Month: March 2019

Ash Wednesday: What is hell to you?

I opined that the old guy was in his own hell, and Catbird agreed.

I don’t think a whole lot about hell. Well, not since I was growing up with the concept constantly slipped into every third sermon I heard.

One of the things that started my long withdrawal from church in my twenties had a hell of a lot to do with what some said happened after death.

Specifically, it was the notion that everyone who didn’t accept Jesus as their savior was going to some fiery pit in the next life. That would include someone in a remote village in Nepal or person on a tiny island in the Pacific. (This is why we “needed” so many missionaries.)

Still, I think there is a “hell.” My good friend Catbird is reading “The Da Vinci Code,” which I’ve never even started. The motivation was partly because the book is on the PBS “Great American Read” list.

But it was also because some old acquaintance of Catbird’s said it was the work of the devil, which made it more enticing. My friend emailed the acquaintance to ask what event or character had informed his opinion, figuring he had never actually read the story. He replied that Catbird was going to hell and that his words were a warning.

Catbird shared the opinion that both heaven and hell are what one chooses to make of one’s circumstances. A life-altering experience has deeply informed my friend that death is nothing to fear.

I opined that the old guy was in his own hell, and Catbird agreed. And from appearances, it seems “entirely self-inflicted… and possibly addictive.” Catbird heard on the radio about the door to hell being locked from the inside and thought that it applied especially well to him.

So what is hell to you? Is it a physical place after we leave this mortal coil? Is it something else? Does it not exist at all? Maybe you’re hedging your bet.

This Lenten discussion immediately brought to mind a song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong: You Make Your Own Heaven And Hell Right Here On Earth, recorded by The Temptations and Undisputed Truth.

I am an introvert – seriously

“Unlike extroverts who gain energy from social interaction, introverts have to expend energy in social situations.”

Myths About Introverts Busted
From HERE
I am an introvert. There are people I know, and know well, who think otherwise. They are incorrect.

The article 8 Signs You’re an Introvert notes: “It is… important to note that introversion is not the same things as social anxiety or shyness. Being an introvert does not mean that you are socially anxious or shy.”

I used to be socially anxious, but through repetition, I’ve learned not to care as much. Public gaffes I have made, which would have put me into a funk for days – or much longer – I generally deal with with self-deprecating humor.

“People who are introverted tend to be inward turning, or focused more on internal thoughts, feelings and moods rather than seeking out external stimulation.

“Unlike extroverts who gain energy from social interaction, introverts have to expend energy in social situations. After attending a party or spending time in a large group of people, introverts often feel a need to ‘recharge’ by spending a period of time alone.

“This does not mean that the average introvert wants to be alone all the time. Many introverts love spending time with friends and interacting with familiar people in social situations.”

So if I am affable at church, which I generally am, it’s because I’ve been there almost two decades, and I have developed a certain degree of comfort.

“While introverts typically do not enjoy a great deal of socializing, they do enjoy having a small group of friends to whom they are particularly close.”

Technology is wonderful in this regard. The emails I’ve spent with Catbird down south, after meeting for the first time in well over a decade have been quite meaningful. I actually have done a couple video chats with friend Deborah in France, after not seeing her for nearly three decades until 2018.

On the same recent weekend I spent 90 minutes on the telephone with one sister and two hours with Uthaclena. Old school!

“Because introverts tend to be inward-turning, they also spend a great deal of time examining their own internal experiences.” Goodness, yes.

Noted author and clear introvert John Green (no relation) did a video recently Battling Apathy and Searching for Meaning, which I related to – a lot.

“Where extroverts tend to prefer to jump right in and learn through hands-on experience, introverts typically prefer learning through observation…

“When introverts do learn from personal experience, they prefer to practice somewhere private where they can build their skills and abilities without having to perform for an audience.” Check.

Blogging is actually a useful tool for the introvert. It allows me to “put myself out there” in a controlled environment.

For ABC Wednesday

Movie review: On the Basis of Sex

Seeing the scene where Ruth (Felicity Jones) is one of nine women at Harvard Law School asked to defend their educational choices at a dinner party was already familiar to me.

On-the-Basis-of-Sex-Movie-PosterI watched the movie On the Basis of Sex started with a couple handicaps for me. One is that I had seen RBG, the documentary that I loved, about the same topic, current Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Thus, seeing the scene where Ruth (Felicity Jones) is one of nine women at Harvard Law School asked to defend their educational choices at a dinner party was already familiar to me.

Another factor, and this happens way too often in cinema: many of the best lines are revealed in the trailer.
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To be fair to the film, most of the personal information about RBG was correct, as I knew from the documentary. She WAS/is very smart and driven, taking care of her sick husband Martin (Armie Hammer) while they were both in law school.

Martin, by every account, really was a preternaturally supportive husband of her path, even as his own career thrived. He WAS the better cook, by far. And Martin was the one who pointed out that the tax case that she eventually took on was up her alley.

The movie was well-acted, including by Justin Theroux as Mel Wulf from the ACLU. But the clash between him and Ruth felt somehow contrived; their real differences lasted for a much briefer period.

I wonder how much the tension between Ruth and her daughter Jane (Cailee Spaeny) was accurate. It is a great dialogue between Ruth and Jane that unfortunately made the trailer.

On the Basis of Sex felt formulaic. Yes, you root for our hero, but it takes a great film, with a certain heft to pull off a narrative for which you already know the outcome. I think the Ruth Bader Ginsburg deserved a biopic as courageous as she was. It was serviceable, but clichéd; I just wasn’t wowed.

My wife and I FINALLY saw On the Basis of Sex at the Spectrum in Albany. you may appreciate it more than I, especially if you haven’t seen the documentary.

The graphic novel as learning tool

Meryl Jaffe is the rock star in the graphic novel as an educational tool genre. She’s been to New York Comic Con, promoting the gospel.

Worth A Thousand WordsAs you may know, I used to work at a comic book store called FantaCo on Central Avenue in Albany for 8.5 years, May 1980 to November 1988. It was the second-longest job I ever had.

During this period, Marvel put out something they called a graphic novel. It was a squarebound comic book of the X-Men, 81/2″ by 11″, with much nicer paper, and a price of $4.95, when regular comics were still under $1.

How the graphic novel has changed. I came across Meryl Jaffe through her participation in the ABC Wednesday meme. She has a blog Departing the Text, which is still interesting, although she has’t updated it in a few years. She wrote Using Content Area Graphic Texts for Learning: A Guide for Middle-Level Educators (2012), which is more readable that the title might suggest.

Meryl is the rock star in the graphic novel as an educational tool genre. She’s been to New York Comic Con, promoting the gospel. Yet she makes a confession in the preface of her new book, with Talia Hurwich, Worth a Thousand Words: Using Graphic Novels to Teach Visual and Verbal Literacy (2019).

“Until fairly recently, I didn’t think graphic novels were appropriate for my classroom or for my kids’ reading at home.” But her children, “as comfortable reading Neil Gaiman as Alexandre Dumas,” gave her I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and J. M. Ken Nimura, and Meryl did a 180. BTW, Talia Hurwich is Meryl’s daughter.

Chapter 1 addresses the fears of using the graphic novel in the educational setting. Chapter 2 is the necessarily “scholarfied” stuff to sell the concept to the principal or school board. It uses the word “multimodal.” Several times.

After that, Worth A Thousand Words is a great read, very practical and hands-on. The book has sections on how to interpret the elements of graphic novels – narrative and thought balloons, e.g.

The authors show how to teach reading, but also how to do create instruction in writing, with students encouraged to create their own illustrative narratives. And it’s not just for prose, but social studies, science, even math. I realize that my creative daughter might be able to use the tools laid out therein.

A commercial: I will be reviewing March, Books One, Two, & Three, graphic novels by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell for the Friends of the Albany Public Library on April 16 at noon at 161 Washington Avenue. Not incidentally, the March books are cited in Worth A Thousand Words.

30-Day Music Prompt: LOUD enough?

No other version will do. Not the pedestrian studio version nor the too short 2005 live take. This is a live take from Goodbye Cream.

Discipline.King CrimsonContinuing on that 30-Day Music Challenge.

A song that needs to be played loud.

This is extremely challenging, since there are SO many choices. One could say most of the Who or Led Zeppelin or insert your favorite. Also, a lot of these songs could easily fit in other categories of the quiz.

And it’s not just the “loud” songs that are served by volume. i tend to crank up The Boxer – Simon and Garfunkel (#7, 1969) after the line, “The fighter still remains” to better feel the pain of the percussive sound and the strings.

when I was a teenager, and my parents weren’t home, I’d tweak up the volume during the last four minutes of the Beatles’ Revolver (1966), from the last chorus of Got to Get You Into My Life (#7, 1976), into Tomorrow Never Knows. Just thinking about it gives me an adrenaline rush.

All Day and All of the Night – the Kinks (#7, 1965). The Kinks were the first REALLY LOUD group I was aware of. I remember that my good friend Karen was fond of buying their singles at the local Philadelphia Sales, only a couple blocks from our school, Daniel S. Dickinson, where we attended K-9.

I’m So Glad – Cream (1969). No other version will do. Not the pedestrian studio version nor the too short 2005 live take. This is a live take from Goodbye Cream.

High School – MC5 (1970). The group was nominated to get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this past round, but wasn’t selected. My friends made an antiwar video with High School as the soundtrack.

Wah Wah – George Harrison (1970). From that monumental All Things Mus Pass album. I knew George could be loud – see It’s All Too Much – the Beatles. But the wall of sound works here, in live versions, such as the Concert for Bangladesh, or even the Concert for George tribute album.

Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who (#15, 1971). Back in the day when I could actually play music in my office sans headphones, the then-Associate State Director would come into the office if this song were on, mesmerized.

Kashmir – Led Zeppelin (1975). From the first LZ album I bought on CD.

Cars – Gary Numan (#9, 1980). From that very first vibration…

Police on My Back – the Clash (1980). I started playing Side 6 of the Sandinista album, and this song almost knocked me over.

Elephant Talk – King Crimson (1981). And the remix is danceable as well.

Cannonball – the Breeders (#44, 1994). I have this on some 4-song EP that a friend gave me.

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