Which direction the earth spins
With fall arriving, finally, the almost-five-year-old has become interested in the seasons. I ordered Gail Gibbons’ The Reasons For Seasons, and we made paper planet balls and talked how the Earth tilts on its axis, and then, some magic happened: I realized I had no freaking idea which direction the Earth spins! No idea at all. But I didn’t pull out my phone. I sat there with the ball and thought about the sun rising in the east, setting in the west, and I figured it out, along with a few other things. It feels so amazing, as a grown adult, to teach yourself something just using your sense and your senses.
Once again, by helping him learn, I myself am learning how to learn.
Partial to the partial
The two-year-old banged on the front door and shouted “Moon!” this morning, so, as we do, we went out to take a look. Crescent, waxing, almost new. It resembled all the wonderful photos people had taken of the crescent-shaped shadows that the partial eclipse cast earlier this year:
Full moons have their charms, but I am drawn towards the phases in between them, just as I am drawn, or even biased towards, art that exists only in part, art that is in-progress or unfinished, cut-up or fragmentary, incomplete or imperfect…
I am partial to the partial.
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Photo links:
Free drugs
I get a couple of books in my mailbox every week. Some weeks more than a couple. Most weeks they’re books I have no interest in ever reading, and some weeks I get books I would’ve shelled out $50 for, six months before their release date.
I receive enough free books in the mail that if I read them all, I would never have to buy a book again. This seems ridiculously unfair, considering that not only do I have enough money now to buy books (and I buy quite a lot, because, hey, they’re a tax writeoff), but when I actually had time to read them, I couldn’t afford them, and nobody wanted to send me any. (Thank God for the library.)
In the movie Love Actually, Billy Mack, an aging rock star, is told by some TV show hosts to keep it clean because they are broadcasting live and children are watching.
Billy straightens up and says, “Hi kids. Here’s an important message from your Uncle Billy: Don’t buy drugs.”
He turns to smile at the hosts, who look relieved. Then he turns back to the camera, goes slack, and says, “…become a pop star and they give them to you for free!”
Read more than you write, live more than you read
Last night I was reading a new book by a writer I admire and a voice in my head kept asking, “How? How is he so good?” and another voice kept replying, “Because, he’s lived longer, thought harder, and written more than you, you buffoon.” (Factoring out in-born talent, of course.)
It reminded me of Junot Diaz, who, when pressed for advice, said, “Read more than you write, live more than you read.”
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