learning :: on the ceiling :: for everybody
seems i’m not the only amazed one when it comes to finding a really cheap (7.50) 2-disk edition of sergio leone’s once upon a time in the west … see Dan Schnieder’s review …
radical close-ups … magisterial fordian landscapes … the morricone score … that cast … & a very insightful (for me) commentary track … makes it worth seeking out if you’ve got the slightest interest in The Western … got mine at target
WORDPLAY/ Screenwriting Secrets from Working Screenwriters … looks content-rich … probably useful for one who wants … to write for the movies? … to write movies?
anyway … this is by Terry Rossio & Ted Elliott … who’ve worked - together & apart - on shrek, pirates of the caribbean (black pearl) … so they must know something about the business & the art … right?
the previous design template was called Gespaa …
i like the big blue post headings … it seems clear & compact enough to me … but the dark blue maybe induces some claustrophobia? feels like a cave … i don’t like how all the categories get listed right up top … or how there’s no direct EDIT (which you wouldn’t see anyway) from the posts … the font may be too small … i keep having to make text bigger …
i’ll be changing the look around midday each day … for a few days … this next design is called … almost spring 1.0
…. forgot the name of this durable insect …
… in his second car turning into verbs …
… making frozen golden rules and stumbling …
… then another and so on into painters …
time to get yr john ashbery on …
we like this creepy opening to the long “And the Stars Were Shining” …
It was the solstice, and it was jumping on you like a friendly dog.
The stars were still out in the field,
and the child prostitutes plied their trade,
the only happy ones, having learned how unhappiness sticks
and will not risk being traded in for a song or a balloon.
Christmas decorations were getting crumpled in offices
by staffers slumped at their video terminals,
and dismay articulated otherness in orphan asylums
where the coffee percolates eternally, and God is not light
but God, as mysterious to Himself as we are to Him.
if i were using this in class i’d point out the obvious … and wait for my students to notice the not-so-obvious …
it’s the obvious-to-me echo of eliot’s/prufrock’s opening … to shift from pretty poetic innocence to jaded (poetic?) experience … ironic pastoral? … subversion of the pastoral? … wanting both there in the poem? from “solstice” “friendly dog” “stars” & “field” to “child prostitutes” “crumpled” “staffers slumped” “video terminals” “orphan asylums” to “God” … and honoring (?) acknowledging (?) mocking (?) the sacred with the traditional caps on “Himself” and “Him” …
in ap english circles we push students to identify the tone … the voice … of/in the work … as a way to “reach” the “truth” of the poem … or the poet … but i wonder how helpful that is with much of ashbery … who ducks & dodges … tone&voice are just other tools to serve whichever purpose of the poem at that moment … & some would (but i don’t) have a problem with that
