Poetry and Fine Art Friday: The Flag

Jun29

I love the way words in poetry play off one another like shadows across the floor.
I think poetry is one way to blow away all the fog and see life in full light. A certain kind of poetry can prettify and falsify life, no doubt about it, but the right kind can boil it down to its essence.”
From A Garden to Keep by Jamie Langston Turner.

Some more of “literature’s greatest lines” courtesy of Dr. Huff:

The Flag Goes By by Henry Holcomb Bennett

HATS off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong landâ€™s swift increase;
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,â€”all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Essential or prettifying? You decide. At any rate, that ought to get you ready for the Fourth of July! And if you don’t live in the USA, then salute your own country’s flag the next time you see it.

Friday’s Center of the Blogosphere

Jun28

Cindy Swanson has a post on cutting, the practice of self-abuse that is prevalent among mostly teenage girls in some circles. I didn’t even know that this sad, self-abusive pattern even existed until a few years ago when a friend of one of the urchins admitted that she “cuts”. If this is a problem for you or for one of your loved ones, Cindy offers some hope.

Today at the Mission on God and creation: “The creation story tells me that God is present in our world in ways that are simply beyond our knowing – as scientists or religionists or anything else. The first chapter of Genesis tells me that God created a place where he could connect with people like you, and people like me, and we could all, you know, hang out together. Why? Because God is love and, forgive me if I’m wrong, but maybe love needs to express itself, longs to express itself, exists to be expressed, in the creation of a world with its own solar system; in the creation of a hot meal for a homeless guy who, cold and wet, sits at the dinner table in tears; in the creation of the smile on a little girl’s face as she heads out the door with her cookies; in the warm, safe beds at the shelter: in the coffee shop where a guy who hasn’t been on staff for over two years continues to meet with a former client.”

Kevin Stilley makes the case for Mike Huckabee as the best possible Republican presidential nominee in 2008: “The irony is that there is really only one candidate in the current field of Republican contenders who all Republicans would be willing to eventually invest their trust and support in the general election; and that candidate is receiving little attention, — Mike Huckabee.”

Shannon at Rocks in my Dryer reveals her struggle with panic attacks: “I spent my days huddled in a ball of anguish, feeling the waves of despair and panic wash over me, again and again. I wanted, with all my heart, to die, and I thought about it constantly. And to anyone who would listen, I would say, ‘This shouldn’t be happening to me. There’s no reason for me to feel like this,’ as though if I said it often enough, it would all go away.”

Book-spotting #27

Jun28

Marvin Olasky’s 100 favorite books from the last seven years of treadmill reading.

His list is mostly nonfiction; I’ve read three of them:
J. Budziszewkiâ€”How to Stay Christian in College (NavPress, 2004)
Philip Caputoâ€”Acts of Faith (Knopf, 2005) Semicolon review here.
Lauren F. Winnerâ€”Girl Meets God (Algonquin, 2003) Semicolon review here.

I see several others on Mr. Olasky’s list that I’d like to read —someday.

NEWS from the UK: “Tori Amos, the singer, . . . is collaborating with dramatist Samuel Adamson on a hoped-for production of The Light Princess, George MacDonald’s story (which was illustrated by Maurice Sendak) about a princess cursed by a witch.” Sounds interesting.

Book-burning? Ah, but as a protest, it’s acceptable.

50 Books That Defined the Twentieth Century. Guardian and The Book Marketing Society list four, five, or six books per decade. The 1920’s rate seven books. I’ve read twelve of the twenty, and four out of seven for the 1920’s. Maybe the twenties were better.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born June 26th

Jun26

Pearl Buck, b. 1892. She was born in West Virginia, but since her parents were only on furlough from the mission field in China, Pearl grew up and lived much of her life in China. She was homeschooled by her mother and by a Chinese tutor. After the publication of her second novel, The Good Earth, Pearl Buck won both the Pulitzer Prize and, ten years later, the Nobel Prize for Literature. She was able to have only one natural child, a daughter, Carol, who was mentally handicapped as a result of PKU. Mrs. Buck adopted seven more children.

Charlotte Zolotow, b. 1915. Charlotte Zolotow celebrates her 92nd birthday this year. She’s written over 90 books for children and edited many more.

The Official Charlotte Zolotow Website.

Charlotte Zolotow on children’s emotions: “Children have the same emotions as adults, though they experience them more intensely, since they haven’t yet learned the protective camouflage with which we adults disguise our feelings.”

Does this mean that as adults we hide (camouflage) our feelings even from ourselves?

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born June 25th

Jun25

All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.

Big Brother is watching you.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.

George Orwell, b.1903, added these ideas and terms to our collective wisdom. If you’ve never read 1984 or Animal Farm, you should. Both books are directly applicable to current events.

Also born on this date, Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Very Busy Spider, among other favorites. I noted a couple of years ago on this date that The Grouchy Ladybug would make a great blog title.

Projected

Jun24

This morning in church a brother spoke about memorizing Scripture and what a blessing it has been in his life to memorize God’s Word. I thought, ” Yes, that’s a really good thing. I should be memorizing the Bible. I would like to memorize Scripture. I could start a project and memorize one verse a day, then review what I’ve already learned . . . it would be fun and spiritually beneficial.”

Then I thought of all the other “projects” I have in my life. I even listed a few on a piece of paper, in no particular order as they came to mind. All of these are projects I would either like to do, have committed to do, or must do. I can’t or don’t want to give any of them up. I am limited in terms of time and energy. I hate being limited.

My Projects:

The Blogging Project: This blog is a project I don’t want to give up. I love blogging. I think it helps me to remain halfway sane.

Reading Blogs Project: I also want to keep reading other people’s blogs. This project can take a lot of time.

Mexico Project: I’m leaving in a couple of weeks to go on a mission trip to Mexico. Two of my daughters are also going. I thought about giving up this project, but I am the only one on the team who speaks Spanish. I think I need to go, and I’m finally starting to get excited about it.

Ancient History Project: I’m supposed to teach ancient history and literature at homeschool co-op next year and at home to four of my own urchins. I need to do a lot of preparation for fall, and I’ve barely started.

Historical Fiction Project: Related to the Ancient History Project, theis one has taken on a life of its own. I’m making a list of historical fiction ofr children and young adults set in various time periods from Genesis to the 1600’s. I’m also trying to read these books so that I know which ones to recommend and which ones I want to use with my urchins next year. I’ll probably be reviewing a lot of historical fiction set in ancient times here at Semicolon in the next few months. If you have any book suggestions (hf set in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Europe, Africa Greece or Rome in particular), please leave a comment.

Housework Project: This is an ongoing project that I tend to neglect until it becomes overwhelming. Then, I have a dirty house and it becomes necessary to mobilize the troops to get the house into some kind of decent order.

Bible Reading Project: I’m supposed to be reading my Bible every day. I’m not.

Pay the Bills Project: Self-explanatory, but we’re broke, and I have to “find” enough money somewhere to pay the bills in July. I don’t know how I’m going to do that yet.

Mama and Daddy Project: My mom and dad just moved here from West Texas. Praise the Lord! However, getting them settled and comfortable and getting everything set up (phone, internet, meals, transportation, medical help) is and will continue to be a major project. I’m so thankful that now I can do something about this one instead of worrying about them long distance.

Newbery Project: I’m still reading as many of the Newbery Award and Honor books as I can. Some of them will fit into my Historical Fiction Project.

LOST Project: I’m also reading several of the books mentioned or shown on the TV series LOST. I’m interested in this particular project and unwilling to give it up.

L’Engle Project: Yet another reading project. I started back in January trying to read through the works of Madeleine L’Engle, one of my favorite authors.

Reading List Project: I keep adding books even though I know I’ll never be able to read them all.

Dancer Daughter Project: DD is having trouble with her knees, and we’ve been trying to find the right doctor/physical therapy/help for her. Also, we’re trying to prepare her for college in fall 2008, find the finances to send her, and get her registered at the junior college for some classes this fall.

Homeschool Project: I do homeschool five children still, and I need to do a little planning for that project.

Co-op Project: In addition to teaching an ancient history class at co-op, I’m supposed to be the resident “counselor” and help parents figure out testing, college entrance requirements, scholarships, transcripts, and all the myriad of paperwork that goes along with homeschooling high school.

Summer Reading with the Kids Project: I’ve posted some of the reading lists here, here, and here that I made for my urchins for this summer. Now I’m trying to get them signed up for various summer reading projects so that they can reap some rewards for all their reading in addition to the obvious reward of having read such wonderful books.

Bible Study Project: I’m involved in a summer Bible study in which we are studying this book. I’m sure it will be good for me to attend and study with others who will keep me accountable.

Prayer Project: I would like to spend some time in concentrated, disciplined prayer this summer.

Meals Project: My hope is to keep mealtimes simple this summer, but someone still must plan and implement meals if we all plan to eat.

Shakespeare Project: I want to not only read, but also study, the three plays that Eldest Daughter is studying at Shakespeare at Winedale in preparation for their late July/early August performances. I also need to find a place for us to stay near Windale when we go to see the plays and find the money to pay for it all. If any of you own a house in south central Texas near Giddings/La Grange that you would like to loan to us for a weekend, please let me know. Then, I’ll need to plan meals and logistics for that vacation time.

Poetry Project: I would like to get my urchins memorizing and reading poetry. I would like to read and memorize poetry. I would like to have more Poetry Parties.

Transportation Project: Another one of those ongoing projects. Currently, this one involves me in driving the taxi to take my kids to karate, church, and swim team —and to visit their grandparents.

Yard Project: My yard is a mess. I need to work on it. I didn’t plant a garden this year —again.

Teaching Z-Baby to Read Project: It’s time I got serious about teaching Z-baby, almost six years old, how to read. She wants to learn, but our efforts have been somewhat sporadic.

By my count, that’s over twenty projects, and I didn’t even include the Bible Memorization Project that I’d like to start, the sequels to Picture Book Preschool that I’d like to write, and the ongoing Engineer Husband Project which involves attempting to pay some attention to my very loving and supportive husband.

If you have some tricks that enable you to fit it all in, please help. Don’t tell me to jettison projects. That decision may have to be made, but right now I want to do it all. I will do it all. I may do it poorly, but I will do it.

I am SUPER-SEMICOLON.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born June 24th

Jun24

Ambrose Bierce, b. 1842, author of The Devil’s Dictionary. Bierce was irreverent and cynical, but funny. Semicolon quotes from The Devil’s Dictionary.

Back in March, when I was on my “blog vacation”, I read a biography of Mr. Bierce, one that was recommended here, called Bitter Bierce. I borrowed the book through interlibrary loan from some obscure college library, hoping to read something about the life and mysterious disappearance and presumed death of Mr. Bierce, lexicographer, journalist and humorist. Instead, I got a quaint biographical/critical study of Bierce’s life, psychology and literary works by Professor C. Hartley Grattan, copyright 1929. The book was fascinating, not because it gave a great deal of illumination to the life and writings of Ambrose Bierce, but because it did give insight into what I presume was the prevailing attitude among the American intelligentsia circa 1929.

A few examples:

Mr. Gratten writes in some detail about Ambrose Bierce’s anti-female attitudes and statements, but the author finds it completely unnecessary to try to excuse or even explain such an antipathy on the part of Mr. Bierce toward half of the human race.

Mr. Grattan on government and the arts:

Certain it is that sweetness and light have often radiated from the courts of tyrants and usurpers; for thought for creative artists, rulers can do little directly beyond giving them the benefits of order and security and leaving them alone, for civilization they can do much. They can endow and defend a civilizing class. That is why I think of sending copies of this essay to the Russian ‘bosses’, to Signor Mussolini, and to Mr. Winston Churchill.

A pre-World War II sentiment if I ever heard one! Bring on the dictator with his order, security, sweetness, and light!

Mr. Grattan calls Bierce “old-fashioned” because Bierce held to strict moral standards. He calls Bierce’s diatribes opposing socialists and socialism “sloppy and inconsequential thinking.” (Perhaps they were; I haven’t read them.) Grattan equates Bierce’s support for “selective breeding” with advanced thinking. Then, Grattan proceeds to write about “the essential modernity of the ideas that Bierce evolved.” Morality and opposition to socialism are antiquated and out-dated; eugenics are advanced and modern. And Bierce is both old-fashioned and modern at the same time.

Mr. Grattan calls Ambrose Bierce a contradictory, enigmatic sort of person. Bierce’s contrariness must have affected Mr. Grattan’s writing. Of Ambrose Bierce I did learn one thing I didn’t know before:

Bierce was one of twelve children each having a name beginning with A: Abigail, Addison, Aurelius, Amelia, Ann, Augustus, Andrew, Almeda, Albert, and Ambrose. (Two died in infancy.)

From The Letters of Ambrose Bierce: “My father was a poor farmer and could give me no general education, but he had a good library and to his books I owe all that I have.”

Summer Reading Programs

Jun21

In2Books: Online reading program.

Shake, Rattle, & Read! Challenge: Register, read books, win prizes!

Barnes and Noble Summer Reading Program
Get a free book when you read eight (8) other books!

Reading is Fundamental Summer Reading Contest
Reading gets you in the race to win prizes and help donate books to needy children at the same time!

Book Adventure
Book Adventure is a FREE reading motivation program for children in grades K-8. Children create their own book lists from over 7,000 recommended titles, take multiple choice quizzes on the books they’ve read, and earn points and prizes for their literary successes.

For the fall, there’s the Book It! Program for homeschoolers.

LOST Reading: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

Jun20

I’ve heard of Ambrose Bierce’s short story, but I don’t remember ever reading it. According to Wikipedia, “Kurt Vonnegut referred to ‘Occurrence’ in his book A Man Without a Country as one of the greatest works of American literature, and called anyone who hadn’t read it a ‘twerp’.”

I guess I just escaped twerpdom, thanks to LOST. In the second season episode entitled The Long Con, “Locke is shown holding this book (Occurrence) upside down, in the Swan, flipping through the pages as if he’s trying to find loose papers between them.” So, getting overly-analytical as I’m prone to do, I wonder what Occurrence has to do with LOST? (If you haven’t read the short story, there are spoilers ahead.)

In Bierce’s story, Peyton Farquhar is a Confederate sympathizer who falls into a Union trap and tries to burn down a bridge, Owl Creek Bridge. He’s about to be hanged from said bridge and in the brief interval between drop and death, he imagines that the rope breaks, he escapes, swims downriver, and returns to his home. Alas, the return home is only a figment of his imagination, and at the end of the story, Farquhar is dead; “his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of Owl Creek Bridge.”

Bierce plays with Time in this story just as the writers of LOST play with Time and Space in their story. There’s also a possible analogy between Peyton Farquhar’s supposed escape from death and the near-miraculous escape of the LOST survivors. (People don’t usually survive in a plane that breaks in half in mid-air and falls from the sky.) Are they really dead, as Naomi indicated when she said that the plane had been found and the passengers mourned? Maybe they’re caught somewhere between the final moments of life and death, and the Island itself is just an illusion? In the story, Farquhar imagines an alternate series of events in which he escapes the noose, escapes the bullets of the Union soldiers, and returns home to his wife, and the reader is conned into thinking that the escape is real. It feels real in the story; the circumstances surrounding Farquhar’s escape are described vividly.

So, is LOST a “long con”? I don’t really think so, but if we find out at the end that everyone’s really dead, that the entire six seasons were only a brief imaginary interval, a great many viewers are going to be unhappy. People don’t like being swindled, even by such a handsome devil as Sawyer/James/Josh Holloway.

“Doubtless, despite his sufferings, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have travelled the entire night. . . . As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!”

Lostpedia on An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Read Bierce’s story here.

More information about Semicolon’s LOST Reading project.

Summer Reading List: Karate Kid

Jun19

Karate Kid is ten years old. He likes martial arts (Kuk Sool Won), swimming, knights, science, and video games. Here’s his reading list for the summer:

Harry Potter and the Sorcererâ€™s Stone by JK Rowling.

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. KK started this book, liked it very much, but lost the book. We need to get a copy from the library.

Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson.

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park. Since KK is interested in Korea and since he liked Ms. Park’s book The Kite Fighters., I figured he’d like this one.

The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood.

Shakespeare Stories by Leon Garfield.

Archimedes and the Door of Science by Joan Bendick.

Whales on Stilts by M.T. Anderson. KK also liked Anderson’s The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen.

The Great Brain by John Dennis Fitzgerald. Hilarious adventures of an all-American boy.

Danny Dunn, Time Traveler by Jay Williams. Old, but maybe not too dated.

I, II and II John from the Bible.

Geometry for Every Kid by Janice Van Cleave. KK has plans to learn geometry this summer. He’s using Key Curriculum’s Key to Geometry.

Einstein Anderson Sees Through the Invisible Man by Seymour Simon. Encyclopedia Brown-like science puzzlers.

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz.

The White Mountains by John Chrisopher. I still remember reading this scinece fiction/fantasy series when I was a kid, and I think KK would like it.

Math Curse by Jon Scieszka.

Time Warp Trio: Sam Samurai by Jon Scieszka. Karate Kid also likes all things Japanese, especially samurai and karate and anime.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. I thought a little poetry wouldn’t hurt too much —especially this collection of kid-friendly poems that is still just as popular today as it was when it flew off the sheves in my school library twenty years ago.