Thinking about growing vegetables
This summer I missed not being able to grow some of my own food, so I hope that I can get a plot in a community garden next spring. It would be great for growing cheap greens. During one winter break in Gettysburg, I was able to pick from the snow some Swiss chard that was still fresh. And it would be easy to pig out eating peas directly from their pods while still in the garden. [The stereophotos I took of the site/sight in Madison turned out poorly, so maybe I'll return there before the weather gets worse and just take a digital photo.]

My election official training was Thursday afternoon at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens, and I arrived early to walk around while listening to the news on my mp3 player/radio. It made me think of two things--Zizhuyuan (Purple Bamboo Park, in Beijing) and the vegetable gardens I've grown for my grandmother. Because writing about Zizhuyuan now would take up too much space, I'll I just say something about growing vegetables.

This is my third day in a row posting on here. So, after these two topics, I'll probably wait until I post some 3-D photos that I hope turned out OK of an interesting site/sight in Madison.

Improving knowledge about First Amendment content
In this morning's state news on WPR was a story on how two candidates for the state legislature at a debate couldn't list all of the rights protected by the First Amendment. Because my intro to soc and contemporary American society classes cover political sociology, a couple of years ago I decided to force my students to learn some basic civics information for exams. One question has asked them to list three out of the five freedoms covered by the First Amendment, but this news story has led me to decide that I'll now ask my students to list all of them. For my previous comments on this topic, see the fourth paragraph of my March 8, 2006, entry at Livejournal:  http://xizhimen.livejournal.com/2006/03/08/

More on cheaper or free textbooks
At this morning's opening assembly for my school's convocation (Madison Area Technical College's version of in-house training), two students gave a presentation asking teachers here to sign-up for the rental textbook program, which they also discussed at the August convocation. They ended with an alternative that I had discussed with them in August, free open textbook programs. See, for example,  http://www.opentextbook.org/ and http://www.studentpirgs.org/open-textbooks/catalog

Watching films and Errol Morris
This evening's talk by Errol Morris, the director, was among the best I've heard at the Union Theater, and I was glad that I could tell him that at the reception. After talking for about 20 minutes, mainly on his time at UW as a history major, he opened it up to questions, which lasted for about one hour. It was a good way for audience members to ask about various films and for him to then provide interesting and often humorous background info. Because The Thin Blue Line is one of the options for my documentary assignment, I mentioned the lecture to my criminology students, but during the talk I regretted not more strongly encouraging people to go. I'll be sure to be there early for the showing of his recent film Friday afternoon at the contemporary art museum, at which he'll also be present.

While at UW, Morris often watched on his own films in the historical library collection. This reminds me of my time at Kansas going to the union to watch movies, such as The Seventh Seal, The Bicycle Thief, and The 400 Blows. I once told someone that I was going to the movie so as to study, and I wonder if he thought I was joking. I wasn't.

This evening Morris said that a great interest of his is the inner mystery of people, of others as well as oneself. Films, like novels, can sometimes offer insights into life's meaning, even when the characters lead lives different from mine. The first movie that comes to my mind that hits home, though, I'm reluctant to say much about--the John Malkovich/Joanne Woodward/Karen Allen version of The Glass Menagerie. One scene in particular reminds me of my own experiences.

Since it's really a play, I wonder about classifying The Glass Menagerie as a movie. The version I mention is much better, I think, than the one with Katharine Hepburn. Anyway, it has one of the best movie lines--"Time is the longest distance between two places." One message of this is regret about past actions and inactions. I've been thinking about how I've sometimes let my fear of re-experiencing something like The Glass Menagerie scene and other painful moments to influence me at times, especially in recent months. This is one of the values of films--to help us reflect on our inner selves and those of others. But meeting people in person should remain the main way that we accomplish this. One reason that I enjoyed this evening's talk and the reception was seeing Morris' cheerful and inquisitive disposition.

"Grasshoppers" at this year's Wisconsin Book Festival, Sept. 29-Oct. 3
My favorite part of the Wisconsin Book Festival this year was when I saw two women on each side of a little girl, maybe just under kindergarten age, as they walked on the sidewalk and then the bicycle path in the Atwood neighborhood. While holding her hands, they sometimes ran and raised her about a foot or two off the ground to fly through the air a short distance. She was so happy.

I'd gone to the Barrymore Theatre for the Friday Night Festival of Fiction readings to pick up my free ticket. With about an hour to go, I was walking to nearby sites taking part in the Fall Gallery Night, which was scheduled that same evening. What was also nice about the art night was that I was able to tell one photographer how much I liked her photo of a beach with some interesting cloud formations, and she was able to tell me about the location and the way she took it.

This year's festival wasn't as interesting for me as previous years'. That evening, the reading I liked most was by Lan Samantha Chang, the director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, using a selection from a novel about a poetry class. At one point, the teacher in the story tells a student that her poem is one reason why people don't read poetry these days. Later on, I thought about this cruel statement, and maybe I'd have to agree that a lot of today's poetry in the US fails to grab me--the long, T. S. Eliot-ish poems can especially test my patience. An exception that's a very good idea are short poems by students posted in some Madison buses above seats along with the ads.

I've been thinking about authors I'd like to hear at next year's festival. Of course, a lot depends on what has just come out, but many authors at the festivals are invited because of their established work. I'd enjoy hearing Billy Collins again; he read at the Union Theater a few years ago. And I think that Mary Oliver would be interesting. Earlier this year, Anne Strainchamps on WPR quoted from one of Oliver's poems, leading me to borrow a couple of her books from the library. I was reminded of Oliver while recently listening to a zencast.org talk, so I decided to read her again. [Some of her poems are posted at this site: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/oliver/online_poems.htm ]

"The Summer Day," probably a favorite of many, describes her meeting a grasshopper in the fields and ends with this question: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" That's why seeing those two women and the girl made an impression on me.

Willy Street Fair (in stereophotos)
During the warm months, some Madison neighborhoods in and near the isthmus hold fairs, usually with lots of free music. A few years ago a fair invited Canned Heat, one of the acts at Woodstock, and some of the original band members performed. Because I've been away from Madison the previous two summers, this year I tried to attend at least part of each fair. I especially like to talk with people at booths and tables. At the Atwood Neighborhood Fair, for example, parking garage attendants--concerned that the city might replace them with machines--ran a table. Parking garages are called "ramps" in WI, which I find a little strange. Even the attendants didn't know why WI uses this word rather than parking garage.

The Orton Park Fair has one of the most interesting events--evening performances by Cycropia Aerial Dance http://www.cycropia.org/index.htm. They tied ropes from the limbs of a giant oak in the middle of the park and up and down the ropes performed dances that are hard for me to describe in this space.

By far my favorite event is the Willy Street Fair parade, held at 11 am on the Sunday of the fair. Regular features are a convertible converted into a Dr. Seuss-like contraption from which an old instrument and a man send out soap bubbles.



And there's the Wacky Wheeler--similar to a hamster wheel--that a man rides down the street, often blowing a whistle. http://www.wackywheeler.com/

Costumed figures on stilts are also regulars. My favorite one-time participants were librarians pushing carts filled with books in 2003, the first year that I made the parade. When I saw this interesting idea, I knew that the parade was special. [Stereophotos taken at Willy Street Fair, September 26, 2010. My simple camera didn't align the film that well this time, so the right-side images take up more of the frames. Because of the lack of light, faster film speed, and distance, the 3-D effect of these pictures is just so-so. This is the site from where I got my camera and the viewer: http://www.3dstereo.com/ ]