Monthly Archives: November 2009

The Words of Men

A good short essay piece from the November Esquire.  Why not? —- The Words of Men What we say matters, and our language has never been better By Chris Jones She never loved you anyway. Giants live there. It’s the best that you did. Those are three beautiful sentences I heard this week. They were spoken by strangers to other strangers, but they [...]
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Certainties

You feel more grounded after really good days like these. Certain. Reading the longer books aloud with a warm-bodied nephew and niece early in the morning.  Crouched together and leaning back against the bedboard, small heads resting on your chest and small hands reaching up for ears and the softness of hair. A breakfast at sister’s [...]
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Alone (as read in the best of company)

How nice to re-read favorite stories with the niece and nephew–especially ones with frogs and toads. Brilliant. Alone Toad went to Frog’s house. He found a note on the door. The note said, “Dear Toad, I am not at home. I went out. I want to be alone.” “Alone?” said Toad. “Frog has me for a friend. Why does he want to be alone? Toad [...]
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Traveling for Thanksgiving

So it wasn’t a problem with the start time, getting on the road and heading towards the Highway Heading Home shortly after noontime yesterday afternoon.  But S. and I were pretty wired (or car tired) nearly ten hours later when we finally pulled up to our end destination.  All part of the experience of being [...]
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U.S. Department of Education– Listening and Learning Tour in NH

[Update:  I just found out that this Listening Tour stop has been postponed... I'll post up revised information when I get it!] I just heard that Secretary Duncan’s Listening and Learning Tour should be stopping by at Manchester Community College on December 12th from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM. Here’s a great chance to have [...]
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The Last of the Metrozoids (part 10)

[Read part 9 here] The Last of the Metrozoids by Adam Gopnik Part X By July, the doctors had passed him right out of even the compassionate trials and were into the world of guesses and radiation. “It’s a Hail Mary,” he said of a new radiation therapy that they were proposing. “But, who knows, maybe I’ll get the [...]
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Respect and Authority Can’t Be Centralized…

“Respect and authority can’t be centralized,” a teacher told me a few hours ago as we walked out of school into the damp weather of a rainy mid-November evening. “It has to be shared [across the building].” A wise observation that struck me. (I kiddingly gave admiring props which were quickly and laughingly [...]
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House Cleaning on a Sunday Afternoon

Is there anyone out there who actually likes dusting? I tell you–I’ll do a vacuum run, wash used dishes as soon as a meal is over and even scrub down the toilet, but it takes a rarer burst of energy to pick up the dust rag. Maybe because it forces you to re-find all those [...]
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The Last of the Metrozoids (part 9)

[Read part 8 here] The Last of the Metrozoids by Adam Gopnik Part IX If this story were the made-for-television movie that every story about early death threatens to become, we would have arranged one fiery game between the Giant Metrozoids and another team, a bigger, faster, slightly evil team, and the Metrozoids would win it for their coach. [...]
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The Last of the Metrozoids (part 8)

[Read part 7 here] The Last of the Metrozoids by Adam Gopnik Part VIII That Friday, out on Metrozoid Field, Kirk divided the boys into two teams. “A team runs the play, and B team defends,” he said. “But they’ll know what we’re gonna do,” someone on the A team complained. “That’s okay. Most of the time the other team knows [...]
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