Lift Up Your Hearts!

Young Mathematicians at Work:  Constructing Number Sense, Addition, and Subtraction, by Catherine Twomey Fosnott and Maarten Dolk (Heinemann, Portsmouth, NY, 2001)

I must return this book to the library today, and I don't have time to finish reading it, but nonethless it deserves mention.  This joint effort of American and Dutch mathematics educators is often repetitive and sometimes wearisome to read, but includes ideas well worth exploring by anyone desiring to teach, or to learn, mathematics at its most basic levels.  Their strategies for encouraging children to think mathematically are aimed at classrooom teachers—and show, incidentally, some of the advantages of group instruction—but many should be adaptable to home education as well.

When I learned of this book I had intended to order it as a Christmas present for our grandkids.  (I know what you're thinking—such an odd grandmother!)  However, while it is a great book to learn from, it's not that exciting a book to own.  So do what I did, and turn to your favorite library—Interlibrary Loan, if necessary.

Yesterday we capped a busy day (at church till mid-afternoon for a special event, followed by—oh, joy!—flu shots) with our second Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra concert of the year.  I'm greatly enjoying Chris Wilkins' approach to concert programming:  he chooses a good blend of old and new, familiar and unknown, comfortable and challenging.  Well, just barely challenging, but that's okay; I prefer my musical challenges on a smaller scale and with explanation, as with Bernard Rands' Memo 8, which came to mind when I was pondering "challenging."  That was one of my favorite Eastman concert experiences, and I would love to hear it performed again, but I don't see that happening; even a Google search nets little, and my favorite oboist has gone Medieval—not that I mind that!  Ah, well—I have my recording.  But I digress greatly.

Last night's concert showed Wilkins' programming strengths and his willingness to venture into non-traditional concert territory. The theme was Abraham Lincoln, and the program a collaboration with the Orange County History Center.

First I must say that there were several oboe solos during the evening, and I am much encouraged about our new Principal Oboe, Jamie Strefeler.  I wasn't particularly impressed at the opening concert, in addition to being shocked at the loss of Jared Houser, whose sound I love.  But last night was pleasing indeed.

The program opened with seven movements from Ernst Bacon's Ford's Theatre; A Few Glimpses of Easter Week 1865.  Bacon was a contemporary of Virgil Thompson and Aaron Copland; both the composer and the work were unknown to me, but the music was enjoyable and worth hearing again.  Speaking of repetition, I wasn't looking forward that much to hearing the second work, Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.  Not that I don't love Beethoven's Fifth, but it is heard so frequently that one tends to have only the best performances in one's mind, and thus it's too easy to be critical.  Nonetheless, the OPO did a creditable job, and it really was enjoyable.  Are you wondering what Beethoven has to do with Abraham Lincoln?  So was I.  It turns out that this symphony was born just a few months before Lincoln, and its themes are appropriate to the struggles and turmoil of Lincoln's time.

Side note:  Although the volume was sometimes impressive, as it should be for such a piece, it was not painful, so I don't know what was going on with my ears at the last concert.

Did I mention pain?  Alas, that was my first impression of the second half of the program, which is sad because it was a very cool production, and most of it was great.  They performed four works in succession, as movements of a single piece (i.e. no applause in between):  Jay Ungar's Ashokan Farewell, Stella Sung's Lincoln's Battle (commissioned by the OPO for this concert), the CIVIL warS: Interlude No. 1 by Philip Glass, and Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait.  The last two works were accompanied by large-screen photographs of the era arranged by photochoreographer James Westwater.  Porter was distracted a bit by being pretty certain some of the photos were Matthew Brady's fakes, and I spent more time thinking about my own 19th century ancestors than Lincoln, but the music/art combination was still effective.

Back to the pain.  I've loved Ashokan Farewell since I first heard it on Ken Burns' Civil War PBS production, I loved it when Janet performed it on violin back in her Suzuki days, and I love it every time my mp3 player randomly chooses to play the free download I found too long ago to remember.  I was not able to find that source again, but you can hear part of the original Ashokan Farewell here, and some of the lovely Harpsong version here.  In each case, click on the arrow to the left of the title.  This is the melody I—and I daresay most of the audience—know and love; this is what Porter was expecting, (albeit in an orchestral version) when he leaned over to me, just prior to the first notes, and whispered how much he was looking forward to hearing it.

Alas.  That is not what we heard.  I was surprised, even shocked, by the intensity of my reaction.  Normally I'm pretty easy to please in a concert, tend not to notice any but the most blatant flaws, and dislike criticism of a performance because it diminishes my own enjoyment.  But this hurt.  It set my teeth on edge and formed a tight knot in my stomach that wasn't eased until several notes into the next piece.  I'm not saying that concertmaster Tamas Kocsis was wrong in his interpretation.  Ungar describes Ashokan Farewell as "in the style of a Scottish lament," and I know that part of the art and musicianship of Celtic music is in the ornamentation and in taking a tune and doing different things with it.  I may be totally wrong in my objections.  But to me, this felt like bait and switch.  As if I went to a concert expecting Handel's Messiah and found it set to a salsa rhythm.  It just felt wrong; the style didn't fit with the sense I have of the piece.  Things got better when the orchestra joined in, but that was not sufficient to dispel the shock.

Fortunately, Stella Sung never disappoints.  I first encountered her music when the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra played her Orlando Suite in 1997 and am always excited when I see one of her compositions on the program.  Because of the subject matter, Lincoln's Battle is darker and more difficult, but was still a relief after Ashokan Farewell.  The Philip Glass piece was also new to me, but definitely a pleasure to listen to, and Copland's Lincoln Portrait is always powerful.

And thanks to the return of Standard Time, we were able to attend the concert and still get to bed by 10:00.  :)

I love to cook, but that's something I keep forgetting.  Maybe I need an audience; it hardly seems worth the time and effort when I'm eating alone, and even when I'm not we're usually so busy it hardly seems reasonable to spend much time cooking.  But Porter keeps talking about how this is the best restaurant in town, so it seems only fair to work towards making that a reality.  On Saturday, we had some of our favorite company over for dinner—the best kind to cook for, because they're always appreciative and don't mind being guinea pigs for whatever I want to try out.

Earlier this summer, my nephew had feasted us on Hazelnut-Crusted Chicken with Raspberry Sauce, a Bon Appétit recipe from Epicurious.com.  The taste was even more amazing than this beautiful presentation (click on picture for larger view):

It was a recipe I knew I had to add to my repertoire, so that's what I served.  Sort of.  Well, actually, that was the starting point, but I never can resist changing things along the way.  One of our guests doesn't eat meat, so I used salmon instead of chicken.  I had the store take the skin off the filet, then sliced it into pieces about two inches wide.  I could have bought hazelnuts, but had pecans in stock, and I used raspberry balsamic vinegar instead of white wine vinegar, canola oil instead of safflower, Cherchies' Champagne Mustard instead of honey mustard, Penzeys' Florida Seasoned Pepper for half the black pepper—you get the picture.  And because it was fish, I baked it for about 20 minutes instead of frying it first.

Despite all the changes, the end result was still really, really good.  I'm going to go raid the leftovers now....

I've never been to the Blue Ribbon Tavern in Grove City, so this isn't really a review, despite the category.  But I hope to get there someday, and since it sits nearly at the intersection of I-80 and I-79 in Pennsylvania, it's likely I will.  Taverns aren't at the top of my list of places to visit, but this one eliminates a huge potential problem by not allowing smoking on the inside.  (Not that they necessarily get credit for that, since I believe it's Pennsylvania law.)  However, this one has a few special attractions.

The bar itself was crafted by a good friend of ours, and I'd like to see it in real life.

The tavern is more than the bar; they have bona fide chefs, not short-order cooks, serving the restaurant.

I love heart-warming stories of dreams fulfilled.  This has been a life-long dream of co-owner Jim Nichelson, which he thought would never come to pass, least of all in his home town, since Grove City had been "dry" since Prohibition.  Nonetheless, he continued to garner work experience that prepared him for seizing the moment last year when the city voted to permit two liquor licenses.  To have a vision; to continue laying the groundwork for achieving it even when it seems impossible, so that you're ready to walk through the door when it opens; and to work hard and succeed because it's your job and you love it—that's a big part of the American Dream.

Here's a story about the Blue Ribbon Tavern, and here's another.

Among the people who read this blog, at least sometimes, there are those who live not far from Grove City, those who went to college there, and those who occasionally have business at the college.  If you find yourselves visiting Grove City and are hungry around lunchtime—or dinnertime, but it's likely to be more peaceful for lunch—stop by, admire the bar, and tell Jim where you heard about the Blue Ribbon Tavern.

Last night the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra presented Fanfare, its 2008-2009 season opener, featuring the U.S. Army's Herald Trumpets.  As always, it was an enjoyable concert, though odd in a way, since I often found the orchestra too loud.  I'm accustomed to that in everyday life, and carry earplugs with me nearly everywhere I go, because whatever is amplified is nearly always amplified too much for my taste.  Yet this was live, acoustic music, and it wasn't just the guest trumpets that were too loud.  Orchestras are supposed to be too loud only if you're sitting directly in front of the percussion or the trumpets—not when you're far away in the balcony.  Weird.  Perhaps my ears are getting better as my eyes are getting worse.

As the oboe section is of primary importance to our family, we immediately noticed a gaping hole—where was Principal Jared Hauser?  And Laura Hauser was not amongst the bassoons, either.  There turns out to be a good reason for their absense:  Jared left to take the position of oboe professor at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University.  Good for them, but very sad for us.  I'm particular about oboe playing, and I loved Jared's sound.  This reminds me of when Principal Flute Aaron Goldman left to become Assistant Principal Flute of the National Symphony Orchestra.  The OPO seems to be a sending-off point for really good (and nice) musicians.  I'll never forget the fun we had listening in one night when Jared and Janet played baroque oboe duets together.  I was hoping for a repeat some day—but now one is in Nashville, and the other in Switzerland.

Oddly enough, in a concert that featured such greats as Verdi, Shostakovich, and Richard Strauss, my favorite work was Tromba Lontana, by the living composer John Adams, whose Short Ride in a Fast Machine I had enjoyed when Janet performed it at Eastman.

Added 2008-09-29:  Stephan was kind enough to point out that I had written "Tromba Iontana" instead of "Tromba Lontana."  It comes of not knowing Italian, I suppose.  (The title was translated as "Distant Trumpet.")  I will grumble just a bit and ask why the program chooses to use a lower-case letter in a font where the lower case L and the upper case I are identical, and in a publication where most of the other titles have all major words capitalized—but I checked in the pdf version and it is, indeed, a lower-case L.

In my efforts to confirm the true title, I discovered these two YouTube videos, which you might enjoy.  I wonder, just a bit, about copyright issues when works like this are put on YouTube, but for now I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Tromba Lontana

Today we celebrated the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Day by visiting The Maitland Historical Society's Waterhouse Residence Museum.  If you're going to get in for free, why not check out a museum you didn't even know existed?  The Maitland Historical Society's museums are located on lovely Lake Lily in Maitland, and we enjoyed a walk around the lake after our tour.  I believe we can call Museum Day a hit; everyone in our almost-crowded tour had brought web-printed admission passes, and for most of us the museum was a new experience.

Since Mr. Waterhouse came originally from "the north," I can't help wondering if he was a descendant of my eighth great grandfather, Jacob Waterhouse, who immigrated from England to New London, Connecticut in 1676.  He had a nice house, much more so than would be expected for a middle class family, because he was a carpenter and buit much of it himself.  Part of the museum is his shop, which is filled with antique tools.  "Antique," I'm sure—but it let us know how old we are when we found ourselves giving a sotto voce commentary throughout the tour:  "This house is the same age as the one I grew up in," "My aunt had a stove like that," and "Those tools look just like the ones in my dad's workshop."

Today's Drabble comic, suitably modified, is for our friend Johnny Montroll, a.k.a. The Origami Guy.

I have my doubts about the statement in the Wikipedia article that his initial book was "the first origami book where each model is folded from single square sheet and no cuts," though I know that was a passion of his, and his innovations were many, including a realistic, rather than symbolic, style.  Be that as it may, John is a remarkable polymath whose accomplishments are more understated by the article than not.  How many other people can honestly say that they wake up in the morning eager to go to work?

Any family members who have learned to love Settlers of Catan through us can thank Johnny, for it was he who taught us to play, during a delightful visit when it was much more fun to play games together than face preparing for our imminent move to Boston.

Although we have a large collection of his origami books, Janet is the one of us who most appreciates them, having mastered the techniques well enough to make some impressive models.  Perhaps Jonathan will one day, since at age four he designed and folded his own origami bat.  :)

The Drabble strip was the immediate inspiration for this post, but I had been thinking about John anyway, thanks to my recent trip on Southwest Airlines, and this article in their Spirit on-board magazine.

By the way, Johnny really can whistle in five octaves!

Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis, by Michael Ward (Oxford University Press, 2008)

It is hard to overstate the excitement with which I read Planet Narnia.  I'll return shortly to Michael Ward's discovery of the pattern and scheme under which C. S. Lewis wrote all seven of his Narnia books, but it's also worth noting that Ward's writing itself was a delight to read.  I am so very, very tired of the recent trend of informal, conversational writing that appears to have been put together in haste, without benefit of editor or even proofreader.  That style is good for blogs, but in a book the lack of consideration for sentence and paragraph structure, the grammatical mistakes, the impoverished vocabulary, and what often comes across as a condescending tone detract significantly from the message proclaimed.

Planet Narnia is a cool stream dancing through a thirsty land.  It is intellectual and academic without being in the least bit dry, a book clearly written for the general public—but an intelligent and educated general public.  It was not, perhaps, the best of books to take to the shore where one is constantly in (delightful) danger of being interrupted by friends who drop by or grandchildren who want to play, but it was too fascinating to give up for lighter fare, and will well bear re-reading, probably several times.

As soon as I heard about Ward's identification of the relationship between the Narnia books and medieval cosmology, I knew I had to rush right out and buy the book.  (Note:  "rush right out and buy" is used in the same sense as "dial a phone number."  What I actually did was order it from Amazon.  To be fair, I did try first to get it from our library or a local bookstore, but without success.  I want to support local businesses, but what can I do if they so rarely have what I want to buy?)  If you are not as impatient as I was, you can get a preview at the Planet Narnia website.

(In case anyone is confused, I should probably note that Lewis's use of this cosmology has nothing to do with believing in a geocentric universe, but rather its symbolic and philosophical meanings.  As Aslan explains, in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, "a huge ball of flaming gas" is not "what a star is, but only what it is made of.")

A little background will help explain one reason I was so excited about Ward's ideas.  I have not (yet) read Dante's Divine Comedy, but Porter is in the middle of Purgatorio, having finished Inferno a while back, so for his birthday or some such occasion I bought the Teaching Company lectures on the Commedia.  This is a course I recommend very highly for anyone contemplating reading Dante's masterpiece.  I had no idea what an absolute genius Dante was!  While listening to the lectures, I was struck repeatedly by how much parts of the Divine Comedy reminded me of the writings of C. S. Lewis. Planet Narnia showed me why this is no coincidence:  Lewis was a great admirer of Dante, and much that is in Dante's great poem, particularly the Paradiso, is reflected in Lewis's works.

Although I've always loved to read, I never liked literature classes in school, despising the way teachers would take what otherwise might have been an interesting book and analyze it to death; I see now that my distain developed because I had never seen such analysis done right. Both the Teaching Company lectures and Planet Narnia showed me that the right analysis of the right book is like solving an enormous cryptic crossword puzzle.

Ward's work also helped me understand one reason I've been so disappointed by the movie versions of The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books (so far).  Even where they are true to the characters and plot of the stories, even where they have caught some of the ideas conveyed by the books, they have largely missed what Lewis called the "Kappa element"—roughly, the atmosphere, flavor, or tone—that makes each book what it is.

Is an understanding of medieval cosmology, or the way it infuses the Narnia tales, necessary for appreciating the books?  Of course not; they have been well loved ever since they were written, by people who, like me, had no clue that all the references to gold in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader were part of its "Solar" flavor.  The Kappa element was apparently intended not to be seen (except by puzzle solvers), being much less obvious than the Christian element, which Lewis states he deliberately kept low-key.  Its importance is on the imaginative, not the rational level.

The distinctive roles of the imaginative and the rational are expressed much more clearly in Planet Narnia than I was able to articulate in a recent, frustrating discussion with a friend, and thus particularly welcome reading.  Although Truth is one and undivided, we cannot see it correctly if we do not look at it through both lenses.  I doubt that C. S. Lewis ever used the terms "left brain" and "right brain," but he would have appreciated the value of both approaches.

Enjoy the Narnia tales just as they are, if you wish.  You don't need to know the Jovial elements in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, nor how Mercury influences The Horse and His Boy.  But rest assured that J. R. R. Tolkien was wrong in considering the Narnia septet to be a literary hodge-podge.  Planet Narnia makes a convincing argument that the apparently random elements are instead carefully placed stones in a brilliant mosaic.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is a simply made but powerful German film (with English subtitles) about a young woman arrested for treason after distributing some anti-Nazi leaflets.  Don't expect a happy ending; the setting is Nazi Germany, where happy endings were few.  Nonetheless I recommend the movie highly.  Such depictions of goodness and heroism are rare—much less without resorting to graphic violence or sentimentalism.

Four things struck me in particular:

Sophie's courage, while lamentably rare, was of an everyday kind.  She is no saint, no Mother Teresa, no doer of grand deeds.  Initially, she seems less like a serious member of an underground resistance movement and more like a young college activist with no serious understanding of the dangers of the game she is playing.  Indeed, as the scenario works out, she is often dazed, as if she can't believe what is happening.  Yet this is where her courage shines:  she is calmly, grimly, and articulately faithful to her beliefs.  Whether or not Sophie Scholl's actions made a bit of difference in ending the Nazi insanity is debatable; what is clear is that her kind of heroism is within reach of everyone, and comes not from being especially saintly, but from character established and nourished over the years, resulting in a well-ingrained habit of doing the right thing despite the cost.

The horror that was Nazi Germany did not happen overnight. Ordinary people, attempting to live ordinary lives—working, playing, learning, raising families—found themselves gradually entrapped by a system which multiplied minor evils into great obscenities, rewarded playground bullies with power and authority, and convinced normal folks that compromise and complicity were necessary for survival.

One reviewer (I don't remember who deserves the credit, or the blame) noted that Sophie Scholl:  Die letzten Tage is a German film, and remarked with pleasure that it was good to see Germany dealing with its darker history.  I'm not so sure.  It's awfully easy to repent of other people's sins.  Sophie Scholl is now a hero in Germany, especially among young people.  From the Wikipedia article:  [I]n 2003, Germans were invited by ZDF Television to participate in a nation-wide competition to choose the top ten most important Germans of all time. Voters under the age of 40 helped catapult Sophie and her brother Hans Scholl into fourth place, winning over Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, Willy Brandt and Albert Einstein. If the votes of young viewers alone had been counted, Sophie and Hans Scholl would have be[en] ranked first. No one under 40 could have participated in the Nazi terrors, and it's quite unlikely that their parents did.  Repentance is a grand thing, but it's important not to let our horror at a past regime distract us from similar evils, extant or potential, in our present lives.

Without negating one bit of the evil that Hitler perpetrated, it's hard not to detect a bit of racism in our treatment of Nazi Germany.  The 20th century alone is filled with insane dictators and horrific blood baths:  Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu....  You can add plenty more to the list, yet Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust are put forth again and again as the ultimate evil. It is almost as if we look at Asians, Africans, and even Eastern Europeans and expect them to be uncivilized...but Germany?  How could such horrors arise in Western Europe?  I know, it doesn't take much knowledge of European history to find plenty of evil in the West—which is why it smacks of racism to give Hitler such prominence.

Perhaps one reason we are so shaken by Nazi Germany is that much of the harm that was done was within the law.  The purpose and the glory of the law is to protect the people; when ideologues use it instead as a weapon against a country's own citizens, we are right to be frightened.

Confessions of a Medical  Heretic, by Robert S. Mendelsohn, M. D. (McGraw-Hill, 1979)

A quick review of this so I can get it off my desk and back on the bookshelf:  There's no doubt that modern medicine has lengthened and improved our lives; the underside of that story is that modern medicine has also shortened our lives, and in many ways diminished their quality.  If you're not already half convinced of the second part of that statement, you'll find Dr. Mendelsohn's style hard to get through.  I believe him, and I still wanted to scream by about the 40th time he beat to death his otherwise illuminating analogy of modern medicine as a religion.

It's worth reading, however, especially if your faith in doctors, hospitals, and prescription medications is strong.  A little exposure to the harm that has been done in the name of health care is enough to let in some creeping doubts that nationalizing this commodity is the right path to take. At the very least it will make you a little more alert next time you step into a medical facility.

Sceptics will be quick to point out that the book was written in 1979, but if anyone thinks the basic situation has improved in the last 30 years, I'll point out that while progress has been made in some areas, the underlying philosophies and approaches remain.

I am not denouncing all of modern medicine, much less renouncing it.  Mendelsohn himself has good things to say, especially about emergency medicine.  But even religion shouldn't be taken completely on faith.  An awareness of the dangers lurking behind hospital doors can be very good for our health.

I love student recitals.  Our kids attended the Suzuki Music Institute of Central Florida for nearly 10 years, so I think I've heard more than my share of recitals.  Granted, the quality of music and musicianship was nothing compared with the Eastman School of Music recitals we subsequently enjoyed, but I can honestly say I was never bored, not even by the beginners, nor by hearing the same beginning songs again and again.  It was fun hearing the differences, not only from one child to another, but particularly as each child grew and advanced from one recital to another.

Nonetheless, I know that to many people the phrase "student recital" evokes horrifying thoughts of squeaks and off-pitch notes and shaky rhythms, over and over again as student follows student in a seemingly endless parade of classical or modern pieces the audience doesn't know and doesn't understand.

Acutely aware of this herself, when the director of the Ellison School of Music planned a summer recital for her students, she was determined that the event be both memorable and fun.  Last night we attended their Kaleidoscope Summer Concert, and can say without a doubt that it was both.  I say that even though I would like to have heard more classical and modern music that I didn't understand.  :)

Seating was at tables, cabaret-style, with delicious food (and real lemonade) from the Tropical Heat Organic Market and Delicatessen.

Pre-, post-, and entr'acte music was provided by the amazing duo of professional musicians Ashley Lochead (vocals) and Dan Flick (guitar/violin).  There was also a special guest appearance by a delightful young guy named Justin who really should be a professional singer himself, and a brief but memorable vision of beautiful, blond singers with equally beautiful voices across three generations.  In addition to singing, the show featured interpretive dance, skits, and lovely costumes.  The students ranged in age from maybe six to adult, including some high school students of considerable talent and training.

For the younger set, there was—perhaps understandably—a heavy emphasis on songs from recent Disney movies, with the older singers concentrating on "golden oldies" from the 40s and 50s, musical theater, movie music, and some just plain fun songs, like "Taylor, the Latte Boy."  No doubt you all are 'way ahead of us, and are already familiar with that song, but if not, you can find it on YouTube.  One particularly memorable song/skit was a collaboration between two older boys and a little girl on "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" and "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King.

It was altogether a delightful evening, more like a good place for a Saturday night date than an occasion to show proud parents what they're getting for the money they spend on music lessons.  If you're in town for the next recital, you don't want to miss it.  And judging by the quality of the singers in this performance, if you're looking for voice lessons in the north Orlando area, you don't want to miss the Ellison School of Music.

Last night we enjoyed an outing to the Texas de Brazil restaurant.  This is not what I would normally call my kind of restaurant:  although I find salad bars, buffets, and all-you-can-eat establishments appealing for their wide variety and options, the high price and the encouragement of overeating make them generally unattractive to me.  However, our friends had two-for-one coupons, which brought the $45-per-person price down from the outrageous to the merely ridiculous-but-acceptable-for-a-special-occasion.  So we celebrated Father's Day one day late.

Was it Brazil?  No.  The theme was Brazilian, with the churrasco-style grilled meats brought to the table on huge skewers, but the salad bar included sushi, and while the bar had suco de maracujá it was not sem açúcar, so I was not able to indulge in my favorite Brazilian drink.

Was it delicious?  Yes.  The first meat to come by our table was the filet mignon, which was so good that we never had more than a taste of any of the other meats.  The salad bar, bread, and side dish offerings could have kept me happy (and overstuffed) without any meat at all.

Was it worth $45/person?  No.  Half that?  Yes, for a special occasion.  Porter pronounced it one of the best restaurant meals he's had in a long time—and with his travel schedule, he gets a lot of restaurant experience.

Did we overeat?  Yes, but it could have been worse.  I calculate that if I had stopped five bites sooner I would not have been wishing we'd parked the car further away.... 

The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture, by Andrew Keen (Doubleday, 2007)

It's past time to get this book back to the library; I actually finished it quite a while ago, but have been putting of this post because I haven't known quite what to say.  It's a complex book, probably an important one, but it covers so much territory I'll never do it justice.  The book is far more than a diatribe against amateurism, but I will skip over the sections on Internet gambling, Internet pornography, privacy concerns, and the demise of an iconic record store.  Except for Tower Records—it's hard to mourn the disappearance of something you never knew existed—I'm aware of the other issues and tend to agree that they are, indeed, serious problems.  Whether or not the proliferation of amateur voices is boon or bane is a bit more complex.

Now that I've finished reading the book, I still stand by what I've already said (here, and here), and will add that Keen is right to fear that truth, accuracy, responsibility, and excellence are in danger of being lost in our society, but wrong in laying the blame solely or even primarily on the Internet.

It's true that many people are no longer giving professionals the unquestioned respect, trust, and even obedience they once did. But it is not so much because the Internet lets amateurs speak as because the professionals have proven themselves untrustworthy.

When an article runs under the banner of a respected newspaper, we know that it has been weighted by a team of seasoned editors with years of training, assigned to a qualified reporter, researched, fact-checked, edited, proofread, and backed by a trusted news organization vouching for its truthfulness and accuracy.  Take those filters away, and we, the general public, are faced with the impossible task of sifting through and evaluating an endless sea of the muddled musings of amateurs. 

Most of us assume that the information we take in can be trusted.  But when the information is created by amateurs, it rarely can be.  And the irony in all this is that democratized media wil eventually force all of us to become amateur critics and editiors ourselves. With more and more of the information online unedited, unverified, and unsubstantiated, we will have no choice but to read everything with a skeptical eye.  The free information really isn't free; we all end up paying for it one way or another with the most valuable resource of all—our time.

Anyone who has ever been part of a story reported in a "respected newspaper," magazine, or television news story probably laughed at that first paragraph.  I don't believe any of the many stories I've known first hand has been reported completely accurately, and often the errors are significant.  The need to read everything with a skeptical eye predates the Internet.

It doesn't take much research into factory farming, modern American childbirth practices, the pharmaceutical industry, the politics of university research, the news media, the educational system, and even the music world to realize that professionals are not necessarily good and wise, and often disastrously wrong.  [Keen does not deal with most of these areas directly, but what he says about the amateur vs. the professional applies equally well.]

[E]very free listing on Craigslist means one less paid listing in a local newspaper.  Every visit to Wikipedia's free information means one less customer for a professionally researched and edited encyclopedia such as Britannica.  Every free music or video upload is one less sale of a CD or DVD, meaning one less royalty for the artist who created it.

I'm not at all sure this is true.  I suspect many things are listed on Craigslist that would never make it into a newspaper's classified section, not just because people sell some really weird things on Craigslist but because I think it, like eBay, inspires people to sell things who otherwise wouldn't have bothered.  I'm certain that if online references such as Wikipedia were not available, it would not drive many people to purchase an encyclopedia; their question would simply go unanswered.  Knowing next to nothing about online music an videos I can't say much about the last thesis, but I do know that the availability of free music samples has helped inform my CD-buying decisions, and that I've bought more CDs than I otherwise would have due to being able to have that data.

I do appreciate the availability of Google News, and free online versions of many newspapers, including our Orlando Sentinel.  But that was not what drove us to cancel our subscription of nearly 20 years.  Rather, it was because the Sentinel itself had become unreliable, with more and more opinion being inserted into the news stories instead of confined to the editorial pages, and with factual, informative articles being cut in favor of insubstantial fluff and large pictures.

Becoming a doctor, a lawyer, a musician, a journalist, or an engineer requires a significant investment of one's life in education and training, countless auditions or entrance and certifying exams, and commitment to a career of hard work and long hours....Can the cult of the noble amateur really expect to bypass all this and do a better job?

There's the rub.  Because Keen is right here:  we need the professionals, the ones who will invest their lives and resources in becoming experts in specialized fields, and if the proliferation of amateur works makes it no longer possible for them to earn a reasonable return on their investment, we may very well lose the infrastructure that makes the expertise possible. 

The amateurs are, however, performing an important function.  In my own field of (amateur) genealogy, I subscribe to the Ancestry.com service.  Some people shun commercial sites and believe all information should be freely shared, but I am happy to pay for the work that their professionals have done to gather and make available a tremendous amount of genealogical data.  There is also a section of the site that has been created by amateurs:  a large database of people's own family trees.  This data is not subject to any editorial supervision, is rarely sourced, and is for the most part highly unreliable. I never cite it as a source in my own work, except in a few cases where I have contacted the author and have reason to trust his or her data.  I treat the personal family trees in a much different fashion from other Ancestry information, such as their images of census transcriptions, old newspapers, and books.  Nonetheless, the amateur data has proven many times to be extremely valuable, giving important clues and sometimes great breakthroughs.  Yes, I always need to verify the information, bur without the "collective wisdom" of all those amateurs my search would have been much harder, if not impossible.

I think Wikipedia, amateur news blogs, and the other non-professional works that Keen decries should be approached in much the same way.  Schools are right not to allow Wikipedia citations for research papers, but that doesn't mean Wikipedia isn't a great resource for getting started.  You'll never get a clear view of the news by reading only a right-wing blog, but it can be a useful balance to your local left-wing newspaper, and vice versa.

But he's right: we do need the experts, and we do need to recognize that some reports are more truthful than others, and some opinions more valuable.  What he doesn't say, but what I believe to be the most effective approach to a solution, is that we all need to be better educated, and better trained in logic and discernment.  Give a man a professional opinion and you'll feed his mind for a day; teach him to discern truth from error and you'll feed his mind for a lifetime.

Prince Caspian, One Sentence Review:  Not a bad movie, but several times I had to wonder where the story line came from.

A few more thoughts: 

Reminded me greatly of The Lord of the Rings movie:  take the names, places, and surface plot of a popular book, then make up your own story to hold it all together.

Great animation and special effects, measured mostly by the fact that I hardly noticed them.  Walking and talking badgers and mice seem perfectly normal, and even the centaurs are convincing.  Reepicheep is wonderful; they did a great job with the mice, not just the animation but also the dialogue and action.

The actress who plays Lucy does an excellent job, and the actor playing Edmund is pretty good, too.

One thing that had bothered me about the first Narnia movie was what appeared to be a deliberate flouting of Lewis's determination that the girls not be fighters if at all possible ("battles are ugly when women fight").  After having read an interview with the director of the movies, it concerns me less, as I see his point that Lewis's view towards women changed through time, no doubt at least in part due to getting to know Joy Davidman, the strong, intelligent woman whom he eventually married.  I'm not sure that even were he still alive today Lewis's views would have evolved to the point where he would have been happy with women fighting on the battlefield, but I doubt he would have objected to strong, wise, competent female characters.  Indeed, girls are often depicted just that way in the books, but the movie is so focused on the battles that there is hardly time for any character, male or female, to show strength and courage in any other way.

Battle fatigue.  Enough with the fighting, already!  Reminded me of a Presbyterian sermon:  first third, interesting and valuable; second third, unnecessary rehash; final third, soporific.  Much too much violence for its PG rating, in my opinion.

If they'd devoted less screen time to killing, they might might have had room for some of my favorite scenes from the book, like the Romp with Bacchus when Aslan awakened the trees, the Feast after the battle, and what Aslan and the girls did in Beruna. 

My two favorite scenes from the movie, though neither is in the book:  the cat in the castle, and Lucy drawing her dagger on the bridge with Aslan.

If the main characters are disconcerted by the time shifting between the two worlds, I am equally so by the incongruities in the movie.  I could understand a re-setting of the story so that Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy were modern children, but in that case, why keep the World War II setting?  In the book, the characters' speech, actions, and attitudes reflect either the mid-twentieth-century world, or the quasi-Medieval world of Narnia; in the movie, the setting is WWII London or Narnia, but the culture 21st century Hollywood.  Including some romantic scenes that are totally unnecessary and definitely not in the book.

Was Prince Caspian worth seeing?  For us, yes, since our tickets were only $5 each, we already know the books well, and I want to be able to converse about it.  Would I see it again?  I doubt it, and therein is a great difference from the book, which I have probably read more than two dozen times in the last 45 years.  If the movie encourages people to read the Narnia books who otherwise wouldn't, then, yes, it's well worth seeing.  But don't watch the movie and think you know much at all of the story as C. S. Lewis wrote it.  Perhaps it is possible for a movie to convey the delights of a book like Prince Caspian, but it doesn't seem to happen very often.

Having finished watching all the available “Best Picture” Oscar-winners—all except for one or two he decided early on weren’t worth the wasting of his time—Porter is catching up on the James Bond movies he’d missed, which was many if not most of them.  Not feeling any lack whatsoever for having missed them myself, I’ve generally elected to indulge in what to me are more profitable activities, such as reading, writing, or sleeping.

Every once in a while, however, I’ll find myself sucked into the story, never long enough to see the entire movie, but enough to provoke a few of thoughts.

There’s a lot of fun in the Bond movies, or at least the early ones, which is all I’ve seen so far.   Many of the lines, and in particular the way they are delivered (by Sean Connery, anyway) are genuinely clever, and some of the scenes border on slapstick, which I was not expecting.

What surprised—and disturbed—me most, however, was how tame the movies have seemed so far.  In violence, sex, and foul language they are far outdone by today’s ordinary, broadcast television fare.  Yet I remember how shocking James Bond was when first he came to the theaters.  Few of my young teenaged friends actually managed to see the films, but reading the books—or pretending, or wishing, to have done so—was risqué and definitely cool.  I remember the birthday when my mother gave me The Diamond Smugglers in an attempt to satisfy my desire for a Bond book.  How ignorant and uncool could she be to have picked out one of the very few books by Ian Fleming that was not about James Bond and in fact was not even fiction?  Ignorant like a fox, my Phi Beta Kappa mother!

Even from a perspective 40 years in the future, there are scenes in the films I would not want an adolescent to see; I’d rather not have seen them myself.  To this day I remember lines from one of the Bond books I managed to read that I wish had not been burned into my brain.  (My naïve imagination was not up to visualizing the scenes very well, but words stick.)  Yet that from which we were sheltered is standard fare for elementary-aged students (most of the children in Janet’s middle class, suburban, second grade class had watched R-rated movies—and that was 20 years ago); many of today’s teenagers have had more sexual encounters than James Bond himself, and been exposed to more violence.  Without the cool gadgets.