The attraction, billed as “North Mississippi’s #1 Best Kept Secret,” is quickly becoming well known. I found out about it via word of mouth.

Thursday night I convinced several family members to accompany me to see the “Christmas in Cottonplant” holiday display. We loaded into the car and settled in for the hour-long drive from my mother’s house to Cottonplant, Miss.

We went through Ripley, then Blue Mountain, after which we spotted our destination just off the left side of the highway. The bright lights and varied colors, along with a string of traffic waiting to turn in to the driveway, was the tipoff.

I have never seen so many inflatables in one place in my life. That’s the point, of course. According to the Mississippi Christmas website, which features information on various holiday displays throughout the state, the Cottonplant display has over 450 inflatables and over 20,000 lights. All of the classic Christmas icons are represented: Charlie Brown, Frosty, Grinch, Santa Claus, and the Nativity—along with some not so traditional Christmas figures, including Homer Simpson and Winnie the Pooh sporting Christmas attire.

How did it all begin? The Paul family, who run the display on the grounds of their private residence, say, “What started out as a decoration for our boys to name at the back of our house has grown into a hobby/collection. You will see inflatables here that are retired, one of a kinds that were never mass produced, one from Europe, one from Mexico, and others that were only sold in large cities in the United States.”

The trail through the decorations, which spans 13 acres, is roped off with lights, which require two to five miles of wire to run. In various locations, projectors cast classic Christmas cartoons and clips from holiday movies onto screens. Other unique attractions await visitors, including a video window projection that looks to be Santa Claus moving around inside the owner’s house on the property. At the end of one path on the far side of the display stands a gargantuan inflated Santa, who must be around 25 feet tall.

The family runs the Elk Café on the grounds, selling hot chocolate and other warm treats, and visitors may also opt to have photographs made with costumed characters such as Frosty or the Grinch. All of this merriment is synchronized to the accompaniment of classic holiday music broadcast over the airwaves from a local FM radio station.

According to further information on the Mississippi Christmas website, two people begin assembling the display from July to October for four to five hours daily. In November, two to six people work about four or five hours daily to get the display ready for its opening Thanksgiving weekend. The display then runs until the day after Christmas—except for Christmas Eve. After the holiday, it requires about four or five hours daily for one or two people to disassemble the display from December until the end of March.

Some observers, I’m sure, think the design is gaudy or overwrought. I tried to imagine how I would have enjoyed it if I had been a child strolling through the display of lights and characters, and I observed the youngsters who were captivated by what seemed to them a magical landscape. They led parents and grandparents through the maze of displays, pointing out particular characters.

After less than half an hour, my party collectively decided it was time to go. I had originally envisioned a drive-thru spectacle, and so our accoutrements were not quite adequate for the winter weather.

Upon return following the roughly 90-mile round trip, after having been sated with holiday lights and music, we stopped to refuel the car. As the trip was my idea, I offered to pay. With prices holding just under $3 a gallon, I realized the Grinch had taken over at the gas pump. I thought we had left him behind with all of the other costumed characters. Nevertheless, our holiday visit to Cottonplant was still well worth it.

Lately, I’ve realized that my own temperate South has the ability to mimic the Arctic Tundra. In reality, it started last winter with the pattern of winter weather that seemed to make its weekly appearance, generally each Monday. Our school system missed 20 days of instruction because of those weather patterns. I hadn’t recalled quite so much snow since I was a child, when it seemed that we got more snow, although this last year the accumulation was not as great as the regularity.

Already this approaching winter season has offered to “live out the true meaning of its creed,” as temperatures hovered near the single digits last week and wind chills dipped into negative numbers at times.

Begin thrust into this bout of cold weather before we’ve officially entered the winter season makes me wonder whether I’ve planned my vacation venue appropriately.

It began last fall when I went to New York City for the first time to view the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I had never experienced a city so alive with cultural venues and great cuisine—a city that teemed and pulsed with excitement. It was a never-ending cornucopia of theater, jazz, museums, or almost any sort of art for which one could desire exposure. The gargantuan pizza slices and meaty delicatessen sandwiches weren’t too bad, either.

I didn’t want to leave, and when I did, I missed it and yearned to go back. I dreamed of going back before I had unpacked my suitcase. This city, it felt, was made just for me.

I got my chance in March after I opted out of an overbooked flight and took another flight home from a trip to L.A., obtaining a $300 credit voucher from the airline. I knew immediately where I wanted to use my voucher to go within the next year. Already, visions of tall buildings and bustling streets danced in my head like those sugar plums in the classic Christmas tale.

A few weeks ago, I booked my return trip to NYC for New Year’s Eve, another spectacle I’ve always wanted to witness. The airfare credit was almost enough to cover the flight, and I paid the remainder. I found a great hotel deal in Long Island City, just across the Queensboro Bridge in Queens, a short 15 minute subway ride to Manhattan. It was a new extended stay hotel with kitchenettes and a balcony view of the city for a meager $100 a night, not a great sum to spend on a night in the Big Apple.

The excitement built, and all was well until this week, when I received a message from the hotel notifying me that the water pipes had frozen. They weren’t sure if they would be able to repair them in time for visitors within a week and a half. So it would be best, the representative informed me, if I would kindly seek habitation elsewhere and settle for a prompt refund.

I was crushed. I knew that some hotels in close proximity to Times Square were going for $499 a night. I was hoping not to spend much more than that for the entire week.

However, I love searching for travel deals and didn’t give up hope. Later that evening, I found another hotel deal for $99 a night at a quirky hotel in a fashionable, hip section of Chelsea. It was almost too good to be true, and I booked it.

Now I’m looking for good deals on cold weather accoutrements, including a down-filled jacket to help me in my quest of braving the elements in watching a new year arrive in the optimal place to do so. I’m also thinking I’ll need ski socks and thermal underwear, considering those frozen pipes and the latest temperatures I’ve been seeing forecasted for New York City. The highs are slated to be in the 30s.

I’m still looking forward to the trip, even though I’m a bit like Parrothead Jimmy Buffett in his song “Boat Drinks,” where he proclaims “I gotta go where it's warm.” I do prefer warm weather, but for a few days, I’ll have to make do while I’m having fun in the “city that never sleeps.” This time, though, no one will be sleeping because their feet will be frostbitten.

 

Almost a decade has passed since Peanuts cartoonist Charles M. Schulz left us at age 77, although it doesn’t seem like that long at all. However, every year during the holiday season, his memory is evoked when his half-hour television specials begin their annual run.

The fall season is ushered in at Halloween, when “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” airs. Originally broadcast October 27, 1966, the cartoon special has endured over four decades. The precursor to the winter holiday season happens, of course, when Schulz’s “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” airs. Its debut occurred November 20, 1973.

The winter holiday season begins in earnest when we get “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” which aired December 9, 1965, actually the first of the three shows mentioned to appear on television. When it first aired, I wouldn’t be born for another eight years—in November 1973—so I am one of those youngsters who grew up watching it ever year.

What is it about Charles Schulz that has made him so enduring?

His work was simple and good-hearted. His main character, known as Charlie Brown to all the gang—except Peppermint Patty, who calls him “Chuck,” and Marcie, who calls him the more formal “Charles”—was supposedly based on his own personal experience of feeling inadequate.

The Peanuts gang includes a diverse range of characters that often harbor their own personal weaknesses and faults. Consider Linus, who never quite outgrows his “trusty blanket.” Consider Lucy, who is an overwhelming narcissist. Consider Pigpen, a walking dust storm.

Charles Schulz was certainly progressive. I never thought about it when I was a child, but his inclusion of Franklin, a black character introduced to the strip in 1968, was quite radical in a society just on the brink of racial desegregation.

Schulz’s publisher told him he didn’t “mind [him] having a black character, but please don’t show them in school together.” Charles Schulz’s response was straightforward: “I finally sighed and said, 'Well, Larry, let’s put it this way: Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How’s that?'”

He didn’t quit, though, thankfully, for posterity’s sake. Although not everyone may be familiar with his work in comic strip format now, we still have those enduring holiday television classics.

The standout, of course, is “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Interestingly, the annual cartoon almost didn’t make it. It was sponsored by the Coca-Cola Corporation after an ad agent saw the Peanuts gang featured on the cover of Time magazine and asked producer Lee Mendelson if a Peanuts Christmas special had been proposed.

Television executives criticized it almost immediately for several reasons, primarily because it didn’t contain the usual laugh track, employed actual children for the voices, featured contemporary jazz, and delivered a religious message. From the time it aired in 1965, however, the special was a hit with viewers and critics. Schulz said of it: “There will always be an audience for innocence in this country.”

It is ironic that a show focusing on such an anti-commercial message originally included overt advertising at the end. Watch closely at the end to see the children’s singing fade, a segment later edited to cut the sponsor’s message: “Brought to you by the people in your town who bottle Coca-Cola.” Some earlier versions of the ending still survive on YouTube.

No matter. I still get a little misty every year just watching it, and I’m not sure if it’s the simplicity of the message, the sentimentality, or the sheer childhood nostalgia—or perhaps a combination of all three. Although TV execs scoffed at first, what Linus says of the shabby little tree Charlie Brown chooses in the story might be said of the entire show: “I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.” It’s a show that has received, over the years, plenty of love and will continue to do so by generations to come.

I turned 37 Tuesday. Even though I’m not really “old,” I will say, as Dr. Seuss once wrote, “How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it’s afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

I had a good day most of the day. One of my English classes even sang “Happy Birthday” to me at the beginning of class—just before I chastised the brunt of them for not having already completed an assignment due the day before.

My greatest anticipation, however, all day long was going out to dinner with a good friend, one I have known for 20 years. Our outing had been planned for a couple of weeks.

It was supposedly pre-arranged that I would attend a professional workshop after school and then we’d meet at a restaurant. The logistics were set.

After my meeting, however, a phone call revealed he had changed his mind. It was almost 6:00—already dark, and It was too late, he said, even after an offer to pick him up. I was crushed. Mind you, this was the same friend whose birthday I celebrated last year by taking him out for Chinese, despite the fact that Chinese is my very least favored cuisine. But I digress. No one’s keeping score.

I went ahead and continued dinner plans. I stopped by my mother’s house on the way to pick up the birthday card she had for me. She could tell I was visibly disappointed.

“Don’t be sad on your birthday,” she told me. “Life’s full of disappointments.” She then gave me a beautiful card, which read in part: “I loved teaching you things when you were a little girl, but did you know how much I was learning from you at the same time? Seeing your reactions to the world, listening to your fresh, new outlooks, and sharing in things that were important to you taught me a lot about the responsibilities—and joys—of being a parent..."

As for me, I was still learning, it seemed, which is, how it should be, I suppose. Sometimes, though, the learning hurts, as one of the lessons of life is that nothing is ever perfect. Sometimes friends disappoint you—just hopefully not on your birthday.

To exacerbate matters, my brother had not called me. Every year, my brother Greg, the younger of my two brothers, calls me—generally at 6:18 p.m., the moment of my birth. He recalls it well because my mother’s went into labor in the middle of the day, and 11-year-old Greg had to go call Dad at work.

My father, driving at speeds of up to 110 miles per hour, rushed my mother and brother to Baptist Hospital in Memphis. Perpetually late, I kept them waiting until evening, after which Greg and Dad were quite hungry. My sister Cathy delivered a fast food meal of hamburgers and French fries, which Greg remembers very deliciously.

But at after 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, he had not called. Although I had received numerous birthday wishes during the day, when one of your best friends backs out of birthday dinner, and your brother fails to extend the normal phone call, the mood becomes diminished.

So I called my brother. I discovered he had been oppressively sick—so sick he could hardly speak and had not attended work the past two days. I didn’t feel as slighted.

Nevertheless, I returned home, settled into comfortable sweats, coiled under a throw on the couch, and proceeded to soothe my woes. I vowed I would never again take out my friend who backed out on my birthday for his birthday, and I would never invite him over for dinner and conversation, which I do regularly.

I’m sure with time, those wounds will heal. They always do. I just have to learn that, as my mother reminded me, others don’t always behave in ways you expect. And my friend, in turn, will have to learn that one of the consequences of making friends with a writer is that you are always fair game, always potential fodder, for future writing. Like birthdays and disappointment, it, too, is inevitable.

Let’s face it: I don’t get out of bed before 8:00 or 9:00 a.m. unless I have an obligation or appointment. In fact, I always tell my students when they complain about something they “don’t like,” that they will always encounter requirements in life they “don’t like.” For instance, although I love teaching, I don’t like getting up at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning to get to my job. I’d much prefer the day to begin later and end later.

So it comes as no surprise to those who know me that I have absolutely no desire to wake up at 4:00 a.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving to venture to a retail store to tussle with Yahoos in order to obtain some gadget that has been marked down a dollar or two in order to lure unsuspecting customers into the store to buy regularly priced—or sometimes even overpriced—merchandise. My allusive reference causes me to wonder what Jonathan Swift, who coined the term “Yahoo,” might have thought of such a proposition.

First, I don’t like crowds because being in a crowd of people seems surreal to me. I sometimes feel faint. I can’t focus too well. Second, crowds of people can be a hotbed of veritable germs. Imagine all of those little bacterial cells potentially floating around in the air, waiting to land on a different subject and commence new life. Finally, some people’s standards of hygiene don’t exactly match mine. I don’t mean to sound obsessive compulsive on this one—although in earnest I am—but I don’t think daily hygiene is too much for which to ask. If one has ten bucks to spend on a toaster or seventy bucks on a blu-ray player, then he or she certainly must be able to afford the scant amount required to purchase a bar of soap and pay the paltry water bill required for regular ablution.

The history and phenomenon of post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping, however, do interest me as an observer. The tradition began in the 1960s, and the day came to be known as Black Friday because it signaled the kickoff of the Christmas season when retailers could expect to move from the color red, to indicate loss, to black, which symbolized a profit, in their accounting records.

Of course, the advent of the Internet and online shopping may have curtailed some of the Black Friday frenzy, but, if one believes the advertising hype, the tradition remains.

Although I avoided the event, as I usually do, I got a little taste of it the night before. My brother, who arrived at Mom’s Thursday afternoon preceding our Thanksgiving meal Friday, wanted to go to Wal-Mart for a sale slated to begin at one minute after midnight. The lure? A small crock pot he had seen in a circular priced to sell for $3.

I relented, agreeing to go mainly for camaraderie, but I was also the least bit curious to see what this shopping spectacle might look like.

Immediately after entering the store, I witnessed that shoppers clogging the aisle between the groceries and house wares had created an impasse. The main attraction I saw through the scads of people on that aisle was rows of DVDs priced at $5. But isn’t the sale of particular DVDs for such a price at Wal-Mart a normal practice? And who needs DVDs when there’s Netflix?

Finally, we made our way to the back of the store and located the $3 crock pots. Simply because the deal seemed too convenient to pass up, I snagged a crock pot, along with a food chopper, which likewise cost me $3. No, I’m not at all adept in the kitchen or even fond of working there, but who knows when such a gadget might come in handy?

I made it home and crawled in bed just before 2:00 a.m., which suited me much more than getting up at 4:00 a.m. Still, I hadn’t enjoyed battling frenetic shoppers pushing carts through masses of people like tanks ramming through enemy lines. Yes, they were polite and apologized after running into someone, but nevertheless.

The next morning I slept in. I put away my crock pot and food chopper. I prepared to go eat the Thanksgiving meal with my family, making a pact with myself never to go out into such a crowd of people again, more thankful than ever for the convenience of online shopping.

Television, like the women in the old Virginia Slims cigarette ads, has certainly “come a long way, baby.”

As someone who spent a childhood in rural west Tennessee, sans cable television, my early viewing pleasure was relegated to major network channel affiliates 3 (CBS), 5 (NBC), and 7 (ABC). Add in channels 10 (WKNO) and 12 (WMAE) for public television viewing, particularly on weekends when sports dominated the network airwaves.
 
Add to this the fact that reception was a mixed bag. Yes, the signal was free, granted one had a gargantuan stick of metal, otherwise known as an antenna, mounted somewhere to the house, but uninterrupted viewing was never a guarantee.

The reception process, which anyone over 30 who grew up in a rural area should recall, was a bit tricky. It required one person to stand at the back door with an unobstructed view of the television set. This intermediary then communicated with another family member, who stood poised at the base of the antenna to attempt to turn it in a direction enabling the best possible reception. The process involved steady collaboration and a meticulous ability to get the pole turned to exactly the right spot.

Add to this process the frustration of interference any time stormy weather plagued the west Tennessee area—which was often in the spring—or any time some picture tube or other internal component of the television ended up “going out.” In this case, one might be left in the lurch for days or weeks watching a small black and white television perched atop the defunct cabinet set until it could be taken to the shop for repair.

A great number of devices or machinery may land criticism these days about their cheap construction and disposability, but the television should not be categorized as such. I can’t recall the last time I had a modern television to “go out,” and the picture quality continues to improve, along with the variety of content available for viewing pleasure.

While I don’t watch much television these days, I do enjoy having it available at my leisure. As an adult, I have enjoyed both cable and satellite TV programming, neither of which impresses me much because of overreliance on sports programming as part of the packaging, something that doesn’t pique my interest. If I had my wishes, a sentiment shared by many to be sure, I’d prefer some sort of a la carte offering.

Why is it, for example, that the basic programming package affords me no less than, say, five different ESPN channels, none of which I watch, but if I want to see good, quality independent filmmaking, I must purchase the most expensive programming package?

A recent item may not have been visible in the major news, but this week marks a landmark in television programming. This week, Hulu Plus, a nominal subscription segment of Hulu.com, which offers free online programming (a catalog of current and classic television shows, along with a number of feature-length film) began streaming Internet content on a subscription basis ($7.99 a month) to viewers who own a Roku device.

All of this newfangled technology may confound some, but essentially a Roku is a small, extremely lightweight black plastic box that attaches to the television audio/video and with a bit of computer linking, delivers a number of “channels” for viewing pleasure. The most well-known is Netflix.com, which established its business shipping physical DVDs to customers who purchase a subscription and establish a queue of desired titles. Netflix also offers, however, a growing catalog of instant titles available via computer screen or Roku. According to a 2009 article, Netflix had catalogued 17,000 instant titles, and of course, the company adds more every day.

This week I purchased a Roku player and linked my Netflix account. Within minutes, I was able to enjoy more movies than I could watch in a lifetime, available at the push of a couple of buttons. The sheer availability is staggering, and in response, I thought about how, in contrast to where my television viewing commenced, I’ve come a miraculously long way. We all have collectively. 

Just as those women in the Virginia Slim cigarette ads no longer had to worry about getting caught smoking by their husbands, the television viewing public no longer has to be concerned about being shackled to overpriced cable and satellite companies in the advent of increased availability of content via the Internet. The day will eventually arrive when all programming can be streamed from an Internet source. The ultimate cost will be much less expensive, and we will finally have the liberty we all desire in terms of choice, flexibility, and pricing. I eagerly await that time.

 

 

She appeared on my mother’s carport one late spring day in May: a nomad, a transient, a copper-colored gypsy feline. Unbeknownst to Mom, initially, she had brought with her a tiny surprise, in the form of her own miniature-me: an orange kitten that resembled her, except his hue was a little brighter and his underside was stippled white.

We discovered him one afternoon. As we stood beside the storage room door talking, I heard the faintest whimper of a meow emanating from inside the room. The small female cat, which didn’t appear to be even a year old, stood underfoot looking up at us imploringly.

“There’s a kitten in there,” I told Mom, who hadn’t heard his high-pitched cries.

We went inside to try to locate it and discovered that his protective mother had placed him deep inside a tall, thin box that houses a card table and folding-chair set Mom uses only at Thanksgiving and Christmas for family gatherings. I reached deep inside the box and grabbed that soft, tender ball of downy fur and pulled him from the clutches of the narrow cardboard.

Instantly, I was in love. Since I couldn’t take him home with me due to my landlord’s prohibition of pets, I knew my only hope of keeping the pair was Mom, who lives on a cat-friendly acre of land in the country.

However, she has been widowed since my father’s death 18 years ago and has sworn over the last several years that she loves her independent, increasingly uncomplicated lifestyle. She has no one, save herself, or nothing for which she must provide daily care. Therefore, I had to convince her of my proposal. I promised to pay for all the upkeep if she would simply provide the daily sustenance for cute little pair of cats for me.

I’ve always loved cats. I like dogs, too, but cats intrigue me. Cats aren’t inherently loyalists; one must sometimes work for their affection. They tend to like their space, and they’re much quieter than dogs. They are typically cleaner as well, meticulously grooming after each meal. In other words, their character aligns more squarely with mine. I’m quiet, like solitude, am not easily swayed, and am somewhat obsessive compulsive about cleanliness—except I bathe each morning, not after meals.

I am also artistically bent, and I suppose it’s a common stereotype about artists and cats. The Egyptians created artistic renderings of cats in sculpture and drawings. The inscription on the Great Tomb at Thebes portrays their reverence: "Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the Gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy Circle; thou art indeed...the Great Cat."

Perhaps one of the most modern examples of a well-known artist enamored with cats was Ernest Hemingway, with his clowder of cats that populated his Key West home, the descendents of which can still be seen today. I hope one day to visit.

Until then, I now have my own pair of fuzzy companions. I named the female Blanche DuBois after one of my favorite literary characters, the faded Southern belle from Tennessee Williams’ play “A Streetcar Named Desire.” I named her kitten Winston Churchill—not for any particular reason, except he looked like a “Winston.”

Blanche’s demeanor is quite reserved, as she shies away from interaction with most people. Winston, on the other hand, is much more sociable. In fact, he’s attention-hungry, scurrying around my feet every time I go visit Mom.

His favorite activity is playing with a small stuffed gorilla attached to a string. The top end is attached to a stick. Still very much the playful kitten at almost half a year old, he will jump high in the air to retrieve the toy, and once he has it in his clutches, he commences growling and hissing as if the item were some offending menace to him.

I think Mom has grown somewhat attached to the pair as well, despite her initial reservations about keeping them. Sometimes when I visit, her hands are marked with cuts or scratches accidently inflicted by Winston during play.

But who couldn’t love them? As the Italian proverb says, “Happy is the home with at least one cat.” Likewise, various other cultures have their own maxims regarding cats. The Irish say, "Beware of people who dislike cats." And I am, although my favorite saying hails from the French: “The dog may be wonderful prose, but only the cat is poetry.” I tend to agree.

One of my favorite poems by writer Allen Ginsberg is not his most well-known. In “Walt Whitman in the Supermarket,” Ginsberg creates an absurdist, dreamlike world where the speaker encounters the gentle bearded Bard amidst the aisles of canned goods and packaged meats in a sensually-disconnected consumerist society. “Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.),” he writes.

 The controversy surrounding Ginsberg’s most famous poem, however, recently became the title and focal point of a well-wrought film. “Howl” chronicles the creative life of Ginsberg’s earlier years, from his San Francisco poetry readings to the obscenity trial focused on the poem, the verdict of which was not guilty for his publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Born June 3, 1926, Ginsberg was one of the most recognizable figures often associated with the 1950s Beat Generation and did not compose “comforting” poetry. His verse is no “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” Wrought with disillusionment and desperation, Ginsberg established himself as the voice of a generation that questioned injustice, dogma, and the harsh demands of life in a burgeoning post-war military-industrial society.

The poem begins with some of the most memorable lines in modern American poetry: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz...”

The lines meander and flow like the sentiment they contain, and these aren’t short, compact, fixed form, rhyming lines. Instead, they resemble the long lines of Whitman, the poet Ginsberg’s speaker references in the aforementioned poem. Read aloud, the poems exact the improvisational rhythm of jazz.

The images of the corresponding film meander and flow in the same way. The filmmakers take risks, creating a montage of colorful, surreal imagery and letting that imagery overtake the screen while Ginsberg, played by actor James Franco, reads for a crowd of listeners. The imagery is juxtaposed against the black and white scenery of Ginsberg performing zealously at the helm of his audience, which included well-known fellow writers and friends.

 The acting and filmmaking certainly is a refreshing turn from some of the simplistic commercial fare so rampant at the movie theater these days. Unfortunately, the viewing public must prefer the former—if duration and venue are any indication, because the movie played only one week at a single theater in Memphis.

Another obstacle might be lack of familiarity with Ginsberg, and perhaps the disillusionment and boldness exhibited in his work do not suit all palates. When I taught his work last spring in a junior-level undergraduate modern poetry class, I felt as if I had to make an argument for Ginsberg’s defense. His merit as an artist and his importance in terms of historical context, however, are undeniable—and should not be judged merely on matter of taste.

 The like or dislike of poetry is not the issue. Ginsberg is one of those rare, energetic, insightful, incisive poets emblematic of a particular era, and one would do well to read at least a sampling of his work in order to be better culturally literate.

Although desperate and disillusioned, Ginsberg—and his poetic speakers—also exhibited optimism and positivity in other ways. He celebrated sensuality and enlightenment. Eventually, he used his writing as a voice for social change after becoming well known and reading in myriad venues.

Ginsberg’s last years were plagued by illness, and he died in his New York apartment of terminal liver cancer in 1997 at the age of 70 surrounded by loved ones. In a fitting tribute, the modern poet William Carlos Williams had written of Ginsberg in the introduction to his poem “Howl”: “This poet sees through and all around the horrors he partakes of in the very intimate details of his poem. He avoids nothing but experiences it to the hilt. He contains it. Claims it as his own—and, we believe, laughs at it and has the time and effrontery to love a fellow of his choice and record that love in a well-made poem."

               

               

               

Recently I viewed the much-awaited education documentary "Waiting for Superman." I knew before settling into my cushy theater seat exactly to what to expect: the film was not going to present a "pretty" picture of the American public education system.

Directed by Davis Guggenheim, who garnered directing honors for Al Gore’s famed “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006) on global warming, “Superman” chronicles the plight of five inner-city elementary school students destined for what passes as education in a set of underperforming schools—and ultimately unpromising futures due to lack of preparation.

Guggenheim’s film, which stealthily criticizes teachers’ unions, touts the merits of charter schools. In an emotional tug-of-war, viewers witness both parents and children naively fantasizing about pie-in-the-sky vocational possibilities and becoming emotionally involved in their lotteried attempts to snag coveted spots in charter schools.

As if it were that easy. As if that were the sole solution. As if. 

Yes, while public education has its flaws, Guggenheim’s film is also significantly flawed. It rests on several arguable premises that filmmakers expect viewers merely to accept as fact. As an aside, I suppose I can tout the merits of the school system that produced me, and in which I now teach, because erudition disallows me from blindly swallowing the unsatisfying victuals offered up as manna in the film. 

A visible point over which filmmakers gloss is the wholesale acceptance of standardized testing as the most viable method of assessment. Standardized test material tends to be inherently biased along higher socioeconomic class lines. Although I did not grow up among the “privileged,” I had no problem with tests because my parents were highly visible components in my educational experience. However, with many students, such is not the case, and while teachers can be highly inspirational, they are not alchemists. 

Standardized testing is also not a utilitarian method of assessment because it does not reflect real-world practice. Take me as a teacher, for instance. Yes, granted, I had to take one multiple choice test to gain admission to the teaching profession—and two essay tests, I might add—but never once in my decade of teaching has a supervisor measured my classroom performance by asking me to bubble in answers on a sheet.  

No, teacher assessment measures performance. Teachers are observed in action, practicing in the classroom. Likewise, might not student classroom performance—via presentations, projects, essays, and other real-world activities—be a better indicator of achievement than merely bubbling in answers?  

Teachers also should not be thrust in the role of test prep clerks. Such a position is antithetical to higher order thinking skills so valuable in creating well-educated students. I’d much rather a description of my class read, “English: The Secrets of Communicating Well and Thinking Critically,” as opposed to “English: Empty Receptacles Getting Spoon Fed Knowledge and Learning to Bubble in Answers on a Test Sheet at Culmination of the Course.” 

The No Child Left Behind education initiative, a source of the abundance of reliance on testing, has its share of critics. We would do well to leave behind the educational brainchild of George W. Bush’s administration that so dearly preferences standardized testing as sole means of assessment. 

The reliability of testing isn’t the only falsehood the film propagates. Guggenheim also falsely paints a critical portrait of teachers’ unions. Yes, teachers’ unions, he suggests, are the scourge of public education because they allow lazy, inefficient teachers to slide by without question. He points out that the purpose of tenure in the higher education system is to guarantee professors academic freedom in their classrooms, shielding them from dismissal for, say, innovation in thought that may or may not square with “popular” opinion. 

Is tenure important at the K-12 level? Teachers at that level don’t teach “ideas” as much as they do skills, some might argue, but there are still important reasons to have tenure. It prevents those in charge from dismissing an effective teacher simply on a whim or for political reasons irrespective of classroom performance. Having tenure is not a permanent stake hold in a teaching position, as Guggenheim wants to imply. It simply guarantees teachers the right to due process, to have any grievances documented and examined impartially.  

Other factors must be considered in the success of students. Yes, it is true that students can overcome overwhelming odds to become educated, productive citizens. However, the task becomes much more Herculean when teachers do not have the full backing of parents—and students—in the educational quest, and more parameters should be developed for accountability in these areas.  

Ultimately, for those who care about students and about education, it becomes not a matter of “Waiting for Superman,” the film’s pop culture reference to the comic book superhero, but rather, becoming Wonder Woman, in my case—or some other such superhero—as that is the role many of us feel compelled to fulfill as teachers every single day in the classroom, given the staggering obstacles which we often encounter.

`