My new favorite Frank Sinatra reference; he IS everywhere.

From Phil Ochs' introduction to "Ringing of Revolution" from Phil Ochs in Concert (1966):

This song is so cinematic it's been made into a movie, starring Senator Carl Hayden as Ho Chi Minh.

Frank Sinatra plays Fidel Castro. 

Ronald Reagan plays George Murphy. 

John Wayne plays Lyndon Johnson, and Lyndon Johnson plays God. 

I play Bobby Dylan -- the young Bobby Dylan.

Top 10 Musical Highlights from Playlist of College Road Trip with Older Daughter

 

 

10.  The Statue of Liberty at sea in Billy Joel and Paul Simon

9.  "...disease’s venereal" (John Wesley Harding, "Captain Courageous")

8.  Suggesting everything from Joni Mitchell to Chicago to Cecilia Bartoli as possible sources for a song for NBHS's Music Maynia

7.  Singing the background breezes for Dylan's "Caribbean Wind"

6.  Realizing Tim Rice's Aida is just Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar

5.  Burning churches in Billy Joel and Paul Simon

4.  The point toward the end of "Save the People"when the entire company of Godspell joins in

3.  Stating with assurance that Bookends is the best Simon and Garfunkel album

2.  Singing the lyrics of the B-52s' "Love Shack" to their "Channel Z" without missing a beat since it's the same song

1.  Remembering my introducing her to The Lovin Spoonful's "Rain on the Roof" one day on a ride into Holmes Elementary School so many years ago!

 

 

 

Venezuelan Presidential Candidacy Song of the Day

 

 

 

Bob Dylan and the Band singing

 

Hugo Your Way, I'll Go Mine!

 

 

 



Now that I've been eliminated from this year's Excellence in Teaching Award competition...

...here's the "Statement of Teaching Philosophy" that I submitted (well, sans pictures):

  Tap Dancing to Bob Dylan

(A Philosophy of Teaching)

 

     I must confess that I don’t remember what I wrote in 2002 when I was last nominated for CCSU’s Excellence in Teaching Award (and was very honored to be named a finalist), but I’m willing to wager it was wordier than it will be this time ‘round.  Now that I’m in my thirtieth year of teaching, I’ve simplified my thinking (or, at least, have identified a pithy statement of my views!) and, more importantly, I’ve become a student again.

     At the conclusion of “Dear Landlord” (from his mythopoeic 1967 album, John Wesley Harding), Bob Dylan sings:

And if you don’t underestimate me

I won’t underestimate you.

 

 

That, in short, sums up my philosophy of teaching.  I challenge my students to achieve the very most they can, and, in return, I expect them to demand the greatest effort from me.
     Practically speaking, this means my encouraging my students to a) invest in our class time together to the fullest extent with questions and comments for me and their peers; b) visit my office hours for extra help (whenever and as often as necessary); c ) submit drafts of their papers to me before they are due, so I can comment on and help them sharpen both their ideas and their expression of those ideas; and d) tap into my expertise, my experience, and my position in whatever way they can to glean the most out of their time here at CCSU.  
     While I’ve always done these things, their importance has been magnified since I became a struggling student again.  In Spring 2007, during my last sabbatical – knowing that, with two school-age daughters, I wouldn’t be traveling anywhere, yet still wanting to do something different (as a break from researching St. Eulalia of Merida) – I began weekly tap dance classes at the Community Division of The Hartt School.   My rationale went something like:
      “If those penguins in Happy Feet can tap, well, dammit, so can I.”

Five years of elementary tap classes later, I can testify,
      “Well, no, I can’t.”
      This epiphany has meant not a little to my teaching because it has driven home to me that, even when a student tries, some subjects and/or skills simply don’t come easily or, perhaps, come at all.  I have, for example, attended my tap classes faithfully, pay attention, try, and practice, but – even when I can do individual steps passably (or, perhaps, even well) – I’ve never gotten any good at combinations, much less routines.  As a result, I have come to acknowledge that failure, or at least an extended struggle for competence, is a possibility and should not be dismissed as mere lack of effort or interest.  Indeed, limited success, and even failure, can be an acceptable outcome – provided both parties, the student and teacher, have tried to achieve, attempted alternate approaches, and not simply surrendered to the struggle.  (I, for example, still happily trudge off to tap each week knowing that many past classmates have gone on to more advanced classes, while my out- and under-standing teacher is never dismissive of my efforts.)
      Furthermore, this realization (coupled with the knowledge that much of what I teach – from composition to Latin to the literatures of ancient Greece, Rome, and early America – are not what many deem “relevant” or prima facie “interesting”) makes it imperative for me to be as welcoming, engaging, and supportive as possible, while never underestimating them. 
      That I have been nominated once again and have so promptly found six students and a colleague to testify to my approach as a teacher must mean I’m doing something right. 
      Just don’t ask me to do a time step.

June is bustin' out all over in New Britain...

Seizing full advantage of the absolutely beautiful weather today (70s with a breeze!), I took a nice lengthy round trip walk (almost synchronized with Dylan's double album Blonde on Blonde) from home to Walnut Hill Park.

In case you haven't noticed, late Spring has arrived full blown in central Connecticut.
 
One can tell by:

the fountain at work at the corner of Lincoln and Corbin,
the number of mid-day bikers and walkers,
the return of sunbathers amidst the grove of "State" trees,
a batsman practicing his cricket swings,
and
the rose bushes a-blooming atop the Park!

Not many of the students knew the allusion, alas, but...

From Sarah Vowell’s The Wordy Shipmates (Riverhead Books, 2008), an insightful (and very funny) examination of the 17^th-century Puritans in America:

[John Winthrop and Roger Williams] personify what would become the fundamental conflict of American life – between public and private, between the body politic ad the individual, between we the people and each person’s pursuit of happiness. At his city-on-the-hill best Winthrop is Pete Seeger, gathering a generation around the campfire to sing their shared folk songs. Williams is Bob Dylan plugging in at Newport, making his own noise (128-129)

As Vowell writes shortly before:

In his tormented, lonesome, obsessive, Calvinist way, [Roger Williams] is free. I find him hard to like, but easy to love (127).

Dylan as prophet

Apropos of nothing (or everything) in American culture circa 2009, a little Bob Dylan:

They’re spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured.
Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words.

From “Desolation Row,” Highway 61 Revisited, Columbia Records, 1965

A trio of songs...

...with audible inhaling from the lead or back-up singers:

The Beatles' "Girl" (John sounds more like he's one toke over the line than cooing over some young lady.) 1965

Sam Cooke's "Cupid" (It's the sound of the cherub's arrow going "straight to my lover's heart.") 1961

Bob Dylan's "Caribbean Wind" (Here at least the singers get to exhale loudly too!) 1981

Feel free to offer more examples!