The Day's Headlines.

Revised Syllabus; recognize.
For Friday, 2.1: Read, annotate, and log pp. 194-218 (25).
For Monday, 2.4: 1) Read, annotate, and log pp. 219-242 (24). 2) Email me your first Snapshot Essay as an attachment before Monday's class (or copy it into my mamabear server faculty folder dropbox). This is a firm deadline; late work will be penalized. Please use MLA format: typed; double-spaced; 10-12 point standard font; one-inch margins on all sides. A concise summary of this format can be found beginning on page five of the Upper School English Department Handbook.
For Tuesday, 2.5: Read, annotate, and log pp. 242-276 (34).
For Thursday, 2.7: Purchase and bring to class your new book. I encourage you to hit up one of the Twin Cities' many independent book stores to do so. prb's picks: Booksmart, Mager's & Quinn's, Half Price Books, and Book House Dinkytown.

Bonus Opportunitree. (So uncool, so contrived; I know.)
Construct Jonathan's family tree. Include as much information as is known based on the text, such as names, dates, relationship to Jonathan, and any other pertinent info, such as "born in Trachimbrod" or "died by lightning strike." Due by class time next Tuesday, February 5. Exact point value TBD; it will be nor multitudinous nor miniature.

Survey Monkey pulls an all nighter to meet deadline.
An obscure, undisclosed location. (AP) Last night into early morning, with the help of a near-lethal concoction of one part black tea, eight parts Red Bull, the Survey Monkey computed the results of the class' Book Choice rankings. Check out the results by clicking here: Book Choice rankings, Round 2. (The resulting new circles will be announced in class Friday.)

Survey Monkey's work is complete, for time begin, and after a much-needed--and deserved--nap, he will deplete his accumulated vaca days. When asked where he'll travel to, he said, "I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps Dubai. I hear it's like the new Disneyland, but without Mickey ... I hate that obnoxious mouse."

A "Human Moment."

Patrick: Shapka means "undefined."

[A minute or two passes.]

Matt (softly, but with conviction): I don't think shapka means "undefined," but rather, is undefined. (According to my computer's language translator.)

Matt, your suggestion was correct. Thank you for drawing attention to this error of mine (I like to think of it as a "human moment"), comical--and embarrassing--as it was.

Actual Definition: An ushanka (уша́нка) [uˈʂan.kə] is a Russian fur cap with ear flaps that can be tied up to the crown of the cap, or tied at the chin to protect the ears from the cold. In the English-speaking world, it is referred to as a shapka (шáпкa), from the Russian language word for "hat." Ushanka literally translates as "ear-flaps hat."

Optical Illusions & Negative Space.

Satiate your curiosity ...

... and dispel all urban legends regarding Mr. Fred Rogers. (From, of course, the much disputed--but heavy-"hitting" nonetheless--Wikipedia.)

Book List rankings, Round Two.

The field has been narrowed. Before completing the online survey, rembember that I'll have the books in class tomorrow for your perusal. When you're ready to do so, click the following link to rank your top five of the remaining twelve texts: Book List rankings, Round Two.

Also, as promised, let this serve as your reminder that you own me $12. Cash or check. Those of you who haven't paid me by the end of the day tomorrow will be given over to a collector's agency. And you will be sentenced to hard labor in the LW office.

—prb.

Book List correction.

On your book list, the title Waiting for the Barbarians should be Diary of a Bad Year. My bad.

Also, below you will find more extensive descriptions of Franny and Zooey and The Zoo Story & The American Dream.

Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger. (200 fast pages, 5 nights)
Volume containing two interrelated stories by J.D. Salinger, published in book form in 1961. The stories, originally published in The New Yorker magazine, concern Franny and Zooey Glass, two members of the family that was the subject of most of Salinger’s short fiction. Franny is an intellectually precocious late adolescent who tries to attain spiritual purification by obsessively reiterating the “Jesus prayer” as an antidote to the perceived superficiality and corruptness of life. She subsequently suffers a nervous breakdown. In the second story, her next older brother, Zooey, attempts to heal Franny by pointing out that her constant repetition of the “Jesus prayer” is as self-involved and egotistical as the egotism against which she rails. —from Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature .

The Zoo Story & The American Dream, Edward Albee. (128 pages, 4-5 nights)
The Zoo Story is Albee’s first play; written in 1958 and completed in just three weeks. The play explores themes of isolation, loneliness, social disparity and dehumanization in a commercial world. The American Dream is a satire on American family life. In the setting of a single day, a married couple and their grandmother are visited by two guests who turn their world upside down. —from Perspectives in American Literature: A Research and Reference Guide.

—Patrick.

About Alexander Perchov.

Hometown: Odessa, Ukraine.
Brief Bio: I am also dubbed "Alex-stop-spleening-me,""Shapka," "Currency," "Alli," and yet others, but I would be more partial to "Alex." I was sired in 1977, the same year as the hero. I have always thought of myself as very potent and very generative. I disseminate much currency. I dig American movies. I dig Michael Jackson. I am a very premium person to be with. I am homely, and also severely funny, and these are winning things. I toil at Heritage tours along with my father, Alex, and his father, who is also my grandfather, Alex. The picture below is of Sammy Davis, Junior Junior, my grandfather's officious seeing eye dog. (Here, of course, I am using the hero's idiom.)

Umbrella on film.

YouTube film adaptations of Fernando Sorrentino's "There's a Man in the Habit of Hitting Me in the Head with an Umbrella."