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By Kyle, April 28, 2008 7:30 pm

Now playing on the iTunes random shuffle:

Sufjan Stevens – The Palm Sunday Tornado Hits Crystal Lake. For those of you who don’t know, Sufjan Stevens is essentially reinvigorating (if not reinventing) modern folk music. With thick and at times, tumultuous instrumentation, his sounds range from subtle and austere solemnity to utter chaos, but with an unwavering incidence of joy. This track itself is completely instrumental, clocking in at a walloping 99 seconds, and slowly builds from a warm piano ascent into a climactic sound of pianos, plucked guitars, and bells, followed by the sudden withdrawal to mere remnants of what was previously a resounding sonic force.

The first time I heard this, I had no idea what to think…does Sufjan actually belong in my CD changer? Hard to listen to? Yes. Surprising? Yes. Worth it? Yes.

The very same feeling took me this past weekend which I spent with a friend at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio (just east of Palm Springs). My friend and I arrived Friday morning, checked into our hotel, and headed off to the festival grounds. After lathering up in SPF 50 sunscreen, and fully equipped with hats, sunglasses and a personal reservoir of water stored in 6-8 bottles, we headed out.

It’s far too much to try to describe the whole event in a realistic length blog post, but suffice it to say that I had a phenomenal time. Some of the highlights…

• Not getting sunburned
• Vampire Weekend

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• My camera battery actually lasting!
• The National

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• Burgerittos for lunch. Yes, they’re exactly what you think they are.
• The Raconteurs

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• Having stored extra juice in the back of my car while we waited almost an hour for a parking lot traffic jam to clear.
• Actually having a rail to lean against (rather than stand) during the Death Cab For Cutie set.

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• The Tesla Coils. Yup, they actually had two of these just sitting out in the middle of the field randomly going off at different points.
• And surprisingly, Prince. Yep, headlining the festival was Prince, who I had strong doubts about before we actually heard his set, which was actually fairly amazing. Other than being perhaps the second most egocentric musician on the planet, he may be one of the most talented.

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Anyway, suffice it to say, we returned to Los Angeles very tired, but very happy at a great weekend. I think I’ll go next year too.

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By Kyle, April 24, 2008 12:04 pm

So there’s about 14 things I could be doing right now that would be a much more productive use of time than blogging, but oh well, it’s essentially Friday for me! Yay!

My “warm up”:

Alrightey then… my first random song from the classical genre, Jean Sibelius’ Symphony No. 4 movement I: Tempo Molto Moderato, which is Latin for “I’m almost two minutes into listening to the thing and I still can’t hear the orchestra playing over the faint buzzing of the air conditioner in my room”. I can’t say that I’m too entirely familiar with this piece, the current playcount is 0, which means I probably got bored with it the first time I listened to it and gave up all too easily. Speaking of classical music, I remember growing up having mixed feelings about classical music, whereby on the one hand I loved the loud and powerful chords of Beethoven’s symphonies, Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, and Tchaikovsky’s suites. And on the other hand, half of the time, classical music would bore me out of my mind and put me to sleep.

Anyway, I doubt I’ll be hearing very much classical music this weekend as I head to the desert (Indio, CA) with two fellow math teachers for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Similar in style but grander in scope than L.A. Weekly’s Detour Festival (see previous blog entry), Coachella hopes to be a great time hearing great music and getting great sunburn.

I hope to take photos and post them hear upon my return!

Have a great weekend!

As I finish this blog post, I can finally hear Sibelius.

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By Kyle, April 22, 2008 4:21 pm

It’s Tuesday. I’m home from school. Time for a blog post… Alright, here goes…opening iTunes now…shuffle on…Play:

Another lucky strike! One of my favorites.

“Mandy” – The Langley Schools Music Project.

In the late 70s a group of rural school children from Western Canada, with little musical schooling put together an album of pop songs called Innocence and Despair. Despite the unfortunate title, on it is some of the most passionately (albeit dissonantly) sung music I’ve heard. This cover of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” is simply wonderful, and the joy with which the kids sing is literally palpable from the echoes of the scratchy tape.

It’s stuff like this that makes me wish our school has a better music program. In LAUSD, music is the first thing from a school’s program to go when kids do poorly on standardized tests. Right now we have one set of piano classes (about 120 students total enrolled) and one set of band classes (about 120 students enrolled). With an enrollment of 1800 students, this means that only about 13% of our kids get any sort of arts exposure in school. Unfortunately, this is the sad state of things here in LAUSD and within other urban districts across the country. Hopefully, higher test scores will encourage administration to begin including electives again within the curriculum.

Regardless, this is already shaping up to be a long two weeks. The biggest thing is that I’m embarking on a 5-day co-teaching experiment with one of the other math teachers in our department. Today was day one of this, so we together taught her 4^th period class (my (now not so very) free period). This should hopefully be a good experience for her kids in this new situation. While this is definitely a worthwhile use of time, it means that I don’t have another conference period until Tuesday, May 6^th.

We currently find ourselves exactly three weeks away from the big California Standards Test, a test which is essentially designed under No Child Left Behind to grade our school, but which we 8^th grade teachers hold over the heads of our algebra students as the gateway to getting into Geometry in high school (rather than repeating Algebra I). This is my second time teaching algebra, and I’ve found that I’m lucky enough to have some extremely competent kids who actually stand a good chance to pass this test. Regardless of that fact, this test is nuts! Here are some types of questions these 14 year olds are expected to know. (From the Released Items).

Needless to say, there’s some heavy duty preparation which we’ll need to do, currently in the form of after school joint tutoring sessions that are being offered. Another algebra teacher and I are offering these sessions which are currently drawing about 75 students. Again, exhausting, but worth it.

Anyway, time to go do some real work now!

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By Kyle, April 19, 2008 2:17 pm

The hardest part of blogging is beginning. I can’t even begin to say how many times I’ve written, deleted, and rewritten even the first sentence of this blog post. What I’m finding I’m lacking is a good jumping off point. So why not take something completely random, and force myself to at least begin the writing process with some related comment. (After all, I make my kids do a warm-up, why not me). Here’s what I envision this looking like. Before blogging, I will close iTunes, reopen it, select the “shuffle” button, and hit Play. Let the fun begin. And it’s my commitment to myself to not cheat…which means that whatever plays first will start me off….whatever plays first….whatever. This should be fun. Alright, I think I’m ready to start,…okay, here goes…..closing iTunes…..iTunes is now closed….opening iTunes…shuffle selected….(holding breath)….here goes…..Play:

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Phew…. A sigh of relief. Something fairly benign. This Will Be Our Year by The Zombies has begun to play. The simple 60s British pop of this song is absolutely wonderful and the more I listen, the more I find myself being drawn to the simple piano downbeats of the beginning as well as the piano solo right before the key change. Speaking of which, this evening I’m headed off with a friend to hear one of my favorite L.A. musicians perform. Jon Brion is mostly famous for his soundtracks, but his live shows (currently being held in an intimate 50 seat theatre/restaurant/bar) are truly astounding. The same passion with which he attacks his music I want to find myself teaching with. I’ve thought often about what it would take to get my kids to feel about mathematics the same way that they (or I) feel about music. Is it the element of creativity? Is it the element of discovery? Is it the element of euphoric freedom that often accompanies it? Who knows?

Anyway, that was interesting….let’s see if I can make it continue (perhaps even make this sort of thing a recurring Outlook task).

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By Kyle, April 19, 2008 9:49 am

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This is a test. This is only a test. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am entering a new phase of functionality by using Microsoft Word 2007 as a blog editor! For those of you thus completely unimpressed, here are some reasons why you might want to care:

• Microsoft again clearly flexing its power muscles in the face of certain other computer manufacturers who shall remain nameless.
• By using Word, I have the freedom to write blog posts while not currently online, which means….
• I can write posts in all of the following places where I’m usually shut out:
  • Starbucks, which while owning the portion of my wallet devoted to caffeine, has not been able to dip into my wallet to pay for wireless
  • Outside in city parks. Los Angeles is beautiful, and the fact that I could get work done outside especially as the weather gets nicer is all the more inclining to me to stay out doors.
  • Boring school meetings in which I find myself locked in a 10′ x 15′ room for six hours with the science dept. chair, two principals, the math coach, the technology coach, the special ed. coordinator, the ESL coordinator, and the Title-I coordinator, pounding out a ridiculous amount of meaningless paperwork for the most bureaucratic system that one could possibly imagine!

Anyway, enough of the rant….

Let’s hope this blog post actually works….!

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By Kyle, April 8, 2008 7:23 pm

Wow. Life is full.
Just today:

• Two of my 8th grade girls served the first day of their suspension for throwing some punches at each other (with mild success) just 10 minutes before school ended yesterday. I feel like I need one of those signs you see at industrial plants, only with this one reading “Days Since a Fight:”, which, while previously staggering in the hundreds, yesterday dropped back down to zero.
• I had three, yes three separate people remark to me how pathetic my NY Mets are starting the year. A record of 2-4 with their Home Opener loss to the Phillies (c’mon! The Phillies !?!?!) today has put me in a quite dire mood when it comes to the joyfulness that typically accompanies the wonders of baseball in the springtime.
• My childhood hatred of NPR is demonstrating to me the irony of life. Listening to KCRW (a local NPR affiliate) on the way home this evening, they announced that they’d be giving away copies of the newly released DVD of P.T. Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. Surprisingly, I was one of the first five callers (yea for speed-dial), and won! Any of my readers who live in Los Angeles (including Whitter, La Mirada, La Habra, or any of those other wanna-be L.A. suburbs) are now officially invited over to my place to watch it once it arrives (which I approximate will be sometime early next decade).
• Finally, much to my great dismay, one of my favorite places to hear live music, Largo, will be moving from it’s intimate 50-seat cavern to a monstrous 250-seat theatre, albeit a mere 3 miles away. While initially dismayed, I had hoped that the new venue’s neighborhood would at least permeate with the same authenticity as the current Fairfax location. However, today driving through West Hollywood, I pass a sign that says “Coronet Theatre: Largo Coming Soon.” Sadness. :(  In the meantime, enjoy some of my favorite artists who regularly perform there!

Jon Brion – I Was Happy (be patient, because he’s got to play all the instruments)

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Aimee Mann – Save Me

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Badly Drawn Boy – A Minor Incident

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By Kyle, April 6, 2008 8:09 pm

The Rolling Stones – Something Happened To Me Yesterday

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My bracket is over. I’ll admit that projecting USC into the Final Four was a bit of a stretch, but who’d have thought that neither UNC or UCLA would make an appearance in the title game! Who would have thought that I would have found an even more interesting bracket to ponder.

The above bracket is an LA Times projection of the NCAA Men’s Division I basketball championship if winners were based on graduation rates of the men’s basketball players. The perennial athletic contenders fare quite differently when compared academically. Kansas – 40%, Memphis – 30%, UCLA – 29%…the list goes on.

I’m sure that none of these non-graduating men were recruited out of the amazingly academic LAUSD schools!

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By Kyle, April 4, 2008 12:10 pm

When my kids walk into my classroom, they typically immediately begin a “Mad Minutes” activity, which allows me the opportunity to check homework, take attendance and otherwise complete those annoying logistical tasks that need to be completed.As seamlessly as this process often flows, the 5 minutes of silence is often too much for their ears to handle while simultaneously trying to calm down from all the sugar my kids have been pumping into themselves during lunch and nutrition.

So every now and then, it’s helpful to employ a little ambient music for them to listen while their hyperness needs to transform itself into productive algebraic thinking… (when I’m lucky).

But even if you’re not a middle school student, sit back, relax and enjoy!

Brian Eno – Music for Airports: 1/1

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Arvo Part – Spiegel Im Spiegel

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Chopin – Nocturne #9

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Vince Neil – Début de Coup-de-pied Mon Coeur

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By Kyle, April 3, 2008 7:49 pm

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Wow, it’s really been a long time since I last posted. Apparently this is what happens when my life becomes too busy. Either that, or else there’s nothing worthwhile to speak of (which cannot be true). A few blips on the recent radar screen:

Opening Day: Monday, March 31st (Chavez Ravine). For about 45 minutes, Dodger Jeff Kent’s season batting average hovered magically at 1.000 and his slugging % at 4.000. Unfortunately, he couldn’t maintain these numbers for the next at bat, let alone the rest of the season. [Also, of note, the San Francisco Giants looked like a AAA farm team].

Family Math Night: Once a year, the math department (of which I find myself the chair) hosts a “Family Math Night” during which we open up the school from 5 – 7pm, open up some of the classrooms, invite students and their families, play some math games, and eat some pizza. What began as Integer War, quickly morphed into Guess my Number, quickly evolved into Math Card Tricks. Fun Night.

New Season resolution: Post more often, post shorter.

Let’s see how it goes.