I rarely turn on my television, so visiting my dad is like learning a foreign language by the total immersion method. If a family arrived in the United States and wanted to learn English by watching television, the first phrase they would master would be, "ask your doctor about." Soon they would be able to recite "in the rare event of an erection lasting more than four hours, seek immediate medical attention to avoid long-term injury."
True, Dad's viewing tends toward ESPN, the Golf Channel, the Weather Channel, CNN Headline News,and MSNBC, with some local news broadcasts thrown in. The ads on those stations repeat ad nauseum. I'm somewhat embarrassed to report that the most effective ads for holding my attention (although not longer than four hours) are the Avodart museum miniature model ads.
When I grow up, I would love to work in a museum creating exhibits. Museums always feel like home to me. So even though the actor has to make frequent trips to the restroom, I think he's got a cool job.
My small sons loved the army miniatures at the 45th Infantry Museum, and the great model railroad layouts at the Omniplex in Oklahoma City and the Union Pacific museum in downtown Omaha. Their all-time greatest hit was the huge miniature model at the Alamo. When will the Avodart guy remember the Alamo??? Maybe the next ads will feature the prostrate actor creating a miniature Iraq for the Bush Library!
Just what is the tag line for the commercial? Our hypothetical language-learning family and I can never decide if the man has a going problem, a growing problem, or a groin problem. Learning English on t.v. is going to be grueling.
© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder
Showing posts with label Morrill Hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morrill Hall. Show all posts
3/25/08
4/18/07
Campus Walk
Since Tuesday evening I've been walking across my memory campus. Maybe you've had similar thoughts. As my heart goes out to the students, parents, faculty, and administrators at Virginia Tech, my brain tries to wrap itself around the horror. Underlying real life in the present, a continuous loop video is playing. It's the remembered walking and walking and biking around my university campus as if filmed through the shaky lens of my naive, inhibited, careless, opinionated, generous, self-centered, invincible, scared-sheep student 1974 self.
Names of the buildings scroll past in the supertitles. Learning my way from Harper-Schramm-Smith to the the third floor of Burnett, the huge lecture halls in Henzlik and Hamilton, or the odd 501 Building way over on Tenth Street for calculus. Riding my yellow bike in the snow between the power plant and Mabel Lee, around my dear Morrill Hall and Bessey to get a dime coffee in a paper cup from the machine in Oldfather. Late to Econ in CBA when sorority sisters can't quit Luke and Laura on General Hospital. Chaining my Schwinn to the rack outside Avery for the interdisciplinary Intro to Eastern European Studies with Jerry Petr. Cigarette smoke everywhere. Shortcuts through courtyards and quadrangles. Gravel parking lots. Grimy couches in the Union.
Honors freshman English with Miss Daniels and flickering fluorescent lights in the basement of Andrews. Savoring Tom Jones, Ibsen, and Lear. Rhetoric in a June mini-session with the amazing, rumpled Dudley Bailey, but without air-conditioning. Gene Hardy's childrens' literature class making Little Red Riding Hood all about-gasp-sexuality. Poetry-writing with Greg Kuzma.
That's the one that hits me. A dozen poetry students in a room no bigger than the offering envelope for Sunday School at First Plymouth. Pseudo-nonchalant lolling around the one table, always waiting to see if Kuzma would show up. So vulnerable, reading our little poems aloud out into the cosmos to be diced, minced, bludgeoned like baby seals. Not making eye-contact with the creepy guy in his camo. Yes. The older student back from Nam writing bloody raping poems and going off on long, violent monologues. Kuzma being hip to all that, so we felt like such high school babies.
Sitting outside Andrews on a stone bench that sunny, frozen afternoon all inspiration and deadline desperation, pouring out poems in blue fountain pen with cedar waxwings in the bushes. Tears.
© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder
Names of the buildings scroll past in the supertitles. Learning my way from Harper-Schramm-Smith to the the third floor of Burnett, the huge lecture halls in Henzlik and Hamilton, or the odd 501 Building way over on Tenth Street for calculus. Riding my yellow bike in the snow between the power plant and Mabel Lee, around my dear Morrill Hall and Bessey to get a dime coffee in a paper cup from the machine in Oldfather. Late to Econ in CBA when sorority sisters can't quit Luke and Laura on General Hospital. Chaining my Schwinn to the rack outside Avery for the interdisciplinary Intro to Eastern European Studies with Jerry Petr. Cigarette smoke everywhere. Shortcuts through courtyards and quadrangles. Gravel parking lots. Grimy couches in the Union.
Honors freshman English with Miss Daniels and flickering fluorescent lights in the basement of Andrews. Savoring Tom Jones, Ibsen, and Lear. Rhetoric in a June mini-session with the amazing, rumpled Dudley Bailey, but without air-conditioning. Gene Hardy's childrens' literature class making Little Red Riding Hood all about-gasp-sexuality. Poetry-writing with Greg Kuzma.
That's the one that hits me. A dozen poetry students in a room no bigger than the offering envelope for Sunday School at First Plymouth. Pseudo-nonchalant lolling around the one table, always waiting to see if Kuzma would show up. So vulnerable, reading our little poems aloud out into the cosmos to be diced, minced, bludgeoned like baby seals. Not making eye-contact with the creepy guy in his camo. Yes. The older student back from Nam writing bloody raping poems and going off on long, violent monologues. Kuzma being hip to all that, so we felt like such high school babies.
Sitting outside Andrews on a stone bench that sunny, frozen afternoon all inspiration and deadline desperation, pouring out poems in blue fountain pen with cedar waxwings in the bushes. Tears.
© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder
11/27/05
Cassiopeia: The Queen
Cassiopeia was the mother of Andromeda and the wife of Cepheus, the Ethiopian King of Joppa. The Romans believed this striking W-shaped constellation was Cassiopeia, chained to her throne as a punishment for her vain boastfulness. I'd like to chain W to his throne as punishment for his vain boastfulness and blind arrogance, but that's a different constellation.
Back in the Sixties, I visited the Mueller Planetarium Sky Show at the University of Nebraska State Museum. At the little gift counter (museum gift shops not having reached their full bloom in those days), I purchased two constellation postcards that looked quite Peter Max. I may still have them in a box somewhere. One constellation was Cassiopeia. I just liked saying "Cassiopeia". It's almost as good as LMNOPO:
Elemenopeo is a very cute book for teaching art, but it's not a constellation.
These are the very cool new constellation postage stamps. If I put them on envelopes addressed to nieces and nephews, maybe they will grow up intrigued about constellations or Cassiopeia. If nothing else, you can't do the crossword puzzles without Orion!
Thanks to my Blog Muse, I have mog blues--plenty of blue Christmas lights. Had the boys help untangle them while they were home. My youngest is a big fan of Old Blue Eyes. You may also want to croon Blue Moon while desnarling:
Blue Moon
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Blue Moon
You know just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for
8/4/05
The Sloth Movement
After the second day of Amazon camp, a kindergarten student insisted her mom take her to the library to get books about the rain forest. There are few things that cheer me as much as when a student gets hooked on the public library. The student in question was so excited about the illustration of a three-toed sloth she found, she could hardly wait until class to share it.
On the fourth day she came to class wearing a claw necklace. It probably came from Oriental Trading Co. as a plastic bear claw party favor, but we pronounced it a sloth claw, then started laughing. "Sloth claw, cole slaw!" I used to take a Tupperware container of sloth claw to my ex's family reunion picnics. Talk about your exotic animals!
Tree sloths are smaller than I imagined. My library book explains that they are only two feet in length full grown. I was thinking of the Ice Age giant ground sloth fossil at the University of Nebraska State Museum. Tree sloths style their hair with green algae, but they can't match their Ice Age relatives for strangeness.
About now you may be wondering about the Seven Deadly Sins, since you survived twelfth grade English and only have those terrifying flashbacks a couple times a month now. Afraid you will forget the seven, along with Snow White's dwarfs, but afraid you will never forget the torture of Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Dante's Inferno...you reach for the Tums.
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
On the fourth day she came to class wearing a claw necklace. It probably came from Oriental Trading Co. as a plastic bear claw party favor, but we pronounced it a sloth claw, then started laughing. "Sloth claw, cole slaw!" I used to take a Tupperware container of sloth claw to my ex's family reunion picnics. Talk about your exotic animals!
Tree sloths are smaller than I imagined. My library book explains that they are only two feet in length full grown. I was thinking of the Ice Age giant ground sloth fossil at the University of Nebraska State Museum. Tree sloths style their hair with green algae, but they can't match their Ice Age relatives for strangeness.
About now you may be wondering about the Seven Deadly Sins, since you survived twelfth grade English and only have those terrifying flashbacks a couple times a month now. Afraid you will forget the seven, along with Snow White's dwarfs, but afraid you will never forget the torture of Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Dante's Inferno...you reach for the Tums.
Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. Pride is also known as Vanity.
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Lust is an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body.
Anger is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. It is also known as Wrath.
Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
7/19/05
Come Fly With Me: Reserve Your Armchair Now
Sinatra and Smetana color my mental travel brochures. Captain Kangaroo used to run a video of river photos with Smetana's "The Moldau" that made me proud to be of Bohemian ancestry. Another video with Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" might have ignited my interest in the American Southwest.
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars
Where would I travel if money was no object? An interesting evening's pondering, and well within my entertainment budget!
Not having been much of anywhere, this is where I would go if money and time were irrelevant:
Ashfall State Park in Nebraska
The whooping crane migration along the Platte River in Nebraska
The cliff dwelling sites of the Four Corners region. Got hooked on the Anasazi reading National Geographic story about Weatherill Mesa in 1966.
On a riverboat cruise up the Mississippi
New York City to see the art, theatre, dance, and opera, and look for sites in Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books.
Crete and Santorini—I have wanted to visit the island ever since reading a juvenile nonfiction book from my local library in about 1966. Knossos, Minotaur, frescoes
Michoacan, Mexico to see where Monarch butterflies spend the winter.
Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Tut, Tut. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Alhschwede, was reading aloud to the class about Howard Carter when JFK was assassinated.
Botswana because of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books
A trip through the Ukraine, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe, especially Prague, Split, and Kiev
Krakatoa and Java because of The Twenty-One Balloons and one of the worst movies ever made
Australia, thanks to Bill Bryson
Boston because of Make Way For Ducklings
James Herriott’s England
Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars
Where would I travel if money was no object? An interesting evening's pondering, and well within my entertainment budget!
Not having been much of anywhere, this is where I would go if money and time were irrelevant:
Ashfall State Park in Nebraska
The whooping crane migration along the Platte River in Nebraska
The cliff dwelling sites of the Four Corners region. Got hooked on the Anasazi reading National Geographic story about Weatherill Mesa in 1966.
On a riverboat cruise up the Mississippi
New York City to see the art, theatre, dance, and opera, and look for sites in Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books.
Crete and Santorini—I have wanted to visit the island ever since reading a juvenile nonfiction book from my local library in about 1966. Knossos, Minotaur, frescoes
Michoacan, Mexico to see where Monarch butterflies spend the winter.
Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Tut, Tut. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Alhschwede, was reading aloud to the class about Howard Carter when JFK was assassinated.
Botswana because of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books
A trip through the Ukraine, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe, especially Prague, Split, and Kiev
Krakatoa and Java because of The Twenty-One Balloons and one of the worst movies ever made
Australia, thanks to Bill Bryson
Boston because of Make Way For Ducklings
James Herriott’s England
8/21/04
Morrill Hall
http://www.ianvancoller.com/
Go in this link to "Galleries", and then to the "Natural History Series 2003-04". Ian Van Coller is a photographer who finished his MFA at UNM in 2003. This series was on display at the university art museum along with a display of Taos modernists. I loved his artist's statement comparing museum dioramas (using stuffed specimens, natural materials, and impressionistic background paintings}, to his process using photographs and printmaking. He is originally from South Africa.
The skunk diorama in the basement of UNL's Morrill Hall is one of my earliest vivid memories. The baby skunks and the stump and the painted rosy pink sunrise background linked with Hershey's kisses wrapped in crinkly foil with that little flag is such a multi-sensory memory that it will probably be the last view I have before I visit the big natural history museum in the sky.
Go in this link to "Galleries", and then to the "Natural History Series 2003-04". Ian Van Coller is a photographer who finished his MFA at UNM in 2003. This series was on display at the university art museum along with a display of Taos modernists. I loved his artist's statement comparing museum dioramas (using stuffed specimens, natural materials, and impressionistic background paintings}, to his process using photographs and printmaking. He is originally from South Africa.
The skunk diorama in the basement of UNL's Morrill Hall is one of my earliest vivid memories. The baby skunks and the stump and the painted rosy pink sunrise background linked with Hershey's kisses wrapped in crinkly foil with that little flag is such a multi-sensory memory that it will probably be the last view I have before I visit the big natural history museum in the sky.
3/1/04
Lightbulbs
I am not the only one at home who's burned out and needs a spring break. Our lightbulbs are burning out at a rate of one a day. I guess it could be worse. I could live in the Nebraska State Capitol building. I never did particularly want to live there, but I did imagine running away to live in the state natural history museum sometimes.
1/31/04
Capitol chandelier has glow on
BY SCOTT BAUER / The Associated Press
So, how many state workers does it take to change a light bulb?
Well, five or six if the bulbs are in the 3,500-pound chandelier hanging in the Capitol Rotunda. The delicate process of lowering the bronze chandelier to change its 136 bulbs, an annual event, took place Friday. "It's real critical when you come to land it," said Tom Kaspar, an architect with the state building division. "It's like the lunar lander coming down." The chandelier hangs on a steel chain 80 feet from the top of the Rotunda's dome and 30 feet above the floor. "This is way too high to use a lift or scaffold on," Kaspar said. A winch housed in a closet on the seventh floor --off-limits to the general public and just above the dome --raises and lowers the chandelier. It takes two people about 30 minutes to bring it all the way up or down. "I throw 100 cranks in myself," Kaspar said. The workers in the winch room communicate via walkie-talkie with another three or four people below who navigate the chandelier onto wooden supports. Once on the supports, the work begins to unscrew and replace all the 40-watt bulbs. Even though not all of them are out, all 136 are replaced each time the chandelier is lowered. The 12-sided, cast-bronze chandelier, with black enamel and gold plating, was installed around 1928, Kaspar said. Work on the building was completed in 1932. On each of the chandelier's 12 sides is one of the signs of the Zodiac. Corn cobs and stalks of wheat, a consistent theme of the building, also are prevalent. About three hours after the first crank of the winch early Friday morning, the chandelier was back in place and shining bright again.
Thank heavens we don't need a winch around here! I have replaced the refrigerator lightbulb, desk lamp bulbs, hanging lamp bulbs, aquarium lightbulbs, front porch lightbulbs, and itty bitty dining area "shandy leer" light fixture bulbs, all without a so much as a ladder. I am not on a schedule, like the capitol engineers. These lightbulbs aren't replaced all at once. They aren't the same type or wattage. There's just some disturbance in the force, Captain Kirk, and they are all burning out. Scottie can't give them any more power! It is the Tribbles fault, of course. They are beaming down, disguised as common domestic Dust Bunnies, to knock out the Power Grid!
On a happier note, my preschoolers have turned on a lightbulb for me. You know that saying, "Less is more"? For the last week they've been providing a visual demonstration. The art department received a brand new classroom jumbo package of Crayola markers all divided by color into cute little sections in the box. I'm sooooo into sorting and cute dividers and new markers that this box gave me visions of sugar plums and magic fairy dust, but I digress.
Since we've been learning about sunflowers and Mr. Van Gogh, I set up a vase of fake sunflowers. I gave each child a margarine cup of brand new markers corresponding to the Van Gogh sunflowers--yellow, black, brown, two greens, two oranges, red, peach. Once I explained why they didn't get any blue, they were quite happy to draw big, bold sunflowers taller than people, and with deep, branching roots, glorious bumblebees, and centers full of seeds for the birds using this limited palette. Then came the lightbulb moment! They were also more careful with the markers, conscientious about matching lids to markers and putting the lids on tight than they have ever been before. They even double-checked that they had taken good care of their markers before going to free playtime.
When preschoolers have a big tub of assorted markers plunked down to share they don't put lids on, or if they do the colors don't match. They tend to spend lots more time "building" with the markers than drawing. Their drawings tend toward cliche rainbows and hearts, or volcanic scribble eruptions.
There are many things to ponder here about how we raise our children, and how they raise us. Is it better to be the conscientious guardian of a few toys, or plow through heaps of media/marketing tie-ins?
And now, if you would just help me push my soapbox over there, I might be able to reach the ceiling fan light!
This is Tom Bodell for Motel Six. We'll leave the light on for you.
1/31/04
Capitol chandelier has glow on
BY SCOTT BAUER / The Associated Press
So, how many state workers does it take to change a light bulb?
Well, five or six if the bulbs are in the 3,500-pound chandelier hanging in the Capitol Rotunda. The delicate process of lowering the bronze chandelier to change its 136 bulbs, an annual event, took place Friday. "It's real critical when you come to land it," said Tom Kaspar, an architect with the state building division. "It's like the lunar lander coming down." The chandelier hangs on a steel chain 80 feet from the top of the Rotunda's dome and 30 feet above the floor. "This is way too high to use a lift or scaffold on," Kaspar said. A winch housed in a closet on the seventh floor --off-limits to the general public and just above the dome --raises and lowers the chandelier. It takes two people about 30 minutes to bring it all the way up or down. "I throw 100 cranks in myself," Kaspar said. The workers in the winch room communicate via walkie-talkie with another three or four people below who navigate the chandelier onto wooden supports. Once on the supports, the work begins to unscrew and replace all the 40-watt bulbs. Even though not all of them are out, all 136 are replaced each time the chandelier is lowered. The 12-sided, cast-bronze chandelier, with black enamel and gold plating, was installed around 1928, Kaspar said. Work on the building was completed in 1932. On each of the chandelier's 12 sides is one of the signs of the Zodiac. Corn cobs and stalks of wheat, a consistent theme of the building, also are prevalent. About three hours after the first crank of the winch early Friday morning, the chandelier was back in place and shining bright again.
Thank heavens we don't need a winch around here! I have replaced the refrigerator lightbulb, desk lamp bulbs, hanging lamp bulbs, aquarium lightbulbs, front porch lightbulbs, and itty bitty dining area "shandy leer" light fixture bulbs, all without a so much as a ladder. I am not on a schedule, like the capitol engineers. These lightbulbs aren't replaced all at once. They aren't the same type or wattage. There's just some disturbance in the force, Captain Kirk, and they are all burning out. Scottie can't give them any more power! It is the Tribbles fault, of course. They are beaming down, disguised as common domestic Dust Bunnies, to knock out the Power Grid!
On a happier note, my preschoolers have turned on a lightbulb for me. You know that saying, "Less is more"? For the last week they've been providing a visual demonstration. The art department received a brand new classroom jumbo package of Crayola markers all divided by color into cute little sections in the box. I'm sooooo into sorting and cute dividers and new markers that this box gave me visions of sugar plums and magic fairy dust, but I digress.
Since we've been learning about sunflowers and Mr. Van Gogh, I set up a vase of fake sunflowers. I gave each child a margarine cup of brand new markers corresponding to the Van Gogh sunflowers--yellow, black, brown, two greens, two oranges, red, peach. Once I explained why they didn't get any blue, they were quite happy to draw big, bold sunflowers taller than people, and with deep, branching roots, glorious bumblebees, and centers full of seeds for the birds using this limited palette. Then came the lightbulb moment! They were also more careful with the markers, conscientious about matching lids to markers and putting the lids on tight than they have ever been before. They even double-checked that they had taken good care of their markers before going to free playtime.
When preschoolers have a big tub of assorted markers plunked down to share they don't put lids on, or if they do the colors don't match. They tend to spend lots more time "building" with the markers than drawing. Their drawings tend toward cliche rainbows and hearts, or volcanic scribble eruptions.
There are many things to ponder here about how we raise our children, and how they raise us. Is it better to be the conscientious guardian of a few toys, or plow through heaps of media/marketing tie-ins?
And now, if you would just help me push my soapbox over there, I might be able to reach the ceiling fan light!
This is Tom Bodell for Motel Six. We'll leave the light on for you.
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