Slighcarp and Grimshaw

My ass has been solidly roundhouse kicked by my job, but I am still up and fighting! There are only about five teaching weeks left. I can totally do that! Yeah!

Anyway, here’s a short list on what’s been going on in my intellectual life, which has been a little meager the past couple months.

1. I lost my ability to read smart, intelligent literature for awhile there and read a bunch of books from my classroom library. I read The Outsiders, So B. It, and Sister Spider Knows All. Interestingly, both So B. It and Sister Spider Knows All revolve around a young woman who does not know anything about her mother and engages in a grand search to discover whatever missing details there are to be found. And of course The Outsiders has orphans for main characters. What’s up with YA fiction and the lack of solid parental figures?

2. I watched a bunch of movies based on classic YA books. Holes, Tuck Everlasting (the one with Alexis Bledel), and The Outsiders. Holes and Tuck Everlasting are fabulous. The Outsiders was the worst piece of dreck I’ve seen since watching Across the Universe. Actually, we watched both of those movies in the same weekend. It’s amazing how a movie can be full-feature-length and feel like it’s moving so quickly and be so incredibly unsatisfying. The lack of character development in both of those movies was astounding. I do NOT recommend them.

3. I am reading Night by Elie Wiesel with my 10th graders. I also read Lord of the Flies for the first time ever. Reading them at the same time was eerie and instructive. People en masse can be terrifying. Also, holy shit! Holy shit! is what I say to the end of Lord of the Flies. And oh yeah: many of my students do not know what the Holocaust is. Ahem. This makes teaching a Holocaust memoir somewhat more challenging. Boy howdy do I know more about it now, though.

4. I finally finished reading Modern Love by Matthea Harvey. In my eyes, Ms. Matthea can do no wrong. She wrote these poems in two series called “The Terror of the Future” and “The Future of Terror” that are both haunting and whimsical. Only Matthea. Also, her poems about Roboboy were pretty awesome. Click here to read “Dinna’ Pig” (scroll down), a poem from Modern Love, and get a brief but fantastic taste of the brain of Matthea Harvey.

6. The Wire. I broke down at Borders yesterday and bought the fourth season. I simply cannot wait the couple days between disks that Netflix requires. For those of you who still haven’t watched The Wire I say for shame! In the fourth season the show stretches its tentacles into the public school system, which makes it that much nearer and dearer to my heart. It’s also become that much more heartbreaking because you watch kids get sucked out of school and onto the corner. Ugh, but in the best way.

7. I am hooked on Grey’s Anatomy.