1. I settled back into another chunk of The Cold Millions. I augmented the pleasure of reading this book not only by having Copper at my side, but by playing the SiriusXM channel, "Symphony Hall" while I read. I imagined that the various sounds of Mozart, John Williams, Back, and other composers helped easy Copper's anxiety, but I doubt I could prove that in any empirical way. So far, The Cold Millions is absorbing my interest. Its early chapters portray the cruel lengths the Spokane police went to in order to suppress and punish labor unions, especially the IWW, for organizing in the Inland Empire. I'll leave it at that until I read more pages and chapters, but I can say that so far Jess Walter adroitly combines social history with a family story in a way that had me thinking I might enjoy reading another Charles Dickens novel sometime in the next several months.
2. I didn't watch a lot of DePaul's victory over Rutgers last night -- I want to read more about it -- but I watched the entirety of Xavier's thrilling victory over Ohio State. Yes, I admit, the Xavier/Ohio State game was, at times, a bit ragged with too many turnovers and other mistakes, but somehow for me that didn't take away from my enjoyment of the game's intensity and Xavier's steely determination to defend its lead, which it held from the beginning of the game to the end.
Xavier played this game without the injured Zachary Freemantle, a 6' 10" inside player who can stretch defenses with a sound outside shot. His replacement, Dionte Miles, played few minutes because right off the bat, he got into foul trouble. Enter Jack Nunge. Nunge transferred to Xavier from Iowa where he backed up last season's national player of the year, Luka Garza, but suffered injury to his knee(s) and missed the later stages of the season.
Tonight, despite his wobbly knee(s), Nunge came off the bench and played superbly, scoring 14 points, an pulling down 14 rebounds, and blocking two shots. I was particularly impressed with how he managed his energy. His knee problems have kept him from getting into tip top playing condition and he played many more minutes than planned. He looked gassed a few times, especially at the free throw line, but, at the line, he slowed himself down, took deep breaths, collected himself, fought through the fatigue, and made a couple of especially crucial free throws late in the game.
So, Nunge made a might impact on this game. For much of the contest, though, Xavier team leader and scoring leader, Paul Scruggs was quiet. In the game's last 2:43 he burst to life, scoring ten points on two layups, four free throws, and, with 32 seconds left, a thunderous dunk over two Buckeyes. Scruggs is a very experienced player and knows what closing out a victory requires. Tonight, he was the ultimate finisher, taking charge of the game's final minutes, preserving Xavier's 71-65 victory.
The Gavitt Tipoff concluded with DePaul's win over Rutgers. The Big East Conference teams won six of the eight games played between their conference and the Big Ten.
From what I saw, when Big East conference play gets underway in January, the action and the competition will be fierce and intense. I can hardly wait.
3. Debbie went with Christy to Diane's house for the monthly meeting of the Corner Book Club. After the book club dispersed, Christy and Debbie stayed around for a while and when it was time for Christy to head home, Debbie stayed behind to hang out longer with Diane.
Early in the evening, with Christy at home, Debbie texted me for a ride home and I dashed up to Diane's and they invited me into their conversation about writing and about Diane starting to write some stories about her experiences growing up.
Debbie and I talk about writing from time to time and it was fun joining forces to encourage Diane to keep at it, to get her stories down, and to tell her to tell the voices of perfectionism inside her head to shut up.
Our conversation reawakened me to how much my writing instruction at LCC centered around trying to encourage positive attitudes in my students about writing, how much more my writing instruction was informed by books like The Tao de Jing, Thich Nhat Hanh's Being Peace, and Robert Grudin's On Dialogue than by the composition textbooks and books about how to write that, I think, were supposed to guide my instruction.
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