Teaching four sections of a course in a week – and improvising a summary of the Bible

Whenever I teach three sections of a course per week, the third group generally gets the best class: my points are polished, and I can refer to the discussions with the first two groups. But in 2004-2005, when I taught four sections per week of an introductory course, I was just too worn out to teach well by the fourth time around. This week, I taught four sections of a course again, my two sections and two sections for my colleague on paternity leave. But now, the best was the fourth session, with my improvised two-minute summary of the entire Bible in a discussion of Charles Dickens's 1854 novel "Hard Times". (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 6 March 2025)

“Double consciousness” in Jordan Peele and Toni Morrison

In a class discussion this morning, we considered the concept of "the sunken place" in Jordan Peele's "Get Out" (2017), where, one student said, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) becomes "a spectator of his own life." After we had discussed that for a while, I mentioned a historical term for such self-spectatorship: the concept of "double consciousness" introduced by W. E. B. DuBois in his 1903 book "The Souls of Black Folk". This afternoon, in a discussion of Toni Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" (1970), we also turned to the concept of "double consciousness" in the description and story of Cholly Breedlove. Perhaps I will make the time soon to reread DuBois's book. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 5 March 2025)

United States President Donald Trump and “raw earth”, his eggcorn for “rare earth"

United States President Donald Trump keeps talking about Ukraine's "raw earth", which he would like to control. Usually, I appreciate the linguistic creativity involved in such "eggcorns" (as in calling an "acorn" an "eggcorn"), and I won't criticize an eggcorn user for being unfamiliar with an expression. But Trump is the President of the United States, and here, when he wants to make policy decisions about the Russian war on Ukraine, the eggcorn reveals he has no clue what "rare-earth minerals" are. When the President keeps making such a mistake even as an issue keeps getting discussed, it's one more sign that he is unqualified for the challenges of the job. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 4 March 2025)

On poet Adrienne Rich’s husband, father, sister, and brother-in-law

This evening, while preparing for a discussion tomorrow of the title poem of "Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law", by Adrienne Rich (1929-2012), I learned some new things about her family. I already knew that her husband Alfred H. Conrad (1924-1970) was the author of a groundbreaking 1958 study on the economics of slavery in the antebellum South. But these connections are new to me: her father, pathologist Arnold Rice Rich (1893-1968), has several diseases or conditions named after him. Cynthia Rich (b. 1933), like her sister, first married a scholar, physicist Roy J. Glauber (1925-2018), and later came out as a lesbian. And Glauber himself won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 3 March 2025) 

The Colin Vallon Trio with Patrice Moret and Julian Sartorius at the Tinguely Museum and the Bird’s Eye in Basel on 28 February and 1 March 2025

Pianist Colin Vallon's trio with bassist Patrice Moret and drummer Julian Sartorius played at the Tinguely Museum in Basel on Friday afternoon, 28 February, and then again at the Bird's Eye in Basel that evening and last night (Saturday, 1 March). On Friday afternoon, I dreamed to their music like the soundtrack of a road movie. On Friday evening, I focused on Sartorius's drumming, especially on the snare. And yesterday, I got a sense of the trio as a whole. Besides some solo introductions by Vallon, they play no solos. But they aren't all soloing all the time; rather, they're accompanying each other as the compositions and improvisations build toward their climaxes. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 2 March 2025)

Colin Vallon, Tinguely Museum, Basel, 28 February 2025

Patrice Moret, Tinguely Museum, Basel, 28 February 2025

Julian Sartorius, Tinguely Museum, Basel, 28 February 2025

Don Q shouts at clouds again, but it’s Sky Man

When Don Q looked at the window that Vanza kept having repainted on the wall, he shouted at the clouds, and they never shouted back. Often, tears would fill their eyes, and they would say, "Thank you, sir." But one day, when Don Q was shouting and putting his cards on the table, it wasn't the clouds; it was Sky Man. Tears did not fill his eyes, and he said, "I'm not playing cards." Vanza looked at the window and said, as he'd said before, "I really don't care." Later, Don Q laughed. "This is going to be great television." But Elephant, Macaroni, and Schmerz had already taken Sky Man's side. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 1 March 2025) 

Two duos playing the full range of jazz at the Bird’s Eye in Basel, 27 February 2025

Last night, the Bird’s Eye in Basel featured two quite distinct duos: Tim Garland (saxophone) and Jason Robello (piano), and then Izumi Kimura (piano) and Gerry Hemingway (drums, vibes, bowed cymbal, harmonica, vocals). Garland and Robello’s songs were all in standard jazz format with head, solos, and head, all originals except one standard, Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River” (1961). Kimura and Hemingway’s compositions were much less conventional, sometimes with rubato fragments of sound, sometimes with aggressive thunder, and with much in between. And when they turned to free improvisation, Hemingway introduced a superb piece of spontaneous composition on vibes and piano with the memorable phrase “something for right now.” (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 28 February 2025)