A few fragments of my grief

Friday, March 27, 2020

“The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.”
“Such homeschooling! No homeschooler I know would voluntarily sign up for a homeschool devoid of libraries, parks, friend meetups, rousing trips to the coffee shop and long days at the museum.

Not to mention we’re all walking around like pale atlases, trying to hold up under the relentlessly grim news.

This isn’t homeschooling, this is HARD.”
“We’re feeling a number of different griefs. We feel the world has changed, and it has. We know this is temporary, but it doesn’t feel that way, and we realize things will be different…. Understanding the stages of grief is a start. But whenever I talk about the stages of grief, I have to remind people that the stages aren’t linear and may not happen in this order. It’s not a map but it provides some scaffolding for this unknown world. There’s denial, which we say a lot of early on: This virus won’t affect us. There’s anger: You’re making me stay home and taking away my activities. There’s bargaining: Okay, if I social distance for two weeks everything will be better, right? There’s sadness: I don’t know when this will end. And finally there’s acceptance. This is happening; I have to figure out how to proceed. Acceptance, as you might imagine, is where the power lies.”

The best distance learning is reading a book

Thursday, March 26, 2020

With all the talk of educational technology in this era of social distancing, I am reminded of Neil Postman, who said, “The act of reading a book is the best example of ‘distance learning’ ever invented.”

He put it this way in Building a Bridge to the 18th Century:

To use the term “distance learning” to refer to students and a teacher sending e-mail messages to each other may have some value, but it obscures the fact that the act of reading a book is the best example of distance learning possible, for reading not only triumphs over the limitations of space and co-presence but of time as well.

Crack open a book and you can not only learn from someone who’s several thousand miles away, you can learn from someone who’s several thousand years away.

(And even though I love the convenience of my Kindle, I try not to forget that paper is a wonderful technology.)

A bird feeder for humans

Wednesday, March 25, 2020

From Rob Walker’s excellent newsletter companion to his book The Art of Noticing:

The other day I was listening to an interview with Maria Bamford (one of my favorite comedians) on Bullseye with Jesse Thorn (a great interviewer), and there was a passing mention of Bamford installing a bench in front of her house. This was intended to attract interesting people, and did. (Not always in a good way, apparently.)

This sounded crazy (in a good way) to me, so I looked into it a bit. Here’s a passage from a 2014 New York Times Magazine profile:

A few years ago, after reading in a book that people who feel a strong sense of community have been proven to lead longer and happier lives, Bamford started working to overcome her natural shyness and fear of interaction by saying hello to her neighbors in Eagle Rock, a diverse and partly gentrified area on the northeastern edge of Los Angeles. She bought a park bench and had it installed on the median strip in front of her house. She then spray-stenciled the words “Have a Seat!” on the sidewalk in front of it. To her delight, the bench is often occupied. “It’s like a birdfeeder for humans,” she says.

I read that two weeks ago, just a few days before my kids got sick and we started self-quarantining. It seemed like such a sweet idea! Now, of course, a bird feeder for humans sounds like a potential site of contagion, but it won’t always be that way, and I still like thinking about the bird feeders for humans I’ve seen in my own neighborhood. (This website called Little Free Libraries “bird feeders for readers.”)

My favorite bird feeder for humans in my neighborhood is a house that has a chicken coop in their side yard. (We’ve bought eggs from them — they’re great.) So many people stop to see the chickens that they started putting a bucket out with leafy greens to feed them. A bird feeder for humans feeding chickens! Chicken feeding for the soul…

Drawing with kids

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

I know lots of parents are stuck at home with kiddos right now, so I thought I’d put together a big list of my favorite resources for drawing with kids. (If you’re stuck creatively, by the way, nothing helps like drawing with a 4-year-old.) I’ll start with instructional books and videos, and move on to supplies.

Instruction

Ed Emberley’s books

My all-time favorite drawing book is Ed Emberley’s Drawing Book: Make a World, which takes a collage-like approach to drawing:

Here’s a sample of one of the spreads:

If they like Make A World, there’s a ton of other Emberley books for them to get into.

And here is a short documentary for kids to get to know the wonderful man behind the books.

Super Simple Draw

Think of Super Simple Draw as a kind of animated version of Ed Emberley’s books. My kids love to sit side-by-side and follow the directions. There’s a couple seasons on Amazon Prime, but there’s also a ton of videos on YouTube.

Here’s their video for how to draw a robot:

And here are some drawings from when Owen was 5 and Jules was 3:

Lynda Barry’s books

Nobody has taught me more about the magic of drawing than the queen, Ms. Lynda Barry. Her latest book, Making Comics, is filled with exercises perfect for kids of all ages, but I love everything she’s done. Most recently, she’s posted some draw along videos to her YouTube channel.

Here’s a video of Lynda talking about how anyone can draw:

Here’s how to draw a chicken:

And here’s Lynda drawing a cat, a turtle, and a dog.

Lunch doodles with Mo Willems

I love Willems’s books and these Lunch Doodles not only provide a drawing lesson, Willems also shows off his studio and talks about the process of making the books. (They’re all archived on Youtube.)

Other great illustrators who are sharing lessons on their Instagrams: @wendymac, @carsonellis, and @mikelowerystudio.

Supplies

Art supplies are some of the best gifts you can give kids, but so many art supplies made for kids are straight-up junk. Here’s some stuff my my boys love that isn’t terribly expensive:

Crayola Slick Stix

Regular crayons are cheap and they don’t make a mess, but they’re hard to hold in tiny hands and kids have to really press hard with them to get any kind of decent result.

These Slick Stix are easy to grip and they lay down a really silky smooth line.

Give some of these to your kids along with some big pieces of paper and pretty soon you’ll have a bunch of Jean-Michel Basquiats to hang around the house.

Box of single-color Crayola Markers

This tip comes from my wife:

If your kid has a favorite color of marker, instead of buying another 8-color pack from Target or wherever, go online and buy a box of a single color in bulk.

(Our youngest goes through a ton of black.)

Do-A-Dot Markers

My youngest son had trouble making circles early on, so he loved to use these for wheels on cars, faces, etc.

They’re a little expensive, but they last a long time. (Try the exercises in Ed Emberley’s Funprint Drawing Book or copying pages from Little Blue and Little Yellow).

If you print them on top of each other, they mix color, so you can do a little Toddler Color Theory.

Sidewalk chalk

If you have a sidewalk, a driveway, or a concrete porch (see above) give them some sidewalk chalk and kick their butts outside.

Don’t forget paper. Lots and lots of paper.

Worry less about the quality and more about the quantity. We just go to Costco and buy whatever gigantic boxes of cheap copy paper they have and let the kids use as much as they want. (People would probably be shocked if they knew how much paper our 4-year-old goes through. But it’s worth it.) My friend buys paper for next-to-nothing in thrift and re-use stores.

Happy drawing!

Mary Ruefle on the joy of blackout poetry

Monday, March 23, 2020

I love, love, love this part of Mary Ruefle’s long conversation with Ron Charles when she talks about A Little White Shadow and how she makes her erasure poems. (Basically the White Out version of blackout poetry.)

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Here’s how she says she gets started:

All the words rise up and they hover a quarter inch above the page. It’s like a field, and they’re hovering. I don’t actually read the page. I read the words, which is different. So I’m looking, and I see all the words. And I go in and I pick a phrase or a word that’s delicious that I really love.

On how much she loves doing them:

I find it meditative and I find it infuriating sometimes and challenging and I like the smell of the White Out — dreadfully toxic! Really toxic…. I love it. Oh, I love it so much. There is nothing like it on Earth. I’m crazy about it.

Despite the haters: