Month: June 2004
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I know what you’re thinking — as big a Harry Potter freak as you are and you haven’t written about the movie yet? Well, I hadn’t seen it. At least not until yesterday. You see, I have these two small people living with me. It’s weird how much of my time they take up. It’s also crazy, and you won’t believe this, but they aren’t quiet or still in the movies when I take them!
So we had to wait until the little monkeys were staying elsewhere — in this case with my parents — before we could see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We saw it yesterday afternoon. AT LAST! Waiting that long was agony.
My verdict is that it was great. I think it was faithful to the book with a few small exceptions. I’m not sure what purpose the shrunken heads served, or why the sudden ban on underage wizards in the Three Broomsticks. I really liked the fact that the kids wore street clothes a lot, which made them look like normal kids. I didn’t get to see as much of Hogsmeade as I wanted to, but what I saw was really interesting. I hope the DVD puts in some of those things that were cut.
I rehashed the movie with Steve yesterday. I think we agreed that the actors just keep getting better looking as they grow up. They will be very nice-looking men and women soon. I was a little worried about how the story would fare in the hands of a new director, but I think he did a good job. The movie had a different look, but not so different as to be unrecognizable.
I enjoyed it immensely, and my first thought was that I wanted to see it again immediately. I love losing myself in that world.
I need to get some work done, so I need to get off this computer. I spent way too much time today at J.K. Rowling’s Official Site, which is easily the best writer’s site I’ve visited.
What It Means to Move
I suppose I have contemplated my blog moves over the past few days for several reasons, one of which happens to be that we’re preparing for a physical move.
I am happier here, on my own domain, for several reasons. First of all, I can do whatever I like, and there aren’t limits. No one tells me what kind of files I can upload or how much space I can take up. That’s dictated by how much space I’d like to buy. I bought plenty for much less money than some of my old friends pay to be limited by an old diary service I used to use.
The first time I moved, I didn’t really want to, because I knew it would cost me. But I felt it was necessary, so I did it. And it did cost. It’s weird, but when other people had moved away from Diaryland, I didn’t really keep up with them unless I really wanted to. In fact, Cranky Dragon and Anne are the only examples I can think of. I tried to keep up with others, but I was lazy. Diaryland makes it easy for you to check and see if your favorites have updated — as long as they are also Diaryland users.
So it cost me some readers, because despite the fact that some of those people indicated they wanted to continue to read my writing, I know they didn’t. After some time, I stopped reading theirs too. It was too hard to keep up. And with the exception of about two people, I did give up. No one over there pings Weblogs.com or Blogrolling.com when they update. Yeah, all I have to do is click a link on my blogroll and check, but I don’t do it. Frankly, it would be easy for them to check my site for updates, and they don’t either. We like things simple. We’re lazy. The fact is, I have begun to find myself more attracted to blogs than diaries. They’re shorter, so the investment to read them isn’t as great. Most bloggers I read tend to know more about the web and HTML and produce really interesting sites. When I first started my Diaryland diary, like most people, I didn’t know any HTML.
I really don’t miss it anymore. For a time, yes, I missed being part of a community. After a while, especially once I had my own domain, I realized how limiting a service it was, and I would never go back. Users over there pay more per year for less than I get at my own domain — less space, restrictions on allowable files, restrictions on what you can do, from creating .htaccess files to cgi. They also get horrible customer service. The two times I’ve had to contact the people who host my website, I’ve received immediate response. I’ve never had any problems trying to get access to my site or post an entry, which I cannot say about Diaryland. So for those reasons, I really can’t recommend going to Diaryland for any of you who might not have a diary/blog, but are thinking of starting one.
I’m sure there are other services out there that are pretty good. I haven’t really checked. Upsaid is very good, but they are no longer free. They only cost $2 per month, which is much cheaper than lots of sites, and only a little less than I pay for my server space, which is $3 per month. Upsaid allows lots of different types of files to be uploaded, but there is necessarily a limit on space.
I wanted to tear my hear out trying to install Movable Type, but once I got it running, it was running smoothly. I love it. It’s very easy to use. I like the CSS-rich templates. That makes it easy to change things across multiple pages, which was not true of Upsaid necessarily.
So I guess what I am saying is that this change has been good. I’m really happy here. I can do lots of things with this place if I want to. Or I can just sit here, at my little blog, and be content. It’s whatever I want it to be. And to me, that’s what home should be.
Related posts:
My Grandfather
Through Anne, I found Magnolia Glen and a very touching story about Vickie’s grandfather.
There are some wonderful stories in my own family. I don’t mean wonderful in the sense that they are about happy times or admirable people (although there are those stories, too.). I mean it in the literal sense. Full of wonder. Sometimes I have thought to myself that it sounds like fiction. But then they do say the truth is stranger than fiction.
A couple of years ago my paternal grandfather died. I had never met him. This is due mainly to my father. I have only inklings of how awful his childhood was. I know his mother abandoned him and his three brothers and sister when he was only five. Aunt Debbie was an infant. I know his stepmother was abusive. Reading her letters now, I have a theory that she has schizophrenia. At any rate, the way she strings thoughts together is not normal. I know he was so poor he only owned one shirt in fourth grade. He wore it every day and was teased. I know he ate rice with milk for breakfast, presumably because his family couldn’t afford commercial cereal. I know he has this weird name-brand transfixion that Mom explains by saying he always had to get the cheapest brand of whatever item when he was a kid. And, as kids will, he felt cheated by that. I’m sure back in that time the store brand or generic imitations were probably not as good as they are now. I know that his grandmother, the only person in his childhood who showed him love (so my mother says) died in as horrendous a car accident as you can imagine when he was around 14. I know his stepmother kicked him out of the house when he was 16. He had to fend for himself and try to finish high school on his own. He did. He was the only one of the boys who did. He had a full scholarship to go to college in Florida, but couldn’t afford the air fare. So he joined the Air Force. My father despises his stepmother and didn’t have much care for his father — at least that is how it looked to me. The way it has been described to me, Grandpa was extremely passive and did little to protect his children from the wrath of the stepmother. My mother keeps in touch with her. If this has ever bothered Dad, he never let on. But he won’t have a thing to do with his family. It’s like he took a chainsaw to his family tree and cut off his branch.
That is how I didn’t know about Grandpa’s life until he died. My mother sent me the obituary. I had always known my grandfather was adopted, but we always had the name wrong. His natural mother remarried a man with the last name Leidel (I think), so Dad always assumed that was his father’s last name. It wasn’t. I discovered my grandfather, whom I had always known to be David Edwin Swier was actually born Edwin Guy Gearhart. He was about 10 when he was adopted. I was astounded by this news. I had always assumed he was adopted as a much smaller child, and I never knew that his given name had been changed. According to his obituary, his natural parents had been Omar Alfred Gearhart and Gertrude Nettie Perkins.
I was fortunate to find someone who knew what happened at a genealogy message board. Her father had been one of my grandfather’s natural brothers. She had been to visit some of the other siblings. My great-grandfather, Omar Gearhart, had an accident. Head injury. He was never the same after that. He began drinking. He was abusive to his wife. If memory serves, he was abusive to the children, too. He was murdered by his business partner, leaving Gertrude alone and pregnant, with lots of children to feed. She wasn’t able to find work for herself. The older children got work where they could. But it was the Great Depression. The family began to starve. The younger children lined up, waiting for their turn at Gertrude’s breast. I’m not sure what the older children ate. Gertude was told Washington State authorities were going to come and take her children. She must have felt desperate and scared. It’s possible that the idea that they would be separated, live in orphanages, and never see her again was devastating. She met with her pastor. He brought the issue before the congregation. The congregation adopted the children. They were separated, but most of them allowed the children to remain in contact with their natural mother and siblings. My grandfather must have, because my father clearly remembers his natural great-grandmother and an aunt, an older natural sister of my grandfather’s.
After I found this out, I was asked why I kept the Swier line, which my dad’s second cousin Rick has meticulously researched back to the eighteenth century in the Netherlands, in my family tree. After all, isn’t genealogy all about who you are related to? Where your hair color and hands came from? Isn’t it all about whose blood flows in your veins? I guess it is. But it is also about family, history, and remembering. I personally think what the Swiers did by taking in a starving ten-year-old boy and calling him as much their own as their natural daughters was… wonderful. It speaks to the more admirable qualities of human nature. It speaks of love. And to me, it makes them as much my family as the Gearharts are.
Related posts:
The Virgin Blue
I ordered Tracy Chevalier’s book The Lady and the Unicorn from Amazon after traveling down a winding path of searches for historical research/detective fiction similar to The Da Vinci Code or The Rule of Four, but better because all the pieces of great writing would be tied in together. I still haven’t read The Lady and the Unicorn, but it is my next project.
Where am I going with this? I was at Kroger the other day, and a book display caught my eye. I saw a book by Tracy Chevalier that caught my eye. I thought to myself, didn’t she write that book I ordered? This book was called The Virgin Blue. I picked it up and looked at the synopsis on the back cover:
Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin — two women born centuries apart, yet tied together by a haunting family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start working on a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a strange series of events propels her on a quest to uncover her family’s French ancestry. As the novel unfolds — alternating between Ella’s story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier — a common thread emerges that pulls the lives of the two women together in a most mysterious way.
Okay, that sounded like something I’d like. And it was on sale for several dollars off the suggested retail price. So I put it in my cart and went in search of the milk. I didn’t know it then, but I think that might have been a key moment in my life — my decision to buy that book. After absorbing myself in the book for a few days, looking at the author’s website, and thinking about the ways stories come to us, I realize that I really do want to write more. I do have more stories in me. I just need to sit down, think, and make time to get them out.
The Virgin Blue is Chevalier’s first book. After the success of Girl with a Pearl Earring, I think it was republished in the UK and published for the first time in America. I keep thinking of the threads that tie families together. It has to be more than sharing a similar hair color or nose shape. I think memories are passed down, too. I think I have some of them. I think that might be why some people believe in reincarnation. They don’t know how to explain these flashes of memories or visions about life in another time that seem so clear that it might be confused with their own memories.
The characters in this movie were well-drawn. I liked them all, except for the ones Chevalier didn’t mean for us to like (Etienne Tournier, the awful husband of Isabelle du Moulin). I really liked the storyline, too. Despite shifting between time periods, it was never hard to follow or jerky, and there were often parallels in the two stories. Some people who reviewed Chevalier’s books don’t like the coincidences. I do. I think it speaks to the serendipity of our lives. The twists and turns that take us in unexpected directions. You can play this what-if game. Each person we meet and place we go is like a tapestry we weave into our lives. Pull out a thread and it falls apart. If the color was different, our lives would look totally different. That, to me, is what this book is about. The way we construct ourselves, built on the foundation of our family history. As Faulkner so astutely noted, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”
Good News (At Last)
I seem to have finally found a job. What a relief! More details about that soon.
I was in Athens today, and I released my copy of The Rule of Four. They have built a new parking deck for North Campus, which was something that was sorely needed. I parked there and hiked across one of the quads, past the library, to Park Hall. I opened the door and walked in. The library smell of books. It was so familiar. The grooves worn in the stairs by all the students climbing up to second floor lessons. It was empty. I got a few odd looks from graduate assistants and professors who must have wondered why I was there. I felt embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to see me leave the book. I left it on a bench in the foyer, then left the way I had come.
I think they have done something to the street at the corner of Baldwin and Sanford Dr. I don’t remember there being brick there before, nor posts to keep cars off the stairs next to Park Hall. Has that been a problem? Or maybe it was done to discourage bicyclists and skaters. There are some new buildings, which somehow made it seem easier to hike. I wonder if they had to level some of those hills to build new buildings?
I was just about to slip between Waddell Hall and Lustrat when I looked. The spurt of water caught my eye. There is a fountain there where I used to sit on a wrought iron bench donated by a class in the 1800s. My spot. I started to go over and sit for a moment, but I stopped. I told myself I was being sentimental, and I walked by. I didn’t smell any honeysuckle on the path. I wonder if I just didn’t pass by the right place.
Sometime I wonder if all those Georgia fans, the ones who wear red and black and go to football games, really get that place. Maybe I don’t either. Maybe it’s lots of different things to different people. The whole time I went there, I never went to a single football game. But I often sat by a bubbling fountain on North Campus, on an ancient bench, surrounded by monuments to the history of UGA.
The Rule of Four
At the end of the Author’s Note, Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason state that they are “deeply indebted to those two [Italian Renaissance and Princeton] settings of the the mind.” In the end, I think this book was more about its setting at Princeton than anything else. The setting overwhelmed the plot.
I think The Rule of Four suffers from its frequent comparisons to The Da Vinci Code. The latter is part of a relatively new genre. I’m not sure what you’d call it — historical research thriller? The Rule of Four is less about a centuries-old mystery surrounding a Renaissance book than it is about Princeton and four guys who became friends there.
In The Da Vinci Code, you see characters working on puzzles and watch as they figure out the answers in real time. The biggest mistake the authors of The Rule of Four make is they don’t do that. In this book, a character will solve a riddle offstage and share it with another character later. That made me feel cheated because I didn’t see it happen. The authors also frequently jump back and forth between time. It wasn’t difficult to follow, but it stopped the forward momentum of the plot. As I mentioned earlier, though, the real star of the book in the authors’ minds is the setting. The setting is lovingly, painstakingly rendered in this book to the point that it overwhelms the plot. The writing was good if you’re looking for description, but aside from that, it was mainly allusory (and for the dummies reading the book, the characters describe where the allusions came from).
I almost laughed out loud at the poor narrator at the end. I don’t think it would be giving too much away to say that a 26-year-old man waxing retrospective about events that happened only four years ago and attempting to sound as wizened and reflective as if it happened 40 years ago just didn’t work for me. That, to me, was the youth of the authors showing. I suspect they’ll cringe when they read that chapter in say 20 years or so.
I think the novel is being done a real disservice when it’s compared to The Da Vinci Code. As a coming-of-age novel, it works fine. It wasn’t a real page-turner, per se. I had trouble really caring about the characters. They’re much more realistic and less wooden than Dan Brown’s cardboard cutout stand-ins for plot advancement, but there was still something lacking. Even when I learned Paul is an orphan or Tom nearly died in the car accident that killed his father, I didn’t really feel affected by that. Later on, during the novel’s climax, several bad things happen all at once, and I just didn’t care.
I’m not really sure why this book is the darling of the critics right now. I don’t want to send the message that this book was awful. It wasn’t, or I wouldn’t have finished it. I think I’ve only ever forced myself to finish one awful book (if you follow that link and know me from my former screen name, you’ll see my review). At the same time, the book shows a lack of maturity on the part of the writers. They must not be long out of college, and it shows, because they are still mired in that love-affair with academia. They don’t know about poopy diapers or bills, and it shows. There is little that resembles real life for the over-30 set, but I imagine younger twentysomethings will find much to love in this book. Had I read it at that age, I might have enjoyed it more. It did make me wax nostalgic for college, I admit. But as Thomas Wolfe noted, you can’t go home again. Even if places don’t change (though they often do), we do, and our perspective makes it difficult for us to see things the same way as we once did. Maybe that’s my problem with this book. I’m too far removed from 22 to appreciate it. If I do decide to release this book, I will have to do it on a college campus to be sure it reaches its intended audience.
The Lost Boys
My radio blog offering this time is, well, different. For many of you, this music might be an acquired taste. It’s Renaissance Rock. Well, what rock music would have sounded like had it existed in the Renaissance. Let me introduce The Lost Boys, who perform at the Georgia Renaissance Festival and also do lots of other things around Atlanta in various other incarnations. I happen to think they’re awesome and very clever at filking. Their lyrics are witty and intelligent. I wouldn’t hesitate to share them with students.
The Lost Boys are “Clarence” (Kelley Yearout), guitars and vocals; Johnny Ozbourne (Charles Holmes), bass, guitar, and vocals; Michael Starr (Michael Guss), drums, guitar, percussion, and vocals; and String (Matthew Trautwein), guitar, lute, violin, vocals, banjo, fretless bass, keyboards, mandolin, mouth harp, pennywhistle, percussion, viola, broadsword, machete, and wine bottle.
Before The Lost Boys formed a “group,” I had seen Matthew Trautwein perform several times at the Ren Fest. When I wrote my book, I based my character Dafydd on him. Dafydd was solemn and brown-eyed (in his original incarnation). He was the most serious musician in my group of minstrels. If anyone is interested in my book, I just wanted to say I’m trying to figure out how to share it with my readers. What would work better for you? Subscription to it via e-mail? Reading it over the web? Downloading it as an e-book? I can do any of those. I’m thinking I would probably want to charge about $5.00 for it. Let me know what you think…
Anyway, back to the set list. These tracks come from both Lost Boys albums, Rogues in a Nation and Bedlam, which can be purchased from CD Baby (a company that sells indepedent CDs). I was really happy with their service, so if you like The Lost Boys, I encourage you to order the CDs. They were $12 each. But I have to say that if you can come to the Georgia Renaissance Festival (and let me know, so I can go with you!), you need to check them out live. Their shows have a lot of energy and enthusiasm that doesn’t translate to the recordings.
- Art Thou Ready? (Bedlam) — I begin with this one, because it seems like a great opener. They opened the most recent show I saw with this one.
- Rogues in a Nation (Rogues in a Nation)
- Desdemona (Rogues in a Nation) — If I ever get to teach Othello, I will be sorely tempted to play this excellent plot synopsis for my students. Click here for lyrics.
- Hamlet Blues (Bedlam) — Listen for filks of “Hey, Joe” and “I Used to Love Her (But I Had to Kill Her)”
- The Horn (Bedlam) — from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It
- The Sheriff’s Revels (Dance in Shadow) (Rogues in a Nation) — Rousing instrumental.
- She Moved Through the Fair (Bedlam)
- Henry and Anne (Bedlam) — Little ditty ’bout Henry and Anne…
- Serf Music (Bedlam) — Do you love me, little serf-er girl? Couldn’t resist. Sorry.
- Loch Lomond (Bedlam) — A tune what brings a tear to the eye of any Scotsman. This one included.
- Ode to an Unfetter’d Fowl (Rogues in a Nation) — I have to end with this tune, which is quite literally and figuratively The Lost Boys’ “Freebird.” There’s a definite spark missing from the recording in comparison to the live version. The harmonizing vocals are more pronounced live, and I think there is less of a “lead” vocal. Still, the violin (or fiddle, if you like) solo is great.
The lyrics to “Desdemona” follow. If you want lyrics to the other tunes, let me know.
Oo my little pretty one, my pretty one,
When you gonna give me some,
Desdemona
From your daddy we did run,
Yeah, we did run, but now you’re under
Suspicion, Desdemona
O you dirty ho, Iago, he done told me
You doin’ Cassio, but not no mo,
O why did you have to lie,
Desdemona
I gave you a little gift, a handkerchief,
But now you got me seeing red,
Desdemona
Got it runnin’ through my head,
Got you in bed, ’cause of somethin’
Iago said, Desdemona
O you dirty ho, Iago, he done told me
You doin’ Cassio, but not no mo,
O come on, won’t you tell me why,
Desdemona
Oo I got a pillow here,
Gonna put the pillow on your
Head-demona!
Oo I’m gonna smother you, smother you,
Gonna smother you ’til you’re
Dead-demona,
O you dirty ho, Iago, he done told me
You doin’ Cassio, but not no mo,
‘Cause now you’re gonna die
Desdemona
© 2001 Absolute Music and © 1979 Capitol Records. Wise Brothers Music LLC O/B/O Small Hill Music, ASCAP.
Back to set list.
Interview-o-rama
I had two interviews today — well, yesterday, I guess, since it’s after midnight. About one minute into the first, I told myself that if that job were offered to me, I’d run. What was wrong? It was an alternative school, which I already knew and wasn’t happy about. However, the building was ancient and unkempt. It looked like a prison. The principal was wearing a purple shirt and matching purple reptile-skin shoes. I wish I was kidding. I cringed when I heard him explain the expectations he has for his “inscructors.” He answered the phone twice during the interview — one was a cell call from someone who spoke loudly enough that I could tell it was a family member or friend. How rude. During an interview, I give the interviewer my full attention. I expect the same consideration. The capper? It’s a middle school position. Middle school alternative school with a boss who wears purple shoes? No thanks.
The second was at a somewhat flaky, but interesting private school. We’ll see about that one. One other school is desperate to talk to one of my references. She’s a hard person to catch, so I hope they can get hold of her. If they listen to her, I’ll have that job. I have another interview Monday. Now the faculty at the Monday school would be great to work with, but the school is kind of similar to an inner-city school. Still, if you have a great faculty and good support from the administration, you can have good experiences with those types of settings. Or maybe I’m being optimistic. I do need to look at schools realistically. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are, and I really don’t need to be in a place where discipline is a big problem.
I need to go back and get my Master’s degree. It’s going to be hard with the kids being so young and Steve doing opera. Still, my career seems to be stalling, and I think the lack of the Master’s is one reason why. I also need to get serious about seeking National Board Certification. The money that will cost initially is daunting, but I think it would pay back exponentially.
I’m still working on The Rule of Four. I’m thinking I’ll finish it this weekend. I want to reserve my opinions until I’m finished, but I can tell you already the review will be mixed.
Reunions and Networking
Today, I went to a combination reunion party/retirement party/teacher network opportunity/collaborative examination of the student teaching program from which I graduated in 1997.
I didn’t want to get up and go this morning. My bed was warm. I told myself I might get an interview out of it, though, and that I wanted to see Sally. So I went.
This is Sally. She’s one of the best teachers I’ve ever had, something which is not commonly said about college professors (because they don’t teach — they profess), but is commonly said about Sally. She’s amazing. And she’s retiring. I’m really happy for her, but education is going to be a very different place without her. She leaves behind some big shoes to fill.
As it happens, I was able to snag an interview opportunity today. The English department head for one of the high schools near UGA is deeply involved in the student teaching program that Sally and her frequent collaborator Peg Graham designed.
I will always remember the moment at a GCTE conference several years back when I introduced Sally to Shelia, the other great teaching influence in my life. Shelia was my high school 11th and 12th grade English teacher and later my department head when I went to work at the same school. It is largely because of Shelia that I chose to teach English. It is largely because of Sally that I’m still a teacher. When I introduced these two women, I looked at them and told them they were the best teachers I’d ever had. It meant so much to see them there together, sharing one space.
We filled out memory cards for scrapbooks today, and I forgot to write about this then. I wish I had.