I ask them to write an essayon Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”and compare it to real life’s victimizing, scapegoating, mob mentality, human cruelty. I say exercise close readingand let your argument lead the way; textual evidenceshall follow. Explore, excavate, then explicate.Find your own voice. I want them to enjoy freedomof speech (in this course at least). But all…
Month: April 2022
Indian Food: A Love Story (Bangalore Letter #4)
Indian food is a topic worthy of an essay all unto itself. More than one essay, really. But I will try to give an overview rather than a dissertation. The caveat, of course, is that this is all based on my direct observation. For real authorities on Indian cooking, try Swasthi or Cooking at Home…
Why We Need to “Flaunt” It
On a sunny Sunday afternoon in June, 1980-something, I was helping my mother change the sheets on her bed. I was in my early teens. Local news was covering the NYC Pride Parade and my mother turned to me, made a limp-wrist gesture and said, “Why do they need to flaunt it?” She continued, “I…
Grace (Sunday Summary)
“Sunday’s child is fair and wise and good and gay.” Your 2 Rules co-founders however, are both (technically) Tuesday’s children–full of grace, as the poem goes. We looked it up and everything. Grace-filled or not, welcome to the Sunday Summary for the week of 27 March 2022-2 April 2022. We’ve kicked off our National Poetry…
Charlotte Smith (Caturday Questions)
Folks, Little Cat is in a bit of a rut. There’s only so many times you can run away from Human-Mom and scare the living hell out of her. Or sit on her shoulder and lean out over whatever she’s trying to see. Everything gets old. Even the classics show their age eventually. The other…
Poetry for 30 Days (Watch/Listen/Read)
Adam Writes: Happy Gudi Padwa! And Ramadan Mubarak! It’s National Poetry Month and Erika in particular is busy. By rights we should both be talking about our favorite poems. Giving the readers a clue as to how to read them. Etc. But I thought that while I’m still in India I should talk about a…