RIP, Maya Angelou

On May 28, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I love this poem:

Let me state unequivocal fact

On February 24, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Geek, Teaching, Television11 Comments

harold-ramis-w-twinkie It is known; you are not allowed to argue the truth of this statement: Ghostbusters is the greatest film ever made. Period, point-blank, there is no discussion allowed on this point. Even if you can find somewhere where I championed some film other than Ghostbusters as the greatest film of all time, I was wrong and I can go straight to hell with my stupid stupidness. If Harold Ramis had done nothing else with his entire life other than either write or star in Ghostbusters, the world would be worse for his passing, and he did both. To say nothing of Animal House, which may be the only film from the seventies that is actually still funny. He will be missed.

(The second greatest film ever made is Jaws. This too is known, and not up for debate. After that we can ~~fight~~ have a reasonable discussion.)

While I’m here: If I ever again suggest that I might be part of a probation assistance team, you all have permission to kick my ass in the most merciless way you can manage until I come to my senses and find something, anything else to do with my time instead. My meeting today lasted from 12:30 until 4:30 and was nothing but pure pain for its entire duration. I’m a union representative; this does not mean that I do not believe that teachers should be able to be fired, it means that I believe there should be rules for dismissing people and that those rules should be clear and fair.

I am verging perilously close to the opinion that perhaps just this once we should forget the rules, because everything about the situation I’m involved in with this teacher is slipping between cracks for one reason or another. I know I’m vaguebooking, and I apologize, but I can’t be too specific for reasons that are probably obvious. I do not like anything about this and I would like it to be over now, thank you.

I have two TV shows to watch now, so g’bye.

So much for good news…

On January 9, 2014January 9, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Writing1 Comment

Goddammit.

In which I never knew you cared

On December 2, 2013December 2, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching5 Comments

I have spent all day Avoiding Spoilers for… well, something, and so I’ve been entirely cut off from the Internet. Hopefully nothing blew up or fell apart or became interesting in any particular way since yesterday afternoon or so, because as of right now I haven’t heard about it.

One thing I did hear about before the blackout started, and which you’ve probably heard about as well: Paul Walker died. This is, I’ll admit, entirely meaningless information to me; I couldn’t pick Paul Walker out of a lineup if you paid me to– in fact, I’m not even a hundred percent certain I’m getting his name right, but I’m not about to go Google it to find out. I’ll find stuff. I know I will.

(I will also be ignoring comments on this blog until after I’ve viewed The Program in Question, so if any of you are of a trollish bent, you can’t get me.)

Anyway. I bring up Paul Walker (God, I hope that’s actually his name) not to preen about my lack of exposure to popular movie culture but as an intro to this: no less than four different kids came up to me today to ask me if I’d heard he died. There were also secondhand reports of a couple of arguments starting in various places in the building related to various kids’ opinions on how he died.

One of the four was We’ve Never Done Single-Digit Addition in Class kid, which is kind of astonishing, because it confirms that he does actually notice things once in a while. He even followed it up with a question about the train derailment, which I had heard about but only insofar as I knew that a train somewhere had derailed; I wasn’t really able to answer his question.

Now, four doesn’t sound like much, but my kids are weird like this: if four of them directly asked me about it, I know it was likely on the minds of dozens of them today. Which takes me by surprise, but then the cultural cachet of the Fast and Furious movies has always eluded me a bit. It’s one of those “Christ, they made another of those?” type of series; surely somebody has to be seeing them, just not anyone I ever have a reason to discuss movies with.

I don’t know that there was much of a point to this story; just that they still take me by surprise sometimes. I’m sleepy as hell right now; it was a pretty good day, all told, but getting back in the swing of things always takes a day or two.

In which mmmmmm

On October 27, 2013October 27, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn CookingLeave a comment

Let it be noted: I am listening to “Heroin” right now. Easily my favorite Velvet Underground song. I can’t pretend I was/am a huge Lou Reed fan, but the man will be missed.

I spent all day cooking, in case it wasn’t perfectly clear from paying attention to my blog or my Facebook feed or my Instagram feed. I, uh, may have gone slightly overboard in making certain that the public was informed of my actions. That said, there’s something fun about deciding you’re going to feed a bunch of people– my excuse was that my aunt was in town and I’ve never had the opportunity to cook for her– and so we got everybody together at my brother’s house and I cooked for everybody. The menu:

Baked ziti (Foodspin)
Apple crisp (also Foodspin)
Oatmeal cookies (MLW cooked these; not sure where the recipe came from)
And white chocolate and Candy Corn cookies (from Averie Cooks; they looked exactly like that.)

The family contributed bread and salad, which was basically everything else we needed. Holy god did I eat good today. Everything Foodspin does is gold; I will buy the hell out of Albert Burneko’s cookbook as soon as someone gets the bright idea to shove money at him until he writes one, and the apple crisp (which he incorrectly calls an apple crumble, but I’ll forgive him) is a goddamn revelation with vanilla ice cream on it. Holy crap.

Also: Take Averie seriously when she says to try to keep candy corn from touching the baking sheet, if you decide to make those cookies (and you should; they’re awesome.) I may have finally kicked my baking bad luck; other than the occasional chewy patch on the cookies (which is what happens if the candy corn melts on you) everything I made today was awesome.

‘Twas a good day. Now if I could just get someone to write tomorrow’s lesson plans for me.

Requiescat

On October 5, 2013October 5, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Unless something goes terribly wrong, by the time this post pops I’ll be well along the way to my uncle’s funeral in Michigan, a state run by even worse people than the ones who run mine. While we’re just spending the day up there and will probably be back before or around dark, I don’t expect to much be in the mood for bloggery, and it seems unlikely that anything mutually entertaining will be happening while I’m there. If I do manage to find some material, expect it to be Arby’s related, believe it or not.

One way or another, I expect to be taking the day off. See you tomorrow.

In the beginning

On August 21, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn TeachingLeave a comment

imgres

I’ve had twelve first days of school as a teacher. That was… certainly one of them. My throat hurts from talking all day, I’m exhausted, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m actually teaching tomorrow, which could potentially be a problem. Hopefully tonight I will be able to brain enough to pull together a couple of days’ worth of useful lesson plans, and to be able to bluff my way through actually teaching them tomorrow. Let’s cross our fingers!

It worked out kinda funny, actually: my first group was way more obnoxious than I was expecting them to be. My second group was way less obnoxious than I was expecting them to be. My afternoon class was exactly what I was expecting them to be. My day is, therefore, timed beautifully; my kids start off a hot mess (at the time of day where I’m most likely to have my patience together) and get better behaved and more fun as the day drags on. And my prep period is last hour, which works with me for a variety of reasons. The buses were terribly late, but not as terribly late as they’ve frequently been on the first day of school. (Elementary students, who let out before we do, sometimes don’t get off at their stop like they’re supposed to, and then don’t know things like their phone numbers and addresses, which have to be tracked down. The first few days/couple of weeks are always disastrous until transportation gets the bus routes worked out.)

All told: not a bad first day. We’ll see how the next two days go once I’m actually being expected to teach them something and they’re being expected to learn something.

I’m going to mention this here just because I need to mention it yesterday: Elmore Leonard died this week; I would do terrible things to my friends and loved ones in exchange for a fraction of the man’s talent. The only person whose Rules for Writing are better than his are Mark Twain’s:

1. Never open a book with weather.

2. Avoid prologues.

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said.”

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

RIP, Mr. Leonard.

On the literal death of the blues

On June 26, 2013 By Luther M. SilerIn Cooking, MusicLeave a comment

bobby-blue-bland

Bobby “Blue” Bland died a couple of days ago. He was 83.

I’ve written this post before; a bunch of times, in fact. I wrote it when John Lee Hooker died in 2001. When Ray Charles died in 2004. Robert Lockwood in 2006. Koko Taylor in 2009. Etta James, last year. I’d have written it when Junior Wells died in 1998 if I’d had a blog at the time. I’ve loved blues music for a long time but it’s getting to the point where everyone who ever mattered in the genre is dead. BB King is still touring; he’s 87 goddamn years old and the last time I saw him will be the last time I ever see him. He’ll die on stage one day. Taj Mahal is 71. James Cotton (who, Wikipedia tells me, is Bland’s half-brother, and they only just found out about it) is 77. Buddy Guy is 76. Blues musicians live a long goddamn time, apparently, but surely most of them will be gone within ten years or so.

I was about to mention Billy Branch as one of the few greats who is still relatively young and then I looked him up. He’s 61. Sigh. Bonnie Raitt’s only 63. Comparatively they’re young’uns.

I don’t know that I have a lot to say about him, actually, other than I’m tired of RIP posts about blues musicians. I know that there are younger musicians out there who call themselves blues singers but it’s not the same at all. I haven’t discovered a “new” blues singer who was worth the title in probably fifteen years.

Do yourself a favor. Even if you’re not into the blues all that much, track down the two live concerts that Bobby and BB King did together in 1974 and 1976. The albums are still out there– hell, you can probably download them from Amazon (yep: here and here) and they’re two of the greatest live concerts I’ve ever heard. There’s a bit at the end of Together Again… Live where they literally pull a woman named Viola out of the crowd to sing The Thrill is Gone with them and she turns out to be a good enough singer to easily share the stage with the two of them; it’s brilliant. Together for the First Time has a fourteen-minute medley piece where the two of them are just strumming along and singing bits of different songs, ad-libbing. I’m listening to it right now. It’s wonderful. You should check it out.

I made this yesterday, from a recipe on Facebook. Looks crap, don’t it? It was actually pretty good: basically you just boil a couple/three chicken breasts (we used three) until they’re cooked through, open up a couple of cans of crescent rolls, and then shred the chicken and stuff a spoon’s worth or so into each of the crescent rolls. Put ’em into a glass pan and bake them at 350 for about five minutes (I gave it seven; my oven is perenially slower than what recipes call for), just long enough for the rolls to get a little crispy but not enough to have them completely cooked.

Now, since we did three chicken breasts, I had a fair amount of chicken left over. I put some curry powder on the rest of the chicken (a few shakes; I didn’t measure it) and mixed it in with the two cans of cream of chicken soup that the recipe actually called for. The whole mess goes on top of the crescent rolls and then back in the oven for another ten minutes or so. After that, a cup of shredded cheese on top and another ten minutes, then out of the oven and serve. There’s really no way to make it look like anything other than horror-glop that I’m aware of, but I was surprised at how everything came together– I would have thought that twenty minutes under the cream of chicken soup would reduce the crescent rolls to a soggy mess, but they retained their crispiness and buttery flavor perfectly.

The next time I do this, I think instead of the curry powder (which, btw, wasn’t in the original recipe) I’ll put some taco seasoning in with the chicken and then use a Mexican cheese mix instead of cheddar cheese. That ought to come out tasting something like crescent roll enchiladas, which sounds pretty damn good. I had the leftovers for breakfast this morning and threw some sour cream on top just to see what it was like; it worked out pretty nicely. I can imagine a world where some salsa works, too. It wouldn’t help with the gloppiness but at least it would add a color that isn’t beige and yellow.

It’s gonna storm all day today. Good day to listen to the blues.