New York City Venues

After watching Pope Francis celebrate a moving mass in New York's Madison Square Garden, I wondered if anyone ever had the vision of arranging a Knicks-Celtics playoff game at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Of course, these days a papal visit to the Big Apple is about as rare an event as would be the Knicks and Celts meeting in a playoff game!

Michael Jordan as Star of Advertising

Now that Michael Jordan has become a billionaire and is making more money in one year selling shoes than he made as a player during his entire stellar National Basketball Association career, isn't it time for him to stop ripping the tags off of men's undershirts and throwing them in the soft drinks of innocent bystanders?

"Call Me Ishmael" (a later look).

Call Me Ishmael

THIS POST WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN DECEMBER OF 2012; IT HAS BEEN EXPANDED AND UPDATED AS OF NOVEMBER, 2015.

---

Most readers recognize these words as the opening sentence in the classic American novel, Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. Unfortunately, too many readers recall little about that novel beyond its being the tragic tale of an obsessed whaleboat captain and a white sperm whale.

In 2011, historian and writer Nathaniel Philbrick issued a small challenge under the title, Why Read Moby Dick? Why, indeed.

As New York Times' reviewer Kathryn Harrison wrote, "Philbrick has undertaken a hard sell because the classic novel is overexposed. Who doesn't know the story of Captain Ahab and the white whale?"

In Harrison's words, Melville's 1851 novel "would appear to be one of those unfortunate books that are taught rather than enjoyed."

Philbrick argues there is much to be enjoyed and learned from Melville's writing that will contribute mightily to our understanding of America. It constitutes, Philbrick claims, "our American Bible," and he urges us to actually read the classic tale.

In this, he is like an evangelical preacher urging his faithful bible-believing congregants to actually read their holy text.

In addition to re-reading Moby Dick, I have read Philbrick's 2001 National Book Award-winning tale of the incidents that triggered Melville's imagination and his classic story: In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.

I recommend to all who feel more comfortable with visual learning, the PBS video: "Into the Deep: America, Whaling, and the World."

Available on YouTube at: Into the deep

Note: the YouTube program runs close to one hour and this version is not the authorized PBS film and therefore shows some lapses, silences, etc. PBS sells the DVD of the program, and does at various times broadcast it as part of the "American Experience" series. A visit to the PBS website provides an educational potpourri: -- PBS

In December of 2015, the film adaptation of Philbrick's book will be released as "In the Heart of the Sea," directed by Ron Howard, and starring Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, familiar to moviegoers for his role in the 2009 reprise of "Star Trek," and even more well known to younger moviegoers as the star of 2011's "Thor," and in the same role in "The Avengers" of 2012.

Early reviewers of the "In the Heart of the Sea" film seem lukewarm; the PBS version may be better.

Philbrick's book is well worth a read (actually, both of his books mentioned above), and best of all would be returning to Melville and reading or re-reading "our American Bible."

For a truly educational experience in that regard, try reading the novel at Power Moby Dick, the online annotated edition.

A Way to Become a Writer

If you want to be a writer, don't own your own house unless you are comfortably wealthy. And if you're comfortably  wealthy, give your riches away because then you're better able to commit to being a writer--and along the way you'll be following Jesus.

Checking trivia

For Christmas I received a small calendar of popular trivia.

I cannot find anywhere in this 365-page publication (it shrinks in size as the days go by) documentation of any of the bits of trivia so I've been using Google search skills to find more information about these tiny factoids, urban legends, bits of folk wisdom, and down-right deceptions.

For example, today's trivia asserts "A duck's quack doesn't echo, and nobody knows why."

Scientists at the University of Salford in Manchester, England, did acoustic laboratory research and soundly debunked this myth. 

Their work was part of an early 2000's British Association Festival of Science. You can check them out for yourself at: www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk

I'm researching a couple of the early trivia assertions and will report back later (it is hoped). Here's two examples:

• The average person presses the snooze button on their (sic) alarm clock three times each morning.
• In Japan, over 20 percent of all publications are comic books.

If nothing else comes from these often misleading tidbits, they are great writer's prompts and Google researcher's challenges.

Being interested trumps being interesting

Jim Collins, author of the 2001 best-seller Good to Great, tells the story of a mentor stunning him--and changing his life and his approach as a teacher--when the friendly critic said, "Jim, you worry too much about being interesting instead of worrying about being interested."

An important but subtle distinction lies in that criticism. Wanting to  be interesting often masks a neurotic and self-focused need to please and impress others. Concern with being interested instead abandons self-focus and opens to the wider world of knowledge and experience. 

The first always smacks of contrivance; the second is rooted in openness and curiosity; the best teachers are interested, and being interested is contagious. Students want to be infected by whatever germ being interested carries. Best of all, I think, when one shows interest, one disregards all anxiety about being wrong.

Parsing the Star-Spangled Banner

A teaching exercise for understanding
the national anthem of the United States.

Notes follow the text.

The Star-Spangled¹ Banner as  adopted by the U.S. Congress  on March 3, 1931

                  (Official national anthem of the United States of America)

By Francis Scott Key (1814)*

                                                                        *The title of Key's poem is
                                                                                 "The Defence of Fort McHenry"

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light,
What² so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming ?³
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;⁴
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?⁵

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?⁶

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:⁷
’Tis⁸ the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.⁹

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?¹⁰
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.¹¹
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:¹²
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.¹³

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation.¹⁴
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!¹⁵
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our Trust;"¹⁶
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!¹⁷

Analytic notes and punctuation questions: 

 1--Why is this hyphenated? Incidentally, what does the word "spangled" mean?

 2--Some poets begin every line with a capital letter; often, this does not mean that a new sentence is beginning. 

 3--End of sentence one; note that this is a question. 

 4--What is the function of a semi-colon in this line? 

 5--Also a question, this ends sentence two. 

 6--Still another question at the end of sentence three. 

 7--What is the colon signaling? [Pay attention to punctuation.]

 8--This is a contraction of "It is." The many contractions in this anthem are devices to maintain the poetic rhythm. 

 9--Sentence four, the first declarative sentence ending with a  period. 

10--Sentence five poses another question. 

11--Sentence six: nine words.  A short declaration. 

12--Here’s a colon again. What is it signaling to the reader? 

13--End of sentence seven. 

14--End of sentence eight. 

15--Sentence nine;  note the contractions in this sentence.  Why does it end with an exclamation mark? 

16--What is the semicolon signaling? 

17--End of lyric.  Sentence ten. Four of the sentences are questions. Stanza One is comprised completely of questions. Stanza Four is the only stanza not containing a question. Does this indicate that Stanza Four might provide answers?

Careful reading requires close attention to word usage, punctuation, and sentence structure. Look up the meanings of the following words:

Vocabulary:

First stanza:

perilous: 

ramparts:

Second stanza:

haughty:

reposes:

Third stanza:

vauntingly:

havoc:

refuge:

hireling:

doth:

Fourth stanza:

desolation:

Contractions: 

            O’er (over); ‘Tis (it is); vict’ry (victory); and Heav’n (heaven).

By using these contractions, the author is engaging in a poetic strategy that allows using one syllable for a two-syllable word or a two-syllable word in place of a three-syllable  word.

Observations for analysis:

How do we identify this as poetry?

What is the subject of this poetry?

Who is the “you” of the first line?  Who is the “we” of the second line?

What passage of time is described in the first two lines?

            Read the last two lines of each stanza.  Line eight is identical in each stanza.

            What are the changes that occur in each stanza in line seven? 

            What does the one changed word in line seven of the last two stanzas communicate about the author’s vision?

Questions for analysis:

How many paragraphs are there in this writing?

What phrases are the most difficult to understand in this poem (song)?

What is being described in stanza two?  In what line of stanza two is the answer to this question given?

Who are the subjects of stanza three (probably the most difficult stanza to grasp)?

How does stanza four differ from the first three stanzas?

Why do so few Americans know the lyrics of stanzas two, three, and four?



Reference: "Star-Spangled Banner" in Wikipedia.  
  (Note especially the References,  External Links, and other helps at the end of the Wikipedia article.)