Throwback Thursday: How to Teach Writing, plus a Poem by a Little Guy

When our kids were growing up we home schooled for a several years. Susie did the yeoman's work. I created weekly quizzes, which kept me in the loop regarding our kids' progress. I also taught writing, which led to my writing a short book called Writing Exercises: How to Teach Writing and Prepare Your Favorite Students for College, Life and Everything Else. The book's real value stems from the approach that I developed and was encouraged to share.

It's a book for English teachers of all stripes, but especially homeschoolers, about how to teach writing. Here's one suggestion from the book: if you can figure out ways get you children and students to start writing, then you will have something to edit. If they enjoy the exercises they are more likely to produce copy (words on paper) that you can then use to praise while also correcting.

One assignment I gave my kids was for them to describe a room in our house, but from the point of view of being one inch tall. The whimsical Shel Silvertsein poem below might have been his solution to such an assignment.

One Inch Tall

If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.
The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
A crumb of cake would be a feast
And last you seven days at least,
A flea would be a frightening beast
If you were one inch tall.

If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,
And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
A bit of fluff would be your bed,
You'd swing upon a spider's thread,
And wear a thimble on your head
If you were one inch tall.

You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.
You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb.
You'd run from people's feet in fright,
To move a pen would take all night,
(This poem took fourteen years to write--
'Cause I'm just one inch tall).

Shel Silverstein

I Like Pithy Quotes, Some People Do Not

I like pithy quotes. I sometimes use them open articles, blog posts or stories I'm writing. On a couple occasions I've invented even quotes that I attributed to others, who were also inventions of my imagination. (EdNote: Only when writing fiction would I do that.)

Pithy quotes, with their succinct wisdom, resonate with me. I find them to be like concentrated bursts of insight, encapsulating profound thoughts in just a few words. They dance across your mind the way flavors dance on your tongue. "Less is more," they say, and indeed, brevity can be the soul of wit. 

Not everyone, however, shares this appreciation. Some dismiss these quick quips as oversimplifications and lacking depth, preferring the elaborate prose of longer narratives. They argue that complex ideas cannot be fully explored in a few words. Others, see the use of quotes as a shortcut for thinking. 

For me, the charm of a pithy quote lies in its ability to spark curiosity and provoke thought, inviting further exploration into their meaning. In short, I like 'em.

Here are some quotes about quotes to start your week.

 "Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit."
– Oscar Wilde

"I always have a quotation for everything—it saves original thinking."
– Dorothy L. Sayers

"A quote is just a tattoo on the tongue."
– William F. DeVault

"The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved in quotations." – Benjamin Disraeli

"A good quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool."
– Joseph Roux

"There is nothing so ridiculous but some philosopher has said it."
– Cicero

"The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is."

—Mary Pettibone Poole

"Quotes are just fancy ways of stating the obvious."
—Gerald Prunty

Meantime, life goes on all around you. 

Night of the Restless Moon (A Poem)

Night of the Restless Moon

Beneath the night's unquiet sky

The moon will dance, it will not lie.

A restless orb in silver hue,

It chases stars, the night anew.

It wanders far from where it's placed,

A nomad of the cosmic waste,

Its light, a beacon for the lost,

Guides whispers through late evening's frost.

The sea responds with ceaseless waves,

To moon's erratic, wandering crave.

Tides rise in rhythm to its beat,

A dance of water, sand, and fleet.

O'er fields, it casts a silver glow,

Where shadows stretch and secrets grow.

The night, it seems, can never sleep,

As moon in vigilance does keep.

For lovers, poets, and the lone,

It hangs, a symbol, brightly shown.

A thousand tales it does inspire,

With every phase, a new desire.

Yet, in its restlessness, there's peace,

A tranquil turmoil, a sweet release.

For in this night of endless roam,

We find ourselves, we find our home.

The moon, it moves, but so do we,

In life's vast, mysterious sea.

Under the night of restless moon,

We're all just wanderers, all too soon.

Photo credit: the author

Throwback Thursday: Ralph Gleason, Dylan and 1965

Though I've not yet completed my review of A Complete Unknown, this 2015 blog post says a lot about Dylan and 1965, the transition year featured in that self-same movie.

At a legendary press conference in San Francisco in 1965, Bob Dylan gave a bravura performance which was almost as entertaining as one of his concerts, fending off presumptuous and sometimes stupid questions with replies that were either baffling or surreal or contemptuous, or all three.

Reporter: “If you were to sell out to 'commercial interests’, what would they be?”

Dylan: “Ladies’ garments.”

Reporter (a different one): “Do you think of yourself as a protest singer or a rock and roll singer?” 

Dylan: “I think of myself as a song-and-dance man.”

from David Cheal's 2009 article in The Telegraph, "Bob Dylan: Still in a Defensive Mood."

* * * *

Ralph J. Gleason

Who was that reporter who asked, "Do you think of yourself as a protest singer or a rock and roll singer?" I've been reading a pair of Dylan books simultaneously and can't seem to locate where I read that this was Ralph Gleason.

It's one of the most entertaining press conferences in history, and one many of us are familiar with because it was filmed in its entirety. (Where are my fact-checkers when I need them?)

1965 was an incredible year. Civil rights protests were expanding in the Deep South, an ever-expanding wave of U.S. troops landed in Viet Nam, and Bob Dylan recorded two remarkable albums unlike anything that had gone before.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of a boatload of major events that characterized that time of change. In mid-January, Dylan recorded Bringing It All Back Home which opens with it's raucous Subterranean Homesick Blues.

Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
By the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten

When kids listened to this, their parents must have been scratching their heads.

Oct. 2, 1965 -- Newark, NJ (photo: Thom Cronin)

What's remarkable is how fast Dylan could lay down tracks on an album. I believe most of the songs on Another Side Of Bob Dylan were recorded in one take. That's astonishing. This article, The Most Revolutionary Year In Music, gives you a sense of how much command Dylan had over his medium at such an early age. He was not yet 23 at this point. (His birthday, which we still celebrate here in his hometown, is in May.)

The bootleg albums of Dylan performing live at various stages of his career are nearly all recorded in a single take, from "the Judas concert" to Isle of Wight. By way of contrast, I remember reading an article by someone (or interview with someone) who was tasked with producing the Live Doors album which proved a near impossible task. He said it took nearly a thousand concerts to make one concert album because of all the mistakes (and probably chaos.) He said they spliced together from four concerts just to make one song, and had to do the whole album piecemeal like that.

By mid-year Dylan fired yet another salvo into that exploding music scene: Highway 61 Revisited, which opens with that snare-shot wakeup call, Like A Rolling Stone. Don't kid yourself. He was changing the rules, and the earth was quaking.

* * * *

It's well-known that Rolling Stone magazine, co-founded by Ralph Gleason and Jann Wenner, lifted its name from this "shot heard 'round the world." Less well-known is the backstory.

Gleason was no newbie in the music scene. He was a seasoned veteran who had been covering the jazz scene longer than Jann Wenner was alive at the time. A grad of Columbia University in 1938 he spent the 1950's covering the cutting edge of San Francisco's jazz world, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1950 till his passing in 1975, and writing for Down Beat from 1948-1961. He helped found the Monterey Jazz Festival, and was authoring books right up till the day he died. You can tell the kind of respect he garnered by a comment that he and Nat Hentoff were the only two jazz journalists Miles would talk to. Miles could, and sometimes did call Gleason at three in the morning. Hentoff, who wrote for the Village Voice, was centered in the New York/East Coast world whereas Gleason was anchored on the West Face of musicland.

* * * *

The press conference cited above took place in December of 1965. I would be more than a little surprised if we don't see a few articles this coming December on the 50th anniversary of that event. Just under two years later Wenner and Gleason kicked off their new venture, Rolling Stone magazine. Ralph Gleason its editor. Wenner was just a kid with a dream; Gleason was a 48 year old veteran who surprised a lot of his followers by embracing this new sound. He never stopped his support for jazz, but he saw something important in the music that was happening, and aimed to share that.

The December 14, 1967 edition of Rolling Stone carried part of of the Ralph Gleason piece on that interview, which rolled into an actual transcription of that event. Here's the intro:

When Bob Dylan's five concerts in the San Francisco Bay Area were scheduled in December 1965, the idea was proposed that he hold a press conference in the studios of KQED, the educational television station. 

Dylan accepted and flew out a day early to make it. 

He arrived early for the press conference accompanied by Robbie Robertson and several other members of his band, drank tea in the KQED office and insisted that he was ready to talk about "anything you want to talk about." His only request was that he be able to leave at 3 p.m. so that he could rehearse in the Berkeley Community Theater where he was to sing that night. 

Though much of his music is serious to the core, Dylan was also a comic at heart. Fans know this comedic side of their hero and it's still present, as many noticed in his recent MusiCares speech a couple weeks ago.

Thanks to Gleason, and his magazine, you can find the speech in its entirety online. If nothing else check out the first half here. Dylan is hilarious. Somebody asks, "What poets do you dig?"

Dylan replies: Rimbaud, I guess; W. C. Fields; The family, you know, the trapeze family in the circus; Smokey Robinson; Allen Ginsberg; Charlie Rich – he's a good poet.

The trapeze family? W.C. Fields? Charlie Rich?

Meantime, life goes on... all around you. Keep on keepin' on, Mr Dylan.

The photo of Ralph Gleason appears to be a publicity still. It is believed that the use of this image of Ralph J Gleason may qualify as fair use under United States copyright law. 

The Windmills in Your Mind: Sinne Eeg Delivers the Goods, An Angel's Soul on a Platter

Sinne Eeg. Billy Peterson, bass.

I must have first heard this song decades ago because I remember seeing The Thomas Crown Affair but was too young to engage the song which had been composed for this film by French composer Michel Legrand with lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The song has since become an iconic standard, covered by numerous artists across various genres, each adding their unique flavor to its haunting melody and labyrinthine lyrics.

I discovered it after seeing Sinne Eeg, the Danish superstar jazz performer, this past fall at the Oldenburg House in Carlton. The lyrics generate for me connections to classic literature (Cervantes' Don Quixote, Borges' exploration of labyrinths, among others.) 

While the words are poetic and abstract, painting images of "windmills" -- a metaphor for the cyclical nature of thought, memory, emotion  and life -- while phrases like "a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel" evoke a profound sense of the psyche's intricacies. And any reference to wheels within wheels immediately inserts a connection to Ezekiel's otherworldly vision of the four living creatures, the heartbeat of the universe. The Bergmans' words are both a puzzle and a revelation, inviting listeners to reflect on their own mental processes and, perhaps, divine insertions.

The song itself is structured in a way that musically mimics the complexity of the mind's own workings. Legrand's composition features a cyclical, almost baroque melody that keeps returning to its initial theme, much like the recurring thoughts suggested by the title. The lush piano arrangement captures the essence of introspection.

Eeg's version of "Windmills of Your Mind" transcends its initial cinematic context. 

What do you think? I recommend repeated listens.It's a track worth exploring and savoring, a testament to the power of a performer to not just entertain but to provoke thought and emotion in equal measure.

Here's Sinne Eeg doing her magic with this penetrating song.

As for Sinne, the more your listen the more your hear, 
and the more you're moved. 

Related Link: A Night to Remember

https://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/2024/10/a-night-to-remember-cookin-at-o-with.html

'

Here are the lyrics for this profoundly moving song.

The Windmills of Your Mind

… Round, like a circle in a spiral

Like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning

On an ever-spinning reel

Like a snowball down a mountain

Or a carnival balloon

Like a carousel that's burning

Running rings around the moon

… Like a clock whose hands are sweeping

Past the minutes of its face

And the world is like an apple

Whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind.

… Like a tunnel that you follow

To a tunnel of it's own

Down a hollow to a cavern

Where the sun has never shone

Like a door that keeps revolving

In a half-forgotten dream

Or the ripples from a pebble

Someone tosses in a stream

… Like a clock whose hands are sweeping

Past the minutes of its face

And the world is like an apple

Whirling silently in space

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind.

… Keys that jingle in your pocket

Words that jangle in your head

Why did summer go so quickly

Was it something that you said

Lovers walk along the shore

And leave their footprints in the sand

Is the sound of distant drumming

Just the fingers of your hand

… Pictures hanging in a hallway

And a fragment of this song

Half-remembered names and faces

But to whom do they belong

When you knew that it was over

Were you suddenly aware

That the autumn leaves were turning

To the color of her hair

… Like a circle in a spiral

Like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning

On an ever-spinning reel

As the images unwind

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind.

… Pictures hanging in a hallway

And the fragment of this song

Half-remembered names and faces

But to whom do they belong

When you knew that it was over

Were you suddenly aware

That the autumn leaves were turning

To the color of her hair

… Like a circle in a spiral

Like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning

On an ever-spinning reel

As the images unwind

Like the circles that you find

In the windmills of your mind. 

Has the U.S. Lost Its Edge? Does the Future Belong to China?

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was set in the future in the year 600 A.F.  The "A.F." stands for "After Ford," referencing Henry Ford, who revolutionized the automotive industry with the introduction of the assembly line and mass production. In the future Huxley describes, humans will be purposefully designed and efficiently mass-produced as well.

There is a sense in which mass production and efficiency were two of the primary engines that powered America's economic growth and enabled us to gear up for the war effort that stalled, then toppled the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) in W.W. II. 

Now, however, 80 years have passed and it seems like the U.S. is so bogged down in red tape, litigation and corrupt self-serving politicians that it can't help but decline as a world power. It's almost insane how hamstrung our government is at every level; federal, state and local. We allocate billions for infractructure and only manage to buid a handful of charging stations. When we set aside a billion dollars for housing we create a few hundred. Government incompetence is legendary.

How does this inefficiency compare to what China has been able to achieve and is accomplishng? Is China destined to become the most powerful nation on earth?

* * * 

The issue of whether our nation's internal challenges with red tape, litigation, and political corruption could lead to a decline in its global power, thereby allowing China to potentially become the most powerful nation on earth, is real. Here are some of the variables at play.

Red Tape and Bureaucracy: The U.S. is often criticized for its extensive regulatory environment which slows down innovation, infrastructure projects, and economic activities. This can deter both domestic and foreign investment due to the complexity and time involved in navigating regulations. 

Litigation: The litigious nature of U.S. society has led to a system where fear of lawsuits can stifle innovation and increase costs for businesses potentially affecting competitiveness. I recently concluded that we no longer live in a land where justice is blind. The new unspoken reality seems to be, "He who has the most lawyers wins." This environment can lead to a focus on compliance rather than growth or development.

Political Corruption: Corruption, while not as rampant as in some other countries, remains a concern. The U.S. has seen declines in its Corruption Perceptions Index, reflecting issues with political integrity and the influence of money in politics, which can distort policy-making and economic decisions.

The Rise of China

Economic Growth: China has pursued a path of rapid economic development, becoming the world's second-largest economy with ambitions to lead in technology and global influence. Its strategies like the Belt and Road Initiative illustrate an attempt to extend economic and political influence globally. The B&RI is an infrastructure and economic development strategy designed to build ties to Asia and Africa in a manner quite different than the way in which the U.S. and Europe exploited the poorer and weaker nations of the world, extracting resources and loaning money at exorbitant interest rates. 

Government Efficiency: China's one-party state system allows for quicker decision-making and project implementation compared to democratic systems like that of the U.S., where consensus-building can be time-consuming. To build new nuclear power plant takes as much time (or more) dealiing with red tape and litigation as building the plant itself. A ban on new nuclear energy plans has lasted 30 years in Minnesota while the demand for energy continues to grow.  By way of contrast, China has 29 new nuclear reactors under construction and in August 2024 approved 11 additional new nuclear plants. This kind of efficiency has been a significant factor in its economic growth.

Political Stability: Under Xi Jinping, China has seen a consolidation of power, which, while criticized for diminishing political freedoms, provides a stable environment for policy execution, unlike the often gridlocked U.S. political system.

Global Power Dynamics

Military and Technological Edge: Despite challenges, the U.S. retains significant military capabilities and is a leader in technology, although China is rapidly catching up in areas like AI, 5G, and surveillance technology.

Soft Power and Alliances: The U.S. has traditionally held strong alliances and cultural influence globally. However, as noted, China is expanding its soft power through economic investments and cultural outreach, though it faces resistance in some democratic nations due to concerns over human rights and political freedoms.

Economic Interdependence: The global economy's interconnectedness means that both countries are vital to each other's economic health. Decoupling or a significant shift in power would have profound global impacts, potentially destabilizing rather than simply shifting dominance.

*

When looking toward the future, we cannot see how the many variables will impact one another. China is funding its ambitious goals with debt which is growing fairly rapidly. Even so, in the debt race, the U.S. is carrying a rather stunning load of its own--more than $35 trillion--and is almost certain to exceed more than $50 trillion within ten years.

Besides debt, China has other challenges including demographic issues and international pushback agaist its policies. There is no certainty with regards to how all these things will play out.

I myself feel a bit like Ebenezer Scrooge when he asks if the thngs he has seen can be altered. “Spirit, are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?” My concern is that if current trends in the U.S. continue without significant reform and China manages its issues effectively, the balance of power will indeed shift towards China.  

What do you think?
(Leave your comment below.)

Some of the information here was gathered via Grok.