Chase two wombats, catch none. I told him that it’s pretty messed up that his reference for country music was the Dire Straits. It’s hard to muster school spirit when I can’t even cheer for myself. He was right when he said you don’t have to write to please some old, dead author. I would … Continue reading Towards a complete thought.
All year I’ve been planning to read a giant novel or two that I’ve missed. So far, top spots went to War and Peace and Infinite Jest. After an intense year and a thoroughly mushy brain, I’ve decided to dig through our library for novels that I haven’t read, but are the shortest. If we … Continue reading Summer Reading Project
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) ~from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman I couldn’t help but notice that after I posted about reading more nonfiction, I posted about beginning The Iliad. So it goes. Thinking about Whitman also gets me thinking about his catalogues … Continue reading Never Listless
In an effort to unite some of my reading interests and writing subjects, I’ve gone back to the book lists. For most of my life, I have been reading through various “great books.” In elementary school, I found a ditto (before we had “copies”) that presented a list of books “to be read before college.” … Continue reading Great Books and Grecian Glory
As I get older, I read more nonfiction than fiction for pleasure. I’m not sure when this started, maybe even in the last two years. I think teaching literature has something to do with it. My brain may need the switch by the evening. Regardless, I’ve also started watching more documentaries and one that I … Continue reading Old–Like History
My life rarely works the way I think it will. Maybe that’s actually normal, I don’t know. Grad school was interrupted the first time by my grandfather’s cancer, then interrupted later by my dropping out, then continued much later after realizing that music, particularly the music that I like to listen to and to play, … Continue reading the post about not posting
While watching and discussing segments of the documentary Merchants of Cool (google it—you can watch it for free!) with sophomores, I found out that the media specialist behind the film, Douglas Rushkoff, has a new book out called Life, Inc. I’m also thinking about my own practices as a teacher and what teaching English means … Continue reading Thinking about Teaching Thinking
It’s rare that I ever have a creatively useful dream. Most of the time my dreams are more like murmurs in a theater or bad action movie sequences. Not much useful there. Every now and then something happens that just stays with me. Here is one of the very few poems that I have pieced … Continue reading My dreams rarely interfere.
With their words, they gave me the world. They turned handles, lifted latches, opened doors, opened eyes and ears. I was possessed. I had to write, but what could I possibly offer that hadn’t already been chewed, digested, even spit out? I needed a place or a thing in the world that I could follow, … Continue reading Another Bradbury Assignment, But Which One?
Stephen McClurg 