The Painful Nowning Process

The Galaxy Theater, that is. This closest independent movie theater to where we live is still a good 40 minute drive on most days, but with six screens, they can offer so much more variety than other indie theaters in the area, including South Asian  (Bollywood) films and special events such as chats with directors.

The other day I met a friend for a matinee, and when I pulled my ticket stub out of my pocket, I discovered that the theater also helps prompt after-the-movie discussion. Printed on the ticket stub: “On [date] at [time] I saw Waitress and it changed how I felt about _________ “  Now, I can’t say that this particular film changed my views on anything, though it did make me hungry, because a lot of delicious pies are either baked or described. Flip the ticket over, and behold!–it becomes a 10% off coupon at two Indian restaurants and an Indian grocery.

Beat that, gigantic 20-screen multiplex.

1. On Wednesday, our iMac seemed to be dying—it shut down without notice, then would begin to start and then just…shut down. Very disturbing. Fortunately, we still have a few months on the extended warranty (you know—the one everyone tells you is a waste of money). I called tech support and waited only about two minutes to get some advice which did not work. So I drove the iMac to the Apple Store in Raleigh, where they discovered that, indeed, it was a burnt-out power supply, which they replaced. Ta-da! All free—except for the 90-minute roundtrip, and me hanging out in Crabtree Valley Mall for two hours when I could have been revising essays or prepping my summer school course. Never mind—those things will get done. And we’re very, very happy to have home internet access again, and NO loss of data

2. Meanwhile, my husband was having his normal workday, until he completed his last call of the day and came out to find a flat tire on the van. He and his partner had to wait, wait, wait for HQ to dispatch repair. But eventually, he did get home, very hungry and tired.

I hope tomorrow I actually get stuff done instead of running errands.

The last book in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series will be published in July: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The suspense is killing—because readers are sure that some character(s) must die, but who? For the best, most thoughtful Rowling/Potter analysis and speculation on the web, I recommend Hogwarts Professor. And keep reading.

I’ve been meaning to post about the fun night-out with my husband Jim. You could call it “dinner-and-a-movie,” but since it was dinner at the Raleighwood Cinema Grill, where dinner is served in the theater itself, followed by a special charity screening of one of our favorite movies, Serenity, it was so much more. In fact, we attended the Can’t Stop the Serenity event in Raleigh, NC, complete with giveaways, costume contests, and a sold-out, very enthusiastic audience. The costume contest winner wore a scale model of the space-ship “Serenity,” complete with blinking running-lights, light-up tail, removable shuttle, and a photo of the crew visible in the open cargo bay. Awesome. And a little scary. The only question was who would win 2nd and 3rd place!

Thanks to the CU student who reminded me of this event in time for us to get tickets. We waved at each other across the aisle. None of us were in costume, I might add. We had a blast, though, and really enjoyed seeing the film again on the big screen with a fabulous sound-system.

…because I found myself reading this article about the internet blog/linguistic phenomenon known as “lolcats.”

Some other academic types, who have even more time on their hands, have come up with the often obscure and frequently disrespectful loltheorists. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Though this one is rather good.

Back to real work now.

When you spend nearly eight hours a day for seven straight days poring over (not particularly) advanced placement essays, you need some news and color. So the AP/College Board/ETS people kindly provided us with daily news on neon-colored pages. Among the events arranged to entertain and educate us: a reading by poet Maria Mazziotti Gillan. Sample her work here and here.

I confess that I didn’t attend her reading, but people who did said they enjoyed it.

Another souvenir of the AP-lit week: “A Highly Idiosyncratic Book List for Summer Reading,” compiled by Erica Jacobs (possibly the same Erica Jacobs who wrote this column?) Two in particular that appeal to me–

Digging for America, by Anne Tyler—I sort of have to be the mood for an Anne Tyler novel, but when I am, it’s always a good experience.

A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini—said to be even better than his first, semi-autobiographical novel, The Kite Runner, which I liked very much, and would also recommend. (Speaking of kite-runners, we watched a Bollywood movie not long ago with a kite-fighting scene/song in it, which reminded me of that novel–just the scene, nothing else in the movie.)

On my hotel roomie’s recommendation, I picked up Blindness, by Jose Saramago. Sounds harrowing, but I’ll get to it eventually.

A while ago I mentioned the nifty yet tempting “book-a-day” calendar my brother gave me for Christmas. It just keeps reeling off books I’d like to read soon, or books I remember enjoying very much and want to recommend to everyone else. And so, since it’s summer and if you’re reading this, you have some time on your hands for reading, here are a few random leaves from the calendar:

1. False Scent, by Ngaio Marsh–a Roderick Alleyn mystery. I read most of these when I was in high school, but I don’t recall this one in particular, so maybe I should look for it. Or go back and read them all again. Marsh, like Dorothy L. Sayers, writes so well and her characters are so interesting, that even if you know whodunnit, you enjoy reading the books anyway.

2. The Fig Eater, by Jody Shields–never heard of this one, but the calendar calls it “a literary mystery smoldering with atmosphere and history. . . . Set in Vienna in 1910 . . . a detective and his wife . . . use very different methods to solve the murder of a young girl.” I’m putting this on my list.

3. Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia, by Mark Salzman–this memoir’s description struck me in synchrony with the recent media interest in The Dangerous Book for Boys by Conn & Hal Iggulden, which teaches kids how to do all kinds of fun outdoors adventures, crafts, and projects, rather than watching TV and playing video-games all day

4. Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, by Steven Johnson–this book garnered a lot of buzz when it came out two years ago, because it “reports . . . that certain video games have proven to raise IQ scores and reveals how television shows have had to become more sophisticated to meet viewers’ expectations.” Let’s say some television shows. Most of us should probably read The Dangerous Book instead.

5. I’m not so sure about Bangkok 8, by John Burdett (2004), but with critical acclaim like “The wildest ride in modern crime novel exoticum” (James Ellroy), and “jade mines, drug deals, sleazy sex traders, fatal snake bites, and an ambivalent Buddhists detective”–sounds like beach reading, at least. If I get to the beach.

6. War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars, by Andrew Carroll (2002)–this book resulted from The Legacy Project, which collects letters from soldiers, and has published more books since this first one. It’s ironic that a high school play with a similar objective was recently banned and later premiered on Broadway.

7. Brazzaville Beach, by William Boyd (1995)–I’ve heard of this book and the neighboring Congo connection lent it interest. Book calendar describes it as “the story of a primatologist working in Africa who was driven to reevaluate her marriage and her work with chimpanzees.” OK . . .

8. The Last Song of Dusk, by Siddarth Dhanvant Shanghvi (2004)–I’d like to add to the list of contemporary Indian novelists I’ve read, and this book sounds like a good one with critical comparisons to Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy; though the plot description is rather abstract, the setting in 1920’s India sells it.

What I’m really waiting for, right now, is for my husband to finish reading the latest Thomas Perry thriller, Nightlife. Many writers seem to lose their edge as time goes by; Perry just keeps getting better.

More about the AP-Lit scoring marathon, with apologies to the writers of Angel–”The Apocalypse? You’re soaking in it” (”Underneath“)–from whom I stole my title riff on the old Palmolive dish-soap commercial. I’ll explain soon. First, I must say that the entire Advanced Placement scoring process is very complex and can best be explained by the AP/College Board people. The AP site mentions stats for 2002 of “nearly 938,000″ tests; we were told that there were over a million this year, if I recall correctly.

According to my estimate, I read approximately 650 essays, over seven days, plus 25-50. More experienced scorers read a lot more, and some read less. I may have failed to record at least one folder, and toward the end of the last day, readers were sharing  folders, so I scored some from other people’s folders, and vice versa. Also, a few of the essay pages were blank or contained only a few insubstantial lines, so it took almost no time at all to give them a score of — (blank), 0, or 1. Writers who filled a page or more with meditations on their prom plans, their girlfriends, or why this test was stupid, also scored — or 0, but took longer to read.

The question (which I cannot divulge) asked students to analyze literary devices (I don’t think that’s saying too much). Over and over, we were informed that the literary text(s) under discussion “used diction.” “Really! You’re using diction right now!” I wanted to say, but all I could do was read & score. Some of these essays successfully explained what kind of diction and how it was used. Others just meandered on. It was easy to get discouraged–just as when grading a much smaller batch of essays–but the sense I got from everyone at my table, and from everyone I talked with, was that we really wanted to see success. And we looked for every evidence of it we could find. A few really remarkably insightful and well-written essays stood out in almost every folder of 25.

Most of the scorers were high-school AP teachers, so I learned a lot from talking with various ones about the courses they teach and how they prepare their students. Very helpful for me and my colleagues in thinking about what we should be able to expect from our students who “place out” of the first-year comp courses.

A few expected and unexpected pleasures of the week:
a visit with my uncle and aunt, who live two hours away, but kindly drove in and took me out to an Indian restaurant–best food of the week!
surprise encounters among the other readers–a former student from Biola, now completing a PhD at Emory–I’m so proud! and a member of my dad’s church recognized me–I’ve only met her a few times when I attended Sunday school with my dad, but it was nice to see a familiar face.
a colleague from CU’s Mass. Comm. dept. hailed me on the street one evening–he was in Louisville for a conference. My roommate and I were doing some shopping and then on our way to dinner, but again, it was good to see a familiar face.

Speaking of my roommate, I was blessed to end up with someone who was quite pleasant and easy to get along with. As an experienced AP teacher and 5th year veteran of the scoring process, she was a great guide and I think we had a lot in common, too.

I’ve made it through day six of the AP-Literature scoring marathon. The availability of free internet access was highly exaggerated, and my laptop was baffling as well, but I have managed to check e-mail a couple of times, and I thought I’d better post so at least the one person who checks this site regularly will know I’m OK.

When I get home, I hope to post more about this process, and the astounding number of ways one can spell “onomatopoeia.” And it has now been definitively determined that there are at least a few wrong ways to interpret a poem.

I’ve also met several pleasant people among the hundreds of (presumably) nice people here. More about them, too.