A Pete Seeger stamp

[Click for a larger view.]

I need to get to the post office more often: in July, the USPS issued a Pete Seeger stamp. It’s a good image, from a black-and-white photograph by Pete’s son Dan.

The brief biography on the USPS website rewards close reading, as much for what it omits as what it includes. It makes no mention of the Almanac Singers’ anti-interventionist position in World War II (which ended when Germany attacked the Soviet Union), saying only that the group “tunefully promoted labor unions, then patriotic songs as war loomed.” Nor is there any reference to Seeger and the Weavers being blacklisted in the 1950s. And though the bio does mention Seeger’s contributions to the causes of civil rights and environmentalism, there’s no reference to his anti-Vietnam War efforts. Readers of a certain age will remember “Bring ’Em Home.” And will also remember that in 1967 Seeger was not permitted to sing “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy” on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. In 1968 he did.

So it would appear that the USPS has constructed a less “controversial” image of Seeger. Oh well. Perhaps that was a way to sneak him past Louis DeJoy.

A good way to think about Pete Seeger’s appearance on a stamp: a man once viewed as “un-American” was of course a true American all along. I remember a 2006 New Yorker profile of Seeger that closed with a glimpse of him standing by himself along Route 9 in Beacon, New York, during the invasion of Iraq, holding a sign that read PEACE. Speaking your mind freely and without fear, even if alone: that’s American.

Related reading
All OCA Pete Seeger posts (Pinboard)

Sold a Story again

The first two episodes of Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong became available yesterday. They’re revealing and infuriating. Now I understand what my children’s teachers meant when they said that they used “a balanced approach” — they meant nothing in particular, with only a smattering of phonics. Fortunately, our children learned to read before starting school, as Elaine and I did.

Here’s an example (not from the podcast) of the wrongheadedness that can underlie opposition to instruction in phonics, from an educator who learned to read before starting school. He writes that he

can’t really ever think of “sound it out” as a strategy for me when I encountered words I didn’t know. Asking other people is my go-to strategy even today, as I wander into my 60s.

And how, you may wonder, did those other people figure out how to pronounce those words — if indeed they’re pronouncing those words correctly.

Only last night did it occur to me to wonder: when college instructors outline the textbook in class and give out “study sheets” (i.e., questions and answers) for exams, are they merely slacking off, or are they compensating, consciously or not, for their students’ reading deficiencies?

[And quick, someone get that educator a dictionary.]

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Do you recognize her? Leave your best guess in the comments. I’ll drop a hint if one is needed.

*

Hint: She was good company, and her favorite meal was “lunch.”

*

Oh well. I put the answer in the comments. You’re still welcome to play on the honor system.

More mystery actors
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Separated at birth

  [Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky in Anna Karenina (dir. Joe Wright, 2012) and Gene Wilder as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein in Young Frankenstein (dir. Mel Brooks, 1974). Click either image for a larger view.]

I wish someone had said “We need to make him look less like young Frankenstein.”

Also separated at birth
Claude Akins and Simon Oakland : Ernest Angley and Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán : Nicholson Baker and Lawrence Ferlinghetti : William Barr and Edward Chapman : Bérénice Bejo and Paula Beer : Ted Berrigan and C. Everett Koop : David Bowie and Karl Held : Victor Buono and Dan Seymour : Ernie Bushmiller and Red Rodney : John Davis Chandler and Steve Buscemi : Ray Collins and Mississippi John Hurt : Broderick Crawford and Vladimir Nabokov : Ted Cruz and Joe McCarthy : Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Gough : Henry Daniell and Anthony Wiener : Jacques Derrida, Peter Falk, and William Hopper : Adam Driver and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska : Bonita Granville and Cyndi Lauper : Charles Grassley and Abraham Jebediah Simpson II : Elaine Hansen (of Davey and Goliath) and Blanche Lincoln : Barbara Hale and Vivien Leigh : Pat Harrington Jr. and Marcel Herrand : Harriet Sansom Harris and Phoebe Nicholls : Steven Isserlis and Pat Metheny : Colonel Wilhelm Klink and Rudy Giuliani : Ton Koopman and Oliver Sacks : Steve Lacy and Myron McCormick : Don Lake and Andrew Tombes : Markku Luolajan-Mikkola and John Malkovich : William H. Macy and Michael A. Monahan : Fredric March and Tobey Maguire : Chico Marx and Robert Walden : Elisabeth Moss and Alexis Smith : Jean Renoir and Steve Wozniak : Molly Ringwald and Victoria Zinny

Newsstands

From Trevor Traynor: Newstands, 100 photographs.

(Found via Present & Correct.)

Sardine dreams

In The Harvard Crimson, Una R. Roven, college student, writes about sardines:

There’s nothing like the smooth metallic pop of an opening tin. The fireworks of healthy fats in the very first bite. These oily fish fill my dreams.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)

Sold a Story

Coming tomorrow, from American Public Media, a podcast series by Emily Hanford: Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong.

In 2018 Hanford wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times: “Why Are We Still Teaching Reading the Wrong Way?”

Here’s a related article from the Times: “In the Fight Over How to Teach Reading, This Guru Makes a Major Retreat.”

If you have any doubt that reading instruction has gone wrong, listen to the average, everyday college student read aloud in class. But that’ll be difficult to do, because many instructors have learned not to ask students to read aloud. It’s likely to be painful.

Related posts
Reading, really fast : A story from my literacy tutoring : W(h)ither grammar

[“Read aloud”: I don’t mean cold-calling on students to read. I mean, say, asking a student to read a passage that they’ve referenced in a discussion.]

Cheesy vignette

[As seen in the OCA test kitchens. Click for a larger view.]

What’s wrong with this picture?

Yesterday’s A.Word.A.Day explains.

Stemside

Elaine and I like to invent imaginary radio shows. O reason not the need. Please.

This one is mine: Stemside. It’s all about tomatoes. E.g.:

“Coming up on Stemside: tomato sandwiches. Are they really as good as people say?”

[Spoiler: they are. And you should always let tomatoes sit stem down.]

La Fabrique de l’oeuvre

From stale bread to a madeleine: La Fabrique de l’oeuvre is a French National Library exhibition devoted to the evolution of À la recherche du temps perdu .

Here is a report from Le Figaro, in French and English. And here is a report from The Guardian, with the detail of the stale bread (pain rassis ).

Related reading
All OCA Proust posts (Pinboard)