A hashtag of possible interest

It’s #BaltimoreCoverageYouMayNotSee.

Baltimore questions

I’ve written nothing here about events in Baltimore or Nepal. No one needs a post here to be reminded of the first noble truth.

But I want to voice three questions about Baltimore. The observer effect can work in non-scientific contexts too: the act of observation can change what’s observed (as when a principal visits a classroom). Is live television coverage in Baltimore meant to help bring about the violence that we now see on CNN? Is it too cynical to acknowledge that broadcasting such stuff serves broadcasters’ interests? And is it too cynical to suspect that broadcasting such stuff serves to strengthen a larger narrative about color and criminality?

Part of what makes me ask these questions is the constant commentary on CNN yesterday about what “they” were doing: "Now they’re looting”; “Now they’re throwing rocks.” Those statements make me recall the stranger who turned to Elaine as we left a store and whispered conspiratorially, “They’re everywhere” — meaning people of color. (There had been two women of color in line in the store.) Elaine was too stunned to give the stranger a piece of her mind.

As my high-school contemporary-politics teacher Albert Kornblit always reminded us, it’s smart to be wary of anyone who refers to people as “they” and “them” — and that includes CNN.

A joke in the traditional manner

What happens when a senior citizen visits a podiatrist?

No spoilers. The punchline is in the comments.

More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : What did the plumber do when embarrassed? : Which member of the orchestra was best at handling money? : Why did the doctor spend his time helping injured squirrels? : Why did Oliver Hardy attempt a solo career in movies? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?

[“In the traditional manner”: by or à la my dad. He must take credit for all but the doctor and Santa Claus.]

Blond and blonde

Merrill Perlman explains the difference, if there is one, between blond and blonde.

The difference seems to figure in Frank O’Hara’s work, as Joe Le Sueur points out: “All of a sudden all the world / is blonde” (“Poem”); “a day in which I was in love with someone (not Roi, by the way, a blond)” (“Personism: A Manifesto”).

A related post
A review of Joe LeSueur’s Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara

[Roi: LeRoi Jones, later Amiri Baraka.]

Tech scamming

“It was an educational exchange, to say the least”: Lenny Zeltser recorded a conversation with a tech-support scammer. Forewarned is forearmed.

[Via Daring Fireball.]

Lear // semiotics / Casablanca

If you’ve had the experience of happening upon old notes whose reason for being is beyond recovery, you will understand my interest in what follows. It’s in my hand, all caps, fountain pen on a strip of unruled paper, 4″ × 8½″:

Lear

semiotics / Casablanca
Mythologies

imagination / reality
    Hopis
    Eskimos

    cockadoodledoo    mkgnao: Ulysses cat
    cocorico = French
    kykeliky = Norwegian “kee ka lee kee”

    bowwow
    vovvov = Norwegian “vahv vahv”
    гав гав= Russian “gahv gahv”

    mouse says “ruff ruff” to cat who
    says “meow” — shows her kids the
    benefit of learning a foreign language

Didion: The White Album

This page is, of course, related to teaching. But why these items appear together is beyond me. I’ve taught Umberto Eco’s essay on Casablanca and Roland Barthes’s Mythologies . I think I once taught Joan Didion’s The White Album too. My daughter Rachel has my copy of that book. Mkgnao is what the Blooms’ cat says in James Joyce’s Ulysses. The mouse that scared away the cat is an old joke; I don’t know where I picked it up.

Introducing Seymour

Seymour: An Introduction (dir. Ethan Hawke, 2014) caught my attention by way of its Salinger-inspired title. This documentary introduces the viewer to Seymour Bernstein (b. 1927), who gave up an anxiety-making life as a performing pianist for a better life as a teacher of pianists. Bernstein emerges as a man of consummate wisdom and monastic simplicity, having renounced aspirations to a big career, as it’s called, for his own version of happiness. And who can argue with that?

Scenes of Bernstein teaching are, well, instructive: he is clear, demanding, and patient, taking the student from one note to the next. It’s teaching with a microscopic attention to the musical text. A scene of Bernstein practicing confirms that he equally demanding and patient with himself. I found in this film, as in Jiro Dreams of Sushi, strong inspiration for the work of writing: getting things right as a matter of ongoing, endless attention, identifying and solving difficulties, one by one.

The least rewarding scenes of the film, alas, are those with Bernstein and Hawke. (It was their chance meeting as dinner guests that led Hawke to make the film.) Bernstein’s tranquility makes Hawke look like a tightly wound mess. Then again, that might be the point.

Here is more about Seymour Bernstein and the film. And here is a page with a trailer and a clip.

Seymour Bernstein on the work of teaching music: “The most important thing is to inspire an emotional response for all aspects of life.”

[I’ve quoted from the trailer. In the film it’s said a little differently: “The most important thing music teachers can do is to encourage an emotional response not just to music but all aspects of life.” Or something like that: I was scribbling in the dark.]

Ain’t nothing like the real thing

Some college administrators met recently to ponder their schools’ fortunes. A news item about the meeting reported a general sense of celebration about talking together in person. Telephone calls? Okay. But nothing like face-to-face conversation.

I agree. But then why do these same administrators push for more and more coursework to be offered online?

There is no substitute for the real thing, which I’ve (irreverently) taken to calling real-presence education.

Lois Lilienstein (1936–2015)

Sad news in The New York Times:

Lois Lilienstein, whose sunny personality and tuneful, bell-clear voice were central to the live and televised performances of Sharon, Lois & Bram, the Canadian singing group popular among young children and their families, died on Wednesday at her home in Toronto.

Sharon, Lois & Bram cassettes were a main staple of our children’s childhoods. A happy memory from a summer at the University of Chicago (NEH seminar): Sharon, Lois & Bram cassettes playing on a boom box in our Hyde Park apartment. Jumping monkeys, stolen cookies, and all that.

Higher-ed monopoly

One more bit from a New York Times article about Arizona State’s plan to offer a year’s worth of freshman courses online:

“The monopoly that used to exist in terms of how higher ed is done is over, and this is part of a continuum of things that are welcome new approaches,” said Jamie P. Merisotis, the president of the Lumina Foundation, an Indiana-based nonprofit group concerned with educational attainment. “It has big potential in giving students a jump start on completing their degree. And because of the A.S.U. imprimatur, the likelihood that the credits will be transferable is pretty high.”

Characterizing higher education as a monopoly is a curious move: a little like characterizing the practice of surgery as a monopoly because it is limited to surgeons. Mr. Merisotis presents MOOCs as a monopoly-busting alternative, but the alternative still trades upon the reputations of name brands: Arizona State, and behind that name, Harvard, M.I.T., Stanford.

A related post
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