Author: abendelow
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"The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" reviewedk
Tonight I enjoyed Berwyn’s 16th Street Theater Company’s rendition of Mike Daisey‘s 2010 play, directed and performed by Lance Baker through February 9. The monologue + Powerpoint, famously “fabulated” by Daisey with less than journalistic rigor, raises important questions for the modern user of technology, but it does so with considerable humor and nuance. The indisputable truths of the…
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Zero Dark Thirty: Kathryn Bigelow's Yin-Yang Death Squad story
Last night I saw Kathryn Bigelow ’s controversial Zero Dark Thirty and found it a powerful movie. Her style brings you objectively into intense situations, subtly builds suspense, and then… BOOM!–wide-angle explosion. This is an excellent procedural drama, with realistic dialogue (written by her partner on The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal) and settings. Though the…
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Winter book reviews–Life of Pi, Invisible Man
“Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?” ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man You’re joking. A high school English teacher with three preps, over 150 students (with all their, um, writing to grade), 30 college students (and all of their beginning eportfolios to facilitate), an over-50 year old man who is…
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Archbishop Whately cites Adam Smith
in the former’s Introductory Lectures in Economics at Oxford (1831). He has some interesting things to say about the value of public education at mitigating a problem arising from overly specialized labor. While primitive society’s people, who are jacks of all trades, masters of none, have no deep specialized knowledge such as “civilized” society’s people,…
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Apologies for the delay
Dear Reader, I apologize for the long delays between wikiness postings. My personal communications now tend to be emails and tweets. I am on the Internet daily, but usually not for myself. My online work is for my employers’ goals–research and curriculum-building to help kids develop literacy skills. I am very grateful to be paid…
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Asking the right questions, getting the wrong anwers
May the herd stay safe from the likes of these. “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheepʼs clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (Matt. 7:15) The current wolves-in-sheeps-clothing I’ve got my eye on are the privatizing “education reformers” who ask such correct questions in the public space that no one in…
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One response to our first black President's DNC speech
speaking last night at the DNC closing.The African-American girl came in late to this morning’s Assessment class, un-excused, but so what. J- sat down and asked if I saw the Democratic Convention last night, and I told her yes, I had. She glowed with enthusiasm. “What did you like best?” I asked her.She was disappointed with my…
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Review–Nickel History: City of Heat
Tony Fitzpatrick is a creator whose visual art I’ve enjoyed for almost twenty five years (check out his website to see his funky style). He has turned into a good writer, too, as this column from New City demonstrates). His storytelling has been something I’ve appreciated, too, since back in the 80s and 90s when…
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Paterno story brings up issues in US public schools
thank you, Luis Valdes for mage http://www.squidoo.com/valdes It sounds like a parody, but it’s true: in the wake of the Penn State pedophile investigation, the Joe Paterno Child Care center will be re-named by Nike, who know how to back winners and swoosh away from losers. To some, it’s an archetypal American morality play with…
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All politics is local, but maybe all narrative is, too–Theater Review: "Love Thy Neighbor…till it hurts"
What Hemingway means when he tells the writer to just “write the truest sentence you know” was borne out in Julie Ganey’s “Love Thy Neighbor…til it hurts” at Berwyn’s 16th St. Theater tonight. This Rogers Park mom just told true stories using clear, poetic language. but in doing so, she supplied her sold-out crowd a…
The Wikiness 