Josh Shaine

The next two weekends, the Voyagers Shakespeare Company presents the romantic comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter, by William Shakespeare - and a dozen or so other people, including me.

I'm directing a cast of 18 home-schooled students, ranging in age from 6 to 18 years old, as we tell a bit of the story from June, the month before Romeo met Juliet!

You should come see it, if you're in the area. (And if you are thinking that you would be in the area for Arisia, but therefore unable to come, know that there will be other folks coming to see the show from Arisia, and rides are likely available.)

Also... it's not (yet) too late if you wish to advertise in the program - drop me a note or reply here to let me know if you want details.

We'll also be making a DVD of the show.

We're performing at 530 Main Street, Acton, Massachusetts.

http://wiki.voyagersinc.org/wiki/bin/view/Public/TicketInfoF09

Please join us for 90 minutes of comedy, romance and surprising twists.

* Friday, January 8, 7:00pm
* Saturday, January 9, 7:00pm
* Sunday, January 10, 1:30pm
* Friday, January 15, 7:00pm
* Saturday, January 16, 7:00pm
* Sunday, January 17, 1:30pm

There are two tiers for ticket pricing:

* Front Row seating - $15.00
* Standard Seating - $12.00

Nuclear Family Maximum is limited to the first 4 most expensive tickets.
(For example - A nuclear family of 5 buys 2 Front Row tickets and 3 Standard tickets. They pay for 2 seats at $15.00 + 2 seats at $12.00 + 1 seat at $0.00 = $54.00)

American Colonial Christmas Music - Berkeley Chamber Singers

Hallelujah - Josiah Flagg
My soul doth magnify the lord - Old Indian Hymn (?!)
Christ the Lord, the Lord most glorious (with the Moravian Chorale) - John Antes
Song of the Angels - Winchester (tune)
Dedham - William Billings
An Anthem for Christmas (Hark! Hear you not a cheerful voice) - William Billings
A Virgin unspotted - William Billings
Boston and Shiloh (Methinks I see a Heavenly Host) - William Billings
When Jesus wept (canon) - William Billings
What wondrous love is this - William Billings
Coronation (All hail the power) - Oliver Holden
Christmas Hymns (While shepherds watched their flocks) - John Palma
An Hymn: On Christ's Nativity (Behold! The grace appears) - William Tans'ur
An Anthem out of the 2nd chap. of Luke (Behold I bring you glad tidings) - Joseph Stephenson
Anthem (Now for a tune of lofty prince) - Samuel Holyoke
Worcester (How beauteous are their feet - Abraham Wood
Magnificat (My soul doth magnify the lord) - Charles Theodore Pachelbel

Christmas Carols & Motets of Medieval Europe - The Deller Consort w/Musica Antiqua of Vienna

De Nativitate Domini - Anon.
Ave Maria Lauda - Giacomo Fogliano
Decet huius conctis horis - Jan of Jenštejn
In Nativitate Domini - Pedro de Escobar
O Regina, Lux Divina - Anon.
Hodie Christus natus est - Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina
Nescient Mater - Byttering
Et in terra pax (instrumental) - Johannes Ciconia
Crist and Sainte Marie - St. Godric
Sancta Maria - John Dunstable
O Maria virgo (instrumental) - Anon.
Gloria - Anon.
Puer natus - Henricus Isaac
Foeno iacere (instrumental) - Thomas Stoltzer
Maria Zart - Ludwig Senfl
Beata Progenies - Leonel Power
Alleluya Psalllat - Anon.

Sir Cristemas - The Elizabethan Singers

I saw three ships come sailing in - Trad. (arranged by Simon Preston)
The First Christmas - Fleming/Fricker
Deck the hall - Trad. (arranged by Hugo Cole)
Dormi Jesu - Trad. (music by Richard Rodney Bennett)
Here we come a-wassailing - Trad. (arranged by John Joubert)
Our Lady's Song - Aon. (Music by Nicholas Maw)
Unto us is born a son - Pieae Cantiones (trans. by G.R. Woodward, arranged by Eastwood)
There is no rose of such virtue - Music by Joubert, words medieval
We wish you a merry Christmas - Trad. (arranged by John Garfdner)
Silent Night - Rothery/Gruber (arranged by Alan Ridout)
The Boar's Head Carol - Trad. (arranged by Malcolm Williamson)
Balülalow - words by James, John, and Robert Wedderburn, music by Halsey
Out of your sleep arise - 14th century words, music by Anthony Milner
Ecce Puer - James Joyce/Bernard Naylor
What Cheer? - Richard Hill/William Walton
From Heaven winging - Trans. by Swinyard, arranged by Basil Ramsey
Welcome Yule! - Trad. (music by John Joubert)
Ave Maria - Hail, blessed flower - medieval words, music by Peter Maxwell Davies
The first nowell - Trad. (arranged by John Gardner)

Now Make We Merthe: Medieval Carols - The Purcell Consort of Voices w/the Boys of All Saints, Margaret Street

Lux hodie: Orientis partibus
Resonemus laudibus
Verbum caro: In hoc anni circulo
Fines amourettes
Verbum patris hodie
Lullay, lullow: I saw a sweete
Fulger hodie de Pespine
Now make we merthe: Now God Almighty
Noe, noe, noe, psallite
Nowell The: borys hede
Pray for us: In this valey
Verbum patris humanatur
Conditur fut le non-pareil
Nova. nova: Gabriell off hye degre
Nowell: Dieus vous garde - Richard Smert
Riu, riu, chiu: El lobo rabioso
Verbum caro: Dies est laetitiae
Joseph, lieber Joseph mein - Joseph Walther

so far...

"Goodnight!" I've said a dozen times.
And yet she lingers near.
"I wonder, Mother, will it rain?
Why can't I wear that blouse again?

And is it true,
For I've heard it said,
That each man finds his mate?

And can you tell me
How it is
That x must equal 8?

She's getting older, that I know.
She used to ask for water,
And one more kiss, and one hug more,
Til Sleep crept up and caught her.

Water... kisses... now are past.
Her mind's a broader sweep.
And yet it's only camouflage.
"Do I have to go to sleep?"

FDS

We're lovers still. His hand
Holds mine in warm, familiar clasp.
The rusting gate is slow to close.
I must repair the hasp.

We're sweethearts yet. His arm
Around my shoulders holds me near.
This room is chill. The months
Fall on to the bottom of the year.

We're grown so old. His eyes
Hold love as he turns round to me.
"Sit down, my dear, and rest awhile.
I'll brew a pot of tea."

- FDS

My friend Warren (whom some of you know) is looking for help for a course project on non-verbal communication - and has a shortish poll he'd like folks to take.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/27ZYZ67

I'm interested in the results, myself.

I was prompted recently to find and share a group of free audio links for science fiction and fantasy. While reviewing the links I shared, I tripped across an unfamiliar title and author:
Tourmalin's Time Cheques (1891) by Thomas Anstey Guthrie.

Simply put, our protagonist, Peter Tourmalin, is bored aboard a sailing vessel returning him to England from Australia and is given the chance to bank some of his spare time for later usage through 'time cheques.' Upon presenting a time cheque to any clock, he is taken back to some of the spare time he has stored.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit, with its twists and turns. One of the readers was far inferior to the others, but only reads for a short while - it was a bit jarring to have her voice, but survivable.
http://www.archive.org/details/tourmalins_time_cheques_0911_librivox

Should one not wish to listen to it, it is also available as a google book.
http://tinyurl.com/yfbaybh

(If you look at this when the tinyurl has expired,just do a search for the title at books.google.com and it will turn up.)

I was less than thrilled with the ending, but enjoyed the story overall quite a bit.

"I'm so tired."

If you are reading this, to name a mathematician, and then name one of the opposite gender, and leave it in the comment space for a small experiment a friend is doing. (If you already did this for Sachi/on Sheroes, skip it here, please.) And if you can't think of one or the other or either after some thought, just say that.

I am thankful to all my students, past and present, who have filled my life and helped to give me purpose. I am thankful that so many of you have become friends, as well, and that some have become colleagues.

I am thankful, as well, to my friends who have been far more family to me than I could have expected or even hoped for, and provided me with joy abounding.

I do not stop to express this every day, but neither do I stop feeling it just because this day is over. Scarcely does a day go by but that I am conscious of your presence in my life and grateful for it.

R.I.P., Kids College.

May your killers someday understand what they did.

As most of you know, my mother died a bit more than a year and a half ago. Since then, slowly (if not surely), I've been weeding her paperwork and out-of-date reference books (college guides and phone books).

As I unearthed her (downstairs) desk and the stacks of paper on the floor beneath it, I was struck how much I am my mother's child - and not always in the best ways.

The sheets of mostly used mailing labels, with one strip of unprinted labels left at the bottom...

The multiple copies of different stages of drafts of writing, stacked but not recycled...

The records of clients who she helped into college, and who have gone through and out again long since - and left over mailing lists never used, equally out of date...

Blank forms for potential college financial aid applicants - for 1999/2000, 2000/2001, 2001/2002...

Three staplers.

On the desk.

In the back of my mind, I hear her explaining why they are all there... it's perfectly rational - but wrong.
*****

I think I will print out a copy or two of this, just in case...

Yesterday, I turned 53 years old.

I was planning to spend it pretty much the same way I have spent most of my Thursdays this fall - rehearsal for the Voyagers Shakespeare Company's fall production, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter, followed by lunch and then tutoring, teaching, and hanging out at Voyagers for the rest of the day.

Oh well! So much for my planning.

When I arrived for rehearsal, the door was already open, and fans were blowing to dry off the carpet, as a result of a flood. We held the rehearsal, though sans any effort at blocking. But classes for the afternoon and evening were canceled.

But while I was there, much to my surprise, a birthday cake arrived - baked for my by Jenny, the older sister of one of the V'ger teens! It was quite yummy - and still is, though not much longer. (I was expecting a cake from Ethel, but she apparently ran out of time...)

And I got a new book for my birthday, Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (SF/F stories and poems from the African Diaspora, including Jesus Christ in Texas, by W.E.B. Du Bois, written roughly 100 years ago). And the promise of another present, but I gather it isn't out yet.

It was a good day, overall.

For those of you who've been following this journal, or my life, for a bunch of years, you've probably heard me kvetch about the postage stamp of a library we have in my town, and my short-sighted townspeople who have turned down substantial state grant money to help us build a new one, with such classic arguments as "but we could just use the money that we would have to put into a library to buy everybody in town a computer!"

A couple years ago, when I was serving on the latest feeble attempt at a library building committee (and I could tell you stories...), the owner of the largest business in town declared that he would donate the entire cost of a new library - and senior center and meeting hall.

Today (10/31/09) was the grand opening/dedication, and it is a stunning and spectacular facility.

80 years and two weeks ago saw the official opening and dedication of the Hart Free Library, the predecessor of the new building. The townspeople did not pay for that one, either - it, too, was donated.

Somebody congratulated me on the completion of this long-held goal, and I observed that while I was thrilled to see it, I really did not see myself has having had a hand in it - that congratulations to me were not called for beyond those due any member of a town that had gotten "something for nothing," so far as we could tell.

Still, and again, it is a truly wonderful building.

Now, if only the townspeople do a better job of maintaining this one than we did with the last.

https://esp.mit.edu/learn/Splash/index.html

What: A weekend in which you can take multiple classes on a huge variety of subjects.
When: The weekend before Thanksgiving.
Who: Students in grades 7-12
Cost: $30
Registration: Splash 2009 student registration will open Nov. 3rd at 8 pm.

One weekend in November, thousands of students of all types flood to MIT just for ESP’s Splash program to learn anything they want. From fractal fun to Hungarian history to aircraft analysis, Splash participants are introduced to a huge variety of topics by over 400 classes taught by teachers from the MIT community.

Up to 20 hours of classes taught by people who enjoy what they have to share to kids who want to learn it! Hard to beat that.

I was re-watching National Treasure 2, and noticed, in the credits that it was written by "The Wibberleys."

I know of an author whose last name was Wibberley, though I'd been pretty sure he had died more than a decade before this movie was made. Still, I went alooking.

Leon (Leonard) Wibberly was the author of one of my all time favorite books, The Mouse that Roared - also a wonderful movie.

Cormac Wibberly (the husband half of the team of screenplay writers) is his son, and did the two National Treasure movies along with several other works.

Color me amused.

Geocities was my first website, as it was so many people's. It provided a base for the beginnings of my Gifted Tutorial, still unfinished, but still developing. It hosted the information from my explorations into non-linear thinking styles. And it hosted my two works on underachievement, From the Inside Out and From Negative Behavior to Potential; along with the companion piece to From the Inside Our - Patterns for Charlie, by my mother - and one of Jim Delisle's pieces.

Tens of thousands of folks read those pieces on Geocities. They were seen there and republished in Australia and Canada, and translated into Flemish, Dutch, German, and Danish.

Thank you, Geocities, for existing and being easily used by a noob. Thank you, Yahoo, for letting it live as long as you did, and for giving us enough lead time to find new homes for our work - it was enough for me, certainly.

I know that many of your pages will live on in the Wayback Machine, but it is not the same. R.I.P. Geocities. You will be missed.

Playoff tickets, anybody?

Of course, the Red Sox don't know when they are playing, because the Yankees don't know who they are playing, because the Twins and Tigers are tied, but are not having their playoff game until tomorrow, because the Vikings are playing tonight in the Metrodome - the dome the Twins are leaving after this year.

But the idea of going to the playoffs is an attractive one, until I remember that the Sox have lost almost every playoff game I have ever gone to!

So, I will content myself with watching them at home.

Unless somebody really surprises me - then the Sox will just have to overcome the jinx of my being there in person!

A Poem, by Henry Gibson:

Jesus picked a flower one day,
My nephew Mel another -
well, not my nephew really:
more my uncle's niece's brother

Thank you.
*****

A poem for Henry Gibson:

I used to love your clever poems;
And wrote, myself, but was just a dabbler -
I really never understood
How you could write Hedda Gabbler.

Rest inpiece

"Try to remember the days of September"

Or at least the appointments and plans for the days of September!

This is a very busy month for me - so, clearly the thing to do is to go out of town for a night or two! This is what we are going to do. I'll be back late Sunday or perhaps sometime daytime Monday...

This also means limited internet access, I suspect.

Listening to him read his poetry.

Watching him stroll across the NMH campus in his blazer, scarf, and moccasins.

Seeing him mime and act.

Watching him direct Anouilh's Antigone for the MIT High School Studies Program.

Going to Balticon with him and Becca.

Attending his creation/direction of the authorized multi-media performance Wizard of Earthsea.

Chess, Diplomacy, and a dozen other games.

Sharing his mother.

The Comedy/Drama of the Life of Marck Morrison abruptly closed forever, last month.

He'd want me to smile. I can't quite manage it just yet.

We got "Whatever it takes!" pins on Tuesday, as symbols of our commitment to do "Whatever it takes!" to reduce the "dropout" rate.

Meanwhile, in the interest of fairness, I have to share that I now understand why I was so frustrated with the Summit.

Here, from the Summit website, are Maine’s Three Key Objectives for the Summit:

1. Highlight the numerous initiatives currently going on within the state using the 15 dropout prevention strategies (Clemson University) and the 5 promises (America’s Promise)

2. Have student groups develop a branding mechanism that all initiatives aimed at putting an end to the dropout epidemic can utilize

3. Raise a broader awareness of the dropout problem in Maine

Given those three objectives, I have to admit that Summit achieved its goals. Period.

Here are two things I would have expected to have as goals:
a. Learn what has and has not worked in current and prior programs.

b. Explore new ways to increase high school completion.

Silly me. Clearly, I had inappropriate expectations and should have read the advance material more thoroughly.