Everyday Literacies

It's been a long time since we posted here and there are all kinds of reasons for this. I'll get to one of them in a subsequent post. But, for now, part of the reason has been the usual pressure on time, and part of it -- in  my own case -- has been a feeling of getting 'past my use by date': a feeling of having nothing much fresh to say that might repay people's time in dropping in to read a new post.

But those are poor excuses, and the bottom line is that since we last posted some valued colleagues have published some good books in our "New Literacies" series, and at the very least we should be posting information about those here.

So, as a way of getting started, with something close to home, I'll begin with yesterday's small adventure, which saw me in the role of 'delivery man'.

When I came back to Mexico after summer I brought with me a very nice new (Zara Man) postie bag satchel. I love postie bags, and for years have used the canvas one from Common Ground Publishing I'll still use that one, of course, it's been a good friend. But for heavier loads, as was the case yesterday, the new leather one will b very handy.

So, one of the recent books published in the series was co-edited by our colleague, Judy Kalman, who lives in Mexico City. And along with the new postie bag my post summer luggage included 5 copies of New Literacies and Teacher Learning to deliver to Judy for her to distribute to the Mexican-based chapter contributors.

The delivery location was the Two Coyotes fountain in the wonderful colonial plaza in the heart of Coyoacan, a short walk for Judy and a short bus hop (or a longer walk) for me.

We met up and had a very nice catch-up talk, I came away with some delicious farm fresh eggs courtesy of Judy's hens.

I suppose that among the contributing factors to feeling past my use by date is that I just won't get with a new mobile phone that has one of those stunning cameras that makes a digital camera practically unnecessary. Indeed, when I get back to Canada on the weekend ahead, one of my first tasks will be to pick up a couple of packs of prints shot over the summer with Fuji film  on Michele's late 80s analogue Ricoh SLR. I had got it repaired here in Mexico City by the same excellent camera man who restored by mid 80s Pentax SLR to full working idea.

But I digress.

I had my 6 year old phone with the pathetic 2 mega pixel camera, and could not resist taking a few pix to mark my first delivery with my brand new postie bag. And, in all their low res glory, here they are.