How 'bout a Fresca!?

Some things that are concerning me (K) of late:

1. Nobody knows Caddy Shack lines! The past couple of weeks, P and I have been drinking Fresca, and everytime we crack open a can, I say "how 'bout a Fresca?" hoping that someone will catch the pop culture reference. When I receive blank stares, I proceed to recite the lines "How would you like to mow my lawn? hmmmm?? hmmmmmmm???" to which I receive more blank stares. COME ON!!! This is Judge Smails (see below)!!! By the way Fresca is making a rampant comeback. If you have not had one recently, go to the store and refresh yourself. P and I have been addicted since our excursion to Mexico. They are probably right next to Tab and Diet Rite.











2. Reality television shows. Seriously, I am getting frustrated by the fact that the clear cut best performers in shows such as American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance are getting cut early or lose the finale. I told you all that David Archuleta was the best and predicted he would lose. Now, Will from So You Think You Can Dance gets cut? Makes you want to kick yourself in the teeth. Revote!

3. I saw Meryl Streep in Mama Mia earlier this week and nearly walked out of the theater. The logic (rightfully) goes: Meryl Streep is an exceptional actress and would not put herself through a bad movie performance. Apparently, that logic is faulty because the movie is awful. Whoever cast Pierce Brosnan in a singing role should be shot. The Abba songs, however, were great!

4. Our culture's sense of humor, generally. Last night P, M, and I went to the Shakespeare festival to see "Shakespeare's complete works." I was excited to go because, as many of you know, I love going to plays (generally) and seeing Shakespeare dramas (particularly). Unfortunately, this version of the Complete Works was guided by what can only be described as the Larry the Cable Guy effect; you know, hick guys with Nascar T-shirts being generally sexist, racist, classist, homophobic and stupid. I swear the phrase "Get Ur Dun" was recited at least ten times. In any event, everyone in the crowd was laughing hysterically at the -ist jokes that permeated the play and I couldn't help but feel as if was Shakespeare getting dissed and our culture was generally going down the crapper. Yes, Shakespeare told dick and fart jokes, but so much of the real humor of Shakespeare is sophisticated plays on language. This is the third comedy at this particular festival that has adopted this method. I have decided not to go back. But still I wonder, what is the fascination with this type of man (e.g. Larry the Cable guy)? I wonder if there is a correlation between the popularity of comics and the ethos of the president...in other words Larry the Cable Guy is funny because in varying degrees, he represents a version of the president. Anyway.

Back to work!

Picasa Makes it Easy

For those looking for a great way to share pictures (that is SUPER easy), try out picasa.google.com. If you have a Mac you can just select an album straight from iPhoto and the entire album goes straight to Picasa. It definitely beats having to attach photos one at a time onto a website or e-mails. I'm attaching our pictures from Marie's party. Just click the link and you can experience the fun. More to come soon!

Marie's Party.

A gift from P

Upon turning in the first chapter of my dissertation for inspection, P comes upstairs with a little bag and a giddy smile. She has been waiting all week to give me this present. See below, I couldn't have said it any better myself.

You can't make this stuff up!

As promised, here are some images from the Elmo beatdown. Did I overexagerrate the tenacity of great grandma Nord? Notice how when Breezy's mom (in the yellow t-shirt) goes after the 'mo, she strikes a diffident pose as if to say, "no way she can do better than I did!" You also have to love the picture of Max! He is seriously intense!

Rambeagle

We thought we would share this image of Bruchi. He had to go to the vet today to get his annual boosters and true to form, he made it difficult on them. Evidence of his struggle can be found on his front and hind paws that are wrapped in green bandages. Apparently, the baby food bribe wasn't enough of an incentive to stop wiggling. At one point, the vet tech got pushed away and her blood drawing needle stood still stuck in Bru. Needless to say, he expressed serious frustration at that point.

Full Frontal Critique

Yesterday, P alerted me to the news that The New Yorker had published a satirical image of Barack Obama and Michelle Obama on its most recent cover. Given The New Yorker's reputation for publishing images of political satire, I wasn't necessarily surprised until I saw the image (see below). Aptly titled "The Politics of Fear" it quite literally put me in my seat. As some of you may know, I have been writing about how America thrives on a culture of fear, encouraging its citizens to expel threatening images or messages (or people) when they come into close proximity with our bodies and borders. My interest has been explaining how phishing solicitations make insidiously subtle references to 9/11 to get people to give up their sensitive identity information to expel the "cyberterrorists" and restore security. There is nothing subtle about this, though. Full frontal fear, staring right at you.

Not surprisingly, the entire country is on fire. John McCain has denounced the cover saying that he would understand if Barack Obama was offended. And, of course, the Obama camp has called it distasteful. I think it is brilliant. No, it is not funny. No it is not meant to be funny. Like Borat, this image confronts America with its racial prejudices, identifies several of its deepest held fears (notice the burning flag in the fireplace), and doesn't blink. To me, it is similar to when my favorite comedian Daniel Tosh rails on midwesterners for their lack of culture while he performs in the midwest. As he says, (paraphrasing) "and yes I tell that joke in Omaha, and I stare at them while I tell it."

see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANsQ0s5wdck

Too bad people are going to get all liberal (or conservative) about this and never let it shake their bones. That Obama sparks this kind of thinking is, in my view, worth voting him into office. For what it's worth, I think Hilary Clinton would have forced us to confront a similar type of fear.

Maybe instead of producing fear all the time, we should try to confront it and work through it. No, that's entirely too sensible.

I Love Teach to Write (good)

I (P) have a few students who have discovered that my e-mail address is on the school website, so they have enjoyed e-mailing with me this summer. I figure it's a great way to keep them writing and reading during the time of year students' literacy suffers the most. On a more personal note, it also helps remind me why I love my job so much and will be excited to return come August. Below, you will see an e-mail from one of my students, let's call her Wanda. Just for some background, I had Wanda and her sister, "Gina," in my classes last year and have e-mailed with both of them this summer. Gina (a soon-to-be 6th grader) has e-mailed me frequently, and I just received Wanda's first e-mail the other day. I had asked Wanda if she had been reading, enjoying her swimming lessons, and writing any journals. The journals are a part of our meeting time everyday where students respond to a "question of the day" in a rather scripted format. The idea is to help 1st-5th graders write an organized paragraph at their appropriate age/linguistic level. Without stifling the students' creativity and composition skills, I include a few rather general grammatical rules--which we later learn to break. These rules include conventions like: Don't start a sentence with and, but, or because; Capital letter at the beginning of a sentence; period at the end; etc.

Here is Wanda's response to my e-mail:

will I am have allot of fun,but my swimming is not that good gina swimming is good and Mrs.Jensen I almost forgot that I can't start with a "but" in the begin of the sentences! opp!
will I have been reading books! :)

Who wouldn't love my job?!

Geriatrics Beatdown Elmo, seriously!

Yesterday, P and I had the distinct pleasure of celebrating our friends' son's second birthday party, and as you might expect we experienced the usual(ly wonderful) meal of pizza, pop, and cake, while witnessing the usual array of ridiculous games (pin the tail on the doggy, for example). You would also not be surprised to learn that since Maximus is a two year old, he had no idea what was going on with the present opening, which allowed us to make fun of his mom's high pitched squeals when she opened boxes containing a baker set, clothes, and some Canadian produced DVD for children (we got him the Letter Factory DVD to boost his literacy!). (my theory is that early birthday parties and Christmases are really for the parents). As the afternoon wore on, I contemplated taking my life with a balloon string after having to field multiple questions about when *we* were going to have "one of these little guys running around." However, I am glad I didn't grab for the balloon string, because as the party moved to the backyard, things got a little exciting and dare I say crazy!!!

Here's the short version. Stanimal, Maximus' dad, has a friend who lives in Chicago that brought down a pinata for the party. This pinata, Stanimal stipulated, must be from a Mexican grocery store (since we have Mexican grocery stores, why he couldn't get one from here is still confusing to me, but whatever). The pinata that Hector brought down was a massive Elmo that was the size of Maximus' mom Breezy. So, they strung up Elmo, hung it over the porch, and gave the string to grandpa to ensure that at least one person would get hurt when he pulled it up as they swung with all their might. So all the kids go up to beat down Elmo with a broom handle. Two year olds first, then the cousins who vary in age. They swing and swing, but the resilient Elmo would not break. The kids are getting impatient for the candy that they know is inside, so, what do we do? Instead of breaking open the pinata discretely, we hand the broom handle to Stanimal's grandma, Maximus' great grandma (he is mid-thirties, do the math) who proceeds to whoop Elmo's ass with an impressive fury. But! Elmo doesn't crack, so she gets tired and hands it to her daughter, Maximus' grandma, who then proceeds to whoop Elmo's ass further. Still, Elmo gives no ground. Hand it to the other grandma (same fury, same result). So they hand the stick to Breezy, who starts wailing away at Elmo only to have it unexpectedly swing in her direction and knock her down. Meanwhile, the kids are all crying because they can't figure out why all the old people are beating Elmo, and why Elmo has decided to fight back. So, now the men (after adjusting themselves) take the handle and wail on Elmo until they sever the body from the head. Patty, Breezy's sister, and I are all cracking up until we figure out that the kids aren't exicited to get the candy anymore. They didn't scamper to snatch it up, but kind of walked with trepidation toward it.

Moral(s) of the story
[1] If the sales chart didn't confirm this axiom, Elmo is one tough and resilient son of a %#*(@&%.
[2] Don't buy pinatas that are shaped like the cartoonish friends that kids see everyday and learn to read and write from.
[3] If you do decide against moral #2, don't extend the beating. Moreover, don't let Elmo knock you down.
[4] Grandmas are dangerous. They have the ability to unleash a fury that exceeds their physical limitations (and their often mild demeanor).
[5] Always go to parties where the opportunity for geriatric beatdowns of cartoon characters is a distinct possibility!

Oh, and you know there will be pictures!!!

the "do you remember me?" game...

P and I had lunch at a restaurant this afternoon, and our waiter happened to be one of my former students from three years ago. Except I couldn't figure out if she recognized me and didn't want to say anything because she wasn't sure if I recognized her, or if she seriously didn't remember me. I felt kind of befuddled because this is a student who I remember working closely with. It wasn't as if it was a student who sat at the back of the room and never said a word to me because they were sleeping the whole time. So, I spent the whole lunch wondering whether I should say hello and if so how I should do it so she wouldn't be uncomfortable. I decided to wait until she brought the check and asked her something really ridiculous like "how was your first year writing course" (no wonder everyone thinks English people are losers! Can't we just be normal?) and she suddenly remembered who I was and we talked for a bit.

Still, I left the restaurant feeling dumbfounded. I said to P, wouldn't you remember your old professors if you saw them in a situation like that? And she said yeah. Then I made the rather grandiose claim that I could remember my elementary school teachers if I saw them again (I really think I could!!!) Anyway, this left me wondering about how much time one should really invest in students given that it in some cases it clearly means more to you than it did to them. This is a terrible thing to say, especially for someone in my discipline, but shouldn't this cast doubt on the amount of investment one should make? Fine, you don't remember the lessons I taught you, but your can't recognize my face? I mean, I haven't changed at all. It isn't as if I have lost a bunch of weight or suddenly shrunk! This all sounds very narcissistic, so I am going to end the post. It just made me a little sad, since so much of why you teach is about building relationships with students. Of course, I have plenty of other students whom I still keep in contact, so there's no fire to put out. I'm just sayin...

...further proof, and oxford commas

While I have never had any doubts about whether I should have married P, I have had plenty of moments when it suddenly occurs to me just how good that decision was. One of those moments happened the other day when I was singing the lyrics to a song called "Oxford Comma" by Vampire Weekend. The opening lines go "who gives a #%*%# about an oxford comma, I've seen those English dramas too, they're cruel." Meanwhile, P looks at me and says, I know one person who gives a "#%(*)" about an oxford comma, and proceeds to tell me about a court case whose claims centered upon the absence of an oxford comma. Apparently, the issue was that in their last will and testament, the deceased didn't put an oxford comma before one of the recipient's names, and thus the court couldn't decide whether the assets should be divided in half or in thirds. So, for example, if I wanted to will something to peter, paul, and mary...I would have to put the comma after paul. if I didn't do that, and wrote instead "peter, paul and mary" then peter would get half while paul and mary would have to divide the other half.

This is why grammar matters, people! And, why moments such as these are vital to a happy marriage. You know, the moments where you think, my wife knows more about grammar than I do, and I love her for it. It's enough to send your spouse off to a linguistics course on the growth and development of the English language.

A Day in the Life

I watched the neighborhood, oh boy
attacked my wubba, and then I took a nap...

Hancock

I was seriously excited to see this movie, and we were (unfortunately) even more excited to leave it.

Wait for it on TBS! (yes I am implying that it isn't even worth the rental fee...not even if you can get it in one of those new red boxes where the movie is only a dollar!)