Tuesday, July 27, 2010

A Poem for Bethany


You astound me

I would've given up
a dozen times
where you have persevered

You amaze me

I am humbled by what
you can pull off
and put together

You dazzle me

I swell up with pride
when I see what you've 
done for others
and what you help make 
happen

I can barely believe
just how lucky I am

every time I look at you
and you're already
taking my breath away 
and then
you look at me and-

I'm astounded
that you're mine


Saturday, July 24, 2010

Zen at the beach

The point of zen is to be empty of yourself, to become one with God and live in the here and now. The Japanese believe that Haiku poetry is a metaphor for zen because rather than using too many words or logic to try to describe or explain or analyze the moment, you use only 17 syllables (the length of a human breath) to capture that moment. I've never really written any haiku and as I understand it, in Japan, no one is considered to be capable of mastering the genre until they are at least 65 years old. Be that as it may, I finally tried to slow down a little and think less and experience more. The following poems, three of which are in haiku format are the results.




Layers of clouds
clouds are floating by
layers moving past each other
the sun watches them pass




Rays on my face
I feel the suns's warmth
it gently caresses my face
as does the cool breeze



Day at the lake
boys splash in the lake
while girls build castles of sand
and I read my book




Four strata scenery
blue and white sky

green woods and meadows

silver lake
   reflects the colors of the sky
   but also the constant, yet mild churning

the damp, cool sand
   underlines the scene

and a pure white crane loops
    an ellipse around it all
    and returns to a bank
    hidden behind reeds


Now, I hate to distract from all this serenity, but life happens. Maybe I'm too much of a curmudgeon, maybe my cynical sense of humor is always going to get the better of me, or maybe I'm just resentful of having to play host for a weekend-long sleep over while my wife and mother-in-law took off to some big bus tour of fancy gardens in Des Moines- whatever the reason, tight shoes or a small heart, this last poem is pretty typical of anytime I try to get in touch with God, with nature, my feelings, or my feminine side.


Rolling along the surface
My daughter is screaming
"I want to go home!"
"I NEVER want to come to the beach again-
EVER!"

Her big yellow beach ball
has been gliding quietly
across the bay
like a silent ghost across a foggy moor
or like a elegant skater across the ice
across the bay
and under a peer
just like when she lost hold of her balloon
at the fair
and it was claimed
by the sky

The ball is now in Heaven
escaped from the restraints of this world
and from it's indenture to my daughter
but she is in a self-sentenced Hell
and I still have to
take these four girls to the fair
again tonight
just me and them.

Note to self,
nobody gets any balloons
cotton candy or ice cream?
fine
but no balloons.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Personal Portfolio Reflections

Ted Mallory
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Personal Portfolio Review

I'm not sure what I was expecting when we first started the IWP. I was hoping to be more productive in terms of essays and perhaps fiction, but instead seemed to be a burgeoning poet. 

As of yesterday I was discouraged because I thought that I had failed to take full advantage of the luxury of having time to write, yet Marty seems to imply that I've been quite prolific. 

Initially I was nervous about how applicable the class might be for me and how much I'd be able to contribute since I was the only non-English teacher in the group. My worries were all unfounded because this may well have been the most valuable class for my teaching and professional development that I've taken since I was an undergrad. The amount of applicable and pertinent information and discussion has amazed me.

I have written at least eight new poems and three or four new essays. I also submitted several other pieces for peer and instructor response/input including a couple of poems, a column, an essay and the beginnings of a fiction piece.

I feel much more confident as a poet. In college a couple of my Art professors told me that I seemed to have a good innate sense of design, although my execution needed polish. I feel like I am becoming more comfortable with my instincts in poetry, like my sense of rhythm, where to put a line break, and how to conclude a piece so that it's beginning relates to it's conclusion.  

Maybe because one of the biggest things I gained from the class has been that writing doesn't have to be for an audience, published, or persuasive- I have allowed myself to explore poetry in ways that I previously would've shyed away from. I used to think that poetry had only two practitioners; highly educated intelligentsia who understood and knew how to write it following strict forms and guidelines and pretentious, college students who were trying too hard to be self expressive and non-conformist who only wrote about death and dying and depression. 

What I've learned is that writing is a way of processing thoughts and feelings, a "cognitive strategy," if you will. Poetry is a comfortable, pliable, sometimes impressionistic, sometimes expressive, sometimes abstract and analytical method for me to process.  At once rapid and fluid like a sketch, meanwhile allowing for layers and nuance like a painting. 

Before this month, I felt pedestrian as a poet, guilty that so much of my poetry was stream-of-consciousness writing, embarrassed that it was too awkward or obtuse. This class, between the time and deliberate focus on writing, what I've learned about process and re-writing, and the huge amount of feedback from classmates, instructors, and online cohorts at the eAnthology- has helped me "get my sea-legs." I'm feeling much more comfortable, not to mention confident in all of my writing, but perhaps especially my poetry.

I knew that reading makes for better writers. This class really proved to me how much writing makes you a better reader. I am much more infatuated with the idea of reading that ever before. IWP has really expanded my palate. I once wanted to just read essays and mysteries, and I was a very picky reader. Now I actually crave short stories, memoirs, and other people's poetry. I used to prefer profound classics and road-tested pop-culture. Now my menu is opened to unpublished works, blogs, and new writing and academic writing. 

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Bon Appétit!

Never enough time to write- 
all these ideas boiling and bubbling around in my head. 
Then when I finally get some time to write-
I want the fiction and essays to rise to the top of the brew 
but only poetry keeps spurting out and dripping down the side. 


So many things simmering on the back burner.
I hope I don't leave them there to scorch and stick and stain 
the cast iron, copper and Teflon 
or caramelize into gobs of gooey mess, 
permanently corroding the finish of the stove top 
and stinking up the kitchen. 


Sheez, so much poetry-
 I may have to gather it all into Tupperware containers 
and freeze it for later. 


Whoop! There goes the buzzer again! 
Out of time and nothing seems to be done yet. 


That memoir is too runny 
and the character-sketch hasn't risen yet. 
Not enough salt in the humor piece, 
not enough sugar in the love-letter 
(too much cayenne, again, damn, damn, damn.) 


This narrative is bland 
and the chapter for that novel is half-baked.

Okay poetry, 
I have to serve SOMETHING. 
I thought you were supposed to be for dessert. 
Guess you'll be my meal again tonight.


What the Hell, life is short
eat dessert first.

Funny


I write like
James Joyce
I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

It gave one of my poems AND one of my old blog posts James Joyce- I must have a problem with run-on sentences. That's me, long time member of the IRA (Irish Riter's Association- we can't spell to save our lives).
I'm gonna ad this to our wiki's fun links page.

Two-Way Highway; above and below, ahead and behind

Coming toward me

to my left and below

is a tractor wind-rowing
the hay in the ditch
beside the road

to my right and above

is a crop duster spraying
the corn in the field
beside the road

Spreading out before me

off into the distance
the lines of the road
converge

to my right

the road signs
get smaller and smaller
and the wall of corn,
high and mighty.
deep green below
and yellow tassels above
get shorter and shorter
closer to town

a cautions doe
peeks her head out
from behind a curtain of green
thinking about
taking a leap of faith
right out in front of me

to my left

the telephone poles
seem to get closer together
further out ahead of me
and shorter and shorter
so that there are some you could
imagine climbing without too much trouble
and even some you could almost
lean against or play leapfrog over
fairly easily

a Swainson's hawk
soars in figure-eights
back and fourth
ahead and behind of me
until it settles on a fence post
for a rest
only to be
buzzed
and shouted at
by sparrows and starlings

a red-winged black bird
dances against the ocean swells of green soy
and an eastern meadowlark sings

the city is behind me
and the village is ahead

the day is behind me
and the evening is ahead

work is behind me
and home is coming up
just ahead

Turned Upside-Down, and Back Again

Players meant to be their own playwrights
Branches blocked out the sun, denying saplings sunlight
The tenants foreclosed on the landlord
The clay criticized the potter

But for our sake the God became a priest
The Divine became a prophet
The last shall be first
The dispossessed and the untouchable
became precious belongings and firmly embraced siblings and kin
Aliens became neighbors
The disaffected and disenfranchised found their voice and were listened too and heard
Widows and barren women became mothers
Orphans became heirs

The king of kings became servant of all
The innocent became the atoning sacrifice
His death conquered death

The stone the builders rejected became the cornerstone
So that the scattered could become gathered
The many could become one
The divergent could become equal
Disciples became friends
Followers became leaders
Members parts of the whole

Students became masters
Fishermen altered the course of civilization
Revolutionary became establishment
and the persecuted began persecuting
Pilgrims sought religious freedom in order to be able to establish theocracies
and the lions are thrown to the christians

Guity-Pleasure Summer Read

God Save The Child (Spenser, Book 2)God Save The Child by Robert B. Parker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is the second Spenser book. Spenser meets the love of his life, Susan Silverman in this novel. It is interesting to compare a more impulsive, more sarcastic (if that were possible), and perhaps less reflective, less seasoned Spenser. I've read several of them and I have to say that I think this is the most violent. I was never quite able to figure out why Parker had a PhD in the literature of violence, when I never found most of his books nearly as violent as Patterson or J.A. Jance. The thing about the violence in this book is that it pretty much all centers around one climactic fist fight- which was fascinating. I've never read a description of a boxing match. Interesting new filter for me, in that one of my professors at the Iowa Writing Project had crossed paths with Parker and characterized him as aloof, bitter toward academia, and a chauvinist who uses characters like Susan and Hawk to validate Spenser and thereby excuse Parker's own prejudices. Be that as it may, she assured me that she continued to enjoy his writing. It may be that Parker is a man's writer and Spenser is an anachronistic antihero like Humphrey Bogart or John Wayne or Clint Eastwood, but it's just hard to dislike them. Maybe there's a boyish charm like Harrison Ford and Tom Seleck, so that no matter how immature or un-evolved that they are, you just can't help but gravitate to their charisma. It would take an outrageous demonstration of ass-holiness like Mel Gibson's recent ones for Parker and Spenser to fall from our good graces.

View all my reviews >>

Monday, July 19, 2010

The Dialectic

Ever feel like you're being pulled in two different directions at once?
Standards&Benchmarks/Differentiated Instruction
Rigor/Relevance
Data/Implementation
Quantity/Quality
Science/Art
Classical/Romantic
Logos/Mythos
Left Brain/Right Brain
Yin/Yang
Analysis/Synthesis
OCD/Hoarding
Manic/Depressive
Anal-Retentive/Lazy-Assed
Fascist/Anarchist
Right Wing/Left Wing
Objective/Subjective
Subject/Content
Form/Meaning
Destination/Journey
Product/Process
Ends/Means
Will/Way
Dynamic-Tension
Balance
Center
Point
Tip
V




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Thursday, July 15, 2010

I'm so sorry

You're dealing with so much
I feel afraid to offer any commentary
because I don't want to risk
offending you
or say anything
that will compound your pain

I want to say things
to heal
or help

but I know
nothing can
and I don't want
anything that could be beneficial eventually
to be trivial or superficial or even insulting
because it comes at the wrong time.

I've been here before
in the line
at the viewing
or the luncheon
after the entombment
not knowing what to say
or how to say it
not wanting to put you through this
not even sure
how much eye contact
to make.

But I've been someplace
like where you are now
I know not the same place
but someplace cold
isolated
on display
in front of
what seems like
a never ending
stream of well wishers
yet so alone
aching
aching
aching
so that you just want
to be left alone
but under sedation
put into a coma
so that you
don't have
to deal with it
anymore

I'm sorry
so sorry
not only for your loss
but because
I have no idea
what to say
or how to say it

I'm here
if you want me
but I won't be
if you don't
I just wish
I could tell which
because
it doesn't see fair
to ask you
to have to tell me
one way or another

I'm so sorry

Sacred Places; the front of the room




I think I took this when we were preparing a book on the history of St. John Lutheran, Charter Oak for it's 125th anniversary a few years ago.

I struggled, I mean WRESTLED with whether or not to attend Seminary, I'd say from the time I was in Fifth grade until just a few years ago. One of the books that actually cured me of it was Luther's Three Treatises (one of which is the Babylonian Captivity of the Church) not your typical beach read. At any rate, all those years of trying to hear God's divine call (or is that Call?) left me with a certain amount of... sympathy for those in the office of public ministry. 

Just think of the responsibility to shepherd God's flock- but at the same time, consider the constant pressure and scrutiny of living under the microscope of some and up on a pedestal for others- when after all, you are just as human and just as needy and vulnerable as any of your parishioners. 

This view from the pulpit is pregnant with potential interpretations. No doubt for some it is evocative of the same feelings that any red-blooded American man would have given the opportunity to step into the batter's box or out onto the pitcher's mound of any major league stadium- or maybe what it's like for a high school football player to walk through the tunnel at Notre Dame or Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. 

On the other hand, for some is it like a writer facing a blank page (or screen) or an artist with a blank canvas? Perhaps for some it may seem like an actor peeking through the stage curtain. 

I know it reminds me of looking out over my empty classroom from my desk the day before school starts. Of course, I look at teaching as not merely an occupation but a vocation. Being entrusted to give young people the tools with which to think critically, communicate successfully and problem  solve effectively? It's an honor, a duty, a privilege, a divine calling and a sacred trust- which only the brave dare to take on.

I would think that at least those of you who stand in pulpits on any given Sunday can't help noticing that this photograph is devoid of people. Does that make it lifeless? Lonely? 

Does it infer a decline in attendance or some defiant exodus from the church in violation of the sabbath? No, nothing like that- I can't exactly intrude on worship time, conspicuously creeping about with my camera, let alone disrupt the service with my flash, so this picture is e missing the real building blocks in the temple, the souls out of whom God builds His true church. 

But I love that fact that what you see in this picture depends so much on what you bring with you. 

I tell my Art students that meaningful images are able to invoke feelings, evoke memories and experiences, or provoke at least thought or discussion if not reaction or revulsion. 

I think that even the fact that this picture is in black and white adds to how much it can invoke, evoke, and provoke.

Using Art as a writing prompt

After I read 'Sister Wendy's Meditations on Silence' by Sister Wendy Beckett, notorious British Art Historian, nun and BBC star- I think about Mark Rothko's minimalist color-field paintings completely differently. Rothko was a Latvian-born abstract expressionist who took his own life on the day I was born.

He painted large rectangles of color that he intended to make the viewer feel "enveloped within" the painting. He deliberately wanted his works to be devoid of recognizable symbols or mythology. Sister Wendy feels that Rothko's work is therefore more evocative and more intimate than other Art. I think that images like this one allow you to be alone with God away from the clutter, stress, and distractions of this world.

So art can create virtual sacred places in your mind.

Turns out that in 1964 he was commissioned to design a Roman Catholic (now non-denominational)l chapel in Houston, Texas. It is a meditative space filled with his paintings. Could you imagine?

Peas and Mustard

Get it right people!
Tuna casserole takes cream of mushroom soup.
Tuna SALAD takes mayo or Miracle Whip.

And while we're at it,
tuna salad has celery,
NOT peas.
If you HAVE to use peas,
use a bag of frozen peas.
Canned peas are for tuna casserole,
not tuna salad.

Get it?
Got it?
Good.

As long as I'm on the subject
canned peas are the worst peas
AND the worst canned vegetable,
not that there are any good canned vegetables.

This morning
someone brought fresh snap peas
still in the pod for our snacks
and it is all I can do
not to take them all,
they are SO wonderful

I may have to write
an ode to peas
fresh from the garden
why not?
They've written songs
about homegrown tomatoes

Bottom line;
casseroles are comfort food,
THEY can be soggy

Salads should be light and uplifting,
they should be crisp.

Meanwhile,
I don't care
what you native Midwesterners think,
Jello and marshmallows
are for desert,
they do not constitute salad

Now that we've got that clear-
Thank you for using
just the right amount
of mustard
in the potato salad

Mustard is for both
color and flavor

But next time
back off a little
on the onions

A good rule of thumb
is to use sweet Vidalias
you don't want the onions
to overpower everything else

Chives are fine
just be careful
how many
and how strong

the onions are really more about texture
than flavor, in potato salad
green onions
are about
color and texture

you could always
try red onions
but that's a whole different color
and then
you REALLY
need to be careful
about how much
and how strong

But definitely don't skimp
on the mustard
sour cream may seem
all fancy schmancy
and sugar is sweet
but nobody wants
their potato salad
too be too sweet
or too schmancy

I really can't overstate
that you really can't
over use
mustard
in the
potato salad

But for God's sake
back off of the damn peas
in the tuna salad

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Who's hand is that writing on my paper, anyway?

Many people have experienced looking in the mirror one day only to be confronted with their parent's image. As I've gotten older, I've often been surprised to realize how similar my mannerisms, gate, and speech patterns are to my fathers. Forget about saying things like "close the door, will ya? What'dya think I'm paying to cool the whole outdoors?"

But what frightens me the most is looking at a note that I write to leave for my kids on the refrigerator and seeing something that looks like my dad wrote. Then an instant later shaking my head and thinking, "no, that is exactly the way that Grandma's writing looked on letters and birthday cards she's send me when I was little. Amazing. I didn't deliberately practice forging my dad's handwriting. He didn't sit down with me and train me in how to cross a "t" and loop and slant an "l."

This phenomena is intriguing from a nurture/nature standpoint. From another standpoint I suppose that it's comforting in a way, because just as I see my Dad's piercing brown irises in the mirror, I see their handwriting on papers that my own hand has touched. It's a way to still have Grandma here although she passed away decades ago. It's a way to have Dad here in Iowa with me even though he's home in Phoenix, 2,600 miles away.

But from another standpoint it's fairly disturbing. It's as if I have no control over how I express myself, like I am being controlled by someone else beyond where I can see or hear them. As if I am just part of some long continuum of hands with the same style of cursive writing centuries, perhaps eons long and I am powerless over my own destiny and very identity, let alone my own expression and choice of style.

Then again as disturbing as that is, it has it's own way of being intriguing and comforting. I am part of a long continuum of hands that share a style, share an identity. I am not alone, I am part of something bigger than myself.

But mostly it's disturbing so I revert to not writing in long-hand. You might assume that it's laziness or the ubiquitous keyboard that today's technology obliges, but you'd only be partly right. I gave up writing in cursive almost as soon as I had mastered it.

My five year old is thrilled to be learning how to write in "courage" as she calls it, from her older sisters. I found it tedious and frustrating. We had just taken two years to learn how to print and now the second grade teacher was demanding that we learn this whole other system? Why was it necessary? Wasn't printing efficient enough? Who ever actually wrote in this long, flowy, flowery, all-connected-together-like-neon-tubing style of writing anyway? Grandmas, that's who!

My cursive must've been pretty difficult to read because in fifth or sixth grade my mother volunteered me for a calligraphy class. I was tricked into wanting to take it because it was this mysterious, cryptic medieval thing that meant using a messy ink fountain pen. It also meant giving up recess to work on handwriting skills with the teacher and one other kid.

Fifth or sixth grade was also the time that I decided what I wanted to do with my life. I was determined to become a professional cartoonist. I read every book about cartooning at three different branches of the Phoenix Public Library and the school library. Naturally that also meant reading every anthology of comics or cartoons at all of these libraries too.

First I was published in the church youth group newsletter. Then in my high school newspaper and in the weekly teen section of the Phoenix Gazette. My parents even encouraged this madness by enrolling me in a summer course on cartooning at a local community college taught by an illustrator for a greeting card company.

Cursive was no longer an issue. As a cartoonist, printing was my native tongue (er, finger?) Then one day I ran into a problem at the bank. I had had a savings account since I could walk, but now as a Sophomore in high school I had a part time job and gasoline to buy, so I opened a checking account.

The teller looked at my signature incredulously.

"I'm sorry sir, but I need your SIGNATURE on this, not your printed name."

What? That IS my signature,  you Cretan. Don't you know who I am? I'm THE "MALLORY" of the weekly comic strip that appears in the teen section of a major metro daily! I had been perfecting and practicing that printed, professional-cartoonist-style signature for the past five years! Didn't she understand that? She was impugning my very sense of identity, my individuality, my voice as an arteeest.

"No sir, I really need a cursive signature."

Sigh. I reluctantly scribbled out a haphazard excuse for what could be interpreted as my name. You couldn't tell if the "T" was a "T" or an "F." The middle initial "J" looked an awful lot like a cursive "S," and the "r" and the "y" sort of got lost in each other so that one might misread it as a cursive "z."

Try as I might to take more time and pay more attention, that signature hasn't improved much over the years. Almost invariably whether I sign a credit card receipt or a hall pass, merchants and students feel obliged to tell me how I should've been a doctor because my signature is so messy.

My students tell me how much they like my printing on the board and when I write comments on their assignments. The only real problem I have with my printing is when I fall into using all capital letters. I have had some students tell me that it is a little unnerving because it looks to them as if I am shouting.

Ironically, my mother, my wife, that community college class instructor and a few editors have admonished me for needing to have printing that is neater and easier to read. Just as well, after sending three kinds of cartoons out to ten different syndicates I received nothing but rejection letters. When I stopped writing a weekly column for our local newspaper, I rarely cartoon anymore.

But now I have this peculiar form of multiple-personality-disorder. When I write in cursive very quickly and haphazardly, it is my dyslexic mother writing. When I write as carefully and meticulously as good penmanship requires, it is my father and/or grandmother writing. When I print, either quickly or carefully, it is me, the self-made, determiner of who I am and how I want to present myself.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

At the All Star break

George Steinbrenner passed away this morning. Like most non Yankees fans, I down right loath the Yankees. They've long been the best team money can buy and therefore emblematic of what's wrong with America, and America's game. Be that as it may, it is a hard week for the Yankees, having also recently lost "the Voice of God," long time announcer Bob Sheppard.

Sheppard was an old school baseball man cut from a similar cloth as Red Barbar, Mel Allen, and Vince Scully. Serious about reporting and serious about baseball. I believe that Bob Costas is one of the few sportscasters to truly appreciate the nuance of such master craftsmen.

Steinbrenner may have micromanaged his club and at times become a caricature of himself, a wealthy tyrant who handled his subordinates autocratically rather than trusting their wisdom and experience to care for his franchise. He operated from the "strict-father" model. An American titan.

In his book about Watergate, Jimmy Breslin revealed that the Nixon Administration intimidated, harassed and extorted the Yankee owner and ship builder simply because he made contributions to Democratic campaigns. That much at least makes me a little less resentful toward Steinbrenner.

As Hunter Thompson might say, he "stomped on the Terra." Steinbrenner left a big mark on baseball and in that way on American history. That much is undeniable.

What could be more American, or more perfect on a summer evening, after playing hard all day long at the fair, than to crawl onto your dad's arms and watch the Home Run Derby on TV before having to go to bed? Two of my girls did just that last night. Ellen, who is eight has a deeper tan than most Dominican outfielders. Annamarie, who is five is missing two of her front teeth, therefore lisping everything she says.

We sat there watching Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz match records and the girls were each a constant stream of questions. Why do all those little kids get get to play in the outfield? Could I do that? 'Cause I'm on the tee-ball team, so I should get to do that too, right? What time is it in Anaheim? Do the people in the stands get to keep the balls they catch? Why does everybody wave their arms that same way? Why do they only use WOOD bats? Why don't they have aluminum bats like us? Why is the pitcher standing behind that fence? Why does the fence only have three squares? Why don't they just have a fence with for squares and have the pitcher throw the ball OVER the fence? Why doesn't David Ortiz run around the bases when he hists a home run? Is this baseball or not? So really this is the Home Run Derby and not a baseball game, but it's a different kind of game that's kinda LIKE baseball? Right, Daddy?

I assume that there would still be questions, and most of the questions would be exactly the same if they were boys. But one question they each asked independently (at different times, each when the other wasn't in the room) was one that no American son would ask. "Why can't GIRLS play baseball?"

Other dads would probably answer, "girls play SOFTball." I wasn't sure how to answer. Part of me wanted to say "I don't know why not, Honey, it doesn't seem fair does it?" But as enlightened and liberal as that might seem, I thought it would still be a cop-out. Instead I told them each, "I don't see why they can't. Just because there aren't any professional woman players now doesn't mean there shouldn't be. There used to be (but I didn't go into the whole story of World War II). I wondered if Jackie Robinson ever asked his dad why there weren't any black men in the Majors and what his dad might've said to him.

It will be interesting to see how Ubaldo Jimenez does in the All Star game tomorrow night. I'd like to see the National League actually win for once. In a year that has had an unprecedented four no-hitters (which should've been five, if it weren't for the umpire stealing Detroit Tiger Armando Galarraga's against Cleveland earlier this summer), it would be exciting to see Jimenez pitch a perfect game. 

Along with the buzz about the seemingly super-human rookie Stephen Strasburg joining the Washington Nationals, this seems to be the year of the pitcher. That's refreshing since it was the big hitters like Sosa, McGuire and Bonds a few years ago that sullied baseball's reputation with all their steroids.

I had the wonderful opportunity of seeing Arizona play at Dodger's Stadium a few years ago on different nights with different friends who had each been pitchers in high school. Neither were fans of either the Dodgers or the Diamondbacks. Both told me their were fans of whoever was pitching. 

When she painted and redecorated her room for a 4H project this summer, I was tickled to see my oldest daughter Grace, who is eleven, insist on adding the finishing touch of her Randy Johnson bobble-head. It was a great memory to attend an Arizona Diamondbacks game with her and her grandfather back home in Phoenix on Father's Day a couple of years ago. Last summer all three girls took me to a game in Kansas City.  

The D'Backs are of course dead last this year, but hey, as any Cubs fan will tell you, the All Star game is just the half-way mark. A lot can happen between now and October.

It's been a long time, almost as long as I've been alive, since Congress passed Title IX which reads,
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...
But hey, any Cubs fan will tell you that the All Star break is just the half way mark, a lot can happen in a few years. Someday we might just hear the voice of God announce, "Pitching for the National League, number five... Annamarie Mallory."

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Summer evening on the porch

What a gift-
to be sitting on the porch
sipping wine
at edge of twilight

Just as the wick of daylight is ready to extinguish
and the fireflies begin to appear
first a sparse few
then more and more
first slowly
then in more rapid succession

Caressed by  the South breeze
Balmy is exactly right
it is like a soothing balm on burns, bites, and abrasions
not dry or harsh or even steady
but soft and buffered with just enough humidity
to not become stickity
calming and intoxicating

Serenaded by doves, wren,  finches and whippoorwill
I wish you were in the chair next to me
sharing a glass of wine

But you are inside, working on 4H projects for the fair
with our oldest daughter
the younger two are in bed
drowned in deep sleep and dreams
after a long day of swimming and sunshine

I wish you were here on the porch with me
enjoying some wine
but how good it feels to have
the most important people in this world
working together
steadily
inside our home
while I sit here
watching the rest of the world
fade into obscurity and slumber
on a summer night

Until  cars hum by the corner
and kids set off fireworks down the block
and visitors back out of a mourning widow's drive across the street
and the mosquitoes start to land and climb up my ankles and ears
and my glass of wine is near empty

What a gift it is to come inside
to where the most important people in this world
are wondering where I've been all evening
and how I can be of some help

And the air is drier and calm,
but conditioned and cool
and insect-free
the lights are warm and low and comforting
and somehow you smile at me

What a gift to be here
with the most important people in the world.

Friday, July 09, 2010

Verbal Blues

What a sky!
A photo couldn't do it justice.
I wish I could paint it.
Perhaps a poem.
Yes, that's it
A poem would surely
do the trick.

So many hues
all of those blues!

How does one
put gradation into words?

It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom
or is that Aquamarine?
I know it isn't Turquoise.

It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom
and moves up through Sapphire.
At least I think it's Sapphire.
What do you call that color?
Isn't it Sapphire?

It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom
and moves up through some kind of Sapphire.
Then it melds in to Princess, Columbia, and North Carolina,
Kitchen and Country and Robin's Egg too
(though I'm not sure which order),
and on to True Blue.

Oh WAIT
no, back up,
down below
because I just know
in my soul that
that's Sea Foam
that's seen
between the Cyan
and Aquamarine
I mean Sapphire
at least I THINK
that that's Sapphire.


It starts out sort of Cyan near the bottom
and moves up through Sea Foam
and on to Sapphire.
Then it melds in to Princess, Columbia, and North Carolina,
Kitchen and Country and Robin's Egg too
(though I'm not sure which order),
and on to True Blue.

Then deeper,
but a bit duller first
as planes leave the earth
into Dodger and Royals
and Gun Metal too
then Yankee and Navy and Police-uniform too
and finally deepest
at Midnight
up where the the celestial dome has it's apex

But all of this color
is somewhat transparent
like watercolor-
tempera or acrylic
never could do
a watercolor glaze
could let the under-painting
show through,
a vibrant
majestic
base coat of
Cobalt!

And on top
of these
on top
of these washes
and layers-
some opaque white clouds

No, no, no
they can't be so flat
a little variation will take care of that
Titanium White
and some Ivory and Bone
a little bit Platinum and a little bit Chrome
some Arctic and Cream
and the palest Pale Gray that you ever have seen.

Too beautiful for words,
ya know what I mean?

Thursday, July 08, 2010

Reflection: On readers responses to writing

Thursday, July 8, 2010
1:04 PM

Most of what follows was cannibalized/recycled from letters to friends, responses to blog comments, and previous blog posts from about 2 years ago.

I always believed in talking about "sex, politics, and religion- not necessarily in that order," and that it is important to speak the truth as you believe it. But this election (2008) has superheated. I never minded complaints about me or the occasional hate mail, but it got intense. People feel so passionately about their sides that they become angrier and uglier faster.

While other people may be hypersensitive and wrapped up in rancor, I'm probably culpable too. I'm very passionate about what I believe too, so no doubt my tone became more acidic and less light hearted. I had planned to go "cold turkey," and never post anything here if I couldn't write a weekly column too- but obviously I didn't have enough self control for that.

My dream was that being held to the discipline of writing a weekly column might someday lead to being able to write professionally full time. In my mind, blogging was extra, superfluous, a past time- column writing was the meat, blogging the side dish. If this is all I have, I'm just another prattling voice in the vast blogosphere, that hardly anyone ever bothers to read. In the PRESS, it was farm league, small time, but there were 4,000 readers- even if most of them disagreed with me and several of them thought I should be tried for treason.

I'm saddened whenever anyone tries to marginalize or impugn me because I share opinions which I have thought out carefully and hold because I care deeply about our country.

I didn't stop writing a column for the press because of a reader's tirade of a letter to the editor. I stopped because the whole climate and culture of the community where I live has been too polarized and too emotionally charged, and for the sake of my family and loved ones I felt that it would be better 1) not to contribute to that polarization and 2) not subject those close to me to the same resentment, indignation and ridicule which I became a target of because of my opinions.

Although, I will admit that I was getting a lot of hate email and negative blog comments from people and it all compounded on 8 rejection letters in a row from syndicates for either columns or cartoons- so I was both sick of putting up with people's crap feeling sorry for myself.

I wish I could stop writing the way that an alcoholic wishes they could stop drinking. I've tried to stop writing altogether and it's bigger than I am.

Writing about writing

A few weeks ago a friend from college commented on a piece I'd written that I had posted on the Web. It was about Pentecost and I had originally posted it on a blog about prayer and spirituality. What they said really threw me. 

They told me that my writing was "thoughtful, researched, and full of message. But the one thing I keep feeling that is missing is your heart. I know that you have a very large, loving, and giving heart. But I don't hear it much, I hear your head." They challenged me, this summer to give your head a vacation. "Move out of your head and move into your heart."

I'm pretty neurotic, so I immediately started obsessing about this. 

My mom told my wife, Bethany recently that she knew I wasn't very empathetic. I suspect she just perceives me that way because it's how I've learned to cope with her volatility and irrationality because of her personality disorder. Beth assures me that I'm very empathetic and compassionate. Still, your challenge, coming on the heels of my mom's characterization of me really made me do some reflecting this week.

Seems like when I've shown my heart, I piss people off and get attacked for it. At least that's what's happened when I write about politics and religion with any heart. When I write from my feelings about work, my principals talk to me about how it's potentially bad PR and ask me to retract it. I tend to avoid writing about family and friends if only to honor their privacy.

I confessed to my friend, a Quaker, that I wasn't entirely sure how to write about my heart for God. I've felt exhilaration and comfort and frustration, the whole gamut. I guess I don't always trust that those are from God and aren't just self-induced. Perhaps this is a result of my K-8 and then collegiate LCMS education. No doubt I fear the admonishment and/or skepticism/ridicule of other Lutherans.

Sometimes I'd like to learn how to write fiction so that I could change the names. But sometimes life is stranger than fiction. If you google my brother in law who committed suicide a year and a half ago you'll find him in the news of the weird as the guy who sued the ethanol plant for firing him because he got drunk off the fuel. You want to laugh but your hear breaks too.

I don't know. I think that I have a recognizable "voice." But I'm still not sure I've found that "heart" that you challenged me to find. Perhaps it's that I know how to provoke, but haven't mastered being able to invoke or evoke.

I'm not trying to meet this challenge to please my friend, but to try to grow. Ideally so that I can help students grow and so that I can be more useful to God. Like St. Francis' "Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace."

I told my friend what a tizzy their comment had put me in and begged for explanation. Was I cold, un-empathetic, was I not open enough? Not personal enough? Did my work lack emotion?

My friend explained to me that "I think what I hear is that your head is intellectualizing your emotions. You are using your head to make sense of what you feel."

Isn't that what writing is for? I thought. Shouldn't I work through my feelings with words. Don't we encourage our children to be reflective?

"What I was trying to say, was stay in your heart, with God," they told me, "and let God and your true self inform you what your emotions are about."

They explained that what they meant by "heart," wasn't how most people conventionally used the term. 

"To me," they continued, "my heart is where God resides inside of me. That is where I go to be with God and my true self, the self that God made. The false self resides in my head, this is the self that I created."

I'd like to think I've had some opportunities to do that this summer reading, walking, sitting quietly, driving, praying, and especially taking pictures. But I've got to admit that it's REALLY hard for me to let go and get out of my head. I'm constantly trying to intellectualize my emotions. Maybe I'm scared to lose that control.

It may be a while before more of that heart shows up in my writing. Writing is such an intellectual process for me.

Something else that's scary is the role that caffeine and ginkgo biloba may be playing in this. My mind races sometimes and I don't know that I could slow it down if I wanted to. I'd hate to think that these relatively benign substances could be preventing me from hearing the still small voice of the Divine.

It's difficult to get enough sleep in the summer. Several days last week our children were up till midnight watching fireworks. When I get home from class, the house is a stress-pool of 4-H preparation for fairs and preparations for Vacation Bible School. So if only to make the hour and a half drive to class I guzzle pop and coffee. 

I've toyed with picking up a book on yoga or ti chi, but to be honest, I'm afraid of looking ridiculous.

I'll just keep trying to be open and genuine in my writing, but I'm obviously going to have to seek the Spirits' help on finding the heart where He lives in me.

Learn to be Still, by the Eagles

It’s just another day in paradise
As you stumble to your bed
You’d give anything to silence
Those voices ringing in your head
You thought you could find happiness
Just over that green hill
You thought you would be satisfied
But you never will-
Learn to be still

We are like sheep without a shepherd
We don’t know how to be alone
So we wander ’round this desert
And wind up following the wrong gods home
But the flock cries out for another
And they keep answering that bell
And one more starry-eyed messiah
Meets a violent farewell-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still

Now the flowers in your garden
They don’t smell so sweet
Maybe you’ve forgotten
The heaven lying at your feet

There are so many contridictions
In all these messages we send
(we keep asking)
How do I get out of here
Where do I fit in? 
Though the world is torn and shaken
Even if your heart is breakin’
It’s waiting for you to awaken
And someday you will-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

My gas guzzler puts around on the info super HWY

Taking a class to renew my teacher's license this summer, I decided to become one of those people who sit and use their laptops in Starbucks. Little did I know that this would be like taking my "trusty-rusty"  small 2 wheel drive pickup out cruising on a Friday night- embarrassingly out of place.

I opened up my 2003 model Dell Latitude, with it's plug in D-Link card to take advantage of the Barnes&Noble free WiFi. I'd read a journal article and now needed to spend some time writing.

On the other side of a divider, at another table sat a couple of young turks playing with their smart phones and a brand new ipad.

I waited for my edition of Windows XP to load while they laughed and talked about celebrity gossip and the variety of new free apps they were exploring, all the while their conversation peppered with profanity.

Here I was a forty-something abandoning my family so that I could work on professional development, so I can keep my job to put a roof over their heads and clothes on my back- and these college-agers were planning a solo vacation to Washington DC, playing Eminem music as they did it. At least when people wore a Sony WalkMan or even an Apple ipod, their music was private.

I struggled to listen to the jazz that Starbucks plays, but felt like I was stuck at a stoplight next to teenagers in a "pimped-out" sports car blasting hip hop or heavy metal out to the whole neighborhood. Whereas I have to struggle just to hear the AM radio in my little truck over the knocking and pinging of the motor.

My truck has well over 200,000 miles on it. We bought it used at an auto auction.
My laptop doesn't have enough RAM to run Photoshop and a web browser at the same time. I got it for about $240 on eBay.

I take solace in the fact that my truck is utilitarian. It gets me to school and home. It can haul furniture, trash, lawn clippings, groceries and supplies for cheerleaders to the football field or the concessions stand at track meets. I can blog and compose tests and share pictures with my modest, hopelessly obsolete laptop. So who cares that I can't read ebooks on it or use it as a GPS device?

I remind myself that people are more important than things when I'm stuck next to teens and twenty-somethings in shiny new vehicles. I need to do the same with the adolescent techies and their expensive cyber-toys.

Okay, my Judeo-Christian ethos and Buddhist-ish political leanings can help me to maintain my non-materialistic values and not covet their toys. But my middle-aged, overweight, disaffected white guy personality REALLY finds their taste in music annoying.

Ah... finally they've left for the food court to fraternize with the all the female teen mall-maggots. Just me, my TAZO green tea and the Ella Fitzgerald muzak.

Aw shoot- a text from my wife asking me to call as soon as I get a break. Probably needs me to pick up something at the store or to hurry home so that our kids aren't left unsupervised so she can go to some meeting or something.

So much for the romanticized ideal or writing in the cafe like some kind of mid-twentieth century French Existentialist or a New York Beat poet.

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are" ~Teddy Roosevelt ( I might add- and do it in what little time you have to do it.)

Modest, practical and utilitarian. That's the Iowan way. I should know how to be happy this way, after all I'm Lutheran. Guess it's just the curse of being an Irishman living among the Germans.

Time to pack up my archaic computer and head back home in the family minivan. At least it has air conditioning, unlike my pickup- which I left parked at home. Because minivans are so cool and manly for driving around a college campus in summer.

Reflecting on the first chapter of journal articles

Our class wants to know more about...
1. how to prepare students for testing AND critical thinking
2. how to assign authentic writing pieces that are related to my curriculum
3. how to handle the paper load
4. writing for thinking/learning vs. writinng for communication/assessment
5. how to modify/differentiate instruction for diverse learners
6. how to encourage & make time for good revising
7. how to make peer-editing work
8. how to utilize technology for feedback/collaboration
9. the benefits of reading out loud
10. the role of grammar in writing

Pardon me if 
I wear my brain
on the
OUTSIDE
of my head

"Teachers should learn the way children should learn, in the mutual effort of writing with a purpose- the primary initial purpose being one's own joy and satisfaction with what is written- and in the delight of reading widely from a writer's perspective. The easiest way for teachers to learn these things in order to teach children in this way is to learn them with children, to share the writing activities with the children themselves." ~Frank Smith

Even as an undergrad, I began believing that process is more meaningful that product. Product may or may not affect an audience, but process always transforms the author.

I once had a collegue describe me as "transparent." They didn't mean invisible, they meant open. The poem, 'Pardon Me' which I wrote yeasterday is certainly about personal expression. Some cultures, and some individuals are more expressive than others and this poem addresses the issues that arise when one's personal expression encroaches either on other people's comfort zones or runs counter to their opinions.

But that poem also has to do with my teaching philosophy- the value of metacognition, that is thinking about thinking and thinking outloud.

"Thinking is a spectator sport" ~Rod Cameron

I've believed for years in teaching students to draw, not so that they can become famous artists, but because the act of drawing and the perceptual skills involved are useful for thinking and processing, for problem solving and as catalyst for shifting perspectives, broadening perspectives, creativity and even catharsis and therapy. Even just plain mental hygiene.

Why it hadn't occurred to me that writing is useful in precisely the same ways confounds me. I see it now.

It also occurs to me that it's easy to say that reading makes you a better writer, but it is just as likely that writing makes one a better reader.

What I've started reading of Karen Ernst's book 'A Teacher's Sketch Journal' (Heinemann, 1997) leads me to believe that writing and drawing can compliment each other as learning and though-processing tools. I'd like to work at utilizing them together both for myself and in my classes.

I imagine that trying to do this will end up effecting and involving issues like critical thinking skills, differentiation, and revision. Once student become comfortable with this it would only be natural to share sketches and writing pieces and then these words and pictures will also be useful for collaboration, peer-editing and feedback.

Thomas Jefferson and Lewis and Clark, Van Gogh, and Da Vinci are all historical examples of writers, explorers, scientists, inventors and engineers who used drawing and sketching to supplement their writing or artists, designers, and painters who used writing to supplement their work. In their times it was hard to say when something was a sketchbook and when it was a journal.

English speakers only know Michelangelo as a painter and sculptor, but to those who speak Romance languages, he is as important a poet as Shakespeare.

All through high school and college I identified myself as a cartoonist. I felt inadequate as either a draftsman/painter or as a writer. Perhaps that's okay. The marriage of words and pictures is as natural as words and music.

What separates us from other animals is not just our ability to create, it's the ways we process experiences and information and writing and drawing are two of the most sophisticated ways of processing.

We as teachers owe it to our children to operate more in the dirty, messy, spontaneous, improvisational model of community, family and democracy instead of the rigid, sterile, homogenized, anxious, cut-through model of finance and industry. We need to worry more about depth than breadth. More about quality than quantity. More about immeasurable values than the measurable data. More about process than product. More about how to ask questions than which answers to supply. More about how to think than how to perform.

This marriage of words and pictures is perfect for this blog in particular. It's not a journal or a photo log, it's both.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

POEM: Pardon Me

Pardon me
if I wear my brain
on the
OUTSIDE
of my head

It's just so sunny out,
but not too sunny,
not so sunny that it should get burnt,
just sunny enough to
take in some Vitamin D,
and to warm up
and not feel quite so clammy
or boxed-up

There's a little breeze,
but not too breezy,
not so much that it would
dry out
or fall out
and blow away,
down the street
like someone's hat,
or a kerchief of a boa,
snaking along the surface of the asphalt
like drifts of snow tend to do
in winter

I hope you don't mind

if I wear my brain
on the
outside
of my head

It makes some people feel
uncomfortable
I don't mean to use poor manners

Don't look at it
if it makes you queasy
sometimes it gets so needy
I just have to let it out so it can stretch
and breath
and unwind
a bit

Oh, no
I promise it won't unwind entirely
like an intestine
I like to keep it all together anyway

If it were to fall apart it would be
in gossamer synaptic strands
that will take to the sky like a tiny spider on a single strand of web
not all wormy or gummy or
sausage-casing-ish
like my entrails would
if I were to
spill my guts out

Would it be alright
if I wore my brain
on the
outside
for just a while?

Don't worry,
it doesn't bite
and it doesn't have any thing too catchy

If anything,
I'd appreciate
your being gentle
and careful
and kind
around me
if I don my mind
like a wig
or a fedora
outside
of my head-

You see,
it's quite fragile
and delicate

I know it may seem
offensive to you
but it's far more vulnerable to you
than I bet
you are
to it.

Pardon me
if I wear my brain
on the
outside
of my head

It will probably climb up
out there
whether I take it out or not
It's very needy, 
I guess

Without it sitting above
my hair
I sometimes don't feel
completely dressed

You don't think
I'll be arrested
if I wear my brain
on the
OUTSIDE
of my head?

Another Prompt; Memorable smells

It's interesting that Professor Knepper should suggest smells or olfactory memory as a writing prompt, because just this morning, this forty-some year old building full of college classrooms and offices is full of them. No doubt because it is about as old as some of the classrooms I was in at undergraduate school. The cinderblock walls, the now antequaited chalk boards, the industrial air conditioning and floor cleaners.

This past week I've been to so many places that have very powerful aromas that evoke memories, invoke attitudes, and provoke reactions.

This hanging smoke from fireworks on the Fourth of July brought back campfires and bonfires. The second-hand smoke of someone else who'd come to view the show returned me to childhood in the 70's when it seemed like every adult smoked. Especially in airports and restaraunts.

The walking trail at the Living History Farms in Des Moines reminded me of the marshy path behind my grandparent's farm in Michigan where we cousins used to ride Grandpa's motor bike.

My wife and I stopped by her school to pick up something from her classroom and of course it reeked of floor polish and, well, whatever 80 year old school buildings reek of. Brick, mildew, janitorial supplies?

I backed our van out of my father-in-law's garage, which we had loaned him for entertaining out of town guests last week and I was stopped in my tracks, because it smelled exactly like my grandfather's garage in Bellville Michigan, where he kept his restored Model A and Model T Fords. Maybe it was the time of year or the humidity, but I could smell that exact same combination of dust and axel grease or motor oil so clearly that I paused, waiting to be discovered by my Grandpa or my Dad- just an eight year old kid exploring the old barns as if they were midevil castles or ruinned cathedrals full of wonder and treasure, but one faced certain doom if discovered by the ancient sorcerer who's lair you were trespassing in.

As I decended into our basement for something from the freezer to make for supper, I could smell my grandmother's basement, or maybe it was her porch. Old wood, moldy, musky rafters. I looked around for her jars of pickles, beets, beans, or baloney.

Many's a time a girl walks by and whatever scent she's wearing wafts behind her and it brings to mind an old crush from high school, and old flame from college, or some date I'd had with my wife and I swoon. Not like an old lecher, leering with preditory aims after whichever young woman was wearing the perfume- but just cought up in the swirling jetty of memories. Dizzy from infatuations and flirtations from long ago.

Rapid Writing Exercises

This exercise reminded me of when I have drawing students do gesture sketching- very quick, with the clock running. These are based on prompts given us by Prof. Marty Knepper at Iowa Writing Project, day one:


Prompt- Interesting People

Artists and writers are interesting people.

In college, I had a roomate who had written everything that Steven King had eveer written. Me, I wasn't so into either the horror or suspense stories, but I loved to read the forwards and afterwards in which King talked about the writing process, where he drew his inspirations and shared memories from growing up.

Other Art teachers spend all their time teaching about the elements and principles of design or various techniques and styles. I find the biographies and interactions of artists most facinating. The rivalry between Matisse and Picasso, Picasso's bitterness toward his father and the suicide of his best friend after being turned down by a woman because she was in love with Picasso instead. Of course the tortured mental illness of Vincent VanGogh and his strained relationship with his father- and with fellow artist Paul Gauguin.


Prompt- Objects that mean something to you

As I've gotten older, objects have lost their hold on me. It is much easier to discard material things and realize how unnecissary they are- but when I was younger, I had many mojos- touchstones if you will. I comandeered my father's pipe in college, as I did his Marine fatigues when I was in high school. They somehow connected me to him and helped me identify with him more. I had a model car which my grandfather had built, which was a replica of the real 1930 Ford Coup which he had restored.


Prompt- Memorable events/times in your life

The summer before Senior year of HS when I attended the Journalism Workshop at Ball State University in Muncie Indiana.

Being woke up by the Northridge Earthquake at 4:31 AM, January 17, 1994. We lost our apartment and were homeless for several days. That morning seemed post-apocalyptic, sirens blared as emergency vehicles kept driving past- which meant that obviously there were more injuries and dammage everywhere else in the city, even though some of our building units had collapsed on their garages. We couls smell the natural gas from lines being sheared off- yet all kinds of people were smoking because they were so nervous, we were afraid that there would be explosions or fires in our complex as there were all over the surrounding hills.


Prompt- memorable movies/shows

My Brother and I went to see 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' every night for a week at Midnight movies one summer. It was a double feature with 'Time Bandits.' When 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Chrystal Skull' came out, he and I took my nephew to see it together.

Both of us History teachers (my wife & I), asked the chairman of our department if he'd seen 'Shindler's List,' he smirked "I go to the movies to be entertained!"

Somehow, she let me take her to see 'saving Private Ryan' as a date movie on our anniversary!

We could watch 'While You Were Sleeping' and 'You've Got Mail' almost every weekend and never get tired of them. Guess she got me to like some chick-flicks.

She cried at the opening sequence of 'Up.'
I cry every time I see 'Field of Dreams,' and 'It's a Wonderful Life.'