Hum de dum. Not paying any attention to current events at all, just thinking about possibly teaching Richard III in my Shakespeare class this fall. Oh, look, Dwight Goodyear posted commentary on Agnes Heller’s book The Time is Out of Joint: Shakespeare as Philosopher of History. How interesting. You know, to those of us who care about…
My “Media Aesthetics” students worked with students from Elizabeth Jacobs’s “Social Psychology” class, where students wrote editorials and designed infographics about cognitive dissonance. My students helped the psychology students with their drafts, then chose essays they thought had a good chance of going viral, and used WordPress, Facebook, Twitter and Hootsuite to publicize those selections. Similar:Almost all…
Similar:Carolyn's "waiter with wobbly stack of plates" bit from Hello DollyPersonalOkay yes, this affirmation does matter to me and it will go into my annual review for next…Marked 832 AP English essays in a week o…AcademiaI’m still teaching journalism and my usual courses, but after 21 years I’ve stepped aside …I’m still teaching journalism and…
I loved listening to her practice the “Money, money, money, money, money” monologue in her mirror. Similar:Valid for any new yearEthicsA little better all the time.A little better all the time.PersonalSupport the arts in your community! #augustwilson #radiogolfSupport the arts in your community! #aug…CultureCrochet octopus for the win! Crazy costume for #pptplaytime Boougie Gentleman (adaptation…
A Republican Facebook friend posted a link to this article, which acknowledges that there’s plenty to dislike about Trumpcare, but challenges the truth behind some of the statements that are driving online outrage. Remember the Trump administration’s strategy — do something that invokes outrage, pounce and call it “fake news” as soon as someone exaggerates…
Similar:Last weekend I roughed out shapes to represent buildings, in order to provide some sense o…Last weekend I roughed out shapes to rep…PersonalI have for some reason reached another #duolingo milestone.CultureI had a blue checked shirt in my hand this morning, but she nailed the khaki pants.PersonalYesterday my stack of unmarked assignments was about 120,…
An interesting piece. Easy-to-learn hypertext authoring tools like Twine and TextureWriter have encouraged many of my students to give this kind of storytelling a try. As longtime experimenters and scholars in interactive narrative who are now building a new academic discipline we call “computational media,” we are working to create new forms of interactive storytelling,…
In the early 20th century, print journalists often identified with the working class. Small newspapers were created by and read by people who live and often grew up in the same area. Online jobs tend to clump around big cities, meaning that reporters increasingly live in a media bubble that isolates them from the life…
Similar:Portraits of my 11yo: Pretty, Goofy, and Pretty GoofyAmusingMasked, vaxxed, and settling in to watch live theaterBarebones is a little black box theater,…BooksPict Classic Theatre Romeo and Juliet. PersonalA student who is writing her research paper on Taylor Swift made a passing reference to Ka…PersonalWe Tried to Do Vanlife Right. It Broke Us Down.Shortly before I…
Members of the Herald’s editorial guild are boycotting Twitter this week after reporter Chris Villani was suspended without pay for three days for violating the company’s social media policy. Villani’s misstep? An April 20 tweet stating, “The notes found in #AaronHernandez cell were letters to his daughter & fiancee, saying he loved them & would see…
Similar:Skin of Evil (TNG Rewatch, Season 1 Episode 23)My rewatch reflection on the Star Trek:T…DesignYahoo, You Nagged Me Too Many Times; Bye!I have a Yahoo account that I use when a…BusinessWhy ‘Cats’ the Movie Fails So FlamboyantlyI can’t seem to get into superhero movie…AestheticsEpilogue to Rossum's Universal RobotsMy big finish as Alquist in a Zoom-based…DramaOn…
Adolescence took a long time to be invented at all, and it took an even longer time to become a somewhat stable archetype. It’s only in recent human history that people a) live long enough for adolescence to be a different physical experience than adulthood; and b) live in a society that indulges an extended…
I’m not saying that the Upward Bound kids deserved to be punished because application writers didn’t follow formatting instructions. I am saying that formatting matters. When your professors put “formatting” on the rubric, they aren’t simply trying to make your life difficult. For the want of double spacing in a small section of a 65-page…
My daughter will be playing Dolly Levi Friday night. Similar:More Adventures in Suburban AdultingAbout four years ago I bought an electri…Culture13: The Musical Promohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40MbeApiX…CultureWhat is a COVID-19 compliance supervisor? What to know about Hollywood's newest jobIn the wake of the pandemic, the enterta…BusinessWhy Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending OtherwiseA reminder that polls that ask…
Mix the paranoia of 1984, the absurdity of Brazil, the pathos of Chekhov, the social commentary of Moliere, and a healthy dose of “When Mike and Carol swap jobs, the Bradys are on a collision course for wackiness.” Quantum Theatre’s “Collaborators” is a fascinating study of power, integrity, and compromise. (Sound designer Joe Pino directed…
Similar:More modular, swappable building components. I’ve got to work on the sides of these mid-si…More modular, swappable building compone…AestheticsAscending the path to High Hrothgar? No, just the snow-covered steps from the parking lot… Ascending the path to High Hrothgar?…PersonalChildren of Eden (Stage Right, April 2014)My wife and I in Biblical costumes for C…CultureCrabby 9yo Constructs…
A good exploration, in the light of current interest in “fake news,” of the troubled relationship between conservative Christianity’s understanding of truth and secular experts’ understanding of facts. (Mainstream Protestantism and Catholicism have negotiated this difference much more smoothly.) But it wasn’t Christianity, or religious faith itself in general, that helped make Republican voters more likely…
Analyzing humor, as E.B. White famously said, is like dissecting a frog; few people are interested and the frog dies of it. Nonetheless, writing humor is a highly logical exercise — fit idea X into form Y for humorous result Z — and can therefore be broken down in ways that more slippery kinds of…
Similar:A question I find myself thinking all the time.PersonalThe Miracle Worker opens tomorrow.PersonalRossum's Universal Robots (Act 1) Artistic ProsperityThe first act of Artistic Prosperity’s v…CultureA picture of puffy white clouds floating in a blue skyAestheticsYork Plays 2025: Five cameras, adding up to ~100 hours of footage.Five cameras, adding up to ~100 hours of…AcademiaEncounter at…
Art conveys significance; however, much of that significance is constructed by the receiver. That’s why I care less about what a work of art “means” and more about what it “does.” Understanding what a work of art does requires interpretation. The context of a work of art can contribute to the significance of the artwork in surprising…