My wife is a librarian and daily interacts with children and books. If I were not a Professor, I cannot think of a more appealing calling. We talk daily about the little ones in her school, books, and the relationship between bookish children and their overall demeanor. A picture book that we recently became aware of is The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.
For all bibliovores, regardless of age, this book is for you. It is beautiful in form and content, it is good in form and content, and it is true in form and content. Rarely does one find a children's picture book that so throughly celebrates a bookish life, but also deals with some grand humane themes. In addition to this unique book, there is an app (sorry Luddites) that is interactive with the book. For the critics of such apps, one can make the case that this app encourages greater interaction with the book and other books. For short film lovers, this wonderful book also inspired the Academy Award winning short film.
Henry Petroski's, The Pencil: A History of Design and Circumstance, is among the most important books I've ever read. It perfectly illustrates the insight of Neil Postman that everything can be studied, and should be, in terms of history and philosophy.
Leonard's Read's charming and insightful essay, I, Pencil has been turned into a wonderful little movie that can supplement Petroski's rich book and Read's marvelous essay about one of mankind's most brilliant inventions.
In truth, if you have grown up writing with a pencil, there is certainly a pleasure in thoughtfully using one. While I do put things on Evernote and increasingly use Google Docs, I still often find myself reaching for a pencil to scribble down notes and there are times, when I need to carefully and in a most leisurely mode compose, in those special moments, nothing is better than the pencil.
My habit was this--wake up, make breakfast with my wife, and as she was going to work, I would read the day's headlines from the "news," and we would talk about it over the phone. Over recent months, especially the last several days, I felt like I was reading more news, and watching more news, and getting dumber as I slipped into a greater ennui.
So taking a partial cue from Walker Percy's Dr. Thomas More in Love in the Ruins who gathered "cases of Early Times and Swiss Colony sherry . . . [and] the Great Books" for what More felt might be the end of the world, I plan on a modified version of this activity. Minus the Early Times, Swiss Colony, and staying at a Howard Johnson's, but certainly with a mega dose of the Great Books, a resolution has occurred.
Some additional motivation comes from remembering a Neil Postman book I had read some years ago. Going back and looking at that marked up book, I was ashamed how much I had failed to live the wisdom of that work. Neil Postman, once advised in his book How to Watch The TV News, written twenty years ago, that "The 'news' is only a commodity, which is used to gather an audience that will be sold to advertisers."
Think of events that bombard us for days and then not a sound. I had thought that it took Michael Jackson a month to die with all the coverage that "news event" received. Postman states, "No one is expected to take the news too seriously... tomorrow's news will have nothing to do with today's news. It is best if the audience has completely forgotten yesterday's news. TV shows work best by treating viewers as if they were amnesiacs."
Regarding the bias (and they are ALL biased), Postman argues, "TV is not what happened. It is what some man or woman who has been labeled a journalist or correspondent thinks is worth reporting." The silly notion that media is objective was swallowed up with Fox news and MSNBC propaganda, and all media are on their heels.
Again, Postman contends, "The more information, the less significant information is. The less information, the more significant it is." I decided to start my days not with information, but with truth and wisdom so as to enable me to be fully prepared when the information encountered tends toward the true and good, or tends toward the delusional propaganda. "The preparation for watching television news begins with the preparation of one's mind through extensive reading." So what little news I do watch or read or listen to in the years to come, will be tempered by significantly more reading of the greatest works ever written so my mind is better prepared.
So starting a few days ago, my new morning ritual is breakfast with my wife, time with the daily lectionary, and reading from the Great Books of which I'll be blogging more. News will get a few minutes a month, if that much.
Finally, after years of planning and a great deal of hard (mental) work, the PhD that is profoundly grounded in the Great Books is here. It was a dream I had about five years ago to offer a fully accredited Great Books based PhD. Originally the degree was to be a DLitt, but with some possible confusion out there, the degree was slightly altered to conform to the requirements of a PhD.
We received word late afternoon on Oct. 29th. We have everything in place and will be taking applications immediately. With already more than 100 people having seriously inquired about the program for the past year, we anticipate admitting the top forty-five. A candidate can opt to concentrate in History, Literature, Philosophy, or aspire to be a generalist in the Liberal Arts. The tutorials are ideal for in-depth research in an era, person, idea, or select writings.
This PhD is literally one-of-a-kind in that it is fully accredited (SACS), offered fully distance with the dissertation being defended via conference call with a designated Research Fellow, and the student's full committee having guided the research. This PhD is uniquely interdisciplinary in structure and practice. A number of the highly qualified faculty are generalists and encourage the kind of readings, research, and writing that reflects an interdisciplinary drive.
Building on our very successful MLitt degree, we use the Great Books and select, highly interactive online tools to provide the best distance education available. If you have any questions or need any assistance, please feel free to contact us through our website.
