Cleveland & clippings

[ellenkushner]

In Cleveland, watching the blizzard & helping Mom get ready for Passover. Last night we escaped I mean went out to the movies ($5 night! Free popcorn! We dont' have that in NYC) and saw The Class. French immigrant schoolkids & a dedicated teacher who makes mistakes. No easy answers - unlike an American movie, where all the parts would be clearly delineated & some kind of solution - or at least resolution - found. I laughed, I cried. I was also struck by the [oh damn, gotta go help Mom. I'd like to write more about the French school system sometime. I went to 2nd grade in France, and was delighted to see that children are still asked to stand when an adult enters the room - though I loved the fact that the principal in the movie carefully explains to the African & Arab kids, "This is to show respect to an adult. It is not submission or humiliation." I do think that common standards are useful. You're welcome to rebel against them if you want, but at least the entire society can agree on what they are first. There's a big deal right now in the NYC subways about giving your seat to someone who clearly needs it. I'm always amazed at the hulking young brutes who sit (legs splayed, also taking up 2 seats because, well, I guess that painful genital condition just requires air) while old ladies balance precariously before them. Do they really not know you're supposed to offer your seat? I realize they may not. If no one ever told them, why should they? But a guy on crutches has been posting a blog with photos of offenders, and I was shocked to read that while most of the comments have been "Yeah!" some have been "Screw you, I'll sit wherever I want!" In the words of the Professor: What do they teach them in these schools? (Not that I think this must be taught in school. Surely your parents should teach you that? It's just a phrase I use a lot to mean, well, you know. Kids today.]

As deliasherman told you, we loved Next to Normal, which is in previews on Broadway. Here is an interview with our friend's best friend, the star of the show, Alice Ripley. She is just amazing. We got to go backstage. I have the bliss.

Comments

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Blizzard? Is it snowing again? (Goes to lab window, does not see new snow. Though my weather alert thing says snow...)

This is actually my least favorite kind of Cleveland weather - when it's below freezing every night, and above freezing during the day, so it's not really snow as much as mucky with frozen bits.

But hey, who needs weather? I'm getting data! (My new anesthesia protocol works, my slugs, they live and thrive and eat, and overturn some major points in the literature... *grin* Yeah, okay, so I'm weird to care.)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

It's pretty hilarious - goes from whiteout to sunshine & back again. Can't say it's boring. Also don't mind the warmer days, as it means streets don't ice up.

How wonderful that you're here! And getting slugs to thrive! Sometime when we visit, I'll have to see if family will release us long enough to head down to a coffeeshop somewhere & meet up with whoever else is in town....

[tylik.livejournal.com]

I saw some lovely white out bits yesterday (and home's on the fifth floor on a building right on the edge of the bluff, so in weather like this the wind whines and moans like the souls of lost things) but I seem to be missing them today. Then again, I spent half of today in a Faraday cage.

I would probably feel differently about the warmer weather if I spent more time in a car, and less time on foot heading up and down one of the goat trails between the heights and campus. Snow is entertaining, and brushes off if you do fall. Ice can be deal with with appropriate gear (http://www.yaktrax.com/). Icy mud... bleh. (And worse, if I train outdoors I tear up the grass, and if it's snowing but warm enough to melt I really shouldn't bring my swords out.)

Oh, coffee some time would be fabulous! (One remembers that there are things in life besides research, math and martial arts. Dimly...)

The getting slugs to thrive is one of those odd turns in life - I came into this lab with far more experience as a slug butcher than a slug surgeon. But they are purple, good humored, and have only 20,000 neurons. Big, beautiful neurons, that you can find. Many of them even have names.

[gleeful-t.livejournal.com]

I often wonder about those painful genital conditions that render me and everyone else on the bench folded on top of themselves.

At one of my middle schools we actually stood when an adult entered the room. That school was definitely very "traditional," by today's standards, corporal punishment and all.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Where did you grow up?

[gleeful-t.livejournal.com]

Lots of places. This place was in Houston, Texas, and very religious, although Epischopalian. The middle school before was in Stavanger, Norway; I was there grades 5-7 and can't remember more than six words of Norweigen. At least the only other place they use it is at Epcot.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

The problem with "Surely your parents should teach you that?" is that an awful lot of parents don't know or don't care about courtesy. Or are actively hostile to it. (Goodness knows my mother is. And my grandparents on both sides were even worse. If it weren't for books and schools, and the communities I found as an adult, I don't know how I'd have learned to be civilized.)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I was part of the anti-manners generation myself, and ignored or rejected much of what I was told (or just didn't listen). But at least I knew about stuff from books. Then I graduated from college, realized what a barbarian I was and would not thrive, so memorized the Good Parts of the first Miss Manners book. . . . it came just in time.