Do you think books mind when we read them? Here they are carrying on with their lives, being beautiful or terrible according to how they were written, and we come along and literally stick our noses into their business. There are some people—scholars, philosophers, authors—who treat books as if they were alive. I once attended…
Category: Another World Within
Teaching my Kid about September 11
September 11, 2001 was a bright, clear, sunny morning. Washington DC doesn’t let you forget it was built on a swamp, and it was a morning where I remember appreciating the impending change of seasons, and feeling that the oppressive summer humidity was fading. There wasn’t anything all that unusual about the day. Just little…
Dismantling Writer’s Block with Friends
My younger kid has always been a big fan of Snoopy. When she was six months old, my sister gave her a stuffed Snoopy puppet, who became known as Puppy, and became her lovie. Puppy is Real to us, just like the Velveteen Rabbit is Real to his boy. Asking Puppy to help do things…
I’d Rather be Editing
When a family friend died on a hiking trail, the initial reaction was shock and sadness. But after a few weeks, this sentiment started to emerge: at least he died doing what he loved. I do think it would be a privilege to get to die doing what I love. But what would that be?…
The View from the Wheelchair
In college, one of my friends used to say “dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire.” We would go dancing at least once a week, almost every Saturday night was reserved for going to Tracks, a big gay dance club in Washington DC. Some weeks, when money was tighter, we’d go early, when…
Never Have I Ever… Reviewed a TV Show
So here’s why I like Never Have I Ever. I’ll start by saying that I’m a Jewish person who is in a relationship with an Indian woman—actually a Tamil woman, so she’s not far off from the main character of this show, except for the technicality of being born and raised half a world away….
Erika’s Big Think #3
“I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper and I was free.“ I don’t usually think of myself as a teacher. I love teaching, but I also knew there was no way I could handle classroom politics, and so, in spite of encouragement from my parents to consider teaching as a career,…
Coal Miners’ Strike in Tuscaloosa enters 4th month
“Yet Conscience is a nobleman, the best in us, and a friend.” By Adam Katz Solidarity takes work and engagement. So imagine my surprise when I saw a story covered by an independent media outlet to the effect that there has been a coal miners’ strike going on in Alabama for four months, and no…
Finding Myself on the Shelf: Uncovering My Own Identity through Queer Literature
“We dance around in a ring and suppose But the Secret sits in the middle and knows” -Robert Frost Fear of being Found Out No one knows what you’re thinking when you’re wandering the library shelves. For me, they were a safe space when I had the kind of questions that no one could answer…
What is Teaching?
So. I have a lot of thoughts on the subject of education. Sometimes I’m in the mood to take one idea and just poke at it, but at present I’m more of a mind to go through a bunch of different ideas too quickly to do any of them justice. Ready? Teaching is… Item the…