Homage to Poe

Michael Dirda offers a thoughtful assessment of Poe’s career. My initial puzzlement about Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was hardly surprising. His fiction can seem too rhetorical, too thickly textured, too literary for most young people. Still, Basil Rathbone’s recording did persuade me to give the writer another try—sometime. The opportunity finally arose in high school…

"She even disgraces the name of Linton." –Heathcliff, on his simpering wife Isabella, in Wuthering Heights. #burn

  Similar:Backstage with the White Swan and her prince.PersonalUshering for a school matinee. Love seeing the kids excited about @prime_stage Frankenstei… CultureGeometry and color maps for wooden desk tray. #Blender3D #practiceThe blue image is a “normal map,” which …AestheticsJournalists are vital to the health of a free nation. #firstamendnent #freepressPersonalEclipse!PersonalLooking forward to more live local…

Could We Just Lose the Adverb (Already)?

I can’t really get myself that worked up over prescriptive grammar issues, but I do enjoy reading the arguments. The adverb is an incoherent lexical category, a catchall. How are “there,” “yesterday,” “quite,” “assiduously,” and “indeed” all members of the same family? As we learn in school — in a definition that dates from Dionysius…

Narrow Parsers

Creating n00b-friendly interactive fiction by deliberately reducing the number of available verbs? Intersting… Though I rather liked the results when I experimented with diegetic (in-game) hints delivered by an NPC who gets more and more specific to help the player accomplish some orientation tasks. Parser IF is fundamentally driven by player action, by game verbs, in…

Unmarked assignments in my queue: 0

This app, which sports a little red notification bubble showing the number of unmarked assignments on my to-do list, controls much of my life during the school year. This app doesn’t show the number of committee meetings I have to attend, the minutes from committee meetings I have to post, the assigned tasks I have…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

Clickbait writers hate this English professor’s time-saving trick!

Defeat clickbaiters with this one weird trick! You won’t believe how punctuation can save you time. Will you regret clicking that headline phrased as a question? (You can safely avoid clicking any headline phrased as a question, promises an emotional reaction, or hedges a claim with “may” or “could be”. You won’t miss anything important if you don’t click that bait.)

Waiting for the sound of bagpipes. #setonhillgrad 2016

Similar:Visiting Ft Ligonier #sevenyearswar #history #localhistoryPersonalSpent the morning in a socially distanced recording studio.PersonalHappy to see a familiar face in a slide during today’s Academic Affairs Workshop. Classes …Happy to see a familiar face in a slide …AcademiaComfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. –Mr Dooley on the function of journali…“Comfort the afflicted and afflict…

Here's a close look at the scepter leading the procession. #SetonHillGrad 2016 starts in a few minutes.

Similar:Someone seems to have slipped this over my transom. Thank you, #foodsubstitutefairy whoeve…PersonalSpring 2023 Grades: Submitted! (I only had 3 last-minute submissions to mark today.)AcademiaAfter my conference talk, a post-audition, pre-Jane-Eyre-performance dinner with the girl.PersonalSecurity is Sleeping in the Back Seat of the CarFor decades, my mother collected paperba…EmpathyI have for some reason reached another…

The last submissions of this o’er ripe term, Ungraded, mock me though this app. And thus, Procrastination midwifes this blank verse.

Similar:I've completed my second set of 25 #neovictorian control panels, which I'll eventually use… AestheticsIf You Ever Find a Link to ThoughtCatalog, I'm Begging You Not to Click It Here’s a thought… nothing you can …BusinessTeaching with iPads: Motivation, Inspiration and Alienation in the AppleverseHere are the slides for the half-day wor…AcademiaFaculty/staff orientation begins @setonhilluniversity PersonalAnyone…