I was eleven years old when I watched THE WAVE on ABC’s Afterschool Special. You may remember the short movie, which was based on The Third Wave experiment conducted by teacher Ron Jones at a Palo Alto’s Cubberley high school in 1967. The film left a strong impression on me, and I’ve thought about it many times over the years. I recently found it on YouTube (see below). While the video quality is poor, for anyone who remembers seeing it as a kid, it’s worth watching a few minutes for a trip down memory lane. I remember the film...
Ephemera
Kayak Morning by Roger Rosenblatt, and other books on grief
I first came across the work of Roger Rosenblatt at a local bookstore, where the paperback of his memoir, Making Toast, was on display on the front table. When Rosenblatt’s 38-year-old daughter died suddenly of a heart defect no one knew she had, he and his wife Ginny moved in with their widowed son-in-law to care for their three small grandchildren. Making Toast is a beautiful and deeply painful book, shot through with the author’s raw grief. Kayak Morning: Reflections on Love, Grief, and Small Boats, takes up where Making Toast left off. At the time of its writing,...
How to Purchase a Piano
We’ve decided it’s time to start our son in piano lessons. Of course, lessons mean practice–every day–which means we’ll be needing a piano. A piano becomes an integral part of the home, just like a beloved sofa or reading chair, so before you buy one, be sure to do your research. When I was growing up, we always had a piano in the living room. My mother would sit down and play almost every day, and my older sister, who, unlike me, had a knack for playing, spent countless hours practicing there. I was never very good at piano,...
Golden Gate Park & Lands End
On Saturday, we spent the day exploring Lands End and Golden Gate Park, two local treasures of the National Park Service. First up, the windmill at Queen Wilhemina’s Garden. Both windmills have recently been restored. The one behind the Beach Chalet, with its ever-changing garden, is perfect for picnics. Next, we headed over to Spreckels Lake to watch the Model Yacht Club guys steer their boats around the lake. Eavesdropping is good here, as the men get pretty competitive about their motors. We even got to see a model hydroplane take off. From there, we walked past Marx Meadow...
It Gets Better Video from BYU
What is often lost in the political and religious rhetoric about gay rights and the very nature of homosexuality is the fact that so many kids struggle with finding a place in their community. This moving “It Gets Better” video by gay and lesbian students at Brigham Young University–a school that, like so many religious institutions of learning, is notoriously intolerant–delves into what it means to be a gay child growing up in a community that despises you for who you are. The students talk about suicide, fear of coming out to their families and their church, and, ultimately...
The international bestseller about one woman’s search for a missing child…
"Mesmerizing." ~Library Journal, starred review.
Stop dreaming, start writing!
