zoo

This fun surprise was left on my classroom door one morning last week. A note said, "this place would be a zoo without you." I forgot how delicious these animal crackers are. Ten times better than the regular ol' ones.

Right now my students are watching this film. Gregory Peck and lion and zebra crackers: a nice morning.

sentences

I haven't really written in a while. But I like sharing quotes. I'm looking forward to reading Annie Dillard's A Writing Life. But for now, here's a quote from her on writing from An American Childhood.

But like anyone, I could recall and almost see fleet torn fragments of a scene: a raincoat sleeve's wrinkling, a blond head bending, red-lighted rain falling on asphalt, a pesteringly interesting pattern in a cordovan shoe, which rises and floats across the face I want to see. I perceived these sights as scraps that floated like blowing tissue across some hollow interior space, some space at the arching roof of the rib cage, perhaps. I swerved to study them before they slid away.

I hoped that the sentences would nail the blowing scraps down. I hoped that the sentences would store scenes like rolls of film, rolls of film I could simply reel off and watch. But of course, the sentences did not work that way. The sentences suggested scenes to the imagination, which were no sooner repeated than envisioned, and envisioned just as poorly and just as vividly as actual memories.

you can't test courage cautiously

For Courtney

From An American Childhood

Just this once I wanted a task that would require all the joy I had.... Just this once I wanted to let it rip.Flying rather famously required the extra energy of belief, and this, too, I had in superabundance.

…

I ran the sidewalk full tilt. I waved my arms ever higher and faster; blood balled in my fingertips. I knew I was foolish. I knew I was too old really to believe in this as a child would, out of ignorance; instead I was experimenting as a scientist would, testing both the thing itself and the limits of my own courage in trying it miserably self-conscious in full view of the whole world. You can't test courage cautiously, so I ran hard and waved my arms hard, happy.

Up ahead I saw a business-suited pedestrian. He was coming stiffly toward me down the walk. Who could ever forget this first test, this stranger, this thin young man appalled? I banished the temptation to straighten up and walk right. He flattened himself against a brick wall as I passed flailing--although I had left him plenty of room. He had refused to meet my exultant eye. He looked away, evidently embarrassed. How surprisingly easy it was to ignore him! What I was letting rip, in fact, was my willingness to look foolish, in his eyes and in my own. Having chosen this foolishness, I was a free being. How could the world ever stop me, how could I betray myself, if I was not afraid?

I was flying. My shoulders loosened, my stride opened, my heart banged the base of my throat. I crossed Carnegie and ran up the block waving my arms. I crossed Lexington and ran up the block waving my arms.

A linen-suited woman in her fifties did meet my exultant eye. She looked exultant herself, seeing me from far up the block. Her face was thin and tanned. We converged. Her warm, intelligent glance said she knew what I was doing --not because she herself had been a child but because she herself took a few loose aerial turns around her apartment every night just for the hell of it, and by day played along with the rest of the world and took the streetcar.

...

I crossed Homewood and ran up the block. The joy multiplied as I ran--I ran never actually quite leaving the ground--and multiplied still as I felt my stride begin to fumble and my knees begin to quiver and stall. The joy multiplied even as I slowed bumping to a walk. I was all but splitting, all but shooting sparks. Blood coursed free inside my lungs and bones, a light-shot stream like air. I couldn't feel the pavement at all.

I was too aware to do this, and had done it anyway. What could touch me now? For what were the people on Penn Avenue to me, or what was I to myself, really, but a witness to any boldness I could muster, or any cowardice if it came to that, any giving up on heaven for the sake of dignity on earth? I had not see a great deal accomplished in the name of dignity, ever.

- Annie Dillard

and another

Some time ago, a friend told this story like it was true:

My sister's friend is a teacher, and at the beginning of the school year she asked her students what they want to be called. One boy said, "Folks call me Bominitious." So, she made a note and proceeded to call him Bominitious for the rest of the school year. Near the end of the year she was having a conference with the student's parents, and she was talking about Bominitious's progress...saying Bomintious this and Bominitious that. And then the parents said, "We don't know who you are talking about. That is not our son." And she looked in her grade book and said, "You're Mr. and Mrs. Jones, right? Daniel Jones's parents?" And they said "Yes, we are." She said, "Well, Daniel asked to be called Bomintious." And they said, "We call him DJ."

Then I read this in An American Childhood (in a particularly hilarious chapter about jokes):

As we children got older, our parents discussed with us every technical, theoretical, and moral aspect of the art. We tinkered with a joke's narrative structure: "Maybe you should begin with the Indians." We polished the wording. There is a Julie Randall story set in Baltimore which we smoothed together for years. How does the lady word the question? Does she say, "How are you called?" No, that is needlessly awkward. She just says, "What's your name?" And he says, "Folks generally call me Bominitious." No, he can just say, "They call me Bominitious."

hmph.

have you a good day

enjoy!

more from Annie Dillard

Privately I thought the reference librarian at the Homewood Library was soft in the head. The week before, she had handed me, in broad daylight, the book that contained the key to Morse code. Without a word, she watched me copy it, pocket the paper, and leave.

I knew how to keep a code secret, if she didn't. At home I memorized Morse Code promptly, and burned the paper.

i went to the book store

because I wished to buy Annie Dillard's An American Childhood.

I came out of the used bookstore with:

• An American Childhood
• The Writing Life (also Annie Dillard)
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (again, Dillard)
  
• The Little Prince
• Wind, Sand and Stars (also Antoine De Saint Exupery)
• and To Kill a Mockingbird

which believe it or not, I don't own. Now I do.

I am a new fan of Annie Dillard. I love her writing. I first heard of Annie Dillard because one splendid evening last spring, a few of us brought snippets to read aloud to each other at a coffeeshop, and Betsy shared this:

One Sunday afternoon Mother wandered through the kitchen, where Father was making a sandwich and listening to the ball game. The Pirates were playing the New York Giants at Forbes Field. In those days, the Giants had a utility infielder named Wayne Terwilliger. Just as Mother passed through, the radio announcer cried--with undue drama--"Terwilliger bunts one!"

"Terwilliger bunts one?" Mother cried back, stopped short. She turned. "Is that English?"

"The player's name is Terwilliger," Father said. "He bunted."

"That's marvelous," Mother said. "'Terwilliger bunts one.' No wonder you listen to baseball. 'Terwilliger bunts one.'"

For the next seven or eight years, Mother made this surprising string of syllables her own. Testing a microphone, she repeated, "Terwilliger bunts one"; testing a pen or a typewriter, she wrote it. If, as happened surprisingly often in the course of various improvised gags, she pretended to whisper something else in my ear, she actually whispered, "Terwilliger bunts one." Whenever someone used a French phrase, or a Latin one, she answered solemnly, "Terwilliger bunts one."

The whole book An American Childhood is a narrative of her growing up in Pittsburg in the 50s. It's gripping. She paints with words; she writes about life.

more snippets to come.

savannah animals

One reason I love praying mantises and birds and frogs so much is that they eat bugs. I forgot how buggy camping is in the South. I also forgot how much I love camping. Every time I camp I remember again how much I love it. But it was pretty buggy. But there were other animal that were more entertaining than the gnats and mosquitoes.

The squirrels at the campsite initially seemed pretty skiddish for campsite residents. They kept their distance, but now I think perhaps it's just a fun game that they play - to see if they can stay on the opposite side of the tree from the people. Cuz on Tuesday morning, one little guy became awful brazen. Mother opened the peanut butter jar and he was next to us in a jiffy. He looked up at us, one paw in the air like he was begging. He jumped all the way up onto the picnic table. At first I shooed him away, but then I thought it was sort of funny, and wondered if I could get him calm enough to pet. I've always wanted to pet a squirrel. I didn't.

That same morning a bird found its way into the trunk of Scout. Poor thing flew up into the car and was quite startled. He tried to fly out the windshield. Mother and I opened the doors quicky, and he escaped. It reminded me of a time camping with Angie in the southwest when a cute little bird perched on the antenna of Scout. This made me very excited, and we were both trying to grab a camera to take a shot when the dern thing pooped on Scout. I didn't appreciate that.

Later that morning a squirrel almost got into Scout's trunk, but we scared him away. I wouldn't appreciate that.

The night before these incidents we had a more scary encounter. It was the dead of the night when I was awakened by a large banging noise. When I was conscious enough to process what I had heard I was initially frightened at what might be out there. Of course it was pitch black and I hadn't brought my glasses into the tent, so I had no idea how I would discover what was just outside the tent. A scuffing noise continued, and I decided it must be an animal, and I feared it was taking off with the metal windblock that goes around my stove. As the noise continued and my head cleared, I got out my flashlight and shined it in the direction of the commotion. Two green eyes looked up, startled, and the predator made off. Apparently a raccoon. I realized that the loud noise had been the cooler getting knocked off the picnic bench. Obviously I should have put it into the car. But there was really no getting into that sucker. It's locked tight. In the morning we saw the dirty paw prints that tried to pry it open.

On Tuesday we went to the Savannah Wildlife Refuge which is just north of Savannah in South Carolina. A four mile gravel road wound through it, and you can drive along and just spot wildlife. The alligators were plentiful. I was thrilled. We were so glad to have Courtney's binoculars so that we could get a good view of the wildlife. The alligators were just floating in the water a good ways away, and it was only through the binocs that we could be sure they weren't just bumps on a log.

In fact, through the binoculars I saw one alligator that looked like it had a snake hanging out with it. I could see a skinny body, and the head looked kinda triangular. Its body had yellow rings on it. Mother looked and saw one or two more, and thought they might be baby allis. So at home I did a little research. Sure enough, alligator babies have yellow rings on their body! (I guess it's like the bambi-dots phenomenon.) I'm sorry I have no pictures of all these animals, but here's one from online of a baby alligator. The ones we saw weren't very small. They are quite tiny when they hatch out of their eggs though.


I can't remember the names of the birds we saw. Mother will have to add commentary. We saw one really cool bird by our campsite. And lots more at the wildlife refuge.

uncle jack

more from To Kill a Mockingbird

I was proceeding on the dim theory, aside from the innate attraction of such words, that if Atticus discovered that I had picked them up at school he wouldn't make me go.

But at supper that evening when I asked him to pass the damn ham, please, Uncle Jack pointed at me. "See me afterward, young lady," he said.

When supper was over, Uncle Jack when to the livingroom and sat down. He slapped his thighs for me to come sit on his lap. I liked to smell him: he was like a bottle of alcohol and something pleasantly sweet. He pushed back my bangs and looked at me. "You're more like Atticus than your mother," he said. "You're also growing out of your pants a little."

"I reckon they fit all right."

"You like words like damn and hell now, don't you?"

I said I reckoned so.

"Well, I don't," said Uncle Jack, "not unless there's extreme provocation connected with 'em. I'll be here a week, and I don't want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You do want to grow up to be a lady, don't you?"

I said not particularly.



- chapter 9

re: marketplace

my favorite lines were...

"The government is not terribly good at knowing what individual people want."

"Well, we, we own the post office, and they'll do as we say."

marketplace

This is insane.
You must listen to this. All of it.

Spring thingS

Spring sprung while I was in North Carolina. I returned to a sea of beautiful trees. White dogwood blossoms everywhere. The climbing roses in our front yard are pink, and one azalea has bloomed.

My car is a light shade of green.

music to listen to

If you don't know about http://www.seeqpod.com/ you do now.

brilliant.

check out the beautiful song from the mac commercial: new soul by Yael Naim.