By David Fortier
Come Sunday morning, Mary and I will be heading to church for the first Sunday in Advent. Thanksgiving is behind us and Christmas and New Year’s ahead. It’s enough to linger for a while on the past week and last weekend, which now seems as if it took place eons ago.
Last Sunday we gathered at Tonn’s Marketplace where we did a little shopping, checked out the alpacas, goats and chickens, and dined on Smetana’s Food Truck delectables–Eastern European fare beginning with those lovely pierogies and chicken schnitzel sandwiches among others. It was a cold day, so it was nice to find shelter upstairs at the marketplace.
One fond memory is the grandkids pushing child-sized shopping carts around the shop, adding candy, an apple or two–”for dad”–and a couple of potatoes. You never know when that hankering for potato will strike.
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Thanksgiving was quiet around here. We spent the day with Uncle Charlie in tow at my mom’s. My niece Hannah took on the meal, since Nana is slower these days. Mary made a couple of pies—apple and pumpkin—and I contributed the turkey and stuffing. Most of the kids spent time with their in-laws. The plan for Christmas is to gather here.
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Listening/reading–there is just so much of it, all the time. There is one podcast that deserves a listen across the board. It has to do with literacy, something I never get tired of thinking about. It’s almost a decade ago I earned a masters in literacy, with a brain-science/neuroscience bent.
As a writer and thinker, and a teacher and journalist, I don’t believe there is anything more important than to understand how social media and its social media minions have plugged into brain science to turn our kids, and most of society, into a less mindful, less thoughtful, less grounded amalgam of human activity.
These minions make people lots of money, so they don’t get taken to task, but a rudimentary understanding of their business model should be enough to set people straight—except that it’s tough to get anything straight when you cannot stop for a moment to reflect on what is happening.
We are doing our best here at TBE to help people break from the madness and reconnect with their community through our online community journalism.
(Every week we improve, and we hope that you will consider becoming a contributing member, or a donor, and mentioning us to family and friends as a place to get news about Bristol as well as history, photo essays and humor. The more contributing (paying) members the more we can do about hiring reporters to do more of the heavy lifting.)
The podcast, then, is called “This Conversation about the ‘Reading Mind’ is a Gift.” Of course, it is another Ezra Klein Podcast, Klein just does good work! The guest, Maryanne Wolf is a researcher and scholar at U.C.L.A.’s School of Education and Information Studies.
Wolf has written a few books, including “Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain” and “Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.” (For all my interest in literacy and the effects of social media on reading, I confess that I have not read either one, but will be reading them soon.)
Wolf’s advice, especially for parents, is critical for dealing with information overload, and what Klein calls “a historical inflection point” in the introduction to the podcast. Click here for a link.
Enjoy the podcast and enjoy the week ahead.
“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism. He can be reached at dfortier@bristoledition.org.
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