chivalry

It can be quite difficult to distinguish between chivalry and a person covering for someone else's odd behavior.

three grand ideas

This is not a trio of inspiring messages. Instead, the "grand" refers to "thousand." As part of the process of having something I wrote appear in print, I received an email directing me to the publisher's website. There I had the opportunity to order extra hard copies of the final product. They offered me the chance to pay a little extra if I had any figures I wished to appear in color (not a worry with this piece). But the Open Choice option was one that struck a nerve.

The premise behind Open Choice is an author can make his material freely available for a small fee. Yes: three thousand dollars. Now I'm not opposed to people and businesses making money when the customer has the option to make a purchase. For example, a Rockport Triathlon t-shirt listed the events as "Lobstah, Chowday & Bee-ah." I chuckled each time I walked past the display window … and chose to not buy that shirt. I am also not troubled that my writing could fetch $3000. What bugs me is that this is the price I am charged to let others read our writing. Not only do I do all the work with conceptualizing and composing this piece (well, this time my co-author did most) but if someone wants to read it they must pay, be employed by an institution that pays, or the author has to pay.

What the Company prohibits is posting the PDF version of the editorial (that I helped write) on my own website. At best, the agreement is that "An author may self-archive an author-created version." Hey, wait a second. I am pretty good at formatting. And I can generate a PDF that looks at least as good as what this company subcontracts to have done. Maybe I can make this work available for free. In fact, according to the agreement the other stipulation is that I tell how to link to the publisher's version. So in effect, they are promoting our stuff. Plus it will pop up when people search for it -- without having to be indexed by a paid service. Okay, it's just now 8 a.m. and I already have had one grand idea. Just 2 more and this entry has come full circle.

soapbox craftsmanship

The garbage can during vacation was in side an old two-room shed. It was all wood and very rough. There were shutters on some of the windows and the door hardware was rugged and functional. On an uncommonly warm day when I was transferring kitchen trash into the shed and the place was swarming with sluggish flies. Many were stupidly and slowly bumping into a six-paned window that was unshuttered. I found an old Frisbee and pressed it against the pain so I could squash several bugs at the same time. Then the pane jumped free of its frame without breaking. But a corner broke off when it hit the ground. The next day I went to the hardware store to buy a replacement pane ($2.99) and a jar of white putty. It was a simple fix. When I checked it just as we were leaving for the last time, I took comfort that the job wasn’t so expertly done that it seemed unconventional compared to the other five panes. If there was a difference it was that the new glass was much cleaner.

Here is evidence that my aspirations for handiness far outpace the realities. This was a tool-less repair (the guy at the hardware store cut the pane to size) and so the semi-neatness can be attributed not to poor tools but to bad tool use. I can fix things around the house but they are never done craftily. Beer brewing is the closest I come to doing something that qualifies as a crafted product. And yet, when I think about my teaching (not possible in the moment most of the time) I believe that we can count that work as a craft. I don’t mean that I am great at the craft of teaching – although I think I do a damn good job. Instead, I would submit that being a really good teacher would qualify a person to be a craftsman. In preparing to make this claim, I consult Sennet’s The Craftsman to see if he would agree. I believe that he does. But don’t buy the book since NSF will gladly cover the cost and a University will deal with the postage.

In one of many delightful digressions the author charts glass-making as it makes the transition to being an industrialized process. While the glass rolling makes great flat sheets that can be used when repairing windows, the glassblower remains important. The former is great for replicability and consistency while the latter creates items that are unique and inspire. In a similar fashion, the author talks about different ways of being a parent. He writes:

The real issue is the self-image that parents hold up to their children: rather than convey “be like me,” better parental advice should be more indirect. “This is how I lived” invites the child to reason about the example. Such advice omits, “Therefore you should ….” Find your own way; innovate rather than imitate (p. 102)

As I prepare to teach students who are just entering the teacher education program, I am not too concerned about theories and techniques. My expressed purpose is to help them connect with the heart and soul of the profession. In my mind, I am crafting a conversation. This includes setting the expectations, establishing the climate, and supplying the materials to inform the discussions. I stir, I encourage, I am patient. One statement I want to make is that even though students enter this program knowing it will take three years to finish, as of the first night of class in three years they will be meeting their own students for the first time in their own classrooms. In that moment, are they going to think back about how to write a lesson plan or what standard is being addressed? No. Instead they will be remembering the deeper purposes and possibilities by becoming a teacher. This remembrance may not be evidence at the surface. But if I am a craftsman who is earning is taxpayer-funded salary, then what I set into motion from my soapbox should continue to reverberate when that novice teacher meets his or her students for the very first time. Surely it is not necessary to build a bookcase or gazebo to qualify as a craftsman. I feel we can inspire as we teach and be comfortable with the notion that we are filling our duties as craftspersons.

connectivity

It wasn't that walking to the public library during vacation to connect to the web was a vacation burden. But now that I'm at home and fully connected, I am reminded about the technology's benefits. Just now I made a discovery that is impossible to have imagined not so long ago. In fact, many years ago when I was helping a colleague move her apartment contents into storage for her sabbatical, I discovered that the building across the street was the Acme Company of Looney-Tunes fame. It never occurred to me to investigate how many products they manufacture. The web has revealed that nugget to me.

I confess being ignorant of the scope of Acme. I suspected they sold Rocket Powered Roller Skates. Perhaps others will share my amazement that they also had a Mexican lab. Further, they also produced matches and mouse snares. Their product line is truly amazing and I encourage others to uncover the marvels that bear the Acme label. Were I still secluded away in a cabin, while it's true that there would be left-over cups of lobster butter in the fridge, I would not know that there was even such a device as an Anti-Nightmare Machine.

matches and mice

Halfway through our vacation in Rockport, Mass. we were awakened by odd sounds. At first it seemed like someone was jiggling the front doorknob. A heart-pounding sweep with a flashlight turned up nothing. One of us went back to bed, the other watched the Olympics on t.v. A half hour later, noises returned but not as loud. Instead of coming from the front door, it sounded like tiny rodent claws on a shelf. Again with the flashlight and, since the shelves held old apothecary jars, it was transparently clear that mice were not running the shelves.

With less panicked listeniing it seemed that the mouse was behind a large wooden beam. Instead of just clawing, the noise was more of a chewing as if the wood doorjamb between the the bedroom and the other half of the cabin was a tasty treat. Because the beam was sheathed with a board, I couldn't actually see the critter. But I could detect exactly where he was. So with a vicious slap that comes from being awakened from sleep, my hand made such a boom when it struck the wood that the gnawing instantly stopped. And because the sounds stopped and never returned, sleeping should have been restful for the balance of our visit.

Except for the lingering fear induced by Billy Collins. In addition to all of the old stuff displayed in this country hourse, there was a container that appeared to be a match dispenser. I deduced this becaause Matches" is emboseed on it. Old and made of tin, it likely held strike-anywhere matches. It's only a small comfort that it is empty. If it is here purely for display, that's okay. But if it did once hold matches, where did they go? Just around the corner from this match dispenser in a kitchen drawer is a box of matches. Unlike the poem "The Country" these are red-tipped (not blue) and must be struck against the box (rather than anywhere) in order to flare. Nevertheless, these matches are not in a metal container with a lid that can be tightly screwed. I am quite relieved that if there is to be a torch-bearing, brown druid at this address that tonight is the last night in which we will be here.

chicken and clams

Wandering the back roads of coastal Massachusetts, I pulled into an unlikely looking food joint. Unlike the place pictured here (which we taste tested on another day), the Clam House of Ipswich looked as if it specialized in pizza and grinders. I asked the kid at the counter what was good and he, with an eastern European accent, recommended the baked haddock dinner. After I ordered it, I noticed it was not only the top of the four items on the specials board., it was also the most expensive.

It proved to be an amazingly good meal. And it prompted a conversation about our good fortune. We discussed the fact that seafood (esp. clam strips) is consistently good in this area in a fashion that parallels fried chicken quality in the Midwest and the South. One causative agent must be the locally fresh ingredients. But that does not seem sufficient. While fresh clams are regional, chickens are not. High quality beginnings are very important. And yet there is more involved. Otherwise, why aren’t chicken shacks legendary eateries in the northeast?

Currently we have two working hypotheses. The first is the consumer selection hypothesis. Basically, the reason area restaurants are the best among those that have been in existence. The relatively crummy restaurants have gone out of business. They have become extinct. This would apply to chicken, barbeque and sushi places. The reason why seafood places are so good in New England is because the competition is so strong. But do not look for good fried chicken: the competition is likely insufficient to make those restaurants a safe bet.

The other hypothesis is the local expertise explanation. Less contentious than the previous hypothesis, the reason particular restaurants are exceptional in certain regions is because there is shared wisdom within the community. This may not be an explicitly shared knowledge. But somehow the pieces and process leading to crisp chicken coating, buttery clam strips, and vibrant sushi flesh are dispersed among the food preparers. Bad clam strips in Missouri? Perhaps it’s because the wisdom does not reside there. Much like craft knowledge passed from person to person, this hypothesis explains regional expertise as a consequence of distributed smarts.

I vow to continue this investigation in whichever regions I find myself. I understand the fish tacos in San Diego are to die for. Anything good to eat in Anaheim?