Steven Harper Piziks

Pumpkin

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:06:35 GMT

I discovered that tomorrow is the Michigan vs. Ohio State game. Oops. That means all Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti residents who aren't football freaks will be hostages in our own homes. You can't go anywhere on MvOS day. The highways, streets, stores, and restaurants are clogged all day long. It's good for the local service economy, I suppose, but it's a pain in the neck for the rest of us.

For instance, it meant that I had to go do some grocery shopping tonight. Now. Because it would be impossible on Saturday.

Thanksgiving this year is at my brother's house, and I'm bringing the pies and the piragis (Latvian stuffed rolls). I'm doing all the baking this weekend so it'll be ready to go on Thursday. Headed out to the store to pick up various ingredients and get weekend stuff before the football freaks took over the town.

It turned out a good thing. First, unsalted butter was on huge sale, so I stocked up on that for the holidays. And then I discovered the canned pumpkin shelf was bare.

Uh oh. I remember reading that this year was a bad one for the pumpkin harvest--too much rain--and that pumpkin was in short supply. I asked a clerk, who said an endcap still might have some. I made a beeline for it and found a few cans left, but not many. I snagged what I needed. Whew! If I'd come on Sunday, there'd've been none, I'm sure.

Close call, that.

Cuts

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:57:02 GMT

Budget cuts were finalized yesterday evening.

We're losing $600 per student this year. The school board announced last night that:

--five teachers have lost their jobs effective January 25
--all high school librarian positions have been eliminated
--all info tech positions at the schools have been eliminated (which means at Nameless we'll have 5 computer labs and over 350 computers in the building, but no one who can fix them when something goes wrong)
--many, many secretaries have lost their jobs (including one woman who is one year away from retirement and whose husband is dying of cancer--all medical benefits cease)

In addition to the personnel cuts:

--all but ten computers will be eliminated from the high school libraries
--all subscriptions to research databases (magazines, newspapers, journals, etc.) have been eliminated

And this was just the first round.

Meanwhile, the legislature in Lansing, who is supposed to be figuring out how to fix these problems, has decided to go on vacation for two weeks.

Free Chapters

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:29:21 GMT

Book View Cafe is now posting chapter one of my novel NIGHTMARE. Each week a new chapter will follow. Go look. It's free!

Undercover

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:17:54 GMT

There's this local organization that was instrumental in defeating the county school millage at the last election. I learned the bastards continue to exist and have taken on a new goal: reform local school spending. (I don't want to name them because I don't want their attention drawn to this blog. Speak of the devil and he is like to appear, and all that.) I don't teach in the county, of course; I live there. I learned they were having a public meeting about their new goal tonight, and as a county resident, I decided to attend. Just for fun.

It was a small meeting, maybe a dozen or fifteen people at the local community center. They started off with a Power Point presentation and a speaker who said the teacher union has too much power, which would interfere with their stated goal of "responsible school spending." I waited a little.

The second speaker was a former superintendent of a local school district, one who resigned amid controversy a few years back. She complained that there was too much wasteful spending on administrators. (This particular ex-superintendent left her position in February of that school year, but was paid through the end of June, but she complains of wasteful spending on administrators.) One local high school, she said, has five administrators for 1,900 students. Each of them earns $150,000 a year, which, with benefits, is over a million dollars a--

"Hold it," I interrupted, "you mean they have one principal and four assistant principals for almost two thousand students?"

"Uh, yes," she said. "They do."

"That sounds about right," I said. "Assuming at least one of the assistant principals doesn't handle disciplinary issues, that's 475 students per AP. That's a pretty high load, yeah? They must keep pretty busy."

"It's one of the highest ratios in the state," she said quickly.

"Really? At W---- they have two administrators who handle disciplinary issues for 600 middle- and high school students, making a ratio of 300 to 1, much lower. And Willow Run has far less money than A----."

"Well, at any rate," she tried to hurry on--

"And--" interrupted another guy "--you seem to be saying that because the administrators cost the district a million dollars a year, they're superfluous. It sounds like you're pumping up numbers to make it sound bad."

I liked this guy.

"I'm saying that there are places the school should cut costs and spend responsibly," she said. And then she went on, but her stride was clearly thrown. A bit later, she mentioned the teacher's union again, and that one guy interrupted before I could speak.

"This sounds like union busting," he said. "Is that what this group is about? Union busting?"

"No, no," the ex-super said. "We're not against the union. We're--"

"Because I heard, 'The union has too much power.' That sounds like union-busting talk."

"Yep," I spoke up. "I heard the same thing."'

"I never said that," said the ex-super.

"No," the other man said, gesturing. "She did."

A bearded man spoke up. "Are you here as a representative of the union, sir?"

"No," he said. "I'm an accountant and I have kids in the district. Isn't this a public meeting?"

"Yes, yes it is," said the first speaker. "Now if we could move on."

And ohhh, we did. The accountant and I double-teamed the speakers. Every time they said something that didn't gibe with fact, we nailed them. It was almost as if we'd planned it, though I'd never laid eyes on the guy before. He knew finance, I knew education. Between the two of us, we managed to skewer or derail most of the discussion by bringing up inconvenient facts. We shamelessly shredded their carefully-crafted agenda. And I didn't feel the least bit guilty.

At 8:00 the meeting ended, and I slipped out the door. I hoped to catch the accountant guy to find out more about him, but I missed him. That was a fun, FUN meeting.

The Silent Empire E-series

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:29:13 GMT

They're available! My Silent Empire books are now up and running in nearly all existing electronic formats: PDF, EPUB, MOBI, .prc, .lit, and .lrf . No DRM. Each book is $1.79, a great price!

You can find them in all formats here, at Book View Cafe.

The books are Dreamer, Nightmare, Trickster, and Offspring, and were originally published by Penguin/Roc. My editor was suricattus (Wave, Laura Anne!) The back cover for Dreamer reads:

It is through first contact with an alien species that humanity learns of the Dream. It is a plane of mental existence where people are able to communicate by their thoughts alone--over distances of thousands of light-years. To ensure that future generations will have this ability, human genetic engineering produces newborns capable of finding and navigating the Dream.

They become known as the Silent.

Rust is just one planet among many in the Empire of Human Unity. It's nothing special, nothing unusual...except for the fact that it is home to an unknown boy who may be the most powerful Silent telepath ever born--a Silent with the ability to possess the bodies of others against their will. This mysterious child may be causing tremors within the Dream itself.

For now, only the Children of Irfan know about him. A monastic-like order of the Silent, the Children protect their members even as they barter their services with the governments and corporations that control known space. But power like that cannot be hidden, and soon every Silent in the universe will know about the boy--and every government will be willing to go to war to control him.

And if the Children of Irfan cannot find him first, the Dream itself may be shattered...

Go check them out!

Keep on Peeping

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:05:49 GMT

Full set of photos of the completed student Peepshows here: http://www.sff.net/people/spiziks/peepindex.html . Go look!

UPDATE

We have winners!

Peepshow Video

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:44:33 GMT

Later that day, the OP posted a Peepshow video. I hate watching myself on video. But here it is, if you want to see it. My students thought it was pretty cool!

Peepshow Article

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:52:45 GMT

The Oakland Press ran the article today--on the front page! The web version is available here:

http://theoaklandpress.com/articles/2009/11/11/life/doc4afa8aada4472229018090.txt#photo1

Peepshow Preview

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:58:15 GMT

I've posted a Peepshow preview on my web site. Go have a look at the Peepshow creation process!

http://www.sff.net/people/spiziks/peepindex.html

We're setting up the show in the library tomorrow (Wednesday), and the judging is on Thursday, with winners announced on Friday. The OAKLAND PRESS sent two photographers in--a videographer and a still photographer. The still photographer took photos for the paper, and the videographer is making a short video to put up on the paper's web site to supplement the article. I'll post a link once it becomes available.

Teacher of the Year Nominee

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:07:03 GMT

Every year, each building at Wherever Schools awards Teacher of the Year. This year, I was nominated. (!) I got a certificate and a congratulatory letter from the principal, and a copy of the original nomination. (Nominations can come from students, parents, and other staff.) I didn't win, but it was great to get the nomination. Cool!

Repeeper

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:27:29 GMT

I just got off the phone with a repeeper--er, reporter--from the Oakland Press. They're doing a little story about the Peepshow! The reporter interviewed me on the phone and they're sending a photographer around tomorrow to have a look at the peeps in progress. Neat!

Peepshow Quote

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 05:48:22 GMT

Best quote from a student working on a Peepshow:

"We can't fit the entire underworld in one box. Can we go ask if the custodian has another one?"

Transposition

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:06:19 GMT

New music freaks Aran out--it's often a struggle to get him to learn a new piece, and he often goes into a full autistic meltdown over mid-song key changes. No lie! He hits the key change, and just freaks.

And yet, he loves to transpose music on the fly. One song that he just hated because "It's so hard!" he finally mastered. Just today he sat at the piano and played it, watching me out of the corner of his eye as he did so.

"Did you hear me play that?" he said. "It's in C instead of G."

"Pretty good, " I said. "Did your piano teacher tell you to do that?"

"No," he said. "I did it because I wanted to."

Oddly, this was the song that has a key change in it.

Sheesh.

Peepshow

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:34:01 GMT

Peepshows have been an Internet meme for a long time. I think it started with The Lord of the Peeps , and went mainstream when the Washington Post did a national contest. Last year's finalists are here. (If you've never heard of a Peepshow, as opposed to a peepshow, it's a diorama made with marshmallow Peeps--chicks and bunnies--and given a silly title with the word "peep" or "bunny" in it.)

And then it occurred to me: why not do this at school? What fun!

But Peeps in the fall? How? Ah, grasshopper--this is why one studies Google-fu. A fair amount of searching led me to a secret web site that sells chick Peeps year-round, but only by the case. Fine by me! I ordered three cases (24 boxes of five Peeps). I also bought popsicle sticks and googly eyes. The day after Halloween, I also went around and bought up a whole bunch of ghost and pumpkin Peeps for half price. That, in addition to the resident supplies I have in my classroom and what I could ~~steal~~ scare up elsewhere in the school building, set me up!

The Peeps weren't supposed to arrive for another few days, but UPS turned out to be surprisingly efficient, and they arrived way early. I checked the calendar. In a week we have parent-teacher conferences. Perfect!

Today I handed out the assignment. "You'll be creating a Peep diorama about a myth we've read in class. On the due date, we'll put them in the library. I'm going to gather a set of secret judges who will decide the winners for Best in Second Hour, Best in Sixth Hour, and Best in Show. I'm also going to alert the local paper and the TV station--what the heck--so maybe there'll be a write-up there. I'll post all the Peepshows on the school web site as well, and the Peepshow will be on display during parent-teacher conferences, too."

Both my sections of mythology got pretty enthusiastic about it. They plunged through cardboard boxes, cut paper and cloth, and altered Peeps. The ghosts turned out to be surprisingly popular--several students wanted to try depictions of Hades--so this evening I had to run out to the store and score a couple more cases of them. I took pictures with my digital camera so we can post the Peeps process.

The best part is, a lot of my students dove back into their mythology books to re-read descriptions of certain scenes--without prompting from me. Yay!

Previews!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:55:37 GMT

I got to see a preview of an illustration for my story "The Soul Jar," which will appear in the upcoming anthology THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY. The illo is pretty cool! Mechanical spiders and a ringmaster done as . . . I don't know how to describe the style. Art shapes? Anyway, I like it.

More Meetings

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:36:42 GMT

Yesterday Kala and I met with Mackie's teacher, principal, school social worker, and the school's special education teacher. (Mackie isn't classified as special education. Yet. We'll see. But she was there to give insight.) Also present was his teacher from last year. We talked about the difficulties Mackie was having this year, his extreme behavior in class, how far behind he was in his learning. We worked out a few strategies, and we're going to see what happens.

I was seriously considering bringing up the idea of sending Mackie back a year to first grade. He simply might not be ready for second grade right now. He's behind on both his physical and emotional development, his reading and writing are closer to first grade level. But in the end I didn't suggest it.

Maybe later, if things don't improve.

Arrived home at 5:15 after not having been home all day. Gulped supper, read manuscripts, and rushed off to writers group.

Today, I spent an enormous on the phone with Sasha's high school today. Follow up to The Meeting. It never stops, does it?

Doctors Who

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 03:03:57 GMT

How cruel can I be . . . ?

The one in the red coat. Yeah, that one. Did you recognize sazettel ?

Samhain 2009

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:38:11 GMT

Happy birthday to Sam the Dog!

Sasha and Maksim decorated the front porch two weeks ago, but we didn't get pumpkins for carving, for whatever reason, until Halloween day itself. Sasha didn't want to participate, and Kala doesn't like pumpkin carving--it's a goop thing--so Aran and Mackie and I did it ourselves. We finished and set them on the porch. It was chilly day, with a stiff breeze that finished knocking the leaves off the trees.

Then I baked an apple pie for the Samhain ritual later. It came out perfectly.

After a supper of hamburgers, Mackie asked about 10,000 times when he could go trick or treat. At last I told him he could. He wanted Daddy to take him around. He was dressed as a soldier, and Aran wore a leprechaun costume, complete with pointy ears and green hat.

There was much running about, as usual, and the two houses that do the haunted front yard every year continued their tradition. Mackie freaked out at one of them--zombies in the yard!--and huddled against me whimpering until the monster pulled up his mask to reveal a perfectly ordinary human who said, "We have good candy." This was the kid who begged to do the haunted house thing with me and Sasha!

One of the neighbors dropped a packet into Aran and Mackie's bags and said, "God bless you!" Once we left her yard, I fished the packets out. Cards to a local church, bible verses, and a ceramic coaster with a cross imprinted on it. And a piece of candy. I gave back the piece of candy and pocketed the rest for disposal later.

Eventually, the boys announced they'd had enough and we headed home. There was still an enormous lot of candy left. Kala said only a few visitors had come while we were gone. The rest of the evening, we only got about eight or ten more, total. More for us!

Sasha, who'd gone out on his own, came back with about twice the amount Aran and Mackie did.

A bit later, we had the Samhain ritual. We lit the candles and ate pie and pomegranate seeds and headed outside to bring all the altar materials indoors. We put the God statues away and extinguished the flames. Darkness until Yule. Then I went outside to say a final good-bye to my grandmother.

The IEP

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:27:45 GMT

It was a long, long meeting. It was me, the school psychologist, Sasha's English and math teachers, the Teacher Consultant, the English and the Language Learner program teacher.

The short version is, the school claims Sasha's inability to add two and four without counting on his fingers and his inability to understand time (he doesn't understand the difference between a month and a year or between a week and ten days) is a cultural or language problem. This is patently absurd. His younger brother, who's had the exact same amount of schooling, can add and subtract perfectly well. But no, they said, it's because he didn't go to school when he was younger and his English isn't fluent.

We went round and round on this for quite some time. It was all of them against me, and none of them would move.

They =did= say Sasha qualified for help under Title I as an ELL student. It would give him a certain amount of time per week with a tutor, probably twice per week, and he could take tests and do other things. I'm not happy with this resolution because as a special education student, he'd get help daily, not just twice a week, and we could set conditions such as "gets extra time on tests," which we can't do with Title I.

Everyone said things like, "Oh, we're happy to make sure he gets extra time, if he needs it."

Uh huh. My long, long experience with schools and teaching tells me that verbal assurances mean absolutely nothing. It must be written down, and it must be something the teachers are required to accommodate. I'm aware that most teachers want to help. Sasha has a couple right now. But eventually you'll run into that teacher who believes that the kid is faking it or the teacher who doesn't care or the one who refuses to make exceptions because it makes things more complicated, and then you need that piece of paper that says, "You MUST do this." (One of Sasha's teachers refused to contact me until I called the prinicpal and said, "I've e-mailed Teacher X to contact me three times about Sasha's grade, and I've gotten no response. I hate to be a tale-bearer, but I really need to talk to him. Could you mention
this?" I got a phone call within an hour, but I shouldn't have had to even go that far.) You also need someone on site to run interference, who can catch problems before they become disasters.

In the end, I was presented with The Form. The Form basically says all these people met, we talked, and we all agree that Sasha isn't entitled to special services. (Title I is on another form.) There's a line for all present to sign, including the parent or parents. But here's another trick most people don't know. At the bottom of the form is another blank, almost hidden. It basically says, "I disagree with the above assessment."

If I sign there, there are other repercussions. I think I can force another assessment, by another group of people. But I'm not sure if that's the case. I have to find out.

I signed on that line because I =don't= agree with the assessment (and my signature doesn't change Sasha's eligibility for Title I aid) and to give me time to find out exactly what can happen. I can change my mind later.

I'm very tired of dealing with this. I want to be a normal parent who spot-checks their kid's homework and who has the very occasional phone call from a teacher. I want to be the parent who only shows up once a year at conferences, if that often. But tomorrow I have to research the ramifications of Sasha's meeting, and then Kala and I have the meeting with Mackie's teachers and the school social worker about his behavior, and then it's back to Sasha's school for cleanup on his thing.

Haunted Houses

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:25:00 GMT

Sasha had never been to a Halloween haunted house before. Last year I'd intended to take him to one, but never got to it. This year, I took him. Wiard's Orchard, which is part farm, part year-round county fair and market, always does a haunted house thing, with five houses and a haunted hay ride. You can pay one price for one thing, or a bundle price for the whole shebang.

Mackie agitated heavily to go. Ha! This is the kid who can't look at a SIMPONS Halloween special because of the "scary" zombies in it. Still, he got upset when I told him he had to stay home. Them's the breaks, kid.

Sasha and I drove out of town to Wiard's in the darkness. There was a large crowd in front of the ticket windows, but I noticed that, for some reason, there was one window off to one side where no was in line. I headed over there and got tickets right away. No waiting. Weird.

We headed into the orchard proper. The workers had set up the various barns and outbuildings as haunted houses--a haunted barn, an insane asylum, a zoo for alien clowns, a little labyrinth, and a haunted mine. There was also a hayride. The night was blustery and a bit rainy. Crowds of people, mostly teenagers, roved among the apple trees. We went to the hayride first.

Once enough people had piled onto a straw-filled wagon, the tractor driver took everyone deep into the orchard proper. At one point, the driver took his hands off the steering wheel and put them behind his head, to the consternation of several wagon riders--you want real fear?--and eventually Things Happened. It was the usual haunted house sort of fare--an darkened area abruptly bursts into illumination, and something monstrous appears. Someone would leap out at the wagon, howling or yelling. At one point, an actor zipped overhead on a wire. Sasha thought it was pretty creepy and cool. I was unimpressed. But they gave us free cider and donuts afterward.

Next we went into the alien clown zoo. That was way cooler. To get in, you crossed a bridge, and a psychedelic projection spun around on the walls, throwing off your sense of balance and making it feel like the bridge was spinning. The zoo itself was filled with fog and weird lights and, of course, weirdo clowns that faded in and out of the mist. I liked it rather better, but it was really, really short. Sasha coughed on the fog.

Okay, not bad, but overpriced.

Then we went into the asylum. Oh, yeah! This was a haunted house! Freaky rooms, bizzare passages, scary scenes. One room was entirely black with green glowing comedy/tragedy masks hanging on the walls. Abruptly, one of the masks lunged toward us, and I realized that ONE mask was attached to a person all in black. Great illusion! Sasha just about wet himself. Another room was filled with rack after rack of abandoned old clothes. It was weird and freaky. A few passages were filled with inflated material similar to those big bounce castle things, and you had to push your way through an actual palpable darkness.

The mine and the barn were similarly freak-ay. Sasha clung to me like a barnacle, but he wouldn't hear of going home, either. At one point, we ended up in front of four teens in Planet of the Apes costumes, and they played off the zombies and aliens who were working the lines. Sasha was getting a little creeped out by the time we got to the haunted barn, but the apes behind us reassured him. "We got your back, dude!" one said.

Such a good thing we didn't bring Mackie. He would have been traumatized for life! Sasha was freaked out but loving every moment.

--
Steven
http://www.sff.net/people/spiziks

Steampunk Contest

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:23:19 GMT

This looks neat! SF/F book publisher Tor is holding a steampunk costume photography contest. (Can I have the watch? Even though I don't do costuming?) Full details at:

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=58075

Prize 1 starts off with a $50 gift certificate to Clockwork Couture, the first and best clothier devoted exclusively to steampunk fashion, where you can purchase countless gorgeous costuming elements for ladies and gents.

The first prize also comes with one bottle of a perfume oil blend from the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Phoenix Steamworks collection, a series of scents designed to represent the steampunker within us even when we’re in jeans and a t-shirt. The crucial question: do you want to smell more like The Antikythera Mechanism or The Obsidian Widow?

Prize 2 is two passes to the The Steampunk World’s Fair, which will be held on the weekend of May 14th, 2010, in Piscataway, New Jersey. The World’s Fair is the first major steampunk convention in the Northeast and promises an absurd array of retrofuturistic delights, including a Chrononaut’s Jubilee Ball, the Cup of Brown Joy Tea Party, a Murder Mystery Dinner, a Cabaret, a Gentleman’s Duel, a Mad Science Fair, and maybe even a Steampunk Rock Opera.

The winner of Prize 2 will also get a 5ml bottle of Phoenix Steamworks perfume.

Prize 3 is a ridiculously gorgeous “gold” Victorian/Steampunk-style watch. It has a filigree front; a clear back, so you can see the gears at work; and a glow-in-the-dark face to illuminate your nefarious business.

And—you guessed it—the winner of Prize 3 will also get a bottle of Phoenix Steamworks perfume.

And what about us honorable mentions? Each person who receives an honorable mention will also get a scent of their choice from the Phoenix Steamworks perfume line.

For Halloween

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:22:55 GMT

Here's the perfect sign for Halloween. It was clipped over a pedestrian crossing sign near a graveyard in Ann Arbor a few years ago. Unfortunately, very few people noticed.

The full-sized graphic, suitable for printing and clipping yourself, can be found at http://www.brandywinecemetery.com/zombie.jpg

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:57:26 GMT

Long, long, long day. Watched an episode of THE NUMBER ONE LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY with Kala to unwind.

Eager Speakers

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:07:37 GMT

My Communication I class this year love giving speeches. The usual cycle in Comm I is a speech project, then some communication theory, then another speech, then more communication theory, then another speech, etc. To date, the students have always treated speeches warily or with dislike. This class, however, asks daily, "When's the next speech?" They'd do speeches every week if they had a choice!

I'm Tired?

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:55:00 GMT

And then today Aran was freaking out because the new piece of music he was learning has a key change in it. I mean, seriously freaking. The sort of freaking he usually saves for major catastrophic events.

I'm very tired as a result of all this. I'm behind on e-mail. I'm behind on paper grading. I'm behind on everything. The one thing I managed to do was get a proposal out to Ye Agente--one that I should have finished weeks ago.

I slept until 9:30 this morning, and I'm still extremely tired.

Sorry the blog is so filled with anger and depression lately. Things will improve soon. I promise!