(the seventh chapter of Shell Games) The new vagabond’s mind rippled outward like a vast, quickly growing web of consciousness catching flies of transcendence, as she flitted in the direction of Albany. Molly Connors was a living, breathing paradox, she realized: alone yet with all things. Another earlier paradox had zapped into her brain…
Tag: Work
For the Time…
May 7, 2016 Saturday Quiet New Haven night. I continue to break in my second collection of songs, in an echo of Navy and Edwardsville self-made CDs that came to soundtrack the months and seasons. No road construction in the Lyme district of coastal Connecticut tonight, and little rain. But as I was saying, enjoyed…
The Times Were A’Changin’… to Fit Profit Margins and Gauge Moral Worth
written June 11, 2009 “Time discipline,” as discussed by E. P. Thompson in “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism,” addresses the shift of concepts brought about from early industrialization, from “task orientation” and “general irregularity” possible in an agrarian-yeoman society to a structured, “time-oriented” labor construct. Further, time discipline was the tool of an often overly…
The Two O’Clock Show Begins in Five Minutes, Kids!
written August 7, 2011 The final education interview/review before beginning student teaching went well. Like many of the other candidates I spent several days reviewing educational theories and my own past musings on the subject before last Tuesday, yet the actually interview was much more conversational in nature. Either that, or simply being ultra-prepared…
Gaining Ownership of My Classroom
written August 11, 2011 I become a teacher on Monday, in four days. After attending an initial district assembly today in the high school auditorium (complete with a motivational YouTube montage) Sarah (Ms. Barber, my cooperating teacher) and I had some time to discuss the approaching semester. She’s giving me freedom to do pretty much…
Grassroots Campaigns, Gay Marriage and My Summer in the City
written July 28, 2012 Last night while on the Loop, flagging down people for Grassroots Campaigns with a wave and smile to ask “Hi! Would you like to help gay rights?” I felt like Kevin Costner before his last pitch in For Love of the Game, summoning whatever gumption of goodwill I had left….
Kickball Injuries and a Flock of Pint-Sized Geese
written May 8, 2012 I had not yet subbed at Jefferson Elementary, an out-of-the-way school in a quiet residential neighborhood of Collinsville, west of the downtown. I immediately thought it looked like a smaller version of my own massive, red-brick elementary building built in 1892. But it seemed to be deserted. I went…
A Fresh Rub
Written April 19, 2016 If I asked myself how I felt about a subject, and just wrote, what would come of it? This. So these are deep thoughts as they came to me about a serious subject. The jokes are because I can’t discuss anything like an adult: My sun-burned unease at my part-time…
Wash (Not the Bon Iver Song)
“City Eats Review by Me” written April 10, 2014 “Wash (Not the Bon Iver Song)” written April, 29, 2014 An Explainer: During the spring of 2014 I worked at a small independent cafe near to my apartment in St. Louis. The work seemed appealing as it did not require grading or calling the homes…
We Know English Good Enough: Final Peaks, Valleys and Deuces to an American Classroom
written December 7, 2012 In more buoyant spirits. Walking out to my car at 6:40 am, throwing my trusty substitute teacher’s satchel in the back, and departing the slowly awakening St. Louis for Illinois with NPR accompaniment, is, I dare to say, becoming a welcome routine. I am an English teacher today, one of…
Transactions
written February 2015 Transactions What Axel Landon’s birth certificate, dated July 4, 1876, did not say, was that its existence , as well as Axel’s, was the result of a fifteen minute ya’tun between Jackson Landon and pretty, butter scotch-haired Sylvia Morton, Pinefield’s lone, sixteen-year old prostitute. The miracle of life. If the Pinefield Town…
No One Will Believe You 