Summer Nights

1. When a twinkling blanket covers the night sky, grab your friends, some towels, a bottle of tequila and red solos.
2. Head to the sand-filled pebbly shore.
3. As you stroll near your destination, turn off your lights that dim the path. Slowly step and follow the tones of the rolling waves.
4. Toss off your flip-flops. Crunch the cool sand and pebbles between your toes.
5. Slide down your trunks and toss them close to your soles.
6. Focus on each other’s sounds, footsteps, and breathing to gather near.
7. Pour an ounce…maybe two
8. Arriba—Abajo—Al Centro—Pa’ Dentro!
9. Run, run, run! Pam An into the water. Go, go, go! No thinking, nor stopping until you’re all the way in.
10. Tread close together and Listen. Listen to the silence. Listen to the treading. Listen to the night. Listen.

No Assembly Required

1. Put on a bright Yellow polo shirt and blue jeans.
2. Head over to your local Furniture-assembly Warehouse
3. Make your way through the showroom and become acquainted with your surroundings.
4. Look busy until the first person asks a question. Be startled, but then polite and respond with confident, yet confusing directions that may or may not lead them to what they are looking for.
5. Now that you have talked to a customer, pick a display—any display. Start rearranging it the way you want it to look.
6. Arrange it like confident designer—be inspired, Kim Cattrall Mannequin Feel free to ask customers for advice in the process.
7. If an employee interrupts your creative designing, comment that you are figuring out how these pieces will look in your space—better than buying it and returning it.
8. If he/she questions you about your clothes, comment about what they are wearing and who are they to judge, they are wearing the same thing. Yellow and blue look great together.
9. Have fun arranging your new space; take a picture of you in it for social media.

Before you leave make sure you stop to get a ice-cream cone or splurge and get a Lingonberry Sundae. Remind them of your staff

Hawked LITANIES
VISITATION:
DIGNITIES DODGE of
STUDIOS LEASEHOLDER
in a REGGIO EMILIA
carbonize
MUSIC-STOOLS
PROGRAMME

needled by the
murderously credited
incipient CHILLIES
CENTIPEDES of REGGIO
EMILIA, ITEMS, this
STULTIFICATION
aiding their DODGE
METRE to
Malfunctioned BLOGS
that leave
revitalizing
REFLEXIONS on
sheered EXPERIMENTS
in the baseless

SCHOOLBOOKS
MUSIC-STOOLS

ROOMFULS. In a
REGGIO associated
CLAUSE, PANHANDLES
and WALTZES isnt
covet with
THANK-OFFERING and
PHOTONS that alluded
the gladden
PROCESSOR of
PROLIFERATION and
ACTUALITY. As it

kennelled a
CHAMBERLAINS to
showed MUSIC-STOOLS
isnt EXPERIMENTS in
this MANOEUVRE, this

STULTIFICATION

mussed how
dilapidated
TEDIOUSNESS can
expatiate in the
COMMUNIQUES of
STUDIOS LEASEHOLDER.
In showed the argue

ELEPHANTS and

STUDIOUS VOIDS at

the HEARTBEAT of

this PROJECTOR,

STUFF in four

CLASSIFICATION from
KINDNESS to leave
six hasnt in dodged
their LEASEHOLDER
EXPERIMENTS with
PHOTONS, VIDEOTAPES

CLOAKS, auditory

SANCTIFICATIONS, and

REFLEXIONS.

colonnaded OBSESSION
and an ANAPAEST of
DATELINE from the
POSTURE leave that
this APPROPRIATENESS
fostered optimal
MENACE, investing
CHILLS to imaged
VOLATILITIES in this
APPROPRIATENESS.

In my opinion
the most fortunate
travel in peculiar propensities
in the existence of mind

custom to have no other means
upon a manner
inclined to believe
to convert

told less power is certain
in the history of the habitual
the simple and easy tendency
to madly reflect the prosperity,
free and democratic
then mourn

the shallow inquisitive present
this predicament
is impossible

the vivacity of change
the justice of right
and stands in greater need

to remember the unbent
to see existence
it remains beyond consideration
in which the poor,
the power convinced of encroaching
naturally certain that order rests

“1     2      3     Go!!” shouts Darren, then dashes across the carpeted living room in his navy swim trunks.  As he approaches the kitchen, he thrusts into the air and lands on the tiled kitchen floor in a fetal position. He slides but a few feet, not so gracefully.
“Come on Darr…” I egg my brother.
“You gotta do better than that,” Steven, our eldest brother cuts in, “what was that stupid ball shape you made? That’s not going to get you very far.  You have to dive across the floor.” Steve interrupts and gestures with his arms into the air.
“Really?” Darren asks.
“Ya…like superman.” I add with a convincing smile and a head nod.
“Ok.  Let’s try it again.” He says as he walks past us into the living room.
I squirt some green Palmolive soap on the tile floor, and rub it in with my hands making a soapy residue.  “Its good to go.” I shout across the kitchen towards Darren in the living room.
He doesn’t count this time and sprints across the living room carpet.  And belly flops on his stomach. Moving less further than before.

“Owwwww” he exclaim, “That burnt my belly,” he says while rubbing his tummy.
“That’s because we didn’t put water. We need water to make bubbles and make you slide like superman,” Steve adds.
“I’ll go get the hose,” I state as I run out the kitchen into the backyard.
A few moments later I return tugging at the hose and dragging it into the house.  When I enter the kitchen, I notice a lot more soap on the floor and see the two of them twisting and dancing in it.
“I’m going to turn on the tap, let me know if its too much water.” I state, “I don’t want mom killing us for soaking the living room carpet.” The water trickles through the hose into the kitchen and we begin to make a soapy, bubbly mess.
“This is going to be epic.” Steve states, “So remember to fly like superman, not to do that stupid ball shape.”
“I will.”  Darren replies with a assertive nod.
He sprints across the living room, jumps and dives into a foot of bubbles at the kitchen’s edge. He slides across the room through a layer of bubbles, gets suds in his eyes, and swallows a mouthful of soap in the process. Distracted by the awful taste and squinting from the burning soap, he crashes into the fridge and begins to cry.
“There goes our slip n’ slide.” Steve states as we rush through Darren’s bubbly tracks to see if he dented the fridge.

20Khz to 391.995Hz

Silence, Tap, Clap,
Sound, Beat, Tone,
Ring, Tune, Rhyme.

Note, Tie, Scale
Form, Staff, Face,
Compose, Play, Record.

Drum, Voice, String,
Key, Piano, Pedal,
Waltz, Rock, Pop.

 Orff meet Reg’ … he will gliss’ you

I hustle my way up the steps to my demountable—I mean portable. In haste, I unlock the door as it is freezing outside and with all my might heave against its jam to open. The room is just as cold as outside, the guitars are definitely going to need retuning today. I unpack my snow gear—boots, gloves, toque, and leave them in a lump by the door. I cross my fingers that today the big-wig Kristy is willing to spend some money to heat our schools. In opening the classroom blinds, I begin to ponder about these Reggio happenings in my program. I think about where I was a few years ago with my conservative pedagogies—the traditions of music teaching from the 19^th century that music teachers can’t seem to shake off. I get distracted by the cold.

Shi-vvvv-er-ing, I head over to the heater and crank it up, hoping that it will kick in. While getting my room ready for the school day, I head over to my desk and turn on the radio to continue listen to Jolly Rick Cluff, from the car ride in this morning. Instead someone has changed the receiver on the stereo and I hear Miley Cyrus’s wrecking ball.  I roll my eyes and laugh, hoping a wrecking ball takes down this portable so I can get a new functioning classroom.  The furnace finally kicks in and I gun it towards a vent.  Standing there I rub the palms of my hands together, hoping to heat up, and listen to Miley as I continue to reflect on these changes in my practice.

I taught, through orff and other ways
melodies, never asking why
I sought, to change these boring ways.
The need, I could see why.

Don’t see a point, in these teachings
For german Kinder-musik
It’ll never feel right
I can’t teach like this, what have I become

Argh! The heat only lasts for a few moments to tease me with its warmth. I need a distraction to keep me going and head over to the documentation wall at the far end of the room to continue my thoughts. I think about Reggio pedagogy and practice that I have adapted, not those of basket weaving that are overly woven  by American and Canadian teachers these days, but those that exemplify the teacher, the child and their identity—those that allow for co-constructivist learning and explorations. The chorus of the tune cuts in and I get distracted.

Reg’ came in like a glissando
never slid so fast before
All I wanted was to break these ways
All Orff ever did was dull me
Yeah, it  it dulled me

My mind darts back to reality, and I survey more pictures on the wall and ponder these changes for a few more minutes before get cut off by the bell and the roar of children as they gather outside my door awaiting to scurry in.