Some interesting essays, available for a limited time, are available here. I liked the one by Nick Mamatas on Hurley, the character in Lost. Missed one by Kristine Kathryn Rusch which I wish I’d caught. Worth going back and looking every once in a while!
Tag: media
Two Videos From a Busyish Day
Today was kind of busy, so here are a couple of videos I found amusing, with comments as to why they caught my attention. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/iC65ufGUvKM” width=”425″ height=”344″ allowfullscreen=”true” fvars=”fs=1″ /] Have I mentioned that at a high school variety night I performed a freejazz/fusion version of this song? Sort of. Same bass line, and I hollered some of the words into the mic before the atonal saxophone weirdness kicked in. (I played my tenor.) I was accompanied by a keyboard bassist named Jennifer Duggleby and a drummer named Mike Murza. I doubt anyone recognized the song. Maybe one or …
Not Quite Foucault, But…
I’m grading final exams from my Media English course — where, unlike what the title might suggest, we didn’t just use media to boost English. Instead, we looked at issues ranging from copyright, User Created Content (or User Generated Content) online, censorship in media, the power of one medium to supplant another, the politics of (ostensibly) non-political films, and so on. Personally, I thought it was a great class, but the real proof is in the pudding. And though the students drafted the majority of the final exam — with excellent, excellent questions — the final question was mine. There’s …
Party Last Night
I am not going to talk about the party I was at last night, except that it was nice to see Sanghoon and Rira again, and good to meet several new people including Dr. Kim Kyu-hyun, and a few others. I wish I’d known they were likely to leave early-ish, so I could have talked to them more… especially since I have a funny vague feeling I was intended to talk to someone I didn’t (much). One of the “few others” I met was a guy I recognized, but couldn’t place where I recognized him from until someone mentioned Youtube. …
“… I think we don’t need to think about it…”
So said one of my students about the depiction of gender roles and sexuality in advertising. To which my response was, “We don’t have to think about anything, but is there any reason we shouldn’t? Do you think people should have fewer critical reading skills when it comes to media?” I put it in slightly different words, so I’d sound less, er, irate that I do there. But really, it was a strange moment. I know that, “I think we don’t need to think about it,” isn’t probably intended in the way it comes across — this was a comment …