Category Archives: Uncategorized

We finished Stranger Things last night, and my usual post-watch research uncovered dedicated articles that sought to catalog its many, many references to horror and sci-fi films of the late 70s and early 80s. I was surprised that I’d seen all of them, and that I saw most within a few years of their release. TheContinue reading “familiar things”

Another May. Collared shirts, once under polyester sport coats and now under polyester regalia, too hot. Lawn parties, everyone trying to say things all at once they thought they’d have a lot longer to say but now the car is idling, time to go. That sickening feeling of dislocation: everything is changing, right now, packingContinue reading “commencement”

The only one who has the best thing ever is when you have to be a good day to be a good day to be a good day. I love you so much fun and I was just a little bit of a new one is the best thing ever is when you have toContinue reading “just a little bit of a new one”

I was honored to share opening remarks this weekend at my College’s observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the integration of schools in North Carolina’s High Country. App State began as a teacher’s college, like many regional masters institutions. So what a fitting and spectacular occasion: a history lecture by Karl Campbell, a panel of folksContinue reading “before it’s a what, it’s a where”

A couple of months ago, my College’s IT department invested in several “telepresence devices”: rolling robot-type gizmos with iPads on top, of the sort that most of us probably have only seen on a legendary episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” I dismissed the purchase as a curious end-of-year exuberance; nothing to do with meContinue reading “bags of meat”

You know, I am really getting to the point where I don’t care if what I have to say about school sounds smart, or even if it is particularly compelling or convincing. I only care that I know that what I say is true: the truest, truest true that it can be. Because if weContinue reading “What’s Next, What’s Done, What’s Good”

I’ve been invited to participate on a university panel today entitled “Why Teach the Humanities?,” and this is what I’ve prepared to share. It’s a bit of a jeremiad, for sure – but it’s what I am seeing right now, and some of what I am doing about it in my teaching. I have been onContinue reading “Why Teach the Humanities in Education?”

I gave this little paper at a conference in fall 2013 and don’t think I’ll do more with it right now, at least not in its present form. Though the ideas at its core remain some of the most vital I know for putting education on a profoundly different path than the one we’re on.Continue reading “wake up”

Two observations: 1. My iPod Classic is broken. Kaput. All I wanted to do was put the latest Donald Fagen on it. But My MacBook Pro updated iTunes on the down low last week. And after several cycles of reformatting and shocking claims of “corruption,” it now insists, with an almost audible sigh, that theContinue reading “souvenirs of perfect doom”

My blog space is becoming sort of maudlin, isn’t it, with all these elegies: my beloved professor earlier this year, and my perseverations on Dave Wallace that have preceded the class I’ll begin next week on him. Maybe something brighter can come of remembering Robin Williams, even as news of his death is still settlingContinue reading “And Sometimes It’s Not Even Funny”