Emerson Pyramids
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 24, 2009 – 10:43 pmHere are the two pyramids chosen by my students as best graphically representing Emerson’s hierarchy of ideas.
Posted in Emerson, Graphic Organizers | 3 Comments »
Glass: a Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 21, 2009 – 9:51 pmToday I had the pleasure of interviewing Philip Glass for a newspaper article about an upcoming concert of his. His publicist was kind enough to send me his number, and I got hold of him in Houston, where he was to give a concert tonight. He and his ensemble will be performing The Book of Longing in Claremont Wednesday night, the day the article should run in the local paper. Since Philip Glass is the only living composer whom I worship, I still can’t believe I spoke to him on the phone. The consensus among critics is that he’s world’s greatest living composer. The above trailer is for the documentary film, Glass: a Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts.
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War of the Worlds
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 20, 2009 – 9:58 am
I’ve decided to do my research project on the 1938 broadcast by Orson Welles of The War of the Worlds. It was performed the night of October 30, 1938 and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network. The broadcast was an adaptation of H. G. Wells‘ novel The War of the Worlds, and it caused a mass hysteria.
Click below to listen to the original Mercury Theatre production.
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Why am I doing this? Simple. Teachers who actually write — teachers like me — are often adept at hiding the hard work writing requires. Often when teachers share their writing with their students, it’s only after extensive revision that’s been done out of sight of the students. Of course, this idea is not unique to me. A former professor of mine, Ron Strahl of the South Basin Writing Project, calls it the “Grecian Urn Approach.” It’s the idea that if a teacher shows his students a Grecian urn, all polished and beautiful, that they’ll be able to make their own Grecian urns. This approach is doomed to failure. It simply doesn’t work.
This is why I’ve decided to write a research paper along with my students. Writing, almost literally in front of them, will let them see that the process of writing is challenging for even “experienced writers.” I also hope to encourage and inspire them to do their best.
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A&P Puppet Show (Student Project)
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 18, 2009 – 9:51 pmThese guys did a very creative job and have given me a great idea for next year.
Posted in Classroom Stuff, Videos | No Comments »
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 17, 2009 – 10:32 pm
Today Edwin Arlington Robinson is known primarily for his poem Richard Cory, which was popularized by Simon and Garfunkel on Sounds of Silence. But he wrote others of probably greater depth, including Luke Havergal, Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite. Robinson’s poems have a way of working themselves into your psyche, the best example of which for me is Charles Carville’s Eyes; you can view an experimental short film of this poem here on this site.
Richard Cory
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WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Charles Carville’s Eyes
A melancholy face Charles Carville had,
But not so melancholy as it seemed,
When once you knew him, for his mouth redeemed
His insufficient eyes, forever sad:
In them there was no life-glimpse, good or bad,
Nor joy nor passion in them ever gleamed;
His mouth was all of him that ever beamed,
His eyes were sorry, but his mouth was glad.
He never was a fellow that said much,
And half of what he did say was not heard
By many of us: we were out of touch
With all his whims and all his theories
Till he was dead, so those blank eyes of his
Might speak them. Then we heard them, every word.
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John Updike’s A&P
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 10, 2009 – 10:03 pm
In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits. I’m in the third check-out slot, with my back to the door, so I don’t see them until they’re over by the bread.
John Updike
And so begins John Updike’s most famous short story, A&P. The entire text of Updike’s story can be found here.
My brother drives a taxi in Tampa and keeps a popular blog, and one of the things he writes about on occasion is John Updike’s A&P. I hope he doesn’t mind that I took the following from his blog:
Remember when every city had an A&P supermarket? I remember as a little kid riding in the cart while my mother would grind her own coffee — the A&P special 1844 blend. This was way before Starbucks and home coffee brewers. She used a peculator, which was about all there was. Fresh ground coffee was a big deal back then and I remember how great it smelled. I did not drink coffee; that was for grownups.
I picked up this man the other day at the airport and took him to his beautiful home on the beach. It turns out he was a writer for the New Yorker and he seemed interested that I had a blog. For some reason I told him that the only short story from school that I remember reading was John Updike’s A&P. I told him that Updike’s story reached me in an archetypal way.
A&P is a story about a young man named Sammy who works at the local grocery store. His job is sort of boring, but the people who shop there are even more boring. One day these three girls in bathing suits walk in to buy some snacks. Sammy notices them, but not in the primitive way that young men look at Girls. These women represent something more profound. Updike details the people and items that are purchased in the store including a record bin with Tony Martin Albums. When the girls leave, Sammy quits his job and runs outside to join the girls, but they are gone.
John Updike is telling us that people follow predetermined rules, a set path, and similar habits. The individual has no role in this society, and any attempt to escape these set customs will be dealt with. The nonconformist is the one that will change the World. There is very little individualism in society and we behave in ways that are merely a product of our environment.
Follow your own path. I always have.
What follows is a short film based on Updike’s coming-of-age story. Actor Sean Hayes does a passable job of portraying the young Sammy. Amy Smart plays an excellent Queenie. What I like about this film is that it captures the class differences between the grocery clerk and the country club girls.
Click on the arrow below and listen to a short lecture on A&P from a college professor:
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Posted in Literature | 6 Comments »
John Updike’s Early Stories
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 7, 2009 – 11:59 pmThis is a fascinating interview with the late great John Updike from a few years ago when he’d just published his collection The Early Stories: 1953-1975. I keep chatting up Updike because we’re about to read one of his finest pieces, A&P, probably the most-anthologized short story of the past fifty years.
Posted in Literature | No Comments »
Taxi Driver Art Film
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 4, 2009 – 9:19 pmWhen Randy Klein was going to art school, he needed a job to support himself. His brother suggested driving a cab, and so that’s what Randy did. His experiences are the stuff of some fairly creative film making, as you can see.
Posted in Humanity | No Comments »
Writing an Overview of Your Topic
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 4, 2009 – 11:38 amThis is an outline of how your overview should be structured. Actually, you can write your overview as a series of questions and answers. This is due Friday.
- What is your topic?
- Explain your topic in simple terms.
- Why have you chosen it?
- What’s the most interesting aspect of your subject?
- Why do you think others might be interested in this?
- What do you already know about it?
- How did you learn what you know?
- What’s the most recent thing you’ve learned about it?
- What do you hope to learn about it?
- Why do you want to learn more?
- What’s the most important thing you might learn from your research?
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The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
Posted by Tom Fasano on February 1, 2009 – 9:42 pm
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” was first published in 1865 and in many ways put Mark Twain on the literary map. Twain in fact owed his earliest national audience and critical success to his skillful retelling of this story as part of his onstage performances as a lecturer. It has been published under several titles: “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” and “The Jumping Frog.” In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp, California, about the gambler Jim Smiley, a degenerate gambler who’d wager on anything.
A humourous tale stemming from this story is the one about the French translation. Upon discovering a French translation of this story, Twain re-translated the story, verbatum and with the French grammar and syntax intact, back into English. He then published all three versions under the title The Jumping Frog [pdf file].
Listen to the audio book:
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Posted in Authors, Lessons, Literature | No Comments »