Author: Maria Johnson

it’s Banned Books Week!

imagesI am giddy with joy. After all kinds of silly weeks and months through out the year, you know what I’m talking about, Smile Day, Hug a Panda Day, Drink your Favorite Beer Day (well, I won’t take issue with that one), and every other manner of silliness, Banned Books Week is something I can sink my teeth into. Or, maybe, curl up with. Forgive the prepositions.

Banned Books Week is something that appeals to me, not just as a student and teacher of literature, but as a rebel. Ever since Sister Dawn caught me with Abby Scott’s big sister’s super secret copy of M*A*S*H in my desk and made me take it home, anticipating, I’m sure, an explosion from my parents (I was in the sixth grade and there were some morally objectionable components to that book) I embraced my right (even though it really wasn’t) to read everything I could get my hands on. Even if Sister Dawn objected.

In fact, ESPECIALLY if Sister Dawn, or any other adult, objected. I know, scandalous. In the end, though, it made me pretty well-read.  Here is my top 10 list of favorite [not effectively] banned books. What’s yours?

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

2. Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain (that was censored and published posthumously!)

3. The entire Harry Potter adventure by J.K. Rowling

4. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

5. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

6. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

7. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

8. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

9. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

10. Earth’s Children series (Clan of the Cave Bear) by Jean. M. Auel

I suppose I could chime in about Captain Underpants, too. Funny books. Give ’em a try.

canoe, anyone?

In case you live in a vacuum and haven’t noticed, Georgia is having a wee bit of trouble with TOO MUCH RAIN! First, there’s a drought and we’re fighting with Tennessee and Alabama and condemning lots of little fish in North Florida to their untimely deaths. Now, we have tragedy of the human kind, including a goofball who thought it’d be a good idea to go swimming in a river losing its banks (that’s what the Darwin Awards are for).

I need to fly outta here in the morning to get to Charlotte, NC before 10:30 AM. I’m still going to have a drive to my destination. Things are not looking good around here.

This is the road I would have taken out of the neighborhood. That lake is the river run-off. It hasn’t even crested yet. I’m thinking I’m going to miss North Carolina in the early fall.

flood

Avast ye!

Well, it’s another talk like a pirate day. Here’s my favorite pirate, Captain Hook:

“Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
A-pirating we go
And if we’re parted by a shot
We’re sure to meet below!”
“Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag o’skull and bones
A merry hour, a hempen rope
And ‘hey’ for Davy Jones!”CaptainHookcartoon 

a liberal arts education isn’t necessarily gonna make you rich, but it sure can enrich you

VATICAN POPE

This afternoon I had one of those cultural literacy moments that made me smile real big, and then wonder about the tons of people who miss a great little play on words because they just don’t know. Makes me sad in a way, but then, the snarky part of me kind of relishes the “power” of knowledge and mocks the unknowing masses who trudge through life with that blank look that screams “I don’t get it.”

I admit that I am an intellectual snob. What are you gonna do about it?

So what prompted this rumination? Well, the folks across the street are gutting their house. Gladys Kravitz can probably tell you their life story, but I don’t really talk with them beyond the usual neighborly pleasantries. Basically, my job in that relationship is to keep the demon dog from eating their toddler.

Anyway, as I was saying, their house looks like it’s being gutted. There’s been a van parked in their driveway with some construction name on the side–who reads that stuff? Well, I read stuff. I can’t help it. It’s like an occupational compulsion. I got a good view of the van today because it was parked along the front of the house, and I nearly hit my own mailbox from laughing out loud (there really should be some convenient shorthand for conveying that thought).

What’s the company name and tagline? I thought you’d never ask:

PONTIFF CONSTRUCTION

Quality service you can have faith in.

Never mind that the phrase ends in a preposition Do you think they are Catholic? Do you think anybody else knows? Wouldn’t it be even funnier if they aren’t and I just have too much time on my hands?

I prefer to think the world is peopled with all kinds of clever folks.

the parable of the starfish

Most teachers know the story of the man who was walking along a beach at low tide, picking up a random starfish and flinging it back to sea, then bending over and repeating the process as he made his way down his little part of the coast.

He was approached by another man who had been watching the seemingly hopeless task of returning thousands of starfish to the safety of the ocean. The second man asked the first, “Why are you trying to save the starfish? Don’t you see it’s a hopeless task? You’ll never be able to save them all! What difference will it make?”

The first man bent over once again and picked up another starfish. “It makes a difference to this one. ” And threw it back to the ocean.

An unfortunate affliction of my profession is that often we are like the second man, cynical and hopeless when faced with unending red tape, documentation, and more often than not, difficult students–many of whom are victims of a system comfortable with ignoring them, or a culture that doesn’t value education, or even, in some cases, limitations and drama which will never abate long enough for them to hoist themselves up out of the poverty, whether economic or academic.

Today I found such a starfish — one that I had thrown back out to sea without realizing that I had made an impact. We were talking about travel, and a student sked me if I had ever left the country, to which I replied, “many times” and since I was sitting at my computer, googled a place where I had lived and studied when I was about her age. To my absolute surprise, the picture that came up for Aix-en-Provence, France is this one:
deuxgarcons

This is a pretty famous place, a cafe called Les Deux Garcons, where the painter Cezanne used to hang out quite a bit. In fact, inside the cafe is an amazing collection of  history dating back a couple of hundred years. I lived upstairs, over the cafe. After dinner I’d sit outside at one of those tables and drink coffee or Pernod (no more green fairy in the 80’s for those of you who are fans of Moulin Rouge) until it was very late. You can see my bedroom on the top floor, and the cafe with the red awning is actually a bakery. I’d pick up some cafe au lait and a croissant or baguette and walk to the university.

My student was astounded. She said that she envied  my adventures, but that she wasn’t going to squander the educational opportunities she was given and have some adventures of her own.

Makes the whole crappy week worth it.

I don’t even LIKE cats

A friend sent this, and it really made me smile. Cats are weird.  They’re like aliens–could they be sentient little creatures?


Still, this one is a classic…