What do Teacher's Make

Since everybody seemed to enjoy my earlier post on the the impotence of proof reading by Taylor Mali, I thought I'd include this one of him reading his poem: What do Teacher's Make. This is really great stuff if you're a teacher and really important stuff if you're a person who doesn't think much of teachers.

After that I've included some random chick on Youtube reading the same poem as an audition piece. My point in doing so is to show how Poetry read aloud as poetry can be brilliant, but poetry read aloud as an audition piece generally sucks sweaty donkey balls. (sorry, random chick on Youtube, you seem talented, but choose another piece.)

If you're going to read poetry aloud, use the music of the poem first, before you try to make it sound "natural".

Taylor Mali:

Random Youtube Chick:

Here's the text of the poem:
What Teachers Make, or
Objection Overruled, or
If things don't work out, you can always go to law school
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"
He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company.

"I mean, you¹re a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"

And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).

Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?

25 Things about me

Nicole tagged me in this so I guess I gotta do it...

1. Most people are more interested in my ancestors than in me. It can be annoying, but for the most part it doesn't bother me. I think they were interesting people too.
   
   
2. For thirty years now I've suffered from pretty severe depression. I fight it by trying to find something positive about everything, which can be annoying by itself.
   
   
3. In my youth, I was a champion weight-lifter. Other than that I'm a terrible athlete.
   
   
4. I'm fascinated by monsters. Fictional, fantasy or real, I just dig 'em.
   
   
5. I am something of an expert on the 1933 movie King Kong
   
   
6. I've met a lot of celebrities along the way, but my favorite by far was Fay Wray. She was just so sweet and so much fun. Other favorites include Alan Shepherd, Gerald Ford and Leonard Nimoy. Least favorite by far: Prince.
   
   
7. My ex says I'm a name-dropper. It's true. If it annoys you just ignore it. Most of these people would never remember meeting me, even though I remember them.
   
   
8. Some people think I'm gay. I wouldn't mind being gay if it weren't for the whole having sex with men part. How do women do it?
   
   The saddest part is that there's a whole sub-culture of gay men who are extremely attracted to men who look exactly like me, but there are no women who are.
   
   A lot of guys would be freaked out if they suspected anybody thought they were gay. I just think it's funny.
   
   
9. With reference to #8 above, I am a junkie for women. Their hair, their bodies, their faces, their voices, even their skin just fascinates me. Maybe half of that is sexual, but the other half is entirely aesthetic.
   
   I've painted women, sculpted women, photographed women, recorded women and written about women. It's something I'll never completely get out of my system.
   
   
10. I have the reputation for being wise. Don't let it fool you. I may think about things more than most people, but it doesn't mean I know any more than anybody else.
    
    
11. I reflect on things chronically. Some would say I obsess on them. I thought about writing this list for two hours before I started typing.
    
    
12. I have a reputation as a rebel, but it's only because I have trouble keeping my mouth shut sometimes.
    
    
13. I far prefer babies, children and young people to adults.
    
    
14. I was once an atheist, but now I'm a believer. I'm a very liberal believer though, because I believe Jesus was too. Anybody want to go hang out with some lepers?
    
    
15. Politically, socially, and culturally, you'll never correctly pin me down as either a conservative or a liberal. Most of the voices I hear from both sides of this spectrum just annoy the crap out of me.
    
    
16. I heard the voice of an angel once. My car was spinning out of control in the rain on Interstate 55. The voice said "Don't worry. I've got you." There were a hundred ways that story should have ended with the car crumpled and me dead, but both it and I came away without a scratch.
    
    
17. I love most people much more than they realize.
    
    
18. Damn, Nicole! Twenty-Five is a lot to come up with!
    
    
19. I smoke, but I know I'll have to quit. That makes me sad, because I really do enjoy it.
    
    
20. I swear like a sailor and I love it. To me it's like cooking with spice and pepper rather than milk and sugar.
    
    
21. I sleep in strange positions. The strangest is with my arm straight up in the air like a flag pole. I have no explanation for this.
    
    
22. Good acting makes me cry. Bad acting makes me laugh. Either way, I enjoy the show, unless it's bad directing. Bad directing really annoys me.
    
    
23. I'll never accomplish most of the things I'd like, mainly because I'd like to accomplish much more than I ever could.
    
    
24. If you're reading this, then I probably love you more than you realize. Try to remember that.
    
    
25. The people I'd most like to tag with this would never respond, so I'm not going to tag anybody.

There it's done. That wasn't so painful.

How Strong is your Artistic Vision

The strength of any artistic endeavor is related directly to the strength and clarity of its vision. Art is an act of communication and the success of that communication depends almost entirely on the clarity and purpose of the message.

For many, there is no purpose. They simply like to paint or sing or act and that becomes the message. You can't expect the world to care if you like doing something. The message has to be something they care about too.

If your message is about something other people care about, and you can express it clearly enough, then you will find your audience and you will be successful, otherwise, be grateful for the friends and family who come to see your work because that's all you'll ever have.

The best example I can think of to illustrate this principal is Ballet Magnificat, right here in Jackson Mississippi. Most people would never think to try and send an evangelical christian message using classical dance. There's almost nothing in the cannon of ballet that carries a christian message, yet that was the goal when Keith and Kathy Thibodeaux started their company in 1986.

Thibodeaux found her success, not among the community of dance lovers, but from the evangelical movement. "Traditional" ballets tended to look down their nose at Ballet Magnificat, but their companies dwindled and died while Thibodeaux's company thrived.

Andrew Wyeth, who died recently was one of America's most successful painters. His message was not cultural or religious, but entirely aesthetic. He had something to say about texture, emotion and color and his work conveyed that message clearly enough and strongly enough to drown out his many critics in the art world.

Wyeth found his greatest success in a time when his work had the least in common with the prevailing trends in painting. He succeeded because successful art has nothing to do with trends or movements in the field. It has to do with how it impacts those outside of the art world, and that's where he found his audience.

If you're an artist hoping for success beyond pleasing yourself, then you have to ask, "what is my message?" and "who wants to hear it?" Once you've discovered these answers, then put your energy in making your message as strong and as clear as you can and more than likely, you will find your audience and find success.

Image Information:

"Late Fall" by Andrew Wyeth; source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wyeth

"Deliver Us" Source: http://www.balletmagnificat.com

The Impotence of of Proofreading

I need to get this guy to help with my blog posts.

Taylor Mali performing "the impotence of of proofreading"

Print is Dead, and I Don't Feel So Good Myself

In the 1984 film, Ghostbusters, mousy secretary Janine tries to sex up uber-nerd scientist Egon Spengler by impressing him with the books she's read, to which Egon replies: "Print is Dead."

It's no secret I get frustrated with electronic journalism. Conservative, liberal, politics, showbiz, lifestyle, all of them, they just disappoint the crap out of me sometimes. When I was a kid, there were some truly great journalists working in the electronic media, but, the only one left in the business is Barbara Walters and she's a hundred and eight(sorry, Barbara).

For fifty years, print journalism was able to compete by offering more depth, and better quality. Newspapers survived by doing the same things TV and Radio news did, only better, even though they were less convenient. They were even pretty profitable.

Then along came the web, and you could get the same data (the exact same articles in many cases) without having to deal with a stack of printed pages. It could have been really cool. Newspapers could do pretty much what they always had, but without the expense of having to print anything.

The problem was, it's a lot harder to sell advertising on the web. Most advertisers only want to pay for web advertising if the end user actually clicks on their ad. Nobody wants to pay just for the exposure without somebody clicking on the ad, even though anybody who's ever studied advertising will tell you, exposure is the most valuable part of advertising. There's also no way to insert a whole page of advertising in the middle of the news on the web.

Newspapers are in the business of publishing the news, but they made their money by selling advertising, which gave the end user the expectation that the news itself is either free or nearly free. Double that on the web where almost all the non-pornographic content is free and it became almost impossible for newspapers to profitably make the transition from printed paper to the internet.

I think you'll see many of the best writers and comic artists and some of the most fleet-footed mastheads successfully make the transition over to web journalism, but it will be a painful transition and the newspaper printed on paper itself will be an anachronism in fifteen years. Ironically, I think we'll probably retain the term "newspaper" for text based journalism long after there's no actual paper involved.

This will be painful, and I can't promise that what we'll get will be nearly as good as what we had, but I don't think there's any way to change the path we're on either.

Seth Godin makes an interesting blog entry on what he'll miss about newspapers. He's kind of an asshole about it, but he makes some good points.

Brownie points and kudos if you can name the newspaper writer I ripped off for the title of this article.

Suzanne Marrs on Eudora Welty Video

Below is a YouTube copy of MPB's Gene Edwards interviewing Millsaps Professor Suzanne Marrs about her book Eudora Welty: A Biography.

This is a couple of years old and Dr Marrs may not even know it's still available on the Internet.

I have to admit that I'm not the biggest Eudora Welty fan, and it's for pretty stupid reasons. Her writer's voice and her characters are so finely aligned with my cultural background that her stories make me feel like I'm listening to gossip and not fiction and it's been that way ever since I could read.

Faulkner's writer's voice was very different for me. He was more like someone confessing things they'd really rather not talk about, which is hugely compelling by itself.

That being said, I dearly love hearing Suzanne talking about Miss Eudora. She speaks from the two very different cultures, the one she was born to and the one she adopted after twenty something years in Mississippi, which I find exciting, and she has a powerful mastery of words that's both beautiful and descriptive, but also structured and efficient. Her book reads much the same way as she speaks.

The thing that separates this book from really any other other biography I can think of is that Marrs is a fine academician and she does all the things that requires, but she's also writing about someone who was a loved friend for many years and the merger of those two points of view makes the book worth reading.

If you haven't picked it up, I recommend it.

She has a great speaking voice too. It's not an actor's voice or a radio voice but a really authentic voice, filled with humanity and personality. I love Gene Edwards, but I can tune him out pretty quickly, Suzanne's voice compels you to listen though, like you'll miss something if you don't.

Watch the video, it's great: