The Daily News

1  Whew.

2  I'm struck dumb.

3  What day of the week is it?

4  How much news could possibly have transpired since yesterday?

5

6  Nice to see the Niners have it together.

7

8   Are ya kiddin' me?

9   Speechless.

10  They continue to maintain their stupidity. I will continue somehow to maintain my inborn allegiance.

11   But seesly?

12   Abandon ship. 

13   How can anyone see anything else?

14   Ah, it's just the times.

15

16   Oh, I imagine. 

17   Are there other things?

18   

19   Of course. 

20   This, for example.

21   

22   Yeesh.

23   Have I told you that I am emphatically against Tuesday as a day of the week?

24

25    

26   Thought I hadn't.

27   Again with a "yeesh".

28   

29   Moving On, Part the First: Dude. I just wanna move on to Part Two.

30   Slow roll these days.

31   Ah, it's all good.

32   You just roll with it.

33

34   Moving On, Part Two: My students came in yesterday exhausted. Amazingly, I wasn't. I came in ready to fight ignorance and stupidity with all I had. 

35   I just didn't had, after a fashion.

36   Is there such a thing as a group malaise?

37   If there is, then I caught it. 

38   Ah, it's all good. 

39   Thank goodness for the World Wide Web. 

40    

41   Moving On, Part the Thoid: I have had everything electronic fail at the school. Every new device, every new upgrade, every thing that has been designed to make the new age come alive failed me. 

42   For example, my Apple MacPro decided that a) it no longer wishes to offer You Tube, at least without going through a thumb-and-finger ritual to regain it, and b) it no longer wishes to give sound out from DVD's.

43

44   This means I can't fill the room with music when students work on class work and I can't project any DVD to work the Shakespeare unit. 

45   

46   I tried everything. I tried asking other teachers. I tried asking students. I tried asking myself.

47   <basketball buzzer>

48   In the end of the day, I sat with a bazillion papers to grade and no hint of video support.

49   I decided to pull out this grand old teevee that I have used for centuries. No LCD boushit, just a dusty teevee on a squeaky cart,  and its forgotten and forlorn partner, a dusty DVD player I've had for years.

50  I searched my room for that stuff, and finally came upon a shredded cardboard box with a bunch of other miscellaneous boushit crowding it. Underneath a bunch of catch-all stuff sat the dear old DVD player. It smelled musty and old. I smiled. I knew I was on to the real deal. 

51   The box had random stuff in it: a portable piano booklet, instructions, and a music stand, a bunch of junk I threw into it on the last day of school last year, and a bunch of old lessons that will remain old, and which will inevitably disappear untaught and unused. Didn't matter. They were clutter. Pure and simple. But the smell of the dust and must. Yeesh! And hiding underneath it all, the long, lost player. 

52  I LOVED having found the DVD player. I have used modern tech for the most part of this year, but everything I have used has been messed with, and it all needs updates, downdates, secret handshakes, and the finest modern tech money can buy.

53   Bleh. I've been able to access You Tube for years. Suddenly my room no longer has music playing throughout the day. 

54   I have grown tired of going through emails to see what different buttons I need to push in order to get the same basic stuff I've had for years. 

56   I found my old DVD player, and dragged out my old teevee cart. That was all I needed.

57   After a few minutes, I had the DVD player connected to a mini-JBL speaker, and a teevee that you could probably buy for a quarter at Goodwill.

58   As if by magic, they all connected at the end of the day. 

59   I pushed a few buttons, and within seconds The Taming of the Shrew began. Seriously. Shrew was in the thing from the last days of last year, and it just came on. I broke into an enormous smile, as Shrew traditionally finishes ever school year. This is my last, and what a way to go. Providence!

60   It survived the last days of last year, and suddenly my room filled with the familiar sounds of that glorious film that has forever been the last thing I have done every year. 

61   Everything else in the room silenced. Shrew was back, and was to be brought to my current students exactly the way it always has: on a busted-up teevee, complete with Zeffirelli's direction and the amazingly perfect pairing of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. 

62   Another retirement moment: all of the District's valiant attempts at modernizing with complicated nonsense fell to the wayside. 

63   Shrew flickered once, then appeared in all its glorious splendor. 

64   I will exit this year the same way I have exited every year of my career, with the miraculous Taming of the Shrew playiing on a beat-up teevee. 

65  This story wrote itself. 

66   Sometimes, I tell you. 

67   Classic Shrew. Could it have played out any other way?

68   I don't think so. I don't think so. 

69   This group of students deserves the classics. I will strive to give them everything I've ever shared with all my students over the years. 

70   Shrew. It just makes sense. It just does. It was already in the DVD player. Shrew, always and forever. 

80   Gottago.

81    See you again.

82    Peace. Love you all. 

~H~