Ode to Looby

The following is a poem written as part of a workshop lesson taught by one of my excellent teachers. She asked us to push our comfort levels and explore using poetry in ways that would not feel forced and would in fact allow students to see how poetry is truly integrated into our educational studies.

For the assignment, we were given few parameters. She simply said "Use love and friendship as your inspiration."  What came out for me was a short poem about my old basset hound.  Named after a local martini bar/restaurant with exotic menu options, Clyde is a friendly old man whose eyesight and hearing are failing him.  He has a special diet and takes 10 pills per day. He rarely bounds around the way he once did, and his walks are now shorter because he gets tired quickly. He keeps asking for Salisbury steak and decaf coffee, but to this point, I've declined that request. He has two little lunatics who have come into his life and made it crazy, but he has always been gentle with them and treated them as something between quiet indifference and mild amusement. In his life, he has lived in a vibrant city, main street of a small town, and now he's moved out to the burbs with quiet, tree-lined streets.

This poem is for him.

Ode to Looby:

floppy ears for smelling

martinis chilled

venison steaks and ostrich 3 ways

mayor of a small town

always looked down upon

never condescended

smell the baby

knows to be gentle

wouldn't lick ketchup off his face

floppy ears now smelly

can't get down stairs

the up is too difficult

(Image credit: Debi LeBrun)

Nerd Projects

I recently stumbled across the Space Knights of Nerd (created by William Chamberlain @wmchamberlain and Krissy Venosdale - @venspired). On the official site, this: "According to Dictionary.com definition 2, a nerd is an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit."


It made me realize I never actually considered the meaning of nerd beyond Ogre's interpretation in 1984's Revenge of the Nerds. You know - nerd as person who was set upon the perceived beautiful people who had determined the "others" to be irreconcilably different. It got me thinking about the things I enjoy and how I spend my time.

Over the course of the last few months, I have been working on a world in Minecraft Pocket Edition on my IPad. I had a special world that my boys were not allowed to enter. I was building a world for my son's birthday.  Here's a bulleted list of some of the main points of emphasis with my method.

• It was survival mode. I needed to have some level of challenge as I was building. 
• I carefully sculpted the landscape to ensure that I had the maximum surface area on which to build. I wanted to make sure that the main building area was on top of a hill, so he could see the real surprise that I had in store (more on that in a bit).
• In the meantime, I had to make sure that I had various mines for:
• Cobblestone (creating enough stone bricks to make impressive castles)
• Iron (Weapons, armor, and - most importantly - the train tracks that would take him throughout his world with ease)
• Gold (weapons, armor, powered tracks)
• Diamonds (rare but enough to fully outfit armor and weapons)
• I needed beds in multiple areas to be able to work in the daylight.
• I planted groves of every type of tree in order to be able to have three different types of wood with which to work.
• When coal became hard to find in the mines, I realized I could use my trees to make all the charcoal I could ever need.
• I created a farm with sheep and cows to have a constant supply of wool, food, and milk.
• On the farm there is a wheat harvesting area (again to ensure food and the ability to reproduce livestock).
• Using sketches to understand how best to make letters out of blocks.

Finally, I had to understand that he would want to add to this world in ways I couldn't foresee. To that end, in one of the rooms I created I put 8 giant chests and filled them with any and all materials he might need. Extra of everything I had used. I don't know if he's going to use the world I made for him, but I saw his face when he took his first train ride through his world, and it made me feel good.

Ultimately, I don't know that he's going to do anything with the world that was created for him. He doesn't understand how much planning went into building it. He doesn't see how much I cared about the little details (making the "B" in birthday was a 3 day project with which I'm still not happy, and the location of the birch tree grove had to be built up using mined dirt). He may or may not figure out that I couldn't find a carrot or potato or beet root to get the pigs to follow me, and that's why they're not in the farm. 

Despite all this, I think that the Minecraft world created for him is not unlike the real world. I don't think I want my boys to look at their world and be satisfied with what has been placed here for them. I want them to take a pickaxe to all of it and shape into what they see as perfection, and I hope that they allow and encourage their children to do the same.

So am I a nerd? By definition, I'd say so. I like it. And after seeing the smile on my son's face, I am super proud of it, because let's face it. That world was as much for me as it was for him.

Ice Cream, Creepers, and the Millennium Falcon

Photo credit: http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1412868-minecraft-model-exporter-for-craftstudio/

On Monday, February 17, my 6 year old had his adenoids taken out. Before our initial ENT visit, I didn't know that adenoids were a thing. But they are, and my little man had big ones. I was, as you can imagine, very pleased with him. After all, this is America, and you go big or go home here.  Regardless, the doctor seemed to think this was detrimental to my son's ability to breathe freely, and they would have to go. Additionally, he would be out of school for the week following the procedure to ensure the healing process would be completed successfully.

Now that we are a full two months removed from the time spent, and he has come through like an absolute champ, I've decided to ask him about his week home with dad. The account that follows is a comparison of how he and I viewed our week together. His account, while typed by me, is written by him.

1. What happened to you during the week of February 17?
          Me: I was off from work because it was our February break. We made an appointment for Max to have his adenoids out because he would be able to stay home from school all week.
          Max: My adenoids got taken out.

2. What did you do each day?
          Me: Monday was the surgery. We woke super early to get him to the surgery center, and they had him in the room in relatively short order. We were impressed.  Then my wife went to the see him as he was coming out of the anesthetic, and it was chaos. He was so shot out. Poor kid.
                Tuesday through Friday we had a steady diet of Minecraft, movies, and naps. We bought him the Star Wars trilogy (4-6 if you had to ask), and he loved them. Obviously. On Thursday, the two of us went to see The Lego Movie. I laughed a lot.
                I know full well that he needs to be ready for the barrage of assessments coming for the spring, so I also attempted to get him on the computer as much as possible. I wanted him to start typing training. I wanted him to get used to doing more demanding math items. He worked pretty hard on the sites I gave him.
          Max: I played minecraft with my dad.

3. What was your favorite part of the week?
          Me: I think my favorite part was hanging out with him. We did everything together. Played games, watched movies, snacked, talked about stuff. It was really special to be able to connect with him.
          Max: That I got to stay home.

4. Did you learn anything about each other?
          Me: I leaned that he has a lot of tenacity. He is patient in the way he plays Minecraft and will wait things out to make sure he can keep building and growing. I learned that he is still a little boy despite being very bright. He had a hard time coming out of the anesthetic, and he was very scared. Never one to cuddle, he latched onto my wife tighter than I've seen from him in a long time.
          Max: no.

5. Was there anything that surprised you?
          Me: I was surprised at his literal interpretation of instructions and also by his ability to eat ice cream for every single meal for 4 straight days (Dr's orders - not just parents spoiling a young man). True story. Pudding wouldn't even do. "The Dr said ice cream, dad. I have to eat ice cream to heal."
          Max: That I got a lot of valentines.

6. What are you most likely to remember about the week?
          Me: I loved that week. I'll remember him fighting sleep while sitting on the couch watching movies. I'll remember him starting to go stir crazy late in the week. And I'll remember the way he laughed at me when that creeper sneaked up behind me and blew me up after I had worked to collect so many resources for our giant castle we were building from scratch.
          Max: that it was my dogs birthday.


Well, there it is. A quick comparison of the awareness levels of a 6-year-old and his dad. They tell me that someday, that week will become one of his favorite memories of childhood. That's what they say. We'll see.

I've included Max's work here:

The Lull

Someone once told me that in any conversation there is a lull every seven minutes. I can't cite the study that proves this. It was the wisdom of a member of my group of friends early in the evening on a Friday following a long week of work, and in those times, you don't look for footnotes, you look for relevance. The fact is we had all stopped talking to take a sip, and the coincidence could not be overlooked or left to the quality of chaos in the universe.

The Lull as it has come to be known (not internationally or anything) shows up in all conversations. Two strangers on a bus stop bench. Friends sitting to watch the game. The meeting that should have been over an hour ago - this lull can be painful since it often dupes the uninitiated into thinking that a conclusion has been reached.

Once you start to recognize The Lull, you will note that it takes on different roles depending on the conversation, the situation, and the participants. Occasionally it provides the out for one of the parties who needs to get out of the conversation. Sometimes it is the natural occurrence of that piece of the conversation having reached its maximum. Other times The Lull is trying to let you take a bite or a sip. Or it could be getting you to pause and realize that you've already had enough bites or sips.

The danger in realizing there is a natural lull in the world lives in the gaps. Once you know about it and then find yourself in one, you'll find yourself filling The Lull with a discussion about The Lull. This is dangerous in that there are times when The Lull is really the universe telling you to take a breath and just be. And when the universe talks,

Taoism

Around five years ago, I was intrigued by Taoism.  What led me to Taoism is another story, but the moment I began studying it, I found myself embracing it as truth.  Each message and idea that it conveyed jumped out at me as profound. 

Taoism is a philosophy that attempts to guide people towards grasping a clearer, more sublime perspective of the world.  The "Tao te Ching" is the book of Taoism, but it isn't actually a book, instead, it is a collection of riddles, poems and paradoxical sayings crafted to deepen one's insight. 

Some believe the 'Tao te Ching' was written over time by multiple Chinese philosophers, while others believe it was written by a single man named Lao Tzu.  Today, there are countless translations of the 'Tao te Ching,' all which try to capture the impact of this ancient text as effectively as possible.

As oppose to telling one what to see, it attempts to rattle them into seeing it for themselves.
Here is an example-

'When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.'

This particular passage made me realize that sometimes, people unintentionally brainwash themselves into seeing certain things as bad by labeling something opposite or different as good.  If having straight hair is really good, then suddenly, having curly hair must be bad.  The idea that this passage is trying to convey, it seems, is that labeling things blinds us from seeing them as they truly are.  The next part of the passage goes on to say-

'Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.'

Interpret the above passage however you see fit.  Here is another-

'In pursuit of knowledge,
everyday something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
everyday something is forgotten.
Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

True mastery can be gained
by letting things go their own way.
It can't be gained by interfering.'

First, I want to clearly state that I don't see all knowledge as bad, and I don't think that that is what this passage is suggesting.  I think it is talking about losing ourselves to knowledge. We simply need to go back to being our true selves, and stop letting all of the learned social conditioning that we have been bombarded with tell us that we are not good enough as we are.  The more that we learn about how to act and what to do, the more separated we become from who we really are.  Deep down, we all know what we really want and who we really are.

Another passage-   

'To those who are good, the sage is good.
To those who are not good, the sage is also good.
Thus s/he attains true goodness.'

If one is only good to those who are good to them, they are basically just reacting.  The society we live in today does not encourage compassion and understanding, it encourages aggression and materialism.  Many people are afraid to be good to everyone because they feel they might get taken advantage of.  Or, they feel that society was hard on them so why shouldn't they be the same way back to others? Imagine having the wisdom and vision to transcend what society has been to us, or has told us to be. 

Ultimately, I think that there is great value in reading through the "Tao te Ching," even once.  If there is some greater wisdom out there that will lead me to a deeper, more profound inner peace than I've ever experienced, how could I just go on living without trying to uncover it? 

That being said-

'The tao that can be known
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be spoken
is not the eternal name.'

-and-

'He who talks does not know
He who knows does not talk'

The intellectual concept of the Tao is not the real Tao.  The Tao cannot be explained, only lived, and those who live the Tao lead by example.          

Rediscovering Vinyl in the Digital Age

I remember receiving my first CD player for my 23^rd birthday in 1988. It was a Kenwood 5 CD changer that seemed to weigh about 40 pounds, but at the time it was state of the art. It was accompanied by the Eric Clapton Crossroads box set. The new technology, convenient packaging and crisp sound heralded the dawn of a new future for audiophiles, and since music has always been a major part of my life, I wanted to be on the cutting edge. The first CD I purchased was Credence Clearwater Revival’s Chronicle.  I was hooked. In addition to buying all my new music in this format, I methodically began replacing all my favorite albums and cassettes with CD’s. I packed my albums in a crate and put them in storage.  It would be over 20 years before I bought another one.

As the CD yielded to downloading and society’s attention span grew shorter, I started to feel disconnected from the music scene for the first time in my life. Terrestrial radio sucked and the initial excitement of satellite radio and services like Pandora quickly rung empty and devoid of character-just soulless, computerized playlists of digitized songs.

Around 5 years ago, I visited Mike, an old friend now living in Philly. After catching up over a few steaks and cold ones, he decided to put on some music, a passion we both shared. I stifled a chuckle as he opened his media cabinet and I saw a stack of albums next to a turntable. After my initial rush of nostalgic amusement, I became curious. He pulled Peter Tosh’s Bush Doctor, and when the needle hit the vinyl, something happened to me. As Peter and Mick Jagger traded verses on "(You Gotta Walk) Don't Look Back," I felt that connection that I had been missing all that time. I recalled Mr. Horan, my high school communications teacher, and his obsession with Marshall McLuhan. After 28 years, I finally understood what he meant by “the medium IS the message.”

A week later, I found a Sony turntable in Best Buy for about a hundred bucks. It did have some modern attributes-an easy connection to my existing home theater and a USB slot to upload vinyl songs to any hard drive. I dusted off the crate of albums that I had been carting around for 22 years.  After serving their sentence in basements, attics, closets and storage facilities, my old friends did not disappoint. They sounded as imperfectly perfect as the day I stopped playing them. I remembered every skip, hum and crackle, even sometimes recalling the surrounding circumstances (it usually had something to do with lending them to my friend Nicky).

Next was a trip to the used record store. Oh, they’re still out there and they’re thriving in most cases. Then I discovered that Amazon had an amazing catalogue of used and new albums and I knew I wasn’t alone. New music was being formatted in vinyl again. Old albums were being re-mastered and reissued. My vinyl collection was alive again.

I can only describe it as a visceral feeling.-the contact of the needle with the vinyl and the warm sound that follows. Maybe it’s an unconscious reaction to the collateral disconnects that were born from this sea of technology.  Maybe because it’s something you can only do at home.  You can’t fast forward, rewind, share or shuffle; you can’t create playlists. It’s a here and now moment; the kind that you savor.

Orange You Glad?

Sure, we're Tornadoes, but does
everything need to be such a whirlwind?

So I wanted to make sure that my teachers started getting words on paper.  After all, they are charged with teaching reading and writing to more than 1100 students in grades 9-12, and I think that they need to be actively involved with the practice of both.

What will begin to appear here in the coming weeks and months will be the culmination of that effort.  These are hard-working individuals who are incredibly talented, and I'm encouraging them to write about books they've read, movies they've seen, classroom experiences, workplace frustrations, and anything else that comes to mind that they'd like to share with a larger audience.

Please take some time to look over our work.  We would love to have your feedback.