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Hi all! Stacey here with my buddy and fellow PubCrawler Stephanie Garber. There may come a time in your life where you will be asked to moderate a panel or facilitate a discussion. Here are our ten hot tips for moderating success.
1) Read the panelists’ books. The best panels in my opinion are the ones in which the moderator asks questions tailored to the author’s works. Obviously, this isn’t always possible, but at least be familiar with the book’s main ideas and stand out points. Don’t be afraid to ask your panelists’ publicists for books. It’s in the publishers’ interests for you to be informed about their author’s works. My secret weapon is to listen to the panelists’ audiobooks, when available. You can make your commute go by faster, and you can listen to them at 3x speed.
2) Send questions ahead of time. Some panelists can answer questions easily on the fly; others would rather visit the dentist than be unprepared. The more you can make your panelists comfortable, the easier time you will have facilitating a conversation.
3) Introduce your authors using the same tone and length. Often moderators will simply read an author’s bio for the introduction, but this invites problems. I recently participated in a panel where the moderator relied on our bios. My own is short and humorous, and doesn’t mention awards or distinctions, whereas the bio of the woman next to me mentioned every degree and award she had received. By contrast, I couldn’t help feeling like the village idiot. This might take a little work on your part to make your intros ‘match,’ but you’ll come across as more polished, and your authors will thank you.
(Note: I have encountered diva/divo panelists who want to be introduced a certain way. I tell them I will do my best, but make no promises. I firmly believe in treating every panelist with dignity and respect, and that means not putting one above the other).
I have spoken on panels where the moderator asks each author to introduce herself, which I find awkward and painful. Not everyone is comfortable talking about herself, and on the flip side, some authors can run at the mouth, viewing the intro as a way to self promote. You can avoid potential awkwardness by doing the honors.
4) Help your audience distinguish between panelists by presenting them as individuals. I have used labels such as, “a rising star,” “a thrilling new voice in contemporary fiction,” “a living legend,” “a NYT bestselling author.” Obviously, make sure your descriptions are complimentary.
5) Go with the flow. A recent panel I moderated featured two authors who were good friends and pros at public speaking. They had great chemistry, and meandered from topic to topic without much prompting from me. I had prepared questions in advance, but found myself needing to replace them with ones that were more natural to the conversation at hand. An additional challenge was to include the third panelist in the discussion as much as possible. This is where a good working knowledge of the authors and their books is essential, because sometimes you have to improvise, and the best way to improvise is to come prepared.
6) Resist letting authors read from their books. I personally find this a waste of time. The audience is there to learn something they can’t learn by merely picking up the book. Plus, not every author is good at, or comfortable with, reading out loud.
7) Remember, it’s not about you. As the moderator, your job is to guide conversations so that the panelists shine. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t bring yourself into the discussion by using examples from your own life to illustrate a particular question. And if you’re asking panelists individual questions, they love it when you’re able to sincerely mention how much something in their writing resonated with you.
8) The moderator sets the tone for the panel, so be personable and engaging. Think of yourself as the first sentence of a novel, the thing that pulls readers into the story. It’s the job of the moderator to engage the attention of every guest in the room.
9) Repeat questions asked by the audience. Just because you can hear a question doesn’t mean the entire room can hear it. Repeating the question also gives your panelists a little more time to think about their answers.
10) Try to have a little fun! Everyone appreciates humor, so if at all possible, weave some into your questions and your introductions—as long as your humor is respectful to the panelists.
Swati Avasthi does a brilliant job moderating a panel at the Multnomah Library that includes myself, Tess Sharpe and Isabel Quintero.
In the comments, let us know if you’ve seen a good moderator recently. Why was s/he good? What things could the moderator have improved upon?
On 28 November 2015, I had a reading and panel discussion at Médiathèque André Malraux, a library and media centre in Strasbourg, the main city of the Alsace region of France, adjoining Germany, traditionally one of the Christmas capitals of the continent, and currently the site of the European Parliament.
Can Instagram really sell wine? The answer is, yes, though perhaps indirectly. In recent years the advent of social media, considered to be the second stage of the Internet’s evolution – the Web 2.0, has not only created an explosion of user-generated content but also the decline of expert run media. It’s a change that has led to the near demise of print media.
Research for the developing world is the application of science to the challenges facing poor people and places. In the 20th century, such research fell into two camps.
If your morning commute involves crowded public transportation, you definitely want to find yourself standing next to someone who is saying something like, “I know he’s stabbed people, but has he ever killed one?” . It’s of course best to enjoy moments like this in the wild, but I am not above patrolling Overheard in London for its little gems (“Shall I give you a ring when my penguins are available?”), or, on an especially desperate day, going all the way back to the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English, a treasury of oddly informative conversations (many secretly recorded) from the 1960s and 1970s. Speaker 1: “When I worked on the railways these many years ago, I was working the claims department, at Pretona Station Warmington as office boy for a short time, and one noticed that the tremendous number of claims against the railway companies were people whose fingers had been caught in doors as the porters had slammed them.” Speaker 2: “Really. Oh my goodness.” (Speaker 1 then reports that the railway found it cheaper to pay claims for lost fingers than to install safety trim on the doors.)
Photo by CGPGrey and Alex Tenenbaum. Image supplied with permission by Jennifer Nagel.
If you ever need a good cover story for your eavesdropping, you are welcome to use mine: as an epistemologist, I study the line that divides knowing from merely thinking that something is the case, a line we are constantly marking in everyday conversation. There it was, in the first quotation: “I know he’s stabbed people.” How, exactly was this known, one wonders, and why was knowledge of this fact reported? There’s no shortage of data: knowledge, as it turns out, is reported heavily. In spoken English (as measured most authoritatively, by the 450-million-word Corpus of Contemporary American English), ‘know’ and ‘think’ figure as the sixth and seventh most commonly used verbs, muscling out what might seem to be more obvious contenders like ‘get’ and ‘make’. Spoken English is deeply invested in knowing, easily outshining other genres on this score. In academic writing, for example, ‘know’ and ‘think’ are only the 17th and 22nd-most popular verbs, well behind the scholar’s pallid friends ‘should’ and ‘could’. To be fair, some of the conversational traffic in ‘know’ is coming from fixed phrases, like — you know — invitations to conversational partners to make some inference, or — I know — indications that you are accepting what conversational partners are saying. But even after we strip out those formulaic uses, the database’s randomly sampled conversations remain thickly larded with genuine references to knowing and thinking. Meanwhile, similar results are found in the 100-million-word British National Corpus; this is not just an American thing.
Kanye West performing at Lollapalooza on April 3, 2011 in Santiago, Chile. Photo by rodrigoferrari. CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
It’s perhaps a basic human thing: conversations naturally slide towards the social. When we are not using language to do something artificial (like academic writing), we relate topics to ourselves. Field research in English pubs, cafeterias, and trains convinced British psychologist Robin Dunbar that most of our casual conversation time is taken up with ‘social topics’: personal relationships, personal experiences, and social plans. Anthropologist John Haviland apparently found similar patterns among the Zinacantan people in the remote highlands of Mexico. We talk about what people think, like, and want, constantly linking conversational topics back to human perspectives and feelings.
There’s an extreme philosophical theory about this tendency, advanced in Ancient Greece by Protagoras, and in our day by the best-known living American philosopher, Kanye West. Protagoras’s ideas reach us only in fragments transmitted through the reports of others, so I’ll give you Kanye’s formulation, transmitted through Twitter: “Feelings are the only facts”. Against the notion that the realm of the subjective is unreal, this theory maintains that reality can never be anything other than subjective. Here (as elsewhere) Kanye goes too far. The mental state verbs we use to link conversational topics back to humanity fall into two families, with interestingly different levels of subjectivity, divided along a line which has to do with the status of claims as fact. The first family is labeled factive, and includes such expressions as realizes, notices, is aware that, and sees that; the mother of all factive verbs is knows (and according to Oxford philosopher Timothy Williamson, knowledge is what unites the whole factive family). Non-factives make up the second family, whose members include thinks, suspects, believes and is sure. Factive verbs, rather predictably, properly attach themselves only to facts: you can know that Jack has stabbed someone only if he really has. Non-factive verbs are less informative: Jane might think that Edwin is following her even if he isn’t. In saying that Jane suspects Edwin has been stabbing people, I leave it an open question whether her suspicions are right: I report her feelings while remaining neutral on the relevant facts. Even when they mark strong degrees of subjective conviction — “Edwin is sure that Jane likes him” — non-factive expressions do not, unfortunately for Edwin in this case, necessarily attach themselves to facts. Feelings and facts can come apart.
Factives like ‘know’, meanwhile, allow us to report facts and feelings together at a single stroke. If I say that Lucy knows that the train is delayed, I’m simultaneously sharing news about the train and about Lucy’s attitude. Sometimes we use factives to reveal our attitudes to facts already known to the audience (“I know what you did last summer”), but most conversational uses of factives are bringing fresh facts into the picture. That last finding is from the work of linguist Jennifer Spenader, whose analysis of the dialogue about railway claims pulled me into the London-Lund Corpus in the first place (my goodness, so many fresh facts with those factives). Spenader and I both struggle with some deep theoretical problems about the line between knowing and thinking, but it nevertheless remains a line whose basic significance can be felt instinctively and without special training, even in casual conversation. No, wait, we have more than a feeling for this. We know something about it.
I have a new addiction, it’s The Secret Life of the American Teen. Yes, I’ll admit it, it’s not a very good show. The characters are somewhat one-dimensional (at least some of the time) and the plots are often quite unbelievable, if not plain old stupid. But yet, once I realized it was on NetFlix streaming, I started watching and got hooked.
If you aren’t familiar with the plot line of this ABC Family series, the series began with the focus on Amy Jurgens, a 15 year-old who discovers, at the very beginning of the first episode, that she is pregnant. The first year follows Amy as she decides what to do with the baby – keep or adopt – and also as she deals with the father of the baby, her new boyfriend, her best girlfriends, the Christian good girl at her school, the school slut, teachers, parents, her sister, and so on.
I actually saw the first episode when it first aired in 2008 and couldn’t watch more than that first installment. I found it didactic and boring.
But yet, now I’m hooked, and I’ll tell you why. The Secret Life of the American Teen does a great job at showing how important it is for adults to be a part of teen lives and to have real and straightforward conversations with teens. In every episode there are lots of conversations between teens and adults and the adults talk with the teens directly about sex (the show really does revolve around sex), making good decisions, and personal responsibility. While at times the conversations seem forced and too didactic, they are conversations nonetheless. I love that!
The other thing that really draws me to the program is that the teens and adults talk about all different aspects of sex. Whether or not it should be fun. If oral sex is sex. If masturbation is a way to manage a teen’s sexual desires. Responsibilities of fathers and mothers to their children. And more. The topics covered are topics that teens are curious about and that adults should be talking about with teens.
As I watch I think about all the reasons why all adults aren’t having these types of conversations with the teens in their lives. The reasons include fear and risk. It’s a risk to have straightforward conversations with teens about these topics because it’s not clear where the conversation will lead. One might be fearful of having to give away a bit of their own experience and past when talking about difficult topics. Or fear that the conversation will lead a teen in a direction that isn’t what the adult would desire for the teen. But, really, the lack of conversation is more frightening and risky as teens could end up making decisions without the benefit of adult experience, wisdom, and support.
Of course conversation isn’t all that it takes to keep a teen safe and smart about the decisions he or she makes in life. Conversations however can go a long way to helping to guarantee that teens have the skills they need in order to make good decisions about life. Every teen has to have those conversations. Every teen should have the oppor
This morning I turned in the last piece of homework I will ever have. I submitted my final research project: my master’s thesis.There was no parade, no trumpets or cymbals to herald my victory. No “three cheers!” to mark the completion of my efforts. Just the simple knowledge that I have finally finished.
They won't hand me my diploma until later this month, but the reality is that today marks the end of my years of formal education. Added up, 18 years of teachers, classrooms, professors, projects, presentations, and dreaded papers. Over.
When I think back on the memories of school, what stick out most are not the facts I learned or the books I read, but what I recall are all the relationships I made and the fun I had when I wasn’t studying in the library alone.
School offers us just that, the opportunity to find new experiences that we wouldn’t have otherwise discovered.
Because of a middle-school French-class trip to nearby Québec, I learned that my friend Emma would always find ways to get us into the most fun kind of trouble, and that I love all things maple-syrup related. Because of reading I Will Try during library hour in elementary school, I have made it my mission to travel across Africa (although not exactly the way the author did, when he decided to walk from Malawi towards America for his education). And because of spending countless hours at the local pub after economics class, I have learned that while philosophical entanglements often leave one feeling unfulfilled, beer and good company always leave one in better spirits. We would spend hours there, after Economics Development class, after History of Economic Philosophy class, after Statistics class: my peers and I, in time spent not studying, but taking what we learned in lecture and talking about it, openly, with opinions, with our own theories and smart colleagues to bounce ideas off of.
These are the friends, memories, and happy learning experiences I will grow from for the rest of my life. Even if, heaven forbid, I forget how to use the econometrics regression equation to find the unknown parameters to formulate the average expected outcome of an observed condition. (Not that I hope to ever forget my mathematical training!) My experiences remind me, looking back, that learning happens throughout life. One has only to put oneself in situations that allow for unexpected, exciting opportunities to arise.
Though my years of formal education might be complete, they leave me with the knowledge that power lies in asking questions, and life is a learning curve that I will always be trying to bend. I may be out of the classroom, but I will forever be a student.
Do you have favorite memories, or wisdom to share about your education experience? Leave a comment below!
This week Caroline Kennedy appeared at a New York City Barnes & Noble to celebrate National Poetry Month and promote the release of her new book, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems. Poet Sharon Olds (who has two pieces in Kennedy’s book) joined her onstage.
Kennedy (pictured, via) explained why she took on this project: “One of the reasons why I worked on this book is because so many people think of poetry as a solitary art form; one poet writing alone and the reader far away. But, I think what we all see here today is that poetry can really be of value for a community … And since poems are meant to be heard, reading a poem really starts a conversation.”
Olds read several poems including “Leap Before You Look” by W.H. Auden, “to my last period” by Lucille Clifton, her own “High School Senior.” One fan requested “i carry your heart with me (i carry it in” by e.e. cummings, and Olds complied. Kennedy concluded the evening by personally reading “Chocolate” by Rita Dove.
Algonquin Books has launched the ‘Ask an Editor’ video series on their blog. Executive editor Chuck Adams stars in the video embedded above and answers the question: “How did you acquire Water for Elephants?”
Marketing director Michael Taeckens explained how it will work: “For this series, readers who have any questions about the publishing process can submit them on our blog or on our Facebook or Twitter accounts. Every two weeks a different Algonquin editor will select and answer one of the questions submitted.”
The next Algonquin Books Club will feature a conversation between Gruen and The Help author Kathryn Stockett on April 26th. Those interested can check out the website for a reader’s guide, essays by Gruen, and her recipe for oyster brie soup.
Algonquin Books has launched the ‘Ask an Editor’ video series on their blog. Executive editor Chuck Adams stars in the video embedded above and answers the question: “How did you acquire Water for Elephants?”
Marketing director Michael Taeckens explained how it will work: “For this series, readers who have any questions about the publishing process can submit them on our blog or on our Facebook or Twitter accounts. Every two weeks a different Algonquin editor will select and answer one of the questions submitted.”
The next Algonquin Books Club will feature a conversation between Gruen and The Help author Kathryn Stockett on April 26th. Those interested can check out the website for a reader’s guide, essays by Gruen, and her recipe for oyster brie soup.
Simon & Schuster Digital partnered with VYou.com to create Ask the Author, a digital venue for readers to interact with writers. On the new site, authors respond to reader-submitted questions through webcam videos.
Participating writers with Ask the Author pages include: Chris Cleave, Brad Thor, Chuck Klosterman, and Lisa McMann. What do you think about these short video interviews?
Here’s more from the press release: “Using VYou’s innovative technology and any computer that has a webcam, authors can record responses to individual messages or questions entered by their fans. The questions and answers are then organized into ‘conversations,’ giving the experience a live feel. Participating authors can spend as much or as little time as they want on their video, which they can record at any time.”
Many foreign language students do well with grammar and vocabulary, but then they fail to apply those same concepts to genuine communication; for instance, they may not know what to say if you happen to see them in the hallway, and ask them ¿Cómo estás hoy? (How are you today?)<?xml:namespace prefix = o />
So, in addition to grammar and vocabulary instruction, make students participate in talk time every day in your class. Encourage them to use the studied words and grammar to talk about themselves, their daily activities, problems, and plans. Make this an informal daily routine.
To do so, create a list of questions with topics that will engage your students. Think of their needs, experiences, maturity, and limits. Topics that may interest students in an intermediate-level class:
What bothers you?
What are you afraid of?
What is a tradition or ritual that your family has? (Serious or silly)
What city would you like to visit one day?
What’s new at school?
Which is your hardest class? Why?
Why is everyone so tired today?
Who is your favorite relative?
What’s your favorite TV show?
What will you be doing in 20 years?
Your chat time can start with a greeting and a question on a board that will be your main topic. However, you need to be flexible too. For instance, you had a topic in mind but your class seems to be worried about an upcoming math exam, so let students talk about that, or come up with questions related to their problem or concern.
Also, a good way to make them talk about their experiences is by answering the main question of the day yourself first. In that way, they may be more eager to share with you. For example, if the question is about siblings, tell them some funny story about your sister or brother.
Now, how do you grade your students on their talk time? Create a reward system. Give them points for every time they speak. Make it clear that class participation will be part of their grades.<
On this edition, Sheree Fitch is a guest of our home to talk about being shortlisted for the highest honour in Canadian adult humour — The Stephen Leacock award, the differences between writing adult fiction and children’s books, and the movie deal for her YA novel The Gravesavers.
Among the many jobs he’s held is trampolinist, lifeguard, computer programmer, English teacher and editor. He’s written short stories and scripts, and his book Zorgamazoo — 283 pages of flawless rhyme — was one of thirty books chosen by the Children’s Literature Assembly as as a notable book for 2009.
On this edition of Just One More Book!!, Robert Paul Weston talks to Mark about his long history with marble tracks, writing an entire book in rhyming accentual verse and the publishing industry’s reaction to it, and the emotional connection readers experience with Zorgamazoo.
I completely forgot to post here that I was doing a “Casual Conversation” interview with Tom Peters this past Friday - sorry, Tom! - but you can still go back and listen to the session online. I had a lot of fun, and I’d like to thank everyone who listened in. I really enjoyed the format, and it was like sitting on the porch chatting, mostly due to the fact that Tom is such a genial host.
One of the amazing things about producing Just One More Book!! is getting geek out on subjects of literature and literacy with the incredible people behind children’s books. One such occasion took place at the Steamworks Brewing Company in Vancouver this past November. Mark had dinner with young adult fiction novelist James McCann, children’s book illustrator Kirsti Wakelin, and children’s book author and illustrator Lee Edward Fodi.
A portable recorder sat on the table and captured the entire conversation - two hours worth - and it was all great. However, two hours is more than practical for a podcast. So, we’ve grabbed about twenty minutes for this edition of Just One More Book!! and more of the recording will be made available on markblevis.com in the coming week.
Follow the JustOneMoreBook.com website for links to more of the conversation when it’s made available.
0 Comments on Dinner with James McCann, Kirsti Wakelin and Lee Edward Fodi as of 1/1/1900
Just One More Book!! podcast « said, on 12/31/2007 6:57:00 PM
[…] The podcast is now up, and it’s a nice slim version of our 2+ hours of conversation. Fortunately, the bit with me stumbling through a response to “what are your inspirations”, a surprisingly difficult thing to sum up with a microphone hovering under one’s chin, didn’t make the cut. Let’s hope it doesn’t make it to the long version on Mark’s own blog either. […]
Just One More Book!! podcast « The CWILL BC said, on 1/2/2008 11:15:00 AM
[…] CWILL BC members James McCann, Lee Edward Födi and I were interviewed by Mark Blevis of Just One More Book. The interview is now up on the JOMB website. […]
A kid named Leo is swamped by all the things he has to do and thinks "I wish there were two of me." Poof! Just like that, there are two of him! Naturally, it doesn't stop there and the clones begin to multiply. Surprisingly, Leo soon finds out that his workload hasn't gotten any smaller with his new help... instead, his list of things just keeps growing.
Given the mounting insanity of his workload, young Leo poses the zen-like question of "What if I did less--but did my best?" That's fine... but you'll never get into a top-notch college with that attitude, young man!
With the increasingly competitive (and insane) nature of college admissions, you would think that students these days would need clones just to keep their resumes up to snuff. When you look at some of these applicants, it seems impossible that one human being (let alone one teenager) could do all this without the help of a clone or two. For an example, check out this pretty typical sample resume:
And we wonder why teenagers are so miserable! It would not surprise me if the most ambitious parents would attempt to harness the power of cloning technology in order to build the most luscious and eye-popping transcript for their children, something guaranteed to blow admissions officers out of their chairs.
Problem is, once a few people resort to cloning, everyone else is going to have to follow suit just to keep up. The whole admissions process will become more corrupt as applicants who must rely on their own abilities will be at a distinct disadvantage to those who can afford a small army of overachievers. Soon cloning will be as prevalent as SAT prep courses (Kaplan, with their finger on the pulse of the lucrative college admissions industry, will soon offer Clone Management courses to go with their standard slate of test prep classes).
Unfortunately, this would not stop with college. Because of the massive student debt that you are burdened with upon graduation, you will need your army of clones to work multiple jobs just to make your monthly payments. One poor soul will work in an investment banking firm, one will struggle as a freelance journalist, one will grow interesting facial hair and work for tips at the local a coffee shop... you get the idea.
Luckily, the odds of this cloning dystopia becoming a reality are slim because most of us are already familiar with the dangers of cloning. This is thanks in large part to the prescient warnings in the groundbreaking scientific treatise, Scientific Progress Goes "Boink" by the eminent scientist and philospher, Bill Watterson. How he didn't win a Nobel Prize for that invaluable contribution to humanity still blows my mind.
Colleges want all sorts of evidence of "leadership abilities." I asked a teacher what these colleges were going to do with so many leaders and no followers. She said the colleges kept asking for "leaders" because they wanted their graduates to become wildly successful and contribute money to the institution as alumni.
Minh Le said, on 8/13/2007 1:59:00 PM
speaking of alumni contributions, I find it absurd that they still send me letters asking for more money after all these years... especially when my student loans are still squeezing every last ounce out of my paycheck.
You already own my soul, now you want an extra $25?!
Chau Dang said, on 8/14/2007 3:06:00 PM
lol...your list of college graduates was hilarious. I have a friend that has funny facial hair working at a coffee shop....lol
This is dePaola's classic story that revolves around an old woman and her wonderful pot. (No, it's not about Courtney Love). Strega Nona is the village medicine woman who has a magic pot that, when the right words are spoken, produces pasta. To stop the pot, she recites another spell... and blows three kisses.
Her goofball of an apprentice (Big Anthony) jealously watches Strega Nona casting her spell over the pot, but misses the 3 kisses part. This lack of attention to detail soon leads to some Sorcerer's Apprentice-like mayhem (Note: the Sorcerer's Apprentice was not originally written by Walt Disney).
One day, Strega Nona goes out of town and leaves Big Anthony in charge. Of course, he goes out and tells everyone about the magic pot and then casts the spell, unleashing the magical pasta producing power of the pot and curing everyone's case of the munchies. Big Anthony is the man of the hour!
Unfortunately, Big Anthony doesn't know how to properly shut down the pot and it begins to boil over. A dangerous wave of noodles threatens to bury the entire village. Now everyone hates Big Anthony. That's life in the public eye for you. One minute you're on top of the world, the next minute you're being chased by an angry mob and thrown into a jail cell with Lindsay Lohan.
In the mid 80's, a community theater in Woodstock, Vermont gained national attention for their politically charged interpretation of dePaola's story. Critics flocked to this tiny hippie hamlet to see the play, which had re-imagined the story as a parable about the prevalent economic policy of the times: Reaganomics. The play was called Streganomics.
Left: A scene from Streganomics with Scott Robinski (middle) playing the Reagan-inspired character of Big Anthony, a generically handsome but bumbling doofus.
In the play, the director compares Big Anthony's short-sighted attempt to wield the power of the magic pot to the conservative party's unwaverying belief in the power of the free market. (In a particularly brutal pun, the directors replaced trickle-down economics with boil-over kitchenomics. There's a reason you've never heard of this play.)
Just as the pasta pot dangerously boils over, the U.S. economy eventually spins out of control. The economy takes on a life of its own and ushers in an era of unparrelled economic stratification. People always seem to overlook the fact that the market does not have a moral compass built in. Therefore, it should not be relied upon to magically set our social guidelines. The market must be regulated to some extent in order for it to reflect the morals of our society.
Just like Magic, Capitalism isn't inherently evil (as some zealots will tell you), but it's not inherently good either, and therefore its power must be wielded with wisdom and restraint... two qualities of which many politicians (on both sides of the aisle) are notoriously lacking.
In the book, Strega Nona returns to find the city under seige by pasta. She utters the magic words and blows the three kisses to bring the starchy surge to a halt. In the play, however, all does not end so well... Strega Nona doesn't come back.
The play casts Strega Nona as an exalted FDR figure, and her magic of containment is meant to represent the wisdom of the New Deal. However, just as the egalitarian principles behind the New Deal seem like a distant memory, Strega Nona's unique ability to put a lid on the magic pot is lost forever and it appears that the rising tide of pasta is irreversible.
Several people take the helm from Big Anthony, but no one has the courage to utter the magic words that might stem the tide... words such as, "progressive tax code," or "increased corporate regulation." The curtain drops with the citizens of the town buried under a sea of pasta and Big Anthony being airlifted by a private jet and flown off into the sunset.
Note: In the widely overlooked sequel, Strega Nona Meets Her Match, a mysterious stranger appears with a magic fondue pot. Lightning strikes and the two instantly fall head over heels in love. They join forces and with their two magical pots create an unending supply of Macaroni and Cheese, transforming their village into heaven on earth. Now THAT is what I call a happy ending.
Brilliant! Thanks for stopping by my blog, and thereby pointing a signpost to your blog.
Alexander said, on 7/29/2007 8:07:00 PM
Minh - Not only is this an excellent review, but it shows that, in a political sense, you're a true consensus builder. I think you might want to consider a run for office - or at least your own Fox News talk show.
This is the first picture book for Breen, the Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. With the story of Stick, a headstrong young frog who likes to do things on his own, Breen displays an impressive sense of humor and comic timing. One day, when Stick shoots his tongue out to catch a dragonfly, he gets carried away (literally) and embarks on a wild airborne adventure. Through a series of surprising developments, Stick excitedly explores the wild world... but will he ever make it back home?
Stick is merely the latest in a long and celebrated line of frog explorers. Indeed, nature's first true explorers were the frog's distant ancesters, those intrepid souls who first ventured out of the primordial ooze: the early amphibians. Frogs are direct descendants of those brave few who left the comforts of their homes to explore the unknown lands above the surface of the water. It's almost as if wanderlust is genetically encoded in frog DNA.
Young Stick also owes much to the most persistent explorer in frog history... an adventurer whose exploits are so well-known that he is known simply as: Frogger. Before Frogger, the frog population had to be content with life around the dank world of the pond. But Frogger yearned for more, he want to stretch the boundaries of his world and boldly go where no frog had gone before.
While people still wonder why the chicken crossed the road, no one questions the Frogger's motives. Frogger did not set out to conquer the world, he set out to conquer himself. Despite frequent setbacks and increasingly dangerous traffic, he refused to quit until he crossed every street that he came across. His indomitable spirit would not be denied... he would either succeed or get flattened in the process.
Left: An 18th Century Tapestry depicting The Wondrous Adventures of Frogger: Explorer Extraordinaire.
Other notable amphibious explorers:
Mr. Toad: Not content with life at Toad Hall, our hero follows Dante's lead and explores the depths of Hell. This harrowing journey is well documented in his memoirs: Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
Kermit: Perhaps the most famous frog in history, Kermit was the ultimate explorer, blazing trails and opening doors at a prolific clip. He first burst onto the scene as the first frog in space ("One small hop for frogs, one giant leap for frogkind.").
Returning to a hero's welcome, Kermit leveraged his newfound fame into a legendary career in film and television. After co
0 Comments on Stick as of 1/1/1990
Chau Dang said, on 6/27/2007 10:52:00 PM
hehe, well done, yet again. You must have heard this one before but incase u haven't: Time flies when you're having fun, unless you're a frog, then times fun when you're having flies. :)
Winner of the 2005 Teacher's Choice Award, Moss's book is a quietly powerful tale about silence in the face of bullying. A popular girl turns a blind eye to bullying and teasing until one day she becomes the butt of the joke. This is an adaptation of the powerful poem First They Came by the Pastor Martin Niemoller. Niemoller's poem (an indictment of complacency in the face of rising Nazism) admittedly dealt with more serious issues than junior high bullying... but the basic premise remains the same.
First they made fun of the Nerds, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Nerd. Then they made fun of the Dorks, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Dork. Then they made fun of the Geeks, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn't a Geek. Then they made fun of me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.
Note: The book is extremely well done... until you get to the appendix. After the story, there is a guide on strategies for dealing with bullying. One section says:
If you are bullied, speak up!Things to say are: "Please stop." "That hurts my feelings." "I haven't done anything to you." Don't be afraid to tell an adult.
Ummm... yeah, right. Follow that advice and there's a good chance that you will either get laughed out of the gym, or pummeled on the playground. While the Say Something approach is well-intentioned, a better strategy (at least for guys) may be to use the Say Anything method: Lloyd Dobbler's Easy 4 Step Plan for Overcoming Your Dorkdom
1) Take up kickboxing. Tell people its for your own self-satisfaction or to impress the ladies... but really it's just so that while you're getting your ass whooped by jocks, you can at least get one kick in before the ambulance arrives.
2) Wear a trenchcoat. Yes, it's weird and kinda creepy, but do it on the off chance that people will think you're eccentric or mysterious.
3) If you want to get the girl, embarrass yourself with an overly dramatic public demonstration (see picture above). This is NOT optional. Why not? Being a bumbling doofus, you don't have enough going for you to hold anything back. So set your pride aside and put it all out there. It's your only hope.
4) Star in a cheesy but endearing romantic comedy that will ruin the lives of guys everywhere (especially bullies) by warping the romantic expectations of all women who lived in the 80's, thereby sabotaging the relationships of all men (and making Chuck Klosterman's head explode). That's called having the last laugh.
4 Comments on Say Something, last added: 7/16/2007
once again, you've outed yourself, this time as a chick-flick viewing male. though i will say, Say Anything might be one of the few chick-flicks that guys actually gain points for having watched, and potentially benefit from (the movie providing their minds with the continuously running mantra of "don't just be a guy...be a man.")
can you think of other chick flicks that fall into this category of making males into a better species? let's brainstorm!
Minh Le said, on 6/6/2007 10:42:00 AM
What about The Princess Bride? Eat Drink Man Woman? Godfather II?
For the record, I boycotted the ultimate chick flick (The Notebook) for over 3 years. and when I finally did watch it, I fell asleep.
I think this makes up for the fact that I will drop everything and watch Clueless whenever it appears on TV.
Cynthia said, on 6/6/2007 10:52:00 AM
Godfather II is NOT a chick flick. I was thinking more along the lines of "About a Boy," and how no man can remain an island forever.
Minh Le said, on 6/6/2007 10:57:00 AM
No man can remain an island forever?
I beg to differ... i mean, have you seen The Girls Next Door?
Hugh Heffner has remained an island well into his 80's... an island floating in a sea of blondes 1/3 his age, where Viagra grows on trees.
I'm not saying he's what we should be aiming for... but he is the exception to the rule.
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