Random Notes from 36,000 ft.

We are about an hour out of San Francisco now and I have read an article, watched a movie (Little Miss Sunshine), listened to several podcasts, and watched (on the iPod) the Battelstar Galactica primer that was (is?) a free download from iTunes Store. A few stray and random thoughts have occurred to me along the way and I thought I would mimic one of our Scholars, Adam, and make a list for you.

  • “A Socioliterary Approach,” by Norman Gottwald in Approaches to Teaching the Hebrew Bible as Literature in Translation, ed. by Barry N. Olshen and Yael S. Feldman (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1989), pp. 59-64. I actually read this article, and others in this great little volume, before preparing my SBL paper. I have looked at (but ever used) Gottwald’s textbook of similar name, but I had never come across this article before. What struck me was that, while I remember deciding not to use his textbook because… well, I will go back and look at again and report more coherent thoughts, but my recollection is that it follows his own peculiar order of presentation, I find I am in near total agreement with this article that outlines his teaching philosophy and method. (Sorry for the run on sentence.)I found myself in such agreement that I initially thought I wasn’t going to have a lot more to say for the paper I was presenting. Needless to say, I didn’t let that stop me. 🙂 But I do have to think more about his approach and see what I really do agree with and where I think I simply take a different approach. This will require going back to his textbook and reading it more carefully and with a different eye. My initial examination was with the question in mind, “Will this work for my intro class.” It is a neat little lesson about how our “posture” affects how we understand a text.
  • Little Miss Sunshine – The Music! Two songs by Sufjan Stevens! Very neat discovery. One or two pieces I am sure are from Come on Feel the Illinoise (I think it is only Chicago). Stevens is an amazing artist and I am glad he is getting wide recognition. I think I mentioned before that I ordered his 5 Christmas discs for my stocking.
  • I have recently downloaded a number of podcasts. A nice one I listed to today was Grammar Girl’s Quick & Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Well worth a listen, especially the bit about the Chicago Manual of Style. Of course I still listen regularly to This Week in Tech but I also just added This Week in Media.
  • [Sorry I did not get this uploaded until this morning. Too many meetings.]

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