Marrakech day one…

Waking up in Marrakech in our riad (pronounced ree- awd) surrounded by the call to prayers 5:30 am or so as the melody echoes around the medina from the dozens of mosques inside the walled city. A riad is the Moroccan version of a bed and breakfast. The house is situated with a large central courtyard two stories tall with a rooftop balcony, the rooms surround this courtyard, the first floor housing the kitchen a sitting room and our room dubbed the Sultana. There are four more rooms upstairs which open up onto a balcony that overlooks the courtyard. The courtyard itself is open roofed save for a canvas stretched across to keep rain from coming in.

According to our caretaker Bajr, the singer of the call to prayer’s title is Muezzin. While chatting with Bajr I learn that he has just recently taken on his duties here, his prior employment having something to do with the circus and the high trapeze – (I’m going to find out more about this.) The flowing chants waft outside our house then dipping in from above skirting beneath the canvas and into the center of the riad. The scores of Muezzins, not quite synched with their compatriots, form a sort of round and this undercurrent bathes the still dark morning hour. One by one the call finishes and the morning is still again except for the sporadic crowing of a nearby rooster. And so begins day two in Marrakech.

Our four hour train ride down from Rabat started with a twenty five minute delay on a rain slickened platform. Once we began clacking down the tracks, the city quickly gave way to farmland and small herds of goats, sheep and cattle all attended by a shepherd or herder as the ruminants grazed sans fencing. Two hours into our trip the terrain switched from predominantly flatland to rolling hills with outcroppings of craggy rock and cultivated fields framed by prickly pear looking cacti, date and olive trees. My ears popped with the change of elevation. Closer to our destination snow covered mountains assumed control of the distant horizon the vista somewhat reminiscent of the southwest in the United States or the agave plantations I biked through in Oaxaca Mexico.

Pulling into the station we are greeted by a Frenchman Manu, who with his mother, own and operate our riad. We climb into his vehicle and make the ten minute ride to the medina. The medina is the old part of the city, the medieval walled city within the city, as the labyrinth of narrow roadways markets restaurants and open squares trafficked by pedestrians, donkey carts and agile motorbike pilots many of whom are female with flowing tunics and headscarves. Without Manu there would have been no way possible for us to have found where we are staying the winding streets and alleys are as convoluted and enmeshed as the intricate ironworks that cover many of the windows here.

We settled into our room and then we ventured into the maze of the medina, noting landmarks as we passed hoping to find our way back – a black and white checked door, a barber, a square full of carpet vendors, that café where we drank cardamom spiced coffee and ate kafta sandwiches all cataloged to be questioned later – “Okay, right or left here – was it this black and white door?...”

Eventually we begin to get our bearings and even pick up a few Arabic phrases that help us along. We have dinner in the large open square surrounded by street musicians, fruit vendors and supposedly snake charmers (who we are yet to see.) We deposit our souvenir loot from the day back at our room, splash our faces with water and head out to the main square again where the musicians and storytellers now perform for crowds circled around kerosene lamps. We avoid the man with monkey who is looking to perch his little charge on our shoulder for a picture and of course a bit of remuneration for the privilege.

We corkscrew our way back around 11pm. Not bad for our first day. I’m looking forward to see what happens next. Okay, no sooner had I written the preceding line than a bird has decided to poop onto my laptop – everybody is a critic – could have been worse, at least it wasn’t in my coffee.

All aboard!

I am currently in a first class cabin aboard a train headed from Rabat down to Marrakesh – it’s about a four hour ride – we’ve been on the road now for just under three days and we’ve accomplished the plane – train – automobile tri-fecta.

We survived a weather scare back in Cleveland where it is still snowing. Waiting at the gate we watched as planes de-iced and took off as visibility ebbed back and forth at the whim of passing snow fronts hoping against hope that we would not hear that fateful announcement of the airport closing as we did a couple years back when headed to Istanbul. Twenty minutes before departure and the flight crew had not shown up yet and I’m worrying that maybe they have the inside dope and we’re not going anywhere fast. Just then they show up and there is an audible sigh of relief amongst those of us at the gate. We board the plane to JFK trailed by a gorgeous black gal who was at least 6’ 3”. “Model or basketball ?” I asked her. “Model,” she demurred.

We arrive in New York with around six hours to kill before our flight to Casablanca but already things are beginning to take on an global flair in the international terminal. Folks are wearing clothes that are cut just a little different than one is used to seeing on the streets of Cleveland, Ohio. Passing conversations are in Italian, Russian, Chinese, Arabic and I comfortably slip into the mode of not understanding folks around me. There’s a bit of solace to be had when background conversations become an unintelligible undercurrent like the waves on the seashore or the clack of steel train wheels on track.

Unfortunately CNN is still in English on the monitors hanging from the ceiling and I can fully understand the anchor as he goes on and on about the underwear bomber and the safety of airline flight. You’d think the TV pooh bah of JFK would switch some That Seventies Show reruns or something. The airport is an amazing place; the absolute crush of humanity all headed somewhere – either home or away. As we cattle herded our way through the security line a young Turkish couple shadowed an older duo in front of us from outside the security barriers making their goodbyes last as long as they good. Well actually, it was the young lady that seemed to be most interested in stretching out the farewell – the young man looked a bit relieved.

On the plane announcements from the captain are in French, Arabic and then finally in English. The flight itself is uneventful and we land in Casablanca twenty minutes early where we are met by our hostess Cynthia who takes us to her place in Rabat where we will be staying while we visit the international school there after we tour the country for a week. Dinner, a get acquainted with ways of the market visit to the souks in the medina where we successfully managed not buy anything the first time out a hearty lunch and a light dinner and bed ways by 9pm. Up at 6:30am and off to the train station and tad a – here I am.

Okay, that was going to be th end of this post but something pretty cool just happened. We’re an hour into the trip and we’re in a cabin that has six seats. An older guy with a ball cap reading a biography of Chirac was already here when we arrived. We were just joined by a family – a husband wife and a teenage daughter. The man is in a blue suit jacket and the two women in traditional Muslim dress with the long skirts and head coverings. Once settled in the girl speaks to her mother and then leaves the cabin. About two minutes later a lovely young lady in stylish blue jeans and a fitted jacket with long curly black hair enters the cabin and takes the daughter’s sits in the daughter’s spot. It takes me a couple seconds and I realize – this IS the daughter. I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to be the only surprise on this trip.

St. Francis Xavier (or you say Madeena and I say Madina)

Last school visit before we shake off the coil of this winter chill and escape like migrating Canadian Geese to the warmer climes' of Morocco. I’m pretty sure Canadian geese don’t fly across the Atlantic but you get my drift.

Met with the Middle School Scholars of St. Francis Xavier in beautiful Medina  (pronounced Ma- dine - a) Ohio yesterday. The arctic blast was playing with school schedules all around but we were right on time. My intrepid Honda Element scooted down the snow covered roads like nobodies business while I listened to my Arabic survival phrases podcast through the auxiliary jack of its stereo.

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned how much I have loved this car – bought it in 2004 when it was the ugliest thing on the road and have enjoyed it ever since. in the meantime copycat models have sprung up from all the automakers. I almost think of the thing as a pet more than transportation. During his last visit home from college my oldest casually asked me when I would be getting a new car – and what would I be doing with the Element when I do – hint hint hint.

Anyway – the kids at St. Francis were prepared and enthusiastic for my visit, the visiting artist wrangler Judy was nothing but sunshine on this blustery January day and we had a very successful round of public speaking workshops.  Even though we were constrained to forty minute sessions we still got a lot of good work done. I don’t get a chance to take an extra breath during these crammed periods, but the kids were so focused and ready to go that the day flew by. We got some quality instruction accomplished and still had a few laughs.

So, thanks St. Francis for a great day, you try and keep warm now – I'll raise a glass of hot mint tea in your honor in the Marrakesh Medina (pronounced Ma deen a.)

Souk and you shall find

Well – the last month has been super super busy! Sara has two new books sitting at the pubisher – I have one under consideration @ the same publisher and we finished the first draft of our new teacher book and that too is in the hands of the publisher and some initial readers.

So, what is our next trick? Off to Morocco! So will begin the Salinger Holbrook world tour for 2010. Morocco – Abu Dhabi – Seoul, South Korea and Shanghai,China. All between this Friday and the middle of March.  We’ll be visiting schools talking with students and teachers and making time for some touring around as well.

We each have a school visit on Tuesday then we re-group and get ready to hit the road. House sitter is lined up, we notified the mailman and the cops – dogs portioned out to family and friends.

Watch this space for updates as we slide down the rabbit hole to pop up in who knows where!

Defining moments…

Had a fun and fruitful visit with the 5th graders @ Apex Academy here in Cleveland. We got a jump start on their winter break take home packets by writing some definition poems for a list of words contained within said packets. 

Good sessions even though the holiday break was peeking from around the corner trying to distract us. Special thanks to Ms. Coleman for having her kids prepared and for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

Stuff your stocking with this!

Well Defined - Vocabulary in Rhyme

Curiouser and curiouser…

One of the smartest shows on television as far as Sara and I are concerned is Fareed Zakaria’s GPS. This past Sunday he had the chief poobah from Google, Eric Schmidt, in the studio for an interview.

Their conversation began around internet security and the info that Google as a company collects from its users. Then they veered into finding information on the intertubes of all things world wide webby. The web – it was postulated – has changed the way we learn and the way we need to teach because facts are no longer something that need be remembered – they are now merely commodities to be downloaded.

 

Schmidt commented that when he was a kid in school  he spent a whole lot of time memorizing info because that was the most efficient way to have it at hand – stored in his skull. Now – anything one could want to know is just a click away. I myself like to quote Einstein who it is rumored did not know his phone number – because he didn’t see the reason to memorize something he could so easily look up.  How many dinner table arguments have been settled with a Blackberry instead of a butter knife?

Of course the draw back to the glut of data available is the parsing and vetting of its sheer mass for usefulness. There is no editor standing between us and the info floating out there in in Cyberia. We’ve been given the keys to the warehouse that holds everything. How do we sort what’s true and false, what’s junk or treasure, helpful or dangerous?

What we need to be teaching our students is how to think, to question, to look at the world through a  critical eye. The facts are out there for easy picking – all this time spent on standardized tests preparation - let me throw out a little aside here: There has NEVER been a study that links success on high stakes standardized tests with success in life. All this time spent on standardized test preparation is time spent doing the exact opposite of what our kids need to be learning.

This sets kids up to believe that the world is black and white – right and wrong – served up as a multiple choice problem where all we need to do is fill in an oval with number two pencil. When, what we really should be doing is engaging their curiosity, encouraging them to ask questions, to check multiple sources – this information laden society has turned us all into reporters who have to do their own “fact” verification.

 

What are we doing to feed our kids curiosity? Well, last weekend while visiting Sara’s daughter in northern Virginia, Sara and I took the boys to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History where we ogled dinosaur bones and stuffed mammals. Turns out the museum is free, parking was easy to find, and traffic into and out of DC is not a problem at all on a Sunday morning. We felt a bit embarrassed that this was the first time we had packed them up and gone into the district. See – we thought it was going to be a whole lot harder. Guess we shoulda checked our facts a bit better. Hey – we’re still learning.

NCTE Philly

“The security guard said these were the best cheese steaks in the city.”

 

This is what I overheard as I jostled and bobbed in the sea of humanity ebb and flowing in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market  – just across from the convention center where the National Council of Teachers of English were holding their annual convention.  Lucky for me as the first cheese steak joint I had stopped at ran out of sandwiches while I was in line and I wasn’t going to leave town without checking off one of these colloquial culinary concoctions from my local delicacy to do list. The market was reminiscent of Cleveland’s West Side market – only around fifteen times the size.

 

Sara and I were attending the NCTE conference and it was wonderful to have the market so near –crepes for breakfast are not always the fare at these things. The conference was pretty well attended this year estimates I heard ranged from six to nine thousand.  For a change we were not presenting a session even so we had trouble squeezing in all the appointments, book signings, dinners, and publisher meeting we scheduled ourselves. The absence of the stress instigated with presenting though, (technology worries, finding the room, having set up time, preparing the presentation etc. etc.) made the conference one of the most enjoyable AND productive ones I have attended.

 

This year poet and anthologist Lee Bennett Hopkins was honored as the recipient of the Excellence in Poetry award given by the council. Lee has edited about a kajillion anthologies of poetry for kids. It has been my pleasure to get to know him a little over the last few years and I’ll tell you – the guy is a hoot.  So there was no way I was going to miss seeing him get his well deserved comeuppance. During the award – toast – roast – ceremony, speakers gave him as much credit for his inside info gossip acumen as his prowess as a judge of poetic talent. Hopkins was the first to publish Langston Hughes’ children’s poetry and continues to produce several books year. The dais was littered with kid lit lyrical luminaries including Jane Yolen, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, Georgia Heard, and Ralph Fletcher to name just a couple.

 

I also got to see another poetic friend and VIP, Jimmy Santiago Baca – who has been contracted by my and Sara’s teacher text book publisher Heinemann to provide stories and poems for a new series of books. I met Jimmy years ago at a poetry conference in Ohio and he has been more than gracious each time we’ve run into each other since.  He has been doing some excellent work with youth and Heinemann was smart enough to grab hold of him.

 

We also had time to sit down and eat with friends including one really fantastic dinner with our editor Harvey Daniels and a crew of other authors and publishers in some swanky Italian joint’s comfortably catacombed  stone walled basement.  While perusing the menu Mr. Daniels questioned the provenance of the lobster served in Philadelphia.  I suspected that the shellfish may actually be irradiated crayfish kept in a galvanized washtub in a closet – “Here take this iodine pill and grab a lobster willya?” I had the veal.

After the conference we hopped into our little blue car and headed to Virginia where we are on babysitting duty while Sara’s daughters Kelly and Katie head up to NYC to work a Rosie Broadways Kids benefit. We took the boys to the Smithsonian to scope out some dinosaur bones but that’s another story now isn’t it?

BTW - the cheese steak WAS pretty great.

The hardest working stiff in showbiz

Those of you who read this blog with any regularity know that one of my favorite artists to listen to while I run is Rob Zombie. His work is a bit hard to categorize, not quite heavy metal – not quite techno, he came into prominence with his band White Zombie back in the mid ‘80s along with the likes of Sonic Youth and the B.H. Surfers. White Zombie is the title of a 1932 Bela Lugosi movie which most experts cite as the first ever zombie movie. Yes there are zombie “experts” and I would number myself amongst them on a rising scale of one to ten at about 8.2 or so. Robert Bartleh Cummings, aka Rob Zombie, scores an eleven. Since embarking on a successful solo career – Zombie has also directed and produced a series of horror movies including the last two installments of the Halloween series.

So, when I saw that Mr. Cummings was going to making an appearance at the Akron Civic Theater I coughed up the cash for a fistful of tickets and invited my oldest son and his girlfriend to join me at the gig.

I was somewhat surprised that I was not the oldest person attending the concert in fact I would put maybe a quarter of the audience in my age range. The opening acts were a couple bands whose genre would best be described as Hellbilly music. A driving four four rockabilly beat whirred up to cyclotron speed and doused with B-movie imagery. A complimentary prelude to the main event without stealing any of the thunder (and smoke and strobe lights and giant video projections) of the main event.

The overriding impression I walked away from this show with was an admiration for the work put into it. Zombie must have covered close to a 10K running around the stage and into the audience. I’ve been to shows before where the big star momentarily jumps  into the mosh-pit to be safely returned almost immediately. Zombie waded into the audience disappearing into the throng like a victim in a black and white George Ramero film being overcome by a swarm of the undead. Like the hapless babysitter who opens the dead bolted attic door to see what that noise was instead of calling the cops Zombie seemingly eschewed good sense and immersed himself in the black clad crowd. The only clue that the singer had not been consumed  by the horde was his growling bark of  lyrics still rising over the surging power chords emanating from the stage. No lip syncing here daddio, just some breakneck and more than occasional f-bomb dropping rock and roll.

Perched in our third row balcony seats we sat back and enjoyed the spectacle.

Colossal video screens showed snips of classic horror movies, clips from the Munsters and Tales from the Crypt type animated cartoons intermixed with punctuations of song lyrics in giant graphics. A  fourteen foot tall robot/golem type monster danced menacingly on stage during “More Human than a Human” – smoke, mirrors and the copious use of strobe lights as forewarned by innumerous postings in the lobby before the show  all played into what became the funnest freak show eveh.

In the immortal words of Zombie’s song, How to Make a Monster, “Go go Zombie, go go yeah, yeah, yeah “

Hog Butcher to the World

Just back from a whirlwind of a visit to the Windy City forty hours which included three gigs in a span of twenty hours.

I was invited by the Chicago Humanities Festival to speak on my new book Well Defined: Vocabulary in Rhyme.  The theme of the festival this year was humor and festival director Mary Kate Barley-Jenkins found my book amusing after someone at the Chicago Poetry Center sent her a copy. So they brought me in.

Now the life of an independent teaching artist is somewhat similar to that of an airline pilot whose vocation I have heard described as hours of monotony interspersed with seconds of near cardiac inducing panic.  As the old adage goes when it rains it pours so after what seemed like weeks and weeks holed up in my home office I found myself in a blizzard of travel and engagements.  Since Halloween I’ve been in Boston, the greater Cincinnati area, Wooster Ohio and Chicago Illinois visiting schools, signing books, taking walking tours, driving, flying and riding.

After the school work in Boston I was the guest of Christine and Larry Charbonneau who walked Sara and me all over historic Boston. We visited Paul Revere’s abode, ate lunch at the celebrated Parker House hotel where Malcolm X was a busboy and JFK proposed to Jackie, visited the grave of Mother Goose (I didn’t realize she really existed either) ,and ate some pretty damn good cannolis at Mikes bakery on the North End.

Returning from Bean Town we immediately drove to Mason Ohio as chronicled in the post below. Then it was home for a couple days and off to the Buckeye Book Fair where not only did I sell out of books but got my pic taken with Big Chuck whom I mention in the post Boom Boom Boom.  Immediately afterwards I drove to Cleveland Hopkins and hop a plane to Chicago to participate in the 2009 Chicago Humanities Festival –  the past few weeks becoming a serendipitous swirl culminating in the visit to the city of the big shoulders.

I slip into Chicago as if putting on a tailored suit jacket. The city fits me well – it’s like a bigger better equipped version of Cleveland, same basic ethnic makeup, same weather, same Midwestern unpretentiousness plus the added bonus of hotdogs that are a meal. I landed with just enough time to check into the nice suite at the Seneca Hotel provided by the festival then grab a cab to catch the final half hour of a cocktail party being held in honor of the CHF’s presenters and organizers.

I am forever finding myself in water than is a little deeper than I belong and looking around this party seeing the likes of Matt Groening let me know I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. I just managed to muster the restraint to keep from whipping out my Blackberry and requesting photos with the luminaries present thus not appearing the country rube in the big city – but betraying my true lack of sophistication I do kind of regret it. I did feel a little vindicated the next morning in the hospitality suite where I helped the award winning and apparently technologically challenged  New Yorker cartoonist Ed Koren  print out his boarding pass for his flight back to Vermont after chatting about bikes and running.

My presentation the next afternoon went pretty well – I was not 100% happy with it but the organizers and attendees seemed to feel no need for violence afterward and to torture  the pilot metaphor a bit more – any landing you can walk away from is a good one. I even had folks line up for me to sign books afterwards so it must have been OK. I was especially happy to meet up with a former student of mine Jonathan Lykes who now goes to the University of Chicago and we had dinner following my presentation. That evening I was a featured performer at the Green Mill – the Mecca for Slam poets.

I don’t know what it is about that club but it brings out the best in me. A lot of the credit goes to Marc Smith the man who invented Poetry Slam who has cultivated and nurtured the show for over twenty years – the audiences are smart, attentive and vocal.  No wonder I ran into such slam luminaries as Roger Bonair-Agard, Marty McConnell and Robbie Q Telfer there.  It was one of the best sets I’ve done in a long time – it was good to get back to my roots per se and somewhat consoling to know I still had some chops left. I think I kinda identify a smidgeon now of how the Buddha faced Foreman felt the last time he grabbed the belt.

The next morning I visited Von Steuben High School on Chicago’s North Side where I was joined by Jonathan and we talked about poetry and performed some pieces for an assembly of students.  The kids were receptive (they even took notes!) and I was given a pretty hep t-shirt emblazoned with the school’s panther mascot. Then Mary Kate her silver Honda Civic and I chased down a yellow taxi piloted by a Sudanese driver who took me to the airport where I was able to get on an earlier flight pretty much walking into O’Hare and directly onto a plane.

Sometimes things just fall together and it just looks like you know what you’re doing…

GO PANTHERS!