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Showing posts from April, 2012

I'll Be Everywhere

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     One of the reasons I live in Portland, Oregon is that this city has excellent book stores.  Just spending an hour in a bookstore is something I hope I'll be able to do for the duration.  In our stellar bookstore, Powell's, there are always good bargains, lots of used books along with the latest offerings, all kinds of journals, magazines, book lights, and one of my favorite features: Staff Recommendations.  I love to see what the employees there are reading and the books they deem worthy of recognition.  I trust them. Powell's has readings by authors, a cafe, a knowledgeable staff, and thousands and thousands of ways to kill an hour or two.  For those most patient, the rewards can be huge.  $30. books reduced to $7.95 if you have a year or two to spare.      Like newspapers, I know that book stores are on their way out.  Just this morning I heard that Barnes and Noble and Microsoft signed a deal to produce E-textbooks.  Immediately I thought of that stretch on Bancro

Head Waters

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We snuck off to the Metolius River for a couple of days this week. This magical place, with all its contradictions, yields its secrets slowly. It's been 15 years now since I first set eyes on what must be one of the most pristine rivers anywhere. This year we got a chance to show it to my brother-in-law, John. Like me, he likes to fly fish, hike, and just sit by the water and watch the stress melt away. John is a constant photographer so there will always be pictures wherever he goes. One afternoon he and I decided to travel up an unmarked road between two of the public campgrounds along the river. Following it to the end and careful not to trod on private property, we ended up seeing a portion of the river that most never do. It split into two streams at one point as a side channel meandered in a D shape before rejoining the main body. This time of year the water was at its highest and moving rather rapidly. The fishing wasn't too hot, but John managed one redside (a

Not Yet

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How's this for irony. I'm writing a piece on my development as a fly fisher. It's taken me about 15 years to go up the learning curve in this very precise sport. Sometimes I think that the finesse involved in placing a micro mini piece of feather and thread on a tiny hook in exactly the right place in a fast moving body of water is the exact opposite of any skill I could ever master. No so. I've made progress. So here I am writing this piece about how I realize that whenever I'm particularly patient, good things happen. Some of the most memorable experiences (and fish too) have resulted from letting go of the impatience that often smothers me. Cut to the finish line: I end up deleting my draft in a rush of impatience that saw me empty my digital trash after mistakenly putting in the file I was working on. First time for everything. But then what's the message? Rewrite. I did. All 3000 words. Starting from memory, I made an outline, but it

Tradeoff

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There is a line or two from the play Inherit the Wind that's been rattling around in my head for the last few days. This play, you might recall, features the classic battle between the lawyers Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady. In reality, of course, it is the famous "Scopes Monkey Trial" and the lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan that set the tone and backdrop for the play. Aside from the fact that this intellectual battle still rages between the scientific community and the religious right, this play contains additional gems of wisdom on all manner of topics. So I recalled this line about the price of progress. In an age when everything from the book and the telephone have been reconfigured, I still wonder about what is progressive and what might be regressive. I realize that it's futile to think or even wish that some things would remain the same. But there is a good deal of comfort in wondering about what is lost and what is gained.

Inborn

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One of the biggest trade offs that has become a casualty in all the recent attempts at school reform is creativity for literacy. In some ways they might be considered the same thing, but in light of the corporate crusade against public education, they most assuredly are not. Pablo Picasso once said that all children are born artists, and that the problem is to remain one as we grow older. I've seen this many times in many ways. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it's the chief reason I went into teacher education: to give permission to hold onto creativity in curriculum. For any educator, the opposite of creativity is de-skilling. That, perhaps, is the most odious thing hiding behind all the well-intended politicians and non-educator corporate types. It's about control. When creativity is reinforced and encouraged the air of oppression lifts. With that comes all the intrigue, all the enjoyment, all the fun, and all the realization that you are beginning to do

What's In Store

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In the unreal spectrum of what passes for reality TV is a little genre that follows the exploits of people who buy storage lockers. Storage Wars is probably the leader of the pack. I watch an episode or two now and again because some of the characters and some of their recovered loot perks my interest. If you stop judging the quality of this entertainment and the people who seem to make it their avocation, you can learn a thing or two about the treasures they bid or gamble on. They're risk takers, dreamers, who discover a real find now and then. Antiques Roadshow it's not. They've glammed it all up to make "powerful TV." In other words it's an exaggerated mess that's orchestrated for an audience that's mostly materialistic or in a coma. Still I watch from time to time. But after you get past the locker with nothing but dirty mattresses, or the one with a valuable coin collection in a dresser drawer, something else is sneaking into your brai