Living With Pop Culture

So I've started school again, and have been massively busy with classes and school, but had an intersting thought and an interesting assignment to share.
The interesting thought was that it is fun to be an english major in classes where the majority of students are anything but english majors. My responses are so completely different from other students, and from society in general, that I seem to be a bit of an outcast.
Anyway, the assignment was cool, so I'll pass it on. The first part was to name five living entertainers (mine were 1. David Letterman 2. Oprah 3. Dane Cook 4. Jessica Simpson 5. Ellen DeGeneres) and then five living authors ( 1. Audrey Niffenegger 2. J.K Rowling 3. Maeve Binchy 4. Ethan Canin 5. Salman Rushdie) and then write about why we (meaning society) value the first five more than the last five. I had some difficulty at first, because as much as I love Ellen, I love writers even more.
The next part of the assignment was: If you had 30 minutes to talk to anyone, dead or alive, who would it be? Why? What would you talk about?

My response:
If I could get a hold of her for 30 minutes, I would talk to J.K. Rowling. I would talk to her because she has managed to succeed in one of the most difficult professions to succeed in, and I would love to someday come anywhere close to being as respected and loved an author as she is. I would talk about her conception of the idea of everything about Harry Potter, how hard it was to write the actual books (i.e. how did she actually manage to sit down and write a book, and then six more?), what it is like to see your work become internationally loved, what it is like to see your fictional characters come to life in movies, what it’s like to have started a global phenomenon, and what its like to be one of the most banned books in the history of the world. In short, we would discuss what it means to be a famous author.


What would you come up with if you were given this assignment?

Chop for Charity

About a week ago, I received an email from a girl I went to high school with, regarding an idea for a website dedeicated to women with long hair. She was asking for advice on how to style it, salons to cut it, etc. Last week, my hair measured 30 inches long (down around my waist), so I felt very qualified to answer her little questionnaire. I added a little addendum to her questionnaire, saying that she should include information about donating hair on her website. I was a little surprised when she emailed me back and said that she would never donate her hair. As of this week, I have donated my hair three times (and my hair is now closer to 10 inches long, instead of 30,) and it is always so worth it. Yeah, its a pain to wash and blow dry really really long hair, and its a bit of a shock when it gets cut, but why not? You get to experience life with short hair and life with long hair, so you can experience styles from all spectrums of length, and know that you are doing something good at the same time. Its not a huge lifestyle change or anything, and its something that most people can do. I can say for myself that I will continue to donate my hair every two or three years (yes, the turnaround can be that long), for as long as possible. Its something that is so easy to do, and requires so little extra effort to do, and it is such a good thing to do. The two organizations that I have donated to are locks of love and wigs for kids, organizations which supply wigs for kids who have cancer, alopeciata, and other diseases that cause hair loss. Their websites outline exactly how the wigs are made from your donations, and include stories form kids who have received them. Its worthwhile to check out the sites, even if you don't plan to donate your hair. You can always spread the word to someone who will. When I was in tenth grade, I went to a new school and met two or three girls who were in the process of growing their hair out to donate at the end of the year. I already had somewhat long hair, so on a whim, I decided to join them. It was that simple the first time. And I repeated the process two years later, and now two and a half years after that. I would definitely encourage everyone to at least think about it, if not actually do it. Its such a great cause, and so easy to do.

www.locksoflove.org
www.wigsforkids.org

10 Reasons Why I Could Never be a Writer

There are so many reasons that I could never be a writer, and since I’m in a sort of self-deprecating humor-ish mood, I’ll outline some of them for you.

1. I need a deadline, something that I’m working towards. I currently have seven unfinished projects. They will never all be done. Never.

2. I have creativity lapses, in which all of my creativity becomes a visual or other kind of art. I made 2 necklaces yesterday, and wrote nothing until 3:00 in the morning when I couldn’t sleep.

3. Word keeps freezing, and “not responding”, and refusing to print. That’s a slight problem. And my internet is not currently working correctly (which is why I haven’t posted in a week or more.)

4. I’m broke. I need money. That’s not very good incentive for becoming a writer. I might as well try to become a successful actress or high fashion model or singer in a band. In fact, my chances would probably be better.

5. Some days, all I honestly want to write about is how cute my hair is, or what color I painted my nails. Unless Cosmo hires me, I’m sorta screwed in that department.

6. Boys. They take up so much time.

7. Friends. They take up an equal amount of time.

8. Roommates. They’re always around! And they always want to hang out or yell at me. (One or the other. Occasionally both.)

9. I’m really not a very interesting person. I don’t really have anything useful or important, life-changing or otherwise, to say. I really don’t.

10. I’d need some sort of publisher or something, but with my trust issues, I’d never trust them enough to show them a finished manuscript without lawyers present to witness that I actually wrote the manuscript and presented it on said date, thus not allowing them any opportunity to steal my work and publish it and claim it as their own.

Long Sentence

I don't do poems. Not at all. I'm just not creative in that way. This began as an assignment for a long (6 line minimum) sentence, and morphed into a modern poem. It is one of my favorite pieces, and most definitely my favorite poem (since I usually suck at them.) Once again, feel free to critique it.

Long Sentence

She went around the room
where she had spent
so many happy years
in her childhood;

she turned
and looked
at the spring green Victorian
slipper chair,
the mahogany
nightstand with the golden
lamp with roses
etched on it
and a stumbling profusion
of books and papers and pens

the bed with the light blue
sheets that were so soft
and the pink, green, and yellow
afghan
on top of the soft blue sheets
(it was the afghan
that her grandmother
had crocheted
for her eighth birthday),

the writing desk
with the fascinating combination
of different sized drawers
where she had often
sat and admired
the desk,
too afraid
of ruining it
to actually use it


addendum:
okay, I give up. I have cut and pasted the poem about five times, and even typed the whole thing in trying to get this blog thing to allow the structure of the poem. It won't. It refuses. So there is an actual modern structure to this poem that you can't see, but its there. Know that, and be kind. It gives it aesthetic appeal that I think the poem probably needs. And if anyone can tell me how to do it so that you can have everything line up where you want it to, and not just centered, or on the left, or on the right, please tell me, because its driving me nuts.

Luminous

I watched a show today, and the title of the episode was luminous. One of the characters is a fiction writer, taking a writing class with a well-known author. Somewhere along the way, I decided to write something with the title luminous. At first I saw a young woman, smiling. Then I placed her in a field of flowers. Then I made her a little girl. Then I made her older again, and got rid of the flowers. I put her in a real place. What resulted didn't end up being about anything luminous, or about really anything at all. But I did write it, and as bad as it came out, I will share it with all of you. Feel free to critique your little hearts out...I know its bad.

Ralph stood at the top of the Spanish steps, looking down at all of the people milling about the Roman square in front of him. He had come to Rome out of boredom, nothing else. He had been to the Spanish steps a thousand times before; he had been nearly everywhere about a thousand times before. It was exactly the same as he remembered it. It was the same as the first time he had come, and the last time he had come, and all of the times in between that. Just a moment before he turned to leave, he heard breathless laughter. Two girls had just run up the steps; one was medium height with shoulder length dark hair, very thin, and she laughed quietly, shyly, nervously. The other was just a bit shorter, with reddish brown curls and a curvy figure. Her laugh was quiet, also, and respectful, but clear. The rest of the curious tourists who had turned to look at them had turned away; there was nothing special here. It was just two more American girls running up the steps and laughing.

The littler one grabbed the taller one’s hands and pulled her over to the edge. “Look at it, Meredith. Its so beautiful.” She put her elbows on the railing and leaned over for a better look at the square below. Meredith turned away from the scene and took a few steps away from the railing. “Hey, Leah! Look at this,” she called. Leah turned at what Meredith was pointing at, smiled her acknowledgement, and turned back around. As Ralph watched the little scene between the girls play out, he began to take more notice of Leah. Just at that moment, she almost inaudibly sighed a sigh of contentment, of utter peace. Ralph looked at her cheeks, glowing with the cold night air, at her long eyelashes that moved upwards as she lowered her chin to look at the gleaming top of St. Peters in the distance. Just as Ralph was leaning in to say something to her, Meredith grabbed her arm and demanded her to “take a picture of me!” Leah happily obliged, and then Leah hopped up on the railing with St. Peters dome behind her so that Meredith could take her picture. After a blinding flash of light, Leah slid off the railing and turned around for one last glimpse before Meredith grabbed her and they walked off, holding hands.

Ralph watched them go, and then silently cursed Meredith for being there with Leah, or for being so vulgar as to not let Leah stay longer to enjoy the view. He turned away from the view, reassuming his gloomy countenance and shuffled down the steps, back to his hotel. Despite his gruff demeanor, he was actually in a little bit better of a mood. “At least it was different this time,” he said to his best friend over the telephone that night.

The Emperor's Club meets The Palace Thief

Some of you may remember the movie that came out a few years ago, "The Emperor's Club" starring Kevin Kline as a Classics teacher at a prestigious boarding school, and his adventures with the anti-moralist Sedgewick Bell (I think I would be anti-moralist too, if my parents had named me Sedgewick). As I walked through Barnes and Noble about a week ago, I saw Kevin Kline in all his sweater-vested glory staring out of the cover of a $1.00 book entitled, The Palace Thief Stories. Now, being an enthusiast of any and all movies set at boarding schools, I saw "The Emperor's Club" when it came out, and then again while I was going through an Emile Hirsch phase fantastic actor, played Sedgewick Bell in the movie). The second time around, I watched all of the little dvd extras, including the portion on where the storyline was taken from: Ethan Canin's story, "The Palace Thief."

Having finished The Time Traveler's Wife in the train station while my train back to Boston was being delayed, I dug through my suitcase to find The Palace Thief Stories, because, really, Siddhartha just does not make for good reading on a train. I sat down and read "The Palace Thief" straight through, envisioning Kevin Kline as the moralistic Classics teacher, Mr. Hundert, in whose point of view the story is told. It was absolutely amazing. The character development in Mr. Hundert is virtually flawless: one feels as if Mr. Hundert is sitting right there on those pages, telling you the story of just how it happened. All of his old-fashioned ideas and quirks are totally believable, and his eccentricities endearing. I refuse to believe that a Mr. Hundert didn't sit down and write that story and hand it to Ethan Canin.

I have started another one of the stories (there are four in total), and it is very much the same in the character development, although with a completely different occupation, situation, etc. Once again the main character is believable in his quirkiness, and you fall in love with him almost immediately. Ethan Canin clearly has a gift for creating realistic, fun little characters, and his research into various occupations is very thorough; I'm convinced that he must have been a classics professor at some time in his life. In short, I urge any and all who may be reading this to go out immediately and find some dog-eared copy of and read it straight through. I also highly recommend The Time Traveler's Wife to all who have not yet read it, its interesting and sweet, and very well written (except that the Chicago-born characters occasionally use very common British words, like posh). It was recommended to me by a 28 year old Aussie lady that I met whilst on my travels, and now I (an almost 21 year old that wishes she was still traveling) recommend it to you( a ___ year old that ____).