One Perspective

"No age has ever been so self-conscious as ours. At any rate, the quantity of journalism the modern age has turned out in the process of its own self-analysis already overflows our archives and, were it not that most of it is doomed to perish, would be a dull burden to hand down to our descendants. The task still goes on, as indeed it must, for the last word has not been spoken, and modern man seems even further from understanding himself than when he first began to question his own identity. Of documentation of external facts we have had enough and to spare, more than the squirrellike scholars will ever be able to piece together into a single whole, enough to keep the busy popularizers spouting in bright-eyed knowledgeability the rest of their days; but of the inner facts--of what goes on at the center where the forces of our fate first announce themselves--we are still pretty much in ignorance, and most of the contemporary world is caught up in an unconscious and gigantic conspiracy to run away from these facts. Hence the necessity of returning to a subject that only appears to be well worn. With civilizations, as with individuals, the outer fact is often merely the explosion resulting from accumulated inner tension, the signs of which were plentifully present, though none of the persons concerned chose to heed them.

--William Barrett
(c) 1958 Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy

Today's Lesson: Sharing the Load

The reform of education in America requires that professional teachers be trained more efficiently to deal with the problems facing students who are not achieving their proscribed goals. This is one part, but only a small part, of the overall problem.

I have never been a schoolteacher, although as a manager I have taught, I have trained, I have tutored, and I have guided. I was motivated by the desire to have more productive employees working with me to achieve our mutual goals: The success of our company, and our continued employment. I haven't always been successful at these ventures, but I believe I have always done my best to impart what I knew to be important to those I've helped to become more knowledgable and productive.

At its best, teaching is an art, a science, a craft, a profession, and to many, a calling. The larger part of the problem with education in America is, I believe, that the other half of the equation--the student body/mind/heart--is literally, not on the same page as their teachers. The blame for academic failure is often laid at the feet of the schools, the teachers, the teacher colleges, the school administrators, the coursework, etc. Often, all these do, indeed, fall short of perfection and need to be improved. 

We wring our hands, complain, and scapegoat. Let’s get down to the real business of education--making students care about themselves and the world. We are circling the waters in search of the beast that we've wittingly brought on board.

My Adventures 'With' Augie March

Congratulations to Alice Laidlaw Munro on her being awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. Meanwhile, the following from another Canadian-born Nobel Laureate, Saul Bellow:

"Anyhow, I had found something out about an unknown privation, and I realized how a general love or craving, before it is explicit or before it sees its object, manifests itself as boredom or some other kind of suffering. And what did I think of myself in relation to the great occasions, the more sizable being of these books? Why, I saw them, first of all. So suppose I wasn't created to read a great declaration, or to boss a palatinate, or send off a message to Avignon, and so on, I could see, so there nevertheless was a share for me in all that happened. How much of a share? Why, I knew there were things that would never, because they could never, come of my reading. But this knowledge was not so different from the remote but ever-present death that sits in the corner of the loving bedroom; though it doesn't always budge from the corner, you wouldn't stop your loving. Then neither would I stop my reading. I sat and read. I had no eye, ear, or interest for anything else--that is, for usual, second-order, oatmeal, mere-phenomenal, snarled-shoelace-carfare-laundry-ticket plainness, unspecified dismalness, unknown captivities; the life of despair-harness, or the life of organization-habits which is meant to supplant accidents with calm abiding. Well, now, who can really expect the daily facts to go, toil or prisons to go, oatmeal and laundry tickets and all the rest, and insist that all moments be raised to the greatest importance, demand that everyone breathe the pointy, star-furnished air at its highest difficulty, abolish all brick, vaultlike rooms, all dreariness, and live like prophets or gods? Why, everybody knows this triumphant life can only be periodic. So there's a schism about it, some saying only this triumphant life is real and others that only the daily facts are. For me there was no debate, and I made speed into the former."

The San Francisco Treat

This blog entry is my first since July. It has been a busy summer, and hot for the most part. Reading and writing have taken a back seat to traveling and dining (if you count BBQs), and now that the dog days (no bun intended) have dwindled down to a precious few I have fired up my old "Super PowerNote 8510" this ebbing, chilly, second day of autumn out here on the backporch.

The sun has now sunk behind and beneath the nearby Ramapo foothills while the crickets and cicadas have begun their nightly serenade. The lawn-mowers, leaf-blowers, weed-wackers and their harried hired hands have ceased their raucous racket.

I am looking forward to finishing Bellow's "Augie March". I can see how John Updike must have been influenced by him. There's a lot of similarities in their descriptive narrative styles. Saul, though, appears to be a tad or two deeper than John. Both were and remain 'kings' in my book.

My honey and I returned from a week in San Francisco last night. I was there one July and will attest that Mark Twain was correct when he said that the "coldest winter ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." The weather this midlish September, though, was perfect. The downtown, downtrodden derelicts on the downlow, are a constant sorrowful lot, wallowing as they are among surrounding riches. The running of the lavish yachts for the America's Cup made their plight nearly unbearable to witness. One cannot fathom how they can endure their daily suffering.

A highlight of the trip was Bobby "Spiderman" Webb of KPOO-FM who blew many cool sax riffs and wonderfully wailed many a Memphis melody across the Polk Street Blues Festival between Union and Pacific Streets. The free concert was a blast with Aretha Franklin, James Brown, and Tina Turner impersonators doin' they thangs to the crowd's delight....the Robert Mondavi winery in the Napa Valley was nifty...the smoked salmon with dill sauce dip at the Rutherford Grill was 'smokin'!...the kids at Cal Berkeley looked like the Grant Street Regulars...students actually carrying books along with their smartphones and laptops! How novel is that?...through a glass darkly, namely the Tanqueray Dirty Olivia Martini at the Top of the Mark yielded an eye-opening 360 view of sunset over the rolling hills while the Cliff House offered a panoramic Pacific picture along with its hot New England style clam chowder...the seals at the Fisherman's Wharf are getting happy and living off the fat of the, uh, land...Alcatraz remains closed for alterations.

The crickets are beginning to bark for blankets. Me too. Sun's down so, szia next time.

Should Have/Could Have/Would Have/If Only

In the Man Booker prize-winning short novel, "The Sense of an Ending," by Julian Barnes, there appears the following perceptive answer by a brilliant student to the question, "What is History?" The student quotes, "History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation."

***

History at best, therefore, is always somewhat less than a certainty.

A galactic truth, uncertainly, like '42', (an answer to life, the universe, and everything.)*


*Wikipee Douglas Adams for even more uncertainty.

Anti Social Behavior Order = ASBO

Martin Amis' hilarious novel, "Lionel Asbo", is about the exploits of a born miscreant who might well have been Alan Sillitoe's famous Borstal 'Runner' had he festered to full immaturity in the 21st century. Lionel may or may not be lonely, but he is surely London's last laugh, (as Yossarian was Pianosa's).

Reade and Heede

John Winthrop's City upon a Hill speech,

Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630

Now the onely way to avoyde this shipwracke and to provide for our posterity is to followe the Counsell of Micah, to doe Justly, to love mercy, to walke humbly with our God, for this end, wee must be knitt together in this worke as one man, wee must entertaine each other in brotherly Affeccion, wee must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others necessities, wee must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekenes, gentlenes, patience and liberallity, wee must delight in eache other, make others Condicions our owne rejoyce together, mourne together, labour, and suffer together, allwayes haveing before our eyes our Commission and Community in the worke, our Community as members of the same body, soe shall wee keepe the unitie of the spirit in the bond of peace, the Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as his owne people and will commaund a blessing upon us in all our wayes, soe that wee shall see much more of his wisdome power goodnes and truthe then formerly wee have beene acquainted with, wee shall finde that the God of Israell is among us, when tenn of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when hee shall make us a prayse and glory, that men shall say of succeeding plantacions: the lord make it like that of New England: for wee must Consider that wee shall be as a Citty upon a Hill, the eies of all people are uppon us; soe that if wee shall deale falsely with our god in this worke wee have undertaken and soe cause him to withdrawe his present help from us, wee shall be made a story and a byword through the world, wee shall open the mouthes of enemies to speake evill of the wayes of god and all professours for Gods sake; wee shall shame the faces of many of gods worthy servants, and cause theire prayers to be turned into Cursses upon us till wee be consumed out of the good land whether wee are going: And to shutt upp this discourse with that exhortacion of Moses that faithfull servant of the Lord in his last farewell to Israell Deut. 30. Beloved there is now sett before us life, and good, deathe and evill in that wee are Commaunded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another to walke in his wayes and to keepe his Commaundements and his Ordinance, and his lawes, and the Articles of our Covenant with him that wee may live and be multiplyed, and that the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it: But if our heartes shall turne away soe that wee will not obey, but shall be seduced and worshipp other Gods our pleasures, and proffitts, and serve them, it is propounded unto us this day, wee shall surely perishe out of the good Land whether wee passe over this vast Sea to possesse it;

Therefore lett us choose life,

that wee, and our Seede,

may live; by obeyeing his

voyce, and cleaveing to him,

for hee is our life, and

our prosperity.