It’s a couple weeks until summer, I can begin to feel it in the air whenever my students enter the room. There’s a tenseness about. Four weeks to clear absences before they turn into truancies, four weeks left to lift grades before they enter that terribly concrete transcript. For me, it means it’s time to [...]
Archive for the ‘Los Angeles’ Category
[summer arrives with a length of lights]
Posted in Literary, Los Angeles on 26 May 2011 | 4 Comments »
Spring Break (Day Three)
Posted in Literary, Los Angeles, Teaching on 20 April 2011 | 1 Comment »
I’m lesson planning this morning, researching and typing out detailed notes for the introduction to Shakespeare workshops I’ll be teaching next week. Sitting at LA Mill Coffee, a couple miles from our apartment, I’m reminded that there are a whole set of people in the world who spend their mornings at coffee shops–in the middle [...]
Life Knowledge
Posted in Los Angeles, Teaching on 13 April 2011 | 2 Comments »
Ms. C——’s Advisory class: A senior explains that his best friend was arrested last Friday (after being on the run with several felony counts). He explains that he’s going to be in court tomorrow as well. Freshman: What’s a felony? Long pause Senior: Well, there’s misdemeanors– that’s like getting a traffic ticket. Then there’s like [...]
Confessions of a Student Teacher (2)
Posted in Los Angeles, Teaching on 9 April 2011 | Leave a Comment »
It’s a cold, windy day in Los Angeles. Only the clear skies and an uncommon freshness in the air remind me that it is spring. At week two of student teaching, CH and I are already slipping easily into the new pattern of our lives … I came into my 9th grade Linguistic Studies course [...]
Confessions of a Student Teacher
Posted in Los Angeles, Teaching on 1 April 2011 | 1 Comment »
I never wanted to be a student teacher. This last year, among other activities, has been spent trying to find a way, any way, to avoid this requirement. Having worked in a full-time classroom for 3 years, plus several other short teaching assignments– I was frustrated by the state’s requirement that I give them 2+ [...]
Supper Club :: Phillip Roth’s The Ghost Writer
Posted in Food and Wine, Literary, Los Angeles on 27 February 2011 | 1 Comment »
January in LA: Theater Recommendation
Posted in Literary, Los Angeles, Movies Music Media, tagged Cormac McCarthy, The Rogue Machine Theater, The Sunset Limited on 3 January 2011 | Leave a Comment »
CH and I don’t see much theater these days, mostly due to lack of funds; but, we did make it out to one stage production in December: Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited. We’ve both enjoyed reading McCarthy over the past couple years (CH more extensively than I) and a production of one of his two [...]
I was thinking of an extended analogy involving the wood between the worlds, but, it wasn’t going anywhere.
Posted in Literary, Los Angeles on 29 December 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Beginning, ending my year in torrents of rain– I dream of potholes. Or, kettles as Brits refer to them. Bump, ker-plunk. Bump, ker-plunk, bump, sssss. R
Los Angeles (3): Revival Theaters and the Like
Posted in Los Angeles, Movies Music Media on 1 October 2010 | 2 Comments »
LA. Century City. Hollywood. I live only miles away from the contemporary film and television centers of the world. Is it strange that my favorite outings are to view the hits (or cult classics) of a bygone generation? Whatever the answer, I know that it is not strange that LA is home to some lovely [...]
Movie recommendation of the week:
Posted in Los Angeles, Movies Music Media, tagged Robert Mitchum, The New Beverly Cinema, The Night of the Hunter on 28 August 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter (1955). Part Southern Gothic. Part fifties chintz. Part film noir. Part German Expressionism. Part horror. And Robert Mitchum as the creepy singing minister versus Lillian Gish’s protective mother figure. Priceless. Gish’s character has joined Robinson’s John Ames in the list of Best Fictional Portrayals of Christians. The Playlist [...]
