Okay, this is pretty terrifying in a Mothra kind of way . . .
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Yes, that’s my giant gob projected on a viewing screen. The picture was taken during a recent Skype visit. Quick, here’s a couple of other shots:
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I’m still in the early stages of figuring out this Skype business. I’m not even sure how I feel about it yet, or whether I can (or should) fit them into my schedule. That said: It is undeniably cool to connect with kids from far-away places, schools I’d never visit if not for this amazing technology. So I’m leaning yes.
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And it is amazing, as tired and cliched as that word sounds. Suddenly we’re looking at each other, waving, laughing, talking, snorting. It’s craziness and I think students really do feel a thrill.
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The photos are from my first-ever Skype visit. Since I didn’t know what I was doing, just fumbling around, I didn’t charge a fee. And I still don’t. Though that might change down the road if I decide to pursue this in any kind of organized fashion. The visit was a result of an enterprising teacher, Tyler Samler, who reached out to me after reading Bystander with his class. We decided on a 20-minute Q and A session. I enjoyed it, despite having to comb my hair. However, I found it difficult to read the audience. In person I’m pretty good at glancing around the room, recognizing when I’ve got their full attention or when, perhaps, it’s slipping away. With Skype, I was less certain. Hopefully I’ll get better at that with practice.
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Tyler wrote to me after the session:
The Skype session was awesome! You’ve acquired some life long fans here at Hyde Park Elementary School. After the session we went around and had each student give imput and share their opinions. It was a really good response. They enjoyed your sense of humor and your kindness. I think they were greatly enriched to have this opportunity. You’re a wonderful storyteller!
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Thank you so much.
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Tyler
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NOTE: I reached out to gifted author (and swell all-around person) Mitali Perkins for advice on Skyping and she directed me to author/teacher Kate Messner, because “Kate is the real expert.” After a few seconds digging, I found this excellent blog post by Kate, which is a pretty good primer on Skyping from both the school and author perspective. If you’re a teacher, you should check it out.
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For authors, Darcy Pattison wrote an impressive primer. She offers a lot of great tips, from lighting, to looking at the camera, all the way to suggestions for bathroom breaks. Darcy thinks of everything. The truth is, I would have never dreamed of putting on lipstick if it weren’t for Darcy.
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Really. I mean it. I just have naturally rosy lips.
As frequent visitors here know, music holds an important place in my creative life. I’m a listener. I don’t play, can’t carry a tune, but I’m fairly sure I loved songs long before I loved books, and the words of songs touched me in a such a way that I wanted to pick up a pen to face (and fill) a blank page of my own.
Today I’m inspired by the first song on the new Iron & Wine disk, Kiss Each Other Clean.
Sam Beam, AKA, Iron & Wine.
The song, “Walking Far from Home,” instantly reminded me of the imagery in the apocalyptic Dylan tune, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” I enjoy it when writers trod familiar ground, mine traditional forms, like tourists visiting the same old plots. The restrictions call on the artist to dig deeper for his reward.
Iin this case, both songwriters, Sam Beam and Bob Dylan, were working within what I’ll call the Peripatetic Structure. Or more colloquially, the Where You Been? Song. Simply: the narrator goes out walking and reports back on what he encounters. In Dylan’s case, a world that is broken, wounded, bleeding. The telling of the journey becomes more than a laundry list of observations. Because in the hands of a craftsman, the exterior reality functions as a reflection of an interior state, and the objective and subjective meet in hallucinogenic clarity: nothing and everything are real.
Here’s Sam Beam:
WALKING FAR FROM HOME
I was walking far from home
Where the names were not burned along the wall
Saw a building high as heaven
But the door was so small, door was so small
I saw rain clouds, little babies
And a bridge that had tumbled to the ground
I saw sinners making music
And I dreamt of that sound, dreamt of that sound
I was walking far from home
But I carried your letters all the while
I saw lovers in a window
Whisper “want me like time, want me like time”
I saw sickness bloom in fruit trees
I saw blood and a bit of it was mine
I saw children in a river
But their lips were still dry, lips were still dry
I was walking far from home
And I found your face mingled in the crowd
Saw a boat full of believers
Sail off talking too loud, talking too loud
I saw sunlight on the water
Saw a bird fall like a hammer from the sky
An old woman on the speed train
She was closing her eyes, closing her eyes
I saw flowers on a hillside
And a millionaire pissing on the lawn
Saw a prisoner take a pistol
And say “join me in song, join me song”
Saw a car crash in the country
Where the prayers run like weeds along the road
I saw strangers stealing kisses
Leaving only their clothes, only their clothes
Saw a white dog chase its tail
And a pair of hearts carved into a stone
I saw kindness and an angel
Crying take me back home, take me back home
Saw a highway, saw an ocean
I saw widows in the temple to the Lord
Naked dancers in the city
How they spoke for us all, spoke for us all
I saw loaded linen tables
And a motherless colt then it was gone
I saw hungry brothers waiting
With the radio on, radio on
I was walking far from home
Where the names were not burned along the wall
Saw a wet road form a circle
And it came like a call, came like a call from the Lord
Written and recorded in 1962, Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” borrows it’s Q & A structure from the traditional English ballad, “Lord Randall.” The answer to the question — where have you been? — reveals that the son has been out walking, witness to a wasted, wounded world.
A HARD RAIN’S A-GONNA FALL
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son ?
And where have you been my darling young one ?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son ?
And what did you see, my darling young one ?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin’
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin’
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ?
And what did you hear, my darling young one ?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’
I heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin’
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
Oh, who did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one ?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
And what’ll you do now, my blue-eyed son ?
And what’ll you do now my darling young one ?
I’m a-goin’ back out ‘fore the rain starts a-fallin’
I’ll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
Where the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I’ll tell and think it and speak it and breathe it
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it
Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’
But I’ll know my songs well before I start singin’
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.
The structure of “Lord Randall” leads me to listen to another legendary Q & A song, one that begins with a similar, direct question: Where you been? This American folk song, titled here “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” is sometimes known as “In the Pines” or “Black Girl.” For many years, and certainly within the American folk tradition, the song was most powerfully associated with Lead Belly (born Huddie Ledbetter).
In 1993 that changed for me, and for many others, when Kurt Cobain of Nirvana sung it on MTV Unplugged. On that day, with his thrilling, unforgettable performance of that song, Cobain absolutely owned it.
WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT?
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I’m going where the cold wind blows
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
Her husband was a hard working man
Just about a mile from here
His head was found in a driving wheel
But his body never was found
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I’m going where the cold wind blows
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
My girl, my girl, don’t lie to me
Tell me where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
My girl, my girl, where will you go?
I’m going where the cold wind blows
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine
I would shiver the whole night through
Here’s Huddie, singing his version of “Black Girl.”
Not to worry! If a book — an actual book — is good enough for Starship Captain Jean-Luc Picard (who, as everyone knows, will be born to Maurice and Yvette Picard in La Barre, France, on 7/13/2305), well, I hardly think we need to stress over it.
In addition to the relentless snowbooking, I’ve been putting in time over at my new blog, FATHERS READ, which is dedicated to 1) fun photos of men reading; and 2) the importance of positive role models for boy readers.
Note: I want to pause for a moment to emphasize that these gender issues often devolve into an “us” versus “them” scenario, the boys against the girls, with advocates for each side lined up in opposition. This is unfortunate and counter-productive. What we want is readers, boys and girls. Yes, I wrote: the importance of positive role models on BOY readers. Because that’s my focus here, the statistical fact that boys do not read as much as girls. But on a larger scale, the fathers read movement — ha! — benefits boys and girls. I’m not pitting one against the other.
Please check it out, spread the word, send in photos. Things are eerily quiet over there, it’s the proverbial tree falling in the forest. It’s a new blog and generally these things either take time or die on the vine. Right now, it’s too soon to tell.
Over the past two weeks:
* Author Lois Lowry tugged at my heart;
* Author Lewis Buzbee stopped by to contribute, “Five Things About Me as a Young Reader.”
* Peter Lerangis, author of many outstanding books, got fierce about reading.
* I’ve linked to useful, provocative articles on tips for boy-friendly educational approaches, the culture of low expectations, research that suggests how video games might actually boost brainpower, super dad seminars, 14 literacy strategies for boys, and more.
* Identified some pretty excellent father-based blogs.
* And for as long as supplies last . . . photos. Really great photos.
Please do what you can to amplify this important message.
