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Chatalist: Zoom Chat as Form

Chatalist: Zoom Chat as Form

Published: Feb 20th, 2021

A latecomer to pandemic pedagogy, I’m lately drawn to the phenomenon of Zoom Chat–something else that happens while I’m teaching. I first found it distracting and disconcerting, especially when I… Read More

Socks in Box: Marie Kondo Tidies Dr. Seuss

Socks in Box: Marie Kondo Tidies Dr. Seuss

Published: Jun 15th, 2020

Socks Amok. Box. Socks. Pile of socks by empty box. Balled up socks in pile send shocks! She comes – Marie comes. My sock drawer now looks so sorry. Help… Read More

Theme Song to the Off-Off-Broadway Stationary Musical: Home-a-Lot!

Theme Song to the Off-Off-Broadway Stationary Musical: Home-a-Lot!

Published: May 6th, 2020

Still at home? Sing along for custom quarantine karaoke here. (Be ready to start with the horns.) You can find the original Camelot theme song here.   It’s true! It’s… Read More

The Anne Sexton or Mrs. Maisel Quiz

The Anne Sexton or Mrs. Maisel Quiz

Published: Mar 18th, 2020

Breaking social rules about what women could say in public, American confessional poets and standup comediennes sassed up the 1960s with their candid revelations. Spouses, children, and even parents were… Read More

Liquid Whitman Gains a Locomotive and a Captain

Liquid Whitman Gains a Locomotive and a Captain

Published: Jan 5th, 2020

Since my Liquid Whitman post in July, more 12-ounce tributes to the poet’s Bicentennial have emerged in the Leaves of Grass Series from Bell’s Brewery. I’ve reviewed three of them… Read More

Punk Country

Punk Country

Published: Sep 30th, 2019

  Tennessee Two, that’s like a punk band. –Elvis Costello Ken Burns’s Country Music documentary wrapped its PBS broadcast last week, and now you can binge it. I didn’t expect the… Read More

Stone Stories: Louise Erdrich and Geologic Time

Stone Stories: Louise Erdrich and Geologic Time

Published: Sep 25th, 2019

A stone is a thought that the earth develops over inhuman time. — Louise Erdrich The first stories I remember were children’s stories my mother read to me, and Bible stories… Read More

Liquid Whitman

Liquid Whitman

Published: Jul 4th, 2019

Happy 4th of July in this bicentennial year of Walt Whitman’s birth! In addition to archival exhibits and poetry contests, the major U.S. celebrations include a 7-part liquid tribute from… Read More

Rocketmen

Rocketmen

Published: Jun 8th, 2019

Seeing Rocketman this week recalled what most struck middle-school me about Elton John, master of styles. There were other piano men moving onto my Memphis radio dial in the early… Read More

What Is Sustainable Pedagogy?

What Is Sustainable Pedagogy?

Published: May 8th, 2019

The Humanities have become a sustainability study in these STEM-driven times for higher education. How does our hive survive the academic climate changes of a shrinking professoriate, curricular compression, and… Read More