Well. Tonight certainly did not turn out the way I expected it to. It turned out much much better.
The plan was to drive after work to the house of one of my dear friends from high school. She was going to have a bunch of girls from our old school over to watch Toy Story 1 and 2 before driving to the theater for the midnight showing of Toy Story 3. I was hesitant, to be honest. The thought of spending the hours from 7 to 12 in a group where I'm really only friends with a quarter of those gathered was not the most appealing. Neither was the prospect of then driving even farther away in order to watch a Disney sequel. I rarely like sequels. "Part two" films are usually disappointing. "Part three" films can almost without exception be guaranteed to be time wasters. And I'm just not as into Toy Story as some of the other classics, though this isn't to say I dislike it.
What actually happened was this:
1. No one else was at my friend's house when we arrived. SO my sister, her boyfriend, my friend and I went out for dinner and didn't watch either of the first two movies. This was more expensive than sitting back at the house and pretending to care about beach house drama, but it was also much less stressful.
2. The dears we met up with at the theater were all people I sincerely was missing...they're a no-drama to low-drama crowd, so we had real conversation and caught up on each others' lives.
3. The movie was DELIGHTFUL!
Let me say, Pixar knows what they're doing. The original Toy Story came out in 1995. That means that the kids who were watching it are the kids now either about to go to college, starting college, or finishing their first few years of college. This movie was directed at those kids. The original Toy Story kids will get all of the jokes, all of the references, all of the subtle nods at the first two movies. Not only that, but Andy is around our age still, and we can relate to what Rex says at the beginning: "I can't stand all this uncertainty!" Every character in the film--and every person at that midnight showing--knew exactly what he meant.
The plot was fairly straightforward. Andy is packing up his room for college and has to decide whether his toys come with him, go in the attic, or get donated to Sunnyside Daycare. After a mix-up, all the toys end up at the Daycare center and all except Woody think that Andy abandoned them. Woody sets out to return to Andy's while the others are convinced that Sunnyside is paradise. In time they all realize that the daycare only appears to be paradise but that it is actually a totalitarian state where an evil hugging-bear (who smells like strawberries) preaches that remaining unattached to a child guarantees that no child will ever outgrow a toy and break its heart...This sounds good to the toys until they realize that the bear has decided that they are fodder for the dreaded toddler room children. Woody returns when he learns the truth about Sunnyside, and together they conspire to escape.
The first thing I should say is that I saw the 3-D version. Maybe this is just me, but I feel like 3-D has lost its novelty of late. This is a good thing; it means that animators feel less pressure to show off with the cliche something-pops-out-at-you-because-it-can scenes. Instead, they focus on using the 3-D to make the scenes feel more realistic and draw the audience members into the action. There were points where I forgot we were watching a 3-D movie, and this was refreshing. I'm a huge fan of well-executed understatement, and the animators did a wonderful job with every detail.
When the character of Barbie is first introduced, I wasn't sure whether to smirk or groan. She's over-emotional, shallow, flighty, dependent... Mrs. Potato head is a strong female (?) character and Jesse is pretty great, but I was distressed about how weak a woman Barbie seemed to be. She was everything her stereotype indicates. But then she realizes that her friends are in danger. She rejects her cushy life with her well-groomed man and dream house. She demands that she and her friends receive better treatment, and she takes action to bring this about. She's still Barbie, but it was nice to see her drawn with some backbone.
Mr. Tavani would have enjoyed the set of toys who live at Bonnie's house. While Andy's toys considered being played with their way of supporting Andy, Bonnie's toys inform Woody that "We do a lot of improv here. It's fun!" Bonnie is still young enough that her toys support her by playing along with her. For Andy's toys, these two things are no longer one-and-the-same. They have to choose which is more important: is their purpose to be played with or to be there for their kid? And is there a way to do both when the kid is becoming an adult?
Lots'O, the evil bear at Sunny Side, suggests that the toys should be selfish. He praises Sunny Side for giving toys a place where they can enjoy the pleasure of play without being responsible for a kid. Love requires responsibility, and if the toy doesn't love the kid then the kid can never hurt the toy by abandoning it. With responsibility gone and love gone, the toy can enjoy a life free from the sorrow of good-bye. 'Twas better to have loved and lost? Not for this bear. Of course, the exchange is a painful and shortened life for the toys because they have no one to care for them. Lots'O's world pitch reminds me of some of the Soviet propaganda films...
If I read the plot properly, Pixar also advocates loyalty to friends, giving second chances, understanding that revenge isn't worthwhile, never judging by size, allowing for men with beautiful handwriting, adopting and starting non-traditional families, and saying good-bye gracefully. Hopefully it won't spoil the ending too much if I take a moment to say that the film reminded me of some of my thoughts from this time last year. I had just finished high school and was studying the many ways friendships grow, change, and sometimes end. Frequently, I watched girls (because I went to an all-girls school, not because this is a female tendency necessarily) pick fights so that they wouldn't have to say good-bye. This always saddened me; I think that acknowledging the end of a relationship--any relationship--by allowing the other person's absence to be uncomfortable or even painful while finding peace in the knowledge that you have both grown to the point where moving on is best...this is the right way to end. When it's time, it's time...and pretending to hate the other person or to be apathetic ruins the integrity of the friendship that was.
So maybe that was a bit of a spoiler...but the ending just felt right. Bravo Pixar.
It was strange to be watching the movie with a handful of high school friends as well as my sister and her boyfriend. My sister, who is grounded and mature for her years. Who I can finally call a friend. Some high school friends who lost themselves this year at college and are strangers, some who found themselves and are like new friends, and some who are struggling to find themselves kindof sortof maybe. With these last ones, I pray for patience so that I can be like Woody and understand how to wait and be there for them even when they aren't there for me. Through the years, I've always had at least one friend willing to be that loyal and patient person. I'm grateful and ready to pass it forward.
One more thing: If you go to see the movie, please recycle your 3-D glasses after the show! If you keep them, they'll just end up in the trash next time you clean out your desk. So do your part to save the planet (unlike BP)!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Quietly Lonely in Rainy Suburbia
How to illustrate this moment...
I shut my bedroom door so that the silent house wouldn't feel so cavernous. I made tea to warm my cheeks and hands. I'm reading Peter Barry, Shaun Tan, and Orhan Pamuk for company. I put on a sweater to substitute for a hug. Outside the world is wet and grey. Inside the lamp light presses on my eyes. Mumbling, stumbling, tripping and fumbling. I want to paint something, dye something, clean something, read something... but I have no wood, cloth, mess or...well, I have books, but I'm feeling much more driven to actively create something at the moment. And so here I am writing even as I cringe thinking about how ridiculous blogging really is sometimes. Regardless...
Once upon a time I had a conversation with a teacher about having a need for a sanctuary. I'm one of those people who just needs a space. It doesn't have to be a solitary one, but it needs to be one I can decompress in. As I was exploring winding wooded paths yesterday, this conversation came back to me and I wondered about this concept. The conversation took place back in high school. I'd been really disturbed by something I heard during the day and I luckily had a free period at that point so I set off for the Latin room. While there I perched on a desk and attempted to straighten out my head. A teacher came in and sat with me; we discussed how that particular classroom was situated almost like a tree-house or a fort and how good it is to have a sanctuary. Thinking of a sanctuary as a physical space, the places I tend toward make no sense. They really have nothing in common: the Villa Latin room, an old paintball fort, the kitchen in the basement of the dorm at Millersville, the cornfield at Mary's barn, the entirety of New York city (because, as Fitzgerald says in "Great Gatsby," the places with the most people can provide the most anonymity), Stuyvesant park, the 8th floor of Kimmel, the 7th floor at Bobst, my bedroom at home. A friend once started talking about collecting items for his sanctuary in his home. He had a space with a meditation alter and candles and chimes... It all sounded fine and dandy of course. My bedroom would have to be the most consciously constructed of all my various spaces, but it really hasn't been thoughtfully constructed. It's purple with a few plants, some candles, art supplies, stacks of books, and pillows on the floor in the corner where I like to sit. It's a place where I can bring friends and have tea or space out on my own....but when all is said and done it is a very haphazard space. I found myself feeling a tad bit sorry for my friend. The reason for this, I think, is because the goal of self-reflection and personal maturation is to convert one's sanctuary from a physical place into a state of being. Things don't make a sanctuary. Peace of mind and heart does. Sometimes other people fit into the equation or books fit or colors fit. Other times, all that is necessary is the rhythmic pounding of footsteps along a path in the forest floor and an awareness of each precious breath of light.
Now that you think I'm crazy, I'll get off my soapbox for a bit.
In other news, I'm grateful to the Tavani family for yet another lovely pasta night, wishing Cass all the best on his trip, waiting for Emily (S.R., not my sister Emi) to publish her findings on the neurology of third language acquisition, and debating spending last week's earnings buying every Shaun Tan book available as of right now.
More tea is in order. TTFN. Ta ta for now!
I shut my bedroom door so that the silent house wouldn't feel so cavernous. I made tea to warm my cheeks and hands. I'm reading Peter Barry, Shaun Tan, and Orhan Pamuk for company. I put on a sweater to substitute for a hug. Outside the world is wet and grey. Inside the lamp light presses on my eyes. Mumbling, stumbling, tripping and fumbling. I want to paint something, dye something, clean something, read something... but I have no wood, cloth, mess or...well, I have books, but I'm feeling much more driven to actively create something at the moment. And so here I am writing even as I cringe thinking about how ridiculous blogging really is sometimes. Regardless...
Once upon a time I had a conversation with a teacher about having a need for a sanctuary. I'm one of those people who just needs a space. It doesn't have to be a solitary one, but it needs to be one I can decompress in. As I was exploring winding wooded paths yesterday, this conversation came back to me and I wondered about this concept. The conversation took place back in high school. I'd been really disturbed by something I heard during the day and I luckily had a free period at that point so I set off for the Latin room. While there I perched on a desk and attempted to straighten out my head. A teacher came in and sat with me; we discussed how that particular classroom was situated almost like a tree-house or a fort and how good it is to have a sanctuary. Thinking of a sanctuary as a physical space, the places I tend toward make no sense. They really have nothing in common: the Villa Latin room, an old paintball fort, the kitchen in the basement of the dorm at Millersville, the cornfield at Mary's barn, the entirety of New York city (because, as Fitzgerald says in "Great Gatsby," the places with the most people can provide the most anonymity), Stuyvesant park, the 8th floor of Kimmel, the 7th floor at Bobst, my bedroom at home. A friend once started talking about collecting items for his sanctuary in his home. He had a space with a meditation alter and candles and chimes... It all sounded fine and dandy of course. My bedroom would have to be the most consciously constructed of all my various spaces, but it really hasn't been thoughtfully constructed. It's purple with a few plants, some candles, art supplies, stacks of books, and pillows on the floor in the corner where I like to sit. It's a place where I can bring friends and have tea or space out on my own....but when all is said and done it is a very haphazard space. I found myself feeling a tad bit sorry for my friend. The reason for this, I think, is because the goal of self-reflection and personal maturation is to convert one's sanctuary from a physical place into a state of being. Things don't make a sanctuary. Peace of mind and heart does. Sometimes other people fit into the equation or books fit or colors fit. Other times, all that is necessary is the rhythmic pounding of footsteps along a path in the forest floor and an awareness of each precious breath of light.
Now that you think I'm crazy, I'll get off my soapbox for a bit.
In other news, I'm grateful to the Tavani family for yet another lovely pasta night, wishing Cass all the best on his trip, waiting for Emily (S.R., not my sister Emi) to publish her findings on the neurology of third language acquisition, and debating spending last week's earnings buying every Shaun Tan book available as of right now.
More tea is in order. TTFN. Ta ta for now!
Friday, May 28, 2010
In realtime it's been almost a month...
Well. Tempted as I am to say that I haven't been up to too much this summer (wow!), that would be dishonest. Almost as soon as I arrived home, my middle sister turned 18. Legally, she's now an adult. She doesn't seem phased, but the milestone makes me feel like the past two years ran away before I could realize they had fully arrived. My own 18th was the week of--though a few days after--Obama's election. Sometimes I stop to take stock of my life and each time I am inevitably struck by how much seems to happen so quickly.
I've started working full time hours since coming back. I can't express how grateful I am that I have a job to come back to! That said, I'm still technically a part-time employee. This has been helpful when I've needed off for excursions.
The first of these was May 11-12th. My friend Rhoen had given Cass tickets to the Intelligence Squared debate scheduled for the 11th. Even being so out of the loop on all things political, I still was excited to go. I had never seen an official sponsored debate before. Intelligence Squared (really Intelligence^2, but I can't figure out how to type symbols) is run monthly by Newsweek, and the motion on the table at the event we went to was "Obama's foreign policy spells America's downfall." A fairly gutsy accusation for anyone to make because it deals with extremes and proclaiming an intelligent guess to be truth. It was fascinating. My notes from the debate are here.
All in all we had a great trip. We stopped at the Chelsea Market to pick up Blood Orange Anarchy in a Jar jam for my mother from Lucy's Whey. We spent time in the Mulberry Street branch of the New York City library. We visited the Gallatin building and attempted to see one of my professors. We strolled through NYU's graduation events (and I considered skipping graduation because I'm really not one for so much fuss). We strolled through the Lil Packard exhibit at the Grey Gallery on Washington Square. We enjoyed the debate. And finally we met up with my father at Matsuri for delicious sushi and good conversation. And even a glass of plum wine.
We spent the night in Morristown, New Jersey before heading off the next day to the Garden State Discovery Museum. Cass' mom had met the owner--a remarkable woman named Rory-- on a plane and arranged for us to all meet. The drive there was a bit stressful, but the museum was delightful. Rory showed us around and thoughtfully answered all of our questions. She pointed out color-changing clouds made for her by a local artist and the weather board donated by Action News. She explained why a vet's office is more child friendly than a doctor's office and why parents appreciate her diner exhibit (they get to sit!).
After the tour she introduced us to Rosie Hymerling who runs teacher development workshops at the museum. That night's workshop was on nursery rhymes and fairy tales...right up my ally! Rosie has more energy than anyone I've met before in my life. She was jumping and juggling and singing and handing out papers... She runs these workshops monthly, for free, and gave out recipes, project guides, book recommendations and personal stories all without ever actually going off topic. I don't know how she juggles so much at once, but she's inspiring.
Once the workshop ended, Cass and I had a chance to sit down with Rory and her mom Milly. Cass wanted to share the work he's been doing through OLEG with them. I'm not sure if there were any topics we ended up not touching on. We talked about Morristown, Russia, Georgia, the museum world, the art world, sculptures, Grounds for Sculpture, the messy business of cleaning a children's museum, narrative in education, interdisciplinary education, liberal education, Herb Iris and pennies. We talked about the changes happening in the journalism world, the business of running a non-profit, autism, and the achievements of Rory's son Jeremy (which include learning to ride a unicycle and designing notecards which he sold to benefit children in Russian orphanages). We left around 10pm after waving good-bye to Herbie the Love Bug: a sculpture made from the frame of an old VW Beetle, things found in the museum, and belongings of Rory's father Herb who continues to encourage the family in their endeavors even though he is now deceased.
At the very end of the night, I dropped Cass off at his apartment and returned to my sleepy house, grateful for another fine adventure and ready for the next day's work.
The 19th through the 21st, Hillary came to visit. We walked around Philly, which I haven't done in quite some time. We found an Anarchist bookshop, an LGBT bookshop, a consignment shop, beautiful mosaics, Capogiro gelato, and eventually Osteria where we had dinner with our lovely friend Jenny. We spent a good portion of the next day grocery shopping, but we also went to Longwood Gardens with Vincent, Sonia, and Cass. After picnic-ing there, we explored the grounds for a bit. Everyone seemed to especially enjoy the herb garden. Unfortunately, the room inside the conservatory that used to have fruit trees and melons had been converted into a special exhibit on genetically modifying food-plants (which didn't go over so well with the group I was with) and a section on perfume making. I was disappointed; the melon vines growing up the walls of that room had always fascinated me and I had wanted to share them with my friends. Regardless, we soon headed home to begin cooking dinner. The dinner party had a curious cast. We included a handful of my high school friends, two Tavanis, Hillary, Cass, my parents, and me. And Hillary cooked a delicious dinner big enough to feed an army. Soooo good!
The next day Hillary and I headed back into the city. We spent time at the art museum, stopped for coffee at La Colombe, indulged in a second Capogiro trip, and then headed over to 30th street to wait for Hillary's bus. We ended up waiting quite some time, but it was so refreshing to be spending time with her again that I didn't mind beyond being worried about her getting to D.C. in time.
Funny thing is that I was back at that bus stop the next day to catch a bus to New York. I met up with my grandmother, my aunt, my great aunt, and my cousin when I got there. We had lunch, took a bus tour, enjoyed conversing during our down time at the hotel, and ended the night with dinner at the View restaurant. The restaurant actually rotates so you get to see up and down Broadway/7th ave and the Hudson. It threw me a bit to be in Times Square, but getting to catch up with them was great. The reason they were there was actually to see Jersey Boys, the musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and they had invited me to come. We spent the night at the Marquis before breakfasting the next morning at Bar American and heading off to enjoy the show. And we really did enjoy it. I'd be lying if I were to deny humming "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" on the subway to the bus stop after.
Since then I've been working quite a bit. I've also read in Hibernia park, visited a hex sign shop with Cass (hooray for the Pennsylvania Dutch!), taken my sister out to breakfast, helped Cass move into his new apartment, explored the nature preserve across the street, been to the Philadelphia orchestra, enjoyed several really good meals with really good friends, toured Temple's campus, been enlightened at multiple wonderful pasta nights, put air in my bike tires, and read multiple books. Guess it's a busy summer after all...
I've started working full time hours since coming back. I can't express how grateful I am that I have a job to come back to! That said, I'm still technically a part-time employee. This has been helpful when I've needed off for excursions.
The first of these was May 11-12th. My friend Rhoen had given Cass tickets to the Intelligence Squared debate scheduled for the 11th. Even being so out of the loop on all things political, I still was excited to go. I had never seen an official sponsored debate before. Intelligence Squared (really Intelligence^2, but I can't figure out how to type symbols) is run monthly by Newsweek, and the motion on the table at the event we went to was "Obama's foreign policy spells America's downfall." A fairly gutsy accusation for anyone to make because it deals with extremes and proclaiming an intelligent guess to be truth. It was fascinating. My notes from the debate are here.
All in all we had a great trip. We stopped at the Chelsea Market to pick up Blood Orange Anarchy in a Jar jam for my mother from Lucy's Whey. We spent time in the Mulberry Street branch of the New York City library. We visited the Gallatin building and attempted to see one of my professors. We strolled through NYU's graduation events (and I considered skipping graduation because I'm really not one for so much fuss). We strolled through the Lil Packard exhibit at the Grey Gallery on Washington Square. We enjoyed the debate. And finally we met up with my father at Matsuri for delicious sushi and good conversation. And even a glass of plum wine.
We spent the night in Morristown, New Jersey before heading off the next day to the Garden State Discovery Museum. Cass' mom had met the owner--a remarkable woman named Rory-- on a plane and arranged for us to all meet. The drive there was a bit stressful, but the museum was delightful. Rory showed us around and thoughtfully answered all of our questions. She pointed out color-changing clouds made for her by a local artist and the weather board donated by Action News. She explained why a vet's office is more child friendly than a doctor's office and why parents appreciate her diner exhibit (they get to sit!).
After the tour she introduced us to Rosie Hymerling who runs teacher development workshops at the museum. That night's workshop was on nursery rhymes and fairy tales...right up my ally! Rosie has more energy than anyone I've met before in my life. She was jumping and juggling and singing and handing out papers... She runs these workshops monthly, for free, and gave out recipes, project guides, book recommendations and personal stories all without ever actually going off topic. I don't know how she juggles so much at once, but she's inspiring.
Once the workshop ended, Cass and I had a chance to sit down with Rory and her mom Milly. Cass wanted to share the work he's been doing through OLEG with them. I'm not sure if there were any topics we ended up not touching on. We talked about Morristown, Russia, Georgia, the museum world, the art world, sculptures, Grounds for Sculpture, the messy business of cleaning a children's museum, narrative in education, interdisciplinary education, liberal education, Herb Iris and pennies. We talked about the changes happening in the journalism world, the business of running a non-profit, autism, and the achievements of Rory's son Jeremy (which include learning to ride a unicycle and designing notecards which he sold to benefit children in Russian orphanages). We left around 10pm after waving good-bye to Herbie the Love Bug: a sculpture made from the frame of an old VW Beetle, things found in the museum, and belongings of Rory's father Herb who continues to encourage the family in their endeavors even though he is now deceased.
At the very end of the night, I dropped Cass off at his apartment and returned to my sleepy house, grateful for another fine adventure and ready for the next day's work.
The 19th through the 21st, Hillary came to visit. We walked around Philly, which I haven't done in quite some time. We found an Anarchist bookshop, an LGBT bookshop, a consignment shop, beautiful mosaics, Capogiro gelato, and eventually Osteria where we had dinner with our lovely friend Jenny. We spent a good portion of the next day grocery shopping, but we also went to Longwood Gardens with Vincent, Sonia, and Cass. After picnic-ing there, we explored the grounds for a bit. Everyone seemed to especially enjoy the herb garden. Unfortunately, the room inside the conservatory that used to have fruit trees and melons had been converted into a special exhibit on genetically modifying food-plants (which didn't go over so well with the group I was with) and a section on perfume making. I was disappointed; the melon vines growing up the walls of that room had always fascinated me and I had wanted to share them with my friends. Regardless, we soon headed home to begin cooking dinner. The dinner party had a curious cast. We included a handful of my high school friends, two Tavanis, Hillary, Cass, my parents, and me. And Hillary cooked a delicious dinner big enough to feed an army. Soooo good!
The next day Hillary and I headed back into the city. We spent time at the art museum, stopped for coffee at La Colombe, indulged in a second Capogiro trip, and then headed over to 30th street to wait for Hillary's bus. We ended up waiting quite some time, but it was so refreshing to be spending time with her again that I didn't mind beyond being worried about her getting to D.C. in time.
Funny thing is that I was back at that bus stop the next day to catch a bus to New York. I met up with my grandmother, my aunt, my great aunt, and my cousin when I got there. We had lunch, took a bus tour, enjoyed conversing during our down time at the hotel, and ended the night with dinner at the View restaurant. The restaurant actually rotates so you get to see up and down Broadway/7th ave and the Hudson. It threw me a bit to be in Times Square, but getting to catch up with them was great. The reason they were there was actually to see Jersey Boys, the musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and they had invited me to come. We spent the night at the Marquis before breakfasting the next morning at Bar American and heading off to enjoy the show. And we really did enjoy it. I'd be lying if I were to deny humming "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You" on the subway to the bus stop after.
Since then I've been working quite a bit. I've also read in Hibernia park, visited a hex sign shop with Cass (hooray for the Pennsylvania Dutch!), taken my sister out to breakfast, helped Cass move into his new apartment, explored the nature preserve across the street, been to the Philadelphia orchestra, enjoyed several really good meals with really good friends, toured Temple's campus, been enlightened at multiple wonderful pasta nights, put air in my bike tires, and read multiple books. Guess it's a busy summer after all...
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Where did the time go?
I wish I could remember more details about the last week at school. Unfortunately, I was so caught up in writing papers, crafting finals, cleaning, packing, and trying to cram in time with friends that I didn't stop to really reflect. Something I regret, I assure you.
Oh goodness. Where did all the time go? May 1st brought a celebration of Miss Alex the Baker and her 19 years of life. What a day! Hillary and I had gone a few days before to lunch at Dogmatic which was delicious even though I don't typically eat things that resemble hotdogs. On the way we passed Alex's favorite store and had a wonderful time picking out her birthday gifts. We even trecked to Barnes and Nobles to find a good cookbook for her. Which, I must say, is one of the delightful things about my friends. Before this year, I would never have flipped through food blogs for fun--though I did look at cookbooks occasionally. Now I look through the blogs AND I have cookbooks on my "books to buy next" list even though I technically don't have a kitchen yet. But I digress... For her birthday morning we went to brunch in Brooklyn (I'll post the name as soon as I figure out where I put the business card).
After that, the two of us strolled around Dumbo for a bit. We wandered into a florist's showroom (again, I'll post the name sometime soon...). So in case I haven't mentioned this before, I love plants. Really. So we walked into this showroom/workspace/shop and started speaking with the woman who's space it was. She told us about the Greek mythology themed pieces she did for the Manhattan Horticultural Society's gala, the Miltonian orchids on her window, the glass art her friend makes, the day she carried the entire animal section of the Brooklyn Library's image archive home with her, the illustration she did for the front of her wedding invitation, her fiance's intentions of teaching at NYU, her vintage engagement ring... We just had a great time chatting with this woman! Then she gave us directions to a craft/food market further east, and we went off to enjoy that as well.
I don't quite remember what I did when I arrived back in Manhattan, but soon enough I was heading back to Brooklyn for her birthday dinner. It's strange to think about this night in retrospect. We ate at an Italian place. We came home. Hillary and I wandered the East Village looking for nourishment. We ate giant carrots. We tried a very gross "milkshake." And the next day I watched the news while at the gym and realized that there was a bomb evacuation in Time Square happening at the same time as our wanderings. Surreal.
Monday was my last day of classes. I'm the first to admit that I was working on some of those final projects up to the last minute. My next few posts will probably be me boring you to tears with my papers. Anyway. I finished classes and felt very strange about the fact as I walked home. I left the Gallatin building at 9 and realized that I won't be returning there for a class again until Fall 2011. Even stranger was realizing that I'll be a junior at that point. How did it get so late so soon!?!?
I cleaned, packed, and spent time with friends Monday night. And then Tuesday arrived. Tuesday saw me spend three hours at the Czech consulate. I was waiting to apply for my visa. While there, I ran into Brianna and decided that I'm looking forward to cooking with her (she's a vegan) in between eating heavy Czech meals. When it was finally my turn, I immediately decided that the woman working behind the counter must be one of the most patient people alive. To apply for a long-term visa, each student has to turn in a bunch of paperwork: a bundle of original forms and a bundle of copies. One of the forms in both is the application itself, and NYU supplied the 100-ish students studying in Prague next term with a sample of the application to guide them in filling it out. This would have been a brilliant idea if they had double-checked the answers they gave us. And so, this one woman spent her entire day coaching NYU students through the process of correcting both their original application and their copy of it. I was in awe.
By the time I left, I was running late. All semester Hillary and I met for lunch on Tuesdays. Since this was the final Tuesday, she had arranged for Emma and Maggie to meet us for lunch at a delicious place downtown. I took a cab since I was so late, but everything worked out. The food was great, getting to spend my final day with friends was great, and the post-lunch hunt for strawberry galette will stand out among my memories for a long time to come. While out at our ladies' lunch, Emma had the idea to start a blog where we could each post a picture each day of the summer of pleasant things we encountered. I still love the idea, but Wordpress accused me of cheating when I tried to co-contribute. I'll let you know how that turns out...
Finally, I raced home with plenty of time to finish cleaning/packing. Or so I thought. Then I encountered mystery mold in the kitchen. Knowing that my roomies wouldn't clean it and that we would then be fined for excessive disgusting-ness when everyone had moved out, I scrubbed the mold. I got it cleaned up, but then my dad arrived and I ran around the room attempting to finish packing. My poor father. There's another patient person for you. We loaded up the van, went to Caracas for lunch, and then headed home. And suddenly, it's over.
Oh goodness. Where did all the time go? May 1st brought a celebration of Miss Alex the Baker and her 19 years of life. What a day! Hillary and I had gone a few days before to lunch at Dogmatic which was delicious even though I don't typically eat things that resemble hotdogs. On the way we passed Alex's favorite store and had a wonderful time picking out her birthday gifts. We even trecked to Barnes and Nobles to find a good cookbook for her. Which, I must say, is one of the delightful things about my friends. Before this year, I would never have flipped through food blogs for fun--though I did look at cookbooks occasionally. Now I look through the blogs AND I have cookbooks on my "books to buy next" list even though I technically don't have a kitchen yet. But I digress... For her birthday morning we went to brunch in Brooklyn (I'll post the name as soon as I figure out where I put the business card).
After that, the two of us strolled around Dumbo for a bit. We wandered into a florist's showroom (again, I'll post the name sometime soon...). So in case I haven't mentioned this before, I love plants. Really. So we walked into this showroom/workspace/shop and started speaking with the woman who's space it was. She told us about the Greek mythology themed pieces she did for the Manhattan Horticultural Society's gala, the Miltonian orchids on her window, the glass art her friend makes, the day she carried the entire animal section of the Brooklyn Library's image archive home with her, the illustration she did for the front of her wedding invitation, her fiance's intentions of teaching at NYU, her vintage engagement ring... We just had a great time chatting with this woman! Then she gave us directions to a craft/food market further east, and we went off to enjoy that as well.
I don't quite remember what I did when I arrived back in Manhattan, but soon enough I was heading back to Brooklyn for her birthday dinner. It's strange to think about this night in retrospect. We ate at an Italian place. We came home. Hillary and I wandered the East Village looking for nourishment. We ate giant carrots. We tried a very gross "milkshake." And the next day I watched the news while at the gym and realized that there was a bomb evacuation in Time Square happening at the same time as our wanderings. Surreal.
Monday was my last day of classes. I'm the first to admit that I was working on some of those final projects up to the last minute. My next few posts will probably be me boring you to tears with my papers. Anyway. I finished classes and felt very strange about the fact as I walked home. I left the Gallatin building at 9 and realized that I won't be returning there for a class again until Fall 2011. Even stranger was realizing that I'll be a junior at that point. How did it get so late so soon!?!?
I cleaned, packed, and spent time with friends Monday night. And then Tuesday arrived. Tuesday saw me spend three hours at the Czech consulate. I was waiting to apply for my visa. While there, I ran into Brianna and decided that I'm looking forward to cooking with her (she's a vegan) in between eating heavy Czech meals. When it was finally my turn, I immediately decided that the woman working behind the counter must be one of the most patient people alive. To apply for a long-term visa, each student has to turn in a bunch of paperwork: a bundle of original forms and a bundle of copies. One of the forms in both is the application itself, and NYU supplied the 100-ish students studying in Prague next term with a sample of the application to guide them in filling it out. This would have been a brilliant idea if they had double-checked the answers they gave us. And so, this one woman spent her entire day coaching NYU students through the process of correcting both their original application and their copy of it. I was in awe.
By the time I left, I was running late. All semester Hillary and I met for lunch on Tuesdays. Since this was the final Tuesday, she had arranged for Emma and Maggie to meet us for lunch at a delicious place downtown. I took a cab since I was so late, but everything worked out. The food was great, getting to spend my final day with friends was great, and the post-lunch hunt for strawberry galette will stand out among my memories for a long time to come. While out at our ladies' lunch, Emma had the idea to start a blog where we could each post a picture each day of the summer of pleasant things we encountered. I still love the idea, but Wordpress accused me of cheating when I tried to co-contribute. I'll let you know how that turns out...
Finally, I raced home with plenty of time to finish cleaning/packing. Or so I thought. Then I encountered mystery mold in the kitchen. Knowing that my roomies wouldn't clean it and that we would then be fined for excessive disgusting-ness when everyone had moved out, I scrubbed the mold. I got it cleaned up, but then my dad arrived and I ran around the room attempting to finish packing. My poor father. There's another patient person for you. We loaded up the van, went to Caracas for lunch, and then headed home. And suddenly, it's over.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Listen Between the Lines
It's been almost a month since I wrote this and saved it as a draft. Where has the time gone?! Essentially, I wrote so much during the last few weeks of school (final papers) that, even being the obsessive communicator that I am, I just needed a break. These next few entries will be post-dated. Today, in real time, is May 21st.
Sometimes I feel like my student ID is a magic key. There are so many events that I can get into simply by showing that little card. Even at non-school events, it amazes me what identifying as a student does to the way people perceive me. And no, the school did not pay me to say this.
With all of these events constantly happening, I sometimes wish that I had a little less homework so I could go to all of these lectures. I'm also really glad that I carry the dialogue journal with me at all times; if I didn't, I would never have notes from the lectures I drop into last minute.
This Monday, after my Myths class, I headed uptown (a little) to Baruch College. To commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the college had a ceremony with candle-lighting and Yiddish songs. I went with my Oral Histories class because the second half of the ceremony featured two guest lecturers. The first was David Gerwitzman,a holocaust survivor. The second was Jacqueline Murekatate, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Mr. Gerwitzman began with a story about his melamed who had addressed his class one day and said that if any of them survived they would have an obligation to "tell the world what happened here." This was in Losice, Poland. Right before the soldiers came, his cousin had come to the town and warned them about the slaughter taking place in other towns. Mr. Gerwitzman was only eleven when this all happened; his parents decided to build a hiding place in their house. When the soldiers ordered everyone out into the square, his family didn't go "because of the warning of my cousin...and because it was extremely hot." Which was one of those 'God is in the details' moments: what if it hadn't been extremely hot and they decided to go? What if the cousin hadn't warned them until a week later? Anyway. Most of those who did go into the square were sent to labor camps, but the elderly, sick, and women with very young children were all shot. Mr. Gerwitzman's presentation included pictures of around his town, and he had some of this massacre because a pharmacist in the town was a member of the Polish resistance and had been hiding there as well. The Gerwitzman parents sent the children out to escape once the soldiers had gone. He and his sister ended up in a Polish prison for a bit, but a confused guard executed the wrong prisoners and let them back out. Eventually he talks about how the family reunited and hid in a pigsty where they "existed" when they once had lived. He was about 16 when he was liberated by the Russian Army. Someone in the auditorium asked at the Q & A how the Russian soldiers had treated him and he said they were some of the kindest people he had ever met. Interestingly, he also talked about being in a displaced person's camp for a time before his American relatives helped him emigrate. I don't know that any of the books I've read ever mentioned what happened when survivors turned to go home and realized there was nothing left.
Jacqueline Murekatate spoke next. She explains how the genocide officially only lasted 100 days, but that the country had been heading towards it for a long time. The Belgian colonists required everyone to have identification cards with 'ethnicity' listed alongside 'name' and 'age.' They started drumming up competition between the Hutus and Tutsis to 'divide and conquer' more easily. Ms. Murekatate said that when colonialism ended and the country was free, the new government kept the practice for the same reason. Tutsi killings started occurring more frequently in 1959 and through the 60's and 70's. She talked about how her family ran to police and neighbors when the killings started in their area: "We told ourselves that they would protect us." She had been visiting her grandmother when they started, and she wasn't able to go home to her parents. After the dust settled, an uncle informed her that her parents had been killed in their village when they attempted to hide with their neighbors. She was dumbfounded: "I couldn't understand how people who used to come to our house for lunch or dinner would refuse to hide my family." Her grandmother was also killed, but Jacqueline was able to survive hidden at an orphanage run by two Italian priests. Her uncle found her after the war, and she came to America as soon as they could arrange it. Mr. Gerwitzman had been invited to speak at her English class when she was in; she introduced herself after class and they began a friendship that inspired them to start lecturing together about the horrors of genocide.
That was the 19th. The next day, I started the morning watching two films in anthropology. From there, I got a coffee (trying to spend those 40 meals I have left. Thank you, Aramark, for mandating freshman year meal plans. What a waste.) and then went to sociology of ed where we talked about New York's board of Regents (which I'll explain sometime in the future), alternative certification routes, and the Texas textbook controversy (which I'll post an article about once all my finals are done and I have time to relocate it). On the way to meet up with Hillary for our weekly Tuesday lunch, I decided to walk through the park. Back home, 4/20 meant that people joked about brownies. Isolated for the morning in the world of academia, I didn't even have a brownie-joke to alert me to the "holiday." Let me just say, I've never walked in and out of the park so quickly. And just in time; I was walking out as the NYPD cars pulled up. What a mess! Anyway, I had a lovely lunch and then went uptown to Jean's art show again so that I could walk though slowly and really look at everything. She and Maria were there with some of their friends, and we hung out until it was time for classes. Then they went back to school. I didn't have evening classes, but I did have my pre-departure study-abroad meeting. Guess I should start applying for that visa...
Wednesday I went with Hillary and Alex to an Earth Day Banquet. Hooray for free vegan food!!! The first speaker was Amanda Park Taylor who writes about food waste and the virtues of vegetarianism. Her information was interesting, but I wondered whether she was addressing the proper audience. Not to generalize, but the kind of people who find a vegan dinner and eco-aware banquet of environmentalist speakers among all the events at school--and who decide to make time right before finals to go to this event--probably already know about how going veggie reduces a person's carbon footprint and how NYC just cut composting from next year's budget. I could be wrong, but I was wondering...
The next speaker was Karen Washington, an urban farmer from the Bronx. She talked about getting foods into poorer neighborhoods, "what food has become," how mono-cropping means that the consumer does not pick what he or she buys in the market because "the choosing has been done for you by the corporate farmers," the innovations in urban gardening developed in Cuba, the value of water, and how food "crosses all boundaries" as a world-wide unifier. She had a very dynamic speaking style, introducing herself as "Mother Earth." I thought of a friend who has mentioned wanting to be an urban bee-keeper. It's now legal in Manhattan, and I wonder if Ms. Washington would have advice for her.
The third speaker was Andrew Revkin from the New York Times...sort of. He now writes for Dot Earth, and independent affiliated blog. His theory is that this is our environmental puberty stage. He explained that he saw this in the public's previous resistance to change wearing away as the danger becomes more critical. He characterized the scientists and journalists as parents who we have been avoiding but who we must soon grow up and listen to. I'm not sure I buy that theory, but if one looks at puberty as a rite of passage (yay anthropology! This one is care of Victor Turner), then the departure from our previous state would be the realization that our choices are altering the conditions on the planet. The liminal state--where Revkin places us now--is this place where the data tells us there is a Texas-sized Styrofoam island in the pacific and more grain produced for cattle than people, yet we hear it all without listening. The goal then is to move on to the new state of hearing, understanding, and reacting appropriately...all before it's too late. An interesting concept. He talked about my generation as "generation E" and he explained that the field most rapidly gaining public interest is global health or "one health." I was intrigued when he mentioned that he moved to blogging from paper journalism because he feels that there is no future for paper journalism. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a journalist. I like people, education, and writing so it seemed to fit. Then I realized that I'm not pushy enough for that line of work. I'm also not enough of a sensationalist, which was something he acknowledged. He was really pushing that environmentalists need to resist the temptation to exaggerate their case. I really appreciated that he acknowledged that, particularly since he was speaking to a room of eager, passionate, college students.
The three did a Q&A session afterward, but I didn't take too many notes. The rest of the week slipped past all to quickly. With my last day in the city fast approaching, I feel as if I'm straining to tip-toe through each remaining hour with much more care than I've yet put into such a thing. Once when I was little, I remember the sun throwing a rainbow on my wall as the light shone through a stained glass decoration I had on my window. As the decoration moved, the rainbow moved. I was delighted watching it flit across my wall, and suddenly I decided that I wanted it for a pet. Why not? How delightful it would be to have a rainbow for my own! So I took a plastic cup I had for catching ladybugs and I ran to the wall...where my attempts to capture the rainbow were frustrated by its intangibility. Wishing for more time here is like trying to catch a rainbow: it's impossible not to want to but just as impossible to realize that desire. For now at least.
Anyway, Friday came rather quickly and today Cindy called about a "Tactical Culture Workshop" that was being run on account of the Gallatin Arts Festival. The panel discussion was facilitated by Stephen Duncombe, who is reputed to be one of Gallatin's best professors and who is leaving for MIT before I have the chance to take a class with him. I was expecting to listen to a presentation about the role of art in social movements...but I should really know better by now. When they advertise Gallatin as the interdisciplinary and interactive program, they mean it. The workshop had several purposes. They declared that the topic we would focus on was the cost of college. They talked through explicating the nature of the topic, possible solutions, what a movement to draw attention to this issue would look like, and how to begin such a movement. The audience--composed of students, teachers (including one of my first semester professors, Laurin Raiken, who constantly awes me with his seemingly infinite knowledge), and guests--participated in the discussion as it developed. Because of this, the workshop allowed for a group of veteran activists to design the skeleton of a movement, initiated dialogues about both the issue of college cost and ways to prompt social change, presented to audience members an example of what the brainstorming process looks like, and showcased effective leadership in the form of an excellent facilitator guiding collaborators firmly but respectfully. The workshop also gathered eager minds into a shared space where they could network after the program, and I think Rhoen is planning a tutorial next semester in which he hopes to continue the discussion begun at the workshop.
Personally, I'll be abroad taking History of Czech Architecture and wishing them the best of luck from afar. I felt that the discussion focused more on how to convince NYU to publish their budget plans and generally be more transparent in their spending. Which would be lovely...if the majority of my tuition were going to paying my professors (which I suspect it isn't as Duncombe's voice took on a slightly bitter edge when we touched on this subject... and the edge softened when he reminded us all that he's leaving next year) then I would be more content paying it than if it were going to something like knocking down a neighborhood church to make space for a new dorm (Founder's Hall anyone?). That said, students who attend NYU chose to attend a private university. One trait of a private university is that it has the right to be private. It would be nice if they published their numbers, but they don't have to and students should be aware of such things when applying. If you want a transparent school, go state school. The cost of college is ridiculous anyway. If I weren't both completely in love with my concentration and a born student, I really don't think I would choose to go to college at all. Sure, it might not sound so great on a job application to list that I have no undergraduate degree...But if I took the tuition money that I was saving and put it towards starting a bi-lingual pen-pals program or developing programs to teach financial literacy to youth or rounding out Howard Zinn's People's History and turning it into an interactive museum then maybe, just maybe, some crazy person would recognize the value of life experiences outside the structure of a degree program and hire me anyway. Or I'd just end up self-employed...
Sometimes I feel like my student ID is a magic key. There are so many events that I can get into simply by showing that little card. Even at non-school events, it amazes me what identifying as a student does to the way people perceive me. And no, the school did not pay me to say this.
With all of these events constantly happening, I sometimes wish that I had a little less homework so I could go to all of these lectures. I'm also really glad that I carry the dialogue journal with me at all times; if I didn't, I would never have notes from the lectures I drop into last minute.
This Monday, after my Myths class, I headed uptown (a little) to Baruch College. To commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the college had a ceremony with candle-lighting and Yiddish songs. I went with my Oral Histories class because the second half of the ceremony featured two guest lecturers. The first was David Gerwitzman,a holocaust survivor. The second was Jacqueline Murekatate, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Mr. Gerwitzman began with a story about his melamed who had addressed his class one day and said that if any of them survived they would have an obligation to "tell the world what happened here." This was in Losice, Poland. Right before the soldiers came, his cousin had come to the town and warned them about the slaughter taking place in other towns. Mr. Gerwitzman was only eleven when this all happened; his parents decided to build a hiding place in their house. When the soldiers ordered everyone out into the square, his family didn't go "because of the warning of my cousin...and because it was extremely hot." Which was one of those 'God is in the details' moments: what if it hadn't been extremely hot and they decided to go? What if the cousin hadn't warned them until a week later? Anyway. Most of those who did go into the square were sent to labor camps, but the elderly, sick, and women with very young children were all shot. Mr. Gerwitzman's presentation included pictures of around his town, and he had some of this massacre because a pharmacist in the town was a member of the Polish resistance and had been hiding there as well. The Gerwitzman parents sent the children out to escape once the soldiers had gone. He and his sister ended up in a Polish prison for a bit, but a confused guard executed the wrong prisoners and let them back out. Eventually he talks about how the family reunited and hid in a pigsty where they "existed" when they once had lived. He was about 16 when he was liberated by the Russian Army. Someone in the auditorium asked at the Q & A how the Russian soldiers had treated him and he said they were some of the kindest people he had ever met. Interestingly, he also talked about being in a displaced person's camp for a time before his American relatives helped him emigrate. I don't know that any of the books I've read ever mentioned what happened when survivors turned to go home and realized there was nothing left.
Jacqueline Murekatate spoke next. She explains how the genocide officially only lasted 100 days, but that the country had been heading towards it for a long time. The Belgian colonists required everyone to have identification cards with 'ethnicity' listed alongside 'name' and 'age.' They started drumming up competition between the Hutus and Tutsis to 'divide and conquer' more easily. Ms. Murekatate said that when colonialism ended and the country was free, the new government kept the practice for the same reason. Tutsi killings started occurring more frequently in 1959 and through the 60's and 70's. She talked about how her family ran to police and neighbors when the killings started in their area: "We told ourselves that they would protect us." She had been visiting her grandmother when they started, and she wasn't able to go home to her parents. After the dust settled, an uncle informed her that her parents had been killed in their village when they attempted to hide with their neighbors. She was dumbfounded: "I couldn't understand how people who used to come to our house for lunch or dinner would refuse to hide my family." Her grandmother was also killed, but Jacqueline was able to survive hidden at an orphanage run by two Italian priests. Her uncle found her after the war, and she came to America as soon as they could arrange it. Mr. Gerwitzman had been invited to speak at her English class when she was in; she introduced herself after class and they began a friendship that inspired them to start lecturing together about the horrors of genocide.
That was the 19th. The next day, I started the morning watching two films in anthropology. From there, I got a coffee (trying to spend those 40 meals I have left. Thank you, Aramark, for mandating freshman year meal plans. What a waste.) and then went to sociology of ed where we talked about New York's board of Regents (which I'll explain sometime in the future), alternative certification routes, and the Texas textbook controversy (which I'll post an article about once all my finals are done and I have time to relocate it). On the way to meet up with Hillary for our weekly Tuesday lunch, I decided to walk through the park. Back home, 4/20 meant that people joked about brownies. Isolated for the morning in the world of academia, I didn't even have a brownie-joke to alert me to the "holiday." Let me just say, I've never walked in and out of the park so quickly. And just in time; I was walking out as the NYPD cars pulled up. What a mess! Anyway, I had a lovely lunch and then went uptown to Jean's art show again so that I could walk though slowly and really look at everything. She and Maria were there with some of their friends, and we hung out until it was time for classes. Then they went back to school. I didn't have evening classes, but I did have my pre-departure study-abroad meeting. Guess I should start applying for that visa...
Wednesday I went with Hillary and Alex to an Earth Day Banquet. Hooray for free vegan food!!! The first speaker was Amanda Park Taylor who writes about food waste and the virtues of vegetarianism. Her information was interesting, but I wondered whether she was addressing the proper audience. Not to generalize, but the kind of people who find a vegan dinner and eco-aware banquet of environmentalist speakers among all the events at school--and who decide to make time right before finals to go to this event--probably already know about how going veggie reduces a person's carbon footprint and how NYC just cut composting from next year's budget. I could be wrong, but I was wondering...
The next speaker was Karen Washington, an urban farmer from the Bronx. She talked about getting foods into poorer neighborhoods, "what food has become," how mono-cropping means that the consumer does not pick what he or she buys in the market because "the choosing has been done for you by the corporate farmers," the innovations in urban gardening developed in Cuba, the value of water, and how food "crosses all boundaries" as a world-wide unifier. She had a very dynamic speaking style, introducing herself as "Mother Earth." I thought of a friend who has mentioned wanting to be an urban bee-keeper. It's now legal in Manhattan, and I wonder if Ms. Washington would have advice for her.
The third speaker was Andrew Revkin from the New York Times...sort of. He now writes for Dot Earth, and independent affiliated blog. His theory is that this is our environmental puberty stage. He explained that he saw this in the public's previous resistance to change wearing away as the danger becomes more critical. He characterized the scientists and journalists as parents who we have been avoiding but who we must soon grow up and listen to. I'm not sure I buy that theory, but if one looks at puberty as a rite of passage (yay anthropology! This one is care of Victor Turner), then the departure from our previous state would be the realization that our choices are altering the conditions on the planet. The liminal state--where Revkin places us now--is this place where the data tells us there is a Texas-sized Styrofoam island in the pacific and more grain produced for cattle than people, yet we hear it all without listening. The goal then is to move on to the new state of hearing, understanding, and reacting appropriately...all before it's too late. An interesting concept. He talked about my generation as "generation E" and he explained that the field most rapidly gaining public interest is global health or "one health." I was intrigued when he mentioned that he moved to blogging from paper journalism because he feels that there is no future for paper journalism. Once upon a time, I wanted to be a journalist. I like people, education, and writing so it seemed to fit. Then I realized that I'm not pushy enough for that line of work. I'm also not enough of a sensationalist, which was something he acknowledged. He was really pushing that environmentalists need to resist the temptation to exaggerate their case. I really appreciated that he acknowledged that, particularly since he was speaking to a room of eager, passionate, college students.
The three did a Q&A session afterward, but I didn't take too many notes. The rest of the week slipped past all to quickly. With my last day in the city fast approaching, I feel as if I'm straining to tip-toe through each remaining hour with much more care than I've yet put into such a thing. Once when I was little, I remember the sun throwing a rainbow on my wall as the light shone through a stained glass decoration I had on my window. As the decoration moved, the rainbow moved. I was delighted watching it flit across my wall, and suddenly I decided that I wanted it for a pet. Why not? How delightful it would be to have a rainbow for my own! So I took a plastic cup I had for catching ladybugs and I ran to the wall...where my attempts to capture the rainbow were frustrated by its intangibility. Wishing for more time here is like trying to catch a rainbow: it's impossible not to want to but just as impossible to realize that desire. For now at least.
Anyway, Friday came rather quickly and today Cindy called about a "Tactical Culture Workshop" that was being run on account of the Gallatin Arts Festival. The panel discussion was facilitated by Stephen Duncombe, who is reputed to be one of Gallatin's best professors and who is leaving for MIT before I have the chance to take a class with him. I was expecting to listen to a presentation about the role of art in social movements...but I should really know better by now. When they advertise Gallatin as the interdisciplinary and interactive program, they mean it. The workshop had several purposes. They declared that the topic we would focus on was the cost of college. They talked through explicating the nature of the topic, possible solutions, what a movement to draw attention to this issue would look like, and how to begin such a movement. The audience--composed of students, teachers (including one of my first semester professors, Laurin Raiken, who constantly awes me with his seemingly infinite knowledge), and guests--participated in the discussion as it developed. Because of this, the workshop allowed for a group of veteran activists to design the skeleton of a movement, initiated dialogues about both the issue of college cost and ways to prompt social change, presented to audience members an example of what the brainstorming process looks like, and showcased effective leadership in the form of an excellent facilitator guiding collaborators firmly but respectfully. The workshop also gathered eager minds into a shared space where they could network after the program, and I think Rhoen is planning a tutorial next semester in which he hopes to continue the discussion begun at the workshop.
Personally, I'll be abroad taking History of Czech Architecture and wishing them the best of luck from afar. I felt that the discussion focused more on how to convince NYU to publish their budget plans and generally be more transparent in their spending. Which would be lovely...if the majority of my tuition were going to paying my professors (which I suspect it isn't as Duncombe's voice took on a slightly bitter edge when we touched on this subject... and the edge softened when he reminded us all that he's leaving next year) then I would be more content paying it than if it were going to something like knocking down a neighborhood church to make space for a new dorm (Founder's Hall anyone?). That said, students who attend NYU chose to attend a private university. One trait of a private university is that it has the right to be private. It would be nice if they published their numbers, but they don't have to and students should be aware of such things when applying. If you want a transparent school, go state school. The cost of college is ridiculous anyway. If I weren't both completely in love with my concentration and a born student, I really don't think I would choose to go to college at all. Sure, it might not sound so great on a job application to list that I have no undergraduate degree...But if I took the tuition money that I was saving and put it towards starting a bi-lingual pen-pals program or developing programs to teach financial literacy to youth or rounding out Howard Zinn's People's History and turning it into an interactive museum then maybe, just maybe, some crazy person would recognize the value of life experiences outside the structure of a degree program and hire me anyway. Or I'd just end up self-employed...
Saturday, April 17, 2010
There is no way I would ever--I mean never never never--kiss a frog!
Surrounded by creepy music, a sleepy-bear roomie, and some Disney-craving theater kids, I've had to leave off writing yet another anthro paper. How can I work with "The Princess and the Frog" in the background. Er...foreground.
Remember when I wrote about the rubber rooms at the beginning of the semester? When I searched for it at the time, the first page that came up was about a documentary-in-progress. Tonight, I saw a pre-release screening of that documentary, but if you search "rubber room" in google the first thing that comes up is a news page. If you want to read about it:
Here is the radio broadcast (Thanks to Professor Sloan for letting me know about it!)
News story one
News story two
and
The documentary page.
So the rubber rooms are reassignment centers for teachers who are for whatever reason deemed to be unfit for the classroom. The teachers have to report to these facilities for the length of the school day each school day, and while they get paid for it the conditions are frightful and in many cases the teachers haven't been told the charges being filed against them. Now I'm not well versed in politics or law, but the way these centers were being run was obviously problematic. Innocent teachers were mixed in with guilty ones in a repressive environment where they stayed for months or even years while they waited for their cases to be heard. I shouldn't be using past tense; that's wishful thinking. The D.O.E. announced yesterday that they will be closing the rubber rooms. From here on, they claim, teachers waiting for their arbitration hearings will do clerical work in their schools or at another location. Also, the city would like to see the process sped up and so is aiming to increase the number of arbitrators available to handle the cases from 26 to 29. For the entire city? Excuse me for being skeptical, but when arbitrators work half-days anyway I'm not sure what a difference 3 more will make. Hmmm.
And while I'm certainly no expert, one of the documentary makers also expressed doubts about the city's plan. His thoughts: There were already limits on the length of time a teacher could be suspended without a case review but these limits haven't been followed, so what good could more limits do? What does the district intend to do with suspended teachers instead? What is 'clerical work' and if teachers do it in a cleaner room is it not still a rubber room in theory?
As the film is still in its pre-release phase, the directors acknowledged--in the Q and A session afterword-- that they still need to do some technical editing for lighting and sound quality. That said, I felt like they did a good job showing how complicated the issue really is. They had tenured teachers and former teaching fellows; they had old and young, women and men, gay and straight, white and 'minority'; they had teachers, guidance counselors, and politicians. And while they had a good number of people, they didn't have a huge cast of interviewees. Rather, they focused on a group that showed the diversity of the people impacted. I was also relieved to see that they mixed the innocent with the guilty. Chancellor Joel Klein responded to most questions with a comment about protecting the children from harm. While this got old rather quickly, I was wondering how the filmmakers were going to address the question of teacher who really did deserve to be out of the classroom. They found a teacher who admitted to losing his temper in the classroom, throwing and kicking furniture when he did lose his temper, and generally teaching because he's "an egomaniac who likes to have an attentive audience." Crazy! Interestingly, he was released from the rubber room after two weeks and allowed back into the classroom while other teachers who were later found to be innocent of any accusations spent months or years before returning to teaching, if they were able to return at all. Thus the filmmakers acknowledged that some people need to be removed from classrooms but that those people should be fired and that the rubber rooms weren't helping get that done at all.
Of course the room was full of teachers, policy makers, graduate students, and those interviewed for the movie. I felt very outside the culture; they recognized people and phrases in the film, and they reacted collectively. Sometimes I knew why they chuckled or groaned, but most of the snickers and jeers were lost on me. It was interesting to experience, though. And during the Q and A, it was funny to be in a room full of teachers whose phones were going off and who were interrupting the filmmakers despite the fact that this was supposed to be a facilitated discussion. People fascinate me sometimes.
After the discussion, I came home to write for a bit. While doing my roommates' dishes from the past two weeks I dreamed about sharing a kitchen someday with people who like their cooking/eating spaces clean (Hillary, Alex, Cass...). I wrote some more, had tea with Alex, wrote some more, and then was distracted by Disney so decided to write this bit. I've been posting more recently...Is blogging merely procrastination disguising itself as productivity perhaps? Regardless, the day itself was fairly productive. I'm hoping to arrange an internship while abroad next semester, to move out before my roomies so I'm not left cleaning the mess at the end of the year, waiting on paperwork so I can apply for my student visa, wishing I could go to Georgia, revising my Roald Dahl paper, looking forward to a 2011 independent study on Gothic Literature with Dr. Lennox, craving baked eggs, and getting a little bit sleepy.
A final note: Best of luck to Cass and Lanie at Forensics Nationals! I'm terribly proud of them. While I'm writing about Anne Meneley and Nancy Ries, they'll be competing with students from across the country in delivering duos and after-dinner speeches and other such things. Meanwhile, my cousin Jean Calderone will be displaying some of her work in her school's thesis show this weekend. Congratulations all around!
Remember when I wrote about the rubber rooms at the beginning of the semester? When I searched for it at the time, the first page that came up was about a documentary-in-progress. Tonight, I saw a pre-release screening of that documentary, but if you search "rubber room" in google the first thing that comes up is a news page. If you want to read about it:
Here is the radio broadcast (Thanks to Professor Sloan for letting me know about it!)
News story one
News story two
and
The documentary page.
So the rubber rooms are reassignment centers for teachers who are for whatever reason deemed to be unfit for the classroom. The teachers have to report to these facilities for the length of the school day each school day, and while they get paid for it the conditions are frightful and in many cases the teachers haven't been told the charges being filed against them. Now I'm not well versed in politics or law, but the way these centers were being run was obviously problematic. Innocent teachers were mixed in with guilty ones in a repressive environment where they stayed for months or even years while they waited for their cases to be heard. I shouldn't be using past tense; that's wishful thinking. The D.O.E. announced yesterday that they will be closing the rubber rooms. From here on, they claim, teachers waiting for their arbitration hearings will do clerical work in their schools or at another location. Also, the city would like to see the process sped up and so is aiming to increase the number of arbitrators available to handle the cases from 26 to 29. For the entire city? Excuse me for being skeptical, but when arbitrators work half-days anyway I'm not sure what a difference 3 more will make. Hmmm.
And while I'm certainly no expert, one of the documentary makers also expressed doubts about the city's plan. His thoughts: There were already limits on the length of time a teacher could be suspended without a case review but these limits haven't been followed, so what good could more limits do? What does the district intend to do with suspended teachers instead? What is 'clerical work' and if teachers do it in a cleaner room is it not still a rubber room in theory?
As the film is still in its pre-release phase, the directors acknowledged--in the Q and A session afterword-- that they still need to do some technical editing for lighting and sound quality. That said, I felt like they did a good job showing how complicated the issue really is. They had tenured teachers and former teaching fellows; they had old and young, women and men, gay and straight, white and 'minority'; they had teachers, guidance counselors, and politicians. And while they had a good number of people, they didn't have a huge cast of interviewees. Rather, they focused on a group that showed the diversity of the people impacted. I was also relieved to see that they mixed the innocent with the guilty. Chancellor Joel Klein responded to most questions with a comment about protecting the children from harm. While this got old rather quickly, I was wondering how the filmmakers were going to address the question of teacher who really did deserve to be out of the classroom. They found a teacher who admitted to losing his temper in the classroom, throwing and kicking furniture when he did lose his temper, and generally teaching because he's "an egomaniac who likes to have an attentive audience." Crazy! Interestingly, he was released from the rubber room after two weeks and allowed back into the classroom while other teachers who were later found to be innocent of any accusations spent months or years before returning to teaching, if they were able to return at all. Thus the filmmakers acknowledged that some people need to be removed from classrooms but that those people should be fired and that the rubber rooms weren't helping get that done at all.
Of course the room was full of teachers, policy makers, graduate students, and those interviewed for the movie. I felt very outside the culture; they recognized people and phrases in the film, and they reacted collectively. Sometimes I knew why they chuckled or groaned, but most of the snickers and jeers were lost on me. It was interesting to experience, though. And during the Q and A, it was funny to be in a room full of teachers whose phones were going off and who were interrupting the filmmakers despite the fact that this was supposed to be a facilitated discussion. People fascinate me sometimes.
After the discussion, I came home to write for a bit. While doing my roommates' dishes from the past two weeks I dreamed about sharing a kitchen someday with people who like their cooking/eating spaces clean (Hillary, Alex, Cass...). I wrote some more, had tea with Alex, wrote some more, and then was distracted by Disney so decided to write this bit. I've been posting more recently...Is blogging merely procrastination disguising itself as productivity perhaps? Regardless, the day itself was fairly productive. I'm hoping to arrange an internship while abroad next semester, to move out before my roomies so I'm not left cleaning the mess at the end of the year, waiting on paperwork so I can apply for my student visa, wishing I could go to Georgia, revising my Roald Dahl paper, looking forward to a 2011 independent study on Gothic Literature with Dr. Lennox, craving baked eggs, and getting a little bit sleepy.
A final note: Best of luck to Cass and Lanie at Forensics Nationals! I'm terribly proud of them. While I'm writing about Anne Meneley and Nancy Ries, they'll be competing with students from across the country in delivering duos and after-dinner speeches and other such things. Meanwhile, my cousin Jean Calderone will be displaying some of her work in her school's thesis show this weekend. Congratulations all around!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Slow Reading
I would love to be a "slow writer," but as I have about seven writing projects due in the next three weeks, it seems that the university is conspiring against my putting on such an identity. Oh well. Cass passed this article on to me and I took a study break to read it. Now I pass it on to you:
SLOW READING: the affirmation of authorial intent
by Lancelot R. Fletcher
The phase, "slow reading," is taken from Nietzsche. In paragraph 5 of the preface to Daybreak (Morgenröthe) he writes:
A book like this, a problem like this, is in no hurry; we both, I just as much as my book, are friends of lento. It is not for nothing that I have been a philologist, perhaps I am a philologist still, that is to say, A TEACHER OF SLOW READING:- in the end I also write slowly. Nowadays it is not only my habit, it is also to my taste - a malicious taste, perhaps? - no longer to write anything which does not reduce to despair every sort of man who is 'in a hurry'. For philology is that venerable art which demands of its votaries one thing above all: to go aside, to take time, to become still, to become slow - it is a goldsmith's art and connoisseurship of the WORD which has nothing but delicate, cautious work to do and achieves nothing if it does not achieve it lento. But precisely for this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of 'work', that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to 'get everything done' at once, including every old or new book:- this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read WELL, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers...My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and
philologists: LEARN to read me well![1]
"I AM A TEACHER OF SLOW READING." So says Nietzsche. When I started my teaching career (in the 1960s) I tried saying the same thing in the first class of every course I taught: “Good morning,” I would say. “My name is Lancelot Fletcher. I am a teacher of slow reading,” at which point all the students would laugh. Why? Because they thought they already knew how to read slowly. In those days in the US many people used to pay considerable sums of money to teachers who promised to teach them “speed reading.” Students and businessmen alike were desperate to improve their reading speed because they had too much written material to read and not enough time to read it all at their normal reading speed – which they all felt was much too slow for their purposes. So the idea of taking a course from a teacher of slow reading struck them as utterly ridiculous. As far as they were concerned reading slowly was a problem, a sign of their inadequacy in the field of reading. Why would they want to study how to walk (slowly) when what they needed to do was to run – as fast as possible?
After the laughter subsided I would tell my students that what I meant by saying this as: “This is the nature of philosophy. For me philosophy IS the teaching of slow reading.” This didn’t help very much, but it was strange enough so the students didn’t laugh and some of them began to pay attention. In one class the cleverest student said, “Ok, I will accept that, even though I don’t know what you mean. I’m ready. So let’s begin slow reading.” And I answered, “But that’s just the problem. You can’t begin.” “What do you mean?” he asked, beginning to sound rather exasperated. “If you can’t begin slow reading, how can anybody learn it, and how can you honestly say that you teach slow reading?” “The problem is you are thinking that to begin slow reading means to pick up a text and read it in a certain way, different from how you have been reading before, but that’s not the way it works. Slow reading doesn’t start with reading. When slow reading begins, you are already reading. You have been reading for a long time. Slow reading starts, not with reading but with slowing. But even that is not quite right. It would be more accurate to say that slow reading starts with stopping, with turning around. In our reading habits we are like drivers who have been speeding down the highway, intent on reaching our destination, when we begin to notice that things along the side of the road don’t look quite the way we expected. At some point we begin to think that we might have misinterpreted a road sign that we passed a few kilometers back, and then suddenly the thought strikes us that we have been driving rapidly in the wrong direction! Now, as you turn your car around and start driving back to take another look at that sign, now you may find yourself in the slow reading frame of mind.” If one could begin slow reading the first lesson would be: Just be present to the words on the page. Allow the words to simply BE there, and take note of the fact that they ARE there – BEFORE YOU DECIDE WHAT THEY MEAN. If you are like most of my students you will again feel tempted to find this ridiculous and dismiss it with a wave of your hand. “Does this guy think he is some kind of Zen master? What does he mean by telling me that I should learn to ‘Allow the words to simply be there?’ I mean, the words are what they are! They can be what they are without any permission from me, so I don’t need to allow them to be there, and I certainly don’t need to learn how to do this!” And, of course, for the students who respond in this way, which is to say most students, this is a very hard lesson, because it asks them to do something that they are completely unaccustomed to doing, and even the request they experience as an insult. If you doubt this, make the
following test: Read a sentence of eight or ten words to a group of students – or to any group of people you choose -- and ask them to reproduce the sentence word for word. What happens? Do they repeat the words that you spoke? In my experience that almost never happens. Instead almost everybody responds by telling you what they thought the sentence meant – but in different words.
Why does this happen? I think it is because we are utterly preoccupied with deciding what the sentences we read and hear MEAN to us. Even more than that, we are preoccupied with deciding whether WE agree or disagree with what we take the sentences to mean, whether WE approve or disapprove. And, because we are so preoccupied. we generally do not pause to take note of what the sentences we read actually SAY. This rush to interpretation and judgment is strongly encouraged by most of our educational practices.
Perhaps we need to consider how we originally began to read. Nowadays most of us have learned to suppress vocalization as we read. We are taught that it is bad form to read aloud unless we are intending to share what we are reading with someone else who is willing to listen. And some of us can even read without moving our lips. But I am willing to bet that, for each one of us, when we first learned how to read, reading meant reading aloud -- that is, speaking, reproducing, the words exactly as they are on the page. In your first moments of reading, when you were just learning to read, being a reader meant that you were an actor. To read you had to speak; you had to become the voice of the author. So that is where we begin. The intention of the teaching of slow reading (which, as I said, is what I understand philosophy to be) is to subvert the customary mode of reading. Its intention is to afford students (i.e. those who make us the gift of their listening) some critical access to their own interpretive activity. The purpose is not to leave students with the notion that the text means whatever they wish to make it mean. That is pretty much the customary mode of reading that the teaching of slow reading wishes to subvert. These days students will do that pretty well on their own without any teaching from us. But to subvert this mode of reading we do first need to make students aware of what they are doing, aware of the fact that they are in the habit of imposing their own meanings on the text.
But some people might say that that is the only thing we can do. What alternative is there to imposing our own meanings or interpretations on the text? To answer that question it is useful to step out away from the literary context for a moment and think about an ordinary conversation. As an example let me relate a conversation I recall from my childhood, when I was about fourteen. My best friend had a younger sister named Fay who was about seven at the time of this conversation. Fay had the misfortune to be blind, but she was also a musical prodigy and had perfect pitch. One day I was visiting my friend and her sister was playing the piano as she often did when suddenly Fay stopped playing music and started simply banging her fists on the keyboard, making horrible, loud crashing sounds. Then she screamed, “This piano is so out of tune I can’t play it anymore!” To which her mother responded, “Fay, what’s the matter? Are you hungry, do you want me to fix you some food?” And Fay then screamed even louder, “NO! I don’t want any food, I just want you to get the piano tuned!” What happened in this little domestic drama? Fay’s mother, being the sort of mother who lived in the kitchen and tended to understand many things in terms of food, brought her “kitchen listening” to her daughter’s exclamation and, being full of motherly concern for her daughter’s wellbeing she responded to her daughter’s cry for help with an offer of the kind of help she was most capable of providing, To that extent Fay’s mother was like one of our usual modern (or postmodern) students in imposing her own meaning on her daughter’s “text”. Fortunately, Fay’s mother then did something that our students rarely do: she asked the “author” if her interpretation was correct, and the author emphatically set her straight. To say it once more, the teaching of slow reading is intended to give students some critical access to their own interpretive activity – their own habit of manufacturing meanings. However, this is not the end of slow reading. It is only the beginning. For the discovery of our own interpretive habits is the necessary precondition for gaining access to authorial intent. In ordinary life we become aware of and sometimes correct our interpretations of the speeches we listen to by having conversations with the authors of those speeches. The purpose of the teaching of slow reading is to allow us to enter into conversations with the authors of great works -- those authors whose distinction is that they afford us the opportunity to think things that are worthy of thought. But how can you enter into a conversation with an author who is dead or otherwise not available? I will offer a suggestion in a moment, but first let me pose a question: Do the principles of interpretation critically depend on whether or not the author is available to answer your questions? If you are reading a book by a living author to whom you could presumably send email and then, when you are half way through the book you learn that the author has suddenly died, does this fact cause you to suddenly change your way of interpreting the book? Do you say, “Oh, good! He is dead so now I can make his words mean whatever I want because he is not around to tell me that I am wrong?” Now let me say how I approach this issue in my own teaching. When I am beginning to teach a course on one of the important texts in philosophy, say Plato's Republic, after saying that I am a teacher of slow reading I say, "As you read this book, I want you to assume that it was written by God." This often causes a certain amount of consternation and incipient revolt (more in the US than in Georgia). Most of the students suddenly feel that I am trying to dominate and control their minds. They ask, "You mean we have to accept what this guy says, even if we don't agree? Even if we think he is wrong?"
"Not at all," I reply. "The purpose of asking you to assume that the text for the course is written by God is to give you the opportunity to learn."
"How so?"
"Well, if you are going to learn, and you are going to learn from the author of this text, then I suppose there must be something you have to learn from that author. Right?"
"I suppose so."
"And what you have to learn from the author, in this case Plato, must then be something about which you know less than Plato. It might even be something about which you have incorrect opinions or assumptions. Do you agree?"
"Yes."
"Now, when you read a passage in a book and you find the passage unclear or inconsistent with what you already think, do you immediately say to yourself, "Here is an opportunity for me to learn?"
"Well, not always."
"'Not at all,' would be more like it! What most of us do is to say, 'That guy was confused. He is just making fallacious arguments.' Of course, in the abstract, especially when we are being polite, we say we 'know' that knowledge is supremely desirable. Somebody who took us seriously might suppose, therefore, that when the opportunity to acquire knowledge and get rid of some portion of our ignorance presented itself we would immediately jump at it, as if it were some particularly delicious food which we have long craved. But, in fact, that is not what usually happens, is it? In most cases, when the opportunity to learn is seen close up it looks distinctly unattractive. It is bad news. The reason it is bad news is that the opportunity to learn is always accompanied by the realization that we have hitherto been ignorant and mistaken. Naturally enough, we tend to avoid such discomfort by seeking to shift the blame. 'It's not my fault!' we cry, 'It's the author who is mistaken.' That, then, points us to the purpose of assuming that the author of our text is God, i.e. a being whose intention may be obscure, but who does not make mistakes. If we adopt the working hypothesis that the author of our text is God, and if we act on that hypothesis when we come to something that appears strange, confusing or wrong, attributing this to errors or ignorance of the author is not an available strategy, so we are driven to look first at the possibility that the confusion reflects our own ignorance."
And then a student will say, "But what if the author really IS mistaken? I mean, we can pretend that Plato's dialogues were written by God, but we all know that that isn't really so, and besides I don't even believe in the existence of God. So, by accepting your hypothesis, don't we run the risk of deceiving ourselves and never finding out the truth?" I answer, "Did I ask you to believe anything? To accept anything in the text as true? Not at all. I am not asking you to believe anything the author says. I am asking you to try to think what the author thinks. We are concerned with what we should do when a passage in the text occurs for us as questionable, and I am suggesting that, by supposing the author to be God, the perplexity that occurs for us in the text becomes an occasion for self-examination, an occasion for the discovery of our own ignorance. Yes, I suppose that, at the end of the day, after we have finished our slow reading, I might have to agree that the author of the text was probably a human being capable of making mistakes, not a god. But if we start out operating on the assumption that the text was written by God, by the time we reach the point where we need to consider the author's mistakes, we will have reached a thorough understanding of the questions which the author meant to ask. If we refuse to assume the author's divinity even provisionally, we may never get so far. And perhaps that -- the knowledge of the questions -- is the real object of philosophical inquiry."
In some parts of the academic world the idea of authorial intent has become an object of contempt. We are sometimes told that, since the meaning of the author cannot be known with certainty (especially in the case of dead authors) we should interpret texts based on our own ideas, without even considering what the author meant. The absurdity of such a practice becomes very clear as soon as you imagine it in the context of ordinary conversation: A person says something, say X. You respond by saying, “That means …Y.” The first speaker responds, “No, that’s not what I meant at all.” And you say, “I don’t care what you have to say now. I know that what you meant was Y, and that’s the end of it.” In short, the denial of respect for authorial intent entails a contempt for authors which ends by sanctioning in students a contempt for speakers that ultimately leads to a complete breakdown of effective communication. The teaching of slow reading, therefore, is an experiment that aims beyond itself. In itself the practice of slow reading intends to create occasions for joining in conversations with (not just
about) some of the most powerful thinkers who have ever lived -- not merely to learn what they thought, but to think with them and learn from them. But the aim of slow reading beyond itself is to consider whether the practice of slow reading might foster the recovery of a certain art of conversation: that in which listening holds at least an equal place with speaking. The practice of slow reading avoids debates about the status of authorial intent in hermeneutic theory. Instead, the practice of slow reading aims at a practical demonstration of the power of respect for authorial intent and, through that, a demonstration of the power of respect for authors, whether they are alive or dead, whether their authorship is expressed in writing or in speaking. The practice of slow reading explores the possibility that a respectful reading of books that are thoughtfully written, whatever their age, is an exceptionally powerful means for generating new ideas relevant to the issues of the present day. And we hope to find that reading with respect for the intent of the authors of our study texts also tends to generate conversations in which we are attentive and respectful toward one another.
[1] Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, 1881, translation by R.J. Hollingdale, Cambridge University Press, 1982, p.5.
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