Black helicopters part 3

We've replaced the exhaust fan in the downstairs bathroom and no sign of black helicopters. We have the corroboration of two electricians. It's not just us saying there are no black helicopters. We could add the testimony of four cats who are not the least bit disturbed about going into the downstairs bathroom. That makes eight eyewitnesses to the absence of black helicopters.

Clay

What a coincidence. Reading Joyce's "Clay" with my students tomorrow, and next Wednesday is All Hallow's Eve. Couldn't have planned it better if I had planned it.

Why hasn't anyone made a film of Ulysses or Invisible Man? There are two films of Little Dorrit. Nobody's fault.

word cloud

My ears caught the phrase "word cloud" in the CNN post debate discussion.

I read a review of the new film based on the novel Cloud Atlas in Sunday's New York Times.

The forecast for tonight is "Partly Cloudy."

I will ask my students to create a WORDLE based on the text of a poem they are studying.

A WORDLE is a word cloud that shows the dominance of word patterns in a body of text, much as a weather report predicts a dominant pattern of humidity, precipitation, and wind.

Penn and Ellison

Listening all day for hours. Not just listening, but also evaluating and reflecting.

My juniors began their formal oral performances today. They were well prepared and quite good. Most had taken the time to consider a personal, original, creative approach to interpretation on at least one outstanding bit of writing they found in Ellison's Invisible Man. I listened to five presentations each fifty-minute period for chapters eight through thirteen.

After a grocery stop, I had about an hour at home for reflection and chores before my husband arrived. He has been reflecting about his experience with his various reels, having spent last week carrying the bits of a Penn reel to work, cleaning away encrustations and assessing the viability of vulnerable parts like the crab-claw-shaped spring that has something to do with the bale closing. I asked him-- You used to work on your own bicycle, right? Yes, stripped it down to the frame-- he said, with a grin. That is a valuable and satisfying skill. Of course he is considering what his next reel will be. I observed-- I wouldn't want to have a reel I couldn't work on like that. He agreed.

Until this moment I had not made the connection between the two incidents of listening I engaged in today. To strip a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence, a word down to the frame and then put the whole back together again-- that is a valuable and satisfying skill. Beyond a skill, really, an artful and personal expression of one's world view. That takes time to find.

Movement

The movement of a butterfly as it flies around a flowering bush reminds me that nothing stands still and nothing is so fragile as time.

Black helicopters part 2

I may have spoken too soon about the black helicopter infestation in the downstairs bathroom. The exhaust fan in the ceiling started making a horrible grating, failing noise last night.