Another reason to avoid Dilbert cartoons

This is pretty darn amazing...in a bad way.

A couple of quick cross-posts (sort of) from my advanced comp class's blog...

1) I am THRILLED about Fringe's renewal. Take a look at this interesting piece about it. The piece's author explores how the TV landscape has changed since the days of Firefly. He also discusses the roles fans can play in "saving" a show.

Some important selections:

"Not so long ago, TV shows like 'Firefly,' 'Wonderfalls,' 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' and 'Dollhouse' were mourned by science fiction fans as having been canceled before their time, due -- as it always is -- to low ratings.

Another thing each had in common: They aired on Fox on Friday nights.

So observers of the TV world were surprised Thursday to learn of the network's renewal of the series 'Fringe' for a full fourth season after two months in a Friday timeslot."

 

2) Because there's a Buffy reference in it...

and because it's a very funny piece...

and because I love Adrianne Palicki (formerly of Friday Night Lights, one of the best TV shows ever...), who will be playing the new Wonder Woman...

and because it makes some great points about woman super heroes...

I am linking to this column about Wonder Woman's wardrobe. (Yeah--it's a doozy.) Good stuff.

Acknowledgments

Just a brief post to sing the praises of Joseph Harris' Rewriting, the book we're using in my Advanced Composition class. The students (and I) have enjoyed this book quite a bit. It's so very practical and still theoretical and mercifully jargon-free. Harris has such a lovely, non-cynical, charitable view of writing. It's quite refreshing.

We've just covered Chapter 4, "Taking an Approach," which Harris calls "at once generous and critical," in which "you adopt, extend, and rework the driving questions and concerns of another writer" (7). One of my favorite suggestions from this chapter is that students consider adding an "acknowledgments" section to their papers:

"I advise students to form the habit of writing a note of acknowledgments at the end of an essay, and in such notes not only to name the people they wish to thank but the specify what they want to thank them for. The classmates who talked through your ideas with you, the colleague who recommended a certain book, the professor whose lecture suggested a useful perspective, the librarian who helped you locate key texts, the roommate who assisted with proofreading, the tech person who showed you how to scan images into documents, the organization that provided support for your research, the friends and family who put up with you when you could think and talk about nothing else but what you were writing--all of these people merit your thanks. Writing is real labor. It requires real time and resources to research, read, draft, revise, and prepare the final copy of a text. And this material work of writing, of the making of texts, almost always involves the help of others" (95).

Isn't that a great idea? We talked about it in class, and I am considering making an acknowledgment section an optional (for some credit) part of their final papers (although it won't count towards the required length).

Anyway, I've just completed grading my students' weekly responses and was excited to see at least one student putting Harris' idea into action, as she wrote an acknowledgment section for her paper, noting specifically "everyone in the class who helped me hash out all my questions on the blog, especially those who responded to my [entry]. To [Classmate 1 and Classmate 2] who always make me happy and excited to talk about my ideas, and to Dr. H, who gave me not only this cool idea, but also gives us to the best forum to find our voices." Yeah, moments like that--where it all seems to come together--really make me remember how much this job rocks.

So here's my own acknowledgment: thanks to Joseph Harris for writing Rewriting. What a great book!

Work Cited

Harris, Joseph. Rewriting: How to Do Things With Texts. Logan: Utah State UP, 2006. Print.

Sign you've been in the office too long...

You have your headphones on and want to turn the volume down just a bit. You hit the volume button on your ipod, but can't figure out why the volume won't turn down. Get very frustrated. Then realize that you aren't listening to your ipod, but playing the music through your computer. And yeah, you don't actually need those headphones. Sigh.

Can we talk about how awesome Fringe has been lately?

Well, it's always been a great show, but these past few episodes have been simply amazing. "Subject 13" was beautiful, rich, and heartbreaking. If we needed any more evidence that both John Noble and Orla Brady deserve Emmys (not that they'll get them), this episode should end any discussion. Amazing performances. And how about the casting of young Peter and young Olivia? Those kids must have done their homework, as they had the mannerisms of their characters nailed.

Jeff Jensen's got a good piece about the episode up over at EW.com. I am particularly drawn to his last comments, because I have been thinking something similar:

"I’m going out of my way to emphasize my love for the episode because I fear what I’m about to say may sound like a criticism. It’s not — it’s just an observation. As I saw it, “Subject 13″ effectively reduced the tricky, defining tensions of Fringe into one big horrible misunderstanding — one that has produced profound, destiny-shaping pain for many people that can’t be easily forgotten, but becomes easier to forgive once everyone knows what we know. Especially Peter and Walternate. If Peter knew that back in the day, Walter was doing all he could to give him back the life he was supposed to have — a life that he would have lost, anyway, if Walter hadn’t saved him — then I have to think Peter’s frosty regard for a man he refuses to call “Dad” would finally, permanently thaw."

I'm with Jensen: what we learned last week was quite unexpected and moving--Walter wanted to give Peter back, Elizabeth lied to save Peter, Walter gave up sending Peter back to help Olivia--but these revelations in some ways make Walter's (and Elizabeth's) actions much more noble and, in a way, less relate-able, less real. It's a bit of a risk for the writers to take...let's see where it goes next.

Also, Hurley on Fringe? Love it!

Finally, Jensen is so right about Fringe's promo people. They are phenomenal. 

Take that, midterm grades!

Just submitted the last set. That means I can spend this weekend getting some work done on my next conference paper. And oh yeah, maybe that thing called "fun." Remember that?

More Firefly???

Could we actually get that lucky? Please, Internet, make it happen!

"Wanting Sumptuous Heavens"

"Wanting Sumptuous Heavens"
Robert Bly

No one grumbles among the oyster clans,
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come, again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.

That pesky space-time continuum...

Today my nephew Aidan turns 6 (which is hard to believe!). I just called and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. I asked him, "Are you having a party?" He answered, "Yes, and you're invited!" That broke my heart a bit because he and my other nieces and nephews are always saying stuff like that, and 90% of the time, I can't be there because I am just too far away.

So I explained that to him. "I wish I could, little man, but I am too far away."

"No problem," he replies. "You can just find a wormhole and be here in no time."

Not bad for a six-year-old, right? Gotta love his optimism!

The View from Your Window

The post's title comes from a daily feature that appears on Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish. You can read more about "The View from Your Window" series here (also the link for a book compiled from the posts). A few months ago (maybe longer?), the folks at the Dish started doing a weekly contest, where they post an image and readers try to guess the location. People are scarily good at this contest. I never even try to guess, but it's fun to read the results every week. Anyway, the results of this week's contest will stay with me for a long time. Give it a read.

That was depressing...

Day two of humans versus the computer on Jeopardy did not go well, at least not for the humans. Watson wiped the floor with the competition. And watching it was 30 minutes of well, not fun. Blake Eskin over at The New Yorker says it pretty well:

"When its data-processing algorithms are on target, it is indomitable, and even its runner-up guesses and slipups made you think about how it works. But after one round of questions, its novelty was beginning to wear off. Our television critic, Nancy Franklin, observed on Twitter, 'On the fun/tense scale, things on Jeopardy are leaning toward too tense, not enough fun. Watson just hits the button faster than people can.'...Of course, Watson’s servers have been optimized for correct answers, not for pleasure, ours or its own....If Watson does not eclipse the best human players by Wednesday, one assumes it is only a matter of months before it would blow them away. Watson has many potential applications in medicine, law, science, and other fields, but its prospects for a career in television are no better than Brad Rutter’s. Who would want to watch a computer win seventy-four nights in a row?"

Simply put, it just hasn't been enjoyable watching these last couple of days, maybe because playing Jeopardy with a computer is like playing Scrabble against a dictionary (yeah, I know that's not a perfect analogy...). Take the humanity out of Jeopardy contestants (their individuality, their strengths and weaknesses) and it's just not the same game.

TV's most datable characters...

EW.com has a fun poll going on right now asking which TV characters are most "datable." There are quite a few attractive candidates on both sides, but you know my votes went to Eric and Tami Taylor from Friday Night Lights. (I was awfully tempted to vote for Chuck or Richard Castle, though.)

Anyway, below the voting boxes, there are some "fun tidbits from the nomination round." Be sure to check those out. The one that stood out to me: 11 people were willing to date Dexter. I wonder what it says about me that I thought, "Oh yeah, I get that."

Tee hee...

News that matters. Check out what the folks of Fort Wayne want to name their new city county building. Major props to the reporter and to the anchors for getting through this story without laughing.

Links, links, and more links...

These have been sitting in my bookmark folder for awhile now:

1) Some takes on the new Great Gatsby movie. We talked about this in my ENGL 301 class (after reading Gatsby). I am going to withhold judgment for now, but I do find Ta-Nehisi Coates' points quite compelling:

"As in so many of the books I love, I found the plot in Gatsby to almost be beside the point. Whenever I see it translated to cinema, the film-maker inevitably crafts a story of doomed romance between Daisy and Gatsby. It's obviously true that Gatsby holds some sort of flame for Daisy, but what makes the book run (for me) is the ambiguity of that flame. Does he really love her? Or is she just another possession signaling the climb up? I always felt that last point—the climb up—was much more important than the romance. What I remember about Gatsby is the unread books. His alleged love for Daisy barely registers for me."

2) Random, but kind of cool: Kevin Harvick's wife is a 1996 graduate of UNCG's English program. See, you can do anything with an English degree.

3) I've been wrestling with how to help students in my advanced composition class write stronger reviews of the Buffy episodes we are watching. Carrie, my friend/colleague, pointed me towards a terrific TV critic, Heather Havrilesky (most recently, she worked at Salon). Here's a link to Havrilesky's take on Glee that rings pretty true to me. I think the show is more great than awful, but it can be so very bad and still doesn't seem to know what the heck kind of show it wants to be. She's got another keeper on Modern Family.

4) A study from The University of Chicago that isn't surprising at all: "Writing about worries eases anxiety and improves test performance." Composition teachers have been saying this for years, but I guess we've got scientific proof now. 

5) And this one is from way back in January: healthy cats pretend to be sick when we annoy them. Duh. They are geniuses that way.

Do it for humanity!

So the long-anticipated match between Watson the computer and the two great Jeopardy champions begins tonight. I am a bit surprised at how much I am emotionally invested in this match-up. It's like a preview of Maximum Overdrive or something. The humans must prevail. Seriously.