A slow down

I've been hugely hung up by technical problems this last week (like the death of my computer and the concurrent disappearance of hundreds of photos and studio files that went down with the hard drive). These have also caused big workload shifts, so I am missing deadlines aplenty...

I have a few interesting things to share...first, I was taken by this conversation on The Takeaway about the way social media use affects student writing. My teaching career started only a few years before Facebook, but blogs were already a big deal. At the time I felt (and I still feel) that students are very good at writing about their feelings about a given topic, but not so much good at writing about that topic. I doubt social media can be blamed for that. And anyone who equates texting with writing is looney.

They other notable item was a conversation on WHYY's Radio Times with poet Kenneth Goldsmith, whose book, Seven American Deaths and Distasters, is on my Christmas list (hint, hint). I am torn about what I think about the avant garde poet some call Kenny G. I enjoyed his book on Uncreative Writing, but when I heard him speak on the radio, he came across as more flippant than I would have hoped. It didn't help that from time to time he sounded like William Shatner...

...I will be back to this soon, and with photos. Thanks for your patience!