June 23: Anne LaMott Rides Again

School ended Wednesday and in the time since, I have hired two fabulous new teachers, Pam and Dave Rawson, who will be teaching math and chemistry next year but very likely lots of other things too, related or unrelated.  I have also talked to parents and kids, worked on getting us together this summer (comment or email me if you are up for an evening gathering of Magic…er, the Gathering, or for an outside cleanup or other volunteer event), discussed curriculum with teachers, and worked on plans for our school orientation and team building for the fall.

For those of you reading my blog because you only want to see math-related items…nevermind. NO ONE is reading my blog for only math related items.  Because there is no such thing.  It’s all connected.  Math, science, cooking, quilting, gaming, tree climbing, dancing, turtles, cookies, ipads, wood carving, and the Westing Game.  That is to say, I will be continuing this blog, as I have started it.  It is a place where I put ideas and links and stories that I discover or am told (by actual human beings that I know or by actual human beings and their virtual storytelling machines…blogs, vlogs, tweets and the like) so that I can tell them again.  The blog originally started as an augment to my memory.  It has turned out to be good at many other things, including helping me think more carefully or deeply about some things as well as prompting discussions with people I would not otherwise have been in discussion with.

So what about Anne LaMott?

Well, my two favorite books about writing are Bird by Bird by Anne LaMott and Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.  They helped get me through grad school and are books I go back to.  My good friend and fabulous English teacher Jean reports that she loves Stephen King’s On Writing and it is on my list for this summer, but so are a lot of books.  In any case…

Anne LaMott describes in the beginning of her book that she had to do a school report on birds once, as a kid, and she procrastinated and found herself having to do the whole report in one night.  Her father’s advice to her was “bird by bird, honey.  Bird by bird.”

The end of the school year was wild and wonderful as always, but this year was even wilder and more wonderful by the fact that for all intents and purposes, I was ending one school year while beginning another.  I have not written anything here in a while.  I suspect if you look back at last year, the same thing happened.

So.

I find myself in the position we ALL find ourselves in from time to time, not knowing exactly how to start a really big project, or how to get caught up when we feel so behind.  But I take heart in the fact that I really do think it is all connected, and if I share here what I am thinking about now, it will adequately represent what I was thinking about last month.  And also, bird by bird, baby.  So this isn’t everything, but it is a start.  And as I have to run off to meet a potential Baxter family this afternoon, I will offer up just a few birds, little ones.  But things I have been thinking about or interested in.

1.  I taught my daughter Temple.  A game that five teenagers taught me.  It is really fun, and we are working hard to indoctrinate the entire neighborhood.  Wanna play?

2.  Just read Equations of Life this morning, by Simon Morden.  An actual paperback book purchased on the way back from the Sting concert in Bangor, on the waterfront.  I have never been to a concert there, but I hope I only ever go to concerts there in the future.  It was outside; it was beautiful; the sound was wonderful; there were fries.  What more could I want?  A book.  so I bought this one.  Wonderful post-apocalyptic sci-fi and the first of three.  Here’s Simon’s bio:

Dr. Simon Morden, B.Sc. (Hons., Sheffield) Ph.D (Newcastle) is a bona fide rocket scientist, having degrees in geology and planetary geophysics. Unfortunately, that sort of thing doesn’t exactly prepare a person for the big wide world of work: he’s been a school caretaker, admin assistant, and PA to a financial advisor. He’s now employed as a part-time teaching assistant at a Gateshead primary school, which he combines with his duties as a house-husband, attempting to keep a crumbling pile of Edwardian masonry upright, wrangling his two children and providing warm places to sleep for the family cats.”

I love how science-y and writer-y he is.

3.  From Explore, a map of skin color.  Click here for just a little bit more.

4.  From Maria Popova at Brain Pickings.  (Hard to just pick one, but here’s one, more in a few days, or better, just SIGN UP.  She is awesome.)  A few weeks ago Brain Pickings linked me to a New York Times article on biking in the city, setting up five races and seeing which mode of transportation got you through a journey faster.  This was really fun to read.  And it would be great to recreate in Portland or in any of the places where we live.  Here’s the link.  Here is one of the routes they tested:

 

5.  From Joe Hanson.  Again, he led me to some very interesting places this week, but I’ll just share one.  He sent a tweet linking to a site “Analyzing social networks in The Iliad and Beowulf to determine if they are based in truth. Mythical Facebook.”  In other words, people went through the myths, the written records that we very often take to be fictional, even if based on real events, and discovered that the number of people, the ways in which they relate to one other, correlate to those we can study on facebook or twitter or linkdin.  The researchers suggest that this might be evidence that the stories are true.  Alternatively, it seems to me that perhaps the writers were just…well, really good writers, good observers of the human experience.  Either way.  Very cool.  Here’s the link for more, very readable, information on this, and also a picture.  That will be very mysterious and hopefully will make you want to read more.

6.  Finally, two pictures.  This one forwarded by a friend in NJ:

And one to click, so that the Fascinating Photos people get their fair share of kudos.  Europe from Space.  Click HERE.

I am off, but will continue to post during the next week.  I have topic suggestions from parents at Baxter and more birds to write about in the way that I usually do.  If YOU have suggestions or wishes, please do not hesitate to comment.

LaForge