Archive for November, 2008

Harri Stojka

Guitars and needles, strings and yarn… the past
returns with chords of music, wool, and wood.
The strands of music weave their way around
his strands of hair. Its hue is like the back
of his guitar, its acorn-chestnut glow
like Grandma’s polished floor, her polished chair.
She knitted in that chair, and he knits tunes
like woolen sweaters in the air or gloves
for children’s fingers. Wrinkles line his face.
They sing of age and cold, as Grandma’s did.
Her chair had armrests polished smooth and dull,
as his chair’s arms must be. She hunched with age
and pain and concentration, as does he.
She would have liked this man, this song, these strands.

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Keep it secret, keep it safe.

So I finally succumbed to the adolescent abomination that is MySpace.

No, no, it’s not what you think.  I don’t have a MySpace now, and I never will again… but for approximately ten minutes, I did.

Why?  Was I drawn into the mystique of being able to make thousands of “friends” in a matter of minutes?  Did I wish to find out how many teenagers in Yoknap County cut themselves?  Was I missing the exciting drama of reading about my student’s friend’s boyfriend sleeping with his other girlfriend’s mother, along with everything that half the teenagers in three local counties, seven cities in California, and a small suburb in Germany have to say about it?  Did I long for the obnoxious tween-targeted ads featuring the stars and starlets of High School Musical 7?

No, no, nonono.  None of the above.  It’s still not what you think. (more…)

Shakespeare, busted.

I recently saw a show where a group of inner-city kids from Harlesden banded together to do a production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  The show was both entertaining and inspirational, especially after the play’s successful opening night.

“I’m going to read his sonnets,” exclaimed one enthusiastic young rapper, “and study them until I can understand the genius of the man.”

Well… here I am, on the other side of the Atlantic, teaching Shakespeare’s drama to gifted teenagers, and despite my college education I still have the same attitude toward The Sonnets that I had when I was in high school:  the poems are difficult and intimidating and not what I’m interested in reading.

Meanwhile, an underprivileged inner-city “gangsta” is studying them voluntarily.  I am ashamed.

So without further ado (about nothing, cough-cough), I begin my study of The Sonnets.  I hope to average one or two per week. (more…)

...still warm...

She made cookies.

There are times when cookies are necessary.  They are sugary little emotional painkillers, morphine for the soul.

Most people don’t realize it, but many words in the English language derive from ancient onomatopoeia.  There is a reason why “fuzzy” sounds, well, fuzzy, and why pronouncing “stutter” sounds like you have a bit of a speech impediment.  Likewise, there is a reason why “cookie” has that heartbeat BUHdum rhythm to it.  Cookie.  Cookie.  Cookie, cookie, cookie, pulse getting faster as you smell the chocolate… cookiecookiecookiecookie heralds a touch of brown sugar and cinnamon.

Cookies. (more…)

November 4, 2008. Election Day, USA.

If the candidate of your choice doesn’t win, feel free to blame the voting-machine goblins… they are obviously biased toward the other candidate.

Alternatively, you could read Writer Dad’s brilliant election poem, in which he likens America to the Roman Empire… distracted by bread and circuses while the Empire’s leadership rots from within. (more…)