Irwin October 1997
Courterly
Irwin Courterly October 1997
Volume II Issue 18
Contents
- Put Your Hoes Down...
- Vegetables with Virtue
- Autumn Elsewhere: A Comparative Analysis
- Sunset Dining
- Thai... for Brunch
- Squash Soup
- Technology and the IC
- Pair a dimes still good: No shift in NJ area
- On American Schools
- Robin Report
- Catie Curtis' New CD
- Toni Childs at Bimbo's 365 Club
- Predictions
- Letter to the Editor
Editors
Jennie AbbottContributing Editors
Robin BrooksSimona AssenovaSubscriptions
Tom Clement
Robert J. Hawkins
Leta Herman
Sarah Kelley
Yun Woo12 issues for 12 stampsSubmissionsThe Irwin Courterly publishes original articles and illustrations. We edit them to meet our needs. You retain copyright but grant every Irwin Courterly publication royalty-free permission to reproduce the article or illustration in print or any other medium. Please send submissions at least one month in advance so that the editors can read, edit and format the submission.AdvertisingRates available upon request.
Put Your Hoes Down...
by Leta HermanOne of my many fantasies is to live on an organic farm. I know it's a dream because I'll never have the guts to do it, being the kind of person whose skills are usually better applied elsewhere. Still, I love to stick my hands in cold, damp earth and get it wedged up into my fingernails so I can pick it out for the rest of the day. And I LOVE to eat organic food.
A modification of my dream is to live near or next to an organic farm where, as a neighbor, I can be part of the farm community, eat the vegetables, socialize, help out even, without having the pressure of being in charge of making things grow. This seems a more realistic dream. I even imagine trading my writing/marketing skills, something farms need a lot of, for food. I have dreams of huge billboards along the highway that have pictures of really gorgeous vegetables, and a title that is the complicated-sounding name of a pesticide. At the bottom, it lists all the diseases the chemical is known to cause in humans. Then it says, "Do you really need this? Eat Organic!"
My intense and constant devotion to Full Belly Farm is probably mostly in my mind. I look forward to every Wednesday, when I know my vegetables will arrive at my pick-up spot in Berkeley. I avidly read the little newsletter they include with my box, soaking up any news I can from the farm. I plan every year to go to the farm and camp and help out. Forget lying on a tropical beach, my idea of a real vacation is picking vegetables and taking a plunge in a cool river sans vêtements.
This is where reality and dreaming collide. I never seem to find the time for my weekend getaway. But I do make one event my highest priority--the Full Belly Farm Hoes Down Festival. Every October, during peak harvesting season and after the 100-plus degree weather subsides, Full Belly Farm hosts an incredible party and invites the entire East Bay. You can go for a few hours or stay overnight for the full effect. We started going three years ago when my son was just a baby. And last year we decided to make it a camping event. This year I fought with my husband for a month before the event to get him to cancel another engagement and come to the party. In the end I went alone with my son just for the day, my biggest disappointment of the year.
I try to describe to my friends what I love about Full Belly Farm--and it's really hard to explain. There is something magical to me. The creek is probably just a boring old water hole to some folks, but to me, it's an oasis. It could be that I don't get many chances to swim nude, and the sun is simply gloriously warm on my body in contrast to the cool water. It could be that I love the concept of a party where people are free to swim nude, like nymphs frolicking in a stream. It's also such a non-sexual atmosphere compared to the all-nude hot springs I've been to where everyone is checking everyone else out.
The magic is also in the orchards. They are the perfect canopies for sleeping under. You don't even need a tent. And walking through them at night, you feel like whispering because the trees are listening. They are protecting you. When we camped in the Walnut grove, we mistakenly put up our tent. When we woke up in the morning, we saw others, scattered around the orchard, who had simply put their sleeping bags on the ground. It reminded me of sleeping outside in Africa with nothing between you and the stars.
The party is great fun. The music is wonderful and the dancing is freer than any club dancing I've seen. The dance floor is a huge bed of straw. And everyone is in Birkenstocks or barefoot. It's an old style country jamboree with cool, modern music.
And all this is right in the middle of all the fields. Fields of green leafy vegetables, tomato plants still hanging on until the end of the season, basil, herbs, flowers, squashes, pumpkins, etc. I walk through the fields and tell my son proudly, "This is kale, and this is mustard greens, and this is arugula." It reminds me of when I was a child and I helped my parents garden. I was the proud parent of our garden tomatoes. I used to be so fond of my plants when I was five that a family friend created a fully illustrated story book called Leta and the Terrific Tomatoes It was just the start of a lifelong love of the earth and everything that it sprouts. I've been a rambler for years, with no place to really call home. I suppose when I find my elusive farm, I'll touch back down to earth, dig my hands in the soil, and never leave again.
Vegetables with Virtue
by Robert J. HawkinsGreetings from Back East where our 17th century New England forebears were among the earliest Americans to associate vegetables with virtue. The meat and potatoes family value most certainly did not originate in the northeast. Here, we took vegetables seriously. "Let no man make a jest at pumpkins," wrote Puritan Edward Johnson, referring to the fruit of the genus cucurbita as a food, not a holiday decorating motif.
We don't know what happened to someone who did make a jest at pumpkins in Puritan Massachusetts, but we doubt it was as harsh as what could happen in Colorado today where defaming fruit is a felony. That's right, you can do hard time for saying unkind things about protected foods in the Mountain State. Colorado may be the most extreme, but it's not the only state to have passed a "banana bill." At least nine other states have laws that make it a crime to say unkind things about their food products. (For a complete list of the states where agribusiness is running amok, send your name and address to the soon-to-be-incorporated Back East Vegetable Rights Foundation, care of this publication. Include lots of money.)
To be fair, we should note that the protection afforded by these laws is not limited to the plant kingdom. No lesser light than Oprah Winfrey has run afoul of a Texas food disparagement law which covers meat. She is being sued by Texas cattle ranchers for vilifying hamburgers on her April 16, 1996 show that featured vegetarian activist Howard Lyman discussing bovine spongiform encehpalopathy, better known as mad cow disease. It seems that the day after the show cattle prices plummeted, and the ranchers are out for blood, or it's equivalent in thousand dollar bills. We might say that the whole thing sounds a bit nutty to us, but we won't. We don't want to be sued for impugning the virtue of nuts.
Be that as it may, the Puritan diet, although rather restrained in the realm of the senses, (bland, tasteless, boring are adjectives that come to mind), gets high marks for nutrition. It was rich in protein, strong in fiber, abundant in carbohydrates, restrained in animal fats, and, all in all, pretty well balanced. The relative longevity of the proto-Yankees, compared to their neighbors to the South, was due, in no small part, to the fact that they were good boys and girls and ate all their vegetables.
An important staple of the early New England diet was "pease porridge" which they did eat hot and cold, and which could be found in the pot nine days old. In the winter they had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because dried pease kept well compared to other vegetables.
Those of you familiar with "Pease Porridge Hot. The Poem" may have wondered over the years, as have we, just what exactly pease porridge is. Based on no information other than that in the poem, we've pictured it as a sort of cross between pea soup and oatmeal, a distasteful combination to be sure, but one that would appeal to a Puritan preference for things that are simultaneously unpleasant and good for you.
Now, as a result of reading Albion's Seed, Four British Folkways in America, the "pease porridge" mystery has been serendipitously solved, and along with it another puzzling fact of life noted but never explained. The British we've encountered consider it perfectly normal to eat a breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and baked beans. Yes, baked beans! We've always found it curious that they had adopted an American dish as a breakfast staple, and furthermore wondered at the peculiar choice. Why not the hash browns that every dinner in the U. S. of A. serves with eggs?
Pease porridge, it turns out, is the 17th century version of what we call baked beans. What were then called "pease" are now called "pea beans" and are not the vegetable we call peas. A staple of the New England colonial diet, baked beans became, in the minds of many, a classic American regional food, associated with Boston, a.k.a. Bean Town. But the Puritans, after all, came from Britain, and they brought their eating habits with them, including, it would appear, a taste for breakfast beans.
By the way, if you please, note that we refer to vegetables, not "veggies." We cannot abide that preposterous sobriquet. It imbues a stalwart and delicious food group with the blood curdling cuteness normally reserved for velvet portraits of waifs with enormous eyes or the fantasy worlds of Disney. We'd no more eat a "veggie" than we'd eat Bambi or Thumper.
Autumn Elsewhere: A Comparative Analysis
by Harv EstHere in the United States, autumn is the time of plenty, symbolized by a cornucopia overflowing with tasty edibles. Americans celebrate this time of year by frivolously carving jack o'lanterns, throwing away the edible scraps, or by gorging themselves on squash soup, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, but never being able to eat all that they ambitiously prepared, and throwing away the leftovers once they have molded in the refrigerator weeks later. The most important food item of the season, of course, is the turkey.
Speaking of Turkey, people in other parts of the world do not have the same luxuries as we do when autumn falls upon them. In less developed countries (LDCs) people do twice as much work during the fall as they do the rest of the year. These people have to hold down their regular jobs in order to save up enough money to pay for heating in the winter, as well as traveling to their dachas or to their grandparents' villa or some similar rural setting on the weekends to help pick the fruits and vegetables that are ripening at this time of year. Many people also spend their evenings during the week canning the vegetables that they picked during the weekends, or making compote or rakia from the fruits. These are not easy tasks, and they are certainly time consuming. But in many LDCs, where shortages are common and agricultural technology is not advanced enough to provide fresh avocados in January (such as we have here in California), canning is not an optional activity.
In Eastern Europe under Communism, and even today in some places, helping with the harvest was not optional either. In a good year, a country like the People's Republic of Bulgaria probably produced enough food to feed its population through the winter. However, the collectivization of agriculture in the 1950s and the urbanization of most of the population around the same time had the result that there were not enough people on the collective farms to bring in the crops when the time came. And if technology seems as though it should have solved this problem, it is noteworthy that Soviet tractors were not exactly state-of-the-art, nor did they tend to stay in working order more than a few weeks at a time. So in October and November, students and workers from the cities were required to join work brigades which traveled to the villages to "struggle for the harvest."
Some Western scholars contend that the struggles for the harvest might actually have been a positive experience for their participants, who had only this one opportunity per year to socialize with their colleagues in an informal environment where nobody was listening in. Some have gone so far as to assert that the work brigades constituted the seeds of hope for a future civil society in Eastern Europe. Most people whom this reporter has interviewed, however, indicated that, despite the fact that most of them had their first sexual experiences on these trips, they hated having to leave school or work for a week and get dirty and tired with the peasants out in the countryside.
One particularly bad year for the Bulgarian harvest was 1989, when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Turks, most of whom worked on collective farms, went on a "Great Excursion" (as it is sometimes called, despite the fact that the Turks in question were essentially deported to Turkey in the Communist dictator's last attempt to hold onto power by playing the national card). That fall, Bulgarians had to struggle even harder and longer for their harvest, and still their winter was marked by shortages and hunger. Consequently, when over half of the émigré Turks returned to Bulgaria a year later, the Bulgarians in many cities were less than pleased to see them. The Turks were unable to get their land and property back from the people to whom the government had sold them after their abandonment. Demonstrations broke out in cities across the country, and particularly in Kardzhali, the city with the largest Turkish population in Bulgaria. And the new Socialist government was able to profit politically from the unrest by carefully engaging in nationalist rhetoric at the same time as gently putting down the strikes (in which some scholars have insinuated the government may have paid people to participate) and appearing to have been the calmest and most reasonable party involved in the events.
In light of the foregoing, it is clear that different seasons mean different things in different countries. Keep that in mind when you hack into your jack o'lantern.
Sunset Dining
by Sal MonnSkates by the bay advertises the sunset over the Golden Gate Bridge as its table setting--which means an early dinner if you want to be there before dark has fallen and all you see out the windows is the reflection of the paintings and the colorful people.
Unfortunately, we arrived just after 7pm, when the lights on the Berkeley pier did little to illuminate the bay, let alone make the Golden Gate visible. The place was bustling, but not too loud, and we headed to the bar for a cocktail as the maitre-D suggested, seeking something to warm Robin up. That's what we ordered, and the bartender said, "I'll get you something. I only make it once a month, but I'll make it for you."
After a while, he presented a four-layer concoction, which he showed off to his fellow tenders; it had an almond liquor on the bottom then espresso, then Frangelico, with steamed milk on top. And he said he'd buy it for us! Robin mixed it up and tasted it: just like dessert. The seats near the big fireplace were full, so we stood up and tried to stay out of the way. Not knowing the procedure for being called when our table was ready, we asked, and were immediately seated at a marble-topped table, raised up from the floor with booth seats. Had there been a sunset we could have both seen it without straining our necks.
The menus were unwieldy in actual size, but offered a delightful variety, including the Fall specials. Robin suggested that perhaps the Hawaiian Mahi Mahi had been caught right off San Francisco thanks to El Nino.
We started eating warm greasy, garlicky and scrumptious foccacia before we made our selections, and ate more with the crab and artichoke dip. With one more portion of bread we would have been full enough to go home--but by then we had ordered, so we refrained from eating the last of the bread, and tried to make room for the entrees. Megan our friendly and thoughtful waitress, was quite concerned when we let our steaming plates sit before us untouched until we regained our appetites, but then we enjoyed them. The honey-peppercorn salmon special was delicious, and the prawn and smoked salmon spaggettini primavera was very good--as leftovers too!
Having checked out the dessert listing before dinner, I knew to save room; the question was, should it be the key lime pie, assorted creme brulee, or fruit sorbet? As a special treat we don't have at home, we selected the creme brulee, but it was just a little too rich for us to finish. Even without the sunset it's a nice place to eat, but I would recommend starting early, and fasting prior. Bon Appetit.
Thai... for Brunch?
by Hardy Eder and Lef Tovers
in conjunction with Yun Woo and Sarah KelleyAn invitation to brunch tends to conjure up images of fresh-squeezed OJ, Belgian waffles, croissants, fruit salad, etc. But how about spicy eggplant with lemongrass? Vegetable curry with pineapple? Doesn't fit with your morning cup of joe? Then just add a little condensed milk.
The Thai Cultural House offers adventurous brunchers one of Berkeley's most unique Sunday morning experiences. And this is Berkeley that we're talking about (the city that makes Russ U. [name withheld for privacy] seem ordinary). The brunch is held every Sunday from 10 am on at the Thai Cultural House, just off the corner of MLK and Russell in Berkeley, and serves as a fundraiser for the House and the associated Thai Buddhist Temple. On a sunny and warm October morning, we arrived at the brunch about 12:30 to find the courtyard bustling with a mixture of languages and people -- Thai, French, Spanish, English; families with babies and children, college students, older couples, miscellaneous Berkeley (redundant) types, all seated at long family-style banquet tables imprinted with the message, "Please pick up your dish!" This was our second brunch. The first time was with our esteemed editor, who graciously introduced us to the joys of Thai food for brunch, who then extracted this review in return. The food at the Thai brunch is hearty, homestyle, inexpensive and delicious.
The brunch is set up buffet-style, with long serving tables featuring a variety of dishes, including entrees, soups and desserts as well as an assortment of beverages. It's overwhelming to see so many dishes laid out in front of your hungry Sunday morning belly. Where to begin? This morning Hardy opted first for the pad Thai ($3), while Lef decided to pass go and proceed directly to sticky rice and mangoes. We all have our priorities. Pad Thai, the most famous Thai noodle dish, is always served at the brunch. Consisting of stir-fried rice noodles mixed with eggs, bean sprouts, and chopped peanuts, pad Thai incorporates a number of seasonings to give it its unique tangy flavor, primarily fish sauce, soy sauce, and a ketchup/vinegar mixture. These flavors combine to create an unexpectedly delicious dish, and apparently many others thought so as well, since every other plate was heaped with the noodle dish. It can be prepared spicy, with the addition of chili-garlic sauce, but was muted to suit the appetites of the huge crowd. Sticky rice and mangoes, while intended as a dessert dish, is filling enough to serve as a main course for those who prefer the sweeter/non-spicy brunch fare, and has proved addictive to certain unnamed reviewers. [Further evidence of its popularity was the recent appearance of five plates of the dish at a local birthday brunch.]
Long grain rice is flavored with coconut milk and condensed milk, and served with sliced mangoes, perfectly ripe of course. Both of these dishes come at the great price of three tokens, the medium of exchange at the brunch, equaling three dollars. And of course, these dishes were washed down with two Thai iced teas, refreshingly sweet with the addition of condensed milk.
Next, we sampled the "main courses" from a selection of about seven different entrees - 3 stir-fries, several curries and other unknown dishes, all of which smell heavenly. The women behind the counter, affiliated with the Thai Cultural House, are always friendly although not as articulate in explaining the composition of some of the dishes. Onto our plate of rice, we asked for a helping of a vegetable curry of potatoes, snap peas, and broccoli with coconut milk and a stir-fry containing baby squid, bell peppers, peas, broccoli and basil, flavored with fish sauce and chili garlic paste. Both were heartily spicy, pleasant to one reviewer, slightly uncomfortable to the other. Each were purchased for the price of four tokens, rice included. Other menu staples include a Thai soup, with a beef broth base spiced with galangal (a root similar to ginger but milder in flavor), lemongrass, fish sauce, cilantro and cloves(?) filled with rice noodles, sprouts and thin slices of flank steak. All food is available to go and many were taking advantage of this option as the tables were swamped with people this particular Sunday morning. Some pre-packaged foods included custards, dolma-like wraps, whole tamarind pods and bags of dried chili peppers.
It must be understood that this is food prepared in mass quantities for a crowd of about several hundred hungry brunchers - great vats of pad Thai, broth, rice and mangoes. And there are the usual problems with serving food in such mass amounts. This week, the vegetable was lukewarm at best, some servings were the last dregs of a dish while servers waited for the arrival of more supplies from the kitchen. But the broth is delicious, the mangoes are sliced before your eyes and all dishes have a homemade, authentic feel to them. And the brunch's informal charm is heightened by the CHEAP prices - $3 for most entrees and a dollar for Thai iced tea. A great bargain by any standard. These occasional readers highly recommend brunch at the Thai Cultural House. These reviewers didn't even mind paying for their own brunch (while their counterparts at other periodicals are not usually subjected to such unsophisticated behavior). Bring your friends, especially those who clutch their stomachs when they hear "baby squid in chili garlic sauce." The bustling marketplace feel at the brunch lends the food an authenticity and heartiness that your stomach will love you. But remember, although it's brunch, leave your Sunday Times at home, or else it'll wind up coated in your neighbor's peanut sauce.
Squash Soup
by Tom ClementIngredients:
One large butternut squashDirections:
Four cans of vegetable broth
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
Olive Oil
One Large Onion
One Clove of Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Herbs and spices
Clean and cook the Butternut squash (either in the oven for about 45 minutes or in a microwave for about 15 minutes) until it is somewhat soft. While it is cooking, chop the onion and garlic and sauté them in a large soup pot. When the squash is cooked, scoop or cut out the meat, place it into a blender and blend with some vegetable broth. Depending on the size of your blender, you may need to do this in several stages. Put the result into the soup pot with the sautéed onion and garlic. Add the peanut butter.Then the fun begins. Add salt and pepper to taste. (Remember that the peanut butter does add some salt.) For herbs, I tend to use lots of basil, with marjoram and anything else in the cupboard that looks and smells like it will work. Spices have included curry powder, cumin, and (if you call it a spice) Worcestershire sauce.
Cook it for a while, tasting and modifying it as you see fit. There have been times (when it seemed too salty or sharp) when I've chosen to soften it a bit with milk.
See also Cooking with Julia Childs
Technology and the IC
by Con VergenceSeveral issues ago, Polly Tickle, the Irwin Courterly's resident social scientist, wrote a provocative article explaining how this periodical journal unites its readership with the sacred language of print capitalism. Indeed, any number of theorists, from Karl Deutsch to Russell Hardin, might agree with Ms. Tickle that common languages provide an ease of understanding that facilitate group decision making and mobilization for the procurement of important material resources. Now that the Irwin Courterly is about to go online [our new Web site is located at www.angelfire.com/ca/irwincourterly], however, it is important to note that most of the venerable academics upon whose work Ms. Tickle bases her own would argue that the primary reason that language works to unite people within groups is the fact that languages also conveniently exclude members of other groups, keeping the number of individuals among whom newly won resources will have to be divided to a bare minimum. What will happen to the IC, then, once its sacred language is plastered all over the internet, in plain English, for all to see? And what if, heaven forbid, the IC really became the sort of print capitalism that Benedict Anderson hailed as the key to his "imagined communities," running advertisements, competing for market share against the New York Times, Newsweek, the Weekly World News, and, most shocking of all, seeking offshore production facilities and foreign markets? Would we still love it? Would its new readers love it as much as we do? Would the content become watered down and the political slant move farther to the center? Would the subscription price increase?
This reporter is intrigued by these questions, and consequently has consumed herself with studying the topic of globalization and the fate of the nation-state for the past two months. The results of this research seem to point to the conclusion that the technologization of the Irwin Courterly [not unlike the modernization of Christine's egg-in-a-nest cooking (see last month's odds and ends) --Eds.] may have a number of unforeseen and potentially disastrous consequences.
Of course, there are those economists, such as Frieden and Rogowski (1994), who think that international trade liberalization, and by extension probably also the global diffusion of information such as that contained in formerly esoteric periodicals like the IC, might have beneficial consequences, insofar as the international demonstration effect could increase the opportunity costs of economic closure, so that repressive governments might eventually bow to domestic political and foreign economic pressures to grant their citizens liberty. Others, such as one Mr. Rothkopf recently published in Foreign Affairs, might even contend that even cultural imperialism, such as that in which the IC is about to engage by subjecting thousands of impressionable Web surfers to its alluring message, and which is inherent to the globalization process, might represent an important step toward a more stable world order. Rothkopf argues that a world with fewer cultural distinctions will be a world in which communication and understanding are more widespread. In a private interview he also added that the cultural model upheld by the Irwin Courterly will be especially beneficial to readers in all parts of the world, since that model is "the most just, the most tolerant, and the best model for the future," and therefore no one should complain about its diffusion.
But what about cultural pluralism? Why should peasants in the Third World want to throw their traditions and the comforts of inertia to the wind in favor of a new cultural model that pelts them with distinctly anti-traditional symbols such as the Nike swoosh and recipes for nouvelle California cuisine whose ingredients are not readily available in Ghana, anyway? Ben Barber, in Jihad vs. McWorld, has asserted that this sort of attack on traditional cultures can throw politicized identity groups into violent competition for scarce economic, political, and cultural resources, creating a situation that is inimical to democracy, to stability, and to peace, and which is potentially bloody and dangerous. Other less hyperbolic theorists make the same point, adding one variable: Joseph Rothschild, Daniel Bell, and Kiren Chaudhry all contend that globalization can cause the erosion of the legal, extractive, and regulatory functions of the state, which, in turn, may result in ethnic fragmentation, religious fundamentalism, new social cleavages, and, ultimately, war. Katherine Verdery traces the process, pointing to three key parts of globalization that weaken the state: international arms trade mocks the state monopoly on violence, which is key to sovereignty; capital mobility means that states lose their ability to tax and to redistribute income, so that they break the social contracts that they have with their citizens; and labor migration weakens the borders between nation-states. These processes have two potential outcomes: changing the boundaries between nation-states (such as occurs in cases of secession, e.g. Czechoslovakia, to name only one); or re-legitimating those boundaries with ethnic cleansing (as in Yugoslavia, where it was violent and awful, or as in Bulgaria, where 300,000 ethnic Turks were deported to Turkey in 1989).
The foregoing makes it abundantly clear that the editorial board of the Irwin Courterly is taking a huge risk by posting its journal on the World Wide Web. This reporter sincerely hopes that she does not hear in the near future about how Ms. Abbott and Ms. Brooks were called before the International Human Rights Tribunal in Strasbourg for the chaos they created in the developing world by spreading their undeniably attractive, yet potentially dangerous message to innocent Third World readers, but the evidence cited above leaves little room for optimism. At least the prodigious work of John Zysman provides reassurance that the IC itself does not have to change at the same time as it effects change in the rest of the world. The course of Irwin Courterly's own development is path-dependent, determined over a year ago by the historical selection of institutions such as fonts and formats, which will ensure the endurance of the IC's distinct culture and message for years to come. As long as that is the case, we can sleep well tonight, after all.
To: The Irwin Courterly Oakland CA
From: East Coast rep Gofer Coughy
Subject: Pay Telephone Deregulation by the FCC
Dateline October 22-97 Port Elizabeth NJPAIR A DIMES STILL GOOD: NO SHIFT IN NJ AREA
The recent announcement that the FCC has deregulated totally the pay phone industry seems to have had little effect so far in the NJ metro area. At last check pay phones of various ownership either had not yet been changed or had no plans to change the basic local rate of 20 cents. According to reliable sources on WQXR radio, the PSC of the State of New York has frozen pay phone rates of Bell Atlantic until the year 2001 at 25 cents. No official policy from New Jersey has been uncovered to date by this admittedly lazy reporter. The inflationary frenzy expected by pay phone users apparently has been somewhat subdued. The fear of instant 35 cent or higher fees for local calls has probably been restrained to a large degree by the increased usage of portable cell phones and other PCS systems. The demise of the neighborhood pay phone may be enhanced by a rate increase, but most of the cause can be attributed to wireless communications systems. This reporter is skeptical that any increase in the cost of a pay phone call will guarantee its reliability.
On American Schools
by Simona Assenova
IC Palo Alto correspondentWhat is the difference between the US and Eastern Europe? Where are the people more free to choose? Sounds like a very easy multiple-choice question, doesn't it? But the answer to this question provides many clues about how it is to be a student in an Eastern European school. It has a lot to do with choice...or with the lack of any choice at all!
As a Bulgarian student with long years of experience in such a school, I can honestly state that there were very few cases in which I had a say. The subjects I had to take were never a question of choice, nor did it ever cross my mind that they might be. Consequently, I've been taking 13 or 14 courses per year since I entered middle school. I remember what a busy schedule I had last year. I had Bulgarian, literature, geometry, algebra, English, German, Russian, biology, chemistry, geography, history, art, music, and P.E. School took a great deal of my time, but this was not the worst. Bulgarian teachers are in the habit of thinking that their subject is the most important one, and that if you want an "A" (which in Bulgarian equivalents would be a "6") you need to know everything about this subject in detail. In addition, teachers are not always so friendly and interested in teaching. Because of the difficult conditions in which they live, most of them lack enthusiasm for their job and patience for their students. This results in many students dropping out of school when they find themselves unable to fulfill the high requirements and to put up with the teachers' attitudes.
It is common knowledge that different people have different abilities and interests, but apparently Bulgarian teachers are not interested in that fact. If you cannot meet their requirements... Well, then life is tough. Nothing can be done for you. The material we cover at school is at a high academic level. We study just about everything, but most of us find that later in life it is difficult to use the theoretical knowledge. A chemistry course, for example, might teach you everything there is to know about carbon, except, that is, for its practical uses.
In contrast, the American school system includes much more practical knowledge, contemporary information, and, well, fun. Students are not examined before the blackboard, and they always know in advance when they will have tests or quizzes. One of the positive feelings that I have experienced in America is the lack of frustration and panic that I used to feel each time I was called to stand before my classmates' gaze in front of that notorious blackboard. Here I feel much more free to do normal things like get up to throw away a piece of paper without asking permission first. In my school in Bulgaria I would be yelled at for such audacious behavior.
I chose the courses that I am taking this year -- quite successfully, I might add -- and I feel incredibly happy because this allows me to study things that I have always been interested in without having to lose hours in memorizing meaningless formulas which I will never ever use later in my life. But at the same time, I know that the high level of education in my country gives me the opportunity now to skip two years of high school. It has also helped me to determine what I want to study because of the variety of subjects that I have already dabbled in. Still, I would be lying if I said that I miss the pressure of Bulgarian school. Here I am learning for the first time how to use my knowledge in interdisciplinary contexts -- laws and history, language and math can be complementary subjects. I do receive everyday lessons in how to respect others, how to respect opinions that differ from my own, and even how it feels to be respected as a human being. America is helping me to see things from a different point of view, unrestricted by stupid communist visions of the world.
American schools provide students with many more opportunities for self-development. Nobody is pressed to do things that s/he dislikes. And at the same time, people are brought up to be responsible for what they know, for homework, and for attendance. However, problems like cutting classes and tardiness are less severe in the US than in Bulgaria, due to the strict rules. Here a student may be suspended for 5 truancies or 8 tardies, so everyone tries not to be late for class. Students are treated as future citizens of the US. They are respected by the teachers for their individuality and differences. That way they learn to uphold their responsibilities and to appreciate the principles on which the US was built -- equality and mutual respect for all. I think this is the main difference between my country's schools and the schools in the States. American students are taught to respect and see the value of democracy and to take personal responsibility for its preservation. I wish that it were the same way in my country's schools. I hope that it will change. I need to hope.
Simona Assenova is formerly of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and is currently a senior at Palo Alto High School. She hopes to attend the University of California at Berkeley beginning next year.
Robin Report
by special correspondent XipThis month, it was very difficult to catch Robin for an interview. Thanks to modern technology, however, this correspondent was able to electronically stalk her and find out what she was up to. The purposes of this stalking were, of course, benevolent and limited to the production of this important article of the Irwin Courterly. In any case, Robin's activities this month were highly interesting, if slightly enigmatic.
At the beginning of the month, Robin split her studying time between comparative analysis and post-Communist politics. She developed an obsession for the globalization debate, and could not tear herself away from the summer 1997 issue of Foreign Policy, which contained six articles on the topic. After a few days, however, Robin realized that her post-Communism exam was sneaking up on her, and she began to devote her time to that topic. In particular, she quickly read as much as she could about Romania and about NATO expansion. At the last moment she was also able to borrow a review article that her friend Simon had written about civil society, apply it to what she already knew about Russia, and quickly memorize the skeleton of an essay about civil society in Russia. On October 10th Robin took the six-hour written exam on post-Communist politics. Rather than feeling nervous and tortured, as one might have expected from someone in her position, Robin sort of seemed to enjoy writing the answers to her exam questions. After finishing the exam, she celebrated with friends.
The following week, Robin became increasingly more nervous about her upcoming comparative politics exam. It caused some craziness in her social life, too. But in the end, she prepared and memorized outlines for 13 possible exam questions. She spent the last day of her studying at Laura Henry's house, where the two students quizzed each other and tried to cram in additional information at the last minute. On October 17th Robin took the comparative politics exam. The questions were less than optimal, and most were entirely unexpected. Although Robin was still not tortured, this time she was slightly nervous, and she definitely felt like she could have used more time to answer the questions thoroughly. However, when she turned in the exam six hours later, Ellen, the graduate assistant, notified Robin that she could celebrate twice that night, because the results were in from the post-Communism exam, and Robin had passed it. Robin experienced quite a sense of relief at that moment. Later, it also became evident that one of the readers of the post-Communism exam, Andrew Janos, had recommended Robin's essays for distinction.
Aside from exam preparation, Robin did not actually do very much during the month of October. The weekend after the exams she relaxed by playing football with her Bulgarian friends, who were visiting from Palo Alto, and by attending the Bernal Heights street fair in San Francisco. She intends to spend the rest of the month writing fellowship applications.
Catie Curtis' New CD
by Dan DelionA year and a half ago, Guardian (a division of EMI Records), the label of many a Joan Baez album as well as the Nields, released Catie Curtis' album. "Truth From Lies" was previously released (except for two songs) on the label Hear Music (also a West Berkeley, CA, music store), after being released independently on Mongoose, Catie's first label. In May '96, Catie did a benefit gig for Hear Music at an outdoor, afternoon event before her performance at Freight and Salvage, a classic Berkeley venue, on tour with the new release of her album.
Robin and Jennie first saw Catie at the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA, which they attended with their friend the folk singer Michael Hsu. The following summer, Jennie saw Michael Hsu open for Catie at the Turning Point in Piermont, NY. Mike currently lives in NYC, working as an assistant editor at Harper's magazine by day, and pursuing his folk music career the rest of the time. Mike notified Robin of the new release and she bought the CD recently.
This latest self-titled album starts off with "Soulfully," a little more "rock'n'roll" than most of her other more folky tunes, but continues to demonstrate her usual variety of songs and lyric topics. The second song, "I don't cry anymore," can be heard on the radio, according to Sara Rushing. That would be good for Catie, since the main reason to get signed by a big label is increased popularity. While her classic "Dandelion," sung on floors with various guitars and other instruments by former members of Tangled Up in Blue, a folk group at Yale, (a group whose founders went on to form the folk group The Nields) is continually enjoyed, we are glad to have new songs of equally good caliber and potential for longevity in the world of the music of the people.
Toni Childs at Bimbo's 365 Club
at Bimbo's 365 Club, San FranciscoToni Childs appeared on stage to a warm welcome, and promptly announced that she and her band would be playing new music to test out on us before going into the studio (this was the third show)--and she would take no requests.
We covered our ears at the volume when Rufus Wainwright played--his warm low notes reverberating through the room, some of the high ones threatening to pierce our ear drums. I kept hoping the sound guy would fix the problem, and got up to ask the opinion of an employee. I noticed that the back part of the room was much more pleasant, but not as near the stage, and after seeing Toni Childs at Radio City Music Hall in '89 I wanted to be as close as possible this time. Luckily, the coat checker provided ear plugs, and it was better after that.
Kyle Vincent followed Rufus Wainwright and got the audience singing along to his tribute to the late John Denver, "West Virginia, mountain mama, take me home." Then one of Toni Childs' backup singers did an improv piece with the cellist--presumably buying time for Toni, who seemed a little hoarse that night. Sipping tea and sucking lozenges after the first Janis Joplin-esque song, she seemed like she might not make it through the set--but she did, and then some.
Known most widely for the song "House of Hope" (the title track of her second album), which was on the sound track to Thelma and Louise, Toni Childs sings haunting songs with a striking voice, and many of her songs employ experimental sounds and music. Her first album, Union, includes the song "Zimbabwe," which is featured on a Putamayo world-music CD of female artists, adding to the unconfirmed perception that she is African-American. Her long-awaited third album, The Woman's Boat, was released in July 1994, with more experimental music, a strong feminist message, and an insert about Dream a Dolphin, a non-profit organization Toni started to save dolphins.
The first song at Bimbo's was "Promised Land," a rip-roaring, rock'n'roll song that took a little adjusting for those of us accustomed to her more brooding melodies. Then she sang about revolution, and lots about love, and announced that she'd gotten married a week before when audience members called out their adoration.
Though the audience begged for any old, familiar song, Toni and her band played two of the new ones we had just heard that night for the encore. But by then we could all join in on the chorus to Promised Land: "Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, pleeeease don't go... I'll take you to the promised land, oh yeah, oh yeah!" "But nobody sings "baby, baby" with as much verve as she does!" said Leta Herman. So let Toni take you, but don't expect the new album out for another year. I can hardly wait!
An unofficial website for Toni Childs
Predictions
by Krystal BallA careful look at the combined tarot cards of the readership of the Irwin Courterly reveals the following:
*Unto us a child will be born. Unto us a son is given on November 1 at 4pm. This child, Henry Mateo, will be 21 inches long at his birth and will weigh 8 pounds and 7 ounces. His parents, Brian and Virginia, will read him the Dr. Seuss Sleep Book in the hospital to introduce him to their voices. The child will have bizarrely pointy ears, proving the possibility of Lamarckian evolution.
Letter to the Editor
Editors, Irwin Courterly, Oakland CADear Ms.s Abbott & Brooks:
I was disappointed in your most recent issue. Your usual well rounded coverage of events of import was vastly reduced to the field of education. For one whose favorite patient's angst is instantly aroused by the mention of school, I found your well written articles caused some amount of trauma. Based on previous issues I was caught off guard and didn't censor this issue before letting the inmates, pardon me, the residents, read it. I fear my good Dr. Lueny will cancel this institution's subscription to your publication if you concentrate too much on one area. I did appreciate the story about the Waldorf., and hope to stay in that Hotel during our next convention in NYC. We do serve your salads to the patients whose medical insurance pays for perks.
Thank you,
Mary A. Shell
Nurse Mary
Dr. Lueny's Bin
Loco, TX
October 25, 1997
Dear Jennifer,
Thanks for your note and the copy of your article. I enjoyed both. Your article addresses the major themes in Waldorf Education and does so well. I would have a few quibbles with your choice of words in a few places, but you're on target. The only substantive issue I would raise regards your use of the headings, "Body," "Mind" and "Spirit." There is no clear indication of how you defined the terms or the factors you considered in applying them. Why, for example, would television relate to spirit rather than mind? You don't need the headings at all. Lastly, I would suggest that faculty governance in Waldorf Schools is more complex and varied than you seem to indicate.As far as reading goes, have you read A.C. Harwood's The Recovery of Man in Childhood? Another good read as an introduction to Waldorf Education is M.C. Richards' Toward Wholeness: Rudolf Steiner Education in America.
I hope these things are helpful. ...looking at the world in which the stars are sparkling...
Jeff Kane
Holistic Educational ReviewP.S. My wife is a pre-school teacher and faculty co-chair of the Garden City Waldorf School.