One from column A, one from column B

We got our new assignment, along with a 7-page handout we will need for it.  This project is a "critical analysis," which apparently means that we need a critical approach (not quite clear on this yet) to analyze a scene from a film.  So I have to decide on a film and an approach, and it looks kind of tricky.  The films are listed in six approach categories, Myth Criticism, Women's Studies, Men's Studies, Disability Studies, Shame Theory, and Genre Criticism.  I'm not sure yet, but I think I want to try Men's Studies.  I've seen most of the films listed, so I've got plenty of choice.  The one problem I see is that I need to make up my mind asap, or I'll be wasting time I might need.  Right now, I'm leaning toward Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, because 1. the plot is partly about a father-son relationship (one of the things Men's Studies is interested in), although I may not stick with that aspect of the film; and 2. I already bought the DVD and have watched it several times. 
I wanted the DVD because it's a movie that I know I'll want to watch every so often, if only to see Baby Groot's dance in the first fight scene to get a cute fix.  
That's all for now.

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"Make Me" makes me write

continued from previous post below

What made me want to write about Make Me was how it made me want to do a little research.  He writes about several things I never heard of, along with using a few words as if everybody knows what they mean, when I didn't have a clue.  I hate it when that happens.
Spoiler alert here, and I am sorry, because I think most people would enjoy the book and I hate to reveal anything about it, but I have to.  The plot involves the Deep Web.  I had heard of the Dark Web, which actually sounds more evil than the Deep Web, but is basically only stuff on the web that isn't active anymore but will never quite go away.  The Deep Web, on the other hand, is very active, despite the difficulty of searching in it.   The difficulty is caused by the site owners need to keep the sites from turning up on search engines in the first place, so that people can only get to them by referral or by a long, drawn-out process of going from one site to another.
I have to say that this is not a nice place to visit, and you sure as hell wouldn't want to live there.  What's there is stuff that is criminal.  I came across a piece on Slate that was answering the question "How do you access the Deep Web?" which laid out most of what I wanted to know and let me know that I don't ever want to access the Deep Web.
The bottom line for me is that Lee Child's book is not only compelling reading but also very firmly grounded in the real world, and that just makes the whole experience more intense.    

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I can't stand the suspense

Lee Child, British thriller
 writer accepting
 Barry Award.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might think I've been goofing off, since I haven't posted in a while, but you would be wrong.  I turned my paper in on time (even remembered to upload it to Blackboard), but I forgot to post during that time.  Sue me.  Anyway, after my second class I asked the prof if I could write about other things I was reading, and she said that was fine, even though it probably wouldn't help with my other projects.   So that's what I'm doing today, but I'm going to split it up into several posts.  
I've been reading one of Lee Child's Jack Reacher books, Make Me, which is going really fast.  He always makes you wait to find out what's really going on, almost until you can't stand it (when I tell you that I even missed a couple of events on Marvel Puzzle Quest--without noticing!-- because I was reading, you can see how compelling it is), and I haven't been able to stop until now.  In fact, I only stopped because my hand cramped up from holding the Nook; I think I was gripping too hard, most likely from the suspense.
continued in next post

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And then I wrote . . . and wrote, and wrote . . .

Working on my draft again-- I've been putting in some time every day on it (advice from the prof).  I thought it couldn't hurt to try it, and it hasn't been hard to find 10 or 15 minutes here and there to work on it.  The story I chose to tell is about how my dad got my older sister Rebbi and me ready to go see our first Broadway show: Wicked.  Mom and Dad had already seen it, and I think they were thinking that we would be able to understand it (at ages 6 and 8) with a little help.
Anyway, I remember the preparations better than actually going to the show.  We knew The Wizard of Oz, of course, so Dad didn't have to explain that.  He made character flashcards (I think he invented these) and used them to tell the story, playing the songs from the cd as he went.  Really, he put on a show of his own, and we loved it.  
Today I'm working on my conclusion.  Telling the story went okay.  We'll see how it goes.

I Like "Dangerous Sounds"

I just read the Daniel Felsenfeld essay "Rebel Music" in The Norton Field Guide to Writing.  From the title, I thought that this would be about some kind of alternative music, and, in a way, it is, but not the kind most people think of when they say "alternative music":  it's about a moment when Felsenfeld first heard a piece of music that literally changed his life, and that piece was Beethoven's Ninth symphony.  I gotta quote him:
            "It unrolled from the small speakers, this big, gorgeous, unruly beast of a thing, contemporary, horrifying, a juggernaut that moved from the dark to unbearable brightness, soaring and spitting, malingering and dancing wildly, the Most Beautiful Thing I Ever Heard" (641).
After this, he was on the road to becoming a composer, when he had never considered that before.
Growing up, I heard all kinds of music.  My parents, especially my father, loved music, had season tickets to the Lyric Opera when they could afford them, and went to a variety of concerts to which they started bringing us as soon as we could appreciate them.  What I'm getting at is that there was never a time in my life when I wasn't used to hearing classical music, but I had my own mini-epiphany with music, too, although I am not a musician of any kind.  I was 15, I think, when I was riding in the car with my dad.  I don't know where we were going.  The radio was on, and a piece came on that I had heard before, but this time I really heard it.  It was Debussy's Clair de lune, and it remains the most beautiful thing I ever heard.  I have to admit that this wasn't in any way rebel music for me-- my parents liked it, so I wasn't rebelling against them, and I didn't care enough about what my friends thought was good music for it to be rebelling against them.
Anyway, it's part of my massive Iheartradio.com playlist, and I smile every time it comes on, once every couple of weeks or so.  I also stop whatever else I'm doing, and just listen.  Maybe that's what makes it qualify as what Felsenfeld calls "dangerous sounds":  it takes over and demands you experience it.