A Wilderness of Monkeys

Hey guys, my SAT kids are reading a passage tomorrow on Wanda Landowska... it's an extremely gutted version of this 1996 essay, from what I can tell. In their version, the notion is that Landowska's playing is remarkably "expressive" and "florid" compared to what came before her. That she's a bit slurry and improvisational. The essay is mostly about her playing Bach, on the harpsichord.

It occurred to me as I was reading this, "Hey! I have a ton of Wanda Landowska playing Bach on the harpsichord!" They seemed to appreciate when I brought in A Field Guide to Sprawl after they read a passage on suburban sprawl, so I thought I'd let them listen to a little bit of Landowska. But I'm not sure what to play.

Also, I'm interested in showing the contrast that the article points out - her playing being more florid and expressive. But really, in my current collection, the only pair of recordings I have that show something like this are Glen Gould and Landowska playing the Chromatic Fantasy. (Jeez, YouTube has them too - Gould verses Landowska.) This sort of works, because Gould is very staccato and distinct, so the contrast the article is trying to make would be pretty clear to their ears. But it's also a big lie - Landowska wasn't responding to Gould. There are too many lies like that around already.

Does it matter? Can you all think of some recordings I should play instead? As long as it's something I can buy off iTunes or Amazon, I'd be all set...

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What novels would your recommend for high school ESL (Cantonese, Mandarin) boys currently scoring ~300 on the verbal portion of the SAT? What's a little challenging, not too slangy, and awesome?

Internet searches so far are turning up recommendations for Stephen King's The Cell and Lolita. I guess that I also don't want these kids parents to come after me with torches.

I was thinking: Hemingway short stories, except that they can have a ton of mid-century slang in them. It's even worse with, say, Dashiell Hammett. Both of those guys came to mind, though, as examples of good writing - the kids' writing tends to be overly flowery, emotional and run-on when it's not clipped.

I really want to make them read The Great Gatsby, but is that the sort of thing that appeals to high school boys? I think maybe not. I also want to make them read Middlemarch - ha.

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Also, from Facebook friends:
Ender's Game, The Chocolate War
Jack London, Gary Paulson, Gordon Korman, Andrew Clements
Graphic: Runaways, Pride of Bagdad
The Bread Givers, Katharine Patterson

I went canvassing in Philly on Saturday. I was surprised at how good I was at it, and how fun it was, especially after Julia's horror stories. My partner and I knocked on over 100 doors, talked to over 50 people, and had long conversations with maybe like 20 of them. Of those 20, 8 were very racist and 3 were sexist, answering that age-old question of whether America is more racist or more sexist, at least for this one tiny Catholic Philly neighborhood. My favorite examples of racism...

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Check out this post by John Quiggin on Crooked Timber:

Much more useful in thinking about the likely impact of aid is the amount per person per week. With (very roughly) a billion people in Africa and a billion in the developed world, the aid that’s been given amounts to about $10 per person per year, or 20 cents per person per week on each side of the transfer. So, the implied complaint of the average Northerner to the average African can be translated "I’ve been giving you 20 cents a week for years now, and you’re still poor – you must have squandered my generous help".

This doesn’t answer the question of why Africa has remained poor while so many in Asia have grown rich, or at least much better off. But unless you impute truly magical rates of return to aid, the question "why hasn’t aid made Africans rich" can be answered very simply "there’s never been enough to make a difference".

Right. I suppose that of all the questions to ask about aid, this is the one I've taken the least seriously, because it's always seemed pretty obvious to me that the amounts of aid we've been sending were fairly small. Still! Someone else whipped out his calculator and for that I am grateful.

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I'm going to totally miss seeing the moon and Mars together because it's due to rain like hell all weekend. In fact, there are cloudy skies for most of the East Coast. However! Yiling, you may actually be able to see Mars pass behind the moon if you're still in Renton and the weather is good. All my CA homies might have clear enough skies, but the event is going to happen pretty early in the evening for you. Blast!

Even though I get hilariously ill every time I go to London, I may have to go back in 2008. Will this be the only Hamlet I ever tolerate (aside from the ones I produce in my imagination)? Signs point to "let's find out!"

I need to take a break from data entry and go to sleep before I make any decisions, though. ::commence jaw-cracking yawn, periods of oblivion interspersed with vivid hallucinations::

I'm so thankful for Granny Smith apples. Even in the worst grocery store, even at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, at an airport, in London, in your mother's fruit bowl, there's still a good chance you'll find some that are tart and crisp and perfect. Thank you, dear little apples.

It got down to the sixties yesterday. What a reprieve. Come on, autumn...

I'm torn between getting an extremely cheap cellphone with a $30/month plan (the cheapest with Verizon), or even cheaper, and getting something with teh intarwebz, that I can keep my calendar and notes on. I'm also torn between getting something that I know will work all over the country (Verizon), and something that might just work in town and most places I travel.

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Edit for posterity: I ended up getting a Samsung SCH-u740 phone with a Verizon basic plan with web access. I think I might end up needing to write that database web application I've been hemming and hawing about for years... Hopefully I'll get the phone by Monday or Tuesday and can tell you all my new number. In the mean time, please stop texting me. Thanks!

I just heard about the 35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Are you guys okay? Are your friends and family okay?
Edit: Okay, a quick check of my friends lists reveals that most everyone has checked in. Has anyone heard from EV? From Emily? Gut? Susie? Katie and Dave? Andrea? Jason? Best wishes to all of you and your loved ones...