If you are interested in hosting the next edition of the Literature Carnival, please contact me. Gawain is unable to do it, and I will be out of town. If we don’t have any takers, the next carnival will appear on July 8.
Literature Carnival, Fourteenth Edition
Welcome to the Literature Carnival!
Did you know that Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog (E-I-E-I-O)? Go check it out. It’s very well-done and quite funny. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned the efforts of bloggers on behalf of Henry David Thoreau or Samuel Pepys before. If you know of others, please make sure to submit them for the next carnival.
Joe Kissell shares information about the Bodleian Library at the Interesting Thing of the Day.
Ali Eteraz presents his short work “Divine Retribution.”
The big news this fortnight is that Donald Hall has been selected as our new poet laureate. Matthew Sollars at the Oxford UP Blog has more.
Product placement is a fact of life in film. The folks at Gawker take issue with its use in literature.
You can check out the latest edition of the Carnival of Children’s Literature over at Here in the Bonny Glen.
Knowing your Hamlet is becoming more “attractive and viable” in today’s world.
Check out Ashok’s commentary on Emily Dickinson’s “What I can do — I will” at Ashok’s Blog.
Why do we read anyway? I agree with Whosit.
Thanks for stopping by. Remember that we really can use your submissions. The next edition will be hosted by Gawain and will appear on July 1, barring any unforeseen circumstances.
Last.fm
I was thinking about downloading Flock, even though I am a very loyal Firefox user. It looks like it will be really good for blogging, especially the two carnivals I regularly host. I was checking out Flock’s article “Introducing Flock Beta 1,” and I noticed in their sidebar that they had a playlist of Pixies music linked to something I hadn’t heard of called Last.fm. I went and checked it out, and it’s so cool! You download a plugin and software, search for artists you like, and it find a “station” playing that sort of stuff. At least that’s how I understand it. You can skip tracks if you want, too. I wonder what the RIAA will make of it, but then again, you aren’t actually downloading the songs. It’s more like creating your own custom radio station that plays what you like. It does seem to be a relatively painless way of trying out music before you buy, too.
Self-Conscious? I Guess it Just Depends
I stopped by Kroger on the way back from my school, where I picked up the flash drive I had left in the back of the computer in my classroom and a laptop I checked out for use at an upcoming conference I’m attending. The woman behind me in line had a frightening countenance, garishly painted in the most unnatural hues. The John Cougar Mellencamp song “Jack and Diane” was playing over Kroger’s music system. She was singing along, and not quietly. I tried to ignore her, but it got to be too difficult. I noticed that she was purchasing a package of small/medium Depends in a bright pink plastic bag. If I was buying something like that, I’m not sure I’d be drawing attention to myself by singing really loudly along with the store music, but that’s just me. Then as the checker was processing her purchase, she started to put the Depends in a plastic grocery bag. The woman stopped her, saying she didn’t need a bag.
The incredulous clerk asked, just to be sure, “You don’t want a bag?” Let me finish her thought — you don’t mind carrying this big bag of adult diapers into the parking lot where everyone can see it?
The strange customer said, “No, it has handles on the top.”
Sure enough she carried the bag out into the parking lot, hopped into her car, and sped off.
Busy Day
This morning, I was re-certified as a CPR/First Aid first responder. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a good CPR class. Everything was very clear and easy to understand with plenty of time for practice. We even got to practice the Heimlich maneuver. I have been told how to do this in every class I’ve taken, but it was really valuable to actually get a chance to try it on a dummy. My grandmother saved my life by performing the Heimlich maneuver on me when I was 11. We also learned how to use a defibrillator and epipen, neither of which I knew. I think it was the best CPR/First Aid class I’ve ever taken.
This afternoon, those of us who were interested were treated to a tour of the new school building, which is currently under construction. I got to see my classroom in its current unfinished state, and it will be big.
So today was the last day! Post-planning is over, and I’m done. In two weeks I’m going to a workshop with the biology teacher and one of the English teachers. I have some reading I’ll need to do for that class. Matter of fact, I have some summer reading to do, as I think (at least I was led to believe) I’d be teaching seniors next year, and I’ve not read any of their summer reading selections before.
I am going to relax a little bit, but I have a lot of planning I want to do this summer.
Related posts:
Clarification
In case I offended anyone… I did not mean to imply that Steve’s readers are all whack jobs. That said, I’m sure some of them are, but I probably wasn’t talking about you. Unless I was.
Related posts:
Comment Strangeness
Steve doesn’t look in on what I write, so I’m probably safe in posting this, but then again, there might be two people who read his blog who know I exist and visit here, so I might be better off minding my p’s and q’s. Nah.
I don’t keep up with Steve’s blog for two reasons: 1) a childish indignancy over the fact that he doesn’t keep up with mine, boring though it most likely is; and 2) the true-crime stuff is ghoulish, and I don’t like reading about it. Anyway, if I want to know about “secret infections, hidden deformities, assaults upon children” (“Good Country People,” Flannery O’Connor), then I can count on my mom. Every once in a while, however, I do check in to see what’s what.
Steve’s blog is fairly popular, and he has captured the notice of journalists. He has appeared on several TV programs, most notably, Dateline, as a true-crime talking head. He knows that journalists read his blog and groused mightily one recent evening about one talking head in particular whom he feels regularly pirates his work. I am supportive of Steve, but I stay out of it. In a way, I think he likes it like that. I think it keeps him grounded. After reading comments on a recent post, I guess I can see why he’d need that. I was kind of trying not to retch over the fact that the majority them were so, well, fawning is a word that comes to mind. Steve’s just a regular guy. He farts. He belches. He breathes. You’d almost think he was on some other plane based on the comments he gets on his blog and MySpace (me — I’m still holding strong against getting one). It’s kind of scary to me on one level, because these folks don’t seem to realize he’s just a person like they are. People who have that sort of opinion of a television personality, writer, musician, or what have you are probably, for the most part, OK; there are always weirdos, however, and true-crime brings them out of the woodwork.
Jealous? Nah, I’m not, though I admit it would be a logical conclusion to reach. Steve’s online writing has always been more popular than mine, and I accepted it a long time ago. I do what I do, and I let him get on with doing what he does. If I was truly jealous, I don’t know that we could make our marriage work. Seriously. It would be a bit like professional jealousy, and I can think of plenty of marriages that professional jealousy has torn apart. Comments are nice. I don’t mind getting them. But if I am writing to fish for complimentarly comments, I’m writing for all the wrong reasons, and I’m wasting everybody’s time, mine included. A cursory look at this blog and any other blog I keep (note the lack of updates) should tell you I write when and what I feel like.
Nah, I’m not jealous. If you want to know the truth, I’m glad my blogs aren’t popular. I would feel more compelled to update, and that’s a burden I don’t want. I have watched Steve become increasingly chained to his blog, and it worries me. If I didn’t think perhaps money might come out of it (sooner or later, anyway), then I think I would be more alarmed than I am. I can see that what he is trying to do is lay the foundation for a career, and I am trying to support that. I don’t know if I could stand being in the spotlight, such as it is, like Steve is.
So if I’m not jealous, what’s my problem? Why do the comments on Steve’s blog and MySpace bother me? These folks are most likely quite normal, but what if they’re not? We already had a run-in with one reader/commenter who actually lives nearby and claimed to have been in trouble with the law for stalking. When I became uncomfortable with the level of communication between her and Steve and let them know, she at first apologized, then later, sent a scathing e-mail accusing me of over-reacting in the extreme (sorry — just a little worried about that record of stalking she had) and inventing the problem, which would most likely result in the demise of my marriage. What I am worried about is how many of these weirdos are out there, putting my husband on a pedestal of sorts (and blowing smoke up his rear). It’s hard to keep your head when stuff like that is happening, or so I would suppose. I wouldn’t like to see Steve start buying into it too much. I also don’t want to be attacked by some nut who thinks she’s his destiny.
So far, so good, and all I have to do is ruminate over these things. I am just hoping it stays that way. I wouldn’t want either of us to wind up on some rival crime blog or anything.
Dateline: To Catch a Predator
How many times has Dateline done the “To Catch a Predator” thing now? And yet, they still show up. You’d think they would learn… some of them had even seen the former programs and still showed up. What’s really scary to me is that these men are the tip of the iceberg. How many predators are really meeting up with children in their homes and victimizing real children?
Literature Stuff
My principal asked me today if I would like to teach a senior short story English seminar next year. Hell yes! Anyway, I have been scoping online for some ideas for texts. If you know of any good short story collections, either anthologies or single authors, please let me know. I have written a tentative list of texts I’d like to try out. In my travels, I came across Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain.” I am one of the few people who hasn’t seen this movie yet — it’s hard to get out and see movies like that with small children. Anyway, I was blown away by the spare language and vivid images. It was amazing. Her writing reminds me of Cormac McCarthy — some of the prettiest language I’ve ever seen. I had no idea the movie was based on a short story. What was interesting to me is that Proulx manages to convey the notion of two people in love; even though they are the same gender, you don’t think about that. I don’t know how she does it, because Proulx certainly doesn’t spare details or mince words. She’s direct and matter-of-fact. It just is. And you just ache for Ennis and Jack.
In other news, if you are in my area, you might want to go check out a reading and signing of Matthew Pearl’s new book The Poe Shadow (which was released recently) on Monday, June 19 at the Dekalb Library/Georgia Center for the Book at 7:00 P.M. I have it, but I’ve not read it yet. I received an e-mail from Matthew Pearl a couple of months ago when he came across a post on my classroom blog inviting my students to read and discuss the novel over the summer. I don’t know how many times I mentioned The Dante Club in class this year. As much as my students love Poe, I imagine they’d like this book. He invited me to say “hi” if I could make it to his Atlanta appearance, so of course I’m going. As one of my students quipped, “It sounds like a date to me, Mrs. Huff.” See you there if you’re going.