mistakes
Black and white image of baseball player, Richard Paul Kane / Shutterstock.com
When I was growing up, I had three older cousins who were my models for being awesome. They were funny, smart, athletic, and they loved baseball.
And so I wanted to be all of those things, but the one thing I could do without any effort was love baseball.
But I had one major problem. I’m missing the athletic gene of the Ericksen family. While I could share in the love my cousins had for baseball, I couldn’t share in their athletic ability. I lack coordination, which creates problems in every aspect of baseball. I once tripped while running to first base. Embarrassed, I ran back to the dugout and insisted to my teammates that I didn’t trip – I dove. But by the fourth grade, every baseball player knows that you never dive into first base. You run through it.
In sixth grade I played third base. I fielded a grounder that took a bad hop – right to my forehead. I laid on the dirt, crying, and thinking that I never wanted to play again. I finished that game, but never replay organized baseball again.
So, my baseball career was a failure, but I still love the game. The smell of the grass, the crack of the bat, a diving catch – my total lack of athletic ability allows me to appreciate those who have honed their athleticism.
I’VE RECENTLY spent time researching the vision of the U.S. through the lens of one film for every state, following the intuition that, as most movies are set in Southern California or New York (and there’s a lot more America where those didn’t come from), we need to examine Fight Club and On the Waterfront, Brokeback Mountain and Nashville no less than The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind to begin to capture the American dream life. It seems obvious, but it’s often dismissed: Contrasts between the states are mighty and rich. A Wyoming plain and a Sonoma vineyard, Hoboken and Harlem and Hot Springs, the Florida Keys and the Swannanoa Valley are all magnificent intersections of dreams and mistakes, which in honest art allows them to be places where the past can be faced.
And on that note, here’s my list of the 10 best U.S. films released in 2013:
The new Criterion Blu-ray John Cassavetes box set includes The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, the best entry to his work: A grimy thriller about one man trying to make art against the odds.
Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez show us something more of how to be human in Fearless (newly available on Blu-ray), about a man who needs to die before he can live (and love).
Ilustration by Ken Davis
THIS IS OUR first issue of the new year, and with the new year comes new challenges, new hopes, and new promises which, in order of appearance, you may not live up to, will probably fail to realize, and may never keep. Fortunately, this January issue comes out in early December, several weeks before most self-delusions begin to surface, so there’s still time to change them all, thus saving face. And here in Washington, D.C., saving face is very important. Living up to challenges, not so much. But saving face? We understand.
So let’s get started with turning your future failures into successes and your future frowns into smiles, which are just frowns turned upside down, depending on whether you’re standing on your head at the time.
The point is, you don’t have to make the same mistakes again this year, because we can stop your resolutions before you make them. We can nip failure in the bud, because failure is just eruliaf turned upside down. Or possibly backward. Regardless, following is a short list of things you may have pledged to do this year. Think again.
Lose weight. Right. Sure. Whatever. Not going to happen. So stand up straight and hold your stomach in until your friends walk by. Then breathe. And remember: You’re not too fat. You’re just too short.
(donskarpo / Shutterstock)
Sidebar to "Gandalf, Gollum, and the Death Penalty"
Photo: Young girl reading, AISPIX by Image Source / Shutterstock.com
During my first year as a second-grade teacher, I struggled with classroom management. I am a soft-spoken person by nature and habit. I didn't have the experience to help me set up great rules and procedures for my students. My classroom was noisy and chaotic. I think you could hear us all around the school.
A well-meaning colleague stopped me one day after school and offered, "Trevor, you need to find your teacher voice. Most of the children at our school won't listen to you unless you yell at them. You need to show them who's boss."
After five years of teaching, I agree that it is important to find your teacher voice. I disagree, however, that your teacher voice needs to be mean and bossy. I found my voice. It’s nurturing and supportive and one that students can internalize for positive growth and change.
I thought about this teacher voice when I met 7-year-old Maria. On her first day in reading intervention classroom, she made a mistake on a skill sheet. She asked for an eraser but I said, "Don't worry if you make a mistake. You don't have to erase it. Just cross it out and fix it. I'll never be angry with you if you make a mistake. I just want you to try to fix it."
I spent the weekend in New York at a conference I co-organized on Mormonism and American politics. We had two days of stimulating papers and presentations, an overview of which you can read here. One of my favorite talks was by veteran religion reporter Peggy Fletcher Stack, who has been covering Mormonism (and every other faith) for years for the Salt Lake Tribune and had some advice for journalists who suddenly find themselves trying to understand Mormonism this year during the Romney campaign.
Peggy’s basic thesis was that many reporters cover Mormonism using a basic paradigm taken from covering Protestantism, and fail to appreciate important differences. Find out what Peggy's the top six mistakes journalists make are inside the blog...