jay's museum of college writing

In English 102, we read Sharon Olds’ haunting  tribute to Marilyn Monroe’s mysterious death.  It’s a poem that focuses upon the immediate aftermath of the famous starlet’s suicide.  What if you were called upon to take the body away?  What would happen to the image you have of her in your head?  In English 008, students researched Marilyn’s life, and  they compared her tragedies with those of Rhianna and Linsey Lohan.   They defined and examined the term “sex symbol.”  50 years after her death, they explain why we still look to Marilyn with love and admiration.

We love Frida Kahlo’s paintings, but we are awed by the story behind them.  As a young teen, Frida was involved in a terrible accident  when the bus she was on collided with a tram.  Several people were killed right on the spot.   A piece of railing drove right through Frida’s spine and punctured her uterus.  Doctors didn’t know if she would ever walk again.  Frida was confined to bed for three months,  but that’s where Frida’s  artistic vision grew.  Her father built her an easel  and fixed it to the bed.  Frida learned how to paint lying on her back.  Her art reflects empty, cold and lonely rooms; her lonliness and despair.  Look here for cause and effect writing – students explore how her pain affected her art.  How her art affected her love.

At the end of each semester, students  combine their love for music with their appreciation for literature.   From their personal music vaults they create a soundtrack for their reading.  In English 110 we read The Tortilla Curtain, a story of desperate Mexican immigrants pursuing the American Dream. Many students like to write with a Nortena beat,  and  they draw upon the lyrics of Los Tigres del Norte.  More often than not, they choose” La Puerta Negra,”  a song about impossible love.   They break down the words and analyze the theme.  Everyone agrees.  This sad song  fits the novel like a glove.

David Bowie? He sings China Girl. Playwright  Henry Hwang  references the lyrics to this song in his introduction to M. Butterfly.  Edgar Allan Poe uses clown imagery in his Cask of Amontillado, but there is little to laugh at in this story . Patti Smith?  She wrote just maybe one of the most beautiful memoirs I have ever read.

Join Now! Come inside Jay’s Museum of College Writing and see what our students have to share.

 

Jay's TELEX FROM CUBA Post - Rachel's Kushners First Novel - Reading Parade 2025 Marches On!

   

 

What I like most in  this book is to see first-time novelist Rachel Kushner make her own rules.  That’s what I’ve always heard is best thing to do in any writing workshop I’ve ever participated in – I mean, this is fiction. When it comes down to it, the job of a fiction writer is to just make things up.  Cuba may be located 90 miles south from the tip of Florida, and in 1958, we all know what was happening on the island.   Fidel Castro's army of rebels were in the mountains, prepared and primed  for revolution against what they considered American Imperialism.   They had had enough with being treated as second-class citizens in their own country. Rachel Kushner makes Fidel Castro an important character in her story; she dives behind the scenes of what we read in the history books to give us a Down and Dirty look at Fidel Castro before he became Fidel Castro.  The Americans were worried.  I’m talking about the American investors in the sugar industry threatened by their own labor force, and the American government threatened by communist sympathizers.  It’s well-documented, but the Cuba of Rachel’s novel is her Cuba --  She can do anything she wants with it.

Fidel C. is not the only Down and Dirty character in this book – the novel begins with Fidel C’s rebels burning down the valued American United Fruit sugar cane fields on the island of Cuba.  The sky turns black.  Ashes fell like snow.  Native workers mysteriously disappeared.  There was no one to help extinguish the fire.  The message of this book is clear:  “YANQUIS GO HOME!!”   Rachel Kushner relies on her poetic license to create a very interesting figure in the Cuban Revoltuion.  The name of the character is Rachel K.  Sort of like Franz Kafka’s protagonist Joseph K in the novel The Trial. To look for Rachel K, you will need to go to the Tokio Bar in Havana’s seedy sex district. Rachel K is a “zasou dancer.”  I’m not sure what that is, but she has dark eyes and full lips, and for her dancing numbers, she paints her fishnets directly on her skin with liquid mascara.  She appears to be a Gypsy Jew that has fled religious persecution in Europe.  In Havana, she maintains sexual relationship  with an ex-Waffen mercenary who now works for Fidel C.  That’s just the start of it. I think she sleeps with both the exiled Cuban president Prio and the newly inagurated Cuban president Bautista. She’s like a Spy/Prostitute/Zasou Dancer that peddles information to stay alive.

The story of Telex to Cuba is narrated by two rich and priveledged American teenagers. These two happen to be the children of a rich and ambitious American United Fruit executive who is tasked with keeping the sugar cutting and the money flowing. The family lives in a closely guarded/protected community estate where the only Cubans to be seen work as servants.  I know.  I know that Rachel must have heard criticisms for the perspective of her narrators.  I mean what are they going to know about revolutionary politics. They are both young and naive. I like red-headed Emily, for she is very observant. She reminds me of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird. She’s like the moral compass of the novel.   From the beginning, racial lines are clearly drawn.  The White People are there to run things on the island.  The Cubans are there for their whim and disposal.  Emily is not that pretty,  but she makes up for it with the respect and dignity she shows for the less-priveledged on the island.   Her first love is a Hatian servant learns English by reading discarded fashion magazines.   This may be a Good Move on the author’s part.  This gives her the chance to integrate multiple perspctives into her narrative.  Emily, who is coming-of-age, sees things one way.  Her future is nothing but HOPE.  Rachel K, who has been around the block, sees things entirely different.  She can’t see beyond tomorrow.  Together, these two touch us in  different ways.

I’m with the author – Rachel Kushner -  when she draws the real Ernest Hemingway into her story.  It’s only fair.  His  presence was huge on the island in 1958.  Somewhere near the halfway point in the novel, Rachel sits Ernie down at Floridita bar next to one of her principle characters, an ex-Nazi colonel refugee,  What and odd couple they make.  Of course Ernie is hammered.  From what I read, he wakes up every morning at 6:00 and works his ass off until noon.  That’s his system: to lay it down – his word total – and then leave it behind him until the next day.  This is when he begins drinking.  He once said, “I have spent all my life drinking, but since writing is my ture love I never get the two mixed up.”

Jaja.  Rachel paints a scene where the ex-Nazi walks into the famous Floridita bar.   The guy’s name is Christien de la Maziere.  It sound French because it is French.  Christien might be Rachel K if he was a woman.  I say this, for he shows the propensity to jump sides when he needs to.  Apparently when German Army steamrolled through his France, he found his way to the winning side.  He talked himself from being killed to being a killer.    And  wouldn’t you know who he sits down next to in la Floridita?  Our favorite American Author.   In the Wehrmach, Christien learned how to kill, torture, and dispose of bodies.  But inside the Floridita, he is ill-prepared for Hemingway’s drunken behavior.  Hemingway, the macho-man he is, patronizes and lectures the Frenchman sitting next to him.  I’m sure Christien was thinking three things:  He didn’t have any idea who Hemingway was or what he was talking about.  But, could he take out a gun and shoot him on the spot?  Probably not. Christien takes over the narrative when we get tired of Emily and Rachel K.  Another good move by the author.

I think I have found a new favorite author in Rachel Kushner. Right now, I’m reading her second novel The Flamethrowers.  Don’t ask me what it’s about – I’ve only started – but already I think I can see another side of Rachel K.  This time the character is named Reno. Sorry, no one-letter abbreviation for a last name.  Just Reno.  She’s called Reno, because, well, she’s from Reno, Nevada.  In the first chapter, the author has exchanged the fishnet stocking look that Rachel K displayed in Telex for  sweaty leather racing pants that Reno sports in Flamethrowers.  Reno has just graduated from art school and she his headed cross-country for New York City on an Italian motorcycle for inspiration. Immediately, I see a lot of Rachel K in Reno.  Ernie Hemingway often based his fiction on his real-life experience.  In The Sun Also Rises, the main character Jake Barnes eerily reminds us of the author himself.  He drinks, fights, and betrays his closest friends. In this novel, Jake B says, "Everybody behaves badly.  Give them the proper chance."  Rachel Kushner appears to follow his advice.  She makes her own rules.  I like it.

Jay's HOLLYWOOD ICON Post - The Real James Dean - Meteoric Rise to Fame - Fiery Car Crash - The Legend Lives On

  Nearly fifty years ago, I began my first semester at college at UC Santa Barbara, and if my math is correct, that means I was about the same age as most of my students are now.   One of my first elective classes was called something like “Pop Culture History.”  Pop Culture was a relatively new term then, so I didn’t know what it meant exactly, but it fit into my schedule, so I took it.  I mean with the word “Pop” in  the title, how hard could it be?  On the syllabus, the professor had offered us list of 50 people or topics we could choose from to write our term papers.  I didn’t know it THEN, but I know it NOW,  that everything we discussed or read in this class has left a indelible stamp on our culture and history.  I chose James Dean.  I don’t know why.  This was before the internet had been invented.  I had probably seen his poster – BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS -  sold in shopping malls and thought he was cool.  Jaja.  In this way I can relate to how my students choose their research topics.   I openly admiit: Not much thought involved in my selection process!  But, my paper turned out to be 21 pages TYPED – with a TYPEWRITER!  It was my first A.  I remember that the students on my dormitory floor loved the essay.  They volunteered to read parts of it out loud in my dorm room;  however,  I eventually saw my classmates in Pop Culture History hate me for the grade I received.  I mean, I probably wrote twice as much as anyone else.  That’s because I found so much to write about.  James Dean was and still is such an interesting figure. He only made three films before he died in a fiery car crash at age twenty four.  These three, we still talk about today.  In my research paper, I wrote of his journey to become an important actor.  That goal he definitely achieved. I can’t think of too many actors as INTERESTING as James Dean.

This week I finished Peter Winkler'sThe Real James Dean; then,  I watched Dean’s last film Giant.  It was Jimmy D's last film because he died before the film was ever completed.  In this movie, he plays a character that elevates from an impovershed young man to a greedy-ass, cutthroat oil tycoon.  He ages 50 years in this movie.  I might be able to say, that when Jimmy assumes the character of Jett Rink, he is basically playing himself – a man of relentless ambition and single-minded focus. But I would be wrong.  We will never know how James Dean would have fared in real life. On the morning of Sept. 30, 1955, he drove his brand new Porsche 550 Spyder from Hollywood enroute to Salinas to participate in a racing event.

THEY TOLD HIM NOT TO GO.  The studio knew who he was and what he was about.  His contract prohibited him from all racing events during the duration of the film shoot.  Jimmy D waited until all his scenes were shot before speeding off into the Wide Blue Yonder.  If ACTING was the most important thing in his life,  SPEED may have been a close second. Following Grapevine on the way up to Salinas,  Jimmy D received a ticket - for SPEEDING. Two hours later, he found himself approaching a barren stretch of the highway.  This is where highways 466/41 and 46 meet.  He saw a Ford Coupe carelessly enter the intersection apparenty without checking oncoming traffic.  The last words Jimmy Dean ever said were to his friend sitting in the passenger seat of the Spyder: "That guy is going to see us, Right?" Dean suffered a broken neck in the head-on collision. First responders at the scene probably didn't know who he was.  The public had seen him in only one film, East of Eden.  Rebel without a Cause was yet to be released.  Giant was in the can. By the time an ambulance transported him to the nearest hospital, Jimmy D was D.O.A.

---

Peter Winkler's The Real James Dean is an anthology of interviews, articles and personal memories of the young actor who left us much too early. This may be hard to believe, but many of the most insightful and interesting recolloections of Jimmy may have come from people who knew him before he became James Dean. Adeline Nall was his high-school English teacher in Fairmont. Indiana.  She was the one who turned Jimmy on to Drama and Speech.  It wasn't easy!  Young Jimmy was the school's basketball and baseball star.  He would have been the first to tell you that academics just wasn't his thing.  But, when Mrs. Nall posted the announcement of an Indiana statewide speech tournament, she must have have stirred Jimmy's competitive juices. In her essay, she describes how he transformed into a serious actor right before her eyes. Participants in this Indiana speech tournament would be required to step on stage an present and interpret dramatic readings in front of thousands of people. This was Indiana basektball-mad country, and Jimmy was the leading scorer on his high-school team.  Stepping on stage in front of a skeptical  crowd was his thing. He personally selected his own monologue to read  from a college catalogue claled, "A Madman's Manuscript."  He once told the New York Times that it was "about this real gone cat who knocks off several people." He implored Mrs. Nall to teach him everything she knew, probably in same way a boxer implores guidance from his trainer.  Jimmy D was hooked by the acting bug. He became the statewide winner in Dramatic Declamation.

  This book is filled with these types of anecdotes. Everyone in the book recognizes Jimmy's complete devotion to becoming an actor - even if they didn't seem to like him as a person.  They respected his single-minded focus. His father writes of the life-long strain in their relationship. On more than a few occasions, he tried to steer Jimmy away from acting.  "Jimmy, acting is a good hobby," he told him, "but why don't you study something  substantial?"  This happened when Jimmy came out West to study acting at UCLA.  By this time in his life, he tuned everyone out save for his acting coach or director.  Several actors who shared the stage with him apparently hated the experience of working with him.  It seems while an entire cast could be dedicated to one goal, Jimmy goals often drifted far, far away from theirs.  How could they not?  We know now Jimmy to act on another plane. Popular character actor Hume Cronyn blasted Jimmy for not following the script.  In rehearsals, he would not only find Jimmy off mark, but he could not depend that he would read the lines he was supposed to. Jimmy D was a method actor deluxe.  His ideas came deep from within his soul, not form the mind of the writers.  In Rebel Without a Cause, Jimmy nearly killed the actor playing his father, Jim Backus, in the shooting of a family feud:  "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART!"  In Giant, Jimmy nearly duked it out with Rock Hudson, on and off camera. Rock, who was much more famous, wasn't going to allow this up-and-comer steal his scenes. Jimmy thought Rock was a lousy actor. The tension they exude on screan is REAL.  Just the way Jimmy wanted it. 

Near the end of the book, legendary actor Sir Alec Guiness shares an encounter he had with the unknown James Dean – this was before any of Jimmy’s movies would have made it to the big screen. The meeting of these two legends took place at a small Italian restaurant called the Villa Capri.  Sir Alec had just been turned away at the door, for the restaurant was full.  I would imagine that doesn’t happen too often to a big star like Sir Alec, but it did.  Sir Alec writes about his hunger and frustation he felt walking away, when a young man came up quickly to invite him to join him at his table inside the restaurant.  It was James Dean!  But that name wouldn’t mean anything to Sir Alec.  He was just relieved for the opportunity to sit down and eat. Sir Alec gladly followed Jimmy back to the restaurant,  only to have Jimmy firrst guide him through the restaurant’s courtyard where the young man  had parked his brand new Porsche Spyder that coud travel at speeds exceeding 150 miles per hour. Jimmy told Sir Alec he just completed his latest film, and he planned to race the Spyder in Salinas the very next week.

Sir Alec, known for his impeccable control on stage, may have lost a little bit of it when he peered into Jimmy’s eyes.  He must have understood that Jimmy was dying for his approval;  otherwise, why would he have chased him down the street?  This is the advice that Sir Alec gave to the young actor. “Please, never get in it,” he said. “If you get in that car you will be found dead in it by this time next week.”   Sir Alec was known for his interests in the paranormal.   He was a regular patron of Tarot readings. He writes himself he had experienced visions of his own fate, a few of them may have saved him from his own death.   But, why was he sharing his fears  o a complete stranger? Jimmy’s reaction was very  much in line with how he listened to people throughout this book.  If it wasn’t about acting, he just didn’t listen.  One week later, Jimmy was pronounced dead on arrival at Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital.

It’s hard to believe that I’m still  writing about Jimmy D fifty years after I first saw him on the big screen. I must pay tribute my college professor that provided his students with opportunities to explore and/or discover new interests. In each of the classes I teach now, I find providing students choice of research topics empowers them with a special sense of freedom that they unfortunately do not see in many classes. The results are often deeply personal responses to what they read.  Funny how that works. I read every day.  A book a week.  I often feel disconnected from the interests of my students, but at the same time I look to  my own reading to create new interests for them to discover.  I’m constantly creating new lists of topics that may engage them in my semester writing projects.  I won’t be around, but maybe in fifty years, some of my students will still be talking about the topics they covered in Mr. Lewenstein’s class.

 

Jay's ANNOTATION NATION Post - David Bowie - Murder of a Hollywood Icon - My Students Prepare for Sixites Research Paper

 

Above: Jay's Practice Musical Annotation - David Bowie - "Changes"

This week I provide my students with THREE annotation assignments. 

As they  work with their  text, I want them to consider all of the ways they  can connect with what they are reading. Here are some suggestions that will help them with  their annotations:

• Re-write, paraphrase, or summarize a particularly difficult passage or moment.
• Make meaningful connections to your own life experiences.
• Describe a new perspective you may now have.
• Explain the historical context or traditions/social customs that are used in the passage.
• Offer an analysis or interpretation of what is happening in the text.
• Point out and discuss literary techniques that the author is using.

Let's Work Together - Learn How to Identify Key Elements of Your Research Articles.

WHY DO WE DO THIS?

My students will find that annotations will RAISE THEIR FOCUS and TAKE THEM DEEPER into THEIR topics - EVERYBODY WINS!

• I find the students who make the BEST annotations, write the BEST research papers.  Funny how that works!

How Do We Learn How to ANNOTATE on MICROSOFT WORD?

•  Jay's Note:  I use Microsoft Word here because I thought it would be most accessible to my students
• If they prefer another way, THAT'S COOL - I just want to see your ANNOTATIONS
• If they  want to stick with HAND-WRITTEN NOTES, that's GOOD - But, let's GET IT DONE.

Jay's Note:

• I will ask my students to see their annotations in your SIXTIES RESEARCH BINDER - It will be a BIG DEAL for your OVERALL GRADE in THIS CLASS.
• I'm looking for SIX RESERACH ARTICLES - ANNOTATED - for their next SURPRIZE BINDER CHECK.
• They  WON'T REGRET IT - By closely reading your RESEARCH ARTICLES, you will walk of English 105 with NEW KNOWLEDGE and NEW SKILLS.
• I tell them: DON'T BE ONE OF THOSE GUYS - who just FAKE THEIR WAY through their COLLEGE CLASSES - THEY DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE THAT!

Jay's Practice "Word"  Annotations for Marilyn Monroe:

 

Above:  Jay's Microsoft Word Annotations for Marilyn Monroe

• Some students in the class may be more COMFORTABLE  at writing their ANNOTATIONS by HAND - That will work - But, NEATNESS COUNTS!
• I need to see SIX ANNOTATED ARTICLES in your RESEARCH BINDER

On Tuesday we will WARM UP with the ANNOTATION of "Geraldo No Last Name."

* We will read a COOL Sandra C. story - I will ask you to work in groups and ANNOTATE the text.

• My plan is to pass out stickies in class - Each group member will be required to make TWO annotations on stickies.
• Each group will need to submit their annotations in the format of a table
• I have practiced below with my two annotations - Each group will need SIX annotations to complete the table. 

GREEN PANTS AND SATURDAY SHIRT: Geraldo seems like a guy who works all week.  Green might mean "Go."  Like, for a few hours on the weekend he finally  feels free.  I remember the "Green Light" from the Great Gatsby. It represented the American Dream. -- J. Lewenstein	THEY MET AT A DANCE: I know Marin from reading Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street.   She's a beautiful girl.   She probably has many boyfriends, but this guy for some reason touches  her heart. Like Geraldo, Marin is from an immigrant family. She probably knows more about him than is provided in the story --  J. Lewenstein	NOTHING IN HIS POCKETS:
LAST ONE TO SEE HIM ALIVE:	THAT THE ONES HE LEFT BEHIND WILL WONDER:	SURGEON DIDN'T COME:

On Tuesday, I will ask you to COMPLETE your SIXTIES BINGO CARD.

Here is a partial SNIP from my Bingo Card from last year:

* Now when I look at my Amy Winehouse Bingo Card, I realized I used MOST if NOT ALL of this information in my essay!

On Thursday, I plan to have you bring your favorite SIXTIES music to annotate in class.

Here is a Katie Perry sample ANNOTATION - I know.  I know she's not SIXTIES, but the sample will help you make your own ANNOTATIONS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is going to be a GREAT WEEK in English 105 - DON'T MISS OUT!

Paz,

JL

Jay's MYSTERY THRILLER MARATHON Post - Leonardo Padura's The Transparency of Time - The Love and Squalor of Mario C

   I have read my share of Detective Mario Conde, the protagonist of Cuban author Leonardo Padura’s novel Transparency of Time.  I first discovered him in the Netflix telenovela Las cuatro estaciones – The Four Seasons.  I watched all the episodes in Spanish before I bought the Padura novels they are based upon.  Mario C. is a not-so-glamorous Havana homocide detective.  When I say “not-so-glamorous” I mean he doesn’t look like he’s making enough money to put up a good front. As a reader, I'm worried about Poor Mario C.  He seems PASSIVE - like he's accepted his fate, a Cuban life of hanging on by a thread.  He knows he's never going to get anywhere.  All his dreams for NAUGHT.

In the series of novels I have read, he doesn’t think he is paid the respect he deserves, and consequently, he has stopped paying attention to what people think of him a long, long time ago.   This is Cuba in the eighties.  In the telenovela, he may be close to forty years old.  His hair is long and his face is invariably unshaved.  He always seemed to wear the same clothes to work.  A long-sleeved flannel work shirt and blue jeans.  In this way, he’s a different kind of cop than I read about in most detective thrillers. 

I admire him because he’s a dedicated and talented cop, but I also notice he is not-so-happy, NO!  He’s sensitive and introspective.  He is always wondering how he ever became a cop in the first place.  He just doesn’t seem to fit in. Because he was always good in school, he had  dreams of becoming a writer.  Now he’s surrounded by street-hardened people who have touched more dead bodies than books.  Many of them are corrupted by Cuban politics. Mario’s cases are exciting and important, but at the same time, he’s got a lot going on inside.  He’s not married.  He has no famlly to speak of. Worst of all, his only friends are disappearing from his life.  They are leaving the island one-by-one.  Mario feels SO ALONE.  Soon there will be nothing left of his Cuba.

In this novel Transparency of Time, he has reached the age of sixty.  Time is running out for Mario C.  He’s no longer on the police force.  He’s old and feeble and he’s scrambling to make ends meet with odd jobs. In this story, a schoolyard friend appears out of nowhere to request his help to retrieve stolen property.  Mario C doesn’t  really trust this guy, but he’s desperate for money.   This leads to more self-doubt and self-contempt.  He begins DRINKING HEAVILY.  Arguing with his FRIENDS and LOVERS.   Nothing in his personal or professional life has got him anywhere, and in Cuba, nothing much is going to change.  He knows that. From one chapter to the next, you don’t know what will come first.  Will he shoot a murder suspect?  Or will he put his own gun in his mouth?

I'm not writing a book report here; The story of Transparency is complicated as it is convuluted.  This is how the story goes: His old friend from high school that shows up on his doorstep is really not, or has never been, a friend at all.  This guy, Bobby, was suspected of being a homosexual in college, and in Cuba, that's enough to be kicked out of the university, shunned by your friends, and worse.  Bobby must be seeking out Mario, for back then when they were young, Mario  was the only one to show any degree of tolerance for his sexuality.  Moreover, he knows Mario became a detective, and now he needs him to retrieve a religious, family artificact stolen from him by an ex-lover. But in truth, Mario didn't really like Bobby THEN, so he doesn't really like Bobby NOW.  The thing is that Bobby has a lot of money that he's willing to pay for Mario's services, and Mario is in no condition to turn it down. The thought of working for a friend brings down Mario down another notch.  He feels both insulted an guilty. 

But, Mario is sucked in by Bobby's story.  The artifact that Bobby wants to recover has been kept in the family for hundreds of years.  It's a statue of a Black Madonna. That's right.  Like a Virgin Guadalupe, but BLACK.  And the Black Madonna is holding a WHITE BABY.  Bobby says the statue is of important sentimental value, but his desperation to get it back speaks to it's economic value.  Mario recognizes that the rarity of the statue can bring in a near fortune on the international black market for stolen art.  He doesn't like the fact that Bobby is lying to his face, but he loves the story behind the Madonna.  I told you Mario C. is a smart guy of great intellectual curiosity.  He gets caught up in the history of the Black Madonna.  It involves Religious Persection, the War for the Holy Land, the Spanish Civil War, Rape, Murder...  Bobby shares a story of his own grandfather fleeing on a ship out of Portugal  headed for Cuba - with only the shirt on his back and the Madonna in a sack.  His grandfather's story involves the Knights of the Templar who once fought to the death to protect the Madonna.  Mario can't help feeling that he is participating in a Search for a Holy Grail.

I could break it down, but here is the important part, in my mind, is the "breakdown" of Mario Conde at age SIXTY.   I like Mario C.  He is a tough guy and a big reader.  He’s a good cop, but his real ambition in life is  to become a writer.  All his life he has dreamed of writing stories about his beloved Cuba.  He has plenty of stories to tell – about family,  murder, corruption, art and baseball – but he doesn’t have anyone who cares to listen. At age 60, he is lonely and disillusioned.  He drinks like a fish.  In five to six Mario C novels I have read, when people ask him what type of stories does he write, he tells them “Escualido y conmovedor.”  Moving and Squalid. It’s like an ongoing gag. People are phony,  No one cares. 

Here is why I’m writing today:  I thought it odd that a character would repeat the same phrase over and over again, especially coming from a writer as poetic and talented as Leon Padura. I mean, it was getting tiresome.  So I googled up the words – “Moving and Squalid” – and I discovered something very similar in a book of short stories by J.D. Salinger.  The best story in the  collection is titled “For Esme with Love and Squalor.”  When I say “best,” I mean the best short story I have ever read.  It’s about a young WWII soldier on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Esme is a young girl who tries to placate the young man, but she has never seen what he has seen, so how could she possible understand what he feels. Spoiler Alert: the story doesn’t end  well. 

At the end of Transparency, I won’t tell you the exact circumstances, but  Mario C takes a bullet that nearly ends his life.  Let’s just say he stayed on the case to the very end.   In the hospital, he is in danger of hemorraging but the doctor tells him he will survive  - under one condition – that he not touch to any alcohol…   This is like Mario C’s ninth novel.  Everyone who has read him can surmise what is going to happen next.  Mario just doesn’t care to listen to any one or care anymore.  He’s lost his friends.  He’s lost his job.  He’s told Bobby to disappear from his life, never to return.  Of course, he starts drinking. In a way, Mario C resembles the country he loves so dearly.  At age sixty he sees no future. He's wrapped up in a past that he will never see again.  He knows finding the Black Madonna is not going to help.  Clearly both the writer and the detective in Mario would connect with the characters in a J.D. Salinger work.  They are all lonely and broken. 

Jay's MISERY Post - Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter - Starting Line - Reading Marathon 2025

 Over Winter Break, I read the Graham Greene novel The Heart of the Matter about the most MISERABLE man, living in the most MISERABLE place, married to the most MISERABLE woman.  Major Scobie is the assistant commissioner of police in a lawless, hopelessly corrupt Sierra Leone.   He’s been here fifteen years, and he knows nothing is going to change any time soon.  And, his wife is killing him.  She hates it in Sierra Leone, but he can’t, or won’t transfer anywhere because his position provides him with the only semblance of dignity he has left. At his work, he has an impossible task to police a population that doesn’t want him there.  At home, there is no peace.  Everything his wife says or does annoys him.  But this is when Graham Greene weaves a twist into the plot.  Scobie meets a young woman, Helen,  who has been hospitalized after a tragic experience.  She's not that pretty.  She's not that friendly.  This is World War II.  A submarine sank her ship off the West Coast of Africa.  In the middle of this turmoil, Scobie falls in love. Every moment he is with her, he feels guilty for abandoning his wife.  Every moment he is with his wife, he is thinking about his new lover.   It just might the WORST thing that has ever happened to him. I mean, it gets so bad, he just wants to shoot himself.   I told you he was MISERABLE!

I’m not writing a book report here, but I am willing to share my appreciation for this MISERABLE MAN.  It seems like Scobie  is honest, insightful and professional.  He always tries to make the best of what is handed him.  The beginning of the novel begins with news that he will not receive the promotion that he so righteously deserves.  All the sacrifices and hard work he has dedicated to his job, he realizes is all for naught.   He’s stuck in place.   There is nothing positive or hopeful he can tell his wife about his future.  Probably the worse thing he has going for him is his commitment to his Catholic religion. Every step he makes seems to be clouded in guilt.

Readers knowledgeable of Greene's background will see a connection between his Real Life and his Real Fiction.  Shortly before he began this novel his marriage to his wife Viven was crumbling.  Graham was known for his womanizing ways.  Especially by his wife.  During the early forties, Greene practically abandanoned his family in Oxford to live with his lover, Dorothy Glover, in London, but because Vivien was a devout Catholic, she wasn't about to give the author a divorce.    Greene is famously regarded as a Catholic writer.  At least a writer who integrates Catholic themes into his novels.   This year alone, I have read and/or re-read his prestigious works The Power of the Glory, Brighton Rock, The Quiet Man, and The End of an Affair.  All of them are dominated by Catholic protagonists who are haunted by their own guilt.   They drink, they cheat, and they consider their own suicides.  In the Catholic church, suicide is a sin.  I'm not sure if Greene shared the same thoughts as his characters, but in The Heart of the Matter, he leaves Scobie with little options for peace in his life. ( I won't tell you what option he chooses.)

Scobie is not a loser!  He's a police officer. He believes in the rule of law. He's a Catholic.  He believes in Damnation for sinners.  Every day he tries his best to show respect and compassion for the people around him, with little sign that any of it will come back his way.  For me, the best representation of Scobie in the novel comes from his time spent reading out loud to a dying child in the hospital ward.  This is in the same room where his future lover resides.  The little boy is not going to make it through the night, and the nurse has assigned him the most boring book to read – one of the few that are available on the hospital ward's miserable bookshelf.  Instead of letting the child pass listening to the meaningless prose of an adult novel, Scobie chose to invent and share a more pleasant story about a rabbit in the child’s last moments on this Earth.  He included hand motions and finger postions that resembled the shape of the rabbits ears.  Both his future lover (listening in a hospital bed across the room) and the little boy appeared to enjoy Scobies efforts.  When the nurse returned, both Helen and the Boy have smiles on their faces. That’s when Scobie  heard the nurse’s voice from behind him:  “Stop that,” she said harshly, “the child’s dead.”

That shouldn’t be funny, I know.  I think I laugh out loud because I have rarely seen anyone who writes in the style of Graham Greene.  He has the skills to position his characters in heart-wrenching scenes that  begin with hope  and end with despair.   There seems nothing that Scobie could have done for the boy; what he did do was his best.  But that didn’t save him from the wrath of the angry nurse.  Greene seems to spend LESS time preaching to his readers and MORE time reminding them of randomness of the universe.  What happened to Scobie could have happened to anyone.  Was there a connection between his sinful ways and the ugly pattern of events he confronts in this novel?   That’s up to the reader to decide.  I like it that way.

I laugh for the detailed, realistic descriptions of each scene.  Right out of college, Greene joined the British secret service and travelled the world.  He was afforded the cover of professional journalists.  He actually did file stories about the populations and politices of the countries he visited.  He did this in Vietnam before writing The Quiet American.  He gave the literary world a taste of The Cold War in his Cuban novel Our Man in Havana. His first on-site entry into poitical intrigue may have come in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The result is the photographic scenes he paints of fat Syrian smuggler in The Heart of the Matter.  Scobie succumbs to the obious corrupt intentions of one Yusef – he agrees to help him smuggle diamonds out of the country, for he is desperate for money to help his wife leave the country.  Myself, a lonely Jew, I would never find myself involved with an Arab gangster, or manipulated by a hysterical wife.  I probably began reading Greene to escape my own dreary life.  His writing opened my eyes to parts of the world I would never experience myself, or learn about in school.

---

It’s still early in 2025, which tells me I still have time to create a Book Goal - Something I don’t think I have ever done before.  But now is the time to do so.  I’m just rollin’.   Here in my classroom blog, I see I have shared my novel reading six weeks straight.   I think I can keep the pace.  That will make FIFTY novels for the year.  Each night I go to bed with 3-5 books on my nightstand.  The novel I just completed was written by an author I studied in college, more than forty years ago.  The Heart of the Matter counts for One in Ten books written by Graham Greene or about him I have recently read.  I mark my progress on my classroom blog and  Facebook page.  FORTY more  to go says the signpost  in Jay’s Reading Marathon. I choose my books for a number of reasons.  This year I’ve decided to mix in books and authors I read as a college graduate student.   Not just Graham Greene, but other Modern British authors, Twentieth Century American classics, Shakespeare, Foreign-Language novels translated into English.  In several of my classes, we are reading a Sixties novel and writing Sixties Research Papers.   To stay one step ahead of my students, I’m constantly reading books about the politics, music, and culture of the decade. In two other classes, we read a novel set in New York City.  On my reading list, I’m sneaking in a few novels that were either written in or about the Big Apple. I see an exciting new writing project on my horizon.

WHY DO I DO THIS?  My introduction to literature in college may have been the happiest time of my life.  Much before I finished a novel, I had already begun considering/researching  the next one I would read.  There was no need for a Book Goal. My goals turned into habits.  I suppose the difference is that today I READ WHAT I WANT TO READ.  Reading what I read in college brings back fond memories.  I’m HAPPY.  The experience turned me into a life-long reader.  In one of my schools this week I taught the the first couple of classes of  Spring Semester 2025.  I told my students First and Formost, “BUY THE BOOK!”   They won’t regret it.  Some day, like forty years from now,  they will reach for it on their own shelves and remember the good times they had  in their college English class.

 

 

Jay's ACID TEST Post - Narco-Lit from Elmer Mendoza - Pills, Alcohol, Dead Strippers, and Broken Hearts - Culiacán, Sinaloa

  Lefty “El Zurdo” Mendieta is the complicated homocide detective featured in the Elmer Mendoza novels I read in both English and Spanish.   I describe him as complicated here because on the outside he appears handsome, competent  and confident, but in Culiacán, Sinaloa, that doesn’t mean all that much.  Appearances can be deceiving.  The entire region is infested with Narco-Traficante violence and crime.   In Mendoza’s novel, La Prueba del Acido, Lefty is caught in the middle of a major drug war between the Mexican government and the Narcos.  Everywhere Lefty turns, someone is lying to him; whether it is a woman, man, friend, or foe.   Nothing, he knows, is going to get any better.  The violence and corruption is only escalating.  He knows he will never know what love is from a woman.  He knows he is dependent on alcohol, pills, and a psychaitrist that is never there when he needs him.  In this novel, he's called to a crime scene to discover that the victim is his most recent lover. Not only has she been murdered, but she is mutiliated and left to bleed out in an open field.  “Dark days are coming,” warns a cartel mafioso.  Lefty could have said something back, but what is there to say in Culiacán, Mexico.  Darkness is his business.

It's hard not to like Lefty.  In this book, he has reached a point in his career where people know him and respect him.  That’s because he is good at what he does.  Somehow, he’s learned to develop a style and attitude to get things done and stay alive as everything crumbles around him.  This may be because he hasn’t drifted far from the neighbohood he grew up in.  Many of his friends he ran with as a youngster have moved into and upwards in the Narco trade. He maintains his connections.   He knows it could have happened to him.  His older brother, who he loves very much, disappeared from his life at an early age after being forced by gangsters to murder a priest. The brother crosses over to the United States never to be heard from again.   Until now.   In this book, Lefty, doesn’t learn the complete story of his brother until late in his life.  It doesn’t matter.  Sinaloa just doesn’t make sense.

Deep down, Lefty is Bad Ass.  Macho.  Violent.  He’s not one to shy away from a fight from anyone.  But, at the same time, he shows love and respect for the women in his life.  When the mother of his teenage son pops into his life, he’s ready and willing to provide the support she needs - even though  she had left him for the United States while she was still pregnant with the baby, never disclosing to him that they were Mother and Father.  Gris, his partner in the Homicide Division, is young and beautiful, so she is always hassled by pendejos in the office. Lefty, who found her in the Parking Division, seems to admire her more for  her courage and dedication to the job.  He’s ready to step in and defend her when needed.  He also wants her to be HAPPY.  Trudis is his housekeeper and spiratual guide.  She’s from the neighborhood.  She knows what’s up when she finds him beaten up physically or mentally.  For all the Macho, in Lefty, he listens to what she has to say.

In this novel, the woman that draws most of Lefty’s attention, is Mayra Cabral de Melo.  She’s a Brazilian stripper, prostitute that works in the local Narco clubs. We don’t know how close or how long they were together, but Mayra occupies a special place in Lefty’s heart.  She’s well-read and writes poetry in her diaries.  You have to imagine that Mayra moves Lefty a long distance away from the violent world he lives in.  That’s until he finds her dead and naked behind a warehouse in the middle of a tomato field. One of her nipples has been sliced off with a knife. Lefty is clearly DEVASTATED at the crime scene, but he can't let it show.  He tells no one he was involved with the murder victim.   This is when Lefty stops eating the delicious chicharones that Trudis prepares for his breakfasts and instead  feasts on pills and whiskey.

I’m not writing a book report here.  I can't write much without spoiling the story. I can say this:  Lefty's complicated nature makes each of these novels a GOODREAD.  Five years ago, when Covod first hit, I read in the New Yorker that the sales of guitars were rocketing through the roof.  That’s because people felt trapped at home.  They needed an escape.  Music was the way.  They learned how to occupy their free time by learning new chords on their guitars.  I've been there and done that; instead,  I chose to read Spanish-language novels. I like reading the Spanish version simultaneously with the English version, or vice versa.  I usually read entire chapters at a time, and then go back and forth to confirm my understanding.  On the cover of my Enlish-language Acid Test, Elmer Mendoza’s name is followed by “The Godfather of Lit."  This may be true.  He knows his way around Culiacán.  I was first introduced to him by reading La Reina del Sur – the Queen of the South – a Spanish-language novel that followed the rise of a young woman from the streets of Culiacan to the top of a powerful Narco Drug Cartel.  Author Arturo  Arturo Pérez-Reverte credits his consultations with his friend Elmer Mendoza for the grim reality of the story.  Since reading La Reina del Sur, I’ve read 4-5 Elmer Mendoza novels.  TWICE – Once in English, and Once in Spanish. I can say I have read La Prueba del Acido THREE TIMES, since having discovered how to download the Spanish version on Itunes.

  La Prueba del Acido took me a long time to read.  Whatever I read in Spanish version of a novel, I try to annotate in my English version. This way,  I find myself more focused and organized in my Spanish learning.   I try to underline, circle, star(*) words and phrases I may be able to incorporate into my everyday language.  I'll read a chapter in English, before I read in Spanish.  Both my English-language and Spanish-language copies of my novels are marked up, HIGHLIGHTED, beyond recognition. But, poco a poco, I transfer my favorite phrases to my notebooks.  Lately, I'm reading a lot of Elmer Mendoza.  I see the same vocabulary and characters pop up in my reading. I'm using the dictionary less. I 'm sharing what I read with the Mexicans I know.  That's a sign I'm immersing myself in both the reading and the culture.

When I’m not preparing lessons or grading student work, I’m studying Spanish.  I take this time to get far away from my computer as I can.   To avoid online distraction,  I take my books and pens to a  coffee shop, or  VIPs, a nearby gasolinera; this place works for me.  I like the large tables they have inside where I can spread out my study materials and drink my coffee.  It’s not rare that I meet someone there  from Sinaloa.  When, they  see me highlighting my books, they ask me if I’m studying the bible.  Jaja.  That’s when I tell them, “No, estoy estudiando Sinaloa.”  This is where my real Spanish-language  practice  begins.  We  talk about Elmer Mendoza, Culiacán, and Narco Traficantes.  I share with them knowledge I’ve picked up from my reading.   From my novels I know about the food, music, culture, and the beaches in Mazatlán. I like talking to the Sinaloenses.  Many  of them have spent the greater parts of their lives in Mexicali, but their hearts remain in Sinaloa.  I’m not sure they are all too conscious of it, but when they talk of their homeland they beat their chests two or three times in each conversation.

I often wonder about my favorite detective,  Lefty Mendieta.  In each novel, he is threatened, beaten, an on occasion,  blown up.  I often wonder why he doesn’t get the hell out of there.  I mean, for him, it’s DARK.  He just can’t leave.  He can’t live anywhere else.  I realize from Sinaloenses I meet here in the Gasolnera, it doesn’t matter how much Spanish I learn, as a Gringo, I will never feel or understand what they do.  I can read it in their faces.  

 

Jay's HOLLYWOOD EDEN Post - Jan and Dean - Good Vibrations - Electroc Guitars and Fast Cars - Fun, Fun, Fun

  For me, Joel Selvin’s  Hollywood Eden begins and ends with Jan and Dean.  In 1958 Jan Berry, was smart, handsome, athletic, ambitious, and devious.  He must have been Big Man On Campus at his University High School when there were plenty of Big Men to go around.  This school – like 5-10 minutes from the beach -  was full of West Los Angeles rich kids who drove their own cars with their surfboards sticking out a space where the rear window should have been. Beautiful girls.  TWO GIRLS FOR EVERY GUY!  Jan played on the football team, earned the highest grades, and loved listening to R&B ( they called it BLACK) music right before the explosion of Rock ‘N’ Roll.   While still at University, he began writing his own songs, some of them which would help establish a new Surf Music genre.  He became Jan -- of Jan and Dean.   He drove fast cars.  He married a beautiful woman.  Became rich and famous.  This was all detailed in the book Hollywood Eden up and until 1966 when Jan recklessly plowed his Corvette Stingray into a parked car not too far from from the spot he featured in his hit song “Dead Man’s Curve.”  Jan didn’t die, but he endured brain surgery and two weeks in a coma.  When he tried to make his comeback, he found coudn't remember the lyrics he himself wrote for his famous songs. For each performance, he had to re-learn the words from scratch.  Author Joel Selvin follows the rise and fall of Jan Berry through eight important years of Rock ‘n’ Roll that would forever change the way we listen to music.

I know of author Joel Selvin because I grew up in the seventies near San Francisco.  He had a column that appeared each Sunday in the Pink Section of the San Francisco Chronicle.  I’m not sure it was officially called the Pink Section, but the pages were Pink, while all the other pages in the newspaper were White.  This layout made it easy to find Joel's music column;  You just pushed the White pages away.     He was the first music critic I remember that wrote about  the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Rolling Stones, and everything else thereafter with a beat, even though I stopped reading the Pink Section into the eighties.  He later wrote a full-length book about the Free Stones Altamont Concert Disaster - this is the story of a young black music fan stabbed to death by Hells Angels thugs just feet in front of Mick and Keith.   What a Rock ‘n’ Roll life did Joel live.  He is not so far away from Jan Berry in age.  He dropped out of Berkeley in the sixties to become a copyboy at the Chronicle just when San Francisco was becoming the Mecca of the Hippie Movement.  Back then no one at the Chronicle had  realized how serious rock music was becoming, and they would send young Joel with a press pass to the free concerts in Golden Gate Park and Billy Graham concerts at the Filmore West.  Joel couldn’t believe it.  He was actually being PAID for something he would gladly PAY to see.    From what I read, Joel spent time in the late fifties near the campus of University High, enough to develop a love for Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Beach, but just like me, his Heart remains in San Francisco.

The book moves quickly from the late fifites to the early sixties.  Frank Sinatra's daughter, Nancy, was a popular figure at University High the same time Jan was there.  Selvin knows his way around the music business.  He has the insight and connections to detail Nancy's  rocky road to stardom with her one and only hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'."  Soon, the Beach Boys are front and center.  Los Angeles, it's a Big City but a Small Town.  Jan and Dean constantly bump into members of the Beach Boys at one studio after another. Joel takes the time to describe Brian Wilson, both his GENIUS and his NERVOUS BREAKDOWN.  Kathy Kohner, you may never have heard of, but she was a University High School student  who fought to be accepted as a female surfer by grungy locals at a near-by beach.  Kathy wasn't really good in school, but she was hot stuff on her surfboard.  She wrote about her experiences in her diary which was later converted by her screenwriter father into a movie series. She put the 'G' in Gidget. 

But let me take you back to Jan.  At University High School, he was smarter and more ambitions than anyone deserves to be.  (Later, while leading a Rock Star Lifestyle, he enrolled in UCLA's prestigious School of Medicine.)  Everyone who knew him must have seen what was to become of him.  At age sixteen, he just couldn't get enough music.  He didn't have the money or the access to purchase the records  he really wanted, so this is what he did: In his school's journalism department, he printed up his own fake letterhead with the logo "KJAN - Voice of Bel Air Hills," and he requested record distributors across the country  send promotional material (albums) to his radio station, KJAN.  AND HIS SCAM WORKED.  Soon he was receiving more than FIFTY records per day.  His father, who at the time worked for the millionaire Howard Hughes,  seemed very supportive.  He would bring back from work advanced electronic recording equipment to help Jan create his own recording studio in the family garage. This is where Jan and Dean cut their first hit single, "Jennifer Lee."  At school, they would play Jan and Dean over the intercom.  Soon, Jan and Dean were performing on Dick Clark.  Jan and Dean were living the dream.  Their success only motivated them to work harder.  Not suprisingly,  Jan's Garage became the place to be for high school parties.  TWO GIRLS FOR EVERY GUY!

  I can't remember if Jan and Dean mentored the Beach Boys, or if it was the other way around, but my favorite part of the book might be Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson's creation of the song, "Good, Good, Good Vibrations." In a way, Joel draws a straight line between Jan and Brian, for they both displayed obsessive-compulsive personalities.  At a certain point in the rise of the Beach Boys, Brian became incapable of touring due to his constant panic attacks and/or nervouous breakdowns.  When the Beach Boys took the road, Brian remained at home in the studio.  This is where he developed a new sound and style that rivaled the innovation of the Beatles. Deep in the recesses of Brian's memory was his mother once telling him that dogs are attracted to some humans for their "Good Vibrations."  At first, the notion freaked Brian out a little bit - the concept of invisible waves traveling through the air -  but then when he thought about it, those "Good Vibrations," just may be what brings together two lovers. This was 1966, after Brian first began using LSD. With this song, Brian envisioned a way combine his love for classic music from the past and traditional pop hits of the day. His friends, family, producers, and up to an including his Beach Boy bandmates, told him it couldn't be done, but night after night, he sat at his piano, high on acid, and created a new layer to his "psychedelic symphony," watching it take shape. Eventually,  "Good Vibrations" became a perfect wave in his life and the career of the Beach Boys:  A Number One Hit; The Center Piece for their Number One Album, Pet Sounds. 

In March 1966, Jan was at the peak of his fame and success when he was called in for an appointment with his draft board. This was just before things were getting HOT and HEAVY in Vietnam.  Like with everything else he did, Jan felt LUCKY.  Already, he had experienced a severe leg injury due to a violent movie set mishap.  He was nearly crushed by a runaway train.  In his mind, he couldn’t possiblly pass a physical examination  On top of that, he was scheduled to begin medical school at UCLA in the fall.  Jan  had asked the board to reclassify his draft status for multiple reasons, but his appeal fell on deaf ears.  The authorities sitting across from him at the draft table probably didn’t listen to his music. Jan was told he could be expected a call to duty within 90 days.

Jan left the meeting in a fit of anger. In his Green Corvette Stingray, he blasted down Sunset Boulevard, moving through traffic and changing lanes, as if the rule the other drivers were following didn’t apply to him. On a quiet residential street, Jan accelerated to speeds byond 80 m.p.h, and eventually  lost control before he hit a curb and swerved into a parked truck. First responders found Jan wedged into the floor of his Stingray, his face covered with a sea of glass.  Joel Selvin said that his head was split like a coconut.  The doctors and nurses who wheeled him down the hallway of the emergency ward thought he was already dead.  Here are lyrics from one of Jan's biggest hit songs, "Dead Man's Curve": (Dead Man's Curve) is no place to play/ (Dead Man's Curve) you'd best keep away (Dead Man's Curve) I can hear 'em say/ Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve.  

Jan drove like he lived. He wrote the song that forwarned his own destruction. But, his eyes were always focused beyond the next bend.

 

 

 

Jay's PUBLICATION OF NEW CLASSROOM BLOG Post - Just in Time for Spring Semester - Monday, Jan. 27 - Sneak Preview of Writing Projects

Today I share my most recent classroom blog - Jay's Bloggin' in the Wind.

If you are wondering about the title, well, you will have to read the first few posts. 

Each semester I try to create a new blog to represent our work in the classroom - Below you will see posts that describe writing projects my students  can expect to see this coming semester. You will also see student writing from the previous semester.  My students in Fall 2024 engaged in the same assignments my students will see on Canvas,  Spring Semester 2025.

WHY DO I DO THIS?

My goal is provide my students with a vision for where we are headed.  NO SURPRIZES.  Let's eliminate these tired questions about WHAT are we doing? or WHY are we doing it?   I encourage my students  to read a few of my past student essays published on the pages of Jay's Bloggin' in the Wind.  Maybe they will pick up some ideas and/or understanding for what they will want to write about this semester.  I'm happy with my students' writing.  They write with PURPOSE and INSIGHT.  They have all chosen to explore topics that are important to them.

Here is the link to my blog:  Jay's Bloggin' in the Wind

Just in case here is the URL:  https://www.jaysbloggininthewind.org/

Jay's Blog Layout:

• I've chosen a blog style that allows me to publish excerpts of my posts.  This means to read my blog, you  will see the first 150 words or so before you are asked to "Read more." By clicking on the "Read more" link you will be taken to the COMPLETE post you have begun to read.  Here, I mark the "Read more" link with a red arrow.

 

• I've divided the Blog into FOUR pages - To navigate from one page to the next, you will need to look for the "Next" link at the bottom of each page.
• 
  

Each semester I try something NEW.  I mean, that's how you learn stuff.  Above, I share my Table of Contents.  If you are in a hurry, you can click on a link below the table of contents to find the page you desire.

PAGE ONE: 

• On Page One, I combine my instructor posts with my student essays.  
• My first Community Profile assignment is due Jan. 31 - For the purposes of this project, I decided to model an essay about Teen Pregnancy.  I once had a friend that had to drop out of school when she became pregnant.  I was able to incorporate HER EXPERIENCES  side-by-side with ACADEMIC RESEARCH.  I'm glad to see things have changed in 50 years for young mothers. 
• Jay's Note:  If you are reading this, and you are taking an ONLINE course from me, I will not be able to assign or collect your Project Binders.  Relax.  That's one less thing you will need to do. 

Here is a student writing sample:

• I'm HAPPY with this assignment.  This time it's PERSONAL.  I ask my students to look into their communities for an important story to share.  You will be responsible for the INTERVIEW with your COMMUNITY PROFILE.  That's fun.  Your grade will be heavily influenced by the quality of your supplementary research.
• Jay's Tip for his students:  CHOOSE YOUR SUBJECTS AND TOPICS WISELY - It's on YOU - If you need help, please contact me: [email protected]

PAGE TWO

• The COMMUNITY PROFILE project will take us FIVE WEEKS to complete.  Througout, I  teach important new skills STEP-by-STEP.
• Upon completion of our COMMUNITY PROFILE we will dive into our CLASSIFICATION ESSAY.
• I know, I know FEW of of my students  have ever been asked to write a CLASSIFICATION ESSAY, but that's what makes this assignment FUN. 
• From the beginning to the end, it will tax our CRITICAL THINKING and ORGANIZATIONAL skills.
• Here is the FUN part:  My students  CHOOSE their OWN TOPICS!

Here is a SNIP from one of my INTRODUCTORY ASSIGNMENTS - Before we GET STARTED,  we START BRAINSTORMING topics:

Here is a student sample essay from last semester: 

PAGE THREE:

• This is how this instructor ROLLS - Each week my students will see multiple announcements on Canvas that will help them SUCCEED with their assignments.
• I provide Step-by-Step Instructions, Graphs, Charts, Tables, Teacher's Models. Sample Submissions...
• Most often, it takes me longer to PREPARE a Canvas Announcement than it does for me to TEACH a class in real time.   Jaja.  TRUTH.  But it seems to WORK.  
• I try to eliminate problems before they start - I practice my own submissions to help me anticipate the challenges my students will face with each assignment.

• For example, I strive to help you format your quotations in your essays - We use a writing tool called the Quote SANDWICH
• I expect you to provide complete INTRODUCTION and ANALYSIS for your quotations - DON'T DROP YOUR QUOTES INTO YOUR ESSAYS - LIKE A BRICK.
• You will need to display PERFECT PUNCTUATION and SOLID DOCUMENTATION SKILLS - Don't Worry - Everyone does it - I mean, we will WORK TOGETHER.
• At the time I created this assignment, I was reading a memoir written by Deborah Harry, the legendary singer of the 70s group Blondie.    I found a FUN quote.  You can check me for my format and punctuation.

PAGE FOUR

• For our Final Exam, no one will  see a two-hour essay exam; instead my students will be asked to share their SEMESTER READING MVPs  and SOUNDTRACK SELECTIONS- It will require them to combine their  MUSIC and their READING PLEASURE - All I ask is for them  to display a few of the new academic skills we have developed over the semester.  QUOTE SANWICHES are GOOD.  MLA DOCUMENTATION is GREAT. 
• I'm not going to lie  - By the end of the semester we will have done our share of writing - Many of my students will be worried about your other exams - Some of them will be TIRED - I'm going to be WASTED! - This assignment provides them with the opportunity to WRITE WHAT THEY WANT TO WRITE ABOUT - Just as long as THEY  are able to DISPLAY their CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS for their  FAVORITE READING of the semester.  IT WORKS.
• Last semester, I chose a passage from Paradise Travel as my READING MVP - I searched the novel for an idea, scene, character, event that TOUCHED MY HEAD and MY HEART.  I followed up my MVP discussion with a Frank Sinatra song, "New York, New York."  You'll get it when you read it.
• Many of my students choose their music form Hip-Hop, Heavy Metal, Musica Norteña - IT'S ALL GOOD - but that's because they can JUSTIFY their selection - What makes it the PERFECT SONG to represent their MVP?

Here is my Frank Sinatra post from my previous classroom blog - Jay's Writer's Paradise.

You can find it here; https://www.jayswritersparadise.org/2024/06/jays-fall-2024-soundtrack-of-our-reading-post-frank-sinatra-the-statue-of-liberty-the-american-dream.html

Here is a sample Final Exam submission from one of my Fall students - She found her MVP in the very first story  you will read this semester - "Only Daugher" by Sandra Cisneros.

Jay's Note:  I refer to this Final Exam Project as a "CELEBRATION OF STUDENT WRITING"

I look forward to READING and WRITING with my NEW STUDENTS in SPRING 2025.

Let's All Plan to Publish our Best Writing in Jay's Next Blog - SUMMER 2025!

This is going to be great.  You will see.

Paz,

JL

Jay's BOB DYLAN THE AUTHOR Post - The Philosophy of Modern Song - Joyce Carol Oates - Elvis - Doc Pomus

   At my age I enjoy listening to the music of Bob Dylan more than ever – it’s been like fifty years now - but I have to admit I understand his lyrics less than I ever did before.  Take your pick:  the Old Stuff and/or the New Stuff.  I’m just not that smart to follow his poetry.  I know, I know if I was writing an essay in a music appreciation class, I would get it.  I’ve met the challenge for my share of Shakespeare and French Poetry teachers.  It’s a different story, though, when Bob’s voice comes out my car stereo.  I try and try, but I can rarely piece his songs together in my head so they make sense. His lyrics fly around my head like wrappers in the wind.  It's like I can't grasp hold of anything.  In one of my classroom discussions, I bring up the short story “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” because the author, Joyce Carol Oates, dedicated it to him after hearing this song on the radio.  I do my best not to lie to my students.  I don’t  explain to them I know much about the song, in the same way I let them enjoy the story without my analysis.  Who am I to say?  I do like Bob’s gravely voice.  I love his (changing) style.  He has lived his life and led his career like no one else before or since.  From the very beginning he shaped his own legend when he arrived in freezing cold New York City with nothing than a guitar and fifty dollars in his pocket. He was about the same age as most of my students are now. But at age nineteen, he already carried himself with  VISION.  AMBITION.  NO FEAR  People in the coffee houses and bars where he played in the early sixties must have felt they were looking at a YOUNG man from another planet.  He sounded so different from anything they had ever heard.    I don’t know who he is singing about in “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”  I doubt Joyce did either.  Everywhere I look, someone says something different.  His songs are EMOTIONAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, POLITICAL, WEIRD!  More questions than answers!   He’s a Sphynx.   Like a famous philosopher said in a famous movie I saw, he’s like "A Mystery Wrapped In A Riddle Inside An Enigma!” That’s why I LOVE him, I tell my students. In several of my classes, we write research papers on the sixties. I hope I can convince a few of my students to write about Bob Dylan.  Without him, the decade would have been a whole lot different.

Recently I read Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song.  Here Dylan writes like he sings. I’ve noticed he doesn’t like to explain his own music, but as a writer of prose, he sheds important insight for the songs of others.  He knows what to look for.  He gets to the heart of the music.  I doubt that I will ever see or hear a fraction of what he does, but reading his book, is like listening to his songs, I just want more.  Early in this post, I identified the Joyce Carol Oates dedication to Bob Dylan for her story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”  This is high praise coming from a Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction to a Nobel Prize Winner for Literature.  Joyce knows of what she speaks.  But who can Bob Dylan possibly look up to.  His passion for music precedes him wherever he goes, on stage and off.  From reading his Philosophy of Modern Song, it’s clear to me that he loves the music and craft of others as much as he cherishes his own.  Just thinking about it makes me recall the Jimi Hendrix cover of “All Along the Watchtower.”  You know, “Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.”  Bob released this song on one of his more obscure albums called John Wesley Harding.  When Jimi heard this song, he made it his.  He took a dense, complicated folk tune and electrified it the way he only can.  It just might be TRUE that more people identify “All Along the Watchtower” with Jimi than they do with Bob.  Jaja.  Bob might be included.  He has repeatedly credited Jimi for bringing it to life. For those who are counting, Bob has performed live “All Along the Watchtower” more than any song in his canon.  He plays it more in the style of Jimi than Bob.  It’s his TIP of the HAT to an artist he loves and respects.

This book, The Philosophy of Modern Song, goes out to all the songs and artists Bob Loves. When I was 14, I played basketball fourteen hours a day.  I grew up reading about North Carolina Tarheel Phil Ford and LSU Tiger Pete Maravich in Sports Illustrated.  These guys were my b-ball heroes.  I’m not sure if I remember reading much about their attitudes or their philosphies, but their dedication to their craft inspired me to leave the house early and not come back until dark.  At the age of fourteen, Bobby Zimmerman must have heard Elvis for the first time on late-night AM radio signals drifting up from St. Louis.  I have a feeling he put as much time into his music as I did my basketball, but he must have intuited a better understanding for the songs he listened to.  I mean, at this time in the mid-fifties, he may have had little support or confirmation for the music he chose.  He grew up in an all-white region of Minnesota’s Iron Range.  There was a reason he wasn’t hearing Elvis on mainstream radio stations.   To me, Phil Ford and Pete Maravich were basketball magicians.  There weren't enough hours in the day I could practice to be like them.  Bobby, however, was in a different place.  When he listened to Elvis, he heard things inside his head that no one else did. He felt the magic. 

In his Philosophy of Modern Song, Bobby Z analyzes everything from rhymes to syllables to the history and culture of each artist and songwriter in each essay.  For Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea,” he shares the French origins of the songs, the sub-context of the lyrics, and Bobby D's phrasing.  This is DEEP.  I would have never known or understood. But, Bobby Z doesn’t confuse me like a music teacher – instead, he can explain what he hears from the song in terms I can understand: “He [Bobby Darin] keeps it simple even when he’s singing about nothing.  The sea, the air, the mountins and the flowers.  It all floats.  It never touches the ground (89).  My favorite chapter in the book may be about the song “On the Street Where You Live” by Vic Damone.  Bob understands the story behind the song.  The lyrics convey a broken-hearted man who stalks the girlfriend who has abandoned him. I know Vic Damone from his marriage to James Dean’s girlfriend Anna Maria Pierangeli.  In one moment, James planned to marry Anna, and in the next he was sitting on his motorcycle across the street from the church where she married Vic.  Just like in the song,  James must have felt pulled down a street where he didn’t belong.   All the money and fame that came with is iconic Hollywood legend couldn’t compare to the loneliness of losing the Love of his Life.

The  Philosophy of Modern Song begins with a full-page picture of Elvis visiting a record store. From where his eyes are directed, he looks like he's studying a Harry Belafonte album. Just below, I can see A Tribute Record to James Dean. This seems very apropos.  Bobby and Elvis are kindred spirits.  If Bob was to choose an Elvis photo to lead off his first book in twenty years, I can understand why he shows Elvis in a record shop rather than on stage.  Without these types of visits, neither of them would become the world-changing legends as we know them today.

The book is dedicated to Doc Pomus.  THIS I UNDERSTAND.  My students are not going to know this name, but his influence on Bobby Z may have been on a par with Elvis.  Doc was born with the name Jerome Felder and grew up in Brooklyn.   Like Bobby, he was a Jew that changed his name to something HIP to to escape his dreary surroundings. At age six, sadly, he contracted polio.  This was before the invention/institution of polios shots – when a large percentage of young children either had their legs amputated or they died as a result of complications.  Young Jerry became a cripple and an outcast. He was bullied for being a Jew.  He was beaten for his defenseless nature.  He was ostracized for his love of black music.  Somehow, like a story in the movies, Jerry grew up to be one of the most influential songwriters of the fifties and sixties, for he turned his misery into beautiful songs that we all can connect with it.  This was a guy who for most of his an adult couldn’t walk without braces or crutches.  In fact, he spent much of his time writing his songs from a wheelchair.  Probably, he wrote his most famous song “Save the Last Dance for Me” at his own wedding.  Who takes the time to work at his own wedding?  That would be Doc Pomus because his disability prevented him from dancing with his own bride. 

Anyone who hears the song will understand the anguish of Doc watching his bride happily dance with one man after another, when all he could do was watch.  Sitting there at a table, he borrowed a pen and wrote out the song on the back of a wedding invitation.  It took him about a half hour, but when he was done he had written the story of his life.

Jay's CHRISTMAS READING Post - Graham Greene's Brighton Rock - Old-School - Straight-Razor - Cutting Edge Noir Thriller

  I like reading about the ways Graham Greene makes his writing happen.  To many he is known as a travel writer, having written many of his novels and short stories on the road.  Upon touching down in a foreign country he seems to have a sixth sense for the lay of the land.  He knows  his way around an airport bar; this is where he begins making contacts and developing ideas. In this year alone,  I’ve read about his journeys deep into Mexico, Cuba, Viet Nam, Haiti. All these books open my eyes to exotic and hidden cultures and politics.  I don’t know how he does it.  How does he commicate?   Maybe his most powerful novel, The Power and the Glory, caputres the intense division between the rich and the poor in Mexico.  Greene doesn’t speak Spanish.  Nada.

This week, I read his first widely-successful novel, Brighton Rock, published in 1936.  You can’t really call this one a travel novel, for Graham G didn’t have to venture too far from home in London.  He had his nimd set on writing a noir thriller set in an English beach town.  According to today’s travel guides, it’s an hour-and-a-half trip by train to Brighton.  This worked!  He could maintain an office or a hotel room in Brighton and escape all personal and professional distractions.  He shared his address and phone number with no one but his wife.   This is how he may have established his routine of typing up 500 words per morning and drinking the rest of the day.  In between bars, he would make his obversations and develop his plots.  From his propensity to consume martinis, it’s pretty clear he was attracted to the dark side of life.

In Brighton, he stumbled upon a true-to-life news story about a gang of street thugs that staged a bloody attack on a group of horse-racing bookies.  Their modus operandi (MO) was to slash their opposition with straight razors.  On occasion, they splashed acid in the faces of their rivals.  Brighton Rock is the story of a street urchin named Pinkie that rises to the top of his gang at age seventeen.   He becomes the gang leader when his mentor’s throat is slashed.  Pinkie is the logical choice for gangleader.  He is a Scarface Jr. type.  He is violent, psychotic, devoid of any human feeling. Most of all, He’s hellbent on revenge for his mentor’s murder.  This was the only man he ever respected or loved.  Nothing was going to get in his way holding him back.  In Brighton Rock, Graham G comes up with the idea of pitting Pinkie against  an all-Jewish gang who looks to take over the city.  Pinkie is not going to let that happen.  There is an innocent young woman that gets in the way.  Her name is Rose, and she is only sixteen. Pinkie is probably going to have to kill her before he gets to the Jews.    

---

At this point, there may be a few reading this that wonder why does Mr. Lewenstein seem to love the work of an apparent anti-semetic author.  This isn’t the first time Green has portrayed his Jewish characters in a nasty light, nor will it be the last. In Brighton Rock, upstart teen thugs visits a Jewish crime boss in a luxurious hotel.  Pinkie feels the poison rush through in his veins when he senses Jews looking at him from all sides. In the lobby, he he sees two “Jewesses” giving him the eye.  The author refers to them as “little bitches.”  This encounter did not pass me by, but I’ve read enough history to know that the attitude directed here to Jews was not unusual.  Brighton Rock was published early in 1938.  Later that year in November – on the night of Krystallnacht – Nazi leaders initiated a series of pogroms on German Jews.  Some 30,000 Jews were rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps, while the world watched and did nothing.

Famously, or infamously, In 1939, 900 Jews paid the Nazi regime everything they had to escape the country with their  lives on the ship the S.S. St. Louis bound for Cuba.  I read about this harrowing event in a novel called The German Girl.  The story of the St. Louis is a nightmare everyone should know about.  937 Jews made the trip but upon arrival to Cuba, corrupt government officials demanded an extra 500 dollars a head to debark. Of course these Jews didn’t have the money because they gave everything they had to the Nazis.   The United States and Canada had strict restrictions for the acceptance of European refugees.  Shanghai, maybe the only port in the world that was taking Jews, was now occupied by a hostile Japanese force.  The world turned its back.  The St. Louis was forced to turn back to Europe.    Of the all the Jews on the boat, more than 600 of them eventually died in Nazi concentration camps.

I’m sure many readers out there may have wanted their authors to speak out against Jewish persecution.  Nowhere in Brighton Rock  does Greene call out for the killing of Jews as a people, but it’s clear he  pushes the ugly stererotypeof the greedy Jew in his narrative.   Pinkie hatred is rooted in a Jewish gangster moving in on his territory. This Jew has an italian name, Colleoni.  I don’t know why Greene couldn’t bring up the image of “Italian bitches.”   Maybe Green was anti-semetic.  Maybe he wasn’t.  He did have a keen eye for detail. In 1938, everywhere you went you may have seen animosity directed against a Jew.

---

I, for one, feel a little bit queezy when I see people label my favorite authors based on a small percentage of their writing: Grham Greene,  Ernest Hemingway,  Roald DahlI, etc.    In fact, I don’t like anyone telling me what to read or what to think;  like critics, journalists, and TEACHERS.    I see a problem with reading levels and enthusiasm of our current generation of students – they have come up in a system of standardized education answering questions out of the back of a chapter.  They all know that their best answers will mimic what the teacher says. Teaching English has become BORING, for  I see many students who have  lost interest in  thinking for themselves.  They wait for someone else’s messaging.

In my mind, Graham is is a literary GREAT.  Let me say that here.  He writes on multiple levels. In Brighton Rock, there is a couple of ugly Jews, and there are a lot of failed Catholics.  Each time I read a Graham G novel ONCE, I will read it a SECOND time.  In Brighton Rock, Graham G has created a tight crime thriller.  Others will examine the religious questions he integrates into the narrative.  My students love to speak to me about PSYCHO-KILLERS they see in their movies.   Pinkie, the ironically-named main character in Brighton Rock, will give them a run for their money.  He is devoid of feelings and/or morals.  He has plans to KILL the young girl he MARRIES.  The only reason he marries her is to protect himself from a murder prosecution.  He found out that a wife cannot testify against her husband.    He associates LOVE with PAIN.  Jaja.  The problem Pinkie finds in this novel, is the more AWFUL he treats his wife, the more she LOVES HIM. She is a devout Catholic.  She tells him that she would rather burn in Hell than lose him. 

This is why I read every Graham Greene novel TWICE.  At times this books will be violent.  Other times they will be funny,  historical,  psychological,  religious, but always complex.  There is so much going on in  this novel, I have to think that many readers forget about the depravity of the characters and start to ROOT for them.  (I'm reminded of the Brad Pitt character in the film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.  This is the one Brad P won the Oscar.  We all love Brad!  But if you saw this movie, do you remember that he KILLED HIS WIFE?) 

My favorite character in this novel is a big-breasted lounge singer that enters the picture.   Her name is Ida Arnold.  My mother's name is Ida.  Both these women are relentless when they cling on to an idea.  There is no way you can avoid their grasp.  Ida Arnold has a drunken moment with Pinkie's first murder victim.  Whens he finds that the police are doing nothing to find his killer, she takes on the case herself, as amateur, big-breasted drunk detective. In her quest to find the murderer, she stumbles on Rose who may be a witness to the crime.  She finds out that Pinkie has married her to keep her quiet.  Both Pinkie and Rose hate her. She follows them like a dog.  Pinkie and Rose will never have a moment's peace as long as Ida is on their trail.  WHO IS THIS CRAZY WOMA?, they say.  Neither of them knows.  In the middle of a wicked plot, Ida provides comic relier.  Graham G probably met up with Ida on a real-life drunken afternoon in Brighton.  Let's call it research.  That's how Graham G rolls. 

The other Ida is my mother.  She will never find anything funny in a Graham Greene novel.  Her family escaped religious persecution in Eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century. They travelled by foot with whatever they could carry.   Graham Greene wrote Brighton Rock in an atmosphere of Fear and Hatred.  Everyone knew what was being done to the Jews, but few did anything about it.   As I write this, President Trump’s anti-immigration language during his campaign looms heavily over our heads.  Will he really impose his program of mass deportation for undocumented Mexicans?  We are only weeks away from his inauguration  He said he would make his move on Day One. There is nothing FUNNY about this guy, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention.