"These were called breadlines."

It's Sunday night and I'm grading papers - specifically an essay exam from last week on the Great Depression. Due to the recent push for the state ELA exam I feel like my 8th graders are really at the top of their game right now when writing. Of course there are still hilarious (or disappointing) syntax problems, but a lot of students are writing great thesis statements, accurately using specific details to support their arguments, and just writing better.

That said, there are three problems I encounter perpetually: (1) inability/refusal to follow directions; (2) the "pile on," whereby a large number of seemingly arbitrary facts are grouped together in hopes of answering a question; and (3) "the blur," where issues and time periods are blended together and dumped onto a page - references to the Industrial Revolution in the midst of answering a question about the causes of the Great Depression.

Oh, and as you probably guessed the photo is by Dorothea Lange, 1940 near Bakersfield, CA.

A long way to go

I plan on blogging a lot more about my first year teaching in Room 507, but thoughts like this have crossed my mind a lot this year. It's funny to think that by Gladwell's theory, I was about 2 years past being an "expert" lawyer when I quit.

Small Change

I don't know why, but small stories like this make me feel good (even better) about the election.

The Mysterious Mixer

I realize this wasn't intended to be a music blog, but I discovered bitorrent this weekend and have been in heaven. Before the Animal Collective show last week, they were playing some pretty incredible dub that I didn't recognize and Shazam really let me down. In what can only be described as divine intervention, the Village Voice actually mentioned the song in the review. How that happened, I don't know. But anyway, I now know who Bullwackie (aka Lloyd Barnes, The Mysterious Mixer, etc...) is. I'm having trouble finding stuff and I haven't figured out how to upload my own, so enjoy these.

Now if he can just hit some more bombs...

Fielder and the Brewers agree to a two year deal.

Take a Walk Out in the Light Drizzle

I recently caught (insert hyperbole here) Animal Collective at the Bowery Ballroom, the day after the release of their 9th and most "accessible" album, Merriweather Post Pavilion. Enough has been written and said about it - it's great. And the show was great, although I couldn't help but feel that a lot of the chaos from their old shows was missing. I used to walk away from an AC show somewhat disappointed that I didn't recognize more of the material, but only because the performances were even more amazing than the albums. I also couldn't help thinking that the crowd loving My Girls wouldn't be as thrilled during We Tigers. This is a great version of the later from the Malta Festival in 2007.

Going to Gambier

I'm kind of excited about these shows. As much as I love recent Mountain Goats tours, nothing beats the solo shows.

From John:

We're going to stand alone onstage and play our guitars and sing old songs & new, and then we'll probably play together. We are going to sit side by side with our acoustic guitars like two out of the five guys on the Five Man Acoustical Jam album, only with fewer Tesla songs. Because the whole point of playing an acoustic guitar is not to unplug. It's to get raw and draw blood.

Although this isn't a music blog (I'll leave that to the professionals), it is named after a tMG song, which I'll probably write more about later. I won't be going to Gambier, but I will be attending the NYC show, part of the Wordless Music Series.

Plan

I'm not completely sure what the purpose of starting a blog at this point is, as there seem to be plenty on the Internets these days. That said, I am hoping to learn HTML, waste time, and maybe retire early .

Web Presence

Starts here.