Blog posts I have not written

Posted on by Dale

I’ve been busy, which doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about blogging. It just means that I have these ideas about blogging, then decide to read other people’s blogs instead. Or work in the labyrinth. Or sort and type in 700 Finalist Application Forms. That kind of thing.

I thought I would list as many of the ideas I had for blog posts as I can remember. At least we can all sigh heavily for what might have been:

  • There was the “big post” I mentioned weeks ago that I said I was working on, but I never wrote: Robert Patrick’s Cheep Theatricks is a book of plays still on my shelf, and I came across Robert Patrick, who is still alive, which kind of surprised me. I foolishly thought that all gay playwrights from the Village era were dead of AIDS or something. Idiot. Anyway, it opened up a whole stream of connected websites, including Patrick’s own scrapbook of the days at LaMama. The reason it resonated was that I did several of Patrick’s plays back in college: Kennedy’s Children, “Cornered,” and Kama Sutra, which is I swear is by Patrick but is not in Cheep Theatricks. Nostalgia.
  • Sarah Palin’s comment at Rolling Thunder, praising our veterans because “they give us our rights, not politicians or journalists.” Honey please. Can you say “fascistic thinking”? Only of course she’s so damned stupid that she doesn’t even know what she said.
  • Reinhold Gliére, whose three symphonies I snagged at an estate sale around the corner (along with a whole box of CDs at 75¢ each–woot!). He’s mostly (only) known for his ballet The Red Poppy, so I was interested in what else he had done. Since I was listening to these in the van while driving to Atlanta and back, I couldn’t do any due diligence by reading the CD inserts, so I had to form my opinions just from what I heard. Geez, I thought, here’s a composer who never got in trouble with the Soviet Composer’s Union. Dutiful, sometimes tuneful, always bombastic/heroic schlock. And so it proved. An interesting side note: when I had the van checked out for emissions, the young technician who did the tests came in and began chatting about his love for classical music. I told him I’d leave him the CDs when I was finished. I must do that.
  • The Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Savage Beauty.” It was the most intense artistic experience of the trip, a trip that included seeing Derek Jacobi in Lear and singing at Avery Fisher Hall. The man’s designs, his concepts, the craftmanship, all of it gorgeous. Very very scary, but every single bit of it beautiful. The design of the exhibit itself both showcased and competed with the fashion. It was perfect, and you walked out of it exhausted. Go to YouTube and look for videos of his shows.
  • Carefully generic post about how much fun I am having in my new job as director of GHP. It’s like one of those dreams where you are shoved out onto a tightrope, or you’re flying, and it’s very dicey but you find that somehow, miraculously, you can do it.
  • A typical post whining about how I have not worked on the cello sonata. Earlier this week I made myself pull out what I’d done so far on the second movement and listen to it. Sort of pulling the scab off kind of thing. It still worked, so that was good. The building blocks I thought I had come up with will serve. So now all I have to do is find the time to futz with it and cobble together something respectable to separate the first and third movements. I know, I’ll do that in my free time at GHP.
  • I treated myself to some items from my wish list on Amazon, and a couple of those were CDs of music by Lowell Liebermann, his piano concerti and his second symphony. The piano concerti did not impress (too many minor seconds, Herr Liebermann, too many minor seconds), but the symphony, a choral thing with texts by Whitman, was very nice. Still exploring that one.
  • How I became an ordained minister and a notary public in one week. And why.

I’m pretty sure there were more, but memory fails. If more bubble to the service, I’ll make a note of them–I can get another blog post of them.

So…

Posted on by Dale

So we finished singing Song of Wisdom from “Old Turtle” at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall and went to the nice dinner reception down the avenue. Good food, open bar, and finally I decided I would go speak to Dr. Tim Seelig, our phenomenal conductor.

He was talking with Rachel Gordon, choral conductor of Northgate High School and one of the soloists of the evening. I slid in and bragged that Rachel was my Susanna in Figaro, and we both said at the same time, “… nearly 10 years ago!” Good times.

Before I could bring up my next topic, however, Tim said, “And how are you doing? How’s that piece of yours?”

Oh. My. He remembered talking to me about William Blake’s Inn when he was in Newnan.

So I plunged right in and asked if I had ever sent him “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way,” because I honestly could not remember if I had. He thought not, because he always responds to those kinds of things.

May I, then? Certainly, he enthused. He’d love to take a look it.

Oh. My.

I figure I’ll give him a week to settle back in with his grandchild, then send it to him. If nothing else, I’ll get an unbiased assessment of its weaknesses.

Labyrinth open house: postponed

Posted on by Dale

It still looks as if the labyrinth open house I had planned for tonight might be rained out, so I’m going to err on the side of caution and postpone it until next Friday, May 20, 6:30-9:30.

Apologies to all those who had rented Druid costumes for the night.

The good news is that the moon will be just past full next Friday. See you then!

GHP, an update

Posted on by Dale

It’s going to be tough to blog for a while as I get used to the new job. The commute is two hours absolutely wasted every day; it was one of the things I dreaded most about the job. Actually, it’s the only thing I dreaded about the job, and it’s gnawing at me. If I want to get home early enough to be useful and/or productive, then I have to leave so early that I can’t get anything done in the morning.

Still, the job is a dream. The people at the DOE are wonderful and helpful, and I have yet to encounter anything that is an insurmountable problem. Of course, I meet with the budget people tomorrow.

Having said that, I will now draw a discreet curtain over my work at the DOE. I have never thought it was appropriate to blog about your workplace, especially about any problems you encounter. That’s what your diary and/or the fireside are for. I reserve the right to brag about cool things or to talk about really positive things, but this is not the place for any whining that I have to do.

Not that there will be any. I’m sure. Ever.

Summary: I’m having a great time learning the ropes.

GHP, further

Posted on by Dale

More Things People Want to Know about my new job:

I will not be moving to Valdosta. This is a DOE job in the Sloppy Floyd Building in Atlanta, aka the Twin Towers. I have a cubicle on the 18th floor with a window overlooking the Grady Curve on the Connector. I actually have three cubicles, and I was daydreaming about rearranging the walls until I was told that the Georgia Building Authority (from whom the DOE rents the space) charges $15,000 to move one of those little walls. I know, set crew time, right?

There is a lot more to the job than managing the actual summer program. The program itself consumes most of the year. In August, for example, I’ll have to make any changes or updates to the Description and Criteria and get that out to the schools so we can begin the whole process again. Nominations are October through December, and then the awful part of the job: lining up all the interviewers for the 2,800 nominees in January and February.

Then there’s the calculation of which students are finalists, the invitations, and finally the part I’m in right now: collecting all the acceptance forms, hiring staff, negotiating needs with VSU, ordering supplies, and getting everything ready for the arrival of GHP 2011 participants on Sunday, June 26.

Through all of this is constant budget calculation, preparation, proposal, weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. And now part of the job is fundraising for the Georgia Foundation for Education, which happily seems to think GHP is a major deal. Yes, you’ll be hearing a lot more about that one.

Then there are the other programs I’m in charge of: the Byrd Scholarship (which is coming up in four weeks); the Georgia Scholar Program; and the Youth Senate Program. All of this requires constant communication with coordinators in every school, huge amounts of paper work, and management of volunteer readers/adjudicators. Yes, you’ll be hearing more about these as well.

I’m also part of the division of School Improvement (don’t ask: GHP has been all over the organizational chart), so who knows if I’ll get to be a part of that process out there in the field as well? That could be a fun break.

Any other questions?

GHP

Posted on by Dale

I am the director of the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program.

I accepted the job offer on Friday, April 1, and yesterday the State Board of Education voted to confirm my hiring. It is now official: I am the sixth director of the nation’s premiere summer gifted experience.

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

I attended GHP in 1970 as an art major. At the time, the program was housed on the campus of Wesleyan College in Macon. There were 400 students, and the program was eight weeks long. My life was changed forever, principally by my painting teacher Diane Mize, but also by the entire universe we created on that campus. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by other people who were as curious about everything as I was. When the program was over, I curled up in the back seat of the car and cried all the way back to Newnan.

Forty-one years later, the program is at Valdosta State University, serving 690 students for six weeks. (We’ve been cut to four weeks for this summer for budget reasons.)

The program changed my life again when I began teaching there in 1984. The director of the program, Lonnie Love, hired me to revitalize the media support area, to serve as a liaison between GHP students/staff and the VSU library staff. I taught students how to design, produce, and present their research; back then, we’re talking actual slides and overhead projections. The overwhelming richness of the experience, my amazing faculty peers, the concerts, the performances, the kids, all were even more incredible than when I was a student. I cried most of the way home, not an easy thing to do while hurtling up I-75.

My life changed again when, after serving as the Macintosh computer lab instructor in 1996 and creating the program’s first website, Dr. Joe Searle asked me to become the assistant director for instruction in 1997. It was my job to guide the curriculum, to supervise and support the teachers, and just to make sure that the instructional half of the program worked as advertised. After thirteen summers in that position, I took last summer off, my first in fourteen summers.

At this point, those who don’t know what the Governor’s Honors Program is or how it works can go over and look at the Wikipedia article.

Here’s what many people want to know: yes, I will be leaving Newnan Crossing Elementary. The director position is a 12-month position, and we are heading into the summer even as we speak. I will retire from the Coweta County School System on May 1 (one retires on the first day of the month, I have learned); my last day at school will be Friday, April 29, essentially two weeks from now.

Because of Teacher Retirement System rules, I will have to wait 30 days before I actually start work at the DOE. However, I will not wait until June 1 before plunging in—that’s only three weeks before the staff shows up in Valdosta. I have already volunteered my time working on a couple of pressing needs, and I will spend the next six weeks volunteering even more. For example, we released the list of finalists on the day I was interviewed, and now 690 acceptance forms are waiting on my desk for me to enter the students’ data into the database. We still have three staff positions that have to be filled. I’m also responsible for the Byrd Scholarship, and all paperwork has to be out the door on May 18. All the arrangements with Valdosta State University over classroom space still have to be finalized, as well as a host of other details.

So as tempting as it might be to head off to the south of France for the month of May, I will be commuting to Atlanta on my own dime, plus still helping out at Newnan Crossing. It will be great fun. I’m sure.

I will miss Newnan Crossing without a doubt. It’s a fabulous school to work at: great principal, great staff, fun students, and my media center is a phenomenal space. And this will be the first time ever that I have not worked directly with students. It will be a big wrench to my psyche, to have a “grown-up” job.

But I’m also excited by the opportunity to be the leader of GHP as it heads into its second fifty years. I’ve been teaching in the program for more than half its existence. It’s been a part of my life for more than half of mine. I think I’ve already had a profound impact through my work in the instructional half of the program, and now I look forward to putting my stamp on the program as a whole.

I would be remiss if I did not publicly thank my predecessors: Dr. Joe Searle, director, 1996-2010; Lonnie Love, director, 1983-1995; and Cary Brague, associate director, 2006-2010. Each of these has done all the hard work in shaping the program into what it is now. I am honored to be their heir.

A good idea

Posted on by Dale

Yesterday I planted new ferns around the labyrinth. I’m running out of places to put them, unless I rip out the ivy altogether. If I could rip out all the big ivy and leave the English ivy, I might consider it.

Anyway, I’ve loaded in so many varieties that, dilettante that I am, I can not remember which one is which. I have a great book, Ferns for American gardens, by John T. Mickel, in which I have annotated which species I’ve planted and where, but sometimes when one is meandering about the space, one just wants to know, you know?

The obvious solution is a marker of some kind. After a little thought, I imagined that a pretty solution would be to make some in the ceramics lab this summer, small clay tablets with the names stamped in, then lash them to sticks with something funky. In the meantime, I thought, I could just run get some of those cheapo metal ones that you write on.

Then my lovely first wife reminded me of the neat idea we saw in a shop in Colquitt, GA.

Kind of hard to see, but the idea should be plain: take a stick, whittle off a flat white space, and write the name on it. I felt all folksy doing it. At least until I used a Sharpie™ to write the names. But now they’re all labeled. An added nice thing is that the sticks are all from the fallen Dead Tree.

I may still make some in clay this summer. Heaven knows I shall probably need the therapy.

A moment of silence

Posted on by Dale

Habitués of the labyrinth will know of the Dead Tree in the northwest corner. I’m not sure what kind of tree it is/was. The arch of its branches suggest a flowering tree of some kind, like cherry or apple. It’s been dead since we’ve lived here as far as I know. (Prior to the labyrinth, we didn’t use the back yard much at all.)

I’ve valued its presence in the labyrinth, a work of art, beautiful and stark amidst all the green. My backyard neighbor once asked if I wanted him to cut it down for me, and I declined. I fumbled an explanation of how it just sort of was a kind of symbol or something. How does one explain one’s closeted mysticism to someone who just sees a dead tree?

As you suspect by now, the recent high winds have taken their toll on the Dead Tree: the top half of it broke off.

No damage to anything else—what is it with this space that seems to be protected?—and the rest of it still stands. I carried the large branch to the middle of the labyrinth to lie in state for the week.

After that, we will consign it to our fires.

In other news, there are still bare spots in the path. I will scratch more seed in. I also have about six new ferns to install on Saturday.

New word

Posted on by Dale

This morning, as I lay semi-wakeful at the Highlands Inn—we had gone to the wedding of Michael and Catherine Giel in Decatur last night and decided not to drive home— I had an interesting dream. I was either working on a website or standing at a smartboard, and I was defining what essentially were nonsense words. One of them stuck in my mind, and I wrote it down upon arising.

The word is vuking, and what I remember most vividly was belaboring the pronunciation. It is, I am informed, pronounced VOO-king (not view-KING as some would have it), and after a couple of repetitions it dawned on my what a tremendously useful word it may become.

Feel free to add it to your vocabulary.