Read Bleak House by RSS feed!

I googled Literature 2.0 and found this post by Jakob Korab about a web site called Daily Lit that makes it possible for you to read books by email. You sign up for the RSS feed, and you get the book delivered to you in installments. Since Bleak House is in the public domain, I can read it for free. If I can spend five minutes looking a Cute Overload everday, I can spend five minutes reading some Dickens, no?

Tempting, tempting!

ETA: You can also read both parts of El Quijote in Spanish

Two elections

The landscape of the U.S. presidential election campaign is becoming less populated as candidates drop out: Kucinich was the one whose proposals most closely match my views (impeach now!) but I never expected him to gain major popular support; Giuliani is a fascistic creep, and I'm so glad he has dropped out; but John Edwards? I'm sorry he's gone. He had detailed proposals on health care, campaigned on issues of poverty, which need to be talked about but are getting lost in the "horse race" style of coverage we are subjected to. I thought his campaign pushed the others to be less evasive. The comment thread on the Crooks and Liar announcement (one of my favorite blogs for reporting on the political ins and outs) gives a sample of reactions among more lefty political junkies. Nezua from the Unapolagetic Mexican posts the text of an endorsment of Obama by the Mexican-AMerican Political Association (MAPA) that lists many of the concerns that we want to see addressed by the candidates, but that are seldom talked about in public in meaningful way.

I'm afraid we are in for several months of extremely irritating he said/she said bickering, in part because of the internal party struggles over delegates and the primary process, which most people don't understand, and which the press declines to explain adequately. But a lot of folks are fired up, so I refuse to be cynical.

There are other elections coming up: Spain will hold elections in March, and it's hard to predict which parties will come out on top. Since the system often requires that the major party make an alliance with a smaller one in order to govern, it's not just a question of winner takes all, but also how the smaller parties use the big ones to their strategic advantage.
eCuaderno.com's JL Oriheula has put up this link to a page on the General Elections in Spain, if you are interested in taking a break from the Hillary/Obama/McCain fest. This link presents the resources for citizens to not only follow the campaign, but interact with the democratic process online, what they are calling "ciberdemocracia", through all the Web 2.0 resources including flikr, google, youtube, social networking, etc. I am particularly interested in how many political figures are writing their own blogs, not just putting up sites run by a campaign.

Johnny Weir

St Paul hosted the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship event this past weekend. I have always enjoyed watching skating, and during the 2006 Olympics I especially noted the American skater Johnny Weir when he performed a routine called The Swan. He didn't start ice-skating until he was 12, but in a few years became three-time national champion and world competitor. He is known for his sheer talent, and his artistic, graceful and musical skating. Instead of just hustling around between big jumps, he includes lots of difficulty in all aspects of skating, as well as a level of style and fabulousness that is more commonly associated with the women skaters. This routine, Fallen Angels was something he and a pair of other Olympic skaters put together for the Tour of Champions--a program for three dancers that doesn't involve a furry costume!
He had a rough period, and decided to change coaches and focus on the next Olympics. He has been criticized for a lack of discipline and athleticism (which to some meant he needed to butch it up a little). This weekend, he won the short program and he and his main rival Evan Lycasek tied for total overall points, but because Evan won the long program (by a fraction of a point!), Weir came in second. He skated conservatively in some ways, but attempted the quad (the holy grail of men's skating!), and his fans adore him no matter what. He speaks some Japanese and Russian. He has matured in the last few years, and seemed to be genuinely centered and strong in both his programs this weekend.
ETA: great Johnny Weir-Mika mashup "Any Other World"

What is this "blogging" thing of which you speak?

I have failed miserably in my attempts to get my family to read or comment on my blog, even though I started it to share pictures and news with them and have BEGGED them to comment! Yoohoo! Mom? Sis? Daughter? Guys? Help me out here, give me a comment! Delurk already!

If you want to know more about the whole blogging phenomenon, Sarah Boxer has a great review at the New York Times Review of Books, with a list of several new books about blogs and blogging, and some choice quotes from bloggers. She gives a good explanation of what a blog is, what kinds of things make it fun, and what it can do that other kinds of writing can't. Of course there is much more to say on the matter, which is why all those people are writing all those books.
My favorite quotation is from Twisty, blogger at I Blame the Patriarchy, the first blog I started to read regularly and the blogger who inspired me to buy a digital camera so I could take pictures of food. Alas, Twisty seems to have lost interest in blogging, much to the sadness and dismay of her commentariat, who miss her compelling story of cancer treatment, her photos of food, her articulate and funny rants about radical feminism, and the bumptious community of commenters. Yeah, not everybody liked her, but I found her to be a consistently entertaining and articulate voice. She also had a reading club moment when she got a lot of people to read Shulamith Firestone (at their request) together. But she has more or less stopped posting, without formally announcing she's ending the blog. This happens. Blogging can be something people do for years, and then they decide, for good reasons (it's taking too much time, they got that book contract, they don't feel the urge any more) to stop. But quite often you can still read them in the archives.

Historian tells of being assaulted by Atlanta police for jaywalking

Felipe Fernández-Armesto is an Oxford don, a historian who holds the Principe de Asturias Chair at Tufts University and author of 19 books, who is respected around the world for his work. I happen to have assigned one of his articles for my students to read this week.

While attending a History conference in Atlanta, he crossed the street, on his way from one conference hotel to the other across the street, along with crowds of other conference participants. Apparently, the off-duty policeman who had been hired by the Hilton to direct people to the crosswalk was tired of being ignored by snotty history professors.

I'm posting the three parts of his interview on YouTube because he is a wonderful storyteller. Part 1 tells of his grievous offense (jaywalking and talking back)and how he was assaulted by the police and arrested before the horrified eyes of the other history professors crossing the road.

Part 2 tells of the eight hours he spent in the Atlanta detention center, his hearing before the judge on criminal charges, and his fears that this would affection his residence status:

Part 3 is where he reflects on the experience and utters the Spanish curse "Pleitos tengas y los ganes" to explain why he decided not to sue the city of Atlanta.

What is Web 2.0?

I'll be participating in a symposium on the impact of emerging digital technologies and social networking tools on politics, the arts, journalism, business and education. Here is some of my homework:

Un documental en castellano:


"The Machine is Using Us" is a very famous visual only presentation by Prof. Michael Wesch at Kansas State University. He shares his collective experiences in the classroom at mediatedcultures.net

This is hot.

Video remix of Aretha Franklin's Rock Steady.

C2003 Rock Steady (Tribal Mix) FlashFlood Ent.

Learning Japanese, again.

When I was 5,my father (a doctor in the Army at the time) was stationed in Japan. We lived there for four years, on an army base called Sagamihara. Everything on the base was done to minimize culture shock to those moving in and out, so we (as children) were very cut off from Japanese society. My father did learn to speak Japanese, and my mother did study Japanese arts, and we went on vacations and traveled, but for some reason my parents didn't decide to have us learn Japanese then. When we got back to the States, I was able to begin studying Japanese in high school, and later started taking classes while I was in graduate school. Unfortunately, I also had to satisfy a Latin requirement, and stopped taking Japanese to finish my degree. I've forgotten most of what I learned, but with my daughter's interest in anime and manga, and with a friend's experiences and knowledge of the language, I've been starting to remember.

The web is great for language learning. Here is a page I found that tells you what words are used for family members, or kinship terms. There are different words depending on whether you are talking about your own family (address terms) or someone else's (reference terms). Takasugu Shinji has a site for teaching yourself Japanese and there are also podcasts on ITunes.

Back to winter

Today the snow is squeaking when we walk, it's so dry. *queek queek queek* This Canadian podcast answers the question of why it makes that sound, after an obnoxious intro. Gotta love those Canadian O sounds!

My buddy Leo is so happy that I am back. Ana and Jose took great care of him, giving him lots of attention. There is a veritable shag rug of fur everywhere, but my Dyson Animal Hair vacuum will make short work of it--once I get a chance to use it! Maybe I should try this?

I taught my first two classes today, after correcting, printing and photocopying the syllabus for each one. I filled two grocery bags with junk mail from home and work. So much paper!

The car's battery was dead, but AAA jumped me and I got home fine last night. But it was dead again this morning, not a surprise really, so tomorrow I'll get it replaced. I took the express bus to campus, and I think I'll be taking the bus a lot more from now on. It stops a block away, takes about the same time as driving, but lets me off about a fifteen minute walk from my office. I can use the exercise--or rather my friend Mr. Belly could use it.

Leaving Cork

I return to Minneapolis today, accompanied by my new friend Mr. Belly. Four weeks of holiday feasting will do that to you. I enjoyed every minute of it. It's about 4:45 Am and I'm about to wait for a shuttle to the airport. Then it's Cork city-Amsterday, wait wait wait wait, then Amsterdam Minneapolis. Somewhere in the air I will live those seven hours difference in time zone, so even though I return ths evening, I'm rather sure my eyes will be spinning in my head. I must ransom my car from airport parking (a story, that one) and return to salute my furry friend, whose fur will have been deposited in a fine layer over every surface in my house.
Tomorrow is teaching day, so vaccuuming will probably have to wait. The conference was a total blast. I had such a good time, and feel refreshed and inspired.At the last minute I was able to join some folks on a little excursion to Blarney Castle, set in lovely grounds, and semi-ruined. yes, I kissed the Blarney Stone, not that I needed to, but hey. It was surprisingly scary! But I also saw snowdrops, daffodils, and azaleas, along with a huge Cedar tree. I cannot wait to return to Ireland. Our hosts Nuala and Jane were fantastic. I have eaten enough scones to last a lifetime.

On the road

My last night in Zaragoza. Tomorrow I'll take the train to Madrid and spend the night with some lovely friends who will be kind enough to help me get to the airport on time the next day.
I'll hang out in the Amsterdam airport for a few hours, then I'm off to Cork City, Ireland for four days, two of them for a conference. I am so thrilled to be visiting Ireland for the first time. It's had such a large place in my imagination all my life since my father's family is Irish, even though I never really knew them well.

Then it's back to Minneapolis, the snow, and a house that will surely be coated with a deep layer of cat hair.

1st anniversary and work

Today is Blas and Loren's first wedding anniversary! We will celebrate with some friends tonight. So I am working hard to finish up some projects before the dinner

I'm trying out a new (to me) web-based Course Management System (CMS) called Moodle. It is supported by the University, but is available for free more widely, and in many languages. One of the virtues of such a CMS is that I can give students access to articles, videos, and other material in a way that does not violate the Fair Use terms of copyright (because the site is only open to the participants). This means I can include more than books and article, and also that I can point students toward resources for research that exist online.

I decided to use Moodle instead of a previous type of CMS called WebVista because the interface (the instructions to the students, etc) can be set up in Spanish, not just English. It also has more tools of the type I am interested in; in addition to a discussion forum, for example, each student can also have a private blog, that I can view but other students cannot, that can serve as a journal. This way students can post to the forum and read each other's ideas, but also keep a journal of the type I used to have turn in in paper form. I've found that a journal with weekly entries is a great way to see if the students are doing the work I've assigned because they have to engage with it in order to write about it. The open discussion gives students a chance to talk to each other, in Spanish, outside of class but about class topics; they can use it to prepare for the discussion, develop ideas they'll use in their writing, and learn from each other's experiences and expertise, not just from me. Moodle also allows one to set up writing workshops where students can do peer review, form groups so students can work together online and develop multimedia projects that they can post for others (podcasts, powerpoint, video, text documents, images).

I'm trying to keep my sites simple and clean, since this is the first time I'm using them, and not load on to many bells and whistles. I don't want to create busywork for students, and I also need to be able to manage this effectively.

I've spent the last two days racing to put the finishing touches on the site because I now have to finish writing this paper for the conference I'm going to in Ireland (yay!) and all of this has to be done by Monday night because I'll be on the road until the night before classes start. I know there will be things to tweak on the sites, but they are more or less done, or done enough for now.

I'm working of finishing the paper, but I think I need to take a break, take a walk, or my brain will stop working.

Arcade Fire

I just fell in love with Arcade Fire's first CD, Funeral. Here's Arcade Fire performing Wake Up, with David Bowie. A French site I just discovered called La Blogotheque posts a film of Arcade Fire in Paris doing a "Takeaway Show" with one clip of a performance in an elevator!

Finally, you must play with their interactive video of the song Neon Bible. Go ahead, try it!

mmmm, bacon!

Keeping up with the primaries back in the U.S. while in Spain is one way to avoid doing class prep for next semester. But enough procrastination! I have to do some work today. But first, a bit I stole from dooce about one of our favorite foods. My daughter and I share a love of bacon.

Taj Mahal "Fishin' Blues"

John Lennon and his 40 favorite songs

Via Kottke's year-end round-up, I discovered a marvelous site called SmashingTelly which I immediately put in my Inspiration set of links. It gathers free, legally available television and video, often full-length documentaries. I just watched this wonderful documentary called John Lennon's jukebox. Here's the description:

"A few years back, a portable jukebox that had once belonged to John Lennon, in the 60’s was discovered. On it were Lennon’s hand written labels for his favorite 40 songs. This documentary is about those songs. Perfect."

There are bits of an interview with Lennon where he talks about specific licks or vocal bits he studied, imitated, used in his songs. There are snippets of the songs themselves, but the best part is the appearance of the musicians and songwriters talking about making the music, about the Beatles, about the influences of American R and B on the Beatles, about each other and their music. Lieber and Stoller make an appearance and have a lot of say on the matter. Be-Bop-a-Lula, Little Richard, the Isley Brothers: "they wanted to be US! they wanted to be like us." Not just black musicians--also West Texas harmonica player Delbert McClinton, Dylan, Donovan,
The musicians don't just talk about Lennon, they talk about each other, how they borrowed, changed, remade each other's sounds. Originally produced for PBS,
John Lennon's Jukebox also has a page with more on the songs, musicians and the scene.
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Pictures of the Cabalgata de reyes

In looking around for information on the Three Kings parade we saw last night, I stumbled across this marvelous blog, Aragón, where Celedonio García, a teacher, historian, and author of many books about a variety of subjects having to do with the popular traditions of Aragón, has posted his marvelous pictures of the parade. Since I forgot to bring my camera, you can go here to see pictures of the floats, the jugglers, the costumes. Unfortunately, the three kings do not appear, but I'll see if I can dig up some pictures from parades gone past.

Roscón de reyes

Thanks, Kitty, for this information on Twelfth Night, or Epiphany.

Here and there

A year ago in Minneapolis I took this picture of the berries next door. I love this color.

Here in Zaragoza the weather is ideal for the cabalgata de los reyes--the Three Kings parade. Yesterday we were visiting friends near a shopping mall, and saw the kids lined up to sit on the laps of the kings, all the last minute shoppers out looking for presents.I'm afraid I'm not able to do any more gift shopping--I'm shopped out. But the sales start this week, so it's not too late.

We will visit our next door neighbors, the lovely Marta and Chesús, bring them banana bread and give them some tea I brought from home. Chesús will tell me all about Ireland--he has a blog called Innisfree where I'm studying up.

I'm missing my kitty, but I know that Ana and José are taking good care of him!

Pauline Viardot

Pauline Viardot was the daughter of the most famous tenor in Paris, Manuel García. Her sister, María Malibran, was a huge opera star, who died at the age of 28 after a fall from a horse. Pauline, whose piano teacher was none other than Franz Liszt, was told by her mother that she was to sing instead of becoming a concert pianist, so she did. She became one of the most famous opera singers of the 19th century, moving Charles Dickens to tears. She married young, a man twenty years older than she was, who managed her career in her opera roles. After meeting Ivan Turgenev in Moscow, she was loved by him for the rest of her life. She was close friends with Georges Sand, Chopin, and other artists and musicians. Her husband and Turgenev both died the same year, and she lived until 1910, having become a teacher, passing down the method of her father. Marilyn Horne is among the many singers who continue to study the García method.

Horne was the narrator of Pauline's story for the concert "Pauline Viardot and Friends" at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. My mother and I went, and were thrilled. We both have great memories of having seen Marilyn Horne sing in Orlando Furioso by Vivaldi. The singers? Fredericka von Stade (I got to see her with Kiri Te Kanawa in the Marriage of Figaro!) Vladimir Chernov, Melody Moore. He was so expressive, with such a warm tone (reminding me a little of Tito Gobbi in some moments, but not quite as metallic). He had such interpretive expressiveness, especially in the Russian songs Viardot composed.
Moore was absolutely fabulous, inspiring prolonged ovations and sincere exclamations of praise from the veteran singers.

Viardot was a composer, whose work has been overlooked, but is enjoying a revival now, in part due to efforts such as this. Here is Cecilia Bartolli singing Viardot's Havannaise (habañera):

and singing this lovely and extremely difficult song

Link round-up

Some of the links on my blogroll are to places where I read good writing, keep in touch with friends, or get inspired in some way. And some are windows on worlds I'm interested in knowing more about because they do lots of link round-ups and turn me on to new stuff. Here are a few samples from today:

Anil Dash called my attention to response to a question about changing your mind. Note to self: remember to breathe!

I learn how a real music geek works in this post up at Apophenia. I marvel! I'm all happy that I finally figured out podcasts on my iPod!

Folks at MNSpeak turned me on to Brew52, tasting a local MN beer every week in 2008. Sounds like fun to me.

Lot's of lists at the end of the year. I like this on on Jason Kottke's blog, not least because he includes the car-sliding video.

Dialectology

I am not so good at recognizing the finer details of regional accents, but I find it fascinating. I absolutely loved the PBS series The Story of English. I didn't become a linguist because although I think it's fun and interesting, linguists need to be patient and precise, and those are not my strong points.

Since I didn't grow up in any one place, and heard many accents during my life, I never had the local accent. When we lived in El Paso, until I was five, I my mother would get exasperated when we would say "shigger" for sugar, and how we were made to marvel when Mrs. Heygood asked us "ha minny pinnies in a dahm? Tin!" In Japan, of course, the folks in the army who spoke English were from all over, and no one accent dominated. In San Francisco, where I went to Jr High and High School, a lot of people I knew spoke English accents from all over the world, not just all over the country. I do remember being told by someone who was actually born in SF that it was to be pronounced 'Samp'ncisco', not San Francico.

When I moved from California to Minnesota, I discovered that I HAD an accent because people would squint and say, "you're not from around here, are ya?" I know I've picked up some Minnesota sounds over the years, of the Praire Home companion variety. When I first took my baby girl to Spain, a graduate student from Madrid said, "Don't let her pick up the accent!" I had no idea what he was talking about, but when I asked around, I discovered that the regional accent of Aragón is sometimes used on TV in Spain to represent characters who are "country bumpkins." There IS a strong regional accent, sometimes affectionately called "maño" that I cannot imitate at all. (OJO: para mis lectores aragoneses, distingo entre el aragonés como lengua y el variante del castellanos que se llama "maño". Este es un tema que merece su propio post!)

Ron Sullivan over at Toad in the Hole posted a great clip where some out-of-towners are learning the finer points of the Scranton,PA speech patterns. As a language instructor, I truly appreciate the scenes of classroom dynamic.

Movies 2007

List of movies/TV DVDs I saw in 2007 (in reverse chronological order because I copied them from a link list I made with links to imdb that I'm too lazy to redo here). Obviously, Netflix made this quantity possible, but I saw a fair number of first run films and a few art house films (at the Walker and MSPFF). This list does not include the times another member of the household popped in a Miyazaki DVD we own for the twentieth time.

I started keeping this list before there was a widget, and I haven't figured out how to just copy the html directly from Blogger. Yet.

1. No Direction Home-Part 1
2. Juno
3. Zodiac
4. Wilde
5. Dan in Real Life
6. Serenity
7. Annie Lennox Live in the Park
8. Firefly
9. The Darjeeling Limited
10. Into the Wild
11. Roxanne
12. Elizabeth: The Golden Age
13. Across the Universe
14. Spirited Away
15. 3:10 to Yuma
16. Eastern Promises
17. Death at a Funeral
18. The Seventh Seal
19. Silver City
20. Becoming Jane
21. Stardust
22. Little Miss Sunshine
23. Hairspray
24. The Bourne Ulitmatum
25. Sunshine
26. César et Rosalie
27. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
28. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
29. Banlieue 13
30. Evening
31. X Files-Season One
32. Gilmore Girls-Season One
33. Girl with the Pearl Earring
34. You Kill Me
35. Bringing Out the Dead
36. Papurika
37. Once
38. Scotland PA
39. Zero Effect
40. Waitress
41. POTC: At World's End
42. Shrek III
43. Don Giovanni (Joseph Losey)
44. Shallow Grave
45. Red Road
46. La Doublure
47. Trainspotting
48. Spiderman III
49. MirrorMask
50. Sunday Bloody Sunday
51. A.I. (repeat)
52. Lagaan
53. Real Women Have Curves
54. The Wind that Shakes the Barley
55. Ferry Tales
56. No Direction Home
57. Infamous
58. Citizen Ruth
59. The Singing Detective
60. The Lives of Others
61. Capote
62. Elmer Gantry
63. Election
64. Music and Lyrics
65. Amazing Grace
66. In Order Not To Be Here
67. Genghis Blues
68. Zidane: A 21st centuryportrait
69. How Little We Know of our Neighbors
70. Breaking and Entering
71. It's Not My Memory of It
72. Stander
73. The Departed
74. Akeelah and the Bee
75. Spellbound
76. The Spirit of the Beehive
77. Children of Men
78. Dreamgirls
79. The Queen
80. El laberinto del fauno/Pan's Labyrinth
81. The Company of Wolves
82. Syriana
83. Volver
84. A.I.