April 18, 2010

Mad to Live

April 01, 2010

National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month - Poets.org - Today's Poem
Poem-a-Day - Knopf Doubleday - Poem-a-Day
The Poetry Foundation : Find Poems and Poets. Discover Poetry
cleveland poetics blog
deep cleveland
Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Project

March 23, 2010

Sherman Alexie wins Pen/Faulkner Fiction Prize

Alexie Wins PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com

PEN / Faulkner Foundation Award For Fiction Current

March 21, 2010

Voters Rights March from Selma to Montgomery

vote.jpg

It was on this day in 1965 that thousands of marchers, led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., (books by this author) left Selma, Alabama, headed to Montgomery, to protest the disenfranchisement of African-American voters. They had attempted the march twice before, earlier in the month, but the first time they had been badly beaten by state troopers and deputies, and the second time they were ordered to turn back. This time, under court order, they were allowed to proceed, and by the time they reached the state capitol in Montgomery, there were 25,000 marchers, many answering King's call for people across the country to come and join. One of the people marching at the front of the line, arm in arm with Dr. King, was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, King's friend and colleague. Heschel said: "For many of us, the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying."

Taken from The Writer's Almanac

March 15, 2010

Grapes of Wrath Wordle

Wordle: Grapes of Wrath

Wordle Cloud Tag for the text of The Grapes of Wrath.

March 13, 2010

LivePlasma - Spheres of Musical Influence

liveplasma.jpg

Other cool Visualization sites, including TuneGlue.

March 03, 2010

Five Minds for the Future

Harvard Professor Howard Gardner in his new book, Five Minds for the Future, proposes five minds, or skills, students need to master. Three relate to the intellect: the disciplined, synthesizing and creative minds; two emphasize character: the respectful and ethical minds.

Gardner is known for his theory of Multiple Intelligences that describes nine different ways individuals demonstrate intelligence:

  • Visual/Spatial
  • Verbal/Linguistic
  • Mathematical/Logical
  • Bodily/Kinesthetic
  • Musical/Rhythmic
  • Intrapersonal
  • Interpersonal
  • Naturalist
  • Existential

    Continue reading "Five Minds for the Future" »

  • March 01, 2010

    Steinbeck and the Dustbowl

    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AMERICAN MEMORY:
    The Grapes of Wrath: Scrapbooks and Artifacts
    How to Cite Sources from American Memory
    Documenting America - Photographs of the Great Depression
    Dust Bowl During the Great Depression
    Voices from the Dust Bowl - The Migrant Experience
    California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties
    What is an Ethnographic Field Collection? - Introduction to Field Techniques - How to Do Fieldwork

    Continue reading "Steinbeck and the Dustbowl" »

    February 10, 2010

    Gatsby's World


    View Larger Map

    gg1a.jpgThe Valley of the Ashes
    The Perfect Hour
    Park Avenue in the Jazz Age
    When the Rich-Poor Gap Widens, ‘Gatsby’ Becomes a Guidebook - NYTimes August 31, 2006
    F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography
    F. Scott Fitzgerald Portfolio
    1925 New York Times Review of The Great Gatsby
    F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary
    Fitzgerald Topics at the NYTimes
    "Echoes of the Jazz Age" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    PBS The Amercan Novel - video clip

    January 29, 2010

    So Long JD Salinger

    catcher.jpg

    I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. ... Thousands of kids, and nobody big at all, nobody big but me. And I'm standing on the edge of this crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to come and catch them. If they start to fall ... and don't look where they're going. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.

    More at NYTimes.com and npr.org

    January 14, 2010

    Aid to Haiti

    Country Without a Net
    By TRACY KIDDER
    NYTimes January 14, 2010
    The history of Haiti’s vulnerability to natural disasters is long and complex, but the essence of it seems clear enough.

    Haiti’s Angry God
    By POOJA BHATIA
    NYTimes January 14, 2010
    On the earthquake-rubbled streets of Port-au-Prince, survivors weep, pray and ask for redemption.

    Partners in Health

    Doctors Without Borders

    OXFAM of America

    World Vision Haiti Earthquake Relief

    Google Crisis Response

    UPI Daily Briefing on Haiti Earthquake

    January 03, 2010

    Springsteen at the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors

    Jon Stewart's tribute to Bruce: "I am not a music critic. Nor historian, nor archivist. I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American songbook. I cannot illuminate the context of his work, or its roots in the folk and oral history traditions of our great nations. But I am from New Jersey. So, I can tell you what I believe. And what I believe is that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby. Yes! And they abandoned this child, as you can imagine at the time…interracial, same sex relationships being what they were…they abandoned this baby by the side of the road between the exit interchanges 8A and 9 on the Jersey Turnpike…that child was Bruce Springsteen." He continued, "I believe that Bruce Springsteen is an unprecedented combination of lyrical eloquence, musical mastery and sheer unbridled, unadulterated joy. Exuberance in the act of telling stories so familiar, stories that have never been told so well or so uniquely. And I know he’s hating this right now. He’s a modest man, and he doesn’t like sitting there in that little box, with his little suit, wearing a little rainbow dreamcatcher or whatever they have on there…he doesn’t like it. He wishes he had his guitar and that I would shut up, but I will not. He is the Boss…But I didn’t understand his music for a long time, until I began to yearn. Until I began to question the things that I was making and doing in my own life. Until I realized that it wasn’t just about the joyful parade on stage and the theatrics. It was about stories of lives that could be changed. And that the only status that you could fail to achieve is the status quo. The only thing, the only failure in life was not to make the effort to change our station. And it resonated with me because, and I say this truly to him…I would not be here, God knows, not even in this business if it were not for the inspirational words and music of Bruce Springsteen."

    From Springsteen at the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors

    December 26, 2009

    Imagine Peace

    ImaginePeace.jpg

    December 18, 2009

    Auggie Wren's Christmas

    auggiewren.jpg

    I came across author Paul Auster's story Auggie Wren's Christmas Story last year and then found that it was incorporated into the film Smoke. I used to use his Story of My Typewriter as a mouse pad, which got me to thinking about Auster again, hence the look at his website. I found there another film of his, Lulu On The Bridge, about a saxophone player.

    Here's Paul Auster reading "Auggie Wren's Christmas" on NPR and a trailer for the movie Smoke on YouTube.

    December 16, 2009

    The Harmonica Man


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