Haikuul

So I need to hand in two haiku for my Form & Technique in Poetry class. I'm no Basho, but we two should probably compare notes.

[Editor's Note: Haiku are syllabic poems in a tercet (three-line groups).

The first line is five.
The second line is seven.
And then five again.]
-
Winter stalls buses.
I give up. Then they pass me,
Halfway up the hill.
-
Pebbles meet seashells
Clacks of twenty-six keyboards
White noise for teachers
-
Look at Jeff Goldbloom--
if you can. Don't stare too long.
A futile contest.
-
Haiku are like rice.
Add reflective samurai.
Bake 'til golden brown.

Movie Voting

It might feel a little early to vote on the movies for our second assignment, but I'm bored. To remind you, the second assignment is a movie compare/contrast critique. I'll post the movie pairings here. Please "comment" to this post to vote for your prefered pairing. Note: We will all watch and write about the pairing which receives the most votes, even if you didn't vote for the pairing. Make sure you vote! If you don't vote, it's your own fault if we end up watching two movies you don't want to watch.

Last semester, the voting process failed miserably. I emailed my students and asked them to email me back with their votes. Out of all 25, only 4 responded. Thanks, guys. That's great. Out of the four, two people voted for the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory pairing--which I'll say right now is probably the easiest pairing of them all. Two votes was enough to win the election. That's why I'm posting the pairings so early. Aside from the voiting having failed, the assignment was supreme. It's a nice, easy assignment. I might have mentioned this on Tuedsay, but I gave 17 As out of 25 students.

Anyway, if you don't recognize some of these titles, look them up here. I'd link them all individually but that'd be a lot of work, more than I'm currently willing to do... right now. Let's see how long it takes before I go ahead and link them anyway.

Here are the pairings:

Dark Comedy versus Slapstick:
Rushmore (’98, Jason Schwarztman versus Bill Murry) vs. Tommy Boy (’95, Farley physical genius)

Parody:
Blazing Saddles (’74, Mel Brooks, western) vs. This is Spinal Tap (’74, Christopher Guest mockumentory, rock)

Romantic:
Garden State (’04, Delicious Portman, dark) vs. As Good as it Gets (’97, Old Jack romantic comedy, lighter)

Personal Journey:
Rocky (’76, Sly versus the world) vs. Good Will Hunting (’97, Damon, Robin, and Lousy Affelck)

Cop/Drugs:
Heat (’95, Pacino versus De Niro) vs. Blow (’01, It’s Depp--‘nuff said, cop/drugs)

Family:
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (’93, aloof Depp) vs. Meet the Parents (’00, Stiller awkwardness)

Psychological:
The Shining (’80, Young Jack) vs. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (’75, Even Younger Jack)

Re-do:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (’71, Gene Wilder genius) vs. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (’05, Depp genius)

Re-do:
Yojimbo (’61, Toshiro Mifuné, samurai) vs. Last Man Standing (’96, Bruce Willis, gangster)

Re-do:
Ocean's Eleven ('60, Sinatra's Rat Pack) vs. Ocean's Eleven ('01, Pitt's Rat Pack)

Existential:
Total Recall (’90, Ahnold) vs. The Matrix (’99, man vs. machine)

Anime:
Akira ('88, "Cartoons can be serious?" -America) vs. Sprited Away ('01, "Anime doesn't have to be action?" -America)


So, please "comment" on this post with your choice of pairings. Let's consider the voting open until the afternoon of Thursday, January 26th. Happy chosing; Rock the Vote!

Mace...out

Word.

As of now, 1.20.06 at 2:19am, you are all linked. Holy crap! I never thought the blog thing would be this easy, not even the nuts-n-bolts of getting everyone up and running. Good job, y'all. Good job to me too. Yeah, that's right: I'm self-congratulatory at times. So sue me.

It was a lot of work! Notice the links are in alphabetical order? Would any of your other professors do that? Doubt it. Doubt it very much. If you think that's anal just wait 'til you get your papers back, fresh with pen blood. But we'll talk later about grammar edits and my deadly swift and accurate Red Pen +5 Holy Avenger (+10 vs. Undead)--see above kickass sword. [Editor's Note: Only the most severely dorkish of you will understand that last part. Please don't feel bad if you didn't: D&D is nothing to miss.]

Mace...out

On Our First Day of Class...

...I apologized before hand for my filthy fucking mouth. Dear students, as proud as I am of that little joke, it's not just an ice breaker. Sure, it might have generated a few chuckles and shaken up your expectations of composition, having heard all the horror stories from your friends. The saying definitely gave you an early impression of what (inappropriate?) nonsense you can expect from me. But I have a filthy fucking mouth because I don't believe some words should be off-limits. They're just words. No big deal. Ahh, here we go: the point!

That's how I want you to think of our Comp class: They're just words. No big deal. I don't mean to say you shouldn't think our class is a big deal. It is a big deal; you need to pass it in order to graduate. That's how big of a deal it actually is. Anyway, I mean that there's nothing to be afraid of--except, I suppose, not graduating. I'm guessing that some of your aren't too happy about having to take a writing class. I'm sure some of you have written to me, "English is not my strongest subject." I see it all the time. There's a fear behind that kind of hasty declaration. But they're just words. We don't want to be afraid of words do we? No. They're little. They won't attack you. Most of the time they stay still on the page--unless of course you've taken many hits of acid, as my father, The Hawkman, has described to me. Then the words pop out of place, walk around, talk to each other--and you!--and help each other escape the page by linking themselves together into a chain that dangles from the margins; a completely new type of sentence that describes the age-old concept of freedom! Freedom from the confines of the page!

That's the kind of freedom I dream of for you, my faithful Spring semester students! First you have to let go of any fear of writing. And don't fear that the words on the page will rebel against you, because we aren't going to do any acid in class... Not before noon anyway--oh snap! Our class is at noon. Fancy that. Seriously, though, don't bring acid to class.

You're here to improve your writing. I'm here to help you improve your writing and to accept cookies as compensation for your improvement. I don't mean to sound like a bad therapist, but you need to help me help you. Once you free yourself from the terrible resistance in saying, "I can't write", then we can make progress. So let those words fly, filthy or otherwise, and bring on the cookies.

Mace...out