Upon the Passing of RBG
Stunned, but not
surprised, and the first
thing I thought of upon news
of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s passing
was my own mother, long gone,
the first feminist activist I knew,
and loved, loudly forcefully
arguing demanding articulating
for recognition of the rights
of all women to the cluster
of us in our small spaceWe listened
We heard
We changed
but did this country?Will we still?
Peace (before it gets worse),
Kevin
Within the CLMOOC community, some of us are starting to chat about how to launch a collaborative project around the idea of “hope” as counter to the darkness of the world right now. A few of us are toying around with the theme in different ways (comic, above).
More info to come later .. I hope …
This picture (below) was a hope-themed response to a Daily Create via DS106 yesterday that asked for a picture or gif with a girl, a cow and the moon.
Peace (is where we begin),
Kevin
DSC01722 (2) -01 flickr photo by suzyhazelwood shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license
I’m taking part in a research project that documents teachers and the first weeks of school, back from the Pandemic. We’re asked to record our experiences as audio postcards.
Here’s my first audio postcard, after the first day (yesterday). I talk about the successful moments and the strange situation of teaching from home. I’m doing these on my phone, with a mobile app, to record in the moment.
Peace (talking it out),
Kevin
We return to teaching today. For the younger grades in our school, it will be in-person, hybrid. For the older students, like my sixth graders, it will be remote learning, for a few weeks, and then we do a phased-in hybrid. Since our school Internet can’t handle so many video conferences at once, many of us teachers are working from home for now (fiber upgrade coming).
I’m ready and excited and nervous and anxious, as is natural, but being home for the first day of school with students is one of the oddest feelings I’ve had. Not just all the technology glitches that might happen to disrupt the plans, but just not being in the physical space with colleagues to talk to in the hallway and with students to connect with in a shared four-wall classroom space.
Well, so it begins …
Peace (from the start),
Kevin
This book is a joke. I mean, you can’t even read the cover of Keep Scrolling ‘Til You Feel Something: Twenty-One Years of Humor from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency once you take the paper sleeve off. You have to hold the binding up to the light, and twist it a bit, just to realize, the entire thing … just a big fat joke. Sixteen books better than this one? Is that what it says? Only sixteen? ‘Cause I got a larger list going somewhere over here.
Skip over the 600+ pages of nonsense to read more about the contributing writers. Informative? Well, sort of, if you can get past all the insider jokey references to humor writers, about living in either New York or Hollywood, and a smorgasbord of deadpan verbiage. (say that last bit out loud in the voice of the Muppet Show’s Swedish Chef … now, THAT’s funny stuff) Even the final pages of Additional Contributors are a big joke. Email as someone to thank? I think not.
Then go on, go on and dig your way through the pages of this brick of a book. Don’t hurt yourself as you hold this behemoth of paper. It’s heft might hurt your wrists. Drop it on your foot and you’re for sure on a trip to the emergency room, signing away your life to the health care industry. I blame the editors.
Before you open the book up, though, it’s fair to ask: McSweeney? Who’s the heck is he? Or her? What’s that? You won’t find a good answer inside. Instead you get so-called Back Stories and Behind the Scenes malarky (I’m stealing that one back from Biden) that will provide little to no insight into McSweeney it/him/herself.
And just look at the writers here. Jake Tapper? Really? Are we to believe the lefty CNN guy is funny? Come on. Jake Tapper, who are you, really, anyway? Plus lots of names you never heard of. John Hodgman? Ellie Kemper? Mingled in with some people you may think you might have heard of once, but, you know, probably not. Given the joke that this book really is, the names are likely jokes, too. You could spend a few hours trying to crack the humor code, but why bother? You’re not going to laugh anyway.
It’s not that kind of joke book. The one that makes you laugh.
Last of all, why buy the book when all of this material is apparently online? For free. If you can find it. If you care to look. Yet the book costs a pretty penny, let me tell you, and the joke is on me, and you, if you spent your last penny on the purchase. At least, you won’t have to indulge again for another 21 years. If books are even around. Stories may be gone, too, for all we know.
Yep, Keep Scrolling ‘Til You Feel Something is a joke. And so is this review. I am full of malarky and loving it.
Peace (it’s in the book, next to the decorative gourds),
Kevin
I was asked to write a piece over at NWP Write Now about the sudden rush to technology that has engulfed us all in the Pandemic, with a reminder that it is the teaching and teacher and pedagogy that is always more important than the app, site or platform. I found it helpful in the writing of the piece to remember my own advice.
Read Never The Tech; Always The Teaching at NWP Write Now.
Peace (on/off),
Kevin
Hand Carrying a Piece of Paper of the World flickr photo by Rawpixel Ltd shared into the public domain using Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0)
I was looking for something else entirely in my blog archives when I stumbled across this audio project from 2007, when I had my sixth graders write about changing the world as part of our reflection on the 9/11 Day remembrance.
I enjoyed listening back to these voices and their ideas. And these students, who were 1o or 11 when we recorded it, are now in the mid to late 20s, and hopefully, making the world a better place.
Peace (on this day and all days),
Kevi
My friend, John, has long had a vision of producing a country album on his bucket list. John and I play in a rock and roll band but his country project was something he always wanted to do, drawing on Hank Williams and others as inspiration for the sound he was after. So many months ago, he started to write the music and then he asked if I would contribute lyrics, and I readily agreed.
We had worked on some of his songs live, with our bandmates, and then the Pandemic hit and that came to a sudden pause. So John did it all solo at home in what he calls The Demonstration Tapes, and the tracks are, as he explains, published drafts for a possible future studio project.
Here is his song page for Bodie Madison & The Ranchers.
I tried to write the lyrics as character sketches for a general theme that John had in mind, and it was an interesting experience to try to do a whole collection of songs this way. John and I have collaborated before, many times, so this was not a new experience, but I really wanted to give him words that would make his songs work as he wanted.
Listening to what he did, from a distance, I am proud of the stories in running through his songs and happy that music remains a connection point in our friendship.
Peace (listening in),
Kevin
