I remember the film as being very scary, and, at the end, very revelatory. While teaching a unit on Nazi Germany, Jones introduced a mantra–”Strength Through Unity,” a symbol (which Jones, a surfer, thought up on the fly), a salute, and a way of thinking to his high school history class. The accoutrements of the movement held eerie echoes of Hitler’s rise to power. While Jones had planned a one-day simulation, he realized the experiment had become much bigger than he planned when the kids quickly fell in line, the classroom swelled with new converts, and students who refused to join were reportedly harassed. Students were encouraged to inform on one another, and Jones threatened students who resisted with an F for the semester. Those who attempted to speak or write against The Wave were exiled from the classroom and isolated by other students.

The experiment ended days or weeks later (depending on whom you ask), at the infamous assembly, when several hundred students who had been promised a live telecast of The Wave’s leader were confronted, instead, with a screen full of static and Jones’s revelation that the whole thing had been a fake. Amid their confusion, he told them that THIS was how fascism happened–ordinary people who blindly went along with a movement, beholden to a leader, without considering the consequences.

While many people who were there claim that Jones’s version of events–on which the film is based–are way out of step with reality, for me as an 11-year-old kid in Alabama, there was definitely educational value in the film in that it showed in stark terms the dangers of indoctrination and groupthink.

A 2010 documentary, Lesson Plan (see excerpt and interview below), tells the story of the Third Wave from the students’ perspective. Lesson Plan, which received a slew of awards, was shown at the United Nations earlier this month and has been screened for school kids around the world.

As it turns out, unsurprisingly, many of the students in the original experiment felt used by Jones, and many felt the experiment–which Jones claimed was intended to show how ordinary citizens become swept up in fascist ideology–went too far. But there was also a sense that Jones had taught them something they would have otherwise have been unlikely to learn: how evil infiltrates decent communities, and how “good kids” can unwittingly sign on to a movement that they don’t understand. Fascism, the lesson goes, can happen anywhere if individuals fail to be vigilant.

Here’s an interview with the co-directors of Lesson Plan, as well as class members from the Cubberley High experiment and Ron Jones.

An interesting personal side note: When my son was very young, he and I used to take parent/child swimming lessons at the Janet Pomeroy Center in San Francisco. Our swim instructor was an older man named Ron. While researching The Wave last week, I discovered not only the Bay Area connection to the story, but also the fact that Ron Jones, having been fired from Cubberley High School and later from another high school, went on to teach for 30 years at the Janet Pomeroy Center. I have no idea if he was the person who taught our swim classes, but if he is, what a strange turn of events.

Read all about the movie, the novelization, and the original experiment here.

The book is shot through with meditations on water, solitude, Quogue, and kayaking, as well as surprising revelations (Rosenblatt interviewed several presidents; among them was Nixon, who remarked that Rosenblatt’s tape recorder was “better” than the old tape recorders).

My first thought upon reading this book was that it is the kind of book I would like to have written. But then I realized I was mistaken. Kayak Morning, like Making Toast before it, draws its weight and its beauty, its utterly crystallized emotions and startling sensitivity, from grief. I would like to have the talent to write this book, but I would not like to have the experience that made this book possible. The death of Rosenblatt’s daughter is on every page, it colors everything. His daughter died before him, his daughter whom he remembers with such specificity as his little girl, and he cannot get over it. What father could? What parent could? The book comes from a place no parent wants to go.

In this way it reminds me of Joan Didion’s Blue Nights. Blue Nights, which addresses, among other things, the unexpected death of Didion’s adult daughter, follows the narrative thread of The Year of Magical Thinking, a memoir about the year following the death of Didion’s husband. Both of these two Didion books are incredibly good, but The Year of Magical Thinking is, in my mind, the more masterful one. In Blue Nights, Didion is doing battle with time, with the stark realities of her own aging body and her aging mind; she worries, in fact, that she no longer possesses the powers of narrative that she once had. Beyond that, however, Blue Nights, beautiful as it is, is a book without hope. At the end of The Year of Magical Thinking, her daughter is still alive; at the beginning of Blue Nights, she is not.

Didion’s approach to the narrative of grief is perhaps the more obviously intellectual, Rosenblatt’s the more dreamy. Both are deeply felt, unforgettable. Didion writes Blue Nights, it seems, in the depths of grief and in the absence of hope, while Rosenblatt writes Kayak Morning in the depths of grief but the presence of hope; he has his wife, his two sons. More important, perhaps, is the fact that he still has his daughter’s children, his grandchildren, whom he cares for every day. During the school year he and his wife live in a single room of their son-in-law’s house. He writes in this room while the children are in school, and when they are not, they are always welcome to pile in and pile on. One does not get the sense that Rosenblatt will outlive his grief; and yet, his book’s two-word title includes the word Morning, a sharp contrast to Didion’s two-word title, which includes the word Night.

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, but I did have my one song: The Entertainer. I still remember the feel of the sheet music, and the kind elderly piano tuner who came every few months with the proverbial black glasses to make sure everything sounded the way it should, the smell of the piano’s interior when he lifted the lid and set to work. The piano moved with us from house to house for years, outliving pets, surviving all manner of abuse, and remaining with my mother long ofter the kids had all left home.

Just as important as the type of piano you’re purchasing is the dealer you choose. It’s important to find a trustworthy dealer, like Steinway and Sons, which has been crafting pianos in America since 1853. You’ll want to sit down in the showroom with a knowledgeable salesperson and try out different pianos until you find the one that’s right for your family. Play the piano yourself, or have the salesperson play it for you. If you can get your piano teacher to come along with you, even better. It you’re purcahsing the piano for your child, make sure he or she gets to spend some time in the showroom playing the piano before you bring it home. There are many technical elements to a piano–the soundboard, plate, keys, hammers, back, cabinet, treble and bass bridges, the “action,” and the pedals–but equally important is the way the piano feels to the player. You or your child is going to be spending a lot of time with the instrument; if it doesn’t feel right, keep looking until you find one that does.

Many dealers offer rental-purchase plans, which allow you to live with the piano for a while before making the commitment.

Consider how much space you have for a piano. Uprights require about five feet by two feet of floor space, while grand pianos take up more room. An upright piano is usually the piano of choice for beginners.

Before you buy, be sure to ask for reputable tuners in your area who can help keep your piano in top shape.

On the West Coast, Hollywood Pianos offers a large selection of pre-owned and rebuilt Steinway pianos. Check out their detailed and informative Buyers’ Guide for more great advice on purchasing your piano.

Whatever dealer you choose, don’t forget to ask in detail about the warranty. For the best protection, it should be manufacturer-backed.

For further reading:

The Piano Book, by Larry Fine, which contains “numerical ratings of virtually all models of pianos currently available, both foreign and domestic” (Library Journal)

A powerful post-apocalyptic novel by the author of more than a dozen books for children and adults. In the Dome live the Pures, persons who escaped the Detonations that destroyed most of Earth. Outside live the wretches, the ravaged survivors whose bodies fused with objects, animals, and each other during the blast. The wretches have been taught the the Dome watches over them benevolently, and that its residents will one day come to save them, while the Pures believe they survived because they are better, kinder, smarter human beings. Those on the outside, they are taught, did not deserve the protection of the Dome. When one doubting Pure meets up with two courageous outsiders, the truth of how the Detonations happened, and why, begins to come to light. This is strange, dark, riveting storytelling, a fantasy world shot through with the very real horrors of nuclear war; echoes of Hiroshima are eerily present in the devastated landscape and ravaged bodies of the survivors.

A longing for lost mothers is woven beautifully throughout the book; both inside and outside the Dome, children remember their mothers from the Before. In a wild take on suburbia, mothers from the Meltlands (so named because of the plastic play structures that survived the Detonations and now dot the landscape like colorful, out-of-place sculptures) have formed a fierce collective, hell-bent on saving their deformed children from further harm.

PURE is a wild, terrifying, and utterly satisfying ride, a much-needed feminist voice in the highly masculinized genre of post-apocalypse fiction.

Purchase PURE through Indiebound
Purchase PURE for Nook
Purchase PURE from Amazon

Visit Julianna Baggott’s website

Writing is all about associations. The magical ithoughts Mindmapping app helps you to gather your thoughts and see where they lead. A great tool for novelists or essayists who want to open up the creative process.

Don’t be scared away by the alien-looking dude holding the giant pen in this app’s icon. My Writing Spot is an inexpensive, simple tool for writing your magnum opus on your iPad. There are fancier apps out there, but this one offers good bang for the buck.

Are you writing a novel? Drafting a screenplay? Pricey but utterly worth it, Autereist, billed as “a writer’s companion,” allows you to create all sorts of juicy content–novels, screenplays, story collections, blog entries, journals, and more–in an organized, intuitive way. Include web pages, audio and visual content, and research materials by project. If, like me, you’re a Scrivener junkie, you’ll love the “export to Scrivener” feature. And if you’re whiling away your writing time on social networking, you’ll love the integration with Facebook, Twitter, etc. I just wish the spelling weren’t so tricky.

We all love the giant, weighty, nuanced American Heritage Dictionary, but you can’t really take it to the coffee shop. Unless you have this app. Never use the wrong word again.