i'm a very very complex person

I. Birds

My interest in birds began with water birds. I think this is true for many people; after all, if you start your bird-watching career by trying to sort out all the different species of sparrow, you will spend your time staring at tiny brown birds that flit through the underbrush without ever seeming to sit still, and you will most likely quit in frustration before you even begin. Water birds, on the other hand, tend to be larger and slower, and they float or wade through ponds or lakes where they're easy to spot. They provide good practice for the skills of observation and identification that you will need before attempting to tackle the sparrows.

Because they were my first birds, there's some nostalgia tied up in my appreciation of water birds. But that's not all it is--there is also something serene, something perfectly autumnal about watching a lake full of ducks and geese. So I was very pleased on Sunday when I took a hike at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge and found that all the migrating water birds were in town. There were hundreds of Canada geese, of course, and plenty of run-of-the-mill mallards, but I saw some more special ducks as well: a pair of Northern pintails, some Coots, a few little Pied-billed grebes, several Northern shovelers, and, from afar, a little group of ruddy ducks with their unmistakable stiff tails waggling behind them. Lovely!

II. Books

After Palace Walk drained away so much of my reading energy, I've had to work to get back in the habit of reading. I started Bohumil Hrabal's Too Loud a Solitude mainly because it was such a slim and sleek little book--seemingly the opposite of the giant brick of Palace Walk. Even so, it didn't grab me right away, and it took me a week to work my way through the first fifty pages. But just when I thought I had signed myself up for another slog (though a shorter one, this time), I finally felt the book click. Ah. It may never become my new favorite book, but last night I finally found the beauty in it and, although I was tired when I started reading, I stayed up and read for longer than I meant to. It's been ages since that's happened, and I missed it so!

I. Recent reading

June Jordan's Poetry for the People edited by Laura Muller and the Blueprint Collective: I don't really know what to make of this book, or even how to describe it. The book grew out of the famous poetry class that June Jordan taught at Berkeley for many years, and it's something of a hodge podge. The book is essentially a compilation of materials for and by the class: student writings (both poetry and personal reflections), a sample syllabus, lists of classroom ground rules, tips for staging readings, etc. The book came out in the early nineties, and often feels a bit dated in some of its earnest political correctness and focus on identity politics. But June Jordan was an incredibly impressive poet and activist, and the book is definitely imbued with her sense of poetry as a real tool for change. It's an interesting book, I'm just not sure how useful it is unless you happen to be trying to initiate your own version of the Poetry for the People course.

The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta: Oh my god, this book is so bad. Everything about it is bad. Perrotta's prose has no style whatsoever, I didn't care about the characters, there are preposterous holes in the plot...I could go on. Perhaps the worst thing about this book is the fact that every time something is done or said, Perrotta is right there, explaining it to us--there's no room for interpretation, imagination, or even involvement on the part of the reader. The other worst thing about it (too many bad things to pick just one!) is the way it gestures towards big topical issues (the power given to right-wing Christian fundamentalists, abstinence-only education, gay marriage) but refuses to take any kind of stance on those issues. They just sit in the book taking up space while Perrotta tiptoes around them trying not to offend anybody. Bah. My workshop professor perhaps described the book best: "It's like oatmeal. Or milquetoast... Oatmeal with milquetoast on top."

I Am a Pencil by Sam Swope: Every teacher and every writer who's reading this should go out and get this book. It's great. It occasionally veers a little into the sentimental, but it's still great. The book tells the story of how Sam Swope, a children's book author, spent three years teaching fiction and poetry to a class of elementary school kids in Queens. He followed the same class through third, fourth, and fifth grade, so he got to develop relationships with the kids over a long period of time and watch the changes in them as they grew up, worked with different teachers, etc. There is quite a bit of the students' writing reproduced in the book, and I was amazed not only by how good it is but also by how easily these kids are able to access their imaginations. This is also a super-quick read--I got through the whole thing in a day, and I'm no speed reader.

II. Birds!

I love my bird feeder. It's so much fun, and it allows me to indulge my interest in wild birds even when I don't have time to go hiking and look for them. I'm amazed at the variety of birds that I get, too! I regularly see juncos, chickadees, titmice, a mated pair of cardinals, nuthatches, and white-throated sparrows, but I've also seen house finches, blue jays, and today I even thought I saw a fox sparrow! (Fox sparrows are rather uncommon, and I wasn't able to be quite certain of my id before he flew away.)

A few weeks ago Ms. E came to visit and brought her camera, which allowed me to take some bird feeder photos. They're slightly dark because of being taken through the window, but a few of them came out pretty well.


( More photos )

Nuthatch on the tree