Archive for May, 2006
Failing American Literature
Posted by smokingpen in Personal Entries on May 31, 2006
I think I just failed American Literary History.
Why do I think that? You might ask. Well, I had a midterm to take and in taking it I thought to myself, I thought, “If the teacher is giving three hours it should take me 1 to 1 ½ to take it.”
Man was I wrong. I was so very wrong. I was totally wrong. I was wrong.
It took me all three hours to take the thing and when I started and read the words, “short answer,” I wanted to cry out, “LIAR!!!”
You see, none of the short answer questions could be answered short. The element of the question was something far longer, much broader, and more robust. I think this was indicative that one of the short answer questions was also copied (not intentionally) as a longer essay question.
Stupid test.
But that didn’t really cause me to fall flat on my face. No. What may have caused me to fail is that I also needed to turn in a writing journal. Now, I can make up part of the grade, but not a significant enough portion that it will do a lot of good. AND, on top of that, I missed a day of class last week where the assignment was to create a power point presentation dealing with slavery.
Have I told you that this professor is an African American activist professor who seems to really like pushing her objectives constantly.
She’s a nice lady, I am sure; but her objective seems to be counter to my objectives. My objectives, in case anyone wants to know, is to do as little as possible. Well, not really, but I know that to accurately answer the questions on the midterm it would take the average student much, much longer to take the test. I would be amazed if most of the students didn’t take a lot longer to take the test and just fudged on the “on my honor” part of a take-home midterm.
Of course, single spaced, my test was 8 pages long. Total of 23 answers, 22 of which were supposed to be short answer, 8 pages long.
Yeah, so, two assignments, one BIG assignment, not turned in. Have to do better. Have to do better. Have to do better.
The Goat or Who is Sylvia
Posted by smokingpen in On Writing on May 30, 2006
I think, as of this morning at 12:30 a.m. that there are as many ways to write a play as there are plays. The same is true of movies, but when it comes to movies the supporting data on the various ways to make a movie comes from various screenwriters. The crafts of plays and screenwriting are similar in the sense that you are telling a story through dialogue and allowing someone else, the director and actors, to interpret what it was you meant to say. A collaborative effort. According to one screenwriter, co-creators. Writer and director.
However, I just finished reading The Goat or Who is Sylvia? a play about a man and his wife and their son whose lives get turned upside down because the man falls in love with a goat and decides it is not only appropriate but okay to have sexual relations with the animal. As a result, he shares, under duress, the information of his “affair” with his best friend who then shares it with the first man’s wife and all hell breaks loose.
The play ends tragically and it proceeds interestingly. To be honest, I don’t think it is the best play I’ve read and I would be surprised if it was as good a play as the award is has received. I believe that Edward Albee, the playwright, won the award more because he is Edward Albee than because the play is interesting or applicable. In truth, I didn’t find the play all that interesting to read.
Talk to me in a week and I will be a lot more open as to why. Talk to me in a week and I will be a lot more open about a lot of things. My home life. What was wrong with the play. What is wrong with the world we live in. A lot of things. Hell in a handbasket. I believe that is where the family in the play is going and I believe that is where they think they are going, but how is that applicable to other things? Our lives? The world we live in? School? Work? The theatre?
Writing, book, plays, television, movies are supposed to reflect some aspect of our society. These things are supposed to reflect and comment and in the end make us either feel better about the world or begin to ask questions about “why” things are happening the way they are. This play didn’t do that for me. Maybe it was better on stage than off, but I doubt it. In truth, I believe that this play will go down in history as being a failure rather than the award-winning success that it was.
Still, we move forward. We look for meaning where maybe there is none. We find meaning where people didn’t intend for it to be; and in the end we end where we began, naïve. Yeah, I think that’s how it happens. Naivety. I like that.
Prediction
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on May 28, 2006
Barry Bonds just beat Babe Ruth for number of home runs hit. He now stands behind Hank Aaron.
The prediction is simple: Barry Bonds will be investigated for and found guilty of using illegal performance enhancing drugs.
X-Men: The Last Stand
Posted by smokingpen in Movie Reviews on May 28, 2006
I went and saw X-Men: The Last Stand last night. I’d meant to see it Friday night but didn’t because I didn’t buy the ticket when I thought I should’ve so had to settle for Saturday night.
Saturday was pretty much spent doing what I should’ve done on Friday – meaning I should’ve packed all my books Friday and did clean-up Saturday and instead did very little constructive Friday (you should be reading into that, “nothing constructive,”) which meant that I had to do the work Saturday. So, most of the morning and into the afternoon was spent listening to music and packing books into boxes and moving boxes to a staging area in my room before showering and then going to an audition for a short film some BYU students have already sunk some money into making.
The short film, which I did not try out for, was a (let me see if I get this right) coming of age story about a kid who discovers he has super-human powers. The powers, making food appear out of nowhere. The problem, he doesn’t know how to control them. My problem, the concept and the script both sucked.
Since walking out of those auditions yesterday I’ve put some thought into the idea of what those guys were presenting. I could audition for a part where food, and lots of it, was a major factor. The ick factor. The comedic ick factor. Pretty much we’re talking about a high school story where some kid makes lots and lots of food out of nothingness and there is a big mess.
They say:
Posted by smokingpen in General Essays on May 26, 2006
They say that it is the United States responsibility to police the world. They say that it’s been our responsibility since after World War II.
They say that we are living in the greatest period in the history of the world.
They say that Mt. Saint Helens is growing again. Four feet a day. Pretty soon, once the eruptions stop that form the mountain, the peak will be where it was before it erupted more than 20 years ago.
They say that if you get an education you will be better off financially than if you don’t get an education. The key to being better off, though, is deciding that when the day is done it is time to move to a location where what you got a degree is in need of your services. Staying in the same place you went to school, unless it is a major world city, is stupid.
They say that all of the land masses on the planet were once a large body called Pangaea. They say it took millions of years for North and South American and Australia to push away from the Europe and Africa and Asia and that Antartica was once a garden paradise.
If your religious they say that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman.
They also say that man is descended from apes. Yet, there is no substantive evidence that connects man to apes. In the whole course of recorded human history there have been no significant genetic anomalies, no changes in appearance, nothing that would suggest that in thousands of years man is not evolving into another iteration.
They say that they’ve found elements of the missing link. They also say that they’ve found a race of hobbit like creatures living in some remote part of the world. They also say that those hobbit like creatures was really one creature and it was one man who suffered from a disease that is around today and was merely just short. No hobbits.
They say that movies and television and music are good for the soul.
They say that movies and television and music are bad for the soul.
They say that the sun shines. It rises in the east and sets in the west. They say that the light from the sun, not the visible light from the sun, causes cancer. They say that tomatoes cause cancer. They say that tobacco causes cancer. They say that eggs cause cancer. They say that marijuana does not have a direct connection to cancer – which was kind of surprising since the inhalation of smoke into the lungs breaks down the lining of the esophogal passages and the bronchial chambers which allows for a mutation in one cell which spreads to another cell which, in turn, eventually kills you because the cancer has then spread far enough that radiation won’t kill it.
They say that radiation will kill you.
They say that radiation can cure you, but that the cure is almost as bad as the disease. It’s kind of funny that cancer is considered a disease when, in truth, it is probably closer to the mutation that changed apes into mans.
They say that if we look hard enough that we will find the missing link between man and apes.
They say that the world was created in seven days. They also say that seven days means seven creative periods. They say that God’s time is not man’s time. They say that we are children of God. Children of Adam and Eve. Children of Noah and his crew, brood, clan, the remaining survivors when God determined the Earth was full of wickedness and decided to cause a flood.
They say the flood was a baptism.
They say that the flood was probably a regionalized event because people, at that time, lived in a very small area and that it was possible for God to send down rain for forty days and nights and kill everyone, sans eight people, because there was nowhere to go.
They say that entire herds of mastodons died simply because they became mired in the mud. Hard to become mired in mud when the instinct of many herds, regardless of where the herd is located or what kind of animals, is the protection of the herd. One mastodon gets stuck you might as well assume that the rest turn and leave. It’s the law of the wild.
They say that Adam lived in what is currently Missouri. They say it if you’re LDS or affiliate with that religion. They say that Noah floated in his ark for almost a year. They say that the ark looked like a modern ship. They also say that the ark was probably a large rectangular box. They say that he had two of every kind of animal, unless the animal was used as cattle and then he had seven. They say that he spent time after the flood in the ark. They say that the ark is now located on Mt. Ararat.
They say that it takes millions of years to build a mountain, let alone a mountain range.
They say that the last time there was major movement in the Wasatch range the mountains leaped in the air about 17 feet – plus or minus 3. They say that Utah is about 400 to 500 years overdue for another earthquake.
They say that Yellowstone National Park is sitting on top of one of the largest volcanoes in the world. They say that when it blows it will take most of the western United States with it.
They say that thirty minutes of sun in the morning is good for you. Conversely, they say that thirty minutes of sun in the evening ain’t so good for you.
They say that they’ve traced back all of human lineage back to a single woman in Africa. They say that they have what they believe to be an artist’s rendition of what she would’ve looked like. She doesn’t look all that good. Kind of ugly. Rather disgusting, not what I would’ve imagined my ancient ancestor to be. They say that’s where we all come from. That’s our Eve. Maybe it’s Noah’s wife… what’s her name? It doesn’t matter. They say it’s what we should be learning.
They say that evolution is the answer to so many things.
They say that war does little to curb the growth in humanity. They say that the 8.5 million Jews, the 20+ million Russians, and the lives lost with all of the fighting forces around the world didn’t even put a dent on the overall population of the world.
They say that the black plague destroyed a large percentage of the population. Disease kills more than people kill.
They say that we start wars when the population of young men exceeds a certain percentage. They say that the old send the young to war. They say that women run the world better than men. They say that peace is possible. They say that all religions ultimately want peace. They forget to say that some religions only want peace when all other religions are dead or converted. Forget that we have a right to decide.
They say that the world is not enough.
They say that we’re going to the moon.
They say that we are going to mars.
They say that 20 billions dollars is a reasonable cost for almost anything: space exploration, reclamation of river delta that people insist upon living in even though it lies beneath sea level and anything made by man is made to fail. They say that it is the federal government’s responsibility to come in and fix what was damaged or destroyed. They say that the President failed, congress failed, the system failed even though every hurricane has brought damage and destruction it is suddenly the nations problem when one small area, which should be uninhabitable, is proved to be uninhabitable.
They say party likes it’s 1999. I was there in 1999. Nothing happened. The lights stayed on. My computer booted up the next day. My credit cards still worked. There was no looting, no riots, no nothing to stop the peace and tranquility of the world at large.
They say that the Y2K problem had to do with the difference between 99 and 1999, 00 and 2000. They say that no one thought about it when computers were in their infancy, in the 80’s. In our homes.
They say a lot of things: the sky is blue; grass is green; roses are red; can’t you sing.
They say that poetry is one of the earliest forms of writing in any language. They say that I should like poetry.
They say a lot of things… and today, I say there will be more as more comes.
Cry Me A River
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on May 25, 2006
Okay. So, pop over to CNN.com and read this article about Britney Spears and mom’s defending the once pop-starlet.
The article talks about how moms are now defending Ms. Spears after they were defaming her not too long ago for her actions with her child. You know, driving off with kid on her lap while she was driving. Dropping kid while lifting him out of a high chair.
Here’s the deal about all this. Sure, I actually agree, the criticism probably isn’t fair. Unfortunately children aren’t always going to be safe and dumb things happen. We all know this. But, in this case, Britney Spears chose a life where her actions were constantly in the public eye. Where photographers and cameramen and reporters and the general public are watching all of the time. In thise situations you either hire the best nanny you can find and step away from the baby (so your actions aren’t photographed) or you accept the ridicule and criticism and pray that the next kid isn’t watched as much as the first one.
Personally, I don’t really care what opinions the general mom public has about Britney or anyone else at any time. I think she shouldn’t have gotten married, shouldn’t have started having kids, and shouldn’t have ever been in the spotlight. However, since she did get married, did start having kids, and did start out in the spotlight from a very young age, I say, “You get what you asked for.” She get’s to be watched, her actions scrutinized, her life put under a microscope, and everything she does judged by the public at large. Congratulations.
On a side note, Saturday Night Live did a pretty funny Weekend Update news sketch on Britney. Tina Fey predicted, six years ago, Britney’s future and did so again this past week. I went to see if there was any video online at NBC.com but couldn’t find the video for that segment. Oh well, don’t normally watch SNL but was channel surfing, hit their musical guest, liked what I heard, stayed for a few minutes, and caught the Weekend Update. If you get a chance….
Coming to Terms
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on May 24, 2006
I think, in the coming weeks, I will have the time to sit down and write a couple of things that have been bothering me. First of all I will probably write about how I feel about the past eight months living with who I’ve been living with. On top of that I will probably write about a few other things that have come up in my life and that I have been dealing with. It’s all about timing and when the time is better, not right now, I will open up about some of the things that I’ve been thinking about, considering, and coming to terms with.
Site Update Post
Posted by smokingpen in Odds-n-Ends on May 23, 2006
Jack started messaging me through MSN today and told me that there will probably be some site outages sometime this week, most likely around Thursday. He is migrating data from some old hardware to new hardware, or something like that. You’d have to ask him. And since most people don’t know how to ask him, you will have to believe me. Unless you do know how to contact him then be my guest.
When the site comes back up I am told I may have a photo gallery, not that I have much to put up there, right now. But, Jack said he’d try to add one of those to my site as well.
That’s it. That’s all.