Frank Spangenberg is coming to my GeoParty!

There's another peculiarity about Jeopardy material that can be a big help: If you watch the show regularly, you'll notice recurring phrases that give away the correct responses to clues. A lot of these consist of a nationality and an occupation. For instance, if you hear "Chinese-American architect," you can be sure the correct response will be "Who is I.M. Pei?" Here are a few others: Swedish playwright = Strindberg; Norwegian playwright = Ibsen; Norwegian artist = Munch; Danish astronomer = Brahe; Polish composer = Chopin (or Paderewski — be careful); Finnish architect = Saaranin; Finnish composer = Sibelius; Indian conductor = Mehta; Yugoslav tennis player = Monica Seles; Czech tennis player = Navratolova; Welsh poet = Dylan Thomas, etc. Anytime they ask for a European Duchy, it's Luxembourg. A "nonsense poet" is Edward Lear. An "ode poet" is almost always Keats. A "Round Table wit" is surely Dorothy Parker. A U.S. commonwealth is probably Puerto Rico. (Virginia is also a commonwealth, but they'll probably refer to Virginia as a state — although they might say, "This commonwealth state . . . .") If a poet is referred to as a "lord," it's either Byron or Tennyson — make an educated guess, perhaps based on the dates they give. (Byron came before Tennyson.)

State and World Capitals
U.S. Presidents (order, years of office, general biography)

State Nicknames
Shakespeare (basic plot lines, major characters)

Book of Biographies
World's Religion
World's Currencies
U.S. Senators (which states)
Cabinet Members
Major World Leaders

History, Geography, Literature, Mythology, Artists, Composers, Religions, and Languages

Poets + Poetry
U.S., Canada, U.K., South Africa, Germany, France, Australia, Russia, Italy, Spain, India, Mexico, and China

cultural literacy
Americana
"On the Tip of Your Tongue" Irene M. Franck
Mary Mallon
_Karl Coryat (http://www.pisspoor.com/jep.html)

Haiku #505: Ode to a Combustible Lover

Passion ignited
A chemical reaction
Mine bucket of coal

Haiku # 504 To Celebrate a Dear Friend

What I would give you,
If I could give anything:
Beer-drops from heaven

(dedicated to Natale)

François Truffaut

Le Quatre Cent Coups
Jules et Jim
La Peau Deuce
L'Enfant Sauvage
Les Deux Anglaises
La Nuit Americaine
The Green Room
Shoot the Pianist (Tirez sur le pianiste)
L'Argent De Poche
Hands off the Loot

A Bout de Souffle (Jean-Luc Godard)

Literature Inspiration
Henri-Pierre Roch
Henry James "The Altar of the Dead"
"Friends of Friends"
"The Beast in the Jungle"

Old Wheels OR A Short Tale of Balding

Sure…no, no,…the “Organization’s” not so bad if you don’t mind the stench of old people. You can recognize their smell because it will remind you of burning rubber wafting off of an impotently spinning tire. Not quite as immediate, but every bit as bitter.

New Obama Posters

Haiku #503: Penury

I live by karma
The bad stuff followed by good
But the bad inspires.

Haiku #502: Patriotic Pussy

A flag-wrapped kitten
Her outsides match her insides
"Open sesame"

President Elect Barack Obama

Rosa Parks sat, so Martin could walk... Martin walked, so Barack could run... Barack is running, so we all could fly

Thread Bare

There are other women. Some 3.3 billion other women in fact. Many of these women, he considers friends. She hears about them, occasionally, as she paces the hallway outside his door.

The over-powering sense of herself being watched, and thus betrayed, kicks in. How could this attraction be so perfect as to replace all others? Other unrequited loves that seemed as though they'd never fade. They had, at this point, no origin. Substance vanishing into the space between her and him.

He said her name with no particular lilt. No lean toward her center. No concern for what some consider her loveliness.

She typed stories. She couldn't connect with them. If they amused, the elicited reaction was delivered. Sentimentality, drama, and love were lost. She dealt in the language of lust with the stories she presented.

The Beautiful Confusion

cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo
soundtrack by Nino Rota

the film's title refers to the total number of films Fellini had previously directed

Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni)
suffering from director's block
science fiction/autobiographical
artistic and marital difficulties
As Guido struggles half-heartedly to workk on the film, a series of flashbacks and dreams delve into his memories and fantasies; they are frequently interwoven with reality

struggle involved with the creative process, both technical and personal
the problems artists face when expected to deliver something personal and profound with intense public scrutiny
finding true personal happiness in a difficult, fragmented life

Michelangelo Antonioni (la notte)
the alienating effects of modernization

recursive film about the creation of itself as well as a metafilm

Ricordati che é un film comico

many lines of dialogue were written only during post producion, while actors on the set mouthed random lines

Freudian, Christian, sexual and autobiographical images

emphasize images over ideas

Dominic Savio

wife, chic and intellectual who he loves but cannot communicate with
mistress, cheap and tawdry, who offends his taste but inflames his libido

his actors seem to be dancing rather than simply walking
on set Fellini played music during every scene, the music brought a lift and subtle rhythm to their movements

focus on a moving group in the background and track them past the foreground faces them slide in and out of frame
establishes a scene with a master shot, which then becomes a closeup when a character stands up inot frame to greet us

Fellini is a magician who discusses, reveals, explains, and deconstructs his tricks, while still fooling us with them.
He claims he doesn't know what he wants or how to achieve it, and the film proves he knows exactly, and rejoices in his knowledge.

A Drop of Charles Champlin

"Hollywood is a merciless town. There's so much cruelty built into the system. It's a tough place to be an individual–and a very lonely place to be unsuccessful."

1992 Town Hall Debate: Mudslinging

Infamous: culture and consumption

Toxins, chemicals, and monster smog clouds,
won't listen to the people,
when they're faceless mad crowds

greed is our deed to feed the bad needs
the man is the men who bottom out
falling on the peons, luring with the neons
bright in your night burn the wasteful lights

want is the grunt of a runt on the line
stitching up high top double leather two tones

how many goods does one man need
wanting what he can't have while his neighbor bleeds
evil lives lived in a something high rise
looking down on the worker bees
preying for honey and working for cents

ripping up the earth where people live
churning it up in a process that's endless
easier than what we give
and making them spend more

they've served their purpose
and now are refuse
everyone had access to her motions

a two-timing bitch and one time ho
she works hard and needs to travel
hitting the pavement she eats the gravel
profitable investing in bread and meat

but it seems as though we've run out of dough
you're listening to so-and-so


you can't stop being famous you can only become infamous

Got Bubbles in FLorida?

The Great Schlep

Fresh, Sophisticated, Classic

Herman J. Mankiewicz
John Houseman
Gregg Toland

"Made Love" 1935

Jules Brulatori
Marion Davies

Samuel Ensull
Henry Luce
Harold McCormick

How Green Was My Valley
Rebecca
Dead End
The Long Voyage Home
Stagecoach
His Girl Friday
The Power and the Glory
A Man to Remember

subjective camera
chiaroscuro
"lightning-mix"
non-linear storytelling
transitory dissolves
curtain wipes

metaphor: jigsaw puzzle

John Cassavetes's Shadows Part I

[Cassavetes] worked in the dark when he made every one of his movies. That way of functioning goes against the grain of most of the rest of our culture. We're obsessed with knowingness. Our goal is to be "smart."...Cassavetes made movies very differently. He used filmmaking not to make points he had already decided on, but to explore aspects of his experience he didn't understand. In this respect, he functioned like a documentary filmmaker. Filmmaking was asking questions you really didn't know the answers to.

Tangential Interactions

solar winds with the earth's magnetic field that traps charged particles

Terry Gilliam Interview

Jack Matthews
English Hillman Minx
Harvey Kurtzman
Chris Mark
Gustave Doré
Charles McKeown
Tobias Smollett

List o' Movies

1. Sancho the Bailiff
2. Playtime > Jacques Tati
3. The Complete "Mr. Arkadin" > Orson Welles
4. Seven Samurai
5. Pickup on South Street > Sam Fuller
6. The Lady Eve > Preston Sturges
7. Tokyo Story
8. I Know Where I'm Going
9. Band of Outsiders > Jean Luc Godard
10. Notorious > Alfred Hitchcock

Young Girl Falls Madly In Love With Old Lady

Lumbar Options

Herman Miller > Aeron Chair

hmm...

Machiavelli
Cy Twombly
"technopoetic"
Arik Levy
Robert Frank's "The Americans"

Where's the Cream Filling?

Reminders

scarf
french horn
guitar
poppy bracelet
Ender's Game series
games
bike helmet
soccer socks

Die Young.

Some nights I don't feel much like going out. The kids and I, we'll take a night in. I have them grab me a couple of cold ones. I taught them how to crack them open by twisting the cap of the unopened bottles on their tiny arms. (If only my own mother had taken the time to instill a little skill in my life.) My father on the other hand used to have me perform mathematical parlor tricks. And he'd show off my feats for his mathematician friends. "Why does 2 x 4 = 4 x 2?" He'd cue me. "Because multiplication is communicative," I'd reply. His friend would laugh and say whatever the verbal equivalent of patting my head might be. At four years old, I had a finger on the adult pulse.

I think I must have been born with an old soul. The thrill of maturity reached its peak by the time I could read myself to sleep. Just one more responsibility heaped atop the ever-claustrophobic tightening of old age. Even now the creak in my bones whispers the despair of once viable octogenarians.

Rising, rising, rising until there is no turning back. One path, upon whose floor you took your first step so many uninformed decades ago. The same path upon which your informed form is bound to toil. But the climax is what makes your story worth telling. The eventual plateau and decent, they come with the territory.

Thus is the plight of the child actor. So many underage stars acting out the tortured life of a child commodity. The thrill of making it to the top drowned by the vertigo of their perilous positioning. The premature mid-life crisis–not understood by their fame-less counterparts.

If only we were adventurous buffalo roaming outside the borders of our Yellowstone designation. Then we'd be shot before we realized what we could be missing.

Uncle Bill's Busy Bee Ranch.

Hard Boiled

Casablanca
Out of the Past > Jacques Tourneur
The Big Sleep
The Killers
Gun Crazy > Joseph Lewis
Nightmare Alley
The Lady from Shanghai > Orson Welles
The Postman Always Rings Twice > Tay Garnett
White Heat > Raoul Walsh
Notorious > Alfred Hitchcock
Gilda
Criss Cross

Death to the Comedians of Comedy

"they" spelled spreckels incorrectly

Campaign Issues

social security
taxes
torture
drilling for oil/Arctic National Wildlife Refuge/Off-shore drilling
national security
"Tired political playbook"
nuclear energy
public financing
immigration
foreign policy
windfall profits tax > Carter/Reagan
oil company profits
energy policy/energy security/Obama's ties to ethanol
McBush/big tobacco/military-industrial complex
creating class warfare by blaming and taxing the rich
hurting others to get what he [Obama] wants > by saying that McCain=Bush > because Bush is hated
maybe if everyone hates Bush, McCain shouldn't take on so many of Bush's most hated policies
UN says you must rebuild what you have destroyed

Solar Panels

photovoltaic
-cadmium telluride
-copper indium diselenide

Borrego Solar
poly-chrystalline, mono-chrystalline

Ladies' Night this Saturday

Mary Lynn Rajskub
Maria Bamford
Morgan Murphy
Jen Kirkman

...stay tuned...

Shepard Fairey > Obama Poster "Hope"

Rhetorical Analysis

rhetoric
example, definition, comparison-contrast, classification, process analysis, description, narrative, cause-and-effect, assertion/justification

style
diction, syntax, tone, connotation, figurative language

is diction mostly formal or informal?
polysyllabic? scientific? scholarly? conversational? colloquial? slang?
short or long sentences? meandering/terse?
punctuation?
how does the punctuation establish relationships among ideas within the sentences?
is there cataloguing of information? is the tone mostly serious or mostly playful? what emotions do you sense from the writer? is the language mostly literal or metaphorical? do the metaphors use positive or negative imagery?

rhetorical devices
metonymy, synedoche, apostrophe, anaphora, cataphora, polysyndeton, asyndeton, chiasmus, diacope, allusion, parallel structure, repetition

devices: metaphor, point of view, tone, mood, symbols, irony

ethnic ethics

Middlesex > Jeffrey Eugenides

An attempt at one shlub's rhetorical analysis

• THEME: two opposite or conflicting things combined in one (substance); quite literally in the case of our narrator

Elements that support this theme:
• passages highlighting the "hybrid" in humanity (as opposed to the traditional themes of homogenization)
• the direct comparison of multicultural ethics as brought on by the American "melting pot"
• how Eugenides uses historical realism to emphasize a new culture of shared values
• family epic: references to the mythological, Greek myths and famililial myths "melted" together
• Eugenides's study of the origin of values from shared values > from multiple to universal
• look for institutions, what stands out as Americanly different for Desdemona and Lefty?
• the individual and the more encompassing country (macrocosm)
the microcosm is represented in the world of dna and how our genes mingle at conception
• denouncing of the values now held by right-wing politics
• ethnic and cultural diversity, minority rights, moral conflict, ethical pluralism, pluralism and the limits of the liberal state, moral compromise

purselipsquarejaw

Who's getting my goat?

The trick is in finding the candidate who is most real. By "real" I mean in character, personality, motivation and not the kind concealed by the tactics of campaigning. Some might argue that a few candidates have it easier. It is in fact easier to keep dirt hidden under a rug for a shorter period of time. But I would point out that if there is enough dirt it will eventually spill out from underneath anyway.

There has been one campaign question in particular this year that has become a concern of mine. The question refers to how Hillary Clinton dealt with her husband's very public affair. When the question is inevitably asked, "How do you think she handled that situation? And what does this say about her character?" Joe Voter usually has some polarizing comment about Hillary's loyalty or else her spineless lack of feelings regarding her marriage. But I'd argue that there are further repercussions here if Joe Voter would please take the time.

Hillary is a smart woman. But she is a woman. As such she has come into this campaign (life) prejudged. The fact that she would have to play down her typically feminine decisions and play up her more masculine roles is discussed openly by pundits and Joe Voter alike, so why don't we pay attention to what we are saying? To answer this question we have to go back to 1996, before the general american public really knew what to make of a loyal Hillary. At this time Hillary had not yet held public office. But Hillary being the more intelligent of the two Clintons must have felt that it was only a matter of time before she would run for office. There was planning (see scheming) involved. In order to be president you need to possess many traits not the least of which are experience, leadership qualities, a large voter base, etc. But in order to run for President only the most sound bite-able of these qualities will do. These qualities vary from candidate to candidate, from year to year, and now from sex to sex and race to race. If I am guessing right, Hillary probably had an idea way back in the last decade that she was going to have to play down all the stereotypical traits that make her seem female. Being that there are so many to choose from let's just narrow it down to the typically female traits that would keep a woman from being president. Well for one, women are hormonal and act on feelings, not sound judgment.

So what if a woman, say Hillary, went about her political career with the assumption that showing feelings would keep her from the presidency? And then proceeded to stoically look her husbands' indiscretions straight in the eye without batting an unlacquered lash? Well, I'd say brilliant! what a smart woman?! What I wouldn't say is how real she seemed, or how unconcerned with the tactics of spin she is. But she's smart. She has learned to manipulate the system. As have most presidents, not excluding our wonderful Mr. Bush (however unsmartly he goes about it.)

Being president does not require a candidate to be smart or male. But when a president campaigns to win my vote, I guess I'd rather support someone who didn't trick me to get it.

meeting notes

My coworkers are bland, self-important, inarticulate, and ineffectual.

Helvetica Film

Helvetica Film

Haiku #1, 2, and 3

Things I remember

University language

Collegiate lawns

Maroon sports jacket

One Intellectual per suit

Or school is the coat

Curiosity

Academically grown

As weeds among rocks

Reading Sources

www.yankeepotroast.org
www.monkeybicycle.com
www.smithmag.net
http://www.tinhouse.com/
http://www.earthweek.com/
www.channel101.com
http://www.opiummagazine.com/
www.looptard.com
http://www.spin.com/
Fun Home
http://www.creativenonfiction.org/
http://www.motherjones.com/
http://www.loyno.edu/~noreview/
www.edge.org
www.fivechapters.com
http://indianareview.org/
http://www.all-story.com/
http://www.barrelhousemag.com/joomla/
http://www.vqronline.org/
http://www.bu.edu/agni/
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/publications/epoch/
http://www.americanshortfiction.org/

How Steve Buscemi Became My Father

In November of 1982 my mother ran away from a small Appalachian town to the big city (New York.) Once there she wandered her way to Brooklyn where she spent the day collecting odd compliments and deathly diseases wrapped in foil. Out of boredom she began lighting sidewalk trash on fire. Engine Company #55 responded. The man that rescued her from the engulfing flames, that was Steve Buscemi. He took her back to the station where he fucked her and conceived a little baby girl (me.) The encounter inspired Steve to pursue greater things.

Me and Groucho

A couple of months ago, I was assembling a jigsaw puzzle with my mother. From the other room a PBS broadcast (one in a series) detailed the life of a comedian and star of stage and film. Groucho Marx. The broadcast proceeded to show clips from his early days and a show called You Bet Your Life. I was hooked. I found his brand of euphemistic humor (the oh so infamous eyebrow dance (a skill my own father taught me at an early age) and extraordinary improvised conversation to be without comparison. Since this hour-long foray into his life I have been struck by many things-Groucho. The most recent of which was a book I found amid an array of pretentious artbooks and wonky graffiti folios called Groucho and Me. A treasure. A diamond in this stuff. It was out of place. I took it as a sign that Groucho and Myself were linked in this uncanny way (that I have since been at a veritable loss of words to describe.) I did not purchase the book. Though I vaguely regret this I am fairly certain it will turn up again. I have only to wait. And wait I shall.