Rain, Soccer & Thoughts

The Liberian twins wanted me to come to their soccer game against CNS, and even though it was cold and raining, I stood and watched the game, plus its two overtimes.

CNS was favored by many goals and had an impeccable 7 - 0 record. I knew the evening was going to be special as they played the National Anthem and the world of Northstars I grew up in met with Boznia, Mexico, Sudan, Liberia, Somalia and Korea. The score was tied after 100 minutes of play.

I stood next to a Sudanese boy from the J.V. team who told me his life story of losing brothers, a mom, and a dad to the war in Sudan and entering his first schooling, ever, as an eighth grader. The immigrant story is truly American and gives great perspective on global realities. Here, it is played out on a field and you can't make up the individuality of either team. It is something. Quirky beautiful, indeed.

Inventive communication

I attended a talk last night about interventions used for kindergarten speller who do not have alphabet and/or phonetic awareness. The idea is that if a child is given the word "cat" to spell, they may spell it "kdjfdjkdf" or "Ct" or "Kit" representing different phases towards the spelling skill and needs for different approaches to learning to read or write, depending on knowing how a kid perceive words and sounds to play out in written text.

Quirky. But as an adolescent educator I did not have the privilege of thinking deeply about the ways young people begin to make sense of written language, nor anticipate the multiple obstacles that a kindergarten teacher faces when contending with multiple notions of how alphabet text (here represented in typed language) comes into being. It takes much awareness of the patterns in how kids represent their knowledge of given objects. It is a conditioning, in a sense, of mentoring and apprenticing a kid into a world of what spelling and its codes actually are and is much more difficult than one would think.

I didn't face spelling or reading obstacles as a kid and for that I am fortunate. It is one thing to articulate in words, but it is another to be graphic with them. My art of playing the keyboard piano is a learned skill that has been fostered by many years interrogating language. It begins at birth, though, and for kids who struggle with such articulation, the culture of school is a variation of hell. That is something to always keep in mind. (Funny this kid went to Crandal park).

Cheating the Food Pyramid

Planning ahead for the week, I knew I needed easy-to-grab food for running in and out of my house to sustain my energy. Cooking is not an option and making a P.B.&J seems too time consuming. So, I went to Prithe Thopper (Price Chopper - I still use the Binghamton townie pronunciation) to get fast and easy items.

Last night, I ate salsa and chips for dinner (spicy salsa, too). I figure it would get my vegetable in, but I recognize it isn't good enough. I have carrot sticks, but I need to get better at easy-to-consume vegetables, as well. In Denmark, they gnaw on large cucumbers as if they are a Three Musketeer. Maybe I should do that and tolerate the quirky stares. Or perhaps there needs to be better inventions of consumable vegetables (not in liquid form...V8 makes me gag).

Maybe there's millions in that line of work.

Blue Mirror

I read another book by Cathe Koja last week at the Northstars Star Burst Show. I'm finally acknowledging the book tonight. In short, the loner artist girl has her first love with a boy of the streets who pimps the ladies in an infatuated promise he loves them all. It is an awakening story where the girl must learn to be careful of the first boy who pays her a little attention. I like the way Cathe Koja writes, but I did enjoy Buddha Boy a lot more. A short post for a rainy Sunday.

Carmella

Last night, I went to my alma mater (is it really twenty years?) to see the football team take on rival CBA (Christian Brothers Academy). Although times have changed, the same scene can be seen through the same pride of parents and the lurching teenagers in search of someone a little more popular to hang out with, many of whom did not get the memo that it was frickn' cold and flip flops, shorts and tank tops would be ridiculous attire for a September football game in NY.

On a better athletic note, Mr. Anthony reunited with Boeheim for the opening of the basketball training center. Kudos for accomplishing that rather quickly, and although I love watching football, basketball is much more exciting (and the stadiums indoors are much warmer than those outside).

I still can't get over the quirky fact that I've return to the scholastic hood of where I began. It is surreal, but special, in a 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 18 .. all you Northstars get up and lean kind of way.

Wonderland

When I moved from Binghamton to Louisville, my friend Kirsten sent me a painting she bought at a garage sale for a quarter. It was called "Alice" and its by the artist Modigliani. It hung in my studio apartment in Old Louisville. It came with me to the ol' farm house in St. Mathews. And it traveled with me to Clarskville, Indiana, where the Stevensons and I represented the 2% of college-educated residents. Alice is with me to this day and will be with me throughout life in spirit, hope and mind.

See, Alice is a miraculous being and her happiness, brilliance and friendship mean everything. Yesterday, I walked by my "Alice" painting and smiled knowing how important she really is and winked at her. She reminded me, "Everything is going to be okay," and I'm glad this is true for Alice. Through the looking glass, it is always good to have a buddy.

I hope to always remind Alice of the same. But, I don't think there's a quirky Bryan painting she can have for her house. I wonder if there's one of Charlie.

Feces Eating Slugs

Running along the roads these days, the trails are lined with road pizza snakes on their pre-hibernal hikes to get comfortable, yellow and browning leaves, and several piles of raccoon feces.

I notice these things because I run the same trails daily and I pay attention.

A few weeks ago, however, I began noticing that as I leaped over flattened snakes and raccoon crap, there was a new phenomenon I hadn't seen before. SLUGS. On every pile of bandit ca-ca, there were three or four hermaphroditic spotted slugs slurping away. Yes, poop is a milkshake to the gastropod mollusc and I did not know this. I looked it up and, sure enough, my eyes weren't deceiving me. Dung is dinnertime for these land boogers. Quirky, I know.

found in a folder in my filing cabinet

A wittle pome

a wittle pome

I am an eye,
a bry-guy on the fly
trying to bring sense to the senseless
while becoming senseless with my senses,
and getting trapped by gate keepers & fences
of rules, legislation and laws...

I am reminded of my subjectivity & mortal flaws
moving towards the "Yous Guys" from the Kentucky "y'alls."

Eye am I
guised in my caved, allegorical chains,
trapped to the intellectual brains
who qualify my quantity,
quantify my quality,

and from this insanity
I'm on the road to find out....

libraries are for...writing?

Because my house is slowly turning into a make-shift office and filing cabinet, I'm training myself to wake up early, walk the dog, then head to the local library to create an office space there. I want to get out of my house to work, knowing that when I return home I can unwind a little bit.

The quirky reality of my daily life is I'm being paid to read, write and think. This is somewhat impossible at home when distractions are too easy. So, my recent design is to frequent free facilities. Yesterday, I spent 1/2 the day at the North Syracuse library and the other 1/2 at the Cicero library. I wrote the entire time and only accomplished a freckle on the ass of a flea's worth of work.

But I am working...so.....

a poem for the god child

Saturday's baptism was a success and although Jacob spent Sunday with an ear infection and the need of doctors, he's in good, familiar hands of family and welcomed to a life of support.

In the quirky tradition of my acrostics, here's a doodle-poem that I wrote to show my love:

June 1, 2009.
another Crandall/Barnwell headline
came across the page for the humor and the rage
of earth’s stage to strut, play, and wonder –
boy, if I’m the author, did I blunder

Choosing her to be a goddess mother and
him to be a god-forbid father? It’s
all good, though, … little bro … cuz’
really, in the ebb and flow, we’re here for those songs and
laughter that are often needed in a world swirled in
eternal frustration & whirled in doubt. We may be a
strange breed, indeed, but are here for whatever you need.

Because it’s inevitable you’re going to grow
and capture your future with a confident stroll,
rolling and rocking in your one man show, &
nearing your future as fate lets it go. We wish you serenity.
we hope for harmony & we promise to guide you, unconditionally,
existentially, into whatever you’re meant to be. From
lisa. bryan. and the insanity that comes from family, we promise
love – and the help it takes to keep your faith up above.

Bursting Stars, Twenty Years Later

It is 2009, and last night I went with my mom to see Nikki perform at the CNS stadium for the Starburst show. It is somewhat surreal to think that it has been 22 years since Cynde's senior year and twenty years since I graduated, and that 20 generations of Northstars have taken to the field with the band for Mid York competition.

Life has sent so many in different directions and, for me, I've returned and sit cold in the bleachers once again. The quirky thing about it is not much has changed. Our high school hang out is now a funeral home and Twin Trees's parking lot was empty - the new generation prefers Applebee's. Still, the tradition continues and the generations trickle into one another

throw back

Lisa, the goddess mother, and I went to dinner and got a gift for tomorrow's baptism. She told me how she and her friend laughed at the Pampers letter I wrote for KC when Sean was a kid and it reminded me of the letter I wrote to Meier's when I lived in Indiana. As quirky as it is, they sent me many coupons, including one for a free cheese cake, all because of my words. Here they are:


Meijer Inc
Attn: Quality Assurance
2929 Walker NW
Grand Rapids MI  49544

Dear Quality Assurance Team,

I’m writing in regards to a fascinatiing batch of Meijer’s Buttermilk Layered Biscuits purchased at the Jeffersonville, Indiana store on February 13tth, 2005. I’m a single lad with not much potential of finding myself a gorgeous woman to celebrate Valentine’s Day with, so every year, the day before this romantic holiday, I make myself a nice dinner to eat while watching football. Yesterday, I watched more basketball, however, and then the Grammy’s came on, so watching football is a bit of an exagerration -- I did, though, make my special pre-Valentine’s day dinner.

The meal was to consist of chicken and gravy, potatoes, carrots and the Meijer’s Buttermilk Layered Buscuits, but the biscuit part didn’t work out too well. I’ve never bought biscuits in my life, so this was my first attempt -- I’m getting better at cooking this pre-Valentine’s Day lonely bachelor meal because every year I get older, the likelihood I’ll be cooking for myself for the majority of my life, becomes more obvious. I’m actually getting pretty good at cooking, and now can make Chili, Roast Pork and other specialties in my bachelor crockpot. I’m becoming so proficient, in fact, that I often cook whole meals for Sudanese Refugees who, orphaned at a young age, traveled years in the desert, only to find their way, ten years later, to the United States to eat such weekend meals at my house. They like my cooking, and they too, are without Valentine’s Day lovers, so it’s become a ritual for them to eat at my house on Sundays. I’m becoming a crock pot genius and they don’t mind the free food.

Yet, this previous sunday, yesterday, we had to go without my first attempt at biscuits because something round, white, globular and chunky fell out of the biscuit dough. The Sudanese men looked at it in hopes of an American explanation, but I did not know what to tell them. It seemed as if it arrived from Ork, as it looks sort of like the Egg Robin Williams traveled in when he played Mork on Mork and Mindy. I told the African guys that it looked like someone at the Grand Rapids, Michigan, distributing plant had hacked up a phlegmball or passed a kidney stone. It is a clever looking mass of something, and I send it back to you today for your records. Perhaps you keep track of such interesting finds in a museum.

I am sending the container, the hunk of wax-like plastic, and the receipt (if I can find it) for your display. I’m a big fan of Meijer’s Groceries (Go Meijers! Woot Woot! Go Meijers) but understand that your company would like to be informed of such occurences. I know your the type of organization which likes to take care of business and see that customers are satisfied. Although I am thrilled to have the ivory-gob-pre-Valentine’s-bachelor-party story for future reference, I’m not quite satisfied with the discovery of this lumpy nugget in my Meijer’s Buttermilk Layered Biscuits container.

Sincerely,

Bryan R. Crandall

and it is written here

The Greeks believed if you happened upon happiness you were lucky. The wheel of fortune spins and you get whatever segment of the wheel falls to you. Bill Gates feels his fortunes are luck and Oprah argues with him and says, "No, what lands to you results from hard work and deserving efforts."

I've had this argument with people again and again. Fate is what it is.

I drove to the library to get work done and, as luck would have it, my parents pulled in right behind me. My mom wished to return books. Then, as luck would further have it, I forget the power chord to my computer.

As quirky as it is, I took this as the wheel of fortune saying, "take a moment and go to the Clam Bar for lunch with your parents," which I did. The randomness is what it was and I'm thankful for my steak sandwich and french fries - Thanks, Mom.

And that is fate.

Slamming Dem Poems

One of my mentors at SU was called to jury duty and asked me to cover her class until she can arrive. The goal for the evening is to introduce the power of writer's notebooks, to demonstrate how students use such outlets to learn their voices as writers, and to model, through my history as a writing teacher, what students in one state were able to do with their writing.

A big fear of students in this class, however, is misconceptions about a poetry slam and whereas we are going to participate in one this semester, I thought it'd be good to model, online, a piece from a poetry slam and also to show how the online world allows for digital writer's notebooks: ie. Quirky.

If all works according to plan, I will be able to access this during class. Fingers crossed.

Percentages

Approximately 77% of Americans graduate high school (and it is guessed this is between 70 - 77%).

3% of Americans are incarcerated.

1% of the the world's population has a college degree.

Less than one % of Americans have a Ph.D.

.0001% of Americans die in car accidents every day.

4% of Americans watch the Super Bowl.

Between 40 - 50% of all marriages end up in divorce.

I love 2009 and how I can ask questions, read, and find answers quick. Every time I think I have a grasp on normalcy, I ask more questions and realize how upside down my thinking really is.

Working Class Graduate Student

The truth is, I did not grow up in a slum, but the story of Slum Dog Millionaire resonates with me and after viewing it over the weekend, I now understand its international success and celebration.

I do not watch movies too often. In fact, I didn't even know how to operate my DVD player successfully, so I watched the film on my computer. I didn't expect to become as engrossed as I did, but it truly is a remarkable film on many levels. The story is unbelievable, but the acting and idea of the tale is inspirational and moving. It is also embedded with the power of fate and karma. If you've not seen it, at the risk of being overly obnoxious with my American promotion of any one film, I truly recommend this.

The theme, "It is written," is at the heart of how I live my life, even though I challenge it at times by attempting to have more control. In the end, though, it is written....

...very much like this quirky blog posting.

This one for Lisa

I was telling my nephew's godmother, Lisa, that I used to have a hippy tendency, especially when I exited college and worked on my Masters degrees. She didn't believe me. As my nephew's godfather, I believe it is important that his godmother knows what I used to look like. I don't have many photographs of me at the time - hippies don't need Kodak, but I did find this one in one of my notebooks. It is quirky, but I looked older then than I do now.

I'm not sure, but I think I planned on auditioning for the Bee Gees. Either that, or I was trying to replace the lead singer of Blind Melon.

To be honest, I miss my hairy days. I enjoyed walking into a room and being able to play with people's conceptions of me because I had long hair. If I could tolerate it, I'd probably grow my main out again, instead of this summer Buddha shaving that is so easy to keep up.

A Sunday Morning Banjo Tune

I re-listened to Steve Martin's Born Standing Upand was reminded of the song he sings that his grandmother used to sing to him. It's so beautifully stupid and I want it sung at any occasion that I would have a song sung for me.

Junior High School Afternoons

Because I'm at my niece and nephew's house giving their parents an evening off, I started thinking about my junior high school years. When I came home from school in 8th and 9th grade, I remember two rituals before dinner. The first was watching Scooby Doo. Most of the criminals would have gotten away with their crime if it wasn't for those pesky kids. But then I'd watch Phil Donohue (who was an annoying host who'd ask questions and answer them all himself...the whole show was his incessant talk).

The drone, daily routine was so normalized Monday - Friday after school, that I sort of forgot how ritualistic it actually was. It makes me think about the dull patterns of my current weeks and how I will one day look back on them in quirky fondness.

And it also makes me miss the days I looked like Shaggy.

I treated yesterday like a weekend day, and opted to assist my brother-in-law to install a new furnace instead of spending my day nerd-deep in quirky geekdom and books. The installation was in the basement of a suburban home. I always feel like a school boy when I assist because I learn a lot, especially how intricate and complicated his work is. His skill set is one I don't have and I envy his knowledge and adroitness.

Work is an odd thing, as is labor. Coupled with this are $ signs and how we justify the cost of items, experiences or home repairs. All one needs to do is try to install a heater themselves and they will realize it is difficult work and requires expertise.

I'm a schlep as a helper. I can cut things, tape, do minor drilling, hold things and lift. I can also pick up trash. Yet, wiring and duct work is like surgery to me, dentistry. It takes knowledgeable hands and experience, the training I've never had. It is like engine repair and plumbing - an untapped literacy perfected by so many, yet a discourse unknown to me. I feel a little more educated today and fortunate to be schooled as an apprentice. It's too bad more experiences like this aren't offered in k - graduate school education.

Dog Wash

I decided Baby needed a bath. I reissued her dog license and then took her to a doggy wash in North Syracuse. They're fascinating places, actually, and are much better for cleaning a 125 pound dog. The shampoo really dug deep and when I blew her dry, she looked like a large fuzz ball.

She also got her nails clipped which is nice. One of my pet peeves (she's a pet after all) is when she puts her paw on my legs and digs her long claws into my skin. It hurts. They are now trimmed.

And the dog will smell good for another week or so. You've got to love a country that has dog baths. They need to invent a dog-bath drive thru. Maybe that's my millions. Pull up to one side of a building, shove the dog in, and get it on the other side all groomed and cleaned. Sort of like the Lion had in the Wizard of Oz when he was groomed. I think Baby would like that.

yesteryear, when I had extra quarters: 9/9/09

I find myself missing the stupidity of extra cash lying around. See, for years, I made it my resolution to never pass a toy machine on the way out of a grocery store and I would frivolously throw quarters in the boxes to purchase stupid toys: ninja warriors, redneck teeth, plastic jewelry, bouncing balls, stickers and various other crap.

Why? I liked having the quirky ability to give stupid items as gifts when I was thinking of people. I've always been mesmerized by the tacky.

Now, I can't afford it. I walk out of grocery stores like a widower missing his dead wife, longing for a time that once was and that I didn't fully appreciate when I once had it. No longer are the days of being a 50 cent broker adding to economy of American dreams. Instead, I must show resistance and push my grocery cart out to the lot without having a new piece of junk in my pocket.

I look forward to having an income again.

In a small world, David's stitches.

My interest in graphic novels continues, especially as I question what we gain, exactly, by using alphabet text alone. After all, literacy should be about thinking, creating and reading the world. Perhaps this is why David Small's new graphic novel, Stiches, caught my interest in the New York Times.

The book comes out this week, and watching its trailer (how quirky it is to watch book commercials on YouTube) I immediately knew I wanted to get a copy - most likely through a public library when they are smart enough to make its purchase. This memoir is intriguing on many levels, especially with how one loses a voice because of the medical thinking of the time.

Either way, I post this as an advertisement for others. It's something to look forward to.

Thinking about humanity

On Saturday evening, as I noted yesterday, I attended the New York State Fair. This is a ritual, of course, for anyone who lives in Syracuse and it parallels the events of the Kentucky State Fair.

One would think that the Kentucky State Fair could compete with people watching with New York, but Saturday's crowd surely outdid any other fair I've ever attended. I recall, too, visiting a Fair in Denmark (similar cast of characters), but New York wins hands down for the individuals you will see.

There is something spectacularly fascinating about the human race who attend such rituals. It is part science fiction, part fantasy, a little surreal, and a lot of avant guard. It feels like there's someone filming a movie about freak shows and dysfunctional families, and when I leave I'm not sure if I'm enlightened, humbled, horrified, or truly fascinated. All I know is that we can be extremely peculiar people...and it is in a quirky way, completely beautiful. I take pride that others look at me the same.

and finalizing the rock theme

In a spur of the moment outing, we took Nikki & Dylan to the New York State Fair to remind ourselves that our species is more complicated than we could ever imagine.

Dylan was in the back seat rocking and, wary of the language of his lyrics, he began singing, "Highway to H." He had the tune down, but he opted, correctly, to end his song with "H." HIGHWAY TO H. Cynde said, it's better than taking a highway to Z, and we had to agree.

Meanwhile, fried dough and Gianelli sausage is consumed en masse.

continuing with a rock theme

In 1990, I was a proud owner of my first Smashing Pumpkins cassette. Years later, as a teacher, my students resurrected my love for the driving guitars of the band and I laughed that music that made my youth also made theirs. Yesterday, driving home from SU the Smashing Pumpkins were playing on the radio. I rolled down my windows and cascaded north on 81 letting the late summer air blow on my face and reminisced a bit about music, but more importantly about how rock music can find a place in a man's being in a way that no other music can. For a moment, I wish I was eighteen again (so I could start my transformation to look like Nikki Sixx). But, as quirky as it is, I settled for being the age I am with the uncertainty that comes with it. I captured the days where boundaries weren't as defined and when an evening listening to music with friends was paramount. It's odd to think that my days of youth were geared with Smashing Pumpkins and it is interesting that today's eighteen year olds are creating tune memories for themselves. As the Beatles bannered, "Let It Be," and so I shall.

and then there's the real me

The rock star, Nikki Six, of Motley Crew played last night at the New York State Fair. There was a buzz that he was sitting on a rock outside my office and one of my fellow graduate students, it is reported, met him and he gave her tickets.

I didn't know who he was and when I looked him up, I realized he is in the image of who I really wish I was. He's tattooed, goth, and totally dark in a quirky way that I am not. Even so, in my secret life, this is how I imagine I look. I think there'd be something awesome about looking this way...driving a family mini-van, teaching classes, being a writer. In other words, he looks the way I'd like to be perceived. I don't look this way at all, but I'd love to walk in a room appearing as he does with the ideas and mind that I have. I think that would be a lot of fun.

Luke, I'm not your father...but I'm a follower

This is a nerdy posting.

Two days ago, I discovered the research of Allan Luke. I've known it before, but this time it resonated with me. As I was reading one of his multiple publications, I came across a Joycian sentence that is now my favorite sentence in this lifetime. I can't say I know what it means, but I think I have a better clue now than I would have had ten years ago.

A brilliant, quirky mind is worth its weight in research. Here's his words:

“To proceed without such planning is to assume, as many post-National Reading Panel federal and state policies in the United States have done, that there can indeed be free-standing pedagogical and psychological decisions around the official classification and framing of literacy as school knowledge independent of broader sociological, linguistic, and ethnographic analyses of the functions and uses of literacy in multilingual and, indeed, multiliterate societies increasingly characterized by cultural and linguistic diversity and dynamic, hybrid textual and semiotic systems, and volatile flows of capital and discourse.”

If you unravel it, you belong in my circle of friends.

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered

In 1992, Samantha Hoover made me a cassette for my drive back to Syracuse from Binghamton University. That cassette was played numerous times and, over the course of several years, it played not only the United States, but also driving in Europe and Japan.

Yesterday, walking into the Reading and Language Arts Center at Syracuse University, the incredible Rebecca Freeland (who meets and greets everyone into the office) began singing an Ella Fitzgerald song, "Bewitched, bothered and bewildered." I felt so cultured because I was able to sing along with her. It was the first song on side two of Hoover's tape.

And outside the Huntington Hall, tom and alley cats could be heard yawping to compete with my singing talents as I tried to harmonize with Becky. Either way, I post the song for memory's sake, as it was one tune of many that could be heard in my Toyota Tercel (Joan Popper), my silver Ford Ranger (Ethyl Betty), and my Ford Explorer (Lucy) for many road trips in my past. In fact, Samantha's c.d. was also played for Amy Parton as we crossed the British Isles in both Princess Diana and Fergie, our two car rentals, that were driven during our summer at Cambridge University.

A song can launch a thousand ships in the seascape of one's manic mind.

Bucking ridiculous

This must be the year of deer for me (dad should take me hunting as good luck charm). In the Hamptons, when I ran, the deer stood on the side of the road like I was a squirrel and no bother. Then, this morning, Baby and I went for a walk to keep up with the a.m. ritual of morning exercise.

I was brain-dead in the comatose mindlessness of listening to What'dya Know on my I-Pod, and Baby was doing her ritual of leaving a urine sample on every object that lines the side of the road. That is when a buck leaped out of the woods in front of us and jumped over Baby's nose and into the woods on the other side of the street. It definitely woke me up, and Baby is still disturbed in a "Which Way Did He Go? Which Way Did He Go?" impersonation of a Warner Bros. cartoon.

This morning, I am thanking God I'm not a truck. If I was in a vehicle, the damage would be obvious.