hey Noah . . .

I don't have your e-mail, but I have your paper in pdf format to send to you.

Please send me an e-mail to which I can respond, or post your information here.

Also, what would have been yesterday's music:


One of my 5 favorite movie soundtracks.

The list:

1. Purple Rain
2. Singles
3. The Crow
4. Judgment Night
5. The Devil's Rejects
6. Naked in New York
7. Super Mario Bros
8. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
9. Last Action Hero
10. Reality Bites

Not many of those films are good (possible exceptions being #s 1, 2, 5. &--especially--6), but the music is.

Funny thing is, I have never seen nor do I have any desire to see the film Judgment Night, but I loved the idea of this one so much I bought it as soon as it came out.

If you can't tell from the cover, the producers put together rock bands w/ rap artists before that horrible phase of "rap-rock" came around.

I'm looking at you, Limp Bizkit . . .

Highlights from this one: Slayer & Ice-T, Helmet & House of Pain, Biohazard & Onyx, & my absolute favorite, Del the Funky Homosapien & Dinosaur Jr.

Juniors:
Project Q & A instead of the planned group activity.

Why?

Because, as Donald Murray says in A Writer Teaches Writing, "All teaching plans, discussion notes, activities and exercises should be abandoned in the face of a good question or comment from a student" (107).


& there were some good questions.


Looking forward (haha) to some great projects.

Sophomores:
FORWARD!!!

We read through a draft of an essay about American football.

We answered the questions together in class.

We went over the bonus again, & you wrote down the instructions.

be cool

that thing (doo wop)

Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill

Loved her in the Fugees, even loved her in Sister Act 2, but this is her best stuff.

It's a a shame she kinda disappeared after winning like a million awards (hyperbole).

Her "unplugged" album has some good stuff, but lots of, well, rambling.

She's an artist, & you should listen to this album.

Now.

Juniors:
Emily Dickinson.

Abstract nouns.

Roman numerals.

Subtle gluttony.

Project reprieve.

Sophomores:
Civil disobedience.

Bonus opportunity.

Deleted scene.

Alternate ending.

New prologue.

Eighty lines.

New cast.

Brian Griffin.

Be cool.

the pleasure of ulteriority

Gov't Mule, Mulennium


I love when bands create new words, like "Politicalamity" (see: Extreme, a few weeks ago) or Mulennium.


& I guess this band's name continues our political slant.


When Warren Haynes left the Allmans to focus on the Mule, I was not happy.


Until I payed more attention to the Mule.


This album has all 3 sets of the New Year's Eve performance (Dec 31 1999-Jan 1 2000).


Hence the title . . . which may annoy those of you who believe the new millennium actually began on Jan 1 2001.


But we won't get into that.


I am huge jam fan, so I love these live performances, & was pumped when they finally officially released this one this year. My favorite Mule, though, is  Live . . . With a Little Help From Our Friends, which is a 4-disc set of the previous New Year's Eve show. Their covers of "Cortez the Killer" & "Third Stone From the Sun" just bring it.


& as for Mulennium, highlights for me are covers of "21st Century Schizoid Man," "Dazed and Confused," "Helter Skelter," "Sometimes Salvation," & "I Shall Be Released."


Don't get me wrong: their originals rock, too, but I love to see a band's influences demonstrated by its choice of covers.


You like blues-rock, you like Gov't Mule.


Juniors:
We went back over the poem "A Poison Tree."


I say, dude's dead.


Some of you agreed, some did not.


Again, "poetry, cool."


You responded to Frost, who said "poetry is metaphor."


& how about this one, also from Frost: '[T]he teacher must teach the pupil to think . . . We still ask boys in college to think, . . . but we seldom tell them it is just putting this and that together, it is saying one thing in terms of another. To tell them is to set their feet on the first rung of a ladder the top of which reaches to the sky . . . The metaphor whose manage we are best taught in poetry - that is all there is of thinking. It may not seem far for the mind to go, but it is the mind's furthest. The richest accumulation of the ages is the noble metaphors we have rolled up."


Poetry is ice cream


Or church.


Sophomores:
You finished yesterday's assignment, the group work on a 1/2-sheet of paper.


Then, you thought & wrote about civil disobedience & non-violent resistance.


The vocab quiz was postponed, so you have at least 1 more day to prepare. Remember: only the terms from the book are available.


be cool

any fool knows a dog needs a home, a shelter from pigs on the wing

My election-day music:


Pink Floyd, Animals

If you don't know the idea of this album, what "Pigs," "Dogs," & "Sheep" are all about, well, check it out.

[Hint: it's very loosely based around the ideas in Animal Farm, but has nothing to do w/ communism; in its time it was a statement about the (then) contemporary politics in Britain]

It's an amazing album.

It's fitting for a day like today.

STATEMENT ABOUT VOTING & POLITICS IN THE CLASS & BEYOND ALERT
I do not get "political" in class because that is not my job. I know some teachers disagree w/ this idea & try to foist their opinions on you, but I feel they do you a great disservice. I let you know what I think & I listen to your opinions when things "political" or "religious" come up, as they often do in discussions of literature.

(& I have had enough students who think I'm a rabid right-winger, balanced by the many who think I'm a bleeding-heart liberal, to know I must be doing at least that part of my job pretty well.)

I belong to the party of my own thought, free from any inherent bias towards others. I don't read the flyers folks send me to tell me how to vote, I don't watch those horrific ads on the telly (I've seen enough in the past & read enough about the present to know I would not lower myself), & I don't listen to the voice mails the candidates leave me.

I study the issues & the candidates, I make my informed decision, & I abstain if I do not know enough.

Remember, the key to democracy is an informed populace, not a bumper-sticker contingent.

Yep, I voted, & I wore my sticker to Pick Up Stix & Best Buy.

Oh, & I was out because of the rise of the sinus infection: it's taking over our whole house . . .

Juniors:
You wrote your 1st "creative" assignment, for which you were given a word count, line count & title. Meet those simple requirements, & get your points.

You re-read the "How to Read a Poem" section from Barron's, focusing on the "answers to "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer."

Then you read "A Poison Tree," & you made your own attempt at those "answers."

& yes, I put the word "answers" in "quotation marks," because, come on, now . . . it's poetry.

It's open to interpretation.

In 3rd person, he reminds you: that's one of the reasons English is cool.

Sophomores:
Big ol' Antigone & drama notes quiz.

You matched the person or place or thing or idea to its description, & then you wrote a short response about hte "tragic hero," as brought to us by our old friend Aristotle.

You will continue & conclude the "wrap-up" group work tomorrow, & we will discuss some issues raised in the text.

& I can kind of tie all this together in finishing w/ the fact that Aristotle compared the politician (like Creon) to a craftsman . . . kind of like a poet, mayhaps?

be cool

hevy devy

The Devin Townsend Project, Ki

Yeah, yeah, yeah another "genius," he says.

But this guy rocks.

& he used to rock a fantastic skullet:

. . . & for contrast, a more up-to-date pic:



Check out his youtube videos (NOTE: some language is quite certainly inappropriate) for some absolutely killer guitar playing.

This album is the 1st in an expected 4-disc arc. Addicted came out last year, then comes Deconstruction & finally Ghost, both of which are tentatively scheduled for next April.

Townsend calls Ki "tense, quiet."

Yeah, kinda.

Completely unlike his other stuff, in other words.

For some variety, see the Vai album Sex & Religion--on which he handled the vocals--or Strapping Young Lad, his extreme metal project.

Oh, & the solo album Ziltoid the Omniscient, a--yes, I am serious--rock opera about an alien who comes to Earth looking for a good cup of coffee.

Link for "1st Transmission" from Ziltoid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viaRKlgQo3E

Enjoy.


Juniors:
Soundtracks & poems & essays, oh my . . .

You brought in your "1/2-drafts," & I stamped them.

You began your notebooks of poetry w/ 10 questions to answer for any poem, brought to you by the good folks at Barron's [AP Lit & Comp Prep Guide].

We read "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer."

We'll talk more about that one tomorrow.

Sophomores:
You submitted your "Antigone Quotations," the collection we began when we began the poem, the ones we gave you in class (for the Prologue & Scene 1), the ones you completed over the weekend.

You got a head start on tomorrow's "big quiz" w/ some bonus points in an open-note preparation "quest."

It was good.

be cool

[disembodied]

Death Cube K, Disembodied

My friend swears that listening to Death Cube K before bed guarantees nightmares; I'm too afraid to try.

So I play it really loud Hallowe'en night, to give the trick-or-treaters a trick w/ their treat.

This is Buckethead's alter ego.

[Note the anagram?]

(So yeah, a guy who wears a bucket on his head needs another personality somewhere.)

Anyway, it makes for great Hallowe'en music.

[See? Even used the apostrophe there for accuracy.]

Basically, we're talking horror-movie soundtrack, ambient background noise w/ occasional brilliant guitar.

Buckethead is one of my favorite artists, a guy whose whole creative energy just blows me away.

You may know him from the Chinese Democracy album, which is much more a "Buckethead/Axl Rose" collaboration than a "Guns N Roses" album.

[But as a dude who bought Appetite back in '87, saw them live a few times, & has been a relative freak ever since, I will say the album is quite good, musically impressive, & not worth 14 years of waiting.]

You will see & hear much more Buckethead throughout the school year.

Juniors:
To begin November, you need 1/2.

Whichever choice you made--soundtrack, poem, or "article'--you bring in 1/2 of the minimum Monday.

We wrap tThe Waste Land & begin to look at more "understandable" poems.

Well, some of them, maybe.

Wait 'til you see E. E. Cummings . . .

Sophomores:
FORWARD!!!

We did some subject-verb agreement exercises,  a few together in class & 2 on your own for assessment.

It was fun.

Antigone quotations due Monday 1 November.

Antigone big quiz (see: "Drama Notes") Tuesday 2 November.

be cool . . .

everything is fine, fine, fine

Soul Coughing, Irresistible Bliss

1st heard of these guys when I saw them open for the Dave Matthews Band about 100 years ago. I thought it was a great band name, & they tore it up live.

Bought this record the next day, & I highly recommend it. Super-fantastic grooves mixed w/ some seemingly Dada-style lyrics.

For the "song-not-album" people, check out "Super Bon Bon" & "The Idiot Kings," 2 of my top-500 songs like ever.

(& today's title comes from the lyrics of the latter.)

Also, for the eclectic tastes: "Soft Serve," "4 out of 5," "Disseminated," & "Soundtrack to Mary."

Oh, & how about paint, w/ the following lyric: "I know you're dumb as paint."

Got to love it.

& for the genre folks . . .uhh . . . . rock/funk, bass-driven-groove w/ a touch of soul, maybe?

Juniors:
Have you ever read The Waste Land?

Well, I have, & it rocks.

(But there is no water.)

Sophomores:
Highlights from  the intro to the film:

Antigone: somber, mayhaps tragic

Creon: collector of rare manuscripts, fooler of self

Eurydice: she sits there sewing until she leaves to die.

Chorus: good-looking fellow, greta mustache.

Ismene: "Chorus" says she's far more beautiful than Antigone

Haimon: he liked sports, competition

Oh, & this was filmed in the '70s when a lot of folks smoked, but please don't.

'Til then . . .

FORWARD!!!

be cool