26. Video Art for the Classroom

Edited by: George Szekely & Ilona Szekely

Kim brought me this book back from the National Art Education Association conference in New York earlier this year. This book is not only an excellent resource for teachers of video at any level, it also provides excellent argumenta as to why art teachers should include video in their curriculum. Of course, there are a lot of things that seem obvious in this book if you've already been teaching video (I know what the difference between a pan and zoom is, thank you), but there are also quite a lot of innovative ideas as well. Here are some of the suggestions, ideas, notes, and quotes that I found most useful:

- Media Log Assignment: Have students log their responses to various media at least once a week in a journal (online or in a book).

-Analyze a commercial in detail, log every shot, style of music, graphics, selling tactics.

-"Its not about art activities...If you've been teaching for a while, you realize that it is about connecting with an idea; it is about being invested in an idea" - John Toth, Video Artist

-Video is empowering, can transform shy students into confident ones.

-Artists use the tools of their time - this is why art programs need to teach video.

-Two kinds of video -one records what happens, the other manipulates (I disagree, its probably more accurate to say that those are two ends of a spectrum, since every shot is chosen and therefore manipulated through simple selection- and every shot is also based in part in recording what is possible).

-Don't bother with video taped performance art. Its not the same thing. Tell me about it.

-"The ability to animate starts at an early age with an understanding of what it means to have an inner life...children learn about the world they live in by animating everything around them. Animation, perhaps, is one of the most natural types of play children do." - Renee Shaw, Video Artist/ Teacher - One of my favorite ideas in the book - animation taps into childhood experimentation in a natural way that mixes art and play.

-Media literacy means questioning, recognition of power associated with who dictates knowledge and information.

-Video art and "media Literacy" are often at odds, as the idea of 'media literacy' has been co-opted by the conservative movement to moralize about content (i.e. Joe Lieberman- my example). Video art is about self expression.

-Knowing that their work will be shown and presented to a larger audience is a motivating factor for students.

-The shift in the way that students today interact with their world (the media) can't be ignored and must be embraced by art education.

25. Jar of Fools

By: Jason Lutes

Found this book at Unnameable Books, the little indy bookstore downstairs from my sister's apartment. I'd read about it in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, and although I'd forgotten the title, I immediately recognized it from the illustrations. McCloud had used JoF to illustrate how comic artists are able to create a sense of space and time.

What I found exceptional about Lutes' story is that there is virtually no exposition, and very little information given about the main characters. In fact, virtually everything you come to know about them is through their interactions and facial expressions. However, you quickly begin to feel as if you know them. Scott McCloud talks about this phenomenon that is unique to comics- the more simply that characters are drawn, the more of yourself you see in them. Lutes' characters are simply drawn, but are given enough personalities of their own to create believable people. This seems to me to be a very difficult trick to pull off as a comic artist- you want the characters unique enough to be interesting, and simple enough to identify with. Lutes pulls this off perfectly.

Jar of Fools is the story of a floundering magician, his estranged girlfriend, his aging mentor, and a con-man and his daughter. A simple twist of fate draws them all together at once, and through this meeting they come to different place in their lives and are able to move forwards. A very simple, and a very effective story.

24. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

By: J.K.Rowling

Well, no need to hide the fact that I'm a terrible geek with this crowd. Although, it doesn't help my case that I got a head start on this book from reading the first 100 pages or so online before its 'official' release. Yes. I went to pick up the book at midnight, at the little independent bookstore next to my sister's apartment in Brooklyn. The funny thing was, out of the 20 or so people in the store waiting in line for the books, or chatting with other Potter-fans over juice and cookies- there was not one kid. One 40 something fan was sitting in the mystery section flipping through the book with the biggest 6-year-old's grin on her face.

The final Potter book is the one worth waiting for. After the slightly disappointing Order of the Phoenix and the even more disappointing Half-Blood Prince (with the exception of their exciting cliff-hanger endings), HPaDH is the return to the exciting, page turning, books that made the Potter Franchise.

By the seventh book, kids who have grown up with Harry will not only find a more mature kid, but a more mature book. The kid gloves that normally come with protecting the sensitivities of children are long gone. Voldemort is now in power, and its a different world; a world of death, pain, and suffering. The Ministry of Magic is now being run by a power hungry, rights-stomping, racist cabal that keeps its constituents under its influence through a combination of misinformation and fear.

Can you say "New American Century"?

The Deathly Hallows reflects the world as its changed since Harry Potter first surfaced in the 90s. How much of this is intentional, how much unintentional... or how much do I read into it that isn't there? Who knows? It seems to me though, that it is the perfect fairy tale for its time. The 21st century political landscape whose absence i felt made Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town ring somewhat false, is there in Deathly Hallows. Perhaps this is part of what has set the series apart - Rowling has tapped into something that is resonating with people of all ages, and as the world has changed, so have the novels.

23. Don't Think of an Elephant!

By: George Lakoff

I started this book last year, and only stopped reading it because I moved and forgot to put it in my bag. So, I dug it out of storage yesterday, and jumped right back in. Its a short book with a simple message and it hits you like a ton of bricks. In just about 100 pages, Lakoff easily describes the problem of progressives and the inability of Democrats to articulate their message. The title is the clue.

Don't Think of an Elephant!

What did you just think of? An elephant, right? Because when you name something, you can't help but think of it. So when republicans say "Partial Birth Abortion", they put the mental image in your mind of the worst case, and least performed sort of proceedure. When they say "Tax Cuts" they don't talk about 'service reduction'. Basically, by letting them use those terms we are fighting them on their territory and we cannot win.

This is what Lakoff refers to as "framing". All issues have a 'frame' - that is, a perspective from which they are to be viewed. When you argue about "tax and spend liberalism" you cannot win because the image that all participants and observers will leave with is that of taxing and spending regardless of who has the better facts or even who "won" the debate.

Through his book, Lakoff pinpoints the problems in such a precise way that it seems so obvious that it seems like common sense. In the second half of the book, he explains what needs to be done now. This is required reading for all progressives- democrats, greens, independents, whatever- hell, it would probably be good if some conservatives cracked it open. Although, the progressives who really need to read it are the ones in office.

22. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

By: Cory Doctorow

You have to love Cory Doctorow- not only does he provide hours of entertainment through his contributions to one of my favorite procrastination tools Boing Boing, but he releases his novels for free under a creative commons license. Therefore, you can download Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town for free... however, there is something about actually holding a book as you read it, and that's the way I had to proceed.

Speaking of surreal, SCT,SLT reads like two seperate styles of novel rolled into one. On the "real" side- Alan moves to Toronto in order to write a book. There he meets some people, one of whom wants to create a free WiFi system using junk parts for the whole city, and Alan joins him in his campaign. On the "surreal" side, Alan's parents are a washing machine and a mountain, his brothers are a set of nesting dolls, a psychic, an island, an undead homicidal maniac - and his new girlfriend has wings. The plots run parallel to each other, not so much intertwining as occasionally bumbing into each other; and that's ok. The character doesn't understand who or what he is - the book doesn't seem to either. And yet, that doesn't detract from it too much, as bouncing back and fourth from plot to plot, from reality to reality gives the book its momentum.

The Wifi plot is exactly what I'd expect from Doctorow- in fact, it often reads like a novelization of Boing Boing; theres a lot of offbeat pop-counter-culture (cause is counter culture and pop culture really that different anymore?) references mashed in with some techno-babble, and a good many rants about censorship, freedom of information, and the democratization of the internet.

The more surreal plot rings a bit clunky, but perhaps that's my own bias. I was thinking about this after finishing Creul Shoes and I think it just comes down to the fact that I'm not as big a fan of Surrealism in writing as I am of it in art. When you look at a Surrealist painting - a good painting, its almost empowering to let it speak to you, to try to understand its secrets. In the written form, it just comes accross as different for the sake of difference. And it might just be something I don't get, although I'm open for an explanation.

The other odd thing about it, is that a book that is so much a commentary and refelction of its time, and this book is more 21st century literature than anything else I've read, it totally ignores the 21st century political landscape. I don't know if that is a bad thing or not. Certainly not everything thats written about the 21st century needs to address the mess that the Neocons made of the world. Its also likely that I'm being America-centric about a book takes place in Canada. However, I've never been so aware of the world changing around me as I am today, and it seems a little odd that this goes unacknowledged by the book. Perhaps there's an alegory trapped in the surreal part of the story that I'm missing.

21. Cruel Shoes

By: Steve Martin

I stumbled upon a copy of Cruel Shoes at the tiny used bookstore next to my sister's apartment in Brooklyn. I don't think I'd even known it existed before reading a blurb on the back cover of Jon Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People (See Print is Dead 2006) to it favorably. Now, I consider Steve Martin a comic genius, especially in his writing, but I am baffled about the critical acclaim of CS.

Perhaps its a book that is bound to its day. The humor, which never goes for the LOL, strives instead for the surreal. Perhaps this form of surreal-comedy was unique in its day, although Woody Allen's Without Feathers managed both the surreal and the LOL in the same decade. Familiarity with the Martin of the 70s though would suggest that he was aiming for something else. He certainly knows his comedy, and I have no doubt that's what he would have delivered if that's what he had intended. What he did intend though, I'm not entirely sure.

CS is a series of (very) short stories and poems that conjure bizarre images and ideas. Its often strange and always silly, but meanings and conclusions dont' come as readily. And maybe that's the point of it - strangeness for the sake of being strange. Oddly, that's something that I really appreciated about, for example, Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, but not so much here- perhaps I just expect some LOLs from SM.

20. The Accidental Masterpiece

On the Art of Life and Vice Versa

By: Michael Kimmelman

It is a nice surprise to find a celebration of amateur and professional art together in a book authored by the head art critic of the New York Times. The subtitle, On the Art of Life and Vice Versa explains Kimmelman's MO- to investigate how artists have integrated their lives into their art and how their art has become part of their lives. Although the idea "write what you know" is familiar to all writers (and no doubt has been extrapolated by all types of creatives- paint what you know, sculpt what you know, cook what you know... well, maybe not...), The Accidental Masterpiece illustrates the significance of this statement. However, Kimmelman describes his purpose better than I can:

This book is, in part, about how creating, collecting, and even just appreciating art can make a living a daily masterpiece. I don't mean that every day becomes perfect if we enjoy art. But having spent much of my own life looking at it, I have come to feel that everything, even the most ordinary daily affair, is enriched by the lessons that can be gleaned from art: that beauty is often where you don't expect to find it; that it is something we may discover and also invent, then reinvent, for ourselves...

He illustrates these points through various examples- he writes about Frank Hurley, a photographer who found himself stranded in the Antarctic in 1911, and documented his life, the ship that he just missed, and the landscape around him. He also writes about Charlotte Salomon, who detailed her life as a Jew living in pre-war Germany in a journal of writings and paintings. Now, we don't all lead lives in such circumstances. However, he also writes about people who collect light bulbs, and construct their meanings in new and unique ways for themselves.

Art should be informed by how you live because each of us have something important to say. This is a useful message for artists and art teachers, as we struggle to make meaningful art; and its something we all know, Kimmelman just makes that idea very accessible.

19. Marvel's Civil War

By: Mark Millar

I've been largely put off super-hero comics since high school, but was intriuged by news of Marvel's Civil War as an allegory for the struggle to retain civil rights in a post 9/11 America. Civil War brings superheroes into the new Neocon America where they fight each other in a battle to defend their own rights in a somewhat surreal twist on 21st century politics. After a botched attack on some run-of-the-mill villains by a half-assed super-hero group (who are filming a reality TV show) ends up destroying a good couple blocks of Stamford, Connecticut, the paranoid eyes of the government turn on all heroes who hide behind masks in attempt to hold them accountable for their actions. The government finds an ally in Tony Stark (a.k.a. Iron Man) as a spokesman and leader for advancing their "Superhero Registration Act" - however, not all Superheroes are willing to put their identities on the line and thus put their families at risk. The first skirmish in the new war occurs when the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D try to take down good old Captain America himself- in a twist which pits the Capt against the country he's named to defend.

And so the superheroes of the Marvel Universe take sides against each other. Iron Man finds allies in the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man (which leads to his news-making public unmasking), while Captain America finds his own allies willing to go underground with him.

Overall, CW raises interesting points about privacy and terrorism through the lens of their alternate superhero-infested universe, but never really commits to a strong stance on the matter. It ends with a bit of ambiguity, although to be fair, it looks like they may be tying up loose ends in their Death of Captain America series- the title of which alone is loaded with meaning.

18. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

By: Suzannah Clarke

The problem with trying to read 50 books in a year is that it discourages you from picking up a tome like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which weighs in at just over 1000 pages. I'd been wanting to read this since last year since my friend Mark's recommendation, and there it was sitting on the shelf among very few other english books at a book traders in Li Jiang. Tough descision - I could easily read three other books in the time it would take to tread JSaMN, but could I just let the opportunity pass? It was too much good fortune to find this book in a country where English books are hard to come by and usualy overpriced.

It was a good gamble- JSaMN is great read. The story follows the lives of title characters, two magicians who are intent on bringing magic back to england in a world where magic once ruled but has long since been forgotton. Until recently, the only magicians were "theoretical magicians" who study magic, but never perform it. Their excuse is that they are above doing the magic, they are scholars who study it instead. All this changes with the reluctant appearance of Mr. Norrel. He is a reculsive and disagreeable magician who is brought out of obscurity by a Mr. Secundus, one of the few theoretical magicians who has any real intellectual curiosity. For the first 250 or so pages of the book, Norell helps England rediscover magic, but is so neurotic about its application, that he refuses to share his skills with anyone else. This sets the stage for the appearance of a second magician, the younger, more forward thinking Jonathan Strange to appear with a slightly different set of values.

The book is anything but predictable, and as the plot winds through the slow re-emergence of magic in England, the relationship between Strange and Norrell shifts downhill. Magic that they have invoked brings all kinds of unintended consequences, and they soon become embroiled in the Napoleanic war, an old prophesy, and a unwittingly evil fairy.

JSaMN is a highly original book, told as if the author is reciting an exciting bit of history (and complete with a ton of funny and detailed footnotes which expand her universe), although it also owes a great debt to the canon of British fantasy that came before it. Certainly the irreverent tone is reminiscent of Douglass Adams, the sense of magical wonder of Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling, and the attention to detail of a truly unique world of Tolkien. Clarke masterfully weaves some of the best threads of her predecessors into a completely new tapestry. Highly recommended.

17. Teacher Man

By: Frank McCourt

This book was my selection for our school's biannual professional development book club. Its a nice little thing they do. You choose a book about teaching, discuss it with some other teachers, they buy you said nice little book (the last one I read was Mediated, which I thoroughly disliked, and had a fun heated debate about it with some of the other teachers).

Teacher Man is McCourt's third biographical book after Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. I haven't read either of those, but he talks just enough about his Childhood in TM to give you an idea of his past (and develop enough interest to read the other two).

Although the book is about teaching, I didn't find it terribly helpful as far as professional development goes. That is more of a criticism as using it as a professional development tool then the book itself. That is, although his writing is as engaging as charming, it doesn't do much in the way of suggesting new alternatives for teachers. Or at least, his observations, while enjoyable, also seem obvious. He spends a great deal of the book discussing all of his initial mistakes and all of the problems in the system and the classroom that he was working against. Although the book is about his teaching, it is actually more about him learning- going through the process of becoming a good teacher by turning his failures into successes.

The interesting thing about the book is how he comes about realizing his own personal pedagogy- through these mistakes and failures. What he stumbles upon is essentially student centered learning through critical pedagogy - only for him it begins because he has no idea what to teach them, so he just takes whatever lands at his feet - whether it is a local production of Hamlet or a sandwich (which literally lands at his feet).

The sandwich story is actually quite funny, and worth picking up the book for... should it land at your feet.

16. The Rule of Four

By: Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

One of the neat things about the Rule of Four is that the two authors are recent college graduates who demonstrate an amazing amount of well researched history as a pretext for a modern mystery. I know though, that I'm starting to get older when the small hints that the authors are younger than I am become glaringly evident. Nothing specific, just small details about college life that would only be of interest to other college students.

The story centers around four friends who are in their last days of their college career at Princeton. Paul is finishing his research paper on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a 15th century novel that has puzzled historians for ages (the authors create a very interesting story about the history and authorship of the book, but how much of it comes from research and how much of it is fiction is deliberatly left unclear). In the tradition of the DaVinci Code, an ancient mystery results in the modern deaths of the people trying to unravel it.

Overall, TROF is not only a page turner, but one of those books that makes you want to look deeper into history to find out what really happened (which unfortunatly has wound up being an extra 15 minutes on wikipedia for me, so far). On the downside, I would have liked a more detailed afterword from the authors deliniating what was reserach, what was speculation, and what was pure fiction. There were only a few lines dedicated to that explanation. A good read for those who enjoyed "The DaVinci Code"- not quite as tight a novel overall, but enjoyable none the less.

15. Murder on the Orient Express

By: Agatha Christie

Picked this up at a little booktrader in Yangshou on vacation- I haven't read any Christie since college, and never got around to reading this one. Since Christie has a penchant for writing mysteries that are totally unsolvable to her readers and easy as pie to her detectives, what makes MOTOE an interesting book (more than the murder enigma) is the picture of class and culture from the 1920's English perspective. The European cast of characters are each opinionated about every other country and character represented, as well as a host of those who are not.

The Orient Express has become stuck in a snowdrift on its way back to Europe. Of course, because detective Hercule Poirot is on the train, one of the most complicated murder schemes ever devised must be the journey's second setback.

As mentioned earlier, the ability to solve the murder as a reader in advance of the detective would require an intimate knowledge of 1920s high culture, train construction, and its not even clear if the clues that are given are based in reality or are part of Christie's world alone. That doesn't necessarily detract from the mystery, its still an enjoyable read, and the ending is still nicely surprising even 80 years later.