About – The Great Gatsby for NES

The Great Gatsby for NES. Similar:little drops — Why Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind …Very insightful…. A reminder that even…AestheticsHollow Pursuits (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 21) Misfit Crewmember Faces…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….AmusingDaughter Carolyn plays Cherry in Prime Stage's production of The Outsiders (Mar 6-15)My daughter Carolyn plays…

Bother (a minor Turnitin.com grademark bug)

That whole thing should be a link — the underlining shouldn’t stop at the tilde. Similar:For New Acquisitions, UMD Libraries Choose Ebooks by DefaultIncreasingly book vendors provide option…Academia''The Balloon Hoax'' by Edgar Allan PoeWhen steampunk was speculative fiction, …AmusingHappy U.S. citizenship, Dr. Garcia-Quismondo @SHUHumanities @Setonhill AcademiaWhy You Hate Google’s New LogoThe new logo retains the rainbow…

Civilization IV song wins Grammy Award

While there’s an instrumental theme from Civilization III that’s even catchier, I was happy to run into an old friend. For the first time ever, a music score from a video game has won a Grammy Award, as Christopher Tin’s “Baba Yetu” from Civilization IV won the Grammy for “Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)”. While…

Shipwreck that inspired Melville’s Moby-Dick found

The shipwreck lies off French Frigate Shoals in the blue waters of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii. Melville completed “Moby-Dick” in 1851, drawing on an Essex crew member’s account of the remarkable event. The twice-cursed Pollard retired from whaling, became a watchman and lived to be almost 80. Melville met him in Nantucket shortly…

Science Fair Victory

In this photo from the front page of today’s Latrobe Bulletin, my daughter explains her “Endangered Art” science project for the judges. She created numerous identical paintings, kept a control in a safe place, and exposed the others to various threats (sunlight, temperature change, the grubby fingers of children). Similar:The Transformation of American Journalism Is…

Discretion in First-Person Shooters

I recently learned that my kids have the habit of turning this hectopus (a toy they’ve each played with since babyhood) away from the screen when they play Half-Life 2. Similar:There, in my morning snapshot of the kids home-schooling in the kitchen, is the cable I sh…EducationGiving Obsolete Books an Afterlife as Theatre PropsOnce, someone…

On the Ten Twenty Thirty

The F. Scott Fitzgerald story “Head and Shoulders” features this unfamiliar phrase, spoken by a young actress who, through an unimportant plot contrivance, invades the study of a bookish progeny: “I knew a girl,” said Marcia reminiscently, “who went on the ten-twenty-thirty when she was sixteen. She was so stuck on herself that she could…

Poetry, the First Milk

Tomorrow I will be teaching some Harlem Renaissance poets in my American Literature class, so this reflection on the function of poetry is welcome and timely. Poems are first and foremost to be experienced—sensually, imaginatively. Of course, learning more about form and structure, the words and historical contexts of a poem may make that experience…

How To Get Students To Integrate Quotations

It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone. Like many writing teachers, I put a lot of effort into asking students to integrate their quotations, but being a logos kind of guy, I emphasize the efficiency of MLA style. From the ethos perspective, I point out that college asks for a different, more concise pattern,…

Liveblogging Injury

I threw a muscle in my shoulder while furiously blogging a record of a committee meeting. Similar:My colleague Dr. Cusick bakes Irish soda bread every year to honor Saint Patrick's Day.AcademiaA warning to college profs from a high school teacherMy students did well on those questions …AcademiaSo, what do professors do all day, anyway?Some days…

Apple Cyclops

A happy apple cyclops, with a marshmallow eye and banana teeth. My daughter’s creation. Update, 12 Feb: Carolyn, noting the condition of her apple creation, asked for “a good-bye picture of Poli-yumyum.” Similar:Faculty/staff orientation begins @setonhilluniversity Personal“If music be the food of love, play on!” I may have mentioned that I have a daughter who d… …

Remediate a slideshow via whiteboard? When the techno-awesome video projector won’t start, I draw the line.

This term, I teach two sections of “Seminar in Thinking and Writing,” the second course in our two-course freshman writing sequence. My sections both meet MWF, nicely bookending my lunch break. Since Seton Hill usually schedules committee meetings for Tue/Th, that means on MWF I usually have nothing else to do but prepare for, and…

Glad to see so many thoughtful responses.

Looking forward to a good discussion of a complex story. via Fitzgerald, “The Ice Palace”. Similar:"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster (a reading)https://youtu.be/mppsaL4MEXU https://…BooksTime’s Arrow, Part 1 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 26) Data's head in a mine …Rewatching ST:TNG An archaeologist wh…CultureTwelfth Night Cast Photo (Prime Stage, May 3-12)My daughter can hardly stop…

Learning Beyond Words

I work so closely with words that I sometimes have to force myself to remember that there are other ways to learn. I saw a DVD of Annie Get Your Gun for the first time, and was sort of struck by the lines sung by the backwoods sharpshooter, “Folks are dumb, where I come from,…