Just want to add this to my blog as a resource. First time use so not sure how this works.
Bill Clinton Daily Diary
Friday, December 31, 2004
We finally got a chance to go up to the Portland Art Museum this week, the one in Oregon. The main exhibit was a photo-montage exhibit of how Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Pont Neuf bridge in Paris all is plain beige fabric, covering up those wonderful, satirical heads carved in stone. The project took 10 years (1975-1985) and lots of fabric; apparently people loved it, a splash of avante garde beige across the Seine.
My favorite this time was seeing the European collection (go to http://www.pam.org/) through my students' eyes, wondering which paintings would best reinforce the themes from 1400-1750, and if we should try to come up together, gather for lunch at Bush Gardens, wielding chopsticks Japanese-style, then wander the European collection with a docent.
The map in the tiny back room, the earliest part of the European collection, caught my eye because it showed the Etruscans north of Rome. I'd always imagined them east and south of Rome and older, much older than the Romans. Here the map showed the Etruscan culture running parallel to the Romans and the Greeks from about 1,000 BCE until about 200 CE, and located north, well up to the Italian border. Of course, that makes sense, Tuscany today, Etruscans then. And the lovely pottery, rounded painted scallops edge a bowl.
Once into the medieval period, I spotted a lovely small cutout Christ on a cross, painted by Botticelli about 1500. The quote underneath said: "Best known for poetic mythologies but late in his career, under the influence of the puritanical religious reformer, Savonarola, he turned to highly expressive and often archaic religious themes." Hah! So much information captured in that one phrase that ties right back into my interest in Savonarola and his influences on artists of the Renaissance in Florence. Botticelli did indeed paint those lovely "Venus Rising From the Sea" type paintings that decorated the mansions of the rich Florence merchant-princes. Savonarola inspired the people with charismatic preaching of the risks of hell-fire and the need for repentence, protesting the rampant materialism of the rich. Botticelli burned some of his paintings in the now famous bonfire of vanities, where Renaissance paintings and books were heaped up and burned. Savonarola's reward? After ruling for two years: to be hung and burned at the stake in the main piazza of Florence. The impact on Botticelli? Mysterious paintings coded with Savonarola's ideas about God, heaven and redemption. And maybe fewer ethereal mythological maidens. One of the museum notes called the Renaissance, "a balance between divinity and humanity."
The other exhibition-stopping moment for me was the wonderful comparison between two painters to show the essential conflict between realism and rationalism during the Baroque. Caravaggio (1511-1610) was much more influential than I thought in the Northern Renaissance. According to museum notes, realism exploded out of Rome about 1610, and swept through Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Here, the Portland Art Museum compares side-by-side Dutch Caravaggist Gerrit Von Horthorst, "Liberation of St. Peter" (1620-1630) with the classical painting of "Mercury and Herse" (1650) by Thomas Blanchet. Both paintings are rather large, but not monumental. But the "Liberation of Peter" is personal, intimate, a dramatic focus on Peter in jail with light pouring in from the right, his face anguished. Blanchet's painting is almost a paint-by-number architectural rendering with small angels appearing to drift across the sky, almost pulled on strings. Realism (the power of the individual emotion, how what people feel strongly motivates them to action) versus classicism (the power of rationality, how what people think causes them to arrange reality).
Was there more? Yes, even a short walk through the somewhat truncated Asian collection just to look and appreciate was fun, and we saved the Native American collection for next time, because we just needed more time. I like to go very slowly through the museum. The last delight, the Mauritshuis Project, a collection of 7 paintings that help us see themes in Dutch painting from the 17th Century, only a corner in the museum, but beautifully documented with careful notes. This little corner, only here through January 29, 2006, was delightful, even with a painting that reminded me at first of the famous Jan Van Eyck Nederlandish painting, "Marriage of Anolfini and His Bride" (1434). Here, Jan Steen's "The Sick Girl" (1661-1665) continues the tradition of a homely scene, still shown with faithful dog but now more satirical, if the observer can read the clues left by the artist (the maidservant's efforts to curtail morning sickness in an obviously young and shamed girl). Compared to Van Eyck, the Steen painting looks almost like a cartoon, as if such paintings made fun of rather than celebrated the people shown. Interesting contrast and a lovely day as we draw to the end of the year to confront the larger issues of death and destruction in the wake of the tsunami.
My favorite this time was seeing the European collection (go to http://www.pam.org/) through my students' eyes, wondering which paintings would best reinforce the themes from 1400-1750, and if we should try to come up together, gather for lunch at Bush Gardens, wielding chopsticks Japanese-style, then wander the European collection with a docent.
The map in the tiny back room, the earliest part of the European collection, caught my eye because it showed the Etruscans north of Rome. I'd always imagined them east and south of Rome and older, much older than the Romans. Here the map showed the Etruscan culture running parallel to the Romans and the Greeks from about 1,000 BCE until about 200 CE, and located north, well up to the Italian border. Of course, that makes sense, Tuscany today, Etruscans then. And the lovely pottery, rounded painted scallops edge a bowl.
Once into the medieval period, I spotted a lovely small cutout Christ on a cross, painted by Botticelli about 1500. The quote underneath said: "Best known for poetic mythologies but late in his career, under the influence of the puritanical religious reformer, Savonarola, he turned to highly expressive and often archaic religious themes." Hah! So much information captured in that one phrase that ties right back into my interest in Savonarola and his influences on artists of the Renaissance in Florence. Botticelli did indeed paint those lovely "Venus Rising From the Sea" type paintings that decorated the mansions of the rich Florence merchant-princes. Savonarola inspired the people with charismatic preaching of the risks of hell-fire and the need for repentence, protesting the rampant materialism of the rich. Botticelli burned some of his paintings in the now famous bonfire of vanities, where Renaissance paintings and books were heaped up and burned. Savonarola's reward? After ruling for two years: to be hung and burned at the stake in the main piazza of Florence. The impact on Botticelli? Mysterious paintings coded with Savonarola's ideas about God, heaven and redemption. And maybe fewer ethereal mythological maidens. One of the museum notes called the Renaissance, "a balance between divinity and humanity."
The other exhibition-stopping moment for me was the wonderful comparison between two painters to show the essential conflict between realism and rationalism during the Baroque. Caravaggio (1511-1610) was much more influential than I thought in the Northern Renaissance. According to museum notes, realism exploded out of Rome about 1610, and swept through Italy, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Here, the Portland Art Museum compares side-by-side Dutch Caravaggist Gerrit Von Horthorst, "Liberation of St. Peter" (1620-1630) with the classical painting of "Mercury and Herse" (1650) by Thomas Blanchet. Both paintings are rather large, but not monumental. But the "Liberation of Peter" is personal, intimate, a dramatic focus on Peter in jail with light pouring in from the right, his face anguished. Blanchet's painting is almost a paint-by-number architectural rendering with small angels appearing to drift across the sky, almost pulled on strings. Realism (the power of the individual emotion, how what people feel strongly motivates them to action) versus classicism (the power of rationality, how what people think causes them to arrange reality).
Was there more? Yes, even a short walk through the somewhat truncated Asian collection just to look and appreciate was fun, and we saved the Native American collection for next time, because we just needed more time. I like to go very slowly through the museum. The last delight, the Mauritshuis Project, a collection of 7 paintings that help us see themes in Dutch painting from the 17th Century, only a corner in the museum, but beautifully documented with careful notes. This little corner, only here through January 29, 2006, was delightful, even with a painting that reminded me at first of the famous Jan Van Eyck Nederlandish painting, "Marriage of Anolfini and His Bride" (1434). Here, Jan Steen's "The Sick Girl" (1661-1665) continues the tradition of a homely scene, still shown with faithful dog but now more satirical, if the observer can read the clues left by the artist (the maidservant's efforts to curtail morning sickness in an obviously young and shamed girl). Compared to Van Eyck, the Steen painting looks almost like a cartoon, as if such paintings made fun of rather than celebrated the people shown. Interesting contrast and a lovely day as we draw to the end of the year to confront the larger issues of death and destruction in the wake of the tsunami.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
Filled with the calming breath of meditation,
I wake to obligation.
My friend sees green around me,
but I feel poised between past
and future, my path filled with commitment;
one step at a time,
I try to create harmony.
Focus on what is true.
Words escape me as I hear the hum of the heater.
Inside warm, quiet, almost peaceful.
Outside the finches and sparrows eat sunflower seed
like there is no tomorrow.
For them, the morning begins cold.
They do not worry about
children or elders frail in mind and body.
They need only survive this winter,
this now.
I wake to obligation.
My friend sees green around me,
but I feel poised between past
and future, my path filled with commitment;
one step at a time,
I try to create harmony.
Focus on what is true.
Words escape me as I hear the hum of the heater.
Inside warm, quiet, almost peaceful.
Outside the finches and sparrows eat sunflower seed
like there is no tomorrow.
For them, the morning begins cold.
They do not worry about
children or elders frail in mind and body.
They need only survive this winter,
this now.
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Today began about 4 am, reading those last papers before grades go in, swearing to myself to not accept late papers again! By 8:30, I was in a room with about 30 English teachers, ready to read holistic finals, wondering how the WR121 papers would go. We had a new system for tracking how we evaluated the papers; immediate resistance! How could we possibly reduce how we evaluate student writing to a rubric? Ha! Accusations flew through the air -- we could limit the argument to pronouns. Talk of brownshirts imposing rules polarized the discussion.
This group of teachers cares about learning and helping students and all the good stuff, but we definitely come at it from different angles. One camp forgives the most egregious punctuation errors IF the essay is thoughtful -- or even attempts thoughtfulness, even if that effort challenges the essay prompt, or wanders. Another camp values logical order and correctness (yes, even neat handwriting) over creativity. We can't tell if the essays are tossed off or agonized over. All we have is the written word, not word processed, in front of us. Decoding. Deconstructing. Sometimes desperate.
Today the prompt was if you could "put time in a bottle," what memory would you want to save. I read so many stories: A heroin addict spends his first night in jail and then on release, a quick fix two blocks from the police station. A teen cradles the head of his dying friend following a horrific accident, while the driver of the car takes off. A young man remembers his proposal of marriage; three years later, he relishes the moment his Sarah said yes. Another recalls winning a wrestling match while he struggled with cracked ribs. Young people confronting the end of innocence -- a dying grandmother, a divorce, the lament of always being picked last. But bagels, hot coffee, and chocolate aside, the papers were read, grades were totalled, and squinty-eyed professors went home to an evening of quiet.
This group of teachers cares about learning and helping students and all the good stuff, but we definitely come at it from different angles. One camp forgives the most egregious punctuation errors IF the essay is thoughtful -- or even attempts thoughtfulness, even if that effort challenges the essay prompt, or wanders. Another camp values logical order and correctness (yes, even neat handwriting) over creativity. We can't tell if the essays are tossed off or agonized over. All we have is the written word, not word processed, in front of us. Decoding. Deconstructing. Sometimes desperate.
Today the prompt was if you could "put time in a bottle," what memory would you want to save. I read so many stories: A heroin addict spends his first night in jail and then on release, a quick fix two blocks from the police station. A teen cradles the head of his dying friend following a horrific accident, while the driver of the car takes off. A young man remembers his proposal of marriage; three years later, he relishes the moment his Sarah said yes. Another recalls winning a wrestling match while he struggled with cracked ribs. Young people confronting the end of innocence -- a dying grandmother, a divorce, the lament of always being picked last. But bagels, hot coffee, and chocolate aside, the papers were read, grades were totalled, and squinty-eyed professors went home to an evening of quiet.
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
School begins its own particular immersion. The rains began in the Willamette Valley this week, steady, relentless, with the first bite of real cold. My drive to school is filled with liberal ranting and fears about the election, as I listen to Air America and hope November brings change, not least less polarized attitudes about what we "should" be doing, or perhaps more willingness to talk about what is possible.
Each morning I begin with hope, swaying from hope to despair at the volume of work this term, struggling with each class how best to use my time to support their learning. Five classes, five preps, perhaps others could just do it. Well it's week 4 and we're all making some sort of progress. Today in Humanities, we'll debate again whether Socrates' decision to drink the hemlock made sense, and we'll talk about that early Greek democracy that meant nearly 4,000 people voted in his trial with white stones and black. I have to review the file again as the numbers slip away. And then to Plato, pure abstraction, and Aristotle, the steady theorist, logical, responsible for syllogism and synthesis.
I was reading a paper by a humanities student who wrote about Paul VandeVelder, a Corvallis writer at: http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/33/3003/ and so found today's inspirational quote: "But where to begin? Ah, now there's a question. What the ancient ones tell us is true. The crossing is worth the storm. But there is one little catch. You can't see the far side until you leap."
I think I'm leaping just to stay current.
Beth
Each morning I begin with hope, swaying from hope to despair at the volume of work this term, struggling with each class how best to use my time to support their learning. Five classes, five preps, perhaps others could just do it. Well it's week 4 and we're all making some sort of progress. Today in Humanities, we'll debate again whether Socrates' decision to drink the hemlock made sense, and we'll talk about that early Greek democracy that meant nearly 4,000 people voted in his trial with white stones and black. I have to review the file again as the numbers slip away. And then to Plato, pure abstraction, and Aristotle, the steady theorist, logical, responsible for syllogism and synthesis.
I was reading a paper by a humanities student who wrote about Paul VandeVelder, a Corvallis writer at: http://www.twbookmark.com/authors/33/3003/ and so found today's inspirational quote: "But where to begin? Ah, now there's a question. What the ancient ones tell us is true. The crossing is worth the storm. But there is one little catch. You can't see the far side until you leap."
I think I'm leaping just to stay current.
Beth
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
I've been working pretty hard, getting ready for school, making steady progress on Blackboard conversion (from one software platform to another, rather like working out of one 20-room mansion for a long time and then suddenly moving all the furniture to a different 20-room mansion -- and one with a different floor plan). But most of this week has been uphill, very slow progress. Until today. I was leaving school in the late afternoon and ran into a student from last year. She had been checking the blog and looking at pictures. Her enthusiasm was contagious, especially since I've been so busy with school that I haven't had a chance to work with pictures or ideas or much of anything other than school. So, Savonarola awaits!
And it's one of those balmy Fall afternoons, temperature about 74 degrees, sunny and deep blue sky, with the leaves turning to that sharp yellow color that almost hurts your eyes to look at. The flowers everywhere are pushing out that last bit of color, as if there were no more chances to blossom in the winter that comes.
So I want to post the poem I wrote in Egypt, and even though I didn't write too many poems, a lot of other work went on. And I'm thinking today that much is possible. Maybe I'm thinking that because I haven't read the daily news yet.
On Visiting Giza
I have stood on the banks of the Nile seeking wisdom,
stared into the eyes of the Sphinx,
wandered between the tumbled small pyramids
of the three queens, and watched the clouds
change the colors of the pyramids of Cheops,
Khafre, and Menkaure.
All they hoped for was the divine sleep
that closed their eyes and kept their souls alive,
each gold-framed jewel, each sarcophogus,
each mural painting, each ritual prayer,
a great preparation.
The ka-soul now wanders lost
without its body, those mummified remains
carted off to any western musuem,
a wordless song of pain.
All tried to buy insurance -- Cheops
with at least four solar boats to ferry
his ka-soul to the next life; Tut with three sarcophogi
to protect his mummified remains,
the innermost one of solid gold.
Oh, how the pyramids at Giza cry out
for respect, the most solemn prayers
warning intruders away,
their size a competition, each pyramid
larger than the last,
their size saying, pick me, pick me.
The grave robbers came almost before the painted seals were dry,
almost before the closing funeral prayers were complete,
and before the queen's tears were dry.
Tourists wander this large complex,
ready with cameras for the Sphinx,
tempted by postcards, table-sized pyramids,
plastic busts of Neferteri or Alexander the Great.
They stand in line to ride the Bedouin camels,
gaily decorated with green, red, and yellow
yarn-twisted tapestries.
More tourist buses pull up with a flurry of dust,
all dwarfed by what we have come to see
-- the pyramids.
I sit on a giant block from Khafre's temple,
the causeway still flat, reaches down to the Sphinx.
The clouds change overhead.
Even my tears dry in the wind.
Beth
And it's one of those balmy Fall afternoons, temperature about 74 degrees, sunny and deep blue sky, with the leaves turning to that sharp yellow color that almost hurts your eyes to look at. The flowers everywhere are pushing out that last bit of color, as if there were no more chances to blossom in the winter that comes.
So I want to post the poem I wrote in Egypt, and even though I didn't write too many poems, a lot of other work went on. And I'm thinking today that much is possible. Maybe I'm thinking that because I haven't read the daily news yet.
On Visiting Giza
I have stood on the banks of the Nile seeking wisdom,
stared into the eyes of the Sphinx,
wandered between the tumbled small pyramids
of the three queens, and watched the clouds
change the colors of the pyramids of Cheops,
Khafre, and Menkaure.
All they hoped for was the divine sleep
that closed their eyes and kept their souls alive,
each gold-framed jewel, each sarcophogus,
each mural painting, each ritual prayer,
a great preparation.
The ka-soul now wanders lost
without its body, those mummified remains
carted off to any western musuem,
a wordless song of pain.
All tried to buy insurance -- Cheops
with at least four solar boats to ferry
his ka-soul to the next life; Tut with three sarcophogi
to protect his mummified remains,
the innermost one of solid gold.
Oh, how the pyramids at Giza cry out
for respect, the most solemn prayers
warning intruders away,
their size a competition, each pyramid
larger than the last,
their size saying, pick me, pick me.
The grave robbers came almost before the painted seals were dry,
almost before the closing funeral prayers were complete,
and before the queen's tears were dry.
Tourists wander this large complex,
ready with cameras for the Sphinx,
tempted by postcards, table-sized pyramids,
plastic busts of Neferteri or Alexander the Great.
They stand in line to ride the Bedouin camels,
gaily decorated with green, red, and yellow
yarn-twisted tapestries.
More tourist buses pull up with a flurry of dust,
all dwarfed by what we have come to see
-- the pyramids.
I sit on a giant block from Khafre's temple,
the causeway still flat, reaches down to the Sphinx.
The clouds change overhead.
Even my tears dry in the wind.
Beth
Thursday, September 16, 2004
We're just two weeks away from the start of a new school year. The last weeks have beeen spent settling back into life in our very green small town, tree-lined streets, lots of bicyclers, trips to the library, and just a little gardening, mixed in with lots of reading of magazines piled up from 8 months away.
I've been going back and forth about continuing the blog. What possible interest could there be in writing about my very average life -- the perspective of a small-town, middle-America, quiet, probably not mainstream, older-than-average female? Part of the answer lies in what's ahead. Writing is a way of thinking on paper about the future and about what's happening now. Some people journal. Maybe some people just blogg and don't worry about it.
This week has been a little hard. Returning home to family and friends never comes without a difference. Some people have died, and I'm remembering them as a presence. Others are facing serious illnesses, recovering from operations, new babies have been born, children are leaving home, times of joy and times of sadness. At work, balanced with the joy of seeing close colleagues is the reality of long meetings where talk seems more important than action. What don't we have time for? My heart wants affirmations of what we can do. Consensus takes a very long time.
The politics of the American election are singularly depressing, each ad nastier than the next on both sides. Although the news this week has focused on Ivan, strategies and spins from both sides attempt to reach the undecided, with most people increasingly entrenched in their own positions, polarized by the real differences between the two candidates, relying on a combination of hope and fear and finally perhaps anger. Cheney, the hatchet man, said that if Kerry is elected, we can expect more terrorism. Later in the week, he corrected this, saying he meant whoever is elected to the White House, we can anticipate more terror. Click!
Yesterday at work, we had a practice drill to prepare for terrorism. This is Albany, Oregon, a small rural town! The loudspeaker, humming white noise, repeatedly interrupted our meeting with, "This is a lockdown. Stay in the building. Lock all doors. Do not enter the halls or courtyard." None of us have keys to any of the classrooms. After the drill was over, several people said once they heard the announcement, all they wanted to do was to run away. If someone with a submachine gun is methodically working through a building, locked doors or not, why wait? And with students? The most memorable film of Columbine High School was the footage showing students climbing out of second-story windows to escape the two young men with guns. That urge to flight saved their lives. Yet the teacher is supposed to guide, direct, protect -- be role models for appropriate action in such a situation. I guess I'm not trained yet.
Writing this today helped me see what I can do -- memos to colleagues that need writing, and a sense of connectedness. Make it a good day!
I've been going back and forth about continuing the blog. What possible interest could there be in writing about my very average life -- the perspective of a small-town, middle-America, quiet, probably not mainstream, older-than-average female? Part of the answer lies in what's ahead. Writing is a way of thinking on paper about the future and about what's happening now. Some people journal. Maybe some people just blogg and don't worry about it.
This week has been a little hard. Returning home to family and friends never comes without a difference. Some people have died, and I'm remembering them as a presence. Others are facing serious illnesses, recovering from operations, new babies have been born, children are leaving home, times of joy and times of sadness. At work, balanced with the joy of seeing close colleagues is the reality of long meetings where talk seems more important than action. What don't we have time for? My heart wants affirmations of what we can do. Consensus takes a very long time.
The politics of the American election are singularly depressing, each ad nastier than the next on both sides. Although the news this week has focused on Ivan, strategies and spins from both sides attempt to reach the undecided, with most people increasingly entrenched in their own positions, polarized by the real differences between the two candidates, relying on a combination of hope and fear and finally perhaps anger. Cheney, the hatchet man, said that if Kerry is elected, we can expect more terrorism. Later in the week, he corrected this, saying he meant whoever is elected to the White House, we can anticipate more terror. Click!
Yesterday at work, we had a practice drill to prepare for terrorism. This is Albany, Oregon, a small rural town! The loudspeaker, humming white noise, repeatedly interrupted our meeting with, "This is a lockdown. Stay in the building. Lock all doors. Do not enter the halls or courtyard." None of us have keys to any of the classrooms. After the drill was over, several people said once they heard the announcement, all they wanted to do was to run away. If someone with a submachine gun is methodically working through a building, locked doors or not, why wait? And with students? The most memorable film of Columbine High School was the footage showing students climbing out of second-story windows to escape the two young men with guns. That urge to flight saved their lives. Yet the teacher is supposed to guide, direct, protect -- be role models for appropriate action in such a situation. I guess I'm not trained yet.
Writing this today helped me see what I can do -- memos to colleagues that need writing, and a sense of connectedness. Make it a good day!
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