I'm going away this afternoon. My yearly retreat to the Gila National Forest in NM. So, the blog will stay rather sparse. Getting ready for that, and doing all my classwork early has made it impossible to blog, but I'll be back next week. Comments are closed so I don't have a million spams to delete when I get back.
Ta!
The painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt (1907) sold for $135 Million (that's dollars!!!) to a man who will put it in a gallery devoted to Austrian art. Very nice. Still, that's a LOT of money. But it's 30M more than the Picasso that broke the previous record went for.
I know, most of us just shake our heads in bewilderment at the obscene amounts of money that some paintings go for. And people ask me why, and I don't know. However, Jon Stewart over at The Daily show knows. I thought his take was hilarious. He broke it down so that we can all understand the numbers. Before you click the link, be aware that a) it shrinks my browser screen (and could possibly do the same to yours), and b) it plays a commercial first. But it's worth it if you have broadband. Go for it.
I am happy to announce that Monroe's Second Reader is finally available at the store. Worksheets for this one were easier to create because it's a lower level than than the 3rd and 4th readers. This one is for 2nd and 3rd graders. If anyone is interested in a sample, just email me.
In the past few months, I have scanned Monroe's 2nd, 3rd and 4th Readers. I have also scanned Appleton's 3rd and 4th. I had originally thought of these two series as different but equally useful. However, now that I have read every selection in each one, I begin to think that my original choice of Monroe's as the best reader to focus on has been vindicated.
Monroe's Readers are charming. They emphasize common virtues like hard work, kindness, generosity and devotion to God and family. The stories are about children doing everyday things - well, everyday things back in the 1870's. The poems are sweet and uplifting, and there are a lot of them. The stories teach by positive examples as opposed to emphasizing what happens to bad children. And the writing in the 4th reader is wonderful. The biggest drawback of Monroe's Readers is that they have little in the way of exercises to give the child a chance to become more familiar with vocabulary and concepts. So, I remedied that and decided to put them up for sale. The other drawback, which seems most problematic in the 4t Reader, is the emphasis on religion. While this is obviously not a problem for families homeschooling in the Christian traditions, it might put off those who are secular homechoolers. That's why I have a separate package of secular selections pulled from the 4th Reader. I think every homeschooler should be able to use Monroe's Readers without having to do much self-censorship.
The Appleton Readers, although published in roughly the same time period, are very different. I had decided to make them available as scanned editions because they are the only readers that make extensive use of exercises. There are several different exercises at the end of each selection, and they focus on vocabulary, comprehension, and other things like geography and history. After looking at several of the selections, I thought they were just the kind of thing that should be made available to the public in a scanned form. However, now that I have read every story in the 3rd and 4th readers, I begin to have my doubts. Where Monroe offers more charming stories of average children, Appleton offers more stories about animals. That would not be so bad, except that, like Disney and his Bambi syndrome (I hated Bambi as a child and have not seen it since the first time I saw it in a theater in the mid-60s), these animals tend to die or get killed off at an alarming rate. In one story from the 3rd reader, a man travelling by horse with his dog stopped for a nap by the side of the road. He told the dog to guard his saddle bags, which were full of gold. When he got up, he rode off, and the dog ran after him, barking like crazy. Thinking the dog had gone mad, he shot (!) his own dog, who ran off in the direction he had come. The man followed and discovered his dead dog still guarding his saddle bags. Now I ask you, is this any kind of story for a child? The grade level would probably be 4th or 5th grade, but it's still a bit brutal. And what does it teach? Nothing useful, as far as I can tell.
Then there's the story in the 4th Reader (5th and 6th grades) of the race between the hedgehog and the hare, in which the hedgehog cheated by sending his wife to the finish line to make the hare think the hedgehog was ahead of him.
"So the Hare went on, running backward and forward three-and-seventy times. The seventy-fourth time, however, he did not reach the end of the field; in the middle of the furrow he dropped down dead. But the Hedgehog took the three artichokes and the three onions he had won, called his wife out of the furrow, and away they jogged merrily home together; and if they are not dead, they are living still."
There's a bedtime fable the kiddies will ask for again and again! And the moral is ... anyone? .... anyone? "This story teaches how the cunning of mind is superior to brute force." Cool! Cheat your way to success and kill off the competition.
I realize I'm not doing a very good job of selling these particular readers to anyone reading this blog. However, I would add that these two stories are the extremes. There are several interesting stories involving children, too. Most of the stories, whether about animals and children, are more tame, although the animals do often die, as they are wont to do in real life as well. Since I don't believe in censorship, I offer these Readers in their entirety with perhaps a warning printed before a particularly nasty bit. And I still think they are as useful as Monroe's Readers because they present the child with the rich language of a bygone era that allows them to become comfortable enough to read the classics.
In fairness, I would add that there is one story in Monroe's 3rd Reader that has a warning due to the fact that dogs are treated none too kindly. So even Monroe is not all sunshine and daisies.
I haven't posted in a while, I know. I've just been busy with other stuff, particularly my three new MLS classes, shaving soap-making research, and a new reader for the store (Monroe's Second Reader, with worksheets, to be released on next week.) I've also been to the doctor for a ringing in my ears (with hearing loss) which seems to be getting louder and louder. I have an MRI scheduled for Monday morning, and will be seeing an Ear/Nose/Throat doctor week after next. Keeping my fingers crossed that it's nothing serious. Also, haven't had much interesting to say. Perhaps next week.
This test was right on target.
You are a moderate Democrat. You agree with Democrats more often than not, but have misgivings about some of their positions on key social issues, as well as their ability to defend the country. You remain supportive for now, but if Democrats keep moving to the left and taking their cues from people like Michael Moore, you may decide to jump ship.
What's Your Political Profile? A Political Cartoon Rorschach Test.
(Hat tip to Anger of Compassion.)
If you like Jane Austen, musicals and Bend it Like Beckham, you must see Bride and Prejudice. It's a modern adaptation of Jane Austen's novel with a Punjabi twist. People will start singing and dancing at the drop of a hat. The musical numbers are colorful, energetic, and most definitely Indian. There's not as much of that high, nasally female singing that you get in true Bollywood vehicles (fortunately) but it still feels like one. And this movie is truly "multi-cultural." Along with the Inidan numbers, there are Mariachis, a black gospel choir, and - wait for it - Morris dancers. This is a fun movie.
By Eizabeth Moon
I had heard great things about this book; it's a Nebula award winner, I had seen great reviews, and I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Moon. But for some reason, I just did not get this book.
Lou Arrendale is an autistic man living in the not-too-distant future. He has had treatments and education that have made it possible for him to function well enough to hold down a job, live in his own apartment, and drive a car. But he and the others like him where he works are still "different." The story is basically that he gets stalked by an unstable acquaintance outside of work and bullied by his new boss at work. The real conflict is that there is an experimental "cure" for his condition, and he and his co-workers are forced to decide whether they want to try it or not.
Most of the book is told from Lou's point of view, in first person, present tense. The problem I had was that I never felt I was reading the thoughts of someone who was really unique. His language seemed artifically stilted, he sometimes had trouble understanding people, and he was a very sensitive person who had trouble dealing with social situations. But I found his interior monologue tedious after the first few chapters. It was like Moon was trying to convince me that Lou really was different by telling me over and over again how awkward he felt. I was never convinced. For a while I thought her point was that he wasn't so different, and the treatment was unecessary or a mistake. But that didn't seem to be it.
Perhaps it's because I have many of Lou's problems. Now, wait, I have never been considered as even slightly autistic, but I hate social situations and dread talking to people face to face - I'm great from behind a podium. I constantly wonder if I have offended someone with something I said, or if they are angry with me. I rarely look people in the eye. I have to remind myself and force myself to do it, but it feels unnatural to me. New situations make me nervous, and I will often avoid going new places by myself. These are the type of things that made Lou "different." So how could I see him as all that "different?"
I did enjoy his brief explorations into complex subjects like what is the speed of dark. Lou argued that if light has a speed, dark must have one also. But his philosophical and scientific ideas were a very small part of the book, not enough to make it that interesting. I would really like to hear from someone else who has read the book and can explain why it's considered "splendid," "graceful," "compelling," etc, etc. What did I miss?
A friend of mine recently inroduced me to BookCrossing.com. It's a very cool idea: members release books "into the wild" and track them using numbers written on the inside of the books. The website is free and the books are free. But it isn't the free books that I find attractive (I've got wazoo books), it's the thrill of the hunt. I looked at the list of books currently released in El Paso, and there are actualy more than two! Very nice. I will be testing this out soon.
