Karate Kid Does Japan

Nov14

Karate Kid, age 9, is interested in all things Japanese. While we’ve been touring Asia and Australia and the South Pacific, he’s been concentrating mostly on Japan and books set in Japan. Here are the books he’s read and his, mostly unedited, responses to them:

The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn by Dorothy Hoobler

I was in a dark tunnel, creeping along, feeling my way through the cold passage. My name is Seikei, I am twelve years old. I dream of being a samurai, one of the legendary warriors. I was working for Judge Ooka, a samurai himself who was too big to fit into the small tunnel. . . I was searching for a ghost!

Takao and Grandfather’s Sword

There once was a boy named Takao who lived in Japan. He owned a sword that his grandfather had given to him. He didn’t know how much trouble he would get out of it. He would be in fires and cry. He would have dreams. He would . . .sell his sword???

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

This story is about a girl who lived in Japan and her name was Sadako. I really hate this story because she dies in the end. DO NOT READ IT.

I couldn’t leave the (few) spelling errors alone. I’m a bad typist, but a good speller, and I can’t leave misspelled words on my blog.

To This Great Stage of Fools: Born November 14th

Nov14

IMG_1259Aaron Copland, American composer, b. 1900. We’ll be listening to some of Copeland’s “greatest hits” this week because I really enjoy his music.

Astrid Lindgren, Swedish author, b. 1907. I thought you might enjoy a picture of my own little Pippi Longstocking today on Ms. Lindgren’s birthday.
Here’s a mini-unit study on Pippi for homeschoolers and teachers.
And here are some Pippi coloring pages. The website is in Dutch, I think, or Swedish, but the coloring pages are wordless and well-done.

Claude Monet, b. 1840. Read Linnea in Monet’s Garden.
This webpage has a selection of coloring pages from famous artists’ pictures, including one by Monet, The Walk, Lady With Parasol.
Free unit study on the French impressionists.
Lesson plan: Painting like the Impressionists.

Nancy Tafuri, b. 1946, author and illustrator of Have You Seen My Duckling? Some ideas for extending the learning and fun of this book..

More Pecan Pie

Nov13

“Nothing rekindles my spirits, gives comfort to my heart and mind,
more than a visit to Mississippi… and to be regaled as I often have
been, with a platter of fried chicken, field peas, collard greens, fresh
corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes with French dressing… and to top
it all off with a wedge of freshly baked pecan pie.”
~ Craig Claiborne, in Southern Food

The key to good pecan pie is to use light Karo syrup. Dark is OK, too, but I prefer the look of the light syrup. And I use whole pecan halves, not chopped up ones.

You can go to this list for a large selection of pecan pie recipes at about.com.

From the Dallas Morning News, January 23, 1898 (via Wikipedia):

Texas Pecan Pie.
Tiaga, Grayson Co., Tex., Jan. 21.—(To The News.)—Knowing that The News is strictly for Texas and for Texas enterprises, and thinking that it might be of interest to many Texas kitchen queens, I herewith inclose you a copy of the recipe for making what I have decided to call in honor of the great Lone Star state, “The Texas Pecan Pie.”
Having never seen it in any paper or cook book I have read, and failing to find any one who had ever eaten it, I feel justified in claiming to be its originator and the right to christen it.
It is a most delicious pie–an instant favorite with all who have eaten it at my table. It is my desire that it may be added to the long list of delicacies Texas cooks are so greatly noted for preparing, and I want every lady to test its merits and I will be glad if they let me know of their success or failure in making it.
The Texas pecan pie—One cup sugar, one cup sweet milk, one-half cup pecan kernels chopped fine, three eggs, one tablespoonful flour. When cooked spread the well-beaten whites of two eggs on the top, brown and sprinkle a few of the chopped kernels over it. Above is for one pie.

Others claim that the pecan pie originated in New Orleans or that the Karo syrup people made it up or made it popular.

If you have anything to tell the world about pecans or pecan-related subjects, please write a post on your blog and leave a link here. (If you put the name of your post in parentheses after your name, I think people will be more likely to come over to visit.) I’ll be putting all the names of the contributors to Pecan Month, 2006 in a hat at the end of the month and drawing one name to receive a bag of fresh pecans sent straight from Texas to your home. Leave a link for Pecan Month, and go read about all the other folks who are praising God this month for creating pecans.

Emily Dickinson

Nov12

My American literature class, the one I teach, not a class I’m taking, although I do read and discuss along with my students, anyway, my American literature class is reading the poetry of Emily Dickinson this week. Do you have a favorite poem by Miss Dickinson, and can you leave some comments on why you like it?

I’ve posted my favorite before, back when I did this American literature discussion group thing a couple of years ago. I probably like it because I remember my mother quoting it to me, and I have it memorized. Also it comes in handy to quote in so many situations.

Emily Dickinson fans?

Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith

Nov12

Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is a bit of an academic Charlie Brown. His masterpiece of philology, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, is well-known in philological circles and has sold two hundred copies, but the publishers are about to sell the remainders to a furniture company to furnish the home bookshelves of wealthy patrons. He is the most distinguished professor at the Institute of Romance Philology in Regensburg, but it is his colleague, Professor Dr Dr (honorary) Florianus Prinzel who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Palermo. And even when Professor Igelfeld finds a dentist who is the most beautiful creature he’s ever had the privilege of allowing to pull his tooth, well, he becomes the victim of the old saw, “Faint heart never won fair maid.”

I must say that after reading Possession by A.S. Byatt, a serious novel about the arcane world of literary scholarship, it was just pure fun to read Portuguese Irregular Verbs, a comedic collection of vignettes that treats the equally arcane world of philological scholarship with a light touch and a Wodehousian humor. Poor Professor Igelfeld is so proud of the “von” in his name and of his almost twelve hundred page epic on the vagaries of Portuguese verbs. Then, he discovers that his book is being used by at least one person as a step-stool, and the institute librarian has plans to move it to the basement storage room.

But Professor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is not discouraged for long. He comes back just as Charlie Brown comes back to try one more time to kick the football, and he maintains his dignity in the face of nefarious plots in the library, ominous warnings from an Indian holy man, and danger in the canals of Venice.

This book has two sequels, The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs and The Villa of Reduced Circumstances. I plan to seek out both of them as soon as possible; Professor von Igelfeld is my new, rather absurd, quixotic hero.

Alexander McCall Smith also wrote the series of detective books that begins with The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and another series of mystery stories set in Scotland, starting with The Sunday Philosophy Club. All of his books, all the ones I’ve read so far, are worth your time with delightful characterization and insight into human nature.

Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach

Nov11

Hero Netherfield is the new girl in sixth grade, and she’s been in that situation many times before. So she knows what to expect, and she expects not to fit in and not to like it. She’s also not much interested in Shakespeare, even though her literary parents named her after a character in Much Ado About Nothing.

But Shakespeare, and Queen Elizabeth, not to mention Edward de Vere and Anne Boleyn, keep intruding into Hero’s life as she tries, with the help of an elderly neighbor and an older boy named Danny, to sort out her place in her family and in school. Here’s yet another “literary mystery” written for young adults and older children, but in this one the main character is a normal, not-so-literary young lady who becomes interested in literature by way of a treasure hunt for some mysterious jewels.

If the title puts some kids off, the plot should draw them in if they give it a chance. I enjoyed it.

Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt

Nov10

Better late than never, I just finished reading my fifth book for Carl’s RIP Reading Challenge, the challenge that was supposed to be done by the end of October. Now that I’ve read it, I’m not sure how “gothic, scary, moody, or atmospheric” it is. I’d describe it as more Victorian meets Post-Modern, and Victorian wins —maybe.

This tension between Victorian ideals and post-modern cynicism runs through the book because it’s really set in two time periods. A pair of 1980’s academics are investigating a mystery involving a pair of Victorian poets. The world of post-modern academia is shown to be cutthroat, sexually confused, and filled with social and intellectual angst. The Victorian literary world, on the other hand, is depicted as genteel, sexually confused, and filled with religious confusion and doubt. It’s the sexual confusion that’s the common denominator. For instance, witness this conversation between two female/feminist scholars:

Maud: Just at the moment, I’m trying celibacy. I like it. Its only hazard is people who will proselytise for their own way of doing things. You should try it.

Lenora: Oh, I did, for a month, back in the fall. It was great at first. I got to be quite in love with myself, and then I thought I was unhealthily attached to me, and should give myself up. So I found Mary-Lou.

The Victorians aren’t much better, but if I go into the details of their tangled affairs, I’ll give away some of the mystery. So, I’ll let it suffice to say the Victorian poets are no more straightforward and unambiguous about love, sex and marriage than the post-modern academics.

Another theme is that of how over-analysis destroys life. The Victorians analyze their faith and weaken its power to comfort or guide behavior. They also engage in the much more concrete destruction of life as they dissect insects and sea creatures and then use them as images and symbols in their poetry. The modern-day academics feel they must know every detail about the lives of the poets, but realize that in dissecting the biographical materials, they risk destroying the life of the poetry. The most intelligent of them also see that self-analysis, ala Freud, has inhibited the ability of men and women to respond to one another naturally almost to the point of extinguishing the possibility for romance. To the very end, the book explores the tensions between autonomy and commitment, between romantic idealism and hard-headed realism, between fatalistic determinism and individual choice.

Finally, though, it was the mystery that kept me reading. These Victorians and denizens of academia were foreign to me, even though I understood some of their concerns. I was, however, quite interested to find out the answers to various mysteries and questions raised in the course of the novel. In fact, I understood the characters’ obsession with finding out, with knowing the ending to the story, as well as I understood any of the complicated motivations in the novel.

One of the Victorian poets is writing a poem based on the myth of Melusina, a sort of mermaid/water spirit. The words that the other fictional poet writes about the Melusine myth are also true of this novel:

What is so peculiarly marvelous about the Melusina myth, you seem to be saying, is that it is both wild and strange and ghastly and full of the daemonic —and it is at the same time solid as earthly tales —the best of them— are solid— depicting the life of households and the planning of societes, the introduction of husbandry and the love of any mother for her children.

Possession won the Booker Prize in 1990. It was made into a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Ehle, Aaron Eckhart, and Jeremy Northam in 2002. I found the book to be intriguing and mysterious, even if the characters were a bit too tangled up in their post-modern anxieties and inhibitions to be truly sympathetic. If you’re looking for a “literary mystery,” it’s much better, and less gory, than The Dante Club, which was the first of my RIP books.

Cabeza de Vaca y la nueces

Nov10

The first European to observe the use of pecan nuts was Cabeza de Vaca during the early 16th century: “They grind up some little grains with them [the nuts], two months of the year, without eating anything else, and even this they do not have every year, because one year they bear, and the next they do not. They [the nuts] are the size of those of Galicia and the trees are very large and there is a great number of them.” (Krieger 2002:189-190). In his account, Cabeza de Vaca uses the Spanish word for walnut (nueces), but the pecan is by far the most abundant nut-bearing tree in the region and the Spanish did not have a word for pecan at that time.


I got this information from a site called Texas Beyond History, but I already knew about Cabeza de Vaca, aka Mr. Cowhead, and the Indians and Esteban the slave. Year before last in our American history studies we read Walk the World’s Rim by Betty Baker. In fact, I read this book aloud to my older set about ten years ago, and some of them still remember it. Good old Esteban. And Chacko.

The book mentions nuts as a part of the Indians’ diet, but the indication in this fictional account of the exploration of Texas by de Vaca and his companions is that the Indians in South Texas subsisted mostly on roots and lizards. Chacko, a fictional Indian boy and the main character in the story, goes to Mexico City with Cabeza de Vaca and is amazed at the abundance of food the Spaniards are able to grow and produce and cook and eat.

Chacko should have given them a pecan tree to sort of even things up a bit.

If you have anything to say about pecans or nutcrackers or the price of pecans in China or anything else pecan-related, post it on your blog and leave a link here. November is Pecan Month at Semicolon. And I’m planning to send a bag of shelled pecans to the one blogger, of those who have left a link, whose name I draw at the end of the month.

Pecans in France

Nov9

A former Texan is growing pecans in Provence.

I wish him luck. As a pecan afficionado, I think pecans should be grown and sold around the world. However, they won’t grow up North where it’s too cold. This Aggie (Texas A & M) webpage says pecan trees are freeze-susceptible. I think that means a hard freeze is likely to kill your pecan tree. Pecans grow well in Texas, but in West Texas where I grew up you have to water your pecan tree if you want it to produce much fruit. It doesn’t freeze much in West Texas, but it also doesn’t rain.

You have to plant your pecan trees way in advance. Pecans don’t mature to the point of producing a good crop until about twenty years after they’re planted. So you can’t plant a tree in January and expect to have pecan pie for Christmas.

Pecans are being grown in Australia, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Peru. and South Africa. Mexico is the only country in that list that produces a significant amount of pecans for sale.

So, tell us. Can you buy pecans in November where you live? How much do they cost?

LOST Rehash: I Do, or What Will Jack Do?

Nov9

WARNING: Spoilers ahead. I use this space to discuss my thoughts and theories about the ABC-TV show LOST. If you haven’t seen the latest episode and odn’t want to know what happens, I suggest you run like Kate.

Finally, Jack grows a spine (and a brain) while working on Henry’s spine. Well, he hasn’t actually gotten to the spine or the tumor yet, but he does have a plan, and I’m on board for it. Actually, I can see a multitude of holes in Jack’s little plan, but I don’t think I could have come up with anything better, probably not anything nearly as good. However, just to show how smart I am, from the comfort of my living room with no one’s life riding on my decisions, I have a few questions for Mr. Jack to mull over for the next hour or the next three months —whichever comes first:

1. Why can’t the Others hold a gun on Jack and have Juliette stitch up the kidney? She is a doctor, isn’t she? Maybe she doesn’t know how to do surgery on a spinal tumor, but she could surely put a few stitches in a kidney, right?

2. What Jack doesn’t know of course, is that they’re supposedly on an island. What Jack does know is that whatever happens with Kate and Sawyer, he’s still stuck in the operating room with only a scalpel for a weapon. So, I’d say Jack’s in trouble, and Kate and Sawyer aren’t much better off.

3. If Kate and Sawyer will run, and if Mr. Wacko Bereaved Husband will let Sawyer go, and if they can get hold of a boat, Kate and James are home free. However, I can foresee that all this negotiating and finagling might take a little longer than an hour, might take until next February. And in that case, Henry/Ben is dead, and Jack no longer has a hostage.

4. What’s the range of those walkie-talkies? If K and S go to the other side of the water, will they even be able to notify Jack that they’ve made it?

So, Jack’s plan may or may not work, but it’s a good try.

Other Observations/Questions:

I don’t like Juliette. I don’t trust Juliette. Maybe she and Ben are allies, or maybe not. Either way, she’s just as creepy as he is.

What’s going on with Slingshot Girl? (I don’t remember her name.) Is she Rousseau’s Alex? Did I hear Ben ask about her asking about him just before he went under the anesthesia? When she asked to be taken to Ben, was it a take-me-to-your-leader request, or a what-have-you-done-with-Ben request?

Breaking rocks just seems stupid. And “I won’t work if Sawyer can’t come, too,” was sort of lame, too.

The Others must have let Jack get out, get a gun, see the monitors, see Kate and Sawyer. They’re still trying to play with his mind, but Jack shows them he’s not to be manipulated.

I think if I knew, as Sawyer and Kate are bound to know by now, that Big Brother was watching, I’d keep my clothes on. I think, under the circumstances, I’d keep my clothes on anyway. But self-control probably isn’t the forte of either of our lovebirds.

To change the subject a little, we now know that Eko died “for a reason” (other than to get him off the show?). So, the writers have three months to make up a reason if they don’t have one already. Locke and I are certainly not in on the secret if there is a reason. “Lift up your eyes and look to the north?” I don’t get the message, but Locke seems to have had a revelation.

De at Thinklings; “Sawyer hasn’t been beaten up, stabbed, shocked, operated on, or tortured yet [later edit: I forgot about the earlier cold-cocking by Danny. It’s hard to keep track of all the beatings, frankly]. Plus Kate loves him temporarily. Aside from the fact that he’s going to die tomorrow, he’s having a really good day.”
Cute.

We knew the writers of LOST would leave us with a cliff-hanger, and they did. My question to other viewers: was it exciting and intriguing enough to make you mark your calendar for February, 2007?

I’ll be back with more LOST hash in 2007. I want to see what happens to Ben and Juliette, and Charlie and Sayid. And I’m finally impressed with Jack although I still think Kate and Sawyer deserve each other —for better or for worse, probably worse. Jack can find a better mate. Not Juliette.