August, 2006

music — 1 Comment
27
Aug 06

The Sexy Bald Man rocks!

Here I am with the Sexy Bald Man, otherwise known as Jeremy Enigk of Sunny Day Real Estate and the Fire Theft. He played at the Casbah to promote an upcoming solo album, and the set was excellent! My friend Brian took this picture after the show.

A few years back, Brian took me to see a Fire Theft show at the Epicenter and it’s never been the same again. Really good music that can’t fit neatly in a box – intense emotional vocals, atmospheric keyboards, and a lot of melodic guitar and the man was downright sexy! It was the same last night. His set spanned his entire career and the fans certainly gave him a lot of love. He handled it in his humble, self-deprecating manner, but good musicmanship always wins over unqualified ego.

blogging / writing — No Comments
13
Aug 06

A Danger Of Not Blogging Anonymously

One of my friends from the MFA program read my blog series “If You Want To Go To Graduate School” and wondered who he was in the stories. I can’t identify who he is in real life, but this is the Andrew character. Somehow, when he read the blog, it didn’t occur to him what I wrote about him was about him. I’m inclined to think he wasn’t attentive, but there is another issue – he did not see himself the way I saw him. He wrote me a few messages on MySpace about it. The first one asked if he was Harlan. The answer to that was, No, he’s Andrew. Once he knew his fictional nomenclature, Andrew was shocked to know some of my perceptions about him, especially my observations about his writing. I described them as unfinished – which he went to great lengths to explain how they were finished works when presented to the workshop. I’m still not convinced. What I thought of his writing doesn’t make him a bad person. He does, however, have talent, so I hope he has taken his writing much further than what it was in that setting.

English language / teaching / writing — No Comments
12
Aug 06

Eggcorns: Mute point vs. moot point

Here is my latests find from the Chronicle of Higher Education: “Like A Bowl In A China Shop” by Mark Peters.

Notice the title? If you said cliche, then you’re warm. If you notice a word isn’t quite right, then you’re on to something. The bowl, instead of bull, is what Mark Peters describes in his article as an eggcorn. While he can’t be credited with coining the term, he describes what eggcorns are. Prior to reading this article, I thought malapropism was the appropriate word, but eggcorn is much catchier. The mute point vs. moot point is one of his best examples of how a student’s ear will interpret a term they’ve heard, but have never seen (or bothered to look up) the spelling. I suppose duck tape fts in this category. How many times in creative writing classes have I seen classmates mention “duck” tape instead of duct tape?

Since I’ve taught English for a year and a half, I’m sure I’ve seen some examples of eggcorns, but I can’t remember them. Maybe I just don’t want to remember right now.
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It’s nice to know that graduate programs have become crasser than ever. At least, I have experienced a great deal of unprofessionalism from certain individuals in my MFA program (with names to protect the guilty in the “If You Want To Go To Graduate School” series). One latest example of appropriate behavior from universities is the trend towards rejection by e-mail. Here is “The Etitquette of E-Rejection” by Mitch Frye for your reading pleasure.

teaching / writing — No Comments
11
Aug 06

OK, I’m back

How long does it take to write a post? Not long, but I’ve been putting it off for a while.

Due to the demand of a very loyal readership, I’m writing this post.

A lot has happened. I’ve recently got a non-teaching job (which pays the bills). I won’t say more as I’ll try to avoid blogging about the workplace. Since it is a full-time job, I spend 40+ hours at the office and things about the operations of the company and the people who work there are very sensitive subjects. I’ve dealt a lot with my frustrations making a living teaching by making small posts about it and posting articles from The Chronicles of Higher Education. It is the first time I’ve actually had a full-time job, so some things I’m dealing with are quite new. So, perhaps something will be posted, but not about the office.

Last week, I got to be a guest speaker at my friend Ella’s creative writing class. I put in a full day at the office, dressed in black. I was planning to do a PowerPoint presentation of my thesis, Resplendence, for the class, but I forgot to bring my flashdrive when I took my computer with me to work. I did not have the presentation, and I downloaded excerpts from my personal website to read the stories. I also downloaded two entries from this blog. I had done a couple of guest reader appearances for Ella’s husband, also an English teacher, but this one was much more successful than the ones I did for him. I read the first two stories about my narrator and his obsession with the Gold Lady and the entry from my blog. The students loved it and asked me tons of questions of what I liked to read and what influenced it. I also read the blog entry about my first time teaching, so they got to hear my take on writing, reading, teaching, and students. Ella then had the class create their own visual narratives and even steered them towards a coming lesson in writing about the personal. I liked that she played David Sedaris’s performance of “I Like Boys” while everyone was creating an art project.

More to come soon. I’ll catch you all up on some other things. Ciao.