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How Much Land Does a Man Need – Audio

Leo Tolstoy, the Russian author of War and Peace and How Much Land Does a Man Need.

What follows is an audio recording of “How Much Land Does a Man Need.” The audio is provided by LibriVox and is in the public domain.

Here the link the the text of the story.

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What is Literature?

My students might be surprised to know that using English literature as a focus of instruction is a relatively new concept. In England and America prior to the 20th century, literature classes were mostly about studying the  Bible or reading Latin and Greek texts. Believe it or not, it was India, under the British empire, that was the first country to have English literature instruction.

Today, most students think that literature is old, stuffy poems and stories found in school literature textbooks. They may never consider the fact that literature can come from the most surprising places, and that even stoned-out headbangers are quite skilled at reciting long English Romantic poems and never missing a beat or a word. See YouTube video.

Over the weekend, I want my seniors to think about what literature is exactly. How do they define it? And how do they think our concept of literature is changing?

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Dashiell Hammett

Mystery writer Dashiell Hammett was born on this day in 1894. The three film adaptations of his most famous story, The Maltese Falcon, became staples of the film noir genre. His romantic relationship with Lillian Hellman, a well-known playwright, inspired The Thin Man, a story featuring heroine Nora Charles. The film adaptation of this novel was so successful that it spawned multiple sequels. Hammett was the founding father of the “hard-boiled” mystery, a subgenre characterized by its gritty characters and depictions of events.

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Links to Mark Twain Stories

Some of you have requested links to the two Mark Twain stories we’ve been reading. Here they are, including the audio book files from LibriVox.

Listen to the audio book:

Listen to the audio book:

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Roller Pigeons

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Sometimes I’ll read something in the newspaper that’ll bring back memories of my own childhood, like the recent article in the LA Times about Bobby Wilson, a.k.a. Kill Kill, who has been a roller pigeon fancier since he was a little boy in the projects in Watts. He made some bad decisions growing up, ended up in prison for a while, but his hobby pigeons and their freewheeling somersaults helped straighten out his life. Now he’s passing on his expertise to young guys like Taisean Williams. I raised homing pigeons when I was young. Indeed, whiling away the hours in the pigeon coop I’d built in our backyard was the idyll of my youth. I’m going to show this remarkable little video to my students and have them write about whatever hobby they have or something they do “to keep them out of trouble.”

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Happy Watergate Day

I remember clearly the day Nixon resigned.

On this day in 1972, five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) office. They were later charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them and two other men (E. Howard Hunt, Jr. and G. Gordon Liddy) for conspiracy, burglary and violation of federal wiretapping laws.

The purpose of the break-in is slightly complex, but here goes. Former Howard Hughes business associate John H. Meier, working with Hubert Humphrey, wanted to feed misinformation to Richard Nixon. Meier told Richard Nixon’s brother, Donald, that he was sure the Democrats would win the election since they had a lot of information on Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released. Meier told Donald Nixon that Larry O’Brien, the Chairman of the DNC, had the information. This provided the President with the motivation to order the break-in of O’Brien’s office as he wanted to see if anything was going to break before the election.

All seven men arrested were either directly or indirectly employees of President Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President, CREEP, and many people, including the trial judge, John J. Sirica, suspected a conspiracy involving higher-ups in the government. The scandal revealed the existence of a White House dirty tricks squad, which was behind an orchestrated campaign of political sabotage, an enemies list, a “plumbers” unit to plug political leaks and a secret campaign slush fund associated with CREEP, all with high-level administration involvement. It brought into the open the involvement of Attorney General John N. Mitchell in the dirty tricks, funds and cover-up, as well as key White House advisers, all of whom went to prison for these crimes, for sentences of one to four years. The jail terms had been shortened on the basis of the high level of the convicted, and their cooperation in the hearings.

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Herbert von Karajan Centenary

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Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor, one of the most renowned 20th century conductors. Karajan began his conducting career in 1927. After World War II his reputation spread through Europe to the United States. He toured with various orchestras (notably the Berlin Philharmonic) and participated in many of Europe’s music festivals. He was musical director of the Berlin Philharmonic and was artistic director of the Vienna State Opera (1956–64). He was a remarkable conductor, but his dictatorial style made him controversial.His obituary in the New York Times described him as “probably the world’s best-known conductor and one of the most powerful figures in classical music.” Karajan is the top-selling classical music recording artist of all time, estimated at 200 million records sold. He is perhaps best known for his 1962 Berlin Philharmonic recordings of Beethoven’s symphonies, and for his expertise in conducting the music of Brahms, Bruckner, Richard Strauss and Sibelius.

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Muddy Waters’ Birthday

Muddy Waters 1915-1983

Muddy Waters was born on this day in 1915. He was an African-American blues singer and guitarist from Rolling Fork, Mississippi. His real name was McKinley Morganfield. As a teenager he began singing and playing traditional country blues on harmonica and guitar, and in 1941 he was recorded by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress. Two years later he settled in Chicago, where he switched from Delta blues to a more sophisticated urban rhythm and blues, using an electric guitar backed by other amplified instruments. He soon became known for his driving slide guitar technique and darkly expressive vocal style. From the 1950s on Waters recorded, toured, and played various music festivals. His electric blues influenced such American musicians as Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan and such British rockers as the Rolling Stones, who took their name from a Waters song, and Eric Clapton, who recorded with him.

Hear a great Muddy Waters song, “Got My Mojo Working”:

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Jesse James Murdered

Jesse James 1847-1882

Jesse James, 1847–82, an American outlaw, was murdered on this day in 1882 by the coward Robert Ford. James was born in Clay County, Missouri. At the age of 15 he joined the Confederate guerrilla band led by William Quantrill and participated in the brutal and bloody civil warfare in Kansas and Missouri. In 1866, Jesse and his brother Frank became the leaders of a band of outlaws whose trail of robberies and murders led through most of the central states. At first they robbed only banks, but in 1873 they began to rob trains. The beginning of their downfall came in 1876 when, after killing two people and failing to secure any money in an attempted bank robbery at Northfield, Minn., they lost several members of the gang, including the Younger brothers, three of their most trusted followers, who were captured and imprisoned. The James brothers escaped and were quiet until 1879, when they robbed another train. The reward offered by Gov. Thomas T. Crittenden of Missouri for the capture of the James brothers, dead or alive, tempted one of the gang, Robert Ford, who caught Jesse (then living under the name of Thomas Howard) off guard and killed him. Frank James surrendered but was twice acquitted and lived out his life peacefully on his farm near Excelsior Springs, Mo. The melodramatic style of the exploits of the James gang attracted wide public admiration, giving rise to a number of romanticized legends, the famous song “The Ballad of Jesse James,” and much popular literature.

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Eiffel Tower Finished in 1889

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The Eiffel Tower, completed on March 31, 1889, is an iron tower built on the Champ de Mars beside the Seine River in Paris. The tower has become a global icon of France and is one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The landmark is the tallest building in Paris and one of the most recognized structures in the world and is named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel. The structure was built between 1887 and 1889 as the entrance arch for the Exposition Universelle, a World’s Fair, marking the centennial celebration of the French Revolution.
(Text from Wikipedia)

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