Higher Education

So just what have I been learning from our weekly birth education classes?  Besides the important stuff, the things Elaine and I will need in about six weeks to get through labor and delivery, I've come to realize that despite my thirty-five-plus years on Earth I still have that immature teenager inside of me who can't help but laugh at certain words, cringe at the image evoked by others.  I've also learned that men are pretty much useless as far as keeping this planet populated is concerned.  That is, once we set the whole process in motion.  We definitely got the better end of the Adam and Eve curse, in my opinion.  Mad props to the moms out there.  Anyway, I'll have to be brief this morning. I have mental images that need some cleansing:

L. Stuart, the man responsible for publishing some of this country's most controversial books, including The Anarchist Cookbook, The Turner Diaries, and Naked Came the Stranger, died on Saturday at his home in New Jersey.  He was 83.

###

Douglas Coupland reminisces about his high school days for The Walrus Magazine:

I used to flatter myself that because I could ace tests, I could somehow ace life—that I could go wherever I wanted in life with the same cynical sense of immunity. But four months of sawing through chalkboards and painting desks pink and chewing out the innards of 16-mm film projectors made me realize that was a lie. The truth is that in the final two years of school, I came within a breath of quitting maybe four or five times. I was so bored I felt I'd been clubbed by the world's biggest dodge ball. I was desperate to jailbreak and hated every moment of grades eleven and twelve. Every moment.

###

So just what did the city of Atlanta get when it forked over $32 million for a large archive of Dr. Martin Luther King's personal papers?  Apparently that's the $32 million dollar question.

###

Speaking of personal papers, the Van Gogh Museum, which I highly recommend if you're in Amsterdam and can find your way through the haze, has purchased fifty-five letters written by the artist.

"We learn a lot about how he thinks about composition. We learn a lot about how he thinks about working with models — how important it is to grasp your subject from people," said Van Gogh Museum curator Hans Luijten.

In the letters, they debate social issues, literature, art and even art supplies. The letters also include sketches by van Gogh and express his desire "to make art about the common people and for the common people," Luijten said.

Comments

[Dan Wickett]

Ah Jeff, nothing better than classes during hte pregnancy. Beyond the childbirth classes, my wife and I took the child rearing classes offered by our hospital.

First question asked by an audience member to the nurse running it:

"How old does the baby have to be before I'm allowed to spank it?"

The look of shock on the face of the nurse (as well as most of the rest of us in the class) was amazing.

[tito]

I spank it and I don't even have a kid.

[Jeff]

That'll keep you from getting one if you do it enough, Tito. Or so I've heard.

[Hollie]

I feel so much happier now I unedsratnd all this. Thanks!