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Of Quonset Huts and Zen.
March 8, 2010
Pat O'Brien of Fayetteville, Arkansas, writes in response to "A Door on North Colorado Street," a photo essay of a moment in time captured by Ebenezer Bowles in Walsh, Colorado, and featured on the Crow's Cottage Glossary and Compendium. Thanks, Pat!
A Bike in the Barn.
March 7, 2010
The first part of the previous century was apparently a good time for building barns. At least it appears that way according to sources I query when attempting to determine the vintage of a barn I have, or am about to photograph. “Early nineteen-hunnerds,” is certainly the most popular response. Such was the case with the barn which surrounds the bicycle you see above. Well nearly. My friend Eddie Snider responded with “around 1900,” pronouncing the words properly.
I Remember Mother.
March 6, 2010
Yesterday — Friday, March 5, 2010 — marked the thirty-ninth year of my mother’s death. Two years ago, while attending a writing seminar, I turned a long story about my mother and me into a poem. My mother’s name was Joy Kathelene Hinson, so in her honor, this is how the poem came to be.
A Door on North Colorado Street
March 3, 2010
Old things tend to fascinate old people. The young ones have the world ever before them. Vast and unspeakable numbers of the race are caught in the middle, looking both ways at once. But graybeards like me are prone to looking back. With the road trip mostly done now, memories become more invigorating than anticipations.
Pride, Honor, Culture, Unity:
Native America at the University.
February 24, 2010
Friday Night Live and the Native American Symposium give pause to reflect on the presence and influence of Native Americans on the university campus. In her latest contribution to Planet Gnosis, Freddie Bowles reports on the upcoming hosting of Friday Night Live by the Native American Student Association. She also reflects on last November's Native American Symposium, a week-long series of meetings and programs about politics, culture, economics, and common ground pertaining to the first peoples of America.
The Ark of the Covenant: Journey
Into a Realm of Mystery, Speculation.
February 22, 2010
Where is the Ark of the Covenant? Ever since its entry into the secret regions of Solomon's Temple, the mystical treasure has disappeared from certainty into a realm of mystery and speculation. Ron Fritze's latest essay for Planet Clio surveys the pseudohistorical theories of the Ark's fate. The Temple Mount? Templar hideaways in France and Scotland? The mysterious city of Tarshish? How about Tara in Ireland or the treasure troves of Titus in ancient Rome? Sheba, Nazi Germany, the land of the Lemba? It's another mystery of pseudohistory.
Mega Millions.
February 16, 2010
You keep wondering: Is it working? When it slows down, you ask yourself: Is someone stealing the bandwidth? You look around, see evidence of all these people going places, living the high life, and you ask, wistfully: Why not me? Why can't I be rich and famous, footloose and fancy free? You realize that being the one, filthy rich, negates being the other, free and shorn of the ties that bind.
Married with Children: the Union of
Martin Luther and Katherine von Bora.
February 8, 2010
Some of his closest friends advised against Martin Luther's plan to marry ex-nun Katherine von Bora, contending it would harm the Reformation, but for Luther the union was a life changing decision, guaranteed, he thought, to please his father, rile the pope, cause the angels to laugh and the devils to weep. The marriage also proved pleasing and fruitful to husband and wife, as Ron Fritze tells us in his latest essay for Age of the Reformation.
Three Aussies: Pile of Puppies.
January 25, 2010
I'm sixty years and they're eleven weeks. It's a good balance. Crow's Cottage rocks with new life and awesome bursts of animal energy.
Three puppies! It's hard to imagine, easier to accept. Compassion got the best of me at the moment of acquisition.
Commas, Conjunctions, a Million
Dollars, and the Barenaked Ladies.
November 18, 2009
What does AAAWWUBBIS have in common with the Barenaked Ladies and a pile of money? How does the tune "If I Had a Million Dollars" help students learn  about "comma causers" and smartly crafted sentences? Focusing on the concept of "purposefully arranged words," this compact, one-period AAAWWUBBIS writing activity created by Cindy Williams answers those questions and more as it "invites" students to connect writing to the music of their world. It's good and proper grammar, too!
Ausgezeichnete Übersetzung.
September 21, 2009
Dwight Langston of the University of Central Arkansas loves to translate and analyze German. A few weeks ago he sent a special translation of a Bio Poem to Planet Gnosis. Bio poem assignments are a favorite lesson for students of Freddie Bowles in the Master of Arts in Teaching Program at the University of Arkansas. Dwight's "ausgezeichnete Übersetzung" adds to the body of work for this flexible and popular lesson.
A Directed Reading of
Steinbeck's
Of Mice and Men Illustrates
The LitTunes Approach to Literacy.
September 10, 2009
Christian Goering writes: "Having my pre-service teachers read and connect to Of Mice and Men was an approach I was sure would be engaging, a solid strategy  for future teachers to practice, and a pursuit which would allow a few graduate students an opportunity to delve into the world of professionalism by co-authoring a book chapter with me.... Now that the publication process is behind me, it’s time to review how this project came to fruition and share some of its highlights with the LitTunes community. The project provides useful insights for teachers who are looking for new ways to present Steinbeck’s tragic novella. It also illustrates the dynamic, flexible nature of the LitTunes approach to literacy and the English language arts classroom."
Two States, Indiscernible.
February 7, 2008
He comes in search of unification.
From the salty mist he walked onto wet sand, greeting me in the earliest rays of the day. "We've work to do," he said, his voice like gravel under boots, his bare feet like brush bristles on the surface of the beach. "We've contradictions to merge into a higher truth. Be ready."
We named him O....
Language, Reality
And the Murder of John Locke.
September 2, 2000
It has got to be maddening to be murdered, to know in the fast fleeting now that the bullets are flying at you and into you, to struggle toward your slayer, to fall in a screaming air of violence onto the floor of your last breath.
When he fell, I don't think John fell at the feet of the killer. I think that John, resolving the last powerful gasp of his chi into a lunge, took the gunman down to the floor with him. I think John died triumphant, face-to-face with the coward who shot him dead.
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