Monday, July 27, 2009
Recent Reading: Finding Oz
When I was a child, I read with avidity the Oz books; when I was in college, I read some excellent fiction on the meaning of the Oz books (inevitably, one of them imposed a heavy nad anachronistic homosexual content) and even found some of the non-Oz materials penned by L. Frank Baum (the less said about Alan Moore's Lost Girls, the better) but until recently I had never read a biography of Baum which explored the possible sources from his personal life which may have contributed to the elements in the Wizard of Oz. Schwartz approaches Baum's life as a story itself - an appropriate choice given the way Baum himself understood life - but also elucidates Baum's connections to radical feminism, Theosophism, oil monopolies, snake oil salesmanship, manifest destiny and Native American genocide. Some of these themes appear only in the book, whereas other reminders of Baum's life appear only in the movie. And for the record, I have never found the "all a dream" ending of the movie satisfying. After I had finished the book, I understood the nineteenth-century context and the personal drive of the author of the great American fairytale.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Berchakap di-kelantan
(I apologize for any errors - feel free to correct me)
Hari satu saya berjalan kapal terbang ka-Kentucky di-negeri USA tempat saya berchakap di-sini bahasa Latin chuma sahaja dengan banyak pengajar dari kampong2. Rupa-nya hari di-sini benar panas. Dudok saya sekalian di-rumah tempat dudok musim sekolah orang murid. Orang perempuan kelantan berchakap benar chantek!
Hari satu saya berjalan kapal terbang ka-Kentucky di-negeri USA tempat saya berchakap di-sini bahasa Latin chuma sahaja dengan banyak pengajar dari kampong2. Rupa-nya hari di-sini benar panas. Dudok saya sekalian di-rumah tempat dudok musim sekolah orang murid. Orang perempuan kelantan berchakap benar chantek!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Royaneh 2009
I went up to Royaneh on Wednesday of the first week (Troop 14 spends two weeks at camp). The heat and dust were still familiar. The camp programme now included many new badges, most of which do not have the activity level of traditional “camp” badges - Entrepeneurship, Salesmanship, and Theater were among these. Fourteeners who remember about candy and soda probably realize that some boys already understand Entrepeneurship quite well! The new Trading Post is spacious and has a deck which is eminently suitable for loitering.
On Thursday, the night was bitterly cold, which was either unfortunate or character-building, depending on whether you were a Scout in the Wilderness Survival class or a proponent of the tough-it-out school. It was also skit night, and the troop used one of the skits from Wednesday‘s campfire. Its dark humor worked slightly better in the more intimate setting of Pioneers (the site where the troop stays while at camp) than in the Ralph W Benson Amphitheater.
On Friday, there were the usual panics about unfinished badges, exacerbated by sloth and estival distraction. Some were agape at the notion that Bruce and I required some level of evidence before signing notes. The most notable thing, however, occurred at the Friday (camp-wide) campfire. When the camp staff began to wheel Jumbo on stage, the big screen on which the photos of the week’s activities are projected, they dropped it, and then in the process of fixing it, they dropped poor Jumbo again. the slide show occurred, but I credit its barely perceptible haste to the time lost through Jumbo’s failure to fly.
The breakfast of the first Saturday is always slightly odd, since the camp staff is bidding adieu to the Scouts, even though our troop does not leave. I was rather surprised that our camp task was not to clean Big Egypt, since that’s a favorite task to assign to Troop 14. Big Egypt is the shower house/bathroom between the dining hall and Pioneers, which earned its moniker because the old Big Egypt before its reconstruction once had a trough called the Little Nile - I shall be silent on the composition of that river. The troop split into rough age cohorts: the older Scouts went to the JLT (Junior Leadership Training), while the younger Scouts descended to the parade field to practice Colors. After a game of football to shed some excess energy, the younger group marched up to Scanlon Ridge, where they did some orienteering and the folly of claiming knowledge was shown quite dramatically. A group of Scouts later went down to Roman Plunge (aka the old Canoe Base) for an old-fashioned swim. I am told that there was a Siren from the camp staff down there. Then came the inevitable game of Capture the Flag. The campfire started late, so both I and another were cut from the program, and the Sherlock Holmes never even entered into consideration - it would be nice to find something equally engaging, but slightly shorter.
On Sunday, the Scouts signed up for merit badges and went on cairn hikes. The opening camp campfire (which I had not seen the previous Sunday) had undergone improvements and revisions.
On Monday, the day was unexceptional, and the troop campfire started late, as usual for this session, but the performances therein were superb. The quality of the skits was erratic, but the musical offerings by patrol members were excellent. I’m not sure the contents of House of the Rising Sun are appropriate for a Scout campfire, but the execution was nearly perfect.
I left on Tuesday.
On Thursday, the night was bitterly cold, which was either unfortunate or character-building, depending on whether you were a Scout in the Wilderness Survival class or a proponent of the tough-it-out school. It was also skit night, and the troop used one of the skits from Wednesday‘s campfire. Its dark humor worked slightly better in the more intimate setting of Pioneers (the site where the troop stays while at camp) than in the Ralph W Benson Amphitheater.
On Friday, there were the usual panics about unfinished badges, exacerbated by sloth and estival distraction. Some were agape at the notion that Bruce and I required some level of evidence before signing notes. The most notable thing, however, occurred at the Friday (camp-wide) campfire. When the camp staff began to wheel Jumbo on stage, the big screen on which the photos of the week’s activities are projected, they dropped it, and then in the process of fixing it, they dropped poor Jumbo again. the slide show occurred, but I credit its barely perceptible haste to the time lost through Jumbo’s failure to fly.
The breakfast of the first Saturday is always slightly odd, since the camp staff is bidding adieu to the Scouts, even though our troop does not leave. I was rather surprised that our camp task was not to clean Big Egypt, since that’s a favorite task to assign to Troop 14. Big Egypt is the shower house/bathroom between the dining hall and Pioneers, which earned its moniker because the old Big Egypt before its reconstruction once had a trough called the Little Nile - I shall be silent on the composition of that river. The troop split into rough age cohorts: the older Scouts went to the JLT (Junior Leadership Training), while the younger Scouts descended to the parade field to practice Colors. After a game of football to shed some excess energy, the younger group marched up to Scanlon Ridge, where they did some orienteering and the folly of claiming knowledge was shown quite dramatically. A group of Scouts later went down to Roman Plunge (aka the old Canoe Base) for an old-fashioned swim. I am told that there was a Siren from the camp staff down there. Then came the inevitable game of Capture the Flag. The campfire started late, so both I and another were cut from the program, and the Sherlock Holmes never even entered into consideration - it would be nice to find something equally engaging, but slightly shorter.
On Sunday, the Scouts signed up for merit badges and went on cairn hikes. The opening camp campfire (which I had not seen the previous Sunday) had undergone improvements and revisions.
On Monday, the day was unexceptional, and the troop campfire started late, as usual for this session, but the performances therein were superb. The quality of the skits was erratic, but the musical offerings by patrol members were excellent. I’m not sure the contents of House of the Rising Sun are appropriate for a Scout campfire, but the execution was nearly perfect.
I left on Tuesday.
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