What lit you up this month?

Three things I was enthusiastic about in June: American Gothic literature, "Benito Cereno," and...a chicken window? How about you?

American Gothic by Grant Wood, 1930. Public domain.

I don’t know about you, but I’m FREAKING OUT. Tomorrow is July???? July of 2024?? Did I miss a vote to speed up time or something? My brain is still warming up to the concept of June.

I just refilled my favorite pen with June-colored ink (a rich green to go with my garden), completely oblivious to how few days were left in the month. Now I’m going to have to use my third-favorite pen for July. My second-favorite pen is always filled with black ink, and it’s the one I do most of my writing with. My first-favorite pen has a wider nib and I like it best for margin notes and doodling. I like to use a new marginalia color every month so I can see the year unfold on a quick flip-through of my notebook.

But I don’t want the year itself to be a quick flip-through! Sheesh!

Well, since there’s no denying June is about to sashay out the door, I want to snap a few mental pics of it while I can. Here are three things I was enthusiastic about this month.

1. American Gothic

I’m about a week into a study of American Gothic literature with my teens (and Scott!), and the conversations have been juicy. Both kids were intrigued by the idea of art that shifts the *haunted mansion full of mysterious passages and secret doors* to inside the human mind, and by the notion of a landscape which looks ordinary at first glance but is, upon closer inspection, uncannily askew. We have a list of short stories to discuss, but our starting point was to consider what films the kids have already seen—many of them as part of Film Club with their dad—might fit under the creepy umbrella of American Gothic. Poltergeist. Psycho. Even Jaws, I would argue, with its danger lurking beneath the surface of the American beach dream.

Huck proposed Spellbound, and Rilla wondered about Rear Window—interesting picks, both, and I got really excited and asked them to keep sitting with the question, building arguments for or against, as we continue our study.

(The kids haven’t seen Midsommar, but I think you could make a strong case that it, too, qualifies as American Gothic art, even though its uncanny landscape is in Sweden. But that’s a topic for another post.)

And yes, we spent a good hour doing a close reading of Grant Wood’s iconic painting, which Huck and Rilla had mainly only known from memes before now. If you’re ever at a loss for what to do with kids of any age, I heartily recommend a bit of picture study (to use the old Charlotte Mason term). After all these years of educating my kids (and myself), I’ve learned you can never go wrong with the simple question: “What do you notice?”—and then allow a good long pause. For yourself, too. Answers reveal themselves in the silence.

2. Herman Melville Book Club at

FrizzLit

If sunny summer seems a strange time to venture into the dark forest and the haunted psyche, well, my choice of topics was undoubtedly steered by the head-twisting fever dream that is Herman Melville’s short story “Benito Cereno,” which

Christopher Frizzelle

’s fabulous

FrizzLit

Book Club has spent the past two weeks discussing. That story, man. I felt dazed the whole way through. That’s a complement. Reading it felt like watching characters in an 80s horror flick go outside to see what that weird noise was—you’re hollering NOOOO! but they can’t hear you. Nothing I yelled at the dunderheaded American ship captain made the least bit of difference to him.

“Benito Cereno” was our second Melville story, following “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and this week we’ll be beginning to work our way through “Billy Budd.” (Billy Budd? Do you italicize novella titles when they’re part of a collection, or only in stand-alone editions? Where’s my Chicago Manual of Style?) I couldn’t wait to start reading Billy’s tale this morning—a fact which would have FLOORED tenth-grade me, who would never have believed I’d one day be shimmering with excitement to dive into a book murdered one yawn at a time by my supremely unenthused honors English teacher. Ms. F. was, let us say, not remotely a match for the brilliant Rebecca Brown who is leading the FrizzLit cohort—masterfully, with fascinating historical context—through the Melville club.

“Benito Cereno” is absolutely suffused with that American Gothic feeling that something is *off * here. As I read, I became obsessed with the way Melville created a sense of distortion, of things not being as they seem. I began marking every usage of the words “seemed,” “as if,” and “appeared”—and there were a lot. Objects on the ship are casually described as tattered, askew, torn, dented, warped, misshapen. You begin to see that it isn’t only objects that are misshapen—so are perceptions, relationships, human behavior. You have to reckon with the twisted ways humans treat other humans. Everything, everywhere, is askew, it turns out.

Well, I’m getting carried away; this wasn’t meant to be a Melville post. But Melville is what lit me up this month!

3. Chicken Window

So did this little neighborhood treasure spotted on a recent walk, mere steps from the sidewalk. And look at their names. Hawk! Peacock! Osiris!

Chicken Window is my new band name

I had a much longer list than three items (there are three slim stalks in my asparagus bed! In about three years, I might have a meal), but if I keep going July is going to be here before I hit send.

So enough about me. How about you? What lit you up this month?