Owner: Mental multivitamin URL:http://mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 17:14:56 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Mental multivitamin was established in October 2003 for readers, thinkers, and autodidacts. Regular features include "On the nightstand" and "The recommended daily allowance." Site statistics:Click here
Fine Art Friday 1970-01-01 00:59:59 "The Unicorn in Captivity," 1495-1505South Netherlandish This can be viewed at The Cloisters, which we didn't see when we visited NYC, but we did spend time here, where we found a book celebrating unicorn imagery in art. This image makes Miss M-mv(i) inordinately happy.From the Met's web site:The seven individual hangings known as "The Unicorn Tapestries," are among the most beautiful and complex works of art from the late Middle Ages that survive. Luxuriously woven in fine wool and silk with silver and gilded threads, the tapestries vividly depict scenes associated with a hunt for the elusive, magical unicorn. "The Unicorn in Captivity" may have been created as a single image rather than part of a series. In this instance, the unicorn probably represents the beloved tamed. He is tethered to a tree and constrained by a fence, but the chain is not secure and the fence is low enough to leap over: The unicorn could escape if he wished. Clearly, however, his confinement is a happy one, Read more:Friday
, Fine Art
The recommended daily allowance 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Narrator: And though every single human in the stands or in the commentary boxes was at a complete loss for words, the man who in his life had uttered fewer words than any of them knew exactly what to say. Farmer Hoggett: That'll do, pig. That'll do.One the most perfect family films ever.I love this bit from Ebert's review:Something passed between them: the faintest hint of a common destiny.I quote this line because you do not expect such language in a movie about a clever little pig. One of the chief delights of "Babe," indeed, is that it is such a clever little pig movie. It is rated G, and yet all of the people and most of the animals in "Babe" are smarter and more articulate than the characters in most of the R-rated movies I see. Read more:allowance
"The drum major instinct" 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Martin Luther King, Jr., to his church on February 4, 1968:And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct
. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. Alfred Adler, the great psychoanalyst, contends that this is the dominant impulse. Sigmund Freud used to contend that sex was the dominant impulse, and Adler came with a new argument saying that this quest for recognition, this desire for attention, this desire for distinction is the basic impulse, the basic drive of human life, this drum major instinct.And you know, we begin early to ask life to put us first. Our first cry as a baby was a bid for attention. And all through childhood the drum major impulse or instinct is a major obsession. Children ask life to grant them first place. They are a little bundle of ego. And they have innately the drum major impulse or the drum major instinct.Now in adult life, we still have it, and we really never get by it.
On my desk 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Today was a CAFFEINATED mug day, for no other reason than it was the first mug the men grabbed when preparing my coffee for me. Isn't that nice? On this federal holiday, both my husband and my son were home together, in the kitchen. They baked corn muffins, talked computer-geekery -- and made coffee for me when I finally woke up and called out, "Hey! What's everyone doing?"From Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting (Robert McKee):The Principle of Antagonism: A protagonist and his story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make them.Purchased with Holiday Rewards from the bookstore that must not be named. Yeah, those would be post-hoilday rewards. I had earned enough in after-Christmas shopping to pick up Story, and then I parlayed some of my points from participating in online marketing surveys into more Holiday Rewards, with which I picked up Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky Hist
"They smell of newly mown grass." 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I'm speechless, literally without a speech. It seems odd to me that in the weeks leading up to this event, when people are falling over themselves to give you free shoes, cuff-links, colonic irrigations, you name it, no one offers to give you a free acceptance speech. I'd love to be able to pull out a speech by Dolce & Gabbana.[...]I know everyone says they have a wonderful crew and certainly that can't be the case. We can't all be wonderful. Somebody somewhere is working with a crew of drunken thieves. But it's not me. They smell of newly mown grass
.Hugh Laurie, accepting the Golden Globe earlier this evening.And since I just know Miz Booshay will ask tomorrow morning, I will just say right now that my answer is Helen Mirren. Grace. Style. Class. Close second? Meryl Streep. (And, no, I didn't watch. I'm (supposed to be) working. But I perused the Yahoo photos.)
We do not live in Lake Wobegon. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From "Intelligence in the Classroom" (Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2007):One word is missing from these discussions: intelligence. Hardly anyone will admit it, but education's role in causing or solving any problem cannot be evaluated without considering the underlying intellectual ability of the people being educated. Today and over the next two days, I will put the case for three simple truths about the mediating role of intelligence that should bear on the way we think about education and the nation's future. Today's simple truth: Half of all children are below average in intelligence. We do not live in Lake Wobegon.From "What's Wrong With Vocational School?" (WSJ, January 17):A reality about the job market must eventually begin to affect the valuation of a college education: The spread of wealth at the top of American society has created an explosive increase in the demand for craftsmen. Finding a good lawyer or physician is easy. Finding a good carpenter, painter, electric
Fine Art Friday 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Claude Monet (1840-1926)"House of the Customs Officer, Varengeville" (1882)Semicolon hosts "The Saturday Review of Books." Consider participating tomorrow.My music studies are still going well. Mastering "Beautiful Brown Eyes" (p. 65 in Adult All-In-One Course: Lesson-Theory-Technic: Level 1, for those who are following my progress) and beginning "Edelweiss" (the second tune in Greatest Hits, Level 1) wer this week's challenges.As for Project FeederWatch, we're scheduled to watch Sunday and Monday mornings.My work is coming along. My goal is twenty-nine hundred words by Monday morning. See you on the other side. Read more:Friday
, Fine Art
Original. Card-carrying. 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From M., the original and card-carrying
member of M-mv's best and perfect audience, a New York Times link, "Say Yes to Mess" (December 21, 2006).Wrote M.:Even though I'm on the side of the messies (my cup overflows!), I couldn't make sense of this: ... "When I think about this urge to organize, it reminds me of how it was when Americans began to take more and more control of their weight: they got fatter," said Marian Salzman, chief marketing officer of J. Walter Thompson and co-author, with Ira Matathia, of "Next Now: Trends for the Future," which is about to be published by Palgrave Macmillan. [snip] Right now, she said, "we are emotionally overloaded, and so what this is about is that we are getting better and better at living superficially""Superficial is the new intimate," Ms. Salzman said, gaining steam, "and these boxes, these organizing supplies, are the containers for all our superficial selves. "I will be a neater mom, a hipper mom, a mom that gets mor Read more:Original
Chapbook entry 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Good Omens(Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman)p. 106The head of Internal Audit opened his mouth to say something reasonable, and didn't. Everyone had a point where they crack, and his had just been hit with a spoon. Twenty years in the job. He'd wanted to be a graphic designer but the careers master hadn't heard of that. Twenty years of double-checking Form BF18. Twenty years of cranking the bloody hand calculator, when even the people in Forward Planning had computers. And now for reasons unknown, but possibly to do with reorganization and a desire to do away with all the expense of early retirement, they were shooting at him with bullets.p. 140Adam had a way of slouching along that offended all right-thinking people. It wasn't that he just allowed his body to droop. He could slouch with inflections, and now the set of his shoulders reflected the hurt and bewilderment of those unjustly thwarted in their selfless desire to help their fellow men.p. 141Dog slouched along dutifully behind
Follow-up 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Remember this request for information? Well, I recently heard from A:After you were so helpful regarding my query on parents, children, and music-making, I thought I should let you know where I have got to so far, mostly from [...] The Piano in America by Craig H. Roell, and also from [Gary S.] Cross in An All-Consuming Century.I've identified about five kinds of explanation why we have a situation where a considerable effort is invested by schools, parents, and kids on children's music (and can also be applied to painting, crafts, possibly even reading), but this mostly stops abruptly in early adulthood, whereupon the cycle is repeated with the next generation.1. Status explanation (Thorsten Veblen, etc.): Previously, both women and children were required to have activities which could demonstrate their vast amounts of leisure time, with accomplishments like piano playing being unfalsifiable evidence that they hadn't been carrying buckets of coal or doing any other gainful activity
From the archives: About college 1970-01-01 00:59:59 In my 11.4.2003 entry, I noted, "I've simply lost the unwavering commitment to the idea that college is the natural, right, or even desirable next stop for today's high school graduate — no matter what his SAT scores, transcript, and favorite teacher may say. This, of course, is the stuff of another day's entry." This idea interested several readers, who asked that I develop the thought a little further.As promised, then.William A. Henry III wrote:We have foolishly embraced the unexamined notions that everyone is pretty much alike (and, worse, should be), that self-fulfillment is more important than objective achievement, that the common man is always right, that he needs no interpreters or intermediaries to guide his thinking, that a good and just society should be far more concerned with succoring its losers than honoring and encouraging its winners to achieve more and thereby benefit everyone. At times — indeed, at almost all times when educational policy is involved — we a
On the nightstand 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Nearly two months separate this "On the nightstand
" entry and the last. Work, the holidays, and, oh, yeah, more work intervened, I guess. I think, too, that at some point, it just became a little daunting. As you may know, often I'll list my latest acquisitions in the monthly entry, and, what, with Aunt M-mv's Christmas gifts to me, the library of books I won, assorted test-drives, and wanton Holiday Rewards-fueled spending, I believe I became tired simply contemplating the entry of all of those titles and links.I know, I know... poor Mrs. M-mv.I've mentioned plenty of books over the weeks, though, so I'll cease whining now and simply get to the books.:: Piano Lessons: Music, Love, and True Adventures (Noah Adams)Excerpt: The ivory-topped keys are cold at first, and so are my hands. I start with exercises, playing in unison an octave apart, up and down the keyboard. Sometimes I notice a tremble, a shaking in the last two fingers of my left hand. In the morning light, though, my han
No birth stories. (I'm not a birth-story kinda gal... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 No birth
stories. (I'm not a birth-story
kinda gal.) No platitudes. No trite poems or Hallmark sentimentality. Just a simple declaration: This is my first baby girl. She's a reader, a thinker, an autodidact... and artist of gifts well beyond her years. (Wait. Stop. I want to get off.) Happy Birthday, Miss M-mv(i)!
Information literacy 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From "A Librarian's Lament: Books Are a Hard Sell" (Washington Post, January 21, 2007):I recently spoke with a junior who was stressed about her decreasing ability to focus on anything for longer than two minutes or so. I tried to inspire her by talking about the importance of reading as a way to train the brain. I told her that a good reader develops the same powers of concentration that an athlete or a Buddhist would employ in sport or meditation. "A lot out there is conspiring to distract you," I said.She rolled her eyes. "That's your opinion about books. It doesn't make it true." To her, the idea that reading might benefit the mind was, well, lame.A library's neglected shelves reveal the demise of something important, especially for young readers starved for meaning -- for anything profound. Read more:literacy
"[C]onsole them in their mediocrity." 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I was up early today, to greet the house sparrows... and the Cooper's hawk. Whoosh! Feathers everywhere. And the plumbers. They arrived before eight. The cinnamon cake was already in the oven, but I had to turn it off for five minutes when the men shut down the gas. I worried that the cake would fall or wilt or be somehow ruined.It's fine.__________________________Something I read today recalled to me this Robert Louis Stevenson quote:Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.Be not discouraged from your ambitious attempts, folks. In other words, don't succumb to the lure of mediocrity or the consolations of mediocre people... Tut, tut. There, there, now.Just. Don't.
Confessions 1970-01-01 00:59:59 "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman" has been nominated in the Seventh Annual Weblog Awards, "Best-Kept Secret Weblog." (Scroll down a bit on the Bloggies page to get to the category.)Do two things: Bookmark her site. Give her your vote.
Fine Art Friday 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Mel Bochner, (1940-)"Portrait of Eva Hesse," 1966When we visited the Art Institute of Chicago back in October, they were hosting "Focus: Mel Bochner—Language 1966-2006."From the "Fine ArtFriday
" archiveSeveral years ago, I took a series of courses at the Art Institute of Chicago.The lecturers assumed nothing about us -- the adult students in the classes, mostly educators -- but a "burning desire to know more." This approach worked well for an art infant like me.Oh, what a lot I learned. One bit that I remember in particular concerns Jackson Pollack's work, "Greyed Rainbow." When we were ushered into the room in which the painting hung, the speaker explained that it had been her experience that people who had not been exposed to much (any) non-representational art when they were younger were unlikely to appreciate such work as "Greyed Rainbow.""They will dismiss it as childish, pointless, and all that is wrong with modern art."Many in our class nodded their agreement.She then went
"Why, there's a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate." 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From "Shakespeare. Yes, again. And again.": Use their toys: The Misses M-mv were onto something when their Ken nodded to Barbie and assured her that nice customs curtsey to great kings. Using Barbies or Little Ponies or puppets or whatever to illustrate plot twists or illuminate intent... well, that's just child-like genius at work. Harness it to help your young viewers understand the intricacies of A Midsummer Night's Dream or the intrigue of Hamlet.Introduce.Listen.Watch. (It opens today -- in just ninety minutes!)Read.
"[O]ddly tender" 1970-01-01 00:59:59 From The Taming of the Shrew (audio and Folger edition):Induction, scene 1LORD: This do, and do it kindly, gentle sirs.It will be a pastime passing excellent,If it be husbanded with modesty.Act I, scene 1TRANIO: Balk logic with acquaintance that you haveANd practice rhetoric in your common talk.Music and poesy use to quicken you.The mathematics and the metaphysics,Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you.No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en.In brief, sir, study what you most effect.Act I, scene 2PETRUCHIO: Sirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.Act I, scene 2GRUMIO: Here's no knavery! See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks lay their heads together! Master, master, look about you. Who goes there, ha?[...]O this learning, what a thing it is!Act IV, scene 3PETRUCHIO: Our purses shall be proud, our garmets poor,For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich;And as the sun breaks through the darkest cloudsSo honor peereth in the meanest habit.What, is the jay mo
Bardolatry 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Bardolatry, the worship of Shakespeare, ought to be even more a secular religion than it already is. The plays remain the outward limit of human achievement: aesthetically, cognitively, in certain ways morally, even spiritually. They abide beyond the end of the mind's reach; we cannot catch up to them. Shakespeare will go on explaining us, in part because he invented us....1.29.2007 (Chapbook entry on The Taming of the Shrew and related commentaries, as well as a hearty recommendation of CST's Short Shakespeare! production)1.26.2007 (Shrew(d) recommendations)10.19.2006 (Horatio and the Terry Hands-directed Hamlet at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater)9.30.2006 (Teaching/learning Shakespeare; includes film and audio recommendations, selected bibliography, tips, and more)9.04.2006 (Hamlet or Lear?)8.30.2006 (The Shakespeare "debate")7.30.2006 (A civilizing influence)5.15.2006 ("When I read Shakespeare...")4.17.2006 (Macbeth at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater)3.15.2006 ("He reads much.")1.
Haunting 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I often write about how this aspect of my reading life intersects that aspect of my working and/or teaching life. Observing this synthesis is one of the great joys of my autodidactic pursuits. I am also interested in weaving together the threads of similar books -- tying one to another in ways that amplify each.For example, I read Nancy Garden's Endgame just after the New Year holiday. Fourteen-year-old Gray is, as the prologue reveals, like the hexagons that pattern the glass in his room at the juvenile detention facility: He is son, brother, friend, archer, drummer -- and murderer.Framed as Gray's taped interviews with his attorney, Endgame narrates a story of bullying and hopelessness that successfully elicits in the reader horror, yes, but also sympathy for Gray's sixth "side." Teachers, fellow students, even his own father fail to understand the physical and psychological brutality to which Gray is being subjected by some of the high school's football "heroes."So the young man
Year of the Dark-Eyed Junco 1970-01-01 00:59:59 In her paean to birding, Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds, Lyanda Lynn Haupt writes:There is a game birders play on New Year's Day called "Bird of the Year." The very first bird you see on the first day of the new year is your theme bird for the next 365 days. It might seem a curious custom, but people who watch birds regularly are always contriving ways to keep themselves interested. This is one of those ways. You are given the possibility of creating something extraordinary -- a Year of the Osprey, Year of the Pileated Woodpecker, Year of the Trumpeter Swan. This game is an inspiration to place yourself in natural circumstances that will yield a heavenly bird, blessing your year, your perspective, your imagination, your spirit. New year, new bird.After her breathless anticipation, Haupt is confronted with... an Eastern Starling, or "sky-rat."Year of the Eastern Starling. Inauspicious, yes, but not without its charms, according to Haupt. (If you missed my recommendation of this ge
The recommended daily allowance 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Do you know what tomorrow is? Then you already know my recommendation.Groundhog Day.Phil: Well, it's Groundhog Day. Again. Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered? Ralph: That about sums it up for me. Phil: Do you know what today is? Rita: No, what? Phil: Today is tomorrow. It happened. Phil: I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over? Read more:allowance
Watch the eagles soar! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Celebrate bald eagle wintering along the Illinois River: Travel to Havana, IL, this Saturday for Eagle Days Festival. Events include many eagle-watching opportunities and presentations featuring live raptors by the Illinois Raptor Center. (Havana is about two hundred miles from O'Hare.) Read more:eagles
Two books to read aloud... today 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I'll admit that I think Sara Pennypacker borrows heavily from Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest (the section in which Clementine reminds the principal that she still hasn't received a gift even though she's in the gifted math class smelled suspiciously of Ramona sitting "here for the present," no?) and Barbara Park's grammar-impaired Junie B. Jones ("I think"). Still, it passed an afternoon in laughter. And that's a good thing.Similarly, Barbara Caudill's simple tale, first published in 1961, passed a trip to piano lessons one recent Saturday (with a couple of sentimental tears: "They all wish they had brought their very favorite dolls with them now, don't they?").These are mashed-potatoes-and-gravy sorts of books -- soft, comforting, tasty, filling, simple, homey.Enjoy them. We sure did.
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