"I have been working on a play."
How many times in the last 24 years has that been a response as to why something has not gotten done? Oh, dear reader...many times...
Since "Fiddler on the Roof" in the spring of 1987, I have been busy with high school productions three score times...and that line has helped explain many things from unintended silences, to almost-missing-tax-dealines, to you name it.
"I have been working on a play." That is where I have been, and starting tomorrow, I will be back again.
Just to tantalize any readers left, here are the titles of the the next four blog entries, all hopefully-completed by Sunday evening:
"Butterfly Kisses"
"She asked, gingerly..."
"The People in the Picture"
"Camping with Henry and Tom"
Everything is well, I am relaxing today after a whirlwind rehearsal schedule, and ready to go to a colleague's apartment for dinner in just a few.
We'll catch up this weekend...
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Saturday, May 7, 2011
“Jerusalem” Bookends
As I wrote the blog entry the other day on the “bookends” of “welcome home,” I realized there were more than one set of bookends to my delightful spring break in New York and Cincinnati. So today and tomorrow I will devote some time musing about two other pairs of bookends from my trip.
There is a song in England that is more beloved, according to recent surveys, than any other national song—more than even “God Save the Queen,” or “Land of Hope and Glory.” The song is called “Jerusalem,” and at the beginning of my spring break week I encountered the song in a curious way, and then at the end of the week the song “Jerusalem” made another appearance.
On a glorious Easter Day, after church at Advent Lutheran (where I attended for years, oh, and did I mention that Tina Fey sat behind me in church??) I took the wondrous Anne Siviglia to see a play that had opened just days before to rave reviews. We saw Jerusalem, by British playwright Jez Butterworth. I didn’t know anything about the play beforehand except that the play revolved around a magnificent performance by British actor Mark Rylance. As we entered the Music Box Theater (sigh for a moment, as I remember the days when it was not infrequent that I got to go to plays at the Music Box. Okay, end of sigh. End of diversion.) the entire proscenium and curtain was festooned by a monumental flag that looked ancient. Anne and I, anglophiles both, figured out that it was the flag of St. George, a powerful symbol of old Britain. As the play opened, a girl that looked like a fairy or something adrift from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, festooned in green and with wings, came out and plaintively sang a bit of a song called “Jerusalem.” Neither Anne nor I knew the song before, but we learned from the “Director’s Notes” in the program that this “hymn is held very dear by the English people. Its words have helped form an idyllic sense of aspired Englishness.” Oh, my.
Yet when the flag/curtain raised, it was a totally different scene: a thunderous party in and outside of a cheap mobile home with unbelievably stoned partyers. We soon meet the head hedonist, Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a boastful wreck of a man held together by drugs and drink. The time is now, the setting is Johnny’s squalid mobile home in the middle of a gated set of estates in Wiltshire, just a stone’s throw from pre-historic Stonehenge. In Act I you meet Johnny’s mates, mostly teen-age ne’er-do-wells who rely on Johnny for drugs and drink. What a strange juxtaposition of this hallowed hymn and then this story of Johnny’s last stand against the philistines who would evict him from his home.
Johnny isn’t particularly likeable, and certainly is no hero, although the playwright and the actor have created an indelible portrait of contemporary, as some may say, “poor white trash.”
So what in the world does this have to do with the opening? This “hymn is held very dear by the English people. Its words have helped form an idyllic sense of aspired Englishness,” as told to me in the “Director’s Notes”??? Anne and I started to wonder during the first intermission. (Yes, this has an old-fashioned structure of three acts and two intermissions and is a three-hour odyssey of a play.) William Blake wrote this poem in 1804 inspired by an apocryphal story that Jesus actually traveled to England and inspired the Britons to create a new, and perfected Jerusalem. Let’s look at the words of the poem:
And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green and pleasant Land.
Anne always cultivates a good discussion and we surmised that this Johnny guy, again, a bravura performance by this Mr. Mark Rylance, kind of incarnates the spirit of a mythic England that may never have been but that everyone, on some level, longs for. This is a state-of-the-nation play and Jerusalem functions as a metaphor for a heaven on earth, where people live in peace, and in connection with the land. When Blake wrote this poem, in 1804, the growing pains of the Industrial Revolution convulsed England, and there were many social ills from the new “Satanic Mills.” Blake summons up the spirit of a desired place, an Arcadia, in the hope that it can be created again.
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green and pleasant Land.
In the midst of the Great War (now we call it World War I since we had a sequel) King George V wanted a rallying cry, a song that would give faith to the British soldiers fighting a terrible war. In 1916 Hubert Parry set the Blake poem to music and it has inspired the British ever since.
The play takes place on St. George’s Day (aha! That is why the flag greeted us in the beginning!) in this nothing-small-town in Wiltshire County. This is an annual fair (since the Medieval times, we learn) to welcome spring. But as we learn in Acts II and III, there is little to welcome with the crowd at Johnny’s submarine-like mobile home. They come to get high because life is one big disappointment. Johnny acts as a Robin Hood-like hero to these cast-offs from society and they reminisce about the good old days when England was good and life was grand. Here is where the play became profound for me, and like many another experience at a play in New York, it is what art can do so well—find grandeur in unexpected places. You don’t like any of the crowd here, but you see how they have been numbed by the resignation of what life has offered. Everyone has a hunger to believe in legendary figures but these are times of shriveled fantasies. Johnny is a loser. Yet they hunger for the mythic. This starved theater-goer enjoyed the play and a performance that I can talk about with glassy-eyed rapture for years.
At the end of the week, the song “Jerusalem,” came up again! I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. on Friday, April 30. Dear friend Sylvia had invited me over at that ungodly hour to watch the coverage of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Sylvia made scones, and we sat there in the pre-dawn darkness enjoying the veddy British treats of scones and lemon curd and tea, lapping up all the coverage of this royal wedding. I can’t believe how fast those hours sped by as we saw Britain do what it does best—orchestrate a fairy-tale wedding with precision, pomp, and pageantry.
During the wedding the congregation in Westminster Abbey—yes, they may have been invited, but I am sure we had the best seats with the most gorgeous photography and close-ups of this Gothic wonder and all the posh invitees—sang three hymns. The one that had the most rousing sound was the Blake/Parry hymn, “Jerusalem,” the very song that had started out my week at the Music Box Theater. Sylvia and I were watching NBC’s coverage, and as the song ended, Matt Laurer commented, “What was that song? I have never heard such devotion to a song!” Evidently the British crew members sang it reverently and he was overwhelmed. Fortunately, a Brit was there to provide context about this song. We learned that this song is offered at the end of every Labour Party Conference, and at the conclusion of many a rugby and soccer game. Everyone in England, according to the broadcaster, feels they “own” this song. It was also a favorite song of Princess Diana’s, we learned.
Go figure. Here today, on that perfect fairy-tale wedding day in England was the same song that Johnny “Rooster” and his cohorts claimed. The situations and contexts of the play in Wiltshire and the refined wedding before two billion people around the world couldn’t have been more different. Well…maybe it is not such a reach. My friend Tracy texted me at 5:00 a.m. that morning asking, “Why are we watching a wedding of people we don’t know?!” Of course, we want to know them. We want to know William, son of that charismatic Diana, heir to a throne that Americans shrugged off some 230 years ago, but for which we have never lost a fascination! Here was the prince marrying a commoner. Yes, everyone has a hunger to believe in legendary figures and for many, these are times of shriveled fantasies. A wedding is a perfect antidote to hard times. Maybe it will work. Maybe the will be happy. Maybe this will usher in a new era. Indeed, we persist to hunger for the mythic. Sylvia and I enjoyed the wedding coverage and I am sure that I will talk about it with glassy-eyed rapture for years.
Yes, it is a British hymn, a song that just two weeks ago I did not even know, but bookending my spring break I came to love this gorgeous poem and melody. Of course “Jerusalem” transcends ownership because its sentiment is so optimistic, so yearning, so human. Let us all think about the personal struggles we make to improve the world, to create a new Jerusalem.
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem…
There is a song in England that is more beloved, according to recent surveys, than any other national song—more than even “God Save the Queen,” or “Land of Hope and Glory.” The song is called “Jerusalem,” and at the beginning of my spring break week I encountered the song in a curious way, and then at the end of the week the song “Jerusalem” made another appearance.
On a glorious Easter Day, after church at Advent Lutheran (where I attended for years, oh, and did I mention that Tina Fey sat behind me in church??) I took the wondrous Anne Siviglia to see a play that had opened just days before to rave reviews. We saw Jerusalem, by British playwright Jez Butterworth. I didn’t know anything about the play beforehand except that the play revolved around a magnificent performance by British actor Mark Rylance. As we entered the Music Box Theater (sigh for a moment, as I remember the days when it was not infrequent that I got to go to plays at the Music Box. Okay, end of sigh. End of diversion.) the entire proscenium and curtain was festooned by a monumental flag that looked ancient. Anne and I, anglophiles both, figured out that it was the flag of St. George, a powerful symbol of old Britain. As the play opened, a girl that looked like a fairy or something adrift from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, festooned in green and with wings, came out and plaintively sang a bit of a song called “Jerusalem.” Neither Anne nor I knew the song before, but we learned from the “Director’s Notes” in the program that this “hymn is held very dear by the English people. Its words have helped form an idyllic sense of aspired Englishness.” Oh, my.
Yet when the flag/curtain raised, it was a totally different scene: a thunderous party in and outside of a cheap mobile home with unbelievably stoned partyers. We soon meet the head hedonist, Johnny “Rooster” Byron, a boastful wreck of a man held together by drugs and drink. The time is now, the setting is Johnny’s squalid mobile home in the middle of a gated set of estates in Wiltshire, just a stone’s throw from pre-historic Stonehenge. In Act I you meet Johnny’s mates, mostly teen-age ne’er-do-wells who rely on Johnny for drugs and drink. What a strange juxtaposition of this hallowed hymn and then this story of Johnny’s last stand against the philistines who would evict him from his home.
Johnny isn’t particularly likeable, and certainly is no hero, although the playwright and the actor have created an indelible portrait of contemporary, as some may say, “poor white trash.”
So what in the world does this have to do with the opening? This “hymn is held very dear by the English people. Its words have helped form an idyllic sense of aspired Englishness,” as told to me in the “Director’s Notes”??? Anne and I started to wonder during the first intermission. (Yes, this has an old-fashioned structure of three acts and two intermissions and is a three-hour odyssey of a play.) William Blake wrote this poem in 1804 inspired by an apocryphal story that Jesus actually traveled to England and inspired the Britons to create a new, and perfected Jerusalem. Let’s look at the words of the poem:
And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England's mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England's pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green and pleasant Land.
Anne always cultivates a good discussion and we surmised that this Johnny guy, again, a bravura performance by this Mr. Mark Rylance, kind of incarnates the spirit of a mythic England that may never have been but that everyone, on some level, longs for. This is a state-of-the-nation play and Jerusalem functions as a metaphor for a heaven on earth, where people live in peace, and in connection with the land. When Blake wrote this poem, in 1804, the growing pains of the Industrial Revolution convulsed England, and there were many social ills from the new “Satanic Mills.” Blake summons up the spirit of a desired place, an Arcadia, in the hope that it can be created again.
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green and pleasant Land.
In the midst of the Great War (now we call it World War I since we had a sequel) King George V wanted a rallying cry, a song that would give faith to the British soldiers fighting a terrible war. In 1916 Hubert Parry set the Blake poem to music and it has inspired the British ever since.
The play takes place on St. George’s Day (aha! That is why the flag greeted us in the beginning!) in this nothing-small-town in Wiltshire County. This is an annual fair (since the Medieval times, we learn) to welcome spring. But as we learn in Acts II and III, there is little to welcome with the crowd at Johnny’s submarine-like mobile home. They come to get high because life is one big disappointment. Johnny acts as a Robin Hood-like hero to these cast-offs from society and they reminisce about the good old days when England was good and life was grand. Here is where the play became profound for me, and like many another experience at a play in New York, it is what art can do so well—find grandeur in unexpected places. You don’t like any of the crowd here, but you see how they have been numbed by the resignation of what life has offered. Everyone has a hunger to believe in legendary figures but these are times of shriveled fantasies. Johnny is a loser. Yet they hunger for the mythic. This starved theater-goer enjoyed the play and a performance that I can talk about with glassy-eyed rapture for years.
At the end of the week, the song “Jerusalem,” came up again! I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. on Friday, April 30. Dear friend Sylvia had invited me over at that ungodly hour to watch the coverage of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Sylvia made scones, and we sat there in the pre-dawn darkness enjoying the veddy British treats of scones and lemon curd and tea, lapping up all the coverage of this royal wedding. I can’t believe how fast those hours sped by as we saw Britain do what it does best—orchestrate a fairy-tale wedding with precision, pomp, and pageantry.
During the wedding the congregation in Westminster Abbey—yes, they may have been invited, but I am sure we had the best seats with the most gorgeous photography and close-ups of this Gothic wonder and all the posh invitees—sang three hymns. The one that had the most rousing sound was the Blake/Parry hymn, “Jerusalem,” the very song that had started out my week at the Music Box Theater. Sylvia and I were watching NBC’s coverage, and as the song ended, Matt Laurer commented, “What was that song? I have never heard such devotion to a song!” Evidently the British crew members sang it reverently and he was overwhelmed. Fortunately, a Brit was there to provide context about this song. We learned that this song is offered at the end of every Labour Party Conference, and at the conclusion of many a rugby and soccer game. Everyone in England, according to the broadcaster, feels they “own” this song. It was also a favorite song of Princess Diana’s, we learned.
Go figure. Here today, on that perfect fairy-tale wedding day in England was the same song that Johnny “Rooster” and his cohorts claimed. The situations and contexts of the play in Wiltshire and the refined wedding before two billion people around the world couldn’t have been more different. Well…maybe it is not such a reach. My friend Tracy texted me at 5:00 a.m. that morning asking, “Why are we watching a wedding of people we don’t know?!” Of course, we want to know them. We want to know William, son of that charismatic Diana, heir to a throne that Americans shrugged off some 230 years ago, but for which we have never lost a fascination! Here was the prince marrying a commoner. Yes, everyone has a hunger to believe in legendary figures and for many, these are times of shriveled fantasies. A wedding is a perfect antidote to hard times. Maybe it will work. Maybe the will be happy. Maybe this will usher in a new era. Indeed, we persist to hunger for the mythic. Sylvia and I enjoyed the wedding coverage and I am sure that I will talk about it with glassy-eyed rapture for years.
Yes, it is a British hymn, a song that just two weeks ago I did not even know, but bookending my spring break I came to love this gorgeous poem and melody. Of course “Jerusalem” transcends ownership because its sentiment is so optimistic, so yearning, so human. Let us all think about the personal struggles we make to improve the world, to create a new Jerusalem.
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem…
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
I still believe in the sea
It is the beginning of May, and for most of my adolescent and post-adolescent life the beginning of May signals the beginning of the AP test season. Except for my years in college and graduate school, there have been only three Mays in the last 30 years that I have not been preparing to take an AP exam or readying the troops for battle against an AP exam in this week. Whew!
Yesterday the troops rallied and conquered the AP Art History exam.
I am not allowed at the test site (not me, in particular, mind you, but according to the rules of the College Board, no instructor is allowed within 50 feet of the test site) but as the three hour+ exam came to an end, I did hover near the test site so I could greet the happy warriors as they emerged from battle.
I never fancied myself, particularly, such a martial person or educator, but a decade ago, I was honored by a former student at her college in South Carolina, and in her testimonial, she remembered that I “prepared the AP students for battle against the test.” She called her peers “intellectual warriors.” Since then I have embraced the phrase and I note to the students all year that we are preparing for battle! Because of that image, I enjoy having a water-gun fight with the students the night before the actual AP test. We have the battle after listening to Kenneth Branagh’s rendition of the immortal St. Crispian’s Day speech from his 1989 film of Henry V.
I remember in that first year of teaching AP Art History at Hackley, wondering what I should use as the very last art work to study at the end of this incredibly long course. In that year, 2001-2002, of course, the year was tinged with the sadness and horror of 9/11 in the first week of school. I loved the challenging questions, “What should be the last piece of art we study after hundreds of art works this year? What piece has the gravitas with which to end our parade of millennia of art?”
In that first year I chose a work from 1996 by Anselm Kiefer called Bohemia Lies by the Sea. I have used it ever since as well and I love this confounding work. Just look at it.
What is it?????? What has Kiefer depicted in this painting? Is it a landscape?? Can you sense whether the paint is thick or thin? Has it been applied smoothly? Does the technique have an effect on the work’s mood or meaning? Who is this Kiefer guy?How will some knowledge of his life help us decode this painting???? Oh,the many exciting questions one can explore!
Anselm Kiefer is a German born in the final weeks of World War II. Think of what
context, what burden, what stew of history he must endure in this lifetime—as he says, “my work is to come to grips with my country’s past, our Nazi past, and to try and understand the madness.”
The road that leads us into the landscape, a standard device used in many 19th century landscape paintings, here invites us into Germany’s dark past. This is a work which constitutes a rich blend of references including recent history,
ancient history, the distant past, poetry, literature, and the future. Wow…
Once you have unpacked the metaphors, the piece allows for a rich, personal interpretation. Start with what you see…a rutted country road…
and let’s go from there…
But still—there is more…the title is most intriguing, and Kiefer writes the title on the painting in two places, alongside the road, and on the horizon…let’s explore the title…
In William Shakespeare’s play, The Winter’s Tale, the bard sets Act III, Scene 3 off the seacoast of Bohemia. Huh??? But—Bohemia is landlocked. Well, you see, Shakespeare’s Bohemia is an imaginary place beyond our ordinary sense of geography, a vision in which the extraordinary becomes possible. His ‘Bohemia’ in this play is a place where problems have been solved and life has become beautiful.
An Austrian poet, a friend of Kiefer, borrowed this theme from Shakespeare and wrote a poem which in turn inspired our artist Kiefer:
If Bohemia still lies by the sea,
I’ll believe in the sea.
And if I believe in the sea,
I can hope for our land.
***
I border, like little else,
On everything more and more,
A man from Bohemia, a vagrant,
A player who has nothing, and whom nothing holds,
Granted only, by a questionable sea,
To gaze at the land of my choice.
In the fields beside the road one spies poppies—a flower not lost on anyone European of the last century. Poppies were planted where the millions of soldiers died in The Great War, in the rutted fields of France and Belgium. You may be familiar with the poet John McCrae who wrote during the “Great War” in 1915 about death on the battlefield:
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow in Flanders field.
What is the symbol of poppies? The well-educated from AP Art History will remember that the poppy is a symbol that goes back to ancient Greece…to the promise of young men cut down by war, and the paradox of death and resurrection.
How do we put together meaning for this painting…is it appropriate for the end of the course?
I love this painting, and last week when I was at the Met, I took my friend Gary and his mother Marilyn on a tour, and used this painting as a point of discussion and reflection at the end of our afternoon. You cannot see this work for just a moment or two. You have to adjust your eyes, you have to see past the clutter and gunk of the paint and his technique. We cannot really see the end of the road, no, that would be too easy, but if you believe in the sea, even the land-locked Bohemia, you can believe in…what? Hope? Utopia? Arcadia?
Educators had better believe in a better day, in a better future, in Hope, that “thing with feathers,” as Emily Dickinson observes. Each year I send those students in to do battle with this notorious test, and I am so proud of them for their confidence, for their stamina, for their knowledge.
In 2009 I wondered if our KA students could manage the AP World History exam. Manage it, they did. And last year, when it was our first time to attempt the “boutique” course of AP Art History, I wondered a little too if they would hold up against their seasoned American counterparts. But I believed in the proverbial sea, I believed, against sensibility, that Bohemia, land-locked Bohemia, can lie by the sea.
Yesterday at 4:00 the students spilled out of the test site, aglow with how excited they were, and how they trounced the test. One shouted about the Egyptian art work they got, or the Greek sculpture, or the comparison of Manet and Titian, but they were jockeying for a position to tell me which art works they had used on the big essays. One commented that this “exhilarating feeling is priceless.” Bohemia indeed has a port on that sea today.
This afternoon His Majesty the King came to speak to us, as he does from time to time. He wanted to discuss the domestic policies and his vision for the future of Jordan. In his typical candor he addressed the last few months, what he is trying to develop for the future, and the parts these students will play as young leaders in the years to come. He is trying to instill in Jordanians a sense of how to develop political parties that transcend tribal issues and concerns, how Jordanians should develop attitudes and ideas about health care, women’s rights, welfare, and taxation. He discussed how he has been studying the transformation of eastern European governments since the 1990s, studying how to transform the youth of Jordan and help them explain to the “old guard” how changes must work. He discussed how the economic issues of the nation keep him up at night—how do you deal with subsidies and job creation? As usual, he was magnificent, and full of hope.
I have no idea if HMK has heard of Anselm Kiefer and this painting or the poem, but judging from my four years of studying this man, he would certainly buy the idea of belief in a land, belief in progress, a belief that if you wish it hard enough, Bohemia can lie by the sea and you can create an Arcadia that elevates society.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Welcome home
Is it silly to have a “favorite flight”?
I mean, we have favorites in many categories: favorite TV show, favorite aunt, favorite ice cream flavor, favorite teacher, favorite book from junior high, favorite comfort food, favorite color, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum (if you need answers to any of these, please feel to write and ask for my favorites in these categories). I fly very often, so I guess it should come as no surprise that I have a favorite flight. This flight just seems magical, maybe because it seems to whisk me from one world to the other more swiftly than usual. It leaves at bedtime in one world and arrives with a whole day ahead of it in the other world. And on my favorite flight from Jordan to the United States, that magical Delta flight that leaves Jordan at about midnight and lands at JFK airport in New York at 5:30 a.m., I have two favorite moments in my re-entry to the United States.
When I come through passport control, I give them the passport and paperwork that marks me as a U.S. citizen but a resident of Jordan, the passport control officer asks why I am living in Jordan. I explain that I am teaching there, he stamps the passport, and invariably this officer of immigration control says to me, “Welcome home.” A short, but very sweet, sentiment. I don’t know if they are trained to say this to the ex-pats, and I think not, because I have entered the U.S. in Boston, Atlanta and Chicago too, and I don’t get that lump-in-the-throat-inducing, “Welcome home.” I smile, and head toward getting my bags. And I treasure the remark.
This time when I came home to New York and Cincinnati for spring break, I waited for it. And like the blossoms on the trees every spring, it came as expected, and is more beautiful than you expect. I can’t say why I find this comment so heart-warming, but I do find coming to the United States for breaks more invigorating, and yes, more heart-warming, than traipsing around as a tourist somewhere else new to me. I am sure some people thought I would never tire of traveling and discovering new places, and I am not sure I am tired of it, I just prefer coming back home for a respite.
The other moment I rank as a favorite is about a half hour after the first with the encounter with the passport agent. I have retrieved my bags (never once have they been lost or held up at JFK!) and gotten on the airtrain shuttle that takes me to the place where I can connect to the subway system of New York. As we swing by this one locale, there it is: the next favorite moment—the sun rising over New York City. Again, you expect the dawn, but it can be more beautiful than you expected. Streaks of orange or red or a yellow ball reaching up to welcome all of us to the new day. At this moment the trip feels as it will be perfect—the dawn of a break, the break of dawn.
Two favorite moments…
And the trip did not disappoint. I crammed as many of my favorites as possible into a few days in New York and even fewer in Cincinnati. My breaks consist less of seeking out newness, but greeting old favorites, reveling in the friendships and sights of my American home. As usual, that first day plays out as they always do now from this magical flight. I arrive by subway to my friend Christy’s house, at about 7:30 a.m. with a real New York Times newspaper suddenly in my hand. Christy has gotten up earlier than usual and prepared her monumental oatmeal. (While oatmeal may not be considered a monumental breakfast choice, hers is crowned with walnuts and blueberries and strawberries.) Shave and shower and by 9:00 there is still a whole day in front of us to enjoy! See why that flight is my favorite?? You maximize your time buzzing around an exciting city and not just sitting on a plane! We will look at what plays to see, and by the early afternoon we will have walked through the park, had a trip to the Met, and had the lunch special at Ivy’s Chinese food on 72nd Street.
The rest of the vacation there is full of favorites: lunch with Kate, seeing Gary, visiting with dear Anne and enjoying a fabulous dinner, talking with as many people as I can, theater, walking in the park, heck, just walking around. Amman is a not a walking city, so just walking the blocks in Manhattan is thrilling.
By the end of the visit we will have had my favorite pizza at Patsy’s on West 74th Street (oh, and their olive oil is the best in the world!) and my favorite Vietnamese food at Saigon Grill on Amsterdam and West 89th Street—I must admit I felt a twinge of guilt as I entered since some people were picketing the other day, claiming they don’t pay their workers enough—oh, I felt a little bad, but no one else makes my favorite Papaya and Beef Salad! We enjoyed Easter services at Advent Lutheran Church at Broadway and West 93rd Street, with Pastor Brown--one of my favorites--preaching as eloquently as always. Oh, and this is fun--guess who sat behind me in church?? Tina Fey!! I found reasons to keep turning around and checking that this was indeed the TV star. One time, she just nodded at me, kind of a reassuring nod that yes, indeed, I was seated in front of a TV star. Since I am on the name-dropping part of the blog, I also saw Neil Simon, chatted with the actress who was Paul Reiser's mother on Mad About You, and sat in the airport with TV news hounds Harry Smith, Lester Holt and Dan Rather. I had to find a way to shoehorn in the celebrities with whom I rubbed elbows!
What a rush of favorites on that trip! Then I head out to LaGuardia (driven by that favorite Gary after a breakfast with bacon) for a flight to Cincinnati. There, in the span of a few days, I will indulge in more favorites: my family, of course, how can they not be among the favorites on my Planet Favorite! There will be a buffet at the Farm, a BLT at the Imperial Diner with Pam, ice cream at Graeter’s, and I could go on and on (some will quip that I have!) that my trip is simply my chance to go through the favorites of my life.
I come to the end of the trip, and the trip always ends the same, with another of my favorite comments said so simply and heartwarmingly. When it is time to go, my dad takes me to the airport, and after we have checked the bags and weighed them (he always comes inside in case there is excess stuff he needs to take home) we come to the point of good-bye. Then my dad, with those soulful, wise Andy-Griffith-like eyes, looks at me and says, “Thank you for coming home.”
What great book-ends of a trip! That passport control agent, so anonymous to me but so kind with his “Welcome home,” and then that greatest of men, my father, thanking me for coming home. It is hard to beat those comments. My colleagues went to many places over the break, among them, Turkey, Italy, Egypt, Spain, Africa, Thailand, England, but I went home. And loved every minute of it.
Sad to say, that favorite flight is going away. I learned in the last couple weeks that Delta is suspending service to Amman, and so on June 1st, there will be no more of those magical flights. I will be fine; I will fly either to Paris and then Cincinnati, or Chicago then Cincinnati, and Royal Jordanian Airlines will still fly to New York—it just leaves mid-day and gets there mid-afternoon. Not much magic in that flight!
But I took some comfort in a sight yesterday, when I returned to Jordan after spring break, a new banner greeted me. HSBC, one of my two banks in Jordan (don’t get me started on the inane practices of Jordanian banks!) had a new banner shouting, “Welcome Home.”
It may not be those nice passport agents in JFK in the pre-dawn hour, but it was a kind greeting. I’ll take that!
I mean, we have favorites in many categories: favorite TV show, favorite aunt, favorite ice cream flavor, favorite teacher, favorite book from junior high, favorite comfort food, favorite color, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum (if you need answers to any of these, please feel to write and ask for my favorites in these categories). I fly very often, so I guess it should come as no surprise that I have a favorite flight. This flight just seems magical, maybe because it seems to whisk me from one world to the other more swiftly than usual. It leaves at bedtime in one world and arrives with a whole day ahead of it in the other world. And on my favorite flight from Jordan to the United States, that magical Delta flight that leaves Jordan at about midnight and lands at JFK airport in New York at 5:30 a.m., I have two favorite moments in my re-entry to the United States.
When I come through passport control, I give them the passport and paperwork that marks me as a U.S. citizen but a resident of Jordan, the passport control officer asks why I am living in Jordan. I explain that I am teaching there, he stamps the passport, and invariably this officer of immigration control says to me, “Welcome home.” A short, but very sweet, sentiment. I don’t know if they are trained to say this to the ex-pats, and I think not, because I have entered the U.S. in Boston, Atlanta and Chicago too, and I don’t get that lump-in-the-throat-inducing, “Welcome home.” I smile, and head toward getting my bags. And I treasure the remark.
This time when I came home to New York and Cincinnati for spring break, I waited for it. And like the blossoms on the trees every spring, it came as expected, and is more beautiful than you expect. I can’t say why I find this comment so heart-warming, but I do find coming to the United States for breaks more invigorating, and yes, more heart-warming, than traipsing around as a tourist somewhere else new to me. I am sure some people thought I would never tire of traveling and discovering new places, and I am not sure I am tired of it, I just prefer coming back home for a respite.
The other moment I rank as a favorite is about a half hour after the first with the encounter with the passport agent. I have retrieved my bags (never once have they been lost or held up at JFK!) and gotten on the airtrain shuttle that takes me to the place where I can connect to the subway system of New York. As we swing by this one locale, there it is: the next favorite moment—the sun rising over New York City. Again, you expect the dawn, but it can be more beautiful than you expected. Streaks of orange or red or a yellow ball reaching up to welcome all of us to the new day. At this moment the trip feels as it will be perfect—the dawn of a break, the break of dawn.
Two favorite moments…
And the trip did not disappoint. I crammed as many of my favorites as possible into a few days in New York and even fewer in Cincinnati. My breaks consist less of seeking out newness, but greeting old favorites, reveling in the friendships and sights of my American home. As usual, that first day plays out as they always do now from this magical flight. I arrive by subway to my friend Christy’s house, at about 7:30 a.m. with a real New York Times newspaper suddenly in my hand. Christy has gotten up earlier than usual and prepared her monumental oatmeal. (While oatmeal may not be considered a monumental breakfast choice, hers is crowned with walnuts and blueberries and strawberries.) Shave and shower and by 9:00 there is still a whole day in front of us to enjoy! See why that flight is my favorite?? You maximize your time buzzing around an exciting city and not just sitting on a plane! We will look at what plays to see, and by the early afternoon we will have walked through the park, had a trip to the Met, and had the lunch special at Ivy’s Chinese food on 72nd Street.
The rest of the vacation there is full of favorites: lunch with Kate, seeing Gary, visiting with dear Anne and enjoying a fabulous dinner, talking with as many people as I can, theater, walking in the park, heck, just walking around. Amman is a not a walking city, so just walking the blocks in Manhattan is thrilling.
By the end of the visit we will have had my favorite pizza at Patsy’s on West 74th Street (oh, and their olive oil is the best in the world!) and my favorite Vietnamese food at Saigon Grill on Amsterdam and West 89th Street—I must admit I felt a twinge of guilt as I entered since some people were picketing the other day, claiming they don’t pay their workers enough—oh, I felt a little bad, but no one else makes my favorite Papaya and Beef Salad! We enjoyed Easter services at Advent Lutheran Church at Broadway and West 93rd Street, with Pastor Brown--one of my favorites--preaching as eloquently as always. Oh, and this is fun--guess who sat behind me in church?? Tina Fey!! I found reasons to keep turning around and checking that this was indeed the TV star. One time, she just nodded at me, kind of a reassuring nod that yes, indeed, I was seated in front of a TV star. Since I am on the name-dropping part of the blog, I also saw Neil Simon, chatted with the actress who was Paul Reiser's mother on Mad About You, and sat in the airport with TV news hounds Harry Smith, Lester Holt and Dan Rather. I had to find a way to shoehorn in the celebrities with whom I rubbed elbows!
What a rush of favorites on that trip! Then I head out to LaGuardia (driven by that favorite Gary after a breakfast with bacon) for a flight to Cincinnati. There, in the span of a few days, I will indulge in more favorites: my family, of course, how can they not be among the favorites on my Planet Favorite! There will be a buffet at the Farm, a BLT at the Imperial Diner with Pam, ice cream at Graeter’s, and I could go on and on (some will quip that I have!) that my trip is simply my chance to go through the favorites of my life.
I come to the end of the trip, and the trip always ends the same, with another of my favorite comments said so simply and heartwarmingly. When it is time to go, my dad takes me to the airport, and after we have checked the bags and weighed them (he always comes inside in case there is excess stuff he needs to take home) we come to the point of good-bye. Then my dad, with those soulful, wise Andy-Griffith-like eyes, looks at me and says, “Thank you for coming home.”
What great book-ends of a trip! That passport control agent, so anonymous to me but so kind with his “Welcome home,” and then that greatest of men, my father, thanking me for coming home. It is hard to beat those comments. My colleagues went to many places over the break, among them, Turkey, Italy, Egypt, Spain, Africa, Thailand, England, but I went home. And loved every minute of it.
Sad to say, that favorite flight is going away. I learned in the last couple weeks that Delta is suspending service to Amman, and so on June 1st, there will be no more of those magical flights. I will be fine; I will fly either to Paris and then Cincinnati, or Chicago then Cincinnati, and Royal Jordanian Airlines will still fly to New York—it just leaves mid-day and gets there mid-afternoon. Not much magic in that flight!
But I took some comfort in a sight yesterday, when I returned to Jordan after spring break, a new banner greeted me. HSBC, one of my two banks in Jordan (don’t get me started on the inane practices of Jordanian banks!) had a new banner shouting, “Welcome Home.”
It may not be those nice passport agents in JFK in the pre-dawn hour, but it was a kind greeting. I’ll take that!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
17
Seventeen, I have heard, is the most interesting number. Seventeen is superior, say some, and scarier, say others, to any other number.
I remember a talk I heard once in Boston by David Kelley, a math professor, a specialist in 17.
According to Professor Kelley, 17 is the “random number,” meaning the chances are more than random that a random number will be divisible by 17. Here are some other little random things I learned in that talk about seventeen:
• There are 17 distinct ways to fit polygons around a point.
• 17 is the smallest prime whose sum of the digits is a cube
• The book of Genesis records that the Great Flood started on the 17th day of the month, and the ark landed on the 17th day of a different month on top of Mt. Ararat (guess what the elevation of Mt. Ararat is?? Yep, 17,000 feet)
• The Alhambra, the gorgeous Moorish castle in Grenada, Spain, contains 17 different tiling patterns, which is actually the total number of possible tiling patterns using triangles
• The shortest form of Japanese poetry, Haiku, contains exactly 17 syllables
• The White House has 17 bathrooms
• There are 17 miles of corridors in the Pentagon
• There are 17 species of penguins—Professor Kelley pointed out that sadly, among penguins, their divorce rate is 17%
• Seventeen is the number of eyelashes on a yellow pig
• A cow’s saliva increases by 17% while grazing
• The Okapi, also known as the forest giraffe, is the only mammal that can clear its own ears with its tongue, which can grow to 17 inches in length
• At age 17, Jack London wrote the first of his 17 books
• Benjamin Franklin, a 1700s figure was born on January 17, was one of 17 children and moved to Philadelphia at age 17
• The average person breathes 17 times per minute
• Modern Italians view 17 as an unlucky number. Air Italia does not have a 17th row and Italian buildings do not have a 17th floor. Why?? The Roman numeral XVII (for 17) rearranges and spells “VIXI,” which in Latin means, “I have lived,” (meaning “I am dead”) and is used on Italian tombstones
• Tradition holds that Eve was 17 years old when she handed to Adam the forbidden apple. There are 17 sets of chromosomes in the apple.
• Here is something I knew before Professor Kelley’s talk!! Iktinos and Kallikrates, the ancient Athenian architects, chose to place 17 columns on the long side of the Parthenon as part of their equation x = 2y + 1 as their equation to symbolize perfection
• Last but not least: it takes 17 facial muscles to smile (it takes 43 muscles to frown). Seventeen to greet the new day, a new friend, and old friend with warmth and kindness.
So, why does this matter?
Oh, I thought it was interesting on this 17th day of April to remember how fascinated I was by that talk on the power of seventeen long ago. However, in terms of current interest, Seventeen days from now is the long-anticipated AP Art History test for my students (most of whom are seventeen years old).
And in a bit of also-long-anticipated news, on this 17th day of April, on this first day of the week, I look forward to the fact that by the end of this week, I will be on Spring Break. No, the break is not 17 days long—I don’t even think anything about the break will be 17 of anything. The cycle/fascination ends here!
Enjoy the 17th!
I remember a talk I heard once in Boston by David Kelley, a math professor, a specialist in 17.
According to Professor Kelley, 17 is the “random number,” meaning the chances are more than random that a random number will be divisible by 17. Here are some other little random things I learned in that talk about seventeen:
• There are 17 distinct ways to fit polygons around a point.
• 17 is the smallest prime whose sum of the digits is a cube
• The book of Genesis records that the Great Flood started on the 17th day of the month, and the ark landed on the 17th day of a different month on top of Mt. Ararat (guess what the elevation of Mt. Ararat is?? Yep, 17,000 feet)
• The Alhambra, the gorgeous Moorish castle in Grenada, Spain, contains 17 different tiling patterns, which is actually the total number of possible tiling patterns using triangles
• The shortest form of Japanese poetry, Haiku, contains exactly 17 syllables
• The White House has 17 bathrooms
• There are 17 miles of corridors in the Pentagon
• There are 17 species of penguins—Professor Kelley pointed out that sadly, among penguins, their divorce rate is 17%
• Seventeen is the number of eyelashes on a yellow pig
• A cow’s saliva increases by 17% while grazing
• The Okapi, also known as the forest giraffe, is the only mammal that can clear its own ears with its tongue, which can grow to 17 inches in length
• At age 17, Jack London wrote the first of his 17 books
• Benjamin Franklin, a 1700s figure was born on January 17, was one of 17 children and moved to Philadelphia at age 17
• The average person breathes 17 times per minute
• Modern Italians view 17 as an unlucky number. Air Italia does not have a 17th row and Italian buildings do not have a 17th floor. Why?? The Roman numeral XVII (for 17) rearranges and spells “VIXI,” which in Latin means, “I have lived,” (meaning “I am dead”) and is used on Italian tombstones
• Tradition holds that Eve was 17 years old when she handed to Adam the forbidden apple. There are 17 sets of chromosomes in the apple.
• Here is something I knew before Professor Kelley’s talk!! Iktinos and Kallikrates, the ancient Athenian architects, chose to place 17 columns on the long side of the Parthenon as part of their equation x = 2y + 1 as their equation to symbolize perfection
• Last but not least: it takes 17 facial muscles to smile (it takes 43 muscles to frown). Seventeen to greet the new day, a new friend, and old friend with warmth and kindness.
So, why does this matter?
Oh, I thought it was interesting on this 17th day of April to remember how fascinated I was by that talk on the power of seventeen long ago. However, in terms of current interest, Seventeen days from now is the long-anticipated AP Art History test for my students (most of whom are seventeen years old).
And in a bit of also-long-anticipated news, on this 17th day of April, on this first day of the week, I look forward to the fact that by the end of this week, I will be on Spring Break. No, the break is not 17 days long—I don’t even think anything about the break will be 17 of anything. The cycle/fascination ends here!
Enjoy the 17th!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Never underestimate the power of little pleasures
Maybe I just boxed myself into a corner. I mean, of the scores and scores of blog entries I have written in the last 45 months (wow—really?) many felt epic, at least to me. They were jeremiads or sermon-ettes, or inspired by big, big things, and sometimes I forgot about the simple little pleasures that can make a day. I think each blog entry must be Churchill-ian or Orwell-ian in scope.
Yesterday I went to McDonald’s. Now, that is not a big surprise, except that I went on Friday instead of on Saturday night when I usually stop by the big McDonald’s on Airport Road about 10 minutes out of Amman and 20 minutes before KA. I rarely go to McDonald’s while I am in the United States, (he hastens to add!) but here in Jordan, again, almost every Saturday night. I go on my way back from church heading back to school and gearing up for the new school week. I go every week for several reasons, not least of which is that the hot fries are really good. Yes, I have seen the movie Supersize Me and not only did that not curb the weekly habit, it made me hungry for Saturday night. But I go in part to McDonald’s every Saturday night because it gives this world-away-from-home some structure and predictability. That in itself is a little pleasure (maybe even a big pleasure).
I went to McDonald’s yesterday because two guys from class missed some extra classes this week and they wanted to study the art they missed. As we wind down the AP Art History class, I wanted to make sure I didn’t rush too much through early 20th century art, so I added three classes in a segment of the day called “O Block” at the end of the school day. It is a catch-all time when various clubs could meet or AP lab sciences or anyone else who wants to claim it. I wanted to meet and discuss the art of Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt one day, Pablo Picasso (rather big in the course you might imagine) another day, and then some crazy Russians, Malevich and Tatlin on a third day. Omar and Ramie were already “claimed” by another zealous teacher and were going to miss the extra classes.
Of course they could have just read the textbook and learned a fair amount. I am also so hip now with technology that I post all the power point slide shows on-line so you can zip through the art works anytime you want (oh, my, the changes from when I started teaching this course a decade ago with the slides!). But Ramie and Omar wanted to meet and really discuss the art, so I suggested we meet on our day off for lunch at McDonald’s. Now, it’s one thing to suggest a meeting, and it’s also one thing to intend to want to study more, but it’s another thing for teen-agers to follow through on that! Omar and Ramie really showed up! But then again, I knew they would—these are in the cream of the crop.
We met a little after 1:00 and we decided to go outside to a table and do all the art stuff first. The noise was a little loud inside—McDonald’s is very popular in Jordan—and the “Habibi songs” were cranked up a little too much. (“habibi” is an endearment in Arabic, and to my ears, every Arabic song sounds alike with a heavy emphasis on panting about your “habibi.” I guess that would be like almost 50 years ago when to older ears every “Beatles” song sounded alike!) So we sat outside and looked at the art on the laptop, discussing it, noting how this art broke with traditional expectations and conventions of art, seeing links with older eras of art, and trying to understand what theories they developed. Kazimir Malevich is an especially interesting artist—but you have to meet him on his own terms. His art is called “Suprematism” (oh, the explosion of –isms at this time is daunting and hilarious!) and he imbues his art with theories of color. Black, for example, is the supreme feeling—Omar noted that black, as an artistic value, is actually the combination of all other colors, and so that made perfect sense to him. White is the absence of feeling, a void that has been created. We looked at an art work, White Square on White Square, and instead of the obvious, “Oh, please, that’s nothing!” they realized that Malevich was bemoaning the fate of the world. Malevich fell into the same camp as Sigmund Freud at the time lamenting that civilization had gone so far and would never recover. They discussed the historical phenomena that might allow Malevich’s pessimism to overwhelm him the way he showed the white overwhelming and consuming all the feeling.
After about an hour we went inside, got the fast-food that cardiologists warn us about and we proceeded to sit and talk. I had thought I would be back on campus an hour before I was, but it was such a pleasurable, casual time sitting with Omar and Ramie and talking about New York, about college, about home towns, about teaching and school and headmasters, all those things that just pop up in an organic and enjoyable conversation. At 3:30 I got in the car, stopped at the grocery store and headed back to campus.
Not a life-changing event, no camels, no spiritual or sit-com revelations, just an enjoyable afternoon with curious, hard-working, fun students.
On another note, I had to call Hamzeh and say that I would be late. We had an appointment for a “graded talk,” but I knew he wasn’t in a rush, and I decided not to be the German train I am 99% of the time. This “graded talk” has been a good idea. Another little pleasure this weekend.
In the History of the 20th Century class I had assigned a memoir by a man named Alfons Heck that is entitled, A Child of Hitler: the Days When God Wore a Swastika. Some title, huh? It is a compelling read about a young man in the Hitler youth who, down the road, must come to terms with what Germany did in the Second World War. In the end he pleads for sympathy and understanding, stating that he is a victim of Adolf Hitler as well. I decided on an unusual assignment: I wanted each student to explore a different WWII-era film, so I wondered if they could juxtapose the memoir and the film. Before the paper was due I told the class I had changed my mind about the paper and I preferred that we sit and discuss the assignment, one-on-one, instead. As we come toward the end of the school year, there are fewer times for good one-on-one discussions.
Yesterday I had four of these discussions, all very exciting, very pleasurable, and all different. Each student looks at the book differently given the movie they have watched, and so far, each has found an unusual parallel in the book to illumine something about the war they hadn’t considered before. Faisal watched Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun and found a great parallel of the two lads, Hamzeh watched The Great Escape, Zeyna saw Casablanca and Rob enjoyed The Pianist, and again, each found insights very original from juxtaposing the film and the memoir. I have 10 more of these to enjoy in the next couple days.
Somehow in the midst of all this talk—either in McDonald’s, my apartment, or the Dining Hall or my car—I thought of the biblical image of the Peaceable Kingdom, the highly unlikely scene Isaiah paints for us of peaceful co-existence. I don’t know why it popped into my head, but again, I live in Biblical Territory, so maybe seeing those hills of David just beyond us here creates that open space for Bible images. Maybe it is also perhaps from the images in the news from the Middle East these first 99 days of 2011—we live in a world that reminds us again and again how preposterous the idea of a peaceable kingdom is, and how unnatural. Isaiah lived at a time and in a world red in tooth and claw, a time and a world in which insecurity and terror was the norm, war was routine, natural, inevitable. I would bet that Isaiah was laughed out of many a room for this co-existence silliness. “That Isaiah,” they’d hoot, “he’s mad as a hatter and crazy as a loon.”
Peaceful co-existence. Do you believe it is worthy of our highest efforts? I do. Or at least on my good days, I do. Even on my bad days, I really want to. But of course, courage and wisdom and love are forged slowly and painfully. As I thought about it, this concept of a peaceable kingdom may be unnatural but not foolishness.
Oh, all of this comes from having a 30-minute drive back to campus. I am sure if I had not had that drive I wouldn’t have even wondered about my little pleasures with my students and the chance of a greater peaceable kingdom. Right now the drive is almost like a drive through Ireland with the beautiful spring carpets of green here in Jordan, and that time to wonder and reflect and have my mind dance as I drive to and from Amman.
I resent that drive sometimes—like when I want to go out to breakfast or brunch on a Friday and it is a 45-minute drive to get to a decent place for brunch. But maybe it is the quiet drives that have allowed some of the wonderings and jeremiads of the last 45 months.
Anyway, I pull into the KA driveway, wait for the security guard to open the gate, park the car and put away the musings about the peaceable kingdom for the moment. This is a weekend of little pleasures and savoring of these exquisite conversations.
Yesterday I went to McDonald’s. Now, that is not a big surprise, except that I went on Friday instead of on Saturday night when I usually stop by the big McDonald’s on Airport Road about 10 minutes out of Amman and 20 minutes before KA. I rarely go to McDonald’s while I am in the United States, (he hastens to add!) but here in Jordan, again, almost every Saturday night. I go on my way back from church heading back to school and gearing up for the new school week. I go every week for several reasons, not least of which is that the hot fries are really good. Yes, I have seen the movie Supersize Me and not only did that not curb the weekly habit, it made me hungry for Saturday night. But I go in part to McDonald’s every Saturday night because it gives this world-away-from-home some structure and predictability. That in itself is a little pleasure (maybe even a big pleasure).
I went to McDonald’s yesterday because two guys from class missed some extra classes this week and they wanted to study the art they missed. As we wind down the AP Art History class, I wanted to make sure I didn’t rush too much through early 20th century art, so I added three classes in a segment of the day called “O Block” at the end of the school day. It is a catch-all time when various clubs could meet or AP lab sciences or anyone else who wants to claim it. I wanted to meet and discuss the art of Edvard Munch and Gustav Klimt one day, Pablo Picasso (rather big in the course you might imagine) another day, and then some crazy Russians, Malevich and Tatlin on a third day. Omar and Ramie were already “claimed” by another zealous teacher and were going to miss the extra classes.
Of course they could have just read the textbook and learned a fair amount. I am also so hip now with technology that I post all the power point slide shows on-line so you can zip through the art works anytime you want (oh, my, the changes from when I started teaching this course a decade ago with the slides!). But Ramie and Omar wanted to meet and really discuss the art, so I suggested we meet on our day off for lunch at McDonald’s. Now, it’s one thing to suggest a meeting, and it’s also one thing to intend to want to study more, but it’s another thing for teen-agers to follow through on that! Omar and Ramie really showed up! But then again, I knew they would—these are in the cream of the crop.
We met a little after 1:00 and we decided to go outside to a table and do all the art stuff first. The noise was a little loud inside—McDonald’s is very popular in Jordan—and the “Habibi songs” were cranked up a little too much. (“habibi” is an endearment in Arabic, and to my ears, every Arabic song sounds alike with a heavy emphasis on panting about your “habibi.” I guess that would be like almost 50 years ago when to older ears every “Beatles” song sounded alike!) So we sat outside and looked at the art on the laptop, discussing it, noting how this art broke with traditional expectations and conventions of art, seeing links with older eras of art, and trying to understand what theories they developed. Kazimir Malevich is an especially interesting artist—but you have to meet him on his own terms. His art is called “Suprematism” (oh, the explosion of –isms at this time is daunting and hilarious!) and he imbues his art with theories of color. Black, for example, is the supreme feeling—Omar noted that black, as an artistic value, is actually the combination of all other colors, and so that made perfect sense to him. White is the absence of feeling, a void that has been created. We looked at an art work, White Square on White Square, and instead of the obvious, “Oh, please, that’s nothing!” they realized that Malevich was bemoaning the fate of the world. Malevich fell into the same camp as Sigmund Freud at the time lamenting that civilization had gone so far and would never recover. They discussed the historical phenomena that might allow Malevich’s pessimism to overwhelm him the way he showed the white overwhelming and consuming all the feeling.
After about an hour we went inside, got the fast-food that cardiologists warn us about and we proceeded to sit and talk. I had thought I would be back on campus an hour before I was, but it was such a pleasurable, casual time sitting with Omar and Ramie and talking about New York, about college, about home towns, about teaching and school and headmasters, all those things that just pop up in an organic and enjoyable conversation. At 3:30 I got in the car, stopped at the grocery store and headed back to campus.
Not a life-changing event, no camels, no spiritual or sit-com revelations, just an enjoyable afternoon with curious, hard-working, fun students.
On another note, I had to call Hamzeh and say that I would be late. We had an appointment for a “graded talk,” but I knew he wasn’t in a rush, and I decided not to be the German train I am 99% of the time. This “graded talk” has been a good idea. Another little pleasure this weekend.
In the History of the 20th Century class I had assigned a memoir by a man named Alfons Heck that is entitled, A Child of Hitler: the Days When God Wore a Swastika. Some title, huh? It is a compelling read about a young man in the Hitler youth who, down the road, must come to terms with what Germany did in the Second World War. In the end he pleads for sympathy and understanding, stating that he is a victim of Adolf Hitler as well. I decided on an unusual assignment: I wanted each student to explore a different WWII-era film, so I wondered if they could juxtapose the memoir and the film. Before the paper was due I told the class I had changed my mind about the paper and I preferred that we sit and discuss the assignment, one-on-one, instead. As we come toward the end of the school year, there are fewer times for good one-on-one discussions.
Yesterday I had four of these discussions, all very exciting, very pleasurable, and all different. Each student looks at the book differently given the movie they have watched, and so far, each has found an unusual parallel in the book to illumine something about the war they hadn’t considered before. Faisal watched Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun and found a great parallel of the two lads, Hamzeh watched The Great Escape, Zeyna saw Casablanca and Rob enjoyed The Pianist, and again, each found insights very original from juxtaposing the film and the memoir. I have 10 more of these to enjoy in the next couple days.
Somehow in the midst of all this talk—either in McDonald’s, my apartment, or the Dining Hall or my car—I thought of the biblical image of the Peaceable Kingdom, the highly unlikely scene Isaiah paints for us of peaceful co-existence. I don’t know why it popped into my head, but again, I live in Biblical Territory, so maybe seeing those hills of David just beyond us here creates that open space for Bible images. Maybe it is also perhaps from the images in the news from the Middle East these first 99 days of 2011—we live in a world that reminds us again and again how preposterous the idea of a peaceable kingdom is, and how unnatural. Isaiah lived at a time and in a world red in tooth and claw, a time and a world in which insecurity and terror was the norm, war was routine, natural, inevitable. I would bet that Isaiah was laughed out of many a room for this co-existence silliness. “That Isaiah,” they’d hoot, “he’s mad as a hatter and crazy as a loon.”
Peaceful co-existence. Do you believe it is worthy of our highest efforts? I do. Or at least on my good days, I do. Even on my bad days, I really want to. But of course, courage and wisdom and love are forged slowly and painfully. As I thought about it, this concept of a peaceable kingdom may be unnatural but not foolishness.
Oh, all of this comes from having a 30-minute drive back to campus. I am sure if I had not had that drive I wouldn’t have even wondered about my little pleasures with my students and the chance of a greater peaceable kingdom. Right now the drive is almost like a drive through Ireland with the beautiful spring carpets of green here in Jordan, and that time to wonder and reflect and have my mind dance as I drive to and from Amman.
I resent that drive sometimes—like when I want to go out to breakfast or brunch on a Friday and it is a 45-minute drive to get to a decent place for brunch. But maybe it is the quiet drives that have allowed some of the wonderings and jeremiads of the last 45 months.
Anyway, I pull into the KA driveway, wait for the security guard to open the gate, park the car and put away the musings about the peaceable kingdom for the moment. This is a weekend of little pleasures and savoring of these exquisite conversations.
Friday, April 8, 2011
An Older Star Twinkles
Last week my 20th Century History class was treated to a visit from a wonderful historic relic—a man who lived through World War II as a young man. Abdullah, surely you have heard me speak about this young man over the last four years—he is the one his friend Faisal has dubbed “The Mayor of Awesomeville”, has a British grandfather, and he had asked him to come and speak to our class.
In the last couple weeks we have studied the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and how in that incredible display of promise of the “World of Tomorrow,” fair organizers indeed pinned their hopes on the Fair as a means to stave off what many knew by 1938 was an inevitable tumble back into a sequel of the Great War. We studied the Fair, and who came, and how the events and activities at the Fair provided a backdrop for the declaration of war that September. As we studied this new world war we looked at various artifacts from the British homefront, during that long time when the Brits fought alone heroically against the Nazi machine. On one of those days Abdullah, my student every day for four years now, suggested he invite his grandfather to come to class and speak.
I may never have explained Abdullah’s background, but it is an interesting one. As I remember the story, Abdullah’s father, a man from Jordan, studied engineering in the UK in the 1980s, fell in love with a British lass (Bridget) whose father was also an engineer. They married, lived awhile in England, and then moved back to Jordan and have raised their seven sons in Jordan. When Abdullah was a little boy in England he was chided as “the Arab kid,” and then when he moved to Jordan, they teased him as “the British kid.” In the first few days of KA fellow 9th grader Jude met Abdullah, sized him up and said, “You don’t look like an Abdullah; you look like a James.” And so Jude has called Abdullah ‘James’ throughout our four years (and by the way, Jude is another of the elite four-year club of exciting students I have taught every day here). Anyway, I digress. A few years ago Mr. Morrison, Abdullah’s grandfather, moved to Jordan to join his daughter’s family here. That is how we came to have a valuable cultural artifact from World War II Britain here in Jordan.
Abdullah called his granddad and asked him. Mr. Morrison first said, “Oh, I don’t remember anything about those days. But I will think about it and let you know.” This past Tuesday Mr. Morrison treated our class to a presentation about his high school and college years in war-torn Britain.
The man was prepared! He came with a power-point presentation, a laser pointer, a script, cues for when Abdullah should change the slides, a hand-out on dates and helpful historical facts, a youtube clip from a British comedy show looking back at the war, and my favorite—sound effects! He had included a sound effect of an air raid siren for us to hear.
Mr. Morrison began by telling us that he was 16 when Britain declared war against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939. He digressed—a wonderful and helpful digression, unlike some blog writers I know who seem to drift onto situation comedy tangents at the drop of a hat—and explained his school and how he was chosen to attend his public school. He joked about how strange it is that British public schools are actually “private” schools—I knew about the strange twisting of public and private—but he then explained the historic derivation of such a practice. I had never ever heard the reason for the strange twist. He explained about how an ecclesiastical York school in 627 opened its doors to the public, and then, oh, I knew I was in for a good presentation since he provided such good context in the first five minutes!
He explained about how important the radio was as announcements about the war and rationing schedules were made; he explained how as a 16-year old he and his family “bomb-proofed” their suburban London home; he explained how all the young lads his age joined up in the OTC (Officer Training Corps) and the LDV (Local Defense Volunteers—a group so shabby that the real soldiers nicknamed the LDV the “Look, Duck, and Vanish” group). Mr. Morison recounted the story of Dunkirk, one of those seminal moments in the British defense in the spring of 1940, a moment of surrender and retreat, but also a moment as new Prime Minister Churchill claimed was a moment when “so many owed so few.”
It had been a long while since I have gotten to teach World War II with a little bit of time. In world history courses the goal is to give more of a global perspective, and I have not gotten to trot out some of the things I enjoy, the film clips and the documents and the Vera Lynn songs. Yes, I sang for them “There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover,” and made sure they knew how much former headmaster Eric Widmer loves Vera Lynn and her “We’ll Meet Again” anthem. But it was also wonderful to have a guest speaker to come and recount his memories of the war time years. I remember that around the year 2000 at Hackley it seemed for the first year in my teaching career none of my students had had a grandfather who fought in World War II—it just felt the world had gotten a pinch older and farther away from those years. Another interesting point is how adept with 21st century technology Mr. Morison is in planning his presentation. It was just 10 years ago that I was showing slides in class about the homefront of WWII, and he had created a zippy presentation with all the power-point bells and whistles!
So our 87-year old guest explained how as the blitz in England continued, how it affected daily life: taking street signs down (I assume to confuse any German bombers who landed??) and the ration books—oh, my he showed us the weekly rations for sugar, butter, meat, etc. and I think I eat a whole week’s worth of rations in a day easily! He explained about black-outs and sentry duty at school and sleeping in the library awaiting the air raid sirens, how the lads were taught to defuse bombs. The new German bombs of 1941 were even more intense and the shrieking sound was horrendous he explained. With an air of someone who had lived through such tension, Mr. Morrison almost off-handedly remarked, “Very disconcerting, those bombs.”
He discussed about driving in the black-outs, the reduction of trains, and the rationing of clothes and everything else—he also provided a table as to when the rations ended, and some of them went on years after the conclusion of the war. He explained about the evacuations for children so that fewer young persons were in the London area during the war. He explained how important the WOSB—War Office Selection Board—was in shaping decisions for people’s lives. At the age of 18 Mr. Morrison’s eyesight was deemed too poor for military service, but the WOSB directed him as to which kind of engineering he should study. His job was to test the new pre-fabricated houses—the houses that would quickly go up to replace the homes destroyed by bombs.
I am a sucker for this kind of presentation—I just love hearing the veterans of life describe what they have seen and how they reacted. Of course Mr. Morrison’s presentation made me think of my own grandfather and his service in WWII. Somehow I never heard any of those stories in my childhood from him, and only after studying abroad in Austria in 1985 did all the war stories tumble out of him. I met friends of his in England, friends that he had made and kept over the decades. The men in the English family were off fighting the Nazis in Africa, and my grandfather was in Bristol, England, awaiting deployment for the invasion of France. In the time he was there he visited this family almost every week, bringing them treats from the GI store, and they providing him a family environment while he was away from his Cincinnati family. I loved the stories and how it took meeting these “strangers” for me to learn so much more about my grandfather.
Anyway, Mr. Morrison concluded his presentation explaining how the Brits were encouraged to dig up their flower beds and plant vegetable gardens—“Dig for Victory Gardens.” As he came towards the end of the class time, I wondered if he planned to touch on the theme of death at all. In the end he did, albeit briefly. He explained about two good friends of his, two lads who had gone off for military service, and while in training, they died, from what we would now call “friendly fire.” It was a brief reminder that this war business was more than just defense and sacrifices of food and gasoline etc. but as he said, “There wasn’t a family I knew who was not touched by the sadness of grief in the war.”
I joked with Mr. Morrison at the end that he had at first told Abdullah he couldn’t remember anything—but then look at what a little reflection had created! It was a delightful talk, a reminder of bonds I once shared with more students, when we had all had grandfathers who served or endured the privations of World War II. I think of my dad’s friends he sees regularly, Chris who fought in the Pacific, Ruby and Harry who met and fell in love during the war in France, and the German couple, Hans and Annelise, obviously from the other side of the war, who join the group at the Imperial Diner every week.
“There’ll be love and laughter, and peace ever after, tomorrow, when the world is free,” promises the end of the “White Cliffs of Dover” song. How poignant, how helpful to be reminded of the many factors and promises and hopes and fears and joys that shape us as we go. Mr. Morrison, a man the same age as my students when that war started, thank you for sharing your memories and reflections.
In the last couple weeks we have studied the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and how in that incredible display of promise of the “World of Tomorrow,” fair organizers indeed pinned their hopes on the Fair as a means to stave off what many knew by 1938 was an inevitable tumble back into a sequel of the Great War. We studied the Fair, and who came, and how the events and activities at the Fair provided a backdrop for the declaration of war that September. As we studied this new world war we looked at various artifacts from the British homefront, during that long time when the Brits fought alone heroically against the Nazi machine. On one of those days Abdullah, my student every day for four years now, suggested he invite his grandfather to come to class and speak.
I may never have explained Abdullah’s background, but it is an interesting one. As I remember the story, Abdullah’s father, a man from Jordan, studied engineering in the UK in the 1980s, fell in love with a British lass (Bridget) whose father was also an engineer. They married, lived awhile in England, and then moved back to Jordan and have raised their seven sons in Jordan. When Abdullah was a little boy in England he was chided as “the Arab kid,” and then when he moved to Jordan, they teased him as “the British kid.” In the first few days of KA fellow 9th grader Jude met Abdullah, sized him up and said, “You don’t look like an Abdullah; you look like a James.” And so Jude has called Abdullah ‘James’ throughout our four years (and by the way, Jude is another of the elite four-year club of exciting students I have taught every day here). Anyway, I digress. A few years ago Mr. Morrison, Abdullah’s grandfather, moved to Jordan to join his daughter’s family here. That is how we came to have a valuable cultural artifact from World War II Britain here in Jordan.
Abdullah called his granddad and asked him. Mr. Morrison first said, “Oh, I don’t remember anything about those days. But I will think about it and let you know.” This past Tuesday Mr. Morrison treated our class to a presentation about his high school and college years in war-torn Britain.
The man was prepared! He came with a power-point presentation, a laser pointer, a script, cues for when Abdullah should change the slides, a hand-out on dates and helpful historical facts, a youtube clip from a British comedy show looking back at the war, and my favorite—sound effects! He had included a sound effect of an air raid siren for us to hear.
Mr. Morrison began by telling us that he was 16 when Britain declared war against Nazi Germany on September 3, 1939. He digressed—a wonderful and helpful digression, unlike some blog writers I know who seem to drift onto situation comedy tangents at the drop of a hat—and explained his school and how he was chosen to attend his public school. He joked about how strange it is that British public schools are actually “private” schools—I knew about the strange twisting of public and private—but he then explained the historic derivation of such a practice. I had never ever heard the reason for the strange twist. He explained about how an ecclesiastical York school in 627 opened its doors to the public, and then, oh, I knew I was in for a good presentation since he provided such good context in the first five minutes!
He explained about how important the radio was as announcements about the war and rationing schedules were made; he explained how as a 16-year old he and his family “bomb-proofed” their suburban London home; he explained how all the young lads his age joined up in the OTC (Officer Training Corps) and the LDV (Local Defense Volunteers—a group so shabby that the real soldiers nicknamed the LDV the “Look, Duck, and Vanish” group). Mr. Morison recounted the story of Dunkirk, one of those seminal moments in the British defense in the spring of 1940, a moment of surrender and retreat, but also a moment as new Prime Minister Churchill claimed was a moment when “so many owed so few.”
It had been a long while since I have gotten to teach World War II with a little bit of time. In world history courses the goal is to give more of a global perspective, and I have not gotten to trot out some of the things I enjoy, the film clips and the documents and the Vera Lynn songs. Yes, I sang for them “There’ll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover,” and made sure they knew how much former headmaster Eric Widmer loves Vera Lynn and her “We’ll Meet Again” anthem. But it was also wonderful to have a guest speaker to come and recount his memories of the war time years. I remember that around the year 2000 at Hackley it seemed for the first year in my teaching career none of my students had had a grandfather who fought in World War II—it just felt the world had gotten a pinch older and farther away from those years. Another interesting point is how adept with 21st century technology Mr. Morison is in planning his presentation. It was just 10 years ago that I was showing slides in class about the homefront of WWII, and he had created a zippy presentation with all the power-point bells and whistles!
So our 87-year old guest explained how as the blitz in England continued, how it affected daily life: taking street signs down (I assume to confuse any German bombers who landed??) and the ration books—oh, my he showed us the weekly rations for sugar, butter, meat, etc. and I think I eat a whole week’s worth of rations in a day easily! He explained about black-outs and sentry duty at school and sleeping in the library awaiting the air raid sirens, how the lads were taught to defuse bombs. The new German bombs of 1941 were even more intense and the shrieking sound was horrendous he explained. With an air of someone who had lived through such tension, Mr. Morrison almost off-handedly remarked, “Very disconcerting, those bombs.”
He discussed about driving in the black-outs, the reduction of trains, and the rationing of clothes and everything else—he also provided a table as to when the rations ended, and some of them went on years after the conclusion of the war. He explained about the evacuations for children so that fewer young persons were in the London area during the war. He explained how important the WOSB—War Office Selection Board—was in shaping decisions for people’s lives. At the age of 18 Mr. Morrison’s eyesight was deemed too poor for military service, but the WOSB directed him as to which kind of engineering he should study. His job was to test the new pre-fabricated houses—the houses that would quickly go up to replace the homes destroyed by bombs.
I am a sucker for this kind of presentation—I just love hearing the veterans of life describe what they have seen and how they reacted. Of course Mr. Morrison’s presentation made me think of my own grandfather and his service in WWII. Somehow I never heard any of those stories in my childhood from him, and only after studying abroad in Austria in 1985 did all the war stories tumble out of him. I met friends of his in England, friends that he had made and kept over the decades. The men in the English family were off fighting the Nazis in Africa, and my grandfather was in Bristol, England, awaiting deployment for the invasion of France. In the time he was there he visited this family almost every week, bringing them treats from the GI store, and they providing him a family environment while he was away from his Cincinnati family. I loved the stories and how it took meeting these “strangers” for me to learn so much more about my grandfather.
Anyway, Mr. Morrison concluded his presentation explaining how the Brits were encouraged to dig up their flower beds and plant vegetable gardens—“Dig for Victory Gardens.” As he came towards the end of the class time, I wondered if he planned to touch on the theme of death at all. In the end he did, albeit briefly. He explained about two good friends of his, two lads who had gone off for military service, and while in training, they died, from what we would now call “friendly fire.” It was a brief reminder that this war business was more than just defense and sacrifices of food and gasoline etc. but as he said, “There wasn’t a family I knew who was not touched by the sadness of grief in the war.”
I joked with Mr. Morrison at the end that he had at first told Abdullah he couldn’t remember anything—but then look at what a little reflection had created! It was a delightful talk, a reminder of bonds I once shared with more students, when we had all had grandfathers who served or endured the privations of World War II. I think of my dad’s friends he sees regularly, Chris who fought in the Pacific, Ruby and Harry who met and fell in love during the war in France, and the German couple, Hans and Annelise, obviously from the other side of the war, who join the group at the Imperial Diner every week.
“There’ll be love and laughter, and peace ever after, tomorrow, when the world is free,” promises the end of the “White Cliffs of Dover” song. How poignant, how helpful to be reminded of the many factors and promises and hopes and fears and joys that shape us as we go. Mr. Morrison, a man the same age as my students when that war started, thank you for sharing your memories and reflections.
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