Sunday, February 14, 2010

Happy Discounted Candy Eve, everyone!



February 15 is the big day.

Photo courtesy Flickruser terren in Virginia

We're being stalked by a rainbow!



The title of this post is what one student said when everyone on the bus looked up from their laptops.

See article in The New York Times, about wi-fi on school buses in Arizona, an innovation that has turned noisy rides into quiet study halls, or so they say.

“It’s made a big difference,” said J. J. Johnson, the bus’s driver. “Boys aren’t hitting each other, girls are busy, and there’s not so much jumping around.”

Sounds like a great idea to me. I have bad memories of bus rides.

Photo courtesy Flickruser 04deveni

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Shakespeare said everything

Shakespeare said everything. Brain to belly; every mood and minute of a man’s season. His language is starlight and fireflies and the sun and moon. He wrote it with tears and blood and beer, and his words march like heartbeats. He speaks to everyone and we all claim him but it’s wise to remember, if we would really appreciate him, that he doesn’t properly belong to us but to another world; a florid and entirely remarkable world that smelled assertively of columbine and gun powder and printer’s ink, and was vigorously dominated by Elisabeth.


Orson Welles, Everybody’s Shakespeare, 1934


Thornton Wilder called this “the greatest thumbnail summation of Shakespeare’s genius ever written.”

Julie Andrews was right.

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens ARE awesome. Nevertheless, I'm so happy to be in California while the big storm hits the east coast!

Monday, February 1, 2010

The early stages of the shift from domesticated back to wild




Moscow’s stray dogs, some of which are reverting to the characteristics of wolves. I love the bit about the “metro dogs,” who have learned how to use public transportation, know where to get on and off the subway, and have learned the schedules of some of the passengers.

Photo courtesy Flickruser akk_rus