Pathetic

First we had two police officers ambushed in downtown Seattle on October 31--one killed. Now, four officers, doing nothing more than drinking coffee and meeting at the start of their shift.

What is going on here?

See link.

A Christmas Carol

Is there even such a thing as a “spoiler” for a movie like A Christmas Carol? Is there anyone alive on the planet who doesn’t know the basic plot of the story? Well, if you believe yourself to be such a person, crawl back under your cozy rock now and retreat to the comforting arms of your fellow Flat Earth Society members. I have no patience with you. In fact, don’t stop reading. Here: in a nutshell, Scrooge is visited by four ghosts, all of whom are experts at the art of less-than-subtle emotional manipulation, and he Changes His Ways. He pulls a 180. He gets better. God bless us, everyone! Now, go cry bitter, deluded tears because I wrecked it for you. Wah, wah, wah.

Anyway, what I wanted to get around to saying is that, I saw the new Disney version of the Dicken’s classic in the theatre with my kids this week. We all basically agreed that this is not Uncle Scrooge McDuck stuff. No, no. This movie is remarkably faithful to the original novel. Much of the dialog is pulled directly from the dusty, Victorian pages. Now, there is a class of people who reject movies that aren’t 100% faithful to the books they are based on. Those people will be delighted with this movie. Then there are those of us who understand that a movie is not, and probably should not, be simply an animated walk-through of the original text. Movies are, after all, an entirely different medium, with different strengths and weaknesses than a written work. We believe that if you want an experience that is indistinguishable from the book, then go re-read the book. And those people, too, I think, will be delighted with this movie. It’s wondrously animated, skillfully voiced, and lots of fun. Even my 12-year-old boy, whose current level of literary appreciation includes only poetry that begins, “Here I sit, broken hearted…” gave it two thumbs up. You get the idea.

The only annoying thing (to him, at least) was the constant inclusion of scenes and gestures meant to take advantage of the 3D effect. Mind you, I don’t do 3D. I’m old and grumpy and 3D gives me a headache. So we watch the old-fashioned 2D version (at least we do when I’m paying). This is probably why I’m so clueless about elements of the movie that serve the special effects rather than the plot. So, if you are a fan of 3D, you might prefer that version.
Or, you might prefer to stay at home and not think about Christmas related activities until, oh I don’t know, December maybe? Yeah. I hear ya

Doktoro Benson. Mi Amas Lin.

Yes, I love Dr. Benson. William Sol Benson. He’s my favorite early American Esperantist. He was a New Jersey osteopath at the beginning of the last century. He was born in Kiev and moved to the United States as a teenager, having learned Esperanto in Russia in the second year of its existence. He loved Esperanto. He loved it so much that he was inspired to create a textbook, using pictures exclusively to teach the new language. The only problem? He was a doctor, a busy man, who may or may not have had any artistic ability. Most of us, in such a situation, would have shelved our esoteric goals and instead concentrated on more mundane career demands. But not Dr. Benson! He found a way. He enlisted the help of a local prison inmate, a man with both artistic ability and unlimited time on his hands. With the help of this uncredited inmate, Dr. Benson published his “Universala Bildmetodo” in 1932. It includes hundreds of drawings, such as the one pictured above, that teach various aspects of the language. And it’s clear that Dr. Benson, in addition to commissioning these drawings, posed for several of them. Yes, that’s him in today’s drawing. And notice how every drawing is just a little bit different. Today, with computer assisted drawing programs, an artist would surely reproduce the same basic drawing ten times and simply manipulate the fingers to represent the given numbers. In the late 1920’s, our inmate friend had little choice but to actually draw each panel from scratch. Perhaps not the most efficient method, but one that produced, in my opinion, profoundly charming results!

And if anyone noticed a certain Ed Troyer vibe in the cut of that mustache, well, yes, you get bonus points.

First Esperanto Worksheet

Yes, I started teaching Esperanto at my son's school about a month ago, and, Dude, it's freakin awesome! I've got about 12 students (including my initially reluctant son), and they seem to be adsorbing this language like a sponge. I created a review sheet for them this weekend (which I will distribute on Wednesday) and they've already learned a word list that goes on for almost three pages. And they are actually talking about meeting on Friday afternoons in addition to our usual Wednesday meetings (their idea, not mine). I seriously couldn't be happier.

Tick, Tick, Tick

Oh, dear God, where have I been?! Time does have a way of marching on, doesn't it? Well, for one thing I did a guest post here. Check out the October 11 entry. That will go a piece toward explaining one of the projects that is draining my time. You can also check out the associated website that my daughter and I are working on at www.auburnpioneercemetery.net. I'm doing the research and writing; she's doing the web design and programming. We've actually done far more work than what is currently displayed on the site. My daughter, age 15, has tentatively decided that she would like to pursue web design as a career. She intends to use our site as part of a portfolio of her work. As a consequence, she has envisioned so many possible bells & whistles for the site that she has bogged herself down in detail and now finds it difficult to decide where/how to begin. Not an uncommon problem around here, I'm afraid!

The Guy on the Left:

A puffy Nicholas Cage? Nooooo. This, my friends, is none other than our favorite law enforcement talking head and PIO of all time, geography, and political persuasions--this is (drum roll, please): ED TROYER.

Yes, he's been absent from these imaginary pages all these many months, but not absent from my heart. My affection for him will endure as long as the portrait tattoo of him that I had (painfully) embroidered into a very private part of my anatomy. No, you can't see it. You wish.

And speaking of Ed, look at the website I ran across recently. You don't even need to click over to see the actual site, just appreciate the poetic turn of phrase featured in the URL. Did I register it? No, I did not, but doesn't it certainly look as if I could have? Doesn't it?
http://ed-troyer.love.com/

"Esperanto-land is a realm of aging socialists and hippies, nudist vegetarians, pot-smoking anarchists, folk musicians and backpackers, and...

...other sweet-natured dreamers determined to resist the global hegemony of English."


The quote above is from a review of the recently published In The Land of Invented Languages by Arika Okrent. Yes. Well. There you go.

There is a bit of a dual nature to Esperanto. There is the strictly linguistic side, and there are plenty of people who admire it just because it introduces or teaches elements of language acquisition while at the same time simplifying them. This is the side I'm emphasizing in trying to establish it as a club in the local middle school. And then there's the quixotic, idealistic side so often characterised by descriptions such as we see above. Whether or not such stereotypes are deserved is a topic for another day. All I can say is that I've been called worse.

Today, we address d, who made the probable mistake of asking how one can get started if interested in learning some Esperanto. Assuming that none of us are suburban Washington middle school students with access to my so-far hypothetical club, here is what I recommend:

1) Go to the Esperanto-USA website and sign up for their free correspondence course. It includes ten lessons. The organization will connect you with a teacher who will correct your work and provide helpful input. I didn't realize it until today, but there is also an electronic version if you prefer to use email rather than old-school correspondence (d, Lesson 1 is already on its way to you). This is the address: http://esperanto-usa.org/

2) Go to this website: http://www.kurso.com.br/bazo/index.php?en and download their free 12-lesson Esperanto Course onto your computer. Do lessons 1-4 at your own pace. If you are enjoying it and want to go further, I'd recommend going online and purchasing an actual text book at this point. I'm using Esperanto, A Complete Course for Beginners by Creswell and Hartley, but there are several others. These are largely available on Amazon and other new and used book selling sites. Whatever you do, do NOT attempt lessons 5 & 6 of the computer course without some sort of supplementary material. In my opinion, those lessons are very difficult to learn without some additional explanation. The same is true for several subsequent lessons of the course. The real advantage is that the early lessons give you an opportunity to click on the written Esperanto text and hear the words and phrases pronounced by trained Esperanto speakers--an excellent feature!

3) If you have the time and inclination, go online and try to find materials put out in the 1920's and 1930's by the Benson School of Esperanto (of Newark, New Jersey). These are highly illustrated and some of the most charming language textbooks I have ever seen in any language. Unfortunately, they are a bit on the tiny side; the one I just bought is just 4 x 5.5 inches, so prepare to polish up your reading glasses. My plan is to use this book with the kids by scanning the individual pages and enlarging them into worksheets. The Benson books are out of print, but you can still find them here and there. They can be a bit more expensive than other options, but, considering the tiny market for used and collectible Esperanto materials, they remain pretty affordable.

And there you have it--more than you ever wanted to know about beginning the study of Esperanto!