Your Mom

Once again, it’s late Sunday night and I’ve got a plate of procrastination piled high with more homework than I can possibly fit into my face like its some sort of all-you-can-eat assignment buffet for only $5 at Guyton Hall and I haven’t eaten in days … which is almost true. And am I doing it? Of course not; I’m fasting. Why work when you can blog?

Though I'd much rather be laying on a blanket beside Lake Patsy, feeling the minutes pass but not the moment, as the sun dips slowly below the tree-line ...

Video blog dos. My tie was not that short! According to Mrs. Cornelius, it was hobbit-sized. It was choking me though, and I’m pretty sure I can see my face getting several shades darker, from casper to barney, by the end of the period – that shirt is too damn small. I’m still wavering between some of those crucial classroom management questions, such as “to tie or not to tie”. Not quite comfortable in my costume yet.

You can watch me now … but I won’t stop now … ‘cause I cant stop now …

What else? … my mother (who, along with other mothers, was the topic of classroom humor all week) would love to hear me say this … “don’t mumble, marbles”. I tend to forget what I was saying mid-sentence sometimes, and then find myself not exactly talking but instead following my words through a forest of blank stares wherever they want to take me without any significant thought attached to them. Then I walk into a tree, or trip over the overhead cord, and wake up long enough to field a question on comprehension, generally mine. Maybe I should sleep at night, rather than run wind-sprints in the Ole Miss football stadium. Also con mumbles, slow down speed-talker. And I think that I do need to start off the year practicing some of my lesson plans before taking my place on stage, a dry run in the morning before my vanity mirror at home wearing nothing but boxers and sunglasses while munching on Berry Kix and chocolate milk. This will make my lesson plans run more smoothly, with a little flow, if I was . . . organized. Kix essential, of course.

Most important of all, get rid of the Lloyd Christmas and paint one of my classroom walls fuscia – it compliments my post-embarrassing moment blush perfectly.

Reminder: Kidnap RB and bring him up to Williams as the Black History Month keynote speaker, in conjunction with a blues circuit of local southern musicians who would play at Amherst and Williams, etc., as well as venues like the Ironhorse or other smaller bar’s in Western Mass. The first idea followed from Mr. B’s moving lecture and a showing of Lalee’s Kin, the second precipitated out of a night on the town where I bumped into the same guitarist that I had taken a cell-phone snapshot of playing his six-string on a dimly lit side street off of Bourbon a few months ago while Spring Break. Crazy, I’m thinking . . .

Spent an electic first night in Leland, sans water or power, with dancing candles replacing light bulbs and iced red wine filling the china. While shadows flickered on the wall behind us, AJ and I dined on a Sonic buffet, siped on the wine and smiled at one another in the dim candlelight. Despite all the discomforts of an evening without utilities, it was one of the best nights I've had in a while. I'm looking forward to Biloxi more than ever before ...

Stop looking at me swan.

Bombs Over Baghdad

First and foremost, the saga continues ....
http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=2509226

About to head over to the Grove to wave the flag a little, but first, read what Frederick Douglass (http://www.thepoorman.net/) had to say about the 4th of July ....

.... then ask the thousands living in poverty and 'working' in third world countries for the foreign corporations which fill the shelves of WalMart and the refrigerators of McDonalds if slavery still exists in this commercial world without borders ....

Fireworks and bbq buffets at home, air strikes and hunger abroad.

Be proud, but don't be blind. Below are some other takes to ponder on Independence Day:

"You can be certain that on this, as on every July 4th, patriotic oratory will flow as well from liberals declaring their love of flag, country and the Declaration of Independence. Many will speak of how our constitutional republic is to be revered especially for its guarantees of liberty and justice for all and — hint, hint — limits on the powers of overreaching monarchs.

But the progressive and the reformer have a problem with what passes for unadulterated patriotism. By nature, the reformer is bound to insist that the country, however glorious, is not a perfect place, that it is capable of doing wrong as well as right. The nation that declared 'all men are created equal' was, at the time those words were written, the home of an extensive system of slavery.

Most reformers guard their patriotic credentials by moving quickly to the next logical step: that the true genius of America has always been its capacity for self-correction. I’d assert that this is a better argument for patriotism than any effort to pretend that the Almighty has marked us as the world’s first flawless nation."
- E.J. Dionne JR


"I think patriotism starts with telling the truth. Truth is the American bottom line. I don’t think it’s an accident that among the first words of the first declaration of our national existence it is proclaimed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident…'.

Patriotism also means dissent — when it’s hardest. The bedrock of America’s greatest advances–the foundation of what we know today are defining values–was formed not by cheering on things as they were, but by taking them on and demanding change. […]

So, on this Fourth of July, the bottom line is that we will only be stronger if we reclaim America’s true character and strength — if we declare our independence from a politics that lets America down –if we truly commit ourselves to the big hearted patriotism determined to ‘make it right’ and 'keep it right' once again."
- John Kerry

Haha, Viva la Revolution! Loosen your blue and red tie Mason, I'm not trying to pick a fight - just end one ;-)

No Black. No White. Just Blues.

It seems like a lot has happened since my last blog, but it’s all become a blur of sleepless nights and excessively industrious days. Snapshots of last weekend: windows-down, volume-up drives in the minivan along Delta drags, including Highway 61, the ‘Blues Highway’ (the very same that Dylan commemorated in ‘Highway 61 Revisited’); a wine blurry and booze-buzzed late night/early morning walk along the creek and through the streets of Indianola with Bunny and our new friend TKO; one part fried oysters, two parts cold Coronas, on a evening of fireflies blinking to the beat of the Beatles, Harrison’s chords and Lennon’s call barely audible once outdoors and overwhelmed by a million competing male crickets, beneath a blanket of brilliant stars in a hunting lodge alongside the mighty Mississippi River; pool at Po’ Monkeys (see picture), the dimly-lit, low-roofed, sporadically opened, raised shack in Merigold, just outside Cleveland, that lays claim to being ‘the last, authentic juke joint in the delta’ (a juke joint is a BYOB social gathering place, not far from a bar in derivation, where blues music and dirty dancing reign supreme - the original term ‘jook’ comes from a Nigerian tribal word for ‘wicked’); arriving back on campus at one am on the Sabbath, after some drinks and dancing complimented by AH’s wailing harmonica in Indianola’s Club Ebony, just in time to start my focus paper ....

And school on Monday. This was the last week of summer classes for us in Holly Springs, meaning hectic administering of final exams, grade compilations, and goodbye’s to both our students and our second years. As busy as this past month has been, I’ve grown as an ‘educator’ ten-fold, thanks to the experience I’ve gotten, and freedom I’ve been allowed, in front of a classroom, as well as the tutelage from our one-year vets (big thanks to BH and AT) and professors/administrators. Given the keys without a license and barely a manual let me learn on the fly, the way I would prefer. As far as the kids are concerned, hopefully they’ve gotten something, either academic or life lessons, out of my daily soap-box ramblings.

Friday, our final day, began with a sunrise drive with Bunny, MG and RK in the Pontiac back to the Sardis Lake beach where we had thrown a bbq for our second years and administrators the evening before. As the sun climbed the sky behind us, we scoured the sand and pine needles for a few pairs of glasses and a set of keys left behind – nearly all lost items were found before we had to hop back in the car and groggily speed up Hwy. 7, caramel latte in hand, in order get to the school, button up in the parking lot, and make it inside before first period. The day flew by, most of it test-taking, culminating in a project our students had been working on. Our class compiled a booklet of autobiographies and we invited parents in for a chip & soda party to hear them read their work aloud (as AM noted in class, the autobios revealed, among other things, that all three of our boys have either been shot or stabbed already). I will definitely be doing a similar exercise at the beginning of the school year coming up, in order to get to know my students more intimately and personally. After the ‘party’, we got our principal to open up the gym so we could show these punk eighth-graders what a couple of has-been ballers can do on the court. On the way home, RK convinced us to swing by ‘the pink house’, which turned out to be the infamous Graceland II, one (deranged?) man’s tribute to the late-Elvis Pressley. Opened 24/7, ‘just knock’, it houses a floor-to-ceiling collection of Elvis memorabilia/junk, including a ‘$10 million’ record, stored behind a thin glass door and your average Master-Lock. I’m pretty sure I heard, more than once, the soft and deep questioning croon coming from behind one of the many sparkling mannequins, of ‘Are you lonesome tonight?’


Saturday and Sunday were spent crammed in the back of MG’s bright yellow pickup for some fruitless furniture-shopping on the way to and from our new house. After a meal of Kool-Aid pickles, fried tamales, hog maws and dirty south burgers at Big Jim’s in Clarksdale (note: apparently Tuesday nights at Po’ Monkeys are for the ‘bad folk’ while Thursdays are for the ‘good folk’) and a drive past Morgan Freeman’s famous club, Ground Zero, we shared ice cream and cake with the mosquitoes in the country for RK’s birthday, then spent our first night in our Leland estate (myself on an air mattress in the front living room by our wall of windows). Will put pictures of the place up on smugmug soon.

And last night, back on campus after another 24 of no repose, sat under the sleepless stars until the sun came up and finally got to see Rowan Oak, Faulkner’s spot, in the light of dawn after a wooded hike with Bunny through spider webs and dried up sandy steams behind the Ole Miss baseball field. Somtimes staying up all night can leave you more refreshed than all the sleep in the world. The sun is out, the sky is breathing - I'm wide awake and dreaming.

And tonight, Chevron for dinner ....

“freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose …”

Happy 4th of July! Are you feeling your freedom?

You’re so vain, I bet you think this blog is about you

Reminiscent of a radio-editing exercise I had to do at Williams in which I spent 45 unbroken minutes talking steadily into a recorder about whatever it was that came to mind, the first reaction I had to seeing/hearing myself in the video taken while teaching a lesson plan earlier this week was that I really cannot stand the sound of my own voice. I sound like I picked a handful of soy beans from the side of the road on my way to work and shoved them all straight up my nostrils. Talk less, listen more. Some people talk too fast, I talk too much.

In general, I’ve got a lot that I need to work on and a long way to go. It’s easy to be critical of others until it’s you under the microscope (judge not, less ye shall be judged). The same criticisms I had for my peers, I could just as easily flip around onto myself – be louder, clearer, more energetic and enthusiastic when in front of the classroom. Instead of singing the songs of pedagogy with a smile and a clever hook, my passion was passive and harmonized by the lethargic hum of the overhead projector. I could see the two hours of sleep I got the night prior in my slug-like reflexes and shadowy raccoon-esque eyes, the double espresso with whip cream in my nervous twitch, and the last minute lesson plan screaming smoke and mirrors from every corner of the room .... standing up there with my monotone delivery and paisley tie, I was exposed for the perceptive Lilliputians to read like a simple Dr. Seuss story book. It’s Halloween every day and I’m dressing up like a teacher (only for this perverted holiday I have to be the one always shelling out the candy), or I’m back up on stage and auditioning for the lead role of idealistic educator .... how does my hair look? And I thought I was slick.

Other, more concrete notes: Probably shouldn’t have drawn on that sleeping student's head with a dry-erase pen; or spent five minutes of my class shooting notebook paper balls into the trash basket; I need to get some new ties; I tend to laugh a lot – sometimes at the students, mostly at myself; I need to tuck my shirt in and shave (I can hear my mother now, ‘Daniel Joseph, you need to be more professional. You look like a street person!’); zip fly.

Also, I recently read something about the Rosenwald Schools in Mississippi and thought I’d post a little reference link about them (Rosenwald Schools). The schools take their name from Julius Rosenwald, early chairman and partner in Sears, Roebuck & Co. and a prominent philanthropist. The Rosenwald rural school building program was a major effort to improve the quality of public education for African-Americans in the South in the early 1900s.