brown magnolia petals and ironweeds grew rank amid the purple phlox...the last graveyard flowers were blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton field through every room of our house, speaking softly the names of our dead. It's strange that all this is still so clear to me, now that summer has long since fled and time has had its way. A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen door, and if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves, a silvery dust."
5 Pretty upbeat tempo, wouldn't you say? Especially the following words and passages: "summer was dead," "bleeding tree," "rotting brown magnolia petals" "ironweeds grew rank" (correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Meryl Streep in a film called Ironweed, about a lonely, hopeless homeless lady?), "graveyard flowers," "names of our dead," "time has had its way" "die up in the leaves" "silvery dust."
6 The guy must have been on elephant tranquilizers when he wrote that opening.
7 Here's a quick lesson about figuring out the mood of a story: feel the emotion, in this instance, that sad sigh that is the muggy end of summer and the beginning of autumn, and then go back and highlight all the descriptive words and phrases. Four words reiterated the theme of death: "dead," "graveyard," "dead" "die" and even perhaps a fifth, "silvery dust."
8 The story is a beautifully written story about an older brother coming to grips with the fact that his younger brother is not "all there," and whose parents want him to take the boy with him wherever he goes.
9 It is narrated years later by the older brother, who recants the story of how he tried to teach and challenge his younger brother if, for no other reason, he wishes to prove to others he was not the older brother of a kid who wasn't like other kids.
10 I won't go further with the plot; the story is short, but incredibly well written and it's gripping climax and poignant ending often leave students in tears.
11 If you reached adulthood without having read this jewel, I will provide. No spoilers, promise. Here is the link; it will require a cut/paste:
12 Other authors have written descriptions that are similar. Here is the opening of another brilliant piece called Marigolds by Eugenia Collier:
"When I think of the home town of my youth, all that I seem to remember is dust--the brown, crumbly dust of late summer--arid, sterile dust that gets into the eyes and makes them water, gets into the throat and between the toes of brown bare feet. I don't know why I should remember only the dust. Surely there must have been lush green lawns under leafy shade trees somewhere in town; but memory is an abstract painting--it does not present things as they are, but rather as they feel. And so, when I think of that time and that place, I remember only the dry September of the dirt roads and grassless yards of the shanty town where I lived. And one thing I remember, another incongruency of memory--a brilliant splash of sunny yellow against the dust--Miss Lottie's Marigolds."
13 We can take the same principle and apply it to this story as well. Let's list some "late summer" words and phrases: "dust" "brown, crumbly dust of late summer," "arid," "sterile dust that gets in the eyes and makes them water," "between the toes of brown feet," "dry September of the dirt roads" "grassless yards" "shanty town."
14 The creation of mood through the reinforcement of dry, dusty words again helps create that "clove of seasons" referred to in Hurst's masterpiece. Collier's Marigolds remains among my favorite short stories to use in the classroom. It is a coming-of-age story that is among the best of the genre.
15 I located a link to this story as well, so if you have a little time, give it a read. It too is short, but it is also a story that contains childhood mischief, whisperings of trouble, adolescent feelings, unmitigated rage, and deep remorse all in one brilliant story.
16 Here is the link to Marigolds. It will require a cut/paste:
17 Sometimes I love looking at a piece of writing that somehow brings this strange season right into its hot, muggy, dusty reality.
18 I got home yesterday afternoon completely wiped out, even though I really didn't do too much.
19 I had given mop-up lessons yesterday; table scraps, anything that was left over from the opening week party the District threw into each of our classrooms.
20 It's an annual event where they give a light barrage of bubble tests early so that they could collect data on the students' post-summer abilities.
21 It's an annual ritual that is a precursor to the Springtime testing that becomes very much of our lesson plans later in the school year.
22 Necessary evil. Some even see it as a necessary friend.
23 I'm not here to argue that one.
24 I just think that if I'm a kid, and if I marginally dislike reading, for example, these tests might serve to put an end to reading for the rest of my life. We have literally hundreds of kids like that. How does all this data provide them with a lifelong love for reading? They become children left behind in the process.
25 Just sayin'.
26 I may bring the two passages I place here into a lesson on how beautifully some authors can capture the ennui and boredom that becomes this time of the year. It moves to an exquisite sadness that perhaps can reach the seeming unreachable. Nobody is unreachable. Nobody.
27 Moving on, Part One: One thing I tell students early is that I teach seasonally. For example, I use Back-to-School, to give a magazine project in which the students create their own magazines, which are all about them.
28 They study some of the design ideas and concepts that magazines use: splashy colors, smiles, celebrities, photos, intriguing headlines,advertisements, and all the rest.
29 They include a personal narrative, quite similar to the two short stories above, and an article on any number of topics, usually something familiar to them, and also personal to them.
30 This is due before the end of the grading period, which happens to be right before Back-to-School Night.
31 We ride the wave of the Back-to-School season, which lasts from the end of summer to early October, when the leaves change, the wind comes in, and if you listen really carefully, ghosts whisper in the distance.
32 In between I include other things. I see to it that every year I do a unit on 9/11, for example. I shall also do a mini-unit on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of JFK in November, as well as a look at MLK in February.
33 I will get a lot of grammar/vocab done between November and December, which becomes a boot camp for the testing that will fall upon them like boulders this Spring.
34 I will usually get something fun in there for the holidays, but that time of year is when most of the test prepping takes place. The holiday season doesn't need too much more than leaves and bare trees, cold noses, and seasonal joy.
35 After the holidays I spend two to three weeks of intensive writing/editing/grammar lessons. all filled with the rules of the language. It is relentless, and in my eyes, necessary beyond words.
36 And right when it all becomes completely unbearable, I begin Romeo and Juliet, usually on Valentine's Day. That's for the freshmen; the sophs get Much Ado About Nothing, along with a few other surprises.
37 After that I mix drama, Shakespeare, poetry, music, art, and culture with the nervousness and craziness of state testing.
38 It's a study in contrasts, but it is certainly a study, and a good one, ultimately.
38 Meanwhile, I will use to my advantage the free advertising that naturally washes through each major season.
39 I'm trying like crazy to figure out a way to use the Super Bowl in my lessons come January. I've never done that one before, but it might be fun. The Super Bowl isn't for everyone, but then what is?
40 I first need to address what is happening now. I need to make a slight movement to at least try to repair whatever it is that is out of whack.
41 Because something is out of whack.
42 I don't think it is me.
43 I have the spirits working with me, as always.
44 Moving on, Part Two: as I wrote this last night I found myself watching a mini-special on Kirk Douglas. It is narrated by his son Michael, and just as I wrote about the spirits, scenes from Douglas' portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh in the 1956 film Lust for Life appeared on the screen.
45 Van Gogh became a staple of the now semi-famous Heidi stories somewhere around 2005-6 when I wrote a play called Lovebirds, which had a reference to Van Gogh in the ending. My mind had housed an ending earlier, but somehow it had completely disappeared. Gone. Blank page. I then went on a Camp Anytown retreat, which managed to push the ending still further from my consciousness. When I got back, I knew I had to write the ending. It was to be performed in a couple of weeks, but for the life of me couldn't remember anything, particularly not Van Gogh.
46 The ending came to me during a series of absolute remarkable coincidences two weeks prior to the performance. Not a moment too soon. That series of coincidences was WAY more than normal. I do know that at one point I clicked on the teevee and the classic series called Medium was on. It was the famous 3-D one that was all about Van Gogh. That was followed by a series of coincidences that kept haunting me. I have it all archived somewhere on Xanga, but probably won't have time to travel there as of this writing. I may throw a special edition of the DN out there this weekend. I promise nothing, however. This deadline is tough enough.
47 It was late as I wrote this last night, so due to time constraints I shall give you just the link to Xanga. You may be able to navigate to those coincidences, but I hadn't the time nor the wherewithal to search around for them last night. If I remember, I may post sometime next week. Here's the link to my Xanga, and hopefully <since I'm still paying for it!> my DN archives:
48 Moving on, Part Three: Aww.
49 I just looked at that link, and how alive it has been for me for the past nine years. I have repeatedly said that I am not angry with Xanga at all. I just could no longer use it. It wouldn't allow me to edit nor to launch anymore.
50 It's okay; sometimes in life your hand gets forced to make changes. The change from Xanga to Blogspot has been a tough one, but I'm getting it there.
51 I intend to keep the same basic DN stuff out there for people who like comfort food and old movies.
52 I am expanding it a bit to include links and passages from fun things I have read or that I would like to share.
53 Xanga was really bitchy about that, one time blocking all access to its editing services when I tried to cut/paste the Heidi Chronicles onto it.
54 The Heidi Chronz are the stories of the ghost that purportedly haunted the YB Theatre. They involved hundreds of coincidences, wrappings, tappings, coldness, and clicks, far too many for anyone lookin' to write it all off as merely coincidence.
55 After many years of telling these stories, I finally began archiving them on my Geocities website YBDrama.com, which is no longer active. It was a really fun website, but a challenging one. I had to stack pictures and text in layers. It took me ages to put the thing together, but it was also GREAT fun, and had all sorts of little buttons and whistles.
56 The Heidi Chronz worked well, but trying to cut and paste the layers onto Xanga almost cost me my Xanga.
57 To this minute some of them remain extant. But the night I tried posting them on Xanga was either a Halloween Eve or a Halloween Night. The memory does fade.
58 I do remember pasting, and watching in horror as the Heidi Chronz took over the Xanga page. The layers covered every Xanga button I had. I eventually went to Xanga help and was able to disable that entire thing.
59 Precursor to Windows 8, I imagine. Windows 8 can randomly make everything huge if you don't know how to go in and dismantle things.
60 Anyway, the coincidences recur, and have continued to recur even in today's DN. Read it over and you will see that one of fun coincidence occurred in the writing of this DN: the appearance of Van Gogh right after items 42 and 43. For those of you who would prefer not to scroll up, I'll repeat them here:
43 I have the spirits working with me, as always.
61 Immediately during and after I wrote those words the Kirk Douglas special that included a bit about his portrayal of Van Gogh came on. I looked up and saw Douglas as Van Gogh. He was the spitting image. It was all happening on the screen as I wrote this.
62 I always love that. Could I say it is the spirit Heidi coming again to my rescue?
63
64 I gottago.
65 See you again.
66 Peace.
~H~
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