The Future of Education

This week I attended an event called "The Future of Education" at my son's school.

I have long been concerned about the emphasis on standardized testing in my kid's educational experiences. My son is in the 9th grade, and I fear that every decision he makes—what classes to take, what extra curriculars to pursue, what clubs to join—is driven by the looming college application process, which he witnessed his older brother go through.

The kids are getting a mixed message. Be diverse! Show you are multi-talented! Get straight A's! Be a leader! Give back to your community! Play an instrument! Letter in a sport! Do interesting and unique summer programs!

At the same time they are told to stand out by "following their passion." Find the one thing that is their personal genius and will make them flag the attention of the bleary eyed 20-something recently hired admission officer, who is working at 2 am in a mobile office that has been added to the campus in order to help process the 30,000 applications that they have received that year.

How can kids have the broadest resume possible AND be defined by a single unique passion. And more importantly, how can they learn the deep and reflective thinking that will truly teach them to think on a higher order if they are always cramming to perform well on the same multiple choice test that a million and a half other kids are taking simultaneously?

Colorful Fall Salad

This is a colorful and simple salad with a high "wow" factor.

Julienne dinosaur kale, red cabbage and carrots (I use a hand grater to quickly grate the carrots,) mix with a splash of olive oil and the juice of one lemon. Add kosher salt. Slice an avocado over the top, mash it in and mix it all together. For added punch throw in some toasted sunflower seeds.

The result is an incredibly tasty, highly colorful and very nutritious raw salad that will complement any meal. Or pair it with crusty, fresh baked bread for a light lunch.

For more recipes from our vegan household, please visit my vegan cooking blog.

On Writing

I have a life-long fascination with writing. 

It began in the 1st Grade when I was let loose in the library. The first thing I read through were all the Andrew Lang Colored Fairy Tale Books. I immediately started writing and illustrating my own fairy tales.

In middle school I was singled out in the 8th grade for a story I had written. I wish I could remember what it was!

In college I studied literature as a prelude to being a writer. Of course.

In my mid-30's I was home-bound with 2 babies and I wrote several short stories and 2 books for Scholastic. A sample of a story by me. Two more stories.

When I moved to Cleveland I joined the Cajun Sushi Hamsters from Hell, (known as the "Hamsters") and participated in a genre workshop with a number of really great writers, and wrote some 20 stories.

For the last five years I wrote paper after paper and finally a dissertation for my doctorate.

Tonight I got lost reading about creativity at brainpickings.com, (thanks to my sister Cynthia who passed this on to me) a website that curates a wealth of writing, drawing, Ted-talking (new verb!) whimsy, exploration and ideas on just about anything you can think of!  Its creator, Maria Popova, when asked about whether she will write a book in a New York Times interview, says, “That’s such an antiquated model of thinking. Why would I want to write something that’s going to have the shelf life of a banana?” NY Times Interview

I am not sure I agree with that! But I do enjoy her blog—it is an ADD/ADHD  cocktail party with the famous and lettered and creative.

Here is a list of books on writing that I have found inspiring:

On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy by Orson Scott Card

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, 2nd Edition by Natalie Goldberg

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew by Ursula K. Leguin

Creating Short Fiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction by Damon Knight

Blogging does indeed scratch the writer's itch. But I do wonder what will happen to this collective outpouring of thoughts, dreams, speculations and daily tabulations. Blogging allows anyone to become a writer with instant publication. Anyone who has started browsing blogs and been bounced around blogging circles understands that there is now an infinite # of blogs - even as you read more are created.

So that begs the question, what is the shelf life of a blog? I guess it is the same as the shelf-life of a virtual banana.

Concert Review: Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Severance Hall

Tonight we went to hear Preservation Hall Jazz Band at Severance Hall—a Sunday night concert at 7 pm, out by 9 pm, our favorite call time for any concert.

After a very stressful day of running around for child-related activities, it was a wonderful treat to be taken away, both to old memories, and in the present.

When Irad and I had been dating for three months we decided to get in a car and drive cross country. Irad was new to the USA then and wanted to see the land. Our second stop was New Orleans and of course I took him to Preservation Hall. It was a mind blowing experience for both of us—but especially for Irad, after a childhood devoted to the rigors of classical music training to be exposed to the free-wheeling and joyous improvisational style of New Orleans Jazz. It was a life changing experience for him and opened his mind to new forms of musical expression.

Tonight was equally wondrous for both of us. The cares of the day lifted as we were taken out of ourselves by the exuberance and joy of this group of musicians. The faces were mostly different but the spirit was the same. It made us feel like being a musician is one big party! Especially charming was Ronell Johnson, a big man who danced his way through the entire evening wrapped in a sousaphone, and Charlie Gabriel, still playing the clarinet at 81 years of age. Then there was the great trumpeter, the amazing trombonist, and wonderful drummer. And the brilliant pianist, who particularly shone in the encores. The ensemble was that perfect meld of people really making the same music together. The entire audience came to its feet many times.

It was also interesting to see how the band has made it into the mainstream in the past 28 years. Last time we heard them we sat on hard benches in a small quaint hall in the French Quarter and the sound was almost overwhelming. Tonight we sat in soft cushy chairs in a major concert hall... and the sound was almost overwhelming.

They have a recent release that is #1 on Billboard's Jazz list and was #2 nationally. Right behind Justin Bieber, as their director, Ben Jaffe, proudly shared.

Latest Hit CD

Opera Review: Met HD "The Nose" by Shostakovich

photo credit: Ken Howard, Metropolitan Opera

One of the greatest innovations to come to the opera world is the Met HD live broadcasts, especially for those of us outside of New York and/or living in cities without opera companies. It is almost opera porn—the viewer sees every pore on the face of the singers, every hair, every bead of sweat, every breath and every button. There is a funny scene in 30 Rock where the actors all walk in front of an HD camera and cartoon caricatures of them are revealed...

To further pander to the voyeuristic thrill of watching an HD broadcast, the camera takes us back behind the curtains, where breathless singers are interviewed in front of millions just seconds after delivering their climactic arias. We see sets rolled around and interviews with various personnel.

Yesterday's broadcast of "The Nose,"a short (two hour) opera is based on the absurdist short story by Nicolai Gogol written in 1836.  (Read story here).

It has been called a precursor to magic realism, and is a ridiculous satire of petty beauracracy and Russian self-importance, full of bawdy and burlesque characters. According to critic D. S. Mirsky, Gogol "displays his extraordinary magic power of making great comic art out of nothing." Somehow it has survived the test of time and many reimaginings in various mediums, including, I would propose, Woody Allen's "Sleeper."

Shostakovitch wrote the opera at age 21 in 1928 during the brief window of artistic freedom before Stalin shut the door on composers and dictated more conservative and melodic compositions. The score is simply wild. It jumps around in manic delight—there is scarcely a melody or musical line to be found—with singers often barking, laughing, hooting and shrieking in disjunctive phrases and at very high pitches. There is an amazing drum solo, quite jazz-like, which is purported to be the first drum solo ever. Anywhere. Jazz and rock musicians genuflect now. The music was so alarming that it was never actually performed after its initial introduction until 1974, when an old copy of the score was found in the Bolshoi theater. That performance that was attended by the composer in the the last year of his life, It didn't make it to American shores until 2004.

What saved this production from being an incomprehensible muddle of noise and narrative fragments was the artistic set design. And here is where the advantages of watching an HD production really come to the fore. The interview with William Kentridge, the producer, set the whole production in context before viewing it, and made the interesting collage of mediums vastly more understandable.

As Henry Stewart writes in the most fantastic and perfect review "William Kentridge, the South African visual artist with a retrospective currently at the MoMA, concocts new combinations here: music and theater, yes, but also animations, light shows, sculpture, collage. It's like watching animation performed live, seeing an art instillation brought to life." Read Entire Review Here.

This production is almost a new artform itself. As Steward points out, Opera is already a pastiche form, joining theater and music, but in this production is is taken to the nth degree: Dancers, puppets, film, animation. The set itself is the predominant character in the opera with a wonderful collage of soviet images and titles scrolling across as fantastical creatures and animations gallop around. It is as relentless and manic as the music itself. The musical interludes in particular give Kentridge license to unleash.

The HD version shows us a conversation in which Managing Director Peter Gelb interviews Kentridge about the process of construction this visual panoply. The two visited St. Petersburg together to see a production of The Nose in preparation for mounting this production. (Sounds fun, doesn't it?) Kentridge spent his days rummaging through antique and secondhand stores, picking up old Soviet kitsch and early encyclopedias. In the interview he speaks of wanting to also pay homage to the early soviet artistic creativity before it was shut down by the mandates of state ordered art, (by which I assume he means Socialist Realism). We certainly get to enjoy the bounty of his thrifting and his brilliant vision of a new hybrid opera art form.

The New York Times just did a fascinating profile of Peter Gelb, great nephew of Jascha Heifitz, two weeks ago, in which we learn that he usually works from 4 am to midnight. Peter Gelb article

And because pictures and music speak more than words, here is a link to an excerpt to give a taste of this pastiche perfromance art and the musical frenzy to which it is set: Excerpt

Travel: Rio de Janeiro, Day 2 and on

Sunday morning was a delicious repeat of the previous morning - swimming and breakfast buffet. Irad and I expanded the routine with a walk on the beach.

The group reconvened in the afternoon to travel to Sugarloaf mountain and take the cable car up to the top. I don't have much to say about that because I opted out—I am uncomfortable being suspended at extreme heights in a flimsy swaying car hanging from a wire. Call me crazy.

waiting on the beach with the group in the cable car en route to sugar loaf in upper left of photo

my beach to the right - mountains everywhere!

Instead I sat on a beach (there is always a beach in Rio) and did a little vacation reading. I hadn't brought my iPad with its preloaded books, so Yuval leant me his  Kindle Paperwhite, ideal for beach reading, and I picked Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut to read. (It was either that or one of 25 business books!) What a great book to rediscover!

 

Next stop was the Hippie Fair, an artist and crafts fair that convenes every Sunday in Ipamena. We didn't have a lot of time there, but Irad and I managed to buy a wonderful canvas by local artist Joao Cruz, a colorful and schematic large scale painting of the favela.

 example of Joao's work

 Note to fellow tourists: think about how you will get large rolled canvas through an airport and on to an airplane before buying.

One of the things I enjoy about traveling with Irad's company is the camaraderie of being in a group. And when we are with clients and customers there is always the opportunity to get to know new people. This trip was especially enhanced by the new people I met. It is a great model for travel—to be with others for the touring and the dinners, and also have private time earlier in the day.

That night concluded with a company event in a great Italian restaurant in Ipamena. The next night was also a company dinner, at Porcao, a churrascaria where you sit at large tables and waiters circulate with large hunks of meat on sticks, which they shave off with huge knives. Each diner has special forceps to guide the meat onto their plate. For us vegans and vegetarians there was a salad bar. And enough caiparinas to hide the slaughter in a mellow haze.

For the remainder of my time in Rio I enjoyed the company of one of the other spouses while our significant O's went to work. This meant lots of beach time, shopping in Ipamena for gifts for our kids, and a lovely final lunch in the hotel's gorgeous formal restaurant, Hotel Cipriani Restaurant.  We had time for the kind of leisurely and wide-ranging conversations that daily life doesn't often afford. This is what vacationing is about!

Note: when I got home and looked through that day's New York Times,  I found this  Review of Copacabana Palace

Brazil's national cocktail. Bottoms up!

Travel: Rio de Janeiro, Day 1

One of the thrills of traveling is waking up to different air and different light. The view that greeted us from our window was a clarion call to jump out of bed and get in the pool!

The breakfast buffet poolside was fairly extraordinary with about 20 different tropical fruits. I would list them by name but I don't even know all their names.

25 meter pool

After breakfast Yuval had arranged for us to rent bicycles and we set off on the boardwalk across the Copacabana Beach to the south end where Forte de Copacabana, a military base, sits on a headland. The base is open to the public and contains the Museu Histórico do Exército (Museum of the History of the Army) for military history buffs and a coastal defense fort that is the actual Fort Copacabana. There are little restaurants there to sit and enjoy the incredible views of stand-up paddle boarders and the ubiquitous mountains that one sees everywhere in Rio. 

 view from fort

  

 paddle boarders

 From there we rounded the corner and found ourself on the Ipanema Beach. A quick stop to cool off with coconut water was in order. This is not the cute juice box of coconut water...

We left the equally stunning Ipanema beach to cut back through town and by chance the first corner we stopped at was the cafe where the Girl from Ipanema was written.





                                  Ipamena Beach




In case one didn't know the historical significance of the site, there is a tip-off outside the building- it is painted with the manuscript of the song.

Girl from Ipamena Cafe with Sheet Music on wall above

the  song was playing in my head all day

Phase two of our day involved joining the rest of the group of travelers from my husband's company in a mini bus and beginning a more formal tour. First stop was Santa Teresa - a quaint bohemian area on the side of the mountain with windy narrow roads, cafes and bars. We climbed up the steps into a picturesque little cafe for drinks.

details from cafe, above and below

























Though most of the group order caipirina's, Brazil's national cocktail made from cachaça, (sugar cane hard liquor) limes and sugar, I went for a Brazilian beer - actually a German beer, but brewed in Brazil, which I give a high rating.

 Therezopolis Beer

Santa Teresa used to be served by Rio's only tram line until a fatal accident in 2011 lead the government to discontinue the tram until it could be overhauled.

From Santa Teresa we headed up and down a couple of mountains to our next destination. The streets were mostly walled in, and covered with murals. One was of a tram, of course, but there were all manner of fanciful subjects and tromp l'oiel. Where the road overlooked valleys, we could see the notorious and colorful favelas (shanty towns or slums) built up and down the sides of the mountains.

 

We caught the 5:00 pm train up Mount Corcovado and spent 20 minutes going straight up the mountain through the Tijuca forest. When we got off the train we climbed 212 steps to reach the top and see the giant Christ the Redeemer, or Cristo Redentor, statue. 98 feet tall atop a 26 foot pedestal, the Redeemer reaches his arms 92 feet wide in a gesture of peace that can be seen from all over Rio.

(image from wikipedia)

The art deco statue was made of soapstone and reinforced concrete, took nine years to construct (1922-1931) and our guide told us it was completely refinished last year. Apparently, the thing to do if you are Brazilian is to stand in front of the statue with your arms spread wide while your friend or family member lies on their back at your feet and points a camera at you, capturing both you and Cristo in the same position.
But best of all were the views:

We made it just in time for sunset, as per Yuval's plan.


We returned to Santa Teresa to have dinner at the Hotel Santa Teresa. We walked through beautiful gardens with stunning views to get to the restaurant, which is itself perched on the edge of the mountain with beautiful views of Rio twinkling at night. Many caipirinas later, and after much delicious food, we called it a night.

 

Travel: Arrival in Rio de Janeiro

Arrival:
Last Thursday I left the fine fall weather of Cleveland, Ohio, and after over nighting in Miami, then laying over in Manaus (in the Amazon), I finally arrived in Rio de Janeiro at 9:30 pm Friday. This is a long trip. Only one hour time difference but an entirely different hemisphere: from autumn to spring in one day.

I was unable to see much of the city in the dark on the drive in, but was delighted by my hotel - the magnificent Copacabana Palace, designed by French architect Joseph Girein in 1923.

(web image)

A long list of celebrities have stayed there, including Michael Jackson, Walt Disney, Rolling Stones, Elton John, Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth, Brigitte Bardot, Diana, and Luciano Pavarotti. Oh, and Steve Tyler was there at the same time - we saw the paparazzi to prove it. This is an old world hotel - beautifully appointed, decorated with beautiful botanical prints and fresh flowers throughout.

hanging garden outside our window

I hadn't had dinner so we ordered room service and of course the star was the beautiful fruit - something that would accompany us throughout our stay in Rio.

Though not much was visible, the air felt delicious - I could feel all the airplane shriveled cells of my body plump back up in the warm, tropical and not too humid air. Through our window was a view of the beautiful 25 meter pool and beyond, somewhere, the ocean...not yet visible.
 
All that remained was to sleep off the trip and get started the next morning. Note the botanicals above and next to the bed. Interestingly, door knobs are all placed a foot higher than in the US. Taller people? Shorter arms? To stay in proportion with the high ceilings?

I tried to find out about the artists who had done the hundreds of prints throughout the hotel and was only able to learn that the botanicals were painted by the Demonte women, who lived in Petropolis, the summer mountain retreat of the rich. Rosalia and Sylvia were sisters, and Lydmilla was Rosalia's daughter.  None of them were formally trained. I am sure there is an interesting story there somewhere.