Since I haven't had much time to Twitter to find cool stuff out there on the web to share, I decided I'd follow up with another sample of writing!
Tom Chiarella is one of the coolest people I've ever known. DePauw is so lucky to have him, truly. Tom is a part-time writing professor for the university, and also writes celebrity profiles for Esquire magazine. His Jon Hamm profile is awesome, but two other non-profile articles hold a special place in my heart: "The $20 Theory of the Universe" was the first-ever Chiarella piece I read, assigned to my first-year seminar class by Chris White, his girlfriend and DePauw colleague; "Every Woman I Know" is a discovery that my friend Carol and I made our senior year and inspired us each to make our own "Every Man I Know" that we both update on a semi-regular basis (sorry, folks...that one's staying on my hard drive).
I had the pleasure of having Tom in class three times. Yes, three. First was Poker for Winter Term (I'm sure my parents were thrilled about that one). Second was Invention of Place, a fiction writing class where we created the history of a fictional community through a series of writing exercises, sketches, maps, photographs, and family trees. Finally, there was Magazine Writing, which was obviously Tom's forte. Below is one of my short pieces from that course; Tom gave us a list of prompts all about listening to and experiencing music, and each person wrote on a different one. We had a 300-word limit. Though this isn't the best thing I've ever written, it's fun and certainly post-worthy, as my last several posts have been music related.
(For those of you who are familiar with the movie High Fidelity--I was going for a Rob Gordon kind of voice here.)
The Case for the CD Owner
Tangibility is the driving force behind the CD owner’s purchase of music. His purpose is to acquire, to collect, to exhibit. He may place his compilation alphabetically, chronologically, or perhaps by cover design. He is proud of his collection. Such possession of the physical gives him the authority to mark himself as the alpha male of music ownership.
This near-fetish is not the CD owner’s sole motive, however. The CD is a pledge of fidelity; a monetary exchange for the music is not enough. Care is needed, attention due to the material album. The CD, whose time capacity is limited, is a testament to an artist’s creative editing. Choices must be made, songs cut, tracks rearranged. Playlists and shuffles are simply heard—background music to working out and gardening. They appeal to certain moods, can be started and stopped at any particular time. CDs, though, are listened to. They tell a story from beginning to end—exposition in the opening songs, rising action, climax around tracks seven or eight, falling action, and resolution by the final number. One must not skip from song to song, enter here and leave there. Such play is for the hearers of MP3s.
Indeed the CD owner listens. He will not succumb to the ease of downloading music onto his computer. Instead, with honor he will browse, stumble upon, and buy the CD. He will play it from opening to close, read and sing the lyrics printed in the liner notes, study the cover’s artwork. He will slide his newly purchased jewel case into that long line of albums on the shelf underneath the stereo. And running his hand along the ribbed plastic spines, he will simmer with warm satisfaction.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Reading Old Essays
I've been awful this summer with blogging. No two ways about it.
Today I stumbled upon another blog post I wrote for the tutoring company I work for, Nurturing Wisdom. It's been a year since I wrote it, and pretty much a year since I read it last. In light of my first teaching job beginning this week (students start on Wednesday, ah!), I felt it appropriate to repost the short essay on my own blog. Enjoy!
See the original post here.
The night Crittenden County High School won the girls basketball regional championship, I had just arrived home for spring break. I walked through the back door to find my parents sitting at the kitchen table, intently listening to the announcer. His fervor was magnetic, and though I had been home but for a few minutes, I was already rapt in the game. A last second shot, and then—“Rockets win! Rockets win!” His voice was breaking, the crowd’s roar from the gym sounded through the fuzzy AM radio, and my parents and I looked to each other in silence, smiling and eyes welling with tears of pride for our tiny county school.
It was the first time my alma mater had ever sent any basketball team to the state tournament, and the excitement ignited the community like wildfire.The next morning, unadorned white banners with plain blue letters hung on the lampposts along Main Street. Despite their crude aesthetic, the banners spelled out a hopeful message: “The Little Town that Could.” Every business along Main Street embellished its windows with similar well-wishes: “Good Luck Lady Rockets!”; “All the Way to State!”; “The Triple Crown: All-A, District, and Region 2011!” Blue balloons, blue streamers, even blue flowers tossed in the March wind of Marion, Kentucky.
Though I live in Chicago now, one year out of college, I cannot ignore the Crittenden County part of myself. It is as if time stops while I’m away from my hometown, for anytime I return, things pick up right where I left them:
there are still just two stoplights;
there are still just three fast food restaurants;
the county newspaper is still published once a week;
the high school still graduates about 100 students each year;
the muddy pick-up trucks still dominate the roads;
the Amish still park their buggies in the grocery store parking lot;
the teens still hang out “up town” in the evenings and go “backroading” for fun;
and the adults still ask me how I’m doing away from home, no matter how many times they’ve asked before.
Crittenden County is a place where the people are “kin” to each other, where you’re “fixin’” to go to the store, and where pulling down someone’s pants by surprise is called “shucking,” like shucking corn. And, of course, the typical Crittenden Countian is connected to most other citizens by three or fewer degrees of separation: I went to prom with my dentist’s nephew; my best friend’s aunt was my swim team coach, her uncle my algebra teacher; and my older brother, Neil Guess, went to homecoming with a girl named Lisa, who ended up marrying Terry Guess (no relation) and subsequently became the stepmother of one of my classmates, T.K. Guess (wait—what?).
Perhaps these quaint simplicities of rural life seem irrelevant to foreigners, but they inevitably constitute my personal mantra as both a student and (future) teacher of writing: from simplicity comes inspiration.
In Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, Lear famously threatens his daughter Cordelia that “nothing will come of nothing”—she will receive nothing from him if she does nothing to win his love through flattery. Many may think this ideology applies to the simple “nothings” of Marion, Kentucky, but in the case of my hometown and, more importantly, writing overall, there always is something, no matter how seemingly insignificant. The most successful creative pieces I’ve ever written focus on the most ordinary subjects, namely a personal essay entitled “Teeth: A Journey” and “Ole Blue Guess,” the narrative of the 1976 blue Chevrolet I drove during my teenage years: neither grand nor emotionally riveting, these stories simply bring to life common slices of the past that earn recognition with lively storytelling.
Likewise, academic writing functions in a similar simple-to-inspired manner. When writing a research paper, I read all the material first without having any clue where it will lead, noting every regular moment, every tiny detail, every nothing that could be something. How does it all relate? How do these puzzle pieces connect? What trends, ideas, arguments can I make from these clues? These questions help me find the inspiration among the simplicities and lead me to my thesis.
This very philosophy manifested itself that day at the Kentucky Sweet Sixteen basketball tournament as I cheered on the Lady Rockets. Throughout the wide sea of blue I spotted moments of my past—old classmates and teachers, family friends and foes, and citizens with whom I simply had that three-degree connection. Just as the subtleties of life inspire creative writing, just as the most minor details enlighten scholarly theses, these individual threads of Crittenden County had joined as a woven tapestry of community pride, reaffirming my mantra: from the simplicities of a rural community came the motivation to support Our Little Town that Could to the very end—and the inspiration to tell the tale another day.
Today I stumbled upon another blog post I wrote for the tutoring company I work for, Nurturing Wisdom. It's been a year since I wrote it, and pretty much a year since I read it last. In light of my first teaching job beginning this week (students start on Wednesday, ah!), I felt it appropriate to repost the short essay on my own blog. Enjoy!
See the original post here.
The night Crittenden County High School won the girls basketball regional championship, I had just arrived home for spring break. I walked through the back door to find my parents sitting at the kitchen table, intently listening to the announcer. His fervor was magnetic, and though I had been home but for a few minutes, I was already rapt in the game. A last second shot, and then—“Rockets win! Rockets win!” His voice was breaking, the crowd’s roar from the gym sounded through the fuzzy AM radio, and my parents and I looked to each other in silence, smiling and eyes welling with tears of pride for our tiny county school.
It was the first time my alma mater had ever sent any basketball team to the state tournament, and the excitement ignited the community like wildfire.The next morning, unadorned white banners with plain blue letters hung on the lampposts along Main Street. Despite their crude aesthetic, the banners spelled out a hopeful message: “The Little Town that Could.” Every business along Main Street embellished its windows with similar well-wishes: “Good Luck Lady Rockets!”; “All the Way to State!”; “The Triple Crown: All-A, District, and Region 2011!” Blue balloons, blue streamers, even blue flowers tossed in the March wind of Marion, Kentucky.
Though I live in Chicago now, one year out of college, I cannot ignore the Crittenden County part of myself. It is as if time stops while I’m away from my hometown, for anytime I return, things pick up right where I left them:
there are still just two stoplights;
there are still just three fast food restaurants;
the county newspaper is still published once a week;
the high school still graduates about 100 students each year;
the muddy pick-up trucks still dominate the roads;
the Amish still park their buggies in the grocery store parking lot;
the teens still hang out “up town” in the evenings and go “backroading” for fun;
and the adults still ask me how I’m doing away from home, no matter how many times they’ve asked before.
Crittenden County is a place where the people are “kin” to each other, where you’re “fixin’” to go to the store, and where pulling down someone’s pants by surprise is called “shucking,” like shucking corn. And, of course, the typical Crittenden Countian is connected to most other citizens by three or fewer degrees of separation: I went to prom with my dentist’s nephew; my best friend’s aunt was my swim team coach, her uncle my algebra teacher; and my older brother, Neil Guess, went to homecoming with a girl named Lisa, who ended up marrying Terry Guess (no relation) and subsequently became the stepmother of one of my classmates, T.K. Guess (wait—what?).
Perhaps these quaint simplicities of rural life seem irrelevant to foreigners, but they inevitably constitute my personal mantra as both a student and (future) teacher of writing: from simplicity comes inspiration.
In Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, Lear famously threatens his daughter Cordelia that “nothing will come of nothing”—she will receive nothing from him if she does nothing to win his love through flattery. Many may think this ideology applies to the simple “nothings” of Marion, Kentucky, but in the case of my hometown and, more importantly, writing overall, there always is something, no matter how seemingly insignificant. The most successful creative pieces I’ve ever written focus on the most ordinary subjects, namely a personal essay entitled “Teeth: A Journey” and “Ole Blue Guess,” the narrative of the 1976 blue Chevrolet I drove during my teenage years: neither grand nor emotionally riveting, these stories simply bring to life common slices of the past that earn recognition with lively storytelling.
Likewise, academic writing functions in a similar simple-to-inspired manner. When writing a research paper, I read all the material first without having any clue where it will lead, noting every regular moment, every tiny detail, every nothing that could be something. How does it all relate? How do these puzzle pieces connect? What trends, ideas, arguments can I make from these clues? These questions help me find the inspiration among the simplicities and lead me to my thesis.
This very philosophy manifested itself that day at the Kentucky Sweet Sixteen basketball tournament as I cheered on the Lady Rockets. Throughout the wide sea of blue I spotted moments of my past—old classmates and teachers, family friends and foes, and citizens with whom I simply had that three-degree connection. Just as the subtleties of life inspire creative writing, just as the most minor details enlighten scholarly theses, these individual threads of Crittenden County had joined as a woven tapestry of community pride, reaffirming my mantra: from the simplicities of a rural community came the motivation to support Our Little Town that Could to the very end—and the inspiration to tell the tale another day.
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