Jonathan Franzen

Posted Thursday, Sept. 2, 2010 by Double X staff, at slate.com –

Two weeks ago, best-selling author Jodi Picoult sent a Tweet in a fit of pique. Upon reading Michiko Kakutani’s glowing review of Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Freedom in the New York Times, the lady novelist took to her keyboard and typed out the following:

NYT raved about Franzen’s new book. Is anyone shocked? Would love to see the NYT rave about authors who aren’t white male literary darlings.

Read the entire story here.

Leave your thoughts on the matter below.

Bust provides a newsstand antidote to mainstream women’s magazines.  While many of the topics are the same, the perspective is decidedly alternative, unconventional, and liberal. (Magazines for libraries)

 Welcome (or Welcome Back)! And a special welcome to the Class of 2014.

 “This Week in NMH History,” premieres for the 2010-11 school year. Each week in this space you will have the opportunity to learn about the history of your school: to see how it has changed or remained unchanged with the passage of time.

The stories told in “This Week…” come from a variety of sources: viewbooks and catalogues from years past, newspapers, literary magazines, even schedules hold information about our past which inform our present.

Our opening installment reminds us that history is happening all the time (some of you already know this), and that our history on one campus is relatively short. It was only five years ago, after 92 years as single-sex institutions, followed by 34 years as a two-campus coeducational secondary school, that we began a new chapter as a one-campus, coeducational institution. This was a singular moment in our history. Witness one small part of it as it was recorded in the alumni magazine:

 From NMH Magazine; fall 2005; vol. 8, no.1; p.10.

 OVERSEEING A MONUMENTAL TASK

“If you’re baking a cake and need to get it done fast you don’t turn the heat from 350 degrees to 650,” says Stan Pitchko, director of plant facilities. “In the same way putting pressure on the folks in the field doesn’t make things happen any faster. It just burns the cake.”

…Pitchko, who’s in charge of capital construction, the power plant, water and sewer systems, the campus mail system, grounds and custodial crews, tradespeople, and safety and security, sees himself primarily as an orchestrator. If so, he just conducted the equivalent of Mahler’s Resurrection.

Last year the campus had 428 students; this year there are 717. The campus is currently supporting 48 percent more infrastructure than in the past, and by the time all planned capital construction is done, the campus will grow by 200,000 square feet. Over the summer, along with the usual repairs and renovations, there were additions, whole building makeovers, space conversions, and countless moves.

“I knew it was going to be a monumental task,” says Pitchko, who became director of plant facilities four months after the trustees voted to consolidate the campuses in January 2004. “We’ve had what we call ‘flies in the ointment,’ but we’ve always worked through it.”

Five years later, we remain surrounded by  those who did all the hard work to get us to where we were then, and who have continued to work to get us to where are now: we are ever in their debt, don’t forget to thank them. – ed.

I have a piece in the August 2010 issue of the Smithsonian magazine, their 40th Anniversary issue. They commissioned 40 views of the future. I wrote about the future of reading, or what they titled Reading in a Whole New Way

An excerpt:

And it demands more than our eyes. The most physically active we may get while reading a book is to flip the pages or dog-ear a corner. But screens engage our bodies. Touch screens respond to the ceaseless caress of our fingers. Sensors in game consoles such as the Nintendo Wii track our hands and arms. We interact with what we see. Soon enough, screens will follow our eyes to perceive where we gaze. A screen will know what we are paying attention to and for how long. In the futuristic movie Minority Report (2002), the character played by Tom Cruise stands in front of a wraparound screen and hunts through vast archives of information with the gestures of a symphony conductor. Reading becomes almost athletic. Just as it seemed weird five centuries ago to see someone read silently, in the future it will seem weird to read without moving your body.

Books were good at developing a contemplative mind. Screens encourage more utilitarian thinking. A new idea or unfamiliar fact will provoke a reflex to do something: to research the term, to query your screen “friends” for their opinions, to find alternative views, to create a bookmark, to interact with or tweet the thing rather than simply contemplate it. Book reading strengthened our analytical skills, encouraging us to pursue an observation all the way down to the footnote. Screen reading encourages rapid pattern-making, associating this idea with another, equipping us to deal with the thousands of new thoughts expressed every day. The screen rewards, and nurtures, thinking in real time. We review a movie while we watch it, we come up with an obscure fact in the middle of an argument, we read the owner’s manual of a gadget we spy in a store before we purchase it rather than after we get home and discover that it can’t do what we need it to do.

Nap time for Dylan class of 2011

Dylan is the last Lounge Lizard of the 2009-2010 year.

On another note this is my last entry to the NMH Library blog

Copeland signing off.

Go to the library catalog — http://biblios.nmhschool.org/patroninfo — and click on MY ACCOUNT in the upper right hand corner.

The Library charges replacement fees for all books not returned at the close of school. Want to make your parents happy? Return your library books before leaving school.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEgE9KJ1h8k

This summer, Jeff will read Moby Dick, or, The Whale (Modern Library, 1992)

What will you be reading? Stop by the Library and tell us.

Another day, another round of asking the question, “Why don’t men read more books?” As usual, women are held up as the culprits when these sorts of questions are asked. Even though everyone genteelly refuses to blame women—instead choosing to honor their accomplishments and acknowledge how sexism shapes behavior—the answer persistently comes back to, “Because women dictate publishing and therefore women’s tastes dominate.” But the answer doesn’t quite satisfy, and I think it’s because people are asking the wrong question. The right question is, “Why do women read so many books?”

Read entire story. Click here. Respond below.

Sunday, September 19, 2004; Page BW08

If, as the 18th-century English essayist Sir Richard Steele suggested, “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body,” area high school students got plenty of exercise this past summer. Here are some of the other titles that appeared on reading lists for rising seniors:

Click here for the list.

First, a “Thank you” to all who entered. Student entries were up this year, but only two adult poets and one youth entered their work. This complicated the judging. It was decided not to award prizes in the latter two categories, but the judge was impressed by the youth entry and awarded it an honorable mention in the Student Poetry division.

Please congratulate the following poets:

1st Place: Charles Milliken for his untitled poem

2nd Place: Mallory Pipich for her poem, “The Red Balloon”

Honorable Mention: Leela Kurzmann for her poem, “Surrender”

There will be a poetry reading at 2:00 p.m. in Schauffler Library. The community is invited to attend. Winners are particularly invited to come and read their poems. Please bring a poem to share.

Peter H. Weis, ‘78
Archivist

Northfield Mount Hermon School
One Lamplighter Way
Mt. Hermon, MA 01354

Phone: (413)-498-3469