"Things That Touch the Heart" (Part II)

This is a wonderful moment.

And while we're talking national anthem, here's my all-time favorite.

Then there's this version, by Jose Feliciano, which was very controversial at the time.

And then let's not forget Jimi!

And my son John reminds me of this one.   (Stick with it.  There's a happy ending.)

"There Are 137 Different Kinds of Love. . ."

and here are two of them.

I got an e-mail from my VW dealer the other day.  They reminded me that: "Our records indicate that your 240,000-mile service is now due."  (Now, I don't believe there is such a thing, but that's beside the point.)

Then they went on: "We love your 1998 Volkswagen Jetta TDI as much as you do and we are committed to giving you the best service possible."

Okay, do I love my Jetta?  Well, possibly.  I've been driving it for twelve years now.  I know it so well that the brake and the gas pedal are like extensions of my body (kind of like Paul Newman in The Hustler).

Now, does my VW dealer "love my Jetta as much as I do"?  I don't know what their definition of love is, but it's a new one on me.

A Different Slant on Macbeth

Sent along via a former student.

Warning: Rate this from PG-13 to R (for language).

"Things that Touch the Heart" (Part I)

Block 3, you've seen this.  Block 2, you haven't.  It was in the news a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't realize the impact it had on my until I tried to tell my wife about and I could barely get the words out (due to the lump in my throat).  It's a woman fighting off a mugger -- nothing special there, but. . .

Click on the link for the whole article: and watch the video (from our friends at Fox News).

Macbeth Post Mortem

Well, we went to see a production of Macbeth today, all thirty-six of us.  I wasn't expecting too much, (and I have to say I wasn't disappointed).

All in all, though, I'd have to say I enjoyed the production.  I almost always enjoy live theater (except when it's the Greeks.  Yeech).  And even though I'd probably be disappointed with the production if you built me a time machine and shipped me back to watch the King's Players at the great Globe itself, I always learn something from watching the Scottish Play.

Below are some production notes from the American Shakespeare Center's website. We'll use this as a springboard to our discussion tomorrow.

UNDERNEATH IT ALL…RUNNING THROUGH IT ALL…HAS TO BE…LOVE

~ If our production is not filled with big love, the story/tragedy doesn’t work.

~ If Macbeth is just an evil s.o.b., a) it doesn’t match the words and b) who cares about his thoughts/feelings/guilt/journey?

~ If Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth don’t love each other truly/madly/deeply, who cares about the ride that rips them apart?

          • I want Macbeth to be as thoughtful/introspective/intelligent as Hamlet, but also a warrior who is part Henry V, part Titus, part Richard III, part Wolverine, and part Captain America.

          • I want Mr./Mrs. Macbeth to be in an awesome/sexy marriage of equals.

          • I want Macbeth’s heart to break when he gets the news that his Soul Mate/love-of-his-life is dead.

~ If Banquo and Macbeth DON’T love each other like the war-scarred, blood-brothers they are in the text, who cares about the descent into jealousy/doubt/murder?

~ I want Duncan to be a great king that everybody loves, including/especially Macbeth.

~ But I also want a deserving Malcolm rather than a nerdy weakling that we all think would make a horrible king.

~ I want three-dimensional characters who allow us to care about them.

IN THE END

~ We need to find the rhythms, the reasons, and the ride Shakespeare has written for us; then we can invite the audience to join us.

~ We can be great at playing the darkness, creating the supernatural, and grossing out the audience; but if we’re not great at finding the love, telling the story, and giving the audience characters to care about, then nothing else matters.

Jim Warren, Artistic Director and Co-founder

"He hath killed me, mother."

This idea, I'm afraid, went way off the tracks.  It's not supposed to be a funny line (although the scene between Little Macduff and his mother just before the murderers arrive, should be played for laughs.  It functions much like the "Knocking at the Gate" scene).

Potentially, it could be devastating.  What kind of sick person would use the corpse of a mother's son -- killed right before her eyes -- as a ventriloquist's dummy!  Such is the state that Scotland has fallen into under this brutal tyrant, Macbeth.  (And I'll guarantee you, there are people doing worse than this in the world right now.)




And finally, check out these tips for writing a successful essay, from the co-founder of the American Shakespeare Center.

Something to Be Proud of

Do they still do this?  "Trick or Treat for UNICEF"?  I can remember doing this, as I went door-to-door on the Tolland Green back in the 1960's.

We can thank Mary Emma Allison, who, just before Halloween, passed away at the age of 93.

Six decades ago, on a fall afternoon, a young woman caught sight of a children’s parade. She followed the children, in bright native dress, as they wended their way through the streets of the town. They entered a store, with the woman behind them, and inside the store she encountered a cow. She followed the cow, and she came to a booth.

 On account of the children, the cow and the booth, the woman came up with a world-changing plan. ... 

The booth was in Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia, and it belonged to Unicef. The parade of costumed children (and the cow) was part of a campaign to send powdered milk to needy children overseas.

The woman was a schoolteacher named Mary Emma Allison. Moved by her chance encounter, she and her husband created Trick-or-Treat for Unicef, a Halloween ritual that celebrates its 60th anniversary on Sunday and has raised tens of millions of dollars for children worldwide.

Here's a little radio piece on Mrs. Allison from NPR.   Have a listen.

The Literary Present Tense

When you are describing the action or characters in a book or a movie, you must use the present tense.  To a lot of people this doesn't make sense, because -- let's face it -- the wicked witch is dead.  Dorothy threw the water on her, and she melted.  But then, oddly enough, the next time you cue up the Wizard of Oz, there she is, threatening Dorothy.

So, when doing your formal academic essay, or your next book or movie review -- use the "literary present tense".   (In looking for a definition for you, I stumbled upon this site.  While I don't agree with everything they say -- I still wouldn't use "I" in a formal academic essay -- there's a lot to recommend here.)

Money & Motivation

Here are two articles I'd like you to look at. The first is from Friday's (4/15/10) New York Times. Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida, vetoed a bill "eliminating tenure for Florida public school teachers and tying their pay and job security to how well their students were learning."

Now, some people would see that as Crist caving in to the powerful teachers' unions, but according to the governor "his decision was not political. He cited 'the incredible outpouring of opposition by teachers, parents, students, superintendents, school boards and legislators'.”

There are two problems with the bill, as I see it. First of all, as the governor noted "the changes envisioned would put 'teachers in jeopardy of losing their jobs and teaching certificates, without a clear understanding of how gains will be measured'.” In other words, what test truly measures how much students have learned. Secondly, I feel that a lot of what students gain from their classroom experience does not directly pertain to a standardized curriculum.

But here's a bigger problem, and this second piece addresses it. It's from Newshour on PBS, so I don't imagine any of you happened to see this last Thursday. It's nine minutes and nine seconds, but really worth watching for any of you planning on working for a living.

DANIEL PINK: We tend to think that the way you get people to perform at a high level is, you reward what you want and punish what you don't want, carrot and stick. If you do this, then you get that.

That turns out, the science says, to be an extraordinarily effective way of motivating people for those routine tasks, simple, straightforward, where there's a right answer. They end up being a terrible form for motivating people to do creative conceptual tasks.

So, as far as you're concerned, if the point of school is to make you learn certain things -- we should reward you when you do, and punish you when you don't. (And money turns out to be a goos way to do that -- but more about that later. And as far as I'm concerned, rewards (money), or punishment (loss of job) will motivate me to make sure you learn those things (or, perform well on the tests judging those things). The problem? We -- the both of us -- lose creativity.

BARRY SCHWARTZ, psychologist, Swarthmore College: Money isn't a natural part of anything we do. It's not a part of practicing medicine. You know, the natural thing to practicing medicine is healing people. Getting paid for it is unnatural, similarly with law and with any profession, teaching. So, maybe what happens is that what money does is, it disconnects people from the real point and purpose of their activity.

What should be my motivator as an educator: my students, or my pocketbook?

Can't it be both? Well, consider sales commissions. If I were a salesman, the more I sell, the more I make. Makes sense right? The more students I can make pass the test, the more money I make. Well, a company called System Source P. C.s did away with commissions. What happened to sales?

PAUL SOLMAN: Weinstein says sales spurted 44 percent as soon as commissions were canned in 1994. Profitability rose threefold.

Oh.

MAURY WEINSTEIN: We find that money often disrupts relationships. It disrupts customer efforts. And, sometimes, it makes the customer feel like a piece of meat, where you can't trust the salesperson's recommendations. And that's a very slippery slope at that point.

Trust. Relationships. Are these things necessary in school? In life?

DANIEL PINK: We do things because they're interesting. We do things because we like them. We do things because we get better at them, because they contribute to the world, even if they don't have a payoff in getting a reward or satisfying some -- some biological drive.

This is not a plea for a kinder, gentler approach to business. This is a plea for saying, let's wake up. Let's get past our outdated assumptions, and let's actually run businesses in concert with what the science shows about human performance.

Zen Driving

I swear, drivers are getting worse and worse every year. In more of a hurry. Way more distracted, what with phones and texting and video, and before long, the internet. Not to mention just the rudeness and incivility that results from a general breakdown of social order.

So what can we possibly do to make drivers drive better?

Take away some of the rules.

Huh?

This short editorial appeared recently in The New York Times.

Recently, I have been considering the four-way stop. It is, I think, the most successful unit of government in the State of California. It may be the perfect model of participatory democracy, the ideal fusion of “first come, first served” and the golden rule. There are four-way stops elsewhere in the country. But they are ubiquitous in California, and they bring out a civility — let me call it a surprising civility — in drivers here in a state where so much has recently gone so wrong.

Verlyn Klinkenborg (I wonder if that's the same Verlyn Klinkenborg I was in the Navy with?) found that surprisingly, people tended to behave themselves better at a four-way stop. Drivers will happily run through red lights -- it's "the man", after all, telling you when to stop and when to go. Well, screw him: I'm going! But at a four-way stop, well, we're kind of all in it together.

I find myself strangely reassured each time I pass through a four-way stop. A social contract is renewed, and I pull away feeling better about my fellow humans, which some days, believe me, can take some doing. We arrive as strangers and leave as strangers. But somewhere between stopping and going, we must acknowledge each other. California is full of drivers everywhere acknowledging each other by winks and less-friendly gestures, by glances in the mirrors, as they catapult down the freeways. But at a four-way stop, there is an almost Junior League politeness about it.

Which got me thinking about old Hans Monderman, father of the naked road (warning: a couple of pictures that illustrate this informative article feature naked backsides. Just sayin'.)

The idea that made Monderman, who died of cancer in January at the age of 62, most famous is that traditional traffic safety infrastructure—warning signs, traffic lights, metal railings, curbs, painted lines, speed bumps, and so on—is not only often unnecessary, but can endanger those it is meant to protect.

As I drove with Monderman through the northern Dutch province of Friesland several years ago, he repeatedly pointed out offending traffic signs. “Do you really think that no one would perceive there is a bridge over there?” he might ask, about a sign warning that a bridge was ahead. “Why explain it?” He would follow with a characteristic maxim: “When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.”

It seems counter-intuitive. Or maybe not. The more things you do to slow people down, the more they try to beat it. (Think of the driveway leading up to the high school. More than the speed bumps, it's the curves they put in that force you to slow.) But take away barriers, curbs, and put pedestrinas in play, and guess what? People slow down.

Who'da thunk?

Rest in Splendour!

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Thomas Gray, "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

Completely by accident (I think -- who really knows) I came across this website. Now I'm guessing there aren't many people who would choose to spend all eternity in Buffalo, New York, (sorry, Buffalo) -- but think again. If you could be buried in the Blue Sky Mausoleum, in a tomb designed by Frank Lloyd Wright?!

Frank Lloyd Wright, as you may already be aware, was an architect, and recognized pretty much universally as a genius. His most famous creation, probably, was a house called Fallingwater, built right over a small stream.


They won't say anywhere on the website exactly how much it would cost, so I'm assuming that places it out of my price range. ("If you have to ask, you can't afford it.") There are only twenty-four crypts available (I'm not sure how many are left), and they claim that the design will not be reproduced anywhere in the world. If you've got to be dead, that is the way to go.

But then I start thinking that maybe burial's not for me. Maybe I'd rather be shot into space! Now, I can be placed in orbit for a mere $2495 -- well, not me, exactly. An ounce of my ashes. Of course, for double the price, I can send seven ounces of myself up. That would still leave almost five and a half pounds of cremated remains behind (ain't Wikipedia awesome?).

But why think small. For a mere $14,995, ($22,495 for Preferred Service -- whatever that is) my wife and I could spend eternity on the moon. Now that's more like it. That ought to make some impression at my 75th class reunion.

But I've got to admit I'm really tempted by the Voyager package -- an ounce of my earthly remains sent into deep space!

Now, in my research I also found this fascinating website -- for
the Hartsdale Pet Cemetery and Crematorium, "America's First and Most Prestigious Pet Burial Grounds." (I can't vouch for "most prestigious", but I'll take them at their word for oldest.) Good old Grumpy. "He waits for us" -- with pipe and slippers, no doubt.