Side Note

I kind of miss doing my themed blogs. I might have to start that up again.

Just Lots of Good Will, and Maybe One Small Thrill

But there's nothin' dirty goin' on.


Hello and happy, happy Friday, friends. How're things treating you all? I don't have a [Non]Fiction Friday post for you guys, but I do have something else. Remember back in the day when I said I was going to do a video blog? Well... 





And: 





So, yeah. Hopefully those weren't too boring. I tried to keep them kind of short. There's another video I want to upload, but I have to finish editing it. I wanted to get these two up before the weekend since they should have been posted on Wednesday and Thursday. I was going to post them both yesterday, but they took about an hour or two (each) to upload to YouTube. It was super frustrating. 


I had a video for [Non]Fiction Friday, but it was late and I was too tired to edit it. So I probably won't post it. 


Well, kids, I hope your Friday is treating you with respect. Mine is going well. I'm getting ready to head over to my aunt's house for a bit, but maybe I'll come back so I can edit that video and post it. I think you guys will get a bit of a kick out of it.


Title Song: 'A Lil' Ole Bitty Country Place' - The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas

It's Calling Out to Idiot America

Word up!

Last week, I wrote about Marilyn Chin. Just a quick update: Her reading was AMAZING. She was so lively and, in a way, eccentric. I'm happy that there was an author on campus that was from a diverse background. And, I'm using diverse in a two-fold type of way: ethnicity-wise and experience-wise. It was just awesome. It was also really cool seeing her and Reshmi interact.

Before the reading, I had dinner with (I believe) all of the professors from the English department, besides Ericksen, and a couple other professors and faculty. It was really nice. I really enjoy being around people who are older than me. I didn't have to worry about who someone was dating, or who was invited to this weekend's party, etc., etc. It was great.

Anyhoo, for this week's Word Up, I give you an excerpt from my favorite book, A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving. The character, John Wheelwright, is going off on a rant after he reads that the U.S. gave the wrong date of a nuclear test to fool protesters, and disregarding the fact that there was to be a vote to cancel the test all together. Anyway, enough background, here's the passage:

"Don't you see how deliberately provocative this is? How arrogant! How unconcerned with any arms agreement--of any kind! Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else's version of themselves--to anyone else's version! Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves! And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country!"

It's been about 7 years since I first read this passage and it's always relevant. The first few sentences can be switched with some other issue, but once he gets to the part about Americans, I feel it's a pretty timeless.

Title Song: 'American Idiot' - Green Day

Do You Understand the Metaphoric Phrase: 'Lyte as a Rock'?

Hello!

Tomorrow I am having dinner with a bunch of professors from the English department and poet Marilyn Chin. I honestly didn't know about her at all until one of the professors informed me that she'd be here. She has a new (also her first) novel out called Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, so she'll be doing a reading from it tomorrow night, after the dinner. I've been reading some of her poetry for the past week, so for Word Up Wednesday, I decided to share one of them with you guys.

How I Got That Name
by Marilyn Chin

I am Marilyn Mei Ling Chin
Oh, how I love the resoluteness
of that first person singular
followed by that stalwart indicative
of "be," without the uncertain i-n-g
of "becoming."Of course,
the name had been changed
somewhere between Angel Island and the sea,
when my father the paperson
in the late 1950s
obsessed with a bombshell blond
transliterated "Mei Ling" to "Marilyn."
And nobody dared question
his initial impulse--for we all know
lust drove men to greatness,
not goodness, not decency.
And there I was, a wayward pink baby,
named after some tragic white woman
swollen with gin and Nembutal.
My mother couldn't pronounce the "r."
She dubbed me "Numba one female offshoot"
for brevity: henceforth, she will live and die
in sublime ignorance, flanked
by loving children and the "kitchen deity."
While my father dithers,
a tomcat in Hong Kong trash--
a gambler, a petty thug,
who bought a chain of chopsuey joints
in Piss River, Oregon,
with bootlegged Gucci cash.
Nobody dared question his integrity given
his nice, devout daughters
and his bright, industrious sons
as if filial piety were the standard
by which all earthly men are measured.

*

Oh, how trustworthy our daughters,
how thrifty our sons!
How we've managed to fool the experts
in education, statistic and demography--
We're not very creative but not adverse to rote-learning.
Indeed, they can use us.
But the "Model Minority" is a tease.
We know you are watching now,
so we refuse to give you any!
Oh, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots!
The further west we go, we'll hit east;
the deeper down we dig, we'll find China.
History has turned its stomach
on a black polluted beach--
where life doesn't hinge
on that red, red wheelbarrow,
but whether or not our new lover
in the final episode of "Santa Barbara"
will lean over a scented candle
and call us a "bitch."
Oh God, where have we gone wrong?
We have no inner resources!

*

Then, one redolent spring morning
the Great Patriarch Chin
peered down from his kiosk in heaven
and saw that his descendants were ugly.
One had a squarish head and a nose without a bridge
Another's profile--long and knobbed as a gourd.
A third, the sad, brutish one
may never, never marry.
And I, his least favorite--
"not quite boiled, not quite cooked,"
a plump pomfret simmering in my juices--
too listless to fight for my people's destiny.
"To kill without resistance is not slaughter"
says the proverb.So, I wait for imminent death.
The fact that this death is also metaphorical
is testament to my lethargy.

*

So here lies Marilyn Mei Ling Chin,
married once, twice to so-and-so, a Lee and a Wong,
granddaughter of Jack "the patriarch"
and the brooding Suilin Fong,
daughter of the virtuous Yuet Kuen Wong
and G.G. Chin the infamous,
sister of a dozen, cousin of a million,
survived by everbody and forgotten by all.
She was neither black nor white,
neither cherished nor vanquished,
just another squatter in her own bamboo grove
minding her poetry--
when one day heaven was unmerciful,
and a chasm opened where she stood.
Like the jowls of a mighty white whale,
or the jaws of a metaphysical Godzilla,
it swallowed her whole.
She did not flinch nor writhe,
nor fret about the afterlife,
but stayed!Solid as wood, happily
a little gnawed, tattered, mesmerized
by all that was lavished upon her
and all that was taken away!

Title Song: 'Lyte as a Rock' - MC Lyte

We Are the Music Makers, and We Are the Dreamers of Dreams

For Word Up Wednesday I'm going to tell you about...

Words I'm reading:
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf a choreopoem by Ntozake Shange. I'm really liking it so far.

Words I last watched play out on a screen:
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. No surprise there, right? As I watched it last night, I realized (yet again) how great of a movie it is. Gene Wilder is just amazing, and the writing is great.

Words I've sang along with:
'You Found Me' by The Fray
'Second Chance' by Shinedown
'Her Diamonds' by Rob Thomas
'I Didn't Know My Own Strength' by Whitney Houston

Words that made me laugh:
For one of the best parts skip to 1:50.

I love Chelsea Handler and her "nugget" (as she so fondly calls him), Chuy.

Words I've written:
"First of all, my lying isn't a problem. If I wanted to stop, I could and I would. However, I don't want to. I mean, why would I? This is the best sport I've ever played." -- From a short, untitled fiction piece I'm working on for class. Maybe I'll post it here when I'm done.

Well, that's it for today. This, by the way is my 99th post! Maybe I'll have a cupcake when I post my 100th (probably not, though).

Title Quote: Gene Wilder as 'Willy Wonka'

The Poem Ends, Soft As it Began...

Woooooord Up!

So it's been a while (well, a week). But, I'm back with another Word Up Wednesday.

I'm going to go with poetic words this week.

Poetry by: Langston Hughes (one of my favorites)

Dreams

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Quiet Girl

I would like you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.

Irish Wake

In the dark they fell a-crying
For the dead who'd gone away,
And you could hear the drowsy wailing
Of those compelled to stay--
But when the sun rose making
All the dooryard bright and clear
The mourners got up smiling,
Happy they were here.

Prayer

I ask you this:
Which way to go?
I ask you this:
Which sin to bear?
Which crown to put
Upon my hair?
I do not know,
Lord God,
I do not know.

Youth

We have tomorrow
Bright before us
Like a flame.

Yesterday
A night-gone thing,
A sun-down name.

A dawn-today
Broad arch above the road we came.

We march!

Color

Wear it
Like a banner
For the proud--
Not like a shroud.
Wear it
Like a song
Soaring high--
Not moan or cry.

Title Quote: 'Poem' - Langston Hughes

“When Words Are Scarce, They Are Seldom Spent in Vain”

For today's Word Up Wednesday, I'll be sharing some words of wisdom about writing.



E.L. Doctorow said:

"Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

"Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you're doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing."

"...I have to confess to having a certain bias for fiction, which I think of as a meta-discipline, one that can incorporate all the others. Whereas a journalist cannot go into someone's mind, and a scientist cannot use certain words that the theologian can use, and the theologian cannot or does not usually use the dirty words of the tabloids, the novelist can use all the words, all the vocabularies: myth, legend, history, confession, reportage, and the mutterings of the mad people in the street."

Martha Graham:

"No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive."

Donald Barthelme:

"Write about what you're afraid of.”

Terry Southern:

"The important thing in writing is the capacity to astonish. Not shock—shock is a worn-out word—but astonish. The world has no grounds whatever for complacency."

And last, one of my definite favorites:

Dana Marschz (Hamlet 2):

"Fuuuck. Writing is so hard."

Title Quote: The Bard :]

These Words Are My Own, From My Heart Flow

Say, 'Hello' to: Word Up! Wednesday

Word of the week: Anachronism - an artifact that is from another time.

I love watching movies or TV shows and finding anachronisms. It's kind of hard to do if the movie isn't specific about the time period, so it's a lot easier when you have movies that state the specific year.

Like in 'Now and Then' which is set in 1970, one of the girls reads a 'Babysitter's Club' book. Those books weren't published til the 80s. Fun fact, right? Yep, I'm full of them.

Favorite words read this week: People tell themselves stories and then pour their lives into the stories they tell. - Anonymous
These days, the eye in 'I' is missing. - Anonymous

Phrases that you should try to use in the next week:

o 'Fell by the wayside' - meaning something that was forgotten over time, or abandoned.
o 'As it were' - meaning something that's not exactly right, but it's practically right.
o Example: My elementary education major kind of fell by the wayside, as it were.

Do you see those two birds? Oh, you don't? Maybe it's because I just killed them with one stone. BAM!

Title Song: 'These Words' - Natasha Bedingfield