|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Recently I fired my last salvo in what is bound to be a losing cause. The Social Studies Department— oh, how I hate that: “Social Studies.” I don’t teach social studies, I teach History. The fact that history is, by its very definition, all-inclusive makes the entire notion of differing ‘studies’ redundant. That being said, the Social Studies Department Supervisor is on a quest to put whiteboards in every classroom. I hate this idea.
I hate this idea on several levels, the first being a practical one. I’ve used whiteboards. I hate the squeak the markers produce with every letter. I hate the fact that unless you have a fairly new marker, the letters are not consistently dense or visible. I hate that you have to hold the marker upright, that is with the point lower than the body, even when writing eighteen to twenty-four inches above your head. I hate the smell of the markers, and with a honker like mine that is not a slight consideration. I hate that the board never erases cleanly, that there are ghosts of letters dancing behind the point you are trying to make.
Next level is economical. Why spend money on a lesser system to replace one that works just fine? Are there no other areas of the school that could use this money?
The third level is environmental. When a piece of chalk is no longer usable in class, it is all but gone. Whiteboard markers, when at that same point, spend the rest of their vast remaining lives in landfills. The markers, the ink they contain, the erasers, even the whiteboards themselves are petroleum-based products. I thought that’s the kind of thing from which we were trying to move away.
Then there’s the level of health. One big argument for whiteboards is that there is no chalkdust to inhale. Oh, sure, there is still dust to inhale, but instead of it being a light compound similar to soft white limestone, it is the dust of a chemical formula delivered by a petroleum-based medium called Xylene, which, according to OSHA has produced in humans such symptoms as “headache, fatigue, irritability, lassitude, nausea, anorexia, flatulence, irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, and motor incoordination and impairment of equilibrium. Flushing, redness of the face, a sensation of increased body heat, increased salivation, tremors, dizziness, confusion, and cardiac irritability have also been reported.” Which, then, would be the more desirable in your immediate atmosphere?
The level upon which all of these others lie, the base of my Irritation Pyramid, as it were, is this: it’s a gimmick. A gimmick.
"Hey, kids! Tired of school? Well check this out! Things are different here now! No more BLACKboards, now its WHITEboards! Those are opposites! Things are different here! We’re not the same old school teaching the same old things. WHITEboards! Look! We write in colors now! COLORS! We know everything you do is soaked in bright colors, so now we got ‘em here! Just like your phones, video games, movies and computers! We got colored markers for our whiteboards, we got animated computer shows to get your notes from, now school is just like everything else!!"
Gimmick.
Oh, sure, there is some truth in that. It is true that we no longer teach them the same old things. Every three years or so the Next Great Education Fad That Will Save This Generation swoops in and causes changes in the curriculum that are piled on the changes made three years ago. We teach the kids these new mandated things then have to absorb the abuse that comes from not providing them same education that we got. (Perhaps this is due, in some small part, to the fact that these things are mandated by people who have never tried to run a classroom. Just a thought.)
But it’s still a gimmick, and a gimmick is, at its base, a lie. School isn’t like everything else. It’s different. It’s supposed to be. I don’t want my classroom to look or feel like a video game, phone app, or movie. It’s different. There’s a different mindset, a different attitude, a different atmosphere. It’s supposed to be that way. Different things are what life is really all about. It is the differences that make it special.
We have been all but obsessed with this for years, this weakening of the differences in our lives. Travel, not fly, across this great nation of ours and you will see the same parking lots surrounding the same shopping centers that sell the same stuff everywhere you go. You’ll see the same restaurants in Little Rock that you will in Syracuse, selling the same food at the same table within the same decor.
As ingrained as this has become, we no longer differentiate between our activities. Driving, reading, typing, telephoning, listening, watching, shaving, applying makeup, spending time with friends, these all used to be very different tasks done at distinctly different times. Come on, a “working vacation”? Look at that phrase carefully. Even a casual acquaintance with the English vocabulary clearly shows us the first word negates the second. No such thing.
When done at separate times, when our attention is focused in a way unique to the event or task, when, in short, things are different, they take on a meaning of their own. They become interesting, challenging, fun, and, at times, very special. Lump everything into this philosophy of sameness, and all that is lost. The more things are alike, the less they mean to all of us. | | |
| This past weekend, a good friend, a wonderful professor and a great director, passed away after a brief but intense bout with cancer. He was all of sixty-four years old. Below is the letter I wrote to him on the occasion of his retirement not quite three years ago. It will have to do for a tribute at least until I can get my emotions sorted out a bit more.
Here on your last IUP Opening Night, I thought I’d offer this small token of my appreciation and gratitude. Sadly, this token is just that, small, when compared to the actual debt owed to you.
It was twenty-two years ago, Mal, that you gave me my first Opening Night. "Endtime: Requiem for Everyman" was not only my first Mainstage production, but it taught me much about the creative process behind the creation of a script, score, and performance. Watching and experiencing that wondrous process first-hand greatly eased my own humble forays into playwrighting in the years that followed.
Twenty-one years ago, you gave me the best acting lessons I ever had, in "Much Ado About Nothing." First, you cured me of acting with my arms, flailing around onstage as if I was desperately trying to begin my annual flight south for the winter. Second, you cast me with Bellis, Salerno, Renshaw and Haldeman. Just being onstage with Gene was a lesson in character acting, and the late-night, post-rehearsal talks with Gary, Chip and Kevin in the Back Basement where we discussed our characters, their relationships to each other and the rest of the cast, were far more than enlightening.
Those lessons came to bear fruit two years after that in "The Birthday Party." Everyone involved in that show feels exactly the same way about it. A few years back, a number of ex-Waller Rats were gathered at the home of the Renshaws, and when the subject was brought up of “the best play we were in at IUP,” Kevin, Dave Surtasky and I, without hesitation, said "The Birthday Party." An identical response came in a telephone conversation with Keith Edwards a few years after that. A few of the others there said it was the best show they ever saw there.
That show taught me what I consider to be the best and most indispensable lesson I ever got about directing: if you cast well, everything takes care of itself. It is not always absolutely necessary to pack one’s cast with the most talented people; what is more crucial is that undefinable aspect of a cast: “chemistry.” You, Mal, always seemed to be able to see that in auditions, and with it you always managed to bring out the absolute best performance of which ever member of the cast was capable. There is much of you, Mal, in every show I’ve directed.
But this debt of gratitude is not limited to our work together on stage. I truly enjoyed your Theatre History class, always regretted that you had stopped teaching Directing by the time I got around to taking it, and really got a lot out of your Sound Design class. In fact, considering my years in professional theatre, I’d have to say that you, Mal, are certainly one of the best sound designers I have ever heard. Truly, I was never less than blown away by what you did with sound, perhaps the most subtle of the designs that go into any production. More times than I can count, when in Waller the question was asked “How’s the show?”, the instant response from many was “Yet another show saved by a Mal Bowes sound design.”
I have always counted myself very fortunate to have been at IUP when I was. I can’t imagine another group of so many incredibly talented, dedicated individuals brought together at one place at one time. You, Mal, are certainly among that number, and I cannot thank you enough for allowing me to be a part of it.
I wish for you a long, healthy, restful retirement.
And thanks again. | | |
| Okay, here it is, this months list of the Three Albums You MUST own:
"Ultimate Hits Collection" -- Ray Charles
I'm not usually a 'greatest hits' kind of guy, but this collection has been so thoughtfully put together by the kind folks at Rhino that it goes beyond the usual hesitancies.
"Imaginary Diseases" -- Frank Zappa
Recently released but recorded in the early 1970s with a lineup that will forever be known as The Petit Wazoo, this collection of instrumentals may very well replace "Hot Rats" as my all-time favourite FZ album.
"Everything That Happens Will Happen Today" -- David Byrne & Brian Eno
Just released a week or so ago, this album is just a wonderful as their first collaboration, "My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts." But this one is better. Hard to imagine I know. Just get it.
Just get them all.
And by "get" I mean, of course, "buy." | | |
| I’ve noticed, and often stated, that there are a number of sure signs that one has reached Middle Age. The most glaring of these is the absolute knowledge that everything today sucks. Here, then, is an abbreviated list of things that suck today that didn’t before I reached Middle Age.
--American cars.
We used to build the biggest, baddest, coolest looking cars on the planet. Now we build crap. Oh, sure, we still build big cars, but that’s the least important of the qualities listed above. We put men on the moon. Cutting-edge technology? We invented it. Certainly we can mass produce an efficient, cool-looking car we and our ancestors can live with.
--Sneakers.
There’s only one way to describe the sneakers that have been released in the past decade: fugly. What happened to the smooth elegance of the adidas Gazelle, or the low-slung power of the Puma Basket? The things in the stores today passing as sneakers look like they were pulled off the set of a cheesy 1950s sci-fi serial.
--Football.
Football used to be played by guys who a) had a plan, and b) were not consciously trying to maim their opponents. Today’s football is played with a ferocity that has taken it beyond the realm of strategy and sportsmanship, and placed it somewhere more like the Circus Maximus. The goal of every play these days, it seems, is merely to increase the other team’s body count. Hardly a sport for civilized society.
Plus, television has destroyed the flow of the game. With all the mandatory times-out for commercials after each change of possession, the rhythm, and most damaging, the momentum of the game has been lost. And the use of instant replay is the second worst idea yet, the worst being the ‘challenge’ rule. By the clock, a football game lasts sixty minutes, yet it takes three hours to watch a game. I gotta call bullshit on that.
--Baseball. (This one’s got a list. Sorry.)
Steroids & HGH. What the hell is that? Boog Powell never lacked for power when it counted, and he downed a six-pack of beer after every game, before he had even taken off his uniform. Can you imagine the reaction of Babe Ruth to today’s major-league clubhouses, with their weight rooms?
Inter-league play. What the hell is that? One of the great mystiques of the World Series was that it was between two teams who had never played each other before. We like our championship series to have some special aura.
Designated hitter. Huh? This inane idea breaks one of the foundations of sandlot baseball: if you want to hit, you have to play the field. Sacrilege.
World Series games ending after midnight. Hey, MLB, I have a news flash for you: We have jobs. How do you think we get the money to pay your outrageous ticket and concession prices? We go to work. Usually in the morning. Early in the morning. If your going to put multi-hundred dollar prices on your tickets, the least you can do is have the games end at a reasonable hour so we can still get a fair nights sleep, so we can be awake and alert enough the next morning to keep the jobs that allow us to pay your salaries and create your profits.
Maple bats. Give it up. If Ted Williams, Frank Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron got by with ash, so can you.
Wild card teams. What the hell is this, football? Listen, MLB, it is its differences from other sports that makes baseball great. Don’t try to make them even remotely the same, please.
“Alternate” uniforms. C’mon. White at home, grey on the road. End of story. Same with all these different caps. Taste demands that you have a maximum of two caps, one home, one road. Any more than that is sheer hucksterism.
--Men’s fashion
Okay, okay, it’s always sucked. (I grew up in the late 1970s, early 1980s; I know sucky men’s fashion.) But what is it today with pants cinched halfway up the thigh? We don’t want to see your underwear, boys, and here’s a tip: neither do girls. Ask them. And why is it that every goddamn piece of clothing must have its brand name emblazoned somewhere on the outside? I remember when the quality of one’s clothes was apparent by its fit, material and craftsmanship. Now, however, if you can’t see the brand name from across the street, it can’t be good clothing. Besides, if they are going to turn us into walking billboards, shouldn’t they be paying us to wear their crap?
--Men’s haircuts.
What is it with the head-shaving trend? Let me get this straight: you are going to disguise the fact that you are balding by removing all the hair from your head? Am I missing something in the logic of this? Why not go the more effective route and disguise the fact that you are balding by growing a pony tail?
--Manners.
There are none, anymore. Gone.
--Music.
Popular music today just plain sucks, and I see evidence of that every day. I see students in my high school wearing AC/DC and Ozzy t-shirts. AC/DC and Ozzy, for chrissakes. Their best today can’t compare to AC freakin’ DC, for chrissakes.
On the other side of the coin, what is it with these long-past-their-flash-in-the-pan bands still touring? This very night, forty minutes down the Parkway, the Steve Miller Band is playing. Steve Miller Band? Time keeps on slippin’ but so does your Depends. Why is it that the mediocre bands just can’t go away? Rush is still touring. Rush! I got news for you, guys, that “today’s Tom Sawyer” you sang about took an early retirement buy-out and is now living in Boca Raton.
(I have a theory that Rush, Kansas, Toto, Asia, Boston, they were all actually the same guys. They just changed the t-shirts they sold out front.)
--Pedestrians.
I was a career pedestrian. Between the ages of 21 and 36 I did not own, nor had any access to, an automobile. Over the years I became quite adept at recognizing traffic patterns, reading traffic lights, in short, I was a safe, unobtrusive pedestrian. Today, they don’t even use the freakin’ sidewalks. What’s up with that? In what part of the human brain was it decided to forgo the use of the area specifically designed for walking to instead stroll down the part designed for and used by large, heavy mechanical devices being driven by people under the influence of small, light electronic devices? Has the concept of self-preservation been bred out of us already?
--Telephones.
Once upon a time, when there was but one Phone Company in the land, the telephone was a wonderfully hassle-free convenience. The day after moving into my first apartment, I walked into the Phone Company office in our town and informed them of just that. (The moving-in part, not the walking-in.) The next day a man in a snappy uniform came to my apartment and installed, free of charge, a brand-new telephone. It worked immediately and constantly, but only fully when I was home. It rang when I wasn’t there, but that’s all it did. My physical presence was required for any function beyond that. There was no answering machine, voicemail, paging options or ‘texting.’ I couldn’t help but notice, though, that if it was important, they called back; I never seemed to be ill-informed. There were no such things as ‘dropped calls,’ ‘full mailboxes’ or ‘out of network,’ but there was an amazingly refreshing amount of privacy. People today don’t remember, but it was a pretty cool thing that there were stretches of time where we could not, by any easy means, be reached.
People today wear their telephones as if they were badges, which, of course, they are. What really pisses me off, though, are the ear-pieces. What, did you get Lt. Uhura’s old job? What these things say to me is this: “You are so unimportant to me that I will instantly interrupt our discourse at any time.”
I do find the circular evolution of telecommunications rather interesting, though. We started with the telegraph, went to the telephone, and now we’re back to the telegraph. They just call it ‘texting’ now a days.
--Verbs.
When did “disrespect” and “text” become verbs? Can I tell you when? Never.
That should do for now. I do, however, reserve the right to add to this list at any later date. | | |
| For the first time in a long time, I had my hair cut recently, which is a bitter-sweet event for me of late. Given the status of my hairline, which has gone from ‘receding’ to ‘full-blown retreat,’ I’m not too sure how many haircuts I have left in me, but that is not the main reason for my mixed feelings for such a mundane event.
My maternal grandfather was probably the biggest male influence in my early life. My father was a fine man, a blue-collar Working Man who perhaps was best described as ‘down-to-Earth.’ My grandfather was a gentleman, of minor aristocratic stock. While I’m sure my father would have been proud of me most during my days as a carpenter (working with my hands, using practical skills, operating large, dangerous machinery with deft ease), my grandfather would have been most proud of me today, having settled in a ‘professional’ career (one in which I wear a jacket and tie on a daily basis).
My father taught me how to hunt and fish; my grandfather taught me how to converse. My father taught me how to tie a tie; my grandfather taught me how to wear one. My father taught me how to be at ease in the woods, how to tell directions, and recognize constellations. My grandfather taught me how to relax at a party, how to give direction, and how to recognize situations to avoid. Dad taught me how to read a map, Grandpop how to read people.
I don’t mean to place a higher value on the methods or contributions from either man; I consider them all to be essential. I cherish the weekends on the Potomac River with Dad as much as I do the weekends at the Manasquan Beach with Grandpop. But the haircut thing, well, that’s from Grandpop’s curriculum.
Grandpop always said that among the things a man must require as essential are a mechanic, a tailor and a barber. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I finally found a good mechanic, and his garage is within walking distance. Within a seven-minute drive is my tailor, who does not only excellent but also timely work. Well, two out of three ain’t bad…
But it is the lack of a barber that affects me most often. The last good barber I had was an old gentleman by the name of “Red,” whose shop was under the train station in New Brunswick. By far, the best barber I ever had was Mr LoPresti, whose shop I frequented in college.
I first went to see Mr LoPresti after I’d been cast in “Much Ado About Nothing.” Our production was set in the 1920s, and Mr LoPresti, having been alive back then and one of our company’s season subscription holders, kindly offered to cut our hair for free. It was great. Seven-year old issues of “Outdoor Life” and “Sports Afield” graced the waiting area, combs kept in the ubiquitous blue liquid, it look, felt, and smelled the way a barber shop should, nay, must. But the best part came after my fine haircut when Mr LoPresti asked “Would you like a shave?”
It was glorious. The hot towel, the hot lather, the straight razor freshly stropped, it was the best and closest shave of my life. I had the opportunity to be shaved by barbers since then, but that one stands out above all of them.
Sadly, I no longer have a barber. I now go to a ‘stylist.’ She’s a very nice lady who does a good job on my hair. But, no shave. I fear there is not another barber shave left for me. But, they do wash your hair.
As great as a shave is, having someone else wash your hair can be almost, and I emphasize almost, as satisfying.
But I do miss having a barber. And they are getting harder and harder to find. Perhaps they should be listed on the Endangered Species list. Am I the only one who considers it odd that while we have turned from an industrial to a service economy, the number and overall quality of services have decreased? | | |
|
