Jack Gantos: Slobberific

Jack Gan­tos: Slobberific

“Some­times when you stare out the win­dow it’s like watch­ing the movies in your mind.” —Jack Gan­tosAnd some­times, you make read­ers laugh so hard, they slob­ber them­selves, and while they’re laugh­ing, you sneak in a nugget of pro­fun­dity and insight that once they’ve stopped laugh­ing and cleaned them­selves up, they say, “Huh. That’s so right.”

January 27, 2012 – 9:54 am | Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Your Voice Is Not Worth Hearing

The State of Ari­zona has passed a law mak­ing it ille­gal for schools to offer courses based on eth­nic groups. In reac­tion Tucson’s school dis­trict has not only closed the courses, but has con­fis­cated the mate­ri­als used to teach those courses.  Appar­ently, if you are a mem­ber of an eth­nic group on Ari­zona, the First Amend­ment of …

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January 26, 2012 – 8:00 am | Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)

HUGO Gets 11

The news out of Hol­ly­wood yes­ter­day was that HUGO pulled in 11 Oscar nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing best direc­tor, art direc­tion, cin­e­matog­ra­phy, cos­tume design, film edit­ing, orig­i­nal music score, sound edit­ing, sound mix­ing, visual effects and adapted screen­play. Beyond that fact that I’m delighted that HUGO turned out so well, that Hol­ly­wood rec­og­nized a children’s book, and …

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January 25, 2012 – 12:48 pm | Posted in Blog | Comments (0)

The 2012 book banning in Tucson schools (by ThreeSonorans)

The 2012 book ban­ning in Tuc­son schools (by ThreeSonorans)

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January 25, 2012 – 12:04 pm | Posted in Blog | Comments (0)

My younger locust is a hockey goalie, both ice and roller. Here’s her latest tournament.

My younger locust is a hockey goalie, both ice and roller. Here’s her lat­est tournament.

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January 24, 2012 – 5:41 pm | Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Bringing the Funny to the Medal Round

Almost as much as Rod­ney Dan­ger­field is quoted for his “No respect” catch­phrase, Edmund Kean,* the famous Shake­spearean actor, is often quoted as say­ing on his deathbed, “Dying is easy; com­edy is hard.” **  Our finest actors are those who can play com­edy, which requires more sub­tly and finesse than dra­matic act­ing. The same is true of writ­ing.  It’s easy to …

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January 24, 2012 – 10:06 am | Posted in Blog | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)

What is tumblr for, anyway?

Good ques­tion. I’m still try­ing tot fig­ure it out.

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January 23, 2012 – 3:56 pm | Posted in Blog | Comments (0)