Making a Spectacle

My eyeglasses have been a topic of conversation more than once among the elementary school children I teach, whether it is the dark shades (which the younger children deem “cool”) or the bifocals with the defined lower lines (which they sympathetically think are cracked lenses). Yesterday, it was something else.

“What do you look like without glasses?” asked the second graders.

I pushed the frames up to the top of my head. What do you think?

“You look different.”

Everyone tells me that, I told them. Do I look more intelligent or less with them?

“Let’s see it again,” they said. “Put the glasses back on.”

I did as I was told.

“More intelligent—and older,” they concluded.

You see my dilemma, I said. Do I want to look smarter but older, or younger and less intelligent?

“Wear the glasses,” they said.

Stupor Bowl

Thoughts while watching the Super Bowl:

Did I just dream that prior to the game Roger Goodell and Odin held a joint press conference to announce that the waiting period for admittance to the Hall of Fame and Valhalla has been waived for Ray Lewis?

Is the pre-game show over yet?

The hole in the ozone now alarmingly larger after all the hot air expended during Super Bowl week.

What a charming ballad, I thought as I listened to Alicia Keys. For a moment it reminded me of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I think it was the easy-listening version Francis Scott Key composed while chillaxin’ at Fort McHenry.

Now I can’t wait for half-time to hear Beyonce’s hip-hop rendition of Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus.”

For a funnier take on the NFL and Beyonce, read “Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk.”

There should be commercials after every play. Don’t laugh. We’re almost there.

The tedium is the message when it comes to Super Bowl commercials. Never has so much money and rapt attention been spent on such witless drivel.

Is this the final chapter in the Ray Lewis hagiography?

Those promos are designed to show the network sitcoms in their cleverest light, right? Why would anyone watch one minute of these shows after seeing the previews?

“No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence [or taste] of the American public,” wrote H. L. Mencken. And he never sat through a televised Super Bowl.

Can any reporter who gushes over Super Bowl production, commercials, and so-called entertainment be considered a serious journalist?

There should be trash talking and taunting after every play. Wait, never mind.

My DVR’s out of sync: Carson just flagged Ray Lewis for unsportsmanlike conduct toward the dowager countess.

Power outage: A plot to sell more insipid beer and programming?

James Brown and his CBS co-hosts bantering to kill time during the blackout, and it’s not pretty.

Good thing FEMA wasn't in charge of restoring the power.

Hoping for a Don Giovanni-like finale, with the ground opening up at midfield and the game’s commendatore being dragged kicking and screaming to hell.

Clearly the Ravens outprayed the 49ers and God awarded them the victory.

And now the inevitable log-rolling: media coverage of the media coverage, or the bland leading the bland.

God's Will

God told St. Peter to clear his calendar of appointments for this Sunday, his traditional day of rest, so that he can kick back in his private skybox and root for the team that outprays the other in this showdown of (if the hyperactive media is to be believed) biblical proportion. Fittingly, the game pits brother vs. brother, although it's unclear which Harbaugh is Cain and which is Abel. It also remains to be seen how the hagiography of Ray Lewis plays out in the final chapter of his own Old Testament-like career.

Martin Luther King Day With the First Grade

I was reunited with the first-grade class yesterday for an abbreviated schedule, which included a read-aloud illustrated biography chosen specifically for the day. I began: “Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Montgomery, Alabama...”

Amanda raised her hand before I could complete the first sentence. “My cousin’s birthday is in January,” she told us.

I nodded and then continued with the highlights, arriving at a moment in 1955: “Dr. King was arrested during the Montgomery bus boycott and his house bombed. Years later he led a civil rights march and rally in Washington, D.C...

“Wait,” said John, interrupting me, “How did Martin Luther King escape from prison?”

Well, no, it wasn’t like that, I explained. He was freed. There was no jail break. As a result of the boycott, a court ruling ended racial segregation on all public buses in Montgomery.  

Back to the story: “Over 250,000 people attended the rally during the summer of 1963 in the capital and listened to King’s famous ‘I have a dream’ speech.”

James, paying close attention to the illustrations, noticed the artist’s method of representing the thousands of people spread out across the National Mall for the event: “He really had to paint a lot of dots in this picture!”

It’s an effective way of showing such an enormous crowd from Martin Luther King’s perspective, I agreed. Now, does anything in the illustration give you a clue that the setting is Washington? I asked the children, thinking perhaps someone would recognize the reflecting pool or a more famous landmark.

No response.

What about this structure? I asked, pointing to the drawing of the Washington Monument. Does anyone know what this is called?

Nothing.

I’ll give you a hint—it’s the Washington...

“I know,” shouted James. “The George Washington Bridge!”

Faint Praise

“Mr. K., you’re our favorite sub,” third grader Nicole offhandedly told me today as she was lying on the classroom carpet during a writing exercise. As I tried to supress a proud smile, Alyssa, alongside her, looked up and amended the compliment: “Our favorite boy sub.” Wait…what? O.K., the “boy” mitigated somewhat the qualified praise. Alexa immediately chimed in. “Are there any other boy subs?” she wondered aloud. Raised up and cut down in one motion.