I am very intrigued by this ongoing story in my hometown of New Haven. The local Catholic Worker house, which for some time has allowed homeless people—many of them cleared out of other encampments by the city—to live in their back yard, has recently erected tiny houses for them to live in. The city, run by a very progressive mayor named Justin Elicker, who is going to win reelection today, has pushed back (as the Catholic Worker folk knew he would), citing Catholic Worker for zoning violations, for not going through proper permitting procedures, etc. The claim seems to be that the tiny houses might be okay, but have to be approved, which takes time. And the Catholic Worker folk are basically saying, “Winter is coming, there is no time, screw up.” It’s a fascinating story if you care about housing, urbanism, shelter, tiny houses, architecture, progressive Catholicism, etc.
Tiny bookstores
Speaking of small being beautiful, I am writing from Hamilton, Ontario (not small—over half a million people), where I visited their very small but mighty indie bookstore, Epic Books. Epic is on Locke Street, which at this very moment seems poised in that sweet spot between gritty, keep-it-real local commerce and the gentrified, high-rent, chain-store, smoothie-fied future that no doubt awaits it. Which is to say, there were a few too many storefronts of the homeopathy, juice-cleanse variety, but at least they were hawking local homeopathic juice cleanses, rather than those yuppified, hedge-fund, chain-store homeopathic juice cleanses. And there was a microbrew, some cool-looking restaurants, antique stores … and Epic Books.
…there were a few too many storefronts of the homeopathy, juice-cleanse variety, but at least they were hawking local homeopathic juice cleanses…
Epic was wicked small, but big enough to accommodate, when I walked in, me, two other browsers, and two employees, Joe and a woman whose name I didn’t catch. I struck up a conversation, and holy cow, were they fun to talk to. They were both well read, enthusiastic, eager to hand-sell favorite books, friendly. They seemed to like books and people, which is hardly the rule when it comes to bookstore clerks.
And it turned out that one of them—Joe Ollmann—was an author in his own right, a rather celebrated graphic novelist. This guy. Author of all these books:
And so of course I had to buy his latest, which is this one:
And so, being the mensch that he is, Joe inscribed it to me with a personalized illo, like so:
And so that’s what I am going to read on the airplane ride home.
Dave, actually
My brother’s terrific newsletter, Eminent Americans, a round-up of interesting intellectuals and what they are thinking about, has convened a round-table about the legacy of art critic Dave Hickey, the world’s grumpiest MacArthur “genius” (most of us, when we get that lucrative prize, get less grumpy—at least that’s my plan). You can dive in here.
Home schooling on the rise
As somebody who never thought home schooling was deviant or weird or had ill effects on children, I was intrigued to read this article in the Washington Post about the growth in home schooling.
This may be a place to insert a rant that really deserves its own post, and may get it someday, but is sort of related to home schooling. My theory is that American public education has swung hard and far in favor of the “STEM,” or quantitative, math-and-science, fields. From what I have seen, you are far more likely to get engineering or coding in a high school curriculum, but far less likely to read books in your English class. There are a number of factors at play: liberals’ desire to get poor kids the skills that will get them jobs (that is, math/coding/tech skills), conservatives’ desire to have a competitive workforce (that is, math/coding/tech skills), a Common Core that, in English, emphasizes decoding and interpreting short, nonfiction passages (personal essays, op-eds) but establishes no canon of books that a student might get asked to interpret on a standardized test, teachers’ sense that asking students to read books, in this age of short attention spans, is futile, their fear that so many classic books are political hot potatoes (see Huckleberry Finn), etc., etc.
But the bottom line is: good luck finding an English class with serious reading (as opposed writing practice, which is thought useful, and thus does get taught) in most American public high schools, at least before the AP or honors class a senior might take.
Which is to say: one of the appeals of home schooling is that you can read books with your child. That is also, of course, part of the appeal of some private schooling; having had five children at a total of five different schools, from K-12, and having home-schooled one of them for a month, once, my (admittedly anecdotal) conclusion is, if you want your children to read books in school, you have to pay a lot of money for private school, or teach them at home.
It’s all part of the general attack on the humanities—which, by the way, has real-world repercussions when, say, there is a war going on, in a region with a complicated history, in another part of the world, and college students who can do multivariable calculus and code in C++ don’t know why 1948 or 1982 are significant dates in the conflict they suddenly have a lot of opinions about.
Speaking of that war . . .
If you want to read a smart, informed, witty newsletter by a writer who actually knows stuff, and is not trying to virtue-signal to the left or the right, and isn’t captive to ideology, and just wants to help us all see straight (and toward peace), check out Both/And, the relatively new newsletter of my friend Jay Michaelson, for which I gladly pay money. Here’s just one paragraph from his latest edition:
I’ve written at length about the use of the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza. I am certain that those actions do not qualify as genocide under international law. But it’s also true that our language lacks the vocabulary for the horror that is taking place: thousands of innocent people with nowhere to run, being bombarded by a powerful military, knowing they and their children could die at any moment. That isn’t “genocide” but it is something horrible, is it not? What word does describe it?
You can see the mind that’s at work here: compassionate but rigorous (rather, compassionate and rigorous). That’s just one paragraph, but go read more.
I almost had to ditch my favorite ice cream place …
…but I didn’t. Read below. I went out to ice cream with my wife and another couple, before taking in a late show of comedian Anthony Jeselnik at College Street Music Hall. I am about to order my coffee oreo on a wafer cone (what we used to call a “plain cone,” as opposed to a “sugar cone”) when we notice signs posted on the store’s community bulletin board. As to their content, I will only say that they used “genocide” in a tendentious and inaccurate way. The next day, I filled out an online comment form.
Sent via form submission from Ashley's Ice Cream
Name: Mark Oppenheimer
Subject: political signs in stores
Message: We noticed the signs up in your New Haven store about the war in the Middle East. It would be great if there were no political signs up in the stores, supporting one side or the other. We go in to have ice cream, not to look at messages, and it made some of my acquaintances uncomfortable. Thank you.
And just today, I got this back.
Hi Mark,
Thank you for letting us know. Our policy for hanging notices on our bulletin boards in our stores is for non-profit, community events only. We definitely do not accept any postings that are political, or offensive. Our manager in New Haven has removed the sign and will keep a closer eye on what is posted in our stores. We apologize for any discomfort this caused you or those with you, ice cream is meant to be a simple indulgence that should help us escape the stresses that we endure throughout our daily lives. Hope next time it does!
Sincerely,
Brian Anderson
Ashley's Ice Cream
This is good news. I really love their coffee oreo ice cream.
Are you listening to my new podcast?
You should.