The shyness that is criminally vulgar

Students often say a lot of silly things. But today . . . today was an unacceptable example.

My freshmen were working on some writing pieces, and as usual, I had some background music going. Now I realize that not everyone has the same musical tastes, and that is fine. But as a general rule, students tend to like the music I play, even if it is unfamiliar to them.

Today the classic Smiths song "How Soon Is Now?" came up in the shuffle, and a few students indicated that they had heard it, a few others said they liked it -- the usual. And then there was Peter. Peter the classic rock freshman.

"Mr. W, please change the song. This song sucks."

"Peter, when you have written next classic alternative music anthem, I'll let you pick the song."

Pagan Tribes and Handmaids of the Lord

Last year I visited a cemetery and got some excellent pictures, and today I went to another one. St. Boniface Cemetery is four blocks from my place, and on this very beautiful November day, I thought I'd check it out. It is a Catholic cemetery, with mostly German immigrants.

And just who is Saint Boniface, you might ask:

This cemetery has quite a few nuns buried here:

And a row of priests as well:

There is some sort of Civil War monument that is very nice:

. . . and a monument that looks like a stone tree trunk:

And just some all-around pretty monuments:

And I discovered that St. Boniface Cemetery is the place for geese to hang out. I saw hundreds of geese walking around, taking off and landing, and basically claiming this land as theirs.

Finally, in a Catholic cemetery in the middle of the city, I found something fitting about these two graves being near each other (click for larger image):

Don't trip off the glitz that I'm gonna display

A few tidbits:

1) Grad class last night was a nightmare. My professor read to us from a book, then said we needed to hurry through the material because we were pressed for time, and then talked for 25 minutes about a job he had once where the school was experimenting with the "flex mod" fad. He described in detail all of the 15 or so class periods during the day. I'm fuzzy on the details because I was busy doodling an artistic rendering of the words "Holy Fucking Shit" on my notebook. He then said, "Here is an interesting part of the reading that I think would be good for discussion." At which point he went on talking, never letting anyone else in the class talk. Two more classes with this guy . . .

2) Many of my students are excited to be going to the midnight showing of The Twilight Saga: New Moon tonight. A group in the school had a contest to win passes to the special advanced 9:30 PM showing of the movie tonight. To win students had to bring in food for the canned food drive, and the student who brought in the most food would win. So I'm glad some good came of this, but one of my students won the passes after she brought in 400 cans of food. I said, "You spent about $400 to go to a movie tonight." She said, "It's for a good cause." Altruism runs rampant.

3) I am not embarrassed to admit that I really like American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert's new single "For Your Entertainment." This is fun.

Governments loathe people being free

I just saw an absolutely delightful film. Pirate Radio is everything I wanted it to be. Director Richard Curtis, who created a couple of my favorite British romantic comedies--Love, Actually; Four Weddings and a Funeral; and Notting Hill (and I rarely even like romantic comedies)--goes in a new direction ere. Pirate Radio tells the story of a pirate radio station based on a ship off the coast of England in 1966. Official British radio did not allow rock music to be broadcast, so pirate stations (on ships) were what the British public listened to. This movie tells the story of a group of guys who ran Radio Rock.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is outstanding as usual, playing the Count, the station's most popular DJ. Bill Nighy is equally outstanding as the ship/station's owner. And then the rest of the cast all do a marvelous job, especially Tom Sturridge as young Carl, whose mother has sent him to the ship (for reasons that I will not divulge), and Rhys Ifans, who plays the world's cockiest DJ.

Pirate Radio is very,very funny. I laughed for most of the film. But it is also touching and warm. And the soundtrack is amazing: The Who, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Turtles, The Hollies, The Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, Otis Redding,Dusty Springfield. It is a toe-tapping extravaganza. I danced in my seat a few times.

Pirate Radio is a feel-great film. The final act of the film was very unexpected, but it all comes together wonderfully. Every fan of rock music will love this movie.

I stood in this unsheltered place

iPod Poetry!

I stood in this unsheltered place

While you're waiting like a factory line

(And x-ray machines)

It’s a wonderful night --

It lasted 20 years, 7 months, and 27 days.

Took a cab to the shopping malls

With a magical aura of wisdom and will.

And even the last of the brown-eyed babies see,

so love me sweet, my dear sweet Lucy.

Oh, it’s farmed out, oh i’m penned in,

spending all week with your friends.

And mother wake me early in the morning.

It's a simple suggestion: can you give me some time?

It don't take no Houdini.

---

Songs:

"Secret World" by Peter Gabriel

"M79" by Vampire Weekend

"Fiery Crash" by Andrew Bird

"It's a Wonderful Night" by Fatboy Slim

"Never Had No One Ever" by The Smiths

"Magic America" by Blur

"Phorever People" by The Shamen

"Innocent Bones" by Iron and Wine

"Love Me Sweet" by Kid Loco

"Hayfever" by Trashcan Sinatras

"Mezzanine" by Massive Attack

"Boys from the County Hell" by The Pogues

"How to Be Dead" by Snow Patrol

"All the Way" by New Order

Sun sheds the light as the life sheds its skin

New Music.

"Love Comes Close" by Cold Cave

I really like the strange combination of electronic/dance beats and Joy Division-esque vocals.

"Black and Blue" by Miike Snow

Though I like the song, I love the video. There's just something about this old guy, especially as the video progresses.

This and That

I had the day off today because yesterday was a full day of parent-teacher conferences. We worked till 8 PM, so we got the day off today. Parent-teacher conferences went very well, though it was a long day. I have great students (for the most part) this year, so I had no problem parents to deal with.

Then, after the conferences ended, I performed my first duty as the new chair of the social committee at school. I was nominated by several people (I guess the people know I like to get people together for fun) and so I took on this job. I guess it is nice to be chosen since I am only in my third year at this school. Anyway, I organized a post-conferences shindig, and it went very well. Lots of teachers showed up and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Elsewhere, in my grad class this week, my ding dong professor showed off his racism a bit:

Prof: It is important to recognize cultural diversity in your classes. For example, I once had a class with several Orientals [We were all taken aback by this very inappropriate term.] When you have Orientals, you have to remember that in Oriental culture, they are are very smart, but Oriental girls are not supposed to speak.

At this point, once of my classmates said, "Were they Chinese, Japanese, Korean . . .?"

And three of us added at the same time, "Or were they rugs?"

And when he handed our reflections back--remember he told us we could not start any sentences with pronouns--several students protested the red marks on their papers. For example, one student had written "This idea becomes clearer . . . " and the word This was circled. She said, "Why is this word circled?" and he said, "This is a pronoun." So I said, "In that sentence, this is a demonstrative adjective, not a pronoun. It describes which idea." And he said nothing.