Burning to Learn

Great literary capture of the burning desire to learn?

Don Winslow’s “California Fire and Life”: Chapters 10-15.  

I will excerpt that section for a college class someday.  

When I asked Winslow if he’d mind, he seemed damned delighted.

What I Have Learned

English 1B: two questions.

How does X serve the story?
And, what does the story serve?

English 1A?
Shift "story" to "argument".

Recommended for the Literary Reader

Mateo: Three Faces (Naked, Hoplite, Diver)

Mateo in Morning Light.

As with living humans, that light can show nakedly the signs and emblems of age.

I think I did a fair job of capturing some of me at fifty, though in other ways this piece is a younger me and/or not me quite at all.  (If that's confusing, that's the Gemini coming through.)

Piece sculpted in a Self-Portrait Class: Summer 2011.

I've posted shots of this figure in the past on this blog.  

Hit the "Mateo" label-link below to see the other shots and commentary, if you'd like.

Mateo as Hoplite / Greek Warrior.

I use the helmet as a visual aid, seriously and/or humorously, when teaching Homer's epics or any of the Greek tragedies.

Mateo: Free Diver.

That's an old mask from the '80s.  Note the side ports for greater range of vision while diving.

This particular mask I picked up and gave to my father to encourage him to swim laps.  He didn't like the feel of standard swim goggles, so I suggested such a mask.  When he didn't pick one up for himself, I made a gift of this one.  I don't think he ever used it more than once or twice, at best.

Mateo: sculpture mix; denim glazing, poured over and mostly wiped off.

For the record, I'm not crazy about the end results here, but making this piece -- the largest single clay piece I've ever made -- has taught me much, not least about envisioning outcomes and artistic control.   The pallor is slightly disturbing, and the shininess of the blue seems just a bit too much.  I am not sure what I had expected or imagined when I glazed the piece.  And yet, Mateo strikes me as a very undersea  fellow, as a merfolk stand-in, which seems quite suitable too.

Passages: From Fangs to Feet

Here's a favorite passage from one of Barry Lopez's early works: Of Wolves and Men.

"Before a wolf was brought into their classroom, a group of grade-school children were asked to draw pictures of wolves. The wolves in the pictures all had enormous fangs. The wolf was brought in, and the person with him began speaking about wolves. The children were awed by the animal. When the wolf left, the teacher asked the children to do another drawing. The new drawings had no large fangs. They all had enormous feet."

The Walnut Hatches

For those of us that didn't know.

Annotations: Patagonia's Chouinard

Chouinard, Yvon. Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. New York: Penguin, 2005.

Chouinard is the founder and CEO of Patagonia, the climbing/sports-equipment/clothing company that specializes in good relations between management and employees, between consumers and what's consumed, between humanity and the Earth. Here, Chouinard provides the history of the company from the first climbs and the first ironmongery offered for sale, even as he clarifies the philosophy, radical as it is, that a capable, competitive company and happiness really may go hand in hand in (corporate) America. A blueprint of sorts, a philosophical treatise, certainly: I've used sections of this book with students in the past. Chouinard tells stories well, and he has the stories well worth sharing.

A real adventure narrative, and yet all business, too, in the best sense.