it's about time that i put this up here.
i was alerted to this perfect nugget of awesome by my comrade at murder by baltimore, rob, and have been watching it no fewer than five times a week since then.
seriously.
if you aren't amazed by the awesome might of this song, you have no soul.
period.
behold (just click the "behold" if the embedded video won't load...the internet is a confusing place):
Monday, May 21, 2007
a spoonful weighs a ton
okay, so the soft bulletin by the flaming lips is, likely, near the very top of the list of records i'd take with me on the space station when this rock eventually gets too fucked for life.
that it is a game-show-theme inflected (listen to "race for the prize" to get the full effect) concept record about, wait for it, scientists trying to save the world, only makes it exponentially better.
that the magical answer is "love," and is so without it being cheesy or lame at all (from someone who can no longer stomach most of the hippie love-in that accompanies this sort of sentiment, this is high praise) is a testament to how incredible a record this is.
the line "putting all the vegetables away" will take on entirely new, heavy, emotional resonance after spending some time with the track "suddenly everything has changed." i wouldn't lie to you.
point is, as i see the last 14 days of school laid out before me, i kind of feel like the scientists on the record.
this last spoonful of school weighs a ton.
the amount of material i have to cover is, at best, daunting. i have 14 days to tie an entire year together into something coherent.
i did not plan well.
this is to say nothing of the emotional weirdness that is plaguing me.
i can already feel myself missing some of these kids.
granted, i'll see some of them in the halls, but there are many of them that i've taken as a consistent and necessary part of the day.
play fighting with daniel ending with the kid bear hugging me, looking up, and saying "i love you, november." i then respond with "you suck, daniel." or the other way around. all depends on the day, really.
junissa and maria tackling me at the beginning of sixth period every day, early for that class, but late for the eighth period class they are scheduled for.
walking down the hall to round up my ninth period class, all of whom are standing 40 feet away at the stairwell talking to their friends and waiting for me to come get them.
trading jabs with jason during fourth period until he, inevitably, draws a giant dick on the chalkboard.
watching robert, in the same class, express his approval with a thumbs up and an "ok mistah!" or shaking his head and saying "oh mah gahd...." some of the only english he knows. also among the coolest human beings on the planet.
having tyrell ask me, every day, "why's it gotta be black?" and responding "because i'm a racist." then both of us laughing and him clapping my back. this kid also writes really funny poems about how he hates the elderly. a future onion writer...seriously.
watching, and being completely annoyed by, justin and barbara breaking up or hooking up in my class, EVERY FUCKING DAY! but also knowing that they are two of the best kids in the building.
being greeted, daily, by george with a firm handshake and a "how are you today?" ...then me inevitably screwing up the eleven-part long-distance handshake he taught me in january as he gets to his seat.
these are just the first few things to come to mind.
they feel like family.
i never knew that it would end up feeling like this.
i had no idea.
that it is a game-show-theme inflected (listen to "race for the prize" to get the full effect) concept record about, wait for it, scientists trying to save the world, only makes it exponentially better.
that the magical answer is "love," and is so without it being cheesy or lame at all (from someone who can no longer stomach most of the hippie love-in that accompanies this sort of sentiment, this is high praise) is a testament to how incredible a record this is.
the line "putting all the vegetables away" will take on entirely new, heavy, emotional resonance after spending some time with the track "suddenly everything has changed." i wouldn't lie to you.
point is, as i see the last 14 days of school laid out before me, i kind of feel like the scientists on the record.
and though they were sad"a spoonful weighs a ton" ...talking about how dense the sun is and the mass of something like it is a pretty great lil' metaphor.
they rescued everyone
they lifted up the sun
a spoonful weighs a ton
giving more than they had
the process had begun
a million came from one
the limits now were none
being drunk on their plan, they lifted up the sun
this last spoonful of school weighs a ton.
the amount of material i have to cover is, at best, daunting. i have 14 days to tie an entire year together into something coherent.
i did not plan well.
this is to say nothing of the emotional weirdness that is plaguing me.
i can already feel myself missing some of these kids.
granted, i'll see some of them in the halls, but there are many of them that i've taken as a consistent and necessary part of the day.
play fighting with daniel ending with the kid bear hugging me, looking up, and saying "i love you, november." i then respond with "you suck, daniel." or the other way around. all depends on the day, really.
junissa and maria tackling me at the beginning of sixth period every day, early for that class, but late for the eighth period class they are scheduled for.
walking down the hall to round up my ninth period class, all of whom are standing 40 feet away at the stairwell talking to their friends and waiting for me to come get them.
trading jabs with jason during fourth period until he, inevitably, draws a giant dick on the chalkboard.
watching robert, in the same class, express his approval with a thumbs up and an "ok mistah!" or shaking his head and saying "oh mah gahd...." some of the only english he knows. also among the coolest human beings on the planet.
having tyrell ask me, every day, "why's it gotta be black?" and responding "because i'm a racist." then both of us laughing and him clapping my back. this kid also writes really funny poems about how he hates the elderly. a future onion writer...seriously.
watching, and being completely annoyed by, justin and barbara breaking up or hooking up in my class, EVERY FUCKING DAY! but also knowing that they are two of the best kids in the building.
being greeted, daily, by george with a firm handshake and a "how are you today?" ...then me inevitably screwing up the eleven-part long-distance handshake he taught me in january as he gets to his seat.
these are just the first few things to come to mind.
they feel like family.
i never knew that it would end up feeling like this.
i had no idea.
yelling as hard as they canthese kids have their own fucking gravity. a spoonful, most certainly, weighs a ton.
the doubters all were stunned
heard louder than a gun
the sound they made was love
Sunday, May 20, 2007
home stretch...southahn style
sitting here, sipping a mint julep, affecting a caricatured accent of southern aristocracy, thinking about the fact that i will be entering my last full 5-day week with students in the classroom on monday.
first, and most importantly really, the mint julep is a fine drink. fine.
second, what the fuck?
nearly impossible to believe that i only have fifteen days left with kids in my classroom.
truly impossible to believe how bizarre an experience the past ten months or so have been, beginning with the fellows camp last summer.
completely insane to see how brutally, beautifully, slow, and mercifully, maddeningly fast it has gone by.
weird trip here at the end, and there's still the last 90 seconds of clock left. long field. it's all about clock control. seven point to win. anything can happen.
season's nearly over.
i'm nearly in june.
--mr. november
first, and most importantly really, the mint julep is a fine drink. fine.
second, what the fuck?
nearly impossible to believe that i only have fifteen days left with kids in my classroom.
truly impossible to believe how bizarre an experience the past ten months or so have been, beginning with the fellows camp last summer.
completely insane to see how brutally, beautifully, slow, and mercifully, maddeningly fast it has gone by.
weird trip here at the end, and there's still the last 90 seconds of clock left. long field. it's all about clock control. seven point to win. anything can happen.
season's nearly over.
i'm nearly in june.
--mr. november
Thursday, May 17, 2007
let's not try to figure out everything at once...
stay out super-late tonightsummer is here.
picking apples, making pie
put a little something in our lemonade and take it with us
we're half awake in a fake empire
--"fake empire", boxer, the national
i'm starting to feel the pull of a little something in my lemonade.
here's to late nights with all manner of apples.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
file under: JUSTICE, BITCHES!
so, about the opera...there are a few things to report:
-i made it clear to both the liaison from the met and her superiors that the treatment received by my students was beyond unacceptable and that if steps weren't taken to address what had happened i would be writing a letter to the editorial page of the times (not sure if i would have, but they didn't call my bluff) explaining my concerns about the way that minority students were being treated by the people who run this city's cultural assets.
steps were taken.
when we went back for the backstage tour, the guides had clearly been both briefed on the sort of students that would be coming in and also chosen for their ability to relate in a direct manner to my kids (our guide was a rather straight-talking, jovial, easy-going gentleman who grew up in the bronx and refuses to pay for anything but the 15 dollar standing room seats for any opera...great guy). this was a win.
beyond this, at the second professional development meeting, i was informed that the issue had crawled its way up the chain through various levels of incompetence and crippling inertia to actually reach some of the directors of the guild and the opera.
they were not pleased, and it seems that pressure was placed on the whole organization to straighten that shit out. this was, no doubt, facilitated somewhat by another teacher in my building with personal connections to the met.
-there is, as a part of this poorly planned and abysmally mismanaged program, also a "culminating event" that is to take place at the end of this month. this event is supposed to incorporate my students' experiences in the classroom, at the opera, and with our teaching artist (who is, above all, good people and is in no way included in the bile i spit at this whole thing). sounds fine, i can whip this together, no problem.
there were problems.
for a number of reasons, the day that our teaching artist, let's call him corey, was supposed to be there things got complicated.
the liaison from the met, we'll call her stacey, lost her shit.
first, there was an assembly that was unannounced and which kept corey from meeting with my fourth period class. second, the music teacher had changed the plan to include a song that was not "directly related to opera" (not my words, don't ask me what that even means) and stacey was unhappy.
stacey decided that since an assembly had interrupted corey's time with my class it was important that she go to the principal, register her dissatisfaction, and ask the school for money to pay corey to come back an extra day.
this is fucking hilarious.
we don't have enough books to send copies of anything home with kids to read.
we don't have projector screens in most rooms, and the ones that have them usually don't have them mounted on the wall (those screws have fallen out long ago).
we don't have pencil sharpeners in more than three rooms i've been in all year.
we don't hire substitutes because it's cheaper to force teachers to cover classes during their free periods.
on the long list of things that are going to happen in this lifetime (note that this list includes me sleeping with jennifer connelly:
among other things you would imagine unlikely) my principal is not going to spend money on bringing corey in for another day because stacey's uptight, white ass is all in a tizzy.
after their meeting, corey, stacey, the music teacher, and i all sat down to meet about how the program was going. stacey told us both that we were failing her expectations, that she could not believe how we had completely dropped the ball with this program, and how she had let our principal know how she felt.
she did all of this in front of a classroom full of students.
the meeting ended, stacey left the building, i spent the rest of the day spewing obscenities and trying not to take it out on the kids.
fast forward to today...the assistant principal for social studies, through whom i became involved in this debacle, let me know that the principal had filed a formal complaint against stacey with both the board of education and the met.
this made my day.
justice.
the only thing that could put me in a better mood would be stacey losing her job.
tomorrow.
and...just because:
-i made it clear to both the liaison from the met and her superiors that the treatment received by my students was beyond unacceptable and that if steps weren't taken to address what had happened i would be writing a letter to the editorial page of the times (not sure if i would have, but they didn't call my bluff) explaining my concerns about the way that minority students were being treated by the people who run this city's cultural assets.
steps were taken.
when we went back for the backstage tour, the guides had clearly been both briefed on the sort of students that would be coming in and also chosen for their ability to relate in a direct manner to my kids (our guide was a rather straight-talking, jovial, easy-going gentleman who grew up in the bronx and refuses to pay for anything but the 15 dollar standing room seats for any opera...great guy). this was a win.
beyond this, at the second professional development meeting, i was informed that the issue had crawled its way up the chain through various levels of incompetence and crippling inertia to actually reach some of the directors of the guild and the opera.
they were not pleased, and it seems that pressure was placed on the whole organization to straighten that shit out. this was, no doubt, facilitated somewhat by another teacher in my building with personal connections to the met.
-there is, as a part of this poorly planned and abysmally mismanaged program, also a "culminating event" that is to take place at the end of this month. this event is supposed to incorporate my students' experiences in the classroom, at the opera, and with our teaching artist (who is, above all, good people and is in no way included in the bile i spit at this whole thing). sounds fine, i can whip this together, no problem.
there were problems.
for a number of reasons, the day that our teaching artist, let's call him corey, was supposed to be there things got complicated.
the liaison from the met, we'll call her stacey, lost her shit.
first, there was an assembly that was unannounced and which kept corey from meeting with my fourth period class. second, the music teacher had changed the plan to include a song that was not "directly related to opera" (not my words, don't ask me what that even means) and stacey was unhappy.
stacey decided that since an assembly had interrupted corey's time with my class it was important that she go to the principal, register her dissatisfaction, and ask the school for money to pay corey to come back an extra day.
this is fucking hilarious.
we don't have enough books to send copies of anything home with kids to read.
we don't have projector screens in most rooms, and the ones that have them usually don't have them mounted on the wall (those screws have fallen out long ago).
we don't have pencil sharpeners in more than three rooms i've been in all year.
we don't hire substitutes because it's cheaper to force teachers to cover classes during their free periods.
on the long list of things that are going to happen in this lifetime (note that this list includes me sleeping with jennifer connelly:
among other things you would imagine unlikely) my principal is not going to spend money on bringing corey in for another day because stacey's uptight, white ass is all in a tizzy.
after their meeting, corey, stacey, the music teacher, and i all sat down to meet about how the program was going. stacey told us both that we were failing her expectations, that she could not believe how we had completely dropped the ball with this program, and how she had let our principal know how she felt.
she did all of this in front of a classroom full of students.
the meeting ended, stacey left the building, i spent the rest of the day spewing obscenities and trying not to take it out on the kids.
fast forward to today...the assistant principal for social studies, through whom i became involved in this debacle, let me know that the principal had filed a formal complaint against stacey with both the board of education and the met.
this made my day.
justice.
the only thing that could put me in a better mood would be stacey losing her job.
tomorrow.
and...just because:
go here now...
the new record from the national, due out this coming tuesday, can be streamed from their myspace page.
it's good.
really good.
for your own good, go listen.
it's good.
really good.
for your own good, go listen.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
things i must have: ZOMBIES!! edition.
on friday i ended up involved in a conversation about various possibilities for the apocalypse, as i am wont to do, and eventually ended up talking about the inevitable zombie plague.
if george romero and 28 days later have taught me anything, it's that this shit is only a matter of time.
i've often gotten into extended discussions about how we would handle a breakout of rampant zombie-ism with my friends, and we usually come up with some pretty solid plans, but threadless.com has boiled down all of the necessary survival information into one, convenient, 100% cotton artifact:
click the picture to see the nine excellent suggestions they give for handling the plague of walking dead.
don't laugh...it's science.
if george romero and 28 days later have taught me anything, it's that this shit is only a matter of time.
i've often gotten into extended discussions about how we would handle a breakout of rampant zombie-ism with my friends, and we usually come up with some pretty solid plans, but threadless.com has boiled down all of the necessary survival information into one, convenient, 100% cotton artifact:
click the picture to see the nine excellent suggestions they give for handling the plague of walking dead.
don't laugh...it's science.
singin' and dancin' for the death of romancin'
i've a weird jones on for juvenile lyrics and catchy guitars this eve and an equally juvenile, though much less catchy, desire to bang on a keyboard for a bit.
so, imma flood this thing with commentary on what i'm listening to. if anything tickles your fancy, check it out.
my taste isn't terrible...
mostly.
really nothing to this thing. there's the temptation to call it "emo," but i'd avoid that. truth is, emo is not a genre, so i advise we all stop using that shit as a way to describe music.
what i mean to say is that any category that is supposed to include entries as disparate as weezer and bright eyes is not, in fact, a valid category. i propose we just call it rock music and describe the tone, tempo, arrangement and instrumentation rather than misusing the term emo (originally standing for "emotional hardcore") as a catchall for everything that isn't hip-hop, dance, country or metal.
okay...off of my soapbox.
hey mercedes is kind of what happens when hardcore gets lame. the angular guitar riffs stick around, and the volume stays pretty high, but the whole thing starts sounding more like the soundtrack to an american eagle clothing store than something that came out of the washington d.c. punk scene.
all of that disparaging commentary aside, this record, every night fireworks, definitely ranks among my guilty pleasures.
so, imma flood this thing with commentary on what i'm listening to. if anything tickles your fancy, check it out.
my taste isn't terrible...
mostly.
- "quit," "que shiraz," and "eleven to your seven" - hey mercedes.
really nothing to this thing. there's the temptation to call it "emo," but i'd avoid that. truth is, emo is not a genre, so i advise we all stop using that shit as a way to describe music.
what i mean to say is that any category that is supposed to include entries as disparate as weezer and bright eyes is not, in fact, a valid category. i propose we just call it rock music and describe the tone, tempo, arrangement and instrumentation rather than misusing the term emo (originally standing for "emotional hardcore") as a catchall for everything that isn't hip-hop, dance, country or metal.
okay...off of my soapbox.
hey mercedes is kind of what happens when hardcore gets lame. the angular guitar riffs stick around, and the volume stays pretty high, but the whole thing starts sounding more like the soundtrack to an american eagle clothing store than something that came out of the washington d.c. punk scene.
all of that disparaging commentary aside, this record, every night fireworks, definitely ranks among my guilty pleasures.
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